Pendulums are scary like a haunted house.
Links are scary like a serial killer in your neighborhood.

i think it says a lot that link monsters have the most banned cards of any extra deck monster type

Extra Deck summoning kept getting easier.

We went from Fusions (Fusion Spell + Exact Names)
To Synchro Summoning (Tuner + Monsters that equal the level f the Synchro)
To XYZ Summoning (Two monsters of equal level)
To Link Summoning (Screw it, just have any two monsters)

The ease that extra deck monsters can be summoned now, combined with the endless list of broken generic extra deck monsters and the ability to staple multiple deck engines together to special summon infinite bodies has destroyed the balance of the game. Hand traps at least used to keep decks in check, now most of the top decks can just play through extire hands fo disruption and just keep going to full combo and a an unbreakable end board with a million omni-negates. Why should I play if losing the dice roll means I don't even get to have a turn?

Link monsters as a concept made a lot of sense when they were introduced. That concept, in practice... didn't last long.

The main issues is once fusion stopped requiring poly, synchros not needing tuners, xyz not need two monsters and everything about links being bs

I'll say this. The existence of Link monsters completely nuked mode manipulation because they have no defense or set mode to be forced into

I just wished link arrows actually matter. Give us more effects that affect the monters it was pointing too, how many monsters that it points, co-linking, etc. That is literally the main gimmick of the mechanic

Master rule 4 will forever reign as the worst decision komoney has ever made, they effectively destroyed their game by shoving link monsters down our throats

My main gripe with Link monsters is that they defeated their own purpose. Konami makes this card type and changes a lot of rules in the game to fit them in, all in order to "contain" combo decks that relied on the extra deck too much. Ok, cool, seems like a good way to slow down power creep, yeah. And then a few sets later, now Link monsters are just spamming stuff so much on their own that the new rules don't matter, so they walk back on the changes they made on the rules, but just some of them. Why? Links and their arrows should be gateways into the other extra deck mechanics, or maybe link-centric decks that slowly climbed the link rates until you get a link 4 or 5 boss, but they quickly just turned into "just summon more stuff combo fiesta" for no reason. Like you said, I can see Links working in an alternate timeline where they didn't just print 30 different degenerate cards in the span of a year, but the way they were handled was just stupid.

Link Monsters literally broke every rule of the extra deck
Fusions: Specified materials
Synchros: Add the Level together, including a Tuner
XYZ: Match the same Level
Links: Use whatever you want! Did I mention you can even use just ONE monster?! Go +3 off it! DO IT!!!

PAUL! that’s a very aggressive thumbnail 😂

I didnt like when links first released that you HAD to use them. Older decks who didn’t have a compatible link monster became unplayable.

Link Summoning is basically Extra Deck tribute summoning.
In the classic game, to Tribute Summon a high-Level monster you usually had to:

1. Normal Summon a low-Level monster,
2. Wait until your next turn,
3. Then Tribute that monster (plus another if needed) to Normal Summon the high-Level monster from your hand.

Unless you had a way to Special Summon the material or gain an extra Normal Summon, you couldn’t do it all in one turn.
Link Summoning works on a similar “pay lower monsters to get a stronger one” principle, except:

You use the monsters as Link Materials instead of Tributes,
You Special Summon the Link Monster from the Extra Deck (not the hand),
And because it’s a Special Summon, it doesn’t use your Normal Summon.

This lets you Normal Summon a material and immediately Link Summon with it in the same turn — making Link Summoning significantly faster than traditional Tribute Summoning.

The year is 2035, Yu-Gi-Oh is now 2 decks alone: The flip a coin to win deck, and the counter coin flipping deck

I'll never forgive them for being the reason that Darkness Approaches got errata'd. Face-down Attack Position was hilarious.

If link monsters didnt exist, sky striker would probably bring back the union subtype with fusion monsters. Kagari, shizuku, etc. can be summoned by contact fusing a sky striker monster equipped with a union monster

Link monsters gave almost every deck some way to  do, well, EVERYTHING. Your extra deck now is usually just a bunch of generic tool box monsters that can give you an out against anything.

Every summoning method since Synchros have gotten a video like this

I remember driving home from locals with my friends and seeing the card reveal for Apollousa and at least half the people in that car bought pokemon decks within a month