The Time Machine event in MD really shines a light on how absurd the turn one in the modern game has gotten. I was running a six samurai deck I used way back during the DAD days, far from meta, lightsworn was just better, but still viable and very fun. I opened on a total brick, all I had that I could play was mirror force shield and bottomless trap hole. I didn’t get my starter out until turn 4, in that time my opponent set up his board and I started putting together a strategy, baiting him into a false sense of security by wasting a cylinder knowing he had MST. He then synchro’d which I ate with the trap hole and then set up my board. One of the advantages of six samurai is how they special summon off each other and they all have complementary effects, like the archer dude can destroy spells and the purple guy can destroy face downs without flipping (very relevant in 2008). Got lethal by turn 11.

In modern yugioh you can never have a recovery like this, if you don’t draw a hand with a minimum of 3 forms of negation and two starters you’re just gonna lose on turn 3. No strategy, no feeling out your opponent, virtually no interaction beyond trying to interrupt their retardedly long combo chain. Hell, most of the time if I do have the out my opponent will just surrender instead of using their brains. I swear to god everyone just looks up “epic awesome unbreakable fiendsmith start #perfect #notgay” on youtube and just plays that shit verbatim, so if you disrupt them they don’t even know what to do so they scoop.