Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
Before we get to anything serious, I just have to point out
the sickening irony of this choice. Back in January of this year I finally
finished my playset of Reborn Tengus, then the card was killed on the February
list. And now one month after I FINALLY get a Brionac for the FIRST time in my
pathetic poor kid life, it’s banned. I had a good laugh at myself, but it’s
hard not to be pissed over something like this.
Anyways, on to the actual impact on gameplay – Brionac has
long been one of the most broken Synchros, and its status as a potential
counter to several locks or otherwise tricky cards or combos proves that. In
that regard Brionac is actually an asset to the health of the game, but the
problem is that it’s rarely used solely as an out to tricky situations. If I
had things my way, it would’ve been reprinted one year after its original
release in November of 2009, then banned one year after that, which means it
should’ve been banned about one year ago (since there is no November banlist
lolol). The fact that it took the Atlanteans to finally show Konami that
Brionac is an extremely broken card is absolutely amazing to me – late bans
aren’t cool, guys! This also leaves us without a decent level 6 Synchro, which
is weird considering that historically 6 has always been one of the strongest
levels to Synchro for.
Future Fusion
Dragons, what can I say? Your unfair setup is GONE. This
also helps to hurt Heroes, Machines and various other types of OTKs. My
Absolute Zero deck will miss this card a tiny bit, but I’m so glad to see it
gone.
Limited:
Inzektor Dragonfly and Inzektor Hornet
This demonstrates how bad Konami’s archetype design can be
at times. When none of the cards are limited, Inzektors fundamentally change
the way the game is played despite lacking the consistency to win ANY American championships
during their run at full power. But when Dragonfly and Hornet are Limited,
suddenly the deck is completely unusable. Trust me, I’ve been through the cards
and it would be almost impossible for this deck to be playable again, at least
without splicing it with other archetypes.
Chaos Sorcerer
This card is broken because it’s so easy to summon and
wields an effect that very few cards have – being able to banish monsters. Like
Brionac, this card offers a solution to several tricky monsters, but is rarely
used just for that reason. This is a limitation that I am extremely pleased
with.
Spore
I suppose Konami has realized that they went overboard with
destroying the Plant engine six months ago, but now that Spore is back the
FIRST thing everybody wants to do is use the goddamn Plant engine!!! To
be honest, nobody knows if the engine will be good enough to push decks to the
top tier anymore, but if it is, then it kind of ironically proves Konami right
for having destroyed it the way they did. Either way, I’m glad to see the little
cutie back again.
Tsukuyomi
Everybody likes it when old cards come back, and Tsukuyomi could
possibly be the banned card people have asked for the most. Apparently this
card has serious synergy with Empty Jar decks though, and I don’t think that’s
what ANYBODY wanted to see come out of this change. It could finally be time to
ban Morphing Jar, but we can’t know that Konami might do that until we see how
these decks perform during the format. Otherwise, Tsukuyomi is an interesting answer to lockdown cards like Legendary Shien and Naturia Beast which have historically been pretty hard to break once they get set up.
Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
This kills the current form of the Hieratic OTK and cuts
down on the Lightpulsar loop in Chaos Dragon decks. Very nice way to hit two
decks with one stone, not to mention I absolutely hate this fucking card.
Evigishki Gustkraken
This card is proof of the fact that you can’t ever do
anything nice for the playerbase without them trying to abuse it and loop it,
lol. But on a serious note, to my knowledge the Gishki Hieratic deck has not
even been played in the OCG for a full format before its untimely demise, which
is something that I feel is very awesome. It makes sense though when you
consider that Gustkraken is much stronger than Wind-Up Hunter and gives you a
better way to dump your opponent’s options. On the other hand though, the
Gishki Hieratic deck is the exact opposite of Wind-Ups in terms of flexibility – from what I could tell by playing the deck, it only exists just to do that one play. (That and make Rank 6s, but I digress.)
Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity
A lot of people don’t like this hit for some reason. I know
I’ve previously said that only the banning of Hunter was necessary to tame
Wind-Ups, but this is possibly even better. Guys, just think about it…Zenmaity
is not only a Swiss Army Knife of a card that facilitates two broken plays
(hand loop & OTK) and can almost seal a duel should you get to use its
summon effect twice, but it has a gaping flaw in its card design which allows
you to summon it with any level three monsters though it is clearly a Wind-Up
support card. I am a fan of Wind-Ups (as an archetype, not as a loop) and I
think this change is GREAT.
Ultimate Offering
To be honest this is a banworthy card, but with MST still at
3, leaving this at one is somewhat fair. This limitation combined with Gear
Giant X being a Secret Rare and Geargiarmor being a Super Rare in the TCG
release of REDU means that Gadget shit will definitely not be everywhere you
turn, not to mention the difficulty in obtaining copies of Shock Master. Plus we don't know if the deck will actually top in the TCG or not yet.
