Breaking Down the Yu-Gi-Oh F/L List (Part 5): Forbidden Spells 2/2
Crunch$G
Hello Pojo Readers, Crunch$G back with the second batch of Forbidden Spells to look at as I get closer to finishing the Forbidden Section, after this all I got left are the Traps before I look at Limited cards. Let’s get into the rest of the banned Spells.
Mass Driver
When I talked about Substitoad I got into the FTK that Frogs had with Mass Driver, and that FTK got Substitoad and Mass Driver banned, so let’s see what makes Mass Driver so good. Mass Driver is a Continuous Spell that tributes a monster to deal 400 burn damage to the opponent. This is not a once per turn, so you can do this as much as you want. It is basically Cannon Soldier if it did 100 less damage and didn’t have to be summoned, so in a way it is better than Cannon Soldier in the latter regard. If you can summon at least 20 monsters in your turn, you can use Mass Driver to achieve an FTK. As I also mentioned with Substitoad, it was banned in September of 2010 while Mass Driver was banned in March of 2011. I guess they only thought Substitoad was the problem, then saw people finding more FTKs with Mass Driver, so they went ahead and banned it and I wonder why they don’t do the same for other burn monsters.
Mass Driver needs a once per turn badly. FTKs are easier with Mass Driver than they are with something like Cannon Soldier or Amazoness Archer since you don’t have to invest resources into trying to summon Mass Driver, just draw it, and you can make your deck consistent enough to draw into Mass Driver. I hate these burn cards that cause FTKs and Mass Driver is no exception, no need for it in the game.
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is one of the two iconic Spells from the beloved Goat Format, being a simple Spell that had you tribute a monster to Special Summon a Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck with the same level. You could easily use Scapegoat on your opponent’s turn to get four Goat Tokens and then use Metamorphosis to turn a token into a Thousand-Eyes Restrict, or if you didn’t have the Goats you could turn something like Airknight Parshath into Dark Balter the Terrible, which was very good in 2005. There are many other options that I won’t go into, but they espeically got better overtime when you could turn a Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning that banished something into a Cyber Twin Dragon. We saw how good this card could be and it was limited in September of 2005 and stayed limited because of how good it was, they did try to semi-limit it in March of 2007 but straight up banned it the very next list in September. Metamorphosis made summoning so many Fusions very easy.
Now a days, I’m tempted to say Metamorphosis can return, though maybe that isn’t a good idea. The Last Warrior from Another Planet will be a great target for this, and it’s Level 7, meaning you can use Destrudo’s effect to make sure you can summon a Level 7 Synchro and use Metamorphosis on it for The Last Warrior. It’ll be harder to get a Level 10 for Naturia Exterio thankfully, as you don’t see Level 10s every day. Not every deck can fit in a Destrudo, though. Also you don’t have to worry about Level 4s since Norden is banned and there isn’t really other good Fusions to summon with Level 4. Level 5 still has something like Dark Balter and Level 6 has Ryu Senshi, but they are not as good in 2019. A Level 1 for Thousand-Eyes won’t be as powerful as it was in 2005 either. I don’t know how broken Metamorphosis can be, it is risky, but I’d like to try it for a format at least.
Mirage of Nightmare
A card that tried to be balanced by having a downside, but that downside was sadly too easy to get around. Mirage of Nightmare is a Continuous Spell that lets you draw until you have 4 cards in your hand during your opponent’s Standby Phase, but during your next Standby Phase you have to discard cards at random equal to the number you drew, or your entire hand if you have less cards in your hand than what you drew. I get them trying to balance it by making you draw on your opponent’s turn and discarding on your turn, but it is still easy to get around just by using something like Mystical Space Typhoon or Dust Tornado on this. You basically plussed more than the minus with MST/Dust Tornado and Mirage of Nightmare or you went ahead and discarded since you drew maybe one card since you had three in your hand. It is very easy to empty your hand in the right circumstances and starting with 6 cards means you can easily have less than 4 for Mirage, you basically have to work with 5 other cards since one was obviously the Mirage of Nightmare. People got around the downside too easily, even if your opponent could destroy it before you drew, so Konami banned it in April of 2005.
