Best Summon Mechanic in Yugioh

#1
After the original Yugioh and several spin-offs, the main Yugioh card game rounds things off with 6 major summon mechanics and monsters: Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, and Link



How do you rank each one?

For me:

1) Link
2) Xyz
3) Ritual
4) Synchro
5) Fusion
6) Pendulum

Link Monsters and Summoning takes it for me. As the last mechanic introduced in the game, Konami learned from the mistake with Pends which were too experimental and convoluted and went with the next logical progression of Xyz, which have dominated the game uncontested for years, with Links Monsters while coming up with a creative method of keeping them balanced where in exchange for being by far the most efficient to summon monster in the game, they rely on Link Markers to be able to summon more than one monster.

I like Links for their efficiency, the fact that they made placement of cards on your board important to the game for some nice added depth to the game never seen before, and how they allowed for more card design with main deck monsters since with them, decks can now have monsters that don’t all either need to be the same level for Xyz or requires Tuners for Synchro like it was before.
Finally, the cards themselves look awesome. Cool blue boarders with contrasting Link markers.



So, name which is your favorite of the 6 Monster types.
 
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#6
Links are even more generic in their requirements than either Synchro or Xyz.

I think all mechanics brought something unique to them. Links made placement of cards and columns relevant

Xyz made it so matching levels was important and their unique thing where the monsters used to make them don’t go to grave but rather, are stacked underneath the Xyz monster as it’s materials to use in some manner for their effects

And Synchros were an improvement to Rituals, removing the need of a Spell card and having the monster in the Extra Deck so that all you needed were the monsters with the right levels when added. The trade off to this far better consistency being at least 2 monsters required on field and one of those monsters being a Tuner as well to Synchro Summon
 
#7
Pendulum is still my least favorite of the summoning mechanics, Though the new Zarc support does look pretty nice.
Zarc support is cool ig
I dont really play the game anymore though so dont mean much to me plus was never the biggest fan of zarc


his anime version of the supreme king dragon was relatively powerful tho tcg nerfed it to the ground


Xyz made it so matching levels was important and their unique thing where the monsters used to make them don’t go to grave but rather, are stacked underneath the Xyz monster as it’s materials to use in some manner for their effects
The method by which you play the xyz deck does not differ to how you would play an synchro deck
the only difference is the summoning material used

Where with pendulums
the difference is not solely not the materials


and lol at the overlay material argument
are you really going to pretend that stacking cards underneath a monster to amp it would be a xyz exclusive thing

Cubics and relinquished do the same


And Synchros were an improvement to Rituals, removing the need of a Spell card and having the monster in the Extra Deck so that all you needed were the monsters with the right levels when added. The trade off to this far better consistency being at least 2 monsters required on field and one of those monsters being a Tuner as well to Synchro Summon
I didt like the change to speed based gameplay from gx to 5ds
It's lazy instead of innovating and making unique deck ideas

You just make the new deck faster amd more broken then before
just remake yusei's deck but better and better with more fast stuff
 
#8
Zarc support is cool ig
I dont really play the game anymore though so dont mean much to me plus was never the biggest fan of zarc


his anime version of the supreme king dragon was relatively powerful tho tcg nerfed it to the ground




The method by which you play the xyz deck does not differ to how you would play an synchro deck
the only difference is the summoning material used

Where with pendulums
the difference is not solely not the materials


and lol at the overlay material argument
are you really going to pretend that stacking cards underneath a monster to amp it would be a xyz exclusive thing

Cubics and relinquished do the same




I didt like the change to speed based gameplay from gx to 5ds
It's lazy instead of innovating and making unique deck ideas

You just make the new deck faster amd more broken then before
just remake yusei's deck but better and better with more fast stuff
Relinquished doesn’t do that. Whatever monster it takes with its effect is Equipped to it and moved to the S/T zone as an Equip Spell. Same with Cubics.
 
#14
Ritual and Fusion is all I've ever use, all these newfangled rules are too much for this old timer.
Drytron, Nekroz, and Dogmatika are dope Ritual strategies.

Fusions have had insane representations over the entire decade. Tearlaments is one of the best decks in this entire games history and was a Tier 0 deck all throughout 2022

Tons of other great Fusion strategies over the years: Shaddoll, Thunder Dragon, Invoked. Heroes and Neo Spacians with all the new support both got, Albaz Despia as a close number 2 for best Fusion deck in the game after Tears
 
#15
Drytron, Nekroz, and Dogmatika are dope Ritual strategies.

Fusions have had insane representations over the entire decade. Tearlaments is one of the best decks in this entire games history and was a Tier 0 deck all throughout 2022

Tons of other great Fusion strategies over the years: Shaddoll, Thunder Dragon, Invoked. Heroes and Neo Spacians with all the new support both got, Albaz Despia as a close number 2 for best Fusion deck in the game after Tears
Got to say the explosion fire pack for the BK are amazing, not sure what tier to put it at though.

There new key card king Dempsey really gets the deck going, though i wish they had their own rank-up magic card.
 
#16
Late to the party - glad to see there's other YGO players here!

Gotta say it really depends. Synchro and XYZ cards look the best for sure. I feel like Links and Pendulums were unnecessary additions. I'm not fond of either. Once XYZ came out I thought the game was very well rounded at that point.

I play Dino and Dinomorphia so I really don't have a preference but Fusions if I had to pick

From a gameplay perspective the most balanced mechanics are the best ones. So Synchro, XYZ and Fusions. Not including Rituals as they are either completely broken or absolutely terrible. No inbetween. Is there a YGO thread/group for general discussions here? Would people be interested in setting one up if not?
 
#19
I think XYZ was the last good summoning addition, but I think fusion is the best. Especially with the wide variety of fusion cards that work for all sort of different deck types.

My first actual serious deck was a Cyber Dragon deck (classic and probably power cliffed by Now) which used a variety of fusion monsters and cards like power bond, polymerization, and overload fusion
 
#20
Xyz is really not that noteworthy
it's the same kinda spam type gameplay, synchros before them were using with no real substantive difference in how they can be used

unlike with pendulums or links
 
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