However, to those still unfamiliar with the term, we use the term "common mechanic" to refer to some similar effect or condition that at least (maybe) 1/3rd of an archetype's main deck monsters, main deck spells/traps, main deck cards, or extra deck cards have in common. Some archetypes can have multiple common mechanics, like how the level 7 Dragon Rulers each have the common mechanics of 1) special summoning themselves from the hand or graveyard by banishing 2 monsters with it's same type/attribute, 2) discarding themselves along with another monster of the same attribute to do something, 3) returning themselves to the hand during the opponent's end phase if they were special summoned, and 4) doing something upon being banished. Other archetypes such as Genex and Evilswarm have no noticeable common mechanic.
Futuregamer already covered in his articles some common mechanics of various archetypes, good and bad, weak and strong, and he also talked about how common mechanics should at least matter, as well as how, without a well-made common mechanic keeping the archetype together, the archetype will end up requiring consistency-boosters, special summons from the deck, searchers, and other kinds of cheap/broken support to be competitive.
There are some other common mechanics, however, that I would recommend avoiding, no matter how good or bad they appear. Some of these common mechanics that I'll be discussing do very little except make the duel uninteractive/tedious/confusing, are too awkward to use on duelingbook in general, or will likely end up being bad anyway requiring a supply of the aforementioned consistency-boosters and other cheap/broken support stuff to make the archetype decent.
1. Common mechanics designed specifically to hard-counter 1 specific card type, monster card type, monster type, attribute, amount of atk/def, level, rank, link rating, ability, or line of play.
Some examples of archetypes with this kind of common mechanic are:
- Allure Queen
- Ally of Justice
- Amorphage
- Artifact
- Buster Blader
- Gravekeeper
- Horus the Black Flame Dragon
- Jinzo
- Kuriboh
- Meklord
- Performage
- Reptilianne
- Silent Swordsman
- Solfachord
- Traptrix
Here's the main problem with this kind of common mechanic and the problem with the archetypes with this kind of common mechanic: These common mechanics are only going to be strong if the opponent is playing mostly the exact kind of thing the common mechanic in question tries to hard-counter, and will, in other cases, be weak. Some of these archetypes I've listed could even have their common mechanics be able to hard-counter a wider array of the things they're already designed to hard-counter and they'd still be bad.
Instead of equipping Level 3 or lower, Level 5 or lower, and then any monster, with Allure Queens LV3, LV5, and LV7 respectively, maybe Allure Queen LV3 could equip any monster with a level, Allure Queen LV5 could equip any monster with a Level OR Rank, and Allure Queen LV7 could equip any monster with a Level, Rank, or Link Rating, but since their common mechanic of equipping things is, and has always been, so weak against most monsters, they'll need either the erratas I just suggested, or broken support, to be decent.
Ally of Justice's common mechanic revolves around hard-countering light monsters, but the monsters' effects in question are so weak that most of them could have "LIGHT monster" in their text replaced with just "monster" and even then they'd still be weak. Some of the Ally of Justice monsters are strictly weaker versions of existing monsters even though some of said existing monsters already see no play. Ally of Justice Garadholg is basically a 1600 atk normal monster that could occasionally rise to 1800 atk temporarily, making it a strictly worse Luster Dragon, Ally of Justice Quarantine is a strictly worse Barrier Statue of the Abyss, Ally of Justice Rudra is basically a 1900 atk level 5 normal monster that could occasionally rise to 2600 atk, making it a strictly worse Trance the Magic Swordsman, and Ally of Justice Thunder Armor is a strictly worse Darklord Nergal.
Ally of Justice Reverse Break has an effect that destroys itself if a light monster is on the field — an effect which makes absolutely no sense. Why would you make an archetype that tries to punish light monsters but at the same time kills it's own monsters when the opponent actually does play said light monsters?
The only Ally of Justice cards that occasionally still see competitive play are Ally of Justice Cycle Reader and maybe Ally of Justice Catastor, but none of the other cards of this archetype see competitive play.
Artifact's common mechanic revolves around hard-countering spell and trap destruction, but only during the opponent's turn. Most of it's main deck monsters can set themselves from the hand as spells, special summon themselves upon being destroyed and sent from the spell/trap zone to the graveyard during the opponent's turn, and then do something upon being special summoned during said turn. There are, however, major problems with this archetype, both with it's common mechanic and with some of it's specific cards.
First off, the monsters should've been able to trigger their graveyard effects during either turn, not just the opponent's. This means artifacts won't be doing anything on turn 1 except setting stuff, and if the opponent hits you with a Mystical Space Typhoon or something during your turn after you've finished setting your artifact monsters, you won't be able to trigger their effects. This makes the archetype extremely weak going second, especially since it's main deck monsters are level 5, meaning you can't at least normal summon/set them for free so you have a monster on the field early on.
