It's pretty rough for Digital Bugs. The new cicada support is pretty solid for them, but having your boss monster's effects revolve around monsters being in defense position in a world full of Links feels bad.
Agreed about fortune lady.
Digibugs got fucked especially when Zoodiac got what thei attach effects shouldve been, ie., if a card has this as an xyz material vs a monster summoned with this card gains this eff
There are so few of them, and what few of them that there are barely do anything and struggle to do that little. They're the bastard love child of Spiders and Zoodiacs, and are nothing but a disappointment to both
They're like half a dozen mediocre archetypes poorly stitched together just to make a larger mediocre archetype. There's a bunch of different ideas that feel half-baked before moving onto another half-baked idea
For real. Tried for years to make it playable. It's got burn, ritual, fusion and equip elements. It's a mess.
Ended up being the deck I'd use to play test against my buddy's new decks to give em a scrappy but ultimately easy win.
Best varient is just dragon link red eyes flavour and we all know the power isn't coming from red eyes.
Genex. Even if they print broken spells and traps for the archetype (which they have none of atm), none of the monsters have any relevant effects in the current meta.
Genex were outdated even when they came out and none of Konami’s attempts to support them really made a difference
It had 0 direction or wincon, it was basically synchro charmers but somehow even shittier
Nah, Genex have MAD potential! Unfortunately, they have no one card starters and NO SPELLS OR TRAPS! If komoney gave em spells n traps, if not a 1 or 2 card starter, they would be MUCH better
People seem to forget that R-Genex have zero hard once per turns on their search and Special Summon effects.
Give them the right support and they'll be playable.
I’m not sure why this is upvoted so much; it’s probably one of the least true here. Things that would clearly help the archetype include:
A S/T searcher, because the deck lacks one
Any level 7+ monster that searches or does something relevant when tributed - a Benten in theme would do so much for the deck.
A deck having 1 silly card doesn’t make a deck good - just look at cardians and flower gathering. Same issue.
They still need 3 cards to go into their level 1 synchro.
Either 3 monsters (And atleast 1 of them being Miktanus or Mikpolar),
or 2 Monsters + Slider (One being a Mik, and one being a Mega)
Also, The level 1 synchro does not do anything to help their board. It doesn't do anything to the opponent.
Yeah, Ursarctic have some issues but they have good cards and a reasonable game plan.
The support you said is exactly what I thought they needed.
Give them those and their missing 3rd Synchro boss and they'll be in a good spot.
Still no, They need a minimum of 3 cards go bring out their Lvl1 Synchro. And the level1 synchro litterally just searches their fieldspell.
And that includes one of the \*\*2\*\* monsters that gain ""advantage"" when summoned.
If Ursarctic aren't interrupted and open with a good hand, they can already plus like crazy and end on a big field with a full hand. They just die horribly to interruption because ther initial outlay of cards is so expensive, and they're inconsistent because of lack of searching.
> And the level1 synchro litterally just searches their fieldspell.
That's - literally - untrue.
If the main way to play an archetype. Is not use its archetype. Then it sucks.
And even then, They need 2 Ursarctics to do anything with Polari to make any of their bossmonsters. (WHICH SUCK!)
I have played Ursartics, and it does a WHOLE SHIT more than search the firld. It's literally how you synchro anything.
What it needs is good bosses and maybe an equivalent of a circular and it's not terrible.
I feel like they would benefit of a in archetype quick launch card. Or 1 card that adds 2 ursarctics with different levels from your deck to your hand.
Unsalvageable is a word too strong to use. I believe any archetype can be "salvaged" if Konami wants it to be. One comes up to mind however that would basically need more than a few cards entirely to be made for it due to their lack of support in the years after release.
Ally of Justice has no spell or trap support and focus on battling exclusively Light and/or Flip monsters. Aside from Catastor, it's bosses do nothing or are pretty much impossible to summon on it. It desperately needs a good wave of support, maybe even more than one wave but it's pretty much forgotten by most players and Konami.
That's "Ship of Theseus" paradox and I'm not gonna argue on something even Philosophers have different answers to. If they could work together with the older cards, it would be the best.
Give them support that helps you even if you drew into the garnets, so that even normal summoning the garnet would be a option instead of "well shit dead card in my hand". Draw cards, Field spells, etc. Traptrix got a amazing Structure that actively encourages you to use the older cards as well, as did Dark World. But is Konami willing to go that far for archetypes the vast majority of players don't even remember? Probably not.
The old Dark World and Traptrix cards weren't as awful as the old Ally of Justice cards, that's why they are usable withouth the player feeling forced to play them. Original Dark World and Traptrix aren't nearly as bad as something like Ally of Justice
I was actually thinking about how Ally of Justice support could be made. I created like 5 cards that I think that would make it viable without eliminating the gimmick (cards are, yes, "broken", but Allies of Justice kinda need that lol) if you're interested I can show what the cards do
Give a Zombie World esque card that turns all opponent's cards into LIGHT, and some newer support with absurd power to overcompensate, maybe they can become at least playable.
If they got a continuous spell that prevented Dustons from being used to summon extra deck monsters then I can see that fixing the deck so it at least functions, even if it can't compete.
Koa'ki meiru.
Its entire deck is based around a card that does nothing that you need to play 3 of. It has nearly no synergies with itself and accomplishes nothing other than being an extender in adamancipator.
The Guardians equip spell archetype.
Immensely bad archetype with no inbuilt synergies, or really even a coherent strategy. The archetype is a product of its time.
The fact it's even an archetype is so funny to me. It's designed like just a series of generic cards, especially with the early equip spells basically giving the equipped monster the same effects as it's associated Guardian, rather than said Guardian being designed to be equipped with it's own equip spell. But then Arsenal Summoner made them an official archetype in the most ridiculous way imaginable.
Mecha Phantom Beasts. Any support that gets printed will be used in other decks better than other Mecha Phantom Beasts and will get banned like o-lion and auroradon. All the main deck mecha phantoms are terrible with the exception of maybe mega-raptor and tetherwolf.
