Am I late? Hello Pojo Readers, Crunch$G here to talk about the update to the latest TCG Forbidden & Limited List. As much as I would like to say I was late on purpose to joke for how long it took Konami to provide this list, the real reason is I just didn’t feel like doing it until now. The time it took to provide this list caused a big uproar from the community, to the point where a barfing horse became a big meme in the community. The players really wanted a list to slow down Decks like Tenpai Dragons, Yubel, and especially Snake-Eye. Well the list has been out for over a week and I’m finally getting around to reviewing it, so let’s look and see what happened to the format.
Fiendsmith’s Lacrima
From Unlimited to Forbidden
In what has to be one of the quickest bans in the game’s history, Fiendsmith’s Lacrima is now Forbidden after being out for just a month and a half. This was a very easy Fusion to summon with Fiendsmith’s Sequence to revive your Fiendsmith Engraver to make Beatrice or Wave High King Caesar in almost any Deck. The burn damage this has after being sent to the graveyard also makes it very annoying in time. With TCG exclusives like Necroquip Princess and Aerial Eater, I guess Konami just deemed it safe to ban this card as early as they did to take away one of the tools for making those easy Rank 6 monsters and having a burn card in time on a card already in the most used engine in the format. Now, thanks to a card like Necroquip Princess, making Rank 6 monsters with Fiendsmith is as easy as ever, you just no longer have the burn and recycling of Lacrima to do it.
Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess
From Unlimited to Forbidden
Following up from Baronne de Fleur and Borreload Savage Dragon getting banned on the last list, now we have Apollousa joining them on this list. Almost any Deck could honestly play this card to get multiple monster effect negates on a single boss monster, which is probably why it was compared so much to Baronne and Savage in terms of being banworthy or not, cause this doesn’t negate Spells or Traps like the other two can. With that said, I don’t personally think this was banworthy. The card wasn’t too oppressive to out, just get its ATK low enough or negate its effects with cards like Imperm or Droplet and you’re good to go. I assume the big thing is Konami not wanting Decks to keep ending on the same boards, and Apollousa was commonplace on several end boards, similar to the aforementioned banned Synchro monsters. I guess this is to force Decks into more of a unique direction, so banning a card like this gets the job done, even if I don’t think it was all that much of a problem to deal with.
Hot Red Dragon Archfiend King Calamity
From Unlimited to Forbidden
Since Fusion, Link, and later Xyz took hits each, I guess Konami didn’t want to leave Synchro out, so they followed up what the OCG did previously and banned Hot Red Dragon Archfiend King Calamity. I can certainly understand why they’d want a card like this out of the game, considering it basically prevents the opponent from doing anything on their turn. It was fine until Crimson Dragon came out to help cheat this card out and a Deck like Centur-Ion, who is getting upcoming support, can make Level 12 Synchros with great ease. Hitting a card like this takes the most degenerate part of a Deck like Centur-Ion out of the equation and turns it into a much more fair, yet still competent, Deck. We could probably see this come back only if Crimson Dragon becomes enough of a problem where it needs to get the axe, but King Calamity getting banned here was the right call, even if Centur-Ion or other Synchro Decks weren’t the best Decks in the room by any stretch.
Beatrice, Lady of the Eternal
From Limited to Forbidden
The last ban on the list, and probably the one most saw coming, is Beatrice. Considering how easy it has become to summon Rank 6 monsters, having a Rank 6 version of the already banned Lavalval Chain wasn’t going to be good for the game. It helped Snake-Eye start up their combo by sending Snake-Eye Ash and then using Beatrice and a Fiendsmith’s Sequence likely still on the field to make Promethean Princess and revive the Ash to do Snake-Eye combos. You could also do Transaction Rollback stuff with Beatrice sending this and the Mayakashi Trap to prevent the opponent from playing the game. There’s a lot Beatrice could do, especially with Fiendsmith in the game, so it has to go now, leaving Fiendsmith to focusing on D/D/D Wave High King Caesar to have an out to Nibiru, which is far more balanced than having Beatrice help start your combo for you.
