Hello Pojo Readers, Crunch$G back with the last of the Forbidden cards in the game before I move on to the limited section. I’ve been through all the Monsters and Spells so far, so it’s time to end with the Traps. Now, Traps typically have the setback of having to be set in order to be activated, so that kinda curves the power of them somewhat, but there have still been some Traps good enough to be banworthy, and in my opinion most of these Traps still look banworthy to me. We’ve had iconic Traps like Mirror Force and Solemn Judgment banned, but those have since returned to the game and these are the Traps that remain Forbidden.
Last Turn
Well what a way to start this whole thing off. Last Turn is a Trap Card that can only be activated during the opponent’s turn when your life points are 1000 or below, you then select 1 monster on your side of the field and send every other card from both fields and hands to the graveyard except the selected monster of course, then your opponent Special Summons a monster from their deck in Attack Position and attacks your monster, the player whose monster remains alone on the field at the end of the turn wins the duel and anything else (whether it is both monsters being gone or both staying on the field) ends the duel in a draw. Oh, where to begin. First off the 1000 or less life points means you are losing the duel and are likely activating this as your last hope, or purposely got your life points to 1000 with something like Wall of Revealing Light and have some BS up your sleeve with this. One problem with this card is if you control something like Jowgen and target it with Last Turn, your opponent cannot summon anything from their deck due to Jowgen and you win by default, which can be an undeserving win for you if they were pushing you in the entire duel and you just summon a Jowgen and activate this. Another thing is you controlling a monster that cannot be destroyed in battle, basically forcing a draw unless your opponent can summon a monster that’ll destroy yours by a card effect through that battle or in a mirror match if you control the monster in the deck that has the highest ATK, then your opponent’s strongest monster that they could summon likely has the same ATK, both will kill each other and you got a draw. This card has a ton of problems around it which warranted it going from semi-limited to banned in March of 2006.
Yeah, let’s not return Last Turn. This card is going to promote a ton of draws and some shenanigans with Jowgen or some other monster that prevents your opponent from Special Summoning like Fossil Dyna. Last Turn is a weird and poorly designed card in general and I’m fine with it not being in the game.
Return From a Different Dimension
Basically think of Dimension Fusion that only summons your banished monsters, is a Trap, has a higher or lower cost depending on how many life points you have, and the monsters you summon are banished again at the end of the turn. That’s Return From a Different Dimension in a nutshell. It’s a Normal Trap that upon activation lets you pay half of your life points to Special Summon as many of your banished monsters as possible, but banish them again during your End Phase if they are still on the field. This card was limited on the same Forbidden and Limited List that Dimension Fusion was banned on and for good reason, but it wasn’t banned mostly since it was slower as a Trap, but the future will later prove that it being a Trap didn’t make it any less powerful. Dragon Rulers were able to easily abuse this, even after their babies were banned since this card could summon the Dragon Rulers you banished and maybe some Level 1 Dragon Tuners you played with the Rulers for Synchro Plays and let you deal more damage along with opening up Rank 7 Xyzs and Level 8 Synchros to be summoned so the monsters you summoned with this weren’t banished. Basically OTK or make a board with this. This card proved that being a Trap didn’t make this card that much worse than Dimension Fusion except for the fact you had to wait a turn, but the cost makes up for it since it’ll always be live as long as you have more than 1 life point. Of course, this card got banned in January of 2014.
This card shouldn’t return just like Dimension Fusion. It’ll just promote you OTKing or making a big board. A deck like Kozmos could make good use of this summoning pilots and attacking with them, just to banish them with their own effects for the big ships. There are a ton of decks that use banishing that would like this card, so it’ll be safe to keep this out of the game just like Dimension Fusion.
Royal Oppression
Vanity’s Emptiness wasn’t the first Trap of a kind. Royal Oppression is a Continuous Trap that lets either player pay 800 life points to negate the Special Summon of a monster or the activation of an effect that would Special Summon a monster and destroy that card. Basically, just like with Vanity’s Emptiness, make your board and then set this to prevent your opponent from making a board. Don’t get me started on you doing damage to your opponent as well so they have less life points to use your own Royal Oppression against you. Royal Oppression is a very powerful Trap that most certainly got better as the game got faster, especially after Phantom Darkness and later Synchros were introduced into the game. Royal Oppression was just destined to be banned and that’s what happened in September of 2011.
