I've been wanting to do a topic like this for a while, so here it is. I've always been interested in both the advanced and traditional formats of Yugioh. They are both eternal formats that share the same banlist. By default, you can have 3 copies of a card in your deck. The ban list has 3 sectoins. Semi-limited means you can now only run 2. Limited means you can now only run 1. And Forbidden means you can't run any in advanced but you can run 1 in traditional. This topic will be to discuss how specific cards got on the list in the past, why they are or aren't on the list now, and so on. Basically I'll post on a couple related cards per day, and hopefully some people will start to comment .

Today's Cards are:

Pot of Greed: "Draw 2 cards."



Graceful Charity: "Draw 3 cards, then discard 2 cards."




Yugioh is a game where, after you are following the basic rules, the only thing that can limit what you do per turn is the once per turn normal summoning limit and whatever your cards say they can or can't do. Because of this, card advantage and ways to generate them are extremely powerful, and everytime I try to discuss these things on an MTG site this is basically THE place to start explaining the yugioh ban list.

Pot of Greed is basically a divination right? That's not that powerful in Magic the Gathering. But it's not that powerful in magic the gathering because magic the gathering has mana costs on most cards. Yugioh never has, and anything that even tries to put a limit on summoning conditions is either really really good or really really bad. Because of this, pot of greed draws you two cards that you get to use IMMEDIATELY. It's an inherent +1 with no downside whatsoever. After the creation of the banlist, pot of greed very quickly went to 1 copy. And eventually it just got banned. It was and IS banned for three major reasons:

1) It's an inherent draw 1 that every deck would play. Literally. Not a single deck in yugioh would leave this out. There's no reason to do so. Even in self-mill decks, spell cards are still important and this one is just too **** good not to use.

2) Yugioh has decks known as draw ftk. Basically, you try to draw your entire deck on the first turn if possible and in the first few turns if not possible. Then you use whatever combo you were going for to win the game. Exodia the forbidden one is the most classic example, but others have and still do exist. Konami takes as many steps as they can to limit this deck type as possible, and it's a major reason pot of greed can never come back.

3) People quickly realized that if you drew your Pot of Greed very early and your opponent did not, that was stupidly unfair. As in, it was downright unfair for such a thing to happen, no matter the circumstance. And, as a rule, a must run card in every single deck ever that gives a stupidly unfair advantage for no good reason if your opponent doesn't also get theirs? Cards such as this tend to end up on the yugioh ban list as forbidden very quickly.



Graceful Charity is a much more subtle card than Pot of Greed as for why it was banned. I mean, it's a +0 right? Well, there are 2 main reasons this got banned:

1) Every reason pot of greed got banned. This card, as a rule, is inherently unfair. It always replaces itself, and you simply discard the 2 worst cards out of your current hand AND the next 3 cards in your deck. People immediately realized that there was no reason not to run this, because you get to see those 3 cards before you have to discard ANYTHING. On turn 1, this means you've already seen the top 10 (or was it 9?) cards in your deck of 40 and have kept the best 6 or 7 out of them. Not very fair to be honest.

2) Yugioh uses the graveyard as a second resource, and cards like the dark world monsters get very powerful effects when discarded by an effect. Thus, in many decks, you were actually drawing 3 cards you could use immediately as well as setting up your graveyard for a major play. This, in fact, makes the card arguably better than pot of greed in some cases. It's like arguing bazaar of baghdad vs black lotus. Black Lotus is normally better in almost any situation, but you get that one deck and......


And that is why Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity are on the forbidden list.

After some thought, finals are going to leave this mostly blank for about 4 or 5 days, so I'm going to do one big post here and another on saturday worth that much content.


Below is the set of cards where I would next try to explain what is and isn't okay in yugioh, assuming someone didn't know much about it.

Giant Trunade: Returns all spells and traps on the field to their owner's hands.

Heavy Storm: Destroys all spells and traps on the field.

Cold Wave: No player can activate or set any spells or traps until your next turn. This can only be used at the beginning of your main phase 1.

Harpies Feather Duster: Destroy all spells and traps your opponent controls.

^^ All four of these cards are on the forbidden list.


Dark Hole: Destroy all monsters on the field.
Raigeki: Destroy all monsters your opponent controls.

^^ Both of these cards are at 1.


So right now, it's obvious that spells and traps are weighted more than monsters. Well.... that's because it's very hard to reuse them in general. Monsters come back out of the graveyard all the time, and most of the top decks have been graveyard based forever. Spells and traps? Not so much.