Eva
From Forbidden to Limited
With Beatrice now banned and Drytron seeing a slight bit of powercreep, I guess Konami deemed it safe to bring back Eva to the game. It’s honestly a fair call since now without cards like Union Carrier and Beatrice, you got no easy way to just send Eva directly to the graveyard. Now you just got to search it with Cyber Angel Benten and hope you got a Herald of Orange Light to help discard it, or make Herald of Mirage Lights and hope the opponent uses a Spell/Trap so you can discard the Eva. Resolving the Eva then gets you another Herald of Orange Light plus a Fairy to discard with it to make that live, but that’s honestly far from broken when Eva isn’t as easy to trigger as it once was. It’s fine at 1 now, helps Drytron keep up a little bit with running a small Fairy package to use Herald of Orange Light. Won’t be as broken as it once was.
Snake-Eye Ash
From Unlimited to Limited
Now we finally get to the proper Snake-Eye hits, starting with Snake-Eye Ash going to 1, just like in the OCG. This is mainly to be a big consistecy hit, seeing as now you won’t be opening up Snake-Eye Ash as often as you used to, plus it makes the player want to be more cautious with it since, even with Snake-Eye Oak, you don’t have too many ways to recover it without getting into the Extra Deck or having already resolved Original Sinful Spoils and getting it into the graveyard. Having 3 Bonfire means you still technically have 4 Snake-Eye Ash in your Deck, and that’s not countitng Diabellstar and WANTED helping you get to Original Sinful Spoils. It’s just a consistency hit that helps make Snake-Eye more tolerable.
Snake-Eyes Poplar
From Unlimited to Limited
Yet another consistency hit to the Snake-Eye Deck, Poplar has also went to 1 to nerf the Deck’s consistency down a notch. With 1 Ash, players would have most likely focused on Snake-Eyes Poplar to help get the Snake-Eye combo going, so now that’s a bit harder with the card at 1. It also means if you draw it, you don’t have another copy in the Deck to search and Special Summon, which is the more optimal way to use Poplar, but not the end of the world if you do hard draw into this. It still isn’t a Flamberge Dragon ban, but Poplar going to 1 does really knock down the consistency of Snake-Eyes even more with Ash also being at 1. Azamina cards coming in Rage of the Abyss will help reboost the consistency of the Deck while also providing them an omni-negate, but Snake-Eyes right now should be much more tolerable.
Number 40: Gimmick Puppet of Strings and Number C40: Gimmick Puppet of Dark Strings
From Unlimited to Limited
Now for Gimmick Puppet hits, since nobody likes FTKs in the
format. Number 40 and it’s Number C form are probably the biggest culprits for dealing massive burn damage to the opponent, so it makes sense to put them to 1. Number 40 in its base form is how you get the String Counters placed onto the opponent’s monsters, mainly those you give to the opponent, so Number C40 can then be Ranked-Up into and deal the big burn damage. With both at 1, the FTK is still something that can be accomplished, it’s just now if something did happen to either card to where you can’t pull off the FTK, you got nothing else really to rely on since you don’t have more copies of these in the Extra Deck anymore to attempt the FTK again. It also makes combo lines that needed multiple of these no longer viable, so this does make for a good hit to make the Gimmick Puppet FTK far less consistent.
Branded Fusion
From Unlimited to Limited
Now players were calling for Albion the Sanctifire Dragon to get banned so Branded could no longer lock the opponent out of the game with Gimmick Puppet Nightmare or anything similar to how that card functions, but Konami opted not to do that and instead gave Branded a consistency hit that wasn’t really needed by putting Branded Fusion to 1. Now, Branded Fusion is still very accessible in Branded with all the cards that could search it and even recover it from the graveyard, but now you don’t see Branded Fusion as often in the opening hand to hopefully improve your playlines and it getting banished could be problematic to the Branded strategy. Branded would have been fine with 3 Branded Fusion as long as the Deck could no longer do the Gimmick Puppet lock and they just banned Albion the Sanctifire Dragon so we don’t have 20 cards similar to Gimmick Puppet Nightmare on the list, but now we’re stuck with 1 Branded Fusion and I do feel like this could be reversed if we do remove the Gimmick Puppet lock from the Deck.
