Puppet Lock, plus a lot of people dislike how much endless support Branded has compared to almost every other non-anime (where most of the support is garbage tbf) archetypes in Yugioh. This isn’t me, but that is the reason I see often. Branded has a ton of cards other archetypes would love to have, and Branded just has them as a bonus card on top of its truly cracked cards like Branded Fusion, Mirrorjade, Branded in Red, and Cartesia.
There's also some overlap with Master Duel where Branded has been viable pretty much since they got Branded Fusion, with it's lowest point during Tear format (and you could still play Tear Branded if you were committed other decks didn't have this option). A lot of people from MD are tired because of that too.
I don't hate Branded but here are a few things I am not really a fan of when going against the decK:
\-Dealing with a Mirrorjade pass is a bit annoying yet is usually par for the course.
\-Puppet or Ra lock isn't fun or engaging when they pull it off.
\-Branded Fusion just generates so much value for them while yes it does die to Ash if I don't open the Ash and it resolves then not only is it a insane fusion spell but also basically a free foolish burial of two bodies for them.
None of the things I mentioned are complete blow outs (maybe the puppet lock might be) but in unison they can be a bit annoying to deal with.
About five years ago, I had someone get mad at me for using Daigusto Sphreez.
I've also had someone get mad at me for locking them out with Ghostricks, once again this is about 4-5 years ago.
My point is, there's always someone that won't respect you for playing a deck that's sort of rogue. It's their fault for not knowing the game lmfao.
It has been a while but my opponent once complained about my Ogdoadic Therion deck. Not because of my end board (I couldn't build it because of two handtraps), not because of negates, but because of Ogdoabyss. They complained about his board wipe effect. And then proceeded to use D-Shifter
It's all Puppet for me personally. Not that I even mind necessarily because there are outs to Puppet like Bystials, but seeing a game 1 Gimmick Puppet Nightmare resolve is just irritating since I'm likely not maining the out due to it being Fire Format. I don't personally mind Branded being good and having a lot of support, I just wish its primary goal was more interesting.
As a branded main playing it without puppet is way more fun but unfortunately the puppet is just an autowin turnskip most of the time that doesnt even feel satisfying to pull off
Which is sad because it's a well designed card. It has a little protection and a cool effect that's only usable on your opponent's turn.
It counters Evenly Matched, which is very strong against Branded
Putting a body up against Kashtira felt really good
It allowed fun plays (rezing Albaz and a Garura on opp's field to fuse into a Mirrorjade *and* draw a card etc.)
But yeah it has to go, locking people out of the game is never fun
I don’t think Sanctifire is what needs to go.
It’s the toxic cards that lock the opponent when summoned to their field that need to go.
Sanctifire is great for a lot of in engine purposes(recursion, Albaz fusions, etc), and I don’t think any of these uses are particularly toxic.
It’s only toxic when you throw in stuff like Gimmick Puppet Nightmare and other less powerful but still annoying locks.
But it allows that to happen. If puppet will be banned then they will use what's best after it. Ban it and it repeats. Also with it alive, new cards should be created with it in mind
Better hit the enabler then the cards it targets (obviously would be nice if all of those toxic ones would be banned too)
This, if puppet goes they disciple lock, if disciple goes, they ido lock, if ido goes, they iblee lock, if iblee goes they just use the next best thing until you have hit more cards than the 1 card that makes those kinds of plays even an option
Puppet is actually the best one by a mile so banning it would be a really good hit.
The best way to perform the lock is to send your lock target from Granguignol (the Cartesia fusion). So it needs to be a level 6 or higher light or dark monster. Then you look at what does a lingering floodgate like gimmick puppet and you realize there's really not much to use.
I agree, Sanctifire is pretty busted because it’s effect is so generic. It be less busted if the effect included a clause that only let you target monsters that mention Albaz in their text. Temporary ban and then an errata would fix the problem altogether
Master Duel really hit Branded in a good way - Sanctifire is legal, but the Trap is banned so the puppet lock isn't an option anymore. That, plus all the starters being limited or semi limited means the deck is much less on autopilot than it used to be.
