I've been starting to notice a trend. I feel people with decks that deviate from the most powerful ideas of dueling (burn, stall, negation, complete field destrcution etc etc) are being punished for being actual decks that came from someones imagination. All decks that test high seem to have been done to death and have really stale ideas. I know there's a reason for that but I really feel people are dueling for the wrong reasons and are using really overdone and stupid decks so they can get their point score up. Duels are good because they CAN go either way. We've all been in the duel where every turn is a turnabout and it's a clash of two great ideas, fighting it out on the battlefield and suddenly that pullaway winning. As Egoraptor once said, "It's like comparing snack food to high class dessert. You can chomp away mindlessly at snacks because that's how they made. They're addictive by nature. They keep you reaching for more even if don't really want more. But a high class dessert demands that you slow down, to really enjoy how complex and satisfying it is. In the end, you'll always think more highly of the high class dessert because it gave you a feeling of true satisfaction." So when do you feel more satisfied? When you go use a deck everyone is using and just wack mindlessly away for rating and points, or when you use your wicked cunning to derail your opponents hopes for victory with clever tactics you came up with yourself?

Dragunities aren't meta...right? neither are gravekeeps? i don't see anybody using those anymore. i just see wind-ups and dino rabbit...and occasionally other meta or legit non-meta...but mostly wind-up.

just curious, because sometimes i feel OP and unoriginal using those high-power decks, even though i typically put my own spin on them.

1st . no one said it is meta , but at the same time it is strong

2nd. Vaktaeru why you double post , your second was literlay 1 min after your first :O

I seen Dragunity and Gravekeepers Tier at my local / regionals cause all they do is recruiter trib destroy and continues in a never ever ending loop. As for Dragunity they just SS and SS till they swarm the field with nothing my Blue Eyes + Darkness Metal Dragon (even tho they got hit on Darkness Metal Dragon thats not gonna stop them from swarming) but either ways this game becomes too meta in my opinion its not fun like it used to be anymore. Especially when people brags and gets a big ego for easily winning .....

i have a feeling this is a post about original decks not being able to beat meta decks. totally untrue in my opinion. madolche stun wasnt meta, Alexander Thomas, creds to him, built it perfectly for his regionals. Tyler Tabman, one of the biggest names on the competitive scene, basically "defines" what the American meta is, overplayed decks, he himself proves that a strong idea whether or not meta, is good. he has topped a considerable amount of times with GK stun, final countdown, and other non-meta decks which now people think are viable. although he did end up picking windups at the end for nats and also runs them now, he's been successful at innovation, proving that you can have original decks/nonmeta decks that are fun and can win. billy brake took underhyped inzektors post-sept 2012 and topped at a ycs, leading up to the resurgence of inzektors and then leading up to the first inzektors top 1 ycs finish by michael w.e. simon he, innovator of agents nowadays.

and btw, if you really understand the game and can put 1+1 together to innovate your own deck that can win, gratz, if you dont, please dont qq about losing with an orignal deck to meta. meta is proven to be good. original ideas take a long time to perfect.
@pldl @vivus et sanus and i think @cheesfactory, and one other person, i forget who, has seen my original otk combo which has nothing to do with the current meta, for right now it works 70% consistent, and im switching around engines to perfect it and still need to cut 5. its not that original decks are punished for being imagination, but that they take time to build and most people arent spending 3 months to perfect a build, testing it every day. collaboration helps a lot, and when you mash a bunch of professional players who basically can take any card and form a tier 3 deck? well together they create what is called the metagame, which of course originally came from an idea too.

Disclaimer: The statement below is in all caps to separate it from the rest of the mumble jumble i have just typed. It was not meant to be in all caps for any other purpose and is solely for the use of allowing lazy people to find the most important idea of the passage. Thank you for your understanding.

