WTF Banlist Once Again & Jar of Avarice

http://www.yugioh-card.com/en/limited/

I got a headache. What are your thoughts? I'm kind of brain dead after analyzing this.

Edit: while we're talking about banlists, let's talk about Jar of Avarice. Any thoughts on that?

Seems like whenever a new one of these comes out, a nerd cries.

rip rulers
rip snatch steal
welcome back dragon ravine
rip skill drain/vanity's emptiness
wb shien
guess nekroz isn't as dead as i expected
maybe wb glad beasts

I can banlist.
Ahem

Dragon Rulers go because we are getting Dark Matter Dragon in return of the bling. Kinda sad to see it, I wanted to see a format where we have nekroz, ba, qlips, tellars, shaddoll and dark matter all running around spreading chaos with extremelly varying matchups, but we'll never see dark matter rulers in TCG. Oh well, whiners will be happy, but then again that's the one thing I like the least about this, I wanted to see them cry.
Though without dragon rulers I wanted to see the massacred cards come back, not just Ravine, and not just one of them. 1 Ravine without Dragon Rulers is just mean, then we have still 1 Gold Sarc, 2 seven stars sword, rftdd banned, etc. Dragon Rulers are gone, their collateral damage that affected other decks is still there, standard konami.

Tour guide is what I've been saying would happen to BA for a while, hard to hit tcg exclusive, specifically engineered money deck fast, so the out of theme card goes first. Not exactly the death of BA (that was nekroz, you don't need the banlist for that), but tour guide is still a 1 card +2 for the deck that fixes any hand, so having 1 instead of 3 is a hit. Don't think it will change the playing field significantly though, nekroz is still better even after this.

I expected something insignificant to happen to nekroz, but I didn't expect to see nekroz of brionac anywhere on the banlist considering how rare he is to pull. It feels kinda like a scam now. Yeah, we all hate the players who spend too much money on this game, but a scam is a scam, you put 1 brio in every 5 boxes, then you hit it in a few days, laugh at the nekroz players all you want but this should be illegal. Anyways, yes their basic searching from the hand was cut in half with this, but it doesn't change much. True it's a hit to their consistency, but think of it like this: It was the one top deck before, it is the one top deck now. They had basically one competition in the metagame, and that was other nekroz decks, which were obviously hit equally, so not much changes, except djinn lock being a bit less consistent. Honestly I was expecting a djinn lock hit instead, would be healthy, but w/e. And always sad to see generic ritual support go. Ok, nekroz is good, but other ritual decks kinda need prep. Oh well.

Hit on qlips is heavier than it looks. Deck lives on consistency, if you don't have a scout to go off of, you are dead. So saq at 1 leaving the durability of the settup at 1 try and scout at 2 making it so that the game can end at 2 successful mst hits, is something to consider. Ofc you have 2 searchers at 3 for scout, so getting to it isn't the biggest issue, but it does hurt the interractions within the matchup.

But what also hurts it just as much, if not more, is skill drain and vanity's emptiness hit. We can finally move away from floodgates, our metagames had some pretty stupid moments with those. Skill drain more of a qlip hit, now gives other decks we didn't see much of, some breathing space, which skill drain was the last nail in the coffin for before (though with nekroz dominance, peaking out isn't that easy), and finally vanity's emptiness will stop being everywhere. That one was kinda dictating a big part of the format, dropping the viability of many decks by a lot. With those 2 hit, we can see some more freedom in deckbuilding. Though, with vanity hit, staple traps are even less now, which favours the top deck that runs no traps even more.

The neutered banned party is here on the TCG as well. Can't say Temple of the Kings will have a giant impact, Sinister Serpent at 1 instead of 3 is silly since it is basically a universal "once per 2 turns" anyways, EotS is a weird niche now which may see some side deck play in some weird format in the future (or in a loop which sends your 15 extra deck cards to the graveyard for a deckout ftk), and ring of destruction is a nice staple trap card for control now (depending on the format). CCV is a decent side deck card in BA vs Nekroz I guess, a buffed mind crush of sorts, not as huge as it seems though.

Shi En and Goyo are w/e, ok extra deck hit cards, didn't have much of a point before, doesn't have much point now. Charge, Hiero Seal and Spirit are nice boosts for their decks, Bestiari is once again, w/e, should have been back 20 banlists ago, the defensive properties of gorz and trago in these formats are too slow to matter so I can see why we followed the OCG recipe which brings them back, I'd like to make something stupid with them though. Having lonefire back at 3 is of course awesome, hard to search card, consistency really helps, and now you can play the newly limited Symbol of Heritage for some instant lonefire heritage combos. Could do quasar and stuff with those two if you add in deck the synchron extreme cards.