Semi-Limited:
Rescue Rabbit and Tour Guide From the Underworld
Inzektors are dead, Wind-Ups lost their most distinctive
plays and Dragons have been hurt considerably, but Rabbit was only merely
slowed down. I think if Laggia was limited as well these changes would’ve been
acceptable, but as it stands it seems like we’re looking at another Rabbit
format. Not particularly exciting, especially when you consider Laggia and Dolkka are
being reprinted. Basically, I really wish Rabbit would’ve been limited now
instead. Tour Guide will probably still be played in several decks even at two
because competitive players don’t let go of engines without a fight, but no
matter how you try to keep it alive, you’re not going to draw it as often or
resolve the effect as often with the card being at two.
The Agent of Mystery – Earth
As an Agent fan I’m happy to see this change, although I’d
like Hyperion to be Semi-Limited as well now. Really, Earth should be at three and Hyperion at one.
Debris Dragon
I really don’t like this change with Black Rose still being
Unlimited, but hey what can you do. Brionac being banned does take a small
chunk of this card’s playability away, especially since Orient Dragon is nearly
unplayable at the moment and Iron Chain Dragon is kind of a shitty card.
Blackwing – Kalut the Moon Shadow
Decent pick since Blackwings are also losing one copy of Pot of
Duality; otherwise I don’t have much comment. It's good that Heavy Storm isn't banned and MST is at three / Night Beam exists, because this deck plays trap cards very effectively.
E – Emergency Call and A Hero Lives
Heroes got touched, which is nice, but these changes don’t
affect the deck's variants very much at all. It’s better than nothing, but it’s far
from being enough.
Hieratic Seal of Convocation
It seems like they’re trying to tone down Hieratics in case
somebody comes up with another OTK, which is a nice preemptive strike. From what I know about the deck and the nature of the cards, it could definitely happen at some point in the future.
Reasoning
I really don’t know why they did this. The most likely thing
I can think of is that they’re testing the waters to see if this card can be
unlimited – chances are, it won’t see much play at two and then end up unlimited
in another six months. I’ve never seen this card used in a fair way (because how are you really supposed to guess what the hell is coming out of someone's deck?) to be honest, and it should probably stay limited. It is a free special summon after all.
Pot of Duality
It’s rare that one card getting hit affects a ton of decks,
but then again Duality is a very unique card. You could have an interesting
debate about whether taking a level of consistency away (arguably from the game
as a whole) was the right move on Konami’s part, but I don’t really have much
of an issue with it. I’m just glad this didn’t happen a year ago RIGHT after
the first major reprint of this card.
Mirror Force
As a player this is gonna suck to play against, but the
change makes a lot of sense. Torrential is a much easier card to play and it’s
at two, so why not this too?
Unlimited:
I don’t care that The Black Corn and Photon Papilloperative
exist, Marshmallon should not be Unlimited.
I don’t care that Exceeds exist, Level Limit and Gravity
Bind should not be Unlimited.
I don’t care that MST is at three and Trunade is banned,
Swords should not be Unlimited.
I don’t understand why Magic Cylinder is Unlimited exactly,
but I know that it’s not a good idea.
Now to explain:
There are always plenty of counters to the foremost counters of Marshmallon and Spirit Reaper. Exceeds are not main-deckable cards
that you can just normal summon, and decks that can spam them are less common
with Wind-Ups and Inzektors having been hit so Level Limit and Gravity Bind can still stall pretty well. Magic Cylinder rewards people who
either try to get easy wins with Burn (either as a dedicated strategy, or just playing bitch in a regular deck) or who genuinely don’t know how to build
an effective deck. Swords doesn’t matter THAT much, but three turns can be a
lifetime for your opponent to set up, not to mention that even though Typhoon
is at 3 it’s usually kind of dumb to waste removal on a card that will
self-destruct eventually anyways. Not to mention that aggressive decks will have a field day with beating you up while you can't do anything back.
Necro Gardna
To be honest, this is probably the most irrelevant change on the entire
list at the moment, although graveyard-based decks like Vayu Turbo,
Magical Merchant bullshit and Sky Scourge Norleras bullshit can potentially profit well off of
this. Not sure how this will work in the modern-day Lightsworn
deck, but it definitely will not make Lightsworn “broken.” Isn’t it so annoying
when one change happens to a deck and idiots will automatically call it "dead" or
"broken" as a result? I wish people would stop trying to sum up complicated interactions in these cute little terms just because of one irrelevant change.
Emergency Teleport
I don’t really like this change; it promotes exceptionally
quick Synchro summons and it combos well with a few newer Psychics like Serene
Psychic Witch and Winda, Priestess of Gusto. At the same time though I can’t
imagine this breaking the format due to the existence of Maxx “C”.
Destiny Draw
Destiny Heroes are in general pretty shitty cards, so having to put up with them just for the shot to draw two is pretty damn fair. This plus Reasoning at two brings DDT up a little bit though, which is nice because it's my favorite pre-Synchro era deck. But overall this needed to be released from the list a while back.
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