Good and Bad counter card design

[Senju]

Counter cards are an important part of the game, introduced since MRD with counter traps, and in PSV with Jinzo, the first "boss" monster with built in protection. Cards like these have shifted entire formats around them, and thats why they frequently go on and off banned and limited lists. Konami previously had an overalll design to these counter cards that acted as a balance to them, but after The Dueslist Genesis and the start of 5Ds. The design of many new counter cards broke these rules.

Rule #1 of counter cards pre 5DS- You had to pay a cost that would eventually "run out." Many of the counter cards pre-5DS required a cost that would run out. Light and Darkness Dragon used to be the old form of Stardust Dragon/ Assault Mode. LADD does, however, have the built in balance of losing 500 ATK points when it uses its negation effect, while Stardust Assault has no cost. Prime Material Dragon used to be a lot like Stardust too, it had a very short life between PTDN and TDGS, but it had the cost of discarding one card to use its effect, a steep cost where you had to decide if it was worth it. While with Stardust, there is no cost, and its always worth using the effect.

The same goes for counter traps, Solemn Judgment, and Magic Jammer all had some big costs that you would run out of if you chose to abuse these cards. But Infernity Barrier has no cost, there is no reason NOT to abuse these cost-less counter cards, there is no decision making process of whether to play the card now or wait until a better negation opportunity comes along.

Rule #2- There should always be a reasonably sized loophole to beat the counter card. I remember when Jinzo came out, many players altered their decks to use more spell cards, but when Horus LV 8 came out, many players altered their decks to use more trap cards. I think this was good, for players to alter deck ratios to beat the "boss" monster of the format. Well how am I supposed to alter deck ratios to compete against Infernity Barrier? How am I supposed to alter deck ratios to beat Stardust Assault? There should always be a reasonably sized loophole to beat counter cards. In the Jinzo days, it was basically, 1/4th of the cards in your deck could remove Jinzo, I thought that was exciting, it brought many "heart of the cards" moments, where you just hoped and prayed to draw that Fissure to kill Jinzo. There is no loophole to kill Stardust Assault, you basically have to rely on "gimmick removal" like Lava Golem and DD Crow. There is no tension or a "heart of the cards" moment.

Rule #3- Counter cards should not reward turtlers- I hate turtlers, in video games and Yu-Gi-Oh, people who just hide behind their defenses all day. I think many newer counter cards reward turtling too much. I though Dark Bribe rewarded turtling a lot because the defending player usually used it to negate m/t destruction, and a deck usually only holds 3-5 m/t destruction cards. I think Stardust Road also rewards turtling too much, Heavy Storm was always supposed to be the punishment for setting too many m/t cards, Lightning Vortex was always supposed to be the punishment for letting your monsters pile up.

I really wish Konami would look at their old counter card designs and make better counter cards from now on. But I really think the damage has already been done, and counter cards have become so boring and predictable.

[OmgASquid]

Counter Counter was printed as a normal trap loooool.

[Kestral287]

Overall a good read, but there are a few points that I'd like to address. For those of you who dislike the tl;dr posts, I question what you're doing in the Articles section... but skip on down to "Given these three aspects, there must be a trade-off" and you'll get the most important part.

On Costs
Many cards are costed by the difficulty of getting them onto the field. Stardust Dragon--Assault Mode is a perfect example. On the one hand, he's a walking Solemn Judgment. On the other, he requires you to devote your deck to him. Personally, I consider SDAM balanced-- should he hit the field he's ridiculously hard to clear out, but if he's shut down you're screwed. Stardust himself is, in my opinion, more broken simply because of his ease of summon. Prime Material Dragon is actually balanced by your definition-- eventually you'll run out of cards that you don't care about discarding, no matter what deck you're running (except Infernities, but if you actually have a hand there you're not going it right). Other cards, like Dark Bribe, have a cost that you'll never run out of, but are balanced because you're granting the opponent resources.

At the same time I completely agree with you about Infernity Barrier, because it is virtually free. Silly card is silly and needs to vanish into an abyss.

As my final point on this, I would like to point out that Jinzo and Horus 8 are completely costless, unless you consider Jinzo shutting down your own traps a "cost". Both are incredibly easy to summon, so they are not costed there (you don't even have to build a deck around Horus-- I had one teched into Six Samurai for a while).