Mirage of Nightmare is another card that cannot come back. In 2019, we have three Mystical Space Typhoon, three Heavy Storm Duster, three Twin Twisters, three Cosmic Cyclone, and three Dust Tornado that can get rid of this along with other more niche cards like Twister. Plus, you can empty your hand on your opponent’s turn with hand traps if you drew enough of them to draw with Mirage of Nightmare since your hand will have less cards after the hand trap does its thing. Mirage of Nightmare is still exploitable like it was in 2005.
Painful Choice
Arguably one of the best cards in this game’s existence, Painful Choice is a Normal Spell that makes you choose 5 cards in your deck and reveal them to your opponent to have them choose one and add it to your hand while the others go to the graveyard. This was literally a pick your poison for your opponent. This could set up the infamous Yata/CED combo with great ease by putting LIGHTs and DARKs in the graveyard and let you use a Monster Reborn or maybe a Premature Burial for a Sangan or Witch of the Black Forest, then summon Chaos Emperor Dragon and nuke everything, along with that Sinister Serpent your opponent likely gave you and you wanted in the graveyard. Witch/Sangan then searched for Yata and you know the rest. Even beyond that, back in the day there were a ton of power cards that are banned now that you could reveal with this and you had cards like Magician of Faith and Mask of Darkness viable enough to get back whatever Painful Choice didn’t add. You could also put bigger monsters in the grave like Jinzo or Airknight Parshath or Dark Magician of Chaos to revive with Monster Reborn, Call of the Haunted, or Premature Burial. Painful Choice makes your opponent pick their poison and it was banned in April of 2005 for being so good.
Painful Choice cannot come back. It is still a pick your poison card, but now it can trigger a mass amount of monster effects when it sends them to the graveyard. Imagine Painful Choice in something like Burning Abyss, it’s like asking your opponent which BA do you not want to trigger immediately and instead sit under my Dante? Painful Choice will be painful to deal with in the metagame and is not welcome back into the game.
Pot of Avarice
There are so many good Spells with Pot in their name and Pot of Avarice is no exception. Avarice is a Normal Spell that shuffles 5 monsters back into your deck and if you do, you draw 2 cards. It’s a pretty good card for recycling and plussing. It does take a bit of setup, though, as you can tell with the 5 monsters, but for some decks getting 5 monsters in the grave is no problem and the draw 2 is more than worth it. It can be a very strong card and it was banned in the TCG in September of 2013 in that infamous list I mentioned that split the OCG and TCG into two separate lists and formats. The OCG however chose not to ban this and not too long ago they put this card back at three.
Now a days, I think the TCG can start to move Pot of Avarice back to three. Decks now don’t want cards in their deck that they can’t use immediately unless it has some major benefit, and I don’t think the draw 2 is enough of a benefit in decks that plus an insane amount. Back a few years ago, decks were slow enough to where you could wait for Pot of Avarice to be live, but fast enough to make it live in a duel to begin with. Now, games are too fast to have dead cards in your hand, and Pot of Avarice is dead early game. I think it being at three in the TCG won’t be a problem, but slowly bring it back into the format first since we do have Danger! over here.
Pot of Greed
The most iconic card in the game’s history, Pot of Greed. For those that might not of heard of this card somehow, Pot of Greed is a Normal Spell that lets you draw 2 cards… yeah, that’s it. Back in the day, games were much slower, so Pot of Greed added some speed to the game, even with it just being at one since it’s release before cards were really getting banned. Even after they started banning cards, Pot of Greed stayed around. As the game began to pick up the pace a little, they opted to ban Pot of Greed in October of 2005 where it has stayed ever since because drawing 2 was beginning to get too absurd with how fast the game was beginning to come.
In 2019, Konami needs to put some restrictions and downsides on cards just to make the draw 2 effect seem balanced, what makes you think the card that lets you draw 2 with no downside will be healthy for the game? Too easy of a +1 to even consider returning ever. Not much to say about an effect that is three words and so simple.
Premature Burial
Premature Burial is a revival card that is better than Monster Reborn because of how much more abusable it is over Reborn. Premature Burial is an Equip Spell that makes you pay 800 life points to revive any monster in your graveyard and when this card is destroyed, that monster is destroyed. Note how the monster is only destroyed when Premature Burial was destroyed, that is where the exploit comes in. You could bounce this back to your hand with Giant Trunade to get your Premature Burial back to your hand while at the same time keeping the monster Premature Burial revived, meaning you could use Premature Burial to get two monsters at the cost of a simple 1600 life points. With Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier also in the OCG and on its way to the TCG, Premature Burial is going to be summoning a lot of monsters, especially in combination with Card of Safe Return from the last part. Premature Burial was going to get better as more cards that returned your cards to your hand entered the game so it was banned in September of 2008.
