A new set is on the horizon which means a new Ban List to drop. A few changes for sure, some very unexpected. It’s a few days later and I wanted to really take my time thinking about what was hit, and thinking about how the game will look going forward. Let’s get into it.

Banned: Unwavering Solidarity Shugesh

Bandai’s Reasoning:

Not only is this card extremely versatile, it changes how we have to design cards with energy costs of 3 or less, and gives an improper advantage to aggro decks. While {BT4-104 Time Control Chronoa} can be used to keep the card in check, we feel that forcing players to include it just to neutralize this card makes deckbuilding less fun and restricts how players play the game in general.

Okay so if there’s any card I don’t think ANYONE is going to miss from this list, it’s Shugesh. It was broken upon his reveal and remained broken. The only reason we stopped seeing him was do to Chronoa, and let’s just look at that reasoning again.

If you guys thought that having to be forced to play a very specific silver bullet card to stop him was going to be a problem, WHY DID YOU PRINT SAID CARD IN THE FIRST PLACE? It’s not like this interaction was unforeseen. Everyone knew from the jump it was always going to be a matter of playing Chronoa to wean Shugesh out…but then Chronoa herself would be weaned out (especially as we’ve gotten more and more powerful 1 Drops) and thus Shugesh would roar back. Most of us pointed out the very poor design decision and Bandai finally realized the gravity of it. I guess better late than never.

Banned: Minus Kili Zone

Bandai’s Reasoning:

We’re currently doing our best to make DBSCG an interactive game, but being able to lock out your opponent’s [Counter: Play] cards creates one-sided gameplay. This card also restricts the design of future [Counter: Play] cards. If we design any [Counter: Play] cards with high costs going forward, they may never be used simply because this card exists.

Speaking of an obvious bad design decision. This card was obviously made specifically to dodge Cold Bloodlust and basically nothing else. Doing it for free as well for very minimal cost, while also often acting like a free cantrip. This was a card you’d pretty much only ever see in degenerate strategies. Also, keep in mind how they mentioned the “design restriction”. We’ll be talking about it a lot shortly.

Limited: Cold Bloodlust

Bandai’s Reasoning:

This is one of the strongest [Counter: Play] cards, and we find that it restricts card design space and throws off gameplay balance. If we ban {BT1-106 Bad Ring Laser} and {BT4-122 Minus Kili Zone], it would become necessary to ban this card as well, since the primary cards that can deal with it would be banned. This would also cause decks unable to use this card to be considered less powerful. However, since this card requires the use of a <Frieza’s Army>Leader Card, there are significantly fewer decks that can use it. We believe limiting Cold Bloodlust to one per deck should weaken it to an acceptable power level.

Well if you’re going to eliminate the hard counter, you have to weaken the entire point of it existing. Let’s be real, CBL has been one of the strongest cards in the entire game since its very printing. So strong that Bandai has been constantly making things to counteract it, whether with Minus Kili Zone or Deflect. It’s generally not meta-defining though because it’s very limited in Leaders that can use it. That same reasoning would be a reason why not to ban it entirely as generally a big reason to use FA Leaders in the first place is to have access to CBL. Still, this is a big blow to a few of them. But…let’s get to the main card and the points of discussion tonight.

Banned: Bad Ring Laser

Bandai’s Reasoning:

There are three major reasons for banning this card:

1) It’s the only [Counter: Counter] negation card with an energy cost of 1. It has few restrictions on usage, so it can be included easily in almost any deck.

2) Combining this card with {BT4-10 Mira, Creator Absorbed} and {BT1-005 Furthering Destruction Champa} provides players with overwhelming power for little energy, allowing them to win easily once their opponent reaches 2 life.

3) Finally, in terms of design, it’s difficult for us to create playable, high cost [Counter] cards as long as this card exists.

Okay, so the main reason I took so long into making this post, outside of work, is mainly Bandai’s reasoning for banning BRL. At its core I’m not exactly against banning the card but…let’s just get into it. Fair warning, for the next fair bit I will be bringing other TCGs into discussions like Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic the Gathering. I’ll try to keep things simple for those who have little to no experience in those games, but I figured I should give the heads up now.

First off, the first reasoning. Being a Counter:Counter as a 1 Cost with few restrictions. That in of itself is facetious. Yes, in theory being a 1 Yellow Energy card allows it a bit of flexibility in both usage and deck placement. But that ignores the fact that the card has another cost, which is having to discard a Yellow card as well. In a Mono-Yellow deck or even a 2 Color deck with good investment in Yellow this isn’t an issue yes. But between needing enough cards to see a Yellow to charge for it AND having to hoard another Yellow card in hand to use BRL with isn’t exactly the most flexible in costs. To me it’s actually a bit prohibitive and is a reason why BRL tends to only be used in one specific way even in Mono-Yellow decks. Speaking of which, the second reasoning.

