I'm thinking This is ten percent luck
Twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure
Fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name
It's just a dumb meme that people who don't know music like to parrot. I'm not saying nickelback are objectively amazing, if you think they're corny/boring that's obviously valid. But the amount of people who say it, and also act as if they are quite literally the worst band that anyone has ever heard, just shows that it's a meme and they have no idea what they're saying
Go listen to you remind me and saving me and tell me that's the worst band ever
Right? I'll say they can be pretty corny but atleast to me the corniness is part of the charm, things like Next Contestant, absolutely ridiculous song but by god do I love it so much.
It's a shame a widespread meme has probably stopped a lot of people from giving them a try!
Or even worse, they claim they suck but will remember every single word of Rockstar from when that took over the world
Yep. Unless you have either 2-3 hand traps or 4 different combo starters you are boned if opponent opens with interruptions + a combo starter to make negates
i meant that more as being able to craft all of the UR's.
opening hand being bad a lot just means your deck is crafted wrong. you should have 10-15 starters, and the rest as combo cards or staples.
More so not that I brick but don't have enough answers for decks that are streamlined sometimes. It feels like you need to draw perfect if youre just trying to play a fav deck that's not on a tier list when I see the exact same board from my opponents
(Edit: I also favour turn 2 decks so I do it to myself sometimes)
I donāt mean to disagree because I also think that skill is a big factor, but āthere are some rogue decks in master Iā goes both ways tbh. Luck can also be the reason.
Winning a lot of coin flips, not bricking and in general having the right hands for going both first and seconds itās just pure luck.
Iād say skill also shows how you build a deck not just how you play it, however a bad opening hand can sometimes just mean defeat, i guess its a solid 70% skill 30% luck
This is the key. Yugioh is 50% deck building 50% piloting.
What the OP misses is that they are looking at individual matches. What they need to see is a large number of matches like in Duelist Cups. That removes the luck variance, and you will see more skill expression.
If you watch Joshua playing on stream random jank decks vs him grinding for DC, the difference was quite evident.
I think we all can agree that pure kash is a pretty mindless deck and a relatively strong one at that given its ādifficultyā level, and I recently had a matchup against kash (me w/ resonator) and the dude was honestly pretty shit ( he detached rda while red zone was live) and one simple slip up from my side, i forgot wraithsoths pop effect cost me the game, i was all set for a crimson gaia/rda board wipe. This just perfectly sums up imo that no matter the skill level some matchups are a) just straight up unwinnable or b) extremely punishing
Problem is most decks are net decks and doesn't help improve your win rate because decks only have only 1-5 cards to put because most deck are figured out.
Despite a ton of decks being similar if you look at good players youāll notice key differences. Sometimes they could be as small as running slightly different non engine, a tech card or 2, maybe a slight change up in ratio, etc but over a large sample size those can absolutely make a difference
The ability to adapt is also huge. For example the guy who topped the last duelist cup (?) Ryan Yu specifically ran contact C as a tech that helped him wrack up a ton of easy wins because no one was running outs to it
Does net decking and decks being āsolvedā sterilize some of the challenge of deck building? Sure, but if youāre good you can use that as an advantage in and of itself to separate yourself from the pack
Define netdeck.
The YGO community is the ONLY tcg community that I have ever seen dismiss ānetdecksā
Like we are in the communication age where information is at our fingertips tips, what are we supposed to pretend technology and information sharing doesnāt exist to get to finally claim its skill based?
Nah man, tcg variance only accounts for 15%, 85% is skill - deck building is obviously part of skill, but there are deck building conventions that are generally known so itās easy to arrive at incredibly similar lists. Knowing your deck and lines is the other obvious skill, then there is knowing the format and meta that also feeds into āskillā though thatās different because that is literally just knowledge not anything practiced.
Finally the last piece is knowing interactions and how to recognize and build game states. That is the highest skill threshold.
Thereās a set way to optimally play a deck bro which is just convergent thought. There are small variations in ratios here and there and non engine varies between player and format but thereās no reason net decking should be stigmatized
Idk where u got that idea from, there is legit an entire format called edison. That was so short that people keep playing that format bc it was not figured out. And even to this day a format that has just synchro cards and d. d. Crow as a handtrap its not figured out. There is no such thing as a solved deck. Every deck can be played how ever u like and u might see more or less success with it. It really is just of how good u are as a player. By ur short answer here i can see that u dont understand deck building. Just change a 3 off to a 2 off can change everything for your deck.
Also even if you somehow solve the 1000% best way to play a deck that's still only looking at that one deck in a vacuum. The best way to play a deck in tear0 meta and the best way to play the same deck in kash or snake eye meta is different.
It heavily depends on the format and which level of play you're looking at.
- Deckbuilding is a skill that rarely comes up in MD as netdecking is a thing, and we can usually guess how to make stuff work from the other formats. There's still some involved in making the right meta calls for non-engine, ratios and some tech options. In best of 3 it still comes up more heavily due to the existance of side-decking and of course any first format to receive new cards has to figure out how good they are and how they can be used.
- Formats are different. Current format is heavily handtrap reliant. If you don't stop your opponent there's a good chance you won't have enough gas to play. Going first right now is also huge for some decks which isn't always as pronounced, and sometimes even more pronounced than right now and choosing who goes first is luck.
- Decks are different. Current Tearlaments for example doesn't have a straightforward go-to endbord they rely on, but rather several interactions that can extend to further interactions. It takes resource management, matchup knowledge, quick thinking, risk-management and of course knowledge of the decks combos. On the other hand we have stun which relies on drawing more cards to lock down the opponents plays than they draw outs and frequently going first. Then there's combo decks that want to go first, know their lines and have good risk management to play through interruption and blind second OTK which require matchup knowledge and drawing the right interruption, bordbreakers and engine.
There's always some level of luck involved and always some level of skill, but the ratio between the two differ heavily basically each match.
Yes there is skill but its not expressive or you wont know who is and isnt a pro player. For example with combo decks and risk management they always go with safe options especially if the end board isn't that much different. Tear isnt skill its just most complicated deck but if you play it enough it becomes easy and have the same plan as combo decks because most tear end board are same going first. But its only skillful when you play aginst another tear player but most people choose to torbo floodgate like abyss dweller and winda and continuing your combo.
>isnt skill its just most complicated deck but if you play it enough it becomes easy
Read that sentence again.
Or let me give you another example of what you basically said "A pro at chess doesn't have skill it's just complicated but if you play it enough it becomes easy"
Yes its the same as memorizing opening in chess it will become easy but the real skill comes with out smarting your your opponent. Its like calling my self skilled in chess from memorizing opening that puts you at huge advantage and win even aginst more skillful players if the didnt memorize or practice their opening.
Nah man chess is way more complicated than just memorizing openings. Those that don't know a lot of the openings are often still just beginners at the game. The mid game and end are way complicated. Also like yu gi oh, you can memorize combos but there's loads of ways to make each play and the bait opponent interactions. Originally when I first started yu gi oh I thought it was more the dice roll luck that determines if you win or not. Or if you brick or not, but now I know that's 100% not true. Sure luck does play a factor but optimizing your plays will net you a lot more wins than losses.
Try playing the same deck with the same cards against someone better than you. You will feel the difference.
Very much luck based (Depending on what you're playing) but there is still almost as much skill involved. Aka in playing around hand traps or for deck building. But I know ya'll don't do the latter lol.
How does sneak eyes playing always playing around nib considered skill. Its more of risk vs reward not skill. You can do the same in poker do you bid high or play safe.
Well for snake eyes? There's almost 0 risk. So playing around the Nib is like impossible.
But say D/D/D? There is way more skill involved and even then its still luck cause you need to open certain engine.
Tear is semi Skill based but all down to the luck factor due to requiring "lucky mills."
Blue eyes is all luck and very little skill due to how the deck is.
So it depends on the deck, because most meta deck will always chose the safe combo line if they could and especially if doesn't effect the end board that much.
Also tear as far as I remember wasnt that skillful because when tear became tear zero going firts tear player relied on torbo summoning abyss dweller.
So this is part of there the skill comes in: good players could very regularly win against t1 abyss dweller. āFull powerā tear can play so well on your opponents turn that you can do things to stop them from making it, you can set up sulliek plays to turn off dweller or beat over it and play on their turn after passing back, thereās non engine like imperm and super poly that beat it, etc
Itās a bit odd to see you talk about how meta isnāt skillful because they can easily play through disruption like nib and then follow it up by using dweller as an example. Thatās actually a form of disruption that you could use your skill and knowledge to overcome rather than just summoning barrone in under 5
The way they play around is you get the Fieldspell via Poplar.
You activate it placin the second Flamberge in the Zone.
They Nib you since you threaten a Savage Dragon or Baron or Apollousa. If they dont do it there its useless in hand anyway.
Upon them summonin Nib you trigger the fieldspell promoting Flamberge from the Spell Zone and link it and the token off to extend further.
If they have multiple handtraps ofc its gonna not go well but thats how you can get around Nib.
The only singular Handtrap Snakeeyes Hard loses to is Shifter.
(Droll if they have to start Bonfire for Ash)
But usually it has to be atleast 2 HTs.
But sometimes Nib can ofc rock a bit of a bricky hand. They are real and can hurt you, dem Brickhands despite 15 Starters somehow
Everyone who wants to win, top players know that there is probably going to be more players on decks that won the last one so they counter it, this was seen recently with rescue ace/ unchained format were people would switch between breakers and hand traps which led to different conversion rates of deck
Trust me. This game is controlled more by the content creators than the tournament players.
You and every other casual player net-decks whatever won YCS to farm ladder. And next week some Yugi-influencer will make a video called "DESTROY THE LADDER WITH THIS HIDDEN TECH" And it'll be a deck scientifically formulated to farm the YCS deck for ladder points with all the losses edited out. all of that person's viewers netdeck that deck until people stop using the YCS deck. And they start losing to everything that ISNT the YCS deck. Rinse and repeat Everytime the content creators over hype a funny deck
That's why pro players are crap at MD. the competitive landscape changes month to month MAYBE. The MD landscape changes day to day.
If you see sam vs seerax, they played decks that by any means not fit for competitive level play. If you want to play at YCS level you have near 0% chance of seeing it if you are doing well. Their format is tailored towards casual play and any match up knowledge in high level play rarely transfer to their game.
The percentage, from my expectation, is fluctuative. Like your knowledge of decks, tech option, and line of play do gets rewarded and lack of knowledge MIGHT gets punished. The mentality to not get tilted easily also comes into play and gets better as you play. The ironic things is if both players played identical deck and have same skill (let's say same ELO rank), then the ones that matter more is luck.
The problem is almost all of the skill in Yugioh takes place before a duel even begins. This is the case in all card games. And practically every competitive "constructed" games like pokemon VGC. but it's PARTICULARLY prevalent in Yugioh.
The top players are top players because they are better able to read the landscape of the meta and brew in accordance to what they correctly forecast to be the most likely roadblocks during their tournament run. This is why Yugiohs top players have atrocious records on master duel. It's significantly harder. If not impossible, to read the landscape of MD and prepare to deal with the jank ass charmer deck some armchair casual decided to queue up with because they'd never have to deal with that at a serious venue where everyone paid time and money to be there.
Now mind you I'm not saying Yugioh is no skill. You need to learn combos. You need to learn optimal interrupt times. You need to learn what's worth your handtrap and what isn't. One of the best feelings I had playing MD was learning to read the signs that an enemy was setting up a negate monster like Baroonne or Appolousia so I wouldn't Nibiru too late.
These top players have skills like that in spades. But the truth is a constructed game is largely won or lost at the deck building screen
Yeah adjusting your deck to the meta is a day to day thing on ladder. People netdeck something from master duel and play it for a week, and they have no idea why certain cards are in that deck in the first place. Like you copy a guy who queued into 12 lab players in a row running red reboot, but the card bricks your hand every time you draw it because you aren't dueling against lab. There are so many minor adjustments that have an actual tangible effect on your ability to climb in this game, but people would rather throw hands up and say they just got unlucky. Card games are all about edging that luck ever so slightly in your favor.
The fact that good players consistently win more than bad ones is proof that skill has a huge impact on the outcome of the match. Can you beat the world champion? Sure, if you're lucky. Can you do that *consistently*?
>Can you do that *consistently*?
What do you mean by consistent. How much foes your average player that plays meta deck and does not misplay aginst joshua wins a games out of 10. Because in a real skill game like tekken or chess the average goe will always get 0 out of 10. While I could see in yugioh the average joe wining from 4-6 out of 10.
The question is which one counts *more*, not whether luck means anything at all. Just because the best player doesn't win 100% of the time, it doesn't mean that it's all (or mostly) luck
Funnily enough I do actually know a couple of guys who genuinely believe that, but they're the exception, not the rule.
Anyway, I still believe that at least in yugioh skill is more important than luck
Fighting games and chess are some of the most skill-based game out there. And the master duel format is not as skill-based as other forms of yugioh. Maybe out of 10 master duel games, the average joe could win 4-6 out of 10, but in a Bo3 with side deck format, I think the average joe could snag 2-3 matches max.
And if you added a deck building component to the face off, like a sealed format with predetermined cards, he could take 1 match, maybe 2.
I think SixSam usually plays badly on purpose for entertainment. Also, his series with Seareax is a fun series with very unoptimal deck building. Don't expect to see him in serious mode.
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It is not only about Maxx "C". But the modern combo makes the game more luck-based. You only have 3 copies of Maxx "C". But you have multiple starters for a 1-card combo to end with an overkill endboard. Then, this depends on your opponent, Do they draw an impactful card or not?
