Thoughts on Amiibo

Amiibos are out and it appears that Nintendo has what it wanted - an absurd demand for the figures that looks like it may pose a threat to Disney Infinity and Activision Skylanders. 

I for one think its a good thing.  It brings some sense of physicality back to an increasingly digital world.  The world of video games.  It gives players something to keep and cherish.  Perhaps even use as heirlooms to pass on gaming memories.  If you think it's crazy now, wait till they start releasing amiibo for all of the 700+ Pokemon.

While it is true that Nintendo vastly underestimated the demand for amiibo, (which is better than overestimating it, to be fair) there is something about the craze that I just don't get.  I'm talking about the people who insist on buying them all.  The fans who want to collect each and every figure, and are outraged to find a shortage of some and the fact that they have to put forth a little more effort to obtain some over others.

There is a rumor that Nintendo will stop producing less popular Amiibo (think Marth, Wii Fit Trainer, Villager) after the initial shipment.  While I don't think they will, even if they did, current amiibo technology only allows for 1 game to have read/write access per figure.  This means that only one game at a time will offer the full amiibo experience.  Any other games will only be given read access meaning you can unlock some basic stuff like items, money, costumes etc but nothing more.  I have heard amiibo described as "physical dlc" but this only really applies to read only NFC scanning.  Amiibo can be so much more than physical dlc when a game has full access.

Right now, the only game that can do this is Smash Bros 4.  That means that of all the current figures out there, they can only be used for the complete Amiibo experience to train and level up a character specific fighting CPU.  I don't care how big of a Nintendo fan you are, there is no reason to justify buying all of these figures just to use with this game.  It is simply a waste.  Most people are only decent with 2-4 characters, and some of those characters are probably from games that the person hasn't invested that much time into. 

I feel like some people think of amiibo as dlc, in that if they don't buy all of it, they are being deprived of something amazing.  When in reality, they are only missing out on a trainable CPU for characters they don't even play and  some extra rupees or costumes in other games.  It just doesn't make sense to get any more amiibos than (a) your absolute favorites and (b) characters you actually play in Smash Bros.

If you get an Olimar amiibo but you play as Captain Falcon in Smash, you better hope that you own Pikmin 3 and that Nintendo patches in amiibo functionality into it.  Otherwise it is dead weight to you until Pikmin 4 comes out (which it may never).  You're better off just buying a regular Olimar figure for much cheaper than the jacked up scalper prices you'll find online.

Which brings me to my next point: scarcity.  Nintendo is obviously manufacturing less amiibo of lesser known (let's call them B and C-list Nintendo characters). Now whether or not they stop producing certain figures after the first few waves, does not mean that they will NEVER print these characters again.  It is pretty obvious that Nintendo used Smash Bros to launch the amiibo platform, and for the most part all of these first few waves are primarily meant to be used in Smash. 

But to think that Nintendo will never re-release these characters again as amiibo is extremly naive.  If Nintendo releases a new Animal Crossing game in a year or two, you had better believe that they will release a slew of Animal Crossing amiibo to go along with it.  Probably with even more capabilities than the current generation of amiibo.  So even if Villager is really hard to find now, and may never be printed again, it doesn't mean that you won't be able to get newer, better, and more diverse figures later on.

And it's the same with every other game and series.  Unless you can think of a character in Smash who will never have another game in its series made (Game and Watch, Duck Hunt Dog) then there is no reason to freak out and get upset when stock runs out and the figures aren't reprinted. (Which is just a rumor at this point.  There is no reason to assume discontinuation as of now.)  And again I'll note, even if it were true, those figures would only fully be compatible with Smash anyway.

Maybe the hardcore collectors are just a very loud but vocal minority, but when I see pages and pages of comments on sites about people complaining about how they can't buy all of the figures right now because of being sold out, or are getting their preorders cancelled because of lack of stock, or scalpers, I just get angry.  Well, that's anough of this rant.  Later gators.

Smogonite Pollution, or The Top 3 Reasons Smogon Is Hurting Pokemon

For those of you who don't already know, let me clue you in on a little internet community called Smogon University.  Smogon is a website and forum dedicated to competitive Pokemon.  Playing Pokemon on the highest level while trying to maintain as fair a balance as possible in an environment as competitive as possible.

Smogon provides in-depth and comprehensive strategies, movesets, and EV spreads for almost every pokemon.  They also have created a few rules, or clauses to promote a competitive environment, as well as determining a list of tiers, or relative power potentials for pokemon.
This might sound good in print, and if you read their mission statement you might find yourself growing quite fond of Smogon and what it has to offer.  However, under the surface of this community you will discover a dark undercurrent of elitism, snobbery, and outright bias that is damaging not only its own community, but competitive Pokemon playing in its own right.

1. Circular Reasoning Destroys Variety

It all makes sense now.

