Vaalmonica released with a dearth of ways to get Resonance Counters. Until the second wave gave semi-consistent access to a combo that got three, we were scraping the bottom of the barrel for cards that did effect damage to yourself. Trick Clown featured in your own TMT list on the deck, even.

Xid, my beloved.

Another one, I played Argostars Odion, and that deck is RUTHLESS when it comes to zone management and timing your traps. Screw up, and your Argostars end up trapped in your back row, and your Apophis negates nothing.

Vaalmonica is themed around an instrument made of GLASS, and the combo is appropriately fragile. Any interruption or misplay will see you come up short on Resonance Counters. If you don’t have three for the Links, the end board is, at best, dust tornado or compulse.

Counterpoint:

It’s balanced out by Mia being the BEST.

In the current manga (OCG Structures) the characters still dramatically react with excruciating pain… because they’re theater kids who are way too into the anime.

Pendulum monsters are so clearly meant to have two different scales on each side before the mechanic got memory holed by Konami. But now they’d need an extra ruling to determine what it’s scale even is if they did it because it would shatter a lot of the support.

Turns out returning to what many consider the greatest video game of all time with the benefit of hindsight and an extra decade of technology and experience makes for a damn good game.

I’ll never forgive Crossbow Training for stealing a proper sequel from us. What could have been…

Me when I put Twilight Princess into my console.