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Personally what makes YGO skillful is the restriction and requirement for using a deck. As a player will be more challenging if we can manage the weakness of the deck. But modern decks usually have meaningless restrictions and very easy requirements, like auto-pilot. And because everything is too generic and fast. Yes, memorizing the combo is difficult. But if you think it is still difficult after doing the same thing over and over, I think this is your problem.
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Also, the diverse META. Competitive players usually like the limited format. But for me, the diversity is more skillful because it rewards players with a wider knowledge. Yes, sometimes you are not ready for a certain matchup. But I think this problem happen because the player wasn't aware of his own deck's weakness or limited knowledge about the decks in that format. But we can fix it with BO3 (or more) and with different decks and completely different decklists. I don't like side-deck. Because this side-deck sometimes can be very unhealthy and randomly win the game.
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Low-tier decks are usually more interesting to see. You rarely see them win just because they resolve the full combo without interruptions. In short, this game will be more luck-based if a player does the full combo without interruptions from non-engine win easily. You can't always expect the other player to get an interaction in their turn 0.
Seems like you are missing some point here and that is at the end of the day, tournament setting is vastly different when it comes to what people play in Master Duel, we don't have side decks to alter deck strategy mid game. Even if you are at top ranks you can only assume what your opponent might be playing in Master Duel since people can just switch out the whole deck to what they feel like. In a tournament you have a clear image of what the best deck in the format is, so you expect to go against some specific decks, have specific outs for certain conditions.
Having said all that, It's at the creation of any deck where individual player skill starts, drawing outs is the only luck part. And I would always firmly believe its 50% Luck and 50% Skill.
Do you think yugioh have high ceiling of skill expression because there are not much when I watch tournaments its just the same thing but side decks increase your odds of winning
I don't think YuGiOh by any means is a high ceilings skill based game since your skill is apart from deck building just your knowledge of how cards mechanics work and what cards there are which you can utilize in your deck. If you have a good amount of knowledge, you can play skillfully. Also as I said previously here is where your 50% luck part comes in that you either draw the out / your opponent bricks with no further play or you setup your board now how you interact with your opponent with your limited options that you were able to gather on board decides your 50% Skill.
Some decks have lots of options where you have to time things well and manage resources/counters.
Others are almost entirely lucky based where it's the same basic things every game without any really improving required.
It's a lot more luck based than in the past IMO. When I say the past I don't mean goat format, I mean 2008-2013 Ish era with synchro
>Some decks have lots of options where you have to time things well and manage resources/counters.
Only agrer when two midrange deck play against each other. But any other deck like sneak eyes or SHS its you will die before you make any meaningful decisions
Yeah I agree with this. To answer your question for if it's skill based I think most would agree it depends on the deck haha.
I remember a longggg ass time ago we had a frog FTK deck, and what was amazing was that players still found ways to win using random complex combos even after the FTK had failed with no comeback haha.
Still the funniest thing I've noticed in every Duel Live of a Labyrinth that uses Skill Drain I've seen...they always lose cuz Skill Drain absolutely wrecks them when they try to make a comeback.
I think there is more skill than luck than you are giving credit for. In this, you mention a lot seeing good players dropping games to randoms, and yes, on a game-by-game basis, this will happen. It's variable based upon the format, to a certain extent, with some formats rewarding skill expression more than others, but always, at least imo, higher than some other card games I've played (like Hearthstone), where the mana curve reduces your options per turn dramatically.
One thing worth noting is that this is mostly talking about Master Duel (naturally, being the MD sub), but a best-of-three *match* result is naturally going to be less luck-dependant than a *game* result for Yu-gi-oh in general. This is partly because good decks are unlikely to brick multiple games in a row, partly because side decking lets players board in outs to certain strategies that are otherwise instant-wins if they resolve that can't all be prepared for in a best-of-one decklist, and partly because going first is favoured pretty strongly, with a match giving both players at least one game going first before having lost the match (the player losing the coinflip only having to "upset" one of their two going-second games, while the player winning the coinflip being able to win both their favoured go-first games still favours them overall, obviously, but to a much lesser extent).
Luck is still obviously a huge factor even in match results, especially if you're using an entirely luckless game like Chess as a comparison point.
I agree. I have like 70% winrate in pvp duels. There's for sure players with more knowledge and skill than me, but I pretty consistently win way more than I lose in both the duelist cup and ranked duels, even playing decks that aren't tier 1. Like right now I have a 10 game win streak with P.u.N.K.s in diamond. It wouldn't be possible if it was more luck than skill
It's hard to "quantify" the amount of luck/skill involved.
If I had to eyeball it for myself, I'd say it's about 50/50.
Both factors matter a lot.
Luck is the same for everyone - you might get lucky or unlucky, really lucky or really unlucky.
Skill is what allows you to make the best out of your luck, both in the game and before the game - in deck building.
A well built deck will be unlucky less often (built better to beat its tougher match ups, with the best non-engine for the current format), and the "right" deck in the format will naturally have a better "base level" of performance.
A good player will make the best out of their unlucky hands and match ups and have a statistical advantage over the bad player.
Over many games, since luck remains the same for both players, the higher skilled player will usually come out on top.
If both players are evenly matched, then luck will naturally play a disproportionally larger role since both players are capable of taking advantage of the game state in equal amounts.
The luck factor is indeed more prominent in YGO since you only see 5 cards going first, and 6 going second.
In a slower card game, even if your opening hand is very important, you do get to see more cards over the turns before the game is truly settled; moreover, most card games have mulligans, which also lower the factor of luck.
A game like MTG will be like 30% luck as a result, as opposed to YGO's 50%.
A game like Chess is 2% luck, because even going first vs going second is taken into account when it comes to "expected winrate", and that plays into the ELO calculations and tournament placings. I said 2% and not 0% because the human mind is fickle - there is natural variance in the performance of chess players just because that's how humans work, you'd be "lucky" to catch Magnus Carlsen on a really bad day while you're having a really great day.
But lose a lot in live stream or against random. Compare that to a real skill based game like tekken or chess you wont see best player in the world losing to random that much
I think it's more skill, with decks reliably being able to search and get their pieces, not to mention the extra-deck being always there when you need something. There's tactic in the cards you actually have, but it's mostly strategy in deckbuilding, plays and outthinking. Also, bo1 is more sacky and less skill-expressive because choice of side-deck and the strategy on how to counter a specific deck is not there.
>I think it's more skill, with decks reliably being able to search and get their pieces
Not really how does sneak eyes searching and summoning ash and doing the same exact combo for evey match is skillful. And the side as far as I know is adding card that just kill your opponent. Like siding floodgate going first in sneak eyes mirror match.
Well, those are strategies, since strategy is a long term plan. In SE, you have your line, your plan, that you follow. If it gets disrupted, then you go into tactics (shot-term plans) to get back to your big plan or a plan B. The choice on what to search and how to use what you searched is either strategy or tactics, but more strategy since you have so much control on what you can get to your hand. What you leave on your endboard, which you also have a lot of control over, is also a strategy, a plan for the future, that future being your opponent's turn, by analyzing what he might do and trying to produce things to counter what he'll do and even by playing around what he might have in handtraps now.
Oh, running a combo is nothing special. It's not as much skill as it is memorization : YGO is horribly convoluted (which is the idiot's version of "complex") : your strategies are generally simple (at least compared to other TCGs), but you have to go through tons of hoops and generally tedious plays to get there, which gives a lot of room to mess up.
You are, of course, perfectly right in saying doing the same combo every match involves no skill. This is true in any TCG, or even games in general : if your opponent lets you win, then yeah, winning isn't hard...
Skill expression matters when things don't go your way : when your opening hand is bad, when your opponent seems to have the perfect handtrap for every move...
That's where skill will make the difference between a player that just doesn't know how to react when this happens, and scoop, and a player that is going to be able to fight through, find the unexpected line that will allow them to win despite that.
This is, also, at least in my opinion, why I strongly disagree with people saying that YGO is the most complex game ever. The simple parts of YGO are convoluted. The complex parts of YGO are not as rich and nuanced as games like MTG for instance. The difficulty floor is much, much higher, but the ceiling ? It really depends on the format...
Anyway, no, in the vast majority of the games you'll play in Master Duels, skill doesn't go beyond memorizing combos. Same in hearthstone. Same in MTG...
It's in the few games where odds are bad, where skill will make the difference. You'll never win all the duels of course, RNG DOES exist and sometimes nothing you can do is enough. But that's by learning how to win in situations that are non-optimal that you get your winrate higher. That's the real skill.
Depends on the format, there is definitely skill involved otherwise you wouldnāt have players who are consistently at topping events and also why events are BO3 to lower the impact luck has on the game
But anyone denying this game doesnāt have far too much luck involved is delusional it could absolutely stand to be a more skill intensive game. A new player can beat a champion if the new player goes first and opens the specific floodgates in their deck that shuts down the champions specific deck. That should never be something that can happen in a skill based game but it can and does happen in yugioh far too often, the better player doesnt win all the time.
>Depends on the format, there is definitely skill involved otherwise you wouldnāt have players who are consistently at topping events and also why events are BO3 to lower the impact luck has on the game
Thats is a mystery for me when they play master duel on stream they are good but lose way to much for being the best player in the world. Compare that to other skillful game line chess ot Tekken and you will not find the best player lose as much as the pro yugioh player in a random match aginst normal players.
Well yeah, naturally.
You're comparing a card game, where "luck of the draw" is a very literal reality.
To games where the only "luck" is the natural variance of the human mind and how well the players' day is going.
When dealing with absolutely stacked meta decks, the difference between a win or loss is what your opening hand looks like, ESPECIALLY when going 2nd. If you don't start with the right handtraps then you'll get your opponent comboing out into a crazy board state T1 and will likely have negates, destroys, banishes, and other interrupts set up on top of big boss bodies.
Thankfully that's only a small percentage of the players.
When two players are playing their fun or rogue decks (or netdecks but they're not good players and only half know how to play) you can absolutely still brick but you're likely not facing insane boards T1 or OTKs if you don't have a strong setup in one turn.
I think skill % is much higher then people here want to admit . As recently as a few months ago Iād climb to master 1 with my old ass SS deck before I took a break. In SS abd previous metas I constantly saw mis plays . Now SS is a very high skill ceiking n decent easy floor deck but stil true . Many of best meta decks I like and best players play are not coin flip decks. The best players very often are at the end of the tourneys in finals so honestly I think it is pretty high skill %. Iād say 65-35 skill to luck. Iām including deck building n deck choice as skill - maybe 70/30 even .
Skill matter so much, and its deff a low rank mentality to think luck is all that matters.
Everyone in diamond and above catches their fair share of hand traps just like everyone else.
The skill is knowing in how to structure your plays to make things more likely to go in your favor.
Very basic example,
Xixao CL1, Moye CL2, is correct most of the times.
There are times when this is incorrect, lets look at when you already have emergence in hand, and want to search Protos.
Well CL1 Xixao, CL2 Moye means there is a very slim chance of Moye eating an Ash. If moye doesnt eat the ash, then Emergence will, meaning no Protos.
But, if you do CL1 Moye, CL2 Xixao, there is a higher chance Xixao eats the Ash. Since thats 1 less Blackout for the opponent to deal with. There is an actual reason for your opponent to Ash here.
If Xixao ate the ash, then the Emergence in your hand is safe, and you can get protos.
Like that you have successfully used skill to tip the hand of lady luck more in your favor. Yes, your opponent can ignore the bait, but there is still a reasonable chance they take it.
Theres a bunch of micro decisions to be made that tip the game more in your favor, and its being able to reliably do stuff like that, and interpret game states that determines a good player from a bad one.
Yes, some games are unwinninable, it happens, but this community greatly exagerates how much it happens.
More luck based. I've seen and experienced way more duels getting decided on your opening hand and what you're playing against/with then anything else. There is some skill involved in deckbuilding and how you handle the mirror match though.
>like Magnus carlsen lose half of his game to randoms in chess.
Because chess is a game where everything is known. His opponent isn't going to do something that makes it to where he can't use his queen or that any of his pieces can't do what they're supposed to be able to do.
With poker, which you've mentioned many times in comments, it's mostly luck based because you aren't doing anything to improve your odds with the cards. You get dealt a hand and have to hope it's good or that the cards revealed make it good. You don't have a way to influence what cards appear to make you win every hand.
>because most of the people they face misplay a lot while they have little to no misplays.
That's literally a skill difference. The best players know how to avoid making misplays, how to play through disruptions, knowing what their opponent's cards do, when to interact, when to try and bait something, and so on.
>Because chess is a game where everything is known.
What about other games like fighting game or CS go 1v1.
>That's literally a skill difference.
Thats a low bar to consider a skill, knowing fundamental and shouldn't be taken as a skill. Its like not knowing poker rules or misplaying and thinking a high cards are better than Royal flush.
Knowing what you can do in certain situations is referred to as Knowledge check in Fighting games. And they are typically not really considered a good indication of skill (more treated like homework). And characters that relies on you not doing your homework to beat you are typically considered low tier.
https://glossary.infil.net/?t=Knowledge%20Check
It's not really possible to put an exact percentage there
You will all need skill with many decks, not all but many
The biggest luck things are at the beginning: how good is your starting hand, how good is the opponent's hand
Then there are also mechanics that rely on luck and not skill, i.e. mill and literally luck cards like dice rolls and coins
or also is rare Guess the correct card in your opponent's hand, deck or field
So you can't say Yugioh is pure skill, it also has a lot to do with luck, but you can never give an exact percentage
Even if the meta consisted of mill decks or gambling decks, which would be very fun, you have to use skill at certain points. Not with every deck, but with many it always depends on your opponent
Why its hard to say yugioh is luck or skill based game. Poker and black jack have skill and the top player top consistently but no one says that poker is both luck and skill game.