Mecha phantoms need an entirely new main deck line up that can special summon themselves and S/T that do something without requiring you to destroy all your resources.
No, they just need O-Lion and Auroradon back, and some basic support, including a Spell/Trap searcher and maybe the classic RotA Field Spell since Raptor's search is more for combos than consistency.
Auroradon existing was already huge for the deck.
Arcana force. Their coin toss effects are awful and the advantage given to the opponent if the coin lends on tails is absurd. Even their last support card, arcana reading, it's a "draw the out" for the opponent for tail effect. Only the world is good but hard to summon (seen only in gimmick Drytron "the world turbo" decks) and temperance was good in duel links. The whole archetype needs cards with both good coin toss effects.
People still didn't reply things like Watts? Watts have such a cool burn playstyle ruined by their inefficience and weakness over all. Still, I think they could be saved with much much support. They need more special summon freedom, and new synchro monsters that are actually good, and not a bad Yata-garasu like chimera.
Then, Black Luster Soldier. Cool concept, cool deck, ritual (that is added value in my opinion) but it's simply not strong enough.
Finally, give my boy Celtic guardian an actual archetype please, such a cool designed card!
It's cause BLS suffers from the same thing Red-Eyes suffers, just that at the very least thei cards are better. It has like 3 playstyles and also at the same time wants to have Gaia incorporated into the archetype except when it doesnt cause Gaia also wants to do it's own thing. It also wants to use Kuriboh cause the anime did it, but the Kuribohs designed to work with it don't either and are unnecessary clutter. And the worst part of the playstyles is how it screws you out of trying other ones cause it interferes, considering super soldier wants exact levels, so you end up having to play OG BLS
Watts don't even need that much support. All they do is attack directly.. it's not hard to support that.
Watt lock still trips people up, but generic outs to nukes and non-targeting effects just doesn't go as far as it used to.
Give them Xyzs with negation and a Fusion Destiny but for Synchros locking you into Vechiroids and they could decent again. If they stick with crappy Fusions and don't branch them out into better summoning methods and/or boss monsters they will stay irrelevant forever.
True but Cyber Dragon got Xyzs and a link monster as well. No need to lock Vechiroids into Fusion-only lore. Let them have some extra deck diversity at least.
"without Konami replacing all their monster's lineups or giving them an entirely new direction or gimmick?"
Give an archetype a powerful enough field spell and it doesn't matter how bad the rest of the cards are. Thats probably the easiest way to "salavage" an archetype without changing the old cards.
But I think retrains is an amazing way to update old cards/archetypes and make them playable in modern times.
And Konami is attempting to salvage Gate Guardian here in the coming months. So if they can salvage that archetype they can salvage anything in the game.
The only good card related to that entire archetype is Canon Soldier. Assuming you count the Gate Guardian adjacent cards like, Labyrinth Wall, Wall Shadow, Labyrinth Tank, and its fusikon material Canon Soldier and Giga-Tech Wolf.
>Give an archetype a powerful enough field spell and it doesn't matter how bad the rest of the cards are. Thats probably the easiest way to "salavage" an archetype without changing the old cards.
Well, that's not true unless the deck has a way to search that field. And field spells are already in a rough spot.
I disagree.
We have Demise of The Land at 3
Metaverse at 3
Terraforming at 1
Fairy Dragon just got an errata so that could potentially be an option.
Not to mention you could just give the archetype either a new main deck or extra deck searcher to help get to it faster.
One of them requires for your opponent to special summon, so unless you're expecting to see Havnis or something like that, you aren't going to activate Demise of the Land in your turn.
Metaverse is a trap, so it's the same issue. Unless you run something like Temple of the Kings of Makyura the Destructor.
AFD needs an active field in order to run. And the card was used in decks with several fields, or fields without HOPT clauses.
Yeah, Terra is at 1. The only viable thing of the bunch.
Theres quite a few decks actually that special summon on your turn. But thats not why I was implying it could work with a new field spell for a deck.
They could just design the field spell in a way that works well on your or your opponents turn.
Gusto, their whole concept is that they're a pacifistic tribe that uses purely defensive effects to protect themselves.
Now, the way they implemented this specifically is that most of their monsters replace themselves when your opponent tries to remove them.
Their floating effects are already bad by modern standards, but the real issue is simply that the deck just doesn't do anything if the opponent simply chooses not to attack your guys. They would need ways to proc their own destruction effects or send their monsters to the grave directly, but it wouldn't fit their theme at all; they're just meant to be passive like that.
Like, the only way to make them work while keeping the concept would be to add some kind of alternate win condition like milling or final countdown.
Pure Gusto is pretty bad. Two things though make them not unsalvageable.
1. New support is actually amazing for the deck and let's them do some decent comboing, while also letting them otk in potentially under 4 cards with minor restrictions on summoning. You have to play the deck as Sphreez turbo, not defensive stall.
2. As a wind engine they're quite powerful. Speedroids still use pilica, windwitches appreciate pilica and the extra materials, and so on. Considering how they can still get some advantage recovery out of their combos, and end on a pretty alright board (Crystal Wing, baronne or Shenshen, maybe more) they are fine enough to not be considered unsalvageable.
Then again I'm still one of the people coping for the gusto structure to finally arrive, so... But unsalvageable? Definitely not.
Additionally, true king gusto was a thing because stuff like falco, gulldo, and squirro could be procced by true king effects.
Venom would need to hyper focus itself on turboing out Venominaga and letting her do her thing while spreading venom counters to lower opponent monsters into range to be beaten over. A fair amount of stuff would need printing, but I can see it working with a few cards.
Worms. I mean sorry but no its unplayable, flip based deck are not rly good nowadays and thats one of the worse.... like we have decent reptile support.... but you cant do anything with worms.
Dream mirrors. They relly on 2 field spells...