The 4 banned cards up above all hose spells and traps in some way. Cold Wave, on turn 1, means you don't have to worry about your opponents spells for 1 turn and your opponent's traps for 2 turns if used on the first turn. Giant Trunade removes all spells and traps from the field with very few counters because it destroys them. And bluntly put, heavy storm and harpie's feather duster just get huge amounts of card advanteg for unfair reasons. Traps are the main way to prevent otk (one turn kills) in Yugioh, and the game has progressed to a point where mass trap removal is always considered unfair. Now there is one exception to this.

Malevolent Catastrophe: When your opponent attacks with a monster, destroy all spells and traps on the field.

The difference, and why this card is at 3, is because your opponent controls when it goes off (kind of), and ITS A TRAP CARD. Thus, it's inherently weaker.



Raigeki used to be banned. It's now at 1. This is due solely to power creep. It is only at 1 because power creep has gone THAT FAR. Dark Hole is at 1 simply because of power creep again and the fact that they don't want raigeki to be at 2. Due to graveyard recursion, these two cards have become more of a delay tactic and aren't guaranteed to get you that much of an advantage. But they ARE useful reset buttons that are still must run in most decks, so they are at 1 because of that. Because blatantly put.... you usually just run them and be thankful for the privilege of using them.

Wasn't pot of greed in one of the two starter decks like either Yugi's or kabia's when the game frist came out here?

Yes. In fact, several banned and limited cards were in the original starter decks. Another good example is that I think Joey had graceful charity and they all had monster reborn (I think). Many have also been in structure decks over the years .

As it turns out, I have just enough time to do one of these today. Thus today, we are going to go over banned discard spells in yugioh .

The Forceful Sentry: Look at your opponent's hand and shuffle one card into their deck.

Confiscation: Pay 1000 life points. Look at your opponent's hand and pick one card for them to discard.

Deliquent Duo: Pay 1000 life points. Your opponent randomly discards one card and then chooses one more card to discard.



To be blunt, I used to play traditional, and this discard trinity was must run in a lot of decks. Again, all of these fall under the category of "extremely unfair" on turn 1, especially if you manage to get multiple copies off. Looking at your opponent's hand can still be done with unbanned cards, but that's because you are just looking at their hand and rarely getting to do anything else. The forceful sentry and confiscation let you look at their hand AND THEN get rid of the best card in it. On turn 1, this can and does win you the game on occasion. Sentry is by far the more powerful card, but both are heavily broken in an environment where mana costs are not a thing.

Basically, the idea is that you aren't allowed to completely ruin your opponent's hand before they ever get a chance to make a decision.

Delinquent Duo..... that card is more subtle but turn 1 going first this almost always won you the game, and again it falls under the category of extremely unfair if you cast one and your opponent doesn't get to respond in kind before you actually lay down your best cards. It's just...... this is somewhere halfway between mind rot and hymn to tourach in terms of power level, and I guarantee you if there was a zero cost card that did this in MTG it would be banned as well.

It's technically Wednesday, so I'm going to do one while I have time . Today's is a treat.



The scariest little birdy you ever did see, this thing is a terror. But explaining why to people who play FREAKING YUGIOH is surprisingly hard. This is one of those rare cards where it's obviously broken but how broken you think it is still acts as a skill gate. The most famous example of this card ever doing something was in a combo with Witch of the Black Forest or Sangan and Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End. But any little attack will do. You see, everytime your opponent takes direct damage from this, they skip their next draw. That means their hand size is effectively one smaller and they are going to have even more trouble dealing with your board. Because if you had a board where this got through, they don't have a board at all and need to get one very quickly. The best case scenario (for your opponent) after attacking directly with this little monstrosity is your opponent will be able to lay down a defensive wall and they only missed their one draw. Then the game proceeds into a battle of attrition in which you try to do this again and again and again. The worst case scenario? Your opponent never gets to draw again.

You hear me right. This card sets up an infinite loop where if they can't stop it, you can ping them for 200 damage every single turn until they are dead or you deck yourself. Usually the former unless the player playing yata garasu is really stupid in the rest of his/her deck design. Because once this can't be stopped, it ends the rest of your opponent's draws..... period. Furthermore, only spell speed 2 monster effects and trap cards tend to be able to stop it, since it returns to your hand at the end of every turn. This tends to make most people's removal completely useless, since a lot of people run removal that can only be used at yugioh's equivalent of sorcery speed.

Now why is this a skill test? Because frankly put, most people assume it's only good once your opponent is out of cards. That's the false rumor that has been spread around the yugioh community AND IT IS PERVASIVE. If you've never been on the receiving end of a yata garasu, even when you were able to do something, it's actually very hard for many non-mtg yugioh players to immediately understand the problem behind this. Basically put, even if all it does is ping your opponent a few times in the duel but not create a lock..... that's insane card advantage as far as yugioh is concerned. And it's the best kind, where their card didn't even end up in the graveyard. The trap equivalent, Time Seal, which also does this..... it is outright banned for doing this to your opponent only once. The monster that can do it repeatedly over the course of a duel? Super broken even if it only gets to attack them directly once. This is one of those things where when I play traditional, I will go out of my way to summon it and attack directly even when I could have a better board otherwise, because of what it does and the fact that I am actually willing to take 2000 damage to the face if they have something on the off chance that they won't and the idea that I might get that level of card advantage out of it.

