Ancient Prophecy Sneak Peak - Konami Survey

(Click on the pictures to enlarge them)

Time for another survey and this one will be just as interesting as the last because Konami starts cracking down on the pack selling.

Click this link to take the survey if you haven't. As mentioned before, if you don't provide input you don't deserve to complain about the state of the game.

You do your part and Konami can do theirs. If they fail at least you can say you tried to change things.

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Key Points

1) Having the sneak peaks at hobby league stores.


I mentioned this in my last survey article and my feelings hold true since then.

Almost everyone I've spoken to continues to support the sneak peaks at hobby league stores.

Having them at the stores:

• * 1) Saves time driving to the convention center
• * 2) Makes for a quicker tournament that doesn't take up your whole day
• * 3) Allows considerably more people to participate who were unwilling or unable to go to the large convention centers.
• * 4) No waiting in long lines for long periods of time.

There are a few downsides as well

• * 1) Unable to meet as many new people and duel new opponents
• * 2) Unable to trade with as many people
• * 3) Considerably increases the risk of store owners selling packs before their release. (Nearly unheard of when convention centers were in charge)

Overall it's a good thing and the sneaks should stay at hobby league stores.

2) Corruption


The next 3 questions all had the aspect of corruption in them.
Most players will probably tell the truth about their experiences at the sneak peaks and will definitely complain if they paid too much.

Konami is counting on just that kind of enthusiasm to sample how much corruption is currently going on at the hobby league stores.

It's definitely a new problem they didn't face at the convention centers but it's a big problem nonetheless.

There is also a way to get around the corruption that Konami will probably never be able to fix.
It's something that even convention centers won't totally cure and it was a huge problem at my tourney for our sneak peaks.

Basically people would pay other people to enter, allow them to play with their cards, but ask them to hand over everything they pulled and their potential winnings to the person who paid for it all.

You basically can get as many packs as you want simply by having other people enter with your money.

This way, the hobby league is safe, the person paying for the packs is safe, and the person getting the packs is safe.

I don't know what Konami intends to do about that problem but using the above method and going to a few local sneak peaks allows you to get a full set of any card you want in the new set and at a very cheap price.

Because of said phenomena cards have been getting easier to get before their mass release and people have been abusing the new cards at a much more uneven scale than they should be able to.

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3) TCG exclusives (World Premiere Cards)


Konami shows off it's list of the 10 new TCG exclusives it made and asks which of the 10 is our favorite.

I wasn't too thrilled about any of them but I liked Greed Grado just because it might have the potential to be the next broken card in our game. Pot of Greed is hands down the best card in the game and Greedo Grado suctions off that power, while limiting it a bit to keep it from being as broken.

It's an interesting card to think about and it being a secret makes it a harder card to get than some of the other TCG exclusives.

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4) Theme Crazy again


My comments on this topic again, as posted in my last 2 Konami survey articles:

I absolutely hate Konami's themes.

I feel these themes:

• * 1) Enable lazy players
• * 2) Make deck choices a lot easier
• * 3) Create a child mentality where the Game owners literally walk you into your own metagame and set you up with a deck. (Thanks Mom and Dad....)
• * 4) Create a lack of creativity and originality
• * 5) Make combos with older cards harder to do or impossible all together
• * 6) Make the older cards of less and less value, causing the card game to loose integrity.

I LOVE cards like Honest that have effects that apply to OLDER cards and more general themes. Honest lets you use all Light monsters for his effect, unlike Judgment Dragon.

The Attribute and Type themes are good enough and they allow for originality.
They allow for brand new combos and are the KEYS that OPEN THE DOORS for originality and creativity.

But when Konami starts making specific themes for decks, it completely dilutes the Metagame.
Older cards can no longer be comboed as well with these new cards and the new cards are too easily comboed with one another.

These themes have to go, they ruin the Yugioh Metagame, and belittle the Yugioh player base.
We can be original, we can innovate, and we don't need Konami to hold our hands, especially now that Metagame.com and it's notorious Tournament reports / deck lists are gone.

I don't see how we can be creative if a theme is created and we're barely able to combo any of the new cards with the old ones.

I want to add one last thing to this theme topic.
If we assume that Konami is set in their ways when it comes to using themes and if we also assume that they are fully planned to keep rolling out themes than we have to ask ourselves:

• 1) Why have they asked us about these themes for 3 surveys?
• 2) Why does the yugioh community continue to complain about these themes?
• 3) Why would they question a directive of theirs that they do not plan on changing?
• 4) Why would they upset their future plans if indeed they plan to roll out themes anyways?

After asking the above questions it seems more clear that Konami might actually be Rolling BACK some of it's themes and asking this question over and over again might be the excuse they need to stop using these themes.

The senior executives might finally have heard some of the cries of the lowly yugioh player base and as a result, and the findings of 3 surveys, they might indeed decide to stop using these themes.

The more they ask this question the more it shows how insecure they are. If they truly were secure and confident about these themes then why do they keep asking us if we like them?

The truth of the matter is, they probably already know our response, and are now working to create a path away from these themes and these surveys are helping to provide proof for this new path.

I doubt we'll keep seeing this question in future survey's if they have no intention at all of changing the status quo. So in essence we have some hope and good news ahead of us, at least when it comes to these awful themes.

Again don't forget to take the survey if you haven't already. We need to do everything in our power to get our voices heard, regardless of how small the actions may appear at the outset.