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Fixing the Game Part Three:
Champions of Yu-Gi-Oh!
February 22, 2006

I relish the very concept of deck-building.

At the core of the highest form of duelist, in my humble opinion, is the desire to win with concepts and ideas that have never been seen before. Take a look at some of my earlier writings with Pojo.com; notice a pattern? They were all based on themes, and the desire to turn themes that had previously gone unnoticed into tournament-worthy archetypes.

Now, a year later, I’m still the same person but with more credentials backing me up as an author. Take a look at my Metagame articles. They’re either there to educate novices and beginners, or to analyze themed decks! Every player in the Metagame.com list under San Francisco who has top eighted a Shonen Jump Championship has made a significant accomplishment. Their names will be preserved for the duration of the game. Yet there are some who have done more.

The fact is that there are only a handful of select players who have had the chance to top eight two tournaments. Make the distinction a top four, or semi-final status, and there are even fewer. Now get a list of the players who have top eighted, or top foured two tournaments in a row. These select few have, for the most part, used the same decks or variations thereof to place well. The format back then seemed to suggest nothing but goat control.

I proudly share my name with some of the immortals in this list, such as Wilson Luc and Ryan Hayakawa. But I differ from the true “winners” in one sense; every tournament I have attended, I have used a different deck. I feel it is staying true to the nature of the game to experiment and bring combinations that have never seen the “light of play” before. Innovation for novelty’s sake is a weak vice that is immediately weeded out in top tier tournament play. Innovation for the chance to win and make a mark on the landscape, however, is another matter entirely.

I apologize for the rambling, the need to establish credentials, or even worse make it seem like I come here to boast. That is not the intent at all. I feel the readers of this site have helped me grow as a person, player, and writer. Answering e-mails, speaking online, and meeting all of you in person has helped me realize that the game transcends competition, winning, or even the prizes. It’s about something more.

This article is an attempt to address the current state of the game, the ban list, and the hoopla surrounding the latest iteration of it. As you all know, Upper Deck Entertainment and Mr. Kevin Tewart handle the ban list on our side, and this current ban list was the first version to differ from the Original Card Game list in Japan. Mr. Tewart had the foresight to remove Pot of Greed from our game, and he is truly our only beacon of hope to bring balance and justice to the land.

An esteemed judge in the East region once called me Anakin as a joke after the Charlotte and Seattle SJC’s, hoping I would bring balance to the force. Here is my attempt. I suppose a lot of things in this article have been building up within me while witnessing the stagnant state of the format. This was inspired by Sandtrap and Bobdoily’s threads on the message boards (check them out they’re great!).

What Happened with this Ban List?

This ban list is the strongest attempt by Mr. Tewart and the handlers of Yu-Gi-Oh in America to balance the game. Sickened by the cries of “onoez Delinquent Duo!” “ban Graceful Charity+ Sinister!”, the designers made an ardent attempt to actually balance the game. Almost all of the kill cards in the format were removed, and newer sets have introduced more and more balanced cards that can actually supplement themes. Yet, ironically enough, during my discussions with most of the pros in this game (too many to list, but you can take Nate Nielbeck, Chris Sorelle, Wilson Luc, Anthony Alvarado, Max Suffridge, Matt Peddle, Kyle Duncan, Evan Vargas, Tony Lee, Hugo Adame, Kris Perovic as some), most tend to agree that this format is the most luck-based yet! Why is this? How did such an earnest attempt by Upper Deck degenerate into a format with very little variation?

In all fairness, I don’t personally agree with a lot of the vitriol spitted out by the internet community. To Mr. Tewart and the handlers of the game, I’m sure they must be thinking (to a certain degree) “how much more crying do we have to take? Didn’t we ban all of the luck-sack cards that everyone was whining about? More work to doooooooo?” And in all fairness, I’m inclined to agree (again, to a certain extent). The fact is that the format seems and appears to be ripe for balance. Yet the italics point to the fact it isn’t. So what happened, and what can be done?