Smogon attempts to categorize all Pokemon based on their percieved potential power.  This is typically a combination of looking at the base stats of the pokemon, the type combination, the abilities, and the available moves the pokemon has access to.  This seems reasonable and simple enough.  However, Pokemon is not like most games in that it is not immediately apparent what is strongest, or what is going to work the best.  The sheer number of Pokemon and possible combinations of moves and teams and many other factors means that it is extremely difficult to accurately say that one pokemon is "better" or "worse" than another or "the best" because of the myriad different roles and interactions between the pokemon.

Smogon attempts to alleviate this problem by taking a completely different approach, and base the relative power groupings of each Pokemon based on usage.  The idea is to make it into a democratic system where the players are "placing votes" on which Pokemon are superior by placing them in their competitive teams or not.  This makes sense at first.  A generally terrible Pokemon is not likely to find itself on many teams, and so its ranking will naturally drop.  The same is likewise true of a superior Pokemon finding itself in more and more teams.
While this seems reasonable at first, the crucial flaw with this system is that many people aren't aware of or forget just how much of a dramatic influence Smogon has on competitive Pokemon.  Indeed, its powerful influence that they would brush off as coincidence. But let's look further.


By agreeing with Smogon's rules and viewpoint, and then subjecting yourself to them, you are entering into their 'meta-game' or, their own circle of players.  It's simply the group of players in a given area or capacity, and the gaming environment that emerges from these players actions.  You are now in their realm.  All of the teams that you see, all of the Pokémon that you encounter, and most of the decisions that will be made by the other players will be in some way influenced by the community and its beliefs.  The flaw here is that they are trying to maintain some image of objectivity in their efforts while simultaneously creating a completely subjective playing field relative to Pokemon as a whole. 


Since Smogon is the premier location of competitive battling on the Internet, the only resources that a new player will find with regard to battling are either outdated FAQ's which contain little to no actual strategy or recommendations, Smogon itself, or various scattered forum posts, many of which will be infiltrated by Smogon strategy or ideology.  Now, remember when we said that the system in which powerful Pokemon are ranked, the tier system, is based on usage?  What this means is that the vast majority of people coming to battle competitively will be quickly exposed to this list, and not knowing any other alternative capacity to battle with, will adopt these rankings into the creation of their teams.


These players will use these highly ranked Pokemon in their teams, and in doing so bump up the Pokemon rankings that Smogon bases the tiers off of.  Then new players will reference this list while constructing their teams and the cycle continues indefinitely.  It essentially boils down to a popularity contest, as the most popular Pokemon are the most used, and the most used are touted as the best bet to players looking to play competitively.  The strategies unhealthily revolve around these popular Pokemon, while the others are left in the dark.  Could you imagine a competitive Street Fighter tier list based on popularity, and not actual excellence?  Ryu would be considered top tier even though many other characters can easily mow him down.

Ken, being fierce.

 The problem with this is that popularity is never a good or precise indicator of how good something is, especially when the environment it is in is subjective.  If a Pokemon is considered really good, and its usage rises as its tier level rises, then there is going to have to be some way for people to stop it.  So people will start using a Pokemon or strategy to counter it.  This makes sense, but if the Pokemon whose popularity was boosted isn't actually all that good, and the hype makes it's tier level increase, then it will indirectly and artificially boost the usage stats of the counters.  Take Justin Bieber's popularity.  He sucks at singing, and doing pretty much anything.  But his popularity was artificially boosted by record executives.  People looked at what was popular, got into it, and increased it's popularity.  Then proportionally, Bieber-haters emerged who hate him.  Their hate increased as his popularity increased.  But do you think we would see so much anti-Bieber hate if he never became famous?  Of course not.  And this exact same situation is playing out in the Smogon meta-game. 


This effect is doubled when you consider that these changes only occur in the Smogon meta-game itself.  Outside it, where you have people just playing the game normally, using what they want, or a local hobby store holding Pokemon tournaments, or even Nintendo's sponsored tournaments using completely different rules, the Smogon tailored Pokemon are out of their element.  When Fire-type Pokemon Infernus jumps into the Smogon metagame and destroys, Smogonites will devise an Infernus counter.  It will be mandatory on all teams because everyone is using an Infernus because he is so good. (Or because I looked on Smogon's tier list and saw that he was top tier).  Soon every team will have a decked out Infernus and a pimped out Infernus counter (Let's call it 'Dowser').  However, since this popularity contest isn't happening outside of the Smogon metagame, people won't be using Infernus nearly as much, and Dowser will be much more useless.  Dowser was only top tier because he was a boss at stopping Infernus.  And Infernus was only top tier because a lot of people used him.


This is where the circular logic really gets its momentum in Smogon.  Eventually all Pokemon interaction and strategy are based on these dynamics of usage-based popularity or countering highly used Pokemon.  It all exists in a bubble, and the antics often look like the rainbow tinted oozing of an actual bubble to people outside it.  Eventually this bubble, like all bubbles, will pop.  Smogonites are playing their own game.  It's not Pokemon, it just uses the statistics, moves, and type matching of a game called Pokémon.


