New Creeds
with Coin Flip

The New Ban List

02.25.05   It's been a while. That may or may not be a good thing. The first thing you should know is that I've done articles. A bunch of them. I'm just far too lazy to finish them all. When I do, expect a mass-posting of them. Or, if I want to strain it out, a thin trickle of one or two a week.

Today should be a rather good one, though. I'm definitely motivated to finish when talking about anything concerning a banlist in YGO! It's whether or not other people want to sit there calmly and argue or agree with me or flame my head in for my opinion which is obviously of no value to anyone or anything since it is no value to them. That said, if you want to argue with me, please avoid the "Coin Flip ur a (insert random insult here)."

Enough. Banlist talkie now.

First off, the cards on the new banlist can be seen on upper deck's website. I'll post it here and the url to it in a moment.

http://www.upperdeckentertainment.com/yugioh/forb_advanced_new.aspx


"The Forbidden List will be used at regional and national events, and the World Championship.

ADVANCED FORMAT LIST EFFECTIVE APRIL 1st

I. Forbidden Cards

You cannot use these cards in your Deck or Side Deck:

Butterfly Dagger - Elma
Change of Heart
Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End
Confiscation
Dark Hole
Fiber Jar
Harpie's Feather Duster
Imperial Order
Magical Scientist
Makyura the Destructor
Mirage of Nightmare
Monster Reborn
Painful Choice
Raigeki
The Forceful Sentry
Witch of the Black Forest
Yata-Garasu


NEW! - Butterfly Dagger - Elma, Change of Heart, Confiscation, Fiber Jar, Magical Scientist, Makyura the Destructor, Mirage of Nightmare, Painful Choice, The Forceful Sentry



II. Limited Cards

You can ONLY use one of the following cards in the Deck & Side Deck combined:

Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning Breaker the Magical Warrior Call of the Haunted Card Destruction Ceasefire Cyber Jar D. D. Warrior Lady Dark Magician of Chaos Deck Devastation Virus Delinquent Duo Exiled Force Exodia the Forbidden One Graceful Charity Heavy Storm Injection Fairy Lily Jinzo Left Arm of the Forbidden One Left Leg of the Forbidden One Lightning Vortex Mage Power Magic Cylinder Mirror Force Morphing Jar Mystical Space Typhoon Pot of Greed Premature Burial Protector of the Sanctuary Reckless Greed Reflect Bounder Right Arm of the Forbidden One Right Leg of the Forbidden One Ring of Destruction Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys Sangan Sinister Serpent Snatch Steal Swords of Revealing Light Torrential Tribute Tribe-Infecting Virus Twin-Headed Behemoth United We Stand


NEW! D. D. Warrior Lady, Deck Devastation Virus, Delinquent Duo, Graceful Charity, Lightning Vortex, Mirror Force, Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys, Sangan, United We Stand



III. Semi-Limited Cards

You can ONLY use two of the following cards in the Deck & Side Deck combined:

Abyss Soldier
Creature Swap
Dark Scorpion - Chick the Yellow
Emergency Provisions
Good Goblin Housekeeping
Gravity Bind
Last Turn
Level Limit - Area B
Manticore of Darkness
Marauding Captain
Night Assailant
Nobleman of Crossout
Reinforcement of the Army
Upstart Goblin
Vampire Lord


NEW! Abyss Soldier, Dark Scorpion - Chick the Yellow, Emergency Provisions, Good Goblin Housekeeping, Gravity Bind, Level Limit - Area B, Night Assailant, Upstart Goblin, Vampire Lord"

The Forbidden List will be used at regional and national events, and the World Championship.


I'm just going to give you some quick commentary on each new thing on the banlist. No sense in going over why Imperial Order and stuff like that was banned. Here is the plain ol' banlist.

Butterfly Dagger - Elma
Change of Heart
Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End
Confiscation
Dark Hole
Fiber Jar
Harpie's Feather Duster
Imperial Order
Magical Scientist
Makyura the Destructor
Mirage of Nightmare
Monster Reborn
Painful Choice
Raigeki
The Forceful Sentry
Witch of the Black Forest
Yata-Garasu

Express any disappointment or joy you might have.

NEW! - Butterfly Dagger – Elma

Konami of Japan, the makers of the cards, have constantly shown that they are screwing up. They create horribly unbalanced cards like Raigeki early on and fail to realize the problems until 30 sets and at least 10 structure decks later, as well as who-knows-how-many promos.
So, Butterfly Dagger – Elma was restricted to one-per-deck at its first release. Okay, so they wanted to give us a good card. That's fine. Elma gave Exodia a tiny amount of strength and created a lackluster one turn kill with Magical Marionette. But then they give it more power in what we know as Ancient Sanctuary by releasing Mystik Wok. Okay, that's still fine. It still depends on having a Tribute monster, a card restricted to one per deck, and another monster on the field as well as a quickplay magic card that usually had little use besides the combo of infinite life.

