Hello Duelists. I am here to bring you the very first ARG Banlist for the new ARG Format. Before we get into the list I would like to explain the process in how we made the list and we will give some explanations of why we banned or restricted some cards. We will also be using this list for the next four ARG Circuit Series events. They are ARG Circuit Series Charlotte, ARG Circuit Series Providence, The Player’s Championship, and the ARG Circuit Championship. So for this format we will be giving away over $40,000 during the next month. We do not plan using this list for every future ARG Circuit Event. We may have a Circuit here or there that will use this list but that is not the intention of the list. Most of the events we will use the list at are the 1K events that are ran on Sundays of a Circuit Series, ARG Metro Series events, or at an ARG Circuit Series at the end of a official banlist or when players are bored or priced out of getting the cards to play a certain deck. But given the fact that the new list still has not been released by the manufacturer and the staleness of the current list we feel that this list is the right decision for the events running through the ARG Circuit Championship. We also do not want the official list to come out a random time and get into a situation where duelists do not have enough time to prepare for one of our events.

Let me go into the process of how we made the list. We have a committee of respected players and judges that submitted their lists to ARG. We then compiled the lists and saw what changes the majority of them wanted done. We also put a card on a Facebook poll that was borderline if it could come back and the committee was slightly in favor of this the card coming back. In order to bring that card back though we had to restrict / ban other cards. Once we compiled the list we took it to other respected members of the community that were not on the committee to see their thoughts and we made the final two changes to the list. We are not disclosing names of who is on the committee or the others who finalized the list in order to protect future lists. The list was finalized by the ARG staff and the non-committee players. We are not going to hold the list to a certain date in terms of needing to emergency ban something. If a card is a problem we will not wait until the next list we will emergency ban it or restrict it. We want to keep the flexibility of the list so it will keep changing if necessary. Also, the goal of the list is trying to make the format have multiple decks, upwards of five or six as well as bring some decks back that were dead. Single deck formats are very skill intensive but they are boring and players get sick of playing them rather quickly. Without further ado here are the changes we made to the current list: thus I present you the ARG July 7th 2015 Format.

Banned: Djinn Releaser of Rituals Fusion Gate Lavalval Chain Nekroz of Trishula Royal Magical Library Vanity's Emptiness Restricted to 1: Cir, Malbrance of the Burning Abyss El Shaddoll Construct El-Shaddoll Fusion Elemental Hero Bubbleman Elemental Hero Stratos Instant Fusion Mistake Nekroz of Unicore Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity Restricted to 2: Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss Dragon Ravine Inzektor Hornet Rescue Rabbit Summoner's Art Torrential Tribute Wind-Up Magician No Longer Restricted: Chaos Sorcerer Dark Hole Glow-up Bulb Sacred Sword of Seven Stars

At the end of the article I will post the entire list with these cards in it as well as a link to a google spreadsheet with the list. As the players and judges sent in their lists they explained some of their choices and I will go into those with you. I will also explain what the ARG staff thought of the changes as well.

Djinn Releaser of Rituals & Vanity’s Emptiness (Banned) - There were three cards that were on almost if not all of the committee member's lists and these were two of them. These cards do not allow you to play the game and it makes the game less fun.

Fusion Gate (Banned) & Elemental Hero Bubbleman (Restricted to 1) - With bringing back Stratos we had to hit a couple of cards or we felt Heroes would be too powerful. One committee member wanted Bubbleman banned as well and to put Stratos at 3. Overall we feel that Stratos is not the problem card of the deck since Reinforcement of the Army and E - Emergency Call are unrestricted anyways. If Bubbleman becomes a problem then we will look at it further. We also banned Fusion Gate to avoid the OTK with Blaze Fenix and its combos with Heroes.

Lavalval Chain (Banned) - Almost every member wanted this card banned and the ones that did not wanted it restricted to one. In one member’s explanations he said it is consistently the centerpiece of degenerate FTKs (Blue-Blooded Oni), overpower combo decks (Infernity), and lock strategies (Djinn).

