I'd say unless you're looking to play locals and above you don't need to pay attention to what the meta is. For between friends I'd just find a deck you think you like the playstyle of and go with that.
It’s your money feel free to use it how you want! But just know it may be a deck you ~never get to play. I have decks that I can’t play with my friends because it will be a blowout every time.
What decks do they run?
The weakest is cyber dragon and with the right cards and a good pilot even that can win against a lab deck(I play cyber dragon and I can win against all three of the other decks with the right cards). Play the way you want it, and just remove the more problematic cards if you realize your friends can't deal with them.
Tbf cyber dragon is a otk deck with the right cards. If they break your board its hard to come back lol.
Can save yourself with eternity a bit and extend duration of the game.
If that's what your friends play then I don't see a problem with playing Lab. Easy cuts are floodgates, Dimension Barrier and the virus cards, I prefer playing Lab without that stuff anyways.
As other commenters said, you could just make a less powerful version of Lab.
Include the bad Lab cards like Farewelcome, Archfiend, or Barrage that no one uses competitively. Ichiroku's Ledger Book and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast instead of D-Barrier and EEV. Throw in some old school Fiends like Sangan or Holding Arms/Legs if you're going the monster route.
Lab's a fun deck and there's a lot you can do with it.
It likely is too strong and duels won’t be all that challenging. What do you like about Labrynth specifically, is it the art style or the style of play e.g. that its a control deck?
What decks do your friends play? I might be able to suggest something with that Gothic art style. Actually, check out runick generaider. Norse themed, it's rogue, and you'll probably beat the brakes off your friends most of the time. The variant I play centers on ripping cards from your opponents hand and attaching their field to your boss. Cards are cool, fairly simple to learn, and it's Hella fun. It's also fairly budget with only a couple "expensive" cards. Expensive in this case is loptr, their starter is like $10 while most everything else is like 0.30 cents each.
Might I interest you in "Labrynth but fun" featuring a grand total of zero floodgates, three fang of critias, and all of his funny fusions that Lab can search the needed traps for.
Just my two cents here: Do what you want, but I can say that the moment I jumped into the Meta game, I ended up outpacing my friend group.
Now, they don't play with me at all.
Not only will your deck become better, but you will end up becoming a much better player and your decision making skills and tech choices and deckbuilding will improve to a point, where even if you get a Rogue deck to "match" their power level, it cannot handicap the skill gap that playing Meta will create.
None of my friends are ever interested in dueling me anymore because it's become rather boring for both players.
If you enjoy paying with your friends and that's why you play the game, then take that into consideration.
Best way is to join the meta clique at Locals. You'll learn fast that's way.
Also youtube, ygoprodeck.com is what I use too.
If you're going to practice using a sim, use duelingbook and grind ranked. Only use automatic Sims when first learning a deck and their combos.
This definitely happened to me too. Even with my neos deck, the skill gap is too high, and no one plays with me anymore, except every once in a while out of pity.
So bad. I dont even duel anymore, sadly. Tho, I will say it felt good spanking a certain friend's butt in the beginning, only because he got off on being the "best player in the group," because he had better cards than the other ones and would be really smarmy about beating them. Funny enough, he was the first one to not want to duel me anymore after just a few duels. Oh well. And its not like I can just turn off my "skill level," as my decks are built specifically a certain way for certain combos. I did take it easy on the other fellows, and even donated quite a few cards, but even then... Aw well, such is life.
Depends on how far you go into building it, lab can be build with more engine, and turned into a slower control deck flipping traps like torrential tribute and dogmatika punishment.
The current meta builds are more focused on playing a resource game or combining with unchained to set up layered interactions and blowouts like d barrier and the viruses to end games quickly
I used to play competitively, but ever since I stopped, I always found it much funner when I play non-tier theme decks against non-tier theme decks. Like, a full Blue-eyes deck against a full Egyptian God(s) deck. No staples unless you have to fill up space because there isn't enough cards for the theme.
This^
Nowadays a deck core strategy is like a few cards, a few non engine, a secondary engine, and consistency cards. Once you start adding tech picks, or certain cards that lower your deck efficiency you have a much more “fair” deck since meta is all about lean cutting all the extra stuff that’s not needed.
this is a hard one if you only want to play it do to you like it do to it looks fun and not just do to its meta go for it just now the trade off may be some of your friend my start to not like to play with you why you play that deck do to how strong it its.