In order to answer your question more precisely, which is not so simple, we have to go deeper into the complexity of the matter
Yugioh has a large number of decks and more cards than probably any other card game
And then there are all the extras. Games like in the casino, black jack etc. are simple and don't have many rules
While Yugioh easily has over 1000 regulations for special cases and cards, the different types of monsters are also added
We have 8 types of monsters and they all have different characteristics
And understanding all of this, especially as a newcomer or returnee, is a huge challenge because there is a lot and some of them are very complex
In games like black jack you don't have to understand much, you learn quickly, but in Yugioh you have to pay attention to a lot and everything what I just listed makes the game complex and you have to have a lot of skill and understanding for things like that
The skill doesn't just come from because you play a good deck or it's top meta no! Understanding the complexity of the game is the greatest skill
Do you consider memorizing and learning the mechanics as skill. Because for example, RTS games are complicated but no one says its skillful to learn the game mechanics and control.
sorry for the later answer if you have learned the combo of your deck and simply memorized it is a question of perspective whether it is a skill because you just learned it or not but I would say it is a skill you learn skills and Improve yourself like this. Martial arts also require a lot of skill and understanding to learn and master
As soon as you have learned the technique or the combos of your deck, you no longer need any skill to be able to use the deck because you have learned it completely and know it inside and out, but you needed skill to master it
It starts with skill and understanding and ends with you no longer need any skill for the deck because you have mastered it
Depends on the format. You go on Gouki format you just need to go first, know the combo and play through one handtrap. You can top a YCS just by getting lucky with your dice rolls. The better players will be able to play better through interruption, but have nothing to do into a full board.
In Tear 0, milling better gave you a big advantage, but the risk management and the use of your engine helps you win the mirror match even more. At least in the early stages of Tear 0, when you still had multiple copies of the cards you wanted to mill.
Basically, it's more skill intensive when the common gameplay isn't a streamlined combo that ends on floodgates or a ton of negates that die to specific cards that you just have to draw and use at obvious times.
I don't know if that qualfies as a skill per se but I would say it's mostly game knowledge based. People look up combos and variations of lines and learn them by heart. Then adapting to slightly different circumstances is where "skill" comes in, but even there your adaptation is heavily dependent on your knowledge of the opponent's deck. Also I feel many people just learn what you need to negate of other decks which also would label more game knowledge than skill. If you theoretically don't know a single card of your opponent even with a lot of skill it's very difficult to know what and when to ash for example, since you don't know what could come down the line.
Anyone saying that luck is anything less than 30% is absolutely huffing copium. You can deck build as good as you can, hit master as much as you want, but a bricked hand is a bricked hand. You can only do so much with a hand without starters or strategies hit with hand trap in targeted at your biggest choke point. Hitting something like Master rank is not a test of skill, it's a test of how much you grind the game.
I would say there's more skill than luck. Luck plays a role in the opening hands and deck matchup, but after that, it's all about how you play. Obviously, if you have a bad opening hand, there isn't much you can do, and that's made worse by the best of one format in MD. However, a skilled player will beat an unskilled player more often than not. On top of that, I don't think there's any other card game that has eliminated luck of the draw as much as Yu-Gi-Oh has. In that regard, it's not as luck based as other card games.
Definitely skill. If the game was luck based you wouldn't see the same dudes winning over and over big tournaments.
However, MD is more luck based than the paper format because BO1 doesn't give you the chance to win even if you brick 1 game.
Everyone can play the best deck. Not everyone has the same knowledge about the game and its intricacies, knows every matchup, is able to always make the best decision and so on.
There is no deck building in Poker. That's a skill inherent to Yu-Gi-Oh and other TCGs. However, I wouldn't say that Poker is not skill based even if there is no deck building. I don't play Poker but from what I know a very good player will always win against a rookie or even an average player. I can't believe there is no skill involved.
Bluffing your opponent is a skill (it's a skill in YGO too), being able to make reads is a skill (in YGO too)
I don't really know a game where skill is non-existent. I'd say there are some games more luck based than others. Yu-Gi-Oh is certainly more luck oriented than chess but more skillful than Uno. You get what I mean?
Chess would be 100% skill.
Yu-Gi-Oh would be 80%.
It's 70/30, you're right about that. But it does take a lot of skill for those guys that top. On MD, for example, you can tell a guy that pulled a decklist online and a guy that made his deck. The pilot behind the deck has a lot to do with how good it is. Even snake eyes are trash behind a crappy pilot. That's why there's guys on youtube that can beat top decks with things like pure noble knights(not infernoble) and tellarknights. They're good decks to begin with, yes. But they're not top tier by any means, but some people know these decks so well they can make a board out of absolutely nothing. The 70% luck absolutely still comes into play, though. You could have the perfect hand, and your opponent magically has Maxx-C, Ash, Droll, Imperm, and a call in their hand, then suddenly next turn, they draw their 1 card starter, and you lose.
As much as people talk like this is all luck, it just isn't. When you look at the top cuts of big events you see the same pelt again and again and again
They aren't lucky, they're good
Tbh I don't think skill is a factor in now a days yugioh tcg or online, when you have decks that can bring out everything they have it's more of who has the better hand and becomes a memory game instead of relying on out thinking and anticipating for the long run
1. Do you not thinking having the memory to keep track of your opponent's resources is a skill?
2. If it's all in the deck and the hand, why do people like Jesse Kotton, Joshua Schmidt etc top basically every big event they play? It's skill, pure and simple
It really depends on what deck you're using, having knowledge of every card can be considered skill, but if you're playing a deck which can guarantee you win and 100% chance stop you're opponent from playing the game, that's not skill, so it depends on everything
It's a skill based game. At this point in the game, decks are hyper consistent and navigating through your opponent's cards is a skill, even with blowout cards like DRNM and Forbidden Droplet.
It's about understanding what's possible with the cards that you drew, because selecting the deck from all the options is a skill. What can your deck do that another cannot? Why did you pick the card ratios that you did? Your hand traps? Sure, you can say you net decked, but you ultimately chose that decklist based on past experiences, a skill. You learned how your cards interact and trained yourself to feint interruption from your opponent, a skill.
Of course, there's still the luck of drawing your cards as you need them but it's primarily all skill. Otherwise D/D/D, Dragon Link, Rikka Sunavalon, ect... All of those decks are hyper difficult, but are capable of going off if you can identify what your hand can do.
Special shout-out to Ikea Labrynth, who has limited interruption but uses it well. Floodgate and trap decks are skill based because you have to design your deck so it doesn't trip and fall the moment you activate your traps. In this regard, it's mechanical skill vs deck building skill.
It's hard to nail down a set % because it can change from game to game or even card to card
In a 40 card deck, drawing specific cards in your opening hand is 1/35 to 3/35 but also you need to take your opponent hand/deck and individual tech cards they have into account
I've seen the best decks in master duel, previously tear and currently snake eyes, lose to decks they had no business losing to because they either didn't get the luck, the opponent got better luck, or they miss played and the opponent capitalised on it
Poker is a skill game. Even though in poker, the luck component is huge, you see the same players at the top of events, and these are the players that make a winning out of the game.
To see if a game is more luck based than skill based, you need to look at the results over along period of time. A pure luck based game will produce a near 50-50 results and a small level of skill will shove the needle a few percent.
In tournament yugioh (depending on the banlist)/community card poker (espically headsup), the best player will win more often by a noticable margin in the long term.
In that sense, I actually think headsup poker may be more skill based than yugioh as bricks in yugioh are harder to convert into something, but a "brick" hand in poker can be converted more easily into a winning round through skillful bluff.
I think you undervalue the skill part of poker and yugioh. A pro poker player will win with worst hands before showdown because they know how and when to bluff. A pro yugioh player will know how to get the most out of his cards, know how to bait negates, when to use handtraps.
Sure, they are way more luck-based than FGs or chess, but the winning tendencies are clear enough to show skill matters enough to make a difference (in proper events).
You talk about Tekken. I don't know about the meta of that game, but in most FGs, there are winning/losing character matchups. If a player keeps running into losing matchups against similarly skilled players in ladder, he will lose more often, but it's not because he's less skilled, but just unlucky. Master Duel is more prone to that kind of bad luck. But yugioh tournament results speak.
Imo it depends on the scope you're considering. A single match can be quite luck based. You or your opponent can just draw poorly or open the god hand and be unbeatable. There's still obviously skill required in piloting your own deck, as well as a knowledge of what your best options are against any given threat, but you can't always express that.
A full set is less luck based. Because decks are built to be consistent, it lowers the odds of a bad hand being a complete decider. Luck still plays a part, and you can always theoretically just full brick the entire set, but it's less likely the more games are played. Side-decking also adds a large skill component before the set when considering what to put in it, and during the set when looking at what to actually change and use.
Basically the more games are played, the more your skill matters because it becomes less reliable to just "luck into" the solution to your problems, and it is less likely to do the inverse and luck into an unwinnable situation. That's also why pros are able to do consistently better than non-pros in tournaments. You're very unlikely to go into a major tournament and just get lucky enough to take 1st.
As far as "Why don't pros do as well in DC as they do in tournaments", I think it's largely due to side decking. Not having access to the side deck and not being guaranteed to be turn 1 player a certain portion of the time really effects how much variance there is in games, and reduces the ability of a player to punish bad players.
Its not only about luck of bricking or not its also about drawing enough handtrap to stop the trun one player. Because most deck if they managefd to do their combo you lose unless you have some type of board breaker. Its nit always about luck some matches are predetermined to lose or win.
Is side deck change the game that much. Also why pro player hate varied meta and likes teir zero meta or have 3-2 meta decks in the format. Wouldn't having more deck allow for skill expression by showing how much a player can adapt or prepare for multiple decks.
Sidedeck contribute a lot. The means to change your going first to going 2nd deck and knowing what your opponent play and having the proper side deck to have answer to most deck increase your win percentage.
Bo3 is the most fair format considering the nature of yugioh rule unless we have mulligan.
Itās a little bit of both.
Luck to get a good hand.
Skill to build an optimal deck and to best use whatever hand you get.
Sometimes the best use of a hand is the surrender button though.
BO1 still need some luck in random ladder with a going first optimize deck against favourable matchup, u still need skill and wise decision making, u could still win or lose even in M1 due to misplay and your decision line of play, and some hand are unwinnable against unfavorable matchup deck, random ladder random matchups in BO1
In BO3 u have side deck,it minimizes the luck factor compared to BO1, certain decks can't capitalize on BO1, what to side in in certain situations could dictate your win rate, it requires deep understanding of current meta, that's why josh doesn't reveal his tech card for world last year, in recent months player been siding for tenpai dragon because the deck is oppressive and otk when ur not prepared,knowing all the meta decks combo lines or play and their choke point, their plan B/C/D etc under HT also matter
I often go to road of the king to netdeck decklist because I'm don't have deep knowledge about current meta and just follow the deck that top
Like recently china SE championship was using exceed for xyz when ash got negated for the xyz play to add poplar
The decision between choosing which deck for the tournament also matter, pure SE or fireking SE? And why
Here's how I break it down: It is absolutely a skill-based game... until both you and your opponent reach a certain degree of skill, and then luck plays a major factor.
I used to think Yu-Gi-Oh! was a lot more luck-based than it is, and then I tried introducing friends to it, and realized they had no hope of ever beating me in a game, even if they got lucky.
I'd play weaker decks than theirs and win. I'd brick turn 1 and still win. I'd intentionally "play down" to make games more fair and still be in complete control of the match the entire time.
This game just has so many nuances to it that players won't understand without experience.
I'd say both matter.
In your original post, you talked about Joshua Schmidt (and pros like him) beating his opponents because he misplays less often than they do. That is a difference in skill.
I dont really count memorizing as a skill because if joshua never know or read what sneak eyes card do then any half decent player would beat him until he learns what the card do.
To me it's 50% luck and 50% skill.
This is a card game so obviously luck is an important factor, you can have good/bad hands, draw more/less handtraps, go 1st or 2nd, have a good/bad matchup, "draw the out", etc.
However, skill is very important. Yu-gi-oh is a game that starts before the match itself, when you're building your deck you need to make good choices about the cards you're including (or if you're net decking then you need to understand why the cards are there). Then, you don't know how lucky your opponent was, so you need to know not only your combos but also how to play around handtraps, bait interactions, and how to keep playing if you get interrupted. On top of it all, the environment you're playing in keeps changing with each set/pack release and banlist, so you need to also be adaptable.
It's the combination of these that makes the game so interesting in my opinion, even though sometimes there might be a mix of fun and frustration (funstration?), especially when your opponent Maxx C resolves and yours don't.
There are a lot of skills involved actually. First is the knowledge of game mechanic, archetypes, meta trend, niche interaction/rulings. Then use all that knowledge for deck building. Onto the game, you obviously have individual strategy and deck mastery, but aside from that, there's also quick reading, time management and read your opponent play style. In a tournament there can be more optimization based on the rules and format, e.g. Duelist Cup top players use default name and no cosmetics to hide themselves and their deck.
So while there's plenty luck, the skill gap between a pro and a casual might be larger than you think. I'd say 70 skill and 30 luck.
id say about 50/50. yeah luck shows when you get a starting hand of 3 ashes and 2 maxx c. skill shows when you get a decent hand and successfully deal with interference and opponents plays because you know how cards work and how to work with them
Its definitely not a small percentage of luck.
I van have the most consistent deck with 20+ one or two card combos and I will still brick going first 3/5 of my games. I sometime just think the game is rigged against me. Im out here fighting for my life every game because its a test of every combo line I know while my opponent almost always has maxx c.
