Rant about popularity of yugioh today,and a few underrated cards by TheRam ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: el Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:57:23 -0600 What is the Banned List for? Both yugioh and Magic TG have them. Both yugioh and magic made legitimately popular and likeable cards early on so that people would play the game! After the games became successes they started taking things for granted and putting out cards that don't measure up, except the occasional one (ced, bls, vl, gcharity in yugioh) to get the sales they needed come tax time. The ban list lets konami get rid of the cards that breathed life into this game, but now aren't wanted around. Konami should have made better cards instead of byser shock, big core, double spell, cost down, and feather of phoenix instead. I say it's Konami who is unoriginal, because they won't put out more than 40 likeable cards!!!! It's not our fault we can all agree on some useful card effects. All of the claims of unoriginality amount to some people wanting to simply decide to win without buying the more expensive cards. They can't afford the cards? That's life. I can't afford a Dodge Viper, and I doubt no one will care. The difference is I wouldn't go up to Mario Andretti and talk smack like my 79 cougar could win the indy 500, but so many of people act like they're the genuine strategists claiming they "see the potential" of common cards. Commons have no collectible value, and usually are space-filler in packs. That might impress some people, but not me. Maybe some people are just frugile, but just can't admit how cheap they are. But I digress. The point of the ban list is plainly this. There were less likeable cards than enough to make a 40 card deck, konami was happy. Everyone had to wait on bended knee for the next set, the next good card. Then there was 40 likeable cards, and then more. konami couldn't take it. Some people were actually not waiting around buying packs by the box-load, and konami couldn't stand it. The ban list, and even the restricted list is only to make sure there were never enough likeable cards to make decks with. The ban list started out 10 cards, then 13, then 16, and now it's up to 17. I would call that a pattern, and it'll only get bigger and bigger! Don't be surprised if konami just adds a few booster series to the ban list, or announces in a year or two that additions will be permanent. Good time to say just how upset I am that Imperial is on that list. For cripes sake, it's been on there more than ced or yata!!!! When people say why it always amounts to "well everyone used it" or "you should've known it'd be banned, it was a good card" Good being the emphasis. Useless top-deck though. And while I'm at it, I would like to point out that having two formats (traditional, and advanced) and having both of them go by the ban list (regionals and finals) could get konami prosecuted for monopolly tactics. That is if this game were popular enough to matter to the gov suits. 260 million people in America, 600,000 duelists, that's 3 tenths of one percent. If yugioh were in school, it wouldn't even get a point for having a name.... I remember when the media was talking bout the game, 1.2 million casual duelists and 200,000 registered ones. Face the facts, the media has. The banned card list has shrunk the size of the game almost two thirds. Stores nowadays have a much smaller section for yugioh, and just can't sell the packs. The numbers don't lie. konami had done many things the same as magic(errattas instead of replacing misprints, ban list, same tourney locations), there's a lesson there. Don't copy your rivals, you'll only wind up a pale imititation. Less popular and similar never takes the top, only inivators with something new and different become #1. Onto the underrated cards. Giant Trunade- should've replaced myst when restricted. hfd hs and three gt's, for beatdown that's 5 field clearers.... Ectoplasmer- great to sidedeck, lava golem counter in 1 card, completely invalidates stall. Riryoku- original effect would have been a ftk with ring of destruction, still makes ring more reliable. kinda like a limiter removal for all types that leaves you a blocker Theban Nightmare- Great for the name alone. when topdecking it eats blade knight alive, light fodder for bls if it stays weak, becomes a 1500 attacker if opponent snatch steal's it, and can be fun to set that mirror force knowing if they dust it, this guy returns to a 3000 attacker. Brain Jacker- flip effect monster, equip on opp monster to gain control of it, opp gains 500 lp their standbyphase, good defensive monster, the thing is 500 lp is small enough to keep their monster out and really swarm them, with them loosing their (possibly only) monster it could be as ugly as running into fiber jar The email address is theram@direcway.com Can't really get back to anyone right now though, lost my password and am putting off having direcway change it.....which seems kinda little kiddish I'm sure. But I'm 26, just fried my short term memory studying lo those many years ago....