Oops, I wanted to talk about this earlier, but I wanted to see what the card balances made to Finality, Lavaslasher, Rebuke, Seraphim, and Deciptibot have done to the current meta.
What are your thoughts on what’s changed since then? Has Magmar fallen off as the Tier 0 deck? And what’s taken it’s place?
(I feel like this is similar to an existing thread already so if it is pls direct me to there…)
A Late Discussion about the Patch 1.93
Personally, I think the Magmar nerfs were pretty fair. However, idk where the ghostphim nerf came from… Vanar is kinda dying tbh
Duelyst Patch 1.93 is still open if you want to jump in 
(the Seraphim update was caused by Wall/Seraphim+Reflection abuse, among some)
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Since Finality still stuns, buffs, and heals it hasn’t really changed for me. Granted I haven’t seen it enough on the ladder to really give a damn, but the power is still there.
I’m glad that they nerfed Lavaslasher even if it was only 2 health. It’s still one of the most annoying minions out there, but at the very least I can kill it after it trades into my Dioltas.
Rebuke. I think I’ve only seen this card once since it’s release and even then it doesn’t seem that much of a problem. Mana changes on minions don’t seem that crazy to me unless it’s one of the higher mana minions (e.g: Meltdown).
The Seraphim nerf is a little odd in my eyes. Since Vanar doesn’t have much in the way of spells after 6 mana, the whole “reduce first spell cost by 5” makes it cheap enough that I don’t see the difference when playing against it. Sure you can still play winters wake even after a magesworn, but that’s more of a buff than a nerf. Maybe they’re setting up for the next expansion? I don’t really know how to feel about this 
Deceptibot can now kill Silverguard Knight’s in one hit so the nerf was less a nerf and more a boon.
Overall, the meta didn’t really shift. Magmar is still top tier since it’s pressure capabilities haven’t been brought down (Plasma Storm and NS are ok by themselves, but when paired…
).
Of course, I’ve been loitering down in Gold so I can’t speak much for the higher ranks, but I’m pretty sure that it’s the same there as it is here.
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It seems like youre not one of those that end up (near)S every single season…trust me every magmar player played rebuke there when it was 3(not sure now)
Also seraphim was nerfed because seraphim+flawless reflection was just a busted combo(the transformed stuff can move).Its a massive nerf because flawless reflection cant be combined with it until 9mana.
And magmar has been brought down quite a bit.On their own the nerfes are not that hard but we need to consider that not 1 but 3 of their corecards took nerfs. .Now others are starting to catch up(meta still forming).
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Ive been on hiatus for like 3 seasons now, sorry for not being caught up lol
the nerfs were fair, but the game sucks right now.
The devs really need to think about how much synergy they want to bring to the game. After nearly 2 years this is the worst I’ve seen it. The Arcanyst meta was better. Guess I’ll just invest in something else, this seems to be going in a “Blizzard” direction. Rather than printing deeper game play they just print crazier and crazier and easier and easier to achieve synergy(s).
The ladder is basically just Vet and all the decks have at least 3x Thunder horn 3x Litd 3x BoA in common but more likely they have those PLUS 3x Bone Swarm 3x Recombob and 3x Repulsor. That is nearly 50% of all cards across all decks of the faction being the same in each deck- doesn’t give any reason to play ladder at all.
It’s too bad.
Positioning Vet is gonna be dominant, there’s simply no way to play around all 9000+ of their synergies.
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yes. and that fact = 0 thought or planning. I have no problem with powerful removal, just the same as I have no problem with powerful minions or artifacts but synergy taken too far creates an environment of “play this thing or be punished”
What exactly is “deep game play” if not synergistic game play? The opposite of synergies between multiple cards are cards that are powerful all by themselves, no? And isn’t the latter the very thing that you despise?
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There is such a thing as going too far, though.
Having synergies that are too strong will push out other options, leading to an obviously superior strategy. This is arguably even worse than having individually strong cards, as it essentially builds the deck for you due to specific cards synergizing best with other specific cards. Just look at a game like Yu-Go-Oh if you want to see a card game dominated by synergy-specific gameplay. The decks pretty much make themselves, bar specific tech cards or a couple free slots that are most likely filled with a small selection of top-tier universal cards.
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synergistic game play can be deep, obviously, as can playing powerful single cards. you ignore the “easier and easier” part of what I said…would you not agree that the Arcanyst meta or the current Positioning Vet deck that is crushing ladder are perfect examples of overly powerful and easy to achieve synergies? And from what would you gather that I “despise” powerful single cards? My calling out Luminous Charge as being poor design with far too much reward for just casting it?
this is very obviously what I have been talking about. @nickDigger, you are either taking what I say out of context on purpose (as you are ignoring many parts of the MANY different posts that I’ve made about this subject) OR your just being a dick. There is no logical way to argue against what I’ve said about “crazier…easier…synergy(s)”. They are clearly bad for the game and to paraphrase what others have said “it destroys deck building until you are left with a handful of obviously superior strategies”
Very well put, this is exactly what I think!
