That’s it? Hello Pojo Readers, Crunch$G here to talk about the latest Forbidden & Limited List update that’ll go into effect on October 1st. With a format of mainly Tri-Brigade and Drytron and the OCG recently hitting cards like Mystic Mine, PSY-Framegear Gamma, Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS – Sky Thunder, Pot of Desires, and more alongside their releases, how did the TCG follow up? Spoiler: Not good.
Zoodiac Barrage
From Limited to Forbidden
Well looks like the TCG decided to have its turn to ban Zoodiac Barrage. This feels like a weird call to be the only ban in a format where you’ve heard for the requests to ban cards like Mystic Mine, Imperial Order, Eva, etc. I can understand that Konami needs to sell a Zeus reprint and had to hit an enabler over the actual card for now, but Barrage is still a strange hit similar to Drident. Wouldn’t Boarbow of been the best way to go about that? Anyways, I guess this hits the consistency of Tri-Brigade Zoodiac to some degree. You might still see some Tri-Brigade lists playing a few Zoodiac monsters to summon the Boarbow to get the Zeus, but now they have to use their Normal Summon for that. Still a very strange hit.
Eva
From Unlimited to Limited
Now this is still somewhat fair. Eva did need to take a hit to make sure Drytron doesn’t keep getting too many disruptions. The ability to search 2 Heralds with the greatest of ease was a little insane for Dryrton to have access to. It’s still possible with a single Eva, just far less consistent compared to previously. They also could of went for an enabler that helped Eva like Beatrice, Lady of the Eternal, but hitting Eva itself overall is fine and now Drytron have to adapt again with 1 Benten and 1 Eva at their disposal. Getting to multiple Herald of Orange Lights won’t be as consistent anymore. Don’t think this hurts the Deck too bad, but it makes multiple Eva no longer an option for some/all builds.
Prank-Kids Meow-Meow-Mu
From Unlimited to Limited
Personally, I think you could of went without hitting Prank-Kids on the Forbidden & Limited List. I always saw it as a Deck you could just easily powercreep out of the format. One-card combos are great and all, but I never saw them really ending on the greatest of boards. A Quick Effect Raigeki and/or Harpie’s Feather Duster is nice, but that wouldn’t of been enough to hold up in the meta overtime. Anyways, putting Meow-Meow-Mu to 1 does let you still have your one-card combos still, it’s just now you only get to pull it off once in a Duel unless you have Prank-Kids Pranks to return it to the Extra Deck, and then you give up at least 1 free Raigeki/Feather Duster since the boss monsters would have to tribute themselves then instead of banishing Meow-Meow. Prank-Kids didn’t need a hit in my opinion, but I guess I get why they did it.
Fire Formation – Tenki
From Unlimited to Limited
Now this is a hit I’m sure many can get behind. Tenki to 1 was necessary to hit the consistency of Tri-Brigade, especially since you can’t go for the core cards with them all being reprinted in the 2021 Tins. Tenki was simply the best way to go about hitting Tri-Brigade. Sure it hurts other Beast-Warrior strategies as well, but Tenki has proven to be a powerful card for years with the many Beast-Warrior Decks it boosted from Zoodiac to Fire Fist to Tri-Brigade now. It’s basically RotA, and that’s Limited as well, so it makes sense in a way for Tenki to eventually have joined the card in the Limited section. Hopefully in a later list we actually try to hit the actual Tri-Brigade cards, though.
Danger! Nessie!
From Limited to Semi-Limited
Now it’s time for the clean up that Konami likes to do. The OCG has been very generous with the Danger! package. Tsuchunoko was never hit over there while Jackalope and Nessie only went to 2 at worst over there. With them just bringing Nessie to 3 overseas, I guess Konami felt it was fine to try and put it to 2 over here before repeating the same. Danger! monsters as a whole can still be very powerful, and bringing them off the list is a scarier prospect in our format, but it doesn’t hurt to try. If Nessie to 2 ends up being fine, we could potentially see the other Danger! monsters peel off the list on future lists. This certainly feels like something that’ll go to 1 or 3 next format depending on how it does now.
Performapal Skullcrobat Joker
From Limited to Semi-Limited
Went to 1 last list, 2 this list, and likely 3 next list. Pendulum Decks could 100% use the help since they are far worse off in the TCG with no Electrumite or Astrograph Sorcerer to name a few cards. Skullcrobat going to 2 makes the Deck somewhat more consistent, which is always a plus. It helped that the card only ever worked on just Normal Summon instead of a Special Summon as well, otherwise this might still of been banned and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Skullcrobat Joker is a welcome addition to 2 and hopefully it goes to 3 on a later list, perferably sooner rather than later. It at least wasn’t the only buff the Pendulum strategy received on this list, but we’ll get to that in a second.
Emergency Teleport
From Limited to Semi-Limited
This is something the OCG has had for a bit now and it’s kinda surprising that Konami just now got around to this in the TCG, especially when they could of done this earlier to support Virtual World and Myutants on release rather than a year later. I guess the P.U.N.K. archetype in Grand Creators needs the help to sell more than those two did, especially Virtual World. E-Tele to 2 is likely going to be relevant as Virtual World still performs somewhat well in the format. I don’t think it’ll be a massive problem as there’s no super powerful pure Psychic strategy to abuse this since it isn’t 2016 anymore and Kozmos aren’t as big of an issue. It’ll be fun to see what’s cooked up from the playerbase with 2 E-Tele.
Double Iris Magician
From Semi-Limited to Unlimited
As we always see from cards going to 1 to 2, we eventually get the third copy and that’s what has happened with Double Iris Magician. 3 Double Iris does make it a better option now with Luster Pendulum vs when it was at 2, meaning more consistent Pendulumgraph searches. There’s not much to add to this discussion that hasn’t been said already when it moved up the previous few lists. Double Iris to 3 felt like a long time coming and it 100% won’t do much in terms of meta relevancy now that it’s completely free from the list. Enjoy Pendulum enthusiats, it’s the best you’ll probably get from Konami for a long while sadly. Hopefully we get Electrumite at some point.
In Conclusion
I almost didn’t want to talk about this list. Felt like Konami didn’t put their best foot forward or didn’t even try to help fix the format. Sure they gave the best Decks a slap on the wrist, but that’s it. None of the cards people called for to get banned were banned. The Dragoon package is staying, likely for Konami to sell again. Imperial Order sticks around, though I feel like it’s a card that’ll fall out of favor again at some point where it’s not as oppressive. The best Decks can still compete and likely remain the best Decks, though the slight hits might help other strategies catch up. I would of just hoped for more from this list, January 2022 can’t come any sooner.
Thanks for reading,
Crunch$G
