Part Two of this series on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden List features an analysis of the newly Limited and Semi-Limited Cards of the new format.
Restricted Cards:
Solemn Judgment- See my previous article.
Mind Master- I am told this card contributes to consistent One Turn Kills.
Blackwing – Gale the Whirlwind, Cold Wave, and Mind Control- I think discussion of these two cards (which are still present in the format) will help players become better at understanding the game. Expect a separate article for these two, and possibly others.
One for One- I suspect Konami has made a wise move in restricting this card, despite it having seen no play in the TCG yet. One for One is a card that restricts future card design while providing far too much explosiveness to certain deck types. For X-Sabers alone, it single-handedly increases the chances of them destroying your hand on their first turn.
Summoner Monk- It’s interesting to see how Konami touched the two linchpins of a dominant strategy. I completely disagree with allowing Rescue Cat to remain (more on this in the future article).
Without Cat, the list of monsters that would interact with Summoner Monk include Rose, Warrior of Revenge, Armageddon Knight, Elemental Hero Stratos, and Volcanic Rocket. Basically there are monsters that would recoup the spell discard cost of Summoner Monk with some sort of solid benefit. And it turns out that without Rescue Cat, Summoner Monk is extremely balanced (albeit a bit speedy). Tier 2-ish decks could revolve around Monk’s ability to get certain level 4 monsters to the field.
So perhaps limiting both Monk and Cat (as opposed to simply banning Rescue Cat) wasn’t the best decision. As it stands with Rescue Cat at 1, however, I whole-heartedly endorse any reduction in Summoner Monk quantities.
Demise, King of Armageddon- I am generally an enthusiastic fan of broken Ritual and Fusion monsters. I feel Ritual monsters should be souped up to incredible levels (more advantage generated than Demise) to make the mechanic worth running.
Yet I whole-heartedly agree with this particular limitation (and even banning). While Ritual monsters should be broken, they should not be given field clearing properties. This leads to unhealthy interactions with equip spells like Megamorph (a card that should simply be banned).
You’ll notice that all of the broken monsters in the game can destroy multiple monsters and spell/traps. Judgment Dragon, Dark Armed Dragon, Gyzarus, and Demise are probably the four most powerful monsters in the game. Celestia and Arcanite Magician follow closely behind. It’s because monsters should not be allowed to destroy both!
Spell/traps are designed to stop monsters or other spell/traps. Any card that can affect both is given a high cost (Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, Raigeki Break). Monsters are designed to stop monsters (DDWL, Exiled) or spell/traps (Breaker the Magical Warrior, Greenkappa). It should stay that way! There is a staggering correlation between “brokenness” and “monsters that can hit both other monsters and spell/traps.
Black Rose Dragon- I would assume this card’s limitation was intended to address Black Salvo and Debris Dragon. For all intents and purposes, monsters should never be allowed to normal summon more than 2000 (or 2100) attack. The concept of cards like Rescue Cat, Lonefire Blossom, and Black Salvo bringing out normal summoned 2800 or 2400 attack monsters is incredibly stupid.
I’m not certain what to think yet of BRD being limited. Konami has this silly habit of limiting Synchro monsters (thank your lucky stars they didn’t do this with DSF). The idea is that one Synchro monster will limit usage. In practice, however, it turns out most players only create one Synchro per level range per game (so one Goyo, one Colossal, one DSF).
So really we should be talking about whether BRD should have been left alone or banned. With Solemn hitting one, I lean more towards BRD being banned. Perhaps Konami will take this step in the future (they likely didn’t want to hurt legitimate Plant decks that use its other effect). At the moment, however, 1 is as good as 3. How many times are you going to nuke the entire field in a game without Avaricing your Plants back in?
Semi-Limits:
I’ll be honest. I think semi-limits are generally stupid. After all, is there that fine of a line between one and three copies of a card? With the exception of monsters like Destiny Hero Malicious and Card Trooper (that interact with themselves or other cards), semi-limits have always been an ineffective and arbitrary concept to me.
Then came this Forbidden list. And along came the elegant Mezuki and Chaos Sorcerer limits (along with the terrible Breaker the Magical Warrior unlimit). These three cards (Breaker should have been semi’ed at the very least) made me a fan of the Semi-Limit. Long live the Semi!
