Breaking Down the Yu-Gi-Oh F/L List (Part 8): Limited Main Deck Monsters 2/2
Crunch$G
Hello Pojo Readers, Crunch$G back with the second half of the Main Deck monsters that are currently limited in the TCG. This time around, I’ll be able to get into some Ritual Monsters since they do exist in the Main Deck and there are three limited. Let’s just get started, cause there’s still some good stuff left to talk about.
Inzektor Dragonfly
Order of Chaos did make Wind-Ups meta with all their support, including Zenamity, but we also got a new meta relevant archetype in that set with Inzektors. Inzektor Dragonfly is a Level 3 DARK Insect that can equip an Inzektor monster from your hand or graveyard to this card. This helps you quickly get to Hornet since that is the best one to equip as it pops things, but it could also get you into Ladybug so Inzektors can make Rank 4s and 5s on top of Rank 3s for more OTKs. If an Equip Card that is equipped to this card is sent to the graveyard, you can Special Summon an Inzektor monster from your deck that isn’t another Dragonfly. The obvious choice here was Inzektor Centipede since that card did the searching for Inzektors while at the same time using Hornet and Ladybug again. Dragonfly also boosted the Level of an Inzektor monster it was equipped to by three, but you were never equipping Dragonfly to anything really. Inzketors were easy to loop to make a board full of Xyz Monsters as well as destroying cards with Hornet so Konami did the reasonable thing and limited both Dragonfly and Hornet in September of 2012, but Inzektor Hornet recently returned to us at three so no need to talk more about it.
Dragonfly, like Hornet, is fine at three. Sure Inzektors can loop and OTK still, but that’s harder to do with more disruption and monsters having better protection from Hornet. You could easily Link Spam in Inzektors as they used to with Xyzs, but there are decks that still do it better. Inzektors are good, but not as game breaking as they once were, so Dragonfly to three won’t really do anything just like with three Hornet.
Miscellaneousaurus
Ah, who doesn’t love some good old Dinosaurs? Miscellaneousaurus is a Level 4 Dinosaur, so Fossil Dig can search it, that for one can discard itself during either player’s turn to make your Dinosaurs unaffected by your opponent’s activated effects. This helped with Souleating Oviraptor get around something like Ash Blossom if you needed to, since you want that search for a Dinosaur or a Dinosaur from the deck to the grave with it. Miscellaneosaurus could also banish itself and any other Dinosaurs from the grave to Special Summon a Dinosaur from the deck with a Level equal to the total number of Dinosaurs you banished. Miscellaneousaurus banished alone gets you to Jurrac Aeolo for the Denglong plays or maybe a Trishula. Banishing four will get you to another Oviraptor for a search, Giant Rex just to get it into circulation, or another Miscellaneousaurus for future use. The monster Miscellaneousaurus summoned from the deck was destroyed in the End Phase, but you likely used that monster for a Synchro, Xyz, or Link Summon. It helped summon Denglong, Trishula, Evolzar Laggia and Dolkka in Dinosaurs with greater ease and it got limited in September of 2017.
Miscellaneousaurus coming back to three now will make Dinosaurs almost as powerful as they were, even without Denglong because we are getting a near identical card in the World Legacy series with similar functionalities. Dinosaurs are still a good deck with one Miscellaneousaurus since other cards like the baby Dinos, Souleating Oviraptor, Fossil Dig, and Ultimate Conductor Tyranno never took a hit so Miscellaneousaurus should stay at one for now.
Morphing Jar
Another FLIP monster, this time in the limited section and it might be one of the most iconic FLIP monsters. Morphing Jar is a Level 2 that when flipped makes both players discard every card in their hand and draw 5 new cards. Three of this around could scream disaster since it helped you see five new cards to use and stop your opponent’s five new cards and whatever they already have, and it causes quick deck outs. It was limited in the TCG in October of 2004, but that didn’t stop Empty Jar from becoming a thing eventually as that deck was pretty solid at decking your opponent out. It was banned in September of 2013 in the TCG, but they eventually brought it back to one in September of 2018 likely to promote their new Danger! archetype that was a TCG exclusive.
Morphing Jar at one is fine. There are better ways to discard the Danger! monsters than with Morphing Jar, one of those cards went from forbidden to limited the same list Jar here did. Any more than one Morphing Jar and you run the risk of Empty Jar getting too consistent, so one is just fine for the game.
