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

[Some_weirdGuy]

whichever game your friends are willing to give you cards for free from

The only trading cards i ever bought it my life was one of those tiny packs of pokemon cards, you know the ones that have 4 or 5 strong/rare cards. All the rest of what i have was given to me for free

 

[scyrin]

honestly it depends on your budget

im assuming your going for casual play, so mtg will probably be cheaper in the long run

for tournament play, i would say yu gi oh is cheaper because the tournament decks in MTG will run you well over $100 (possibly over $500 if you play some of the legacy)

 

[AncientSpark]

Yugioh is great, Magic is better.

Mostly because if you read a magic card, its is pretty easy to see what its actually does.

If you read a yugioh card, you have to squint your eyes right down, read full text (there are no keywords in yugioh), try to remember all the abilities, remember to use synchros (ruined the game), remember to use Chimeratech fortress dragon if it's a machine and sometimes you have to look up the ruling on the internet even if two cards with the same text are in play, they may have different effects.

Also Zombie Master. He has an effect that still hasn't been given an errata even though the japanesse card has a different effect.

Also I'm a Yugioh judge.

The magic community is usually alot better IMO and there us no good way to play ygo online (like Magic Online).

Yes, you have to know how the game actually works. Understand the rulling so ppl wont go OMFGwtf bugged cheats because they cant summon their chimeratech fortress dragon because they cant relate how banisher of light affects chimeratech fortress dragon summoning conditions.

Having no good way to play a game is a good thing. You want diversity to make games more intersting

I love when ppl fail so much at math and ruling when i have 2x skull invitation on the field and completely forget that the cards that will play will go to the graveyard after passivisation. Or that synchro material monsters go to the graveyard and cause damage to you too

Skull invitation, its beautiful. It transforms a childrens cardgame to a SHADOW CHILDRENS CARDGAME

If you want really obscure, difficult decisions based on rules and knowledge of the game, Magic has that too. "Oh noes, I'm going to pump my guy in response to this -1/-1 counter. Wait, my guy died at end of turn?! Oh yeah, -1/-1 counters are permanent while this effect only lasts until end of turn." Or, you know, the whole "what goes to the graveyard" trick, which every TCG on the planet does.

The OP's point was that it's much easier to digest what a Magic card does and what kind of effects it's used for compared to Yu-Gi-Oh. It's a "easy to understand, hard to master" idea, whereas Yu-Gi-Oh's much more middleline on that regard. Even if you have super crazy, bomby effects, it's much easier to understand with a glance through on what it does in Magic (if you can get past the initial learning bump, which, I admit, is fairly significant in Magic).

 

[Macgyvercas]

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).

 

[Jeff Gibson]

There are a lot of yugioh fanboys on this thread that seem to think magic is slower paced or not as strategic for some strange reason.

Yu Gi Oh is a simpler game that has rules that limit deck building. In magic the rules are very open ended and complicated, but allow for far more freedom in deck building.

I've played both, and yu gi oh wears off it's novelty fairly quickly. Magic continually drags me back in however. I like knowing I have so many different decks with different ways to win (winning via lifegain, or decking your opponent, or poison counters). It keeps the game fresh and interesting knowing I have so many options of flavour when making decks. In yu gi oh I always felt every deck was a variation of just playing a bunch of creatures. It got boring for me after a while, but to each their own.

Magic just offers more in my opinion. It's far from perfect though, but it's the best out there at the moment imo.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Played YuGiOh for years, and by the time I'd finished with it, just looking at the cards pissed me off more than I could adequately describe. I don't get that feeling with Magic.

So yeah, Magic wins IMO.

 

[smokeraven]

I'd go with MtG as there's more strategic thinking involved, however the one thing I don't like about it is that during tournamnets, there are so many "Net decks" that it made players like myself (that think of their own deck) question why they play the game anymore

 

[chaos order]

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

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

My experience with Yu-Gi-Oh isn't huge, but what I played of it I didn't like. For example, the time one of my opponents played a single spell that destroyed all my monsters but left his intact. I was more than a little annoyed, since the Magic equivalent would be Plague Winds for 0 mana.

On the other hand, I've had great times with Magic. Lots of ridiculous multiplayer games, especially since the rules are so flexible for alternative game types. For example, I once won a game with a Simic deck by transferring about +1/+1 tokens to a creature with flying in a single turn. Another time my opponent hit me with Plague Winds, and then swung for about 50 damage; it took him about 6 turns to kill me because I'd got my health to ridiculous levels using Wellwishers in my Elf deck. Or for something plain silly, the time my 5/5 demon got transformed into a 3/3 monkey... and then shot.

Spoiler: And just look at the card art from Magic

 

[chaos order]

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.

 

[squeekenator]

Oh and bullcrap. Magic cannot do any of those. It has approximations, but it doesn't have anywhere near the depth of use for those.

Traps = instants, removal from play = exile, sacrifice is a bad substitute for mana, which single-handedly makes Magic more strategically deep. But you are right about Magic not having super-special-awesome fusion sequences, so feel free to act superior about that if you like.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Play both for a few games, see which one you like better. Personally I like YuGiOh more but its mostly because I fell like I have less options in Magic.

 

[EbonBehelit]

I used to play Yu-Gi-Oh years ago, got bored of it and quit after going to a local tourney and realising that half of your 40-card deck was staple rare cards (mirror force, magic cylinder, etc). I lol'd irl when I heard the news that pretty much all of the old staples had been banned.

Anyway, moved to MTG after that, never regretted my decision. The game is far superior in terms of lore, deck flavour, game mechanics and card abilities that make sense. The card artwork is almost uniformly STUNNING in MTG.

