The Chaotic First Year in OCG Yu-Gi-Oh!

this is the very start of the yu-gi-oh card game hey everyone i'm jesse from janjo in this video we will be talking about yu-gi-oh in 1999 the very first era of the ocg years before the game came to western audiences i've already discussed the early origins of the game in the tcg and even the 1998 bandai game before konami got the distribution rights but in 1999 is when the game as we know it would come to existence it's just it was only in japan it all started with a simply named booster pack called volume one released on february 4th 1999. it will be the first set of the series one in which this video will cover ranging from february 1999 through march 2000. before i start however i do want to mention i will be using the tcg names instead of the original ocg names since this series is geared towards the tcg audiences and to help gauge card's importance by keeping the names the same for comparison's sake but wait there's more not unlike the summon skull promotional card of tcg's early years the ocg also had yu-gi-oh cards released a year prior in 1998. no these were not the bandai cards rather they were very special promo cards to hype up the incoming card game the first few were part of the video game monster capsules that was released on july 23rd 1998. there were 10 cards and only had attack and defense no flavor text then came the video game yu-gi-oh duel monsters which featured 10 more cards that were more geared towards the upcoming physical game dual monsters or dm was released in december 16 1998 and came with three random cards from a 10 card set these were considered collectors cards in hollow foil rarity and not meant for play which should be obvious just by looking at them the final collector's cards would be sayarou of all cards you could grab it at the yu-gi-oh meeting experience which was an event to promote the dual monsters video game and subsequent ocg thus these 21 silver cards were the very first konami yu-gi-oh cards printed as we know it then february 4th 1999 would come along volume 1. volume 1 featured many cards from the original anime and manga as typical with these early yuga releases there were no effect monsters and they were quite low in attack unlike the wild assortment in the tcg from kagemusha to la jin your boss monsters here were dark magician and gaia the fierce knight yeah for a pack with blue eyes on the cover this dragon of ultimate destruction was not even in it strong monsters on the other end of the spectrum would include hitachi giant silverfang and mammoth graveyard thus making these cards surprisingly meta viable your typical strategy with volume 1 would simply be beat down with a little disruption here and there dark hole fissure and trap hole would be your power back row cards otherwise you had equipped cars to rely on with similar decks varying on personal preference on monster types trust me though it's pretty fascinating to see a format where monsters under a thousand attack had a place like numerico dark grey and korama not from yuyu hakusho the cards themselves look different from what we might be used to there's much more room for attack and defense and the text is squished in a little box it makes sense given most of this was simply flavor text and monster effects did not exist in the game by this point it wasn't until series 3 with the new ruler in may 16 2002 when the ocg would adopt the modern monster card layout but one thing i do have to mention are the rules while yes the base rules are similar to the traditional rules when the game first came out the rules were slightly different for one tribute summoning or advanced summon was not a mechanic yet meaning dark magician and gaia were free play similar to the lack of attributing in the duel's kingdom arc you can also only activate one magikarp or one trap per turn there were no first turn draw nor max hand size your side deck could only be comprised of 10 cards decking out just flat out didn't exist and to fusion summon you had these monsters on the field not in your hand so you really did have to save your powerful back row cards for the boss monsters or the equipped beaters decks could lean towards spellcasters or beasts but again a lot of it was more personal preference as stat wise the meta cards were similar coats of paint it's not too far off to call this luck of the draw and in many ways baby beatdown or the simplicity of the game that really made it rather boring compared to the complexity of bandai yu-gi-oh this set included many cards that to this day have never been printed in the tzg like archmean mirror hourglass of life and the dirt [Music] sure although none of these cards mattered when it came to a very important event card this would be kanan the sword mistress the yu-gi-oh dual monsters national tournaments attendance card in which the event ran from february 1st to 21st 99. suddenly the game was introduced to a monster with 1400 attack and defense proving to be a big threat in both offensive and defensive to every other monster aside from the two big boys speaking of the national tournament winners would receive very special cards made of steel with only one copy of each card in existence aside from replicas they are all ritual monsters printed as normal monsters seeing as