Konami and bad advice- by Baneful
June 2014

 

My advice toward newer players is to take a lot of game-play advice from Konami (the company that makes YGO) with a grain of salt.  Don't take it as automatic truth.  Don't take anything, including my advice, as authoritative.

 

I'm not saying all of Konami's gameplay advice is bad.  A lot of it, probably more than 60%, is quite good.  They do recommend good cards like Torrential Tribute and Solemn Warning.  But enough of the advice that they give is bad enough to raise alarm.

 

This is not to say they always want to lie to you or intentionally steer you away from building a good deck.  A lot of it is commercial.  They want to sell their cards.  It's also the nature of advertising that companies generally don't make ads about their flaws.  Konami portrays their cards in a flattering light.

 

Former Pojo writer Jaelove publicly wrote that he had to sugarcoat his articles to shill bad cards like Goe Goe the Gallant Ninja that he realistically knew had zero chance of actually.  I don't think Konami has reached that low ever again but I would still exercise doubt.

 

There are plenty of examples but I'll pick one in particular.  Fire Hand and Ice Hand are both great cards, but on Konami's website, in order to promote them, they suggested using them in a deck with Frost and Flame Dragon.

 

In objective terms, they are glibly correct.  Fire Hand is a FIRE monster.  Ice Hand is a WATER monster.  Both hands are used together.  Frost and Flame Dragon is a card that is fueled by FIRE and WATER.  But what is on paper isn't always reality.

 

Frost and Flame Dragon suffers because by requiring 2 WATER monsters – instead of 1 (like the FIRE requirement) it is very slow and you won't be able to use it the first 5 turns.  The monster destruction effect costs a discard which makes it balanced but also prevents it from gaining advantage.  So, on paper Frost-n-Flame is great.  In reality, you are better off using the Hands alone.

 

Just because you have a theme deck, doesn't mean theme support is always the best way to go.  Sometimes generic cards can help you even more than cards intended for your theme.  For example, the card Hate Buster is support for Fiend-type decks but the card Dimensional Prison manages to be a much versatile and better card in general.

 

By the way, I'm not saying that only Konami gives impractical advice.  YGO Wikia's deckbuilding suggestions are of mixed results too.  And on the Pojo forums side deck thread, suggestions like Angel 07 have been made to stop effect monsters.  Yes, Angel 07 CAN be used to stop effect monsters.  Doesn't mean it should.  Tributing 2 monsters only to still be vulnerable to traps is not a good deal, in my opinion.

 

So overall, CAN doesn't mean SHOULD.  A specific point in somethings favor doesn't mean it's all-around consistent.

 

Contact: banefulscolumn@gmail.com