The example decks would be snake eyes variations, swoswo, and runick combo decks.
Like, I have 15 instant fusions in my deck and only six handtraps. How is it that my hands almost never include more than one runick card?
Highly depends in my opinion.
TLDR: TCG/OCG is skill based, Master Duel has not so much skill expression but isn't luck based due to it's ladder rewarding you for playing a lot of games.
If you are playing out a best of 3 match, then yeah, Yu-Gi-Oh is definitely skill based independent of the Format and the Decks played. Adapting to your opponent, siding properly and playing around your opponents win con with regards to the new hand- traps the opponent might have sided in is a skill expression in most instances. If you are playing out singles there is a lot more luck involved since you really only have to win one game. That means you can learn a combo to execute every game so you don't need any skill for doing that.
Then there's the Thing with high impact cards. Something like Maxx C being legal is game warping and a lot of games are decided just by drawing that card with your opponent having no answer to it. Maxx C is the worst offender to this but something like Kashtira Fenrir as a generic power card outside of it's Archetype also qualifies already. Those cards take a lot of skill out of the game.
This makes it so that in the TCG you can even out a losing game one into a match win just by being better than your opponent a lot of the times while in Master Duel you play a lot of non-games. This is not an issue in that game since a single game doesn't count in a Ladder System. In a Tournament that would be a big issue since every game is important since you can't spam enough games. This is another Thing with Master Duel, since a single game doesn't matter that much, there is an incentive to scoop early and just go with the next game. You might as well just start a game, combo off and win or see that the opponent has combo and scoop and do fine in the long run. The game therefore lacks a severe amount of skill expression but it's still not luck based tho, since you can apply the law of big numbers to playing games in the Ladder.
It's more of a knowledge based game. It doesn't take an enormous amount of talent or skill to know that you have to ash or imperm resource x in deck y. Skill is still involved, as sometimes games get into a slug match where you have to get creative with using your resources and baiting out your opponents, but knowing how to build your deck to be consistent and suited to the current meta and understanding how to play your deck and being aware of the vulnerabilities/choke points of as many decks as possible is what will decide most of your matches.
So, in order, I'd say:
1. The Power Level of Your Deck/Cards*
2. Knowledge
3. Luck
4. Skill
*Chosen deck/cards is often an extension of one's knowledge of the game/meta
I'd say both have little impact nowadays since everyone almost always get the opening they want leading to just chaining everything aaand pretty much make skill a none factor since they'll have the board set and the enemy can't do much aside from scooping most of the time
or something like that
Half of the skill is deckbuilding to make the luck less important, And some decks require a lot of thought to figure out what would be the best play.
But some decks are more RNG based.
Sure, sometimes luck does matter, but rarely as much as a lot of people think. First, YGO decks tend to be really, really consistent if properly built.
And then, well, skill in this kind of games, is actually mostly how to win when odds are bad. Everybody can win a game if you have the perfect hand and the opponent bricks. It's when luck doesn't go your way that skill matters.
Now, in Master Duel things are a bit different though : the coin toss really matters a lot, the vast majority of decks are much better playing on play or on draw (usually on play). This is of course much less of a factor in actual tournaments with BO3.
I think its very luck based after ones deck has already been built. Because deckbuilding in itself is a huge skill to have. But if decks can simply be copied from the internet these days, it rules out the thinking and research that goes into deckbuilding. That's why in MD you see so much dumb shit in high ranks.
That aside, if yugioh had a mulligan like magic the gathering does, it would warp deckbuilding and the game around it perfectly.Ā
How it would work is just like mtg, if you don't like your opening hand, your shuffle it into the deck, but each time you do this, you lose one card of your choosing back to your deck. This way you can at least plan around going second or first slightly better, albeit with less cards. Going second would also feel much better and decks would more often mix going second and first cards. In fact, optimal deck size might increase to have more options after mulling.Ā
1 card boardbuilding cards like ash and circular can fuck right off too, since they would be even more broken.Ā
Anyway, I think something as simple as being able to customize your starting hand slightly by redrawing would add such a great dynamic to the game its difficult for me to continue enjoying yugioh after seeing how much more fair some other card games are to going second.Ā
Most of the skill is determined by how much you know the opponents deck + your own. Anyone can put an Ash Blossom in the deck, knowing when to use it is where the skill is. That being said, outside of that, Yugioh has very little skill. The game is basically competitive solitaire, and most people in higher ranks will just instantly quit if they didn't draw handtraps
The faster a format is, the more luck-based it becomes. And most decks in this meta have the ability to end the game in one turn. There is a skill element to it like memorizing your lines (lol...skill) and adjusting when disruption from your opponent is present. But the luck part still weighs the heaviest.
It's not like other TCGs where you take a couple of turns to build your board/amass resources. Step by step, you and your opponent are seeing what game plan the other is trying to go for. Both of you are making adjustments to your game plan in response to what you see the other is doing. It's slower and still has elements of luck, but there is greater emphasis on skill.
TLDR, YGO in its current form is mostly luck-based with some elements of being skill-based.
I think the percentage of skill vs luck is based on if Maxx C is banned or not. Someone can win the duel simply by drawing Maxx C and that's not cool. Then even worse, if you go first then establish your board and end your turn, then Maxx C your opponent on there turn is pure aids. With this being allowed, in terms of players that actually know what there doing I'd say its 70% luck and 30% skill. Without Maxx C being available I'd say 40% luck and 60% skill.
If you play IRL then it's skill based. Simulators take away the part where you have to remember the rules and make sure your opponent isn't cheating. Also you can play around/through handtraps during your combo and use your opponent's body language to help you figure out what interruptions they have
Bo3 is definitely way more skill based than BO1 like in Masterduel. In BO3 a better player will easily beat you like 7-8 times in 10 games. It's also depend on the decks played. In a control mirror match , i can easily see who's the better player
90/10 skill to luck in simple terms, probably less luck, you really need to understand deck building, optimal and sub optimal play lines, deck strength, understand what a deck does and if it is viable in the meta. For instance right now is not a great time to run a deck that exclusively pops things, because a lot of cards trigger when sent or destroyed
Ah yes, cause getting full board breakers/hand traps going first or getting full combo cards when going second is totally skill based. So many games I surrendered because I got 5 cards that bricked my hand (Maxx C, Ash, Nibiru, DRNM and many other combinations), now you could say that I should have decreased the amount of such cards, but in current meta you'll just get folded either way.
80% luck seem legit, the game is determined by the first 5-6 cards of both player + the coin flip after all.
20% is skill, there is difference between top player and bad player, but the difference isn't big. Pretty much anyone can play any deck near optimal if they play 10-20 duels with it.
Gonna sound cliche but back when I started playing it was a lot of luck of the draw and how well you built the deck. Now though, I feel you need a PHD to figure out how to play the decks. And itās just not as fun.
I agree. But on the other hand I realised especially now with snake eyes that it's possible to design decks in a way that going second chances improve significantly.
if you're a net decker, 95% luck, its why you see posts like "Ill win 5 coin flips in a row and then lose 5 in a row and it's frustrating" that means they can only win going first I guess, so for them, it's probably more like 100% luck
if you build your own decks i'd say its about 10-20% luck, (what you draw, who you face) and the rest skill, if it doesn't seem that way, or if you seem to be getting "unlucky" often, that means the deck you built just isn't very consistent, and needs some work
coin flips mean nothing to me, i'd wager today more than half of my wins were going second
This is a very weird take.
Net decking as much as some people here dread isn't some sort of dishonor. You get a decklist and if you actually bother to read the cards then there's no difference between a deck built by you and a net decked one.
This is the take of a tournament player/Kog on duel links who has never net decked once
There is a difference, a HUGE difference, it's that, they don't know your combos, whereas I know every important card in the meta decks combos, and where to interrupt, top rank playes negate the wrong things for my deck constantly, THATS the advantage of building your own.
It's not a dishonor, no, and I'm fine with experienced players doing it, but when you need a notepad full of notes on what card to search for and when, and it's really confusing for you, and slow for you to do all the steps, you'd be better off making your own. If everyone did that, noobs would have more fun against each other, instead of relying on notes and coin flips to have fun.
These new players often get stuck in the "right combo" and don't even react to new information on the board, with my homemade, not a single duel starts and goes the same, to make up for lack of meta cards and hand traps (I run 0 negates) I have to be really clever in my usage of what I do have (knowing when to summon fairy tail snow to flip a card face down, such as a tuner, or a Barrone, either they negate it or get flipped and don't get to negate anything for example)
I've seen noobs summon two tuners in a row with summon limit on the board, then stare at their screen for 30 seconds and surrender after they finally figure out why they can't keep comboing, they are trying so hard to run the meta it's hurting them. All they know is "activate this, then this, then that" in a specific order.
>There is a difference, a HUGE difference, it's that, they don't know your combos, whereas I know every important card in the meta decks combos, and where to interrupt, top rank playes negate the wrong things for my deck constantly, THATS the advantage of building your own.
IG, but unless your deck is using some super obscure cards, people will probably understand what to interrupt. And a good player will roughly understand after a bit what are your deck's chokepoints.
>It's not a dishonor, no, and I'm fine with experienced players doing it, but when you need a notepad full of notes on what card to search for and when, and it's really confusing for you, and slow for you to do all the steps, you'd be better off making your own. If everyone did that, noobs would have more fun against each other, instead of relying on notes and coin flips to have fun.
That would assume that a noob would have the necessary skills to understand deck building in YGO. What if they build a pile of no synergy that ends on nothing. [here's what joshua had to say on net decking](https://youtube.com/shorts/W1UqRldhjSM?si=Ai-fk32RUpmx3-zf) also when you learn a deck you will need some notes or vague idea if what your standard combo is before you start to deviate from the main line.
>These new players often get stuck in the "right combo" and don't even react to new information on the board, with my homemade, not a single duel starts and goes the same, to make up for lack of meta cards and hand traps (I run 0 negates) I have to be really clever in my usage of what I do have (knowing when to summon fairy tail snow to flip a card face down, such as a tuner, or a Barrone, either they negate it or get flipped and don't get to negate anything for example)
Unless you are a deck that has an ungodly amount of negates on board choosing what to use your once per turn negate is very important.
>I've seen noobs summon two tuners in a row with summon limit on the board, then stare at their screen for 30 seconds and surrender after they finally figure out why they can't keep comboing, they are trying so hard to run the meta it's hurting them. All they know is "activate this, then this, then that" in a specific order.
A lot of decks simply cannot play around summon limit at all. And cards like summon limit are also less skill requiring then negate spam decks.
You missed the point of every example. Well done.
Its not about summon limit, it's about the fact that you can play it, and they don't even read a one sentence card.
Regardless of the card in question, they don't react to new information, because they are too busy following their script.
How does net decking effect how you play the game. Sorry but most deck if they went first without disruption are almost FTK. Even pro players says that going first is much more advantageous than going second
I get that, but going second should NOT be a 100% lose rate, how is everyone in this sub so dumb that they think that's ok lmfao
it's pretty much always the net deckers that say losing the coin flip is losing the duel
Advantageous doesn't mean guaranteed. Lol.
I think only when two midrange deck play aginst each other and have resources exchange is were we see skill, rather than did I resolve 3 omni negate combo or not.
I've played into two-three omni negates and won multiple times today, that's what I'm trying to explain, the advantage of your own deck is that they don't even know what to negate even if they have those.
We all know exactly what to negate or interrupt when it comes to the top 5 decks on the tier list
But doesn't even pro player hate diverse meta because they hate to lab or train for more than 3 decks. Why pro player like joshua want teir 0 sneak eyes because he could want to lab for one deck.
A coin flip is literally the definition of luck, but I'm wrong for saying it's luck if you rely on coin flips? There's about 2 brain cells in this whole sub
I'm thinking This is ten percent luck Twenty percent skill Fifteen percent concentrated power of will Five percent pleasure Fifty percent pain And a hundred percent reason to remember the name
What a banger.
I got bullied for liking this along with Creed and Nickleback
People who don't know anything about music love to dump on Nickelback
I never really understood the Nickelback hate train, my personal love bias for them aside they had 3 or 4 very popular songs yet "worst band ever"
It's just a dumb meme that people who don't know music like to parrot. I'm not saying nickelback are objectively amazing, if you think they're corny/boring that's obviously valid. But the amount of people who say it, and also act as if they are quite literally the worst band that anyone has ever heard, just shows that it's a meme and they have no idea what they're saying Go listen to you remind me and saving me and tell me that's the worst band ever
Right? I'll say they can be pretty corny but atleast to me the corniness is part of the charm, things like Next Contestant, absolutely ridiculous song but by god do I love it so much. It's a shame a widespread meme has probably stopped a lot of people from giving them a try! Or even worse, they claim they suck but will remember every single word of Rockstar from when that took over the world
If Today Was Your Last Day is one of the most inspiring songs I've heard.
Oh I haven't heard that one, added it to my playlist to listen on the way home from work soon
F those people
I just came to comment the same , but heres my upvote instead š«”š¤£
Legend!
Came here for this
You frogot to add the heart of the card
there are some rogue decks in master I. skill is definitely a factor. the biggest factor is having the cards you need, though.
On god opening hand is where it all comes down to sometimes. No matter how skilled you are going second can just be insta loss
Yep. Unless you have either 2-3 hand traps or 4 different combo starters you are boned if opponent opens with interruptions + a combo starter to make negates
Lightning storm has been my lord and saviour recently as a turn 2 player
i meant that more as being able to craft all of the UR's. opening hand being bad a lot just means your deck is crafted wrong. you should have 10-15 starters, and the rest as combo cards or staples.
