Yu-Gi-Oh In General

While that's all true, there weren't any real good anti-burn options in the Original Series compared to the later animes. So it was easier to make a pure Burn Deck back then and win with little effort.

edited 8th Feb '16 10:40:03 AM by VeryMelon

Vaguely related, but apparently the only reason Nightshroud lasts as long as he does against Jaden is that there's a point where Neos Wiseman's burn effect inexplicably fails to go off.

I think there were quite a few 'Negate effect damage' cards. The whole burn thing didn't really get solved at all, winning by putting three tremendous fires and whatever that 1000 damage meteor card was in your deck is still a plausible victory in the anime now. They just don't do it because that'd be cheap as hell.

While I loathe the card, there's a reason Pin the Hit only burned for 200 when Shinji used it.

fucking pin the hit.

EDIT: Yo, wot? Remember that episode? I'm curious to see that now.

edited 8th Feb '16 10:30:02 AM by Nickpws

Not while the Original Series was airing. The only options were Barrel Behind the Door (situational Counter Trap), Des Wombat (won't fit in every deck) Ring of Defense (only blocks Trap Card damage), and Pikeru's Circle of Enchantment (the best option available back then).

And it wasn't like Darkness had a monster effect that prevented it either, Neos Wiseman just stopped working that way.

edited 11th Feb '16 10:53:40 AM by VeryMelon

Man, even fewer options. Barrel behind the door wasn't out yet around that time. Your point has been made.

edited 8th Feb '16 10:36:31 AM by Nickpws

I remember something similar happening in one of the early episodes of ZEXAL that I watched too. Yuma and Kaito were having a tag duel against IV and III, Kaito had a Field card out that damaged all players without Photon monsters, and there was one moment where Yuma inexplicably took no damage 'cause otherwise he would've lost. I really don't like moments like that, it's lazy-as-hell writing.

It happened on Turn 13 of the duel, Episode 178. "Darkness Neosphere" attacks and destroys "Neos Wiseman". Fore some reason, The Burn effect of "Neos Wiseman" didn't activate when it battled "Darkness Neosphere", which should have inflicted 4000 effect damage on Darkness. It's not because of Anime!"Darkness Neosphere" either, it doesn't have an effect damage block ability.

Now I'm thinking about when Yami Marik gave Joey Lava Golem to watch him burn D:

Why do they still use 4000 points in the anime, anyways? Why not 8000 like in the actual card game? By Zexal and Arc-V, they've made the rules line up with the real game in every other way, haven't they (getting rid of face-up defense Normal Summons and whatnot)?

I guess it's so the duels don't drag on too long, but then why not just write the duels so characters get direct attacked more? I mean, most real life duels rarely last longer than 15 minutes.

edited 8th Feb '16 12:15:07 PM by spashthebandragon

Because the duels are as much about telling a story with the game as it is about playing the game. Plus, the summoning and effect animations eat up the slot time.

Yeah, you're essentially asking them to double the length of any duel, which more or less doubles the length of time things takes to happen in the show.

Can you imagine the Synchro arc in Arc-V taking twice as long because everybody's using 8k LP? It'd be ridiculously painful.

Which would in turn force the writers to come up with ways to blast off thousands of life points with as few cards as possible, to keep episodes short and pacing brisk. All the "One-Turn-Three-Kills" in Arc-V only work because they don't strain belief.

edited 8th Feb '16 5:26:53 PM by VeryMelon

Yeah, I guess so. It might be more spectacular to watch if players were losing massive amounts of life points at dizzying rates, though.

Thinking back to the Orichalcos arc, I was wondering why Atem used the Seal against Rafael.

My theory/explanation was that Atem was so used to every duel having high stakes (both short and long term) and having to win that it never occurred to him that as long as the Seal wasn't played, there were no stakes involved even if he lost (unless you count Kaiba having a bitch fit over someone else beating Atem/Yugi).

Let's recap.

Back in ancient Egypt, all 'duels' were basically Shadow Games with real monsters that had life or death consequences.

Then after Yugi assembled the Puzzle he was dueling in various Penalty Games and Shadow Games.

In Duelist Kingdom, he had to keep winning to get to Pegasus in order to save Yugi's grandfather (as well as the Kaiba brothers).

In Battle City, he had to deal with Marik and all his Rare Hunters and their high stakes duels (falling through a skyscraper against the Masked duo or bleeding out from getting your feet cut off against Arkana), as well as collect the God cards and eventually uncover more about his past.

Then in the Orichalcos arc he had to deal with Dartz' henchmen and the Seal.

I assume if Yugi lost that duel without playing the Seal, Rafael would've just left him to die in Death Valley while Rafael flew off in the helicopter. They really should've made that clearer in the actual episode, though.

That's my biggest issue with the DOMA arc.

Also, I feel it was really heavily implied that, despite what Mai kept insisting, the Seal DID mess with people's heads. I bet even just having it in his hand caused it to start brainwashing Atem.

Yeah, I got to give the dub points for adding in the fact that the seal brainwashes you. Makes Mai's Face–Heel Turn make a lot more sense.

I like the idea of the Seal affecting your mind just from holding the card. That would help to explain Atem's derailment.

I can still remember the reason we had for why the Pharaoh's using the Seal of Orichalcos was a DMOS. ^_^;; Or at least a Wall Banger.

I think the biggest problem with it was that the show didn't make the exact stakes of the duel clear enough. If it'd been another deathtrap scenario like the brainwashed Joey duel, then Atem's actions would seem way more sympathetic.

Why did they change Mai's voice in that season? :S She sounded more aggressive than sexy.

Her original voice actor left so they had to get another one.

What if Darkside of Dimensions ends with a sequel hook o_o

That'd kill the movie for me, no joke.