TCG's Next Banlist Speculation (Based on OCG's Rumored)

[Black D'Sceptyr]

Alrighty, so

 

[spoiler=forewords be happenin']

It seems the OCG is unchaining a lot more cards and hitting Trickstars because of the EoG rulings. Admirable, though I've some issues with it-I shan't go into full detail of them here, but if Trickstar Lycoris's ban-not limit, ban-is based on EoG's running wild, Chain Strike's unlimiting almost wipes out that gain. 

 

I suppose the reality of the matter is that having OP stuff check other OP stuff is seeming to be a continued-and traversible-route for the OCG to go, and may make it a bit more diverse than the TCG. 

 

Many have known, however, of my myriad issue with the game's direction in general and what cards are valued because of it - made me want to pop an aorta when people were claiming they were quitting because of their inability to make the big negation boards they so loved before with D/D/Ds and Synchrons, as if that hasn't been the coin of the Tier 1.5 realm since Synchros and not leaving anytime soon - but the biggest issue I've had is with the fact that cards are demanded legalization in TCG because of their impact, or lack thereof, in the OCG. 

 

That falls apart on the nearest sneeze, and gets Infinity Gauntlet-ed on three specific points.

 

A) The OCG has a far different variety of Decks to handle due to their different banlist, which means that certain Decks aren't going to be where the should be, no matter which cards are re-legalized,

 

B) The OCG's player base has a far different dynamic to handling cards than us in TCG, namely in Decks becoming out-of-style despite their usability or unlimited cards, and

 

C) The OCG tends to be more competent in making cards off the bat, since most of their Decks have offered a fair variety of tactics without going directly into OP territory (keyword here be most, folks.) So when it comes time to hit them, they have better chokepoints to turn certain Decks into checks or counters against them. 

 

With all that in mind....

 

 

 

here's my speculation on a hypothetical 20 (22?)-card ban list for the TCG, with the knowledge of the EoG rules in mind.

 

Banned

 

Sky Striker Mecha - Widow Anchor - Spellspam.dek was already on thin ice as an idea, between Exodia de la Deckthin and how incompetently handled the problem Spells of the TCG were, but it being the whole gimmick of this Deck made sense. However, something needs to be done in to keep the shenanigans this Deck has limited. So for a Deck that barrels through most negation on its own turn just dandy without knocking out/stealing your plays with insulting ease on the next turn-W.A. needs a depart.

 

(and this is coming from a Sky Striker fan. Jeez, the Deck almost runs like how Prophecy shoulda-overwhelming with Spells at a consistent-yet-controllable clip. Pity it hard counters Altergeists. Such is the tale of Trap heavy Decks in the year of our Hokarhty 2018.)

 

Knightmare Phoenix - So we finally found a way to make a Yugioh anime character's Deck useful, and it took a Duel Terminal Archetype to do it-I'm sure this isn't the only one. But yeah, Extra Linking is its own issue, it plus untargetable, undestroyable, non-Special Summoning boards are insane, doing it on one turn is disgusting. If the goal is to get more Decks-and more players through them-into the game, I'd like to at least have a chance of battling past the board since Kaijuing and effects won't cut the mustard, and it's less susceptible to running out of steam thanks to Unicorn. 

 

fun fact: my original choice for this was Goblin but essentially ladder tech for either Tri-Gate Wizard or Unicorn, so targeting is less of an issue for Gouknightmares,

 

Odd-Eyes Absolute Dragon - STOP MAKING. COMBO-EXTENDING. BOSSES. They almost never stay to native Archetypes, they paper over-otherwise lackluster/ spam-happy strategies, and they make me wonder if the GX Era of overestrictive Fusions was the best for that alone. I mean, Broadbull was all fine and dandy until Whiptail and Barrage basically meant its text box may as well have said: "Costless Eater of Millions for EVERYONE!"

 

That being said, the re-legalization of Dragon Rulers is what pushed this finally into banning-my first thought upon seeing Galaxy Tomahawk eat a hit in OCG is the same thing I thought when I saw Carrier being hit over Hunter in Wind-Ups; right motive, wrong target. This, the Rulers, and Odd-Eyes on the same plane is just one big pile of holy Ra, no.

 

 

Limited

 

Elemental HERO Stratos, E - Emergency Call - You KNEW this was coming. But having three or more Archetype searches in the same Deck is what got Nekroz reamed over the coals, and what will likely have Goukis following suit, if need arises. This way, Dark Law isn't shafted for Stratos, but search and backrow wrecking is back in vogue for HEROes.

 

Trickstar Lycoris - Needed it before the new End of Game Rules. Needed it even when/if Trickstar Lightstage got limited. Needed it INSTEAD of the Reincarnation limit. I'll say this until my carpal tunnel spreads to my tongue-its not that it Special Summons, its what GETS Special Summoned.

 

The Dragon Ruler Set - A) this makes Dark Armed Xyz and Fusion Trishula so much more usable, B) the powercreep of the other monsters will likely keep their rampaging in check this time around, as will our stand-in for Pendulums and C) goodness, y'all deserve a gift for the newly run out Rank 7 pool. Good unchaining by OCG, let's see it here too.

