Now this is something to shed a tear to. Hello Pojo Readers, Crunch$G here to discuss the latest Forbidden and Limited List for the TCG to take effect on February 13th. This list is coming off a format where Tearlaments were dominating events as the newest Tier 0 strategy, winning YCS after YCS. The new Ishizu cards from Magnificent Mavens really added fuel to that fire in making the Deck a Tier 0 force, as they offered a ton of milling and graveyard disruption or recycling. A lot has happened to help take care of this issue, plus a few other underlying issues in the format, so it’s time to break everything down and see what happened.
Artifact Scythe
From Unlimited to Forbidden
We start off with a hit that feels like it should of been this time in 2022, but I guess it is better late than never. Artifact Scythe has caused issues for many players for its ability to lock the opponent from using their Extra Deck at all when summoned on the opponent’s turn. Whether it is Dagda combos setting it from Deck for you to destroy with your own effects, or just simply setting an Artifact Scantum to summon Scythe directly from the Deck for its effect, the ability to shut off the opponent’s Extra Deck for a whole turn was consistent and devastating enough to win games on its own. Scantum also got more consistent with Triple Tactics Thrust entering the format, letting you set a Scantum from Deck if you get hand-trapped, making a Scythe Lock on turn 1 consistent. Scythe is finally gone from the format, so we have one less turn-long game winning floodgate in the game.
Barrier Statue of the Stormwinds
From Unlimited to Forbidden
There were a few strategies that could keep up and get some success despite Tier 0 Tearlaments being a thing, and one of those Decks were Floowandereeze. The Floowandereeze strategy can be somewhat consistent, which is scary considering they were able to search for Barrier Statue of the Stormwinds and immediately Normal Summon it with great ease. What made Stormwinds so good was the fact that WIND isn’t that popular of an Attribute in the meta at all most of the time, besides the aforementioned Floowandereeze that used Stormwinds. Therefore, Stormwinds easily prevented the opponent from making plays unless they were able to out the Stormwinds, which attacking over it was hard when Floowandereeze could summon Mega Raiza on the opponent’s turn. Stormwinds is finally gone, taking out probably the only real degenrate part of the Floowandereeze strategy. The Deck could still top I believe, but it lost an easy win condition and would now have to work a little harder for it. I’ve seen consideration for Small World to get to the other Barrier Statues, which can still be strong, but not as threatening as Robina searching for Stormwinds. It doesn’t help this card’s case though when Kashtira could also access this via Raidraptor – Arsenal Falcon. Stormwinds was worthy of a ban, and honestly one day I could see the other 5 Statues going with it.
Tearlaments Kitkallos
From Unlimited to Forbidden
We finally hit the actual Tearlaments hits, with probably the biggest hit the Deck could ever possibly take with Kitkallos getting the banhammer. The fact it was so easy to summon Kitkallos with its pretty easy summoning materials being quickly met to summon this in Tearlaments, along with the fact this could be summoned off Instant Fusion, honestly made this one of the most degenerate Fusion Monsters we’ve ever seen. Search on summon, send a monster to grave to summon a Tearlaments (lettitng you trigger other monster effects), and milling 5 when sent to the graveyard so you can do more Tearlaments stuff. The card basically did everything Tearlaments want to do, and it wasn’t hard to access this at all. This isn’t the only Tearlaments hit on the list, but it’s the biggest one and should help slow the Deck down by a lot.
Spright Elf
From Unlimited to Forbidden
We end the Foribdden section with a hit to Spright to ensure Tearlaments don’t take all the hits it does while Spright gets off completely scott-free. In this case, we decided to ban Spright Elf over in the TCG. Spright Elf was probably the best Spright card in the archetype considering how generic it is. Any Deck running a Level 2 could run this, and in return you get a monster to revive your Level 2 you used as material while also giving your boss monsters protection from targeting effects. It was ran fairly often outside Spright as long as the Deck had a Level 2 monster to work with to summon it, but it was especially good in Spright since they were the Level 2 monster archetype. Elf helped the Spright Deck summon Toadally Awesome as consistently as possible while giving it targeting protection and the ability to be used again by reviving it. It also extended your Spright combos to help do Gigantic Spright plays to get to Carrot or Red or helped make other Rank 2 Xyzs like Mannequin Cat or Djinn Buster potentially. Spright Elf is one of many broken Link Monsters, so it’s not surprising to see it be the 16th Link currently banned.
