So I have not updated in a long time. This is a mixture of laziness and the fact that I got rather bored of the current meta. Only decks I've really been playing recently are Watts and some other fun stuff I've got up here already. Except for a LaDD Photon build that I could probably post here, but I digress. This post is inspired by what is all but confirmed to be the March ban list.
Forbidden Cards 「禁止カード」:
Glow-Up Bulb 「グローアップ･バルブ」
Spore 「スポーア」
Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier 「氷結界の龍 トリシューラ」
Trap Dustshoot 「ダスト・シュート」
Restriction Cards 「制限カード」:
Tech Genus Striker 「ＴＧ－ストライカー」
Agent of Mystery, Earth 「神秘の代行者 アース」
Semi-Restriction Cards 「準制限カード」:
Marshmallon 「マシュマロン」
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner 「ライトロード･サモナー ルミナス」
Emergency Teleport 「緊急テレポート」
Shien's Smoke Signal 「紫炎の狼煙」
Level Limit Area B 「レベル制限Ｂ地区」
Torrential Tribute 「激流葬」
Ultimate Offering「血の代償」
Reborn Tengu 「Reborn Tengu」
No longer restricted 「準制限」:
Call of the Haunted 「リビングデッドの呼び声」
(Source)
Bans:
Glow-Up Bulb: This hit is just another whack to hurt the Plant engine. Also hits Piper and Quickdraw somewhat, or anything that mills and splashes it in, but Plants are what this was aimed at.
Spore: Another hit to the Plant engine. It can be assumed that the engine is dead now. Spore never really had a use outside said engine to my knowledge.
Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier: Just to hit synchros and promote Xyzs as far as I know. Maybe a minor hit to Wind-Ups, I see them drop it every now and then. I'll miss it, but card was broke if I'm honest with myself. Shame Mist Wurm sucks so much in comparison, but I guess its back.
Trap Dustshoot: Cool. I didn't like this card, it was sacky and if opened ensured game like 90% of the time. Good riddance.
Now I don't have any real problems with those hits. They're fair enough. What irks me slightly is Monster Reborn didn't get re-banned, I really don't like it sticking around and it deserves it. Mind Control also does, but I can live with it. These could have been much worse.
Limits:
The Agent of Mystery - Earth: Not that bothered, Agents were extremely broke in the OCG. I think they got off lightly tbh, was expecting Venus to be hit.
T.G. Striker: I /think/ that this was another hit on Agents. Don't know for sure. I also think its rather dumb though if I'm honest, the card really wasn't that broken and its not as if it makes Trish plays anymore. Someone tell me if I'm missing something please.
This is a lot smaller than usual. Considering the number of problem cards in our meta I mean, I was expecting rather a longer ban list than just these.
Semi-Limits:
Marshmallon: Yeah this is fine, its barely relevant these days. Spirit Reaper is far superior because it actually has offensive capabilities and can stop Dino-Rabbit.
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner: Very interesting, and it being moved to here is probably partially responsible for Trish and Bulb being banned looking over it. Lightsworn might have the capacity to become more relevant with this, certainly more so than 3 JD made them.
Emergency Teleport: Not sure on this. It'll probably see abuse in Wind-Up, but its not as if its hard to spam LV3 monsters in that anyway. I don't consider it too threatening.
Shien's Smoke Signal: Cool. LSS have three quick searchers now, that's fine with me.
Level Limit - Area B: This could have gone to 3, its in the same boat as Marshmallon. Xyzs bypass it, and there's 2 MST + Heavy in most people's decks. Stall doesn't work that way for the most part these days anyway, its all chainables.
Torrential Tribute: I don't recall any deck that runs this outside of Anti-Meta variants. I'm fine with this, makes swarming more worrying.
Ultimate Offering: Offering Gadget just got hit I guess. I don't recall it doing anything anyway, so not sure I understand this one, but I'm fine with it mostly because I never liked Offering Gadget anyway.
Reborn Tengu: Okay, this is a point where I voice some actual dislike of the list. Konami has proven that they'll hit TCG exclusive cards, which I like. But this hit is really idiotic.
I mean, don't get me wrong. Tengu has been OP for a long time now and I'd totally understand the hit on any list but this one. But there are much, much bigger problem cards that are TCG exclusive than Tengu at the moment. The obvious format definer being Tour Guide from the Underworld, which is absent. More on that shortly.
Unlimited:
Call of the Haunted: I was only expecting this if Sangan or Dandy were banned. Don't think it'll make much impact though, its not broken at all these days.
Right, now, I've gone through the list and only had a problem with two hits. On the whole that's less than I expected to have a problem with when I started doing this, only two hits were actually dumb. And yet I am still confident in saying that this is probably the worst banlist I have ever seen from Konami.
Inzektors have been untouched. Not that I'm saying that it should have been killed, I was thinking some fairly minor hit like Dragonfly or Hornet to 2. That way they were still playable but less consistent. But if anything I think this list has actually made them stronger by banning Trishula, a common way to deal with Hornet.
The Wind-Up loop has been untouched. Now Wind-Ups outside the loop I'll reserve judgement on. I know they can spam like crazy, but it doesn't seem like something that couldn't be handled. On the other hand, with the loop, having to go through six months of opening with 1 card hands when facing them is rather discouraging to say the least.
Rabbit Dino has been untouched. I'll be honest and say this one doesn't bother me too much by its-self, the deck was tier 1 but fairly manageable, but it nonetheless irks me that it was left alone as well.
My biggest problem though, as mentioned earlier, is Tour Guide wasn't hit. Konami proved that they can hit TCG exclusives by hitting Reborn Tengu, and then left Tour Guide from the Underworld, a card that defines the TCG meta, alone. Promoting Xyzs is one thing, but that's pretty sad to me.
Plants were on their way out of the TCG anyway. They weren't dominating like they used to. If I faced them on DN I was usually happy, because I could usually beat them with my decks.
Agents weren't even tier 1 here anymore. They were still good, but outclassed by a lot of stuff and not really that relevant to the TCG meta anymore.
These are the only two decks that really got hit.
I can live with this, and I plan to. I'm not going to quit over this list, I'm going to accept it and play on. But this list, in terms of the TCG meta, changed almost nothing. And since I was tired of this format, and wanted new things, that's incredibly disappointing.
ty for reading.