2. Arbitrary Rules Destroy Strategy

Legally, I just can't let you get away with beating me.

Another 'highlight' Smogon brings to the table to competitive Pokemon is the addition of clauses.  A clause is a rule that both player agree to before hand.  If the clause is broken, typically the offending player will be disqualified, or in some cases be forced to make an unfavorable move in response to breaking the clause.  Clauses are good for the game, if created and used logically, and for good reason.  Nintendo's own offical ruleset for battles contains some clauses, among them Species Clause (ie. you can only have 1 each of a particular Pokemon specie in each team.  So you can't have 2 Charizards, but you can have a Charizard and a Charmeleon).

One unique to Smogon, but practiced almost universally is the Sleep Clause.  It dictates that only 1 given Pokemon can be put to sleep on the opponent's team at a time (excluding Rest).  This makes the game much more fair for all players because you must put a lot of thought into what Pokemon you are going to disable, and it prevents the game from devolving into a mess of Lum berries, Sleep Talkers, and Insomniacs.  It opens up strategies for players while keeping an extremely powerful ability in check.


A term that Smogoners seem to have an infatuation with is 'over-centralizing'.  What over-centralizing means is that something (a Pokemon, move, item, ability, combination, strategy) is too powerful and is diverting too many competitive resources into dealing with and/or circumventing the over-centralizing element.  For a quick example, take Sleep above.  Sleep is very powerful, and if left unchecked will completely change the game into seeing who can sleep the other player first or who can strategize to bypass sleep and still prevail.

Enter 'Stealth Rock'.


Stealth Rock is a move that scatters floating rocks onto the playing field.  When a Pokemon is switched in, it will take unavoidable Rock-type damage automatically.  This damage is affected by typing, including weaknesses and resistances  It may not seem like much.  Nice, but nothing game-changing, right?

Wrong.

   Stealth Rock does 12.5% damage to the Pokemon's total health at neutral.  It does 25% of total HP to a Pokemon with one weakness to Rock-type, and a staggering 50% HP loss to Pokemon unfortunate enough to have two weaknesses to the Rock-type.  What this means is that when unchecked, Stealth Rock causes a large number of Pokemon to come into battle a quarter or half dead.  This simple move, only taking one turn to set up, single-handedly shuts down a sizable portion of viable Pokemon.  Their tier rankings suffer considerably, and they are seldom seen not because of their stats, but because of their typing.

Is this move banned by Smogon?  No.  No it is not.  While there are a few counters to Stealth Rock short of not running Flying, Fire, Bug and Ice Pokemon, they all rely on forcing your Pokemon to be the team lead, or dedicating a separate Pokemon with the move Rapid Spin to get rid of the rocks.  If you do not, then you are forced to use these Pokemon at an extreme disadvantage, or not use them in the first place.  It has gotten so bad that having a Stealth Rock user is almost required in every team, and if not, at least an answer to it.  It's not considered just a strategy, but the strategy and a cornerstone of the Smogon meta-game.  Banning it would result in a surge of new Pokemon being seen in all levels of play, resulting in more diverse teams, type combinations, and movesets.

Just the facts:

16%

Only 16% of the 348 species of fully evolved Pokémon are considered to be competitively viable.  56 out of 348. 

Typing is a common reason for a Pokemon being put into a lower tier.  If a type is seen as having too much vulnerability to common attacking types, the Pokemon will be seen as weaker or less useful.  This is because of the modular design of Smogon Pokemon.  A Pokemon in Smogon is built from the ground up to have one very generalized role: either all out attack ie. doing the most damage possible, being the best at taking up damage and crippling the enemy's damage dealers, or other support effects.  They are designed such that they cover a very general use and can be put into pretty much any team, ignoring any specific compatibility or niche usage that other Pokemon can bring.  If a Pokemon has stats that fit perfectly into Smogon's image of the perfect tank, having good HP, Defense, Special Defense, solid attack, a nice movepool, decent typing and decent offense, then this Pokemon will be outfitted generically to fit into any team as a tank, and will appear in almost every team in this role.

This is ignoring the fact that other Pokemon exist whose specific stat distribution, typing, ability and movepool can be utilized to create an ideal highly specialized team member to a teams very specific needs.  A true team is one that is carefully crafted in every capacity to complement every other member of the team to bring out the absolute best in all of them.  To cover weaknesses, to address counters, to do everything together as one unit.  This requires being intimately familiar with EV spreads, to the point where you are calculating the exact damage you expect to receive and stacking your EV's accordingly.  This means training Pokemon that would otherwise be considered 'poor' or bad choices when separated from their team, but in the right team that capitalizes on their strengths while downplaying their weaknesses in the team.

