Poll: YuGiOh or Magic:The Gathering, which is better?

[Saltyk]

I feel like too many people are allowing their bias to color their judgment. But here's my two cents.

Yugi-Oh
A quick fast paced game. Lots of variety.
Pros
~fast paced
~variety of cards (monster/fusion/trap/spell/etc)
~simple to learn (though deep when you really get into it)
~older cards are still eligible for play
~games can turn around in a single turn
Cons
~too often cards have odd rulings that you have to find online
~90% of commons are worthless, even a lot of rares are pretty bad in competitive games
~if you learn from the show you don't know how to play

Magic
~a somewhat deeper strategy (your mileage may vary)
~resource management adds an extra level of planning and strategy
~even starter decks can be competitive
~larger player base
Cons
~generally slower paced
~have to keep up with the most recent sets as older sets are constantly being banned

Honestly, I see them as two sides of the same coin.

If you like the idea of fusion monsters, synchro monsters, sacrificing monsters for higher level ones, setting spell and traps, and quicker turns, play Yugi-Oh.

If you like to take your time, factoring in cost of a spell versus it's power, and generally like the concept of Magic's color system, play Magic.

Please note, I'm trying to be balanced in this discussion. I've played both. In my experience, I like Yugi-Oh better. This is largely due to the games being quicker (no summoning sickness; yes, I know about haste) and the fact that a single turn and really turn around a game (I've beaten a guy that still had the full 8000 life from 100 life). I can seriously tell who's gonna win in Magic by about the third turn. Momentum just means too much in Magic. Though, I have had plenty of fun playing Magic, too.

On the other hand, Magic almost seems simpler to play. The #1 Rule of Magic is that the card overrules any rule in Magic. If the card says you can do something against the rules, you can. Especially fun in unglued (this card says you have to go buy me a drink). While if you're playing Yugi-Oh competitively, you better know all the obscure rulings on how cards play, because there are a lot. Perfect example is Spell Shield Type-8. Original card says one of its effects is to negate and destroy any spell card at the cost of discarding one card from your hand. Turns out this was wrong, and it was supposed to read discarding one spell card from your hand. They fixed this on later editions, but it was still lame.

So compare and contrast.

Oh, and since people keep bringing it up, if you can beat your opponent on the first, second, or third turn, the game is broken. That's not fun. That's not a "fast paced game". That's stupid. And if you use a deck like that, you should just quit playing and get a life. Bottom line is that you should play any game because it's fun. Not because you win. That extends to general "meta game" concepts. Instead of copying the awesome deck that someone else built, why not build one yourself?

 

[LittleChone]

 

[AncientSpark]

Because as we all know, the point of these things is to be slow and plodding. Thats what you want from your entertainment. Plus, regenerating your costs each turn makes it more akin to an RTS where your costs automatically pay themselves back when you've paid for something. This isn't resource management. Its just simple prioritising, there's no permanence to paying a cost

All of these are factors that tie into YuGiOh, except there is no deck out there that doesn't have something for dealing with Trap cards. So you're essentially limitting the ability to hold off spells to a few deck types, all others being SOL.

If you really find it that distressing that most decks won't play a creature within the first ten seconds of the game then I suppose I can see why you wouldn't want to play Magic. I personally prefer games that have some sort of pacing that allows you to focus on early, mid or late game, all of which play very differently, to one that ignores all that depth so I can get my SUPER AWESOME over 9000/over 9000 cards out on turn 1.

You're using the wrong word. Pacing requires that the action come through in manageable levels. Having fuck all happen for four turns isn't proper pacing, its just slow.

Having a 1800 monster attack a set facedown is proper pacing, as it allows some immeditate manageable action. Keyword being action. Something must actually happen.

If you're not doing anything for four turns in Magic, your deck sucks and you're not playing Magic properly. Seriously. There's a reason why the Philosophy of Fire in Magic exists. Any deck, even in low powered formats like most Limited formats or casual "big-spell" formats like Commander have people throwing haymakers by the 3rd or 4th turn.

You know the most low power Constructed format in tournaments, Standard? Cards that cost 5 mana or more are nearly unplayable; they have to be really damn good, like Gideon Jura, or you have to be a mass acceleration deck that can win with said 5 mana+ card and do it by the 4th turn consistently (like Valakut).

I don't know what game you're playing.

 

[squeekenator]

You're using the wrong word. Pacing requires that the action come through in manageable levels. Having fuck all happen for four turns isn't proper pacing, its just slow.

Having a 1800 monster attack a set facedown is proper pacing, as it allows some immeditate manageable action. Keyword being action. Something must actually happen.

Pacing requires that you start off small, with little things, and gradually build up to the giant explosions and i-win effects. That's exactly what Magic does. My friend has a goblin deck that drops a creature on turn 1 every game. Stuff is happening right from the start of the game. I generally play slower control decks, and I'm still doing stuff from turn 3 onwards every game, and turn 2 onwards often. If fuck all happens before turn 4 then you simply aren't playing the game properly. But really, why are you thinking in terms of turns here? Turn 1 takes literally five seconds. Drop a land, say go, other play draws, drops a land, says go. Until stuff actually starts happening, the turns fly past in a matter of seconds. You must break your keyboard at the sight of a loading screen if you think that's a terrible game-ruining delay.