We shall explain why these three beauties are also banned (because they all are) another day, but here is how the combo works. You find some way to have Witch of the Black Forest or Sangan on the field without using your normal summon. Monster Reborn, Call of the Haunted, Premature Burial, playing it and actually having it survive a turn......... all of these work. After you have done this in some manner, you special summon CED Envoy (shorthand for Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End) with its own effect. You then pay 1000 life points to do a **** load of damage to your opponent's life points and send all cards you and your opponent controls to the graveyard. Your hands too, because that is how CED rolls. Due to how yugioh's equivalent of the stack works, you will then end up with the ability to tutor for one small hellspawn and also have the ability to normal summon it. If your opponent cannot summon something from their own graveyard next turn using a card actually in the graveyard (not really possible even for a lot of modern decks) you've won the game right then and there. Back in the early days of yore when yugioh was still young, there wasn't even a real way to revive.... well anything from your graveyard using your own graveyard. People didn't have a single out to this combo, thus its infamy. Today, if you ask why Yata Garasu is banned someone will try to bring this up and say this is why, when in reality it's much simpler than that . That's how famous it is.

This is going to be the post for Thursday.







Today, we are actually going to get some limited cards. Yay.

The cards above are ordered from weakest to strongest, but they are all at 1 due to the fact that the other 2 exist. Basically, in the most basic sense, these are the best graveyard hosers in the game. Because of this, each one of them DESTROYS a large number of popular decks, which is something konami wants to avoid happening consistently. Thus each one is put at one copy in the hopes that only having 3 of these total in your deck won't be consistent enough to screw over anyone by themselves in a match setting.

Soul Drain is part of a trio of cards that prevents monster effects in various places. It's siblings are Mind Drain and Skill Drain. Mind Drain is completely useless for the most part as it only prevents effects from going off in the hand (very rare). Skill Drain prevents all monster effects on the field, which due to the current meta is kind of powerful but not enough to warrant getting on a list. Soul Drain on the other hand.... banished monsters AND monsters in the graveyard, for the most part can't use their effects. This completely kills a large number of decks based on effects that happen once the monster goes to the graveyard, meaning several tutors and a large number of other effects simply no longer work. Due to how good it is at hosing the current meta, it got put to 1.

Dimensional Fissure is just a little bit stronger. Every monster that goes to the graveyard is now banished. This means, for most decks, that monster is not accessible for the entire rest of the game. It's just gone. The hosing with this one is very real, and it means most decks just shut down. Even if you destroy it later in the game, the monsters it banished are still just ... well gone. Vanished. Never to be seen again that game if you aren't running that kind of deck. This is.... if used right this is very good. In addition, monsters can no longer be sent to the graveyard as a cost, meaning certain effects can no longer be activated and also meaning you cannot attack at all if your opponent has both a dimensional fissue and a gravekeeper's servant on the field.

Macro Cosmos...... this card is almost never actually used to summon the monster in its text. It's always used for the second effect, namely completely banishing anything that would go to the graveyard. This ends all recursion PERIOD, meaning in the rare chance you were going to try to get a spell or trap back from the graveyard you can't do that either. Basically put, this completely finishes off hosing any meta decks that could have survived the first two, making it by far the strongest. This meant it was also the first to hit the list, leaving dimensional fissure at 3 (soul drain had not come out yet).

On a side note, all 3 of these cards are absolute rulings nightmares.

On a side note, they just released the new list. Oh boy oh boy.

http://www.yugioh-card.com/en/limited/s

Super Poly is banned. That's uncalled for.

Artifact Moralltach is limited. Well that was foreseeable.

Dark Strike Fighter is limited. ..... Well that should be at 3 to be honest.

O.O

Snatch Steal is coming off the list and going to 1. We are all going to have an apocalyptic moment with that one.

Dark Hole, Honest, and Goyo Guardian to 2. Dark Hole is one of those cards I did a couple of days ago. Now they've decided it can be at 2.

And a bunch of stuff that should have gone to 3 a while ago is at 3 .

is everything in yugioh broken

I played it on gameboy once and made a deck with solemn judgement and jurai gumo I think they were called, and won everything with it

i played a yugioh game and one of the bots ran a FTK deck with cyberstein and blue eyes ultimate dragon and some other card that doubled its attack points or something

Yes and no.