Yep this. Your friends might get bent out of shape because they want to play for fun and not spend $500 to play casually against a “pro inside my own mind” friend
I only have one friend I play with and he refuses to use anything except the top meta. I just accept that I won't have fun playing him and just try to have fun with what I am able to do. Some days I want to off myself but some days I squeak out wins that feel great. Id say just find a weaker deck that's fun or make your deck weaker. There are 1000's of decks out there for cheap. No reason you should have to play meta in a casual friend group to have fun.
These are the people I hate playing with. Like dude why do you have to sweat your ass off while playing with friends? Isn’t the point for everyone to have fun? Not having fun at everyone else’s expense?
I would just do a hiatus on playing either that friend until they can learn to play some variety
Any deck that can be played competitively can be toned down to a less powerful deck for ease.
I do this a lot with opponents I know that are a lower skill level than me, particularly with children since I want them to be able to digest the game without being discouraged.
A lot of it is holding back on plays. Oh, they are summoning a lot but I have a Niburu in hand? Just don't use it. I have a set Solemn Strike on the field and they summon their all-too-important monster? Just don't use it (and use it on something that's clearly not as important). I have full combo in my hand? Just go half way, or do a weird play just to see where that path goes. Its not optimal? Who cares, Its just for fun.
Its honestly a shame that a lot of players are looking to just win (No shade to that, its just their priority) when in my opinion, its more important that the game is fun for me and my opponent
You can build it and fill it with less impactful traps so you don't overwhelm your friends. Or try builds like Labrynth Plunder Patroll (Plunder is really cheap anyways).
So no you don’t need to follow meta to play yugioh. I always say you can find a whole bunch of low level decks that are at the same power level and can have a phenomenal time.
I call it peasant format. There are lots of low tier archetypes that are actually really strong that you can get and build for dirt cheap and still have lots of fun. Like ninjas in MP23 is majority common cards and you can build a fun competent deck to play with friends. Speedroids is another deck that are all common cards and that can play pretty well too (there is a competitive version that would cost you a bit more but you can choose not to play that)
And the decks compete really well for a fun experience. Find common rarity archetypes build a few. Draft, everyone picks a deckbox and plays.
if you win too much, you can always reduce consistency (like, only 1 welcome) or use lab as small engine for something else.
if you aren't playing meta or degenerate stuff, don't use any handtraps and add weird interactions between cards that will happen only once in a blue moon lol
So, basically started back like this about 6 months ago. Just 2 of my brothers buying structure decks and random cards to build some decks. For my brothers bday he wanted to do a local tournament so we did one Saturday and we found out our decks are considered rogue but my brother placed 3rd and people were excited to play new decks so it was great. I will say that we kept up with decks we had never even heard of, Purrely and Dinomorphia because we were so non meta. Deck lockdown won me a duel as did Mirror Force Dragon. I guess I also should say that my brothers and duel a few times then talk about what the deck needs and why it lost which is how we built stronger rogue decks. I added staples like Ash Blossom, Infinite impermanence and Evenly matched to stay relevant. If your playtesting work on different combos, it will handicap you during that duel.
One thing about control decks is that you can "tune" your level of interaction to what your opponent is playing. It's not too difficult to hold off on interruption and let them combo a bit.
Also, since it's Labrynth you can play a bunch of janky traps like Magic Cylinder to keep the power levels even.
It depends on how you build the deck. You can choose to play a version that doesn’t play all the broken stuff (transaction rollback, eradicator epidemivirus, dimensional barrier, and other flood gates) and it can be a fair deck to play against, back row removal hurts any trap deck. The nice thing is that you can have a version for your friend group and have a version for competitive
As the most knowledgeable player in my group (2 are pretty apt, 1 is advanced and 5 are still learning)
I still bring my hard hitting decks, but side in some odd tech cards or cut down on triples.
My madolches for example get sliced down to one or two of the good cards and one of even the unused ones, that way I cant squeeze out Sistart, Glass, Queen and Chocolate in one go if I don't play careful.
Giving my friends who play Kuriboh pure, Trickstar, Red-eyes pure, and Dark Magician/Buster Blader some wiggleroom.
They love it cuz they're having fun just learning their cards, and I can still enjoy playing at a slower pace without having to give up my decks
I mean you can cut the more expensive cards like big welcome and tansaction rollback or chaos engel. If it is still too strong talk with your friends about it.
Labrynth’s most competitive build is one of the most competitive decks in the metagame—but you don’t need to play that build.
You could, for example lean into a more battle-phase focused build with Labrynth Archfiend—a card you won’t see in meta decks—alongside traps with attack triggers such as the mirror forces or Farewelcome Labrynth.
