Worst Parts of Playing Each Card Game

Let me know what issues your favorite card game faces! Feel free to mention which games inspired them as well!

Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:39 Magic the Gathering
3:02 Yu-Gi-Oh
5:06 Pokémon
8:03 Hearthstone
11:32 Conclusion

[chuggajr]

It’s astonishing how Hearthstone so elegantly resolved a lot of issues with the other 3, but let RNG, Powercreep, and Microtransactions ruin it to such a point I would rather play ANY of the other 3 games mentioned here.

[TheRedGauntlet]

Worst part about Heartstone is that was made by Activision-Blizzard

[LodtheFraud]

These videos never miss - I’m a longtime yugioh player, but I’m so happy to finally be learning about these other games

[qweqwe]

Regarding the Yu-Gi-Oh section, the negatives you brought up are not at all relevant to how the standard format of the game has been played for at least the last 4-5 years. Nearly all trap cards are rarely played outside of niche trap focused decks due to powercreep making waiting one turn to activate their effects too slow.

The actual primary concern with losing on the draw in Yu-Gi-Oh is the ability for the first turn player to setup a board that prevents the opponent from playing on their turn (yes that's how bad it has become). In modern Yu-Gi-Oh this is usually done via negates, cards that outright prevent certain cards or effects from being used at all (called "floodgates"), building a so called "unbreakable" board that either is extremely difficult to actually destroy or can rapidly recover no matter the amount of damage done (although with this type of deck it typically doesnt matter if they go first or second outside of mirror matches), and/or even boards with effects that literally skip portions of the opponent's turn (or otherwise force them to pass/prematurely end their turn). In the last two years the meta decks have usually been able to accomplish two or more of these at once. If you ever revist this topic in a future video this would be the primary correction you'd need to make (assuming nothing worse becomes problematic by then).

[alexrivera]

Duel Masters offers a good alternative to land cards. Instead of drawing land cards, any card can play any card down as a resource.

[chain_havnis]

Many actually hate handtraps, but Yugioh's power level is so high that without them winning would be just a matter of who goes first. Then there's a deck that is designed to win going second AND plays handtraps.

[olivierdubois]

Legend of Runeterra is a good example of trying to improve upon Hearthstone's design. Almost from the beginning, they had "restrained" randomness that could only generate cards from a known pool. The Celestial "Invoke" is an incredibly well-designed mechanic that felt both rewarding for the player, and fair for the opponent (mostly).
It also tried to fix the concept of "turns" in card games, where one player has to wait for the other to finish their turn before they can play, and it led to a very interesting gameplay.
The game has other problems of course, but it really tries to innovate in a lot of areas.

[andreashuber]

Brother slow down and take a breather!! 🤣

This is the first time i had to SLOW DOWN a video on youtube.

You are not slim shady, don't run away with your words :D

[EvilCherry]

Only problems with Legends of Runeterra:
- They never figured out how to finance their game.
- They never figured out a good draft format.

Everything else about that game is just perfection.

[VanillaMidgetSSBM]

There is a game made by WOTC in the early 2000s that was effectively their way of getting Magic the Gathering interest to increase in Japan

It's called Duel Masters, it was released in the US, died immediately, then they RELAUNCHED it as Kaijudo, where it promptly died AGAIN. It still has support in Japan though so that is neat.

What it does differently from Magic is pretty cool. So it borrows a concept from Pokemon with the prize card system - Shields.

When you attack your opponent, instead of them having a Health score they have shield cards, these cards are the top 5 cards from your deck after drawing your opening hand. They are kept face down in front of you. A direct attack "breaks" usually one shield card, but some cards can do more. When you have no more shields a direct attack will cause you to automatically lose the game. When your shield card breaks, it gets added to your hand.

Some cards actually have effects that you can activate as soon as they get put in your hand after being broken as a shield. This helps alleviate the snowball effect Pokemon can have with Prize cards

The other thing they do is there are no dedicated "Land" cards. Cards still have Mana, however EVERY card is a Mana source.

The way resources in Duel Masters works is that you can play one card upside down so that the number at the bottom is upright, this turns it into a mana source. When you tap a mana source you gain mana equal to the number at the bottom of the card. In order to **cast** a spell or monster you have to use Mana equal to the casting cost of the card, and at least ONE of that Mana has to match the color of the card you are casting. So if a Red dragon costs 5 Mana, I can use 4 of any color Mana so long as that last mana is red.

[tindekappa]

The problem with pokemon is snowballing. That's bang on. Only you got the reasoning wrong. Yeah, you get resources and your opponent loses resources whenever you take a ko. That's completely irrelevant because you draw about 10-20 cards a turn in Pokemon. Either that or you can tutor for any card you want.
The problem is whoever takes the first ko often wins the game. That's because the pokemon deal too much damage. Almost every hit is one hit ko. When I started playing the game every deck was running potions, now people don't even know potions are in the game.