Smogon on the other hand has different ideas.  They want just one generic role filled.  Once a Pokemon has maxed out that cookie cutter mold, all other Pokemon vying for a similar role will be stacked against it.  If the stats are less, or the typing isn't considered optimal, the Pokemon is tossed aside like trash.

3. They HATE Chance

ABSOLUTELY NOT, KIDDO

Pokemon was never a game to not include an element of chance.  From the most basic critical hits, to deciding if a status will cripple a Pokemon on a given turn, randomness has always been an import of the game.  It gives some uncertainty and a sense of excitement when it is used.  It is not something that can be used reliably, but if used there is always a chance that it will put you, or your opponent, ahead.

As interesting and influential a role chance plays in Pokemon, there are some out there that absolutely loath it.  The very idea that someone out there could be using a move, item, or ability that relies on chance and are KOing Pokemon on occasion with them really makes their blood boil.  The idea that someone facing against them in a battle can use a move that has a 30% chance of even hitting KOing their EV trained and IV bred perfect specimen of a Pokemon just makes them want to hurl with rage.

And so they make bans.  They ban things like One Hit KO moves, such as Fissure, Guillotine, Sheer Cold, etc.  If you remember above, banning something is usually very serious.  It means that the thing being banned is extremely powerful and just too good.  So what do these fantastic moves do?  Simple.  At the cost of 30% accuracy (which of course means that these moves will do absolutely nothing 70% of the time), these moves will cause an instant knock out of the opposing Pokemon.  Ignoring defense, type, HP.  Everything.  That doesn't sound overpowered to anyone but hardcore Smogonites and those influenced by them.  Let's take a look at why banning these moves is ridiculous.

First of all, competitive Pokemon is a pretty fast paced game in itself.  Pokemon are trained to be able to deal massive amounts of damage.  Typically, if the defending Pokemon is not built to withstand hits, or has no specific defensive typing advantage, it will be KO'd by any standard and properly trained attack-oriented Pokemon within 1-3 hits.  One hit KO's from standard moves are commonly seen.  So if a person is using a fully trained damage dealing Pokemon KO's a Pokemon in one hit, nothing much is said.  But if a player uses a OHKO move and faints a Pokemon, they are seen as being cheap, a scrub, possibly cheating.  All around, they are looked down upon?  But why?  How is that they did any different?  Because the move was designed to rely on luck?  If this person consistently uses this move, than statistically they will average 3 KO's out of 10 total attacks.  This means that they are likely to miss 2-3 times when trying to use this move against someone giving the person using standard attacks plenty of time to deal with this threat.

It all evens out to be the same.  There is no difference between one person whittling down a Pokemon's HP over 3 turns to someone who uses a OHKO move and misses 2 times before landing it on the 3rd.  And in a tournament setting, using OHKO moves over and over again will statistically result in the person losing most of their matches.  Because while they will occasionally get lucky and land a KO on the first use of the move, subsequent uses will reveal the inconsistency of the move and allow competitors to destroy this person.  So why care if someone is using shitty moves?

The answer is that it damages the pride of a Smogon user when a person KO's their precious Pokemon, which they spent hundreds of hours breeding and training (or 12 seconds creating in a simulator).  They just cannot psychologically handle someone whom they consider lesser than themselves, be it because of their experience with competitive Pokemon, sharing or not sharing the Smogonites hivemind viewpoints on competitive battling, or not putting as much time and effort into Pokemon defeating them.  It is unthinkable to allow this to even have the tiny percentage to happen.  How sad is this?  Truly it is a depressing state of affairs.

So instead of letting newbies try these moves, occasionally get lucky, and lose the tournament over all, these moves are banned.  Because letting a scrub land a lucky KO on a pro's Pokemon is utterly unthinkable.

Then there is the issue of banning evasion boosting moves.  There is a stat in Pokemon called evasion.  Basically, after the attacking Pokemon's move is calculated to hit or not based on it's accuracy and other factors like held items or abilities, a second calculation takes place involving evasion.  Normally it is neutral, so a move with 80% accuracy should hit 80% of the time.  But if a move like Sand Attack is used, the evasion is reduced, causing the accuracy to reduce below 80%.

This usually isn't a big deal, because moves like this allow you to simply switch out and regain full accuracy.   However, there are two moves that do not reduce your opponent's accuracy levels, but rather, increase your own.  Minimize and Double team are these moves.  When used, the Pokemon's evasion stat is raised, which in turn lowers the opposing Pokemon's accuracy.  The true power of this is that it doesn't give the other player any control of their accuracy.  Switching out doesn't solve the problem, and if you do switch out, you are giving the opponent another chance to Double Team or Minimize again.  This drastically increases their survivability and decreases yours.  If you can't hit the opposing Pokemon, you can't KO it, and the more turns you spend attacking it, the more chances you have of being attacked.

