Another list, Another format

With a new ban list comes our new format. Before I talk about this new format, let me first post the new cards added to the ban list that we all must abide by:





______________





Newly Forbidden:


Heavy Storm


Rescue Cat


Brain Control


Substitoad





Newly Limited:


Black Whirlwind


Royal Oppression


Infernity Launcher


Trishula(OCG only)


Monster Reborn


Dark Hole





Newly Semi-Limited:

Dewloren, King Tiger of the Ice Barrier

Mystical Space Typhoon


Chaos Sorcerer


Snipe Hunter


Ojama Trio


Magic Cylinder





Newly Unlimited:


Black Rose Dragon


Goblin Zombie


Cyber Dragon


Treeborn Frog


Royal Decree


United We Stand


__________________








Thoughts on Dark Hole and Monster Reborn:





This list brings great changes to this game, and at the same time doesn't really change much at all. If you've been playing this game for a decent amount of time, one of the first things that you notice on the list is Dark Hole and Monster Reborn at one. I think the ban list was done pretty well this time around, although I believe that Monster Reborn should have stayed banned. I have no problem with Dark Hole coming back simply because they took Heavy Storm away from us. Dark Hole is a more balanced card nowadays compared to Heavy Storm. The reason being that, when Dark Hole was banned, there was a lot less "swarm" in the game than there is now. The way the game is now, Dark Hole can wipe out an entire field and you'll just rebuild the same amount of monsters you lost the previous turn. Whereas when Heavy Storm gets played nowadays, it could easily lose you the match because you just lost your entire defense against your opponent. Monsters can easily be regained in a turn, it takes a few turns to get a "good" backfield. Heavy Storm being taken out of the format has also been "somewhat" balanced out by Mystical Space Typhoon going to two. My only problem with the list is Monster Reborn, because we are now able to use either: Black Rose Dragon or Dark Hole to wipe out the entire field then play Monster Reborn to bring back a powerful monster to combat your opponent. If you do this in a Blackwing Deck, you are potentially able to "blow the field", Monster Reborn a Blackwing monster, then swarm more Blackwings from your hand since Bora and Gale are able to be special summoned if you control a Blackwing other than a copy of themselves.





Thoughts on the banned cards:





I think that the new cards added to the "forbidden" category were great choices by Konami. In my opinion, Rescue Cat should have been banned after the Dark Strike Fighter format. All Rescue Cat can be used for is constant plus one's off of other cards in your hand and synching a lot with the monsters you grab with it(usually airbellums). If you don't know the Dark Strike format. There was a popular strategy being used called the "Dark Strike OTK". This is how the OTK was played out: You start off your turn summoning Summoner Monk(level 4 that allows you to special summon a level 4 from your deck by discarding a spell card), discard a spell for Summoner Monk summoning another Summoner Monk, use that Summoner Monk's effect to special summon Rescue Cat from the deck, tribute Rescue Cat to special summon two X-Saber Airbellums from your deck. Synch your Airbellums with your Summoner Monks for two Dark Strike Fighters. Due to the attack of Dark Strike Fighter(2600), if you attack directly with him twice(which you have two of them), then you will have done 5200 damage. His effect allows you to tribute one monster you control to inflict damage to your opponent equal to the level of the monster tributed times 200. Dark Strike Fighter is a level seven, so if you tribute both of your monsters. Your opponent will take 2800 damage, exactly enough for game. With the newest X Saber exclusives(mostly darksoul), Rescue Cat has been able to be played at a level in which it had never been played before. Thus, the banning of Rescue Cat was essential.