Second, some of the monsters' other effects besides the common mechanics don't synergize with those common mechanics, and in some cases conflict with those common mechanics instead.
Artifacts Aegis and Achilleshield should've both been 1 monster with the on-summon effect of protecting your artifacts from attacks, targeting, and destruction for the turn instead of being 2 separate monsters with one protecting from attacks upon summon, and the other protecting from both effect targeting and effect destruction upon summon, for the turn.
Artifact Labrys's unique effect triggers "when" an artifact is destroyed and sent to your graveyard, not "if," meaning it'll often miss it's activation timing. Plus, it specifically not being able to be used in the damage step is also a completely unnecessary restriction.
Artifact Mjollnir locking you into Artifacts for the turn is completely unnecessary since you're most likely never going to be summoning any non-artifact monsters for the remainder of that turn anyways.
Artifact Chakram's effect is too situational and conflicts with the archetype's common mechanics. Why would you want to return your own spells/traps to the hand when your archetype is trying to destroy them? That effect should've simply been "(Quick Effect): You can target 1 Set card you control; Special Summon this card from your hand, and if you do, destroy that target" or something.
Why does Artifact Vajra have to destroy all your cards in the spell/trap zone instead of letting you choose which ones to destroy so you can destroy only the ones you want to destroy while keeping the ones you don't want to destroy?
Why does Artifact Caduceus need to prevent you from controlling more than 1 copy of it?
Why do Artifact Dagda's link materials have to specifically have different names?
That's the third major problem with this archetype — it creates too many unnecessary problems for itself then end up having to be solved in counterproductive ways. Remember when I said how this archetype's common mechanic revolves around hard-countering spell/trap destruction? Well, I suppose that the way Konami intended for this archetype to work was that you set your 5 artifact monsters in the spell/trap zone, and during your opponent's turn, when they destroy your set cards, you can special summon them and punish them back for destroying them, so when it's your turn again, you can then use those monsters to go into rank 5s and whatnot. The problem is, what do you do when your opponent chooses not to destroy your set cards? You end up losing since your artifact monsters' effects are no longer being triggered.
So now you have to start main decking spell/trap destruction of your own like the aforementioned Mystical Space Typhoon and other cards like Heavy Storm Duster which you can then use to destroy your own artifact cards during the opponent's turn just to trigger their effects again, but you run into another problem doing that: You now have too many games where, for your opening hand, you draw either a bunch of spell/trap destruction but not enough artifact cards to actually destroy using them, or too many artifact cards to set but not enough cards to actually destroy them with.
Even in your games where you do draw your cards in the right ratios, destroying your cards is still, too often, going to result in you going -1 in card advantage since most of the artifact monsters do nothing meaningful upon being special summoned during the opponent's turn. If you set Artifacts Labrys, Chakram, Vajra, Achilleshield, Beagalltach, or Aegis, along with a Mystical Space Typhoon, and then activate that Mystical Space Typhoon during the opponent's turn to destroy that set artifact card, you're going -1 in card advantage since you're losing the Mystical Space Typhoon while special summoning just 1 artifact monster. If you set 2 of any of those 6 artifact cards I just mentioned, along with Heavy Storm Duster, you'll be able to destroy 2 artifact cards, and end up special summoning 2 artifact monsters instead of just 1 like you would with the Mystical Space Typhoon, but you're still going -1 in card advantage since you lost the Heavy Storm Duster while not gaining any new cards or taking any cards away from your opponent.
I suppose you could set something like Double Cyclone to destroy both your artifact card and an opponent's spell/trap, or just use the Heavy Storm Duster to do so, so you special summon back that artifact monster ultimately going +0 in card advantage since you lost only your spell/trap-destroying card but took a card from your opponent, but both of those scenarios require your opponent to have a valid target on the field for you to destroy to begin with.
Full House and Malevolent Catastrophe could destroy many spells/traps, triggering multiple of your artifact monster effects while also clearing out possibly some of the opponent's cards as well, but Full House is quite stingy on what exactly it can destroy while Malevolent Catastrophe needs your opponent to first attack.
I think you can now see the issue here. Artifacts have no reliable way of destroying their own set cards without going -1 in card advantage, but, going back to the artifact monsters, Artifact Scythe being destroyed by your Mystical Space Typhoon is also technically a -1 in card advantage, but that monster makes up for it by locking your opponent out of the extra deck for the remainder of that turn, which is powerful, so that's worth the -1, but the same can't be said for any of the rest of the main deck artifact monsters, meaning players who play artifacts won't play artifact "decks" but rather small artifact engines consisting of just 3 Artifact Sanctum and 3 copies of either Artifact Scythe or Artifact Moralltach.
Artifacts Caduceus and Failnaught are technically +es, but Caduceus has completely unnecessary restrictions that ruin it like how it can't draw off of it's own special summon (only other artifact monster special summons) and only letting you control 1 of it at a time, while Failnaught's "+1" effect is mostly useless since you're setting a monster that you'll now need another card to destroy it with.