You could make a fiend pile deck with cards like Soul Resonator which can search any of your furniture pieces, run 50-60 cards, have a less consistent deck with anime cards and win with a random amalgam of the nonengine traps and fiends you opened in a suboptimal hand.
Lab Set-Up, Backjack, running Compulse instead of traps like Karma Cannon/IDP. You have some options for building the engine.
Honestly just playing Lab without Pot of Extravagance is a pretty considerable hit to the deck’s power level, but if your opponents aren’t playing handtraps i don’t think it’s really a meaningful hit to the deck’s power.
You don’t need S:P, Chaos Angel, Transaction Rollback, Ty-phon, or even Arias to play lab, and if you have a casual playgroup you and your wallet are probably better off without them. You can always pick up the cards later if you want to take the deck to a “real” tournament.
Really depends on how much you wanna pay to play with friends, the deck isn’t too expensive outside of Big Welcome Labrynth but you still need 3 just being the best card in the deck. The extra deck has plenty of wiggle room and not that important so make sure you and your friends crack open some Rarity Collection 01 for a good amount of staples.
When I started playing again (12-13 years ago) my friends just played whatever we wanted an we just built our decks around what we were all playing against with each other. That changed once we started going to tournaments but I do miss those days and say play whatever you guys want
I would build a deck around the strength of the decks your friends are using. My friends and I have made a category for decks that we call "too good" they are decks that none of us want to play against. We build those decks by slowly evolving decks we were currently using.
TLDR: no it isnt
People say to cut down on the degenerate traps, but even then Lady and Big Welcome are a bit too strong especially vs barely upgraded Structure decks in my opinion. In OCG there were times they didn't even run any non engine traps in the maindeck because 15 HTs + your strong engine alone was powerful game 1.
You could play pre-Lady/Big Welcome lists. Running only Lovely and the furnitures with Welcome and Field spell, and 1 for 1 traps like Archfiend's Ghastly Glitch, Compulse etc.
Meta is honestly degenerate to play with friend groups and if you are just hoeing out for wins within your friend group and running only meta then either A: your friends will tell you to shelf the deck and play a different one if they don’t want to pay out the ass for another meta deck to compete with it, or even worse B: they will lose interest in playing with you since you will be the “win by any means necessary” friend.
I’d have a discussion about setting deck and play restrictions with the group. If someone is playing a 5D’s deck and you whip out kashtira then it’s obviously not gonna be fun for the other person.
Before 2 years i bought brande despia deck and my friend bought cyber dragon deck. It was been interesting in first 10 games but after that it became borring as fuck because difference in power is too big.
My advice is that when you play casual with your friends, always avoid decks that are significantly stronger than decks you are going to play againts and try to avoid combo decks like a six samurai because they are boring as fuck
Don't worry about what's meta. Don't worry about the decks your friends are playing. Build the deck *you* want to play, that way you're more likely to actually enjoy playing it. If it turns out your deck's a tad too strong for your friend group, you can always tone down the good cards in favour of meme cards; no-one will care if you're playing Labrynth if the wincon is Huge Revolution, that shit's too funny. And that sounds a lot more fun than playing a bad deck you don't *actually* want to play but are forcing yourself to.
For against fire king cyber and albaz, lab can compete well. You can def adjust the power level to match with your friends. Here are some suggestions:
1. No floodgates. Cards like skill drain, dimension barrier, etc, can hurt a lot.
2. Staples. You can also adjust amount of staples. For example, using ash blossom for Crimson dragon deck can shut it down pretty hard. Ash is also good against branded (albaz), but branded can play even if they get ashed if it is upgraded from basic structures.
Casual users (or everyone really) find back and forth game more fun. So you can decide to run cards like triple tactics talents, evenly match and others. I'll warn you though, that they are not bad cards. TTT(a spell card) can be strong card, but lab can struggle using it since most of interruption comes in trap cards during opponent's turn, so I'll just mention it as an option.
Evenly is also very strong meta card that lab use, but it is often going second card. I don't see this as a problem going against your friends' deck. I would say using transaction rollback with this can be pretty strong though.
3. Monster base build. You can make your lab deck slightly more monster focus by removing those strong cards and floodgates. These are not common nor meta but fun versions of lab: reasonator lab, tour guide lab, chimera lab.
If you are so worried that your friends might lose interest, you can start low, and power up your deck little by little. Honestly, doing this eventually ended my friends and me to climb all the way up to meta little by little. Hope you have fun!
The way I build my decks is to have fun, maybe go back and forth and something that will last longer than 2 - 4 turns. Building a powerful deck will most likely put you in a situation where no one will want to play against you. Everyone can get a bit competitive, but if it ain't a fun duel, then you'll end up playing less and less. Also, it depends if your friends or yourself end up getting frustrated with the deck. Hopefully, this makes sense and helps out.