rituals didn't exist yet these super special awesome rare cards would be black lesser soldier zera the mant super war lion and fiend's mirror after that it was only about a month on march 1st to be exact when the next set would come out in booster 1. booster 1 would be pretty similar in its rather limited meta viable card pool important cards here would be wattkid ryukishin doron yamatano dragon scroll wicked dragon with the ursat's head twin long rods number one water element vishwar randy do i maggie randy baby and the very first seat carve sync car and the only one too also there's ancient jar the very first jar monster yeah by this point you could probably speculate the direction of early ocg yugioh slow but steady although these cards were still no match for kanan the sword waifu not too much later on march 6 we would see the starter box as a promotional piece to the toei yu-gi-oh movie this set would include many strong monsters as well as introducing field spells and fusion monsters to the game the field spells would be the same ones we got in the yugi kaiba format as well as the fusions far gaia the dragon champion i can't believe this introduced the highest rarity for umi come on tcg step it up important card scene would be blue eyes white dragon rygecki polymerization aqua madore and dark king of the abyss anyone who pre-ordered the box would also receive link from the legend of zelda a mullet toting swordsman from middle earth would be the male rival to canaan the sword temptress by the way there's something i really like about the simplicity of this ocg raigeki at the end of march would be the release of volume 2 on the 27th key cards in this set would include curse of dragon eurovi monster reborn swords are revealing light and the spell yeah i know reborn looks different here as some ocg art is either sometimes being altered or changed entirely for the tcg but you know what i actually prefer the tcg design with the more regal look of the ankh by this point power of monsters certainly has increased after that there was a bit of a break until late may this might be due to konami introducing the expert rules this was an addition to the already established official rules but with some quality of life changes like tribute summoning otherwise known as sacrifice summoning and lifting the amount of spells and traps you could use in a turn this was a huge change that made players rethink how to run high-level monsters which before was simply a symbol of rarity and power now do you run less because they can be stuck in your hand or waste resources for it to only get destroyed or perhaps you play the gambit and be as aggressive as possible equipping lower level monsters soon became the preferred meta although curse of dragon would be a popular tribute monster for its one tribute condition and a relative high attack at the same time gaia saw no play for now he's just a worst dark magician with no real benefits and high defense cards like aquamador would benefit greatly protecting you even from curse of dragon this also means that swords of revealing light made a big impact for you could stall fairly well to get out strong monsters i.e blue eyes to deal with defensive walls following the pattern set booster 2 would be the next set on may 25th with highlights being rogue doll ukaze invigoration and sword of dark destruction but it wasn't until volume 3 when the game added a big mechanic yeah we're talking effect monsters finally this set was only released two days later from booster 2. the first effect monsters in the game of yugioh would be arm ninja hain hain man eater bug skill angel and reaper of the cards vol 3 would also include red eyes black dragon soft defense gravedigger ghoul and the very first piece of exodia yeah this was something you had to wait on playing as each piece would get its own set players knew what was coming this set would be a great pivot in the future of yu-gi-oh and all this in only four months now you had decently strong monsters and strong equipped spells like rogue doll that when equipped with let's say elves light can match curse of dragon's attack just without the cost of a tribute summon hell even european with invigoration was safer taking the time to tribute just wasn't as good as the more aggressive equipped beatdown strategy that required for your opponent to respond quicker of course blue eyes was the exception here for his incredibly high attack force your opponent to use their removal cards but as you might imagine effect monsters changed the game quite nicely as they were essentially monsters combined with the power of spells and traps especially with the freshman lineup you now have monsters that can take an attack and give you an advantage whether it was backer removal monster destruction bouncing back a monster or even drawing a free card of course their drawback was their low stats their utility was still very much useful these effect monsters would specifically be known as flip effect monsters or reverse monsters for the requirement of having to be flipped face up to trigger their respective effect and now with the sneaky new monsters choice of using certain monsters was introduced to the game over a simple power struggle as well as having to think more critically do you summon that blue eyes