Spikes & Baron Duel Monster Comet - The #1 Yu-Gi-Oh OCG Site and Community

Article 36: Third Year down, Fourth coming

Believe it or not, but Oct. 30th, 2005 mark the 3rd birthday of DMComet.

Like I did last year on the 2nd birthday, I would again reflect the year of this game.

2004-2005 marks several milestone of myself, the site, and the game.
1. I'm finally out of High School, but then enter the more torturous College
2. Just as of today, the site receive over 500000 hits (it did two days ago, actually). Last year?? around 100000 level
3. The original anime, like the original manga, ends, and marks the beginning of GX age
4. World Championship 2005 have the first non-Asian winner (or top 2)
5. The crazy Chaos-Cookie-Control age had finally been ended with its last card, Chaos Soldier - Messenger of Beginning -, and several important parts in the deck, is either banned or restrict

Of course, this year had been marked by criticism. Countless people quits the game because it's "no more fun", mostly for the following reason.
1. The new cards ARE the cards that the cards are suppose to be, but they're nowhere near the power of old cards
2. Konami's reluctancy of banning Chaos Soldier until it happened last month
3. Many people do not like the new GX anime since it's nothing like the old anime (it's more "kiddish" than the old one)
4. Konami take steps back and release GX cards that DOES resemble the situational cards from the original anime (yet those cards from the original anime are not released)
5. Reprints from BE, EE, and Structure Decks

This year, the game lost a lot of popularity due to those factors. As result, the number of new boosters have decrease a lot. Last year, from the time of Oct. 2003 - Oct. 2004, 5 new boosters. This year: 4. The forever-popular Structure decks had continue, but, people do not like the new cards because 5 out of 6 are "Nomis". Also, since GX is not popular, due to number of GX cards (especially E-Heroes) being release, people stop buying booster since they don't pull good cards.

Me, as a player, is somehow disappointed by the number of cards that I can actually try playing. Due to number of E-Hero cards vs. number of cards that can actually put into a deck is not even 1:1, people are not happy. Also, people are more pissed when they saw the "new version" of an old powerful cards, but then only to see the old cards sometimes being unbanned. As result of all of them, the game get so boring and bland that people would use cards release a year ago, deck types that exist a year ago, and officials from Upperdeck CLEARLY encourage those "old deck types" with its new ban list that is different from the Japan one.

This year also mars the "war" of OCG v. TCG gone WAY WAY overboard. Although this problem exist for a while, it never get as serious as now. For those who don't know how bad the problem is, read Edo's articles on his site, and then Kotaro's article on this problem. But now I would put my view on this.

I'M VERY DISAPPOINTED THE WAY THAT THIS PROBLEM HAD GONE TO THIS STATE.

I mean, I have never heard of players from ONE card game would flare their ass off because they play the game in different language. There would be rivalry (like World Championship), but not hostility from other games. But when an official person from one side would then spark up the hostility that already existed, that's UNACCEPTABLE.

If you don't get the relationship, just think of racism for now. In USA, there's always hate from White people towards Blacks somewhere, and Blacks hating Whites at result. There's always some racial tensions (especially in cities in midwest and LA) between both groups, as like result from the history of this country. However, the government try as hard as they can to minimize the tensions. Just what if now they take a step back and some governors/mayors suddenly encourage the Whites to attack the Blacks because that's what they believe?? That's different...much like how Kevin Tewart the idiot encourage TCG supremacy.

I have seen many words on "no matter what, you should respect Kevin since he's the official". Guess what?? If my governor would encourage people to attack me, should I respect him?? He don't even respect ME! It's sad that the problem had gone to a level where official people would come in and put his feeling on an issue.

Guess what, I'm sad that Upperdeck is feeling the Japanese are stupid and cannot make decisions on how to work out the glaring problems on this game. What the heck is that?? I had said in last year that Konami is trying hard to unite the game together with the new card numbering system and parallel set release. But now all I can see is Upperdeck's and Konami's difference turns "OCG" as one game, "TCG" another, and they have intense rivalry with each other. Guess what, Kevin Tewart, you cannot make corporate decisions since this is ONE game, MAKE from the Japanese, and you're only IMPORTING the game, you're NOT the maker of the game.

Marred by indifference, I hope this game can continue the one time that it shines out amongs all the trading card games, with all the new release better and make everybody that hate/like GX happy. They now have GX, and they just entered the second season, so I hope they won't fade away as soon as now. I really do want to see the game unite back together, have parallel release from both BOOSTERS AND PROMOS, but I guess that the uncooperativeness of both side is really hurting.

-Baron, 10/29/05