LogFAQs > #898046819

I'd say the game started signs of unraveling in 2010.

Heavy Storm's banning was a consequence of power creep from X-Sabers and Infernity destabilizing the game's tempo to the point where games became insanely fast. Solemn Warning and the banning of Storm (and Samurais, holy SHIT...) made the opposite happen as an extreme response to the OTK-centric meta caused by bad R&D practices.

Still, I think the game managed some sort of balance even with the MST/Heavy dynamic permanently broken, but power creep continued to spiral out of control progressively format after format with the bar being set lower and lower for what was considered acceptable. The kinds of decks that would've been insane three to four years prior were now the standard in multiple numbers per format until you get to what I'd consider the absolute limit hit towards the end of the Xyzs era.

I'd consider the limit to be the Dragon Ruler/Spellbook format, which was a result of the absolute worst card design the game had to offer and resulted in two entirely unbeatable decks outside of the one anti-meta, braindead Evilswarm deck that autolost to Spellbooks anyway because they could +6 in one turn consistently (because of this horrid abomination that, of course, was printed as a secret rare because Konami are moneygrubbingers who lack any decency: http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Spellbook_of_Judgment)

I've heard bad stuff about Nekroz but nothing else I've seen ever quite hit how bad Droolers got and I quit playing outside of some custom formats with my friends not too long after Pendulums hit, but Konami's R&D is actually one of the worst management groups I've ever come across in any game I've ever played. Fuck Kevin Tewart, btw, he was an absolute idiot in my experiences with him on Pojo.

/rant
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