NEW Banlist Out - Updated for Sep 1st, 2006.

[SPK]

I. Forbidden / Limited List for Advanced Format
The Advanced Format will be used at premier events, and the World Championship

I. Forbidden Cards
You cannot use these cards in your Deck, Fusion Deck or Side Deck.

BLACK LUSTER SOLDIER - ENVOY OF THE BEGINNING
BUTTERFLY DAGGER - ELMA
CHANGE OF HEART
CHAOS EMPEROR DRAGON - ENVOY OF THE END
CHAOS SORCERER
CYBER JAR
CYBER STEIN*
DARK HOLE
DELINQUENT DUO
EXCHANGE OF THE SPIRIT
FIBER JAR
HARPIE'S FEATHER DUSTER
IMPERIAL ORDER
LAST TURN
MAGICAL SCIENTIST
MAKYURA THE DESTRUCTOR
MIRAGE OF NIGHTMARE
MONSTER REBORN
PAINFUL CHOICE
POT OF GREED
RAIGEKI
SINISTER SERPENT
SNATCH STEAL
THE FORCEFUL SENTRY
THOUSAND-EYES RESTRICT
TIME SEAL
TRIBE-INFECTING VIRUS
TSUKUYOMI
WITCH OF THE BLACK FOREST
YATA-GARASU

NEW! - Chaos Sorcerer, Cyber-Stein, Snatch Steal, Thousand-Eyes Restrict, Tsukuyomi

II. Limited Cards
You can ONLY use one of the following cards in the Deck, Fusion Deck & Side Deck combined.

BOOK OF MOON
BREAKER THE MAGICAL WARRIOR
CALL OF THE HAUNTED
CARD DESTRUCTION
CEASEFIRE
CONFISCATION
D. D. WARRIOR LADY
D. D. ASSAILANT
DARK MAGICIAN OF CHAOS
EXODIA THE FORBIDDEN ONE
FUTURE FUSION
GRACEFUL CHARITY
GRAVITY BIND
HEAVY STORM
INJECTION FAIRY LILY
JINZO
LAST WILL
LEFT ARM OF THE FORBIDDEN ONE
LEFT LEG OF THE FORBIDDEN ONE
LEVEL LIMIT - AREA B
LIMITER REMOVAL
MAGE POWER
MAGIC CYLINDER
MAGICIAN OF FAITH
MASK OF DARKNESS
METAMORPHOSIS
MIRROR FORCE
MORPHING JAR
MYSTICAL SPACE TYPHOON
NIGHT ASSAILANT
NOBLEMAN OF CROSSOUT
POT OF AVARICE
PREMATURE BURIAL
PROTECTOR OF THE SANCTUARY
RIGHT ARM OF THE FORBIDDEN ONE
RIGHT LEG OF THE FORBIDDEN ONE
RING OF DESTRUCTION
SACRED PHOENIX OF NEPHTHYS
SANGAN
SCAPEGOAT
SPIRIT REAPER
SWORDS OF REVEALING LIGHT
TORRENTIAL TRIBUTE
TREEBORN FROG
TWIN-HEADED BEHEMOTH
ULTIMATE OFFERING
UNITED WE STAND
VICTORY DRAGON

NEW! - Future Fusion, Gravity Bind, Magician of Faith, Nobleman of Crossout, Ring of Destruction, Spirit Reaper, Ultimate Offering, Victory Dragon

III. Semi-Limited Cards
You can ONLY use two fo the following cards in the Deck, Fusion Deck & Side Deck combined.

APPRENTICE MAGICIAN
CREATURE SWAP
DECK DEVASTATION VIRUS
EXILED FORCE
GIANT TRUNADE
GOOD GOBLIN HOUSEKEEPING
MANTICORE OF DARKNESS
RECKLESS GREED
REINFORCEMENT OF THE ARMY
UPSTART GOBLIN
WALL OF REVEALING LIGHT

NEW! - Exiled Force, Giant Trunade, Reckless Greed, Wall of Revealing Light

NEW! - The following cards are no longer Limited: Drop Off, Emergency Provisions, Lightning Vortex, Reflect Bounder

Interesting...