Agido the Ancient Sentinel and Kelbek the Ancient Vanguard
From Unlimited to Limited
We reach the Limited section of the list and I’m about to group some cards together to save time considering they got limted for the same reason. The first pair of cards I’ll talk about is Agido the Ancient Sentinel an Kelbek the Ancient Vanguard. All their effects are somewhat decent, but the selling point to the both of them were the ability to mill 5 cards just for being sent from the hand or Deck to the graveyard. This allowed for a ton of milling for multiple different strategies that love having graveyard setup, giving any Deck that could run these cards a nice advantage over other strategies. It was highly consistent milling and you got a good amount of it as well to help Decks like Tearlaments combo off. Both cards being at 1 makes this far less consistent, which is perfect.
Keldo the Sacred Protector and Mudora the Sword Oracle
From Unlimited to Limited
Now I couldn’t talk about the millers being hit without the shufflers as well, cause all 4 of these cards needed to go to 1. Keldo the Sacred Protector and Mudora the Sword Oracle were extremely easy to get into the graveyard, and as a result you get easy graveyard disrption or recycling depending of 3 cards depending on what you need at a given moment. This honestly hurt rogue strategies pretty well since some of them need cards in the graveyard. To be able to consistently get these in the graveyard to disrupt those plays really hurt many strategies while boosting those that didn’t really need said boost like Tearlaments. Just like Agido and Kelbek, both Keldo and Mudora both needed to go to 1 to make this far less consistent and now players can worry about them far less.
Tearlaments Havnis, Tearlaments Merrli, and Tearlaments Schiern
From Unlimited to Limited
We end all the hits to Tearlaments with a 3-for-1 special as we see the 3 main girls in the Main Deck all go to 1. Now they offer a lot more on their own compared to the Ishizu cards, but they all got limited for basically the same reason, and that’s due to them being easy to mill to result in multiple Fusion Summons by using your graveyard as material. Havnis also offering Turn 0 plays and Schiern being able to Special Summon itself while triggering effects like the Ishizu cards or other Tearlaments is also strong, and Merrli just getting a mill on summon was great along with it being a Level 2, though that wouldn’t matter as much now that Spright Elf is gone. All 3 of these had their own ways of milling that was fairly easy to pull off, but they also give you far fewer ways to Fusion Summon in Tearlaments now that all 3 are at 1.
Ancient Fairy Dragon
From Forbidden to Limited (Effective March 10th, 2023)
The final limit on the list is actually a card coming back from the Forbidden section, but it isn’t coming back immediately. The reason this takes effect on March 10th is because that’s when it should be getting a reprint with a brand new errata to make the card more fair. Ancient Fairy Dragon is coming back to the game, but not exactly as we once knew it. Both the effects to summon a Level 4 or lower monster from the hand and popping a Field Spell to search another are both hard once per turns now, but that’s not the only change, as the Field Spell you search must have a different name from the one destroyed. This does limit the Decks that can use it somewhat, or it forces them to run other Field Spells to make use of the 2nd effect. It’s still a good card, and fairly easy to summon with Destrudo, but you got to make changes to your Deck to make use of the Field Spell search and you can’t use the effect multiple times, though that doesn’t matter currently since the card is at 1, though I expect it to change soon.
Destrudo the Lost Dragon’s Frission
From Limited to Unlimited
Now we get to the cards that are off the list competely and are legal to play at 3, starting with a card you only really play 1 of to being with. Destrudo is a very powerful card, but the Decks that ran it usually could get it in the graveyard easily, hence why they only ever ran a single copy. Putting it to 3 does make it more consistent if you don’t mind drawing it, but it’s fairly bricky to run multiple copies. The card wasn’t doing that much, hence why it came up the list instead of going back to the Forbidden section. Destrudo is a strong card still, but having it at 1 or 3 doesn’t really matter since the former is all the card will ever be played at unless Decks really want to draw it for it to do its thing.
Jet Synchron
From Limited to Unlimited
Another card going from 1 to 3 that usually only ever saw play at 1 to begin with, Jet Synchron is completely off the list with Halqifibrax gone. The only time I can recall this being worth playing at 3 was when players wanted to draw it to get to Halqifibrax off it alone since it could revive itself with a discard, and even then you could just instead run 3 Tuning and 1 of this. Besides summoning Halq as fast as you can, other Decks like Synchrons really only use this at a single copy since they can access it easily and the revival effect is a once per Duel effect, making other copies dead unless you want its effect when used as Synchro Material. It’s another card that didn’t really need to be at 1 anymore, so seeing it at 3 to clean the list is fine.
