Comment from Awesmazing

I sort of understand your point here, and definitely understand your frustration. Spell speed seems a bit overdone the way you've laid it out, but it's still a fundamental part of the game itself. If all spell speed were the same we would *not* be playing anything close to the same game. The easiest way to point out a flaw in a spell speed-less is with solemn judgment. It's a counter trap that negates a summon, or spell/trap card activation at the hefty cost of half your life points. It's a large cost that's only offset by the fact that your opponent cannot respond with any effect that's not also speed 3, therefore shutting them out of a way to counter act that particular counter trap. Yu-Gi-Oh is already a lot of back and forth, reacting to what you can when you can. If you eliminate or clump together more cards in a spell speed category, you'd actually be complicating the game much further, as now anything can be responded to anything. With more knowledge on ALL the cards in print, you can find many scenarios where if you could play a lower spell speed after you play a higher one in the same chain, you could perform some serious game breaking moves. It's also worth noting there is a spell speed "4". It's not in the ruling but it includes cards like super polymerisation and forbidden droplet. Super poly just outright cannot have any effects follow it after activation on the same chain, even spell speed 3 cards are not useable. Making super poly incredibly powerful, simply because of spell speeds. Droplet has a similar effect, if you discard a monster spell and trap to activate it, it goes from spell speed 2 (quick play) to spell speed 4, as your opponent cannot respond with monsters spells or traps (any card). Back to the solemn judgment. That card virtually guarantees you to stop a summon or effect when it's set on your field. If your opponent summons a quick effect monster with a way to negate the solemn judgment, then summons another monster that you attempt to solemn, your opponent can't use the first monster's effect to negate it, even if it can negate trap cards, because the monster quick effect is only speed 2 and your speed 3 solemn cannot be negated by anything lower. No spell speed makes spell speed 3 useless, or significantly hamstrung. Look into more counter traps. Many have simple but powerful effects and they're only powerful considering their inability to be countered.