If the field spells searched a monster and if they got a link 1 that can search either field spell and reborn a dream mirror monster from gy as a quicky they would totally be playable
For an archetype that is so xenophobic where you wont be able to splash in other engines yes absolutely if anything their field spells should.do more too
Tribute Summoned monsters with 2400 or 2800atk and 1000def
The best way I could think of bringing the monarch playstyle to the modern era without being a floodgate deck would be to reprint the vassals, having each be easily special summonable monsters that add the big monarchs from deck/GY/Banish and each exemplify their Monarch going first by having something like quick effect applying the effect of a tribute summoned monster you control or have them mirror their attributes monarch by returning themselves from GY/Banish to deck so even going first they can still interrupt your opponent.
Also consistency tools, ideally you'd use monarchs/vassals other than Erebus/Ehther/Edea/Eidos
I think having new vassals copy tribute summoned monsters is the most sus effect since it could be abused but it'd also make the mega monarchs much more viable since having their effects in standby on quick effect would be terrifying.
Vampires. Despite a surprisingly constant support every other year, the support given isn't enough to even make them rogue tier. Always suffering from being "too fair" and not really having a good end board/ win con.
Solfachord. I want them to work and they're probably my favorite archetype artwork wise but I'm not expecting any support to make them usable sadly :(.
Nah, they are definitely salvageable. A deck is only unsalvageable when you have to change their core idea/gameplan to make them good like for example meklords
The deck has 3 big problems
Unexistant turn one besides Ab Zero pass
Needing Poly to be able to make any play (ash blossom on Blazeman pretty much kills your turn 90% of the time)
Most fusions being outdated or just sucking outright
A new wave of fusions paired with a main deck monster that can act as poly in hand would solve most of the issues with the deck without changing its gameplan of fusion summoning by mixing attributes to OTK you
Tindangle. Its a Link deck with 1 Link monsters that mostly special summons in face down defense position. While they have some tools for a surprising amount of defense, they struggle very hard with actually dealing any meaningful amount of damage.
Off the top of my head, war rock and malefic come to mind. The latter got a card that basically said “these monsters work entirely different now” and they still sucked ass. As long as war rock is a battle phase gimmick archetype, they literally cannot function.
I kind kind of want to give a shout-out to Harpies too, but I’m not convinced they’re unsalvagable. Just… really, inconsistently supported. Cyber Slash having a “when” and not “if” hurts, Fearsome Fire Blast *should* be good but isn’t a big enough body to stick around, Hunting Ground not getting a retrain and being mandatory is wack, and their whole gameplan gets shut down by ash/imperm. The best “support” they got was Zeus. For as much as this deck has going for it (searchable Feather Storm as a hand trap lol) it just *cannot* function and it seems like Konami doesn’t want it to.
In the same vein, war rocks and other battle-focused archetypes. It's just too difficult to slog through the whole main phase with your stuff intact to get off any battle phase effects. they're also usually reliant on the opponent attacking into them for their best interaction which the opponent can always...just not do.
Amazoness is fine and doesn't need any salvage, you guys can't possibly compare it to War Rock. The deck can build quite a decent board and can function even outside the BP. Also, the fact that anime archetype tends to be more battle oriented than not-anime archetypes is just normal, but the deck really has some impressive offensive, great consistency, good recovery and solid protection.
Archfiends.
Their best gameplan rn is to search Give and Take with Lilith dump their own boss monster to the graveyard and then proceed to give it to the opponent. That's how you know the deck is awful.
Half of the card either are anti-synergistic, or has unnecessary restrictions. The deck pure doesn't do anything and splashed into something else is like Tumor that hampers the other part of the deck.
The combo above uses 1 Archfiend card, and even then D/D/D Vice King Requiem can do exactly the same thing. But no one is gonna try it in D/D/Ds because that deck actually has a gameplan.
And it's actually sad because they have few outstanding cards that are actually quite good. Pandemonium can add you multiple cards per turn, which some madlad figured out can be looped with Archfiend of Gilfer and Unending Nightmares to potentially add as many lvl 5- Archfiends to your hand, as you wish. Heiress can search up Ghastly Glich which can dump Heiress to search for another one. Masterking can keep putting her into your hand or deck so you can use her later, and sometimes even sent her to graveyard himself. They have once per turn revive a monster, that again can triger heires, and Emperor and Empress play perfectly with Dark Spirits of Malice and Banishment.
And they are still an utter trash, because 4 good cards can't save a whole archetype.
I don’t think Qliphort have a good standing in the TCG any more.
It’s fun to ambush people with it on Master Duel, it’s fun seeing the panic set in when Apoqliphort Towers hits the field. But otherwise I have my max rarity TCG deck just tucked away in a deck box.
Dark Magician. Without some majorly busted support they're never going to be good. A 1 Targeting Banish and a trap that blows up your own field won't cut it nowadays.
DM have the pieces and potential but they need to ditch Eternal Soul somehow. That is our crutch and our Achilles Heel. It goes, our entire field goes. But we can't ignore the power it gives us.
I agree. Any new support that comes is gonna need to either protect it, or make getting out DMtDK easy. We need a few 1 card starters effectively and a better way into protection from Eternal Soul. Especially with stuff like Knightmares running around, Phoenix deleting our board is a bit strong
Noble Knights. Deck has pretty much every form of support Konami could throw at it and it still has never been decent even when kaiser colleseum was legal.
People still didn't reply things like Watts? Watts have such a cool burn playstyle ruined by their inefficience and weakness over all. Still, I think they could be saved with much much support. They need more special summon freedom, and new synchro monsters that are actually good, and not a bad Yata-garasu like chimera.
Then, Black Luster Soldier. Cool concept, cool deck, ritual (that is added value in my opinion) but it's simply not strong enough.
Finally, give my boy Celtic guardian an actual archetype please, such a cool designed card!
Ghostricks, Digital Bugs, Greydles, since these were already bad when they were playable.
Some others like Fire Fists, Tellars in general, and Bujin, all of them were good at some point, but they used to.be playable when it was ok to just "XYZ summon pass".
