Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

[Skull]

This has got to be the greatest response to Kaiba's Blue-Eyes Jet that seems to be popping up everywhere these days.

[Deathhappens]

Halqifibrax? How old is this video?

Wait, how long has it been since Halq bit the farm anyway?

[Spinach]

I can't understand the Floow hate, I really can't. They have exactly one gameplan and it's very easy for most decks to play around it.

Btw the answer is Raiza looping DShifter is, legitimately, a very uninteractive and one-dimensionally toxic gameplan. Flunder without DShifter is an inoffensive deck. Flunder going 1st, opening DShifter, and winning the duel instantly against 9/10 decks if your opponent isn't holding Gamma, is not good for the game.

[Deathhappens]

It's not really that different from Necrovalley or ZW, tbh. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Granted, you can technically pop those, but on the other hand Floo can't actually search DShifter.

[Spinach]

It is exactly not like either of those cards because most decks run the outs for those. Very few decks run the only handtrap that can answer DShifter. The fact that it isn't searchable doesn't change how cheesy it is to instantly lose without any opportunity to interact. They banned VFD for this reason, and VFD was something you had a chance to disrupt via a number of different handtraps. Lingering floodgates are bad game design. Sometimes flunder wins instantly if their opening hand has this card and sometimes they don't. Single-player card.

[Deathhappens]

If Floo was so prominent in the meta, more decks would run outs for it. When SwoSo was dominating people were running Token Collector to counter them (and Halqdon, sure). DShifter is a pain to face, but most decks can either counter it or play through to some extent.

[Spinach]

"it's unfun and interactive but since it's not meta and thus not popular it's fine"

In Plat or higher if I do 5 duels 1 or 2 will usually be Flunder. It's extremely good in MD because maxx c is dead in the hand vs it and not many decks want to run the few answers.

[Spinach]

The issue isn't flunder. It's DShifter. Flunder just happens to run DShifter because their game plan encourages it. When Exosisters are at full power in MD I'll be calling them a cocksucker deck too.

[Deathhappens]

"it's unfun and interactive but since it's not meta and thus not popular it's fine"

In Plat or higher if I do 5 duels 1 or 2 will usually be Flunder. It's extremely good in MD because maxx c is dead in the hand vs it and not many decks want to run the few answers.

I mean, anything meta is as unfun and uninteractive as possible so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ on that bit. Floow is popular mainly because it's dirt cheap and came with a pack literally stacked with meta cards everyone wanted something from. I'd still take playing under D-Shifter over some of the cancerous "no play allowed" endboards Adams or Drytron could make in past metas. VFD too.

I admit, I'm biased because I try to run my decks with as few handtraps as possible. I don't run D-Shifter in my Floo decklist either.

[Spinach]

I think most decks are interactive. Lingering floodgates like Protoss and DShifter are where I define uninteractive. For example, flip Skill Drain up. It can still be interacted with via removal. Put down barrier statue. It can still be beaten over or negated via something. These floodgates I call uninteractive can't be played with once they resolve. In a way I would call Droll uninteractive, but since it usually resolves on the victims turn it can be Called or negated via some other means.

[Katie]

I'd still take playing under D-Shifter over some of the cancerous "no play allowed" endboards Adams or Drytron could make in past metas. VFD too.

Playing under Dimension Shifter is the same as playing under a "no play allowed" endboard.

Every single deck in modern Yugioh from casual decks to meta ones heavily utilize the graveyard. On the lower end, Dark Magician eternally recycles DM with Eternal Soul and Blue Eyes often needs to resolve the effects of White Stone of Legend. On the more meta side of things, Dimension Shifter blows out Swordsoul, Albaz, Tri-Brigade, Adamancipator, Sky Striker, etc. Every modern deck simply can’t function if you lock out the graveyard. It’s even worse when Dimension Shifter also turns off all your hand traps, preventing you from interacting with your opponent’s board, as they play Floowandereeze or Exosister and ignore the drawbacks entirely. Dimension Shifter stops you from playing the game and from interacting with your opponent. It is the definition of a sacky floodgate for the decks that can run it.

Also, Floo is incredibly strong—it’s currently the third best deck in the TCG with no difference in card pool between that format and Master Duel, and in MD itself it’s absolutely a Tier 1 deck, Tier 2 at worst. It ignores Maxx C entirely as has been mentioned and with Advent being added you can blank the Imperms and Veilers that would stop your Robina and Eglen. Yes, it’s cheap, but it’s also strong for a wide variety of reasons. It ignores the strongest handtrap in the game, is hard to tech against, and can just sack your gameplan with Shifter.

And it can resolve Shifter more than once with Strix.

[Deathhappens]

Playing under Dimension Shifter is the same as playing under a "no play allowed" endboard.

