AceMos posted...
what is this new format
https://www.yugioh-card.com/en/genesys/
https://www.yugiohmeta.com/articles/news/2025/sep/yugioh-genesys
Genesys is a new format introduced into the TCG (no idea when/if it's coming to MD) where there are no links, no pendulums, and no banned cards. Certain cards have point values, and you have 100 total points to work with when deckbuilding. The idea is that stronger archetypes cost more points, so they have less points to use on powerful generic cards, while weaker archetypes have little or no point costs, so they can make up for it by having more points to use on generics. Plus, previously banned cards can be played in this format, but many of them will take up most if not all of your points, so if you want to build around one insanely broken card, the rest of your deck won't be as good because that one broken card is taking up so much of your point total. That opens up some interesting deck ideas (like a Skull Servant deck using 95 of its 100 points on a single copy of Painful Choice) and some potentially very toxic ideas (like an Exosister deck using all 100 points on a copy of Shock Master, or a stall deck built around a 100 point copy of Mystic Mine) and the toxic side of that situation does make me a bit worried. They also use the point values as a pseudo banlist to essentially "complex ban" certain strong combinations of cards and FTK combos. Some examples:
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Bahamut Shark is 81 and Toadally Awesome is 20, so you can play 1 of them but not both (both cards are fine alone)
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Rhongomyniad is 31 and Gossip Shadow is 70, so you can play 1 of them but not both (good luck getting a 4+ material Rhongo to lock your opponent out of the game without Gossip Shadow)
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Morphtronic Telefon is 55, meaning it's essentially limited to 1 copy per deck, so no "Telefon for Telefon" FTK loops
The format looks and sounds really interesting, but I won't know for sure until it gets added to MD and I can try it myself. Plus, Konami said they'll re-balance the point values every so often, so if a deck becomes too problematic, theoretically they can price it into being weaker or out of the game entirely. Whether Konami will actually use that for game balance and not just to say "stop playing this old deck and buy new cards" is a different story.
AceMos posted...
will this format actually make it a two player game again instead of watching a person play solitaire
It'll definitely be a lower power format compared to modern Yu-Gi-Oh (no links, no pendulums, and combo decks will generally be weaker and less consistent) but whether it'll be low enough in power to satisfy people is yet to be seen.