The next forbidden card I'm going to talk about is Substitoad. Substitoad is a level 1 monster that allows you to tribute one monster to special summon any "frog" monster from the deck. This was a popular card used in either a "frog" deck, or "Frog Monarch" deck. The "frog" deck was a very popular build due to the very infamous FTK. All you need for the Frog FTK is twenty frogs and a ronintoadin in our graveyard, and you needed a Mass Driver in play. Mass Driver is a spell card that allows you to tribute one monster you control to inflict 400 damage to your opponent. Ronintoadin is a monster that allows you to remove one "frog" monster from your graveyard to special summon him from the graveyard. You usually got these cards in your grave by having: Swap Frog, Substitoad and another random frog in your hand. Swap Frog is a frog that can be special summoned from the hand by sending one water monster in your hand to the graveyard. When he's summoned he can send one "aqua" type monster from your deck or field to the graveyard. You would special summon Swap Frog, normal summon Substitoad, procede to tribute the frogs with Substitoad to keep special summoning more frogs from the deck. Most of the time, you end up with two Ronintoadin's and twenty frogs in your graveyard with Mass Driver in hand. In case you haven't done the math, twenty times 400 is exactly 8000.

The other deck that Substitoad, as I mentioned before, was a "Frog Monarch" deck. Everybody knows the Monarchs(Caius, Raiza, Thestalos, etc). But this deck used the constant swarm of frogs to help get Treeborn Frog in the grave while getting field presence with Monarchs almost instantly. Treeborn Frog, as everybody knows, is able to be special summoned during your standby phase if you don't control any spell/trap cards. You get this to the grave through use of Swap Frog. You are almost assured that you will be able to get treeborn to the grave turn one due to running 2 Treeborn Frog, 3 Swap Frog and 3 Substitoad. That's an eight in forty chance of getting it in there turn one or if simplified one in five chance. So since you get five cards starting hand and draw into a sixth, you have great odds of getting one of the cards you need to get Treeborn Frog to the grave right away. Another card used in this deck but didn't get hit by the ban list is Battle Fader, this card is a level one, zero attack/zero defense monster that can special summon itself when your opponent declares a direct attack and end the battle phase. Substitoad definitely deserved to be put on this list of cards we can't use.

The next two forbidden cards I'm going to talk about are Brain Control and Heavy Storm. These are two cards that are used in virtually every deck as essential staples. Brain Control is a spell card that allows you to pay 800 lifepoints to take control of any face up monster your opponent controls for the turn(very comparable to Change of Heart but can't take face downs). Heavy Storm is a spell card that, without a cost, destroys all spell/trap cards on the field. Both cards are very good due to how they are able to change the entire landscape of the game for little to no cost. Brain Control deserved the ban hammer because it allows a player to take their opponent's strongest monster or a tuner, or something to clear the field for game and gain a huge advantage. Heavy Storm is able to wreck a person that has been buidling up their back row for a few turns, leaving them with no defense for the opponent to combat with. The only cards that can stop Heavy Storm that are commonly used are: Starlight Road and Solemn Judgment. Heavy must be destroying two of their cards for them to use Starlight Road and paying half your lifepoints isn't a cost most people want to pay early in the game.

__________________________________________________

On to the limited cards:

My opinion on the limited cards is that, again, they did very well with their choices except for Monster Reborn(as I said before, it should stay banned). Black Whirlwind is the first card I'm going to talk about. Black Whirlwind is a very popular card obviously used in Blackwings. It is a continuous spell card that, when you summon a "Blackwing" monster, allows you to search a "Blackwing" monster with attack less than the summoned monster from your deck and add it to your hand. If you know Blackwings, you'll know that two of their several key cards are: Kalut and Gale. Gale is a level three, 1300 ATK tuner monster that allows you to halve the attack and defense of one monster your opponent controls. Kalut is a level three, 1400 ATK monster that lets you discard him during the damage step when one of your blackwings is in battle to increase your Blackwing monster's attack by 1400. Essentially Kalut is the "Honest" of Blackwings. Blackwings have been able to be slowed down more due to only having one "search" card in the deck now.