On Loopholes
I disagree with you on this point. Most counters actually do not have loopholes-- you've merely stated two of the few that do. The general rule there should actually refer specifically to any effect that can be applied multiple times, meaning your statement against Barrier is invalid-- there's no way to alter your deck to block a Solemn or Bribe (or no effective way, at least). That's not to say that Barrier isn't busted, just that cards that are one-shots don't need or have loopholes.

On Turtling
By its very definition a counter is a defensive card, and therefore rewards players who play defensively the most. There is virtually no way around that. You can debate on whether or not turtling is bad for the game, but the fact is that the "punishment" cards still see play despite the existance of counters. This gives rise to the immortal banlist logic: a counter's existance does not deny the power of the thing it counters.

On Kestral's Theory of Counters
Rather than your Three Rules, I propose a single rule. Any counter, to be balanced, must combine three aspects in proportion. These aspects are Cost, Duration, and Flexibility.

Cost is essentially as described above-- what needs to be done to use the card. This can come in the form of an actual cost on the card, ala Magic Jammer, or in the difficulty of using it, ala White Hole.

A counter with high cost is a card like Solemn Judgement. Good players are aware that a Solemn can save you a game, but if used early it'll lose you a game because its cost is enormous. A card like SDAM is also high-cost, because you are devoting your deck around it.

Conversely, Magic Drain is a low-cost counter, because it can be free. Infernity Barrier is also low-cost, because there effectively is no cost beyond that you have to be running an Infernity deck.

Duration is how many times a card can be used. However, it cannot simply be measured on a duration of the entire duel, but must be considered on a turn-by-turn basis as well. Royal Oppression or Imperial Order are cards with high duration-- they can, for all intents and purposes, be used as frequently as desired.

Of middling duration is Stardust and his /AM variant, who can be used multiple times in a duel but only once per turn, or Trap Stun which affects the entire turn but only once per duel.

Low duration cards are the cards typically thought of as counters: Dark Bribe, Magic Jammer, Solemn, and the like. They're one-shots, plain and simple.

Flexibility is the number of ways in which the card can be used-- what it can negate. This is related to the Loopholes rule of the OP, although it is less of a requirement. Essentially, the more loopholes a card has the less flexible it is.

Solemn Judgement and SDAM are the ultimate examples of highly flexible cards-- they have no, or very few, loopholes. Most cards are of relatively moderate flexibility-- Horus 8, Jinzo, Decree, and Oppression are good examples. They negate all of something, but Horus is useless against traps and Jinzo hates spells. Flexibility also goes down somewhat when the opponent gains access to it-- so Jinzo is inherently less flexible than Horus because he shuts down your own plays as well. Cards like White Hole or Anti-Raigeki have the absolute minimum of flexibility. Further, if a card is easily countered (like Magic Drain), it also has low flexibility, although still significantly higher than White Hole.

Given these three aspects, there must be a trade-off. As Flexibility goes up, Cost must go up or Duration must go down. As Cost goes down, so must Flexibility and Durability. For military buffs, this is akin to the Armament/Armor/Mobility triangle of armor. For a counter to be balanced it must use these three in proportion. This is displayed by a number of cards:

Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode: Exceptionally high cost, moderate duration, high flexibility.

Magic Jammer: Moderate cost, low duration, moderate flexibility.

Magic Drain: No/low cost, low duration, low flexibility.

White Hole: No cost, low duration, extremely low flexibility (notably with a relatively useful payoff should it be triggered).

Infernity Barrier: Low cost, low duration, high flexibility. Thus, Barrier is broken.

[Senju]

Thank you for replying. I still think Stardust Assault is a broken card because it really isn't that hard to get out, and Assault Mode activate is a chainable trap card that can chain to any Stardust removal card. Even if the Stardust Assault gets removed or never comes out, the deck still has many options because it has access to level 6 and 8 synchros. And I do like how the three aspects need to be proportioned correctly for counter cards to work.

I wish this thread didn't go into the articles archive. I didn't mean to write an article, it just takes a few paragraphs to prove a point. When any thread goes into the article archive all it does is collect dust.

[Kestral287]

Not a problem. I do wish the Articles forum was more active, but we can't always get what we want.

