Which Cards would you Ban Poll Results - Metagame Update - Ban List Update

(Anther Great Metagame, Konami reigns in the heat to let us play on a leveled playing field. If you're a player of skill you just received an early birthday gift.)

Fire days allow us west coasters to actually get a break from the hectic beat of the world. There are still snow days all around California, and even Southern Cali, but they're impossible in my particular neck of the woods.

Regardless a huge update had to come sooner and later, especially after a ban list. Lets get to the results:

Which of the following cards would you ban?

Monster Reborn	80 (11%)
Crush Card Virus	201 (27%)
Judgment Dragon	196 (27%)
Charge of the Light Brigade	88 (12%)
Heavy Storm	44 (6%)
Dark Armed Dragon	91 (12%)
Mirror force	44 (6%)
Brain Control	65 (8%)
Torrential Tribute	35 (4%)
Blackwing Armor Master	65 (8%)
Rescue Cat	161 (22%)
Test Tiger	71 (9%)
Solemn Judgment	81 (11%)
Dark Strike Fighter	317 (43%)
None of the Above	87 (12%)

Votes so far: 723
Poll closed

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Ranked

• 1) Dark Strike ~ 43%
• 2) Crush Card Virus ~ 27%
• 3) Judgment Dragon ~ 27%
• 4) Rescue Cat ~ 22%
• 5) Dark Armed Dragon ~ 12%
• 6) Charge of the Light Brigade ~ 12%
• 7) None of the Above ~ 12% ***********
• 8) Solemn Judgment ~ 11%
• 9) Monster Reborn ~ 11%
• 10) Test Tiger ~ 9%
• 11) Blackwing Armor Master ~ 8%
• 12) Brain Control ~ 8%
• 13) Heavy Storm ~ 6%
• 14) Mirror Force ~ 6%
• 15) Torrential Tribute ~ 4%
• 
  

Red= Banned
Blue= Limited
Green = Anomaly
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Ban List v.s Poll

So how did our poll fare against the actual ban list? The most significant items of interest were indeed banned. Dark strike and Crush it seemed could not survive in our new era and as a result were kicked to the curb.

The limited cards a bit more interesting though. You'd expect them to be right after the cards that were banned but that trend isn't exactly as it should be.

4 things remained sandwiched in between the cards that were limited and they were:

• 1) Judgment Dragon
• 2) Dark Armed Dragon
• 3) Charge of the Light brigade
• 4) No changes to the list

None of the above choices were taken into effect by Konami and each deserves it's own section of analysis.

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Judgment Dragon & Charge of the Light Brigade

Judgment dragon, logically looking from the poll should have been banned or limited at the very least. Yet what did Konami end up doing? For the second Ban list in a row lightsworn was unaffected.

So what were the effects of that back in March? Were lightsworn on top, was UniMetagame's Analysis wrong? No, as predicted, Lightsworn was too inconsistent to win any SJC and frequently got out topped by Rescue cat, glads, and Blackwings.

The same pattern emerges now. Again Lightsworn is not on top, and still Lightsworn is too inconsistent to win an SJC. Since the Sneak peak, til now, no one has gotten higher than 3rd place at our local Tournies and played Lightsworn.

After the sneak and before the ban list you could blame that on Gottoms and being able to play 3 rescue cat's and 3 one for one's. But since then, til basically the end of this month, there is no scapegoat. Who do we blame for the lack of Lightsworn at the top? What do we blame? It's inconsistency, plain and simple, and we have enough data by now to stop the bickering.

Regardless off all of this though, the reason why lightsworn got polled as the most hated deck in the game by 2 different sites and over 750 votes, and the reason why Lightsworn's Judgment Dragon is continuosly attacked is for one reason:

They explode too unfairly and Luck sack more consistently than any other deck alive.

It has been that way for more than a year and while Konami understand that we hate OTK decks, they do not understand that we hate Luck sacking even more.

To play every single turn right, and watch your opponent make mistake after mistake and still coming out the victor because of 1 or 2 cards, is completely unjust and takes a huge portion of fun out of the game.

