Will Yugioh GENESYS Succeed?
The Basics of Yugioh GENESYS
In an attempt to maintain its brand in the contemporary world and keep the yugioh tcg as a steady money making machine, Konami has introduced the GENESYS format. This is an alternate format to play the yugioh tcg that shaves off some of the biggest poisons the designers introduced but not really taking the game decades back either.
The basic rules are these:
No Link Monsters or Pendulum Monsters are allowed. All other cards are allowed. The original field layout is used, with no Extra Monster Zones nor Pendulum Zones.
The standard Forbidden & Limited Cards list is not used. All those cards can be used, except Link Monsters and Pendulum Monsters. Usual limit of 3 copies max of any card still applies.
Deck construction uses a point system. Some cards are assigned a point value; most cards cost zero points. The total point cost of cards in your Main Deck, Extra Deck, and Side Deck (combined) cannot exceed the point cap for that event.
The standard point cap is 100, but events can be run with any point cap, or even a zero-point cap! Official Tournament Stores can set their own caps for their tournaments.
While I'm sure some players actually do like Pendulum and Link monsters, for a vast number of us these mechanics are a big part of what ruined yugioh and for Konami to base this format with this foundation, you know this isn't just gossip from a vocal minority. A large enough player base really hates them and got alienated from the game because of them.
Does Yugioh really need this format?
What Yugioh needs depends on the player you ask, but the answer for the company behind the game, Konami, is always going to be the same. They need to keep a brand like this selling, and they can't do that effectively if interest keeps dwindling down. Not only that, but because of the complexity of getting into Yugioh in the first place and the lack of other strong outlets backing it like Pokemon, getting fresh players in has been a challenge for some time now. Especially young ones, which once upon a time that's what most of us were when we got into Yugioh. We fell in love with the anime and the characters that pushed the tcg in their medium and wanted to collect the cards and play the game too.
Pokemon has most definitely alienated a lot of its decade old fans too, but thanks to their constant new animes, games and other merchandise Pokemon has had no problem recruiting a new generation of fans so it's no issue for them. That's why that brand seems so unstoppable by comparison. Yugioh still has its legacy no doubt, but it's not really standing on the same footing as it once did with Pokemon. Even in the tcg department, which it used to dominate.
The new format, ironically and maybe appropriately called GENESYS is an attempt to get back players that stopped caring about Yugioh, but also to hopefully make it easier for new players to come in. Is it going to be enough though? Or at least as successful as Konami needs it to be? I could be proven wrong, but I do have my doubts and there are valid reasons for them.
The Point System and the Remaining Fundemental Problems
Getting rid off the Pendulum and Link mechanic completely is a huge boon, but I have to be objective and honest looking at the whole picture. These are not the only complicated and overpowered cards that have existed. Thanks to the introduction of the Pendulum mechanic in the first place; in late 2014 and into 2015 Konami had to start making your typical cards more and more broken so that they could keep up with the unfairness of the Pendulum mechanic. This means numerous cards that special summon themselves for free all day, numerous cards that let you add and recover cards from the deck and grave and easy to summon boss monsters with multiple overpowered effects. All on one card.
Worst part is, more and more cards got printed that could do more than just one of these jobs resulting in decks and engines that could turn your starting hand of 5 cards into 15 in one turn; through all the speical summons you got in that turn, cards added and recovered etc. This design philosophy wasn't just a brief phase, it has obviously persisted till the present day in order to force the competitive players to buy the new broken cards and win on the top tables. These cards are now in the tens of thousands and s simple banlist or point system cannot truly balance the game in any way nevermind giving it the same feel as a 2009 or 2010 format.
That's already problematic enough but it's not even the end of it. Imagine all the new broken cards with the old broken cards thrown in as well. It's only the natural way of things that the bigger the card pool, the more broken interactions and combos will be emerged. It's also why banlists have grown to a magazine size for years now and they don't really fix much either.
Which is why I have my doubts on this point system too. It only addresses around 500 cards for one and in my head a modern deck that can run 3 Pot of Greeds doesn't seem fair at all. This is why this makes me think this format will not end up givng players that gameplay flow from decades ago now so it's already doomed to interest a player such as myself. Now of course, if you're fine with all the overpowered cards as long as they're not Links or Pendulums then it might be no problem for you. However, this is not even a guess; I'm sure that this format will be broken in its own way and eventually will annoy people once more.
I stand by that a game that wants to include so many cards with no rotation, so many overpowered cards together at once cannot be ultimately balanced or resemble the game play flow that people fell in love with in the first place.
A Solution For the Players that's not a Solution for Konami
Yugioh has had a very long run and from 2002 to 2014, there are already numerous and more than enough formats and banlists for a player to jump between from and play for a lifetime. Goat and March 2010 (commonly called Edison) have proven there is demand for older formats and they can be successful. However, fixating only on them and perhaps on a few others is a missed opportunity if you ask me. Other older formats have their own charm, whatever the banlist may be so it's a shame they are being overlooked.
If Konami really cared about players they would just support more of these formats particularly on Master Duel which is an online game. The way I see it though, perhaps there's not much monetery gain for them in doing that especially in the physical game. Or perhaps it's too much trouble for them to support numerous older formats at once? Who knows.
The Real Solution
This could always beckfire and not work out. It may also seem sad and depressing for some old school players to hear. But it's this: For Yugioh to be an endless money maker like Pokemon it's more important for it to gain a new generation of fans to adore it. Unless Konami rigorously supports GENESYS and makes it just as important as the standard game it'll just end up as another alternate format that eventually fades out. Don't forget, they have tried to do this before with the Generation Duel format and probably other alternate formats that don't come to mind.
GENESYS will need products to cater to it, and new cards as well not just reprints. Most importantly the brand in general needs another hit anime to create a new generation of fans. A series that isn't only an ad to sell cards but has a great story and characters to appeal to people that have nothing to do with Yugioh. Yugioh 5DS is a good blueprint to mimick.
A lot of players that think like me won't have an interest in this format even if it doesn't include Pendulums and Links. I'd only play an actual retro format from the past or just play another card game I moved onto like One Piece. They can't just rely on getting the older player back. Who knows how many you're going to get back and for how long. They have to bring in a new generation of fans.
Will GENESYS Revitalize Yugioh?
Who knows. It might be a coppout answer but you never really have a guarantee. The response has been very positive and I have to be fair and acknowledge that. At the same time, I have outlined all the problems I see with it, or at least all the problems that matter personally to me. I am in the demographic this format wants to target, a format that doesn't have Links and Pendulums in it but it still failed to make that grand of an impression for me. I'm sure for many players it's the opposite. Either way, what you should take away form this article is that Konami isn't doing this as just an "extra". They have to make moves like this and plan for the future or else Yugioh will keep on becoming less and less relevant as a brand and tcg.
Thank you for reading this article and I hope you found it insightful. Whether you're excited about the GENESYS format or not, if you're interested in in the first 2 classic years of Yugioh (2002-2003) then look no further than my comprehensive guide book.
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