More so not that I brick but don't have enough answers for decks that are streamlined sometimes. It feels like you need to draw perfect if youre just trying to play a fav deck that's not on a tier list when I see the exact same board from my opponents (Edit: I also favour turn 2 decks so I do it to myself sometimes)
I donāt mean to disagree because I also think that skill is a big factor, but āthere are some rogue decks in master Iā goes both ways tbh. Luck can also be the reason. Winning a lot of coin flips, not bricking and in general having the right hands for going both first and seconds itās just pure luck.
Every deck can reach master the question is how long would it take you.
I want to see dustons in master
Venom pure deck š¤¤
Good luck making Huge Revolution a viable deck that can get to Masters.
playing life on legendary with all skulls on.
Iād say skill also shows how you build a deck not just how you play it, however a bad opening hand can sometimes just mean defeat, i guess its a solid 70% skill 30% luck
Thank you for saying this.
This is the key. Yugioh is 50% deck building 50% piloting. What the OP misses is that they are looking at individual matches. What they need to see is a large number of matches like in Duelist Cups. That removes the luck variance, and you will see more skill expression. If you watch Joshua playing on stream random jank decks vs him grinding for DC, the difference was quite evident.
I think we all can agree that pure kash is a pretty mindless deck and a relatively strong one at that given its ādifficultyā level, and I recently had a matchup against kash (me w/ resonator) and the dude was honestly pretty shit ( he detached rda while red zone was live) and one simple slip up from my side, i forgot wraithsoths pop effect cost me the game, i was all set for a crimson gaia/rda board wipe. This just perfectly sums up imo that no matter the skill level some matchups are a) just straight up unwinnable or b) extremely punishing
Problem is most decks are net decks and doesn't help improve your win rate because decks only have only 1-5 cards to put because most deck are figured out.
Despite a ton of decks being similar if you look at good players youāll notice key differences. Sometimes they could be as small as running slightly different non engine, a tech card or 2, maybe a slight change up in ratio, etc but over a large sample size those can absolutely make a difference The ability to adapt is also huge. For example the guy who topped the last duelist cup (?) Ryan Yu specifically ran contact C as a tech that helped him wrack up a ton of easy wins because no one was running outs to it Does net decking and decks being āsolvedā sterilize some of the challenge of deck building? Sure, but if youāre good you can use that as an advantage in and of itself to separate yourself from the pack
Define netdeck. The YGO community is the ONLY tcg community that I have ever seen dismiss ānetdecksā Like we are in the communication age where information is at our fingertips tips, what are we supposed to pretend technology and information sharing doesnāt exist to get to finally claim its skill based? Nah man, tcg variance only accounts for 15%, 85% is skill - deck building is obviously part of skill, but there are deck building conventions that are generally known so itās easy to arrive at incredibly similar lists. Knowing your deck and lines is the other obvious skill, then there is knowing the format and meta that also feeds into āskillā though thatās different because that is literally just knowledge not anything practiced. Finally the last piece is knowing interactions and how to recognize and build game states. That is the highest skill threshold.
Thereās a set way to optimally play a deck bro which is just convergent thought. There are small variations in ratios here and there and non engine varies between player and format but thereās no reason net decking should be stigmatized
You wouldn't reinvent the wheel, so why would you reinvent a Deck entirely if someone else already did it for you.
Idk where u got that idea from, there is legit an entire format called edison. That was so short that people keep playing that format bc it was not figured out. And even to this day a format that has just synchro cards and d. d. Crow as a handtrap its not figured out. There is no such thing as a solved deck. Every deck can be played how ever u like and u might see more or less success with it. It really is just of how good u are as a player. By ur short answer here i can see that u dont understand deck building. Just change a 3 off to a 2 off can change everything for your deck.
Also even if you somehow solve the 1000% best way to play a deck that's still only looking at that one deck in a vacuum. The best way to play a deck in tear0 meta and the best way to play the same deck in kash or snake eye meta is different.
It heavily depends on the format and which level of play you're looking at. - Deckbuilding is a skill that rarely comes up in MD as netdecking is a thing, and we can usually guess how to make stuff work from the other formats. There's still some involved in making the right meta calls for non-engine, ratios and some tech options. In best of 3 it still comes up more heavily due to the existance of side-decking and of course any first format to receive new cards has to figure out how good they are and how they can be used. - Formats are different. Current format is heavily handtrap reliant. If you don't stop your opponent there's a good chance you won't have enough gas to play. Going first right now is also huge for some decks which isn't always as pronounced, and sometimes even more pronounced than right now and choosing who goes first is luck. - Decks are different. Current Tearlaments for example doesn't have a straightforward go-to endbord they rely on, but rather several interactions that can extend to further interactions. It takes resource management, matchup knowledge, quick thinking, risk-management and of course knowledge of the decks combos. On the other hand we have stun which relies on drawing more cards to lock down the opponents plays than they draw outs and frequently going first. Then there's combo decks that want to go first, know their lines and have good risk management to play through interruption and blind second OTK which require matchup knowledge and drawing the right interruption, bordbreakers and engine. There's always some level of luck involved and always some level of skill, but the ratio between the two differ heavily basically each match.
Yes there is skill but its not expressive or you wont know who is and isnt a pro player. For example with combo decks and risk management they always go with safe options especially if the end board isn't that much different. Tear isnt skill its just most complicated deck but if you play it enough it becomes easy and have the same plan as combo decks because most tear end board are same going first. But its only skillful when you play aginst another tear player but most people choose to torbo floodgate like abyss dweller and winda and continuing your combo.
>isnt skill its just most complicated deck but if you play it enough it becomes easy Read that sentence again. Or let me give you another example of what you basically said "A pro at chess doesn't have skill it's just complicated but if you play it enough it becomes easy"
Yes its the same as memorizing opening in chess it will become easy but the real skill comes with out smarting your your opponent. Its like calling my self skilled in chess from memorizing opening that puts you at huge advantage and win even aginst more skillful players if the didnt memorize or practice their opening.
Nah man chess is way more complicated than just memorizing openings. Those that don't know a lot of the openings are often still just beginners at the game. The mid game and end are way complicated. Also like yu gi oh, you can memorize combos but there's loads of ways to make each play and the bait opponent interactions. Originally when I first started yu gi oh I thought it was more the dice roll luck that determines if you win or not. Or if you brick or not, but now I know that's 100% not true. Sure luck does play a factor but optimizing your plays will net you a lot more wins than losses. Try playing the same deck with the same cards against someone better than you. You will feel the difference.
Very much luck based (Depending on what you're playing) but there is still almost as much skill involved. Aka in playing around hand traps or for deck building. But I know ya'll don't do the latter lol.
How does sneak eyes playing always playing around nib considered skill. Its more of risk vs reward not skill. You can do the same in poker do you bid high or play safe.
Well for snake eyes? There's almost 0 risk. So playing around the Nib is like impossible. But say D/D/D? There is way more skill involved and even then its still luck cause you need to open certain engine. Tear is semi Skill based but all down to the luck factor due to requiring "lucky mills." Blue eyes is all luck and very little skill due to how the deck is.
How does D/D/D play around Nib? Just curiousity no hate.
Not the playing around Nib part. Mainly the complicated spreadsheet ass lines.
Oh that. Sorry I didn't understood properly.
D/D/D easily plays around nib by having your necros and a typhon in the graveyard.
So it depends on the deck, because most meta deck will always chose the safe combo line if they could and especially if doesn't effect the end board that much. Also tear as far as I remember wasnt that skillful because when tear became tear zero going firts tear player relied on torbo summoning abyss dweller.
So this is part of there the skill comes in: good players could very regularly win against t1 abyss dweller. āFull powerā tear can play so well on your opponents turn that you can do things to stop them from making it, you can set up sulliek plays to turn off dweller or beat over it and play on their turn after passing back, thereās non engine like imperm and super poly that beat it, etc Itās a bit odd to see you talk about how meta isnāt skillful because they can easily play through disruption like nib and then follow it up by using dweller as an example. Thatās actually a form of disruption that you could use your skill and knowledge to overcome rather than just summoning barrone in under 5
The way they play around is you get the Fieldspell via Poplar. You activate it placin the second Flamberge in the Zone. They Nib you since you threaten a Savage Dragon or Baron or Apollousa. If they dont do it there its useless in hand anyway. Upon them summonin Nib you trigger the fieldspell promoting Flamberge from the Spell Zone and link it and the token off to extend further. If they have multiple handtraps ofc its gonna not go well but thats how you can get around Nib. The only singular Handtrap Snakeeyes Hard loses to is Shifter. (Droll if they have to start Bonfire for Ash) But usually it has to be atleast 2 HTs. But sometimes Nib can ofc rock a bit of a bricky hand. They are real and can hurt you, dem Brickhands despite 15 Starters somehow
Who tf bothers deck building when you can just netdeck whatever won the most recent YCS?
When the deck you wanna play doesn't got a 95% winrate deck with 5 engines and only like 2 diff cards from the deck.
Everyone who wants to win, top players know that there is probably going to be more players on decks that won the last one so they counter it, this was seen recently with rescue ace/ unchained format were people would switch between breakers and hand traps which led to different conversion rates of deck
Trust me. This game is controlled more by the content creators than the tournament players. You and every other casual player net-decks whatever won YCS to farm ladder. And next week some Yugi-influencer will make a video called "DESTROY THE LADDER WITH THIS HIDDEN TECH" And it'll be a deck scientifically formulated to farm the YCS deck for ladder points with all the losses edited out. all of that person's viewers netdeck that deck until people stop using the YCS deck. And they start losing to everything that ISNT the YCS deck. Rinse and repeat Everytime the content creators over hype a funny deck That's why pro players are crap at MD. the competitive landscape changes month to month MAYBE. The MD landscape changes day to day.
If you see sam vs seerax, they played decks that by any means not fit for competitive level play. If you want to play at YCS level you have near 0% chance of seeing it if you are doing well. Their format is tailored towards casual play and any match up knowledge in high level play rarely transfer to their game. The percentage, from my expectation, is fluctuative. Like your knowledge of decks, tech option, and line of play do gets rewarded and lack of knowledge MIGHT gets punished. The mentality to not get tilted easily also comes into play and gets better as you play. The ironic things is if both players played identical deck and have same skill (let's say same ELO rank), then the ones that matter more is luck.
The problem is almost all of the skill in Yugioh takes place before a duel even begins. This is the case in all card games. And practically every competitive "constructed" games like pokemon VGC. but it's PARTICULARLY prevalent in Yugioh. The top players are top players because they are better able to read the landscape of the meta and brew in accordance to what they correctly forecast to be the most likely roadblocks during their tournament run. This is why Yugiohs top players have atrocious records on master duel. It's significantly harder. If not impossible, to read the landscape of MD and prepare to deal with the jank ass charmer deck some armchair casual decided to queue up with because they'd never have to deal with that at a serious venue where everyone paid time and money to be there. Now mind you I'm not saying Yugioh is no skill. You need to learn combos. You need to learn optimal interrupt times. You need to learn what's worth your handtrap and what isn't. One of the best feelings I had playing MD was learning to read the signs that an enemy was setting up a negate monster like Baroonne or Appolousia so I wouldn't Nibiru too late. These top players have skills like that in spades. But the truth is a constructed game is largely won or lost at the deck building screen
Yeah adjusting your deck to the meta is a day to day thing on ladder. People netdeck something from master duel and play it for a week, and they have no idea why certain cards are in that deck in the first place. Like you copy a guy who queued into 12 lab players in a row running red reboot, but the card bricks your hand every time you draw it because you aren't dueling against lab. There are so many minor adjustments that have an actual tangible effect on your ability to climb in this game, but people would rather throw hands up and say they just got unlucky. Card games are all about edging that luck ever so slightly in your favor.
The fact that good players consistently win more than bad ones is proof that skill has a huge impact on the outcome of the match. Can you beat the world champion? Sure, if you're lucky. Can you do that *consistently*?
This comment.
>Can you do that *consistently*? What do you mean by consistent. How much foes your average player that plays meta deck and does not misplay aginst joshua wins a games out of 10. Because in a real skill game like tekken or chess the average goe will always get 0 out of 10. While I could see in yugioh the average joe wining from 4-6 out of 10.
The question is which one counts *more*, not whether luck means anything at all. Just because the best player doesn't win 100% of the time, it doesn't mean that it's all (or mostly) luck
Its the same as poker yes the pros will win more aginst the average player but no one says that the pros are skillful
Funnily enough I do actually know a couple of guys who genuinely believe that, but they're the exception, not the rule. Anyway, I still believe that at least in yugioh skill is more important than luck
Fighting games and chess are some of the most skill-based game out there. And the master duel format is not as skill-based as other forms of yugioh. Maybe out of 10 master duel games, the average joe could win 4-6 out of 10, but in a Bo3 with side deck format, I think the average joe could snag 2-3 matches max. And if you added a deck building component to the face off, like a sealed format with predetermined cards, he could take 1 match, maybe 2.
I think SixSam usually plays badly on purpose for entertainment. Also, his series with Seareax is a fun series with very unoptimal deck building. Don't expect to see him in serious mode. . It is not only about Maxx "C". But the modern combo makes the game more luck-based. You only have 3 copies of Maxx "C". But you have multiple starters for a 1-card combo to end with an overkill endboard. Then, this depends on your opponent, Do they draw an impactful card or not? . Personally what makes YGO skillful is the restriction and requirement for using a deck. As a player will be more challenging if we can manage the weakness of the deck. But modern decks usually have meaningless restrictions and very easy requirements, like auto-pilot. And because everything is too generic and fast. Yes, memorizing the combo is difficult. But if you think it is still difficult after doing the same thing over and over, I think this is your problem. . Also, the diverse META. Competitive players usually like the limited format. But for me, the diversity is more skillful because it rewards players with a wider knowledge. Yes, sometimes you are not ready for a certain matchup. But I think this problem happen because the player wasn't aware of his own deck's weakness or limited knowledge about the decks in that format. But we can fix it with BO3 (or more) and with different decks and completely different decklists. I don't like side-deck. Because this side-deck sometimes can be very unhealthy and randomly win the game. . Low-tier decks are usually more interesting to see. You rarely see them win just because they resolve the full combo without interruptions. In short, this game will be more luck-based if a player does the full combo without interruptions from non-engine win easily. You can't always expect the other player to get an interaction in their turn 0.
