Ice Barrier - Failed Cards, Archetypes, and Sometimes Mechanics in Yu-Gi-Oh

shoutout to the ice barrier structure I bought in like 2021 thinking "if Konami made a structure deck out of it, it must be good"

Actually from a Lore standpoint this is one of the most lore-accurate Decks! If I recall correctly, thebIce barrier main deck monsters we're "protectors" of the ice barrier. They are actively trying to KEEP the dragons bound within the barrier. Which reflects Well in the archetype because they suck so bad because have NO coherent ways to summon the Dragons, which in turn...keeps them locked up (This was not what Konami intended and it's one of the worst archetypes of the 5Ds era)

Hidden Arsenal 1 really did set the tone on what Ice Barriers would be: Really bad main deck monsters and really broken Synchro monsters.

It makes sense that the Ice Barrier monsters would struggle in making their boss monsters. In-Lore, they want to stop the dragons from being released. Great for the story, but bad for actual play.

Didn't know this video was secretly about Galaxy-Eyes

Ice Barrier's will always be one of my most favorite archetypes I don't care if it's a bad archetype.

Keep in mind that this Archetype is sneaking in the tops in the OCG for the past 5 months now. The most popular is the Runick + Ice Barrier variant.

Logs, the video description is about Galaxy Eyes, released a couple of weeks ago. By the way, Ice Barriers are cool-looking monsters (mainly Trishula and its Warrior counterpart), but they are bricks.

You forgot the actual Ice Barrier. The fish getting frozen.

I'm noticing a clear theme here: It's trying to be a control deck who focuses on blocking backro (A stun deck)... But is ridiculously vulnerable to any sort of spell removal like raigeki, while also not destroying way too often. Remember, the Synchros and regular Monsters are archenemies, so they're NOT supposed to synergize... But the regular monsters are AWFUL at stopping synchro plays considering they are mostly focused on stopping backro, and their few effects against those synchros come way too late to matter considering they don't negate their effects.

Ice Barriers have been so pathetic that they're weirdly adorable... to the extent that playing them with the new boss monster and extenders was a bit of an eye opener... like, there was a moment where the clouds parted mid-duel, and I went "Holy crap... this is a stun archetype!?" Like, obviously, they've always WANTED to be a stun archetype, but they were so bad at it they could never stun anyone... so seeing them do what they were always meant to do was a shock to the system. :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing:

See Also: Rata’s rant on Royal Knight Of The Ice Barrier.

When the 2 boss monsters who carries your deck can carry themselves.

I love the new support the deck got. The main deck floodgates are actually playable now ironically😂

cant wait for terminal world or whatever its called. the new support turns this into a banger of a deck

Still better than ally of justice Ice barrier can at least summon it’s synchros

I think we got the wrong Description in the box there. Man I loved me my Ice Barriers back in the day. Yeah they were bad, and I didn't have Brionic until he had hit the ban list, but I loved them because...uh... ... You know...all my friends snatched up all the other archetypes!

I feel that the Cyber Girl archetype belongs here too. They have around 7 members and a trap card and have next to no synergy. There is a slight theme of direct attacks among them, but the rest of the cards (including Their ace, Cyber Blader) don't mesh well with them.

Thank you duellogs for always out doing yourself i really enjoy these failed archetype videos

16:00 I think you meant to say Rivalry instead of Gozen since the deck has insane synergy with Gozen