Yugioh is a game where everything is equivalent to MTG's legacy. Thus, the power creep is real. This means that every single year something more broken comes out to replace the old top decks, and anything considered too broken gets hit by a banhammer in some way.

For your particular examples,

Jurai Gumo is a joke. Like..... a bad joke. It's ability sucks, and even back in the day you did not play it. Back when it completely dominated the field by its own presence. Nowadays, you can easily put 2600 attack on the field turn 1 with no problem or downside (usually even an upside). Yugioh has become a very fast game.

Solemn Judgment, on the other hand, got limited for a very long time and about a year ago got effectively permabanned.



@lilan,

Cyberstein is permabanned in the tcg and at 1 in the ocg. It's a very stupidly good card, although the deck you mentioned is bad.


As a more general rule, anything that wins turn 4 consistently gets put on a watchlist and turn 1-3 gets nerfed somehow. Even the pure unbeatable lockdown ****. Although this is only a measurement vs other tier 1 decks. They have 4 ban lists a year and are perfectly willing to do e-bans.

So I just got back into it sort of after a long hiatus (Incidentally happened to chance across the best archetype ever, as you might be able to guess ), but do you know what the hell is going on with the rarities? I mean, the whole common, uncommon, rare, super rare, in-training rare, rookie rare, champion rare, ultra rare, mega rare, medium rare, well done, etc. but is it just me, or do they print a bunch of the same card at like four different rarities? And it seems to have no effect on price, though it might just be because I've only grabbed singles of the best cards ever like Rescue Cat, but was looking at getting a Flame Wingman for a buddy of mine, and on Amazon it was like "Super Rare - 3.50, ultra rare - 3.75, common - 7" or something . I mean, I know rarity alone doesn't dictate price, but in general it seems like there should be some kind of logic to it.

Well, ideally the rarer the card the harder to find it is in packs. And prices kind of follow this trend. That being said, the rarity system is so **** up that I don't understnad it either. I mean... they have like 20 different rarities and it doesn't seem to be consistent between any of them. Just look at this page:

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Rarity




On a side note, the power creep has gotten to the point where I can't stand competitive yugioh and I don't know where to find a casual setting . I've basically given up on the game playing it wise. I'm still very willing to discuss it, as I love the theory behind the thing, but playing it.... I like my games to at least last 4 turns before I know who won you know?

Indeed, I probably be down for some play by post games sometime, but be warned that I'm probably going to ham it up and repeatedly announce what each card does like in the show, because that's pretty much why I decided to start playing again (Also so far I mostly just have some structure decks, which may also be stupid powerful for casual since I think they were relatively new. I mean, I would assume prebuilt decks are as bad as they are in Magic, but with aforementioned power creep and the general parasitism of the cards I dunno ).

Yugioh is one of those things that is 100% f2p on the internet. Legally.

If I remember correctly, structure decks are never allowed to be too good because they want your money.

Recently they seem to have switched to not being good alone but containing new good cards, for what I saw, the last one contains a splashable big monster with relevant effects, the third to last one contained one of the best cards to mill yourself instead, the second to last one was seen by everyone as a rushed product and wasn't really relevant.

The following rant is not directed at anyone, and it's only for those who do not mind me insulting the hell out of the yugioh structure decks.

The problem with yugioh right now is that the top 5 archytypes are burning abyss, qliphort, shaddoll, satellarknight, and nekroz.

Burning abyss and Satellarknight are the rank 3 and rank 4 xyz spam decks that came out to try and battle pendulum monsters. Basically, xyz monsters have become "too good" due to power creep and because of this these decks are just able to wipe the floor with most lower rank decks. Burning abyss also has a lot of really good effects amongst its own cards (within archtype), while satellarknight xyz archtype specific monsters are borked.


Qliphort monsters are the pendulum deck. They are able to....... basically they can summon 5 monsters every turn and keep doing so no matter what you do if you aren't able to destroy their pendulum scales. Even if you are able to destroy their pendulum scales it's really easy for them to get another one due to how searchable the freaking deck is. They use these 5 monsters to get out high rank xyz monsters AND as normal summon fodder. The thing that makes this deck absolutely broken is that if you satisfy the proper condition, monsters of a lower rank or level cannot use their effects on them.

Shaddoll is the anti-meta control deck that ..... it's as annoying as ****.

And nekroz is the ritual deck where they can use their extra deck as ritual fodder.



^^ Because of how good these decks are and how they all work and how they counter each other, yugioh is literally starting to become one of those games that is just power-creeped to hell and back, where going first gives you a stupidly high advantage vs going second. Too many tutors in too many top decks with too many borked effects that just execute lesser decks.

In addition, the cheapest tourny deck before we get WAY too far down the spectrum, down at rank 14-ish right now?, is heros at about $200.