New Changes Coming to the Game

Hello and good morning/afternoon/night everyone, this is Professor Cipher with a new and important topic for you all. As we all know, each new Yugioh anime series brings with it new card types, rule changes, and mechanics. Today we will be discussing the biggest rule change in Yugioh since the limitation of Extra Deck spaces. As we all expected, Yugioh VRAINS has brought with it a new card type, but a major rule change is occurring as well.

I present to you the newest card type, a Link monster!

Decode Talker Text:

This is Yusaku's (the new protagonist) ace monster, Decode Talker. He's a Link, Cyverse-Type monster. That's right, another new type. Cyverse will likely become a prominent new type in the future and you can find more of them in the new starter deck coming this Spring. I can imagine that you're all asking, "What's a Link monster, and how do I use it?" Well, you'd be right to ask that. Link monsters lack level or rank and instead have a "Link Level" of sorts. They also have a special set of Link directions indicated by the colored arrows on the cards, but more on that later. Due to them having no defense, they cannot be summoned in defense position and can't have their position changed by cards or effects. How do you summon them? Well each Link monster will have a certain requirement to summon printed on them, similar to Xyz monsters. In this case, Decode Talker's requirements will be "2 or more Effect monsters". To summon him you'll need to send the appropriate cards to the graveyard from your side of the field. You can also send a Link monster you control with a Link Level to the grave to help fill the requirements. For example, if you have a Link 2 Effect monster and an Effect monster, then you can send them to fill the requirements for the Link 3 Decode Talker. In this way it could be likened to an Xyz summon that doesn't have materials and doesn't need matching levels, so like a combination of Synchro and Xyz.

What's so different about this? With these new cards comes a restructuring of the playing field that will be used in Yugioh from now on. There will now be two "Extra Monster Zones" which will be placed in front of the newly renamed "Main Monster Zone". Link monster will be summoned to this Extra Monster Zone, but you can only use one. The second one will belong to your opponent. The Main Monster Zone cannot have Fusion, Synchro, or Xyz summoned to it anymore, and they can only be summoned to the Extra Monster Zone. That's right, you didn't misread that. You can no longer spam the field with Fusions/Synchro/Xyz. The only way to summon more than one Extra Deck monster now will be to play a Link monster in your Extra Monster Zone first. Do you see those colored arrows on Decode Talker? Those are his "links" which you use to link different monster zones together. Decode Talker links up with the bottom right, bottom left, and the center top monster zones. The cards he's linked to are affected by him, but they also allow you to summon other Extra Deck monsters in them. So if you want to play more than one Extra Deck monster, like a Fusion for example, you can either play one in your Extra Monster Zone or play a Link monster and then play the Fusion in one of the linked zones you control. Be careful though, because if you link to your opponent's field (like with how one of Decode Talker's arrows points to your opponent's monster zones) then your opponent can summon Extra Deck monsters to that linked zone. This new mechanic will emphasize strategical placement of your cards, but it will also change how decks work.

Along with this change to monster zones comes a change to Pendulum zones. Pendulums will no longer have their own zones to the side of the field anymore and will instead take up the left and rightmost S/T zones. Those two spaces won't be considered Pendulum Zones until after you have played a Pendulum in them. This means that if you play Pendulums, you can only set a maximum of 3 S/T cards at a time. It's also important to note that if you try to summon pendulum monsters from your Extra deck now, you are limited to summoning them only to the Extra Monster zone and any linked zones. Pendulums in your hand can still be summoned as normal though. Any monster that would be summoned from the Extra deck must go to an Extra Monster zone or zone that has been linked.  

Naturally, these new changes will come with all sorts of new ruling questions, so feel free to ask in the thread and I'll answer as best I can. However, there are still some things that I can't quite answer yet so we'll have to wait patiently for Konami to answer everyone's questions. How do you all feel about the new mechanic and how the rule changes will affect the game? Personally, I look forward to seeing how it shakes things up but I'm still a little worried about how it will alienate so many decks. Only time will tell with how it gets handled.

