Well, looks like this is gonna be a busy week. Bandai wasting no time after the Clash of Fates Release by bringing an update to “The List”. What changed, and what’s in store for the future metagame? Let’s find out.

Banned: The Legendary Flute and Scrambling Assault Son Goten

The implication here is pretty obvious, Storm has to die once and for all. While Storm hadn’t been winning every tournament, it had been taking a majority of tops at each tournament while proving to be an immovable gatekeeper. If you didn’t have an answer to this deck, there was no point in sleeving up whatever you were brewing. While Bandai had been printing more and more powerful “Storm Silver Bullets”, the fact is that whatever deck you were playing were forced to use them. And in most cases said Bullets were in Blue which actually limited (or would limit for future releases) the format even further. This kills the deck pretty much outright as proto-Storm variants weren’t getting very far until Goten’s release.

Flute goes to full banned because again, the card simply does too much while also being free.

The Future of Lineage?

Luckily, Lineage does have a bit of a future with the new Path to Greatness Son Goku.

Simply put for those who wish to play Lineage, it’ll now be about turboing out Height of Mastery Son Goku and winning through him. How effective it will be remains to be seen, but I think there’s some juice behind the strategy. The Aggro Lineage plan is definitely dead however, without Goten you simply don’t recoup enough advantage and your card quality suffers immensely.

Limited: Unyielding Spirit Trunks and Growing Evil Lifeform Cell

Trunks:

For those who have frequented my blog may know that I have pointed out on at least one occasion if not multiple, that Unyielding Spirit Trunks was turning out to be a BIG problem. A free Untap 1 Energy was just simply too powerful in this game compared to most other resource related games because of both the offensive and defensive potential it could bring. He was a big reason not only Storm turns, but Izzet Aggro turns (remember, U/R Hirudegarn was the big thing before Goten hit the scene) were so goddamn long and annoying to deal with. While they did bring out more silver bullets to deal with offensive untapping, ultimately Trunks was just too good and needed to get hit (unfortunately this means Leaders like Soul Striker Goku suffer for no reason now). The one-of will still be run because it’s too strong not to, but now more players will have to commit to Senzu Bean to continue their turns.

Cell:

This one surprised me. I even did an article a while back discussing the struggles Cell Chain has had actually winning a big tournament. Simply put, outside of the very first Regional it was legal in, it hasn’t. It’s topped pretty much every tourney since, but usually only a couple of spots which is usually a sign of a strong, but healthy deck. At least in theory as most people genuinely don’t like playing against Cell Chain.

Bandai themselves says that Growing Evil limits future card design, a big reason I noted for any card to be hit. While I could see that being the case…I think that’s more of a problem of Perfect Force Cell than anything else. We actually have a lot of interesting Cells that would be perfectly fair, cool and good to play off of Growing Evil, there was just no point because Perfect Force dropping the opponent to 3 cards in hand was just too good. Now instead of only Perfect Force Cell not seeing play and a potential Cell Toolbox really taking off, now NO Cell will see play outside of Infernal Villainy Cell as an extra Super Combo.

Future of Androids?

Well Super 17 Chain goes from a nice compliment to the Cell Chain to the main focus. All Cells outside of Infernal Villainy are pretty much done. It also means that Super 17 Leader turns into the de-facto Droid Leader of choice. The only thing really holding him back was that his Burst 2 meant he risked milling Cell Chain pieces and locking you out of the combo. Now with no Cell Chain, that’s no longer the case. But this is a big blow to one of the stalwart archetypes since Set 2.

Future of the Metagame:

Well Shenron Variants, especially Shenron Gogeta, move to the top of the Metagame. The only thing really threatening it was dying before they were ready to go off and with most aggro decks taking a hit, that only strengthens them. A specific threat to them to watch out for, and I cannot believe I’m saying this, is Frieza, Metamorphic Threat. Mainly due to Final Showdown Frieza actually being able to answer their Gogeta plays. Shenron Gogeta generally has little to no pressure outside of that so playing him down and having answers for At All Costs Vegeta could make it an easily won matchup. Add in the Series 6 support that I recently covered and we have a potential hard counter.

Past that, it’s a bit tougher to say since Clash of Fates just released so we were already going to be in a bit of a meta shift. But we could see the return of slow decks ruling the roost.

Final Thoughts:

This is a heftier list than we’re used to seeing. The Cell hit honestly shocked me, the rest not so much. I personally would’ve just taken the Goku’s Lineage trait off of Goten, but banning it outright does take away that sour taste in everyone’s mouth. But what say you guys? Leave a comment down below on your thoughts on the list, any thing you would’ve done differently, and what you think the new meta will be in the next few months.