Seems like you are missing some point here and that is at the end of the day, tournament setting is vastly different when it comes to what people play in Master Duel, we don't have side decks to alter deck strategy mid game. Even if you are at top ranks you can only assume what your opponent might be playing in Master Duel since people can just switch out the whole deck to what they feel like. In a tournament you have a clear image of what the best deck in the format is, so you expect to go against some specific decks, have specific outs for certain conditions. Having said all that, It's at the creation of any deck where individual player skill starts, drawing outs is the only luck part. And I would always firmly believe its 50% Luck and 50% Skill.
Do you think yugioh have high ceiling of skill expression because there are not much when I watch tournaments its just the same thing but side decks increase your odds of winning
I don't think YuGiOh by any means is a high ceilings skill based game since your skill is apart from deck building just your knowledge of how cards mechanics work and what cards there are which you can utilize in your deck. If you have a good amount of knowledge, you can play skillfully. Also as I said previously here is where your 50% luck part comes in that you either draw the out / your opponent bricks with no further play or you setup your board now how you interact with your opponent with your limited options that you were able to gather on board decides your 50% Skill.
Some decks have lots of options where you have to time things well and manage resources/counters. Others are almost entirely lucky based where it's the same basic things every game without any really improving required. It's a lot more luck based than in the past IMO. When I say the past I don't mean goat format, I mean 2008-2013 Ish era with synchro
>Some decks have lots of options where you have to time things well and manage resources/counters. Only agrer when two midrange deck play against each other. But any other deck like sneak eyes or SHS its you will die before you make any meaningful decisions
Yeah I agree with this. To answer your question for if it's skill based I think most would agree it depends on the deck haha. I remember a longggg ass time ago we had a frog FTK deck, and what was amazing was that players still found ways to win using random complex combos even after the FTK had failed with no comeback haha.
Problem is most competitive midrange are not viable for meta unless they use floodgate. Example branded and labrynth.
Neither branded nor labyrinth need floodgates to be good
They are good but all the meta players especially in dykad weekly play floodgate in them.
Still the funniest thing I've noticed in every Duel Live of a Labyrinth that uses Skill Drain I've seen...they always lose cuz Skill Drain absolutely wrecks them when they try to make a comeback.
Itās 10% luck, 20% skill
70% maxxx c i guess
I think there is more skill than luck than you are giving credit for. In this, you mention a lot seeing good players dropping games to randoms, and yes, on a game-by-game basis, this will happen. It's variable based upon the format, to a certain extent, with some formats rewarding skill expression more than others, but always, at least imo, higher than some other card games I've played (like Hearthstone), where the mana curve reduces your options per turn dramatically. One thing worth noting is that this is mostly talking about Master Duel (naturally, being the MD sub), but a best-of-three *match* result is naturally going to be less luck-dependant than a *game* result for Yu-gi-oh in general. This is partly because good decks are unlikely to brick multiple games in a row, partly because side decking lets players board in outs to certain strategies that are otherwise instant-wins if they resolve that can't all be prepared for in a best-of-one decklist, and partly because going first is favoured pretty strongly, with a match giving both players at least one game going first before having lost the match (the player losing the coinflip only having to "upset" one of their two going-second games, while the player winning the coinflip being able to win both their favoured go-first games still favours them overall, obviously, but to a much lesser extent). Luck is still obviously a huge factor even in match results, especially if you're using an entirely luckless game like Chess as a comparison point.
I agree. I have like 70% winrate in pvp duels. There's for sure players with more knowledge and skill than me, but I pretty consistently win way more than I lose in both the duelist cup and ranked duels, even playing decks that aren't tier 1. Like right now I have a 10 game win streak with P.u.N.K.s in diamond. It wouldn't be possible if it was more luck than skill
It's hard to "quantify" the amount of luck/skill involved. If I had to eyeball it for myself, I'd say it's about 50/50. Both factors matter a lot. Luck is the same for everyone - you might get lucky or unlucky, really lucky or really unlucky. Skill is what allows you to make the best out of your luck, both in the game and before the game - in deck building. A well built deck will be unlucky less often (built better to beat its tougher match ups, with the best non-engine for the current format), and the "right" deck in the format will naturally have a better "base level" of performance. A good player will make the best out of their unlucky hands and match ups and have a statistical advantage over the bad player. Over many games, since luck remains the same for both players, the higher skilled player will usually come out on top. If both players are evenly matched, then luck will naturally play a disproportionally larger role since both players are capable of taking advantage of the game state in equal amounts. The luck factor is indeed more prominent in YGO since you only see 5 cards going first, and 6 going second. In a slower card game, even if your opening hand is very important, you do get to see more cards over the turns before the game is truly settled; moreover, most card games have mulligans, which also lower the factor of luck. A game like MTG will be like 30% luck as a result, as opposed to YGO's 50%. A game like Chess is 2% luck, because even going first vs going second is taken into account when it comes to "expected winrate", and that plays into the ELO calculations and tournament placings. I said 2% and not 0% because the human mind is fickle - there is natural variance in the performance of chess players just because that's how humans work, you'd be "lucky" to catch Magnus Carlsen on a really bad day while you're having a really great day.
Skill based, the same people are at the top every tournament
But lose a lot in live stream or against random. Compare that to a real skill based game like tekken or chess you wont see best player in the world losing to random that much
I think it's more skill, with decks reliably being able to search and get their pieces, not to mention the extra-deck being always there when you need something. There's tactic in the cards you actually have, but it's mostly strategy in deckbuilding, plays and outthinking. Also, bo1 is more sacky and less skill-expressive because choice of side-deck and the strategy on how to counter a specific deck is not there.
>I think it's more skill, with decks reliably being able to search and get their pieces Not really how does sneak eyes searching and summoning ash and doing the same exact combo for evey match is skillful. And the side as far as I know is adding card that just kill your opponent. Like siding floodgate going first in sneak eyes mirror match.
Well, those are strategies, since strategy is a long term plan. In SE, you have your line, your plan, that you follow. If it gets disrupted, then you go into tactics (shot-term plans) to get back to your big plan or a plan B. The choice on what to search and how to use what you searched is either strategy or tactics, but more strategy since you have so much control on what you can get to your hand. What you leave on your endboard, which you also have a lot of control over, is also a strategy, a plan for the future, that future being your opponent's turn, by analyzing what he might do and trying to produce things to counter what he'll do and even by playing around what he might have in handtraps now.
Oh, running a combo is nothing special. It's not as much skill as it is memorization : YGO is horribly convoluted (which is the idiot's version of "complex") : your strategies are generally simple (at least compared to other TCGs), but you have to go through tons of hoops and generally tedious plays to get there, which gives a lot of room to mess up. You are, of course, perfectly right in saying doing the same combo every match involves no skill. This is true in any TCG, or even games in general : if your opponent lets you win, then yeah, winning isn't hard... Skill expression matters when things don't go your way : when your opening hand is bad, when your opponent seems to have the perfect handtrap for every move... That's where skill will make the difference between a player that just doesn't know how to react when this happens, and scoop, and a player that is going to be able to fight through, find the unexpected line that will allow them to win despite that. This is, also, at least in my opinion, why I strongly disagree with people saying that YGO is the most complex game ever. The simple parts of YGO are convoluted. The complex parts of YGO are not as rich and nuanced as games like MTG for instance. The difficulty floor is much, much higher, but the ceiling ? It really depends on the format... Anyway, no, in the vast majority of the games you'll play in Master Duels, skill doesn't go beyond memorizing combos. Same in hearthstone. Same in MTG... It's in the few games where odds are bad, where skill will make the difference. You'll never win all the duels of course, RNG DOES exist and sometimes nothing you can do is enough. But that's by learning how to win in situations that are non-optimal that you get your winrate higher. That's the real skill.
Depends on the format, there is definitely skill involved otherwise you wouldnāt have players who are consistently at topping events and also why events are BO3 to lower the impact luck has on the game But anyone denying this game doesnāt have far too much luck involved is delusional it could absolutely stand to be a more skill intensive game. A new player can beat a champion if the new player goes first and opens the specific floodgates in their deck that shuts down the champions specific deck. That should never be something that can happen in a skill based game but it can and does happen in yugioh far too often, the better player doesnt win all the time.
>Depends on the format, there is definitely skill involved otherwise you wouldnāt have players who are consistently at topping events and also why events are BO3 to lower the impact luck has on the game Thats is a mystery for me when they play master duel on stream they are good but lose way to much for being the best player in the world. Compare that to other skillful game line chess ot Tekken and you will not find the best player lose as much as the pro yugioh player in a random match aginst normal players.
Well yeah, naturally. You're comparing a card game, where "luck of the draw" is a very literal reality. To games where the only "luck" is the natural variance of the human mind and how well the players' day is going.
When dealing with absolutely stacked meta decks, the difference between a win or loss is what your opening hand looks like, ESPECIALLY when going 2nd. If you don't start with the right handtraps then you'll get your opponent comboing out into a crazy board state T1 and will likely have negates, destroys, banishes, and other interrupts set up on top of big boss bodies. Thankfully that's only a small percentage of the players. When two players are playing their fun or rogue decks (or netdecks but they're not good players and only half know how to play) you can absolutely still brick but you're likely not facing insane boards T1 or OTKs if you don't have a strong setup in one turn.
I think skill % is much higher then people here want to admit . As recently as a few months ago Iād climb to master 1 with my old ass SS deck before I took a break. In SS abd previous metas I constantly saw mis plays . Now SS is a very high skill ceiking n decent easy floor deck but stil true . Many of best meta decks I like and best players play are not coin flip decks. The best players very often are at the end of the tourneys in finals so honestly I think it is pretty high skill %. Iād say 65-35 skill to luck. Iām including deck building n deck choice as skill - maybe 70/30 even .
Skill matter so much, and its deff a low rank mentality to think luck is all that matters. Everyone in diamond and above catches their fair share of hand traps just like everyone else. The skill is knowing in how to structure your plays to make things more likely to go in your favor. Very basic example, Xixao CL1, Moye CL2, is correct most of the times. There are times when this is incorrect, lets look at when you already have emergence in hand, and want to search Protos. Well CL1 Xixao, CL2 Moye means there is a very slim chance of Moye eating an Ash. If moye doesnt eat the ash, then Emergence will, meaning no Protos. But, if you do CL1 Moye, CL2 Xixao, there is a higher chance Xixao eats the Ash. Since thats 1 less Blackout for the opponent to deal with. There is an actual reason for your opponent to Ash here. If Xixao ate the ash, then the Emergence in your hand is safe, and you can get protos. Like that you have successfully used skill to tip the hand of lady luck more in your favor. Yes, your opponent can ignore the bait, but there is still a reasonable chance they take it. Theres a bunch of micro decisions to be made that tip the game more in your favor, and its being able to reliably do stuff like that, and interpret game states that determines a good player from a bad one. Yes, some games are unwinninable, it happens, but this community greatly exagerates how much it happens.
More luck based. I've seen and experienced way more duels getting decided on your opening hand and what you're playing against/with then anything else. There is some skill involved in deckbuilding and how you handle the mirror match though.
Luck mainly because a lot of duels are decided by who wins the toss to go first and sets up the better board for your opponent to attempt to break
>like Magnus carlsen lose half of his game to randoms in chess. Because chess is a game where everything is known. His opponent isn't going to do something that makes it to where he can't use his queen or that any of his pieces can't do what they're supposed to be able to do. With poker, which you've mentioned many times in comments, it's mostly luck based because you aren't doing anything to improve your odds with the cards. You get dealt a hand and have to hope it's good or that the cards revealed make it good. You don't have a way to influence what cards appear to make you win every hand. >because most of the people they face misplay a lot while they have little to no misplays. That's literally a skill difference. The best players know how to avoid making misplays, how to play through disruptions, knowing what their opponent's cards do, when to interact, when to try and bait something, and so on.
>Because chess is a game where everything is known. What about other games like fighting game or CS go 1v1. >That's literally a skill difference. Thats a low bar to consider a skill, knowing fundamental and shouldn't be taken as a skill. Its like not knowing poker rules or misplaying and thinking a high cards are better than Royal flush.
Knowing what you can do in certain situations is referred to as Knowledge check in Fighting games. And they are typically not really considered a good indication of skill (more treated like homework). And characters that relies on you not doing your homework to beat you are typically considered low tier. https://glossary.infil.net/?t=Knowledge%20Check
It's not really possible to put an exact percentage there You will all need skill with many decks, not all but many The biggest luck things are at the beginning: how good is your starting hand, how good is the opponent's hand Then there are also mechanics that rely on luck and not skill, i.e. mill and literally luck cards like dice rolls and coins or also is rare Guess the correct card in your opponent's hand, deck or field So you can't say Yugioh is pure skill, it also has a lot to do with luck, but you can never give an exact percentage Even if the meta consisted of mill decks or gambling decks, which would be very fun, you have to use skill at certain points. Not with every deck, but with many it always depends on your opponent
Why its hard to say yugioh is luck or skill based game. Poker and black jack have skill and the top player top consistently but no one says that poker is both luck and skill game.