That effect should've instead been:
If this card is Special Summoned: You can activate 1 of these effects.
● Set 1 "Artifact" Spell/Trap from your hand, Deck, or GY, and if it is a Quick-Play Spell, it can be activated this turn.
● Set up to 3 "Artifact" monsters to your Spell & Trap Zone as Spells (up to 1 each from your hand, Deck, and GY).
The archetype's current extra deck monsters are already too difficult for this archetype bring out due to how hard it is to consistently trigger their special summon effects anyways without going -1, so their effects should've been stronger to make up for it. Artifact Durendal's effect should've been once per chain instead of once per turn, and Artifact Dagda's entire text should've instead been:
2 monsters including an "Artifact" monster
(Quick Effect): You can roll a six-sided die, then Set up to that many "Artifact" monsters from your hand, Deck, and/or GY to your Spell & Trap Zone as Spells, but destroy them during your opponent's next End Phase. You can only use this effect of "Artifact Dagda" once per turn.
As for the archetype's spells/traps, Artifact Ignition should've been able to target up to 2 Spells/Traps instead of just 1 spell/trap, Artifacts Unleashed shouldn't have had any restriction on what monsters you could attack with and should've been able to trigger it's graveyard effect upon either player destroying it instead of just the opponent destroying it, while Artifact Sanctum didn't need any hard once per turn since it was already slow enough.
What artifacts need to compete now is either the 2 previous erratas I suggested or a normal trap that says:
During your opponent's turn: Target 1 card you control or 1 face-up Spell/Trap your opponent controls; destroy it, and if it is an "Artifact" card, you can draw 1 card, otherwise you cannot activate cards or effects until the next End Phase. If you control no face-up cards, you can activate this card from your hand or GY. You cannot Special Summon the turn you activate this card, except LIGHT monsters.
Currently, Artifact Lancea is the only artifact that still continuously sees competitive play, and that's only because it's a neat hand trap that can tribute itself from the hand/field during the opponent's turn to prevent all banishing for that turn.
Buster Bladers' common mechanic revolves around hard-countering dragons, but due to how bad Konami realized that that common mechanic was, they printed Buster Dragon, a synchro for this archetype that makes your opponent's monsters dragon, making the archetype's main mechanic, of countering specifically dragons, pointless since the archetype's common mechanic basically now makes it hard-counter any face-up monster instead. Konami also printed Dragon Buster Destruction Sword, a card that had to be banned for a while because of how overpowered locking out the extra deck so easily was, until Union Carrier got banned instead.
Can you start to see the problem with common mechanics specifically about hard-countering super specific things yet? Allure Queen's and Ally of Justice's common mechanics were too specific, Artifact's common mechanic relied too heavily on the opponent and on specific unsearchables like Heavy Storm Duster, while Buster Blader had to pretty much have it's common mechanic altered to be much stronger and receive broken floodgates like Dragon Buster Destruction Sword to make up for it, but let's continue.
Gravekeeper's's common mechanic revolves around locking out the graveyard with Necrovalley and hard-countering graveyard reliance. This common mechanic is... okay (not great, just okay), since quite a few meta decks even today rely somewhat on the graveyard, but the problem is that this archetype doesn't do anything outside of that. Most of this archetype's effects besides that common mechanic are just effects that trigger upon some attack declaration or some monster being flipped without any actual quick and reliable way to flip said monster, effects that do random and mostly irrelevant things unrelated to said common mechanic (such as the effect of Gravekeeper's Curse), effects that slightly increase atk/def, and effects that take too long to fully resolve (such as Gravekeeper's Supernaturalist's effect adding during the end phase instead of earlier like the main phase).
Against decks that rely heavily on the graveyard, Gravekeeper's shuts them down and makes the game unfun and unhealthy, while against decks that don't, Gravekeeper's lose due to their monsters having mostly unhelpful and irrelevant effects.
I'm gonna talk about the Horus the Black Flame Dragon, Jinzo, and Silent Swordsman archetypes all as one archetype since they each revolve around hard-countering 1 of the 3 specific card types. Horus the Black Flame Dragon and Silent Swordsman hard-counter spells, while Jinzo hard-counters traps. In general, locking your opponent completely out of all monsters, out of all spells, or out of all traps is unhealthy for the game and should not be a common mechanic for any further archetypes, custom or not. Again, the common mechanic becomes useless if the opponent isn't playing much of that card type you're hard-countering, but like Mystic Mine decks, a common mechanic locking out 1 of the 3 card types means you can then play specific counters to the other 2 cards types to completely lock your opponent out of doing things. Likewise, common mechanics should not involve easily searching out those kinds of floodgates like Mystic Mine, Imperial Order, Royal Decree, or other floodgates that lock out special summons such as any of the Barrier Statues, and I wrote a lengthy post explaining why Amorphage's common mechanic of locking out the extra deck was so bad and unhealthy that Konami can't make them good or they'll become too toxic to play against.
