Puzzle

Ban List Thoughts

My personal opinions on the potentially upcoming ban list.

Everybody is in that kind of anxious state right now about the ban list. It feels as if it’s just around the corner, but Konami has stated they’re not keeping it on any sort of time schedule, which makes the list rather unsettling in its unknown-ness. Of course, it seems to be in unanimous agreement that this no-schedule-ban-list is bad and a cop-out and other rude things so I don’t really want to get into that topic, but instead I figure I’ll just give my two cents about what I think would be some good things to happen on this unknown list we may or may not be getting. Who knows, maybe by me making a post I can make the ban list actually appear in order to make myself a fool for even posting my opinion.

I’ll start off by saying, these are the tamest changes I would like to see happen. I’ve stated on the podcast that my opinion is that Yugioh deserves a massive overhaul on the ban list with very extreme and radical changes, but I am completely aware that Konami has almost no reason to do that other than that it would be good for the game, but it has been clearly shown in my opinion that that is not a factor that motivates them. So instead, these are what I think should happen in a more Konami list fashion that I think would effectively meter the game.

Dracopals:

I’ll start off with the obvious deck, Dracopals, a combination of Performapals and Dracoslayers. This deck runs a lot of different cards that are good so the there isn’t a completely clear cut way to make fair this deck. There are a handful of standout cards: Performapal Monkeyboard, Performapal Pendulum Magician, Draco Face-Off, and Ignister Prominence. The Blasting Dracoslayer. It’s hard not to look at the OCG ban list and not see the logical hits that were done to this deck and not think the same should be done here.

First is Monkeyboard, it’s a mostly fair card in my opinion, completely justified at 1, but I’m not sure if I can justify banning the card outright like in the OCG. It’s a one card scale, yes, but it’s quite a vulnerable card and is very rigid in what decks it can support (at least for now). I can understand the sentiment of not wanting both Skullcrobat Joker and Monkeyboard legal at the same time, because searching a search card is kind of stupid, but I don’t find this card worthy of ban, so I would keep it at 1.

Pendulum Sorcerer is in the same strange position as Monkeyboard, it’s clear unfair, but it’s also quite a vulnerable monster, unlike Monkeyboard though, it Pendulum Sorcerer fails its effect, it’s basically guaranteed a second try on your next turn because of how bad the pendulum mechanic is. Konami honestly needs to stop making pendulum monsters with effects upon special summon unless the monster has a super high level or the effect is incredibly weak because it’s simply unfair that you can keep doing that effect every turn in essence because pendulum monsters keep going back to the Extra Deck. Like Monkeyboard, I could never justify this card being banned, but it’s just going to keep being a thorn in the side of the game as long as it’s at 3 because Performapals are keep going to get support because they’re linked to the main character in the show. I don’t expect this card to get hit literally just because it’s from the most recent set, but I think Pendulum Sorcerer should be at 1.

Draco Face-Off is a weird card. It certainly provides a lot of resources and versatility, but in a vacuum this card isn’t unfair. It literally gives you 1 vanilla monster and the potential for another, which isn’t all that much. The problem in my opinion is the Extra Deck monsters that Dracoslayers support. So in that sense I think Draco Face-Off should stay at 3. I think the clear culprit is Ignister. Ignister falls into the category of one of those cards with just way too many good aspects (at my locals we tout the idea of a card having 4 good effects to be unfair, a la Saqlifice). First off, Ignister is huge having 2850 ATK, beating over the typical 2800 boss monster zone. Second, it has a powerful and easy removal effect. Third, the effect doesn’t target, which is absurd. Fourth, it for no apparent reason also has an effect that summons a monster from the deck, which at the worst pairs with its other effect. Additionally, this card is really easy to summon. Altogether, this card is way too good and currently the deck is heavily leaning on this card as a crutch to stay in the meta, running 3 copies almost mandatorily. Because of all that I think it should go to 1, ad would probably be the most crippling of the hits to Dracopals.

Kozmos:

My opinion of Kozmos is that most of the unfairness is derived from cards that allow the summon of additional monsters because that’s what provides the OTKs. I’m fine with the deck having some pretty overbearing monsters, but the fact that they have monsters that are very difficult to deal with AND that they can OTK you at the drop of a hat it a little silly. The combination doesn’t even give a lot of decks the opportunity to attempt to remove the difficult to kill monsters in a lot of cases. So in that regard, most of my hits are with in line with the idea that Kozmo OTKs should be slowed and more difficult, but not necessarily absent.

One of the biggest culprits is clearly Emergency Teleport. Konami has had some sick obsession with making this card as broken as possible recently and now almost every deck is running it in some way or another. In Kozmos though, it allows Kozmo to get to the coveted state of having 2 monsters on the board at basically no cost. With 2 monsters on board Kozmos get a bunch of free and easy OTKs that are difficult to combat. In addition, this card is a quick-play, so you can save to make sure you have free attacks for Farmgirl, or even use it defensively. If this card was a Normal Spell or even a Trap that would significantly decrease the cards OTK potential, but as is it’s quite extreme. It also tutors Tincan and Strawman from the deck, which isn’t particularly significant, but the fact that it has that additional use makes it even stronger. With that I would put Emergency Teleport to 1, and hopefully it can just stay there forever.

