• Pojo Home Page
  
• Message Board
  
• Contact Staff
  

Dr. Strangelist, or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the ban:part 1-- Chaosmech

From: "chaosmech@juno.com" <chaosmech@juno.com>
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 19:07:18 GMT


Dr. Strangelist, or How I learned to stop worrying and love the Ban Hey everybody! Chaosmech back again with another article.
I don’t know about you, but I thought the title was rather clever. I’m deviating from my general rule of deck creation and analysis to discuss the banlist.
Anyway, if you haven’t figured it out yet, this article is on the banlist and what it does to the game.
The original banlist came sometime in the fall of last year. It consisted of 13 cards, some of which desperately needed to be gone.
The original banlist, for those of you who haven’t followed the metagame, is as follows.
Chaos Emperor Dragon—Envoy of the End
Yata-Garasu
Witch of the Black Forest
Sangan
Monster Reborn
Graceful Charity
Dark Hole
Raigeki
Harpie’s Feather Duster
United We Stand
Delinquent Duo
Imperial Order
Mirror Force
Some of these needed to be gone, immediately, and it’s a wonder Upper Deck didn’t do it earlier.
1. Chaos Emperor Dragon—Envoy of the End Did it need to be banned? Yes Why? A combination involving another card on this list, Yata-Garasu. The way it works is this. The most common combination involved Painful Choice. Activate it, choose Witch, Sangan, another Dark monster, and two Light monsters. No matter what your opponent gives you, you have the ability to perform the next part. Activate Monster Reborn or Premature Burial or something on Witch or Sangan, whichever is in the graveyard. If they’re both there, just pick one. Remove one of your Light monsters, and then a Dark monster, be it the searcher you didn’t revive or the other dark monster you pulled from your deck. Special summon Chaos Emperor Dragon. Use its effect and pay 1000 LP to send everything in both hands and fields to the graveyard. Witch or Sangan’s effect activates, and you retrieve Yata Garasu from your deck. Summon it, and attack. Your opponent skips their next draw phase, and they’ve lost 200 LP. They have nothing to stop Yata cuz they can’t draw. They have no cards in their hand or on the field. Repeat the summoning and attacking until your opponent’s LP are zero. Bingo, you have instant win, almost every time. Even without the Yata-lock, as this move is called, Chaos Emperor Dragon is still a beast. 3000 ATK, easily special summoned, and can cause even more damage after it attacks. Yes sir, this was rightfully put on the banlist.
2. Yata-Garasu
Did it need to be banned? Yes
Why? Firstly, because of the combination mentioned above. But also because even before CED, people were building decks loaded with Delinquent Duo, Confiscation, and the Forceful Sentry, along with Don Zaloog in order to empty their opponent’s hand. With their opponent’s hand gone, and the field easily cleared with Raigeki, Harpie’s Feather Duster, Heavy Storm, and Dark Hole, the Yata-lock was almost too easy to pull off. Then CED came along and made the Chaos-Control deck the god of the metagame. This card was too much of a threat before CED, and once he came along, he became almost godlike. Hard to imagine that something with only 200 ATK could be so powerful.
3. Witch of the Black Forest
Did it need to be banned? Probably
Why? Well, since its debut in MRD, it has been used in the Exodia deck. Fetch a piece, and you’re that much closer to the 5 card combo. In addition, it’s used to retrieve all kinds of powerful ATK monsters that have low DEF. That, along with its role in the Yata-lock, made this card too good to ignore.
Yet, at the same time, it was available to almost everyone. It was only a rare in MRD, and when the SDP came out, it was literally available to everyone. Everyone who bought a SDP, that is. So, it’s not really an issue of unbalanced power as it is the techniques that it is used in.
4. Sangan
Did it need to be banned? Not really
Why? Well, with CED and Yata gone with the banlist anyway, a big part of this card’s use fell out. You still have the occasional Exodia deck, but with hand destruction running rampant, Exodia has fallen out of prominence. Sangan can be used to retrieve low ATK monsters, with high DEF. But since PSV, a little card called Nobleman of Crossout has made the high DEF monsters much less appealing. Sangan can still be used to retrieve some useful monsters, but not nearly as much as Witch of the Black Forest. It’s also interesting to note that Sangan and Witch can search each other. So, if you didn’t need a low ATK monster, you could get out your Witch and get a low DEF monster instead. Although, with Witch gone on the banlist anyway, it’s kind of a moot point.
5. Monster Reborn
Did it need to be banned? Yes
Why? Let’s look at Reborn for a moment. Special Summon any monster from either player’s graveyard in ATK or DEF position free of cost. If that isn’t a broken card, then my name’s not Chaosmech. Which it is, sort of. In any case, the Monster Reborn made Dark Hole very popular. Simply clear all monsters from the field with Dark Hole, then Reborn the strongest monster in the graveyards and attack your opponent directly. Yes, Monster Reborn definitely earned its place on the banlist.
6. Graceful Charity
Did it need to banned? Probably not
Why? Well, first off, it looks like you’re gaining hand advantage. I mean, you draw 3 and discard 2, right? But at the same time, you forget you just got rid of Graceful Charity from your hand. So you end up with even advantage. It’s a 3 for 3. But at the same time, you’re thinning your deck quite rapidly. 3 cards is a lot to draw, especially in addition to your draw at the Draw Phase. And you get to choose which cards to discard. That’s a huge plus.
