The elephant in the
room....
There is no denying that I love this game.
It is so fast paced and even imaginative to
the point where the game designers don't
quite know what the impact of a new mechanic
will have on the game as a whole. Are there
things that I would change? Yes there are a
few things that I would change in the game,
and a few of them are even going to be and
are coming to pass.
1) More Extra Deck Space- As we get even
more cards that go into the extra deck, it
becomes detrimental to the player to choose
between the cards that they need for the
deck and the ones that they want to
experiment with. It will be prudent for the
makers of the game to consider extending the
extra deck to say, 20 cards. Any more than
that and you have some terrible things
happening with registration, and unlimiting
the extra deck is even more out ofthe
question as someone would just put every
Fusion, Synchro and XYZ monster in the game
into a single deck, making registration (and
gameplay with a falling extra deck) not much
fun at all. 20 cards allows much more
variability with the deck, while keeping the
spirit of the original 15 card limit imposed
when Synchro cards were introduced.
2) More Reprinting- of course this is what
the game designers are doing best at this
point. But also they are pissing off
collectors and such that are seeing their
hard-won collections going down the tubes. I
like the idea of having higher end cards for
a while for the collectors and then
reprinting them for general players. But the
system is just not quite right yet. I am not
entirely sure how we could change this, but
one of the ideas is to just have the
alternate rarities (which they are already
doing) so that the collectors and investors
have their values only slightly reduced and
Joe Duelist has their cards. The other thing
is to eliminate rares altogether, which is
not likely to happen as Konami has to make
money too and the money is in the rare
cards.
3) Better Event Coverage- I do not know what
happened with the coverage for Konami, but
it has certainly gone downhill. It is nice
to have all of the pairings for the rounds
and the Q+A for the kiddies, but it was
great to have the decklists for these top
players as then people who couldn't be there
get so much more experience over what worked
in their deck and what didn't. I don't have
the $1200+ it would have taken to head out
to Toronto, but I would still like to see
the decks that did well. I know it is almost
an invasion of privacy and netdecking is
still out there, but it is really nice to
have the decklists all in one place where
they can be compared and evaluated. I also
miss the deck analysis portions where you
actually get to interview the players and
see what thoughts went into their decks. I
know that Konami cannot afford to have so
many writers at each event, but it was nice
when we could get some of those articles.
And also a coverage every round would be
nice, but not necessary. It is just a good
idea to feel what happens at large events
like a YCS, especially for newer players.
4) New Rarity- I realize that Starfoil rares
and Ghost Gold Rares are all new rarities,
but most people were annoyed with Starfoils
and the Ghost Gold Rares are, well, so rare
they are almost nonexistent. I think that a
new rarity would be a good addition to a
regular pack, not just a special set. Having
alternate Rare colors would be great, like
in the Duelist league cards. This would help
drive pack sales as players could get all of
one color or a set, players still get their
cards at an increased value and collectors
can collect whole new types of cards. I
always did think that the alternate color
rares were a great idea and should have had
more done with them.
5) A Better Gold Series- Let's face it, Gold
Series has never been a good value. Since
the first one, you got a bunch of crap cards
and a few good ones (or just one amazing
one). This latest one was so bad that I
bought one and tried to return it to the
store. Seriously, I wanted my money back.
Putting more of the Gold Rares in the set is
of course the main focus, upping the ante to
say 4 Gold Rares and 1 Ghost Gold with 20
regular commons would be a great idea. Gold
Series is a great way to reprint older cards
as well as introduce older ones. I myself
would think that cards like Deep Sea Diva,
Dragunity cards and so on would be great as
commons and Golds. I don't know what the
legal issues are with the Gold Sries, but
the TCG has not had a drop dead amazing Gold
Series since the one where Dark Armed Dragon
was reprinted (GS3 I think).
6) Include The Players In card Design- I
know that a while back (in TAEV days) they
had a contest where people submitted card
art for a chane to have it put on a card in
a set. It was a great idea and we actually
had some great cards come out of it (Dragon
Ice, Tongue Twister). But there were a
couple problems. The artists had no say in
what the effect of the card was and it was
only open to kids. I can appreciate the art
part was only available to kids, because
adults and teens get crazy where contests
are concerned. But the effects that I have
seen in the creat-a-card forums on many
sites show me just how creative and original
that players can be while designing cards. A
contest for the best created card would be
nice, and it could even be the next YCS
promo card or even the runners up cards
which would be creative, fun and most
importantly, make the players believe that
they have a true voice in the game that they
love so much.
Well, that was a bit of a rant but its done
now. Please mail me at
alarbios@live.com if you have any
questions, ideas or need some advice on a
deck. I do feature reader decks every once
in a while, so send me your best stuff!
Please do not email Pojo, he gets angry when
he gets my mail, and you won't like him when
he's angry....
Thanks for reading!
GZ