I am of two minds about shaddolls making it out of this ok. More than ok in fact, no hits and some big obstacles to them, skill drain and vanity's emptiness (as well as the hits to qlips those imply), means they could do better, if not for Nekroz damaging them hard and them not having much of an answer to it outside of the Shaddoll Trish they are getting in CROS, which is a different format altogether with a different banlist. I am glad because I have been making some interesting shaddoll variants and they now have more of a chance with how things are going. And at the same time I am not glad because if shaddoll does emerge somewhat, that brings Winda into the forefront, which comes to push back against the breathing room we got with the limitation of Vanity's Emptiness, restricting deckbuilding yet again. Or maybe that's a redundant thought considering djinn lock is still here.

And of course, baby dragons are back to break the meta, stupid decision by konami, we won't live to regret it, baby dragon beat tier 0.

As for Reikan's Jar of Greed mention, here's the thing: The issues with recycling is that the problems it fixes are fixable through gameplay and deckbuilding to an extend, it's mostly a crutch, so you don't see it mattering too much in the end. It's a pleasant mechanic, that's the best way I have to describe it, when in deckbuilding it allows you to be a bit more risky, when in play, it instantly expands your options, but the actual impact is not proportional to the relief you experience. That's why recycling is highly dependant on the means used to implement it. In the case of Jar of Avarice, the vessel is Jar of Greed, which is a pretty bad vessel to have. Jar of Greed, outside of chaining and other shennanigans, is fundementally a bad card to have. It lends one of your cards to your next turn with the chance to draw out a piece of s/t removal and deck thinning as interest. While it may seem that it's not that bad (it's a 141, so techincally the card presence has not been altered, and it does thin your deck), the fact is that on the turn you have it, you are making your play with 1 card less, that means that on the earlier turn (speed is a big factor so earlier turns are more important than later ones) you have a limitation on your options and the play you can make to expand your control of the game, which is a massive detriment. In a way, it's the exact opposite of reckless greed, and that one is being used because it supports your earlier turns, even at a -1, so that should say something.

What I am getting at here is, Jar of Avarice has the problem of being tied to a bad card, so it's hard to justify in my opinion when optimizing a deck. I have been using it in some silly stuff where extra deck space is a massive pain due to Planetellarknight Ptolemaios shennanigans, and it's great when I draw it there because, hey, I can make more than 2 plays in the game, and its ability to recycle s/t means it's not dead even when you don't have much of a use for it, but the reality is that it's still a jar of greed and I could avoid having to rely on it if I just optimized my deck and played more carefully.

DR are gone because: Dark Matter, Red-Eyes Xyz, and Odd-Eyes Rebellion

Al-Bhed wrote:

I can banlist.
Ahem

Dragon Rulers go because we are getting Dark Matter Dragon in return of the bling. Kinda sad to see it, I wanted to see a format where we have nekroz, ba, qlips, tellars, shaddoll and dark matter all running around spreading chaos with extremelly varying matchups, but we'll never see dark matter rulers in TCG. Oh well, whiners will be happy, but then again that's the one thing I like the least about this, I wanted to see them cry.
Though without dragon rulers I wanted to see the massacred cards come back, not just Ravine, and not just one of them. 1 Ravine without Dragon Rulers is just mean, then we have still 1 Gold Sarc, 2 seven stars sword, rftdd banned, etc. Dragon Rulers are gone, their collateral damage that affected other decks is still there, standard konami.

Tour guide is what I've been saying would happen to BA for a while, hard to hit tcg exclusive, specifically engineered money deck fast, so the out of theme card goes first. Not exactly the death of BA (that was nekroz, you don't need the banlist for that), but tour guide is still a 1 card +2 for the deck that fixes any hand, so having 1 instead of 3 is a hit. Don't think it will change the playing field significantly though, nekroz is still better even after this.

I expected something insignificant to happen to nekroz, but I didn't expect to see nekroz of brionac anywhere on the banlist considering how rare he is to pull. It feels kinda like a scam now. Yeah, we all hate the players who spend too much money on this game, but a scam is a scam, you put 1 brio in every 5 boxes, then you hit it in a few days, laugh at the nekroz players all you want but this should be illegal. Anyways, yes their basic searching from the hand was cut in half with this, but it doesn't change much. True it's a hit to their consistency, but think of it like this: It was the one top deck before, it is the one top deck now. They had basically one competition in the metagame, and that was other nekroz decks, which were obviously hit equally, so not much changes, except djinn lock being a bit less consistent. Honestly I was expecting a djinn lock hit instead, would be healthy, but w/e. And always sad to see generic ritual support go. Ok, nekroz is good, but other ritual decks kinda need prep. Oh well.

