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Genericness ft. Aminals and Green Draw 2


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What is genericness in Yugioh? The easy answer would be that it's any card without ties to existing cards... but that's not exactly accurate, as modern YGO has shown us. Cards like Brilliant Fusion and Speedroid Terrortop are the furthest thing from having no ties, yet they see play as generic power engines through a wide range of decks. There are also cards like Kaiju, that can function as generic "removal spells" on their own, regardless of their archetype. That's not to say they're absolutely generic, but they're far from confined to single decks.

 

Now, there are cards that stand alone in terms of genericness, but that doesn't mean every generic card is of that sort. So, how about an example of each?

 

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The first is part of a multi-card power engine, whereas the latter is a stand alone that simply gives you free value. This pair of cards is actually the main thing I want to discuss today, as there are some parallels to be made.

  • Sources of cheap value.
  • Can be played in 90+% of decks, lowballing.
  • Little, if any, reason not to run them in said decks.

Before I go on, I've been saying for a while now that I think Zoodiac adds something to the game in its genericness: Innovation. While there are basic Rat combos, there's a lot of room for figuring out new plays and combos with the Rat, which Links have only served to showcase even more. It adds theory value to the game, in addition to its natural genericness, and I feel like, on some level, Zoodiacs are a positive element in the game.

 

Furthermore, there's their impact: Zoos are a "Tier 0" deck, but you won't hear nearly the amount of complaints about them that you would about other "Tier 0" formats, at least, not complaints that hold up to scrutiny. While they're strong as funk, the genericness and the ability for other decks (True Draco/King???, Noids, rogue Frightfurs) to fight back to a reasonable degree makes it less offensive than DAD, Dragon Ruler/Prophecy, or so on. Hell, those competing decks even have the ability to run Zoodiacs, if they so desire.

 

But, what does this talk of Zoos have to do with the Genericness topic? Well, let's go back to the other card.

 

Pot of Greed is banned for being as generic as it is. Very, very few decks would turn it down, if any, so all it serves to be is an X/40 that is 2 more cards in your deck, where X can be 1, 2, or 3. In the grand scheme, this is unfair, because it makes a card that puts you ahead for no devotion or effort, other than happening to draw into it. It wouldn't exactly break the game by being unbanned, but the luck element it introduces to the game is a bit too high.

 

Ratpier can be compared to this, as I showed earlier... However, Rat takes more devotion, both deck and board-wise, and effort in order to pull off the value it gives you, in exchange for guaranteed plays. With said devotion comes other factors, as well: Terrortop, Invoker, Drident, Lyca, Broadbull, Viper, Barrage, Tenki, and more engines/singletons. It is so easily accessed and has other connections, it creates a gamestate where it naturally exists as a goodstuff, and Links will only add to this.

 

This also means it can be tackled differently from Pot of Greed. Drawing 2 from a card with no engine attached means only that card can be the issue, but Rat is one of many cards you could look at in order to curb it without removing the good it brings to the game.

 

As I've mentioned in the past/others like Kook have mentioned, Ratpier serves as a Litmus Test for the cards in the game that are too potent. Terrortop is a big example of this, though the case could be made that it's on Invoker. Let's assume we're not going to pin the blame on Invoker, though.

 

Terrortop was ALWAYS good, for being a 1-card Rank 3 that didn't take a Normal Summon, provided your board was clear. An effect like that is obviously very strong, but people made the case that Top was in no way too strong for the longest time. Rat shows very much how that's not the case.

 

There's also Lavalval Chain. Sure, it was banned Pre-Zoo by about 1.5 years, but simply Theory-Oh! results in a single Rat becoming Chain + Drancia + Naturia Beast, and that's not even one of the strongest things you can do when Rat is enabling you.

 

Many times in the past, the Enabler has been accurately blamed in place of the Enabled, this is true. However, there are a couple things to consider before writing Rat/Zoo off as the immediate issue here:

  1. Rat enables Enablers. Top and Lavalval Chain are both examples, and I could continue listing them.
  2. Even if Rat is just enabling a card that isn't an enabler, Rat's genericness shows how the card is probably too potent in its own right, considering it's not even being catered to directly. Rescue Rabbit did similar, but in a much slower gamestate, and it wasn't entirely generic.
  3. Rat does more than simply enable those cards. This lends itself to Zoo being the issue again, but the issue could also simply be pointed at Barrage/Drident, for allowing Rat to be even stronger than it is on its own.

You can still say that this is far too generic. Despite everything, I don't think that Zoo is completely fine, not by any means. I just want to make the case for/points about what it gives us and how it shows. I don't need to list every last Zoo meme on the planet, because enough of them are out there, and it'd be beating a dead horse. Feel free to discuss Zoo, Pot of Greed, or just how genericness has gotten to the point of being the core of the game, as it has.

