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Wednesday
Yu-Gi-Oh! players have longed for the day when we can all come together and agree on a new, fresh way to play our favorite game … But with so many fan formats running around and creating their own small niche communities, it can be hard to get everyone onto the same page and agree to play something other than the Advanced competitive format. Taylor and Johnny sit down with one of Cardmarket's resident MTG players to talk all about alternative formats and if Yu-Gi-Oh! can learn a lesson or two from the way things work for Magic!
Konami's "Officially Supported" Alternative Formats
We as Yu-Gi-Oh! players love to say that we have no alternative formats to play, but that isn't entirely true. It's more that the ones we do have … no one seems to play. And even the ones that do see widespread success are so subdivided under their large umbrellas that you'll never be able to walk up to a group and ask to play an alternative format like the Magic players can with Commander games.
Next to a couple of loosely organized leagues that Konami promotes, its website also lists some actual alternative formats that attempt to change the way the game is played. However, most of these leave quite a lot to be desired.
Tag Dueling works just fine but is more so designed for people who want to relive the thrill of the anime's two-on-two battles they remember from their childhood. In practice, there isn't a whole lot that makes the mode stand out from regular duels other than getting hit with hand traps or negates twice as often since you have two opponents.
Common Charity is the equivalent of MTG's Pauper format, allowing common cards only. Alas, rarity doesn't always tie to power level in Yu-Gi-Oh!, with some decks having most of their engine fully playable just because it happened to be printed in the common slot at some point.
Heart of the Underdog is barely even a format, basically just telling the players at a store to do a tournament where they ban whatever decks they don't want to play against. Can you imagine trying to come to a consensus on what is or isn't allowed for a tournament like this, where everyone has to go to bat for why their deck isn't too strong? A disaster waiting to happen, honestly.
Rivalry of Warlords is another strange one, where we have never even seen or heard of events actually happening, using what are essentially preconstructed decks that Konami provides for the players to choose from. Half the fun in Yu-Gi-Oh! is deck building, so it goes without saying why this format is so unappealing.
Then we have Deckmaster, which tries to emulate the nature of dueling with signature boss monsters like in the anime—but with the large caveat that, if they get destroyed, you lose the game on the spot … Yeah, that's a pretty big drawback to playing out your
The most popular alternative formats by far are the Time Wizard formats. These duels simply go back in time to a previous ban list and use the cards that were available at the time to make the best decks possible. Fan communities have formed around specific dates like GOAT, HAT, EDISON, and TOSS. These formats do have a chance to take off in a big way and even got some side event spots at large Konami events recently. The biggest problem is that because everyone has their own taste for what they think the peak of Yu-Gi-Oh! was, the player base is divided between all these different miniformats. There's no the push from the player base toward any single one of them to make Konami actually want to support any of them specifically.
Maybe this will change in the future, but until then, Advanced is all we can reliably play when we head down to our local game store. But who knows, maybe "Kitchen Table Yu-Gi-Oh!" could be the next big thing?