The First Wall - The Official Rules' Failings

    The previous article mentioned that Konami found the Official Rules to be lacking for the OCG. These Normal Rules were modified from the manga, and thus were an authentic experience for players to feel like they were playing the game Kazuki Takahashi showed in Shonen Jump. Removing some of the more story-based aspects, it was pretty accurate to the manga. 

    This true nature was one of the key reasons that the OCG spiked in popularity with its target audience. Changing the rules was a risky endeavor that threatened to deflate the game's momentum. Angry players could have quit the game in droves, marking the end of the physical card game. But another, worse pit for "Yu-Gi-Oh!" became clear: certain aspects of how the game was played would eventually drag the game down if nothing was done. 

LACK OF COMBOS

    In the Official Rules' simplified game, turns tend to take on a static quality. It's a very slow affair in which a war of attrition decides the winner/loser. As a part of this, there was a difficulty in attempting to perform explosive plays. You could activate monster removal that cleared the board before pressuring the opponent with a monster to attack directly with or revive a monster that had been destroyed on Summon by "Trap Hole" with "Monster Reborn." 

    But you couldn't do both. Since you could only activate 1 Magic card per turn, you were forced to prioritize what you could do. Combos tended to be simple and limited in their capacity. This, combined with the flood of Commons being mostly monsters, led to Decks having high monster counts and few Magic/Trap cards. This kind of imbalance threatened the long-term health of the game once the charm of playing it wore off.

HIGH-LEVEL MONSTER DOMINANCE

    Another issue that arose during the Vol.2 Format was the increasing presence of high-level monsters and the balancing issues their presence caused. Vol.1 had "Dark Magician" and "Gaia the Fierce Knight" which only made up 15% of a 40-card Deck in their playsets. But there was no issue as the two cards balanced one another. But with the Starter Box and the introduction of "Blue-Eyes White Dragon," this balance was broken in the face of an overwhelming 3000 Attack Power/2500 Defense Power monster that the previous two high-level monsters couldn't out without heavy support. 

    Worse, the introduction of new high-level monsters threatened to remove the viability of lower level cards. Level 3 and lower monsters were already obsolete in quality by the introduction of Vol.2, leaving a set of Level 4s remaining due to their strength in either Attack or Defense Power. But as time passed, these too would lose ground to stronger high-level monsters until that was all that remained in quality Decks. 

FUSION'S FAILURE

    The introduction of Fusion to the game fell flat. Heavy restrictions on Fusion meant that it would take at least two turns to bring out the Fusion Monster. Even back in these days, that was a difficult thing to ask of a player. What was worse was that the actual Fusion Materials were inadequate. Almost none of the best monsters were Fusion Materials [Mystical Elf was used to make Kamionwizard (1300 Attack Power/1100 Defense Power), but that Fusion was also not strong enough to see use]. 

    The best Fusion Monster of this period could have potentially been viable in a quality Deck. "Flame Swordsman" (1800 Attack Power/1600 Defense Power) had the stats to be played. At 1800 Attack Power, it would've been a beater along the lines of Curse of Dragon, though requiring "Legendary Sword" to get over it and the 2000 Defense Power walls. But its position as a Fusion Monster meant that you needed to play "Masaki the Legendary Swordsman" (1100 Attack and Defense Power) and "Flame Manipulator" (900 Attack Power/1000 Defense Power) to bring it onto the field. 

    "Swords of Revealing Light" helped prevent their destruction by battle and gave the Fusion three turns to be performed. But during that time, your opponent could just destroy either card with any of the monster removal cards  Furthermore, there were more useful cards one could play than those two, even for budget players. Thus, a good card on paper failed to make any dent. 

CONCLUSION

    These three issues brought danger to the earliest incarnation of the OCG. This was a crossroads that had to be crossed with a decision that would decide the game's future. Either it would continue to remain the way it was to keep the player base happy and live a short life, or the perilous path where the game could be reformed into something longer lasting but risk alienating the Duelists. Whatever discussions went into this, the latter path was decided with Kazuki Takahashi leading the way to a new ruleset.

THE EXPERT RULES!