Opening of the Spirit Gates
From Unlimited to Limited
The only proper Yubel hit on the list is Opening of the Spirit Gates going to 1. Now with Dark Beckoning Beast still at 3, alongside 3 Nightmare Throne, you still got a fairly consistent way to get to this, it’s just now the card is gone if the opponent removes it from the field since you can no longer use other copies to recover themselves. This also makes it harder for Yubel to grind a bit since now they can’t use Opening of the Spirit Gates to revive Spirit of Yubel or Samsara D Lotus from the graveyard if the card is gone. I would have preferred a more direct hit to the Yubel cards rather than hitting the supplementary engine, but I guess Yubel is still fairly new with Phantom of Yubel or Nightmare Throne especially not being all that old in the format. I do feel bad for any Sacred Beast players out there actually wanting to play their Deck, but I assume a hit like this is temporary til they’re ready to do something to Yubel itself, especially considering it just won the World Championship.
Pot of Prosperity
From Unlimited to Limited
Now for a hit that feels long overdue, Pot of Prosperity finally going to 1. After not all that long ago Konami hitting the wrong Pot card and having Pot of Desires on the list for more time than needed, we finally got what feels like the right Pot card to have on the list. Having a card like Pot of Prosperity dig up to 6 cards from the top of your Deck to get to whatever card you might need to start your combos or break the opponent’s board is super powerful, even if it comes at the cost of some of your Extra Deck cards, which certain Decks won’t even care for at all. Prosperity at 1 does allow you to still do this, but it won’t be as often since the card is now a 1-of you can’t search unless you’re using Triple Tactics Thrust after the opponent set up their board and used an effect. At 1 the card is more than fine, having 3 of this was way too much consistency.
Sangen Summoning
From Unlimited to Limited
Now for Tenpai Dragon’s hit to their Deck, Sangen Summoning also went to 1 to nerf the consistency of that Deck while also removing copies of a card that prevents the opponent from interacting with you while you attempt to OTK with Tenpai Dragons. Sure you could still search this with Tenpai Dragon Paidra, but Sangen Kaimen is a pretty good piece to help the Tenpai Dragon OTK, so searching for the lone copy of this does mean you aren’t getting value from Kaimen. It also means now you Ghost Ogre the copy of Sangen Summoning, you won’t have a second one dropped on you just to ensure you don’t interact with the opponent’s Tenpai Dragon effects. It’s another good limit to temper the power of Tenpai Dragons, though the Deck is still great at pushing for OTKs.
That Grass Looks Greener
From Forbidden to Limited
Now for an unban that feels completely out of left field, That Grass Looks Greener is back in the TCG at 1. I assume this is because Infernoids didn’t perform all that highly over in the TCG, so Konami decided to give them a little boost by letting them have a copy of That Grass Looks Greener. This does force Decks that would want to use this to run more cards, most likely the full 60, to get any value from it, especially as it seems some Decks are running more than 40 cards to begin with now. It also means you have a powerful 1-of in a 60 card Deck, which is far less consistent than if it was in a 40 card Deck. You do have cards like Left Arm Offering and Triple Tactics Thrust to search it, but the former is the biggest Ash bait in the game potentially, and the latter relies on you going second and the opponent interacting with you with a monster effect. It can be powerful if it resolves, but I don’t think that anything it can do warrants it being banned since it requires Decks to be far less consistent as they have to run more cards to even use it. The biggest problem might just be counting Deck sizes in tournaments for anybody using and trying to resolve the card.
Skill Drain
From Unlimited to Limited
The last limit on the list is a card I’m sure nobody really wanted coming back to 3 to begin with, Skill Drain. Skill Drain since coming back to 3 has been seen in just about every format, from Runick Stun to Snake-Eyes to White Forest. Runick Stun doesn’t mind for Skill Drain since they don’t rely on monster effects that much, and the other two can just send the Skill Drain away for cost to use their monster effects anyways. It was pretty annoying for players having to play directly into Skill Drain, especially if they had no backrow removal at the moment to get rid of it. Skill Drain being at 1 seems like the place it belongs since you can still play the card, you just won’t see it as often to blow the opponent out with it. Some might have aruged for the card to get banned, but 1 copy is fine for now. If we were hittting as many floodgates as we were, Skill Drain was a big omission if it remained at 3.
The Dragon Rulers
From Limited to Semi-Limited
Now for the semi-limits, it’s time for the cards that belong together, the four Dragon Rulers. Blaster, Redox, Tempest, and Tidal are now all at 2 after doing little to nothing when each were at 1. I’m sure these are still nice boosts to certain Decks relying on the Attributes of the specific Dragon Rulers, and having more than 1 of each does make a dedicated Dragon Ruler Deck more viable, it’s just the effects of the Rulers have been harshly powercrept considering you only get 1 effect per turn on each, not being able to use multiple of their effects. I assume they’ll go to 3 next list and still do next to nothing, just like how they do next to nothing right now being at 2.
