Ban List

It's difficult to continue to talk on specific decks and the game play surrounding those when the Metagame is in such a nebulous condition. So instead, after having gotten my rant out of the way, I'm going to briefly discuss the impact that the Asian Ban List will have on the game as we know it. While our list is sure to be different, I believe that it will only be slightly changed from its Asian counterpart, as certain aspects of the game (the Trinity, Goat Control, Standardized trap line ups, etc) were the same on either side of the ocean.


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Aggro:

With the death knell of goat control ringing loud and clear by the recent ban list (they went all out limiting it in every facet), I and many others expect to see a sincere rise in the number of Aggro decks played.

Goats severely limited Aggro's strength. Since Aggro relies very heavily on 141 trade offs and being able to attack the opponent for sizeable damage each turn, Scapegoat, a card that was essentially 143 and that prevented lp damage for a number of turns, threw off the Aggro game plan.

Also, we have recently seen the release of Cyber Dragon, the ultimate Aggro tribute monster. Cyber Dragon virtually embodies the ideals of Aggro- a strong monster which is an excellent drop, and that counts as a special summon, allowing you to potentially play 2 beat sticks in a single turn. Now that Mirror Force is gone, a player can be less wary of over-extension. Keep in mind as well, that Aggro's best weapon, D.D. Assailant, is still unrestricted.

With all of these aforementioned facts in mind, there is almost no reason not to run Aggro...unless of course your reason is that you don't want to play Aggro.


Decree:

Since I have officially deemed the current era as the Age of Aggro, a lot of players, thinking rationally, would attempt to halt Aggro with traps like Sak Armor and BTH, now that Mirror Force and the chainable RoD are gone. However, along with the new list, we have new access (via DB2 and the Warrior Structure) to Royal Decree, which many have stated will become a near-staple in all decks.

Decree will let Aggro players continue their relentless assault on the weaker player without fear of running into set traps. Likewise, the knowledge that the weaker player will be forced into a position where he/she will run fewer traps, as they will more often than not be thwarted. So now, we have an instance where Aggro runs Decrees to stop all the traps Non-Aggro will run to counter Aggro, and an instance where Non-Aggro will fewer traps because he/she knows Aggro is running multiple Royal Decree's. And so the loop begins.

While there are fewer chainable spells (as mentioned earlier) to stave off the Aggro assult, what option does the weaker player have against Aggro? Should they run their own Decree's to stop Aggro's Decree's? No, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Should they run Jinzo+Amplifier so that they can play their traps? Ha, I would like to see it! Or should they just run their normal monster removal traps as well as a few Dust Tornado's and Chiron to help combat the Aggro wave. I think that the last idea is how we will see most Control decks, or even other Aggro decks deal with the rise.

Gravekeepers:

I'm not entirely sure why, but it seems that after almost every single ban list that comes around, people expect it to breathe new life into the Gravekeeper deck type. Granted, there is now more support for the deck type than before, with Magician's Circle soon to be released, and that GK sort of fits the Aggro theme, with easy-drop, swarm-able beat sticks and a fun element of control, but I still feel it will be a deck type plagued by the same problems that have always ailed it.

GK is still heavily reliant on Necrovalley. And field cards are still generally weak. I'm not shutting down the deck type as viable, believe me, I've played and enjoyed playing GK for a long time now. However, it is still highly unlikely that even the very best GK build be very successful. The deck is fairly easily sided against, and depends heavily on very quick 2-0's.

I think it will be both stronger (new support, lots of Aggro) and weaker (without goats to trample a large amount of the damage done disappears), but still not dominant.

Chaos:

People might think that I'm a little forward in saying this, but Chaos WILL still be one of the most dominant deck types. However, now with the loss of BLS, it cannont so easily just be thrown into other established deck types (read Zombie), and it will require an intentional Chaos build.

Chaos Sorcerer, while not incredibly unbalanced, is still quite a potent card. A costless 2300 drop, or instant permanent removal should never be frowned upon. Also, since Book of Moon is out of the picture, the opportunities to prevent CS's effect from resolving are rare.

I expect to see either Aggro Chaos Warrior variants- DDA's, CS's, BK's, etc, just because that's the way the entire game seems to be leaning.

Personally, I prefer a Thunder Dragon build, myself. As Thunder Dragon is one of, if not THE, most reliable ways to put lights into the graveyard. You can then facilitate the use of PWWB, which I consider to be the most important trap released since Ring of Destruction, and Tribe-Infecting Virus, which many say is not worth running any more, as goats are few and discards are costly without the snake.

PWWB, while it cannot return things like MST or Heavy Storm, or chained non-continuous spells/traps, is entirely versatile. It allows for the prevention of Decree's, Face Down monsters, Scapegoats, Summoned monsters, recently set s/t, etc. But, I won't get into it here, as I expect to write a more robust article on the card.