1. The Restricted and Semi-Restricted List went Untouched for the Duration of the Forbidden List

This is quite clearly a mistake. The best analogy (over a six month span) would be the introduction of Jinzo, Premature Burial, Call of the Haunted, and Nobleman of Crossout in Pharaoh’s Servant during the beatdown era. Imagine if those cards were NEVER restricted until the release of Dark Crisis. Every deck would have likely packed three copies of these overpowered cards.

Fast forward to the release of Cybernetic Revolution. You see Cyber Dragon run in three’s in many decks, you see Dekoichis, Smashing Grounds, Sakuretsu Armors, Widespread Ruins, etc al. The curious refusal to address the restricted and semi-restricted list led to an exploitation of all of the factors that led to game wins.

I say this is curious because for the most part, the history of Yu-Gi-Oh has always involved a flexible restricted list. Following the Japanese sets enabled the U.S handlers to create a restricted list at least within a month of a new set’s release. Cards like Vampire Lord that were fun to run in three’s were immediately subject to the restricted list in the name of card balance. It is clearly a no-brainer, simply speaking as a matter of logic, that the restricted list should be tweaked after ever few major events. This could be rectified immediately, and makes sense when viewing the original method that Konami followed with the game in America. Restrictions were frequently updated in the past.

2. This has been addressed to some extent, but many of the new sets still feature 80% garbage.

One of my initial articles that steamed Mr. Tewart on the message boards focused on the absolute paucity of good themed cards in sets such as The Lost Millenium and Flaming Eternity. In my capacity of reviewing and previewing cards for Metagame, I must say that this has improved noticeably. Anybody who does not commend Konami (and UDE’s input) for including balanced cards such as Pot of Avarice and Treeborn Frog in a stagnant metagame is insane.

In fact, cards like B.E.S Tetran, the Dark World monsters and support, and other such cards in Elemental Energy made it the best set to be released in ages. It had almost a 10-15% ratio of playable to unplayable cards. A lot of this is because Konami HAS to link the game to the new show, Yu-Gi-Oh GX (which you should check out by the way). After all, this is primarily a kid’s game and should have the cards that make kids squeal in delight.

However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to either make the themed support cards like E-Heroes actually competitive (they’re only a few cards away, honest!), or to at least have a 50% ratio of tournament-worthy cards to non tournament-worthy cards. And BELIEVE me, I’m quite lenient in assessing whether a card is viable or not.

I have experimented with hundreds of different combinations. Dark Coffin, Time Seal, Magical Merchant (Scapegoat format), Magic Drain, Dust Tornado, Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, Thunder Dragon, Roulette Barrel, Getsu Fuhma, My Body as a Shield, Ekibyo Drakmord, Skull Lair, Trap Dustshoot, Mind Crush, Strike Ninja and other such cards are all forgotten from previous sets, but ones that myself or Team Savage have experimented with in top tier concoctions.

Remember, prior to the unveiling of the deck at Seattle, nobody really took Warriors seriously. I know that sounds semi-absurd given their absolute power in today’s format, but it wasn’t until the article “Rethinking Reinforcements of the Army” and the subsequent demonstration at Seattle that many opened their eyes to the wonders of the top tier Warrior deck.

Zombies too were derided. Mr. Rosenberg (highest placement ever at Worlds, Tsuku control pioneer in the USA) joked with me that my deck basically looked like a modified Zombie starter deck. By using combinations of cards that had completely gone ignored, I tore down another falsehood in the Metagame.

I am a person who scours EVERY set for a competitive, original edge. So please don’t think I’m simply slamming sets baselessly. While they have improved drastically, there are too many garbage “filler” cards. I can even give leeway to cards like Jerry Beans Man, which look like complete garbage until you think of their use in an Emissary of the Afterlife advantage deck (which Stephen Lusko used quite well). But there is too much filler.