Night Assailant
Another powerful FLIP monster, but not because of its FLIP effect. Night Assailant is a Level 3 Fiend that destroys a monster your opponent controls when flipped. It is literally a Man-Eater Bug if this was all it did, only better as if your opponent had no monsters then you didn’t have to destroy your own. What made Night Assailant so good was that when it is sent from the hand to the graveyard, you target one FLIP monster in your graveyard, except the Night Assailant that went to the grave, and add it to your hand. This could loop forever with another copy of Night Assailant to have infinite discard fodder. It is the same reason Sinister Serpent was banned before this card was limited, and Night Assailant got limited in October of 2005 to prevent it from being looped with another Night Assailant.
Night Assailant is a card that wouldn’t have this problem if a few words were changed. If the card said “except Night Assailant” instead of “except this card” when it comes to adding back a FLIP monster, then it wouldn’t be infinite discard fodder as now it prevents you from targeting any Night Assailants. The infinite discard fodder that you immediately get, unlike with Sinister Serpent pre and post errata is why this card is limited and probably will never move up.
Performage Damage Juggler
The third card that was banned on that Adjusted List in 2016, only this time we got a card that is now limited unlike Plushfire and Ptolemaeus. Damage Juggler was one of the key consistency pieces of the Performages and Pals deck, as well as making the Brilliant Fusion engine possibly at its best when it was released. Damage Juggler could discard itself when a card or effect is activated that would inflict damage to you and Juggler will negate and destroy that card. The best use for this effect was to negate Wavering Eyes in 2015 and 2016 since that would likely be searching for something along with burning for 500 damage. You can also discard Damage Juggler during the Battle Phase to reduce the next battle damage you would take to zero and help you not get OTKed. The best effect of Juggler was you could banish it from the graveyard to search for any Performage monster. This helped get you to something like Hat Tricker since Rank 4s were the best thing during 2015-2016 and Hat Tricker helped you summon Rank 4s quicker, but you could also search for Performage Plushfire to destroy it with cards like Luster Pendulum, Wavering Eyes, and Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer in the Performages and Pals deck and before we got Pendulum Sorcerer there was the Performage Pendulum deck that was actually very interesting. Damage Juggler warranted its ban because of how splashable the Performages were and how good the Performages and Pals deck was, but it has now returned to one in February of 2018.
Damage Juggler is fine at one and maybe it can move up to two considering that ever since the TCG limited this card, the OCG brought it back to one and later two. Two Damage Juggler is fine, especially with zero Plushfire and maybe even one Plushfire won’t break two Damage Juggler. Performages are consistent, so I won’t ask for three Damage Juggler just yet, I might not even ask for the semi-limit of this card if they do give us back one Plushfire as well.
Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
The heart and soul of many Dragon decks. REDMD is a Level 10 Dragon that could Special Summon itself from your hand just by banishing a Dragon that you control, which is insanely easy to do if you are playing Dragons, which if you are playing this you are likely playing a ton of Dragons. REDMD could also Special Summon a Dragon from your hand or graveyard once per turn just as long as it wasn’t a REDMD. Dragon decks really made this card powerful, as you probably expected. Chaos Dragons easily looped this card with Lightpulsar Dragon. since REDMD could always revive a Lightpulsar Dragon in the graveyard and Lightpulsar could revive REDMD if Lightpulsar was destroyed since REDMD was DARK. Don’t forget how easily Chaos Dragons could get Dragons in the grave with pre-errataed Future Fusion sending 5 Dragons immediately since Five-Headed Dragon exists. REDMD was limited in September of 2012 to hit at the power of Chaos Dragons and other powerful Dragon decks in the future a lot.
In 2019, we now have the Guardragons that could easily summon REDMD from the deck and they can do so many powerful plays with that. REDMD is not coming back to three with the Guardragons around and I wouldn’t be shocked if REDMD eventually got banned because of the Guardragons being able to use REDMD at least two times with Elpy and Pitsy. Dragons really love REDMD, except for Blue-Eyes since they are really the only Dragon deck I ever seen that doesn’t really need this.
Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz
The best of the non-Ritual Nekroz monsters, Shurit is a Level 3 that can be used as the entire tribute for the Ritual Summon of any Nekroz Ritual. This bypassed that Trishula was a Level 9, Valkyrus was a Level 8, etc. and made the Nekroz monsters easy to summon. Don’t forget to mention as well that Nekroz of Brionac and Reinforcement of the Army could search for Shurit. Shurit would also let you add a Warrior-type Nekroz Ritual monster to your hand if it was tributed by a card effect, whether Ritual Summon or via Nekroz of Valkyrus’s draw effect. The thing is that Shurit also searched for some of the best Nekroz Rituals with Brionac, Clausolas, and Trishula being its three searchable targets. This made Nekroz so consistent and powerful that Shurit was limited in July of 2015, banned in November of 2015, and finally made its return in January of 2019.
