Monday

Well a new Ban List went into effect on Friday, so welcome to Ban List week! Hardest hit by this list were Wind-Ups and one of, if not the best, has been Banned. I mentioned before, and may continue to do so, how incredibly fast Wind-Ups are...hella fast, that much is for sure, but they are a whole lot slower with Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity Banned. It's a Rank 3 XYZ Monster, who is XYZ Summoned with two Level 3 Monsters. This is a Water attributed Machine with 1500 attack and defense. Once per turn, you can detach an XYZ Material from this Monster to Special Summon a Wind-Up Monster from your Hand OR Deck. Simply incredible right there. The speed this added to Wind-Ups was crazy, and lets you accomplish or at least set up about whatever you want. Furthermore, when a face-up Wind-Up Monster is on the Field and destroyed and sent to the Graveyard (save the Damage Step) you can detach an XYZ Material from this Monster to return that Monster to your Hand. I really like this effect too, being able to replay a Wind-Up although returning your own cards to your Hand isn't usually the best way to go about things. Here it could be awesome. The only real downside to the Carrier was the 1500 attack. Wind-Ups are brilliant, with how fast they are, how they can swamp, and recycle resources. I think it might be too early to tell if this Ban kills the Deck...maybe leaving the Restriction, and Restricting Rat and Magician (the latter happened) might have been enough.

Ratings:

Traditional: 3/5
Advanced: Banned but 5/5

Art: 5/5

This week we look at cards that were impacted by the Forbidden and Limited list change as of March 1st. Up first is the newly banned Wind-Up Zenmaity, the card that many players dreaded seeing on the other side of the field. Mainly because the infamous Wind-Up loop was never too far behind with Wind-Up Rat, Shark and anything else that would allow you to special summon another Wind-Up monster, and another, then Xyz summon. Next turn, lather rinse and repeat. I personally am glad to see this card go. It was a strong part of the Wind-Up deck and even in traditional can still wreck a lot.

Traditional: 3
Advanced: N/A

Welcome to Ban-list week! I always remember reading the reviews back in the day to give some insight into why some certain cards were hit. I always had my opinions, but by looking at others, it can help expand your knowledge! So, for today, we are going to start with a very interesting banned card. Let's take a look at Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity!

Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity
Rank 3/ Water/ Machine

2 Level 3 monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; Special Summon 1 "Wind-Up" monster from your hand or Deck. When a face-up "Wind-Up" monster on the field is destroyed and sent to your Graveyard (except during the Damage Step): You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target that monster; return that target to the hand.

1500/1500

Let's establish the fact that Wind-Ups got hit Very hard by this ban list. They lost quite a number of good cards, including a card that defined them all last year. It started with the Wind-Up Hand "Loop" that utilized 3 of this card in conjunction with Wind-Up rat and Wind-Up Hunter to rid you of 3 cards in hand before you had your first turn. Plus, if you didn't have a counter, they would have amazing field presence to wipe-you out from there.

We thought Wind-Ups were dead thanks to the limit on Zenmaity; but where we wrong. The defined last format as the most topping deck of the entire format with the most YCS Tops and almost taking 30% of all YCS Top 16's by themselves thanks to their new combo: The Shock-Lock. With 2 cards, they would disable one type of card until your next turn, usually spells if they go first.

So, the question boils down to.... what caused their dominance? Some will say Magician, others say Shark, and a couple others say Rat. However, Zenmaity is definitely a large source of these problems. Banning Zenmaity allowed tool-boxing from the deck to happen less often and forces Wind-Up players to resort to the disappointing Invoker; who still allows the shock lock (at the cost of 3 cards though, and the deck is less consistent now).

Was Zenmaity the right hit? I was surprised to say the least. I could have sworn a limit on magician on alone would fix the problems the deck had; but alas we also had this banned. I am not sad by this card being banned, but I definitely think it didn't deserve it.

Advanced: Banned

Meet your first banned xyz monster folks!

Traditional: 4.0

Spam for days my friends

Art: 2.75

I always wonder where the face is when I look at it. Haha.

This week we are going to be reviewing new additions to the ban list, starting: Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity

“2 Level 3 monsters

Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; Special Summon 1 "Wind-Up" monster from your hand or Deck. When a face-up "Wind-Up" monster on the field is destroyed and sent to your Graveyard (except during the Damage Step): You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target that monster; return that target to the hand.”