Chaos Sorcerer- I think this card is perfect at two. As this article on Yu-Gi-Oh! Design alluded to, 2 Chaos Sorcerer and Dark Armed Dragon is a perfect “boss monster” counter to the 2 Lightsworn Judgment Dragon and multiple Gladiator Beast Gyzarus/cool Herk that other top tier decks have access to. Sorcerer’s return to 2 creates a great, uneasy tension to the game as Chaos attempts to carve out a piece for itself.
Bottomless Trap Hole- This is an example of the dumb, arbitrary nature of the semi-limit (I am a fan with reservations). BTH is one of the best traps in this format and should be run in every deck. But should it really be at 2? It’s the perfect example of a card that should either be limited or left alone to run in 3′s. 2 is just an unsettling number.
By the way, this card is a staple in basically every deck and I am predicting most trap lines will be something like 2 BTH, 1 Trap Dustshoot, 1 Torrential, 2-3 deck-specifics. In certain decks, BTH is the best trap in the game.
Mezuki- Mezuki is a very dangerous card. At perhaps 800-1100 attack, it would have been a wonderful example of card design. At 1700, however, it became a broken card that anchored Zombie Synchro.
I’m currently fine with Mezuki at 2. I think 2 is the perfect number to try to generate more power for Zombies while not warping the game entirely. Incidentally, Mezuki’s return to 2 along with a host of other factors should probably lead to Charge of the Light Brigade being splashed into many creative decks focusing on Mezuki, Necro Gardna, X-Sabers, or other graveyard-fueled engines.
Lonefire Blossom: Analysis of Lonefire Blossom will follow in the other article. Needless to say, for purists Lonefire Blossom is the epitome of everything that is wrong with Yu-Gi-Oh! “Hi, I would like to normal summon you three deck-thinning Avarice dumps for a 2800 monster with a great effect. Oh wait, you’re still not using me?”
Closing Thoughts:
It’s rather interesting how swiftly Konami addressed most of the problem cards of this format. I think the U.S team of Kevin Tewart and his “inner council” really did an amazing job of assessing the broken synergies and combinations of the current format and stopping them. My only complaint is the Lonefire Blossom semi-limit (I think it should be restricted or even banned) and leaving Rescue Cat at 1 instead of banning it.
Related posts:
I think you’re right on, on most of those comments. It’s a great ban list, over all. I do disagree with you on the comment about limiting Summoner Monk. Limiting it to 1 was a good move; having access to any level 4 monster in the whole game for the cost of any spell card (which every deck runs) is a pretty amazing effect, and even not considering Rescue Cat, it’s an incredibly versatile and powerful toolbox, and I’m glad to see it at one.
One for one was restricted because it contributed to both the Psychic OTK(as well as mind master) and Frog FTK/OTK in the OCG. It wasn’t because of “future problems”, because One for One was already a major problem within the OCG. Remember, this list tries to fix problems within BOTH the TCG and OCG. While some of the cards may be some sick read by Konami, most of the cards already had an existing reason for which they were placed on the list.
Mind Master was used in Psychic OTK decks to boost itself and a Reinforced Human Psychic Borg into enormous double-attacking beatsticks. This required three Psychics on the field to start with, including Mind Master himself, a Brain Research Lab to downplay the cost of Mind Master’s effect, and a specific line-up of Level 4 Psychic Monsters in the deck who could be brought in and off the field to activate their boosting effects. Here are the basic accumulated effects:
3x Power Injectors = 500 ATK + 500 ATK + 500 ATK = a 1500 ATK boost total for each Psychic on the field.
2x Psychic Snails allow Mind Master and Reinforced Psychic Borg and Mind Master to attack twice per Battle Phase.
1x Reinforced Human Psychic Borg, a permanent Psychic Bazoo, can remove up to two dead Psychics from play per turn to gain 500 ATK for each of them, adding to its base score of 1500 ATK to make it 2500 ATK.
1x Destructotron can clear the backfield, supplementing Giant Trunade and Heavy Storm.
1500 ATK + 1500 ATK + 1000 ATK = 4000 ATK, which comes to a potential 8000 points of damage dealt by the Borg with Psychic Snail’s double-attack option.
100 ATK + 1500 ATK = 1600 ATK, which comes to 3200 points of potential damage dealt by Mind Master after the double-attack.