Hit on qlips is heavier than it looks. Deck lives on consistency, if you don't have a scout to go off of, you are dead. So saq at 1 leaving the durability of the settup at 1 try and scout at 2 making it so that the game can end at 2 successful mst hits, is something to consider. Ofc you have 2 searchers at 3 for scout, so getting to it isn't the biggest issue, but it does hurt the interractions within the matchup.

But what also hurts it just as much, if not more, is skill drain and vanity's emptiness hit. We can finally move away from floodgates, our metagames had some pretty stupid moments with those. Skill drain more of a qlip hit, now gives other decks we didn't see much of, some breathing space, which skill drain was the last nail in the coffin for before (though with nekroz dominance, peaking out isn't that easy), and finally vanity's emptiness will stop being everywhere. That one was kinda dictating a big part of the format, dropping the viability of many decks by a lot. With those 2 hit, we can see some more freedom in deckbuilding. Though, with vanity hit, staple traps are even less now, which favours the top deck that runs no traps even more.

The neutered banned party is here on the TCG as well. Can't say Temple of the Kings will have a giant impact, Sinister Serpent at 1 instead of 3 is silly since it is basically a universal "once per 2 turns" anyways, EotS is a weird niche now which may see some side deck play in some weird format in the future (or in a loop which sends your 15 extra deck cards to the graveyard for a deckout ftk), and ring of destruction is a nice staple trap card for control now (depending on the format). CCV is a decent side deck card in BA vs Nekroz I guess, a buffed mind crush of sorts, not as huge as it seems though.

Shi En and Goyo are w/e, ok extra deck hit cards, didn't have much of a point before, doesn't have much point now. Charge, Hiero Seal and Spirit are nice boosts for their decks, Bestiari is once again, w/e, should have been back 20 banlists ago, the defensive properties of gorz and trago in these formats are too slow to matter so I can see why we followed the OCG recipe which brings them back, I'd like to make something stupid with them though. Having lonefire back at 3 is of course awesome, hard to search card, consistency really helps, and now you can play the newly limited Symbol of Heritage for some instant lonefire heritage combos. Could do quasar and stuff with those two if you add in deck the synchron extreme cards.

I am of two minds about shaddolls making it out of this ok. More than ok in fact, no hits and some big obstacles to them, skill drain and vanity's emptiness (as well as the hits to qlips those imply), means they could do better, if not for Nekroz damaging them hard and them not having much of an answer to it outside of the Shaddoll Trish they are getting in CROS, which is a different format altogether with a different banlist. I am glad because I have been making some interesting shaddoll variants and they now have more of a chance with how things are going. And at the same time I am not glad because if shaddoll does emerge somewhat, that brings Winda into the forefront, which comes to push back against the breathing room we got with the limitation of Vanity's Emptiness, restricting deckbuilding yet again. Or maybe that's a redundant thought considering djinn lock is still here.

And of course, baby dragons are back to break the meta, stupid decision by konami, we won't live to regret it, baby dragon beat tier 0.

As for Reikan's Jar of Greed mention, here's the thing: The issues with recycling is that the problems it fixes are fixable through gameplay and deckbuilding to an extend, it's mostly a crutch, so you don't see it mattering too much in the end. It's a pleasant mechanic, that's the best way I have to describe it, when in deckbuilding it allows you to be a bit more risky, when in play, it instantly expands your options, but the actual impact is not proportional to the relief you experience. That's why recycling is highly dependant on the means used to implement it. In the case of Jar of Avarice, the vessel is Jar of Greed, which is a pretty bad vessel to have. Jar of Greed, outside of chaining and other shennanigans, is fundementally a bad card to have. It lends one of your cards to your next turn with the chance to draw out a piece of s/t removal and deck thinning as interest. While it may seem that it's not that bad (it's a 141, so techincally the card presence has not been altered, and it does thin your deck), the fact is that on the turn you have it, you are making your play with 1 card less, that means that on the earlier turn (speed is a big factor so earlier turns are more important than later ones) you have a limitation on your options and the play you can make to expand your control of the game, which is a massive detriment. In a way, it's the exact opposite of reckless greed, and that one is being used because it supports your earlier turns, even at a -1, so that should say something.

What I am getting at here is, Jar of Avarice has the problem of being tied to a bad card, so it's hard to justify in my opinion when optimizing a deck. I have been using it in some silly stuff where extra deck space is a massive pain due to Planetellarknight Ptolemaios shennanigans, and it's great when I draw it there because, hey, I can make more than 2 plays in the game, and its ability to recycle s/t means it's not dead even when you don't have much of a use for it, but the reality is that it's still a jar of greed and I could avoid having to rely on it if I just optimized my deck and played more carefully.

7.2/10, too much water.