Lunalight Tiger
From Limited to Semi-Limited
For another semi-limit, we got Lunalight Tiger returning to 2 after a decent bit of time doing next to nothing while at 1. This does help Lunalights, whether you want to play it properly and Fusion Summon to pull off an OTK, or do Rank 4 toolbox stuff with Lunalights that got Tiger banned to begin with. It’s just now both things can be done better by different Decks. OTKing is super easy to do with Tenpai Dragons and a lot of other strategies that can put out big boards, and the latter has Ryzeal coming up very soon to be a very strong Rank 4 strategy. Lunalights, while still a solid archetype that can do cool things, are outclassed in what they can do to where we can have 2 Tiger again, and I assume this is another case of a card going to 3 next list.
Thunder Dragon Colossus
From Limited to Semi-Limited
Now, while we have seen Thunder Dragon Colossus see a bit of play, the Thunder Dragon Deck as a whole didn’t really rise back to prominence, and Thunder Dragon Colossus wasn’t a problem at all being in the game, so Konami deemed it fine to return it to 2. The only Deck that would run 2 Colossus is Thunder Dragons themselves, as any other strategy already playing 1 likely won’t play any more even if they are now allowed to. Nemeses Corridor has proven not to be all that broken summoning this in certain Decks, especially as it seems Nemeses Flag searching for Protos is better in those strategies to begin with in most cases. Colossus is still a solid card, so having more copies of it is nice for the Thunder Dragon archetype as this is most relevant to them.
Ib the World Chalice Justiciar
From Limited to Semi-Limited
For the last of the cards going to 2, Ib is now semi-limited after doing nothing at all being at 1 this entire time. There’s still some cool Ib combos out there I’m sure, but I don’t think any Deck would consider more than 1 Ib even if they could, hence why the card is at 2. Even if there are Decks playing Ib out there, they aren’t anything at the top tables, which suggests Ib is far from a threat in this format. Now with Denglong going to 3 on this list, spoiler alert, I don’t know why this didn’t also go straight to 3 considering it’s basically the same card, but I guess this having more generic uses is why Ib is at 2 while Denglong is at 3, but I’m certain Ib will join Denglong on the very next list going to 3, cause I don’t see 2 Ib mattering in the slightest.
Armageddon Knight
From Semi-Limited to Unlimited
Now for the cards leaving the list, Armageddon Knight is back to 3 after going to 2 on the previous list. Armageddon Knight can still be powerful in theory, sending any DARK from Deck to grave on summon, but dedicating your Normal Summon to Armageddon Knight could also have went to better Normal Summons in the game now, and we don’t have a card like Isolde anymore to summon Armageddon Knight from the Deck. It’s still a good card, but it doesn’t really need to be at 1 or 2 anymore. On a side note, I don’t know why this is at 3 while Dark Grepher remains at 1, since Armageddon Knight feels much better consdering it doesn’t require a discard, though Dark Grepher also has the Special Summon condition. I assume with this at 3 and doing nothing that we’ll see Dark Grepher moving soon, though.
Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin
From Limited to Unlimited
After coming off the forbidden section of the list last format and Pendulums basically topping locals at best this format, Konami skipped the semi-limit with Kirin and put it straight to 3. Having multiple Kirin on the field thankfully doesn’t matter that much due to the HOPT clause on it, but 1 Kirin was not an issue to out at all in 2024, so seeing Kirin more consistently won’t be that much of an issue, especially as Pendulum Decks are having their end board weakened even further with Apollousa now banned. We’re at a point where Kirin at 3 doesn’t matter at all, so there’s that. Majespecters now have more Kirins to fall back on to maybe top their locals even more consistently now.