Konami needs to deal with this right away or by the next ban list, all the people who complained will be gone instead of just annoyed.

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Dark Armed Dragon

This becomes more of an opinionated call really. Is it just too powerful to counter against or is it too hard to bring out, and draw, to worry about? Honestly I can't speak for everyone but Dark Armed Dragon doesn't lose me games.

If you go into a game without a way to deal with cards like Dark Armed, then you probably won't do very well anyways. No one can probably say that their deck is well suited against every other deck and yet for some reason it can't handle Dark Armed.

Dark armed isn't that special and the way you deal with it is about the same as a lot of cards. Also Dark armed punishes players for not playing chainable traps.

My personal verdict, at 1, it's an annoyance but you should be able to take it down pretty quickly. There's always one pesky and strong monster in a particular type of deck and for most dark decks that ends up being Dark Armed. There is one last note though, and that has to do with the future and with Dark Simorgh. If Dark armed in the future is too easily comboed with another deck, possibly a Dark Simorgh one, then it will have a reason to be banned because it's ability to come out would be too easy. As long as it remains challenging to bring out, it should remain in play.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nothing Banned on the List

What can I say about these players who voted that way. What can I say to the players that consider Dark Strike and 3 Rescue cats a good thing? What can I say to the people begging Konami to allow broken decks to rule the land?

Honestly what can we do with players who don't care about Yugioh and only care about winning.

What should we as a community do with the players who are too lazy to try and win on their own and would rather broken decks live so they can luck their way to glory?

To such players I ask: Do you want a horrible game? Do you want it unbalanced? Do you want it completely luck based? Are you scared of skill? Do you have any skill? Is that why you rely so much on luck?

According to the poll these leeches made up about 12% of the voters. These lazy, skilless, lifeless leeches who want nothing to do with the game and care only about winning, were a very strong base.

Now this isn't intended at anyone who likes to win, but for those who would keep Dark strike alive and keep Rescue cat at 3, something the VAST majority of the community disagrees with. Why do they disagree, because they want a balanced game.

Most of the community wants:

• 1) Skill
• 2) Patience
• 3) Actual Deck Building
• 4) Fun
• 5) Originality

The Majority of the community is strongly in favor of the above 5 tenants. The problem is we still have the 12% of leeches who want to chip away at the others. These leeches also were the loudest heard in the past. Luckily Konami doesn't pay much attention to such foolish people and the ban list was much more balanced than said leeches would have liked.

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The Ban List and Brain Control

The last significant topics remaining are the overall view of the new ban list and Brain control.

Brain control probably wasn't banned because there isn't enough information about why it should be banned in the first place. If the vast majority of the yugioh community knew and read about it's power, by now it would be banned. Hopefully this will occur by the next ban list but no one can say for sure if it will happen.

For analysis as to why Brain control should be banned and to help the community trend in that direction check out one of our recent articles dedicated to this topic.

The Ban list though gets a very strong grade.
The most significant positives included:

1) Solemn at 1
2) Mind control at 1
3) Monster reborn banned
4) Rescue cat totally annihilated
5) Card of Safe gone
6) Chaos Sorcerer at 2

The only critique really that can be given is that D Draw probably shouldn't have hit 3 and Brain control definitely should not have been allowed to stick around.

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New Poll

A new poll has now graced the front page of the site. It will run for at least a week and depending on the voting result it'll either continue to run for another week or a new poll will be put up.

It says:

How do you feel about Konami's themed decks? (Gladiator beasts, Lightsworn, Blackwings)

1) Do away with the powerful, unoriginal, pre-built, easy to play decks.
2) Keep them coming in the new packs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Final Thoughts - An ode to Zombie players

As a final note, and to all zombie players, I'm glad Mezuki is back at 3 so zombie players have false hope that they can actually win an SJC this cycle.

Originality has been removed from zombies for years and there should be some punishment for being a zombie player in one of the most original meta's we've ever had.

That punishment is manifested in the false hope of 3 mezuki's actually beating the rest of the community. Enjoy your hope and maybe by the next ban list those zombie players will finally change to something more original and slightly fun.