Other thoughts…
Black Rose Dragon is typically run in Avarice-packing builds so it’s limitation is only partially in effect, but the limitation of a Synchro isn’t an entirely silly idea in practice. In the case of Dark Strike Fighter, a limitation would not have helped the game at all, though there admittedly are tricks you could pull off with two, such as the OTK in Rescue Cat. Goyo Guardian’s limitation has been effective in practice. Last format, Level 6 Synchros were third-rate in the TCG for this reason.
I welcome the semi-limit of Bottomless Trap Hole. Its prevalence in threes made a successful Normal Summon a pipe dream, and it still very much does. Excellent card, but seeing just a little less of it isn’t going to bother anyone.
One for One was a generic and costed Emergency Teleport to bring out Mind Master with. Its applications with Ragigura aside, it’s also compatiple with the underestimated Fishborg Gunner, a future accomplice of the Frog OTK deck once Ogre Frog makes his debut.
Mezuki at two is much welcome, though I only say so because we don’t have Brionac stateside.
Say what you like about Lonefire Blossom, but Plants really did need something as good if not as splashable. There is enough removal at our disposal to make Tytannial’s effect a minor concern to most players. Lonefire may be broken to a purist, but I’d rather call it Konami’s Red Bull enema for what was a largely laughable deck at the time. The upcoming Supervis build with Gigaplant back in full bloom worries me a bit, though Dark Strike Fighter’s absence makes it less cringe-worthy. Just like Emergency Teleport, Lonefire Blossom is too easy to use in the hands of Joe Duelist in his Tele-Cookie-Synchro-DAD netdeck, but it offers much needed muscle to a few rogue decks. You said it yourself. 2400 ATK? 2800 ATK? It all means crap thanks to the newfangled Battle Phase tricks.
I agree with most, too. As with ‘Rescue Cat’, what’re they gonna Tune for besides Goyo anyways (we don’t have the sweet stuff yet)?
If anyone wants to see why ‘Mind Master’ and ‘One For One’ are down to 1, check out TeamEpicMeow’s video on the ‘Tube to see how the OTK works.
Basically, you summon a Psychic, then use either ‘Emergency Teleport’ or (preferably) ‘One For One’ to bring ‘Mind Master’ to the field, then play their Field Spell, ‘Brain Research Lab’ from Ancient Prophecy. With them, you continuously sacrifice Psychics with ‘Mind Master’s effect, then use their abilities, like ‘Destructotron’ to blow away any threats, and power up ‘MM’ with cards like ‘Psychic Snail’ and ‘Power Injector’ to make ‘MM’ a major threat, and keep cycling through ’til you’re set to strike.
This is called the “riskiest OTK ever”, because if your opponent takes out your Lab if it has at least 8 Psychic Counters, you’re toast instead.
And I’m glad they kept Black Rose at 1. Nuking the field has less payoff than ‘Demise’, and we’d only have ‘Psychic Lifetrancer’ and ‘X-Saber Urbellum’ left for general Synchros
Out of all those other “broken” cards, does ‘Sky Scourge Norleras’ not fit the bill by its Summoning requirements?
LOL
we look so bad now
I forgot to say this, though – Mezuki’s stats are what they are because that’s what they were in the manga. It’s a shame they didn’t make it so his cards had “Yokai” in their names, and ‘Yokai – Mezuki’ couldn’t only bring back other “Yokai” monsters, but it’s good we won’t be expecting his other such cards soon… Zombies would be crazy…
Just by looking at Lonefire Blossom it is easy to tell it is probably the best searcher in the game. However, if it was such a threat plant decks would have done a lot better over the past year and a half than they have. Most decks that try to use it to fuel Pot of Avarice are extremely inconsistent (Why not just restrict PoA instead anyway). Debris plants only really worked alright because Black Rose punishes the over extension people did in the last format. It was still something difficult to pull off with advantage. Salvo decks didn’t use it that much and would probably turn more to it with DSF banned, but still there was so much that could go wrong when you need it. I don’t believe they should have hit Lonefire until it was a problem if they weren’t going to hit Lightsworn which has been so much more successful. Yes I might be a bit biased because I have been playing plants ever since I saw the potential of Lonefire, but the best plants have done competitively is probably 24th place at Chicago Shonen Jump (that was me) during Tele-DAD format. At two, I wonder if plants will even be worth running. I will try, but I don’t know.
Other than that I agree with most of what you wrote.
