I used to play yugioh before I discovered mtg. It just isn't a good card game imho. No cost system, no colors/categories really, and those are just my two biggest issues with it.
The old game had a lot more depth to it. Around or before Chaos summons, if you're familiar, was the peak imo.
Zombify, Wrath, etc, are all 0 mana in that game. Getting the most bang for your buck out of those big spells was important.
Figuring out which cards your opponent has face down is a big skill to develop, as well.
You're also effectively able to play a 5/5 on turn one. While it rarely happens (in balanced, pre-Chaos formats), the possibility of dying at any moment makes every turn very exciting.
I think I've only ever seen a single non-game in YGO because there's no mana system, so that's a big positive, as well.
I used to have a YGO cube and it was impossible to maintain without heavily breaking singleton. Even then, there's insufficient "color" balance across the attributes because Konami has never cared about that. While I maintained a cube of actual YGO cards, I ended up realizing that I wanted 0-1 cards per new set. This has led to me making my own.
That's a long way of saying "
I agree with you, depending when you played."