 

Pot of Avarice, Kaiser Colosseum, Super Rejuvenation - These are what I call the Rogue Revolutionary Three. Most Decks that would benefit from any of these are equipped with their own GY recovery/field limitations/draw tech, and any that would put down enough threats for this to benefit them will either A) mill these cards already, making dedication of a slot to Avarice useless B) do not benefit from having limited enough boards, making Colosseum useless, or C) don't really make use of cards in the hand unless they're Ghost Girls, making Super Rejuvenation....well, a boon for Hieratics and little else. Maybe Blue-Eyes, considering their Tribute evasion?

 

Super Polymerization - Cleverly outing a board through this* and Fusion Trishula in OCG is half my reasoning for this radical choice-the slackening influence of Fusions not either named ABC-Dragon Buster or Odd-Eyes Vortex Dragon is the other. Right now, they need an edge outside of Contacts or cheap combo-bosses. 1 Super Poly gives everyone a new way to break boards-and Decks wholly focused on that an incentive to reserve ammo.

 

*Shoulda been what Exciton Knight and Evenly Matched became for the meta, but one rewarded bad play/strategies in the inverse way Card of Demise does, and one goes a Phase too late beyond Turn One (thanks to the damage you'll eat before this can activate) and 2 Spell Speeds too slow to impede anyone building a stun board.

 

Union Hangar - Brutal but Fragile, a moniker I used to assign to Ritual Beasts and SPYRALs, needs to be the way to go for ABCs, especially with Terraforming not looking to get hit and the first ABC-Dragon Buster being the necessary one, thus belaying any impact a limit on that front would do.

 

El Shaddoll Construct - To play on words Leo McGarry said inThe West Wing, when referring to his...habits around spirits, the problem was never Construct-it was the SECOND Construct. Giving as much advantage as it could and being able to do it ad-nauseam with El Shaddoll Fusion was insane. This way, Shaddolls get their playmaker, but within reason.

 

Semi-Limited

 

Gateway of the Six - Three means Kizan/Shi En needs a hard hit or else Six Sams turn into a more degenerate Gouki, considering the lack of Decks around to check it like the OCG has (though Sky Strikers may change my mind on this as it did with True Dracos). One means Six Sams are the Warrior's version of lucksac.dek. Should it get out of hand at this level, hitting Shi En and/or Naturia Beast would be a more valuable use of time than going after this. Again, right motive, wrong hit.

 

Set Rotation - Thinking with your Field Spells before turning them out of your Deck is the way to go-and goodness, how I long for the day people see how valuable it is to give your opponent the Seal of Orichalchos. 

 

Unlimited

 

Rekindling, Tribe-Infecting Virus -  Show me a Deck that this card gives favor to and I'll show you a Deck that is Tier 2, maximum, with it and nothing without it. It's disturbingly easy to get around Summon Spells and discard destruction these days-s'why I held off on banning Anti-Spell Fragrance a bit, too. Serious tho, its a card waiting for a midgame few FIRE Decks are going to get. 

 

Inzektor Dragonfly - my Grand Mole random pick. Jeez louise, haven't Insects suffered enough with Digital Bugs?

 

Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End (w/errata) - Errata Kinda turns this into a all-or-nothing nuke. 

 

 

What say thee, gents and ladies?

[Krashkube]

You know that OCG list is 99.99% fake right

 

other than that, pretty good list aside from phoenix (i'd rather hit the one that blocks card effects instead and/or unicorn) and abolute being banned, which i find weird since drulers are never getting off and we dont have much other r7 based decks

[Black D'Sceptyr]

You know that OCG list is 99.99% fake right

 

other than that, pretty good list aside from phoenix (i'd rather hit the one that blocks card effects instead and/or unicorn) and abolute being banned, which i find weird since drulers are never getting off and we dont have much other r7 based decks

 

I more meant that the presence of several good hits on the list inspired me to make one of my own to try and collect my thoughts on what got missed in TCG's last banlist, moreso than this being the real list and what needs to happen to emulate it. I tried to go for a suprise pick at the end too, like TCG did with Grand Mole.

 

But I could be convinced to give that ban spot to another problem card I've seen lately-namely the 'rewarding bad play/mechanics and Dracos with stacked backrow instead of actually fixing the Archetypes' issues", Card of Demise.

[Thomas★Zero]

Elemental HERO Stratos, E - Emergency Call - You KNEW this was coming. But having three or more Archetype searches in the same Deck is what got Nekroz reamed over the coals, and what will likely have Goukis following suit, if need arises. This way, Dark Law isn't shafted for Stratos, but search and backrow wrecking is back in vogue for HEROes.