The reason this was originally banned was its combination in Chaos decks. Play Graceful Charity, maybe get the right Chaos monster, then dump a Light and a Dark Monster in the graveyard. Instant Chaos, just like that. But at the same time, Upper Deck or Konami, whoever made up this crazy list, didn’t realize that with Graceful Charity gone, people would just abuse another card, that is, Mirage of Nightmare. Graceful Charity allows you to draw more than Pot of Greed, put you’re not getting the same hand advantage. Pot is a two for one, whereas Graceful is a three for three. If you’re going to ban draw power, then ban Pot.
7. Dark Hole
Did it need to be banned? Yes
Why? Dark Hole is a very powerful card. It destroys all monsters on the field. Without cost (besides destroying your own monsters). Dark Hole barrages were traded before the ban. For instance, one player might play Dark Hole to clear the field for a big attack, then the other would turn around, Dark Hole him, then attack with his own. Often times, Dark Hole was played with no monsters on the controller’s side of the field. So it became a completely advantageous card. Or, Witch or Sangan would be on the field, and then Dark Hole was played, destroying everything, and fetching monsters to the controller’s hand.
On top of all that power, Dark Hole is very common. While originally a Super Rare in LOB, with the release of the Starter Decks, it became, like Witch and Sangan, available to all. Many a losing player prayed for that Dark Hole to be their next card, and when it was, it often turned the game around. And the banlist was designed to prevent quick turn-arounds and reward the player who controlled their resources the best. Dark Hole destroyed this attitude, so it was banned.
8. Raigeki
Did it need to be banned? Without question Why? All of the above stuff about Dark Hole, except that it doesn’t destroy your own monsters. So, your opponent could spend several turns building up an attack force of powerful monsters, only to have you rain on his parade with the almighty Lightning Bolt. Severe turn-around. Also, Raigeki was not available in the Starter decks, and as an Ultra Rare in LOB, only the rich or lucky could obtain it. This card needed to go.
9. Harpie’s Feather Duster
Did it need to be banned? Without question Why? Kind of like Raigeki, but with Spells and Traps instead of Monsters. And while not as available as Dark Hole, it was more available than Raigeki, being a video game promo card. It was this card, along with Mystical Space Typhoon, that prompted the chainability rage of the not too distant past.
10. United We Stand
Did it need to be banned? Not really
Why? While UWS does lend an enormous ATK advantage to its equipped monster, (+800 for every monster the player controlled) it doesn’t have the same game-changing power that Raigeki, Harpie’s Feather Duster, and Dark Hole had. It screams abuse with Scapegoat, but Scapegoats are easily destroyed, lowering the ATK advantage. Also, if there is only one monster on the field, then Axe of Despair is better. The only way this should be banned is if it was not Limited to one. Then, you could have ATK boosts of up to 12,000, which in a game that starts with 8000, is a very high ATK value. But since it was limited, the maximum boost one could attain was 4000, which, while substantial, isn’t game-breaking.
11. Delinquent Duo
Did it need to be banned? Probably
Why? Well, like Pot of Greed, it is a two-for-one. You get rid of one card, and your opponent loses two total. You pay 1000 LP, but with Life-Absorbing Machine, and the advent of Spell Economics, that becomes almost a pittance. 1000 LP isn’t a huge cost anyway for something of this power. While your opponent gets to choose the second card they lose, they still lose it, and the first is randomly selected. In short, this provided easy means to empty your opponent’s hand. It needed to go.
12. Imperial Order
Did it need to be banned? Probably
Why? Well, as a Continuous Trap Card that negates all Spell cards for only 700 LP per Standby Phase, this card was really unbalanced. In the game before the banlist, this was a player’s best friend. Your opponent played Raigeki? Imperial Order it. Your opponent wasted a Raigeki, and if they’re smart, they won’t try to destroy it with MST, Heavy Storm, or Harpie’s Feather Duster. They can’t play any other Spell cards during their turn, and when it comes back around to you, you can choose to pay the measly 700 LP to continue preventing your opponent’s Spells, or you can simply let it go, making it a one turn free Magic Jammer. This would probably not have been as prominent with the game-breaking Spells like Raigeki gone, but it would still have provided virtually free Spell Negation. And the only way to get rid of it would be via Monster or Trap effect. The only way you could get rid of it otherwise is to chain MST to its activation. Then, it is destroyed before its effect can resolve, meaning MST is not negated. This card joins the ranks of the rightfully banned.
13. Mirror Force
Did it need to be banned? Most definitely Why? While not as chainable as Ring of Destruction or say, Waboku, it did a whole lot more in terms of changing the game tempo. Your opponent would declare an attack, and you activate Mirror Force. The attack is negated, and all face-up attack position monsters are destroyed. With MST limited to one with the onset of the ban, and Harpie’s Feather Duster gone, this beast would have had almost nothing to fear. It also joins the ranks of the rightfully banned.
Other cards were limited to one. Torrential Tribute, the super Trap Hole, and Mystical Space Typhoon, the main S/T destroyer, were limited to one per deck. While this caused great sadness, players learned to adapt and find alternative cards.
In my next article, I’ll cover the more recent ban and limitation, and speak on whether those cards needed to be banned.
Until next time, keep it cool.
Chaosmech