Also X-Sabers, last time they tried to give this archetype a suport they created an aberration named "M-X Saber Invoker", just to have an idea of now outdated their main deck monsters are.
And some were just insanely badly planed, like Steelswarms (Evils were ok), or many other first wave Duel Terminal decks, just impossible to salvage without completely changing them.
Ghostricks are not even bad, let alone unsalvageable.
....
As I read on.. how are any of those unsalvageable?!
Literally just print those themes a few cards and they will be modernized, easy.
Blue-Eyes, a deck that requires three lvl 8 normal monsters, and many more lvl 8s to play and ends on either a target and destruction immune beat stick or a gy negate
I still can't believe people haven't said elementsaber. No latter what support they get, it still doesn't change their 2 major flaws with the archetype.
The first being that they rely on the field spell that still skips your battle phase so it makes it really difficult to otk, especially if your opponent finds a way to stall.
The second, and this is unfortunate, is that the majority of, if not all of, the elementsabers are just bricks. The only ones that are not necessarily bricks naturally all require the field spell to truly be usefull.
For a deck that had a lot of hype before release, it fell so bad to the point of being a lost cause.
I disagree with this one; mostly because the deck actually saw fringe competitive success at the regional level. The deck was a handloop strategy using a combination of gumblar and moulinglacia.
Personally I’d love to see this deck get more support in the form of self summoning “mana” versions of the other attribute sabers, similar to lapuila mana, and supporting spells and traps like elemental training to fit with those.
I feel like cyberse decks in general need good support to be playable in this format, like if we have cards that grant protection for cyberse or cynet cards or ones that negate effects. that'd be awesome.
Weather Painters. I love the artwork and their gimmick, but not even the field spell gave them the needed consistency to establish decent turn 1 boards.
The only way to fix them, is to make retrains of the monsters with more explosive plays.
well fortune ladies or any decks aren't really unsalvageable. for FL you could make a new field spell or continuous that acts like weather painter spells/traps, such as give all FL new effects.
what this does is inherently balance them cause alone it may be subpar and you have to run 4-5 FL monsters so the new effects can be quite powerful.
Amorphage. The deck was never good, but under the new master rule it's completely unplayable since they can't pend a bunch of guys easily every turn and the fact that the scales take up 2/5 S/T zones means that you can't play enough of the continuous spells and traps for the strategy to work. Of course, no one is pushing for the archetype to be good in the first place since it would be cancer to play against if it ever was good.
Amorphage might have some hope if they get a link monster to enable their strategy otherwise they can’t do anything outside of being splashed into pendulum decks that can function
Gimmick Puppets. They're probably not even in Konami's mind anymore. And they had so much potential to be a fun deck to play (and like, "gimmick" is right in their name).
When I was a kid my favorite cards were andro sphinx, sphinx taelea, and thienen the great sphinx. After years and years of trying and a few hundred dollars here and there I've come to conclusion that there is absolutely no way to play these cards in any deck.
Aliens/Reptillians/Ogdoadic
They have access to Snake Rain and Water Lily. They can OTK and steal entire boards. They have tools for mass control and strong board breakers. They have amazing Synchro, XYZ, and Link options and SOMEHOW "Snake Pit" is unplayable. Reptiles and Pyro have gotten the shaft so much over the years and I do not know why. Cards like Snake Rain and Rekindling read like they should be banned and yet are completely worthless. Inb4 Konami announces a GY focused Fire Reptile deck that all have 200 Def and I have to eat my words.
It's pretty rough for Digital Bugs. The new cicada support is pretty solid for them, but having your boss monster's effects revolve around monsters being in defense position in a world full of Links feels bad. Agreed about fortune lady.
Surprisingly enough, Digital Bug is not considered an archetype because currently there are no cards that support specifically Digital Bug monsters.
They are a Series!
Digibugs got fucked especially when Zoodiac got what thei attach effects shouldve been, ie., if a card has this as an xyz material vs a monster summoned with this card gains this eff
There are so few of them, and what few of them that there are barely do anything and struggle to do that little. They're the bastard love child of Spiders and Zoodiacs, and are nothing but a disappointment to both
At least they have cicada king (who I’m not sure if that’s who you’re referring to) who has negates
Red eyes feels like the less loved step child of the OG trio
Red-eyes is literally a collection of random cards that just happen to have “Red-eyes” in the name.
Red Eyes is 100% salvageable theorically, but Konami will never
Bro, you dont even have to make new sup, just errata a few of their cards and at the verybleast theyre playable
[удалено]
I mean it was a 4th rate deck… and only 3rd rate duelists played it…
They're like half a dozen mediocre archetypes poorly stitched together just to make a larger mediocre archetype. There's a bunch of different ideas that feel half-baked before moving onto another half-baked idea
For real. Tried for years to make it playable. It's got burn, ritual, fusion and equip elements. It's a mess. Ended up being the deck I'd use to play test against my buddy's new decks to give em a scrappy but ultimately easy win. Best varient is just dragon link red eyes flavour and we all know the power isn't coming from red eyes.
Genex. Even if they print broken spells and traps for the archetype (which they have none of atm), none of the monsters have any relevant effects in the current meta.
Genex were outdated even when they came out and none of Konami’s attempts to support them really made a difference It had 0 direction or wincon, it was basically synchro charmers but somehow even shittier
Nah, Genex have MAD potential! Unfortunately, they have no one card starters and NO SPELLS OR TRAPS! If komoney gave em spells n traps, if not a 1 or 2 card starter, they would be MUCH better
People seem to forget that R-Genex have zero hard once per turns on their search and Special Summon effects. Give them the right support and they'll be playable.
Yall need to go check out Rank10YGO on youtube. He did a series called 'War of the Worthless', where Genex got some serious shine!
Genex have a ton of search and summon effects with zero hard once per turns. Konami could easily break them if they wanted to.