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When I was starting at yu-gi-oh (it was around the gladiator beast/lightsworn) meta, someone used the words “Decks that play themselves” to describe meta decks. And for the most part of my “career” in the game it was true. Zombie synchro, blackwing, darkworld, and other top-of-the-meta decks were examples.
It wasn’t always true though. Plant synchro, frog monarchs and others were was flexible as possible inside a given strategy. Anti-meta decks as well.
I might be wrong but I think the most recent lightsworn and monarch decks all were flexible as well, with most lightsworn decks not even trying to get Judgement dragon out. I belive it was possible due to the vast amount of synegistic cards. It got to a point where there’s so much you can play that synergizes with what you want to do you can play what you like the most or whats is best against what you commonly face
Of course, there’s the power creep issue but I can only wish it doesn’t happen with duelyst
Apologies for the double post, fellow forum people, but I didn’t see this reply before I finished my post
I don’t think he was being a dick at all. In fact, I think he tried to be as polite as possible when contradicting your words. In my opinion, the lack of bad faith in his comment is clear
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Not sure what I did to deserve such bile, but believe me when I say that I tried my best to be as polite as possible. I don’t really understand how I can misinterpret something (or be a dick about it) by simply asking an honest question, but here’s what I meant.
From reading this I assume that you don’t like how strong the synergies have become. As said, there’s really only two ways to go about intra-deck card interaction (meaning we only look at card interactions within the same deck) when it comes to deck building/play: either a card’s power depends on other cards or it does not (correct me if you think I’m missing something here).
Examples for cards that are powerful on their own would be Lavaslasher, Makantor or Rebuke. They don’t care much about the other cards in your deck as they are very strong all by themselves. This leads to them being an auto-include if your deck is even remotely interested in that sort of effect and it also means that you just play them whenever you got the Mana/the appropriate situation arises without having to think about much or having to work towards that specific situation. Of course you can try to build up a board state where those cards’ effect is more potent than usual, but that is true for every card and as such negligible. That is what I would call simple: gameplay- and deckbuilding-wise. But that’s not what you meant, is it?
You said the boogeyman lies with synergies. With cards that interact and depend on each other to have powerful effects (or more powerful effects). Like Thunderhorn and Repulsor. Or Repulsor and Lost in the Desert. Here’s where I can’t follow you. The package of Thunderhorn and Repulsor requires you to think about what you do. Repulsor on its own is pretty meh. Thunderhorn in Vetruvian and without any dedicated support is also meh as they can’t abuse his ability before the opponent gets to react. It’s only by using additional cards (like Repulsor, Recombobulus or in a way Lost in the Desert) that Thunderhorn’s ability goes from decent to powerful. And this dependence creates a simpler game for you? I’d say this makes it more complex. You have higher restrictions on your deck building because you need to use more cards to get a powerful effect. You also need to have at least some sort of build up to get the desired effect (albeit not very much with Thunderhorn and Repulsor) and you also have the times where you only draw one half of the combo which forces you to adapt. In general: you have more moving parts to get to the point of a powerful effect whereas powerful effects that are ingrained into a single card only require you to include and play that single card.
Now in context of all that, I repeat my question: how can synergies be the opposite of deep game play when the opposite of synergies (read: cards that are powerful all by themselves) is the opposite of deep game play? Either you have to abandon the concept of deep game play in general, or you have to come to the conclusion that when you accept that powerful stand-alone cards are simple to play, then deep game play must - in comparison - lie with synergies.
What I think, you are actually trying to say is: some cards (regardless of whether by themselves or in combination with other cards) are too powerful right now which leads to them being used over everything else. Hence the lack of diversity in deck building and consequently game play. But that’s not a question of synergy, it’s a question of balance. Varied decks and game play are the result of a balanced meta where everything goes, not the result of a meta where synergies are weak.
Maybe this clears up what I meant in my original post #nodick#itried
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No.
You may think so, but the Archetypes usually have cards for different ways for the deck.
“True Draco” could sit on the almost invincible boss monster after they make it, or they can focus on a more disruptive style with their spell/trap cards.
Certain cards from other archetypes have synergies with other archetypes, as in, a deck like “morphtronics” would run “morphtronic cards”, aswell as “Junk” cards, new synergies are being found every day.
This is the double edged sword of yugioh.
Cool synergies on everything makes it fun because it allows for so much room for deckbuilding, but then we have stuff like this. https://www.reddit.com/r/yugioh/comments/7cn8s3/with_summon_sorceress_theres_now_100_ftk_rate/
FTK Stands for First Turn Kill.
100% success rate win unless the opponent draws “hand traps”
This is what happens when we have too much synergy.
@epicflygon you wanna back me up here?
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So what you saying is that there are synergies so great, that with very specific decks you can have nearly 100% win rate? I feel like that just proves my point rather than disproves it.
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yeah too much synergy could be a problem like true draco zoodiac.
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