Nothing against Tewart, but can you really say this list was his doing? It is a complete copy of the OCG list (as always). I don’t see how he had anything to do with the list, unless he influenced the OCG. But didn’t the interview with Rauzes say Tewart had no pull?
I have to agree that this is a pretty good list. Really playable and they did an amazing job addressing most of the problems of the past format. Black Rose going to one is fine. Debris Plants really causes in a major problem of resetting the board constantly, so it had to be limited. However, I do agree with you on Lonefire. I feel that it should be limited to one. Card is ridiculous. Speeding through the deck so fast and filling the grave for an almost turn 1 Avarice is not good for the game. Cards like Avarice shouldn’t be able to be activated before turn 2, however this card makes it happen. And tutoring for a 2800 monster with an amazing effect is just stupid.
I also hate the BTH limit. It should have stayed at 3 IMO.
Summoner monk was stronger too in Stardust/Assault modes decks
and with 3 ddraw you could discard 1 one dead spell bring stratos
(anyway)
summoner monk should be 1
and rescue cat banned
i agree with lonefire being limited
Oh, yeah, I must’ve forgot that part. There’s no way anyone could say that anything Konami did for this is because of TCG-play at all – that’s purely based around OCG play, copied so everyone has the same cards available, aside from us being 5 months behind and only having 4 Duel Terminal cards (yeah, ’cause there’d be no demand of those, right?
)
Hey Jae,
What are your thoughts on Lightsworn being virtually untouched where as other top decks getting raped hard?
I agree with most of these thoughts, especially Summoner Monk. It is fine to be at 3 as long as there are no broken level 4′s to search. At the first poster who disagrees- sure it’s versitile. Powerful certainly, but it’s also balanced by what it can search. Ban the broken cards (like Rescue Cat) and leave the balanced ones at 3.
As for Black Rose…I’m somewhat torn on it. Amassing a level 3 tuner and a level 4 monster is easier then dumping 4 different LS for JD. Anyone with rational thought capabilities can see that JD is banworthy, therefore Black Rose should also be banworthy for being easier to play and not actually costing you anything. Yes, JD doesn’t kill himself, but if he did, he’d still be broken I think. Therefore Rose is broken and needs to go.
Lonefire being semi’d bugs me. If it is to be treated differently then most searchers, put it to one so it can’t interact with it itself and get around its once per turn ruling. Otherwise, leave it at 3. Bottomless was another stupid semi- it was used in 3′s because it was so effective against what was being played, namely some of the broken bosses like Gyzarus and to a lesser extent DAD. It is a balanced card and does not belong on the list at all.
You agreed on the limit of One for One because it ‘restricts future card design while providing far too much explosiveness to certain deck types’.
Summon Priest does exactly the same, yet you’re saying that he could be @3 with Rescue Cat banned.
Why is Summon Priest, all of a sudden, perfectly fine @3, while One for One isn’t?
This list is not perfect, as it ensures Lightsworn will be the top deck.
all the limited and banned cards are cards that were used to defeat lightsworn: Bottomless Trap Hole, Crush Card Virus, Black Rose Dragon, Mind Control, Gale the Whirlwind (as a descent level 3 tuner to go for Black Rose or Arcanite), summoner monk to go with Rose Warrior of Revenge into quick Stardust or Colossal…
this list is just bad only because lightsworn were made the best deck period. zombies will try but will not defeat them with no Brioniac, in my opinion.
Lightsworn will not be “the top deck” it will stay were it is. Scaring everyone with its potential but never over coming its own downfall (unless new support is printed).
Though there are tons of cards that should ahve made the list, the cards that did did so in a balanced way. You see breaker released but how many decks are going to run 3 or even 2, hell how many run 1 pre-ban?!
Jae, the argument that “One for One” constrains future design can only be taken as serious support for the choice by means of forgetting one crucial detail.
EVERY CARD constrains future design.
This is why your Solemn article has ground to stand on in the first place; a game with Solemn could not sanely print the stuff that YGO has since printed w/o doing something either to that new stuff or to Solemn. In this, Solemn constrained card design, just like any and every older card that hasn’t been made obsolete yet.
Lonefire @2 has always done well for me; there’s plenty of ways to grab it from the deck and constantly recycle it…
I haven’t played anyone who has ever used BRD’s nuking effect, but then, everyone I know plays 2x BTH and 2x BHoH, so it’s not a huge deal, and just more fodder for ‘Greed Grado’.
i though lonefire blossom is one of those cards that would be broken but its not mainly due to the fact that plants had zero prior support. blossom makes them viable. and bottomless at 2 is perfect b/c its there in the background but it doesnt come up every turn. there should never be a card thats a staple in every deck and ran in 3′s. at the same time limiting bottomless would allow gyzarus, jd, dad wreak havoc.
