Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains

Well if he's unfamiliar with the rules it gives us a good tutorial on how things work in the new season too.

Liked the cyberpunk tone. Feels much better executed then Zexal already.

Helps they didn't go backass-ward with the tech this time. I mean from cardgames on motorcylces, to AR or whatever? Just so stupid. Like it added nothing to the duels.

This time though, they went to Card Games Online. That's a step up, and I'm seriously hoping it gets all .hack and we have people go into comas.

This is Yugioh.

Being put into comas by a Children's card game DUEL is tradition.

Watched the episode. Loving Yuusaku as a character as well as the show as a whole so far and looking forward to next week when we get the first duel. OP and ED both leave a lot to be desired but I like the ED more in terms of both the song and the visuals.

So Yusaku is motivated by revenge. Interesting. And a definite move away from the usual leads - I might actually be interested even if I find the new rules chaffing and unnecessary, because those can be changed at a later date.

I was entertaining a plot for a Yugioh VRAINS RP already that involves Link Monsters secretly having a history of being part of something held within the deepest reaches of the AI World - in the darkest, deepest depths of the AI World, a white and gold grail spills out blue (like the Link Monsters' color...) and black ooze. Nothing is said about it initially, but there would be a heavy implication this horrible thing is part of why the Knights of Hanoi want to destroy the AI World - can't get at it without destroying Link VRAINS as a whole...

edited 10th May '17 11:13:54 PM by NickTheSwing

So if those energy birds in the opening represent the main characters and the green, yellow, blue, and red ones are Yusaku, Go, Aoi, and Revolver (eventual Heel–Face Turn?) going by that last bit before the sponsor message, then I guess the purple one would be Ema but what about the orange one (either Kusanagi or someone who hasn't been introduced yet, I'm going to assume)?

I thought the birds represented those other Ignis-like programs.

Right, and it seems that each duelist has their own AI.

You know, I think Yusaku is the first YGO protagonist that actively seeks out the supernatural/world changing power knowing it'll be trouble. I mean, the others just run into it or don't really realize the magnitude of what they are getting into. Still doubt Yusaku knows in just how big shit he is, though.

By the way, how long do you think the whole revenge plan will last?

I imagine for as long as Hanoi are the villains at the least.

We'll need to learn their motivations, and more about what they did to make him their enemy as well.

We'll see how it goes once that is done.

Soo... I decided to give this new a series a watch because of a rather stupid reason.

The reason being that I really like Yusaku's hair.

x6: Well, Revolver has the obligatory rival's 3000 ATK monster, so I'd say a Heel–Face Turn's an inevitable.

The first episode was kind of clunky overall I thought. A lot of exposition but little of it was all that graceful and it still didn't really manage to paint a clear picture of the setting's nuts and bolts. Like, when people log in to VRAINS, are they actually being digitized a la Tron or is Yusaku just sitting in a chair looking kinda spaced out in the real world? Did the people who got incinerated by Cracker Dragon actually die/go into a coma/brain dead or did they just get kicked out of cyberspace? Obviously things like that are going to be more clear in the coming episodes but it would've been nice to have a clearer understanding of it in the premiere.

The reusage of ZEXAL tropes is blatant, but executed a little better. The Yuma/Astral dynamic being reversed is a bit more fun, and I doubt the secret network Ignis has locked away is going to stay that way for long given that the two other sealed A.I.s shown clearly matched up with Go and Aoi aesthetically. Speaking of aesthetics, I was kind of surprised how conservative the character and set designs were in the real world outside of Yusaku's unicorn frappucino hair. No way that's lasting.

Overall, yeah it still reminds me of a Yu-Gi-Oh! version of the Megaman Battle Network anime I followed way back when mixed with ZEXAL and a dash of 5D's. It has the potential to be good, certainly, but of course ARC-V had a pretty strong start too before imploding after the halfway point,

You know, with the whole digital cards thing, I wonder how long will it be before someone starts hacking their duel disks to either change the cards mid-duel or some other way of cheating.

People brought up that idea the instant it was revealed that duels were in cyberspace.

Digital cards makes me think of something that's truly terrifying: card acquisition using the gacha mobile game model *shudder*.

In the existing Duel Links mobile game, the way Konami does this is that you buy packs, but there's a set pool of cards you're drawing from in each set until you clear out the whole pool, then it resets. So pay enough and you will complete the set, with exactly 1 copy of the higher-rarity cards, 2 copies of the next-lowest and so on.

edited 14th May '17 6:11:06 AM by burnpsy

Isn't Yugioh a real-life gacha game already? I mean you have to buy packs of randomized cards in the first place so...

Gacha's frequently flirt with illegality (in Japan) by essentially working like gambling. Booster packs are far from randomised, as they all usually have a pre-existing pattern they use (1 spell card, 1 trap card etc.). At least they used to.

edited 14th May '17 7:21:14 AM by TerminusEst

I never understood the preference for going first when you can't attack on your first turn, but the new rules give a huge advantage to the player going second, given that said player not only gets the first opportunity to attack, but also a free Draw Phase. Of course, Speed Duels put a premium on deck destruction, so somebody running a milling deck would want to go first.

The preference for going first is because you can make an unbreakable board without interruption from your opponent unless they happen to have Ash Blossom, Ghost Ogre, Effect Veiler or Maxx "C" in their opening hand.

Going second, your opponent will have their own unbreakable board with monsters that can negate and/or destroy all of your stuff, is likely to have multiples of Solemn Strike, Imperial Order, Anti-Spell Fragrance and/or Dimensional Barrier set, might still have one of the aforementioned cards in hand anyway, etc. It's typically very hard to make a good board going second unless your opponent bricks.

Then the player who went first kills you through your inevitably weak board when their second turn comes around.

TL;DR: Unimpeded Setup >>>>>>>> First Attack

Speed Duels throw a wrench into this in a ton of ways.

edited 16th May '17 6:09:28 PM by burnpsy

The appeal for going first is probably that you can set up your field to protect your lifepoints since if I'm remembering right the person who goes second can attack on their first turn.

That sounds about right.

After seeing the other posts, I can see the benefit of going first as well.

Note that, if you draw a monster with an effect that does damage, you can still get an edge on the first turn as well even if you can't attack, and since the opponent won't have anything on the field, you could even do a one turn kill if you're lucky enough.

This is just a guess though. Everything I know of the series is through the anime.

I do play a deck that involves many hand traps and Aleister the Invoker, which usually goes second so I can disrupt those plays that lead to an unbreakable board. I got someone to scoop just because I hit Pot of Desires with Ash Blossom alongside Maxx C when he started to go into something else.

The Invoked series can fusion through these hand traps, and control the board state, and they have a spell that lets me trade one out for any other Invoked fusion monster I might need. Including Caliga, whose effect basically disrupts everything.

edited 17th May '17 12:11:08 AM by NickTheSwing