We got hit with a surprise banlist to coincide with the release of Blazing Dominion…and it’s a doozy. Yugioh isn’t a game with formal ‘rotation’, where some sets become illegal during new seasons of play, but on occasion the Forbidden & Limited List does a good job approximating it! That’s very much the case here, as we’re seeing a huge number of changes made to close the book on strategies that began in Justice Hunters, with Yummy, K9, & Dracotail each substantially changed following this list. Critically, though, this paves the way for new strategies to emerge and see relevance not otherwise possible, with the likes of Kewl Tune, Power Patron, and even Fairy Tail now suspect for meta play. With that in mind, let’s go over this new list, what it means for the decks from the previous meta, and what opportunities might arise for sleeper hits to take home trophies in the upcoming tournament season!
First and foremost, the decks that are entirely deceased, slain completely: Gimmick Puppet & ‘pure’ K9. For the puppets, they’ve been a menace since the debut of their most recent support in The Infinite Forbidden, which led to a ton of FTKs—first turn kills. You could, with relative consistency, reduce your opponent’s LP to 0 before they take a single game action, and that tends to be the kind of thing Konami of America frowns upon. Sarcasm aside, the banning of cXYZ Gimmick Puppet Fanatix Machinix is a seriously good change, and it’s sure to stomp out the final remnants of the decks that have been seen at local tournaments. More tragic is the death of K9 -04 Noroi, which could turn your Normal Summon into the entire line for the strategy; this saw play in a ton of decks with substantive K9 packages, such as the Teams-winning Artmage K9, or Machine K9. Without Noroi, not only do players have fewer bridges into the engine, with Noroi having been an extremely searchable EARTH Machine monster, but also lack a traditional Normal. I expect to essentially just see Izuna packages from now on, with so much of the deck on the banlist.
Onto the strategies that have been hit, but could still see play, and we’re ready to talk about the other archetypes from Justice Hunters: Yummy & Dracotail. Yummy saw Cupsy☆Yummy Limited alongside its Synchro form, and Dracotail saw Rahu Limited, and Arthalion plus Lukias Semi-Limited. That said, the shift of Branded Fusion back to Limited also serves as a hit to the deck, which relied on it to kickstart plays alongside their dedicated Branded package. Both of these decks could in theory survive, at least in some form, because their core engines are good enough when accessed as a secondary gameplan. If you wanted to play something like Predaplant and splash Dracotail, or similarly find use for the Yummy monsters in Sky Striker, there’s still an opportunity there. I’m actually fairly bullish on Yummy still existing in some capacity, with the unbanning of Metamorphosis, able to serve as another Called by the Grave-like card by turning your Level 1s into Millenium-Eyes Restrict. Metamorphosis has been banned since 2007, spending nearly two decades unavailable to players, so it’s awesome to see it return! It sits alongside cards like Triple Tac and Called by as ways to fight against handtraps, and in full-on combo strategies it’s sure to be appreciated.
Onto the oddities, and we have some pre-hits to the best deck in the room, Kewl Tune. It’s no secret that this is expected to dominate the meta following its release, and the changes to ancillary pieces will not be enough to prevent that; I don’t think it’s set to be a ‘Tier 0’ threat, as we’ve seen of some meta monsters in the past, but it’s absolutely your primary consideration when looking at non-engine. Synchro Overtake & Naturia Rosewhip were the hits, with the former being a consistency piece they can do without, and the latter a lock piece that was only ever played sometimes. Expect to see a ton of KT at top tables.
Stranger still is what I’d call the most unwarranted hit, a Limit to Radiant Typhoon Chant. Radiant Typhoon was a super cool deck, and barely scraped the top 5 strategies available in the previous meta, so this hit is absolutely devastating. Not only does it drastically reduce your capacity to play through Droll & Lock Bird, but the deck was already beset with a bad matchup to Kewl Tune before the new support, and now it’s woefully outmatched. Sad to see it go, but there’s maybe a world it lives on as an engine in Sky Striker? That seems to be a common fate following this list.