EDIT: As of December 2006, Cyber-Stein is now Forbidden, and Victory Dragon is now Limited.

[SPK]

List has been updated...

I don't mind this, it will definitely bring some change to the list now....

I can already see NEO celebrating now!

[New Era Outlaw]

I can already see NEO celebrating now!

Damn skippy! You want to know why?

(inhales and blow harmonica)


No more Sorceror removing my ras,
No more Tsuki bending my a$$,
Two less Reapers sticking de game again!

Magician get knocked down to one
And so did that stupid crossouting blonde
And best of all
I get back meh card
What dey call it?

RING OF DE-STRUCT-ION!![/color][/b]


Ah yes. You have made me a happy outlaw today.
I think I shall do cartwheels now. Like, allll over the place. Even on the damn CEILING, too.

Dang it. I'm so happy, I don't even CARE that you can have 2 Exiled Force in a deck and a billion Lightning Vortex.

....wait..... O___o;;

[Shinsoo]

i like this list it doesnt screw anyone... cept chaos.... but it was over used in the US so i gues that's why

[W1nTry]

I am really not a card gamer although I have tried yugioh a few times against my younger brothers and I used to watch the series. However what I would like to know is exactly WHY is there a BANNED list on the cards? I have often wondered this for a LONG time and I think it's time to ask it. I am figuring it cause of cheap strategies that ppl use, but why is that necessarily a bad thing? its like in a real war, even if you use a cheap strategy to win, its who's left when the smoke clears is who wins and who counts... so Neo shed some light for me dere.

[New Era Outlaw]

I am figuring it cause of cheap strategies that ppl use

That's one reason why.
Here are some more:

1) Upperdeck is banning cards to force people to be more creative with their decks, instead of everybody and their pet cat Bert running the same type of deck over and over and over again. If there wasn't a banned list, for example, people will only run Chaos type decks to win. No Toons, No Monarchs, No Gravekeepers.....if you wanted even the slightest chance at winning, you include a BLS or a CED in your deck, no questions asked. And, with everybody running the same cookie cutter cards in each of their decks, the game was getting monotonous and boring.

2) The banned list also encourages players to use some of the newer, yet overlooked cards that UD has since printed in lieu of the superior, but older cards. No Change of Heart? Get a Brain Control. From a business perspective, it's a sound strategy - keep duelists buying cards by banning the overpowered oldies and offering more feasible substitutes in newer sets.

3) The banned list also promotes balance in the game. Most decks that didn't have a chance in heck of winning before it now have more of a fighting chance against other types of decks. On top of that, many of the banned cards are dang expensive, too, so players on a budget would sometimes catch their nennen against duelists who could afford to soup up their decks.


As for the cheap strategies, here is a few examples of how badly some of the banned cards in combos can screw up the game:

- Infinite Life Points, Infinite Burn, Infinite Drawing Power (Elma -Dagger of Butterflies)
- Complete annihilation of a player's hand and field in one move (Chaos Emperor Dragon)
- Prevention of drawing new cards forever (Yata-Garasu)
- Mass removal without cost or consequence (Raigeki, Harpie's Feather Duster)
- Severe annoyance by resetting the whole game's resources (Fiber Jar)

..so, now you know.

[W1nTry]

Ahh.... I seee neo-sama. Not that this affects me since I don't play card games, however being an 'older' gamer and growing up on board games and whatnot. I fully advocate young ppl or ppl in general (but moreseover the young ones) to play these kinds of games as you actually need TO THINK. Versus the slure of mund numbing 3rd personrunaroundandkilleverythingthatyousee type of games out there. I liked the fact that you need to focus on strategy even if untimately sometimes it came down to luck of the draw (actually in MANY cases but hey luck is a skill according to Guy Sensei). So play on I say, Play on!

[einstien101]

this list isnt bad, allows better players to win, although all they really had to do was unrestrict tt, goats, mst,ter and morph.then skill would be seen because you would have sop many more top tier decks, if anyonne really wants to argue me on these points please do and let me show eryone why you know nothing about the game.

