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Forbidden/Limited List & Skill Balance

Forbidden/Limited List Update

The Forbidden/Limited List will be updated on October 28th with a new card added to the list:


Skill Changes


Top Player Council Thoughts

Luxdar

Master of Destiny sees little deterrence from this new list considering Desperado Barrel Dragon, Twin-Barrel Dragon, Arcana Force XIV - Temperance, Time Wizard, Ms. Judge, Cup of Ace, and Fiend Comedian satisfy the updated requirement of 7 different Coin Flip cards, and were already commonly used. The deck will still have to figure out how to address the prevalence of Invoked Cocytus with the remainder of its deck slots, but it can assuredly breathe a sigh of relief after this list.

Samurai Skull’s return to 3 is a welcome repair for Zombie-focused decks, as its on-summon effect to mill is more valuable than Gozuki’s ignition effect to mill when it comes to successfully getting the effect off amid disruption cards that flip down or remove. Vampires could see some form of return with Samurai Skull free and access to Limit-2 staple Spells restored, however, the obstacle of Invoked Cocytus hard-walls the Vampire core, forcing them to adapt with techs such as Mirror Wall if they wish to stick around. The multitude of new foes for Vampire to account for may ultimately wind up overwhelming the deck anyway.

Light and Dark being weakened to require a 1000 LP drop per activation is a critical blow to the various decks that rely on it for consistency, most notably Spellbook and Invoked, which juggle between cards like Silent Magician, Breaker the Magical Warrior, and Aleister the Invoker for ideal positioning. Cosmic Cyclone and other LP manipulation cards may find a sudden surge in usage to attempt to salvage the Skill, but the dependence on LP manipulation cards itself presents a notable knock to the deck’s consistency.

World Legacy Clash has been a powerful tool finding a home in many decks, so the hit to 2 will send waves across the meta. Darklord and Neos, the two Tier 1 decks at the time of the list’s announcement, are now deprived of it (among other concerns). Six Samurai, which had been sitting at Tier 2, sees it conflict with 2 other high importance cards of the deck already at Limited 2 each. Even Desperado can no longer consider running the card given Cup of Ace bars any other Limited 2 considerations. The card’s ability to open a door to the opponent’s LP through a monster will now have to compete with Enemy Controller, Hey, Trunade!, and Treacherous Trap Hole and what they each bring to the table for decks.

Negative1

Overall very satisfied with this banlist; the hits to Beatdown, Master of Destiny, and Light and Dark help diversify the meta as they were the only Skills useful. The nerf to Beatdown will likely result in Darklord mirrors being more defensive and focus heavily on the fact that they can get a maximum of 2 uses of The Sanctified Darklord per turn, or just 1 if they are to play around Cosmic Cyclone.

The nerf to Desperado is nice however it would a hit to Rebirth of Parshath would be appreciated as it is one of the least interactive elements of the strategy.

Light and Dark needed to be nerfed because it would only grow more powerful as the card pool increased. Having access to any Light or Dark monster is too abusable (as seen by the toolbox nature of Spellbook Dark Spellcasters) and could result in major unintended consistency boosts. Pure Invoked decks would be able to run 6-7 Aleister the Invoker which made Invoked Cocytus a consistent Turn 1 wall. This nerf also acts as an indirect Spellbook nerf which most players can appreciate.

Snyffus

I’m happy that we finally got a big banlist again. The last 2 barely changed anything. This feels like the one a year ago, where Hey, Trunade!, Enemy Controller and Treacherous Trap Hole got Semi-Limited. With World Legacy Clash another really strong generic card is on the list. Neos Fusion too, if that counts.

The Skill hits are appreciated but I feel like they could have hit Desperado more as the Counter Trap version is super uninteractive.

I still think being able to choose which one to get with Light and Dark is really broken but I guess a 1000 LP cost is fine for now.

Getting some old cards back is nice but I’m not sure if it really does anything.


Tell us your thoughts on the new Forbidden/Limited List in the comments below!

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