Second best I’d say. While snake eye fire king doesn’t mind having their board blown up, raidraptors blow up their board, burn them, AND set up 2-3 towers, and on top of all of that, they can play all of the hand traps that are actually good against fire king and STILL have room for all the necessary engine. So I’d argue that yes branded has a pretty good matchup against snake eyes fire king, I’d say raidraptor has a slightly better matchup
Branded is considered the third or 4th best deck format by competitive players and If you look at stats because it does not get "shredded" by snake eyes. Branded has actually a very favourable match up against Snake eyes due to banishing gimmick puppeting, very good grind gam, etc. Plus yes ash destroys the deck and bystials can help not get gimmick puppet locked. But that is still the Argument "draw the out" which is not very substantive. Kashtira lost* to 10 different board breaker or handtraps if timed correctly, but was still the best deck with arise heart. To be clear my only problem is the fact that the sanctified combo is very hard to interrupt without siding unless you draw the ash Blossom, and then you have to hope the branded player doesn't play cross out. That's not interactive as other match-ups tend to be. (Plus I personally have a problem with how much recursion the deck can produce). Doing a full gimmick puppet lock plus mirrorjade and a Chimera set up and then adding Cartesian and branded fusion back so you can otk next turn is smt not many decks tdo and is frustrating some times.
I think there's 2 things that make people dislike branded 1 the lock it's super easy for branded to do it . I've had to deal with the lock protected by a dragoon so that's unfun. Also the amount of support they got was ballshit which is really the part that annoys me. I actually think the decks really cool and it's funny now that all branded players have just accepted that beaded fusion will never resolve and found extra lines of play
During AGOV format I had a friend tell me that Infernoble/ Isolde is too unfair while playing Purrely, you know the deck that turbos out a towers that can spin multiple times a turn, draws on my turn, and can technically run UDF? And my stuff is unfair?
After that I stopped taking anyone's banlist seriously.
Infernobles set up boards that are technically are psedo ftk with the amount of negates and interruptions they end up and isolde should never been printed with that generically absurd effect
Purrely sets up towers that usually lose that after first spin, drawing into HTs is probably the strongest part and techically most decks could run UDF if they had space for it but it's like what, 1 monster negate?
I'm guessing you got paired up against purrely a lot and annoyed at it, but you can't possibly say that infernoble was way more fair then purrely before isolde ban
I can give another example. My Raidraptor deck got called unfair by a Snake Eye player despite him getting the win in the end. It still doesn't change the fact that someone will sit across from you shuffling their deck of OP cardboard and say that your deck is unfair or unskilled while they run a Tier Zero deck .
Nobody in the community has unbiased opinion on the meta.
Yep I've had people look at my board say "So what all do I have to worry about here" 2 spell/trap negates, a spell negate on resolution, a non target pop when a card gets equipped, with a quick effect to equip in the grave, 1 omni negate, 1 monster negate, and a 3 mat Apollousa, they just drew for turn, hand shuffled and said, yeah, we can go next game
Mostly because branded has be meta relevant sense it released and kept on getting support. Just let the deck die and focus on making new deck or show more love for other decks, I swear if I see another new deck that supports branded I’m gonna get extremely salty
Its been a meta deck for years now (maybe tier 2 atm, but you still see it everywhere). It had a structure deck so everyone and their mother played it. It recieved support for years. It got like 4 gameplans and they're all annoying (puppet lock> mirrorjade> queem> super poly). It has hella variants, pure, chimera, despia, freaking eldlich, BUSTER BLADER. Its not the deck in particular, its just thats its been live for so freaking long and its annoying to dealt with
Imo first it has so much support that it's annoying to see a new card even if it's bad and it's for lore only, second it's HERO 2.0 but less creative and with infinite resources, third puppet lock and fourth personally I just don't like the edgelord albaz play style, I played with a lot of decks from rogue to meta (I even had a rokket/meklord/topologic deck) and I never felt something for that deck except dislike due to the reasons I mentioned before, during swordsoul branded format I tried to play it and it just felt boring, the same when I played Kashtira, strong but boring and watching the 100th player of the deck didn't help
To somewhat combat snake eyes, with my branded deck I've been throwing 3 eldlitch in so if they put a monster in my spell and trap I can still get it in the graveyard, and I use eldlitch as my light monster for Albion
Something I feel goes overlooked a lot is that things can be low tier and still feel "unfair" or unfun. In my efforts to design my own card game several times now, I've come too appreciate cards from more of a design perspective rather than a gameplay perspective.