3. The biggest problem is the lack of advantages that a theme provides.

Again, there should be some incentive to creating a cohesive unit of monsters that shares either the same Type, or subtype. I’m sure Konami didn’t design the type and subtype system for sheer kicks and giggles. I mean look at Magic Ruler, with the 1400 elemental searchers (Giant Rat, Mystic Tomato, Shining Angel), and look at its field spells (Rising Air Current, Mystic Plasma Zone) which are still surprisingly effective and highly playable. Or take a look at Invasion of Chaos, which introduced some of the best themed support in ages. Gigantes and Silpheed are two of the best Earth/Wind monsters in the game, and almost worth building a theme around.

(BTW, I’m sorry, but the Charmers, 1850 tramplers, etc are all terrible. Please stop printing them.)

The designers ARE introducing whole-hearted attempts at themed support. The problem is that their ideas are misguided. Generally, the most competitive themed decks only need two to three cards of spell or trap support, and four or five monsters to build around. Let’s take a look at the top tier subtypes that I could possibly build to beat 90% of the duelists using cookie cutter decks.

Warriors: This subtype has almost a dozen solid monsters linked by Reinforcements of the Army and The Warrior Returning Alive. Again, all of the other support is ignored. All that is needed are two copies of ONE spell card to make the entire theme.

Spellcasters: This deck was absolutely ridiculous until the release of Dimension Magic and Magician’s Circle. Up until this point, there was absolutely NO incentive to run a mono-spellcaster theme. It still needs a lot of work.

Zombies: Again, three solid monsters (Pyramid Turtle, Vampire Lord, Spirit Reaper) linked by ONE supporting spell card Book of Life. Themes aren’t too difficult to make competitive here!

Beasts: You have Enraged Battle Ox, Berserk Gorilla, Exarion Universe, Nimble Momonga, and Gigantes (which is not a beast) to build around. The intended spell support (i.e Wild Nature’s Release) was misguided from the start and is ignored in all competitive builds. Gaia Power could work, but the fact remains this is a top tier build based around ONE cohesive ability. Ox’s trample effect basically creates the theme.

See this? Beasts are top tier with only ONE ability that unites the subtype. Imagine if we had two or three extra cards that enabled support to make them highly playable?

Guttural Growl

Continuous Normal Spell

“Whenever your Beast subtype monsters deal damage to your opponent’s defense position monsters, you may discard a Beast from your hand to draw two cards from your deck.”

What does this card do? First, it plays to the strength of your deck theme (trample), while not being overpowered. Why is it not overpowered? Because your opponent has the choice to summon monsters in attack position, or not summon monsters at all. Secondly, this card requires a discard of another Beast from your hand. What does this mean? The deck must be linked. The chances of having no beasts in your hand is too great without making a full-fledged deck around it. And so on.

Konami has tantalized us with the Dark World monsters. They are a fully supported theme that is definitely a top-tier deck. They have 4 strong monsters to build around, and a plethora of nasty spell or trap cards that can swing the game in your favor. So we’re on the right foot, and there is hope.

My Idea for the Ban List

I loved it when Mr. Tewart said the banning of Tribe-Infecting Virus would let themed decks flourish. Ideas like those I have been harping about for a year, and his saucy demeanor let us know he was pleased with the ban list that was introduced a while ago. And he had every right to be. But the format actually regressed and it’s easy to trace why. So without further ado, here is my idea for a new ban list with logical support. I’d like to preface this with a mini-article called “Mechanics of Advantage.”

Mechanics of Advantage- Seeing Uneven Trades.

A lot of the “monkey-see, monkey-do” cards have been banned from the format. It’s not hard to see that Delinquent Duo immediately equals a two for one trade, that Pot of Greed does so as well.

A step more complicated is a card like Raigeki. It, too, creates a two for one trade if you destroy a monster on the field. But now we start entering into a zone I like to call the “Mechanics of Advantage”, or seeing unbalanced trades that aren’t quite so obvious. Let’s start with some simple examples, and move to more complicated ones.