TL;DR, DECKS TAKE TIME TO MAKE, META IS MADE FROM PROFESSIONALS WHO COLLABORATE AND TEST OUT TOGETHER AND THEREFORE SPEEDS UP THE TESTING, KNOWLEDGE, AND DECKBUILDING, BUT THEY STILL COME FROM ORIGINAL IDEAS.

That is not the point. I'm saying there aren't many new decks nowadays and decks are used and reused with the same ideas and same powerful monsters and the same tactics and the same everything. I'm saying that people are playing to win, not to duel. Maybe I sound like a soccer mom with a son who tried to play the game but failed miserably and is like "It's not win or lose it's how you play the game," but I really feel that not alot of people play the game to play the game anymore. Maybe I'm just crazy though.

There's always a competitive scene and a casual scene in every game.
If you play any DOTA/HoN/LoL kinds of games, there are always people who take it seriously and those who play for fun. Competitive scene looks down on casuals. It's normal. Casuals want to win too you know. It's not fun to just lose over and over again. It's a normal way of how life works. People don't like losing. They'll play anything that can let them win because in the end, that's what truly makes them happy. If you're having fun and winning with an original deck, more power to you. If the original deck doesn't work out, you would get frustrated to and play meta. I used to play IRL for fun. Had fun with original cards and deck ideas, but when you don't win at all, there's no fun in that.

To the people who I beat at locals and ended up topping x-1 with TeleGlads, let us just say that I didn't intend to win anything.
There will always be good cards and bad cards. Originality with good cards will always be tough. Everyone is using them. Bad cards don't make very great decks. Simply put, you won't get a deck where you haven't seen any of the cards in, like 40 cards you've never seen. Impossible.

There are multitudes of deck ideas almost never put into use that use creative ways to utilize "bad cards." Even though I don't much care for 5DS, much of the point is weak vs powerful cards. There are cards that support the weaker cards and can be used to your advantage. And is there anything wrong with a little research? I've looked up cards that I could use for decks I make, many of which I had never seen used. And all the cards don't have to be completely new. The deck and the idea just has to original, it doesn't have to be completely obscure.

vylons and morphtronics, for example. two extremely powerful archetypes that are unique in so many ways. for one, there is no generic 'best build' for them, as they both have several viable combinations that can be used powerfully. also, they aren't used very often, and yet they could both beat any meta deck out there hands down.

we can mix a lot of cards togther and make a cool new deck style + can see there is a lot of style out there

Example : l
ightsworm quasar(cool deck)
arcana force with agent (can work)

is anyone here actually using something common or top tier?, i mean, a deck not being top tier doesnt mean its not common, you can see a lot of decks used these days, cant you just try out something else?, go out of your comfort area, i havent seen creative decks in a long time, not even a bit different, i havent seen even a crystal beast deck lately, and the most different deck i ever saw was freaking neo-spacians, how come NOONE tries to make something different?, dont want to do it?, thats your call, but dont say youre a genius for using combos someone else created

100% true , only smart people and pro duelist know how to make cool combos by therself not from other , and i have to say DN no fun because everyone play to win , play YGOpro or DMG and you well see fun decks

Two quick (actually not so quick) comments on Vylons and Morphtronics and then quickly on the concept of meta decks and combos from others.

Vylons - Vylon Element, forces you to play equip spells, equip spells are just inconsistent and sometimes can be dead draws. Rod of Kay'est version where you spam tuners everywhere and exceed? Too many tuners, and becomes Six Samurais except needs more support like Kay'est and Element, a monster, and a Vylon equip card (four card combo). Sure you can use try a Vylon engine in a different deck, but the reliance on equip cards has always been, not so consistent. I personally run a Sigma OTK just for fun, but it relies so hard on lv 3 LIGHT tuners and lv 4 LIGHT monsters. It's kinda sad. Hunders can use Vylon Prism, because it is lv 4 LIGHT Thunder 1500ATK 1500DEF so that is okay, Hunders in my opinion are okay.