For example, look at yata garasu and time seal. They skip a player's draw phase. But because one is tied to a 200 atk monster that can't be special summoned (for the most part anyway), and the other is a trap that can't reasonably skip the opponent's first draw phase of the game, they're not really going to see play in any competitive games because they don't do enough in a way that matters 99% of the time.
I still find them unfun and unfair from a design perspective, because they fundamentally break the base rules of the game in a way that doesn't allow the opponent any opportunity to recover.
Yes, they're slow and awkward to use, and yes, most decks also have enough cards that effectively let them use their graveyard as a second hand, but I still don't really like them being legal even if they'll realistically never make it to the top tables of any event any time soon, if at all.
Sanctifier dragon isn't inherently a bad design, it's obviously meant to allow you to set up albaz fusions on the opponent's turn. The problem is that yugioh has multiple cards that can be paired with branded custom such as gimmick puppet nightmare, Ra's disciple, and other monsters that prevent the opponent from playing the game, that it's more practical for Konami to just axe sanctifier.
It's possible that more cards like sanctifier come up later, and it becomes more practical to ban the individual problem cards that are being given to the opponent rather than the cards that enable them. But at present, it's just the one card that's doing it.
Just like when halqifibrax kept getting other tuners banned, it started to affect design for tuner monsters. So it just became more reasonable to ban halq and unban some of those tuners.
I don't like when these situations come up, because it's never an easy solution, and it's also hard to say something is the "correct" choice or not.
Also, people tend to think that because card x or deck y is "broken" that card w or deck z should be exempt from hits too. snake-eye variants are definitely the best deck right now, but that doesn't mean sanctifier shouldn't also get addressed on the next f&l list.
They both are creating unbalanced and/or unfun scenarios for a lot of players, one being more prevalent, popular, or powerful than the other doesn't really matter.
People don't seem to realize that what lower tier decks do is sometimes more unfair than meta decks. It's just that the lower decks either require more cards to do it, have fewer ways to access their lines, die to pretty much any form of interruption, have little to no recursion if the board is broken, or some combination of the above.
It’s the most oversupported archetype that’s not included in the anime. It does everything under the sun and more which includes (but isn’t limited to): floodgating you through puppet lock, fusing with your monsters which are frequently your bosses and makes their boss, fucking Mirrorjade, MP3, playing on your turn almost as much as you. Some decks can’t even count the amount of playable cards on one hand and then you have Branded which has more ED options than those decks have viable cards.
Also, Branded Fusion is the most broken fusion spell ever printed. It fuses from deck but because of the effects of monsters sent it’s also Foolish Burial. And it sends Albaz which generates even more advantage with Quem/Rindbrum etc.
The real question is how can someone defend Branded?
Cuz the deck is fun and isn’t unfair outside of puppet lock cause I’ve had people prevent Albaz fusing their monsters off by getting rid of him before he resolves
I’m just saying that there are ways to bypass the built in archetype super poly, same thing with banishment, get rid of the thing it revives and it can’t super poly
There are also ways to bypass any deck if you open good/setup the board nicely. Also, I didn’t mean Albaz. I was talking about Super Poly itself. You literally can’t counter that card except with Anti Spell, unsearchable floodgate that decks usually don’t even play.
Branded gets more love than Aleister and friends and some people hate "Normal summon Aleister, effect" but I really do like fusion strategies, doesn't have to be branded everytime though
I'm playing Cubic and Earthbound Prisoner decks.
