Modern Yu-Gi-Oh is in a VERY good place right now.
I can't express enough how happy I am with where Modern Yu-Gi-Oh is today:
- Tier 1 Decks / Strategies (e.g. Ryzeal, Maliss, Fiendsmith) that aren't unbeatable, so the meta is wide with lots of variety in terms of viable decks / strategies (see recent tournament results).
- High-level gameplay is getting better, with games having more back-and-forth (as opposed to the 2019-2022 "break my 4-negate board or lose" style of gameplay we came to expect).
- Product is (slowly but steadily) improving, with the rarity collection sets and Konami even starting to experiment with OCG-like rarity structure for the recent Crossover Breakers set (i.e. cards available in multiple rarities, in this case more than usual and closer to how the OCG does it).
- Regardless of how you feel about DM Nostalgia: Blue-Eyes having a structure deck and being an accessible Tier 1 strategy is the perfect product for attracting both new and old players back to the game.
- Prizing at tournaments is slowly improving (it would improve further if they introduced prizes like exclusive alternate arts for competitive staples).
I hope Konami continues to learn from all the feedback they've gotten over the past few years (especially from the investors during the June 2023 investor call, where they highlighted how the one-sided modern gameplay was uninteresting to watch on tournament streams).
I know we have decks like Yummy on the horizon, but hopefully Konami continues to design these new strategies in a way where they can provide new and interesting gameplay without being too oppressive or unbeatable (i.e. No more Tearlament-style tier zero formats, they're objectively not good for the game).
What do you all think? Are you more/less satisfied with where the game is today compared to recent years?