Second, in almost the same vein is Reasoning. Reasoning isn’t as widely used, but it does the same thing. It puts monster on the field really fast and allows easy OTKs. In general, I think this card is pretty toxic for the game, and is almost always a skill-less card. Whenever Reasoning is used in a deck, now or when it was used in the past, it was always an OTK enabling card, with exception of Infernoids and I don’t think anyone has any qualms with me saying Reasoning is a degenerate card in Infernoids. There’s a small amount of interaction in that you can call a level of a monster you don’t want to see or what there’s likely to be more of in the opponent’s deck, but in the end it’s mostly random, which can cause a lot of salt. We’re only going to be receiving more Kozmo support, and I’d like to simply not have to see this card around when it comes out. With that I would put Reasoning to 1.

Lastly for Kozmos I think is a pretty clear hit to Dark Destroyer. Dark Destroyer falls under my 4 good effects category. Typically, as a trend, Konami designs cards with 4 good effects with what I think is the intention of limiting them in the future. If Konami really wants the players to use a certain deck, they add a card to the deck that has 4 good effects so we have no choice but the respect the card. Then, once all the profit has been made it’s an easy limit for Konami because it was specifically designed to be too good. Dark Destroyer has 4 good things: First, it’s untargetable. Second, it has 3000 ATK. Third, it destroys a monster when summoned. Fourth, it summons a monster when it dies. I could technically go on, but it has all these upsides with literally no downside. It’s a zero risk card with penultimate reward. If it was lacking in one of those 4 categories then it wouldn’t be nearly as unfair a card. If anything I would’ve preferred it being targetable, but that’s not the case. I’ve tested out Kozmos only running 1 Dark Destroyer and it’s completely a viable competitive deck, and I know Konami wants to keep supporting the deck for some more time, and if hitting to 1 doesn’t affect its viability then it seems like an obvious choice. Thus I would say Dark Destroyer should be at 1.

Monarchs:

Monarchs is a weird one. I don’t feel that the deck is as overwhelming as other decks, but it’s certainly good. If possible I’d want to retain as much of the deck as possible without ruining it, which is surprisingly difficult. It’s very hard to pinpoint any one card in Monarchs that is making the deck too powerful because it really relies on every card to run functionally, and even then Monarchs super brick a lot as is unlike the previous two decks. For the most part I really like what they did on the OCG list, and I will say that I think those are probably the best changes that could’ve been made.

First, I already said Emergency Teleport to 1, which basically ruins the synergy of Super Quantums and Monarchs. I really didn’t have any problems with this combination so if Kozmos didn’t exist I don’t think Monarchs would’ve been enough for me to think Emergency Teleport should go to one, but it’s more of an unfortunate byproduct.

Domain of the True Monarchs is I think the most clear and obvious hit to the deck. It only minorly affects the decks play and consistency, but putting it to one almost completely removes one of the most complainable degenerate parts of the deck, which is the Extra Deck lockdown. I honestly don’t know why they even put that effect on the card, but we can all probably agree it was a stupid effect. At 1 the deck can still utilize the card, but the possibility of continually locking out the opponent’s Extra Deck is less and easier to prevent from continuing.

Next is Pantheism of the Monarchs. This card is the easiest plus 1 ever and it almost always is a plus 1. It’s really kind of silly from a design standpoint and I don’t know what the thought process behind this card’s design was. On top of that, the new Monarchs can dump Pantheism from the deck, so it has even more use than getting a random plus 1 every time you draw it, and to top it off it’s searchable and recyclable. It’s honestly just too much. The biggest downside though is that hitting Pantheism to 1 massively hurts the deck’s already shoddy consistency. I think it’s necessary to hit, but it sure makes me sad saying a deck deserves to be hit like that.

Burning Abyss:

I honestly don’t care about Burning Abyss, it’s supremely boring to play against, to play with and the lore and art is supremely boring. Realistically though, I don’t think this deck is even that good and hitting this deck any more seems like cutting off a dying animal’s legs. Every time I see this deck top I’m a little incredulous because it has such bad match-ups across the board. I can’t see this deck beating Kozmos or Monarchs and at best it’s probably a 50-50 match-up versus Dracopals. That being said, if those 3 decks get hit significantly, Burning Abyss may potentially rise so I suppose some sort of hit almost has to get made. I literally never have trouble against this deck, so it’s hard for me to say something about it is even worth hitting. If possible I would just say that everyone just needs to learn the match-up so they stop losing to this deck.

That all aside, the only reasonable cards that I think could get hit are Scarm and Dante. Maybe semi-limit both of them, maybe limit 1 and keep the other at 3, any of those outcomes I think are pretty predictable. If you don’t want anyone to play the pure deck anymore, put Dante to one like OCG land. If you want the deck to stick around and just not be as good, hit Scarm to 1. If you’re really wishy washy, hit both to 2.

Other Things:

There were two other elephants in the room that I figured needed to be touched upon and that was Norden and Solemn Strike.

I’ll start with Strike because it’s a more simply case. Strike should be at 1, it’s no different than Solemn Warning and Warning is at 1 and should stay there. There’s basically no viable case for having Strike at 3 or 2 in my opinion.

Norden is a little more interesting. For the most part, Norden has only really improved the ability of non-tournament threat deck’s ability to play. Most Dracopal players, Kozmos, Monarchs and BA don’t run Instant Fusion at all, so it could  be argued that Norden is good for non-meta decks. You could also argue that if they hit the meta decks then Norden will arise as a problem. I personally am of the camp that I would like to leave Norden around at least for another format because it benefits the lesser decks a lot. In order to meter the usage though I would say they should put Norden to 1. I feel that putting Instant Fusion to 1 is a little too rash, and it may end up being where we go, but I feel that that is a little too sad for the non-meta decks.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that. If you’ve got any opinions or questions, feel free to comment below!

Written by: Kyle Oliver

2 Responses

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.