Hello Yugioh Community! I am back this week from YCS Atlanta! Sadly, I did not get the results I wanted, but was still quite happy with deck I chose to use. I will touch more about the YCS later on, but first I want to let you know what this article is going to be about! With the newest Forbidden and Limited List being released I have seen a significant amount of backlash. Most people, me included, are not too happy with the direction Konami is taking the game with the list. I am going to discuss what I feel could be done to make this game more balanced and better for all the player’s out there.
Question of the Article: Do you think that OCG and TCG should go by the same Forbidden and Limited list even though the card pool, rules, and organized play is completely different?
Don’t forget to answer the question in the comments down below!
I am going to start things off with talking about my results at YCS Atlanta last weekend. For those who don’t know I went in to the tournament using my own version of Wind-Ups. I chose to use a Factory-less build, while main decking cards like Thunder King Rai-Oh and Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning. I started the tournament off winning the first 6 of 11 rounds defeating a few Inzektor decks, a Mirror-Match, a Malefic Geartown Skill Drain deck, and a single Rabbit Dino deck. Then I had to play against two Rabbit decks in a row, one of which was fellow ARG Writer Alistar Albans, both won the dice roll and were able to open up with some combination of 2 Rescue Rabbits and/or Tour Guide of the Underworld to go with it. I took my two losses back to back, then won the last round in a mirror match. I was in 52nd place going into day two and had to win both of my rounds to make the Top 32 cut. Unfortunately, I played against former Champion Michael Lux who was also piloting a Rescue Rabbit deck. I was able to take it to Game 3, but his combination of a late Trap Dustshoot, Solemn Warning, Rescue Rabbit, Tour Guide from the Under World, and Mind Control I was not able to hold him off. So with my 3rd loss I dropped out of the tournament. Rescue Rabbit seemed to be the bane of my existence in Atlanta, the deck is quite easy to play and obnoxious to lose against.
Now that I gave you guys a brief rundown of how my YCS panned out let me get into the heart of the article. This new forbidden list for our game currently is a joke. Plain and simple, it is probably the worst list of all time. It took of no problems over here in the TCG, but at the same time it stopped all the decks that were running rampant in the OCG.
For those of you who don’t know what a Forbidden and Limited list is created all of Yugioh Research and Development guys from over here talk with Europe’s R&D team and ultimately the guys in Japan have the final say on what happens. This way of doing things really leaves all of us TCG players in a horrible spot.
Let’s be frank for a second. The OCG is a completely different game from the one we play over here. They acquire cards faster than us, they are many Duel Terminal sets ahead, but besides that there are two main reasons why the games are completely different. We have an OVERWHELMING amount of TCG Exclusives that actually see competitive tournament play and create completely different decks. For example, Wind-ups really aren’t very good in Japan so they don’t really need to be hit on the list according to them, but over here we have cards like Wind-Up Shark and Tour Guide from the Underworld that just put them over the top. The other main difference is the Priority ruling. In the TCG, when a player summons a monster they can retain player priority to activate a monster’s effect before the opponent can respond to the summon. In Japan, this rule just does not exist. This rule changes everything. It makes cards like Rescue Rabbit, Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning, Lonefire Blossom, Judgment Dragon , Dark Armed Dragon, etc., so much worse. The lack of having this ability is very visible on our current forbidden and limited list. With Judgment Dragon at 3 not being a big deal because in Japan it can be dealt with easily, the same goes for cards like Rescue Rabbit. Sadly, we still have this ruling in the TCG; even with different rules we are having to play by the same Forbidden and Limited list, it just doesn’t make sense.
THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM
There are two solutions in my opinion on how to make this game better. First, since the games already seem so different, separate them completely. They have different names, OCG and TCG, you can’t use OCG cards in the TCG game and now starting March 1st, you won’t be able to use TCG cards in the OCG without having the actual OCG card on you. If you are going to have different card pools and different ways to rule the game, why not just have them be separate games. It seems no matter how much they try to make the games similar they are always so far apart. They seem to almost work against each other and this problem could one day lead to the end of Yugioh as we know it.
The other solution would be the opposite of the first. If you are going to go by the same Forbidden and Limited List, then let’s all play the same game. We should have universal rulings across the board for both games. Take priority out of the TCG and you will see the player base be more understanding of this new and awful Forbidden and Limited List. If we are going to have a World Championship every year with players from the OCG and TCG, then why don’t they play by the same rules throughout the year? This path seems to make the most amount of sense to me.
Why It Isn’t That Easy
While it is easy to talk about what there can be done to make the card game that we love better, it isn’t always so black and white. I know a lot of the people who are employed with Konami and I know they would love more than anything to have a happy player base. Anytime you have an international company and little branches with separate divisions, there is a chain to things. I am hopeful that they are working hard to get these problems in the game fixed and I hope they are able to do it soon. It is a true fear of mine if they don’t get the ball rolling to fix this game and get it headed in the right direction, it could be at the end of its run, but I truly hope not.
Conclusion: The new Forbidden and Limited list was released a couple of days ago. A good amount of duelist out there in the TCG are quite upset with the way it has turned out. In my opinion, it is this way mainly for the OCG players, and since their game is so much different than the TCG it is hard to use the same list and still have a balanced game. By eliminating the rule differences or making a separate list for the OCG and TCG would both be viable solutions to get this game back on track. While it may not be easy for KDE to get this done, I feel if they don’t come up with a solution soon they might start seeing a decline in the player base. I do not want Yugioh to end, it is a game I have enjoyed since I was very young and I would like to continue to play it, so hopefully Konami can get things figured out!
Thank you for reading! Don’t forget to answer the question of the article down below! Also feel free to leave suggestions on what you would like to see me write about in the future!
-Billy Brake
-YCS Toronto and YCS Columbus Winner
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