And yeah, Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode is usually pretty easy to bring out in a dedicated deck. But it's not like you can just tech him into any random deck-- believe me, I've tried. Assault Mode Activate! is actually a card I really like, although it doesn't dodge a lot of destruction-- useless to avoid a Smashing or Vortex, for example (well, your Stardust would survive since he'd be summoned back, but your /AM would die). Lets you get around some things, but not all of them. It is great for battle phase shenanigans though, which is potentially just as bad (Attack with Stardust, activate AMA, attack with SDAM). At the same time, while that deck can bring out a wide variety of synchros (my version actually can't do 6 very well), it generally can't bring them out with the speed or frequency needed to compete with most decks if it can't bring out SDAM to do his ridiculous thing. In my mind that makes SDAM balanced-- not every deck can use him and the deck based around him has trouble winning without him. If they made him in a form that more decks could access, I'd agree with you, but the fact that you can't just run a tech Assault Mode Activate and Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode in any deck kinda balances with his awesomeness.

[kaelz]

Overall a good read, but there are a few points that I'd like to address. For those of you who dislike the tl;dr posts, I question what you're doing in the Articles section... but skip on down to "Given these three aspects, there must be a trade-off" and you'll get the most important part.

On Costs
Many cards are costed by the difficulty of getting them onto the field. Stardust Dragon--Assault Mode is a perfect example. On the one hand, he's a walking Solemn Judgment. On the other, he requires you to devote your deck to him. Personally, I consider SDAM balanced-- should he hit the field he's ridiculously hard to clear out, but if he's shut down you're screwed. Stardust himself is, in my opinion, more broken simply because of his ease of summon. Prime Material Dragon is actually balanced by your definition-- eventually you'll run out of cards that you don't care about discarding, no matter what deck you're running (except Infernities, but if you actually have a hand there you're not going it right). Other cards, like Dark Bribe, have a cost that you'll never run out of, but are balanced because you're granting the opponent resources.

At the same time I completely agree with you about Infernity Barrier, because it is virtually free. Silly card is silly and needs to vanish into an abyss.

As my final point on this, I would like to point out that Jinzo and Horus 8 are completely costless, unless you consider Jinzo shutting down your own traps a "cost". Both are incredibly easy to summon, so they are not costed there (you don't even have to build a deck around Horus-- I had one teched into Six Samurai for a while).

On Loopholes
I disagree with you on this point. Most counters actually do not have loopholes-- you've merely stated two of the few that do. The general rule there should actually refer specifically to any effect that can be applied multiple times, meaning your statement against Barrier is invalid-- there's no way to alter your deck to block a Solemn or Bribe (or no effective way, at least). That's not to say that Barrier isn't busted, just that cards that are one-shots don't need or have loopholes.

On Turtling
By its very definition a counter is a defensive card, and therefore rewards players who play defensively the most. There is virtually no way around that. You can debate on whether or not turtling is bad for the game, but the fact is that the "punishment" cards still see play despite the existance of counters. This gives rise to the immortal banlist logic: a counter's existance does not deny the power of the thing it counters.

On Kestral's Theory of Counters
Rather than your Three Rules, I propose a single rule. Any counter, to be balanced, must combine three aspects in proportion. These aspects are Cost, Duration, and Flexibility.

Cost is essentially as described above-- what needs to be done to use the card. This can come in the form of an actual cost on the card, ala Magic Jammer, or in the difficulty of using it, ala White Hole.

A counter with high cost is a card like Solemn Judgement. Good players are aware that a Solemn can save you a game, but if used early it'll lose you a game because its cost is enormous. A card like SDAM is also high-cost, because you are devoting your deck around it.

Conversely, Magic Drain is a low-cost counter, because it can be free. Infernity Barrier is also low-cost, because there effectively is no cost beyond that you have to be running an Infernity deck.

Duration is how many times a card can be used. However, it cannot simply be measured on a duration of the entire duel, but must be considered on a turn-by-turn basis as well. Royal Oppression or Imperial Order are cards with high duration-- they can, for all intents and purposes, be used as frequently as desired.

Of middling duration is Stardust and his /AM variant, who can be used multiple times in a duel but only once per turn, or Trap Stun which affects the entire turn but only once per duel.

Low duration cards are the cards typically thought of as counters: Dark Bribe, Magic Jammer, Solemn, and the like. They're one-shots, plain and simple.