Don't ever make your common mechanic be about locking out things that decks nowadays need, such as the entire extra deck, all monsters, all spells, or all traps.
I'm gonna talk about the Kuriboh and Performage archetypes also as one archetype since each of their common mechanics is about preventing certain attacks/damage. The problem with Kuribohs is that, not only are too many of their cards a -1 in card advantage, but preventing 1 attack or instance of damage is far weaker than negating an effect with a hand trap like Effect Veiler or stopping all searching for a turn with Droll & Lock Bird. Hand traps like Battle Fader and Swift Scarecrow can stop all attacks for the turn, ending the entire battle phase, while Hanewata can stop all effect damage for an entire turn instead of just 1 instance of effect damage, and none of those 3 see play, so there's no way a Kuriboh that stops only 1 attack at most, or a Clear Kuriboh that stops only 1 instance of effect damage, will ever see play. Just hard-countering effect damage is too specific nowadays for a common mechanic and not worth the -1.
In the case of Performages, while those did see competitive play, it wasn't because of their common mechanic of hard-countering effect damage. People played Performages because Performage Trick Clown could special summon itself from the graveyard giving you a free xyz/link material, Performage Damage Juggler could banish itself for a free search, Performage Hat Tricker could special summon itself from the hand, also giving you a free monster on the board to use for xyz/link plays, while Performages Plushfire and Trapeze Magician could easily special summon from the deck.
Meklord's common mechanic focuses on hard-countering synchro monsters, but like Ally of Justice, most of Meklord's cards could've had "Synchro Monster" in their effect replaced with just "monster". The Meklord Army monsters either have unnecessary restrictions or are worse versions of existing cards.
Meklord Army of Granel is pretty much a worse Armored Bee.
Meklord Army of Wisel might as well be just another Lancer Lindwurm or something.
Meklord Army Destroyer Obbligato locks you into machine monsters for the turn, a restriction that conflicts with Meklord Emperor Granel's effect for no reason. Meklord Emperor Granel wants to be able to special summon the opponent's monsters it equips to itself, but now, Melord Army Destroyer Obbligato's restriction can stop that.
Meklord Fortress and Fortissimo the Mobile Fortress should have been one field spell with those 3 effects combined (the special summoning, protecting, and searching effects) instead of 2 separate field spells with one of them having the special summon effect and the other having both the protection and search effects.
This archetype has the combined problems of both Artifacts and Ally of Justices. It's too specific in what it's designed to counter, like Ally of Justice, and it's too reliant either on the opponent destroying your cards or on you going -1 in card advantage to destroy your own cards, like with Artifact. To make matters worse, while Artifacts and Ally of Justices, despite both being bad archetypes with bad common mechanics, still each had at least 1 or 2 of their cards still see competitive play here and there, Meklord's cards see no competitive play.
Meklord also relies too heavily on the battle phase, as literally all of it's monsters besides Meklord Army Deployer Obbligato have some kind of effect of increasing atk, protecting from attacks or battle destruction, or trigger off of some kind of attack declaration or battle destruction, and while being reliant on battling isn't too bad on it's own, the archetype can't do anything decent outside of battling. If your archetype relies on battling, either it's battling effects should be strong enough to make up for how slow battling effects inherently are, or it needs to be able to do strong things outside of battling. Neither of these is the case with Meklords. Meklord Army of Skiel wants to be destroyed by battle and sent to the graveyard so it can trigger it's effect, but The Resolute Meklord Army prevents it from being destroyed by battle, conflicting unnecessarily with what it wants to do, and also negates your Meklord Army monster effects on the field, conflicting with Meklords Army of Wisel and Army of Granel wanting to at least increase their atk.
Boon of the Meklord Emperor, Reboot, and Meklord Factory are way too strict in terms of activation requirements, and Mektimed Blast should've been either quick-play spell instead of a trap, or a trap that could activate itself from the hand or the turn it was set. Boon of the Meklord Emperor's activation requirement should have simply been you needing to have a Meklord monster on your field or graveyard to be activated.
Meklord Factory should've been a quick-play spell that adds a Meklord card from your deck or graveyard to your hand then gives you the option of destroying a monster if it was activated in the battle phase.
Due to how "summoning conditions" work, Meklord Astro the Eradicator does nothing to help this archetype. It should've been able to special summon from also the hand instead of just the graveyard, and it also should not have had a restriction that locks you into machines for the turn, as that, again, conflicts with Meklord Emperor Granel's effect to special summon the opponent's equipped monster cards.