[lorenzo_tomaselli_art]

The actual way MTG tackles its land "flaw" is by having a meta almost exclusively revolving around cheap spells that do as much as possible for the mana they cost. The overwhelmingly majority of staples in MTG is under 3 mana, most of them being at 1 mana (cards like thoughtseize, spellpierce that sees more play than counterspell just because it costs 1 less mana, fatal push being arguably the best removal spell in the game, the iconic lightning bolt, a common creature like delver of secrets being played in every blue deck, and so on)
And when it does not, it aims to "cheat" the mana system by either ramping (getting ahead of your mana curve by playing extra lands or having means to generate extra mana) or by literally cheating big creatures or big spells in play by ignoring their cost through some card effects.
And when it does neither, it just uses utility lands as resource, there's a control deck in legacy that remains always viable if not strong that only runs utility lands.

[MDM-MDMX]

The solution is:
1 never play meta decks
2 play with your friends
3 play with your favourite and suboptimal strats
4 have fun because its a card game and unless you wanna earn money becoming pro, it makes 0 sense getting frustrated losing to the same decks again and again

[CodenameJD]

One of my favourite things about Digimon is how clear it is that the designers of the game have paid attention to all of these other games, and have tried to address them in the game's design. Digimon's resource system, memory, is a sliding scale from ten on your side, to zero in the middle, to ten on your opponent's side. The game starts at 0, meaning that on your first turn you could spend up to 10 memory and start with a really expensive card - but once the memory is at 1 on the other player's side, the turn will pass as soon as all abilities have resolved. Then, your opponent can spend 10 memory without even passing the turn, and could potentially spend a whopping 20 memory on a single play. This incentivises making smaller plays to pass less memory, but key cards in the game also help to mitigate that concern. The first player classically doesn't draw.

By default, Digimon have a similar effect to summoning sickness if they've been played that turn, with a keyword similar to MTG's Haste, that being Rush, allowing you to swing anyway, and another keyword, Blitz, allowing you to attack with that Digimon before the turn passes if you've exceeded memory, but they don't go hand in hand, so I don't believe there's currently a way to attack on the first turn.

The life system, Security, is also more limiting than a numeric point value. Similar to Pokémon, at the start of the game you set aside cards from your deck as your health, but they're reversed; where in Pokémon, you win by taking your prize cards, in Digimon you win by depleting your opponent's security. 5 cards to start, and every attack can remove one security card. There are ways to check more security cards, or slow your opponent by limiting their ability to check your security, or block attacks. However, you still need to make a final attack after removing the last security card. This means that while OTKs are possible, they require a LOT of setup without your opponent stopping it or killing you first. And, where in Pokémon by taking a prize card you're gaining resources whilst depriving your opponent of theirs, in Digimon, attacking security is risky; if the security card is a Digimon, it gets to battle the attacking Digimon and potentially delete it. Otherwise, many cards have effects when checked in security; Tamers play themselves for free, and Option cards can have various effects, from replicating the effects if played normally, to adding themselves to hand, to entirely unique effects to being checked. Some Digimon even have security effects, and might even play themselves for free after the security battle, so by removing one shield, your opponent could be down a Digimon and you could be up a Digimon.

As mentioned, absurd OTK combos are possible, but they require a lot of work, and the core gameplay mechanics mean that most games will constantly go back and forth.

I think I'd need someone else to help out with what's the worst aspect of playing Digimon, though, because I can only think of these positives right now 😅

[emanuilspasov]

Loving the content. Here's some tips:

- Get a pop filter or a dynamic mic (I'd go for a proper mic and a pop filter if you can)
- Learn some really basic EQing and compression, or search around for a preset-oriented approach for dialogue
- Slow down a tiny bit! I talk super fast too, but your words need to be audible above all.

[moncala]

I think you misidentified Hearthstone's system level problem. RNG isn't the issue, it's the solution. The issue in hearthstone is that it's too consistent without the introduction of that RNG.

Your deck size is small, the mulligan is generous, you're guaranteed a mana each turn, and you always have one hero power per turn. This leads to games that play out very similarly to each other at a base level.

So all of those factors force the game to rely on RNG to keep the game fun and exciting game in and game out.

[mauer]

spellbook of judgment is completly legal btw.
if all the cards you draw are in the endphase and they all do basically nothing its not that big of a deal.

[overweightactor]

00:42 "The problem with Magic: the Gathering is that cards cost-"

Too damn much money!

"-mana."

Oh, that, too.

Also, Mew EX has zero retreat cost because he's a pivot and a draw engine. He's not tanking anything with his 180 he. Pokémon that are actually meant to be walls have more hp and higher retreat costs.

[ericwells]

I'll add that the prize card mechanic in Pokemon also adds a level of RNG to the game that can really screw you over in some games. If your pieces necessary to get your engine started/take knockouts are prized, and you can't take knockouts until you get your engine started, your chances or winning are drastically reduced.
You can mitigate this issue with good deckbuilding but ultimately the prize card mechanic affects the quality of a LOT of games.

[yuseifudo]

I am loving your videos, it's so rare to find someone that doesn't take card games as a religion and only play one lol.