Flexibility is the number of ways in which the card can be used-- what it can negate. This is related to the Loopholes rule of the OP, although it is less of a requirement. Essentially, the more loopholes a card has the less flexible it is.

Solemn Judgement and SDAM are the ultimate examples of highly flexible cards-- they have no, or very few, loopholes. Most cards are of relatively moderate flexibility-- Horus 8, Jinzo, Decree, and Oppression are good examples. They negate all of something, but Horus is useless against traps and Jinzo hates spells. Flexibility also goes down somewhat when the opponent gains access to it-- so Jinzo is inherently less flexible than Horus because he shuts down your own plays as well. Cards like White Hole or Anti-Raigeki have the absolute minimum of flexibility. Further, if a card is easily countered (like Magic Drain), it also has low flexibility, although still significantly higher than White Hole.

Given these three aspects, there must be a trade-off. As Flexibility goes up, Cost must go up or Duration must go down. As Cost goes down, so must Flexibility and Durability. For military buffs, this is akin to the Armament/Armor/Mobility triangle of armor. For a counter to be balanced it must use these three in proportion. This is displayed by a number of cards:

Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode: Exceptionally high cost, moderate duration, high flexibility.

Magic Jammer: Moderate cost, low duration, moderate flexibility.

Magic Drain: No/low cost, low duration, low flexibility.

White Hole: No cost, low duration, extremely low flexibility (notably with a relatively useful payoff should it be triggered).

Infernity Barrier: Low cost, low duration, high flexibility. Thus, Barrier is broken.

Sorry. Inferniy Barrier is not as flexible as you think because it has 2 premises that you need to meet: 1. have a face up attack position monster 2. have no hand. a lot of times you have no monster on the field and you activate launcher or what not, and they will oppression. Can't barrier that.
Having no hand could be a problem too when you draw it at the start of the game. Consider, 2 barrier, 1 archfiend, 1 beetle, 1 mirage, 1 grepher. What can be done with this hand? Barriers are useless at this stage. Thus I would consider it as moderate flexibility and moderate cost. Moderate cost because you run the risk of having a dead draw early on.
Solemn is much more flexible and 'broken', and I think any infernity player would agree they would rather have 3x solemn than 3x barrier.

[Kestral287]

Sorry. Inferniy Barrier is not as flexible as you think because it has 2 premises that you need to meet: 1. have a face up attack position monster 2. have no hand. a lot of times you have no monster on the field and you activate launcher or what not, and they will oppression. Can't barrier that.
Having no hand could be a problem too when you draw it at the start of the game. Consider, 2 barrier, 1 archfiend, 1 beetle, 1 mirage, 1 grepher. What can be done with this hand? Barriers are useless at this stage. Thus I would consider it as moderate flexibility and moderate cost. Moderate cost because you run the risk of having a dead draw early on.
Solemn is much more flexible and 'broken', and I think any infernity player would agree they would rather have 3x solemn than 3x barrier.

Go back and re-read the definitions of flexibility and cost I provided. Flexibility is simply what you can negate. The only thing Barrier can't negate is a monster summon; its flexibility is on par with Solemn. Cost is what you have to do to activate it, which in Barrier's case means getting an Infernity on the field and being handless. It being a potential dead draw in the early game is irrelevant.

As for cost, if you honestly find getting handless to be difficult you need to rethink your strategy. However, I am going to point out that the deck WILL be handless every time it goes for the kill, thus Barrier will always be online when you need it most. Ergo, its cost is virtually nil since it's nothing but a pair of conditions that you are required to meet by virtue of running the deck. Beyond that, I'm going to point out that any hypothetical scenario is inherently flawed in that it's just that, hypothetical. But assuming I go first:

Summon Grepher, pitch Beetle to dump Necromancer from the deck. Set a single Barrier and end. On my next turn I can either set or hang onto the S/T I almost certainly just drew as the situation dictates and summon Archfiend, and now I have only Mirage in my hand and two mid-size beaters on the field. As soon as my opponent clears my field of those two monsters, I am set for the OTK. GG?

[Retro Baboon Ftw.]

GG indeed, and that is why Barrier is broken. 5D's has brought us the most imbalanced cards the game has seen. I.e Tele-Dad in its prime format.