[New Era Outlaw]

Wait....unrestrict MST? Are you nuts? There's a reason why Quick-Play field destruction was restricted, you know. Anybody who sets cards to defend themselves only to have a casual MST hit it before your turn ends could tell you that it's a good thing this was knocked down to one.

Unrestricting Torrential Tribute is also disaster waiting to happen.
The thing basically reads, "This is a Dark Hole. Use at your own discretion."
It may be a Trap, but it has one thing over Dark Hole - it can wipe out monsters AND waste a summon for an opponent.
Does that sound like something you can unrestrict to you? As a matter of fact, many gaming magazines (like Pojo and Yu-Gi-Oh! Beckett) predicted this card being knocked down to 1 in the preview for LON, because they saw the damage potential it had for mass monster removal. Why it hasn't been knocked down to 1 sooner, I, and a lot of people, soon won't know.
Besides which, tell me if you can tolerate this scenario:

"I summon Vorse Raider-"
"Yeah? WASH HIM."
(next turn) "Okay....I'll use Premature on D.D. Warrior Lady to scratch that Sangan-"
"Hard luck, partner...tell she take a bathe!" (gets Injection Fairy Lily)
"FINE. I'll set this card and end, then."
"Good boy. Now, Call back Sangan and....TORRENTIAL. Put Exiled Force in my hand. Summon Lily, and...WIN."
"GOD DAMMIT!" (throws down cards and hits head on table repeatedly)

Yeah. Damn straight you shouldn't be seeing this in 2's or 3's anytime soon.



As for Scapegoat....I wouldn't mind seeing 2 allowed in a deck, but, either way, the presence of Sheep Tokens on the field stalls a little bit too effectively. Either way, you'd stop attacks coming your way for up to four turns for the most, or cause people to use up resources to get rid of them. There's just too many benefits going for it right now to allow it to be 3 per deck:

- Stalling power
- Instant + 4 with four new monsters on the field
- Chainable, especially to Spell/Trap destruction
- Morphable to Thousand Eyes Restrict (for the time being)
- Replenishable with MoF
- Creature Swap fodder
- Prevents opponents from taking any to tribute, eliminating one option to get rid of them.

As for TER...you could leave that banned. UD banned this, and restricted Scapegoat and Metamorphosis for a very good reason, although Metamorphosis has become almost unncessary to restrict now that TER is gone. The thing causes duels to screech to a halt. The second it takes a monster, you better hope that the next card you draw is Exiled Force or Lightning Vortex, because:

- You can't ram into it with a stronger monster....you can't attack, at all.
- If TER rams into a stronger monster with another equipped,  it's free to take a next one. And another. And another. As long as you summon fodder for it.
- Flipping monsters can't even work, because TER locks down the entire field.

And, quite lately, TER has become too easy to bring out. Far too easy.

So, no. It's not necessarily skill you'll see when those cards come off the list. What you will see, however, is Absolute Goat Control. How?

- 3 MSTs will effectively prevent you from using Mirror Force, Torrential or Ring from combating or preventing TER from coming out.
- 3 Torrential Tributes will ensure that even if Exiled Force or some other threat comes in TER's face, the whole field will get wiped clean, so a summon and resource is wasted in the process.
- 3 TER = 3 monsters will get taken. Need I say more?
- 3 Scapegoats would mean lots more opportunities for TER to appear.
- Needless to say, if there were 3 Scapegoats and 3 TER, then 3 Metamorphosis would increase the chances of TER coming out.


And that is why you will NOT see those cards unrestricted in any capacity together like that.
That combo wreaked havoc in Japan, and was -this- close to doing the same in the Western Hemisphere.
So, with the exception of Metamorphosis, which really needs no restriction again, no, no and NO on that list. Let all those cards stay where they are, PLEASE.



P.S.: By the way, that point you made where 'More skill will be seen because you'll see a lot more top tier decks' is a VERY bad point. Remember Chaos? You saw a lot of top-tier decks there, but then again, how skilled do you have to be to drop DARK and LIGHT in a Graveyard and pay 1000 to win the game? Everybody and their grandpa was running top-tier Chaos. Where,pray tell, was the skill in playing the same decktype? Just slap cards you saw in somebody else's Chao's deck, and play with that.

