Hello Yugioh Community! I am back with another exciting article for all of you Yugioh player’s out there! There is a lot going on in our Trading Card game world right now! The world championships just concluded with Agents taking the victory! It is always exciting to crown a new champion! Hopefully someone from North America will be able to capture a title soon since we have yet to do it, but only time will tell. None the less, congratulations to Takashi Ogawa from Japan he is the 2011 Yugioh World Champion! Now that I have got that out of the way, let’s take a look at what I want to discuss this week.
Question of the Article: Do you think the Extra Deck limit should be increased?
Don’t forget to answer the question in the comments below!
“My Extra Deck is too small” – An Extra Deck History
No matter what they say, size (at least in Yugioh) does matter. Back when Yugioh started there was no limit on the size of the fusion deck. Player’s could run 3 copies of any and all fusion type monsters that ever existed. Once cards like Metamorphosis and Magical Scientist became popular, there was really no reason to not use as many fusions as you could find. Even if a player was limited to only using 60, it became something silly to look at when deck list were written out at top level events. There was really no strict limit on the fusion deck because the cards you used in your deck limited you to the amount of fusions a player could bring out. Outside of a couple of cards that I had already mentioned, fusions were not easy to bring out so there was no real reason to restrict players and make them choose which ones to use. In fact, back in the day 15 different fusions would probably have been more than enough, but at last there was no real reason to have this rule in place. Let’s take a look at Evan Vargas Fusion Deck from SJC Los Angeles.
Fusion Deck: 40
3 Thousand-Eyes Restrict
3 Dark Balter the Terrible
2 King Dragun
1 Gatling Dragon
3 Ryu Senshi
3 Dark Blade the Dragon Knight
2 Reaper on the Nightmare
3 Dark Flare Knight
2 Fiend Skull Dragon
2 Ojama King
2 Mokey Mokey King
1 Master of Oz
2 Musician King
1 Sanwitch
2 Dragoness the Wicked Knight
2 St. Joan
1 Humanoid Worm Drake
3 Karbonala Warrior
1 Darkfire Dragon
1 Charubin the Fire Knight
As times changed and the summer of 2008 rolled around a new type of monster was introduced into the game, Synchro monsters. We all know how much these guys changed the game and with their release two new limits were created and added to the rules of Yugioh. No deck can exceed 60 cards and no “extra” deck could have more than 15 cards. This rule was mandatory because otherwise players would have an endless amount of options to bring out every Synchro monster that would be released. This was not much of a problem for players as it was always pretty easy to fit everything you needed. Let’s take a look at an extra deck from the Tele-Dad era.
Extra Deck: 15
3 Stardust Dragon
1 Black Rose Dragon
2 Magical Android
2 Thought Ruler Archfiend
2 Red Dragon Archfiend
3 Goyo Guardian
2 Colossal Fighter
As time moved on more powerful Synchro monsters came out and choices like only using 1 copy of Stardust dragon,1 copy of Black Rose Dragon, taking cards like Thought Ruler Archfiend or Red Dragon Archfiend out for room, and more recently even cutting cards like Colossal Fighter that used to be a must have. Yugioh players began to feel the squeeze of the small extra deck space, but it would only get tighter. Let’s take a look at an extra deck fromYCS Rhode Island.
Extra Deck: 15
2 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Stardust Dragon
2 Formula Synchron
1 Armory Arm
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Magical Android
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Iron Chain Dragon
1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
1 Shooting Star Dragon
1 Ancient Fairy Dragon
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
With Generation Force just being released this Tuesday yet another new type of card will have to share extra deck space, XYZ! These cards can be brought out with any monsters of certain levels and some are very powerful like No.17 Leviathan Dragon! These cards can be incorporated into any deck thus making players feel like they should be able to use all of the ones they can bring out, but with space so tight some decisions have to be made.
I wanted to go over the evolution of the Extra Deck to try and give all players an idea of how many feel about space in the Extra. Recently, a lot of players have been saying the Extra Deck limit should be increased from 15 to 20 because there is just too many cards that every deck can bring out and no way to fit them all. This statement is very true, there is no way to fit every card that your deck might possibly need to bring out into the Extra deck. In my opinion though, I do not think that the size should be increased.
As frustrating as it might be when you come to a situation in a duel when you need a card you cut from your Extra deck, it is still apart of deck building and making the right choices. There have been countless times my opponent will end their turn with a face up Cyber Dragon and a Machina Fortress equipped with a Machina Gearframe. While the player made the mistake of leaving up a Machine type monster and a face up Cyber Dragon, it ended up not making a difference because when I was building my deck I made the choice to not fit Chimeratech Fortess Dragon into my Extra Deck. These are the kind of choices that all players have to make and I believe are healthy for the game.
I see players on a lot of online forums complaing all the time about how powerful Synchro monsters are and how XYZ are just as good, but leaving the limit at 15 is a good way to keep this in check. While there may be 20 amazing Synchro monsters and 15 amazing XYZ, as players we have to know which ones to choose to use. The Extra deck limit adds another dimension to the game. It was a smart rule to put in place and it is one that should stay around.
Conclusion: Throughout the years, Yugioh has seen only a couple of actual rule changes. The limit on the Extra deck is one of them. I think it is one of the smartest choices that has been done to help fight off the power creep from this game. While it might take away from the value of cards like the new prize card, it is still a rule that will keep this game healthy and now allow every deck to sit there and throw the kitchen sink at you. XYZ are very powerful and can be brought out by any monsters, but because of the limit players will have to either choose between No.39 Utopia or Steelswarm Roach, or possibly cut a staple synchro out to fit them both in. Either way deck building is an important key to being successful at major events and anything that promotes smart deck preparation is a good thing in my book!
Thanks for reading! Feel free to let me know what you think below and don’t forget to answer the question of the article at the top of this page!
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