I'd rather Dark Law Limited to have Stratos back while keeping E-Calls as with HERO's at the moment everything seems to be revolved around Dark Law and keeping it on the field which even if Dark Law got Shafted, we still have Anki as are DARK Masked HERO which can be played with Shadow Mist for Form Change Shenanigans. Still if HERO's need a hit I would say hit Dark Law and a HERO Lives.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Since Stratos and Shadow Mist both activate when Special Summoned, A Hero Lives is more impactful and widespread in anything that incorporates them than E-Emergency Call. That said, I'm not sure hitting anything just to bring Stratos back makes sense. Stratos can be searched by Shadow Mist, E-Emergency Call, A Hero Lives, RotA, and another copy of himself while activating on Special Summon without any kind of OPT clause. If anything is guaranteed future support it's Heroes, so I'd rather it not be watered down to accommodate Stratos, a card that was broken from the day it was released that set a precedent for modern conventional OPT clauses for similar cards today. When its precedent isn't observed, we have SPYRAL Quik-Fix. I'd prefer Stratos be errata'd and put to 3. 

 

Limiting Lycoris effectively reduces its copies from 12 to 10 (Terraforming>Lightstage>Candina>search). The same holds true for Reincarnation, but the Limit on Reincarnation is more sensible because of how multiple copies of Reincarnation interact. Triple Reincarnation with one Lycoris will hurt just as much as triple Lycoris with one Reincarnation, and Reincarnation has the added value of revival on either turn. For the correct hits on Trickstars we needn't look any further than the OCG where Terraforming and Reincarnation are both Limited to 1 and we still see the occasional Trickstar top, just occasional enough to be palatable. 

 

Banning Knightmare Phoenix deprives almost every deck in the game of a utility Link-2 that pops a backrow for a fair investment. If you want to hit "the board ", a hit to either Iblee or Mermaid which are only used in devoted Knightmare builds to establish full boards makes more sense. 

 

With regards to Union Hangar but not Terraforming to 1:

Putting Field Spells but not Terraforming to 1 doesn't actually put them to 1.

Terraforming has been an automatic 3-of in a Tier 0-1 deck since MACR (Dracos/Trickstars/SPYRALS have inhabited a spot(s) there ever since).

[VCR_CAT]

Just popping in to remind you that there's an FTK with the Dragon Rulers, even at just one apiece, that you can kick off just by summoning Dark Matter Dragon. If the DRulers are coming back, Konami should first address that, but even then I'm not sure it's worth it. Definitely feels like if it's not Dark Matter, SOMETHING is going to take advantage of the DRulers just a bit too much.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

Just popping in to remind you that there's an FTK with the Dragon Rulers, even at just one apiece, that you can kick off just by summoning Dark Matter Dragon. If the DRulers are coming back, Konami should first address that, but even then I'm not sure it's worth it. Definitely feels like if it's not Dark Matter, SOMETHING is going to take advantage of the DRulers just a bit too much.

The one with firewall? It's dead with 42 banned. The one with chaos emperor takes 2 turns and wont matter since TCG has CED banned

[VCR_CAT]

The one with firewall? It's dead with 42 banned. The one with chaos emperor takes 2 turns and wont matter since TCG has CED banned

 

It also doesn't have to be an FTK that warrants a card being banned. It's to show that it's pretty easy to forget all that can easily take advantage of a card when it's been so long since it's seen regular play. Those cards aren't showing up in tournaments and players aren't constantly trying to find new and better ways to take advantage of them, so we forget exactly how good they are going to be in a given format. If all that's being done is casual theory-oh of "Well, nothing off the top of my head comes up that would break it", then not enough effort is being put into investigating that decision as combos such as that FTK with Dark Matter can creep up under the radar very easily.

 

The DRulers are still pretty dang strong cards, and it's not hard to really take advantage of that strength. Obviously the original DRulers Deck wouldn't be very good if its regular iteration were to return, but then again you need to remember that it obviously wouldn't be the same deck if it were to come back. Even if it isn't an FTK, I'd be surprised if they came back and didn't do anything. All of that needs to be kept in mind when considering what to take off/put on the banlist.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

It also doesn't have to be an FTK that warrants a card being banned. It's to show that it's pretty easy to forget all that can easily take advantage of a card when it's been so long since it's seen regular play. Those cards aren't showing up in tournaments and players aren't constantly trying to find new and better ways to take advantage of them, so we forget exactly how good they are going to be in a given format. If all that's being done is casual theory-oh of "Well, nothing off the top of my head comes up that would break it", then not enough effort is being put into investigating that decision as combos such as that FTK with Dark Matter can creep up under the radar very easily.

 

The DRulers are still pretty dang strong cards, and it's not hard to really take advantage of that strength. Obviously the original DRulers Deck wouldn't be very good if its regular iteration were to return, but then again you need to remember that it obviously wouldn't be the same deck if it were to come back. Even if it isn't an FTK, I'd be surprised if they came back and didn't do anything. All of that needs to be kept in mind when considering what to take off/put on the banlist.

I'm in the camp of let's take one of the list at a time starting with blaster, but apparently you can't do that

[VCR_CAT]

I'm in the camp of let's take one of the list at a time starting with blaster, but apparently you can't do that

 

Oh, no I'm not saying you can't do that, but I think there's a lot more nuance to it then that. The tentative taking-something-off-the-list-at-one-first isn't the only testing they'll do for a card, and it shouldn't be seen as that. There's a good chance that even one of them by itself is still good enough that it's going to see some relevant play, and they have to ask the question if that's the sort of card/deck that they want to push and sell at that given time.

[Krashkube]

Does this even really matter considering this list is fake af