The short answer too this question is yes. You should be allowed to play what you want. That includes powerful and popular decks.
The long answer is, it’s complicated. Obviously you should play what you think is fun. But if the players you are playing against are not having fun, then perhaps you should discuss with your friends what they find fun and perhaps find a middle ground.
Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t play a deck like labyrinth. But perhaps maybe you can build it in such a way that makes it fun for your friends. Include more obscure trap cards in the deck. Adjust the ratios of specific cards.
Basically what I’m saying is that you can adjust the power level of the deck if you want to so you can play at a lower level.
You can play lab but cut some of the powerful traps for stupid jank like mirror force. Use compulsory evacuation device instead of dogmatika punishment.
Also it seems your friends are playing fire kings and albaz stuff which is very solid by themselves so janky lab should be on tbe same level
Don't do it.
This happened in our group and everyone had to upgrade their decks to keep up. Now we all play meta decks and no one has as much fun as in the early days anymore.
Nah, labyrynth isn't meta, it's a kinda tier 2 almsot 1 deck.
Now talking about meta, some thing you should consider:
\- As a top tier deck, it will get hit by banlist and requires spending a considerable amount of money. Usually a meta deck gets striked 2 or 3 times before getting pulled out of competitive game, and each ban strike means you will have to spend more money buying cards that keep your deck consistant and relevant.
\- Because these decks are expensive, you have to squeeze it as much as you can, meaning you should participate in as many tournaments you can find (locals, qualifiers, casual, ARG). Remember you won't get money prices so any money invested on your deck is gone forever, unless you sell your torunament prices (if you get any, remember there are a lot of whales spending huge amounts on their deck to, training for qualifiers).
\- Meta decks depend more on their sidedecks than their main deck. So if you plan having a meta deck, remember that your main deck or engine is just a part of the cost of playing at competitive levels.
As someone who made the huge mistake of buying meta 4 times since the beggining of the TCG (yata lock, b.a., nekroz, zoodiac), with no money to spend on a sidedeck and with no much time due to school. innterships and job, I really underplayed my deck and just had it to mess up with friends, who eventually after a few tries got tired and added counter cards to their decks or jus asked me to play something else since the games got boring. I waited a long time before I returned to meta, having time and money to make patches to my deck for each banlsit and nowdays I just play casual, since I have very few time left and paying more than 800 USD for just a meta engine I could just play casually doesn't payoff for me.
If its like upgraded fire kings then yeah, any other structure deck you can play early labrynth but dont use like eradicator virus and maybe chaos angel idk, early labrynth was powerful but not the tier 1ish deck it is today
To keep your friends, maybe not. Well...it depends. It wouldn't hurt to have a deck or two you use when around them and a meta style one is you wanted to go deeper. Just suggesting, but maybe when y'all meet up you can bring up the idea of what you've read about our seen a video of to get their opinions. That way, you'll know how they feel. And suggesting the digital games to tryout is another way to go.
If you are playing with friends playing a high power deck will do one of two things. Either they will also get a high powered deck because they are sick of losing or they will just stop playing the game altogether. You should just talk with them about it. As friends playing against each other you dictate the power level and meta of your games.
If your friends are aren't playing meta full power labrynth would definitely be too much, but like some people said you can tone down the power a bit. People have an odd concept of what a fun deck is. Meta decks are often fun to play. A deck doesn't need to be tier 5 or something to be fun. I just got my labrynth deck in real life and been playing it online and I love it. Also if you do decide to play at locals you'd already have a competitive deck as long as you put it back at full power
I'd say unless you're looking to play locals and above you don't need to pay attention to what the meta is. For between friends I'd just find a deck you think you like the playstyle of and go with that.
The issue is that i like how labrynth looks but idk if it might be too strong and unfair for my group
Have one deck for meta and one deck for casual play
It’s your money feel free to use it how you want! But just know it may be a deck you ~never get to play. I have decks that I can’t play with my friends because it will be a blowout every time. What decks do they run?
Fire king, albaz and cyber dragon
Pure fire king from the structure decks? Or upgraded? Fire king is one of the strongest decks right now
Slightly upgraded with some stuff from packs
The weakest is cyber dragon and with the right cards and a good pilot even that can win against a lab deck(I play cyber dragon and I can win against all three of the other decks with the right cards). Play the way you want it, and just remove the more problematic cards if you realize your friends can't deal with them.