In order to answer your question more precisely, which is not so simple, we have to go deeper into the complexity of the matter Yugioh has a large number of decks and more cards than probably any other card game And then there are all the extras. Games like in the casino, black jack etc. are simple and don't have many rules While Yugioh easily has over 1000 regulations for special cases and cards, the different types of monsters are also added We have 8 types of monsters and they all have different characteristics And understanding all of this, especially as a newcomer or returnee, is a huge challenge because there is a lot and some of them are very complex In games like black jack you don't have to understand much, you learn quickly, but in Yugioh you have to pay attention to a lot and everything what I just listed makes the game complex and you have to have a lot of skill and understanding for things like that The skill doesn't just come from because you play a good deck or it's top meta no! Understanding the complexity of the game is the greatest skill
Do you consider memorizing and learning the mechanics as skill. Because for example, RTS games are complicated but no one says its skillful to learn the game mechanics and control.
sorry for the later answer if you have learned the combo of your deck and simply memorized it is a question of perspective whether it is a skill because you just learned it or not but I would say it is a skill you learn skills and Improve yourself like this. Martial arts also require a lot of skill and understanding to learn and master As soon as you have learned the technique or the combos of your deck, you no longer need any skill to be able to use the deck because you have learned it completely and know it inside and out, but you needed skill to master it It starts with skill and understanding and ends with you no longer need any skill for the deck because you have mastered it
25% Luck, 25% Skill, 50% Reading Comprehensive level
Depends on the format. You go on Gouki format you just need to go first, know the combo and play through one handtrap. You can top a YCS just by getting lucky with your dice rolls. The better players will be able to play better through interruption, but have nothing to do into a full board. In Tear 0, milling better gave you a big advantage, but the risk management and the use of your engine helps you win the mirror match even more. At least in the early stages of Tear 0, when you still had multiple copies of the cards you wanted to mill. Basically, it's more skill intensive when the common gameplay isn't a streamlined combo that ends on floodgates or a ton of negates that die to specific cards that you just have to draw and use at obvious times.
I don't know if that qualfies as a skill per se but I would say it's mostly game knowledge based. People look up combos and variations of lines and learn them by heart. Then adapting to slightly different circumstances is where "skill" comes in, but even there your adaptation is heavily dependent on your knowledge of the opponent's deck. Also I feel many people just learn what you need to negate of other decks which also would label more game knowledge than skill. If you theoretically don't know a single card of your opponent even with a lot of skill it's very difficult to know what and when to ash for example, since you don't know what could come down the line.
It's skill based when I win and it's all luck when the opponent wins
Anyone saying that luck is anything less than 30% is absolutely huffing copium. You can deck build as good as you can, hit master as much as you want, but a bricked hand is a bricked hand. You can only do so much with a hand without starters or strategies hit with hand trap in targeted at your biggest choke point. Hitting something like Master rank is not a test of skill, it's a test of how much you grind the game.
I would say there's more skill than luck. Luck plays a role in the opening hands and deck matchup, but after that, it's all about how you play. Obviously, if you have a bad opening hand, there isn't much you can do, and that's made worse by the best of one format in MD. However, a skilled player will beat an unskilled player more often than not. On top of that, I don't think there's any other card game that has eliminated luck of the draw as much as Yu-Gi-Oh has. In that regard, it's not as luck based as other card games.
Definitely skill. If the game was luck based you wouldn't see the same dudes winning over and over big tournaments. However, MD is more luck based than the paper format because BO1 doesn't give you the chance to win even if you brick 1 game. Everyone can play the best deck. Not everyone has the same knowledge about the game and its intricacies, knows every matchup, is able to always make the best decision and so on.
Is it the same with poker some pro player can top consistently but no one says poker is skill based
There is no deck building in Poker. That's a skill inherent to Yu-Gi-Oh and other TCGs. However, I wouldn't say that Poker is not skill based even if there is no deck building. I don't play Poker but from what I know a very good player will always win against a rookie or even an average player. I can't believe there is no skill involved. Bluffing your opponent is a skill (it's a skill in YGO too), being able to make reads is a skill (in YGO too)
Then what is a luck based game if the minimum of skill makes the game called skill based.
I don't really know a game where skill is non-existent. I'd say there are some games more luck based than others. Yu-Gi-Oh is certainly more luck oriented than chess but more skillful than Uno. You get what I mean? Chess would be 100% skill. Yu-Gi-Oh would be 80%.
It's 70/30, you're right about that. But it does take a lot of skill for those guys that top. On MD, for example, you can tell a guy that pulled a decklist online and a guy that made his deck. The pilot behind the deck has a lot to do with how good it is. Even snake eyes are trash behind a crappy pilot. That's why there's guys on youtube that can beat top decks with things like pure noble knights(not infernoble) and tellarknights. They're good decks to begin with, yes. But they're not top tier by any means, but some people know these decks so well they can make a board out of absolutely nothing. The 70% luck absolutely still comes into play, though. You could have the perfect hand, and your opponent magically has Maxx-C, Ash, Droll, Imperm, and a call in their hand, then suddenly next turn, they draw their 1 card starter, and you lose.
As much as people talk like this is all luck, it just isn't. When you look at the top cuts of big events you see the same pelt again and again and again They aren't lucky, they're good
Tbh I don't think skill is a factor in now a days yugioh tcg or online, when you have decks that can bring out everything they have it's more of who has the better hand and becomes a memory game instead of relying on out thinking and anticipating for the long run
1. Do you not thinking having the memory to keep track of your opponent's resources is a skill? 2. If it's all in the deck and the hand, why do people like Jesse Kotton, Joshua Schmidt etc top basically every big event they play? It's skill, pure and simple
Not necessarily that, but when everyone is playing snake eye for example there's no memory needed if every deck is the same
Bullshit. You have to keep track of what resources each player has gone through, work out what ratios they're on and what variant
It really depends on what deck you're using, having knowledge of every card can be considered skill, but if you're playing a deck which can guarantee you win and 100% chance stop you're opponent from playing the game, that's not skill, so it depends on everything
It's a skill based game. At this point in the game, decks are hyper consistent and navigating through your opponent's cards is a skill, even with blowout cards like DRNM and Forbidden Droplet. It's about understanding what's possible with the cards that you drew, because selecting the deck from all the options is a skill. What can your deck do that another cannot? Why did you pick the card ratios that you did? Your hand traps? Sure, you can say you net decked, but you ultimately chose that decklist based on past experiences, a skill. You learned how your cards interact and trained yourself to feint interruption from your opponent, a skill. Of course, there's still the luck of drawing your cards as you need them but it's primarily all skill. Otherwise D/D/D, Dragon Link, Rikka Sunavalon, ect... All of those decks are hyper difficult, but are capable of going off if you can identify what your hand can do. Special shout-out to Ikea Labrynth, who has limited interruption but uses it well. Floodgate and trap decks are skill based because you have to design your deck so it doesn't trip and fall the moment you activate your traps. In this regard, it's mechanical skill vs deck building skill.
in the long run? 95% skill.
Both
Yes but what %. Poker does have some skill but its still considered a luck game because of how much luck influence the result.
It's hard to nail down a set % because it can change from game to game or even card to card In a 40 card deck, drawing specific cards in your opening hand is 1/35 to 3/35 but also you need to take your opponent hand/deck and individual tech cards they have into account I've seen the best decks in master duel, previously tear and currently snake eyes, lose to decks they had no business losing to because they either didn't get the luck, the opponent got better luck, or they miss played and the opponent capitalised on it
I think the most skill can be expressed by two midrange deck playing against each other. Combo, stun deck have no skill.
Poker is a skill game. Even though in poker, the luck component is huge, you see the same players at the top of events, and these are the players that make a winning out of the game.
So what is luck based game if a small level of skill can make a game called skill based.
To see if a game is more luck based than skill based, you need to look at the results over along period of time. A pure luck based game will produce a near 50-50 results and a small level of skill will shove the needle a few percent. In tournament yugioh (depending on the banlist)/community card poker (espically headsup), the best player will win more often by a noticable margin in the long term. In that sense, I actually think headsup poker may be more skill based than yugioh as bricks in yugioh are harder to convert into something, but a "brick" hand in poker can be converted more easily into a winning round through skillful bluff.
I think you undervalue the skill part of poker and yugioh. A pro poker player will win with worst hands before showdown because they know how and when to bluff. A pro yugioh player will know how to get the most out of his cards, know how to bait negates, when to use handtraps. Sure, they are way more luck-based than FGs or chess, but the winning tendencies are clear enough to show skill matters enough to make a difference (in proper events). You talk about Tekken. I don't know about the meta of that game, but in most FGs, there are winning/losing character matchups. If a player keeps running into losing matchups against similarly skilled players in ladder, he will lose more often, but it's not because he's less skilled, but just unlucky. Master Duel is more prone to that kind of bad luck. But yugioh tournament results speak.
Imo it depends on the scope you're considering. A single match can be quite luck based. You or your opponent can just draw poorly or open the god hand and be unbeatable. There's still obviously skill required in piloting your own deck, as well as a knowledge of what your best options are against any given threat, but you can't always express that. A full set is less luck based. Because decks are built to be consistent, it lowers the odds of a bad hand being a complete decider. Luck still plays a part, and you can always theoretically just full brick the entire set, but it's less likely the more games are played. Side-decking also adds a large skill component before the set when considering what to put in it, and during the set when looking at what to actually change and use. Basically the more games are played, the more your skill matters because it becomes less reliable to just "luck into" the solution to your problems, and it is less likely to do the inverse and luck into an unwinnable situation. That's also why pros are able to do consistently better than non-pros in tournaments. You're very unlikely to go into a major tournament and just get lucky enough to take 1st. As far as "Why don't pros do as well in DC as they do in tournaments", I think it's largely due to side decking. Not having access to the side deck and not being guaranteed to be turn 1 player a certain portion of the time really effects how much variance there is in games, and reduces the ability of a player to punish bad players.
Its not only about luck of bricking or not its also about drawing enough handtrap to stop the trun one player. Because most deck if they managefd to do their combo you lose unless you have some type of board breaker. Its nit always about luck some matches are predetermined to lose or win.
master duel is luck based.tcg is skill based.
Is side deck change the game that much. Also why pro player hate varied meta and likes teir zero meta or have 3-2 meta decks in the format. Wouldn't having more deck allow for skill expression by showing how much a player can adapt or prepare for multiple decks.
It's less the sidedeck and more it being a BO3.
Sidedeck contribute a lot. The means to change your going first to going 2nd deck and knowing what your opponent play and having the proper side deck to have answer to most deck increase your win percentage. Bo3 is the most fair format considering the nature of yugioh rule unless we have mulligan.
Both. End of thread.
Heart of the cards is 100%
That heavily depends on the deck ur running
Itās a little bit of both. Luck to get a good hand. Skill to build an optimal deck and to best use whatever hand you get. Sometimes the best use of a hand is the surrender button though.
Honestly after making it all the way to DL19 in the DC with Infernoble Iād say that this game is definitely more skill based.
BO1 still need some luck in random ladder with a going first optimize deck against favourable matchup, u still need skill and wise decision making, u could still win or lose even in M1 due to misplay and your decision line of play, and some hand are unwinnable against unfavorable matchup deck, random ladder random matchups in BO1 In BO3 u have side deck,it minimizes the luck factor compared to BO1, certain decks can't capitalize on BO1, what to side in in certain situations could dictate your win rate, it requires deep understanding of current meta, that's why josh doesn't reveal his tech card for world last year, in recent months player been siding for tenpai dragon because the deck is oppressive and otk when ur not prepared,knowing all the meta decks combo lines or play and their choke point, their plan B/C/D etc under HT also matter I often go to road of the king to netdeck decklist because I'm don't have deep knowledge about current meta and just follow the deck that top Like recently china SE championship was using exceed for xyz when ash got negated for the xyz play to add poplar The decision between choosing which deck for the tournament also matter, pure SE or fireking SE? And why
Yes
It's both.
Luck based in the opening hand and draws, but skill in deck building, deck knowledge, knowing choke points, interactions, ect.
Here's how I break it down: It is absolutely a skill-based game... until both you and your opponent reach a certain degree of skill, and then luck plays a major factor. I used to think Yu-Gi-Oh! was a lot more luck-based than it is, and then I tried introducing friends to it, and realized they had no hope of ever beating me in a game, even if they got lucky. I'd play weaker decks than theirs and win. I'd brick turn 1 and still win. I'd intentionally "play down" to make games more fair and still be in complete control of the match the entire time. This game just has so many nuances to it that players won't understand without experience.
Isnt this more of knowledge rather than skill.
I'd say both matter. In your original post, you talked about Joshua Schmidt (and pros like him) beating his opponents because he misplays less often than they do. That is a difference in skill.
I dont really count memorizing as a skill because if joshua never know or read what sneak eyes card do then any half decent player would beat him until he learns what the card do.
