While taking part in the Seattle Regionals, I realized how integral Banishing has become to dueling in general. Most mainstream decks have an element of it, while the top decks function largely because of it.
Take Dragon Rulers and their many incarnations. They Banish at least once per turn, sometimes far past that with cards like Gold Sarcophagus, Sacred Sword of the Seven Stars, and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Their Banishing is so reliable that a card like Return From the Different Dimension is on par with Gateway, Limiter Removal, etc.
Prophecy decks regularly Banish Spellbooks with High Priestess of Prophecy and Spellbook of Fate. The books are then recovered with Spellbook of Eternity and quickly funneled back into the cyclical Spellbook-engine.
Constellars and Evilswarms get a small boost from Consteller Sombre and Evilswarm Kerykion, allowing them to quickly re-establish fallen boss monsters by banishing them from the graveyard and adding the material to the hand.
There’s of course Chaos Dragons, who rampantly benefit from Lightsworn milling-technology to fill the Graveyard with Banish-able fodder.
We have Atlantean Mermail decks adapting the use of Tidal and Aqua Spirit for increased consistency.
Along with all of the old decks trying to absorb Dragon Rulers to make themselves more powerful, like Dragunity, Plants, Fire Fists, Lavals and Machines.
It seems like incorporating a Banishing element, Dragon Rulers specifically, to a deck will give it a weighted advantage as far as deck building goes. Either that, or you have to play really dirty and run Infernitys.
Do you see things this way too? Are cards like Imperial Iron Wall and Necrovalley not getting enough notice?
Nice observations Matt. I agree I also think banishing is definitely a bigger part of the game now.
I wish the mechanic of Banished did actually remove cards from play. Cards like Return and Leviair give you the ability to extend combos in often a degenerate way.
I think moving forward we will see more cards with th ability to banish cards face down like Ghostrick Skeleton. That’ll be the only way cards are truly “removed from play”.
It’ll be interesting to see how many future archetypes incorporate FD Banishing. It’s kinda scary. Having things gone forever is such a permanent solution in a game where nothing is permanent.
It is a odd way to play the game decks like that are easily crippled by one card, at regionals i played a dragon kid turn 1 i flip iron wall he literally has to have an out in his hand or he loses, its always been that way mermails and lightswarn had d-fissure and macro that basically kill all plays, ophion flat says you cant play a dozen decks, konami needs to stop creating cards that promote degenerate game state. Like that key beattle plus safe zone lock kyle does every game is not fair its the ultimate stall tatctic or key bettle emptyness. Banishing is a mechanic like discarding or searching ect they just need to not make they retarted strong