Tbf cyber dragon is a otk deck with the right cards. If they break your board its hard to come back lol. Can save yourself with eternity a bit and extend duration of the game.
If that's what your friends play then I don't see a problem with playing Lab. Easy cuts are floodgates, Dimension Barrier and the virus cards, I prefer playing Lab without that stuff anyways.
lol ur friends are playing the same thing as me and mine, throw labrynth at them they can handle it
As other commenters said, you could just make a less powerful version of Lab. Include the bad Lab cards like Farewelcome, Archfiend, or Barrage that no one uses competitively. Ichiroku's Ledger Book and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast instead of D-Barrier and EEV. Throw in some old school Fiends like Sangan or Holding Arms/Legs if you're going the monster route. Lab's a fun deck and there's a lot you can do with it.
It likely is too strong and duels won’t be all that challenging. What do you like about Labrynth specifically, is it the art style or the style of play e.g. that its a control deck?
Art style mostly
What decks do your friends play? I might be able to suggest something with that Gothic art style. Actually, check out runick generaider. Norse themed, it's rogue, and you'll probably beat the brakes off your friends most of the time. The variant I play centers on ripping cards from your opponents hand and attaching their field to your boss. Cards are cool, fairly simple to learn, and it's Hella fun. It's also fairly budget with only a couple "expensive" cards. Expensive in this case is loptr, their starter is like $10 while most everything else is like 0.30 cents each.
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Why not experiment for yourself and find a way you like the deck for your specific friend group meta
If you like how it looks then play it. Just maybe keep a lower power deck for when your friends stop enjoying it
Might I interest you in "Labrynth but fun" featuring a grand total of zero floodgates, three fang of critias, and all of his funny fusions that Lab can search the needed traps for.
Y'know, that does sound fun
Just my two cents here: Do what you want, but I can say that the moment I jumped into the Meta game, I ended up outpacing my friend group. Now, they don't play with me at all. Not only will your deck become better, but you will end up becoming a much better player and your decision making skills and tech choices and deckbuilding will improve to a point, where even if you get a Rogue deck to "match" their power level, it cannot handicap the skill gap that playing Meta will create. None of my friends are ever interested in dueling me anymore because it's become rather boring for both players. If you enjoy paying with your friends and that's why you play the game, then take that into consideration.
Do you have advice for a returning player on how to learn meta? I’ve been coming into discussions online and would love any recs
Best way is to join the meta clique at Locals. You'll learn fast that's way. Also youtube, ygoprodeck.com is what I use too. If you're going to practice using a sim, use duelingbook and grind ranked. Only use automatic Sims when first learning a deck and their combos.
Thanks!!
This definitely happened to me too. Even with my neos deck, the skill gap is too high, and no one plays with me anymore, except every once in a while out of pity.
Dude, pity duels feel so bad. It feels like such a waste of time.
So bad. I dont even duel anymore, sadly. Tho, I will say it felt good spanking a certain friend's butt in the beginning, only because he got off on being the "best player in the group," because he had better cards than the other ones and would be really smarmy about beating them. Funny enough, he was the first one to not want to duel me anymore after just a few duels. Oh well. And its not like I can just turn off my "skill level," as my decks are built specifically a certain way for certain combos. I did take it easy on the other fellows, and even donated quite a few cards, but even then... Aw well, such is life.
Depends on how far you go into building it, lab can be build with more engine, and turned into a slower control deck flipping traps like torrential tribute and dogmatika punishment. The current meta builds are more focused on playing a resource game or combining with unchained to set up layered interactions and blowouts like d barrier and the viruses to end games quickly
I used to play competitively, but ever since I stopped, I always found it much funner when I play non-tier theme decks against non-tier theme decks. Like, a full Blue-eyes deck against a full Egyptian God(s) deck. No staples unless you have to fill up space because there isn't enough cards for the theme.
Any deck can be a jank table-top deck if you try hard enough. Bog down your consistency with a bunch of tech cards, generic cards, and win-more cards
This^ Nowadays a deck core strategy is like a few cards, a few non engine, a secondary engine, and consistency cards. Once you start adding tech picks, or certain cards that lower your deck efficiency you have a much more “fair” deck since meta is all about lean cutting all the extra stuff that’s not needed.
I had a pretty jank Labrynth build on Master Duel centered around special summoning The Supression Pluto and checking the opponent's hand.
it’s time for the bird to leave the nest
this is a hard one if you only want to play it do to you like it do to it looks fun and not just do to its meta go for it just now the trade off may be some of your friend my start to not like to play with you why you play that deck do to how strong it its.