While it may seem as though you can dump Meklord monsters to the graveyard with something like Foolish Burial then revive them with Meklord Astro the Eradicator ignoring their summoning conditions, you won't be able to do that. Summoning conditions in yugioh can only be ignored when special summoning the monster(s) in question from the hand, deck, or face-down extra deck. To special summon nomi and semi-nomi monsters from any location that isn't any of these 3 locations I just mentioned, that monster has to have been "properly" special summoned first by whatever method(s) it specifies, and this restriction can't be bypassed, not even by effects that say they ignore summoning conditions. In other words, only after Meklord Astro Mekanikle properly special summoned itself through it's own procedure can you then special summon it from the graveyard by ignoring summoning conditions. Otherwise, it's summoning conditions can't be ignored while it's in the graveyard.
Another ruling that severely hurts Meklords is a ruling where you can't activate 2 or more monsters' triggers effects in the same chain that could each special summon themselves from the hand, nor activate a single monster's effect twice in the same chain that could special summon itself from the hand. https://ygorganization.com/learnrulingspart3/
https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Simultaneous_Effects#Exception
The idea behind this was so players couldn't create infinite loops and whatnot with, like, PSY-Framegear Gamma (an effect that isn't hard once per turn and could be chained to an opponent's PSY-Framegear Gamma) where you and your opponent are chaining PSY-Framegear Gammas to each other infinitely in a single chain.
This ruling hurts Meklords because if you have, say, 2 Meklord Emperor Wisels in your hand, and your monster is destroyed by an effect, you'll only be able to trigger 1 of those Meklord Emperor Wisel's effects in that chain. If you want to be able to trigger the other one, you'll need to lose another monster to an effect as well. Artifacts, despite being bad, didn't have this kind of problem, since if your opponent destroyed multiple of your set artifacts at once, you could trigger all of them in the same chain in the graveyard and chain block.
Because these 2 rulings heavily hurt Meklord Emperors, those monsters should've been able to trigger their effects upon destruction by battle or effects instead of just by effects.
Reptilianne's common mechanic focuses on punishing the opponent specifically for having 0-atk monsters on the field. The problem though is that while Buster Bladers at least have a fairly reliable way of changing the opponent's monster types to dragon so that that archetype can do what it's silly common mechanic was meant to do — hard-counter "dragons" — this archetype has no reliable way of getting the opponent's monster's atk to 0 so it can hard-counter those 0-atk monsters. Reptilianne Medusa requires a tribute, or some special summoning effect, to bring out and requires you to go -1 in card advantage in order to change just 1 monster's atk to 0, Reptiliannes Gorgon and Naga have to battle to change any atk to 0, making them slow, Reptilianne Nyami has to make you go -1 to change anything to 0 just like Reptilianne Medusa, Reptilianne Melusine requires your opponent to first activate a monster effect before that can change anything to 0, while Reptilianne Lamia is this archetype's best atk-changer but, for some reason, had to have an additional effect that unnecessarily harms your own life points should you use that atk-changing effect.
For this archetype to be good, they would need a fusion monster that reads:
2 monsters with 100 or more ATK
Must first be either Fusion Summoned using only monsters you control, or Special Summoned by changing the ATK of the above monsters your opponent controls to 0. When this card is Summoned: You can reveal any number of "Reptilianne" cards in your hand; draw that many cards, also you can shuffle up to 5 cards from your GY into the Deck. You cannot Summon other monsters from the hand, Deck, or Extra Deck the turn you Special Summon this card, except Reptile monsters.
Solfachord's common mechanic is merely that their pendulum monsters shield your Solfachord monsters' pendulum summons from being negated or responded to by the opponent. That's it.
Now, that alone wouldn't be too bad, but this pendulum archetype can barely even pendulum summon to begin with because it's pendulum scales and levels are all over the place. It's level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 monsters have pendulum scales 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 respectively. In other words, each of the archetype's main deck monsters have a level and pendulum scale that add up to 9 when this archetype should've instead had half of it's pendulum scales be 0 and the other half be 9, or have it's common mechanic allow you to change it's pendulum monsters' scales to 0 or 9 once per turn instead of said common mechanic being some random irrelevant negation/responding protection. The archetype won't be able to reliably pendulum summon, let alone it's level 1 or 8, because of it's awful common mechanic and pendulum scales.
The archetype's monster effects are also awful, simply giving very basic destruction protections and minor atk boosting and whatnot (all of which are unrelated to the common mechanic itself) that may or may not depend on if you have an even or odd pendulum scale in your pendulum zone.
It's Levels 7 and 8 require you to do a bunch of tedious counting and multiplying and whatnot in your head to figure out if and how you can use their effects since they both have some effect specifically involving monsters "with an equal or higher/lower ATK than the lowest/highest Pendulum Scale in your Pendulum Zone x 300".