Even with Brionac having an errata and Giant Trunade still being banned, Premature Burial coming back will limit card design. Something like Blackwing – Zephyros the Elite can help you abuse the Premature Burial, even if it is only once, but that one time can cause so many plusses. That and I’m sure players will find other ways to return the Premature Burial to the hand. Premature Burial needs an errata to where the monster is destroyed if Premature Burial leaves the field, not just when it is destroyed (also obviously being an Equip, the Premature Burial is destroyed when the monster is no longer on your field). A hard once per turn might be useful on Premature Burial as well just in case, then after those changes you got a revival card that is still great but slightly worse than Monster Reborn since MST will be able to stop it.
Rank-Up-Magic Argent Chaos Force
I never thought this card would of ever been banned, but here we are. This RUM is a Normal Spell that ranks-up a Rank 5 or higher into a Number C or CXyz that is 1 Rank higher than the Rank 5, which is cute and caused for some FTK/OTKs with Number C9, but that isn’t really what got this card banned. Argent Chaos Force returned from your graveyard to your hand once per duel if you summoned any Rank 5 or higher monster. This could be useful in Pendulum Magician with Norito the Moral Leader to get back Argent Chaos Force, which you were discarding with a Utopia monster on the field to summon Utopic ZEXAL to lock your opponent from playing the game. I find it odd they didn’t ban Utopic ZEXAL, but they must of thought the players weren’t going to really want to play a Rank-Up-Magic that wasn’t Argent Chaos Force, so they banned Argent Chaos Force in May of 2018.
I don’t even think this card is a real problem. With the Number C9 OTK/FTKs, you can easily put the problem on something like Number C9 or maybe even Number 6 since they loved using those two in that FTK. With the ZEXAL lock, the problem is obviously Utopic ZEXAL, so I don’t get why that isn’t banned. It still shuts down your opponent from doing anything really, and that isn’t fun. I don’t get why this was the card to go, but it is what it is I guess.
Snatch Steal
Remember how Change of Heart was when I talked about it? Well they tried to make a version with more downsides here, but not enough downsides to prevent it from being broken. Snatch Steal is an Equip Spell that you equip to an opponent’s monster which then gives control of that monster to you as long as you control Snatch Steal, also your opponent gains 1000 life points during each of their Standby Phases. This didn’t matter mostly when you kept the monster as long as your opponent didn’t get rid of the Snatch Steal, and you likely steal something with 1000 or more ATK to do damage with if you aren’t tributing it for a Tribute Summon to get rid of every downside Snatch Steal has. They banned this first in September of 2006, but brought it back in March of 2007 just to ban it for good in September of 2007… in the OCG. In January of 2015, someone thought in the TCG that Snatch Steal was fine to return with three MST and other backrow removal, though this is before Twin Twisters, Cosmic Cyclone, and Heavy Storm Duster. It proved that even with all the backrow removal, resolving a Snatch Steal was too good with Xyz and Synchro Summoning in the game so they rebanned it in April of 2015 after they saw their mistake. People were even running something like Hidden Armory just to search the one of Snatch Steal.
The card was insane when the TCG had it in 2015 and the card isn’t one of those that gets powercrept that easily, and it hasn’t within these last 4 years. It’s arguably gotten better with Link Summons now since there’s easier ways to get rid of what you steal with this. Sure we got more removal for it, but having outs to a card doesn’t make it balanced when it almost wins the game if it resolves. Snatch Steal can stay banned this time around, let’s experiment with something else next time. I appreciate them trying something different in 2015 and I wish they did it more, but next time try it with a more balanced card.