Now comes time to dedicate a section of this article to the most exciting unban: Fairy Tail - Snow. Snow is a powerful card to be sure, having been banned for its use in self-mill strategies alongside cards like Curious, the Lightsworn Dominion, but context matters here—Fairy Tail itself is now a formal archetype, and alongside the TCG-Exclusive Genia of the Ring has had promising results from top players in testing. Fairy Tail - Wiccat sends two Fairy Tail cards from your Deck to the GY via its effect, and one of those being Snow not only gives you substantial disruption on the opponent’s turn, but also allows you to reset Once Upon a Fairy Tail by banishing it for the card’s effect. Not just that, but Weaver of Fairy Tails can be a chain-late negate via Snow’s Special Summon, which was more telegraphed prior in usually being via a Fusion Summon. This deck is going to be good, and with Snow available it could very well be great…to such an extent that this week’s article was supposed to cover the deck. Funny thing, there, because I hadn’t accounted for Snow being unbanned, but now I’m more excited than ever to review my list!
The overall philosophy of this list is similar to what we’ve seen, but takes far fewer risks than I think many players would have hoped. Konami is doing their best to ‘rotate’ the current meta, and for the first time in a while that comes as a small disappointment—this format has been excellent, and we’re undoubtedly shifting to one where the top deck is clearly-defined. Does that means Kewl Tune is likely to be killed in games 2 & 3, with cards like Soundproofed hitting nearly $20.00 in the wake of this banlist. That means other Synchro decks will feel some splash damage, with everyone prepared to beat KT, which is never a good feeling. Still, it’s hard not to be appreciative of Konami taking swings at things like Rosewhip & Machinix, cards which we knew would be problematic.
I think the larger problem here is that, with so much of Yugioh being shifted to 1-card starters, many of these decks will persist in some form, because the ability to begin their lines with a single piece persists even now. Does Dracotail rely on density of names to operate in full, and set its three Trap Cards consistently? Sure, but even in a deck running some number of Dracotail Mululu and their requisite Spells can find success, with the Fusion package being used as a way to cycle away handtraps going second, or get them back going first. Fusion Summoning as a mechanic is more broad than ever, and slopping it all together alongside Branded, Shaddoll, & Predaplant could lead to a brand-new home for Dracotail even without its high rate of consistency. This is also true of Yummy, which can still be accessed by way of Mother Spider Splitter lines and Mitsurugi, and even K9 has a place similar to the PSY-Frames as a set of handtraps that enable a turn 1 K9-17 “Ripper”. The results of this list aren’t that these cards become worthless, but that they’re recontextualized as backing vocalists, rather than the stars of their own shows.
Tossing my hat into the ring, I fully expect to see the top ~5 decks following this banlist be Kewl Tune at the top, with a smorgasbord of options following in a wide Tier 2. Fairy Tail, Power Patron, DoomZ, & Sky Striker all exist within the space of potent midrange decks that can fight through Kewl Tune’s lineup of non-engine, and that can play Soundproofed in the Side without any risk to their own gameplan. That point does bring up the unfortunate truth that playing any Synchro deck outside of KT is a dicey prospect, because of how heavily the mechanic itself is going to be shafted after game 1; you won’t be seeing Resonators at any top tables, any time soon. The fact this list happened so soon into the release of Blazing Dominion also means we’re stuck with Kewl Tune as the best deck in the room for a while, so it behooves anyone looking to play competitively to familiarize yourself with the deck. Beyond that, oddballs like Enneacraft & Branded Elfnote have seen early success at WCQs like Omaha, although part of me worries this is simply down to a lack of matchup knowledge. Enneacraft thrives on the opponent having never read their cards, trust me.
All that being said, I’m pretty happy with the banlist, although my concerns about their treatment of Radiant Typhoon do still bother me. How would you have hit the previous top decks? Were there any changes to the F&L list you feel were undeserved? What cool techs do you have to fight against the Kewl Tune menace? Let me know in the comments below!
