Why does no one play the Fire and Ice hands anymore?

Back in 2014 the fire and ice hand cards came out (Fire Hand, Ice Hand), which have the effects that when either of them is destroyed, they get to destroy one card on the field and then special summon the other one from the deck. With fire hand destroying monsters, and Ice hand destroying spell or trap cards. And neither of their floating effects were once per turn, so if you summoned a fire hand and then crashed it into your opponent's monsters, you could pretty easily pick apart your opponents board for a single normal summon, and they were incredibly powerful and useful during this era of the game. However, they see absolutely zero competitive play nowadays. So why does nobody play the fire and ice hand cards anymore? Well, the game has kind of evolved to the point, where if you need to normal summon a monster from your hand to get an engine online, it's considered to slow. The Spright cards all special summon from the hand, as do the Kashtira, and the Tearlaments cards special summon by sending cards to the graveyard. Basically if a card can't special summon itself from your hand, deck or GY, then it needs extra resources to get it out on the field, and if you're expending extra resources to get a card out from your hand or deck, it better be game winningly powerful like Archlord Kristya. Plus most engines can pick apart your opponents board anyway without requiring fire and ice hand, which was not the norm back in the day.

editing by @ParfaitOperationalGuidebook
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#yugioh #shorts

[Weareonenation]

Duelinglogs in 2050: Why no one plays Graceful Charity.

[youtubeuniversity]

At this point "normal summons" are far more special than special summons are...

[OneOfTheLoveless]

Imagine your card game has a 'normal' and a 'special' summon and special is the normal one.

[nomisangle]

I remember the moment when people said battle sent to GY is slow was referring to element recruiters when knight of Armageddon came out

[LReezy]

I love how the Traptrix structure came with copies of the hands as well as Moraltach as a reference to the old HAT deck.

[SlumericanXX]

Translation: If you don’t special summon 10+ monsters in your first turn and keep your opponent from playing, your deck is too slow

[LiquidArmProduction]

Old school player trying to get back into the game: I normal summon…
Modern player: you what?

[GH-unuz]

hilariously, even in retro formats the hands arent really played anymore, since in slow formats where the hands are king, you can actually get more success playing slightly greedier combo decks since you can more consistently get an extra turn to draw/setup the pieces

[Scarnehu]

"If you need to normal summon a monster from your hand to get your engine online, it's too slow"

A summation of why I can't get into modern yugioh. The dead sprint of power creep from not having a rotating format has made it impenetrable for new/returning players

[gatocochino]

The fact that they can miss timing or require a normal summon are often metioned as the reasons of why nobody plays the Hands, but the fact that you are unlikely to have monsters in attack position to crash into turn 2 is probably the main reason why they're not viable anymore.

[CdGrifter]

Power creeping has gotten so bad in Yugioh that normal summons are now more special then the special summon. Special summoning might as well be a universal rule for every monster nowadays. They all do it for the most part

[kauanjos]

I don't think normal summons became "slow" i think the fact that ice hand and fire hand got powercrept because of low attack points and more effects that bounces monsters back to the hand or deck. So you can't just stall with 6 monsters

[Aaroncarter]

When it comes to a point you dont even need a normal summon to break the game, i think it's time to reset.

[ManuelRiccobono]

I am scared that we will arrive to a power creep where summoning monsters from the deck for free would be considered weak. We either win during our first draw or we scoop.

[neonoah]

Konami was so scared of thrse 2 that they decided to give only 1 copy of fire hand in duel links... Even though this combo would 100% be considered weak.

[kennydarmawan]

Fun fact: There's also Thunder Hand, which synergizes with the two cards.

[wanderlustwarrior]

202X: Why no one plays Sixth Sense
If it's not a 0TK, it's too slow.

[saskara]

You know something is wrong when aliester normal summon is categorized as slow

[SangaXD]

Additionally: 1) If you draw multiples then it's bad. 2) If you play 3 Ice Hand and 3 Fire Hand, that's 6 card slots taken up when they could be anything else (ex. handtraps, board breakers), and if you only play 2 of each, they're probably not even worth playing. 3) Most decks want to use their Normal Summon on something, even if they Special Summon a lot, which conflicts with the hands. 4) Effect negation can stop the hands.

[leonfire]

I was wondering why these were considered good when looking at old decklists and watching progression series. I guess that explains it.