there comes a time in a man’s life where he decides to blog for the first time in roughly ten years. more importantly, he decides to blog about a card game. cool guy, huh? i thought so as well, glad to see we are on the same page.

so let’s get it started with a tier list!

nah just kidding.

with month one of 2016 in the books, month two has come and so have i in anticipation. within the next 24 to 48 hrs we should be getting word of the new restriction list for weiss and speculation is running rampant. what pointless cards will come off the list? (i’m looking at you misakuro) what silly decks will get hit? (lol ya right) let’s talk about that…later, first i’m gonna run through january real quick.

so weiss got another love live set, which is whatever i suppose. i think that’s the fifth? sixth? maybe the seventh? who cares really..it’s been awhile since a love live set has mattered. what can you expect from a love live set before looking at it? you can count on another gate cx, some more reversers, probably a bunch of useless assists, random standalone stuff that won’t matter, and multiple art cards for each individual idol skank. as i watch the finale to masterchef junior (yes i’m a few days behind, fight me) i’ll run through the cards that catch my eye, whether they be okay tier or terrible, and say a few words. not gonna do a full set review since i’m lazy right now (see title) and i still want to talk about some other stuff, so let’s dive into this.

first thing you’ll notice is no yellow, cool, anyways

Azusakura, Angelic Angel (lol what) – stupid name aside, this card is pretty darn solid. in typical pattern as of late regarding cards with this awesome effect, it has a restriction in that it only digs for green, but who cares? akatsukis (haha suck it idols) are amazing in just about every stage of the game, so this card will likely be a 4 of in any love live deck running a good amount of green.

“All the Single Ladies” Nico – pretty okay card. a clock-kicker that heals. it’s a pay 1 on attack with a cx combo (several choices for the cx), which is kinda lame, but this is pretty much the standard for love live releases nowadays, lot of pretty okay stuff. i’d probably still play the other nico, but Beyoncenico here should have some uses in a green-centric build, or if you’re the worst person in the world and make a nico waifu deck.

there’s a nico rider charlotte brother assist right after this card, it’s cool for green i suppose. there’s a cute pay 2 search backup as well, but eh. that’s about it for green. gold bar cx with with 4 different skanks..

i don’t even want to talk about red. there’s a lvl 1 reverser that’s okay, a whatever lvl 3 autism girl, and just a bunch of cards ranging from awful to mediocre. there’s love live gate #194. man i just can’t buy that these kids are actually making this food unassisted. also, who wears plain color backwards hats? get it together little girl. where were we? ah, yeah, red sucks.

Hello Kitty – so this card is good. a good rin card. rare sight here folks. so this is a 500 assist, cool, but the cx combo is where the magic happens. combos with a blue stock soul, if you have 5 or more stock (so effectively 4) look at up to top 4 cards of your deck and add a music character to hand. i think this is the best card from the set.

Also Single, Maki – so this card is also good. combos with the pants version of single ladies cx. when it reverses a character, look at up to top 4 cards of your deck and add a music character to hand and give one of your characters +1000 until opponent’s turn. you can also boost herself by tapping one of your characters to give herself +1000. so she is really solid, a little weak, but whatever, figure it out bro.

Angeliest Angel that ever Angeled, Hanayo – blue has some pretty solid stuff in this set. pretty easy early play condition, considering the name of lvl 2 game in weiss is play lvl 3s early, she’s basically 10.5k, and pump 4k at opponent’s draw phase. good on you hanayo.

so there’s another tap 2 search brainstormer. love live has plenty of those. there’s a sinonmaki, which is pretty solid as well.

Lol At Your Costless Bro, Maki – this is a pretty choice card. 8k lvl 2 clock encore vs costless characters. pretty sweet. i can dig it.