The next card on the limited list is Royal Oppression. Royal Oppression is a continuous trap card that allows either player to pay 800 lifepoints to negate the special summon of a monster and destroy it. This card was previously only used in Anti Meta decks(decks based around beating the top decks of the format). But throughout the format, all of the decks that special summon a lot began to use Oppression to their advantage. Whether they used Trap Stun to get around it or just don't special summon while it's on the field. They were able to easily tech in two oprressions to keep advantage throughout the whole game. Oppression needed to be limited due to the amount of decks using it, especially since the top decks of both games(OCG and TCG) were maining two Oppressions: X Sabers and Blackwings.

Onto the next card: Infernity Launcher. Infernity Launcher is a very popular card obviously used in an Infernity deck. The entire Infernity Archetype revolves around having no cards in your hand. This may normally sound very risky because you never know what your going to draw and whether it will help you or not. But Infernity's benefit off of having no cards in your hand. Infernty Archfiend is able to special summon itself if you draw it while you have no cards in your hand. When he's special summoned while you have no cards in your hand, your able to search any "Infernity" card from your deck and add it to your hand. This is where Infernity Launcher comes in. Infernity Launcher is a continuous spell card that has two effects:

• Once per turn, you can send one card in your hand to the graveyard.
• If you have no cards in your hand, you can send this card to the graveyard to special summon two "Infernity" monsters from your graveyard.

The three main cards in the Infernity deck are: Infernity Beetle, Infernity Archfiend, Infernity Necromancer and Infernity Launcher. Infernity Beetle is a two star tuner that, if you have no cards in hand, you can tribute it off to special summon up to two more Beetle's from your deck. Infernity Necromancer is a level three monster that, if you have no cards in hand, you can special summon any "Infernity" monster from your graveyard once per turn. You will synch Necromancer(level 3), Archfiend(level 4) and Beetle together for Mist Wurm. Mist Wurm, when summoned allows you to return up to three cards your opponent controls to your hand. You will use Infernity Launcher to special summon Archfiend and Necromancer. Since Archfiend was special summoned, he will search another Infernity Launcher from your deck. Necromancer will special summon a Beetle from the graveyard, and you will synchro summon for another Mist Wurm. Repeat the steps until your opponen'ts field is empty and you have enough monsters to attack for game. This is the reason that Infernity Launcher was limited, simply because it is able to swarm your field for you way too well.

____________________________________________

Onto the Semi-Limited cards, these could have been chosen better in my opinon. Some of them should have stayed at one. Lets start things off with Mystical Space Typhoon. This card was brought to two because of Heavy Storm being banned. Konami wants spell/trap destruction to be more "one for one" than mass destruction. Mystical Space Typhoon is a great thing to bring to two because it's the only spell card that allows us to destroy any spell/trap for no cost(doesn't have to be face-down or face-up). It allows us to pick and choose which spell/traps we would like to destroy. Lets say your opponent has had a few spell/traps set and hasn't activated any of them even though you've been summoning and attacking, then they set a new card. Obviously your going to want to get rid of this new threat because you know the other ones aren't going to hurt you. So Typhoon allows you to get rid of that new threat without destroying their whole defense.

Chaos Sorcerer was also brought to two. Chaos Sorcerer is a card that was heavily used during the "Chaos" era(hence, the reason it was called the Chaos era). It was banned for several years until they brought it back a couple years ago. Then it was brought to two when Lightsworns were on the rise(promoting sales I assume). There was a Lightsworn variant called Twilight. Twilight was a deck using the "light" monsters of Lightsworns and combining them with the various good dark monsters throughout the game. Since Lightsworn is an archetype that thrives off of "milling" their deck. There would always be a light and a dark monster in your graveyard to special summon a Chaos Sorcerer. This is the reason that Chaos Sorcerer was limited back to one. Now that Lightsworns are out of the picture, there bringing Chaos Sorcerer back to two. I don't think it's going to see much play, mostly going to be used in people trying to make the Twilight deck good again. But It's not going to see a lot of use in high level tournaments.