So on the surface, you can see how this could be an extremely powerful strategy, and how it might be considered good enough to be banned.  However, unlike Sleep status, you don't have to rely on items or 1-2 moves to combat Evasion.  There are a plethora of moves of many types that allow you to hit a target no matter what, evasion be damned.  Swift is one, Ariel Ace is another.  This is one way to counter evasion.  Another is abilities.  No Guard allows the enemy to be unable to avoid hits.  There is a move called Lock On which makes your next move hit 100% of the time.  Then there are moves like Hone Claws and Coil, which also boost accuracy.  There are held items that boost accuracy.  And there are moves like Haze which nullify all stat changes.  Finally if you can force the Pokemon out of the ring with moves like Roar, you can eliminate any evasion used.  So there are a ton of overlooked strategies for dealing with a Double Teamer.  Also  the fact that only these two moves can raise evasion, and are limited to a specific number of Pokemon also makes dealing with this strategy manageable.

So why is it banned?  Again, it is because of Smogon Pride.  A Smogonite can never allow a 'lesser' to best them in even one battle.  And if that means banning an entire strategy tree, then so be it.

These are a few of the most important ways that Smogon University, and communities that rely on it, are killing the competitive Pokemon community.

Next Generation Consoles Will Be Always Online and Have DRM. (Also, Fuck XBox One Sympathizers)

I am telling you now, that if there indeed are video game consoles after the Sony Playstation 4, the Microsoft Xbox One, and the Nintendo Wii U, that they will be crippled with DRM, non tradeable games, a dead aftermarket games industry, and always online requirements.  This is for certain.
Assuming that we still have home consoles being produced by these companies (or other companies) and are not all simply playing games on a computer through proprietary game streaming and cloud computing services, it will happen.  (Picture services like Steam, but for Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft.  All offering to sell their games digitally and let you stream them.  They will probably have a monthly service charge, and each company will probably produce a controller specifically for their service.  But the base system will largely just be a computer.  This is a likely scenereo for video gaming to occur.  The death of the proprietary home console.  I digress)

What people cannot forget is that Microsoft tried to get all of this Draconian shit on their console.  They TRIED.  It doesn't matter if they backpedal now, they still had every intention to fuck the gaming public up until and for weeks after unvieling their platform.  They cannot ever be forgiven for this.  The only reason they had to abandon these policies is because Sony was keeping their shit in check.  They had their hands tied by forces outside their control and were forced to make these changes or bankrupt their gaming division.

We're Microsoft.  We don't fuck the world, we..well, wait.  Yeah.  We do fuck the world.

The point is, I guarentee you that if Sony had done the same thing, Microsoft would not have stopped their crippling anti-consumer bullshit.  Not for a second.  Alway remember how much Microsoft wanted to fuck you (and still does) when you think of buying an Xbox One.
Sadly, this might just be inevitable.  Assuming we don't go the streaming service PC route outlined above, the fact is that physical media is a dying notion.  Physical media represents the right of the consumer.  The right to call wht you have yours.  To say, "I own this game." (Even though you don't technically own the rights and are just licensing it, for all practical reasons you 'own' your copy of the game.)

It represents the freedom to take the game with you, over to a friends house.  To sell it.  Trade it.  Gift it.  The ability to buy it used at a reduced rate when it isn't as popular or current.  The ability to say "I have all of my data right here, right now.  I only need my console, a TV, and my game to play.  I do not need the Internet to play my game unless the company I bought it from is trying to fuck me."
But physical media is quickly becoming obsolete.  First, data transfer rates are increasing rapidly.  Look at Google Fiber.  Whereas before, it was unthinkable to be expected to download a 6 gigabyte game and not have a physical retail copy available, the time when it is feasible and reasonable is fast approaching.

Second, you have two forks in the road with regard to game storage.  On one hand, hard drives are getting bigger and cheaper.  To the point where a drive could contain dozen of games, if not more.  Most people would rather have their games on hard drive and easily accessable as opposed to toting around a bunch of discs/gamecards.  Even future hologram discs that hold terabytes of data.  The gaming market is aware of this and the technology is coming together.  And on the other hand, the notion of storage itself is being challenged with the advent of streaming.  It is possible for a computer cluster to host all of your games, then stream a broadcast of them directly to you.  Think of what Netflix did to movies.  Streaming will do the same to video games.

But with this technology, we find our rights as consumers stripped.  When our games are all digital, we have no claim to what happens to them, except that they are consumed by us.  Which is exactly what the companies want.  Full control of every aspect of their games, they want to spoonfeed us the content on their terms as if we were infants.

Without physical media, you cannot trade.  You cannot sell.  You cannot borrow (without physically moving your console or sharing your account info, the latter of which is easy for companies to control). There will be no used games market.  The only price for games will be whatever arbitrary price point the cmpany chooses to anchor to and sell at.

Streaming of course requires an always online connection.  And by the time these consoles are released, it will be assumed that everyone has an online connection.  So even traditional downloading of games and saving them to hard drive based consoles will enact an always online requirement to tackle DRM and ensure you are aways exposed to their storefront, and they can always monitor your activity and habits for marketing purposes.