Now, I wouldn’t mind to see Shurit at three. The consistency of Nekroz won’t be a problem anymore, especially with Nekroz of Unicore still at one, which I’ll talk about in a bit. Three Shurit won’t break anything wide open just like three Nekroz of Brionac aren’t breaking anything wide open, and we even have the Impcantations to make Nekroz more consistent. The deck will be fine with three Shurit.
Speedroid Terrortop
This one kinda stings for me since I really like this card and I like the Speedroid archetype. Speedroid Terrortop is a Level 3 that can Special Summon itself from the hand if you control no monsters, which is very easy to do at the beginning of the duel. Also, if you Normal or Special Summon Terrortop then you can add any Speedroid monster from your deck to your hand that isn’t another Terrortop. The thing is, this is a really good searcher for Speedroids, but it was better with searching for Speedroid Taketomborg since Taketomborg can Special Summon itself if you control a Speedroid, which you just likely Special Summoned Terrortop, meaning you had an immediate Rank 3. Burning Abyss loved this as another Rank 3 engine playing three Terrortop and one Taketomborg, but the deck that made this really good was Zoodiacs with getting to M-X-Saber Invoker with this combo, which Invoker could summon Ratpier and start the Zoodiac combos. Since Konami didn’t want to hit Zoo too much directly after it was released, Terrortop took the fall and was limited in June of 2017 to discourage players from summoning M-X-Saber Invoker in Zoodiac without having to use your Normal Summon since Terrortop could literally summon any Rank 3 without using up the Normal Summon.
Now I’d like to see Terrortop begin to come to two and eventually three again. For one, Speedroids would really like it since it is the best searcher they have. Secondly, the best Rank 3 in Invoker is now banned and despite Terrortop being an immediate Link-2 without a Normal Summon, that isn’t as scary as say a Link-3 or higher since a lot of cards could be a Link-2 with great ease and Terrortop and Taketomborg being WIND Machines means the best Link they could abuse is their own Speedroid Link and Platinum Gadget when they come out and I don’t think either are broken enough to keep Terrortop limited. Burning Abyss probably won’t top as much with two or three Terrortop either, even though they could make best use of the Burning Abyss Link and Terrortop/Taketomborg summons that. I’ll just leave it at this, OCG just like they have Burning Abyss at basically full power, they have two Terrortop and the BA deck isn’t that strong and while Terrortop does see play over there, it isn’t really broken I don’t believe.
SPYRAL GEAR – Drone
One Link Monster and the SPYRAL Deck was broken wide open. Drone is a Level 1 Machine with 200 ATK, meaning Machine Duplication and One for One, that when summoned lets you look at the top three cards of your opponent’s deck and rearrange them in any order. Not only does this help make SPYRAL Double Helix so good because you know what’s on top of the opponent’s deck, you can set up their draws so you know what’s coming while at the same time making sure they get the worse draws first. You will reveal the first card with Double Helix, but that’s fine because Helix will plus you so much with cards like Quik-Fix and Master Plan existing. Drone could also tribute itself to give a SPYRAL monster 500 ATK for a turn for each monster your opponent controls as well as be banished from the grave to add a SPYRAL Super Agent from the grave to the hand, which SPYRAL Tough and Double Helix would count as Super Agent as well. They had to hit SPYRAL early after Double Heix hit the TCG and they did just that by limiting Drone and the card I’ll talk about next in November of 2017.
Drone now I think can come back to three. It’s still easy to guess what’s on top of your opponent’s deck with Double Helix by using cards like Tough and Super Agent, I’m sure having one that is usable with Machine Duplication back at three won’t be too broken, unlike said other SPYRAL monster I’m about to get into. Drone will be just fine at three since the consistency of this deck is hindered.