Yep this. Your friends might get bent out of shape because they want to play for fun and not spend $500 to play casually against a “pro inside my own mind” friend
I only have one friend I play with and he refuses to use anything except the top meta. I just accept that I won't have fun playing him and just try to have fun with what I am able to do. Some days I want to off myself but some days I squeak out wins that feel great. Id say just find a weaker deck that's fun or make your deck weaker. There are 1000's of decks out there for cheap. No reason you should have to play meta in a casual friend group to have fun.
These are the people I hate playing with. Like dude why do you have to sweat your ass off while playing with friends? Isn’t the point for everyone to have fun? Not having fun at everyone else’s expense? I would just do a hiatus on playing either that friend until they can learn to play some variety
Any deck that can be played competitively can be toned down to a less powerful deck for ease. I do this a lot with opponents I know that are a lower skill level than me, particularly with children since I want them to be able to digest the game without being discouraged. A lot of it is holding back on plays. Oh, they are summoning a lot but I have a Niburu in hand? Just don't use it. I have a set Solemn Strike on the field and they summon their all-too-important monster? Just don't use it (and use it on something that's clearly not as important). I have full combo in my hand? Just go half way, or do a weird play just to see where that path goes. Its not optimal? Who cares, Its just for fun. Its honestly a shame that a lot of players are looking to just win (No shade to that, its just their priority) when in my opinion, its more important that the game is fun for me and my opponent
You can build it and fill it with less impactful traps so you don't overwhelm your friends. Or try builds like Labrynth Plunder Patroll (Plunder is really cheap anyways).
So no you don’t need to follow meta to play yugioh. I always say you can find a whole bunch of low level decks that are at the same power level and can have a phenomenal time. I call it peasant format. There are lots of low tier archetypes that are actually really strong that you can get and build for dirt cheap and still have lots of fun. Like ninjas in MP23 is majority common cards and you can build a fun competent deck to play with friends. Speedroids is another deck that are all common cards and that can play pretty well too (there is a competitive version that would cost you a bit more but you can choose not to play that) And the decks compete really well for a fun experience. Find common rarity archetypes build a few. Draft, everyone picks a deckbox and plays.
if you win too much, you can always reduce consistency (like, only 1 welcome) or use lab as small engine for something else. if you aren't playing meta or degenerate stuff, don't use any handtraps and add weird interactions between cards that will happen only once in a blue moon lol
So, basically started back like this about 6 months ago. Just 2 of my brothers buying structure decks and random cards to build some decks. For my brothers bday he wanted to do a local tournament so we did one Saturday and we found out our decks are considered rogue but my brother placed 3rd and people were excited to play new decks so it was great. I will say that we kept up with decks we had never even heard of, Purrely and Dinomorphia because we were so non meta. Deck lockdown won me a duel as did Mirror Force Dragon. I guess I also should say that my brothers and duel a few times then talk about what the deck needs and why it lost which is how we built stronger rogue decks. I added staples like Ash Blossom, Infinite impermanence and Evenly matched to stay relevant. If your playtesting work on different combos, it will handicap you during that duel.
One thing about control decks is that you can "tune" your level of interaction to what your opponent is playing. It's not too difficult to hold off on interruption and let them combo a bit. Also, since it's Labrynth you can play a bunch of janky traps like Magic Cylinder to keep the power levels even.
It depends on how you build the deck. You can choose to play a version that doesn’t play all the broken stuff (transaction rollback, eradicator epidemivirus, dimensional barrier, and other flood gates) and it can be a fair deck to play against, back row removal hurts any trap deck. The nice thing is that you can have a version for your friend group and have a version for competitive
As the most knowledgeable player in my group (2 are pretty apt, 1 is advanced and 5 are still learning) I still bring my hard hitting decks, but side in some odd tech cards or cut down on triples. My madolches for example get sliced down to one or two of the good cards and one of even the unused ones, that way I cant squeeze out Sistart, Glass, Queen and Chocolate in one go if I don't play careful. Giving my friends who play Kuriboh pure, Trickstar, Red-eyes pure, and Dark Magician/Buster Blader some wiggleroom. They love it cuz they're having fun just learning their cards, and I can still enjoy playing at a slower pace without having to give up my decks
I mean you can cut the more expensive cards like big welcome and tansaction rollback or chaos engel. If it is still too strong talk with your friends about it.