I don’t think Royal Oppression should return ever. It’s too easy to set up a board and then set this, also this card is less fragile than Vanity’s Emptiness since it doesn’t destroy itself when you lose a card, meaning your opponent has to directly answer this. There are a lot more Special Summons now and with those Special Summons, you can be selective with what you pay 800 to negate or just negate the first thing if you know it’ll stop your opponent’s turn. Imagine this with a board full of monsters that can negate things as well. This card is unhealthy for the game.
Self-Destruct Button
If there is one card that I could immediately point to and ask what the point of ever printing it was, it’s Self-Destruct Button. Self-Destruct Button is a Normal Trap that can only be activated when the difference between both player’s life points is 7000 or more and this card then immediately makes both player’s life points become 0. Imagine building a deck around this card? What would you even be trying to achieve? You should be building decks to win games and Self-Destruct Button doesn’t win you a game, just forces a draw. That’s just dumb and pointless. And imagine this in tournaments when you’re losing, you just play this and have a draw to make sure the match doesn’t end and you don’t fall behind your opponent. This card promotes nothing good for the game and Konami banned it in January of 2014. It isn’t the most powerful card in the game, but it is the dumbest without debate. At least every other card is printed with some intention on trying to win you a game.
Read above and you’ll probably have an idea on if I think this should come back or not. I don’t even know why the OCG is allowing this still?
Sixth Sense
Well what a story behind this card. Sixth Sense is a Normal Trap that lets you call two numbers between 1 and 6 and then roll a dice and if you roll a number you declared you draw the amount of cards the number on the dice says but if you roll a different number on the dice you send the top cards from your deck to the graveyard equal to the result. So basically draw cards or send cards from the deck to the graveyard. Most players would declare 5 or 6 for the 33.3% chance of going plus 4 or 5 off this one card alone. I know it is a one in three chance, but you still shouldn’t go plus 4 or 5 off one card so the OCG banned this in March of 2005 and probably never spoke of it again. The TCG however had this card printed 10 years after the OCG printed it and somebody thought in October of 2013 to make this card legal for a format in the TCG since they were finally printing it. This was at a time now where graveyard effects were entering the game somewhat with Dragon Rulers being a thing since all the big ones were still at three. Even in 2013, the plus 4 or 5 off this card was still dumb but in decks where you wanted to mill, you might of called 3 or 4 if you would of liked to draw a good amount of cards but at the same time would like a mill 5 or 6, or just declare 1 or 2 if you really wanted a decent mill. This card was still dumb in 2013 and they rebanned it in January of 2014 as they probably planned.
I get why they unbanned it in October of 2013 if I’m being honest. They were finally printing the card in the TCG and they decided to give the players a little bit of time to actually play with it over here since the OCG did get to play with it, though I don’t know why they didn’t do the same with Temple of the Kings when it was finally printed over here… or maybe they knew more FTKs might of come from that with all the drawing Traps. Anyway, Sixth Sense might of been cool for TCG players to play in 2013 after so long of it not even being printed over here, but it is now banned again and I’m sure everyone is fine with it staying that way.
Time Seal
Yata in Trap form basically. Time Seal is a Normal Trap that skips your opponent’s next Draw Phase, meaning they don’t get to draw for their turn. Yeah, this sounds like it’ll hurt a player really bad in an era where the draw is much more important since there aren’t as many cards or combinations of cards to generate massive advantage. Shutting your opponent from their draw is big, especially in slower times as I mentioned, so it was destined to be banned and it was in April of 2006. It is almost a one-for-one, only instead of taking away an opponent’s resource, you are instead preventing them from getting new resources. Just imagine if this was a Spell card.
If there was one banned Trap that I would feel the safest about returning, it might have to be this one, and that says something considering what this card does. In 2019, the best decks in the game are typically very good at generating massive advantage even outside their draw phase. Plus, by the time you could activate this and skip an opponent’s Draw Phase, your opponent might of already set up a board that you’ll struggle to clear out and they wouldn’t need more resources. It’s an iffy card to return still, because it will hurt slower decks in the game today even when some of them can still generate advantage, but it’s the safest of any of these Traps that are banned to be honest. I mean, would you rather have this or Sixth Sense back? Yeah, I’ll go with Time Seal.