The limitation of BRD and banning of DSF rly hurt salvo dad. The deck pretty much relied on gaining card presence through dekoichi and cyber valley mind control plays while destroying the opponents field presence with black rose dragon or otking with dark strike fighter. The deck was pretty relient on level 7 synchros. The only ones left now are 1 BRD Urbellum and Ancient Fairy Dragon. The latter two being very weak compared to dsf and 2nd and 3rd copies of BRD. We know they could not really ban BRD due to TV show franchise however the limitation of BRD at least took out 1 top tier deck (along with the banning of DSF of course).
LOL
P
Just keep repeating each other over and over
I know shadowqueen thats mad funny!!
Alright, my turn Jae
Solemn Judgment- it will be interesting at 1, we’ll see how it pans out
Mind Master- One Turn Kills, next
Blackwing – Gale the Whirlwind – don’t agree. yes its splashable. yes its one of the best tuners. But the thing that busted it was DSF/BRD access. Now those are relatively cut off. I would have rather seen whirlwind at 1 and Gale at 3, but I do acknowledge that Gale’s swarming ability is fairly rediculous.
Cold Wave, and Mind Control- Healthier at 1, good players know this intuitively, but I hope Jae can spell it out later on
One for One- It led to consistent first turn loops for xsaber and psychics, so sadly it goes to 1
Summoner Monk- I agree with you whole heartedly.
Monk to 3
Cat to 0
Makes YGO healthier
Demise, King of Armageddon- basically, I say ban the card, bring back ARA to 3
Black Rose Dragon- It will make a difference. There were decks that relied on “nuke field every turn” – ex. debris hime and salvo decks. Now players need to use that BRD more conservatively and set up avarice wisely, so it will be a positive change
Semi-Limits:
I’ll be honest. I think semi-limits are generally stupid.
^Agree
Chaos Sorcerer- Should have stayed at 1. At least ban return if sorc is at 2.
Bottomless Trap Hole- This is an example of dumb – *bold, empahsize*
Plain and simple stupid. People who think “bottomless at 2 is perfect” have no clue what they are talking about.
Mezuki- Mezuki is a very dangerous card. – agree
Too dangerous.
I know how you love to talk about floaters Jae
We’ve agreed many times that floaters are good for the game but have to have power restrictions
Skelengel – 900 atk – playable only in “on-theme” decks
Deko – 1400 atk – good card that can be splashed in many decks
Breaker – 1600 atk – dangerously powerful (should NOT have been put at 3, even 2 is very iffy)
Stratos – 1800 atk – arguably bannable
Mezuki – 1700 – falls between “bannable” and dangerously powerful
Should stay at 1. At 2, its “float” is really strong. But then the Burial abuse breaks it.
Lonefire Blossom: I think 2 was a good call
Yes it defies game rules/limitations
But, imo, plants needed a boss, and this is it
2 means no symbol of heritage abuse, which was the point of the semi
At 1, it becomes a:
-lucky opener card
-card that requires specific set up (with UFO turtle, etc)
Maybe it should go to 1 at some point, but let people have some fun with plants before they bet hammered
Next List MST AT 3 ITS RAINING CATS AND DOGS!
doctornik-I dont think ud be saying lets ban demise put ara to 3 if you saw the new ritual support in the next set. Its not broken but it is really good, bumping up ara would make it maybe too good.
Lightsworn will just scare anyway with the potential? have you been playing for the last 6 months? yea, Lightsworn didn’t win but it got to the top all over the places, swarming the entire european championship and every national championship in Europe! and that’s when CCV existed!
Now, there’s no real way to beat lightsworns up. They have been way too powerful with their many combos, now including a second chaos sorcerer to get rid of colossal, armor master and stardust with it!
Lightsworn will be just like tele-dad last year, maybe even like Dad-return. i’m just waiting for the mid-ban…
You’re waiting for something that won’t come. Now while this latest banlist has shown that Konami are much more amenable to the demands/wishes of TCG players than we previously thought, it doesn’t mean they’re willing to go to ridiculous lengths for our sake.