um yeah, so that’s it for love live. like i said, pretty par for course with love live sets lately, but there’s some nice stuff to strengthen maybe a b/g type build. the other set that came out last month was the long awaited monogatari second season set. this set probably deserves a full set review, but damn son that was over a week ago and i just typed up like a whole 800 words on love live, so forget that noise. let’s see…

mayoi riki, shinobukaze, 1k lvl 0 stock reverser, mayoi akashi, shinobu yusa, sweet mayoi lvl 3, trolly anti-reverse lvl 0..yellow is looking pretty sweet. plus search brainstormer, clock kicker, mill anti-cx combo on reverse lvl 0, 1/0 7k, stock charge combo, another 1/0 7k..damn green, not bad. lvl 1 reverser, yuri lvl 3, lvl 0 reverser, make opponent’s character run lvl 0, lvl 1 akatsuki, 1/0 6.5k, ghost punch, event counter that returns cxs to deck..red looking cool too. hand fix lvl 0, ranko lvl 3, time machine backup?, draw brainstormer, akatsuki event..just okay blue.

lazy enough? i think so. monogatari is looking pretty sweet and i didn’t do a full review because i plan on eventually getting some of these cards for myself and i’ll do one then. green is looking really strong, and y/r isn’t too shabby either. it’ll be nice to see a change from the old boring, mediocre bake standards and whatever nise did (not much lol).

let the record show these ramblings will not be indicative of my future writings. let’s consider this 3 parts warming up and 1 part boredom. maybe another part getting the blog up and running. yeah that sounds about right. let’s talk potential ban list. who knows, it might be released in the time it takes me to write about it. that’d be lame.

so i’ll post the current ban list and first give my thoughts on what could come off, then maybe i’ll make a few suggestions for what should be banned. maybe. i haven’t decided yet. the current ban list:

Neo-Standard/Title-Specific:

Da Capo

2 Choose 1:

Anzu in Swimsuits DC/W01-091

Xylophone Fortune Reading DC/W01-095

so these two cards together do silly things. if you’re not familiar with them, i highly suggest checking them out. something like 2 cost, healing 3 at lvl 2. seems good. for that reason, these probably remain on the list. would it make a big deal if they came off? probably not, da capo is approaching relic status, still a good deck with endless options, but nowhere near the top anymore. removing these would likely make a few people dust off their dc decks and try to get cute, but in the end, it wouldn’t do much.

Little Busters

Banned: Rest! LB/W06-096

1 cost heal 2. this can stay gone forever.



Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Banned: World with Faded Colors SY/W08-071

very silly card. 1 cost plus 1 seems good. probably should stay banned out of principle, but lord knows it’d make no difference if it were unbanned.

Crayon Shin-chan

Up to 1 Copy allowed:

Action Mask, Sealed Fists CS/S28-P01

lol this card. costless 2 soul bro, get some.

Index/Railgun

Up to 2 Copies allowed:

Mikoto & Kuroko, Under One Roof RG/W13-052, RG/W13-052S

Note: Former 2 choose 1 restriction is lifted.

please take this off the list. god it’s so pointless.

Persona

Banned: Akinari Kamiki P3/S01-014

i mean whatever, isn’t this banned because of standard? i dunno, it’s a better version of a card that’s legal in da capo, but it’s pretty irrelevant in my opinion.

Disgaea:

Up to 1 Copy Allowed: Supreme Overlord Laharl DG/S02-T17, DG/S02-061

Note: Former 3 choose 1 restriction is lifted.

yeah, laharl is still good.

Shining Force

Banned: Cyrille, Changing Clothes SE/S04-080

like i never thought this would make much of a difference if it were unbanned or not, but holy shit is shining annoying as hell to play against once it gets the early play healers going. i don’t know if cyrille would make much of a difference, but i kind of don’t want to find out.

Tantei Opera Milky Holmes

Banned: Cordelia’s Garden MK/S11-096

so either this should be unbanned, or something else should be banned. i’m strongly leaning towards the latter. i’ll get to that later.

Kantai Collection

Banned: Junyou, 2nd Hiyou-class Light Aircraft Carrier KC/S25-028

3 Choose 1:

Hatsukaze, 7th Kagero-class Destroyer KC/S25-006

Hibiki, 2nd Akatsuki-class Destroyer KC/S25-056

Akagi Kai, Akagi-class Aircraft Carrier KC/S25-035, KC/S25-035SP

nothing should come off of this. maybe stuff should be added to it. we’ll talk about it later.