 

[Mute52]

Pokemon of course.

 

[KyoFox]

To lazy to read all replies, so if I copy someone, I'm sorry

I would recommend Magic. It is, as someone else has stated before, more tactical. With a few simple cards, and practice, you can annihilate players in a few turns.
It may take some getting used to at first, but it is not that hard. Just find a mentor

I haven't played Yugioh in a long time, and it confused the crap out of me as a kid, so I can't say much. Mostly, I think it was unnecessary to use attack and defenses that are in the thousands. That was complicated math when figuring out how much damage an attack did(again, I was way younger)

If you are gonna try Magic, I would recommend using a Forest, or green, deck. It's easier to gain life that way, great for beginners.

Also, if you wanna be cheap, go and find a "Phage the Untouchable" card. That'll probably annoy a lot of Planeswalkers (Planewalkers? What's the plural?)

 

[Jatyu]

Wow, it's getting a little heated in here...

Anyway...

I've played both magic and yugioh and while they are both good, I would say magic is better, but not for the reasons you may think.

See magic first came out in 1993, as a card game. Yugioh was launched as a card game in 1999, being based on the manga and anime. Magic came out first and has the benefit of 6 extra years behind it. Additionally, it as designed as a card game, whereas yugioh was based off of the game played in the show/manga, whose rules were kinda loosely defined.

Early yugioh was kinda bad and quite unbalanced. Magic was the same, but not quite as bad. Yugioh was also more expensive, and had quite a few useless cards. Magic cards nearly always have some use.

Magic also has much more support for its community, particularly in the english speaking world. For example, they recently took the much loved fan-created format Elder Dragon Highlander, and turned it into an official format, Commander. They didn't take over the format though, the people who created EDH still control the rules for commander, but they did release new preconstructed decks, with brand new cards made specifically for the format.

I've never seen Konami do that.

Magic is the better game, not because the game itself is better, but because the community around it is.

 

[KyoFox]

To lazy to read all replies, so if I copy someone, I'm sorry

I would recommend Magic. It is, as someone else has stated before, more tactical. With a few simple cards, and practice, you can annihilate players in a few turns.
The mechanics of the game may take some getting used to at first, but it is not that hard. Just find a mentor

I haven't played Yugioh in a long time, and it confused the crap out of me as a kid, so I can't say much. Mostly, I think it was unnecessary to use attack and defenses that are in the thousands. That was complicated math when figuring out how much damage an attack did(again, I was way younger)

If you are gonna try Magic, I would recommend using a Forest, or green, deck. It's easier to gain life that way, great for beginners.

Also, if you wanna be cheap, go and find a "Phage the Untouchable" card. That'll probably annoy a lot of Planeswalkers (Planewalkers? What's the plural?)

 

[MisterGobbles]

Magic is better than Yu-Gi-Oh, in my opinion. They're both great games, but Magic has stuff going for it that other games don't.

In Magic, most cards have a color of some sort. In Yu-Gi-Oh, cards have types such as Light and Dark, and they can combo with each other, but you can play any card in any deck for the most part. Magic restricts the cards by restricting the types of mana you can use to play them. It forces you to think about the pros and cons of each color, and put together a deck accordingly instead of just slapping the best cards in the game together.

Sets and flavor, although I never paid them much attention in Yu-Gi-Oh, pay a large role in Magic. That's part of what makes Standard so interesting, and the games last longer than Yu-Gi-Oh ones do. Legacy is a cool format in and of itself, but it's just as expensive as Yu-Gi-Oh if not more, and games last about the same length if not quicker.

Did Yu-Gi-Oh ever do drafts? If so, that's cool.

Also, this is just my opinion, but I always though that the card art in Magic (nowadays at least) is better, and so is the quality of the cards themselves.

 

[MisterGobbles]

Magic is the better game, not just because the game itself is better, but because the community around it is.

I couldn't have said it better myself (except for the little edit I did). There is NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE in my area who still plays Yu-Gi-Oh as anything more than a novelty. The only places you can get cards are mass market stores. There just isn't a player base here. I don't know what it's like other places, but the community pretty much defines games like theses, and there's simply a bigger one for Magic.

 

[natster43]

Yu Gi Oh. I say this because it is the one I played and I still play it. I never got into Magic.

 

[Asturiel]

Im curious how Cawblade at its peak matches up to some of these "busted" Yugioh prices hehe.

Anyway Magic hands down, theres just so many formats and WotC is just plain awesome. Is there ANYTHING like the MTGO community cup that Konami does? ANYTHING?

 

[Asturiel]

Damn theee doublepost

 

[Fenix7]

Unless you really, REALLY like the anime/manga/whatever, there's no reason to choose yugioh over mtg. As a game, mtg is infinitely superior.