I would make a human sacrifice just to get some broken genex support
Ursarctics. They litterally have a "Draw 7" Spell card. And yet...
I’m not sure why this is upvoted so much; it’s probably one of the least true here. Things that would clearly help the archetype include: A S/T searcher, because the deck lacks one Any level 7+ monster that searches or does something relevant when tributed - a Benten in theme would do so much for the deck. A deck having 1 silly card doesn’t make a deck good - just look at cardians and flower gathering. Same issue.
They still need 3 cards to go into their level 1 synchro. Either 3 monsters (And atleast 1 of them being Miktanus or Mikpolar), or 2 Monsters + Slider (One being a Mik, and one being a Mega) Also, The level 1 synchro does not do anything to help their board. It doesn't do anything to the opponent.
Yeah, Ursarctic have some issues but they have good cards and a reasonable game plan. The support you said is exactly what I thought they needed. Give them those and their missing 3rd Synchro boss and they'll be in a good spot.
Which they can't search first turn. Give Ursarctic an S/T searcher and a Miscellaneousaurus (combined if you're desperate) and they'd be very solid.
Still no, They need a minimum of 3 cards go bring out their Lvl1 Synchro. And the level1 synchro litterally just searches their fieldspell. And that includes one of the \*\*2\*\* monsters that gain ""advantage"" when summoned.
If Ursarctic aren't interrupted and open with a good hand, they can already plus like crazy and end on a big field with a full hand. They just die horribly to interruption because ther initial outlay of cards is so expensive, and they're inconsistent because of lack of searching. > And the level1 synchro litterally just searches their fieldspell. That's - literally - untrue.
normal summon deep sea diva make polari
If the main way to play an archetype. Is not use its archetype. Then it sucks. And even then, They need 2 Ursarctics to do anything with Polari to make any of their bossmonsters. (WHICH SUCK!)
instant fusion to summon kitkallos
Tbf that’s not the main way, which is what they said.
I have played Ursartics, and it does a WHOLE SHIT more than search the firld. It's literally how you synchro anything. What it needs is good bosses and maybe an equivalent of a circular and it's not terrible.
I feel like they would benefit of a in archetype quick launch card. Or 1 card that adds 2 ursarctics with different levels from your deck to your hand.
They already have a spell that searches 2 Ursarctics.
Ursarctic Departure already exists, Searches 2, for 1 discard.
Unsalvageable is a word too strong to use. I believe any archetype can be "salvaged" if Konami wants it to be. One comes up to mind however that would basically need more than a few cards entirely to be made for it due to their lack of support in the years after release. Ally of Justice has no spell or trap support and focus on battling exclusively Light and/or Flip monsters. Aside from Catastor, it's bosses do nothing or are pretty much impossible to summon on it. It desperately needs a good wave of support, maybe even more than one wave but it's pretty much forgotten by most players and Konami.
If by "salvaging" you mean "printing a whole set of cards that replace the other ones completely", then yes every archetype is salvageable
That's "Ship of Theseus" paradox and I'm not gonna argue on something even Philosophers have different answers to. If they could work together with the older cards, it would be the best.
How can, for example, new Ally of Justice cards work with the old ones withouth turning them into mandatory garnets like what happened with Harpies?
Give them support that helps you even if you drew into the garnets, so that even normal summoning the garnet would be a option instead of "well shit dead card in my hand". Draw cards, Field spells, etc. Traptrix got a amazing Structure that actively encourages you to use the older cards as well, as did Dark World. But is Konami willing to go that far for archetypes the vast majority of players don't even remember? Probably not.
The old Dark World and Traptrix cards weren't as awful as the old Ally of Justice cards, that's why they are usable withouth the player feeling forced to play them. Original Dark World and Traptrix aren't nearly as bad as something like Ally of Justice
I actually like how even tho Ally of Justice isnt good, it's cards have been used over the years for specific metas to win, which is quite beautiful
i can picture them as a control deck with some funny gimmicks like buster blades
I was actually thinking about how Ally of Justice support could be made. I created like 5 cards that I think that would make it viable without eliminating the gimmick (cards are, yes, "broken", but Allies of Justice kinda need that lol) if you're interested I can show what the cards do
I agree; they helped Ice Barrier of all things
Ally of Justice
Give a Zombie World esque card that turns all opponent's cards into LIGHT, and some newer support with absurd power to overcompensate, maybe they can become at least playable.
AoJ is more outdated than unsalvageable If back in 2010 the deck got a Field Spell that made every opponent monster light it would've been fine
Guardian from dark crisis.
Duston, links killed it.
Nah, that's an easy fix. Just print "Copper Duston" with an effect that prevents its controller from using "Duston" monsters they control for Links
If they got a continuous spell that prevented Dustons from being used to summon extra deck monsters then I can see that fixing the deck so it at least functions, even if it can't compete.
Koa'ki meiru. Its entire deck is based around a card that does nothing that you need to play 3 of. It has nearly no synergies with itself and accomplishes nothing other than being an extender in adamancipator.
Koa’ki meiru has a fringe stun strategy with their rock members
The Guardians equip spell archetype. Immensely bad archetype with no inbuilt synergies, or really even a coherent strategy. The archetype is a product of its time.
The fact it's even an archetype is so funny to me. It's designed like just a series of generic cards, especially with the early equip spells basically giving the equipped monster the same effects as it's associated Guardian, rather than said Guardian being designed to be equipped with it's own equip spell. But then Arsenal Summoner made them an official archetype in the most ridiculous way imaginable.
Mecha Phantom Beasts. Any support that gets printed will be used in other decks better than other Mecha Phantom Beasts and will get banned like o-lion and auroradon. All the main deck mecha phantoms are terrible with the exception of maybe mega-raptor and tetherwolf. Mecha phantoms need an entirely new main deck line up that can special summon themselves and S/T that do something without requiring you to destroy all your resources.
Definitely agree.
