Remove which Yugioh Deck? - Poll results

(The results were a surprise to most that took part and a 3 week long run made it a strong voice to be heard. More than 300 people voted and they've shown just how hated certain decks have become.)

Probably the most interest poll yet, we take a deep look into our metagame and ask our community which deck they'd remove if they could remove one.

Not surprisingly we find Konami's themes at the heart of the problem; something we'll analyze in a little bit.
Let's look at the results after a long 3 week poll (June 25-August 15, 2009):

Blackwings
50 (15%)

Lightsworn
95 (29%)

Synchro Cat
42 (12%)

Gladiator Beasts
73 (22%)

Zombies
7 (2%)

Plants
4 (1%)

Skill Drain
30 (9%)

Other
25 (7%)

Votes so far: 326
Poll closed

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Listed in Order

• 1) Lightsworn - 29%
• 2) Gladiator Beasts - 22%
• 3) Blackwing - 15%
• 4) Synchro Cat - 12%
• 5) Skill Drain - 9%
• 6) Other - 7%
• 7) Zombies -2%
• 8) Plants - 1%

History of the Poll

If you watched the poll closely you'll have noticed that Gladiator beasts were in the lead for a long while in the beginning but Lightsworn caught up and took the lead.

Regardless, there was no clear cut winner but we could say with high certainty that most duelists want either Lightsworn or Gladiator beasts gone.

Together they amounted for 51% of the vote, a sizable enough percentage to make assumptions off of.

My personal vote,in the interests of openness, was Gladiator Beasts.

Too much love for Konami?

If you look back at some of our older Konami based articles you'll find a striking similarity in a lot of the comments. UniMetagame was being criticized for not criticizing Konami enough and possibly giving it too much credit.

I personally believe the contrary and feel we gave credit where credit was due, especially for the turbo pack, gold series, and Raging Battle.

As of now though we've criticized Konami on one point consistantly and that is their themes.
They've asked us consistently in polls how we feel about them and consistently UniMetagame has urged that these themes come to an end.

So to those who want to hear some criticism of Konami, this is the article for you.

Top 3 - Not where Konami wants to be

If you look at the top 3 most hated decks Konami takes Gold, Silver, and Bronze.
Even Blackwings, a relatively new addition, that you would feel duelists might still love or still be attracted by is being shunned by the UniMetagame community.

So why does this phenomenon occur? Could Konami have made the top 3 simply by chance?

Strength of Konami's Themes

When Konami makes a team it has one thing in mind and that's simply "power".

Why power? It's important to Konami to make a powerful team because there is no reason for promoting it or for anyone to buy it if the team is weak.

So what Konami does is make synthetic synergy and synthetic strength for this team.
Why do we use the word "Synthetic"? Because most times the cards that bind this team together CAN NOT be comboed with any other deck.

You can't Charge of the Light brigade any other team but Lightsworns.
You can't Gladiator Beast Chariot, without Glads.

The strongest parts of the deck are held together synthetically, a new word UniMetagame would like to propose that defines this process.

That's one of the reasons why duelists hate themes; because they make older cards mostly useless as the newer team cards (like Judgement Dragon) CAN NOT be comboed with older decks, themes, and ideas.

This choice of Konami's is both a strength and a weakness to Konami's themes.

Weaknesses

As mentioned before you can't combo a lot of the older cards, however strong they may be, with a lot of the newer decks that are mostly built for you and require very little tinkering.

Therefore ingenuity is lost through the deck building process; my personal favorite aspect of Yugioh.

Laziness is also promoted as this synthetic synergy is put together with minimal thinking and the ability to win is brought about easily.

Sure if you want the ultimate form of a deck, it will require a lot more thinking.
But can you really say the best build for lightsworn wins more than the average lightsworn build by about 20% more of the time?

Probably not; and the most winningest lightsworn build might only win 10% or more than the average Lightsworn build.
That in itself shows that laziness can take you a long way and being clever won't account for many more wins. The same is definitely not true for most non-Konami decks.

Result

You get very powerful decks, that can be made quickly, and that require very little thought on your part.

You also get a large pool of your community complaining that said themes are making older cards useless. Just look at an average Konami themed deck.
How many cards are from the past that aren't staples? By past I also mean cards that are older than 1 year.

Most Konami themed decks might have 5, probably not more than 10 older cards. In a 40 card deck that mean less than 25% of your deck is taken by older cards that you paid good money for.

The other 75% or more, are cards that are less than a year old and that you probably just bought.

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The Other Decks

As for the other decks, the highest of which was synchro cat with 12%, most people don't seem to have much problem with them.

Synchro Cat might have done so poorly simply because of it's OTK ability, something that annoys people very quickly(hint at TeleDad).

This might be addressed in the future ban list as Konami also hates very prominent and powerful OTKing ability.

Power = Hating a deck?

After Synchro Cat we have skill drain decks which took the Aneheim SJC back in May.
Skill Drain decks are very powerful, yet they only scored 9% of the vote. Most of the community might also agree that Synchro cat and Skill drain decks have Blackwings beaten in most games.

So we know that power isn't simply the only reason people seem to start hating a deck. If it were Synchro Cat and Skill drain would have placed higher than Blackwings.

This point is mentioned to deter people from simply saying that people hate the most powerful decks more. That's something that completely isn't true as we look at this poll. Lightsworns didn't even make the top 3 in Anaheim. Although something important to note was the fact that the top 8 at the Anaheim SJC did include 5 Konami decks, 3 lightsworns and 2 Glads.

That shows that Konami's decks are powerful, but they aren't the most powerful, and they've become the most hated. That also stifles the argument that power automatically amounts to hate as the above poll showed how low Synchro Cat and Skill drain decks did.

If that's still not enough to convince you that power doesn't automatically equate hate, then read Konami's statement that came out yesterday that pronounces the winner of the Yugioh National Championships:

Kris Ferber from Albany, New York Outduels More Than 1200 Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s TRADING CARD GAME Enthusiasts to Win Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.’s United States 2009 National Championship

Ferber Used a Rescue Cat/Synchro Monster Deck to Hold off Michael Kohanim
and Earn the Top Spot and Right to Represent the U.S.
at the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s TRADING CARD GAME World Championship In Tokyo

He was using Synchro cat and yet it only got 9% of the vote. Power does not equal Hate and the community wants Konami to recognize that these themes are hurting the Yugioh community much more than Synchro cats strong ability to OTK.

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Final Thoughts

There were a lot of preconceived notions on both sides that got shattered with this poll.
Our personal impressions were that Synchro cat and skill drain would place much higher while Lightsworn and Blackwing would place much lower, but that didn't occur.

We only hope that Konami somehow gets this message and starts propping up some of it's earlier deck types and themes. Ingenuity is the fuel that keeps Yugioh going and with it's loss will come the loss of a large amount of the Yugioh player base.

Check out our next poll which will run for 1 week (15th-22nd).

It asks simply, "Of the 15 cards in our Ancient Prophecy Preview, which was your favorite?".
Favorite can mean anything, from the strongest to the most unique or useful.

As you can tell we won't place all the cards on the poll, but we will place the one's we feel will get the most votes. Also if you feel one of the cards should be a choice to vote for but isn't, let us know in the comments.

Enjoy the next poll and keep interacting with us on the forums, where you can reach us 24 hours a day 7 days a week!