Breaker the Magical Warrior is summoned. He was intended to be used in a spellcaster/spell counter based deck, but he is splashed into every deck. His counter destroys a Sakuretsu Armor. He then attacks for 1600. You have a D.D Warrior Lady and a Smashing Ground. Breaker has just two for oned you. This is a fairly simple trade, and the reason that Breaker is the best monster in the game.

BLS is summoned. He was printed for an unfathomable reason. He removes your face-down monster. Because you do not have a monster with attack power higher than 3000, you have to use a piece of spell or trap removal to destroy it. You lose two, your opponent loses one.

The approximate life point value of a card is anywhere from 1700-2000 life points. If Konami printed a card that said “deal 1200 points damage to your opponent”, nobody would use it. Make it “2500 points of damage”, and everyone would. So the value lies somewhere between that. We can use even more analysis to define the value more clearly.

A real world example is this. At what point should you use a Book of Moon to block a D.D Assailant attack, knowing you can’t clear it with your monster without taking a negative one trade? The answer is never. You should never Book a D.D monster unless you have a Mystic Swordsman LV2 in hand. I would take 4 straight DDA hits to 1200 hit points left before Booking it. Having said that, let’s analyze a few more instances of uneven advantage swings that unbalance the game. First on the list is Mr. Spirit Reaper, the second best monster in the game by FAR.

Spirit Reaper hits on an open field. Your opponent discards a card (-1). At this point, there are only a few monsters that can destroy it without losing advantage. Chaos Sorcerer, Getsu Fuhma (not good), and Dark Jeroid (not good) spring readily to mind. He is forced to use a Smashing Ground to destroy it. You lose Reaper, he loses his discard and Smashing. For all intents and purposes, Spirit Reaper is almost as broken as BLS, advantage wise. BLS typically works out to -1 monster on the field for them, -1 piece of monster removal. Spirit Reaper works out to -1 card in hand for them, -1 piece of monster removal. Obviously, BLS can rack up 4000 or more damage in a turn in addition to his advantage-generating capabilities, but I’m talking in hand advantage terms alone.

Spirit Reaper, by virtue of its ability to create a two for one trade at will, basically becomes a 4000 attack monster in raw value. Which would you rather have on the field? A 4000 attack normal summon, or a Spirit Reaper. The question seems obvious, right? The 4000 attack monster of course! But it’s a tough choice, isn’t it?

This is the distinguishing factor between Spirit Reaper and cards like D.D Assailant and D.D Warrior Lady, which are highly overrated and should never be banned. Assailant generates no advantage whatsoever, in any circumstance, at any point. Let’s think of a few examples.

-Breaker is summoned, hits Call of the Haunted.  You summon DDA and smack it for 100. Good job, one for one!

-D.D Assailant hits a face-down Mystic Tomato. Whee!

It then hits a Dekoichi. Whee! Nope, no advantage.

-Mobius is summoned, tributed for a spent Magician. It destroys your Sakuretsu Armor and Dust Tornado. DDA hits Mobius. You lose DDA, Saku, Dust, he loses Mobius. Good trade! You fail!

-DDA hits a Sangan. Whee!

-Don is summoned. It discards a card from your hand. Next turn, you summon DDA and hit it for 300. 1400 vs 300, and discard for Don. Whee!

So the question then becomes, which cards generate advantage akin to Raigeki, Pot of Greed, or BLS and deserve to be banned or at the very least restricted? Here goes.

Ban Breaker

Ban Spirit Reaper- Hits for a discard, requires monster removal to destroy. Remove it immediately from the game.

Ban Nobleman of Crossout- The defense mechanic is implied to provide safety. The setting of a monster, which is a mechanic to ensure no life point damage through that monster’s demise, should not be overrided by a card with no cost. Tribute to the Doomed, Raigeki Break, Dark World Lightning are options enough for those who dislike flips.

Ban Cyber Dragon- Trumps any monster in the game attack-wise. Anything that can destroy it requires a tribute. It’s special summon status effectively nullifies the tribute mechanic in the game. The card is unbalanced and broken. The mechanic works something like this.

