Banlist Prediction Season!

No one seemed to notice this yet, but apart from a couple of WCQ here and there; might squeeze in a YCS or 2, I'm not sure, but this format is basically over. For the past 4 months or so, I've not heard one person said that this was a good format. The Malaysian WC Rep posted comments on FB numerous times on how bad the format was (not stopping him from getting to the finals of BOTH ACQ and WCQ). For the most part, this was a 2 deck format, either you play Dragon Rulers, or you play Prophecy, or you might consider playing on your kitchen table for 6 months.

Everyone knows both these decks need to be hit, we don't know how hard Konami is gonna hit them, but lets pray to god they know what they are doing. And hey, the September format had always been good for the past 5 or 6 years. I've asked some people for opinions, gave some as well, but we never seem to agree on what cards should be on this banlist.

I'm a firm believer of the banlist's job is to limit a deck's brokeness, not to kill a deck. Well, not being broken does kill the deck if you're like me, who thinks YGO means tournaments and nothing else, so I guess it depends on how you view not killing. Lets cut the chase and dive straight into my wish list. This is just my opinion, god allows us to have our own opinions, so don't get offended when I point out stuff you don't agree. 

Dragon Rulers:

I've seen people saying ridiculous stuffs like limit each Dragons to 1 or ban Big Eye. That either kills the deck and ruins a great engine for other decks, or doesn't do anything to the deck. (If you take out Big Eye, and not hitting anything else, you take out what skill is left in the mirror match; I'm just saying)

In my opinion, the card that needs to go to 0 is Super Rejuvenation. In all of my games against Dragon Rulers, that is the one card I never want to see in my opponent's hand. Making a huge ass field and then drawing into hand traps is just stupid. The card basically rewards players for over extending, in a mindless way. I'm not saying Dragon Rulers are a deck you can play without being good, true to fact that the best players tops consistently this format; but making Dragosacc and draw 4 isn't the hardest move to figure out, and I find it kinda hard to misplay with cards like that. "Maxx C? Sure, you get 4 cards and I get 4, fair" Wut!?

Super Rejuvenation makes it almost impossible for any control decks to comeback, unless you open nuts. You opponent is making threats while digging for Typhoons, not a really fun experience. Also, the fact that the only other deck that plays Super Rejuvenation is some sort of Exodia variant really doesn't help justify why this card is still allowed. I can go on with my rant on Reju, but thats gonna take forever to wrap up.

The other card I want to put on the list would be Dragosacc. I do not think Dragosacc is broken, but I do think that its too good, borderline broken maybe. However, my problem was never with getting rid of Dragosacc, thats the easy part. My problem is how am I gonna get rid of the next one. The only match ups where Dragosacc is not a legitimate threat would be the mirror and also Prophecies. Super Reju makes it hell to try to control Dragon Rulers, Dragosacc makes facing it a nightmare for any deck thats not gonna make a Big Eye easily or Fate it. In my opinion, Dragosacc should go to 1, or at least 2 (if Konami doesn't release another rank 7 thats too good).

With those changes, the deck is still very viable and can pull off wins easily, but I would not mind playing against it as much. Sure, it still has the best engine in the game (arguably), but in today's metagame, what deck doesn't repeat A-to-Z every turn. At least I know when my opponent wants to start with a big board presence, his not gonna have protection for his field.

Prophecies:

If you've been following my blog for the past 6 months, you'll know that I absolutely hate Prophecies as a deck. Spellbook of Judgment is retarded, no matter how you justify it, its not gonna change the fact that the card is too broke to be a card. "Prophecies needed someway to gain advantage, its not broke because Dragon Rulers have endless supply of cards too", someone told me this last weekend, please, give this guy a round of applause. 

I really hate Prophecies with a passion, if I could, I would ban everything with Prophecies in its name (and yes, I'm still butt hurt over my lost last weekend). But putting my personal agenda aside, this is a list that I think will contain Prophecies but not kill them ... 

Prophecies are a bunch that gains you advantage one way or another. Spellbook Tower is the best field spell in the game if you haven't notice, and its searchable by basically everything. If you are playing a control based deck, like myself, the Tower and Fate are the 2 cards you would hate, very very much. However, both cards aren't on my suggested list of change.

Limit to one both Spellbook of Secrets and Spellbook Magician of Prophecy. Limiting searchers has always been Konami's favorite move in hitting a deck, and for the most part, it works. If you play a game against Prophecies, going second, and knowing your opponent will not open Magician every game, its actually not that bad. Should Judgment get hit? If both searchers are hit, I doubt it'll be as good, but good lord the card is still too broke, KILL IT WITH FIRE!! In all seriousness, I'm not sure what I want to do with Judgment, obviously the card shouldn't even exist in the first place, but is banning it really the right move? I really don't know. Limiting it to one along with the other 2 might be good enough, since they have a million cards to recycle Spellbooks anyway.

With these changes, you might be able to slow Prophecies down to a more controllable state. Its still gonna be broke if they open Judgment and have 3 cards they can play, but knowing the game doesn't end if they go first is god sent to me. 

The other decks :

If the big 2 are somewhat contained, Evilswarm, Mermails and Firefist will all return as viable options. In case you've forgotten, Mermails were broke before Tachyon Galaxy came out. But to be honest, after this hell of a format, I'm not even sure what it meant to be good anymore. Sure, we know these decks are gonna make a comeback once the big 2 are gone, but I really have no clue what I should do to these decks. I mean, all of their plays seems really fair now if you ask me.

A lot of word still had to be done to make the next format fun. With no notable archtype coming out in Shadow Specters, at least in my knowledge, I don't see the pole position of these decks dropping anytime soon. A question I was asked quite a lot was, will Bujin be viable next format. I have to say I'm pretty sure its gonna be dependent on how heavy the backrow is. Bujin, if you've played with it as extensive as I've had,  is extremely weak to heavy backrow. Also, while the deck is fairly consistent, going first or second plays a very big part. So, by making the format somewhat slower and viable for control decks, I'm not exactly sculpting an ideal format for my deck here. 

What should come back :

For the love of god, please let me play 1 more Solemn Warning and Thunder King Rai-Oh. Part of the reason why control decks lost their ground this format was because of the limitation of Solemn Warning. Also, I feel like its okay for Scapegoat to come back to 2 or 3. Its not gonna be in a bunch for the top decks, and its not gonna be game busting, its just a card that makes you four goats.

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Thats what I have on the top of my head. And these are all my very personal opinion. Anything you might wanna share or add, please feel free to leave me a message in the comment section below, I would love to read it. If you think I'm stupid and want to state it out, feel free, but at least let me know why I'm stupid okay?

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Finally, I feel that this card should get banned. Its just too damn broke.

Do you agree Mike?