And finally, the system itself.  With always online systems, you will be forced to accept any update or EULA or policy change they throw at you, or you will be unable to use the service.  And when the time has come for these services to be shut down, when keeping the servers up is no longer profitable, you will not even be able to play all of the games that you bought.
Even if they implement a system or patch right before the servers go down that let's you play all of your games offline, once that system's hardware fail, you're SOL.  Working offline systems will be like relics.  A Pandora's box of games only to be played until the hardware dies.  Never to be played again unless someone years and years from then creates an emulator.
Can you see the dystopian hell that ineviably awaits us all? 

Why Some People Suck at Magic (But Are Still Victorius)

If you take a look at the top 10 Magic decks at the 2011 Wizard World Qualifier (TCQ) in Atlanta, Georgia, you'll see that four of the top eight decks that placed were Caw-Blade variants.  See for yourself here.  A similar trend can be spotted all across competitive Magic.  The question is why?

Secunda: "Well put simply, with the limited card pool in the current block, there can only be a limited number of effective deck types."

If this were true, then the metagame would see an equal number of opposing anti-meta decks.  This however is not the case.  Instead, we see deck after deck completely the same, save for some minor sideboard tweaking.  The real reason why there is such a lack of diversity in the competitive environment and deckbuilding is because of the rampant and endlessly spreading scourge of netdecking and copying.

When a new pool of cards is released, the metagame undergoes a rapid flux of change as dominant deck types emerge.  A young asian child is tirelessly working strategizing and combining each and every card, and studying and quantifying each result mathematically to determine the most effective deck.  Once this information is released, it is spread across the internet on various websites and forums until it is well known, and players are well-versed in the combos involved.

Mana Leak is good

This new deck becomes the dominant archetype, and all others fall behind.  But why?  Why is it that no other deck type ever seems to be able to turn the tides quite as much to be able to be a threat statistically?  The answer is that the majority of people quite frankly, aren't that bright.  And this majority is especially susceptible to what is called the "bandwagon effect."  From Wikipedia:

"...is a phenomenon—observed primarily within the fields of microeconomics, political science, and behaviorism—that people often do and believe things merely because many other people do and believe the same things. The effect is often called herd instinct, though strictly speaking, this effect is not a result of herd instinct. The bandwagon effect is the reason for the bandwagon fallacy's success."

 

Essentially, it goes like this: "Jimmy uses Black Luster Soldier, and he wins games.  Therefore if I want to win games, I should use Black Luster Soldier."  Regardless of how good or bad Jimmy is, the fact is he wins his games, and he uses BLS.  So a player, let's call him 'Jordan' decides that he's going to make a deck using BLS.  Again, whether or not Jordan or Jimmy are good players doesn't matter, because at this point all victories can only be attributed to how powerful the BLS deck itself is.  The more and more victories won using overpowered cards, the more people will use these cards, regardless of how good they are as a player.  And this spreads exponentially until the entire meta-game is ruined for people who don't wish to copy-paste-print the decks the use from a site.

It gets to a point where every competitive player is using BLS and winning games instead of actually looking at cards and finding out new combos and ideas to try themselves.  It's as if they are simply miming the game and playing on auto-pilot instead of actively contemplating their decisions.  Kind of like driving a car, but not knowing how to build or repair the car.

"Sword of Feast and Famine without paying?  Brilliant!"

If a person is using an imbalanced deck and wins, it is human nature for that person to assume that they are in fact better than their opponent.  However, if you were to give this person a random assortment of cards and told them to construct a deck out of it, they would be forced to show their true competence as a player.  If they are clueless, then they frankly suck at the game.  If they try to emulate the dominant deck type from the given cards, then they are still lacking the intellect and skill to create new and dynamic decks. At the end of the day, almost all of Magic and gaming in general comes down to imitation. Imitate what works, instead of finding new ways to make it work.

Top 10 Worst Yu-Gi-Oh Cards Of All Time

Starting off this week, I would like to present the top 10 worst cards in the history of the Yugioh franchise.  The cards are not only terrible in the general sense, but also abhorrent to your gameplay and will almost certainly set you further back than Jesus Christ's Second Coming. (splooge)

10. Fusionist

For those of you who don't know about Konami's many year struggle to convince people to use Fusion Monsters, this card is the epitome of why fusions just totally blow.  You need at least two monsters, and one Polymerization spell card to summon just one Fusion Monster.  That's three cards you're out for just one, so you'd better hope that that one card is a helluva good card.  You'd also better hope that that fusion monster you just blew your hand on can make up for the loss.  So we're talking at a minimum, a high enough attack to destroy commonly summoned monsters.

Does Fusionist have either of those qualities?  No.  Embarassingly no.  In fact, Fusionist is so weak, he is actually shittier than almost any common level three monster, let alone non-effect monsters.  Instead of demolishing your hand, you'd be better off just summoning the head of Exodia.   