In short, Chaos will still be particularly strong, and can potentially be a very good answer for searching Control players.

Control:

As just mentioned, Chaos will be a nice option for players still wishing to play Control. Why would control players need answers, you ask? Because, for years, Control has depended, at least in part, on goats and morphs. Those things are gone now, and Control will have to explore new territories, or return to some old school formulas, more specifically, Tomato Control.

Why? Because Tomato can search out a number of cards which not only control, but also halt the onslaught of Aggro.

Spirit Reaper <--- Most important
Newdoria
Dark Jeroid (in part)
Sangan
Don Zaloog

Well, you know the drill. Tomato Control was Control's answer to Beatdown back in the day, and Aggro is little more than a more sophisticated Beatdown. Therefore, you will have to run a more sophisticated Control. [I'll leave the learning how to do that up to you at this point :) ]

Finally, Tomato works very well with Creature Swap, which will prove to be a very potent form of offense and removal in the new meta. Free from worry of chained Scapegoat's, it is unlikely that a straight-up Aggro deck will have many answers. (Reasons why people should play CEDevice and PWWB.)

Zombie:

I've already addressed how important Spirit Reaper will be in staving off Aggro, but Zombies, in general, continue to grow in strength. The fact that Vampire Lord is totally unrestricted is sort of not an issue, as Cyber Dragon's will 'pwn' Vlord. However, Vlord's are happy that things like Dark Hole, Smashing Ground and Sak Armor are going to see increased play.

Also, Zombies smile fondly on the increased potential of Creature Swap. Playing a build like Jae Kim's famous 2x Rat 2x Turtle will easily accommodate 2x Creature Swap, and will do so gladly.

Zombie builds can also incorporate sincere elements of Hand Control, again, as pioneered by Jae Kim.

Simply, the fact that nothing happened to hurt Zombies, an already very strong deck type, in this ban served to elevate them above those deck types that were harmed.

Pheonix:

For the same reason that Vlord is a happy camper in this Aggro, so too is the Giant Chicken. Looking at the last World Championships, it is clear that Phoenix had far greater potential than many of the "Dueling Elite" ever gave it credit for. However, Phoenix decks lack a lot of the strengths of Zombie decks, which lead me to think that the deck type will not be as strong as anticipated.

1) Phoenix is Restricted to 1.

Obviously, if you play a deck, and its central card is taken out of the picture, you are going to have difficulties.

2) Phoenix is far worse in hand than Vlord.

1 trib>2 tribs. In a Phoenix deck, you had better hope to high Heaven that you draw Apprentice Magician, Sangan, or Hand before you draw the Bird.

3) Phoenix lacks the mass revival Zombies have.

Even if Vlord is taken care of, say by Cyber Dragon, he is easilly revived by one of the 3 unrestricted Book's of Life. While she is harder to take care of normally, Phoenix is less likely to see action again than her Zombie counterpart.

4) Apprentice Magician is much weaker than Pyramid Turtle.

While Apprentice can encourage more resource abuse via Magician of Faith, but resource abuse is not as important as it once was when we still had the Trinity. [Granted, Dark Hole and Confiscation are no scrubs themselves.]

But Turtle's versatility in what it can search, those searched monsters not being NoC bait, and his swap-ability are what make him shine.

SCC (Spellcaster Control) did take a serious hit with the loss of BLS- as he served to stabilize a deck that lacked potent field presence and offense. Phoenix decks, more often than not, will resemble SCC's, except now they have to cope with the loss of the soldier.

More power to the person who finds and plays a Phoenix build successfully though.



Warrior:



The distinction between Warrior, or a JaNk Warrior Aggro, at this point is slim. Most Warrior builds will contain elements of Aggro, and most Aggro builds will include elements of Warrior.

Simply, Warrior?s are still one of the strongest backbones upon which to build any deck. Their speed, versatility, and power are rivaled only by Zombie builds. Also, Warriors include not just the typical DDWL and DDA, but they always-under-respected Zombyra the Dark. This guy has never seen the play he should and will CONTINUE to not see the play that he ought to.



RFP?s, which I have always been a huge fan of, may have missed their potential spotlight in the last format, but will experience a rebirth here. More specifically, Strike Ninja will see an increase in play, at least initially. Strike + His posse + DDWL/DDA + Return from the Different Dimension = an exciting and less CC spin on aggressive deck play.


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So that about summarizes my thoughts, feelings, and speculations on the current ban list.
It's nothing that you wouldn't have been able to figure out for yourself or that you haven't already heard, but I hope that I was able to synthesize and compare a number of aspects of the upcoming Metagame for you, and aid you as we all travel into uncharted territory.

Obviously, all of these things are subject to change over time.


Feel free to contact me at xxbenthegreatxx@yahoo.com