Summon Cyber Dragon, destroy any of your monsters.

They cannot destroy it without s/t removal or a tribute monster. Your opponent can set a monster if you use s/t removal on it.  

or

Summon Cyber Dragon. Play Smashing Ground hit for 2100.

or

Summon Cyber Dragon. Normal Summon. Play Brain Control/Snatch Steal/Premature Burial. Hit for 5000 in a turn.

Ban Morphing Jar- I’ve exploited strategies with this (witness match versus Mr. Luc at Seattle) that the opponent simply had no chance to win against. This card is ridiculously overpowered.

Restrict Reinforcement of the Army- this is the best subtype support card in the game, bar none.

Restrict Gravekeeper’s Spy- Name the only card in the game that generates a +1 in field advantage to your side of the board? It’s Spy! With 2000 defense, it won’t be destroyed by much. Now consider it’s original design goal. The goal is to bring Gravekeeper monsters to the field! So if Spy is restricted, it can still fill the original intent. The card can summon a GK Assailant, Spear Soldier, or any other such option easily! It should not, however, summon itself. That makes it splashable in non-GK decks, which is a definite no-no.

Mechanic works like:

Flip Spy, summon another. Attack for 2400 with no fear of losing advantage, immune to Sakuretsu.

Or

Your opponent attacks Spy with Jinzo/Cyber Dragon/Mobius. You get another, whee!

It speaks volumes of how well the makers of the game have done that only these monsters have to be forbidden. However, I have a far more radical idea for the restricted list. Take a look at many of the cards on the restricted/forbidden list as it stands. The game designers dislike one for one trades, which is quite obvious. After all, Ring of Destruction was restricted, Exiled Force was restricted, DDWL was restricted, DDA might be restricted, and such.

So why not stay true to their design goals? From now on, every piece of generic removal without a drawback will be restricted. Smashing Ground, Sakuretsu Armor, Widespread Ruin, Bottomless Trap Hole, Trap Hole, Dust Tornado and other such monstrosities will have to be removed from play.

As for monsters, we can restrict D.D Assailant, Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, Magical Merchant, and any other card that can lead to a one for one trade. This will force people to actually use themes for their decks, instead of unthemed garbage. Let’s take a look.

This is Andrew Long’s deck from SJC San Francisco, a basic unthemed cookie cutter deck that dominates the metagame.

3 Spirit Reaper

2 Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive

1 D.D. Warrior Lady

2 Ninja Grandmaster

1 D.D. Assailant

1 Mobius the Frost Monarch

2 Chaos Sorcerer

2 Cyber Dragon

1 Magical Merchant

1 Don Zaloog

1 Sangan

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Exiled Force

1 Magician of Faith

1 Heavy Storm

1 Dark Hole

1 Scapegoat

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Premature Burial

1 Pot of Avarice

1 Snatch Steal

1 Book of Moon

2 Smashing Ground

2 Reinforcement of the Army

3 Sakuretsu Armor

2 Widespread Ruin

1 Dust Tornado

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Torrential Tribute

With my new list, his deck becomes 30 cards. The rest will have to be filled out with inferior alternatives. He can either go themed (like Levitin’s Return deck that loses almost nothing with the new list), or lose entirely.

1 Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive

1 D.D. Warrior Lady

2 Ninja Grandmaster

1 D.D. Assailant

1 Mobius the Frost Monarch

2 Chaos Sorcerer

1 Magical Merchant

1 Don Zaloog

1 Sangan

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Exiled Force

1 Magician of Faith

1 Heavy Storm

1 Dark Hole

1 Scapegoat

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Premature Burial

1 Pot of Avarice

1 Snatch Steal

1 Book of Moon

1 Smashing Ground

1 Reinforcement of the Army

1 Sakuretsu Armor

1 Widespread Ruin

1 Dust Tornado

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Torrential Tribute

Force players to use themes, and every card will be utilized and the world will be at peace. I’ll be back with my ideas of a truly balanced ban list in a few.