the key to winning in yugioh was to have no other magic/trap cards besides counter cards (cards that could be quick-played to stop other people's magic/trap cards) and have a bunch of 4 star monsters with 1800 or 1900 attack power (the highest atk power possible for a monster that can be summoned on the first turn)

You'd win 9 out of 10 times because other players only ever had super rare/powerful cards that were extremely difficult to ever get into play, or very circumstantial cards.

For example, adding the 5 exodia pieces to your deck was a waste of deck space, because getting them all into play takes a minimum of 5 turns, and during that time your opponent is going to be stacking much more powerful cards and be blowing the shit out of you. Executing an Exodia auto-win only worked like 1 out of 100 games, and they were illegal in tournament games anyways