I don't mind the 5 million actions per turn. I think it's a charming part of the game, though it 100% destroys the game for many new players. Unfortunately, as a casual locals guy, I've come to dislike the game for a few reasons.
The BIGGEST one is the huge gulf between meta and non meta decks. Ever since POTE, we've had repeated tier 0 formats or 2 deck formats like the current Ryzeal/Maliss meta. It makes playing with any other deck feel totally miserable. People don't want to bring their casual and rogue decks to locals because they have no chance at all into ryzeal, further increasing the ratio of meta to non meta players. It's almost at the point where it requires gentlemen's agreements to have a diverse local meta instead of the same two decks stomping around. How come the banlist and new card design aren't facilitating this kind of thing instead? With proper card testing these kinds of gaps between meta and rogue decks can be eliminated like we saw during unchained format around DUNE/AGOV.
Second is the PRICE. I won't say much but I think it explains itself. Why are people buying hundred dollar pieces of cardboard? Hello? It's not even for alternative art collectors pieces. The OCG has a great system where cards are available at both loe and high rarities, making all cards accessible for sane people while still giving insane people the ability to purchase stuff at high prices for that extra foil bling. The price of the game makes it deeply unappealing to try and play new decks and to purchase new staples to keep up with trends in the game.
Third is perhaps not a direct fault of the card game itself. Rather it's Konami. The company refuses to communicate with its fans or respond to their concerns, making them probably the most hated in the big three's TPC, WotC, and Konami, though WotC has been pulling some hilarious shit as of late too.
Fourth is the weird arms race to shrink your deck as much as possible to add as many handtraps and staples as you can. When I started playing back in 2019-2020, 6 handtraps was considered a reasonable number. Now 12 handtraps can be considered low? When I saw tenpai revealed for the first time, I chuckled, dismissed it as a battle phase archetype with not enough cards and moved on. Then I saw the decklists. Most of not all pre-ban tenapi lists were half handtraps/board breakers half actual tenpai. It rubs me the wrong way. It feels like you almost don't want to see your deck in your opening hand which feels very sad to say. The deck has been eroded in favor of staples. I think it worked for some deck like evil twins because you started out with your deck, summoned and thinned it a bit, then drew a card or two. It made sense with the fairly low power level the monsters themselves had. Now boards are like rabid dogs supported by a series of rocket launchers in the opponent's hand. I'd like to go back to 6-9 handtraps per deck. We're not supposed to be GOAT fomat where half the deck is decided before a single archetypal card is added
The laat factor is again the banlist or rather the large number of unfun cards not on there. For some reason, Konami insists on keeping some of the most unfun cards off the banlist. Cards that completely warp turns and can essentially be considered autowin cards. Essentially the following:
Dimension shifter
There Can Only Be One
Anti Spell Fragrance
Rivalry of Warlords
Skill Drain
Dimensional Fissure
Gozen Match
Harpie's Feather Storm
Cards that do these things like Masked Hero Dark Law
Probably many more that I'm not thinking about!
What is the point of keeping these things in the game. Single pieces of interaction can be baited or played into. These cards either linger or require specific removal that nobody plays like MST. Are they a meta threat? Usually not. Do they make the game better with their inclusion? Absolutely not.
There's probably more reasons I can conjure up, but these are the biggest gripes I've got with the game these days. Haven't really played at all since the Isolde ban since Infernoble was my pet deck. These days I've been mostly playing the digimon tcg. Extremely easy to learn, super cheap and pretty diverse metas compared to yugioh standards. The power creep has been ramping up these days a bit with some very silly and expensive cards running around, but I can count them on one hand, with only one really ruining the locals experience. I can't wait to see the fifty typos I've left after hitting post.