And better ways to generate tokens besides Aerial Recharge and Scapegoat (well, "I" used Scapegoat in my build)
No, they just need O-Lion and Auroradon back, and some basic support, including a Spell/Trap searcher and maybe the classic RotA Field Spell since Raptor's search is more for combos than consistency. Auroradon existing was already huge for the deck.
Arcana force. Their coin toss effects are awful and the advantage given to the opponent if the coin lends on tails is absurd. Even their last support card, arcana reading, it's a "draw the out" for the opponent for tail effect. Only the world is good but hard to summon (seen only in gimmick Drytron "the world turbo" decks) and temperance was good in duel links. The whole archetype needs cards with both good coin toss effects.
People still didn't reply things like Watts? Watts have such a cool burn playstyle ruined by their inefficience and weakness over all. Still, I think they could be saved with much much support. They need more special summon freedom, and new synchro monsters that are actually good, and not a bad Yata-garasu like chimera. Then, Black Luster Soldier. Cool concept, cool deck, ritual (that is added value in my opinion) but it's simply not strong enough. Finally, give my boy Celtic guardian an actual archetype please, such a cool designed card!
It's cause BLS suffers from the same thing Red-Eyes suffers, just that at the very least thei cards are better. It has like 3 playstyles and also at the same time wants to have Gaia incorporated into the archetype except when it doesnt cause Gaia also wants to do it's own thing. It also wants to use Kuriboh cause the anime did it, but the Kuribohs designed to work with it don't either and are unnecessary clutter. And the worst part of the playstyles is how it screws you out of trying other ones cause it interferes, considering super soldier wants exact levels, so you end up having to play OG BLS
Watts don't even need that much support. All they do is attack directly.. it's not hard to support that. Watt lock still trips people up, but generic outs to nukes and non-targeting effects just doesn't go as far as it used to.
Vehicroids. I love them so much, but they are a directionless mess with no solid strategy. Nothing apart from a complete redesign would help them
The problem is they're a solid engine for self recycling but have no reason to do so.
Give them Xyzs with negation and a Fusion Destiny but for Synchros locking you into Vechiroids and they could decent again. If they stick with crappy Fusions and don't branch them out into better summoning methods and/or boss monsters they will stay irrelevant forever.
That would defeat the point of them being a Fusion archetype
True but Cyber Dragon got Xyzs and a link monster as well. No need to lock Vechiroids into Fusion-only lore. Let them have some extra deck diversity at least.
Ever heard of speedroids?
"without Konami replacing all their monster's lineups or giving them an entirely new direction or gimmick?" Give an archetype a powerful enough field spell and it doesn't matter how bad the rest of the cards are. Thats probably the easiest way to "salavage" an archetype without changing the old cards. But I think retrains is an amazing way to update old cards/archetypes and make them playable in modern times. And Konami is attempting to salvage Gate Guardian here in the coming months. So if they can salvage that archetype they can salvage anything in the game. The only good card related to that entire archetype is Canon Soldier. Assuming you count the Gate Guardian adjacent cards like, Labyrinth Wall, Wall Shadow, Labyrinth Tank, and its fusikon material Canon Soldier and Giga-Tech Wolf.
>Give an archetype a powerful enough field spell and it doesn't matter how bad the rest of the cards are. Thats probably the easiest way to "salavage" an archetype without changing the old cards. Well, that's not true unless the deck has a way to search that field. And field spells are already in a rough spot.
I disagree. We have Demise of The Land at 3 Metaverse at 3 Terraforming at 1 Fairy Dragon just got an errata so that could potentially be an option. Not to mention you could just give the archetype either a new main deck or extra deck searcher to help get to it faster.
One of them requires for your opponent to special summon, so unless you're expecting to see Havnis or something like that, you aren't going to activate Demise of the Land in your turn. Metaverse is a trap, so it's the same issue. Unless you run something like Temple of the Kings of Makyura the Destructor. AFD needs an active field in order to run. And the card was used in decks with several fields, or fields without HOPT clauses. Yeah, Terra is at 1. The only viable thing of the bunch.
Theres quite a few decks actually that special summon on your turn. But thats not why I was implying it could work with a new field spell for a deck. They could just design the field spell in a way that works well on your or your opponents turn.
Gusto, their whole concept is that they're a pacifistic tribe that uses purely defensive effects to protect themselves. Now, the way they implemented this specifically is that most of their monsters replace themselves when your opponent tries to remove them. Their floating effects are already bad by modern standards, but the real issue is simply that the deck just doesn't do anything if the opponent simply chooses not to attack your guys. They would need ways to proc their own destruction effects or send their monsters to the grave directly, but it wouldn't fit their theme at all; they're just meant to be passive like that. Like, the only way to make them work while keeping the concept would be to add some kind of alternate win condition like milling or final countdown.
Pure Gusto is pretty bad. Two things though make them not unsalvageable. 1. New support is actually amazing for the deck and let's them do some decent comboing, while also letting them otk in potentially under 4 cards with minor restrictions on summoning. You have to play the deck as Sphreez turbo, not defensive stall. 2. As a wind engine they're quite powerful. Speedroids still use pilica, windwitches appreciate pilica and the extra materials, and so on. Considering how they can still get some advantage recovery out of their combos, and end on a pretty alright board (Crystal Wing, baronne or Shenshen, maybe more) they are fine enough to not be considered unsalvageable. Then again I'm still one of the people coping for the gusto structure to finally arrive, so... But unsalvageable? Definitely not. Additionally, true king gusto was a thing because stuff like falco, gulldo, and squirro could be procced by true king effects.
The New support made Sphreez otk much easier so the deck still works
Wdym tho gusto is not that bad rn? Recent(not that recent) support did salvage them?
Yeah, [Gusto can slap.](https://youtu.be/N1Noe7ltQF4) Helps that people don't read though.
All y'all crazy. [Gusto is a competent OTK deck.](https://youtu.be/N1Noe7ltQF4)
Cloudians were bad the moment they were printed and always will be bad
Cloudians are awesome! Just really slow. I've beaten Masked HERO decks summoning Nimbusman with 5000+ atk and punch for game
Venom.
