Pook

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I Speak, But Does Upper Deck Listen?
2.28.05 - By Pook

So, Upper Deck decided to spring the Ban List news a little early. Only a week and a half after my suggestion article. I was the first Pojo staff member to bring up the subject, and one of the last to respond to it. I’ve read what they’ve had to say, and now it’s my turn to talk about it. Let’s see how much I got right…

THREE CARDS! I got three whole cards right. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? My predictions were right about Sangan (and not Witch) and Graceful Charity coming back. But as for new additions to the ban list, I am only 1 for 6(Painful Choice). Not too good on my part. But, life goes on, and there’s nothing I can do about it. The good news is that, like all of the past lists, this isn’t permanent. The lists are fluid, changing every so often. But do these new changes add or take away that much from current game play? Let’s examine some of the changes a little more carefully.

The New Cards Added

Yes, there were plenty of cards I wanted banned that didn’t make the cut, but I’ll live with Upper Deck’s decisions. One card I’m glad made the list is Magical Scientist. I forgot to add it to my list, but Dark Paladin made up for me. Magical Scientist is a great card, but it is really easy to abuse, especially with BLS/Creator decks. I was going to make a Creator deck and couldn’t think of a good strategy for it, so I traded my card. The guy I traded to made it work by paying 2000 LP to bring out 2 monsters, both of which were used to tribute summon The Creator. Real easy way to bring a tribute monster onto the field.
Another good call is Butterfly Dagger – Elma. I’ve been Exodia-ed by this only once, but it is a cheap way to go out. Just a good way to let Exodia decks be a little more respectable.
Forceful Century and Confiscation were good choices, especially because they’ve been abused since the Removal decks were the cookie-cutter. As much as I hate Fiber Jar, it didn’t need to be banned, because there are plenty of ways to stop it – Nobleman of Crossout, Ceasefire, etc. – but I can understand why it was.

The Return of Mirror Force and United We Stand

I have mixed feelings about these cards returning to limited status. Sure, they are both incredibly powerful and can give you the edge you need, but it may be a power we are not yet ready to contain. In the absence of Mirror Force, Sakuretsu Armor took its place. But Sakuretsu Armor was a much more balanced Mirror Force, in that it only stops the one attacking monster. Most people were running one or two of these, especially to stop a Black Luster Soldier. But now, we’ll have a powerful defense against a swarm of big monsters, that is, unless Jinzo is one of them. I like being able to stop a full onslaught, but that kind of power makes game play sort of uneven. Luckily, maybe more people will be more conservative with their Main Phase 1 summoning, sticking with Main Phase 2 to avoid another monster to be Mirror Forced.
As for United We Stand, gain, it is a tricky situation. Most decks now pack a Scapegoat in order to prevent direct attacks, but that means a free 2400 ATK power boost for this card. That’s a heck of a lot. I mean, as much fun as boosting your own monster that much is (especially for fun cards like Raging Flame Sprite and her direct attack/ATK power boost effect), but again, it makes the game uneven. I suppose if you are letting United We Stand come back, we need to let Mirror Force come back, too, in order to properly counter it.

I Can’t Believe…

D.D. Warrior Lady becoming Limited, and Vampire Lord moving down to Semi-Limited. I’m thrilled that DDWL won’t be too abused, but 2 Vampire Lords is a LOT of trouble. With no Raigeki or Dark Hole, it is going to be hard to kill two of these on the field (except now we have our Mirror Force). Zombie decks got a major boost with the release of the new Structure deck, and have been seeing more playability since then, but this one-time Secret rare is now incredibly easy to get your hands on. I am saying this on the record right now – I have a feeling that Zombie decks are going to be one of the next cookie-cutters (the fact that BLS wasn’t banned will help Warrior decks stick around longer, but I think Zombie is next). Pyramid Turtle gets Vampire Lord out really quickly, so having 2 Vampire Lords on the field at once really isn’t that much of a stretch. Oh well, we shall see about this.


At first, I was really mad that so many of my picks didn’t make the list, but like I said before, I can learn to live with it. I was mad to see Dark Hole, Raigeki, and Harpie’s Feather Duster, as well as Mirror Force and Imperial Order get sacked last time around, but I learned to love it. In time, I hope the same thing will happen with this list.

Oh, and one last thing…did anyone happen to notice Johnny Depp’s tie pin at the Academy Awards? It was the shape of an Ankh, a.k.a. the shape of the Millennium Key…Keep this in mind in the next coming months…

…happy dueling…