On the contrary, the less top-tier decks in a game, the more skill it takes to win, because there isn't any cookie-cutter options to resort to to win a match...you must win combining what resources you have left. And with the recent bannings, I have seen a lot more skill because of the diversity people are playing with (an Insect deck won the last tournament that I've been to). By cutting out top-tier cards that give people too much of an advantage, people, forced as they are to rely on new strategies, have to shape up and build decks to suit. And that, my friend, is what brings about more skill.

[einstien101]

im back, comments in a lil while, but here are a few:

-3 tt means that acheiving locks is hard, but i understnd your concern, i drop ter to 2
-3 decree stops tt for ppl afraid of it
-3 mst stops decree/gk decks which woudl now be top tier
-3 bom stops ter

everything can be balanced off and players can side deck better. bad players will overextend into tt, most ppl only lose 1 to 2 monsters at a time to tt anyway, and if they lose 2 their opp has lost one. overextension is bad if you cannot build for it, if you want to overextend run decrees, to stop mad aggro now overtaking you thanks to tt you have 3 mst. ter stabalises the field, snatch is less likely to be a 'killer top' with 3 mst as well.

[New Era Outlaw]

You forgot to mention that 3 Book of Moon also:

- Promotes abuse with Flip Effects;
- Is free Jinzo-proof attack prevention;

On top of stopping TER. Phooey on that.

I really don't understand your point, einstein. Why do you want there to even be 'top-tier' decks? For people to start playing the same types of cards in tournament decks so that originality is carted off in favour of playing the same broken cards throughout? I don't know about you, but I think I'd rather an environment where Gravekeepers and Toons and other lesser decktypes get up on par with Dark World and Monarch decks. That'd be a bit more interesting and fun, wouldn't you think?


And no, even with 2 TER, things still would not be balanced off. You'd probably catch your tail trying to get rid of a single one, at times. And that's still 2 monsters being taken. TER doesn't stabilise a field....it downright FREEZES it. No Flip Effects, no attacks, not even a barricade, because TER could take what you have in defense AND attack. That's a big upswing of advantage in favour of the TER player.

3 MSTs used to cause severe trouble for players, einstein. Chances are, they aren't really going to give a rat's bare a** that Royal Decree is on the field, because it stops their opponent's traps too. What they will (and originally did) use it for is Chainable S/T removal, especially at the end of a player's turn. On top of that, 3 MSTS kill a LOT of decktypes that need Spells to stay (Burn/Toon/Gravekeepers and whatnot). It was because of that abuse that UD trimmed it down to one. Probably if we didn't already have Breaker, they'd have had it at 2, but right now, too much S/T removal from several sources to warrant brining this back in 3's. That wouldn't be 'stabilising'. That would be field control, in the worst way. Imagine a Hand with 3 MSTs, a Heavy Storm and a Breaker. That sound fair to you?


That point about 'people only lose two monsters to TT anyway because even if I lose 2 they lose 1' is a bad one. VERY bad. Would I as a common sense player set Torrential if I'm not prepared to lose what I have on the field? Unless I'm desperate, see something very bad coming my way, or am pretty stupid, the answer is NO. The point would be that:

- I killed all monsters on your side of the field;
- AND I just made you waste your summon for the turn.

Torrential also has the potential to be a +5. Stretching it, yes, because, realistically, you are right that at most it's a +2. But the fact that it's a Dark Hole that I can use whenever I want and can set you up for something my turn is the whole reason why TT is restricted to one. And you just said it there yourself in the last paragraph: "....mad aggro now overtaking you thanks to tt..." Why even MAKE that situation happen?

[justinkoo]

einstein as a matter of curiousity what deck type u running for the upcoming ban list?

[einstien101]

my secret till next tourney...whenever that is, i have 3 up though.

[New Era Outlaw]

Updated the lists to include Cyber-Stein (now Banned) and Victory Dragon (now restricted to 1).