to only be destroyed by a man-eater then you'd be out even more resources how you decided to play curse instead what if the set monster was an aquamador you couldn't tell this also further increased the usefulness of swords and revealing lights and made soft defense a great strategy as well needless to say effect monsters or flip monsters in this case would greatly change the mindset and strategy that would essentially become the mainstay yu-gi-oh playstyle for many many years vol 3 would also introduce another very powerful and impact card pot of greed yeah we all know what it does but for those who don't it lets you draw two cards simple effective bliss a card that has a contention of many players this greedy boss allowed you to gain unconditional advantage unconditional love if you don't have this card in your deck well then you're just a third rate duelist with a fourth rate deck remember in this era of yu-gi-oh aside from skull angel gaining advantage wasn't really a thing so greed was like a bomb dropping for cold hard draw power there are two more cards i want to quickly mention from this groundbreaking vol 3. gravedigger ghoul as it introduced the concept of a vanish zone that must have been a pretty weird idea to grasp and the other card being sandstone as it showed that even early ocg didn't shy away from introducing figuratively unplayable cards booster 3 on july 5th would give us reinforcements and ultimate offering with this distinct ocg art hourglass of courage wasn't too bad either since it could potentially double its attack and beautiful head huntress and great white continued not bad attack monsters three days later the game boy color game dual monsters 2 would come out with a slew of promotional cards by this point we've seen other promotional cards like millennium shield however it was this game that sent down the heavy hitters top three cards being kunai with chain a multifunctional trapper mode switching or an attack booster both harpy's feather duster a back row version of reiki destroying all your opponent's spells and traps on the field and crush card virus a trap that nukes your opponent's field of strong monsters and all further strong monsters they draw for three turns whoa talk about overpowered then vol 4 gave us harpy lady summon skull and magician of faith skull was revolutionary in his high attack and low tribute cost this also made breaking through defensive monsters that much easier and suddenly advanced monsters were viable again even blue eyes was pushed back to the sidelines because of skull's usefulness and with the addition of faith now you could recur pod agreed which needless to say is not half bad on the same date as booster 4 august 26 the premium pack came out with the final piece of exodia now a new win condition was achievable and with the access to unlimited zodia pieces and pod of greed as well as a slew of other cards and ones to come exodia would be quite the threatening deck had to acquire all the needed meta cards but since the pieces of exodia were already so hard to come by it wasn't like everyone played it back in the day by the way this event with the pack was dark duel stories duelist legend in the tokyo dome tournament prize cards here were three fire wing pegasus two meteor black dragon and one blue eyes ultimate dragon for the champion trihorn dragon was a participation card ultimate dragon was put up in an auction in 2012 and sold for over ten thousand dollars insane there were limited or restricted cards where there was one of each of these cards per deck but the thing was that there's no concrete evidence on it the most likely time of a limited list was for the august 26 99 national tournament with the cards being reiki trap hole and dark hole see there are many local rules around japan in 99 yu-gi-oh and information for official rules are tough to come by so we have to go up what little we can find and research from various yugioh historians booster 4 is when things kicked up a notch with very powerful low-level monsters like axe raider login mechanical chaser gemini elf and even introducing graceful charity this really was the mecca of strong normal summoned monsters an inflation of power perhaps think about seeing gemini l for the first time and seeing that the game of yugioh couldn't have possibly gone any greater heist than this was this the end even consider the appearance of graceful charity a new draw power card that is arguably better than pot of greed draw three cards and discard two you gain an additional card then pot the drawback of deciding which one you kept and you could combine its use with a revival card like monster reborn to dump and bring back a blue eyes or summoned skull graveyard play was now a thing there were definitely signs of a balance collapse given the quick incursion of power if you didn't have these strong monsters and draw spells you're at a serious disadvantage more than ever before how would the game recover from here of course the game continued with the following volume 5 would introduce other powerful cards as we all know and love like change of heart with the amount of cards released by this point you at least had more freedom to build your deck even if the low rank attackers and draw power reach a new time high mass sorcerer in volume 5 