It has been a full decade since the last true emergency banlist in Yugioh, and in spite of that, the ripple effects can still be felt. That was an optional banlist for local events to handle the infamous PePe list which gave Pendulums as a mechanic such a bad name; it served as a band-aid to an already-broken format to afford Konami enough goodwill to make it to the next true banlist. That list had 3 bans, and 3 limits—the one we received this past weekend had 34 bans, 8 limits, and 1 semi-limit. To say this was a drastic course of action is the understatement of the century, but it was done in service of an Advanced Format which was suffering from some systemic issues not dissimilar to PePe. The going-first winrate was the highest it has ever been, and the mechanisms by which players were winning usually involved someone playing essentially 0 Yugioh. The game’s most prominent competitive voices were jumping ship to Genesys, and tournaments were fairly quiet amid a solved, boring metagame. Can a total of 43 hits save Yugioh as we know it? The short answer is ‘potentially’, but as with any paradigm shift that has occurred in this game’s history, when one tyrant falls, more rise to take their place. The better question is: Will the new metagame be more fun & engaging than present? I think the answer to that is unequivocally yes, and it’s time to talk about why.
We’re going to break down the list in ascending order of continued playability, starting with the decks you will no longer be seeing at your Locals, and slowly creeping towards what I believe to be the best decks after the dust settles. The ultimate, truest loser of this list is without a doubt Branded. Branded has been around in some capacity since Covid, peaking in playability multiple times as it received legacy support wave after legacy support wave; it’s a fan favorite, and historically has been a budget-friendly option for players getting into the game. Not to be hyperbolic, but they put Branded in the dirt—three direct hits, and one card being conspicuously unhit leaves the strategy with no legs to stand on. Albion, the Branded Dragon was banned for its interactions with the best single-target removal Spell ever printed, The Fallen & The Virtuous, and Branded in High Spirits was hit for allowing you to search a few cards that shouldn’t have been searchable, by way of Branded lines. The deck was doing some unfair things, which its pilots deign to mention oftentimes, so it’s good to see it retired in my opinion. The other deck nuked from orbit is Dark Magician, specifically its actually-good version of DM Yummy. With Souls, Dragoon, and even Cupsy★Yummy Way banned, I don’t see a path forward for the strategy. Shoutout to Mitsurugi as well, with Habakiri biting it, but weirdly enough I think it may still have some viability with Cyberse Contract Witch legal.
As we climb up the ladder of playability, we’re met with the numerous floodgates and game-enders on this list, from Pharonic Advent to the cards it would normally search, like There Can Be Only One. Time was up for these cards, which caused so much agony to players going second without immediately-accessible Spell/Trap destruction (such as F&V), and fringe decks which used them like True Draco or Lab are gone. One very notable strategy that’s in a bad way following these hits is EARTH Machine, a.k.a. Machina, a.k.a. Trains, as both one of its key ways to close out games is now Limited, in Gustav Max, and an endboard piece has been banned in Spell Canceller. These were both justified, but it stings just a bit with the knowledge a Machine player was in a feature match at YCS Houston where this list was announced. The next big set of hits worth talking about, with respect to playability, was to generic revival: Dugares, Cross-Sheep, & Charmer Quartet in Bloom all bit the bullet, and that middle one stings for me most of all. I was one of the original believers in the sheep, and to see it fall not only disrupts a few decks I was intending to cover here on Flipside, but also in paper. Broadly though, this is probably a good set of changes; generic revival was one of the most common ways to bridge between engines, and Konami saw fit to take an axe to decks attempting to do so.
Onto the midsection of the list, and it’s time to talk about generic staples, and how they affect decks going forward. There are essentially two ways to avoid blowout handtraps moving forward, when not accounting for niche options like Gamma in Kewl Tune or Herald of Orange Light in Darklord. Left standing are Ash Blossom, and Number 90: Galaxy-Eyes Photon Lord (who you should purchase now, before its price skyrockets). Other generic negation you’d make before being able to be Nibiru-ed, like Varudras, Crystal Wing, and Caesar are all gone, so combo strategies are functionally priced-in to running Horus and/or Ars Magna as a way to insulate their plays. Called By, Triple Tactics Talent, & Crossout Designator are all gone, which is (correctly) a huge blow to fragile going-first strategies. It ensures that, with the exception of Ash, your Mulcharmies will resolve, and even Droll was limited as a means to provide more strength to the charmies. Most decks will play the 8-Mulcharmy core between Main and Side, of 3 Fuwalos, 2 Purulia, and 3 Meowls, especially with one of the best decks after this banlist being Angelechy, which can let you draw via Fuwalos on your going-first turn. We’re getting ahead of ourselves though. One card not on the list in this category worth now considering is Mistaken Arrest, a Droll-lite which gets even more powerful when played in something like Raise Moon, which comes out later this year. It isn’t a 1:1 replacement for Droll, but gets close.
