Monday, August 13, 2012

Power Balance


At March 1st, Konami really surprised every single player by not conducting their usual and proper job of keeping the game level balanced by forbidding and limiting certain cards for the Advanced Format. Inzektors, Wind-Ups, Chaos Dragons and Dino-Rabbits continued unaffected since their release. That is, until September.

It was released after the World Championship the most likely confirmed banlist and it will pretty much fix whichever mistakes Konami did:

Just for the artwork


Banned:
Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
Future Fusion

Limited:
Chaos Sorcerer
Evigishki Gustkraken
Inzektor Dragonfly
Inzektor Hornet
Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
Spore
Tsukuyomi
Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity
Ultimate Offering

Semi Limited:
Debris Dragon
Kalut the Moon Shadow
Rescue Rabbit
The Agent of Mystery - Earth
Tour Guide From the Underworld
A Hero Lives
E- Emergency Call
Hieratic Seal of Convocation
Pot of Duality
Reasoning
Mirror Force

Unlimited:
Marshmallon
Necro Gardna
Destiny Draw
Emergency Teleport
Level Limit - Area B
Swords of Revealing Light
Magic Cylinder

So, let's point the obvious first:

Chaos Dragons: They will have to find another way to the Top now, as their main milling engine is now banned. How unfair is a card that's almost the same as Painful Choice? REDMD is also a great loss for all fans that played Hopeless and Disaster Dragon, but Lightpulsar made this Red-Eyes more powerful than ever, so it's a good limitation.

Wind-Up: With only 1 Carrier Zenmaity, their combo to empty the opponent's hand won't work anymore. Let's hope that they find a new strategy to work around this banlist, since an archetype can't be ruined by limiting an Extra Deck Monster of many that Wind-Up have.

Inzektor: Konami had to do something after having 80% of players at the World Championship playing this deck. Like always, the unfair searchers were limited. Same for the latter decks, this can still work, but they won't destroy so many cards anymore. No one at the WC was playing Inzektor Sword - Zektaliber, so who knows?

Dino-Rabbit: The semi-limitation of Rabbit didn't changed the deck much, but the semi-limitation of Tour Guide made this deck reach a more plain level with the others. It's not the first time a TCG-only card made it's way to the banlist, but, as usual, didn't doomed the deck. We can expect something more with time, but for now the deck will be fair enough.

And now, for the less obvious:

Evigshki Gustkraken and Hieratic Seal of Convocation: These two archetypes have a synergy that the western world has yet to find out. Or it would, if wasn't for Konami's prevention. Having the potential of Chaos Dragon's swarming and Wind-Up's hand cleaning, crippling this deck was a very wise decision. And now, only Dragunities will effectively use Hieratic Dragon King of Atum, although having REDMD limited kinda turns this XYZ less useful. And, finally, it will be harder to summon Gustaph Max.

Ultimate Offering: Was there anyone fearing the power of Geargia, Gadgets and Machinas? Not anymore.

The Agent of Mystery - Earth and Kalut the Moon Shadow: More good and cheap archetypes. Good to know that there's still hope for the ones who kept their decks after these weren't meta anymore.

Debris Dragon and Spore: Still hope for plants! We can only wonder why Spore was only limited, but the best guess would be that 2 could make more versatile Synchro choices in Twilight Decks if the only plant in the grave besides itself is Dandylion. Nevertheless, still great and cheap cards.

Chaos Sorcerer and Necro Gardna: Anyone is missing Twilight Decks? 2 Necro Gardnas didn't bring this deck back, but 3 might help this better. Also, Chaos Sorcerer was helping too much Chaos Dragon's strategy, , just like Lightpulsar and Black Luster Soldier. One had to go, and so it was. But Twilight is still balanced because of that.

A Hero Lives, E - Emergency Call and Pot of Duality: Heroes would be the strongest deck after the banlist if nothing was done against it. And so, restraining a bit of their search power was vital to the balance.  Future Fusion was important as well, as Escuridao is making it's appearance. They will remain powerful, making great outbursts, but having less chances in the top-decking.

Tsukuyomi, Reasoning, and Swords of Revealing Light: Old cards sometimes makes their comeback. These are more related to slow decks, and maybe there's more than we can see just now. But with Reasoning, it's probable that decks with 20-30 monsters, just like Junk-Doppel, will return.

Marshmallon, Mirror Force and Magic Cylinder: It will be pretty much more risky to attack someone with set cards after this. Besides Mirror Force, the other two will make impossible or very expensive the usage of Solemn Warning and Judgement. For the same reason, A Hero Lives can become a gambling kind of card.


Destiny Draw, Emergency Teleport and Level Limit - Area B: Keep bringing old decks back, Konami. Stall decks using Area B aren't so fun deck, but with XYZ in these days, it doesn't matter much. The other cards can really bring an entire archetype or even part of the old Tele-DAD (Dark Armed Dragon) deck back. People that spent hundreds of dollars in cards for a deck which most cards can be all bought with less than 50 bucks nowadays will be thankful.

And that's it. We hope that this list is real, as the metagame will pretty much vanish and new ones will have come. It will be a golden age again, where price won't change the power of the deck... Or at least, for a while.

See'ya all next time and remember: Play with your brain, not with your money.

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