Hello Yugioh Community! I am back and here to talk about something that is quite important to this game that we all love to play. Every six months there is an update to the Forbidden and Limited list on the cards that you are allowed to use in tournament play. On September 1st a new list will be released changing the format that we have been playing in since March 1st. There is only one YCS left before the format changes so I figured it is a good time to start thinking about what could and should happen to help make this game healthier!
The forbidden and limited list exist in Yugioh because sometimes there are cards release that are just too powerful on their own, such as Chaos Emperor Dragon Envoy of the End, or create some sort of combo that is impossible to stop and will result in players losing without having a turn, like Substitoad. The people who create the “Ban list” have a lot to consider when creating it as it will affect all players and their decks for quite some time. Today I am going to discuss the cards that many players feel have the potential to become unbanned and I will give my thoughts on why they should or should not remain on the list!
Banned for a reason
Every card that has received the ice cold ban hammer has certainly done something to deserve it. People do not receive the death penalty for causing a little bit of mayhem in the park! These cards at one point in time were deemed to have been too powerful for the current game state and received the appropriate punishment. As times change more powerful cards are released that may make them seem not as harmful as they were once considered! These kinds of cards are the ones that I am going to discuss today. I am going to bring up the Pros to why they should be brought back and follow it up with why they should remain on right where they are. It is up to you guys to decide if they should be free or return to the competitive scene!
Magician of Faith
Level 1/Light/Spellcaster/Effect
ATK 300/DEF 400
FLIP: Select 1 Spell Card from your Graveyard. Add the selected card to your hand.
Pros to Free: This card was once that biggest headache around. I still remember the days of my opponent opening up his turn with Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, and Delinquent Duo to put me in an almost unwinnable position. My fate would be sealed when on their 2nd turn they would flip Magician of Faith to get back whichever powerful card they needed to finish me off. That was a long time ago and all 3 of those cards that used to be best friends of the Magician are gone now. In this current metagame there are not too many powerful spells. With the impending Re-Ban of Monster Reborn (I will discuss this more in my next article) the only power spell cards left are Dark Hole and possibly Giant Trunade. Taking a turn to set a face down monster has been something that most players do not enjoy doing in the current game. If you set Magician of Faith, that means you are not going off on your opponent thus giving them the turn to set up and blow you out of the water. This card is almost too slow for most decks to use to its full potential in this current format. With decks like Monarchs still being quite popular, any monster you set will be eaten alive. This card is not as powerful as it once was.
Keep it Banned: Chaos Sorcerer is now being able to be used in copies of 3 and many players out there might remember the friendship these 2 cards shared. Giving Chaos decks another great Light monster is a scary thought! Does everyone always complain about their opponent activating Giant Trunade and then going off on them? Well what if you were able to survive the first Trunade and they flipped Magician of Faith and got a chance to do it again? I can feel all the rage from Yugioh players around the World already! The biggest issue I have with Magician of Faith is that if she is not destroyed, you can flip her and net the instant plus one! Not to mention you can snychro with her and any 1 star tuner to make a Formula Synchron for another plus one! Anything that allows for such powerful pluses deserves a spot on the list!
Tribe-Infecting Virus
Level 4/Water/Aqua/Effect
Discard 1 card from your hand and declare 1 Type of monster. Destroy all face-up monsters of the declared Type on the field.
Pros to Free: Everyone knows about cards like Dark Hole and Mirror Force that can destroy a whole bunch of my opponent’s monsters for free that aren’t banned right? Well Tribe-Infecting Virus has potential to do that same thing, but with a cost! He not only consumes a player’s normal summon, but can be negated by Solemn Warning or even stopped by Bottomless Trap hole as soon as turn player priority to activate Monster effects when they are summoned goes away. Many of the top decks out there right now run many different types of monsters making Tribe a simple one for one in most cases. If he were to be release back into the Yugioh game he would probably see little play in the main decks of players and possible take up a side deck slot to use against less viable decks such as Blackwings.
Keep it Banned: Sadly, there is one main reason this card must remain banished in the shadow realm of banned Yugioh cards: Fabled. Over the past 6 months a deck known as Fabled has become much more popular and with a majority of their effect based up special summoning them when they are discarded by effects almost makes Tribe a little too powerful. Fabled decks will have the ability to discard a monster to destroy monsters, then special summon the discarded monster and synchro with Tribe-Infecting Virus. This deck creates plenty of reason for this card to remained banned. Fabled is already a severely combo based deck and giving them a card that can wipe out an opponent’s field while summoning all of their monsters would just be a mistake.
Heavy Storm
Spell Card
Destroy All Spell and Trap Cards on the Field
Pros to Free: My argument for this card is to switch it with the spell card Giant Turnade. As of right now a player can set 4 cards to their backrows and on their next turn activate Giant Trunade, go off on their opponent, and proceed to put all of their protection right back down. Heavy Storm will put an end to this. Yugioh is in a place where as long as you have a Solemn Warning set you can set as many back rows as you like because in the worst case they will all get returned to your hand. Heavy Storm will prevent players from setting their whole hands as one card will beat them. Just knowing that this card exist will make players play more cautiously. You can also set up skillful plays to trap your opponent and get some major pluses off of them. It used to be one of my favorite moves to set Reinforcements of the Army and Heavy Storm turn 1 making my opponent think is was safe to set 2 cards to their back row and proceed to flip them both on my turn for pluses for days! There are many cards out there that can counter this card such as Starlight Road or Stardust Dragon while his brother Trunade only has an expensive Solemn Judgment or minus one Dark Bribe in his way. Heavy Storm should come back and Giant Trunade should take his place right next to Harpie’s Feather Duster and Pot of Greed.
Keep it Banned: As long as decks like Gravekeeper’s are still on top it is hard to argue to bring back a card that will more than likely knock them down at least a couple of tiers. Heavy Storm can single handily make all back row dependent decks much worse. The ne T.G. Skill Drain deck will be hurt pretty badly if this card were to come back. It will also create more rage from many Yugioh players. ‘My opponent didn’t have many cards, but then he top decked Heavy Storm and was able to beat me in that one turn! I hate this game argh!!” All of the powerful spells in Yugioh can seem sacky and end games just by themselves which is why they all deserve their spots on the Forbidden and Limited List.
Conclusion: This wraps up my part 1 discussion on the September 1st Ban list. I talked about what my top 3 picks were to be released back into the competitive metagame. In my upcoming articles I will go over what cards I feel should be put on the Forbidden list along with what changes I would make to how many copies of certain cards should be legal to play. I hope you enjoyed reading! Feel free to check out the Altereality Forums and leave feedback about what you think!
Question of the Article: What cards do you think should come off the ban list?
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