Then they made a horrible, horrible maneuver and released Spell Absorption in Flaming Eternity. That cut the infinite life combo's difficulty down by several notches. Spell Absorption is a permanent Spell that gives you 500 LP whenever a magic card is activated. No problem. That by itself is fine, but that cut two cards and an immense amount of difficulty out of the combo. Plus, Spell Absorption isn't a bad card. Magics permeate the environment, and your opponent has to MST it to stop its usage, which will still gain you a few LP.
It's not the most offensive card, but it has a use besides the combo.
Elma doesn't do anything. But it's relatively easy, don't you think, to draw Gear Freed (or a Reinforcement of the Army, which was 2-per deck a while ago, to tutor for him) and Spell Absorption (while running 3) and then just wait for Elma or use Iron Blacksmith – Kotetsu as a tutor for it? Elma had a very easy Infinite Life Combo.
At that point, unless they ran Exodia or Final Countdown or Last Turn or some other method of an alternate win, they had no chance. So Konami, in their infinite stupidity, releases Spell Absorption without thinking about how easy it is to essentially "win" with it.

Change of Heart

Good riddance. It wasn't the best thing to take off the first banlist. Take control of your monster for any purpose? Let's say I have a Blade Knight on the field and DDWL in hand with Change of Heart/Smashing Ground, and you have Berserk Gorilla on your field. If I had Smashing Ground, Gorilla dies and I slam DDWL and Blade into you for 3500. That's fine. But if I have Change of Heart, that becomes 5500. This situation isn't really bizarre, either. Considering what the metagame looked like before the banlist was announced, that was a wise move. In aggro vs. aggro, this might have been better than Change of Heart.

Confiscation

What LEAGUES of stupidity has Konami risen to? It's like they hired a team of ferrets to consider the banlist and then ignored their wise counsel of banning everything on the restricted list and semi-restricted list (which would definitely make the game
interesting) and randomly pointed to a card and banned it. This by itself isn't so bad. Generally, I dislike prenegs. Confiscation was definitely the one I cared about the least. Delinquent Duo deserved a ban that was given to it, and

The Forceful Sentry

deserved it too. A free peek at their hand and you get to choose the best card they have or the one that will mess up your strategical move the most. You get to know every card they have, their deck's theme, and you can do whatever you want besides. 1 for 1 with you getting a free advantage? Ban plz

Fiber Jar

And how it deserves it. In-game resets are bad things. Usually, a player using Fiber will lose if the Fiber is stopped somehow
(Nobleman?) and have an increased chance of winning when Fiber goes off. It's a good card. I don't think it should have been removed from the first banlist (in Japan). Cyber was a fine move to remove from the first banlist.

Magical Scientist

Mise is this guy's middle name.

Makyura the Destructor

Why? In Japan, he has a few OTK's that are 50-50 at average. He's not the greatest card on Earth. He's a warrior with crappy stats.
His combos range from good to great. He never even made it to one per deck before being banned. This was a poor choice, IMO.

Mirage of Nightmare

Personally, I dislike this. I was highly interested in making a Night Assailant engine deck with this and Card Destruction and such as well as Raigeki Breaks and Slate Warriors, so I'm a bit miffed that this was banned, as it was a core card to it. But then again, it needed to be done. GJ, Konami. You're learning.

Painful Choice

Every deck should have been running this. People who did run it and chose correctly noticed their draws becoming progressively better and better after a Painful Choice went off.



Restricted to One-Per-Deck



D. D. Warrior Lady

OMFG thank you. I'm tired of decks just plugging three in because this girl is LIGHT and a Warrior and can be searched with Shining Angel and she's so good and she's monster removal good against 2000 Defenders and Tribute monsters and Spirit Reaper. Personally, I wish she was banned. Would teach the morons paying 20+ bucks for her on eBay a few lessons. Trust me, this was a good move. I wish Konami could go a step further, though…

Deck Devastation Virus

Here, I'll give you an effect from memory for this card.

Deck Devastation Virus
Normal Trap
Tribute one DARK monster on your side of the field with 2000 ATK or more. Destroy all of your opponent's monsters on the field and in their hand that have 1500 ATK or less, and for the next three turns, destroy all monsters that your opponent draws with 1500 ATK or less.

The text that's not on it: Flip the monsters face-up if face-down to check, and flip them face-down if they are not destroyed. Flip effects are not activated at this time. You must check your opponent's hand to confirm that all applicable cards are discarded.

That's relatively understandable. It came out in Flaming Eternity.
It's rather good. It would be better if Scientist weren't banned, because then you could just take out a Sanwitch, tribute it, and get free destruction. Even afterwards, you have Zombyra the Dark, Giant Orc, and Dark Elf to work for you. Check out my last article, please.
I can't judge this one as well because I don't know how it played in the Japanese environment. I'll remain neutral.