This is Yugioh, you play to have fun. Most players don't play zombies to have fun; most players play zombies to win.

In this Meta, they'll do neither.

Hopeless Dragon

Well, here's a new concept I want to try : a massive brainstorming around a particular deck, card, or combo anyone would want to work on. And the first candidate for this will be a deck : Hopeless Dragon (Dragon of Despair for the purists).

What's Hopeless Dragon ?

This deck is build around Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon's ability to Special Summon Dragon-type monsters from the hand or Graveyard, in order to make it build a large army of high-ATK Dragons, who will crush opponent's monsters and Life Points. This deck can have some OTK tendencies, due to the sheer number of high ATK monsters that can be brought at once, but usually is considered a Beatdown deck.

What are the main cards in it ?

Here's what I think they are :

Monsters :

Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon (The main monster, whose effect allows to use and reuse Dragon-type monsters' effects, or to just bring back destroyed attackers. A must-be at 3)
Red-Eyes Wyvern (The main supporter, whose effect allows REDMD to come back at the cost of your Normal Summon. Can be played at 2 or 3, depending of the deck)
High ATK monsters (The three main ones used being Dark Horus, White Night Dragon and Blue-Eyes White Dragon)

Spells and Traps :

Future Fusion (while at 1, this card can bump multiple copies of REDMD and Red-Eyes Wyvern in your Graveyard, thus allowing you to use Wyvern's effects and to bring back at least two REDMD)
As much draw power as possible, to fasten the deck (Reckless Greed, Morphing Jar, usually Trade-In and Advance Draw, and sometimes Allure of Darkness, depending of the version)

Now, here's what I suggest to add to enhance the deck :
- Cards that will enhance REDMD's effect usage
- Cards that will protect REDMD
- Cards that will be aimed with REDMD's effect
- Cards that counter the cost of other main cards (mainly Allure and Wyvern's RFG)
- Staples and cards that fit the deck

Cards that will enhance REDMD's effect usage :

- Phantom of Chaos. This card, well used, will allow you to RFG REDMD in order to use its effect one more turn. That means a Special Summon this turn, maybe the one needed to strike for game, but that also means that REDMD will be accessible to D.D.R.. Its effects make it especially interesting in mid or late game, when any big hit means game.
- Any card that can bring it on the field. That means the D.D.R previously quoted, but also cards like Call of the Haunted, Decoy Dragon, or any Dragon-type monster that will be removed for its Special Summon.

Cards that will protect REDMD :

- Prime Material Dragon. This 2400 ATK Dragon has some interesting effects. The first one guarantee the player to be safe from any Dark Strike Fighter as long as PMD is on the field, while the second enhances that survivability, at the cost of cards from your hand.
- King Dragun. Another 2400 ATK Dragon, whose effect will protect REDMD way better, but whose summoning is harder, due to its Fusion Monster status. But it's second effect, who allows you to play it as a pseudo-second REDMD, can be worth the trouble.
- Deck Devastation Virus and Epidemic Eradicator Virus. These two cards, whose requirements are easily brought on the field by REDMD, will destroy what will cause you the most problems on the opponent's field : Low ATK monsters (that means Blackwings and Rescue Synchro players will take a big hit) and Spells/Traps. And whichever is destroyed won't hurt you later.

Cards that will be aimed by REDMD's effect :

- Exploder Dragon. This little Dragon can (and will) destroy any stronger monster that destroys it in battle. And if you engage the opponent, neither of you will be hurt from Exploder's battle, which is always a plus, considering its 1000 ATK.
- Magna Drago and Debris Dragon. Both of them are Tuners, thus enabling Synchro Summons in your deck. Debris works better with Level 2-3-6 monsters, while Magna is better with Level 4-5-6-8 ones. It's up to you to see who will be better on your deck.
- Masked Dragon. It can search any of the two previously quoted monsters, as well as many others, and its effect give you some resistance to attacks, as well as another monster to RFG for REDMD's Special Summon.