Nekroz of Trishula (Banned) - One committee member wrote that Trishula is so much more powerful than every other card that is currently legal and it is the only part of Nekroz that makes it so dominate. If we outright ban the card Nekroz is still a playable deck but it is not the dominate deck.

Royal Magical Library (Banned) - This is a pre-emptive ban. It was also the third card that every committee member wanted banned. With the cards that are coming out for this deck we do not want to have OTKs.

Cir, Malbrance of the Burning Abyss (Restricted to One) & Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss (Restricted to Two) - With hitting Nekroz Burning Abyss becomes the main contender and leaving it untouched would leave it too strong. Cir looping Dantes is what gives Burning Abyss all of their advantage. Burning Abyss’ game usually ends when they run out of Cir’s to loop. This is also the reason we restricted Dante to two. When Burning Abyss runs out of Dantes it is difficult for them to make plays.

El Shaddoll Fusion (Restricted to One) & El Shaddoll Construct (Restricted to One) - With hitting Burning Abyss and Nekroz we also did not want Shaddolls to become too powerful this is why they were touched.

Instant Fusion (Restricted to One) - This is a preemptive hit. With Noden coming out it would be too powerful.

Mistake (Restricted to One) - Mistake is a floodgate card and having three of a floodgate card has not been a good thing. It completely shuts down decks from playing the game.

Nekroz of Unicore (Restricted to One) - Almost every single committee member wanted this card restricted to one because of its negation effect.

Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity (Restricted to One) & Wind-Up Magician (Restricted to Two) - Almost every committee member wanted Wind-Ups to come back. If the deck goes first it loses consistency because of only starting with five cards in hand and you cannot loop them for their entire hand like days past. Some members wanted Magician to go to three as well but more of them wanted it to go to two.

Dragon Ravine (Restricted to Two) - With Dragon Rulers gone this card is not problematic. This gives Dragunitys a chance to come back. Some members even argued that is should go to three. We felt safer putting it at two put it has the potential of taking it to three.

Inzektor Hornet (Restricted to Two) - Every committee member wanted Inzektors to make some sort of comeback but it was just a matter of how. Some people wanted Hornet banned and take Dragonfly to three. Some wanted to Dragonfly and Hornet to both go to two but most members thought the deck could become too powerful in that case. The majority of the committee wanted the only change of the deck is to take Hornet to two and that was the path that was taken.

Rescue Rabbit (Restricted to Two) - A majority of the committee wanted the card to come back it was just a matter of how many copies. With Tour Guide being restricted to one we felt that the card can come back but we did not want to take it to three yet.

Summoner’s Art (Restricted to Two) - A majority of the committee wanted to hit this card it was just a matter is to put it at one or two. More of them wanted it at two for now. With the release of Wavering Eyes it may put Qliphort over the top so we may have to take a look at the deck.

Torrential Tribute (Restricted to Two) - Most committee members want this card to go to at least two if not three. We felt that taking it to two was safe. There is currently a lot of mass removal in the format as it is so it should be okay to come back to two.

No Longer on list cards (Chaos Sorcerer / Dark Hole / Glow-Up Bulb / Sacred Sword of Seven Stars) - Dark Hole is not even getting play at its maximum capacity now so taking it to three should not matter. Chaos Sorcerer gets to come back to try to bring back some light/darkness variants. The Dragon rulers are banned so Sacred Sword of Seven Stars is no longer as impressive as it once was. Glow-Up Bulb’s effect can only be used once in a game so we thought bringing it to three would not change things that much.