Most of the archetype's spells/traps are too situational, slow, and unrelated to the archetype's common mechanic. Solfachord Scale's "● 7+" effect should've just been "You win the Duel" instead of "Destroy all face-up cards your opponent controls" due to how extremely difficult it is to get that many Solfachord pendulum monster cards with different names onto the field anyway, so the reward for somehow managing to do so anyways might as well be infinite.
Traptrix's common mechanic is merely being unaffected by Hole normal trap effects, but again, while this archetype saw competitive play in the past, like Performages, it wasn't at all for the common mechanic. It was because it could do a bunch of searching and special summoning from the deck/graveyard, and also because Traptrix Rafflesia could let you activate Hole normal traps straight from the deck.
With all that said, let's move on to the next common mechanic I recommend avoiding if possible.
2. Common mechanics that revolve around placing counters on the opponent's cards.
Some examples of archetypes with this kind of common mechanic are:
The main problem with this kind of common mechanic on duelingbook is that duelingbook currently has no way of placing different types/colors of counters on a single card at a time, meaning it'll be a nightmare if your archetype's common mechanic revolves around placing it's own kind of counters on the opponent's cards while that opponent's also trying to place their own kind of counters of their own, as you and the opponent are now keeping track of the extra counter(s) in your heads since none of the cards can each hold more than 1 kind of counter at a time. Any archetype's common mechanic involving counter-placing should be using no more than 1 kind of counter and should be placing those counters on it's own card(s) only, like in the case of the Endymion archetype.
3. "This card's name is treated as..." / "This card's name is always treated as..." / "This card's name is also treated as..."
Some examples of archetypes with this kind of common mechanic are:
The main problem with this common mechanic is that just like how placing counters on the opponent's cards conflicts with the opponent's own counters on duelingbook, giving a custom an effect saying "This card's name is always treated as" whatever doesn't work properly on duelingbook.
This means that when you put customs in your deck or extra deck that say they always treat themselves other specific cards, there's no way the opponent can know if you're actually abiding by that limitation unless you show them your entire hand/deck, or they check your extra deck or something, when the duel starts.
The whole maximum-of-3 rule should've only ever applied to cards that share the same original printed name at the top of the card without including cards that merely treat themselves as a different specific card with their effects. This unnecessary limitation severely hurts Harpie, Neo-Spacian, Utopia Ray, and Umi decks for no good reason, so for now, if you want your archetype's common mechanic to be about treating it's own card(s) name(s) as another specific card, it should do so only while the card(s) in question exist(s) in the hand, field, graveyard, hand or field, hand or graveyard, or field or graveyard, like in the case of Skull Servants.
4. Common mechanics that revolve around constantly-changing stats that players must keep track of, turn after turn.
Some examples of archetypes with this kind of common mechanic are:
Just like how it's such a nightmare keeping track of different kinds of counters that players are trying to place on a single card, it's a nightmare keeping track of F.A.'s and Fortune Lady's constantly increasing and decreasing stats, and I don't even know which of these 2 archetypes makes it harder and more tedious keeping track of said stats.
F.A. requires you to multiply the levels of their monsters by 300 to determine what each of their atk values will be, and while that alone isn't too bad, it's monsters' levels will be changing wildly, going both up and down, turn after turn, and sometimes even after certain phases as their field spells all increase the F.A. monsters' levels by 2 during a specific phase then brings those levels back down once said phase is over, while most of the archetype's spells/traps also temporarily change levels themselves, so almost every time a new phase gets entered or some F.A. thing gets activated, you're spending a few moments calculate each F.A. monster's level, and both the F.A. Dawn and F.A. Dark Dragster monsters can increase and also reduce each of their own levels by various values with each of their effects, forcing you to recalculate new levels and atk values every time. F.A. Auto Navigator's effect changes the levels of both itself and another F.A. monster, making you have to calculate at least 2 new levels every time you use that effect, while F.A. Shining Star GT makes you and the opponent do even more tedious math, adding 2 different levels then multiplying the total by 300. I'm pretty good when it comes to mathematics and algebra in general, but every time I'm dueling with or against F.A.s, I feel like I'm spending more time just calculating constantly-changing levels and atk than actually dueling.
Fortune Lady doesn't seem to have it easier. While F.A.s required you to multiply their levels only by 300 so at least you were always multiplying levels by the same number, Fortune Lady has some of it's monster atk be equal to their level times anywhere from 200 to 400, meaning even if all your Fortune Lady monsters are level 4, you still need to multiply that number by different values to get each of their actual atk values. With F.A., if all your monsters were level 3 for example, you knew that they would all be at 900 atk while the link monster would be at 1800 atk if it pointed to 2 of them. However, while F.A. has a bunch of level-changing spells/traps, Fortune Lady has only 1, so Fortune Lady's levels shouldn't be changing as often as F.A.'s, so you shouldn't have to keep calculating new Fortune Lady stats as often as F.A. stats, but it's still utterly tedious keeping track of both of their monsters' levels regardless.
