u/Character_Bat9538

Its been 2 years since Tenpai released in the TCG, the deck was nuked in december 2024 with a banlist that limited Chundra and Sangen Kaimen, also having Shifter and Pot Properity Limited. In Master Duel the deck had its time in the sun but same blows were dealt there as well. Making the deck irrelevant in its pure form, popping here and there every no and then as an engine and really forgotten. Yet, everyone seems to hate Tenpai, but the question has to be made, it the hate justified or are yugioh players just a bunch of cry babys?

Let's adress the elephant in the room: why is tenpai hated?

Its hated because it encapsulates everything that people hate in modern yugioh, broken one card combos and lots of non-engine, the deck either handtaps you to death or breaks your board with several board breakers, sometimes both. All that to normal summon a dragon and go for otk. Also you got the field spell that makes them inmune to activated effects in main phase 1, and also you got insulation from opponents interaction durIng battle phase via effects activated at the start of damage step and floodgate monsters that make your opponent unable to interact.

Tenpai has the ability to bring yugioh to its core nature, you got a good hand? Is it better than the one your opponent has? Then you'll prolly win. While also being a deck easy to manuever, which also creates this "glue eater deck" allegations from salty opponets. Cause yeah, when you are for example, playing white forest, going through cold fusion, hoops and loops to establish a board that ftks your opponent, you'll get mad salty if they shifter or droll you, or if they hit you with 3 handtraps just to otk you. Cause the core nature of yugioh also is, only one of both players is allowed to have fun.

Now, this brings the question, is all of this healthy gameplay?

No, its not, there's no sugar coating it BUT... LETS MAKE 2 MORE QUESTIONS

Is this gameplay any different from what all decks are trying to do going first?

Nope

Is this gameplay way unfairer going second than going first?

Never in life

And that's the thing, how could someone who wants to basically ftk the going second player, have a valid opinion on tenpai when all yugioh decks try to do the same? Lets take some examples

White forest = board full of negations and interruptions that is not breakable with board breakers most of the time due to some counter traps they search

K9 vanquish soul: board full of monster interaction that is also heavily layered

Hero deck: if uninterrupted, macrocosmos, a negate, up to 3 pops

Dragon link: board full of boss monsters

Lunalight: 2 towers plus bagooska

Malice: crazy board that is also layered

And so on and so on, and mind you, most of this are rogue decks, only 2 of these are relevant

So God Forbid the going second player has a good chance to win in 2026, people wished for years for konami to make going second competively viable and Konami listened, but when their rogue and meta decks that want to ftk, weren't unable to and were getting bonked with a stick, everyone was going for the "tenpai was a mistake" argument

Contrary to popular belief, tenpai is still a really good deck, its still able to do its game plan, its just more fragile since it extenders are all at 1, people underestimate it since it is not relevant anymore but its still way more viable than the mayority of rogue decks and its a matter of time konami realizes tenpai is a necesary evil and puts chundra and kaimen back to 3.

Because Tenpai was just a symptom of the disease to yugioh that is how powerful is to go first, because in order to have a blind second meta deck, you had to make it as toxic as tenpai is. But the yugioh community wasn't ready back then and isn't ready for this discussion yet, because yugioh players, are just cry babys