Here is the whole list in Google Spreadsheet form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yFMKu2omTIky-3aPWT39GBIxrx7feWAyNQ21euorHOM/edit#gid=0

Here is the whole list compiled together

Banned:

Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos

Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End

Cyber Jar

Cyber-Stein

Dark Magician of Chaos

Destiny Hero - Disk Commander

Djinn Releaser of Rituals

Fiber Jar

Fishborg Blaster

Magical Scientist

Makyura the Destructor

Mind Master

Morphing Jar

Morphing Jar#2

Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders

Rescue Cat

Royal Magical Library

Sangan

Substitoad

Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms

Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls

Tribe-Infecting Virus

Victory Dragon

Witch of the Black Forest

Yata-Garasu

Nekroz of Trishula

Thousand-Eyes Restrict

Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

Lavalval Chain

Number 16: Shock Master

Brain Control

Butterfly Dagger - Elma

Card Destruction

Card of Safe Return

Change of Heart

Cold Wave

Confiscation

Delinquent Duo

Dimension Fusion

Fusion Gate

Future Fusion

Gateway of the Six

Giant Trunade

Graceful Charity

Harpie's Feather Duster

Heavy Storm

Last Will

Mass Driver

Metamorphosis

Mirage of Nightmare

Monster Reborn

Painful Choice

Pot of Avarice

Pot of Greed

Premature Burial

Snatch Steal

Spellbook of Judgment

Super Polymerization

Super Rejuvenation

The Forceful Sentry

Imperial Order

Last Turn

Return from the Different Dimension

Royal Oppression

Self-Destruct Button

Sixth Sense

Solemn Judgment

Time Seal

Trap Dustshoot

Ultimate Offering

Vanity's Emptiness

Restricted to 1:

Left Arm of the Forbidden One

Left Leg of the Forbidden One

Right Arm of the Forbidden One

Right Leg of the Forbidden One

Artifact Moralltach

Atlantean Dragoons

Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

Cir, Malbrance of the Burning Abyss

Dandylion

Dark Armed Dragon

Debris Dragon

Deep Dea Diva

Elemental Hero Bubbleman

Elemental Hero Stratos

Exodia the Forbidden One

Genex Ally Birdman

Infernity Archfiend

Inzektor Dragonfly

Neo-Spacian Grand Mole

Night Assailant

Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon

Sinister Serpent

Thunder King Rai-Oh

Tour Guide from the Underworld

Evigishki Gustkraken

Evigishki Mind Augus

Nekroz of Unicore

El Shaddoll Construct

Dark Strike Fighter

Dewloren, Tiger King of the Ice Barrier

T.G. Hyper Librarian

Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity

Allure of Darkness

Book of Moon

Burial from a Different Dimension

Dimensional Fissure

Divine Wind of Mist Valley

El Shaddoll Fusion

Final Countdown

Foolish Burial

Gold Sarcophagus

Infernity Launcher

Instant Fusion

Limiter Removal

Mind Control

Monster Gate

One Day of Peace

One For One

Preparation of Rites

Raigeki

Rekindling

Royal Tribute

Saqlifice

Soul Charge

Spellbook of Fate

Symbol of Heritage

Temple of the Kings

Bottomless Trap Hole

Compulsory Evacuation Device

Crush Card Virus

Geargiagear

Eradicator Epidemic Virus

Exchange of the Spirit

Infernity Barrier

Macro Cosmos

Magical Explosion

Mistake

Ring of Destruction

Skill Drain

Solemn Warning

Soul Drain

Skill Drain

Wall of Revealing Light

Restricted to 2:

Qliphort Scout

Card Trooper

Honest

Inzektor Hornet

Necroface

Rescue Rabbit

Summoner Monk

Tragoedia

Wind-Up Magician

Nekroz of Brionac

Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En

Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss

Advanced Ritual Art

Chain Strike

Charge of the Light Brigade

Summoner’s Art

Ceasefire

Ojama Trio

Torrential Tribute

No Longer Restricted:

Chaos Sorcerer

Dark Hole

Dragon Ravine

Sacred Sword of Seven Stars

Discussion

comments