TCG Exclusives Ruin Everything

This weekend I said to a friend, "I think I want to play Wind-ups."  Fast forward to Saturday night and, because of their dominance at YCS Toronto, I have to pay double for the Wind-up Sharks I was missing.  Tremendous.

So here's the story of Toronto.  Wind-up players went, "Golly, I can't hand loop reliably now.  Guess I'll focus on making flexible plays out of my xyz toolbox and play enough defense to keep other players off their game."  HERO players went, "My deck is less reliable now?  Could have fooled me."  Geargia players went, "SURPRISE!"  And Jeff Jones went, "Here's a new deck for scrubs to netdeck until they get pissed that they can't get it to work right."

I just want to mention this as an aside: you aren't Jeff Jones.  Don't buy Grandsoils at $50 a pop and expect to dominate your regional.

The Psychic deck is brilliant.  Nobody expected it.  I will guarantee that if anybody runs over a Giant Rat in the next few months, they'll know exactly what they're playing against and, more importantly, have side deck answers for it.

Well, my litmus test was a huge ass fail.  Jones lost in the third game of the finals because Josh Graham, the man who won it all, opened his first turn with Tour Guide and Shark, two TCG exclusives.  Tour Guide searches Tour Guide and makes Toy Boat who then special summons Magician.  Shark special summons and Magician triggers making another Magician.  All three then overlay to make Shock Master, locking out Jones' crucial monster effects for three turns.  GG.

That probably isn't the exact way that it happened, but all it took to end the tourney was two cards.  That left four cards in hand to defend the board or mount a counter offensive if Jones somehow was able to make up any ground.  All the situation needed was a young Japanese boy to cry with his head on the table while Kevin Tewart was clueless.

So, obviously, do not get rid of your Effect Veilers.  They're still quite necessary, not just to stop Wind-ups but also to stop garbage like Gear Gigant X.

To expound on the title, I have two major pet peeves about the way Konami handles the TCG, secret rares/rarity shifts and TCG exclusives.

TCG Exclusives are terrible for this game.  Always have been, always will be.  And they'll continue to be for as long as Konami decides to use our meta to test out bonus cards for their favorite deck archetypes that just aren't quite good enough to take off in the OCG (see: Lightsworn, X-Sabers, Gladiator Beasts, Six Samurai, Wind-ups) or cards that are just flat out busted (Allure of Darkness, Lonefire Blossom, Tour Guide, Reborn Tengu).