introduced non-flip effect monsters and was a good card by his decent ability and not abysmal stats change of heart was a huge card i mean of course it is take control of an opponent's monster for a turn she be that monster or attack with them whether it was a gemini elf or their own summon skull or their flip effect monster and gain their effect for yourself you could call this offensive removal tribute to the doomed was more destruction that was appreciated as it had more of a choice for destruction than fissure and then magician of faith could just bring back all these powerful spell cards next was booster 5 that had even more powerful cards like needle worm a deck scraping card where when flipped sends the top 5 cards of your bonus deck to the graveyard birth of the deck destruction deck yeah decking out your opponent was now an option thanks to this purple insect this style would be fully realized in the later form empty jar deck and then we have morphing jar this monstrous pot when flipped makes both players discard their hand and then draw five more cards more feel to the deck out strategy but it's also good for a pure hand replenishment if you're needing cards oral decree was also in booster 5 and it negated all traps on the field volume 6 would introduce counter traps which was another big meta shift with horn of heaven magic jammer 7 tools of the bandit and solemn judgment though you'd never know by looking as the counter trap symbol was not present on cards at the time actually neither were any speller trap variations these cards brought reactionary negation to the game and some judgment with its effect to negate everything became one of the strongest cards in the game's history for this while going aggro on your opponent was the play interfering your opponent's play soon took over the game plan as decks would find balance and timing to be key although not many people played judgment for many years because of the high life one cost was deemed too steep vol 6 would also give us two other strong cards and two searchers which are the black forest and sand gan by this point that being november 18 1999 the game as we know it is starting to look more like we know it within the span of not even a full year each card searched either offensive or defensive cards that fit the specific criteria it's important to note that rulings back in 99 rule that these monsters gained their effects regardless of how they reached the graveyard meaning graceful charity would trigger them they would help the game continue to its wait and see mentality as you could play and search for specific monsters that helped you in the best of specific scenarios it started the trend of monsters that gained advantage upon removal and thus the threshold of backfiring was not high like with witch of the black horse you could search gemini elf summon skull or even mukamuka sangan could even be used as a medium for crush card oh and both of them could search exodia pieces but with needleworm and morphing jar existing now exodia still had hurdles to jump through forcing it to adopt strategies like solemn judgment but the final set of 1999 would be booster 6 and that would be the set to introduce players to many new fusion supports goddess of the third eye was also in the set which began the line of fusion substitute monsters we also got even more fusion support in fusion sage and monster eye next we got cyberstein which summoned a fusion monster at a high cost despite paying 5 000 life points and putting yourself in the danger zone now special summoning strong monsters was a real threat instant firepower because in series 2 you could summon blue ice ultimate and equip it with megamorph for potentially a one-hit ko he even had gale dagra that could be used in a combo with monster reborn before series 2 introduced the revival rule for monsters that had to be special summoned a certain way on december 9th a new uvo video game would come out with promos yu-gi-oh true dual monster sealed memories look familiar two cards of interest here are metalmorph as a not half bad attacking trap and metal zoa which was a monster that their summoning effect could be activated from the deck which was incredibly uncommon though the final final set would be the ex starter box released on december 16th which would feature the first starter decks in the ocg and would be reworked into the tcg's yugi and kaiba starter decks in 2002. many great cards like giant soldiers stone and dark hole were reprinted a great collection for beginners it also brought forth wabaku and last will into the fray since vol 6 gave us cannon soldier using his effect to send monsters to the graveyard for burn damage could not only trigger sangan's search but last will to summon out another monster for even more burn and continuous searching exodia anybody with a lengthy and groundbreaking 1999 yugioh would enter the new millennium there would only be two more sets in 2000 to end the series 1. volume 7 released on january 27 2000 would be the final volume set key cards here are thunder dragon kuribo dark elf dd warrior and a beautiful mirror force many cards now went different directions from fusions to beat downs to exodia thunder dragon was used for hand costs like tribute to the doomed or graceful charity or perhaps more