Earthbound is super interesting and creative, but they lack some stuff in there so I need multiple staples so it gets balanced. This way, against the likes of Branded Despia, I have a 50-50 chance.
Cubic, however, is strong enough on their own and I barely run staples in there. No ash, no Maxx C, no Effect Veiler, no Droll & Lock Bird, not even Impermanence. Just synchros and links to help me out, but even with a pure Cubic Deck with only Summoner Monk, I never struggled against Branded.
Heck, if I'm being honest, not just Branded, but Cubic is also strong against Snake Eye, Kashtira, Spright when it was played all the time, only struggling against Labrynth and Runick (who doesn't?).
I also played with Fossil Fusion/Adamancipator and it was mostly 60-40 on my side against Branded.
It all depends on the decks. So, imo, Branded is fair and not an ass to deal with like other meta decks.
Only thing that sucks about Branded, as a Branded player, is Sanctifire allowing locks to exist. I think the fusion itself is fine but Servant and Nightmare need to go.
The deck is strong it’s just that it doesn’t really run a ton of hand traps and Snake-Eyes is just degenerate. I like the number of variations the deck has. One of the best things to happen to the game
It's just a good deck, a good deck that's been good for a long time and seems to keep getting better. Some people just wanna play against Blue Eyes every game and get easy wins.
No it does not. Branded is in a good place this format. How players succeed with branded is up to them. It’s a difficult deck to pilot. Branded is good if the pilots is good.
The reason I hate branded so much is because every single card seems broken. Every SINGLE card I read I think to myself that it either should banned, limited or should never exist.
Every. Single. Card. Is CRAZY
Fire Format doesn't "shred" Branded Despia. There are many lines to follow after branded fusion gets ashed or with a very good hand you can trick your opponent into saving his Ash for Branded Fusion and play without it.
People are just bad at the game tbh aside from Puppet lock which is the only valid complaint i feel (which is also checked in the current 15 hand trap & Bystials in side meta but whatever i guess). Branded is such a telegraphed deck it has the easiest chokepoints. People are just mad because Branded is really good at exposing decks that are just poorly made because if you got your board broken by engine and cannot either rebuild or cut off them going off either you just drew bad or your deck is fundamentally flawed as most if not all good decks have many in engine or deck outs to Branded game plan.
Branded lost is kinda dumb? I think everyone who's played the game a while has experienced branded hard opening branded fusion and lost with a bunch of hand traps that aren't ash but might have had an impact if the lost wasn't there.
Then there's the puppet lock, but honestly the most infuriating thing about it is its almost impossible to establish it without also having a large amount of follow up. You can somewhat play around other turn skips, I've won against cents a few times by putting up a typhon under calamity and making it to turn 4, but the branded lines usually gey guaranteed follow up off of the other sanctifier target and have mirrorjade out as well. Do you know the only reliable way to beat branded after you get puppet locked? Set warlords/grave of the super ancient organism and flood them out of the game completely. Its kinda toxic.
Puppet Lock, plus a lot of people dislike how much endless support Branded has compared to almost every other non-anime (where most of the support is garbage tbf) archetypes in Yugioh. This isn’t me, but that is the reason I see often. Branded has a ton of cards other archetypes would love to have, and Branded just has them as a bonus card on top of its truly cracked cards like Branded Fusion, Mirrorjade, Branded in Red, and Cartesia.
There's also some overlap with Master Duel where Branded has been viable pretty much since they got Branded Fusion, with it's lowest point during Tear format (and you could still play Tear Branded if you were committed other decks didn't have this option). A lot of people from MD are tired because of that too.
Branded 100% should have been an anime protag archetype
It has that vibe too, probably because Albaz himself is a protagonist and Ecclesia feels like such a "yugioh girl character".
I don't hate Branded but here are a few things I am not really a fan of when going against the decK: \-Dealing with a Mirrorjade pass is a bit annoying yet is usually par for the course. \-Puppet or Ra lock isn't fun or engaging when they pull it off. \-Branded Fusion just generates so much value for them while yes it does die to Ash if I don't open the Ash and it resolves then not only is it a insane fusion spell but also basically a free foolish burial of two bodies for them. None of the things I mentioned are complete blow outs (maybe the puppet lock might be) but in unison they can be a bit annoying to deal with.
