Why a Ban List will ensure that Yu-Gi-Oh will never die - PHOENIX ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Mark Kuntz Reply-To: Mark Kuntz Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:30:14 -0600 Why a Ban List will ensure that Yu-Gi-Oh will never die - by PHOENIX Okay, this doesn't seem like much of a tip, I suppose, but I figured, maybe I should explain why I think that Yu-Gi-Oh will live longer because of a ban list rather than complain about not being able to use Yata, Raigeki, and the like anymore. I should say, first of all, that I read the featured articles and Card of the Day most regularly on Pojo.com, though I haven't had enough time to get into the forums for real. I've been playing Yu-Gi-Oh since shortly after it started, which brings me to my first point. Before I played Yu-Gi-Oh, I played Magic: The Gathering. On my income, I can only afford one CCG/TCG at a time. I've dabbled in all manner of CCGs and TCGs, and I have to say that Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh probably have the widest appeal and are definitely the most fun. But, as I was saying. I played Magic: The Gathering for about four or five years prior to getting into Yu-Gi-Oh seriously. I studied a lot about Magic: who the best pro players were, how to build good decks, but since there was no tournament scene (and there continues not to be) in the town where I live, I wasn't ever able to play competitively. So I always had this very fun outlook on the game. I didn't know much about which cards were banned and which cards were restricted when I first started playing Magic, but once the internet (I started playing Magic a while before the WWW came to our town) really ramped up, I was able to get online and find out that there were really, REALLY powerful cards out there that had been printed very early on that were now illegal for use in some tournament formats. I was curious. How good could these cards be? I read on, to find out that they were, in fact, the most powerful and game-changing cards I had ever seen, and decided that, if I had them, I would have a deck with all of them in it. But seasons passed, and without a lot of people around to trade with, I ended up getting only two cards on that list, and one of them I sent back to the company as a recall policy to get a free booster. When I picked up Yu-Gi-Oh, it was early on after the release of Metal Raiders, I believe. A friend and I picked up the Yugi and Kaiba starter decks and proceeded to teach ourselves every trick we knew. All the old Magic technique I had learned quickly adjusted my play style in the game. What I saw in the cards of Yu-Gi-Oh, though, was a sharp contrast. There were good cards, bad cards, and cards that seemed too good. Fast forward to shortly after the release of Invasion of Chaos. Up to this point, I had been focused on really building an interesting, fun deck. I read about the restrictions on cards, the limited list, and was very, very unhappy about the nerfing of Graceful Charity. I cannot tell you how much I cried when I learned I could only have one in a deck. But, life went on. I learned to play without it. Then, my friends started getting cards like Yata, and Chaos Emperor Dragon. And Black Luster Soldier, Envoy of the Beginning. I was so jealous. By the time we had taken a couple trips to the closest city that held tournaments (a little over 100 miles away), and a friend of mine had done very well in the finals with his Chaos Emperor Dragon/Yata-Garasu lock deck, I thought that for sure, the game was going to get pretty ridiculous with decks that had such powerful cards. Whenever I played test duels against my friends, it was always, who got a better draw, not, who played a better game. It was always, 90%: how many of the power cards you could draw and play successfully in one game, and 10%: whether or not you could draw any monsters. There was the least amount of skill involved. We had dozens of people playing regularly in our group. And then, I found out that the banlist was not only coming to America, but that it was going to be more than ten cards. I saw it for the first time. I read it closely. Chaos Emperor Dragon Yata-Garasu I thought, all right, no more cheap wins. Then I kept reading. Monster Reborn Dark Hole Raigeki Harpie's Feather Duster ... What? But those are in every deck! Witch of the Black Forest Imperial Order There goes my Exodia deck. Man, and just after I had gotten most of those cards to use in my deck. What am I going to do now? And then, that Magic instinct came back to me. Build another deck. So I did. After all those bannings, I was the only one of our group to come up with any creativity and actually put some new, and interesting cards in my deck. I started to think like a deckbuilder should: what cards would work well together? Instead of, which power cards don't I have in my deck? What came out of the banlist was a more diverse field. No longer was it, every deck having the same ten or twelve cards, or even the same thirty cards. Every deck became a little different, and with each new set, a little more and more different. Soon we had real deck types, instead of one deck type that won, and a bunch of deck types that lost to that one. What we have now in the game of Yu-Gi-Oh is balance. Order. Think about what would have happened if the game had never had a ban list, in fact, think about what the game would have been like were there no restricted or limited list at all. It would have become a game of who can spend more money to get better cards and have the best deck. Now it's more like, who can think of a better idea for a deck and who can build it the best way. This is how it should be. If we all had to spend a lot of money to play a game, I think we'd quickly realize that it isn't worth all our extra hard-earned cash for a game with no balance or order. I know I wouldn't spend all my time and money building a deck that was so full of broken cards that skill didn't matter. I want to be mentally involved in the game, and in the deckbuilding process, and I feel that I have achieved that, thanks to the ban list. Cards getting moved around on the limited list really does change the metagame a lot more than it used to now. More attention is paid to which cards get put on and off the ban list, because everyone is so stuck to having all the best cards in their deck, instead of having the best cards for their deck. April 1 will bring Zombies into power again, and it may see a revival of Exodia. Cards come and go, so do decks, and whole archetypes. The ban list brings constant changes, keeping each player who wants to win on their toes and their heads in the game. So the next time someone knocks the ban list, I'm going to stop reading what they have to say. I'm tired of people complaining about the ban list when it's the very thing that will keep this game they play from getting stale and boring. Let's face it, if you had the opportunity to play the same deck that won all the time for as long as you played any card game, and weren't forced to change it or even compelled to, you'd probably wander off and think of another idea anyway. The ban list is just helping you along, by making you think instead of waiting for you to figure it out on your own. Does that mean that Upper Deck thinks we are stupid? Maybe. I don't think so, though. At least, I hope not... I guess my conclusion is, don't knock the ban list, ever. I know it'll keep me from getting complacent in a game that seems simple at first glance. Think of it as a referee between good players. The referee calls the shots, but you have to compete against another player. Knocking the ban list is like hating the referee for enforcing the rules, if that makes any sense. I love hatemail, but what I love even more, is people who actually disagree and have valid points, but send both to mark.j.kuntz@gmail.com. Yes, that is my real name. No, I will not tell you what the J stands for. --PHOENIX