Trap Dustshoot
Now we basically get The Forceful Sentry in Trap Form with some more limitations to it. Trap Dustshoot is a Normal Trap that can only be activated when your opponent has four or more cards in their hand, you then look at their hand and select a monster in it if they have one and shuffle it into their deck. A one for one is good since you don’t want to minus unless there are strong benefits, putting a card back into the deck meaning it’s harder to access or your opponent has to waste a search to get it back when they wanted to search something else, and information about your opponent’s hand. This card is very good early in the game, especially when the duel starts and your opponent draws for turn, you immediately get to know what they have for you so you can know what you should negate maybe or at the very least know what’s coming. Plus, every deck runs monsters and your opponent is likely to have one if they have 4 or more cards in their hand. This card is very good and was banned in March of 2012 because of the information it provided along with ruining your opponent’s plan.
I said Confiscation and The Forceful Sentry shouldn’t return, and I don’t think a Trap that is very similar to them shouldn’t return either. That information is key to winning a game potentially as well as since you have to use it when your opponent has a ton of cards in their hand, you will get a ton of knowledge on what they have. It’s easier to have 4 or more cards in your hand now a days when decks easily gain advantage as the game has sped up. Trap Dustshoot is very strong and I’m fine if it stays banned, though this might be the second safest Trap to return to the game behind Time Seal.
Ultimate Offering
The last card on the Forbidden List that was banned on that September 2013 list I’ve mentioned a few times, and this one is a doozy. Ultimate Offering is a Continuous Trap that lets you pay 500 life points to conduct another Normal Summon during your Main Phase or your opponent’s Battle Phase. With so many monsters that generate advantage off a Normal Summon, this card was going to be very strong of course. The best cards to use this are the Gadget monsters since they all search each other and they are Level 4, meaning a ton of Rank 4 Spam. Madolche could make use of this as well with so many cards they’d like to Normal Summon. A ton of decks would love extra Normal Summons, players were using Brilliant Fusion and Gem-Knight Garnet with LIGHT monsters when Brilliant was at three just to summon Seraphinite and get one additional Normal Summon, so of course decks would love Normal Summons at the expense of their life points when life points don’t feel like they matter unless they are about to or hit 0. Ultimate Offering was a card with so much power and potential to be offered and as I mentioned, it was banned in September of 2013 in the TCG.
The card pool is expanding, meaning there are more monsters that love to be Normal Summoned added every set basically. This card will be used in decks with tons of monsters that want to be Normal Summoned and that’ll generate a ton of advantage, so I think Ultimate Offering can stay banned for a while longer.
Vanity’s Emptiness
I mentioned with Kaiser Colosseum that when it was banned, it felt like they meant to ban Vanity’s Emptiness instead, though that was a joke and I’m sure they meant to ban Kaiser Colosseum as I don’t know how you could confuse these two cards. Anyway, Vanity’s Emptiness is a Continuous Trap that prevents both players from Special Summoning, but with a catch as if a card is sent from your field or deck to the graveyard then Vanity’s Emptiness is destroyed. It’s like Royal Oppression, only without a life point cost and easier for you to turn off. Just like with Royal Oppression, you could set up your board and set this card to prevent your opponent from setting up a board or at the very least disrupt them and have them waste a card or effect and then they get rid of one of your cards so Emptiness blows itself up. If your opponent can’t get rid of it, you can activate a card that won’t waste your card advantage to get an effect and then it’ll go to the graveyard so Vanity’s Emptiness blows itself up and you can do your Special Summoning. The card is very unfair and its fragility is what makes it abusable, so it was banned in the TCG in March of 2017, funny enough the list after Kaiser Colosseum was banned so maybe they did confuse the two, lol.
Vanity’s Emptiness gets better as the game gets faster, so it should stay banned. Now you can set up much bigger and better boards than in 2017, though maybe not considering that was the year of Zoodiac and True Draco, but still you can get a ton of negates and this on the field. Vanity’s Emptiness is on the same level as Royal Oppression with each having pros and cons, so Vanity’s Emptiness can stay banned just like Royal Oppression.
In Conclusion
Well despite the reputation that Spells are better than Traps, it seems like the banned Traps are very strong, though that’s maybe cause there are a few of them and therefore its more likely to have less cards safe to come back with a smaller pool, and as you saw the card I felt safest with was one I was still iffy with. These Traps are very strong and I don’t know if any of them are coming back soon, but now a days it feels like Traps, while some are still good, are more balanced now and I can only count on one hand more Traps that have an argument for being banworthy, but that’s a discussion for a different time. Now that the Forbidden cards are done, I can get into the Limited Section of the list, which I’ll do with the first of two Limited Main Deck Monster articles.
Thanks for Reading,
Crunch$G