Onto the decks which were on the meta chopping block, being Power Patron, Elfnote, and nebulous engine piles playing Fiendsmith and/or ROLAD. Elfnote saw a card directly banned, which I honestly didn’t expect, in the form of Elfnote Tinia. This not only removes a handrip from the deck, but also its primary way of finding the Elfnote Spells which help you recover from disruption. This strategy is going to be fragile but alive in my opinion, largely by virtue of how generic they are, and their synergy points with the broader Medius lore archetypes. On that topic, Power Patron received no direct hits, but a number of their generic endboard pieces were taken out to pasture, especially Varudras, so you need to find another way through Nibiru now. On the whole, both of these decks lost generic Extra Deck bosses (e.g. Dawn Dragster) but Elfnote is far more the loser, and I expect Power Patron evolves more than dies. As for the engine piles, Caesar, Aerial Eater, & Magicians’s Souls are all bans aimed at this pile, but in many ways I think it manages to persist by pivoting to just ROLAD+Ars Magna, cutting the Fiendsmith package entirely. With Aerial Eater gone, fusing into a Fiend no longer opens up your ROLAD line via Skull Archfiend of Chaos, and Souls can no longer just send Black Chaos. Hell, even the targeted limitation of Griffoh is manageable by virtue of upping your count of Kuriboh – Multiply!, which searches it on the opponent’s turn.
The time now comes to discuss what I believe to be strong, following these changes, and I think it comes down to four decks: Angelechy, Toon, Sky Striker...and Radiant Typhoon. Angelechy is obvious, with not a single targeted hit and barely any knock-on effect from more generic bans, this is a deck primed to rule the meta until the release of Toons very shortly, and even afterwards settle into a top spot. It was probably the third-best deck in the room in the pre-list metagame, so seeing it escape scot-free was a surprise. Toon was not so lucky, with direct consistency hits to Bookmark & Table of Contents, and broader generic hits like the new Hydradrive Link and generic tools. Toon Ryzeal is still going to be strong, don’t get me wrong, but it won’t be a tier 0 meta like the OCG had for a few months. Sky Striker also escaped relatively unscathed, with Engage to 2, but from everything we can tell it was originally set to receive a total of 0 changes like Angelechy. No semi-limits were announced, they just tacked it on at the last minute during Sunday’s stream because literally everyone expected it. Kind of funny, that. Finally though, comes my time to soapbox: Of the Rogue strategies in a post-Toon, post-list world, I believe strongly that Radiant Typhoon is the best positioned. Both Toon & Angelechy have opening plays predicated on face-up Spells surviving, and a list which gets to unironically jam 2-3 copies of Mystical Space Typhoon in the Main Deck loves to hear that.
My thoughts on the list are that, without a doubt, this was a long time coming. Yugioh has had to reckon with the fact that its card design has outpaced its ban cycle (thank god they banned Zenna’s), and that a sweeping set of changes like this was necessary for probably over a year. Now that there’s a legitimate secondary format, the playerbase is more able to voice their discontent with a given format by swapping over, and we know for a fact event turnout determines the severity by which decks are hit. I’m not entirely happy with the list—I would have preferred to see Thrust & Ash banned—but it’s a huge show of good faith. As it stands, we now live in a world where the threats are more known, because they’re what’s survived the meteor; Photon Lord is your Nibiru protection, Stardust Dragon – Victim Sanctuary is about the only generic Synchro negate of worth now (Zalen too, sure), and Lancea is going to make its way into more decks given how many Ars Magna & Toon monsters we’ll be seeing. It’s a new day, but not that new. In terms of Rogue options, Power Patron will need to be reinvented, and as mentioned, I’m a huge believer in Radiant Typhoon (and Blitzclique, by extension). Darklord may also have legs, especially with premium handtraps slowly being sent to pasture, and there’s no telling what December will bring with Glorious Victors.
In conclusion, good work, Konami of America. Peeling back the curtain a bit, we’ve heard from former employees that TCG banlists need to be signed-off by the OCG design team as well (given their impact on Worlds), which is often why some hits seem odd or ill-timed. This is a huge step away from unifying the two formats, which to some extent is a negative, but frankly if the OCG still refuses to kill the cockroach of Maxx “c” we’re better off stateside. As a final note, if you know a Branded or DM player in your area, give them a hug, and I mean that. It’s rare that Rogue strategies are so thoroughly shellacked, and boy did Konami pull no punches.
What did you think about this massive new banlist? What decks do you think will remain strong after the dust settles? Did a favorite strategy of yours meet its end this past weekend? Let me know in the comments below!