SPYRAL Quik-Fix
Now here is where the problems came with SPYRAL. Quik-Fix is another Level 1 Machine with 500 ATK, meaning Machine Duplication and One for One again. This one upon Normal or Special Summon searches for any SPYRAL GEAR card from your deck. You got Big Red for basically having a Premature Burial for the archetype, Drone for the uses I mentioned earlier, Utility Wire for disruption, Last Resort to give a SPYRAL like Sleeper some strong protection, and Fully Armed for some field removal. There are some good cards in that list of searchable options that help gather you more plusses, and Quik-Fix isn’t a hard once per turn meaning more potential plusses, especially since Quik-Fix could be revived from the grave by discarding one card while you control SPYRAL Super Agent (or Tough/Double Helix since they count as Super Agent). Sure the Quik-Fix was banished when it left the field, but you could get around that by making a Rank 1 like Sylvan Princessprite. Quik-Fix made the SPYRAL deck so consistent with disruption and Link Spam that it was limited in November of 2017 just like Drone was.
Unlike Drone, I don’t think Quik-Fix should be at more than one. It offers so much consistency by not being a hard once per turn, especially with Machine Duplication. Machine Dupe on Quik-Fix is more powerful than a Machine Dupe on Drone to the point where I feel Drone is fine at three while Quik-Fix isn’t.
Tour Guide From the Underworld
This one lets me talk about Burning Abyss and more. Tour Guide From the Underworld is a Level 3 DARK Fiend that upon Normal Summon lets you Special Summon any Level 3 Fiend from your hand or deck with its effects negated and being unable to be used as a Synchro Material. It’s first real use of this was at the dawn of the Xyz era. When this card was first revealed in Extreme Victory, nobody saw how good it was because we didn’t have Xyzs yet, but once we got them, then Tour Guide was an immediate staple for being a quick Rank 3 for something like Number 17, Wind-Up Zenmaines, Number 20, or Leviair the Sea Dragon. The favorite Fiend to summon was pre-errata Sangan since it was a really good searcher in 2011 and 2012, especially in Dino Rabbit to search for Rescue Rabbit or using Tour Guide alone with Sangan to Xyz a Leviair to get back Rescue Rabbit to do more Evolzar plays. Tour Guide was powerful enough to get Sangan banned and herself semi-limited from September 2012 to January 2014 in the TCG, then at the end of the year the Burning Abyss archetype came as a TCG exclusive archetype and Tour Guide was so powerful in that deck for getting a Burning Abyss with a negated effect on field so it didn’t blow itself up, then using Tour Guide and the BA for a Dante to detach the BA for its floating effect along with any other effects from monsters milled off the Dante. Tour Guide was so good in Burning Abyss that it was limited in April of 2015 in the TCG.
Tour Guide will probably be what makes Burning Abyss meta again, unlike with Graff and Cir. It’s an easy Normal Summon for a Dante or Cheribuni when that comes out, plus Beatrice will be easy to summon once you get to Dante. Also Tour Guide could become staple in other decks for its Rank 3 potential while having a better pool to use than with Terrortop and Taketomborg since Tour Guide will likely get you to something with a good effect like Farfa unlike with Terrortop searching for Taketomborg that is basically a Rank 3 material unless you are actually playing Speedroids. Tour Guide should probably stay at one.
Zoodiac Ratpier
The only main deck Zoodiac on the list, and for good reason. Zoodiac Ratpier is a Level 4 EARTH Beast-Warrior, meaning Tenki and Inovker when that was legal, that upon Normal Summon sent a Zoodiac card from the grave. Likely either Zoodiac Combo for that future Pot of Avarice effect or a monster that you’ll want to use Tigermortar to attach to your Xyz, or specifically Ramram to use Drident to pop it and help make another Rank 4 Xyz after you revived Ramram with Chakanine (which would prevent Ramram from being used as Xyz Material that turn). Remember, all the Zoodiac Xyzs could be summoned using any 1 Zoodiac monster, which was best with Ratpier since Ratpier gave any Beast-Warrior Xyz the effect of being able to detach a material to summon a Ratpier from the hand or deck, which helped make for quick Rank 4 access into something like Daigusto Emeral for recycling your Zoodiac cards like other Ratpiers and drawing you a card. Zoodiac were quickly hit in the TCG in March of 2017 by semi-limiting Ratpier to try and hit the potency of the deck some so it wasn’t as oppressive, but it was still good with two Ratpier so it went to one in September of 2017 along with the banning of Drident and Broadbull.
Ratpier should still stay at one in my opinion, it allows for way too easy Rank 4 Summons as well as now offering Link Material, especially since once again the Zoodiac Xyzs can be Xyz Summoned with only 1 Zoodiac monster. Ratpier was so good in Zoodiac it was destined to be limited, where its most powerful effect is now useless.