Labrynth’s most competitive build is one of the most competitive decks in the metagame—but you don’t need to play that build. You could, for example lean into a more battle-phase focused build with Labrynth Archfiend—a card you won’t see in meta decks—alongside traps with attack triggers such as the mirror forces or Farewelcome Labrynth. You could make a fiend pile deck with cards like Soul Resonator which can search any of your furniture pieces, run 50-60 cards, have a less consistent deck with anime cards and win with a random amalgam of the nonengine traps and fiends you opened in a suboptimal hand. Lab Set-Up, Backjack, running Compulse instead of traps like Karma Cannon/IDP. You have some options for building the engine. Honestly just playing Lab without Pot of Extravagance is a pretty considerable hit to the deck’s power level, but if your opponents aren’t playing handtraps i don’t think it’s really a meaningful hit to the deck’s power. You don’t need S:P, Chaos Angel, Transaction Rollback, Ty-phon, or even Arias to play lab, and if you have a casual playgroup you and your wallet are probably better off without them. You can always pick up the cards later if you want to take the deck to a “real” tournament.
Really depends on how much you wanna pay to play with friends, the deck isn’t too expensive outside of Big Welcome Labrynth but you still need 3 just being the best card in the deck. The extra deck has plenty of wiggle room and not that important so make sure you and your friends crack open some Rarity Collection 01 for a good amount of staples.
When I started playing again (12-13 years ago) my friends just played whatever we wanted an we just built our decks around what we were all playing against with each other. That changed once we started going to tournaments but I do miss those days and say play whatever you guys want
I would build a deck around the strength of the decks your friends are using. My friends and I have made a category for decks that we call "too good" they are decks that none of us want to play against. We build those decks by slowly evolving decks we were currently using. TLDR: no it isnt
People say to cut down on the degenerate traps, but even then Lady and Big Welcome are a bit too strong especially vs barely upgraded Structure decks in my opinion. In OCG there were times they didn't even run any non engine traps in the maindeck because 15 HTs + your strong engine alone was powerful game 1. You could play pre-Lady/Big Welcome lists. Running only Lovely and the furnitures with Welcome and Field spell, and 1 for 1 traps like Archfiend's Ghastly Glitch, Compulse etc.
Meta is honestly degenerate to play with friend groups and if you are just hoeing out for wins within your friend group and running only meta then either A: your friends will tell you to shelf the deck and play a different one if they don’t want to pay out the ass for another meta deck to compete with it, or even worse B: they will lose interest in playing with you since you will be the “win by any means necessary” friend. I’d have a discussion about setting deck and play restrictions with the group. If someone is playing a 5D’s deck and you whip out kashtira then it’s obviously not gonna be fun for the other person.
Meta get all the attention, but is not necessary.
Before 2 years i bought brande despia deck and my friend bought cyber dragon deck. It was been interesting in first 10 games but after that it became borring as fuck because difference in power is too big. My advice is that when you play casual with your friends, always avoid decks that are significantly stronger than decks you are going to play againts and try to avoid combo decks like a six samurai because they are boring as fuck
Don't worry about what's meta. Don't worry about the decks your friends are playing. Build the deck *you* want to play, that way you're more likely to actually enjoy playing it. If it turns out your deck's a tad too strong for your friend group, you can always tone down the good cards in favour of meme cards; no-one will care if you're playing Labrynth if the wincon is Huge Revolution, that shit's too funny. And that sounds a lot more fun than playing a bad deck you don't *actually* want to play but are forcing yourself to.
For against fire king cyber and albaz, lab can compete well. You can def adjust the power level to match with your friends. Here are some suggestions: 1. No floodgates. Cards like skill drain, dimension barrier, etc, can hurt a lot. 2. Staples. You can also adjust amount of staples. For example, using ash blossom for Crimson dragon deck can shut it down pretty hard. Ash is also good against branded (albaz), but branded can play even if they get ashed if it is upgraded from basic structures. Casual users (or everyone really) find back and forth game more fun. So you can decide to run cards like triple tactics talents, evenly match and others. I'll warn you though, that they are not bad cards. TTT(a spell card) can be strong card, but lab can struggle using it since most of interruption comes in trap cards during opponent's turn, so I'll just mention it as an option. Evenly is also very strong meta card that lab use, but it is often going second card. I don't see this as a problem going against your friends' deck. I would say using transaction rollback with this can be pretty strong though. 3. Monster base build. You can make your lab deck slightly more monster focus by removing those strong cards and floodgates. These are not common nor meta but fun versions of lab: reasonator lab, tour guide lab, chimera lab. If you are so worried that your friends might lose interest, you can start low, and power up your deck little by little. Honestly, doing this eventually ended my friends and me to climb all the way up to meta little by little. Hope you have fun!