Cards that counter the cost of the main cards :

- D.D.R. - Dance Dance Revolution (pun intended). This card will allow you to bring back any monster removed from game, be it by Wyvern's effect, Allure's effect, or the occasionnal Phantom of Chaos / Dragon's Mirror / Dark Armed Dragon's effect. In addition, the cost may be helpful for REDMD.
- Burial from a Different Dimension. Like D.D.R., this card will allow you to bring back from the RFG zone any card sent here by one of the many RFG effects you play. Depending of the situation, it's even better than D.D.R.
- The Transmigration Prophecy. It somehow works the same way than Burial, but it can also counter any card played by the opponent which affects any Graveyard.

Staples and cards that fit to the deck :


- Monster Reborn. With many monsters in the Graveyard, it's always good to bring one of them back at no cost, or to punish any player for over-extending.
- Heavy Storm/Giant Turnade/Cold Wave. It's always good to free the S/T field before any big onslaught, and those cards help in that aspect, forcing players to shield themselves when not necessary.
- Torrential Tribute. A good way to clean the monsters' field before any massive Special Summoning.
- Dark Armed Dragon. With REDMD controlling the Graveyard, he's that easy to summon, and its effect allows destruction at nearly no cost.
- Koa'ki Meiru Drago. While its effect contradicts REDMD's and some Dragons called by it, this monster can give you a huge advantage against nearly every top tier deck. Combined with the Imprisoning Mirrors (The Light one for Lightsworns, the Dark one for Blackwings and Gladiator Beasts), it's deadly, but needs to be played carefully, in order to not stuck yourself.

The variants :

If you read well the beginning of my explaination, I said there were three big monsters that were usually played in Hopeless Dragon. Each of these three lead to different decks I'll talk here :

Dark Horus :

We'll begin with the firstly, and mostly used one. Dark Horus is a Level 8 Dark Dragon with high ATK (3000, the same as White Night Dragon and Blue-Eyes White Dragon), and is able, when the opponent plays a Spell card, to Special Summon a Level 4 Dark monster from the Graveyard.

This kind of deck will usually have :
- Reckless Greed, Trade-In, Allure of Darkness, and sometimes Advance Draw as main draw power.
- Level 4 Dark monsters in order to use Dark Horus' effect. Some of them are Dragons, in order to be used both by Dark Horus and REDMD.
- Dark Armed Dragon.
- Sometimes, Deck Devastation Virus and Epidemic Eradicator Virus, as Dark Horus itself is a good target for both cards.
- No, or nearly no access to Synchro monsters.

White Night Dragon :

Now is the most recent and, in my opinion, interesting one. White Night Dragon is a Level 8 Water Dragon with the added effects of negating Spells and Traps aiming it, and redirecting attacks sent at other monsters to it.

This kind of deck will usually have :
- Reckless Greed, Trade-In and Advance Draw as main draw power.
- Dragons with disruptive (Koa'ki Meiru Drago, Blizzard Dragon), protective (King Dragun, Prime Material Dragon) or recursive (Masked Dragon, Troop Dragon, Totem Dragon) effects.
- Few supports, outside of the staples, but a good access to Synchro monsters (Debris Dragon, Magna Drago)

Blue-Eyes White Dragon :

We'll end with the, in many players' opinions, most fiable one. Blue-Eyes Dragon is, like everyone knows, a Level 8 Light Dragon with no effects.

This kind of deck will usually have :
- Reckless Greed, Trade-In, Advance Draw and White Stone of Legend as main draw power.
- Blue-Eyes support (mainly White Stone of Legend, but sometimes the occasionnal Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon)
- Light Support (Beckoning Light, Honest)
- Weak Synchro support (due to White Stone of Legend being a Tuna... Err, a Tuner)

My point of view about the deck :

For the moment, it's a deck that isn't complete. We have the base (REDMD, Wyvern, Future Fusion, Draw power), but that's all. That makes many variants of this deck very unstable, as cards added by most players work with that base, but don't work between themselves, and I think that, if we want to improve the deck, we need to improve the links between the cards that we'll want to add to the deck.

Now, I'm looking for your advices, comments and such.