Nisekoi

Up to 1 Copy allowed:

Marika, Maiden’s Heart NK/W30-052, NK/W30-052SP

3 Choose 1:

Pendant of Promise NK/W30-T08, NK/W30-022, NK/W30-046, NK/W30-071, NK/W30-097

Kosaki, Angel in White Clothing NK/W30-081, NK/W30-081S

Raku, Being Similar NK/W30-084

Note: Former special Marika-only circumstance allowance is lifted.

now that on reverse effects have taken a bit of a hit with all the sack counters and whatnot, marika isn’t the unstoppable beast she was before, but objectively she’s still such a disgusting skank. the fact that nisekoi still bitch slaps most decks out there with all these limits makes me want to leave this list as is, at minimum.

so, let’s talk what should go. last time around we got a bunch of unbannings and a “hey guys we know these decks are dicking everything else, we’ll keep an eye on it, okay?” but now i think things do need to happen.

Index/ Railgun

railgun is dead and gone, let them have misakuro back. but index has been travelin’ on this road too long, just trying to find its way back home. along the way it found a comeback campaign and people said, “oh yeah, index DID have like 3 really good cards out of 2 sets.”

Healing Magic – i’ve made up mind in the last few minutes. ban it. index had a meteoric rise (lol what a stupid phrase) to power thanks to its comeback campaign, but there were a handful of cards from the older sets that now had a purpose. this one in particular. yes you read right. it’s a counter that heals two. if you’ve ever played against this deck, you should know of all its buttfuckery, like free-freshing 3 times in a game, having an endless amount of cards in hand, pushing your shit in with a loli in a swimsuit OVER AND OVER again, and then “lol cool bro you thought you could actually win this turn? nah i’ve got two of these in hand.” go join cordelia’s garden.

Kantai Collection

still a very stupid deck with a lot of stupid options. this set suffers from the problem of “holy shit there’s just a lot of really good cards.” very few (unbanned) cards in kantai are broken, if any, but together it just makes a smorgasbord of unbalance. it’s really hard to say what should happen with kantai. the deck still tops and wins, but has fallen off a bit lately. but is that because of other decks really being that much stronger? or did people just get tired of playing kantai with the other options newly available?

Compass – no downside to this card whatsoever. you take no damage. you mill 3 non cx to at least have a better chance at canceling. you stack your deck post-refresh with a non cx refresh damage. this is the last unbalanced card not already on the list for kantai (jk akatsuki, i see you there). but can you throw compass onto the choose list? sure you can. get it done.

i’d advocate akatsuki going on it too, but i think 90% (maybe more) of the time you’d choose akatsuki on that list, at least i know i would. besides, with all the azusa clones out there, it’d be hard pressed to see akatsuki going, even though i feel like kantai abuses her more than any other deck abuses an azusa. maybe you could consider akashi going as well, but now we’re just approaching dangerous territory. kantai abuses all these standard good cards from other sets better than all those sets. that’s the problem. is some ridiculous choose 1 of 6 list the answer? i dunno. then again, it might not matter once kc3 comes out and changes the fabric of time and space as we know it.

Girlfriend Beta

seems like an appropriate segue. much like kantai, girlfriend just has most of the good cards from other sets, sometimes better versions of them. how do you fix the many strong iterations of this deck? i’m not so sure. what could you conceivably do here? make a choose list of course, but what could go on it? police shimakaze and pumpkin level assist? i doubt it. girlfriend will likely escape unscathed.

To Love-Ru

ah good ole to love ru. it essentially defined the meta for awhile, and still dominated late, but people slowly began to adjust to it and find ways around it. for a good deal of time, it basically just did what kantai did, but better. anti-salvage to piss off all the freshly unbanned decks like im@s, rewrite, etc, a ridiculous brainstormer, a shimakaze cx combo with a gold bar (or a stock soul if you wanted to be that guy), a money counter, and a finisher that you couldn’t money counter yourself. i feel like this set isn’t the big bad boogeyman is was at first, but it’s still a ridiculous bunch of cards that’s soon to get a new set. i could maybe see a choose 1 of list that includes the anti-salvage, hand encore assist, and maybe something else. i can’t in good faith see yami going anywhere with marika still running amuck, nor can i see a cx actually being hit.

that’s really all i can think of off the top of my head. the more likely result is just a bunch of shit gets unbanned again or something like that. i’m eagerly awaiting to see what happens, but i don’t have my hopes up.

alrighty, i’ve rambled long enough. next time i’ll talk about something cooler. maybe. depends how i feel.