Soul Charge
The most recent addition to the Forbidden Spells is Rekindling for every deck basically. Soul Charge is a Normal Spell that revives as many monsters from your graveyard as you want, just as long as they can be revived, but you lose 1000 life points for each monster revived and you cannot conduct your Battle Phase the turn you activate this card. This was legal at a time Monster Reborn isn’t, which I find weird still even with the downsides it had. This card at three made Sylvans the best they possibly could of been as a Tier 1 contender, especially since Soul Charge helped abuse Lonefire Blossom. They limited Soul Charge in October of 2014 as they should have, but you could say that wasn’t enough, even if Sylvans stopped being meta, it didn’t change the fact that many decks were playing three and they were still going to play one. It helped set up big boards, which makes up for the life points lost and no Battle Phase. It got even better with Link Summoning as it gave you a ton of more Link Material, especially if you revived Link-2 or higher monsters. It was finally banned in January of 2019 in the TCG where it belonged as it was almost an auto-win button for every deck that could use it.
Soul Charge is a card that most certainly should not come back a format after it was banned. Rekindling was limited to one and it is restricted to FIRE Monsters with 200 DEF and you lose those monsters. You don’t lose what Soul Charge brings back, which is great for boss monsters being revived, and whatever weaker monsters you revive are obviously being used as material for Extra Deck summon. Soul Charge should stay banned for now and should never return to more than one in the future.
Spellbook of Judgment
Judgment Day has arrived! In the same set we got the ever so powerful Dragon Ruler monsters, we got another card to help have another top tier contender so Dragon Rulers weren’t Tier 0, and that card was Spellbook of Judgment to help Spellbooks. Judgment is a Quick-Play Spell that during the End Phase of the turn this card was activated, you can add Spellbook Spells from your deck to your hand up to the number of Spell Cards activated after this card was activated and resolved and then you can Special Summon 1 Spellcaster monster from your deck with a Level less than or equal to the number of Spellbooks you added to your hand by this effect. The Spellbook deck was easily able to activate many Spells in a single turn, especially with Spellbook Magician of Prophecy and Spellbook of Secrets being able to get things started and searching for Spellbook of Judgment if you didn’t have it already, so Judgment was almost always adding at least 3 Spellbooks to your hand. Cards like Spellbook of the Master, The Grand Spellbook Tower, and Spellbook Star Hall were so easy to activate along with Spellbook of Secrets and having Spellbook Magician of Prophecy be a searcher, you can add this with other cards like Spellbook of Power, Spellbook of Eternity, and Spellbook of Fate in the Spellbook deck. You could also use Judgment on your opponent’s turn to search for Spellbooks up to the number of Spells your opponent uses, which is easy if you have a Spellbook mirror match. Now for the summon, Jowgen the Spiritualist was easy to summon only needed 3 Spells and then Jowgen would lock both player’s from Special Summons and hopefully you’d have a few Spellbook Star Halls to boost Jowgen’s low 200 ATK because that 1300 DEF isn’t too good either. You could also use something like Justice of Prophecy for another Spellbook search along with getting a High Priestess of Prophecy. Spellbook of Judgment allowed for so much searching and plusses in Spellbooks that it was banned in September of 2013 after only being legal for one format.
Now can Spellbook of Judgment return? Spellbooks can still do a ton of searching and Spell activating to use Spellbook of Judgment still, even with the new Spellbook of Knowledge being added to the Spellbook lineup since Judgment was banned. Plus, you can still summon Jowgen from the deck. I remember commenting on a YouTube video about how curious I was about Judgment coming back one day and someone mentioned them playing Spellbooks with Invoked to get a Mechaba and a Jowgen on the field, which does sound scary, and the synergy is there with Magical Meltdown and Invocation adding to searches for Spellbook of Judgment, along with Spellbook of Knowledge having synergy with Aleister the Invoker. With all that said, I’m still curious about seeing Spellbook of Judgment come back to one. Maybe it isn’t a good idea, but a part of me still wants to see it happen.
Super Rejuvenation
A card also banned in September of 2013, only this one to hit Dragon Rulers more than just banning all their babies, we have Super Rejuvenation, which is a card that existed long before Dragon Rulers. Super Rejuvenation is a Quick-Play Spell that lets you draw cards during your End Phase up to the number of Dragon monsters you discarded or tributed from your hand or your side of the field this turn. This was very good when the Baby Dragon Rulers and the actual Dragon Rulers were legal since they all had discard effects, plus you could tribute over Dragon Rulers you revived to play Light and Darkness Dragon, but be sure to activate Super Rejuvenation first. Super Rejuvenation was easily able to draw multiple cards in Dragon Rulers, plus if you drew into another Super Rejuvenation you could activate it and draw the same number of cards again, and you didn’t mind discarding since Dragon Rulers treated the graveyard as a second hand. Super Rejuvenation was super powerful in Dragon Rulers and it deserved its ban in September of 2013.
