History LowTierLetdown / YuGiOh

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Melodious Melodious]] archetype is wielded by the ARC-V deuteragonist Yuzu. As an early ARC-V anime archetype, though, it was initially sorely lacking in Extra Deck bosses. A number of Melodious monsters gain effects when Special Summoned, but the archetype has a bit of difficulty initiating that without external help, and it didn't even get its own Pendulum cards which would have facilitated this strategy. They did get some Fusion Monsters later on, but the better Fusions want the clunky high-level Maestras as material. The best game plan is to Special Summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Aria_the_Melodious_Diva Aria]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elegy_the_Melodious_Diva Elegy]] so that you had a board of indestructible monsters that can't be targeted, but you'd find that Aria protects your board from being targeted by ''your cards too'', blocking off any targeting support that would be beneficial to your NighInvulnerable board. What's most painful is that Melodious support vanished in the middle of ARC-V (due to Yuzu being DemotedToExtra) and the archetype would continue to be starved of legacy support as the years went on, leaving it sorely outclassed for an anime archetype that belonged to one of the more promising female protagonists of the franchise. Meanwhile, Yuzu's dimensional counterparts got much more support for their Decks (Lunalights, Windwitches, and Lyriluscs) that actually allowed them to see a fair bit of competitive play well after ARC-V, despite the latter two in particular getting far less screentime. The knife is twisted further by the later introduction of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solfachord Solfachords]], who share the same motif of musical female Fairies, but with an actual focus on the Pendulum Summoning that Yuzu's dimension was supposed to represent. This would eventually be rectified in 2024, where they are given a pair of Pendulum cards with competent effects, their in-house Fusion spell, and two new Fusion monsters with less stringent requirements and good effects.

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flip_monster Flip Monsters]] are a mechanic well past their prime. Their effects are triggered by being flipped from face-down to face-up, whether by position change, getting attacked, or a card effect. They had some success in the earlier, slower days of the game (reaching their arguable height in Goat Format), but most modern strategies would rather not use up their Normal Summon to bring out a face-down monster that usually needs to wait for the opponent to attack into it to do anything, and several effects can simply remove the Flip Monster from the field without giving it a chance to trigger its effect. There are a few dedicated Flip archetypes like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Subterror Subterrors]] that try to push the mechanic by Special Summoning face-down monsters or letting face-up monsters flip themselves face-down again, but they've had little success beyond [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Shaddoll Shaddolls]], and even those benefited much more from being sent to the Graveyard than being flipped.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/CXyz CXyz]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C Number C]] cards, which are used by many ZEXAL characters, are dependent on [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rank-Up-Magic Rank-Up-Magic]] cards to evolve Xyz monsters into stronger versions that are otherwise very impractical to Summon. Frequently the process involves too many steps for a lackluster payoff, especially when there initially was no way to search for the Rank-Up-Magic spell. It was far more easier to just go with the [[BoringButPractical ubiquitous Rank 4 toolbox]] or use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Dragon_Infinity cards that Rank Up without needing a Spell]]. Not helping matters was the presence of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Utopic ZEXAL]], a very powerful floodgate that can be Summoned by discarding a Rank-Up-Magic card and using a Utopia Xyz monster as material. To keep that card from being too accessible, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rank-Up-Magic_Argent_Chaos_Force Argent Chaos Force]] saw some time on the banlist, and Konami was reluctant to print any RUM searcher, which in turn made it hard to support the CXyz and Number C cards. It's telling that after Utopic ZEXAL got banned, it opened the doors for [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZS_-_Ascended_Sage RUM]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zexal_Construction searchers]] to enter circulation and help support the strategy.

* Of the Egyptian God Cards, and perhaps cards in general, none had it worse in the transition to real life than [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Winged_Dragon_of_Ra The Winged Dragon of Ra]]. In the manga and anime, it was a monster with near-perfect protection (shared with the other Egyptian Gods, but Ra is higher in Hierarchy), three major effects of extreme strength, and [[SuperpowerLottery a notoriously extensive laundry list of minor abilities]] that made it the undisputed strongest card in the series. Some nerfing was expected in its OCG incarnation when it arrived in 2009, but they overcompensated so badly that it resulted in a card that just flat-out sucks. While it retains somewhat nerfed versions of its Point-To-Point transfer and Phoenix Mode abilities, the former is the only way for it to have any ATK at all (and requires ''all but 100'' LP as payment), the latter is just an unimpressive targeted-destruction ability, and they can't be used together unless you can get back some of your LP after summoning it, because the former can only be used right after it was Normal Summoned. It has no protection outside of blocking effects on its summon, which turns it into a massive clay pigeon (all the worse when both its effects require blowing through lots of LP). And worst of all, it's the only Egyptian God that can't be Special Summoned at all, requiring three Tributes--especially painful when [[{{Irony}} Ra was]] ''[[{{Irony}} designed]]'' [[{{Irony}}to be Special Summoned in the series]]. The result is an absolute joke of a card that was useless even on release, while its two counterparts, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Obelisk_the_Tormentor Obelisk]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Slifer_the_Sky_Dragon Slifer]], went on to varying levels of actual success. Tellingly, Konami seems to have realized how badly they screwed up with Ra, releasing many different support cards (culminating in a total of ''five'' in the Rage of Ra set) that tried to restore its series potency, but even then, it's rather sad that you have to essentially build a whole deck around Ra just to get a fraction of what it could do on its own in the series. Even more depressingly, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Winged_Dragon_of_Ra_-_Sphere_Mode Ra Sphere Mode]] turned out to be much better as a removal option than a means of supporting Ra, which led to it seeing far more play on its own than Ra ever did.