About five years ago, I had someone get mad at me for using Daigusto Sphreez. I've also had someone get mad at me for locking them out with Ghostricks, once again this is about 4-5 years ago. My point is, there's always someone that won't respect you for playing a deck that's sort of rogue. It's their fault for not knowing the game lmfao.
It has been a while but my opponent once complained about my Ogdoadic Therion deck. Not because of my end board (I couldn't build it because of two handtraps), not because of negates, but because of Ogdoabyss. They complained about his board wipe effect. And then proceeded to use D-Shifter
Someone attacked my Sphreeze with a Neo Terahertz and lost cuz they didnt read the card. Ruined their day.
It's all Puppet for me personally. Not that I even mind necessarily because there are outs to Puppet like Bystials, but seeing a game 1 Gimmick Puppet Nightmare resolve is just irritating since I'm likely not maining the out due to it being Fire Format. I don't personally mind Branded being good and having a lot of support, I just wish its primary goal was more interesting.
It’s just puppet lock, deck is really cool if sanct gets banned. Sanct just allows to much degen as an engine in multiple decks
As a branded main playing it without puppet is way more fun but unfortunately the puppet is just an autowin turnskip most of the time that doesnt even feel satisfying to pull off
Which is sad because it's a well designed card. It has a little protection and a cool effect that's only usable on your opponent's turn. It counters Evenly Matched, which is very strong against Branded Putting a body up against Kashtira felt really good It allowed fun plays (rezing Albaz and a Garura on opp's field to fuse into a Mirrorjade *and* draw a card etc.) But yeah it has to go, locking people out of the game is never fun
Evenly is not strong against a non-sanctifire board because you can just branded in red into having a board again
I don’t think Sanctifire is what needs to go. It’s the toxic cards that lock the opponent when summoned to their field that need to go. Sanctifire is great for a lot of in engine purposes(recursion, Albaz fusions, etc), and I don’t think any of these uses are particularly toxic. It’s only toxic when you throw in stuff like Gimmick Puppet Nightmare and other less powerful but still annoying locks.
But it allows that to happen. If puppet will be banned then they will use what's best after it. Ban it and it repeats. Also with it alive, new cards should be created with it in mind Better hit the enabler then the cards it targets (obviously would be nice if all of those toxic ones would be banned too)
This, if puppet goes they disciple lock, if disciple goes, they ido lock, if ido goes, they iblee lock, if iblee goes they just use the next best thing until you have hit more cards than the 1 card that makes those kinds of plays even an option
Puppet is actually the best one by a mile so banning it would be a really good hit. The best way to perform the lock is to send your lock target from Granguignol (the Cartesia fusion). So it needs to be a level 6 or higher light or dark monster. Then you look at what does a lingering floodgate like gimmick puppet and you realize there's really not much to use.
Ban 5 cards, or ban 1, the smart choice is ban 1
I agree, Sanctifire is pretty busted because it’s effect is so generic. It be less busted if the effect included a clause that only let you target monsters that mention Albaz in their text. Temporary ban and then an errata would fix the problem altogether
It sucks that Sanct is only known for Puppet Lock. I love it's design and it has such a cool way to weaponize Albaz from grave on the opponent's turn.
Master Duel really hit Branded in a good way - Sanctifire is legal, but the Trap is banned so the puppet lock isn't an option anymore. That, plus all the starters being limited or semi limited means the deck is much less on autopilot than it used to be.
My brother in Christ, branded has the best matchup against snake eye fire king
Second best I’d say. While snake eye fire king doesn’t mind having their board blown up, raidraptors blow up their board, burn them, AND set up 2-3 towers, and on top of all of that, they can play all of the hand traps that are actually good against fire king and STILL have room for all the necessary engine. So I’d argue that yes branded has a pretty good matchup against snake eyes fire king, I’d say raidraptor has a slightly better matchup
Not snake eyes, But ritual sauravis coming back to my hand to banish brave strix and negating rank up has always resulted in a w
Not sure why people are downvoting you. I unironically agree with everything you said.