It's also cheaper as well - something that's hard to believe considering. I remember back in the day buying 5 Yu-Gi-Oh boosters (9 cards each for 6 bucks lol) and getting 6/8 of the same commons in every. single. one.

So yeah, MTG by a mile and a half.

 

[Joel Soh]

Firstly, I want to say, I think the TC stopped reading this 3 pages ago.

Anyway, I don't think you can determine which is a better card game unless you take your own personal preferences into account. On top of that, it's all based on your opinion of each.

Both games have strategy. Both games have varying win conditions. Both games have a lot of great things about them. A person's preference depends on what they find more enjoyable, what they can afford and how the local community or your friends are going with the game at the time.

Not playing both before making a judgment is simply biased.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

No, that would be the one wherein you're more likely to win because your opponent cannot cover the cost of summoning due to not having enough Mana. Amazingly, having a greater depth doesn't mean broken. The metagame provides a tonne of ways to stop these combos.

Oh and bullcrap. Magic cannot do any of those. It has approximations, but it doesn't have anywhere near the depth of use for those.

Stop contridicting yourself. You cant say something like this

In fact, there are 13 ways to win on the first turn, without your opponent being able to do anything.

and then say that it is balanced. Unless of course you are full of shit which seems the case because you contridict yourself to many times.

Also no magic literally has every single one of those and except for traps which there is only a few of and are only kind of similar it had them many many years before yugioh came out.

You mean like how you claim that having a combo where you can win in what you refer to as zero turns is totally not broken? Difference is the metagame for yugioh provides means to actually cease combos that can work with cards that are useful outside of that one situation. Doing so turns attempting said first turn kills into a risk against multiple cards. Hence, balance.

And no, once again, Magic doesn't feature any of those elements to anywhere near the level of depth. Having a crude approximation of the effect of dual sacrifice does not have the same complexity of Synchro summoning, particularly the effects this in turn has on turnaround.

You know the 'turn zero' or any form of 'first turn win' combination is purely a novelty. They all require a mix of cards from different sets that wouldn't be legal in anything of significance, and most of the time they require you to get very lucky with your hand draw as well. Given that there are thousands of unique Magic cards it's hardly surprising that some impossible combinations turn up. There is, for example, one combination that lets you put every creature you own (not just in your deck, but literally everything you own) into play at once. But that's just a funny combination that someone thought up as a joke, it's not indicative of the overall balance of the experience. For a start, in proper tournament play 'cards you own' only includes a dozen or so cards (someone who knows more tournament play please clarify) that you set aside for this purpose.

And while you call it 'crude', I think it's far better for Magic to have a loose system based around actually explaining what a card does rather than just tying concepts like sacrificing for summoning to buzzwords and global game systems. The obvious exception are the keyword abilities, which are just used for the purpose of saving card space. Which is why, if they felt the need, they could perfectly mimic anything in Yu-Gi-Oh by actually writing it on the card.

 

[somonels]

M:tG.
Though people do say that Lot5R is better, never tried that though.

 

[babinro]

Determine what is most popular in your area and go with that game. Magic is likely the more popular game though, and if you're into tournaments you can get in some tournament fun any given Friday. The hobby is extremely expensive if you aim to be competitive though. The introduction of mythic rare have really added a barrier to entry.

Personally, I'd recommend a casual format like EDH (or commander if you prefer) since it only requires one of any good card and is extremely fun for casual and multiplayer gameplay. In addition, there have been new promo commander decks released just now that are a bargain considering it guarantees such staples like Sol Ring and Lightning Greaves.

 

[rayen020]

its an entirely subjective thing and you can only know for you. however i will say this, Magic isn't tied o a cartoon show and therefore not bound to make the plot device cards. I think yu-gi-oh would be better if the show was made for it and not vice versa. magic is alot more paced with it's releases and and doesn't have new rules popping up every TV season. seriously alot of the original YGO basic cards are not legal in tournaments anymore. Basically it comes down to do you still like the yu-gi-oh TV show? yes=ygo no=mtg

but thats just me. actually me i just have a deck for both why quabble over which is best?

 

[squeekenator]

Like I said, crude approximations. Having instants means (a) you are under no requirement to put them at risk, (b) the card is a one off use, and (c) you cannot use it as a perfect counter. Exile itself is one way, with no means to recover. Removed from play is just another set of cards that can be used. And considering Mana will almost always be doled out laboriously slow, while literally everying in the game can be used as tribute for YuGiOh, I'm missing how your land is supposed to be "superior" to the resource management of the position and placement of literally every card in play.

Well actually, it is a risk to keep instants in your hand. If you're playing against a discard deck you could lose them at any time, if you're against deck with any counters you have to constantly weigh up the odds of them countering, consider how many lands they have untapped, decide whether it's worth it to play it when they're tapped out, blah blah blah. But more importantly, by having an instant in your hand you're not using it, which basically puts you one card down for each instant, and that can lose you games. Not every instant is one-off (flashback, buyback and a few other mechanics), and there are plenty of permanents with flash. And what do you mean by 'perfect counter'?

Exile is one way now? You do realise that the reason they changed the term from 'remove from the game' to 'exile' is because the vast majority of exile effects weren't permanent and unrecoverable, right?

Mana is a superior mechanic because it provides pacing and allows for more opportunities. Mana only comes slowly if you don't choose to include any sort of acceleration in your deck, if it really bothers you that much you can play green and have enough mana to play anything in your deck by turn three. Yu-gi-oh is like an RTS where everyone starts with every building and every technology researched. It's great if all you want to do is get the big flashy uber units out ASAP, but removing the early game cuts out a huge amount of the strategy.

 

[The Random One]

Bah, back in the day there was only Magic and we LIKED IT.

Captcha is 'hard cheese', I thought the new system was supposed to make it stop being hilarious.

 

[squeekenator]

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.