-Izual (Nickname on UniMetagame Forums)
UniMetagame Syndicated Writer

Stardust Overdrive - OCG Exclusives

Well, everyone knows what's in the 80-cards OCG Stardust Overdrive, but we're still in the dark concerning the 20 promo cards (remember, 10 OCG reprints and 10 TCG exclusives).

The good news is that three OCG reprints have been announced. And it's not small things :

Guardian Eatos - Wind / Fairy / Effect / Level 8 / 2500 ATK / 2000 DEF
If you have no monsters in your Graveyard, you can Special Summon this card from your hand. By sending 1 Equip Magic Card equipped to this card to the Graveyard, select up to 3 monsters in your opponent's Graveyard and remove them from play. For each monster removed from play by this effect, this card gains 500 ATK until the End Phase.

Clear World - Field Spell Card
The controller of this card has to pay 500 Life Points during each of his End Phases, or this card is destroyed. The following effects are applied to each player, according to the Attributes they control :
Light : Play with your hand revealed
Dark : If you control 2 or more monsters, you cannot declare an attack
Earth : Destroy 1 face-up Defense Position monster you control during your Standby Phase
Water : Discard 1 card from your hand during your End Phase
Fire : You take 1000 damage during your End Phase
Wind : You cannot activate a Spell card unless you pay 500 Life Points.

...And the best at the end :

Dark Simurgh - Dark / Winged-Beast / Effect / Level 7 / 2700 ATK / 1000 DEF
This card's Attribute is also treated as "Wind". By removing from play from your Graveyard 1 Dark monster and 1 Wind monster, you can Special Summon this card from your hand. By removing from play from your hand 1 Dark monster and 1 Wind monster, you can Special Summon this card from your Graveyard. While you control this face-up card, your opponent cannot set cards.