 

Speaking of, quick aside:

[spoiler=Xenophobic Designs]It's just a braindead way of "balancing" cards that do too much/are too strong. Konami being funking retarded and ruining weaker cards with Xenophobia clauses just shows how poor a design choice it is, considering how those cards then become garbage.

 

Raidraptors and Cardians are the most pertinent examples of this in modern days, and Konami even realized that the SUPER XENOPHOBIC WHOOOO approach to Cardians was a bad idea.

 

Ratpier doesn't show many Xenophobic cards or combos off, but the fact that they can't interact with something as utterly generic as Ratpier and Zoo really shows how little place Xenphobia has modern day.

 

Xenophobia is not the same as specific summoning methods, such as Bahamut Shark's WATER requirement. That's just giving things an edge.

 

 

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I just wanna say in regards to xenophobia, but wouldn't Digital Bugs be the better example? Considering they are, quite literally, the most xenophobic archetype to date?

I'm not sure I follow. I mean, they are REALLY poorly designed, but it's not as though the deck is limited to just digital bugs, and in fact some play bachibachibachi and inzektors. Cardian is pretty much play Cardian or die.

 

As far as genericness goes, it's basically the name of the game now. Zoo, Invoked, mowing to some extent, the predaplant engine (not to mention Instant Fusion itself being a sort of precursor), Brifu, the list goes on and on. Even though some of these engines aren't generic in the strictest sense, they can still be tossed into a large majority of decks and still put in work.

 

However, these all encourage a trend of using the extra less as a boss repository and more as a toolbox. While xyz being a thing post LVAL (or even earlier) already made this true, it's even more so today, especially with links right around the corner.

 

While there are degrees of "generic-ness", I feel like most of the prevalent engines nowadays are on the higher end of whatever sliding scale exists, sheerly because of how much they can advance your game state.

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What is an aminal? :v
 

What is genericness in Yugioh? The easy answer would be that it's any card without ties to existing cards... but that's not exactly accurate, as modern YGO has shown us. Cards like Brilliant Fusion and Speedroid Terrortop are the furthest thing from having no ties, yet they see play as generic power engines through a wide range of decks. There are also cards like Kaiju, that can function as generic "removal spells" on their own, regardless of their archetype. That's not to say they're absolutely generic, but they're far from confined to single decks.

 
Wouldn't these cards and engines also fall on the "genericness" label/classification? No need to complicate the term, IMO.
 
As for my opinion on genericness, I don't quite enjoy when generic cards/engines become too... centralizing, I believe it's the word, in the sense that they are so rewarding that they become the norm and shift the game into "play this card/engine or bust", as it is practically the case for Ratpier. And this is because, although you say it promotes creativity, I would say it crosses the line and ends up doing the opposite: it derails the game into "you must run this card/engine in your deck; bonus points if it sinergyzes with the deck".

Not to mention that the genericness of Ratpier enables it to merge quite effectively with other engines, further snowballing the centralizing effect. I mean, for example personally I'm ok with Terrortop engine producing a Rank3 without spending the Normal Summon, or the Predaplant engine producing a Fusion Spell + Rank3, but when those lead to Raptier through Invoker, then... yeah, it's too much power there IMO; but it's mostly the fault of Raptier and the sheer advantage it provides.

 

For the record, I have nothing against Tier 0 formats, and even enjoy the "secret techs", creative choices, and clever plays players can come up with in order to get the upper hand, but here I'm referring to the genericness of Raptier and how, despite being a single card, shifts an entire format towards it, due to its effect and the interaction if has with other cards of course.

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What is genericness in Yugioh? The easy answer would be that it's any card without ties to existing cards... but that's not exactly accurate, as modern YGO has shown us. Cards like Brilliant Fusion and Speedroid Terrortop are the furthest thing from having no ties, yet they see play as generic power engines through a wide range of decks. There are also cards like Kaiju, that can function as generic "removal spells" on their own, regardless of their archetype. That's not to say they're absolutely generic, but they're far from confined to single decks.

Surely then the easy answer can be modified to be a card or cards? Either the card is a standalone, like PoG, or Dimensional Barrier, or it is a small set of cards that can together function as a standalone element in a deck, ie, an engine.

 

Furthermore, there's their impact: Zoos are a "Tier 0" deck, but you won't hear nearly the amount of complaints about them that you would about other "Tier 0" formats, at least, not complaints that hold up to scrutiny. While they're strong as f***, the genericness and the ability for other decks (True Draco/King???, Noids, rogue Frightfurs) to fight back to a reasonable degree makes it less offensive than DAD, Dragon Ruler/Prophecy, or so on. Hell, those competing decks even have the ability to run Zoodiacs, if they so desire.

An easy complaint about Zoos that I'm sure many other tier 0 decks suffered from is that the price bar for playing competitively is rather high. Now I realise that some unusual decks like Chain Burn have topped a few times in Zoo format, but any conventional deck will become so much better with the addition of Zoodiacs that you have to play them to be relevant. This focuses demand on a much smaller set of cards than other, more diverse, formats. This drives up the prices.

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