9.  Firebird

Firebird is one of those cards you pull out of a booster and just look at.  Look at, and think why?  Why would a multimillion dollar company design a card so terrible?  It just doesn't make any sense.  First off, Firebird gets an attack boost.  Okay, well looking at it's base attack, it's safe to say that it's going to need at least one boost to have a decent chance of killing anything.  But what's this?  My Winged-Beast monsters must be destroyed first?  Que Little Jon's "WHOAT!?"  Right out of the gate, you can see where this is going.  Obviously your opponent isn't going to attack another of your monsters just to get this little fucker up to 1500.  No.  They're just going to attack it.  And it's going to be destroyed.  And no, Jimmy.  It won't get an attack boost in the bowels of hell as it burns it's last flame.  Fuck you.

Even a strapping young duelist wanting to take the initiative is going to have to ram his own men into a suicidal jihad during his own turn to make Firebird strong enough to kill anything.  This is even worse than terrorism, because at least then you only need 1 bomber to die to deal over 2000 damage to infidels.

8. Gate Guardian/Great Moth

When people ask me about my atheism, they often assume that I arrived at that position because of logical arguments, personal experience, or just plain rebellion. The answer is much simpler than that, actually. Gate Guardian exists. Therefore, God does not exist. It's that easy. No god would create living, thinking creatures in his own image who would also create a card so impossible to summon with such a little reward. No, my children. No.

Summoning Gate Guardian requires three level seven or higher monsters, which themselves require two tributes. With only one monster able to be normal summoned per turn, it's going to take you a total of nine turns of completely un-interrupted summoning to summon Gate Guardian from your hand. That's nine turns of no Bottomless Trap Hole, Torrential Tribute, Dimensional Prison, Dark Hole, Fissure, Smashing Ground, attacks, etc. A monster is lucky enough to last one turn in a typical game, let alone the two or three it's going to take to be tributed.

And let's say you take a shortcut and just special summon Sanga, Kazejin, and Suijin. The easiest ways would be Star Blast or Mausoleum of the Emperor. And since you need all three at once, you're going to have to sit through many turns of useless hands until you draw the right combination. Even then, you'll have no hand or field left. Just one big, fat, juicy mistake. Oh, and for PUGM: just read the effect. Then look at the cards mentioned. It's just turrble.

7. Darkness Approaches

What the hell does this card even DO?  Just read it, and realize that at least 2/3rds of your life has been a lie.  A monster in hand can only be in one of four positions: attack mode, defense mode, face-down defense mode, and missionary.  You can even change it from attack to defense mode, or vice versa if you like.  This card, however, asks you to pitch two precious cards from your hand to do what amounts to discarding your hand, smiling at your opponent, and tickling your card with one finger and making an annoying squeaking noise with your mouth.  Seriously, WTF Konami?

And also, as cool as you think putting your Cyber Dragon in face-down attack mode is, you're in for a little surprise as well.  Your opponent already knows what's face-down.  So your little masking charade amounted to little more than JACK SQUAT.  Even if you tried to be clever and flip a Slate Warrior face down to get the attack boost, he wouldn't receive it until after being flipped and damage calculation.  So this card is literally useless unless you like to be one of 'those people' who just has to do something different just because it's different, but ultimately pointless.  Psh.  More like dorkness approaches.

6. Two-Pronged Attack

Your Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning and Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End are staring down the shadow of the latest Super Omega Ultratronic Megathousand Synchro LV 20 monster that snotty little shit at the tournament pulled and all the kids are using.  You have to act, and you have to act fast.  So what do you do?  Well maybe, just maybe you decide that instead of simply winning the game instantly with your available resources that you so carefully added to your deck, and skillfully positioned to defend your life points and break down your enemy's defenses, you will instead sacrifice everything to kamikaze your board to finally end that little kid's reign of terror.

COMBINING THE ENERGY OF MY CREATURES, I ACTIVATE TWO-PRONGED ATTACK, DESTROYING MY CREATURES AND DESTROYING YOURS!  VICTORY IS ASSURED WHEN YOU MAKE SACRIFICES!  NGYYYYGAAH!

You are left with an empty field, and your opponent summons Junk Synchron and you lose.  Good game faggot.

5. Fairy Guardian

Sometimes when thinking about this card, I have to wonder if it really was as shitty as I remembered it. I think, "No, it couldn't just work with spells. There is no way it's that bad. No way." But, each year when I dust off my old book of memories I get a disgusting surprise when I read this card's effect. Its shittiness and stench travel through the winds of time, pissing off gamers and environmentalists alike that something so worthless could be made from beautiful life-giving trees and sold at a 10,000% markup from its original cost to spoiled 10 year old dicks who were hoping to get their hands on a shiny new Stardust Dragon.