Delinquent Duo

This may very well be the single most stupid thing that Konami did this banlist. I think I said I'd go over the prenegs some more when I got past Confiscation. This thing offers advantage Confiscation wows at. Forceful Sentry and Delinquent Duo are the two best prenegs and first turn draws you can get, save a Pot or a Painful Choice. This is FIRST TURN ADVANTAGE. Confiscation was banned. For what? A 1000 LP cost to look at their hand and discard one card. When they have zero or one cards in their hand, Delinquent Duo = Confiscation. When they have two, Delinquent Duo is better than Confiscation. When they have three, there's a rare chance that Conf. would be better. But Delinquent Duo will be better until they have 5 or more cards in their hand. At that point, it could be argued that it would be better to discard Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning than to discard a DARK monster for them and get them halfway to summoning it. More or less, however, Delinquent Duo is better than Confiscation because you still get a random shot at hitting a good card and then force them to make a choice of what card is the least crucial of all of theirs. You get a look at their hand by seeing what got discarded. Delinquent Duo is better than Confiscation or equal to it at almost all times. I'd rather see it banned than Confiscation. Konami made a mistake.

Graceful Charity

Speaking of mistakes made, this is another. Charity is better drawpower than Mirage of Nightmare for a lot of decks because it can be used right away. Mirage doesn't have that luxury, and it needs a Raigeki Break, Emergency Provisions, or MST to work properly.
Emergency Provisions is useless outside of Mirage of Nightmare, MST is restricted, and Raigeki Break needs to be set the turn before. That's a situational thing. The only problem is that if it was pulled off, it was a quick win. You could have gotten one or two or cards worth of advantage. That's a nice thing to have happen, IMO. Usually wins games. Oh wait.

Charity gives you three and then lets you prune them to see what you don't like. That is a good thing for any deck, which is why it's a bad thing that this was unbanned. Maybe if Pot were banned too… I don't particularly like this one.

Lightning Vortex

Understandable. Raigeki with a discard and small limitation. I was thinking semi at first, but I was wrong. Good job, Konami.

Mirror Force

Why? This is just about as bad as Charity or Delinquent Duo.

Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys

This is just plain obvious. Here…

Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys
FIRE/Winged Beast/8/2400/1600
When this card is destroyed by a card effect, Special Summon this card to the field during your next Standby Phase. When this card is Special Summoned by this method, destroy all Spell and Trap Cards on the field.

His tutor is a FIRE/Spellcaster/600/600 that requires you to tribute it and one other monster to Special Summon Nephthys from your hand or deck. Let me see… Apprentice Magician and Scapegoat. Oh yeah. Even if you don't draw it, just use Apprentice Magician or something to pull it out. Considering the uses of Scapegoat that have already earned it a 3-per-deck position almost everywhere, this is an annoying thing. Oh, and it works even if it's destroyed by your own Call of the Haunted or Premature Burial. Is that annoying or what? It'll still see play in a lot of decks.

Sangan

Meh. The lesser of the two tutors from Metal Raiders. It probably deserves another shot at the meta, even if it will go into every deck at first. Definitely gonna help Exodia come back.

United We Stand

Scapegoat-themed decks just died of happiness. Their owners are surprised to find out the cards were alive to begin with.

Abyss Soldier

Were WATER decks really that powerful that you needed to restrict one of their best cards?
Dark Scorpion - Chick the Yellow

Why? Makyura the Destructor, the only card that is any good at all with this, is BANNED!

Emergency Provisions

Why? Mirage of Nightmare, the only card that is any good at all with this, is BANNED!

Good Goblin Housekeeping

Basically, with this, you draw one card plus one more for every Good Goblin Housekeeping in your graveyard, and then put one card from your hand to the bottom of your deck. Normal Trap. I suppose it was making the Makyura FTK/OTK decks a bit too fast in Japan. Meh.

Gravity Bind

Why? Messenger of Peace is far better.

Level Limit - Area B

This is a great card. Shifts Mobius to DEF position even if he destroys it. Same with Breaker. I like it.

Night Assailant

This is the other half to the deck I was talking about earlier. Oh well. There's always casual.

Upstart Goblin

The least broken drawpower in the game. Give your opponent 1000 LP.
For free. This goes in alternate-win-condition decks and nowhere else, pretty much.

Vampire Lord

Ugh. Now Zombie Cookie Cutters will start rampaging on the environment.

7 pages of 10 pt. font later, I'm done looking at the new additions.
Shame that this pretty much slaughtered my Night Assailant build, as it was a fairly interesting one that I would've loved to see in play at a Regionals. Oh well.

I think we both can tell that I'm pretty disappointed with the banlist. I have no general comments about it. I'm sick of thinking about the game already. This is just... Augh.

~Kaze no Coin Flip

--
Pie and cake.