the big problem with pendulum, according to the fandom at least is.
- Overcomplexification. The basic concepts of monsters that are also spells is basic enough. The pendulum summon also seems intuitive on its own. That the monsters go to the extra deck is what goes over people's heads.
- Being being heavily slanted to combo decks. The pendulum summon allowing you special summon every applicable monster from both hand and the equivalent of the GY mean that there is a built in extension tool that makes endboards more formidable. In theory ofc. In practice it is impractical unless you have the right cards in hand so with proper card design that could easily be routed and rendered a situational tool or something that could only get out a extra body at most, right?
- Poor card design: The big issue here is that some cards ended so generic that any pendulum deck could use them but so restrictive that only pendulum decks could use them effectively. This stems a few factors:
- The ironic one is Konami wanting to make pendulums for nearly every deck (Zefra, Crystal Beast, Lunalight, various free agents). This is nice in theory but in practice only giving them a pair of scales meant it is improbable to see them in hand every duel on the first turn, unless you slot in more pendulum cards to scale with them. Which as you're aware is a problem shared by Rituals. The requirements of needing multiple cards in hand to function.
- Yuya running three archetypes. Yuya's deck has its own issues here. While primarily a performapal deck with Odd-eyes as a free agent boss. He also ran Magicians. Now that woudn't be a problem if the non Performapals were limited to Odd-Eyes, Timegazer and Stargazer. BUT they weren't the manga and OCG support ensured that Odd-eyes got cards that were outside the Performapal theme and Pendulum Evolution also made Pendulum Magician their own deck (and even before that, Skrullcrobat Joker was a thing). They were three decks with the same roots and enough overlap to just work as a pile deck. Even in the ideal scenario of Yuya's only functioning theme being Performapals, well we have to look at PePe.
- Going to Zefra, because Pendulum was the mechanic du jour to push. Both of the running lore storylines also had Pendulum monsters front and center. DT had the Zefra alliance was were designed to to tie together various factions, but in practice ended up their own deck only. In the other end, we have the Dracoslayer story which had five Pendulum themes and a secret fifth one that aimed to work with them. But the result was they had several good cards for general pendulum decks (Luster Pendulum, Metal Foes Fusion, Ignister Promience, etc)
- Also, many pendulum cards, esp with Metalfoes and Magicians, have effects that pop themselves or other cards to enhance the pendulum summon.
- Despite this there were only three maybe four decks that were considered meta warping. Qliphort (which was actually balanced around the mechanic by using it just for tribute fodder for Towers), the aforementioned PePe and other variants like Dracopals, and Penmag, which didn't quite hit the ground running (outside of Zoo variants) and only came in with Links and shot to tier 1/0 with Electrumite. The case could be made with Endymion and Zefra as well, with the latter faring well in OCG ebcuase Denglong wasn't banned there and the former also having a great showing but also having preemptive bans.
The thing is that there is merit to the "Pendulum Soup" argument, but Electrumite was more the final nail in the coffin. It also grew to be more baseless since pile decks became more common in general (Branded Bysteal Despia, Snake-eyes hybrids, Diabellstar hybrids, Visas Kastira Tearlaments, Rikka Aroma Sunavalon, Dragon Link, arguably HERO [a longstanding case]). At the same time Konami does seem to treat the mechanic as a fragile powderkeg ready to explode or a red-headed black sheep. A paradigm shift had occurred and Konami is treading softly around the eggshells that the mechanic had scatted in various ways. None of which revovled around the Pendulum summon vomiting bodys on the floor:
- Nemulria is outright incapable of it, with only one scale (the titular torpid princess) and only uses it for flavor (treating the Extra Deck as a tall bed)
- Vaalmonica doesn't restrict the pendulum summon, but is a control deck that focuses more on backrow and reusing their effects. The pendulum summon only begin a tool to get Seletrice out early and use the fairies to copy the effects. That said the design does allow for hybridization.
- Solfachord is another pendulum control deck, but one that focuses on the number of their scales and thus have them all over the place. Meaning you can't pend Cutia at all, need to use the field spell to pend Coolia, and whether you can summon the other six depending on what you have in hand. This makes it difficultt o use them with other pend cards.
- Vaylants is an all pend deck, but that is more for column movement and flavor. But all the effect monsters have a scale of 1 and the fusions have a scale of 8, meaning you have to go though hoops to set up an ooga booga pend summon compared to other decks.
- Conversely Arc-V legacy support for decks that lack pendulums during the show's run (Superheavy Samurai and Melodius) have the best support a pendulum deck could ask for. With so much role compression that you can slot them into any other deck. This overcomes the general issues Konami's earlier attempt to mass produce scales have (they set themselves up), while also proving the mechanics still have the potential to kick the opponent in the teeth. Despite this they weren't exactly meta (though SHS did get some cards hit in both formats). Those can be argued to be exceptions, but at the same time, if they can be used in any deck period then do they really contribute to the pendulum pile?
I think there is two other elephants to address
- Ash Blossom came in as late as Penmags. That card provided the broadest counterplay to combo decks, and thus pendulum decks everywhere. While Ghost Ogre cane first, she only works on on field effects and can't respond to activation (and might actually benefit the opponent since she doesn't negate and some pend cards like being popped). Ghost Reaper was more niche becuase you had to build around her. But by the time the barefoot blossom came in, she became the Forehead of Doom for pend decks. Other handtraps and boardbreakers followed in her wake (with some like Raigeki and Feather Duster being unbanned) each one begin another nail in their coffin.
- The game simply moved past them. While the Pendulum summon makes them seem like the most capable of long combos, they have largely been outclassed by decks that do not even need it. It became noob bait if anything. Pendulums even with Electrumite were outclassed now, and Konami designing later pend themes the way they are would ensure they will keep it that way.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jan 13th 2025 at 7:36:13 AM
The third elephant that you completely ignored; Konami literally changed the game rules to make Pendulum worse overall.
If you actually want to run two scales, you're forced to play with only three spell/trap zones, and you now absolutely need Links to summon more than two Pendulum Monsters from the ED.
I wouldn't say that they're scared to make 'pure' Pend good- rather the issue is the opposite; pure Pend has never been good. The only meta deck that's ever used Pendulum as anything but fodder for other kinds of Extra Deck summons is Qliphort. Maybe Endymion, depending on how strictly we're defining our terms.
I would, however, say that they seem to be afraid of Synchro Pend decks; there aren't many Pend tuners, and almost all the ones that do exist either have severe restrictions on them or have been used for all kinds of heinous nonsense.
That would make sense. Synchros were notorious for power leapfrogging ever since Beionac loops and the recent pend archetypes usually use Link or Fusion for their bosses. SHS is the only one that does synchro and as mentioned did get cards limited or banned when it got scales.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jan 14th 2025 at 10:58:39 AM
Nah, I just don't remember exactly how long ago Vaylantz was. Feels like it is much older lol.
When even regular Synchros are already ridiculous enough to the point where it's sometimes a wonder it gets nothing banned (see: Dragon Synchro deck being capable of putting 4-5 superbig bodies all with negates/disrupts on the field in one turn), you do NOT want Pend to boost that even further by making it even easier. So that's one thing Konami did right, at least.
Dominus support, art feature the girl on Purge....
so maybe next set we'll get another Dominus support with the art featuring the girl on Impulse?
Kinda surprised Konami didn't keep the error for long when it could benefit the upcoming Blue-Eyes structure deck lol.
Meanwhile, Khaos Starsource Dragon is still unfixed in TCG
Huh, Maliss cards now. Funny how apparently they're even better than what the leak is saying

I mean, was Vaylantz truly that long ago?