Morphtronics - ask Twi, everyone that has played me IRL knows how much I love this deck. You have Morphtronic Scopen as an AMAZING tuner monster with a godly effect. Run Boomboxen, Slingen, and Radion and you're good to go. Celfon is an amazing searcher/engine all by itself. Problem? The need for not so high attack monsters with not enough destruction. Swarming capabilities are limited. Luck involved with Celfon is variable. Scopen is the best card, you need it and one other Morphtronic. I ran and still have the deck IRL with great success for an off-the-radar deck. But it was a coin flip. If I opened Scopen + Morphtronic, great its a good start. Open Boomboxen and other Morphs, not so great. If you're running Morphtronic stall, with the Magnen + Boarden, come on, it's so hard to get them in defense mode, run zero gravity? *sigh* I just don't see that version very good. Morph OTK ftw! <-- so much control/plus, they cant get over Power Tool Spam with C&D's everywhere. Explode in one turn, if not? then just Power Tool + Double Tool Control all day. Oh and another thing, they don't have very good graveyard capabilities/other things like a draw engine. A few consistency issues due to needing a few weak level 4 monsters that can't really hold the field on their own. Morphtronics can't really be an "engine" as they don't really provide any support and aren't very splashable. Very archetypal. And hand advantage, Morphtronics will most likely lose, like Six Sams without Gateway. Very archetypal deck.

I do run meta decks just because I will and was a competitive player. What happens is when someone plays meta, people who don't look down on him/her. Don't take my comments as, "oh he's a meta user, let's just disregard what he says because I'm right because I'm not a meta user" (@zartorius). At my locals, even though there are some people who complain about autopilot and whatever excuses they want to pull of out their..., most people have realized that it's not actually the issue. People take pride in their tech cards. You don't just shut down one optimal combo. You shut down the deck. Or you can be like the 33% who like playing meta because they think it's easy to win and they aggro all over the field and get owned. The concept of autopilot is true, but in actuality, it doesn't exist. When Chaos Dragons and Hieratics were insanely overplayed at my locals/regionals, there are so many decisions you have to make. When do you summon REDMD? Do you leave Lightpulsar on the field to try to grab REDMD from grave? When do I start spamming Hieratics? The argument most make is, get rid of stuff that counter, and then turn on autopilot. Again, it's not like your opponent is just going to let you just destroy everything. Yes, the concept of "turning on autopilot in order to win" is conceptually correct. But in the actual duel, it's impossible to call autopilot. Versatility, versatility, versatility is what you should be looking for in a good deck. If you can't adapt to different situations, you aren't going to do well in a 12-round RR tourney where top X-2 break. The optimal combo in different situations changes and there can be multiple different plays that one can consider in any duel. Just read a bunch of feature matches, especially like Simon He. Where is the autopilot he's running in Agent? He's not, he's running agents unconventionally. The key cards are still be the same. But the way he does it completely deviates from the norm. Six Samurais, Junior Dorcin, OF COURSE HE PLAYED GATEWAY AND KIZAN AND THE NORMAL STUFF. Those are good cards that any Six Samurai player should run. But how many times do you have to deviate and still get the optimal/advantageous situation? Meta =/= unoriginal combos. Copying combos = unoriginal. You can play a meta deck differently too. Just associating yourself with a meta concept doesn't make you a bad/unoriginal/need guidance duelist.

TL;DR, Vylons and Morphtronics (not limiting to only those two decks) DO in fact have potential, but currently the reliance on certain cards makes them very inconsistent and they aren't very splashable either whereas like T.G.'s. Meta doesn't equate to unoriginal. Take for example Simon He, he plays the meta, and redefines it on his own. Do I pass and play Gorz? Do I summon Trooper and mill and set CotH? If a bad player plays meta just so they don't have to make decisions, that's what gives the impression of autopilot, especially when they win. The concept of autopilot is warranted, but the application doesn't exist.