this this Links stuffs is eh to me. I get that they needed to slow the game down
there existed a moment in time when I thought that was the intended purpose for links too. You know, slowing down the game. So you'll be delighted to hear that they do not, in fact, slow down the game, the game's still as fast as it was if not even faster somehow. Or at least, it will definitely be, like starting next March or so.
We recently just got out of a one deck format to a more diverse one where that one deck is still the bestish probably but not by an unfair margin (though not so in Japan, it's still Tier 0 hell there, and that's their own goddamn fault, but not that konami cares). One of those now competing decks is a pendulum deck, so it's not as niche as you might imagine. But no, pendulums are the most beginner unfriendly, convoluted ass mechanic we've seen yet.
Yeah all these new stuff is quite different but it's still pretty much the same game, even if the top level stuff has been heading in a direction most of the casual base doesn't quite like (unbreakable turn one boards). If you're only going to play with friends, or even locals (depending on the competitive level), you can still enjoy it in the way that you will, some friend groups don't even play with the new rules as I hear. I do believe though that ygo, at its core, is pretty simple. The mechanics, yeah even you pendulums, the ideas behind them, are simple. What's complicated, even convoluted yes, are the card interactions. But as long as you play with people you know, they won't be getting new decks every day so you'll get familiar with the stuff pretty quickly.
As an additional note, people will be talking about 'hand traps', something else that's relatively new if you abandoned ship during zexal era. They're quick effect disruption cards (negation, destruction) that can be activated from the hand. They're absolutely mandatory right now if you're going to be playing even somewhat competitively (which casual players hate about the current state of the game, though people would generally agree that they're actually pretty fair and balanced, and not the problem), but you won't need them for casual settings. One of the ones is even 70$ right now, but we'll very likely get reprints summer next year, so wait till then depending on what level you want out of the game.
Also konami has been on a huge nostalgia hyper people for the past year or 2, so if there's old stuff that you like, it's probably gotten some new stuff.
YGO makes no fucking sense to me anymore. I liked it more in its early days. Now it looks more like Force of Will to me-- complicated for the sake of being complicated, or at the very least trying way too hard to cram tiny text onto cards.
never played force of will, but as someone who plays this one at least I can tell you it's not trying to be complicated for the sake of being complicated, which I'm sure you don't seriously tend to imply, but I felt it was worth refuting anyway. For the most part. There are definitely cards around that do more stuff than they have any reason to, but those are likely from the #anime and overall are probably fewer than you'd imagine. I do get the point though. Pretty much every card has 2 or 3 effects on it now, and the (~verbose) language of ygo necessitates that each of these are precisely worded to ease understanding.
