Forgot to post 5th-8th.

5th: Jokergear - Royal Base (I believe the lists are similar)
6th: Ajheart - Armor Rush
7th: Unovastar - Eater
8th: Cabby - Bagra Army

Why are the horrors listening to the shit we say?

Good luck. It's nothing special but this is probably one of the few decks that's better off with less tweaks generally.

I made a mistake with the 1st place list. This is the correct one.

simply speeding through it if you feel it's a waste of time is an option too (assuming emulator).

If people just don't like classic style RPGs that's fine too but to suggest the combat is wholesale bad or whatever is a notable overstatement.

I probably should have just gone into vc b/c I was trying to wrap this up here but character limit is getting me b/c there is more to say and more to ask the more I think about it. There are so many little things that enhance the play exp and in the event one is on the PSP version

The one thing I can say conclusively is if part of the game being "boring" combatwise is due to how easy it is then I assume you played the PSP version. If you don't want that play the PS1 version.

Even aside from that in terms of monotony Tartarus alone is worse than going through P2's combat.

"either not engage with it or do so incorrectly."

just picking random options instead of the ones that make sense b/c the system is NOT rng.
bsky.app/profile/lulz...

I can't know what your exact exp was but the 40h thing feels like a joke to me when every single one of the games in the MT franchise aside from the odd one out push 80h for one run where you don't do everything.

40h to finish a game you were already playing is nothing.