Now a days, the Dragon Rulers are long gone and their babies are basically vanilla monsters without the Rulers being legal. The only other deck that used Super Rejuvenation was an Exodia deck that could discard The White Stone of Legend and Blue-Eyes White Dragon with cards like Cards of Consonance and Trade-In, but that deck wasn’t good enough to get Super Rejuvenation banned before, so it’s fine for Super Rejuvenation to come back now, especially with no other decks to break it wide open, though Danger! Dragon decks might become a thing with this, but we all know Danger! monsters need to get hit still as they are as potent in as many decks as the Dragon Rulers were as their own, so maybe hit those before we see Super Rejuvenation come back.
That Grass Looks Greener
A card that made 60 card decks cool, here we have That Grass Looks Greener. That Grass Looks Greener is a Normal Spell that when you have more cards in your deck than your opponent, you can activate this card to send the top cards of your deck to the graveyard until you have the same number of cards in your deck as your opponent. This obviously isn’t going to be good with 40 some cards, the best decks to take advantage of this were those that used all 60 cards they were allowed to in the Main Deck. This card easily milled 20 cards off the top of the deck on average and allowed for many different effects to be useful. There was the downside of having a 60 card deck, meaning you wouldn’t see That Grass Looks Greener that often, but you could avoid bricking by making sure you play the best cards possible with 60 cards as well as using Left Arm Offering to search for That Grass Looks Greener because that card alone could make up for losing your whole hand with Left Arm Offering. The card was so powerful in 60 card decks that it was banned in May of 2018 after previously being limited at first in June of 2017 and people still playing 60 card decks with Grass since Left Arm Offering was still at three.
Now, I think That Grass Looks Greener won’t really make anything right now too broken. The best deck maybe would be something like Infernoids, but even then they weren’t the best deck with this card at three. Fairy Tail – Snow is gone, and that card made this very insane to use since you filled your graveyard with cards to banish with Snow. It might limit card design, but you still have the inconsistency of running 60 cards, even if you are using the best cards you could possibly use, plus you got to use Left Arm Offering if you techinically want 6 of this in your deck. I think this returning to the game won’t break anything, but it does limit future card design and the OCG has this at two, so maybe its already is limiting future card design.
The Forceful Sentry
I mentioned a trio of cards that worked with hand destruction that were banned when I talked about Confiscation and Delinquent Duo and I’ll end the Spells off with the third card in that trio, The Forceful Sentry. The Forceful Sentry is a Normal Spell that lets you look at your opponent’s hand and choose one card from their hand and shuffle it back into the deck. No life point cost like the other two, but the card doesn’t go to the graveyard which is better or worse depending on what card you choose. The Forceful Sentry was an easy staple that was easy to activate without a life point requirement just as long as your opponent had a card in their hand. Sending a card back into their deck instead of discarding it to the graveyard can be better since it is harder to get the card back into circulation if it’s in the deck vs being in the graveyard unless that card is very searchable, but then your opponent has to waste a search to get the card back instead of getting another resource they might of wanted. The only way discarding would be better like with Confiscation or Delinquent Duo is if it was something like BLS or CED because then it couldn’t be revived and you’d have to use something like Monster Reincarnation to get it back or Pot of Avarice to put it back in the deck, this card is so good and deserved its ban in April of 2005.
This card cannot return, because like Confiscation it gives you information, but you don’t have to discard the card meaning you don’t have to feel bad for picking something that has a graveyard effect because it won’t go to the graveyard. The only card you wouldn’t want to put back maybe is something that your opponent is playing just to use another card and they would of preferred if it stayed in the deck. The Forceful Sentry is too good and does not deserve to come back just like Delinquent Duo and Confiscation.
In Conclusion
Yeah, this part really proves how insane some Spells are in this game’s history, especially some of the older ones. I can never imagine a time when Spells won’t be relevant to playing this game, and there are so many banned Spells that are fine to not be relevant for a long time because they deserve to be banned at this moment and for years to come. Next time around I’ll finish off the Forbidden section with the short list of Traps that are banned and then we can finally do Limited cards.