To be fair, there are other archetypes that also somewhat focus on changing levels, such as Gagaga, Inzektor, and Wind-Up, but those 3 archetypes are designed in a way where keeping track of things is much easier and less tedious than keeping track of F.A. and Fortune Lady stats. With those 3 archetypes, you don't need to multiply anything like you have to with F.A. and Fortune Lady, and none of those 3 archetypes tie their levels specifically to anything else like atk or def values the way F.A. and Fortune Lady do, so there's less calculating overall that needs to be done.
Also, while Gagaga and Wind-Up have some monsters that change levels to various values, it's usually only for that turn, meaning the levels should go back to normal after that turn is over, and even in cases where the level change is permanent, you're most likely going to be using those monsters to make xyz monsters anyways, so you still aren't going to be spending nearly as much time keeping track of levels with those 3 archetypes as you are with F.A. and Fortune Lady. Not to mention when Gagagas and Wind-Ups change levels, it's going to be, at most, 1 level change per monster, so it's not going to be anything like F.A. where the levels first go up by 2 in this phase then go down by 3 or whatever during this other phase of that same turn and then go down by 1 or something once more to activate some Dragster effect or something.
In the case of Inzektors, their monsters' common mechanic involves increasing the level of whatever they're equipped to by their own levels, and that's it. There's no complex multiplication and algebra involved like with F.A. or Fortune Lady. With Inzektors equipping themselves to other monsters, you're just adding single-digit numbers by other single-digit numbers, along with maybe adding some additional atk/def, and that's it.
5. "You can only control 1..." / "There can only be 1..."
Some examples of archetypes with this kind of common mechanic are:
This type of "common mechanic" has proven to be completely unnecessary for all 9 of these archetypes and has done nothing but make these already-weak archetypes even weaker for no reason. Was Konami really that afraid of players controlling either 2 Bujin Mikazuchi, 2 Yellow Duston, 2 Earthbound Immortal Ccarayhua, 2 Loptr, Shadow of the Generaider Bosses, 2 Super Anti-Kaiju War Machine Mecha-Dogoran, 2 Ignoble Knight of Black Laundsallyn, 2 Malefic Red-Eyes Black Dragon, 2 Tengu, the Winged Mayakashi, or 2 ZW - Asura Strike?
If Duston's main goal is to swarm the field with those little Dustons, why on earth does that archetype prevent players from controlling more than 1 of each? Doesn't that completely conflict with what that archetype's trying to do?
Isn't having multiple Earthbound Immortal Ccarayhuas on the field pointless anyway since, if one of them dies due to a card effect, so would the other one?
Isn't having multiple copies of any 1 of the Generaider main deck monsters on the field pointless since each of them are hard once per turn so you wouldn't be able to take advantage of multiple copies of any 1 of them anyway?
Does any player bother putting even 1 Super Anti-Kaiju War Machine Mecha-Dogoran on the field anyway? I don't think so, so what's the harm in 2?
Ignoble Knight of Black Laundsallyn's search effect is already hard once per turn so I don't get why that needed to have an additional restriction keeping you from having more than 1 copy on the field.
Malefic Red-Eyes Black Dragon is essentially a level 7 normal monster that happens to be able to special summon itself but isn't good enough to require a restriction that you can only control 1 copy of it.
Tengu, the Winged Mayakashi is pretty much a worse Wind Pegasus @Ignister. If you're looking for a generic level 7 synchro that destroys spells/traps, you play either that or Yazi, Evil of the Yang Zing.
Since ZW - Asura Strike's effect to allow the equipped monster to attack all the opponent's monsters doesn't stack, it's pointless to have more than 1 copy of that on the field anyway, and if you want to at least give your monster an additional 1000 atk on top of the 1000 atk ZW - Asura Strike's giving it, you can use something like Axe of Despair, an equip card that gives the monster 1000 atk just like ZW - Asura Strike but isn't restricted to 1 copy like ZW - Asura Strike.
6. Common mechanics that simply make the archetype act as a bunch of hand traps.
Some examples of archetypes with this kind of common mechanic are:
Plenty of hand traps that do various things already exist in the game, some of which are part of an archetype while others aren't. There's no need for more customs with common mechanics that simply make them act as more hand traps.
PSY-Frames specifically have many issues. Their tuners were given both a completely unnecessary clause that prevents them from being normal summoned and too many unnecessary restrictions in general to the point where Konami had to give them a link monster that disables one of those restrictions. This makes it difficult for them to reliably get out even their link monster, so at that point, Konami should've errata'd those tuners so they no longer had the "control no monsters" requirement if it was decided that having to control no monsters was too restrictive. PSY-Frames are too bricky and this link monster did nothing to help the archetype.
The archetype has no quick and reliable way of searching it's key cards. PSY-Framegear Alpha can search the archetype's cards but requires the opponent to first summon something, while PSY-Frame Overlord can banish itself from the graveyard to search the archetype's cards but can't do it the same turn it was sent there.