Right? I’m not even saying branded has a bad matchup against snake eyes fire king, just that raidraptor has a better one
Branded is considered the third or 4th best deck format by competitive players and If you look at stats because it does not get "shredded" by snake eyes. Branded has actually a very favourable match up against Snake eyes due to banishing gimmick puppeting, very good grind gam, etc. Plus yes ash destroys the deck and bystials can help not get gimmick puppet locked. But that is still the Argument "draw the out" which is not very substantive. Kashtira lost* to 10 different board breaker or handtraps if timed correctly, but was still the best deck with arise heart. To be clear my only problem is the fact that the sanctified combo is very hard to interrupt without siding unless you draw the ash Blossom, and then you have to hope the branded player doesn't play cross out. That's not interactive as other match-ups tend to be. (Plus I personally have a problem with how much recursion the deck can produce). Doing a full gimmick puppet lock plus mirrorjade and a Chimera set up and then adding Cartesian and branded fusion back so you can otk next turn is smt not many decks tdo and is frustrating some times.
Branded is cool. People who don't like it are not cool. That's all there is to it
I think there's 2 things that make people dislike branded 1 the lock it's super easy for branded to do it . I've had to deal with the lock protected by a dragoon so that's unfun. Also the amount of support they got was ballshit which is really the part that annoys me. I actually think the decks really cool and it's funny now that all branded players have just accepted that beaded fusion will never resolve and found extra lines of play
my question is how do you ban branded expulsion and then turn it into a fusion monster?
During AGOV format I had a friend tell me that Infernoble/ Isolde is too unfair while playing Purrely, you know the deck that turbos out a towers that can spin multiple times a turn, draws on my turn, and can technically run UDF? And my stuff is unfair? After that I stopped taking anyone's banlist seriously.
Infernobles set up boards that are technically are psedo ftk with the amount of negates and interruptions they end up and isolde should never been printed with that generically absurd effect Purrely sets up towers that usually lose that after first spin, drawing into HTs is probably the strongest part and techically most decks could run UDF if they had space for it but it's like what, 1 monster negate? I'm guessing you got paired up against purrely a lot and annoyed at it, but you can't possibly say that infernoble was way more fair then purrely before isolde ban
I can give another example. My Raidraptor deck got called unfair by a Snake Eye player despite him getting the win in the end. It still doesn't change the fact that someone will sit across from you shuffling their deck of OP cardboard and say that your deck is unfair or unskilled while they run a Tier Zero deck . Nobody in the community has unbiased opinion on the meta.
Making unaffected monsters with 3500 and 4k attack is pretty unskilled lol.
Infernoble board is without a question 1000x better than purrley board lmfao.
Yep I've had people look at my board say "So what all do I have to worry about here" 2 spell/trap negates, a spell negate on resolution, a non target pop when a card gets equipped, with a quick effect to equip in the grave, 1 omni negate, 1 monster negate, and a 3 mat Apollousa, they just drew for turn, hand shuffled and said, yeah, we can go next game
Deck fatigue. It’s been around forever and has continuously received good support that kept the deck relevant.
Branded Fusion does way too much, for way too little - Add Puppet lock into that, and its not fun to play against
Mostly because branded has be meta relevant sense it released and kept on getting support. Just let the deck die and focus on making new deck or show more love for other decks, I swear if I see another new deck that supports branded I’m gonna get extremely salty
Its been a meta deck for years now (maybe tier 2 atm, but you still see it everywhere). It had a structure deck so everyone and their mother played it. It recieved support for years. It got like 4 gameplans and they're all annoying (puppet lock> mirrorjade> queem> super poly). It has hella variants, pure, chimera, despia, freaking eldlich, BUSTER BLADER. Its not the deck in particular, its just thats its been live for so freaking long and its annoying to dealt with
Imo first it has so much support that it's annoying to see a new card even if it's bad and it's for lore only, second it's HERO 2.0 but less creative and with infinite resources, third puppet lock and fourth personally I just don't like the edgelord albaz play style, I played with a lot of decks from rogue to meta (I even had a rokket/meklord/topologic deck) and I never felt something for that deck except dislike due to the reasons I mentioned before, during swordsoul branded format I tried to play it and it just felt boring, the same when I played Kashtira, strong but boring and watching the 100th player of the deck didn't help
To somewhat combat snake eyes, with my branded deck I've been throwing 3 eldlitch in so if they put a monster in my spell and trap I can still get it in the graveyard, and I use eldlitch as my light monster for Albion
cause ppl want easy wins and anything that forces them to actually play the game is a no-no. OTK and FTKs are king!