With the ban of Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity everyone thought the evil rule of the Wind-Up deck had been abolished, however they just switched to M-X Saber invoker and Summoner Monk. However, without Zenmaity the Wind-up strategy became less of a threat. Without Zenmaity it just doesn’t have the level of consistency it had. By banning Zenmaity it really only hurt Wind-Ups which, as far as bans go, was rather impressive. I really didn’t like the deck; anything that can kill ANY deck in the Meta by opening two cards is just a bit much. Don’t get me wrong I love derpy decks (Go MERMAILS!), but at least there are a large number of cards that completely shut down Mermails, Wind-Ups normally just flipped the bird at Gozen Match and played an MST. Without Zenmaity they are still a formidable deck, but not the terror inducing matchup they used to be (And for good reason!)

So after a whole format that windups should have been dead with carrier to 1, Konami finally swung the full sized ban hammer making Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity the first XYZ monster to reach banned status.

Advanced: 5/5 and BANNED! (Go Mermails!)
Traditional: 5/5 (Heck you can even hand loop in traditional WOO!)

Today's Card of the Day will start off a brand new theme: The Ban List Week. This week, we will be covering cards that has been affected by the more recent March 2013 ban list.

The first card that we will cover happen to be one of the two now Forbidden cards added to the ban list, which also happens to be the 1st Xyz Monster to get such an honor: Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity!

This card is the clear preferred target for the Wind-Up deck. It is also aided by the fact that a Tour Guide from the Underworld normal summon can go into this with just that alone.

This card gets to detach an Xyz Material to Special Summon any Wind-Up from your Deck. If you Special Summon a Wind-Up Magician, you can activate a Wind-Up Shark from your hand and Special Summon that as well. Anyone who plays competitively would know how bad the news may be when you see a Magician and Shark on the field together on Turn 1. For those who doesn't know, it doesn't end very well.

While I was, at first, in disagreement with the Zenmaity ban, that last paragraph has made me change my tune and it also made the Wind-Up Magician limit to be less impactful if Zenmaity was to stay around. After all, if you can search out the Wind-Up Magician, you can still do the loop with just a Tour Guide and a Wind-Up Shark in hand with Wind-Up Magician in the deck. Even if you have a Wind-Up Magician in the Graveyard, you can use Zenmaity to Special Summon Rat, which will get the Magician from the Graveyard, reveal Shark, Special Summon it, and do your big combo that way.

Unfortunately, the 2nd effect doesn't even matter when it comes to grading the card. It's as if the text doesn't even need to exist.

In the end, Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity is a very good card that happens to be too good in the long run and, unfortunately, has to join Trishula, Goyo Guardian, and Dark Strike Fighter for being a bit too powerful and flexible for its own good.

Traditional: 3/5 (Any card that can search out the one piece needed to get your combo off deserves respect even in that format.)

Advanced: 5/5 (This card ended up being way too good to deserved a place within this format and, therefore, earns its place in the Forbidden portion of the ban list.)

Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity
Water/Machine/Xyz/Effect/Rank3/1500/1500
2 Level 3 monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; Special Summon 1 "Wind-Up" monster from your hand or Deck. When a face-up "Wind-Up" monster on the field is destroyed and sent to your Graveyard (except during the Damage Step): You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target that monster; return that target to the hand.
March 2013 Status: Forbidden

This week we look at some of the cards who status has changed thanks to the new Ban List. First off is Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity. Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity is now Forbidden after originally being Limited. So let’s look at the card, Statswise there isn’t anything great about Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity, in fact 1500 ATK and DEF is rather low for a Rank 3. Of course it was its effects that got it banned.

The first effect is always a dangerous effect, the ability to special summon a monster from your hand or deck. It doesn’t matter what deck you play, this ability is powerful. It second effect allows you to return a Wind-Up that was destroyed (except by battle) back to your hand. Another powerful effect especially given the nature of Wind-Ups. This of course was part of the horrible Wind-Up loop that could wipe out your opponent’s hand in 1 turn.
Overall, this falls into the if it’s popular; ban it category but I guess a lot of people (except Wind-Up players) are glad this is gone.

Traditional: 4/5
Advanced: N.A/5 (Score not applicable since you can’t play it.)