-Izual (Nickname on UniMetagame Forums)
UniMetagame Syndicated Writer

Hidden Arsenal - U.S Duel Terminal Pack

FOR PRICE AND PULL RATIO INFORMATION CLICK HERE

~~~~~

Guess what ? We'll finally get our hands on Duel Terminal cards!

Hidden Arsenal is a set comprising 30 cards from Duel Terminal. In every pack will be one Secret Rare and four Super Rares, and each card will have a LE on them.

Cards announced are:
X-Sabers (don't know which ones)
Flamvells (don't know which ones)
Mist Valley monsters (don't know which ones)
Wurms (only confirmed is Mist Wurm)
Ice Barrier monsters (only confirmed is... Yeah, you guessed right, Brionac) *source

US release is for the 10th November, while our Europe comrades will get them five days earlier.

-Izual (Nickname on UniMetagame Forums)
UniMetagame Syndicated Writer

Ancient Prophecy Sneak Peak - Konami Survey

(Click on the pictures to enlarge them)

Time for another survey and this one will be just as interesting as the last because Konami starts cracking down on the pack selling.

Click this link to take the survey if you haven't. As mentioned before, if you don't provide input you don't deserve to complain about the state of the game.

You do your part and Konami can do theirs. If they fail at least you can say you tried to change things.

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Key Points

1) Having the sneak peaks at hobby league stores.


I mentioned this in my last survey article and my feelings hold true since then.

Almost everyone I've spoken to continues to support the sneak peaks at hobby league stores.

Having them at the stores:

• * 1) Saves time driving to the convention center
• * 2) Makes for a quicker tournament that doesn't take up your whole day
• * 3) Allows considerably more people to participate who were unwilling or unable to go to the large convention centers.
• * 4) No waiting in long lines for long periods of time.

There are a few downsides as well

• * 1) Unable to meet as many new people and duel new opponents
• * 2) Unable to trade with as many people
• * 3) Considerably increases the risk of store owners selling packs before their release. (Nearly unheard of when convention centers were in charge)

Overall it's a good thing and the sneaks should stay at hobby league stores.

2) Corruption


The next 3 questions all had the aspect of corruption in them.
Most players will probably tell the truth about their experiences at the sneak peaks and will definitely complain if they paid too much.

Konami is counting on just that kind of enthusiasm to sample how much corruption is currently going on at the hobby league stores.

It's definitely a new problem they didn't face at the convention centers but it's a big problem nonetheless.

There is also a way to get around the corruption that Konami will probably never be able to fix.
It's something that even convention centers won't totally cure and it was a huge problem at my tourney for our sneak peaks.

Basically people would pay other people to enter, allow them to play with their cards, but ask them to hand over everything they pulled and their potential winnings to the person who paid for it all.

You basically can get as many packs as you want simply by having other people enter with your money.

This way, the hobby league is safe, the person paying for the packs is safe, and the person getting the packs is safe.

I don't know what Konami intends to do about that problem but using the above method and going to a few local sneak peaks allows you to get a full set of any card you want in the new set and at a very cheap price.

Because of said phenomena cards have been getting easier to get before their mass release and people have been abusing the new cards at a much more uneven scale than they should be able to.

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3) TCG exclusives (World Premiere Cards)


Konami shows off it's list of the 10 new TCG exclusives it made and asks which of the 10 is our favorite.

I wasn't too thrilled about any of them but I liked Greed Grado just because it might have the potential to be the next broken card in our game. Pot of Greed is hands down the best card in the game and Greedo Grado suctions off that power, while limiting it a bit to keep it from being as broken.

It's an interesting card to think about and it being a secret makes it a harder card to get than some of the other TCG exclusives.

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4) Theme Crazy again


My comments on this topic again, as posted in my last 2 Konami survey articles:

I absolutely hate Konami's themes.

I feel these themes:

• * 1) Enable lazy players
• * 2) Make deck choices a lot easier
• * 3) Create a child mentality where the Game owners literally walk you into your own metagame and set you up with a deck. (Thanks Mom and Dad....)
• * 4) Create a lack of creativity and originality
• * 5) Make combos with older cards harder to do or impossible all together
• * 6) Make the older cards of less and less value, causing the card game to loose integrity.

I LOVE cards like Honest that have effects that apply to OLDER cards and more general themes. Honest lets you use all Light monsters for his effect, unlike Judgment Dragon.

The Attribute and Type themes are good enough and they allow for originality.
They allow for brand new combos and are the KEYS that OPEN THE DOORS for originality and creativity.

But when Konami starts making specific themes for decks, it completely dilutes the Metagame.
Older cards can no longer be comboed as well with these new cards and the new cards are too easily comboed with one another.

These themes have to go, they ruin the Yugioh Metagame, and belittle the Yugioh player base.
We can be original, we can innovate, and we don't need Konami to hold our hands, especially now that Metagame.com and it's notorious Tournament reports / deck lists are gone.

I don't see how we can be creative if a theme is created and we're barely able to combo any of the new cards with the old ones.

I want to add one last thing to this theme topic.
If we assume that Konami is set in their ways when it comes to using themes and if we also assume that they are fully planned to keep rolling out themes than we have to ask ourselves:

• 1) Why have they asked us about these themes for 3 surveys?
• 2) Why does the yugioh community continue to complain about these themes?
• 3) Why would they question a directive of theirs that they do not plan on changing?
• 4) Why would they upset their future plans if indeed they plan to roll out themes anyways?

After asking the above questions it seems more clear that Konami might actually be Rolling BACK some of it's themes and asking this question over and over again might be the excuse they need to stop using these themes.

The senior executives might finally have heard some of the cries of the lowly yugioh player base and as a result, and the findings of 3 surveys, they might indeed decide to stop using these themes.

The more they ask this question the more it shows how insecure they are. If they truly were secure and confident about these themes then why do they keep asking us if we like them?

The truth of the matter is, they probably already know our response, and are now working to create a path away from these themes and these surveys are helping to provide proof for this new path.

I doubt we'll keep seeing this question in future survey's if they have no intention at all of changing the status quo. So in essence we have some hope and good news ahead of us, at least when it comes to these awful themes.

Again don't forget to take the survey if you haven't already. We need to do everything in our power to get our voices heard, regardless of how small the actions may appear at the outset.