Evigishki Gustkraken
Now we get into the Rituals. Evigishki Gustkraken is a Level 6 Ritual that could be Ritual Summoned using any Gishki Ritual Spell, preferably Gishki Aquamirror so it can put itself back in your deck and Gustkraken in your hand. Upon Gustkraken’s Ritual Summon, you can look at 2 random cards from your opponent’s hand and choose one of them to put back in the deck. This was easily loopable with Hieratics and Constellar Ptolmey M7 since the Hieratics were Level 6s that could summon any Normal Dragon from the deck when tributed (mostly for the Ritual Summon of Gustkraken) which then Gustkraken will take a card out of your opponent’s hand while the Hieratic summons a Level 6 Normal Dragon from the deck. You could easily make an M7 as well to make sure you don’t run out of Ritual Materials for your Gustkrakens while your Gishki Ritual Spell recycles itself and Gustkraken. This loop was so good in Hieratics that Gustkraken got limited shortly upon release in September of 2012.
I don’t know if it’ll be safe to return Gustkraken to three, though it is hard to make multiple M7s to do the whole hand loop, but at the same time 1 Gustkraken makes it inconsistent if not impossible. I don’t exactly remember the combo, but I remember it existing and being a pain. I don’t like hand loops, but if it is too hard to do now in Master Rule 4, then Gustkraken can come back to three. OCG has three of these if that means anything and this was limited when OCG and TCG shared a list.
Evigishki Mind Augus
Another Evigishki Ritual. Mind Augus is also Ritual Summoned using any Gishki Ritual and again I recommend Aquamirror. Mind Augus upon Ritual Summon lets you target any 5 cards in the graveyards and return them to the deck. Ok, I’ll be honest, I had to look up why it was limited myself, cause I don’t really understand why Konami decided to limit Mind Augus. I went to reddit and apparentaly it has to do with a ton of FTKs being caused with Mind Augus being at three, and I believe Mind Augus could also help the Gishki hand loop with Gustkraken. I also decided to go to YouTube and I found an FTK that decks your opponent out using other draw cards like Hand Destruction. I guess Mind Augus was too good at three, so it was hit to one in September of 2013.
Thing with Mind Augus is, I don’t even think it’s the problem in these FTKs. Almost every FTK involves some card that isn’t a hard once per turn, and with that deck out FTK I saw there was Royal Magical Library. I’m sure Konami could hit these FTKs in different ways and bring Mind Augus at three, but even with them, the OCG has three of this and I don’t see any FTKs with it ever topping over there really, so I think TCG having this at three again is fine.
Nekroz of Unicore
I mean, of course the best Ritual Archetype arguably ever is going to have one of their Rituals on the F/L List. Nekroz of Unicore is a Level 4 Ritual that could be Ritual Summoned using any Nekroz Ritual Spell, in Unicore’s case you’d prefer Nekroz Kaleidoscope since it could send Herald of the Arc Light from the Extra Deck to Ritual Summon Unicore and Arc Light will search for any Ritual Monster or Spell since it was sent to the grave. Or you could send any Level 12 Extra Deck monster to summon Unicore and Valkyrus, which is a good play since Valkyrus can potentially let you draw new cards by using used up resources and Unicore while on the field negates the effects of all monsters Special Summoned from the Extra Deck. This effect of Unicore is very annoying to deal with for many decks, since you now have to run over the 2300 body to get your Extra Deck effects back and your opponent will likely have a Valkyrus to protect the Unicore or maybe even Gugnir or Decisive Armor. Unicore could also discard himself to get a Nekroz card to your hand from the grave, which is useful if you already control a Unicore and don’t need another for a Rank 4, which you likely won’t make a Rank 4 with Unicore on the field. Unicore was good enough to get limited in November of 2015.
Having access to three Unicore might be what puts Nekroz back to being meta again. That effect to shut down Extra Deck monsters effects is very annoying to deal with while you get the effects of your best monsters since you’re playing a Ritual Deck. Unicore should stay at a one for a while longer to keep the power of Nekroz lower, the consistency returning to them is just fine, and you got more than enough ways to search for Unicore, but having three again might be too much.
In Conclusion
The limited section seems most fitting to hit monsters that are very good in specific archetypes, but not so good that they make the archetype busted at one. There are a few cards useful in more decks, I’m looking at you Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, and some of these cards are still too good to be at more than one *cough* Zoodiac Ratpier *cough* but I feel a lot of these cards once again have paid their dues being limited and can now come back, while others are fine at one, and a select few should maybe be banned. I’m just on the Main Deck Monsters, so next time I’ll see how much different the Extra Deck Monsters are.