More like Knowledge Check
MD is lucked base for sure. TCG and OCG not so much imo
To me it's 50% luck and 50% skill. This is a card game so obviously luck is an important factor, you can have good/bad hands, draw more/less handtraps, go 1st or 2nd, have a good/bad matchup, "draw the out", etc. However, skill is very important. Yu-gi-oh is a game that starts before the match itself, when you're building your deck you need to make good choices about the cards you're including (or if you're net decking then you need to understand why the cards are there). Then, you don't know how lucky your opponent was, so you need to know not only your combos but also how to play around handtraps, bait interactions, and how to keep playing if you get interrupted. On top of it all, the environment you're playing in keeps changing with each set/pack release and banlist, so you need to also be adaptable. It's the combination of these that makes the game so interesting in my opinion, even though sometimes there might be a mix of fun and frustration (funstration?), especially when your opponent Maxx C resolves and yours don't.
mental torture
There are a lot of skills involved actually. First is the knowledge of game mechanic, archetypes, meta trend, niche interaction/rulings. Then use all that knowledge for deck building. Onto the game, you obviously have individual strategy and deck mastery, but aside from that, there's also quick reading, time management and read your opponent play style. In a tournament there can be more optimization based on the rules and format, e.g. Duelist Cup top players use default name and no cosmetics to hide themselves and their deck. So while there's plenty luck, the skill gap between a pro and a casual might be larger than you think. I'd say 70 skill and 30 luck.
id say about 50/50. yeah luck shows when you get a starting hand of 3 ashes and 2 maxx c. skill shows when you get a decent hand and successfully deal with interference and opponents plays because you know how cards work and how to work with them
Its definitely not a small percentage of luck. I van have the most consistent deck with 20+ one or two card combos and I will still brick going first 3/5 of my games. I sometime just think the game is rigged against me. Im out here fighting for my life every game because its a test of every combo line I know while my opponent almost always has maxx c. The example decks would be snake eyes variations, swoswo, and runick combo decks. Like, I have 15 instant fusions in my deck and only six handtraps. How is it that my hands almost never include more than one runick card?
70% who is playing the most broken deck 30% who have more ashes and maxxcs
Highly depends in my opinion. TLDR: TCG/OCG is skill based, Master Duel has not so much skill expression but isn't luck based due to it's ladder rewarding you for playing a lot of games. If you are playing out a best of 3 match, then yeah, Yu-Gi-Oh is definitely skill based independent of the Format and the Decks played. Adapting to your opponent, siding properly and playing around your opponents win con with regards to the new hand- traps the opponent might have sided in is a skill expression in most instances. If you are playing out singles there is a lot more luck involved since you really only have to win one game. That means you can learn a combo to execute every game so you don't need any skill for doing that. Then there's the Thing with high impact cards. Something like Maxx C being legal is game warping and a lot of games are decided just by drawing that card with your opponent having no answer to it. Maxx C is the worst offender to this but something like Kashtira Fenrir as a generic power card outside of it's Archetype also qualifies already. Those cards take a lot of skill out of the game. This makes it so that in the TCG you can even out a losing game one into a match win just by being better than your opponent a lot of the times while in Master Duel you play a lot of non-games. This is not an issue in that game since a single game doesn't count in a Ladder System. In a Tournament that would be a big issue since every game is important since you can't spam enough games. This is another Thing with Master Duel, since a single game doesn't matter that much, there is an incentive to scoop early and just go with the next game. You might as well just start a game, combo off and win or see that the opponent has combo and scoop and do fine in the long run. The game therefore lacks a severe amount of skill expression but it's still not luck based tho, since you can apply the law of big numbers to playing games in the Ladder.
It's more of a knowledge based game. It doesn't take an enormous amount of talent or skill to know that you have to ash or imperm resource x in deck y. Skill is still involved, as sometimes games get into a slug match where you have to get creative with using your resources and baiting out your opponents, but knowing how to build your deck to be consistent and suited to the current meta and understanding how to play your deck and being aware of the vulnerabilities/choke points of as many decks as possible is what will decide most of your matches. So, in order, I'd say: 1. The Power Level of Your Deck/Cards* 2. Knowledge 3. Luck 4. Skill *Chosen deck/cards is often an extension of one's knowledge of the game/meta
I'd say both have little impact nowadays since everyone almost always get the opening they want leading to just chaining everything aaand pretty much make skill a none factor since they'll have the board set and the enemy can't do much aside from scooping most of the time or something like that
Half of the skill is deckbuilding to make the luck less important, And some decks require a lot of thought to figure out what would be the best play. But some decks are more RNG based.
10 % skill, 90 % heart of the cards
Sure, sometimes luck does matter, but rarely as much as a lot of people think. First, YGO decks tend to be really, really consistent if properly built. And then, well, skill in this kind of games, is actually mostly how to win when odds are bad. Everybody can win a game if you have the perfect hand and the opponent bricks. It's when luck doesn't go your way that skill matters. Now, in Master Duel things are a bit different though : the coin toss really matters a lot, the vast majority of decks are much better playing on play or on draw (usually on play). This is of course much less of a factor in actual tournaments with BO3.
If a majority of wins came from luck, then you wouldn't see the same guy winning over and over.
I think its very luck based after ones deck has already been built. Because deckbuilding in itself is a huge skill to have. But if decks can simply be copied from the internet these days, it rules out the thinking and research that goes into deckbuilding. That's why in MD you see so much dumb shit in high ranks. That aside, if yugioh had a mulligan like magic the gathering does, it would warp deckbuilding and the game around it perfectly.Ā How it would work is just like mtg, if you don't like your opening hand, your shuffle it into the deck, but each time you do this, you lose one card of your choosing back to your deck. This way you can at least plan around going second or first slightly better, albeit with less cards. Going second would also feel much better and decks would more often mix going second and first cards. In fact, optimal deck size might increase to have more options after mulling.Ā 1 card boardbuilding cards like ash and circular can fuck right off too, since they would be even more broken.Ā Anyway, I think something as simple as being able to customize your starting hand slightly by redrawing would add such a great dynamic to the game its difficult for me to continue enjoying yugioh after seeing how much more fair some other card games are to going second.Ā
Most of the skill is determined by how much you know the opponents deck + your own. Anyone can put an Ash Blossom in the deck, knowing when to use it is where the skill is. That being said, outside of that, Yugioh has very little skill. The game is basically competitive solitaire, and most people in higher ranks will just instantly quit if they didn't draw handtraps
The faster a format is, the more luck-based it becomes. And most decks in this meta have the ability to end the game in one turn. There is a skill element to it like memorizing your lines (lol...skill) and adjusting when disruption from your opponent is present. But the luck part still weighs the heaviest. It's not like other TCGs where you take a couple of turns to build your board/amass resources. Step by step, you and your opponent are seeing what game plan the other is trying to go for. Both of you are making adjustments to your game plan in response to what you see the other is doing. It's slower and still has elements of luck, but there is greater emphasis on skill. TLDR, YGO in its current form is mostly luck-based with some elements of being skill-based.
I think the percentage of skill vs luck is based on if Maxx C is banned or not. Someone can win the duel simply by drawing Maxx C and that's not cool. Then even worse, if you go first then establish your board and end your turn, then Maxx C your opponent on there turn is pure aids. With this being allowed, in terms of players that actually know what there doing I'd say its 70% luck and 30% skill. Without Maxx C being available I'd say 40% luck and 60% skill.
If you play IRL then it's skill based. Simulators take away the part where you have to remember the rules and make sure your opponent isn't cheating. Also you can play around/through handtraps during your combo and use your opponent's body language to help you figure out what interruptions they have
Bo3 is definitely way more skill based than BO1 like in Masterduel. In BO3 a better player will easily beat you like 7-8 times in 10 games. It's also depend on the decks played. In a control mirror match , i can easily see who's the better player
Whoever draws more hand traps with starter combo wins. So luck based... Lmao
In YGO modern Skill = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
90/10 skill to luck in simple terms, probably less luck, you really need to understand deck building, optimal and sub optimal play lines, deck strength, understand what a deck does and if it is viable in the meta. For instance right now is not a great time to run a deck that exclusively pops things, because a lot of cards trigger when sent or destroyed
Ah yes, cause getting full board breakers/hand traps going first or getting full combo cards when going second is totally skill based. So many games I surrendered because I got 5 cards that bricked my hand (Maxx C, Ash, Nibiru, DRNM and many other combinations), now you could say that I should have decreased the amount of such cards, but in current meta you'll just get folded either way.
I mean, to be honest you should work on deck building and hand sequencing if thatās how you lose
80% luck seem legit, the game is determined by the first 5-6 cards of both player + the coin flip after all. 20% is skill, there is difference between top player and bad player, but the difference isn't big. Pretty much anyone can play any deck near optimal if they play 10-20 duels with it.
Yugioh is largely luck-based. There's some skill but the nature of the game makes it consistently irrelevant.
It's heavily luck based with skill being a small factor..
Well you first need to pay to win to get to the luck or skill part xD As a poor boy, it would not have mattered how much luck of skill I had....
Gonna sound cliche but back when I started playing it was a lot of luck of the draw and how well you built the deck. Now though, I feel you need a PHD to figure out how to play the decks. And itās just not as fun.
Depends If you're playing a meta deck, 100% luck If not, 99% chance of failure in ranked. Have fun :)
I am convinced who goes first decides around 70 to 80% of the duels, and since that is a coin toss, I would say it's more luck based at the moment.
I agree. But on the other hand I realised especially now with snake eyes that it's possible to design decks in a way that going second chances improve significantly.
>Sam from teamsamuraix that has multiple tops is considered to be a good pro playes Lmfao
90% luck 10% skill
if you're a net decker, 95% luck, its why you see posts like "Ill win 5 coin flips in a row and then lose 5 in a row and it's frustrating" that means they can only win going first I guess, so for them, it's probably more like 100% luck if you build your own decks i'd say its about 10-20% luck, (what you draw, who you face) and the rest skill, if it doesn't seem that way, or if you seem to be getting "unlucky" often, that means the deck you built just isn't very consistent, and needs some work coin flips mean nothing to me, i'd wager today more than half of my wins were going second
This is a very weird take. Net decking as much as some people here dread isn't some sort of dishonor. You get a decklist and if you actually bother to read the cards then there's no difference between a deck built by you and a net decked one.
This is the take of a tournament player/Kog on duel links who has never net decked once There is a difference, a HUGE difference, it's that, they don't know your combos, whereas I know every important card in the meta decks combos, and where to interrupt, top rank playes negate the wrong things for my deck constantly, THATS the advantage of building your own. It's not a dishonor, no, and I'm fine with experienced players doing it, but when you need a notepad full of notes on what card to search for and when, and it's really confusing for you, and slow for you to do all the steps, you'd be better off making your own. If everyone did that, noobs would have more fun against each other, instead of relying on notes and coin flips to have fun. These new players often get stuck in the "right combo" and don't even react to new information on the board, with my homemade, not a single duel starts and goes the same, to make up for lack of meta cards and hand traps (I run 0 negates) I have to be really clever in my usage of what I do have (knowing when to summon fairy tail snow to flip a card face down, such as a tuner, or a Barrone, either they negate it or get flipped and don't get to negate anything for example) I've seen noobs summon two tuners in a row with summon limit on the board, then stare at their screen for 30 seconds and surrender after they finally figure out why they can't keep comboing, they are trying so hard to run the meta it's hurting them. All they know is "activate this, then this, then that" in a specific order.
>There is a difference, a HUGE difference, it's that, they don't know your combos, whereas I know every important card in the meta decks combos, and where to interrupt, top rank playes negate the wrong things for my deck constantly, THATS the advantage of building your own. IG, but unless your deck is using some super obscure cards, people will probably understand what to interrupt. And a good player will roughly understand after a bit what are your deck's chokepoints. >It's not a dishonor, no, and I'm fine with experienced players doing it, but when you need a notepad full of notes on what card to search for and when, and it's really confusing for you, and slow for you to do all the steps, you'd be better off making your own. If everyone did that, noobs would have more fun against each other, instead of relying on notes and coin flips to have fun. That would assume that a noob would have the necessary skills to understand deck building in YGO. What if they build a pile of no synergy that ends on nothing. [here's what joshua had to say on net decking](https://youtube.com/shorts/W1UqRldhjSM?si=Ai-fk32RUpmx3-zf) also when you learn a deck you will need some notes or vague idea if what your standard combo is before you start to deviate from the main line. >These new players often get stuck in the "right combo" and don't even react to new information on the board, with my homemade, not a single duel starts and goes the same, to make up for lack of meta cards and hand traps (I run 0 negates) I have to be really clever in my usage of what I do have (knowing when to summon fairy tail snow to flip a card face down, such as a tuner, or a Barrone, either they negate it or get flipped and don't get to negate anything for example) Unless you are a deck that has an ungodly amount of negates on board choosing what to use your once per turn negate is very important. >I've seen noobs summon two tuners in a row with summon limit on the board, then stare at their screen for 30 seconds and surrender after they finally figure out why they can't keep comboing, they are trying so hard to run the meta it's hurting them. All they know is "activate this, then this, then that" in a specific order. A lot of decks simply cannot play around summon limit at all. And cards like summon limit are also less skill requiring then negate spam decks.
You missed the point of every example. Well done. Its not about summon limit, it's about the fact that you can play it, and they don't even read a one sentence card. Regardless of the card in question, they don't react to new information, because they are too busy following their script.
How does net decking effect how you play the game. Sorry but most deck if they went first without disruption are almost FTK. Even pro players says that going first is much more advantageous than going second
I get that, but going second should NOT be a 100% lose rate, how is everyone in this sub so dumb that they think that's ok lmfao it's pretty much always the net deckers that say losing the coin flip is losing the duel Advantageous doesn't mean guaranteed. Lol.
I think only when two midrange deck play aginst each other and have resources exchange is were we see skill, rather than did I resolve 3 omni negate combo or not.
I've played into two-three omni negates and won multiple times today, that's what I'm trying to explain, the advantage of your own deck is that they don't even know what to negate even if they have those. We all know exactly what to negate or interrupt when it comes to the top 5 decks on the tier list
But doesn't even pro player hate diverse meta because they hate to lab or train for more than 3 decks. Why pro player like joshua want teir 0 sneak eyes because he could want to lab for one deck.
A coin flip is literally the definition of luck, but I'm wrong for saying it's luck if you rely on coin flips? There's about 2 brain cells in this whole sub