PSY-Framegears Delta and Epsilon should've been 1 card (that can respond to spells or traps) instead of 2 separate cards where one of them responds to spells while the other responds to traps.
PSY-Frames rely heavily on their PSY-Frame Driver, but at the same time, their tuners banish those PSY-Frame Drivers without any reliable way to get them back once banished, meaning if you end up banishing all 3 of your PSY-Frame Drivers, you have to rely on unsearchables like Psychic Path and Psychic Feel Zone to get them back or else you can't use any more of your PSY-Framegears.
In an attempt to alleviate this problem, Konami printed PSY-Frame Multi-Threader so you at least wouldn't be totally screwed if you banished your PSY-Frame Drivers without any way to get them back, but the PSY-Framegears can't special summon that from the deck since it treats itself as PSY-Frame Driver only while it's in the hand and graveyard, meaning you have to hard draw it, or waste a precious effect to search/dump it, before you can use it. The PSY-Framegears should've been able to special summon other PSY-Frame monsters from the hand/deck/graveyard besides PSY-Frame Driver specifically, or been able to also special summon your banished PSY-Frame Drivers in addition to any copies of it in your hand, deck, or graveyard.
Without any reliable way to get out the PSY-Framegear monsters without relying on the opponent, you're forced to play Wind-Up Rabbit so you'll at least have something you can attack with until your opponent does play cards, then you can use Wind-Up Rabbit's effect to banish itself so you now control no monsters and can use the PSY-Framegears' effects. You're also forced to play maybe Cardcar D or Pot of Duality as well due to PSY-Frames severely lacking reliable search/draw power.
PSY-Frame cuts itself too much then tries to repair those wounds with bandaids that barely do anything to stop the bleeding. The archetype got an unnecessary restriction on all it's PSY-Framegears that requires you to control no monsters to use it's PSY-Framegear effects, then received a mediocre link monster that gets rid of that restriction instead of simply having that restriction errata'd off their texts themselves, and the archetype relies so much on such a mediocre normal monster but at the same time keeps trying to banish away that monster so much that they had to get another mediocre monster printed for them to fill in for the original one once all 3 copies of that original got banished away, when they should've just instead been errata'd so either they destroy the normal monster in the end phase instead of banishing it and making it harder to recover, can also special summoned the banish monster in addition to special summoning that monster from the hand, deck, or graveyard, or maybe shuffle the monster back into the deck instead of banishing it.
The archetype severely lacks speed, power, and consistency due to it's lack of any good searchers and also due to it forcing you to play a bunch of Garnets in the form of PSY-Frame Driver and PSY-Frame Multi-Threader. You'll often be drawing, for example, PSY-Framegear Deltas and PSY-Framegear Epsilons when your opponent's playing mostly monsters, or PSY-Framegear Alphas and PSY-Framegear Betas when your opponent is playing mostly spells/traps, and too often you'll be drawing the incorrect responses to the opponent's cards and having to pass up your turn hoping you draw into something better.
I think the best way to fix PSY-Frames now would be to give them a strong fusion monster that reads:
3 banished "PSY-Frame" monsters
Must first be Special Summoned by returning the above cards to the hand. During the Main Phase (Quick Effect): You can return this card to the Extra Deck, then activate 1 of these effects.
● Special Summon up to 2 PSY-Frame monsters from your hand in Attack Position, and if you do, you can change your opponent's Defense Position monsters to Attack Position, also for the rest of this Duel, you can Normal Summon "PSY-Frame" monsters without Tributing.
● Target any number of your cards that are on your field, GY, and/or banished; shuffle them into the Deck, also you can activate up to 1 each "PSY-Frame Circuit" and "PSY-Frame Accelerator" from your hand, Deck, and/or GY, also for the rest of this Duel, you can Normal Summon "PSY-Frame" monsters without Tributing.
A fusion monster like this would help fix PSY-Frame's main issue of relying on a card it keeps trying to banish it's copies of with no currently reliable way to get them back, and also make it easier to access it's field spell that it relies so heavily on (along with maybe that continuous trap as well as a bonus). Plus, the archetype would no longer be as reliant on Wind-Up Rabbit as it'll permanently be able to normal summon it's level 6 PSY-Frame monsters without tributing, and by having the optional bonus effect of changing the opponent's defense position monsters to attack position, PSY-Framelord Zeta will be able to target and banish them should the opponent try putting them in defense position to begin with.
Nowadays, only 1 to 3 copies of PSY-Framegear Gamma, along with at least 1 PSY-Frame Driver, see competitive play in various decks, and only as additional hand traps or possible counters to hand traps.
The 7th and last common mechanic I recommend avoiding if possible, that I'll be covering in the next post, is common mechanics that rely too heavily on 1 specific card with no reliable way to access, recycle, and reuse said card.