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Leon’s South Wall Corner Club
Are We Doing This Again?
August 29, 2005

Welcome back everyone. I decided it best to address a surfacing issue early, because I do not doubt everyone will be talking about it heatedly very soon - if not already. Recently leaked to several sources on the internet was the latest changes to the Asian ban list that are slated to take effect September 1st. Let me make one thing perfectly clear before I continue any further. These changes are for the Asian (OCG) environment only. The list put out for North America and Europe will not be for another month (October 1st) and UDE representatives have said it very possible the list could change before that time comes. All those whom I have spoken to, however, have agreed that the list will more than likely be similar - if not identical - to this one.

In the interest of time and space preservation I have chosen not to include the entire list on this article. I will only be listing and discussing the changes. Lets jump to it then shall we? We will start with the newest additions to the Ban List.

1. Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

People have been of two minds regarding this card. You either love him or hate him. Regardless of your position, however, I seriously doubt anyone who is reading this can look me dead in the eye and say they did not see it coming. My feelings about it are that it was generally needed. One of the goals of updating and changing the list is to promote the pioneering and use of new and different deck types. I personally feel that sending the final nail in the coffin of “Chaos” was the single best way to achieve this. He was not invincible, as has been so often argued. As a monster he was subject to any form of removal that you happened to possess at the time. However, his cost never equaled his power in my eyes. Monsters towering at 3000 attack strength typically had balancing costs to go with it. Blue Eyes White Dragon, for instance, required two monster tributes to summon. Simply removing two monsters in the graveyard, where they were of no real use anyway, did not add up as a fair cost to summon a creature with that power and that effect.

2. Delinquent Duo (aka Satan, Lucifer, the Devil, Prince of Darkness, Hilary
Clinton)

When people used to ask me about the ban list and my opinion I always would tell them that there was only one card I wanted to see gone. One card that I hated above all others. It would be this card. I absolutely hate everything about it and almost cried when it came back for this current list. There is no way, I repeat, no way to start off a game suckier (another made up word I
suppose) than with only four cards in your hand. It got so bad that every time I would play one of my friends, and they would go first, I would say out loud, “Play Duo. You win.” Everybody watch me do the happy dance as this piece of “chit” finally gets the boot. May it rot there.

3. Graceful Charity

Never as much of a problem for me. People would sometimes ask me if I thought the game would be better if the entire Trinity was banned. I said no. Just ban the Satan card and Pot and we would be fine. You can keep Graceful. I really would have liked it that way. Once you get to the rest of the list you will see why. Serpent gone and Night Assailant restricted destroys much of its abuse. Chaos is down the drain so that abuse is gone as well. As a matter of fact, many of the former advantage-gaining combos from this card have been eliminated by other modifications to the list. We need at least some deck thinning here - with no Mirage or Painful.

4. Mirror Force

This is just the first in a huge crack down Konami is making on Defense. You will find, as the list goes on that there are much fewer conventional ways to defend yourselves against monster attacks. Expect Sakuretsu to be dusted off of the shoe box once more. In terms of mass destruction it is not really a lose. You lose one and you gain one. Stay tuned for more.

5. Ring of Destruction

Cracking down defense. The ways to stop getting beatsticked to death are growing less and less. Do we sense a metagame shift? Yes we do. The burn damage was also the single most effective game ender around. I guess it deserves its turn on the list. Should not last too long.

6. Sinister Serpent

Ouch. Say good bye to a dear friend. He has been with us for a long time hasn’t he? How will this effect the metagame? People, who already were not to keen on it, will absolutely hate cards with discard costs. I would not be surprised if people stopped using Tribe-Infecting Virus because of it. I doubt it though. No one, I repeat, no one is going to run Lightning Vortex any more. Not just for the cost, but because we have a better gem coming back.

Those are the latest additions to the list of cards not legal in Advanced Format. Now lets discussed those moved down from that list to the Restricted list. These cards currently are not legal for tournament play, but are slated to become so when the list takes effect.

1. Confiscation

Obviously Konami wanted to throw a bone to people who would piss and moan over losing the Devil card so we get this back. I do not mind. I will gladly take it. I’m just still so happy about Lucifer snuffing it.

2. Dark Hole

What? (Reads the list again just to make sure) What? Yep. Guess who’s back?
Back again. Shady’s back. Tell a friend…

Believe it or not with all of the add-ons to the ban list these are the only two returning. Interesting. However, there are quite a few cards being added to the Restricted list that were previously allowed three.

1. Book of Moon

Ouch! Why can’t a draw anything to stop getting my face smashed in by my opponent’s fatty? Cause Konami won’t let me. Well, the card did more than just act defensively. It was also a nice combo card but, as you will see, punishing every single card in a combo is overkill. For instance, why ban Mirage AND semi-restrict Emergency Provisions? Why ban Makyurka AND restrict Chick the Yellow? So I guess its nothing new. When Konami declares war against a deck they target as many of the cards as they can.

2. Metamorphosis

Death to Goat control. All your base are belong to us. And just in case you think you can find a way to reuse this one card…

3. Thousand Eyes Restrict

Really. This is about the most retarded thing I have seen from the list.
Restricting a fusion card. You know what? I want you all to do an experiment right now. Get out your decks and start playing each other. After 20 duels count up the number of times you had to use more than one Thousand Eyes Restrict. People run more than one because they can. They almost never need it. But I suppose war is war.

4. Tsukuyomi

The direct spawn child of Upper Decks conversion to OCG rules. It seems we were just discovering this fun new deck and its getting kicked out from under us. Oh well. Even in goat control I found it unwise to run more than one Tsukuyomi anyway.

5. Scapegoat

You are on the floor and bleeding. Your right arm is broken in three places.
You’re damn near concussed. We’ll kick you in the nuts anyway. And lets not forget all of the Berserk Gorillas, Injection Fairy Lilys, and Vampire Lords getting through their attacks now.

That sums up restricted. Hopefully (through my snide comments) you’re starting to see a general theme here. There were no new additions to the Semi-Restricted list but a couple of things were taken off completely.
Vampire Lord and Marauding Captain. Konami is force-feeding us what they want us to play aren’t they? Do you realize that Zombie decks are about the only decks without any forms of restriction or control to them at all?

Well, despite the obvious pushes to agro (with diminished defense cards) and total and complete overkill of the cookie cutter deck I actually like the list. Maybe its just because of Mrs. Clinton but there are other things I like. I thought it was nice for Konami to throw us back a broken card (Dark
Hole) just to apologize for all the other stuff they are restricting.
However, decks can now have three Vampire Lords in them so are we being force fed the new Tier 1?

Geez, I’m tired of writing. Did you guys really sit through and read all this? Go get a cookie. You deserve it. Until next time.

Peace.