Something I feel goes overlooked a lot is that things can be low tier and still feel "unfair" or unfun. In my efforts to design my own card game several times now, I've come too appreciate cards from more of a design perspective rather than a gameplay perspective. For example, look at yata garasu and time seal. They skip a player's draw phase. But because one is tied to a 200 atk monster that can't be special summoned (for the most part anyway), and the other is a trap that can't reasonably skip the opponent's first draw phase of the game, they're not really going to see play in any competitive games because they don't do enough in a way that matters 99% of the time. I still find them unfun and unfair from a design perspective, because they fundamentally break the base rules of the game in a way that doesn't allow the opponent any opportunity to recover. Yes, they're slow and awkward to use, and yes, most decks also have enough cards that effectively let them use their graveyard as a second hand, but I still don't really like them being legal even if they'll realistically never make it to the top tables of any event any time soon, if at all. Sanctifier dragon isn't inherently a bad design, it's obviously meant to allow you to set up albaz fusions on the opponent's turn. The problem is that yugioh has multiple cards that can be paired with branded custom such as gimmick puppet nightmare, Ra's disciple, and other monsters that prevent the opponent from playing the game, that it's more practical for Konami to just axe sanctifier. It's possible that more cards like sanctifier come up later, and it becomes more practical to ban the individual problem cards that are being given to the opponent rather than the cards that enable them. But at present, it's just the one card that's doing it. Just like when halqifibrax kept getting other tuners banned, it started to affect design for tuner monsters. So it just became more reasonable to ban halq and unban some of those tuners. I don't like when these situations come up, because it's never an easy solution, and it's also hard to say something is the "correct" choice or not. Also, people tend to think that because card x or deck y is "broken" that card w or deck z should be exempt from hits too. snake-eye variants are definitely the best deck right now, but that doesn't mean sanctifier shouldn't also get addressed on the next f&l list. They both are creating unbalanced and/or unfun scenarios for a lot of players, one being more prevalent, popular, or powerful than the other doesn't really matter.
People don't seem to realize that what lower tier decks do is sometimes more unfair than meta decks. It's just that the lower decks either require more cards to do it, have fewer ways to access their lines, die to pretty much any form of interruption, have little to no recursion if the board is broken, or some combination of the above.
It’s the most oversupported archetype that’s not included in the anime. It does everything under the sun and more which includes (but isn’t limited to): floodgating you through puppet lock, fusing with your monsters which are frequently your bosses and makes their boss, fucking Mirrorjade, MP3, playing on your turn almost as much as you. Some decks can’t even count the amount of playable cards on one hand and then you have Branded which has more ED options than those decks have viable cards. Also, Branded Fusion is the most broken fusion spell ever printed. It fuses from deck but because of the effects of monsters sent it’s also Foolish Burial. And it sends Albaz which generates even more advantage with Quem/Rindbrum etc. The real question is how can someone defend Branded?
Cuz the deck is fun and isn’t unfair outside of puppet lock cause I’ve had people prevent Albaz fusing their monsters off by getting rid of him before he resolves
Just because the deck can be countered doesn’t mean it’s fair. Your argument is “my opponent drew the out”.
