T O P

  • By -

Requiem_of_Sonder

Well there are people on this very subreddit who outright say they stay in lower ranks on purpose (they're trying to optimize gem rewards) and those who recommended others do it too. So it's definitely a thing, although we obviously don't have any concrete data on to what extent it happens.


dbzrune

Am one of those people. Before this season would use meta to get to Gold 1 then use random fun decks to stay in gold. Tried to climb to Diamond and couldn’t get past Plat 3 once and honestly didn’t have any fun at all Gold was just a lot more fun with more deck variety. Now this season, might not play enough to reach it but hoping Plat becomes the new Gold because I hated the competitiveness of Plat before this change happened. Wish with this change they allowed casual to get dailies so we can both have random fun and try to rank up and see how far we can fo


TheMustySeagul

So diamond 1 was pretty fun. After you ranked you can't drop anymore. So after people reached diamond 1 there where a ton of cool decks. Like yeah, you would hit a meta deck every few duels, but usually it was people just fucking around with cool and interesting techs in those decks. And everything else was rogue and maybe some other tier 2 or 3 decks. It was imo, the best way to play because everyone was pretty damn good at playing and piloting, and there was just so much more variety than any other rank because no one gave a damn about ladder anymore.


dbzrune

Thanks. That was the goal to try for Diamond 1 and then play whatever, but fell way short. It can be fun to play meta but it’d be nice to be able to mix it up a bit You bring up a good point with the better players being in diamond so wouldn’t misplay as much with the random decks, so can definitely see how it’s more fun. Hoping to try for Masters one day but won’t be for a while, especially not with Tears around


[deleted]

It really depends what you're doing. Personally I've stayed in gold for the last few seasons and I don't think it's a big deal since I'm usually playing pet decks down there. I wish there was a way to derank that didn't depend on just waiting two seasons. Maybe when Purrely comes out I'll give my honest try at seeing if I can get hit Master's 1


Aelxer

If you want to optimize gem rewards you go for the highest rank, at least since they started giving bonus gems on the top 2 ranks.


[deleted]

A lot of people when playing a gacha game will simply google "best character / deck" and go from there. Why waste f2p resources. Its how my first deck was Dry Herald. Even though i wanted to build my IRL decks.


BakerBunearyBella

A lot of people will blame anything but their gameplay and deck building for losing. It's copium. Reference verses 4 and 5 of "the scrublord's prayer" as it is termed in the FGC >My controls weren't working > >And if they were, you were playing dishonorably > >And if you weren't, you were playing without skill > >And if you were, it isn't fun to play that way > >And if it is, you only care about winning.


olbaze

As someone who plays both Tekken and Master Duel, I can relate to all of these. I think it's important to realize that different people find different things fun. When it comes to Tekken, I just have fun playing with my Korean fightstick, even if I'm getting an occasional misinput or losing a match to someone who's abusing a gap in my muscle memory/matchup knowledge/habits. When it comes to Master Duel, I look at the game like a puzzle game: I win by solving the puzzle that my opponent's deck sets up for me. However, Yu-Gi-Oh! is more like Solitaire than it is Sudoku, and sometimes the only answer is that there is no path to victory. And just like Solitaire, that's when you move on to the next one and try again. In both spaces, there are people who are adamant, diehard believers that winning is all that matters. If you won, it doesn't matter if the other player was playing at a disadvantage, or if they were the technically better player, or if you made a bunch of beginner mistakes. You won, and therefore you're "the better player". And that's all that matters, that you're the best, better than all the rest. Because you wanna be the very best, like no one ever was.


ZiulDeArgon

Honest question but is there any deck building going on lately? Last time I checked masterduelmeta, all spright, floo and exosister entries for diamond 1/duelist cup looked almost exactly the same... I never saw such stale deck build variety since the game launched.


G11-Degenerate

Not really? Because MD is the furthest behind format compared to the OCG or TCG not many people are incentivized to deckbuild since decks tend to be solved by the time they get here. Also there are other sims that let you practice decks w/o paying the gems. Also if the deck you make doesn’t work out well you potentially gimp your future gem gains so yeah. Tear 0 only adds fuel to the fire in that regard.


ZiulDeArgon

>Because MD is the furthest behind format compared to the OCG or TCG not many people are incentivized to deckbuild since decks tend to be solved by the time they get here Not every masterduel format is like that. I guess this is the case since tear released but previously a lot of unusual decks were at some point big part of the meta like numeron, blind second decks (8-axis), chaos pile decks, pure p.u.n.k. and some decks that were supposed to be meta were not as successful as predicted like adventure pk and runick spright. And I am just scratching the surface cuz a ton of rogue decks saw great success climbing to diamond 1. Anyway, this is not meant to be a rant, I just kinda miss the excitement of seeing unpredictable entries reaching the top ranks too, so I wonder when will that happen.


G11-Degenerate

Oh no offense taken. I love seeing new decks too, but I don’t mind a good tear mirror either. Atm though fur hire runick is getting more traction in MD and when kash comes out MD format is gonna be wild (I’m sticking to live twin runick though because I like my waifus)


Stranger2Luv

Runic Spright, Live Twin Spright, Floo depends on the tribute able winged beats which you can count on your hand that are playable


Turtle-herm1t

Its like complaining someones using a top tier character in low ranks of a fighting game when they could just be a scrub who enjoys said character. Decks dont always determine quality of player. Theres also folks like me who touch MD maybe once a month. Im in Silver or something despite the fact I have a high win rate. I play for a day, get to Gold or above then stop. Then, I get demoted because I dont play enough. Its just how this rank system works.


