Analysis of the “Banlist of the People”: What pissed you off the most?

In case you’ve missed my post about the “banlist of the people”: check this out.

Second point you’ve probably all wondered about… the sources for this list. Here’s my list.

This list includes many people you’ve probably never heard about (feels like a hipster), but also has a few well-known names, both in terms of bloggers, yugi-tubers and others: I’m talking about names like LFN, GQ, Mike, Bahamut84, K’Yde Ren, Ventus, Underworld6667 & DrakoDMD, Lithium3200, Wilson Tsang, Billy Brake, Vexacus4666, Thekeeko25, Merlin Schumacher,…

Next to each source, there’s a link to the blog post, forum post, article or youtube video I got the banlist wishlist/prediction from. Check the blogs & youtube channels, there are definitely some cool ones amongst them.

A few rules with the list and my analysis:

• Don’t laugh/bash at people for some of the weird choices. Everyone has their own opinion. It does not automatically match yours. It does not mean Konami will follow them (nor you).
• Don’t cry if your list isn’t included in my list. I’ve stopped at 100 lists, since I had to stop at some point. So it’s perfectly possible I didn’t include yours. Also, my list was finished last week, so any updates on lists or new lists ever since have not been included.
• In my analysis, any card not mentioned did either not fit my post or had < 10% requests.

Now, let’s analyse the list a little deeper… What pissed you guys off in the past format?

Inzektors: Squash every bug!

The inzektors bug us, that much is clear. Nearly everyone (96%) voted for at least 1 inzektor card. Most of you want to stop the amount of special summoning (62%), others want to stop the searching (22%) and others just want the destruction to stop (31%). Everything mentioned is possible, since massive search power is just as annoying as massive field spamming and just as annoying as massive destruction.

Chaos Dragons: Turn 1 Future Fusion… Good Game?

I think this one is pretty clear. Future Fusion is the most requested card to be hit. 75% of you want Future Fusion to become forbidden; this card clearly pissed the most people off. The reasoning is obvious: Starting off with Future Fusion gives Chaos Dragon players the win.

The other Chaos Dragon cards that I’ve seen being requested for a hit are Red-eyes Darkness Metal Dragon (69%) and Lightpulsar Dragon (16%). The high rate of requests for REDMD is understandable, since it’s being abused in Hieratic decks (in the OCG) as well and 2 REDMD equals Gustav Max, the rank 10 mechanical phallus.

Rescue Rabbit: The Bunny or the Dragon

The Rabbit decks (Dino Rabbit in TCG, Verz Laggia in OCG) have become infamous in the past months. So it’s no surprise that 73% of you want to see the bunny being chained down to either 2 or 1. Next to that, several of you want to see the flying Solemn Judgment (Evolzar Laggia – 24%) and the flying Dimension Fusion (Leviair – 18%) get caught.

Wind-ups: The hunter being hunted

Although 34% of you want Wind-up Carrier Zenmaighty become more limited and some even Wind-up Rat (10%), the most requests came for Wind-up Hunter (4% limited, 59% says forbidden). In short, most of you can handle the mass special summoning, but the hand destruction has to go.

HERO’s: The HERO Gotham deserves?

HERO: Hero decks have gained popularity due the easy XYZ’ing and OTK with H.C. Excalibur and Blade Armor Ninja. Though the amount of requests in hits are lower than Inzektors, Wind-ups or Chaos Dragons, several of you want to see the HERO stuff get taken down a notch.

27% of you want to see Miracle Fusion get hit; 22% of you want E-Emergency Call get hit, 18% wants Super Polymerization to get hit, 11% want to see E-HERO Stratos banned. And then you of course have Future Fusion, since HERO’s can abuse this card as well.

Crippling the staple cards

Every deck has its staple cards. Sometimes it increases and sometimes it has increased too much to be good. The staple cards you want to see hit are: Black Luster Soldier EOTB (44%), Monster Reborn (58%), Mind Control (24%) and Mystical Space Typhoon (45%). Also requested is Pot of Avarice (16%).

One of the other things people want to see is the death of the Tour Guide engine. 46% of you want to see Tour Guide from the Underworld get some form of limit and 23% of you want to see Sangan gone.

Other archetypes needing a hit?

Hit requests for other archetypes are lower than the previous mentioned ones. But you do see a few cards returning that point out certain hate factors:

• Offering Gadgets: Ultimate Offering, combined with the Search power of Gadgets, create great XYZ monsters. Konami took Offering down to 2 last banlist, but 31% of you want to see it taken down further.
• Dark World: Forget Grapha, Snoww or Gates of Dark World. The card that pisses you off the most is Card Destruction (21%). The card gives unfair advantage, similar to Future Fusion.
• Six Samurai: Though several requests ask the return of Shi En or Smoke Signal, a lot of you still hate Gateway of the Six (17%) and want it gone.
• Final Countdown: Final Countdown decks have seen an increase in play and the deck managed to crawl its way into top events (together with Chain Burn). So it’s no surprise to see 13% of you want to see Final Countdown get hit, while 10% of you want One Day of Peace to take a hit.

Archetypes that need support:

Each time an archetype gets hit too hard, people drop it like it’s hot. But after a while, people want to see some cards return, to make the deck more playable. Prime examples are:

• Blackwings: At its peak, Blackwings got their wings clipped. But now, people want to see a com-back of sorts. 18% of you want to see Gale return to 2, 13% wants Kalut back and 9% wants Black Whirlwind.
• T.G. Agents: Got hit where it hurts last banlist. 19% of you want to see T.G. Striker return to 2 and the same amount wants to see The Agent of Mystery – Earth return to 2.
• Plants: Also butchered in the last F&L list, was the Plants Engine. 40% of you want Spore back, making it the most requested card to return from the forbidden status. Also requested are Reborn Tengu (12%) and Formula Synchron (10%).
• Lightsworn: For a few lists now, we’ve seen a return of hit Lightsworn cards. List after list, they’re getting a few cards back. This time around, 22% ask for the return of: Book of Moon, 15% wants to see Necro Gardna become unlimited, and 16% wants the same to happen to Lumina.

Thoughts in general

More than single archetypes (except Inzektors), it can be noted that you want power cards gone. You don’t want overpowered cards that give unfair advantages, like Card Destruction (in Dark World), Gateway (Six Sam), Future Fusion (Chaos Dragons & HERO), Laggia (Rabbit), BLS (any dark+light deck), Ultimate Offering (Gadgets), Monster Reborn, Pot of Avarice and Mind Control. let’s hope Konami listens to the wishes of the players and creates a more balanced game.

Another thing I noticed is that a lot of people don't care which cards should become unlimited (safe Spore). The current list of semi-limited card apparantly is a list nobody really cares about. In comparison to the current limited cards, where most people state that "it's fine as it is, don't change those cards".

When the official Forbidden and Limited list is confirmed by Konami, I’ll compare it to this list and see how many of you were close and how far off this list is to what we actually wanted.

Until next time

V out.