Snipe Hunter is the next card that has been moved to two. Snipe Hunter was a very popular card at the time of his release. He is a 1500 ATK monster that allows you to discard one card and select any card on the field. You then roll a six-sided die, if the result is anything but a one or a six. The card is destroyed. This card was used a lot during the "Card Trooper, Dark Armed Dragon" era. Since that era is long since over, and not that many decks have a use for Snipe Hunter, it has been raised to two and probably will later be raised to three.

Ojama Trio being moved to two is a decision that I heavily disagree on simply because it's one of the cards that makes a deck called Chain Burn work. Chain Burn is a deck that wins off of burn damage(maybe this is why it's called chain burn). It uses cards such as: Chain Strike, Poison of the Old Man, Just Desserts and several others to burn your opponent's lifepoints down to nothing. Ojama Trio is able to be used to lock your opponent from summoning any creatures. You play one Ojama Trio, burn them until their able to get rid of one of the tokens. Then play the second Ojama Trio to lock their field with five monsters that can't be tributed. Your able to burn them to nothing after that pretty much. The only way around that now would be to dark hole the field, which would force them to take an additional 1500 damage because the tokens were destroyed.

Magic Cylinder is the last card(not going to talk about Dewloren) that got moved to two. The reasoning for this was probably because of the same reason they moved Ojama Trio to two: they wanted to help the Chain Burn deck. Magic Cylinder is able to stop an attack from your opponent and force them to take damage equal to the monster they just attacked with. It will make your opponent weary before attacking if your using the Chain Burn deck because they know that you have two of them in the deck. Other than that, I don't think Magic Cylinder is going to be used that much. I could see it going to three if Chain Burn still doesn't manage to do anything to the format.

_____________________________________________

Last but not least, the cards that have been taken off the ban list.

The first card to talk about is the one that everyone has been complaining about: Black Rose Dragon. Black Rose is a level seven synchro monster that, when summoned, allows you to destroy every card on the field. This card is going to be able to combo'd with Monster Reborn similarly to Dark Hole and Monster Reborn. This is a card that deserved to stay at one, but it seems that Konami wanted a format where the field will be getting wiped out repeatedly. This should have stayed at one, and I believe that it will get re-limited next format due to how much it will be used.

The next card taken off the list is Goblin Zombie. It is a card that was limited when Zombie decks were running rampant. Now that Crush Card Virus and Card of Safe Return has been banned, and several other zombies have been limited. This card won't pose much of a threat and definitely won't be used this format.

The next card taken off the list is Cyber Dragon. This card was originally limited due to the "Cyber era"(power bond for game). It was moved to two on the list a couple years later and continued to not be played at all. I think it will stay the same for the most part, but we definitely will see some Cyber Dragon OTK decks runnig around. But, I don't think that any of them will top a tournament due to inconsistency and other decks simply being better than it.

Another card taken off the list is Treeborn Frog. Treeborn Frog has been moved to three most likely because Substitoad has been banned. Treeborn, as I said earlier, is used in the popular Monarch deck. We will see it being played at three, but it will have the same outcome as it did before. Monarchs will play it, and that's pretty much it.

A card that I am very fond of has also been taken off of the list. This card is Royal Decree. Royal Decree is a continuous trap that negates the effects of all other trap cards on the field. This stops your opponent from doing anything to stop you from what you want to do.

The last card taken off the list is United We Stand. United We Stand is an equip spell card that increases the attack of the equipped monster by 800 times the number of monsters you control. Equips aren't really used in this game for the most part anymore so this going to three isn't going to be a big deal.

______________________________________________

To summarize my opinion on the new ban list. I think that this format is going to be a lot more "skill based" than it was last format due to all of the "explosion" cards we have in the format. Plus, a lot more decks have been balanced out so that there isn't any deck that is overly better than another deck(maybe sabers, but that's all I can think of). The new format starts today, let's all see how the this works out and good luck.