Mecha Phantom Beast O-Lion
From Limited to Unlimted
The final card to take the hit for Halqifibrax’s sins is O-Lion, though this card might also have to thank Mecha Phantom Beast Auroradon for finding a place on here to begin with. Both Auroradon and Halqifibrax both summoned O-Lion from Deck easily, and using it as material for a Synchro or Link helped extend plays by summoning another Mecha Phantom Beast Token. Now that we are in an era without either Halqifibrax or Auroradon, the only Deck that’ll really only ever run this is Mecha Phantom Beasts, which I’m sure they actually appreciate having 3 of this now instead of just 1. Honestly, like Jet Synchron, this is probably a card that should of never found its way onto the list to begin with.
Servant of Endymion
From Limited to Unlimited
In today’s installment of doing everything to boost Pendulums without actually giving the mechanic back Heavymetalfoes Electrumite, here we have Servant of Endymion going back from 1 copy to 3. Pendulums still aren’t doing anything, especially Endymion variants, so seeing Servant come back to 3 should help with that. Having this more constently to get access to Endymion the Mighty Master of Magic from the Deck is pretty nice, plus it gives Endymion another low Scale again to help their Pendulum Summons. I get why Servant was limited to begin with, but that was a couple of years ago, and we are far past the point of having to worry about Endymion in the meta, especially since we still don’t have Electrumite in the TCG.
True King Lithosagym, the Disaster
From Limited to Unlimited
Now we look at a card that wasn’t really seeing all that much play at 1, as True King Lithosagym, the Disaster finally returns to 3 copies per Deck. The only real Deck that would want to make use of this still is Dinosaurs, since it could destroy Babycerasaurus and Petiteranodon to help summon more Dinosaurs from Deck while potentially hitting the opponent’s Extra Deck if you actually destroyed 2 EARTH monsters off this. Dinosaurs haven’t been doing much ever since Miscellaneosaurus went to 1, and True King Dinosaur variants don’t have that much of an easy time with Denglong, First of the Yang Zing and True King of All Calamities both being banned while Dragonic Diagram remains at 1. Having 3 Lithosagym could mean that Dinosaurs could see it more consistently, but the power level of the game shouldn’t make it anything to worry about.
Yata-Garasu
From Limited to Unlimited
The last monster to go back to 3 is the legendary Yata-Garasu. Seeing this back at 3 just proves we are far past the point of having to worry about the Yata Lock in 2023. Sure the ability to turn off the opponent’s Draw Phase does seem powerful, but there’s a lot that goes into it for Yata still. Your opponent has to have a clear board for Yata to be able to get the attack in to deal damage, and you also have to ensure the opponent has no cards in hand so they can’t keep making other plays. It also doesn’t help that now you also have to worry about graveyard effects that could also help the opponent get back into the Duel. The Yata Lock isn’t consistent anymore, and there’s a lot of factors to consider if you even want to pull it off to begin with. As a result, the card is welcome back to 3 in the modern game, 20 years after it was initially released and wrecked havoc on the meta.
SPYRAL Resort
From Limited to Unlimited
We are at the final change of the list, as we give SPYRAL a bone with their Field Spell returning to 3 after a while. SPRYAL Resort is a very strong Field Spell for the archetype, searching for any monster within it as well as giving your SPYRAL monsters some targeting protection to boot. Honestly, the Deck really needed something like SPYRAL Resort to 3 if we are still going to keep SPYRAL Master Plan locked up and banned for the time being, cause that’s really what the archetype honestly needs to be able to compete in the modern game. So besides Master Plan, you only had Quik-Fix or Resort left to consider giving a boost to, and Resort is probably more fair since it can’t be a Machine Duplication target to get a ton of searches.
In Conclusion
This was a really massive list for putting Tearlaments in check. Banning their best Fusion monster while also limiting the Ishizu cards and the 3 Fusion Summoners is a big consistency hit. With that said, it’s also possible to play the Deck still I feel like since you still got 3 Planet and 3 Reinoheart to help get some consistency for your plays, and the Kashtira cards do help with the addition of their Planet and Tearlaments Kashtira. Seeing the hit to Spright Elf as well does show that Konami wants Kashtira to be successful over here, so they had to hit the other Deck it would have to worry about. Spright is also still playable, since all that Level 2 goodstuff is still fairly strong, and pure Spright can still play with the Bujin Link to make Toadally Awesome still. Ancient Fairy Dragon back with the errata is fine, and all the unlimits are fair as well. Considering Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos just came back in Master Duel and is likely bound for the OCG with the FIRE Duelist Pack coming over there soon, it would of been nice if the TCG just put Blaster to 1 over here right now as well. Despite that, it’s a good list to limit the dominance of Tearlaments and give a decent hit to Spright while keeping both still playable actually, depsite the Tear Deck taking 8 hits. It’s clear now that Kashtira is primed to be the best Deck, so enjoy your field getting locked down this format I guess.
Thanks for reading,
Crunch$G