So to me, if there’s a reason to ban BRL it’s the second reason. Well less so just with Mira + Champa but its main use is simply to push through lethal damage against any Counter in the game. Enough power on a card plus BRL generally spells the end of any game it goes off. However personally even then I don’t have much of a problem with it. Most decks have to give up a turn and heavily set up for such a play. Was it annoying to have your defense shredded by one card, sure…but to me that’s more of a symptom of the current state of the game rather than a specific problem with Bad Ring Laser. Now the last reason, which is where all this other TCG talk will come in and arguably my main point of contention.

“It’s difficult to create playable high cost Counter cards as long as [BRL] exists”. Uh…no, honestly that’s a straight up lie. The problem with High Cost Counter cards in this game has NEVER been Bad Ring Laser. I don’t think anyone was avoiding jamming Recoome’s Eraser Gun into their decks because it might get stone walled by BRL. The biggest issue with potential High Cost Counter cards is how the game has been designed to begin with. Most Counter Cards do not give enough of a reward for potentially skipping your turn or playing sub-optimally with your Energy base. They don’t do enough, especially in the face of a game where Summoning Sickness does not exist. I would argue that how Counters are designed in this game is flawed to its very nature. Let me explain with MTG.

MTG is a game with a wealth of high cost counters, alongside very cheap counters. Cryptic Command, one of the most powerful cards in MTG (in Modern at least) can be stopped quite easily by something like Negate or Spell Pierce. This doesn’t stop Cryptic from being heavily played in UW Control though because the card is still very powerful and opponents would have to keep up precious mana in a format where you REALLY need to use all your resources as efficiently as possible on top of the fact that not everyone plays Blue. In spite of there being far more threats to deal with Cryptic the reward and flexibility is enough to keep using it.

Let’s look toward Yugioh which doesn’t have a Resource System so we have to think of cost and risk differently. Knightmare Mermaid. A very powerful card right now because of what it does to the Orcust archetype. To break it down you just need to board any two monsters and you can theoretically go into a very strong board (well…a weaker one since YGO just had its own banlist and took away a big part of the ceiling of the deck but still solid). But the cost is that you need two monsters, give up two VERY precious Extra Deck spaces and discard a card. On top of that the most played card in the entire game right now is Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring which essentially shuts that entire combo down. Forgoing that, both Effect Veiler and Infinite Impermanence do the same as well, all for essentially no cost besides using them. On top of that Fantastical Dragon Phantazmay (or Thanos. seriously just look at him) will help opponents dig into the deck even more to find said answers and unless you’re lucky and have extra resources or a good discard, one of those cards will all but end your turn. Yet despite all of that the combo is still played and Orcust was still a very powerful deck to the point that the TCG hit its ceiling and the OCG just said screw it and got rid of Mermaid entirely. The reward was enough to take the risk (Called by the Grave also helps as I’m sure some will mention, but it can’t stop Impermanence or the periodically played Psy-framegear Gamma so it’s no catch all).

Right now High Cost Counter cards in DBS aren’t good not because of Bad Ring Laser, but because the reward simply is nowhere near high enough to ever justify essentially taking a turn off for using one. You can’t turn it around into a win. Counters in MTG can allow you to win with death by a thousand cuts, doing very small hits of damage that the opponent can’t do anything about because you have a stranglehold on the game. In YGO you represent such immense power that it’s generally worth the risk to deal with cheaper counters because you’ll normally win the game or risk getting killed yourself. The Counters in DBS just aren’t powerful enough, and the game doesn’t allow you to win in a way other than punch the opponent really hard outside of a few select strategies like Janemba Mill.

Now the good news is that Bandai does seem to be realizing this a little bit and is changing course outside of just making Counters as different ways to just deflect damage. But we need more. I did mention that Frost’s Deadly Poison was potentially a very powerful card, but the main reason I think it can be used isn’t even its own power level but because the current U6 Archetype Bandai is building allows you to play some amount of offense while keeping up energy for unique counter play.

But another way to do things is the ole “Flash” standby. Allowing you to play a variety of cards on the opponent’s turn, which we’re seeing introduced as well. The new Towa or Supreme Kai of Time giving a Revenge Blocker or a cantrip is a good start. We need more though. The game in its current state really needs more possibilities for interaction. Bad Ring Laser, while I’m somewhat okay with getting hit, is at best only an excuse to not print better stuff. I’m just going to hope that this is ultimately just the primer for Bandai really digging deep into some good interactive play.

Final Thoughts:

Really this Ban List isn’t exactly meta warping compared to the past. The top decks will remain the top decks, this doesn’t change much. To me, at least my hope, is that this is really to set a tone for where they want the game to go. If that’s the case then I’m more than glad for this list. Also you know, f*#$ Shugesh.