Source:
https://ygorganization.com/itsover1000/
https://ygorganization.com/reallypendulumswereverysorry/

There will now be two "Extra Monster Zones" which will be placed in front of the newly renamed "Main Monster Zone". Link monster will be summoned to this Extra Monster Zone, but you can only use one. The second one will belong to your opponent. The Main Monster Zone cannot have Fusion, Synchro, or Xyz summoned to it anymore, and they can only be summoned to the Extra Monster Zone. wrote:

The only thing that we need to understand is if we pendulum summon from the extra deck, will the pendulum monster go into the Main Monster Zone, or the Extra Monster Zone?

you need a tl;dr man, this sounds important but I cba reading it. <3 good job though! xx

AsianPichu wrote:

The only thing that we need to understand is if we pendulum summon from the extra deck, will the pendulum monster go into the Main Monster Zone, or the Extra Monster Zone?

That's actually a tough one. We can infer based on the the description the article gives that anything summoned from the extra deck must go to a linked zone, and if you have no other linked zones, then it has to go to the Extra Monster zone. That being said, they also only list Fusion/Synchro/Xyz/Links as cards that would go there, but that might have just been an example that didn't encompass the whole thing. For now, that's an issue that needs to be solved with rulings from Konami. Pendulums in general are in question with this mechanic.

for god's sake...konami wdf....

Pendalums do not need to be summon in a linked zone unless they are xyz/pendalum cards.

UPDATE
We have just received further information from Konami's newest article that clarifies a few things about pendulums and Links. Pendulums summoned from the hand go to the main monster zones while anything, including Pendulum, summoned from the extra deck has to go to the extra monster zone or a linked zone.

i believe you have to link summon first before doing pendulum. now you cant pendulum summon 5 in one turn now. rip huge pendulum summon

It's not just pendulums that get hit like that though. A Ton of decks could really flood the field from the extra deck. I Honestly have to say I'm not really looking forward to this.. I'm also Not surprised by how the Pendulums are going to work. It always worked like that. A Pendulum monster summoned from the extra deck is treated as an extra deck monster.

So can pendulum monsters be used as link material? Would they just go back to the extra deck? XD

Pendulum monsters would go back to the extra deck for if used for a link summon, but once they touch the extra deck they face the same limitations as regular extra deck monsters where they can only be summon in the extra monster zone or a zone opened up by a link monster.

Lelouch Lamperouge wrote:Pendulum monsters would go back to the extra deck for if used for a link summon, but once they touch the extra deck they face the same limitations as regular extra deck monsters where they can only be summon in the extra monster zone or a  zone opened up by a link monster.

Do you have any source for proof? Logically, I would assume/hope for this too. But most of the stuff says that links need things to go to the graveyard to link summon. I'm not sure how strict that condition is. The card "Pendulum Rising" does not allow a pendulum monster use as a cost because pendulum monsters cannot go to the graveyard. You cannot use pendulum monsters to summon "Ultimaya Tzolkin" because of this mechanic.

If Link Summoning is like Synchro Summoning you should be able to put them in the Extra Deck. To not be able to do so would be pretty inconsistent and random but it is possible. As of right now I would assume there is no reason you can't use pendulum monsters until Konami addresses the issue.

AsianPichu wrote:Do you have any source for proof? Logically, I would assume/hope for this too. But most of the stuff says that links need things to go to the graveyard to link summon. I'm not sure how strict that condition is. The card "Pendulum Rising" does not allow a pendulum monster use as a cost because pendulum monsters cannot go to the graveyard. You cannot use pendulum monsters to summon "Ultimaya Tzolkin" because of this mechanic.

A comparable comparison is any card that asks you to send a card to the graveyard when they're on the field. When these cards target Pendulums, they always go to the Extra deck. Like, say, if you used a fusion spell. They ask you to send monsters to the grave, but as long as the pendulum monster was on the field, it goes to the extra.

A comparable comparison is any card that asks you to send a card to the graveyard when they're on the field. When these cards target Pendulums, they always go to the Extra deck. Like, say, if you used a fusion spell. They ask you to send monsters to the grave, but as long as the pendulum monster was on the field, it goes to the extra.

A comparable comparison is Cyber Dragon contact fuse into Fortress Dragon vs Qliphort monsters (Not Towers or Skybase.)

A comparable comparison is Pendulums vs Pendulum Rising.

I'm hoping you are right, but Konami is weird. You cannot compare card effects to game mechanics. The closest thing we have is synchro summoning as a mechanic. I hope this works the same way as synchro summoning. Synchro summoning is already established. Maybe Konami may want to make things different than that, instead of Synchro Summoning 2.0. Keep in mind Konami is trying to slow down the format.