Fairy Guardian is bad. Pants-shittingly bad. It's scraping a whole new bottom of the barrel than the other cards I've listed so far. The other cards were bad, to be sure, but at least with those you might be able to come out ahead. In 100 games, roughly 15 of those the above cards could help you or at least be used. But this card... This card is not only one of the hardest cards to use. It's also the hardest to get anything out of. Even if you do manage to activate its effect, the chances of being able to utilize the card you 'recovered' are slim to none. Just look at it like this: you need at least one spell card in hand, this monster summoned, and your opponent has to have one reactive S/T destruction card such as Dust Tornado set. Either that or some negation. Then, after you have all that taken care of and your opponent has decided to destroy your set or active continuous spell and you have tributed Fairy Guardian, you STILL have to find a way to get that card to your hand from the bottom of the deck. The only way I can think of would be to use Convulsion of Nature to flip your deck, then use Upstart Goblin to draw it. That's an 18 card combo which assumes your opponent can get your spell destroyed DURING your turn. It's just insane. You're much better off just recovering the spell with something like Magical Stone Excavation or something. And don't say to just use Gold Sarcophogus to grab it either. Because if you have Gold Sarc in your hand, you might as well just grab something useful in the first place. Don't let this fairy guard any of your prized possessions. Because they will just end up coated with shiny feces.

4. Thunder Crash

If you haven't guessed already, it's all downhill from here for card quality. Thunder Crash is a crime against humanity and all that is decent and holy. For the mere price of your field, you can inflict up to 1500 direct damage to your opponent. It's not that sacrificing monsters to inflict burn is bad. Just look at Ring of Destruction. It's amazing and it was banned. It's just the fact that you only get a measley 300 per monster destroyed. This is just horrible. With those monsters you could have defended your life points, summoned a synchro monster, summoned a fusion monster, summoned a ritual monster, destroyed other monsters, destroyed other cards, and much much more. It's trivially easy to inflict 1500 battle damage with one monster, let alone two, three or four. This card is literally useless and a terrible play at any stage of the game. Unless of course your opponent only has 300 lifepoints remaining. But even if that were the case, you'd me so much better off just using Tremendous Fire. Even Sparks is better than this trash.

3. Jigen Bakudan

Ahh, good old Jigen Bakudan. If you're like most people, you remember seeing this card as a kid but never really understanding how it worked or ever using it. And you were right for doing so. Like Thunder Crash above (Thunder Crash still ranks worse than this because it was released relatively recently.) this card has you sacrificing your field to do damage. But get this: it's a flip effect. And it can't be destroyed after it is flipped to get its effect. AND it doesn't even tribute itself. You're being cheated out of a whole 100 damage because of how much this card blows. Let me give you a run down of how bad this card is. Step 1. Have at least 1 other monster summoned. Step 2. Set Jigen Bakudan. Step 3. Have Jigen Bakudan get flipped without being destroyed. (Waboku, Shrink, Hedge Guard) Great. Now you have an empty field and your opponent has a little less life. This card is just so bad because the set up required to make it at least worth it is just far too much. You're looking to invest some 3-4+ cards for some mediocre burn damage. You're better off just using Magic Cylinder or Ceasefire. You'd have to be a baku to use this one, Dan.

2. Tainted Wisdom

If you thought the shitmare was over, you're in for a rude awakening. With only two cards left, you'd better believe I'm about to take you on a journey of fail and regret. Just look at this card. You'd think that a card modeled after a human brain would at least have an interesting effect, right? WELL YOU WERE WRONG! Here we have Tainted Wisdom. A card so bad that it actually doesn't do anything at all. It's so brilliantly useless and non-threatening that you could actually confuse and baffle your opponent just by using it. "He summoned Tainted Wisdom with Mystic Tomato. And I think he's going to put it in defense mode on his turn. What is he trying to do? Is this come kind of combo? Is he going to fuse it into Skull Knight? I'm scared..."

Nobody knows why you would use this card. Or what you could possibly be planning by doing something as innocuous as shuffling your deck. I'm sure you could just ask your opponent at any point in the game if you could just shuffle your deck. And even though it's against the rules, I don't think they would mind. It's like having an effect to randomize the cards in your hand or extra deck. Or move around Scapegoat tokens. At any rate, this is best used to build psychological tension and keep your enemy guessing. Or laughing.

1. Yado Karu

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you by far the worst card in the history of the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game. Yado Karu. This card is incomprehensibly bad. At no point, under no circumstance, and for no amusmement could you benefit from using this card. You start your game with six cards drawn, and you only get to draw one card per turn. So basically, you're throwing away the cards you've already drawn from your deck back into the hardest place to retrieve them: your deck. It's the equivilant of refusing to draw your opening hand, and instead opting to put a 900 attack monster out there in the open. With even LESS options to protect it. Seriosuly, what in the fuckity fuck? This card is so shitty it is fucking with my spelling. Set this card, and forget it. On fire, preferably.