Consider the Ally of Justice archetype in the OCG, we don’t have it, and because the OCG does, LS won’t be a problem for them (at least, not to the extent it is for thre TCG players) and so they won’t go to the trouble of limiting OCG players purely for our sake. Besides, who knows when we’ll actually get the AOJ, it could be sooner (and for the sake of competitive balance I hope so) than we think.
Aw, man. If we had ‘AOJ Decisive Arms’, Lightsworn players here would crap themselves! LOL
I fully agree about 3 breaker being bad.
>The concept of cards like Rescue Cat, Lonefire Blossom, and Black Salvo bringing out normal summoned 2800 or 2400 attack monsters is incredibly stupid.<
You forgot to mention BW Blizzard. But for that matter, while this is a very powerful ability I don't think this is actually so abusive. It only reaches its maximum power in a simplified game state where it's less likely your opponent has the card to disrupt your play.
Normal Summoning a big monster is only a bit easier than special summoning a big monster, plus it falls to pretty much all the same weaknesses – bottomless, torrential, and oppression…and then some.
"Normal summoning a big monster" is a two-step process. First you have the normal summon, THEN you have the effect that enables the special summon. In between these two steps there is a lot more room for something to go wrong: your process being disrupted by Book of Moon, Skill Drain, PWWB, or war chariot can ruin your day. Imagine if you summon Black Salvo and target Dekoichi, only for your opponent to chain skill drain, leaving you with a silly little 100 attack monster on the field. Or if you summon Rescue Cat while your opponent has live backrow. You bring out Airbellum and Neo-Spacian Dark panther to make goyo, but he uses book of moon on the airbellum before you can sync up.
I remember one duel where my Lonefires kept getting killed by war chariot, whereas if I just summoned botanical lion, he didn't have the BTH to counter it.
I believe lonefire going to 2 was a pre-emptive restriction because Plants get really good after Supervis is released. I don't like the decision at all. As pwoerful a card as Lonefire is, it still saw very little play and will continue to do so. Plants have never been Tier 1 and will never as dominant the way other decks have been.
Lonefiring for a Tytannial may seem overpowered, but keep in mind that in order to do so, the plant player has to dedicate a significant portion of the deck to that mechanic, as well as suffering from the handicap of drawing Tytannial, forcing the player to either run more Tytannials or run a discard engine. Tytannial's effect is not as great as it seems either, there are a good number of outs in this format as well as every format before, not least of which is BTH.
With lonefire at 2, plants take a very unnecessary hit. It is critical that you draw lonefire before tytannial so you can get it out as soon as possible and not deal with the headache of drawing it. A much better solution would have been to put a pre-emptive restriction on Supervis, which I believe will be released in October.
It’s not like it’s hard to get Lonefire into your hand…
“Yes I might be a bit biased because I have been playing plants ever since I saw the potential of Lonefire, but the best plants have done competitively is probably 24th place at Chicago Shonen Jump (that was me) during Tele-DAD format.”
lol…Wasn’t there an article about a Plant/Skill Drain deck winning some Japanese championship?
@Swmystery, limiting the number of broken level 4s that can be searched out with Summoner Monk is just unreasonable. Level 4 is, by far, the level that, in my mind, has some of the most broken monsters available. Rather than limit the selection, why not limit the incredibly easy way of finding them all whenever you want?
J: Limiting broken cards is unreasonable? No, it’s not, it’s neccessary. Which broken level 4′s are left in the game, in your opinion? If a card is broken it should be banned. It really is as simple as that. Monk is not broken and does not need to be hit just so broken cards can stay.
The main reason why KDE manipulates the banlist is not only to balance the game, but to FORCE players to BUY newer cards. M-Reborn returned with Premature (banning Callof) because of the release of DiskCommander. Malicious returned at X3 because of the release of snchros=so players would buy holo synchros and E.Teleports in greater ammounts upon their release.
Solemn has been maintech x3 since 08′s GB’s, Oppression Monarchs, and TELEDAD. including bottomless seeing x3 as maintech. they were the cards that CONTROLLING/CONSISTENT/FAST/AGGRESSIVE decks overused. Having Solemn and BTH at 3 means players will remain using the same cards despite of ANY CHANGES done to a banlist. Therefore, hitting them in a banlist makes new cards to make their debut.(until they wait for 2 YEARS to be at 3, the case with RAIZA)