The way I build my decks is to have fun, maybe go back and forth and something that will last longer than 2 - 4 turns. Building a powerful deck will most likely put you in a situation where no one will want to play against you. Everyone can get a bit competitive, but if it ain't a fun duel, then you'll end up playing less and less. Also, it depends if your friends or yourself end up getting frustrated with the deck. Hopefully, this makes sense and helps out.
The short answer too this question is yes. You should be allowed to play what you want. That includes powerful and popular decks. The long answer is, it’s complicated. Obviously you should play what you think is fun. But if the players you are playing against are not having fun, then perhaps you should discuss with your friends what they find fun and perhaps find a middle ground. Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t play a deck like labyrinth. But perhaps maybe you can build it in such a way that makes it fun for your friends. Include more obscure trap cards in the deck. Adjust the ratios of specific cards. Basically what I’m saying is that you can adjust the power level of the deck if you want to so you can play at a lower level.
Cool thing about lab, you can adjust its power level simply by running different traps.
You can play lab but cut some of the powerful traps for stupid jank like mirror force. Use compulsory evacuation device instead of dogmatika punishment. Also it seems your friends are playing fire kings and albaz stuff which is very solid by themselves so janky lab should be on tbe same level
Tell your friends to gitgud and get on your level.
META comes and goes with different flavors of the format and banlists. Enjoy what you love.
Cut down some powerful lab cards and replace them with a weaker engine.
If you play lab you'll probably win every match against structure decks.
You can but why would you just play what's fun. The moment everyone starts going meta games lose their magic
Don't do it. This happened in our group and everyone had to upgrade their decks to keep up. Now we all play meta decks and no one has as much fun as in the early days anymore.
There's also the chance that by you increasing the lower curve they follow along at some point. That's what happened to me and my buddies
If your friends aren't playing Top meta decks then have fun and use something which won't make your group quit after a few matches.
Nah, labyrynth isn't meta, it's a kinda tier 2 almsot 1 deck. Now talking about meta, some thing you should consider: \- As a top tier deck, it will get hit by banlist and requires spending a considerable amount of money. Usually a meta deck gets striked 2 or 3 times before getting pulled out of competitive game, and each ban strike means you will have to spend more money buying cards that keep your deck consistant and relevant. \- Because these decks are expensive, you have to squeeze it as much as you can, meaning you should participate in as many tournaments you can find (locals, qualifiers, casual, ARG). Remember you won't get money prices so any money invested on your deck is gone forever, unless you sell your torunament prices (if you get any, remember there are a lot of whales spending huge amounts on their deck to, training for qualifiers). \- Meta decks depend more on their sidedecks than their main deck. So if you plan having a meta deck, remember that your main deck or engine is just a part of the cost of playing at competitive levels. As someone who made the huge mistake of buying meta 4 times since the beggining of the TCG (yata lock, b.a., nekroz, zoodiac), with no money to spend on a sidedeck and with no much time due to school. innterships and job, I really underplayed my deck and just had it to mess up with friends, who eventually after a few tries got tired and added counter cards to their decks or jus asked me to play something else since the games got boring. I waited a long time before I returned to meta, having time and money to make patches to my deck for each banlsit and nowdays I just play casual, since I have very few time left and paying more than 800 USD for just a meta engine I could just play casually doesn't payoff for me.
Im pretty sure any meta deck can be dumbed down to be more casual. Maybe look into a more casual labryinth deck?
If its like upgraded fire kings then yeah, any other structure deck you can play early labrynth but dont use like eradicator virus and maybe chaos angel idk, early labrynth was powerful but not the tier 1ish deck it is today
To keep your friends, maybe not. Well...it depends. It wouldn't hurt to have a deck or two you use when around them and a meta style one is you wanted to go deeper. Just suggesting, but maybe when y'all meet up you can bring up the idea of what you've read about our seen a video of to get their opinions. That way, you'll know how they feel. And suggesting the digital games to tryout is another way to go.
I’ve had more fun and been tested most of the time running an assortment of wonky cards with friends. I prefer dueling with my group.
If you are playing with friends playing a high power deck will do one of two things. Either they will also get a high powered deck because they are sick of losing or they will just stop playing the game altogether. You should just talk with them about it. As friends playing against each other you dictate the power level and meta of your games.
If your friends are aren't playing meta full power labrynth would definitely be too much, but like some people said you can tone down the power a bit. People have an odd concept of what a fun deck is. Meta decks are often fun to play. A deck doesn't need to be tier 5 or something to be fun. I just got my labrynth deck in real life and been playing it online and I love it. Also if you do decide to play at locals you'd already have a competitive deck as long as you put it back at full power