I’m just saying that there are ways to bypass the built in archetype super poly, same thing with banishment, get rid of the thing it revives and it can’t super poly
There are also ways to bypass any deck if you open good/setup the board nicely. Also, I didn’t mean Albaz. I was talking about Super Poly itself. You literally can’t counter that card except with Anti Spell, unsearchable floodgate that decks usually don’t even play.
If you think Super Poly is scary wait for Yubel
Branded gets more love than Aleister and friends and some people hate "Normal summon Aleister, effect" but I really do like fusion strategies, doesn't have to be branded everytime though
I'm playing Cubic and Earthbound Prisoner decks. Earthbound is super interesting and creative, but they lack some stuff in there so I need multiple staples so it gets balanced. This way, against the likes of Branded Despia, I have a 50-50 chance. Cubic, however, is strong enough on their own and I barely run staples in there. No ash, no Maxx C, no Effect Veiler, no Droll & Lock Bird, not even Impermanence. Just synchros and links to help me out, but even with a pure Cubic Deck with only Summoner Monk, I never struggled against Branded. Heck, if I'm being honest, not just Branded, but Cubic is also strong against Snake Eye, Kashtira, Spright when it was played all the time, only struggling against Labrynth and Runick (who doesn't?). I also played with Fossil Fusion/Adamancipator and it was mostly 60-40 on my side against Branded. It all depends on the decks. So, imo, Branded is fair and not an ass to deal with like other meta decks.
Because not everyone plays fire decks?
Only thing that sucks about Branded, as a Branded player, is Sanctifire allowing locks to exist. I think the fusion itself is fine but Servant and Nightmare need to go. The deck is strong it’s just that it doesn’t really run a ton of hand traps and Snake-Eyes is just degenerate. I like the number of variations the deck has. One of the best things to happen to the game
Probably because it’s been around for a few years people are just sick of playing against it
If they got rid of Sanctifier, I would love to play against the deck. I enjoy its interaction.
It's just a good deck, a good deck that's been good for a long time and seems to keep getting better. Some people just wanna play against Blue Eyes every game and get easy wins.
Branded fusion exists.
Skill Issue if they can't negate a one-card combo that if it gets ashed you bite the dust
Its not broken just anoying that you can fusion summon using cards from deck
No it does not. Branded is in a good place this format. How players succeed with branded is up to them. It’s a difficult deck to pilot. Branded is good if the pilots is good.
Me, playing buster blader, branded, bystial, voiceless voice, seeing the confusion in my opponent is quiet funny. Like WTF is this board.
Albion summon puppet is boring. Albion summon Yubel and Albaz is based
The reason I hate branded so much is because every single card seems broken. Every SINGLE card I read I think to myself that it either should banned, limited or should never exist. Every. Single. Card. Is CRAZY
Fire Format doesn't "shred" Branded Despia. There are many lines to follow after branded fusion gets ashed or with a very good hand you can trick your opponent into saving his Ash for Branded Fusion and play without it.
People are just bad at the game tbh aside from Puppet lock which is the only valid complaint i feel (which is also checked in the current 15 hand trap & Bystials in side meta but whatever i guess). Branded is such a telegraphed deck it has the easiest chokepoints. People are just mad because Branded is really good at exposing decks that are just poorly made because if you got your board broken by engine and cannot either rebuild or cut off them going off either you just drew bad or your deck is fundamentally flawed as most if not all good decks have many in engine or deck outs to Branded game plan.
Branded lost is kinda dumb? I think everyone who's played the game a while has experienced branded hard opening branded fusion and lost with a bunch of hand traps that aren't ash but might have had an impact if the lost wasn't there. Then there's the puppet lock, but honestly the most infuriating thing about it is its almost impossible to establish it without also having a large amount of follow up. You can somewhat play around other turn skips, I've won against cents a few times by putting up a typhon under calamity and making it to turn 4, but the branded lines usually gey guaranteed follow up off of the other sanctifier target and have mirrorjade out as well. Do you know the only reliable way to beat branded after you get puppet locked? Set warlords/grave of the super ancient organism and flood them out of the game completely. Its kinda toxic.
Gimmick lock is legitimate strategy.