Performage Plushfire
From Forbidden to Unlimited
When a card goes from 0 to 3, either a key card used alongside it got banned, Konami is highly aware of how powercrept the card is, or the card now has a legal errata. In Plushfire’s case, it’s the latter as the errata went up on the Yu-Gi-Oh database not long ago, meaning playing Plushfire in events now must go off of that errata, despite having no physical prints with said errata (though that is likely coming soon). Some thought Plushfire could come back without an errata, but it’s more certain to be safe in the game now with its errata turning the effect into a HOPT. This means you can’t pop it multiple times in a turn to keep floating into Performage monsters. Having 3 does mean you can use Luster Pendulum to pop it and search another copy while summoning a Performage from Deck, but that’s not super broken anymore, especially since that’s the only time that turn you can do that. Plushfire should get a physical print with the errata soon, I’m going to assume 2024 tins as a QCR if you’re reading this before we know the contents of them.
Red Rose Dragon
From Limited to Unlimited
Remaining collateral damage on the list from when Crystron Halqifibrax was legal, we finally have Red Rose Dragon back at 3. Nothing was really using a Rose Dragon package, especially while Red Rose Dragon was at 1, so putting the card to 3 does promote Rose Dragons being usable again, though honestly it isn’t as broken as before with Crystron Halqifibrax not summoning this from Deck anymore, plus generic end board pieces being removed from the format. There can still be some cool things done with the Rose Dragons legal in the format I’m sure, but we don’t need to keep Red Rose Dragon locked away anymore after we long since banned Halqifibrax.
Ancient Fairy Dragon
From Limited to Unlimited
This card has been at 1 for well over a year and a half after returning with its errata, and honestly there was zero reason to keep it at 1 all this time. Ancient Fairy Dragon might still be a good card, but a HOPT errata on its effects makes running multiples not at all necessary. You can’t summon two copies to get two Special Summons or two Field Spell searches anymore, so there has been zero incentive to ever run more than 1 AFD in thte modern day, yet it stuck at 1 for so long for some unknown reason. It’s finally at 3 again and it won’t matter since Decks already playing 1 aren’t going to play any more copies and clog the ever so important Extra Deck space. Some good list cleaning that was long overdue.
Denglong, First of the Yang Zing
From Limited to Unlimited
As I’ve already mentioned, Denglong is back at 3 after doing nothing at 1 for a long while. This will mainly be a good boost for Yang Zings and that’s about it. We haven’t had True King of All Calamities legal for a long while now, which was the main reason why Denglong got itself banned to begin with. After a while of having Calamities banned, we finally got Denglong back and while I’m sure it offers cool plays like Ib does, this being able to be ran in Decks like Swordsoul potentially, I see no reason for it to remain at 1. Wyrm Decks aren’t doing much of note right now, and the archetype this belongs to needs all the help it can get, so Denglong being at 3 should be nice.
Time Seal
From Limited to Unlimited
The final change on this list, after a while of having Yata-Garasu at 3, is Time Seal finally joining the bird being off the list. Now I can understand maybe why Time Seal took much longer to come off the list, seeing as it is a Trap Trick target and Traps can be recurred easier in certain Decks, plus you got Transaction Rollback to copy effects of Traps in the grave, but I still feel like there are better Traps in the game to use with all of those options than Time Seal to shut the opponent down even more than this would. Hard drawing into it and setting it means it doesn’t give any value until Turn 4 at most, unless you somehow get this and Transaction Rollback in the graveyard Turn 1, but again there’s more broken Trap effects to copy with Transaction Rollback. No reason to keep Time Seal at 1, and I doubt 3 of this will ever do anything in a much faster game than when it was first banned 20-ish years ago.
In Conclusion
While I’m sure this isn’t the greatest list of all time after the little extra wait time we had to endure before getting it, the power level of the format has went down a bit. Snake-Eyes are far less consistent as before, Yubel took a bit of a hit to consistency and recovery with Spirit Gates at 1, Tenpai isn’t as consistent and can be interacted with a bit more, and the Gimmick Puppet FTK is far more fragile than before. Centur-Ion also doesn’t have a degenerate win condition anymore, and Branded isn’t as consistent anymore since we aren’t banning Sanctifire yet. All Decks that run Prosperity also take a consistency hit with that at 1 finally. The clean up on the list is mostly irrelevant, with That Grass Looks Greener likely to have the most impact. There could have been more done to clean up said list with cards like Glow-Up Bulb, M-X-Saber Invoker, Heavy Storm, etc. remaining banned even when we got precedence that they are fine in the modern game, but this list did also do a lot of clean-up with 17 of the 29 changes being cards moving up the list. Hopefully the next list is more timely, preferrably December or January, so I don’t have to see that horse again.
Thanks for reading,
Crunch$G
