Chaos Dragons: close to being extinct
As a Chaos Dragon player, I realize we’ve been hurt. Future Fusion: forbidden (we saw that one coming miles away), REDMD: Limited (hurts a lot), Chaos Sorcerer limited (WHY?), Tour Guide became semi-limited (awh), Brionac Forbidden (although the last 2 are key cards in many decks anyways).
I’m currently testing out new deckbuilds of Chaos Dragons, but more on that later.
Inzektors: Got their wings ripped out
We expected Inzektors to get hit, but they got butchered instead. With two of the 3 key cards becoming limited, the deck got hurt a lot. They can’t run to Tour Guide (as an alternative) either, because she got hit as well.
I warned you to sell your inzektor stuff while it was still worth something.
Wind-up: Sunk your battleship
Konami was smart in this case. They hit Wind-ups where it hurt the most… the mass spamming has ceased. Zenmaighty to 1 will make Hunter much less of a threat. Honestly, I wished Konami would do this, but I never expected they would.
Rabbit decks: An arrow to the knee
This one is the top deck that got hurt the least. The tins may have given it away already. Konami wouldn’t promote their tins with 2 of the boss XYZ, if the bunny would’ve been served for lunch. Rabbit became semi-limited. With Tour Guide to 2, this top tier deck has the highest chance of survival in the new format.
HERO: it’s just a braze
Konami recognized that HERO’s have become stronger, so they semi-limited A Hero Lives (one of the problem cards in my eyes) and E-Emergency Call. In return they gave us the long-desired third Destiny Draw.
Hieratic mash-ups (specific: Gishki Hieratic): Let’s take one foot, your spine and your evil eye.
The Hieratic Loop got hit. REDMD to 1 and Seal of Convocation to 2 reduces the OTK-ability of this deck to 0. With Evigishki Gustkraken, they also pre-emptively hit the mash-up of Hieratics with Gishki’s. At first you might wonder: “Why Gustkraken?”. But I’ve seen the deck in action (thanks to Lithium3200’s uploads). The amount of times a hieratic player summons Gustkraken in one duel, makes Wind-up Hunter look like an amateur.
Offering Gadgets (Offerings no longer allowed)
With Ultimate Offering to 1, this deck is dead. No problem with that, Offering became a problem card ever since XYZ came out.
Stop the brain drain
This is a request from several OCG players I’ve seen. Stopping brainless decks. The argument is that Pot of Duality (and a few other cards) promote unskilled play. They got their wish somewhat, as Pot of Duality got semi-limited, together with Tour Guide. I hope this will promote skilled play & creative deck creation.
The decks that have recovered a little are:
- Plants: Spore Returns & Debris Dragon goes to 2. Hurray!
- Agents: The return of Earth gives the deck a little breather. But honestly, I’d rather have seen T.G. Striker return than this one.
- Blackwing: Kalut returns to 2, giving Blackwings that little extra boost they needed.
- Lightsworn: As predicted by many people, the Lightswornd get another card back. This time, it’s Necro Gardna. Will this boost their popularity?
- Stall/Burn: Marshmallon, Level Limit Area B, Magic Cylinder and Swords of Revealing Light are back at 3. This gives people who like stall decks an extra boost.
- Tele-DAD: Emergency Teleport is back unlimited. Same for Destiny Draw. Though the old Tele-DAD seems impossible to make, with all the new cards that came out ever since, it will be interesting to see new variants.
Decks that will flourish in the new format
Of course, it’s always hard to tell in the beginning of a new banlist (that matters). My first thought would be:
- Dino Rabbit: A little slower than before, but with 3 Leviair, 3 Laggia & 3 Dolkka, this is still a serious threat.
- HERO: With Stratos still in play and with Excalibur & Blade Armor Ninja, this remains a deck to be feared.
- Geargia: Better get used to the return of machine decks. Geargia has topped quite frequently in the OCG, so I kind of expect it to do the same here, even if the deck lacks certain cards from the OCG (like Tinplate goldfish).
- Six Samurai: Honestly, I forgot about these bastards, until I read the post of Lightgrunity. Its worst matchups are gone with this list, so it has a potential to come back with a revenge.
- Dark World: Did not get hurt by banlist. This deck might become a serious threat, but the deck is still its own worst enemy (mirror matches ftw).
- Atlantean mashups: Though this will wait until November (structure deck & Abyss Rising), you better prepare for the rise of water-attribute decks.
- Tele-DAD: Yeah, you ARE reading that correctly. With 3 Emergency Teleports and 3 Destiny Draws at their disposal and no other key card being hurt, I think Tele-DAD (and other Tele-mashups) is a serious contender for the upcoming format. So better fetch your Krebons while they’re cheap dirt, because in a month, he might be a rare find. E-Teleport already is.
September is Tele-Party time!