simply for twin headed thunder dragon for some more aggressive plays mirror force is the trap card to flip on your opponent if there ever were one destroying all their attacking monsters in a cathartic ha i got you the biggest removal for a trap card at that time dark elf gave you a high attack but at a lifepoint cost for attacking the choice was yours dd warrior could remove itself and the monster battling with it from play making it removal that dodged around monster reborn and the searchers kuribo would introduce the now called hand trapped mechanic where an effect activates from your hand and then a little after one year of the ocg game on march 1st booster 7 the final set of the series 1 was released the biggest cards that come from the set were juraigumo and heavy storm dry gumo was similar to dark elf and a monster with a disadvantage attacker it's like if some judgment could punch and was a giant hideous spider why won't you love me dad considering you could possibly lose half your life points on a coin flip dark elf was typically the preferred high attack feeder try not to trip over these cards but players who understood a thing or two tended to stray away from these monsters in favor of a more reliable and still decent gemini elf dream clown was a new kind of effect monster that gains effect when switching positions heavy storm however was the mvp of the ocg in booster 7. destroys all spells and traps on the field sure it was weaker than feather duster but its power still tested true as a heavy hitter crazy to think that both these cards existed before mystical space typhoon which was a single target back row hate actually quick play spells didn't even exist yet and won't be until magic ruler in the following april but before that in march 23rd was the dark ceremony pack it's kind of like a premium pack but not really this pack contained only 16 cards that'll be all super rare while ritual monsters were introduced in the first premium pack back in the previous december this one re-released them with a few more rituals but rituals weren't really competitive in any way shape or form and was mostly collected for collection's sake this would be the last release of what's known as series 1. series 2 would follow with a familiar set in magic ruler and a limited list featuring cards like mirror force exodia and rygecki among other card effect erratas like with sangan and witch ultimately adjusting the quality of life changes that was much needed by this point the rest as they say would be history i don't know if going over all this would be dull but it is important to see where all our favorite and impact cards came from initially before they were imported to other regions wording was also weird like how trapple included self-destruction text because otherwise the rules never mentions the card getting sent to the graveyard could you imagine that a continuous trap hole does rygeki destroy all your opponent's monsters in the deck as well it also allows us to see how deck building would have been done at the time mostly power decks in descending order at least before effect monsters became a thing equipped beatdown was a popular deck as power creep naturally occurred with monsters like gemini elf dd warrior and sand gan even exody at one point was very scary when every card was unlimited could you had imagine the tcg introducing other cards in the legend of blue eyes at the start like skull angel gemini elf or hell even solemn judgment just seeing the evolution of such a complex game from his infancy taking baby steps throughout the span of roughly a year researching and writing this took way longer than i initially had planned at first i was gonna make a video on volume one and another at the tail end of series one my rough draft script was a basic here's a pack and some cards 1999 ocg yu-gi-oh demanded more in-depth dissection than that it wasn't just about the contents of the booster packs it was why those cars were added and how it changed the game up to that point that made early yugioh so historically rich and important to jot down because again there's not too many resources out there otherwise the ocg archives discord was a great help and eugeohistory.com was really the treasure trove that i needed to absorb niche and form into this yugioh history entry i knew i wanted to talk about all this eventually but i had no clue would wind up like this which i'm actually very much happy to have done i don't think i'll tackle any more older ocg content as the rest is just kind of pre-released tcg stuff so with that said it's time to move on to one of the most popular years in yu-gi-oh's illustrious history [Music] 2005. you

Channel: Janjo Zone

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Keywords: janjo, janjo zone, duel sauce, yugioh, yugioh history, yugioh progression, yugioh history of meta, The Chaotic First Year in OCG Yu-Gi-Oh!, yugioh ocg meta, yugioh ocg history, yugioh ocg series 1 history, yugioh ocg vs tcg, yugioh ocg, janjo zone yugioh history ocg, janjo yugioh history, yugioh history series, yugioh series 1 cards, yugioh ocg banlist, yugioh 1999 history, yugioh 1999 cards, yugioh ocg series 1, yugioh 1999 booster box, yugioh cards, yugioh tcg

Id: 6GOjd04ky50

Length: 27min 38sec (1658 seconds)

Published: Mon May 17 2021