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Baneful's Column
Baneful's Take III: The Ban List
Of all the Yu-Gi-Oh! related
subjects, the most controversial one by far was "the ban
list" (The Forbidden and Restricted List). For newer players
who don't already know every so often Konami (and it's
factory of elves) works tirelessly to periodically release a
list of cards that you cannot use in your deck or you can
only use one of, usually to rein in on cards that are too
powerful. So, yes a tough topic. This is the topic that will
get forum and blog comments flowing for pages. It's one that
will also result in nasty, sometimes vulgar, rhetoric
(including ad-hominems like "you just want the card banned
because you lose to it and need to learn how to play
better"). It's controversial and widely talked about for a
reason.
It's like debating in politics
whose opinions should be made into enforceable law or in
video games on who has the more powerful console with the
better games. We don't just want our opinions to be solely
exuded by our own personal lifestyle. We want to establish
objectively and firmly over all who disagree that some
methods of play in YGO are acceptable whereas others aren't.
We're not simply saying which cards we don't like to play
against. We're asserting which cards other people should not
have the right to use. We want to say to people: "if you use
this card, you will be kicked out of tournaments".
That's not to say that it's
entirely a wrong thing to do. There needs to be a law in
place and we all can't just go around running 3 copies of
Raigeki in our decks. I just think the nature of aggression
and imposing our opinions over others comes with that
territory. In some way that aggression is fun. It's a much
wanted exertion of authority and it's masculine to the core.
Like American football, debating the ban list is a sport of
aggression. It's a sport that brings out the animals in us,
which is good for sport so long as the sport has
sportsmanship.
I may as well throw my hat in
the ring too. I'm not going to comment too much on the most
recent ban list, but rather the idea of the ban list in
general. This is because of a recent decision. The decision
to revise the list every 3 months (four times a year)
instead of every 6 months (two times per year) makes a real
difference. Exemplified in the most recent list we saw,
changes feel organic rather than violently jerked around to
shift the balance of the meta.
The transition from format to
format is smooth and seamless rather than dramatically
changing overnight. Before this, aside from declaring an
"emergency ban" on Cyber-Stein in one instance, Konami did
nothing as overpowered cards were ravaging the game. There
were many lame-duck formats where players knew there was a
fundamental imbalance yet had to patiently wait another 5
months for anything to be done about it. With that fixed,
contention amongst the community should be reduced as ban
list revisions are no longer a monumental event, but rather
a common occurence.
There are two principles I
personally believe that the ban list should follow. First,
even if a card has a low probability of being extremely
overpowered, it is still extremely overpowered and should be
banned. Second, banned cards should remain banned, and
balanced re-makes of those cards should be released.
Cards like Sinister Serpent or
Tribe-Infecting Virus may be less impactful than they are
today. Actually, a lot of what was broken in 2004 wouldn't
be as much today due to the fact that the pace of gameplay
has gotten faster over the years and there's a lot more
powerful cards out there. Still, there are circumstances in
which these cards can be broken. There's circumstances that
nearly all of the banned cards can be broken. They are
usually banned because of loophole in the card description:
usually one that allows infinite usage. Going back to the
two, Sinister Serpent can become broken again the second
there are more tier-one cards that come out which utilize
discards and Tribe-Infecting Virus allows mass destruction
as well as the effect being used more than once per turn.
The best bet would be to
release balanced versions of these cards. I agree that Tribe
Shocking Virus is a crippled version, but actually good
(though not overpowered) alternatives can be made. For
example, Butterfly Dagger Elma could be balanced again if an
alternative were released with a "once per turn" limit.
Monster Reborn could be balanced if the Special Summoned
monster had to be placed in Defense Position and/or the
monster's effect would be negated for one turn. Yata-Garasu
could be balanced if it was not able to activate it's effect
two turns in a row.
Cards like Deck Devastation
Virus and Royal Tribute are prime examples of the problem
with a conventional mindset toward the ban list. These two
cards lack prevalence in the meta, but are still
overpowered. These two cards (probably a dozen others could
have this rule applied to them as well) are mostly not too
harmful. They may destroy 2 monsters and that's it. But the
issue is if you happen to have a hand of: "Maxx C, Sangan,
Effect Veiler, Black Luster Soldier, Call of the Haunted and
Mystical Space Typhoon". By your opponent activating one of
those 2 cards, you lose half to two-thirds of your hand
without you doing anything wrong. These cards can become an
easy -3 or even -4 for you without them doing anything.
Sixth Sense takes a risk too, but is banned not because of
the broken payoff but because of the liklihood of it to
happen.
Delinquent Duo was banned
because it was consistently broken, but since these 2 cards
are only broken like 3% of the time, they aren't percieved
as a threat. It's still not fair to the people who are
unfortunate enough to lose the duel because they started
with such a disadvantage. Even a game won by sheer luck 1%
of the time did too much. It can severely mess up a
tournament ranking of someone who won 3 games in a row due
to skill but misses the playoff rounds due to something
totally out of their control (whereas the other players who
did make it to the playoffs made it because they did not
have to face up against luck cards).
The person who drew that
opening hand did nothing wrong, except face a Gravekeeper
and be unfortunate enough to draw 4 monsters opening hand.
Cards like Dark Hole and Heavy Storm punish recklessness,
but cards like Royal Tribute don't really discourage any
kind of playstyle, as much as they do destroy deck types.
Yes, can cards like Necrovalley and Dimensional Fissure be
gamebreaking against the wrong deck, sure. But they are
possible to counter and the damage isn't entirely done the
second they are activated. You still have a fair chance of
winning.
We need to base our criteria of
what makes a card ban-worthy on what the card objectively is
– not on how we subjectively percieve it. Poor design
choices such as luck-based effects with disproportionate
pay-offs and effects where usage is not limited or
restricted are an issue whether they are prevalent or not.
All cards need to be judged by this metric. Sure, contexts
change. The release of Tour Guide made Sangan more powerful.
If more targets for Deck Devastation Virus were released, it
wouldn't make the card any more broken; just more usable.
How many people use a card has nothing to do with the design
of the card itself. Even if the ban list were to reach 200
cards, by this measure, there's no word limit like there is
writing a newspaper article so all cards which are poorly
designed may as well be banned.
And that's all I have to say on
this topic. I'll put it to rest now.
Contact:
banefulscolumn@gmail.com
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