 

[ArtanisCreed]

yugioh is easier to learn to play. Both games are hard to master tho. M:TG has been around longer and has a shit ton more cards. try both games an see what u like. (honestly i like magic more cause it has a much deeper lore.)

 

[orangeapples]

Yu-Gi-Oh is easier to get into, but Magic is the better (well, more in depth) game.

I always called YuGiOh, "Magic the Gathering: lite"

I enjoy both, but I also don't play both regularly. Magic is way better, once you get into it.

YuGiOh: easy to pick up and fun
Magic: difficult to get into and FUN

 

[Gametek]

Fine, at this point comparrisons between the two would require examining so many distinct elelements that it would be near impossible to say one is more complex than the other.

But you still do have to back up what the hell zeroth turn kill even means, because at this point all I'm picturing is you punching a guy and then claiming you win.

Well ,that is always an option, but not the one I had in mind . Keep in mind, there are multiple formats in magic that limit which sets you are allowed to use cards from when building your deck. Standard is basically the past 2 years of sets, Extended is 4, Legacy is every set with a banned/restricted list, and Vintage is everything with a restricted list. There are others, but those are the most basic ones.

This deck in question is only legal in Vintage, maybe legacy, I'd need to check banned lists. To make it simple, I'll just post a video

<youtube=iMUTQO-mnIg>

And, fittingly enough for magic, there are even counters to THIS strategy, such as a mana-less counter spell like Force of will, or cards that you can start with on the field such as leyline of sanctity.

.....where the hell did you people learn to count? That is not turn zero, that is turn one. If you are acting, that is your turn. Like I said, 13 combos that do that. You can't just point out a technicality in the Magic rulebook that the first turn doesn't count as a turn and say that means its a zero turn kill.

For turn zero you mean exodia in your hand, right? If it's anything after the syncro set I don't even want to now that card.

 

[Gametek]

As this is not a dedicated card games forum I'll not go into my usual scathing review of Magic so as to hopefully avoid Mod wrath to my nice shiny new account on this great forum.

However the simplified bit is Yugioh is better than Magic for not only being a more fun game thanks to no resource system but Magic as a game is bad due to the rotating sets. (I have a long rant I could go into as to why this is bad but it is not something I'm certain is good for this forum or my account as it is not a dedicated card game forum)

You're telling me that Yu-Gi-Oh never releases new cards or revises which cards are legal on occasion? If that's the case, it must be INCREDIBLY imbalanced and poorly designed. But I know that's not the case, so stop trying to find non-existent advantages for one over the other, and let's instead just stick with the facts, shall we?

I never said that. Yugioh only bans problem powerful cards that honestly Konami was high when they created it for being all powerful and they release new sets regularly. Magic on the other hand rotates out whole sets forcing people to buy product. It is a concept of greed on the highest order and one I wholly dislike. Konami for all there faults do not force anyone to buy product. You can play Yugioh with just about anything you want as long as it is not banned and very few cards are. However of course you won't be as competitive as others if you don't buy thing on occasion. But its still a better option than holding a gun to the head of the game's addicts forcing them to throw money @ the game to keep there decks legal.

Bulshit. I played yugiho, and most of the best card are banned or limited. As for the using of older card, most of series 1 card are or incredibly weak, or insanely strong. The only win thing of the last series is takin away from the fusion the polymorph card, but yet it beat me why they keep changing name for it. Fusion, union, exceed, sincro. Bha.

And, you seem to point that yugiho tournament have only a ban list and don't force to use last released card. are you kidding right? I never played a tournament for bot, but this look like if yugiho expansion pack do a poorly work at providing enough good card to produce a bunch of strategy oriented deck.

 

[Gametek]

How is this even a question? Yu-Gi-Oh is just a cheap MTG knock-off with half the complexity and depth and eight times the stupid anime androgyny.

MTG is way more fun and addictive in the long run. I mean, when you get to the point where you can start fucking people over with a blue/artifact deck, it's just...nirvana.

*eye twitches*

As long as that blue/artifact deck doesn't include Memnarch, I'm cool with it. It really sucks if it has Memnarch, Grand Architect and Pili-Pala. That is a recipe for fuck overs galore.

Of course, my demons can usually handle that sort of deck no problem, and my angels crush the rest (yes, I have an angel deck, yes it has Akroma, Linvala, and Iona, and yes, it's built around lifelink and has Akroma's Memorial in it. You may call me a dick at any time).

And mental corrosion? Your opponents discard the first two card from the deck any time a spell is played. Pretty anoying for me, ruin most of my strategy...

 

[Gametek]

yugioh is definitely fun but WAY TO UNBALANCED. especially with the newer cards out there (victory dragon wtf is that about!). id say magic, but i just got my first deck so im not too sure about the game right now

Victory Dragon is banned, it was a promotional card.

i knew it was banned in tournaments, but then why release cards that are soo unbalanced that they need to be banned. victory dragon isnt the only one for example witch of the black forest is one that was banned too, same with dark hole.

And pot avarice [how was called the one that let you draw two card?], raijeki, and bla bla, bla. Fun fact is that most of this card have no reason to be banned.