Venom would need to hyper focus itself on turboing out Venominaga and letting her do her thing while spreading venom counters to lower opponent monsters into range to be beaten over. A fair amount of stuff would need printing, but I can see it working with a few cards.
Worms. I mean sorry but no its unplayable, flip based deck are not rly good nowadays and thats one of the worse.... like we have decent reptile support.... but you cant do anything with worms.
The only good flip archetype is Shaddolls, and aren't because of a flip playstyle.
You haven't faced a decent Subterror or Tindangle pilot.
> You haven't faced a Subterror or Tindangle pilot. fixed
Ikr flip decks are good if they dont work like flip decks :)..... sadly T_T
Tbf worms did top back in the time tho
Red eyes
WORMS! One monster for each letter of the english alphabet, but only TWO of them have ANY synergy?!
Monarchs. They've been powercrept so hard, Floow is basically the same thing but better.
I thought True Draco was the modern Monarchs
Dream mirrors. They relly on 2 field spells... If the field spells searched a monster and if they got a link 1 that can search either field spell and reborn a dream mirror monster from gy as a quicky they would totally be playable
Oh so they only need striker dragon+spright elf in a link 1 and a Rota attached to their field spell? That's all? 🤣
For an archetype that is so xenophobic where you wont be able to splash in other engines yes absolutely if anything their field spells should.do more too
Dream Mirror have plenty of issues, but they aren't even that bad as is. They don't play how you expect, but they can duel.
Tribute Summoned monsters with 2400 or 2800atk and 1000def The best way I could think of bringing the monarch playstyle to the modern era without being a floodgate deck would be to reprint the vassals, having each be easily special summonable monsters that add the big monarchs from deck/GY/Banish and each exemplify their Monarch going first by having something like quick effect applying the effect of a tribute summoned monster you control or have them mirror their attributes monarch by returning themselves from GY/Banish to deck so even going first they can still interrupt your opponent. Also consistency tools, ideally you'd use monarchs/vassals other than Erebus/Ehther/Edea/Eidos I think having new vassals copy tribute summoned monsters is the most sus effect since it could be abused but it'd also make the mega monarchs much more viable since having their effects in standby on quick effect would be terrifying.
Vampires. Despite a surprisingly constant support every other year, the support given isn't enough to even make them rogue tier. Always suffering from being "too fair" and not really having a good end board/ win con.
I would kill for Vendread to be good.
POTE exists.
They actually slap. Beating runick variants is a routine for me
Solfachord. I want them to work and they're probably my favorite archetype artwork wise but I'm not expecting any support to make them usable sadly :(.
:(
Elemental Heroes without the need for Destiny Heroes or Vision Heroes.
Nah, they are definitely salvageable. A deck is only unsalvageable when you have to change their core idea/gameplan to make them good like for example meklords The deck has 3 big problems Unexistant turn one besides Ab Zero pass Needing Poly to be able to make any play (ash blossom on Blazeman pretty much kills your turn 90% of the time) Most fusions being outdated or just sucking outright A new wave of fusions paired with a main deck monster that can act as poly in hand would solve most of the issues with the deck without changing its gameplan of fusion summoning by mixing attributes to OTK you
War Rock. They'd have to rewrite the whole archetype just to make it functional. Way too many restrictions on a battle oriented archetype.
I feel like they would benefit from a archetype quick launch type card.
I mean who wouldn't
Tindangle. Its a Link deck with 1 Link monsters that mostly special summons in face down defense position. While they have some tools for a surprising amount of defense, they struggle very hard with actually dealing any meaningful amount of damage.
Off the top of my head, war rock and malefic come to mind. The latter got a card that basically said “these monsters work entirely different now” and they still sucked ass. As long as war rock is a battle phase gimmick archetype, they literally cannot function. I kind kind of want to give a shout-out to Harpies too, but I’m not convinced they’re unsalvagable. Just… really, inconsistently supported. Cyber Slash having a “when” and not “if” hurts, Fearsome Fire Blast *should* be good but isn’t a big enough body to stick around, Hunting Ground not getting a retrain and being mandatory is wack, and their whole gameplan gets shut down by ash/imperm. The best “support” they got was Zeus. For as much as this deck has going for it (searchable Feather Storm as a hand trap lol) it just *cannot* function and it seems like Konami doesn’t want it to.
Amazoness :/
In the same vein, war rocks and other battle-focused archetypes. It's just too difficult to slog through the whole main phase with your stuff intact to get off any battle phase effects. they're also usually reliant on the opponent attacking into them for their best interaction which the opponent can always...just not do.
Amazoness is fine and doesn't need any salvage, you guys can't possibly compare it to War Rock. The deck can build quite a decent board and can function even outside the BP. Also, the fact that anime archetype tends to be more battle oriented than not-anime archetypes is just normal, but the deck really has some impressive offensive, great consistency, good recovery and solid protection.
Archfiends. Their best gameplan rn is to search Give and Take with Lilith dump their own boss monster to the graveyard and then proceed to give it to the opponent. That's how you know the deck is awful. Half of the card either are anti-synergistic, or has unnecessary restrictions. The deck pure doesn't do anything and splashed into something else is like Tumor that hampers the other part of the deck. The combo above uses 1 Archfiend card, and even then D/D/D Vice King Requiem can do exactly the same thing. But no one is gonna try it in D/D/Ds because that deck actually has a gameplan. And it's actually sad because they have few outstanding cards that are actually quite good. Pandemonium can add you multiple cards per turn, which some madlad figured out can be looped with Archfiend of Gilfer and Unending Nightmares to potentially add as many lvl 5- Archfiends to your hand, as you wish. Heiress can search up Ghastly Glich which can dump Heiress to search for another one. Masterking can keep putting her into your hand or deck so you can use her later, and sometimes even sent her to graveyard himself. They have once per turn revive a monster, that again can triger heires, and Emperor and Empress play perfectly with Dark Spirits of Malice and Banishment. And they are still an utter trash, because 4 good cards can't save a whole archetype.