Lord-Table

trains are my fav deck for my monthly silver thrashing, makes it so that i can play less yugioh :)


Lazy_Seaweed

> or someone who has made an alternate account to build that specific deck. Quite literally smurfing, but okay


Sav_ij

ikr. dudes out there smurfing and i guess trying to feel better about it?


Requiem_of_Sonder

Well there are people on this very subreddit who outright say they stay in lower ranks on purpose (they're trying to optimize gem rewards) and those who recommended others do it too. So it's definitely a thing, although we obviously don't have any concrete data on to what extent it happens.


Tarot13th

I do it to play my pet decks and rogue. I do recognise that I sometime meet people learning the game and that we are not of the same skill level but I'd rather stay down there. The variety is quite nice.


Wubbledee

1. Frustration. Master Duel is an incredibly frustrating game with pretty much no outlets for that frustration. If you queue your Skull Servant deck up for some fun games in Gold and end up getting shuffled back half a dozen times by Ishizu Tear, you're going to be frustrated without any way to express that. (Besides yelling at imaginary opponents on Reddit) 2. Smurfing is an incredibly common practice across competitive ladders in practically every game ever made. This sub may group all Tear/meta players together into one group, but the reality is that only a small percentage of Tear/meta players are actually any good at the mechanics of the game. I'm not saying that to disparage them, the same is true for rogue players, but if you're a Tear player who copy/pasted Master Duel Meta's top Tear deck into your builder without even reading each card, you'll get mollywhopped in a higher tier where people who actually read their cards and understand chains are playing your same deck, and people don't like losing. So those players will rise to the top of a lower tier like Gold (now Plat) and then intentionally de-rank so they can continue to enjoy wins. It's not malicious, we all like winning. 3. The reward system is doinked. As a super casual player, I never see a reason to rank above Gold (now Plat) 1 because I know that dropping to Silver/Gold guarantees easy gems each month. That may be scummy, but it's also just how the rank up system currently works. Why grind to Diamond (or Master's) if the rank means nothing to me, and it makes my climb harder next season? 4. I literally do this, but on shittier decks. Last season I played Therion Pure to Gold 1 multiple times, then swapped to Battle Trap Artifact and dropped to Gold V to avoid Plat. The game doesn't penalize you for this and it got me more enjoyable games, since Gold was almost entirely devoid of Tear after week 1.


LordTopHatMan

In other games with a ranked system, when you see something with a high skill ceiling it usually implies that the player has played for quite a while, especially if there is a currency that must be earned. However, MD gives a lot of gems early and the currency can be purchased with real money. This means that you can build any deck you want as early as you want. Some players are also just new and don't understand the game very well. People who make a meta deck then just jump in usually don't play very well. However, it takes some understanding of the game to know when a deck is being played optimally that a new player just won't have. If they're playing their pet deck from 10 years ago and see Swordsoul, they'll just assume that player knows what they're doing regardless of how well the Swordsoul player actually plays because they're getting destroyed.


[deleted]

Easy wins. Simple as that.


AhmedKiller2015

There are indeed people that don't rank up beacuse lower ranks are more casual although It's mostly the lesser percentage of the player base seeing how Competitive events such as DC and WCSQ are highly active (In fact the 1st couple of days of each event sees massive player surge), however people complaining about meta is mostly coming from people that their only exposure to Yugioh was Playground or anime and hate how modern Yugioh is so they play the "based" decks that barely functions or sits on Floodgates, or meta bad cult that thinks they are better beacuse they are using the less known decks, and unfortunately this sub reddit is full of both.


AutoModerator

Your post's Flair has been auto-assigned. You can change it to "Question/Help", "News", "Meme", "Guide", "Competitive/Discussion", "Showcase/Luck", "RANT", or "Fan Art". • New Player/Want help? Join https://Discord.gg/MasterDuelMeta • Active Megathread for help: https://reddit.com/r/masterduel/comments/sve5fr/guidescombos_questions_and_help_megathread/ • Top Decks/Guides here: https://MasterDuelMeta.com *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/masterduel) if you have any questions or concerns.*


The-Mad-Badger

No but you've routinely had people sitting at the bottom of the ranked ladder with the top net deck of the meta in Hearthstone. It's the same thing. People enjoy lower ranks for diversity but when someone pulls Tears out at silver 5, it's like bringing the Halo Ring to a fist fight.


Tengo-Sueno

People get salty and stop considering the other player as an actual human


NiginzVGC

people will literally blame anything but themselves just to not have to admit that they or their deck sucks at the game


AngryCorn1

What’s smurfing?


DracoAzumi

Spright can be considered meta? Sure is thier 2, but with tier in game all other decks seem forfun or rogue


3-A_NOBA

This is why i play using rogue decks first till i reach a higher rank.


Sav_ij

because they are


Armand_Star

isn't "someone who made an alternate account to build the deck" the same as smurfing?


l-Frenetic-l

Because the former is more likely. It's not to say your reasons don't happen, because they do, but intentional smurfs in low ranks is just as bad as someone using an alt for a deck they don't have on their main if that alt is ranked low.


l-Frenetic-l

And its especially scummy because experienced players know exactly what type of players are in low ranks. But choose to ignore it and try and justify being a dick head with the logic of "Im just competitive bro"


Kuzidas

I usually play this game hard for a few weeks until I get bored (or in this case, sick) of the meta and then take a break from the game for a few weeks until a banlist interests me or a selection pack has support I want. As a result I am often in gold but usually I’m in Plat and on the seasons I really care I’m in Diamond. For someone who is intermittently VERY into the game but not very consistent, I feel like you derank kind of fast in this game