By now it's pretty obvious that Pendulum Summoning is going to change the game, just as Synchro and Xyz summoning did. I've been of the belief, ever since the new mechanic was slowly revealed, that while it will at first have a pretty big impact on the surface, I don't think the meta game is going to be affected by it for a little while.
Case and point: Infernity, a deck that's been around since before I got into the game, just won the World Championship. Congrats to that player, by the way, it's pretty impressive to go from 6th place at Nationals to the best player in the world. Anyway, though, it just goes to show that an old deck is indeed capable of using a newer mechanic, Xyz Summoning, to become successful.
Also, I would like to point out that when Xyz monsters first came out, the best deck of the format was still a Synchro-based deck, and when Synchros first came out they weren't wrecking the meta game either. So, for now, I think that we can all sort of relax about Pendulum summoning.
I see Pendulum Summoning as something of a way to make every deck good, to level the playing field. Even the worst of decks have great cards, but, I'll touch on that in a second. I think that Pendulum summoning will usher in a new age of Yu-Gi-Oh! that people seem to be missing: it'll allow for more diversification. More decks will be splashing in this new mechanic as a sort of engine to get the ball rolling, allowing players to competively try out decks they couldn't before.
Is that to say that all the older and slower decks will suddenly start springing up out of nowhere again? No, because, decks that don't use Pendulum summoning are still very fast-paced. Mermail, Infernity, these are obviously decks that are still on top of the format, if you can even call this a format still since we're in the lame period of few tournaments following Worlds.
Essentially, Pendulum summoning is going to open the gates for certain decks but remained closed for others. Take, for example, two of the four new archetypes/ decks being released in the new set, The Duelist Alliance. One of them is a swarm-based deck not unlike Six Samurais but plays similar to Constellars. Will Pendulum summoning be necessary in this deck? No, because they can bring out monsters easily enough on their own. The other deck, Yang Zing (a deck I would run if the rarities weren't so high), is a deck based also on swarm but on their own effects, not a Pendulum summon. Would Pendulum summoning help? Sure, but, it would take up space for certain staple cards to go against the top decks of the format.
The way I see it, decks that have been competitive since the January format of this year won't be the decks you see running Pendulum monsters. The decks I can see, effectively, running the new mechanic will be along the lines of Scraps, Synchrons, Gadgets, Karakuri, and any kind of stun or burn deck. These decks rely on getting cards on the field but usually after a pain-staking amount of combos that can easily be deterred by a single card (i.e. Effect Veiler, Maxx "C," or Breakthrough Skill). With Pendulum Summoning, you won't have to really go through all of the combos to get these cards out on the field, and with cards like Soul Charge, you can get them all back should they fall into a Dark Hole or Mirror Force.
Now then, to talk about pretty unknown decks that may get a boost from Pendulum summons. I can't speak for all of them but I can speak for the deck I wanna run, Snowdusts. This is a deck that relies on placing Ice Counters all over the field to summon out the boss monster, Snowdust Dragon. To do this best, bringing out Snowman Creator while there are monsters on the field helps, or Xyz summoning the Rank 4 Snowdust Giant also helps out, as when you detach 1 Xyz material and reveal X amount of Water monsters in your hand, the field gets that many Ice-Counters.
So how do Pendulums help this out? Well, let's say that you've got a hand full of monsters, and a Snowman Creator. You would place Pendulum Monsters on the field and after Pendulum summoning them, you could normal summon out the Snowman Creator to place however many Water monsters are on the field, and if there are for or more, Snowman Creator destroys one of your opponent's cards. There are myriad of other ways that Pendulum summoning can help out Snowdusts, but that's the main destruction one, as the other cards are more shut-down cards.
Beyond just Pendulum support, the newer archetypes look to add much more immediate diversification to the meta game. Since we've got about six mainly competitive/ highly played decks now, there should be about ten or so more by the time Duelist Alliance is out. That's one heck of a diverse format, one that has been slowing building to this point, in my opinion.
Duelist Alliance will be the next big set to set things in motion for a new era, much like how Photon Shockwave brought on the power of Dino Rabbit and Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy wrought doom and destruction with the Dragon Rulers (a format that still resonates in the game, and probably will for a long, long time). Though I don't see this going as bad as the others have, since the great diversification will not allow for one deck to stand tall above the rest. Maybe as we move on a deck will call itself supreme but for now it looks like one big mess, which is the way I like it to be honest. It makes it all the more challenging and exciting because you never know who you're going to end up playing.
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