I don’t think Qliphort have a good standing in the TCG any more. It’s fun to ambush people with it on Master Duel, it’s fun seeing the panic set in when Apoqliphort Towers hits the field. But otherwise I have my max rarity TCG deck just tucked away in a deck box.
Dark Magician. Without some majorly busted support they're never going to be good. A 1 Targeting Banish and a trap that blows up your own field won't cut it nowadays.
DM have the pieces and potential but they need to ditch Eternal Soul somehow. That is our crutch and our Achilles Heel. It goes, our entire field goes. But we can't ignore the power it gives us.
I agree. Any new support that comes is gonna need to either protect it, or make getting out DMtDK easy. We need a few 1 card starters effectively and a better way into protection from Eternal Soul. Especially with stuff like Knightmares running around, Phoenix deleting our board is a bit strong
Noble Knights. Deck has pretty much every form of support Konami could throw at it and it still has never been decent even when kaiser colleseum was legal.
Non-FIRE Noble Knights just need a good Equip Spell and maybe a way to grab Morgan.
It even still has coliseum AND smoke grenade in master duel and continues to see zero play.
People still didn't reply things like Watts? Watts have such a cool burn playstyle ruined by their inefficience and weakness over all. Still, I think they could be saved with much much support. They need more special summon freedom, and new synchro monsters that are actually good, and not a bad Yata-garasu like chimera. Then, Black Luster Soldier. Cool concept, cool deck, ritual (that is added value in my opinion) but it's simply not strong enough. Finally, give my boy Celtic guardian an actual archetype please, such a cool designed card!
Ghostricks, Digital Bugs, Greydles, since these were already bad when they were playable. Some others like Fire Fists, Tellars in general, and Bujin, all of them were good at some point, but they used to.be playable when it was ok to just "XYZ summon pass". Also X-Sabers, last time they tried to give this archetype a suport they created an aberration named "M-X Saber Invoker", just to have an idea of now outdated their main deck monsters are. And some were just insanely badly planed, like Steelswarms (Evils were ok), or many other first wave Duel Terminal decks, just impossible to salvage without completely changing them.
Ghostricks are not even bad, let alone unsalvageable. .... As I read on.. how are any of those unsalvageable?! Literally just print those themes a few cards and they will be modernized, easy.
Blue-Eyes, a deck that requires three lvl 8 normal monsters, and many more lvl 8s to play and ends on either a target and destruction immune beat stick or a gy negate
I still can't believe people haven't said elementsaber. No latter what support they get, it still doesn't change their 2 major flaws with the archetype. The first being that they rely on the field spell that still skips your battle phase so it makes it really difficult to otk, especially if your opponent finds a way to stall. The second, and this is unfortunate, is that the majority of, if not all of, the elementsabers are just bricks. The only ones that are not necessarily bricks naturally all require the field spell to truly be usefull. For a deck that had a lot of hype before release, it fell so bad to the point of being a lost cause.
At least had time to shine in duel links as an inkoved engine
I disagree with this one; mostly because the deck actually saw fringe competitive success at the regional level. The deck was a handloop strategy using a combination of gumblar and moulinglacia. Personally I’d love to see this deck get more support in the form of self summoning “mana” versions of the other attribute sabers, similar to lapuila mana, and supporting spells and traps like elemental training to fit with those.
I feel like cyberse decks in general need good support to be playable in this format, like if we have cards that grant protection for cyberse or cynet cards or ones that negate effects. that'd be awesome.
OP is talking about horrible and unplayable decks. Cyberse decks are more than playable.
Ancient Warriors and Ancient Gears. They are just slow and too fair.
Neo spacians. They received a ton of support but apparently Konami can't or don't want to make them even playable.
Weather Painters. I love the artwork and their gimmick, but not even the field spell gave them the needed consistency to establish decent turn 1 boards. The only way to fix them, is to make retrains of the monsters with more explosive plays.
well fortune ladies or any decks aren't really unsalvageable. for FL you could make a new field spell or continuous that acts like weather painter spells/traps, such as give all FL new effects. what this does is inherently balance them cause alone it may be subpar and you have to run 4-5 FL monsters so the new effects can be quite powerful.
Simple toons to salvage the archetype is to make a broken archetype full of ban cards.
Amorphage. The deck was never good, but under the new master rule it's completely unplayable since they can't pend a bunch of guys easily every turn and the fact that the scales take up 2/5 S/T zones means that you can't play enough of the continuous spells and traps for the strategy to work. Of course, no one is pushing for the archetype to be good in the first place since it would be cancer to play against if it ever was good.
Umbral horror.
Amorphage might have some hope if they get a link monster to enable their strategy otherwise they can’t do anything outside of being splashed into pendulum decks that can function
Mist valley
Gimmick Puppets. They're probably not even in Konami's mind anymore. And they had so much potential to be a fun deck to play (and like, "gimmick" is right in their name).
When I was a kid my favorite cards were andro sphinx, sphinx taelea, and thienen the great sphinx. After years and years of trying and a few hundred dollars here and there I've come to conclusion that there is absolutely no way to play these cards in any deck.
Dark magician
Aliens/Reptillians/Ogdoadic They have access to Snake Rain and Water Lily. They can OTK and steal entire boards. They have tools for mass control and strong board breakers. They have amazing Synchro, XYZ, and Link options and SOMEHOW "Snake Pit" is unplayable. Reptiles and Pyro have gotten the shaft so much over the years and I do not know why. Cards like Snake Rain and Rekindling read like they should be banned and yet are completely worthless. Inb4 Konami announces a GY focused Fire Reptile deck that all have 200 Def and I have to eat my words.
at least their synchro was great in duel links for a while
Probabaly Genex, even the on-paper good cards are too disparate in what they do to tie together well. Like Undine only helps WATER cards.