That is decidedly untrue. All the decks you mentioned CAN perform under DShifter- not nearly to their full potential, but they CAN put up a board. No worse than playing under Maxx C, at any rate.

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To wit: SwS actually benefit from having their spells banished. Albaz can still search and use Branded Fusion, and Dramaturge/Ad Libitum of Despia can still resolve their effect when banished. Tri-Bri are pretty fucked since they can't use their usual Fraktall->Kitt->Nervall->Kerass line, but they can still go for XYZ plays with either Zoo or Lyrilusc depending on their playline. Not sure how Adams or Sky Strikers play out (I'm guessing SS at minimum are fucked due to not being able to send spells to grave or Link Raye away without losing her, but they can also set 5 pass) since I don't play them myself, but whatever they can do is still absolutely better than facing down 5 omninegates on the field+whatever handtraps your opponent has left.

[Spinach]

Swordsoul putting up a single negate under DShifter: "ayo check my board dog, I'm definitely not dying once you get your turn again"
Skystriker doing literally nothing because banishing any of those spells in their hand, or Raye, is game over: "ayo"
Tri-Brig when they literally can't activate any of their graveyard effects: " "
Albaz when they actually can fuse from banish and put out some ok stuff: "ayo check my board dog"

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but whatever they can do is still absolutely better than facing down 5 omninegates on the field+whatever handtraps your opponent has left.

Honestly no, in a game where Dark Ruler and Droplet are played, no. There are boardbreaker cards you can run, boardbreakers you have good reason to run, that you can stack your deck with to survive going 2nd into boards like that. There is essentially one handtrap you can run to answer Shifter, and it's semi-limited.

[Deathhappens]

So, just like playing under Maxx C then?

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Also gl using Droplet on 5 monsters and having anything left to make a play with. DRNM can potentially help, yes, but there's a good reason only dedicated going 2nd decks run it.

[Spinach]

If Maxx C couldn't be hit by Ash or Called By or Designator it'd be a fair comparison.

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Also gl using Droplet on 5 monsters and having anything left to make a play with. DRNM can potentially help, yes, but there's a good reason only dedicated going 2nd decks run it.

Show me the deck making 5 omninegates.

FTR I play a going 2nd pseudo-Dragonlink OTK deck and have never EVER had to get through 5 omninegates.

[Katie]

That is decidedly untrue. All the decks you mentioned CAN perform under DShifter- not nearly to their full potential, but they CAN put up a board. No worse than playing under Maxx C, at any rate.

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To wit: SwS actually benefit from having their spells banished. Albaz can still search and use Branded Fusion, and Dramaturge/Ad Libitum of Despia can still resolve their effect when banished. Tri-Bri are pretty fucked since they can't use their usual Fraktall->Kitt->Nervall->Kerass line, but they can still go for XYZ plays with either Zoo or Lyrilusc depending on their playline. Not sure how Adams or Sky Strikers play out (I'm guessing SS at minimum are fucked due to not being able to send spells to grave or Link Raye away without losing her, but they can also set 5 pass) since I don't play them myself, but whatever they can do is still absolutely better than facing down 5 omninegates on the field+whatever handtraps your opponent has left.

Even if your Swordsoul hand is playable (ie. you don't open Taia and Tenyis, which can’t do anything under Shifter) your Chixiao has nothing to banish for the negate, you don’t get value from Longyuan or Mo Ye, and you can’t make Chengying because he will have no fodder to protect himself. The highroll hand of Baronne/Qixing Longyuan + Chixiao + Blackout now has a dead card and you banished all the resources you would have loved to recur later on, meaning you get blown out if the board is outed.

As for Branded you only really make Mirrorjade? Tragedy can’t even search you Branded in Red, and neither can it resolve. Your board based disruption here is kind of sad.

Regardless I want to clarify my point. A board doesn’t matter if it can’t save you from losing, and what Shifter in this regard is either kill your ability to make a board or produce ones that are easy to break. Factor in you are probably playing under Empen and Dreaming Town as well when you go second, and you can understand why this is so obnoxious.

Also I am of the opinion Maxx C is similarly degenerate and produces a similar effect as Shifter 90% of the time if it resolved, but I feel Shifter is simply more egregious because it’s less generically splashable.

[Spinach]

dh:

[Deathhappens]

I mean, past a certain point it's just a matter of what you personally hate playing against more. I don't mind Dimension Shifter or Floo. I also don't mind Eldlich that much (even back when IO and Vanity's weren't banned) because at least with Eldlich you know when you have no outs to play. OTOH, back when Drytron was popular I just autoconceded as soon as I saw Alpha Thubanis because even if they lowrolled on fairies for Herald of Perfection it wasn't worth the time to play it out. Ditto with Adams and their five minute deck excavations.

[Spinach]

Personally, my preference is to play against fair cards and to avoid unfair cards

[Deathhappens]

What's a fair card, precious?