Time for another impromptu article with a Restricted List update. This certainly came out of left field but I don’t think many people are complaining. A major announce that will shake the very core of the game…for two months at least. What will change, why did it happen and was it correct? Let’s discuss.

Heightened Evolution Super Saiyan 3 Son Goku is Forbidden starting September 28th and will remain as such until November 9th.

After infamously removing SS3 Son Goku from the Watch List stating its fairness, he spent a month basically throwing it back in Bandai’s faces. Now there’s no Watch List for him, just some time in Solitary Confinement. How did we get to this point?

After a glimmer of “hope” from Hirudegarn, Goku immediately took back his crown.

I remember quite clearly the first week or two after the initial announcements were made and U/Y Hirudegarn was dominating the proceedings. A lot of players were quick to jump on the “See, SS3 is no issue at all” and Bandai were probably quite pleased with their choice. Of course it required Hirudegarn continuously trying to win the game on Turns 2 and 3 but that’s another discussion. For a brief period it did seem that Bandai made the correct call on hitting Flute and ignoring SS3.

Then every other event following happened. See, when playing in a new format it takes time for things to solidify and rarely is the format outright solved within the burgeoning weeks. Especially in DBS where formats change almost every month due to the high volume of product release (that’s why it’s important to stay up to date on previews, lagging behind in DBS news and knowledge is a death sentence). So after about a week or two of Hirudegarn doing what gigantic kaiju dragons do…well we essentially lived out Wrath of the Dragon as SS3 Goku made his comeback and smacked Hirudegarn down. Goku decided to take the U/Y Swap Package for himself and use it better. While his ceiling wasn’t as high, it’s generally tougher to win as quickly with SS3 due to running more defensive cards and not having the explosion within his Awakening as Hirudegarn does to continue plays, he also was far better suited to not die if he failed to win on Turn 2 or 3. In most cases, the U/Y Swap Package will kill you the next turn after pressuring you the previous turn because the board will be filled with a ton of card advantage engines that nothing short of Chain Attack Zen-Oh can eliminate completely. And even that lost allure as more SS3 players started to use Grandpa Gohan liberally to rebuild board without, you know, dying by Bardock.

Thus instead of going all out for a one turn kill and risking dying to a random poke on the crackback, SS3 Goku aimed for a two turn clock where if he killed you on the first turn GREAT, but if he didn’t he very likely would end you the following turn with very little able to stop him. But this wasn’t the only reason SS3 Goku flooded the top tables.

The Main Checks and Counters to the U/Y Swap Package…are best run by SS3 Goku as well.

I’m going to make a random Star Wars analogy so bear with me. What makes a man the most powerful in the galaxy? Being the one in charge of both sides of the same war. Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious essentially guaranteed that no matter the conclusion of the Clone Wars, he would be the ultimate winner as he was the one spearheading both sides. A trick he had already done previously to get him installed as Chancellor to begin with. The point for that random analogy, is that SS3 Goku is essentially the spearhead of all sides of the meta currently. He runs U/Y Swap the best, but the best checks to it are often Midrange decks built specifically to slow its roll (and if the Turn goes past 4, U/Y’s chances of winning start dwindling drastically) and no one uses them better than SS3 because of his Untap 3 ability allowing a great swath of defensive options to be played to slow the game down. And those decks often get hosed by things like more Control decks which, again, SS3 runs the best.

No matter what side of the coin you run, chances are SS3 will do it the best for you and give you the best chance to win. The outlier decks generally were combo decks that did things that SS3 couldn’t do (Zen-Oh Maidens, ZamaFu, U7 Gohan/Frieza), decks specifically made to counter SS3 Leader himself (Vegeta Lock, which no longer exists thanks to the new ruling), or slightly worse versions of SS3 decks that are tuned to do specific things differently (U/Y Hiru for a suicidal Turn 2 Blitz, Iron Vow Trunks Mono-Blue Control to abuse Sneak Attack Vegeta and Divine Vanquisher Beerus). However most of the above lost to at least one variant of SS3 if not more.

What Will Change?

Well Hirudegarn will once again become the U/Y Swap King, while also being able to once again tech for the potential mirror with a bit of defense like Flying Nimbus instead of having to put a bunch of eggs into the basket of winning immediately. However with Flute at 1, those Gotens will be a lot more precious. We’ll see how consistently it’ll win as fast as Turn 3, I don’t think much will change for the deck other than going back to what worked prior with a bit more flex room with 3 Flutes gone.

Mono-Blue Control, very little changes honestly. Iron Vow Trunks already has topped with it and we could see the return of Soul Striker Goku. Both fulfill specific niches the other cannot. Soul Striker may instead end up taking the spot of SS3 in those Two Color Midrange lists as untapping 2 is just fine, and he can fulfill something that even SS3 couldn’t do which is board multiple threats a turn.

Outlier decks will see more play. Zen-Oh Maidens will probably get a bigger look with more spotlight shined on it, Baby Control definitely will (U/Y Hiru matchup is better than U/Y SS3 because the deck is much less likely to go as wide, U/G Control gonna take a hard back seat with no SS3).

Pilaf may become a main deck staple for the time being for Blue decks as with 1 Flute, Hiru can be shut down in his tracks if he even attempts to swing with Bardock (and if he isn’t swinging with Bardock, the chances of him killing you on Turn 1 are lessened considerably).

Also, World Tournament is about a week old as of this article, so Announcer and Jackie Chun may have a legitimate chance to shine, Announcer through sheer card advantage, Jackie Chun through board control and both having access to Goku/Uub Link Package which I’ve already mentioned is INCREDIBLY powerful.

Was This The Correct Decision?

Honestly, yeah. Now if you were cool with SS3 or legitimately enjoyed him as a Leader this is rough (though you only have to put up with it for less than 2 months), and it’s a definite fact that SS3 allowed a very big breadth of archetypes to see play. It is legitimately possible that SS3 was the dam keeping U/Y Hiru or other aggro decks from completely taking over.

At the same time though, SS3 really warped the game around himself. He took away a lot of what I believe makes the game skillful and fun which is proper resource management. You never had to worry about that with SS3. With both Iron Vow Trunks and Soul Striker Goku you at least have to make some kind of concession to achieve that, Trunks requiring only Blue Energy, Soul Striker requiring proper sequencing.

Also Bandai did themselves a solid by making sure SS3 had a Return Date immediately, which means those who did enjoy SS3 lose much of the anxiety that comes with banning by knowing “Hey, it’ll be back pretty soon.” while also basically saying “SS3 is broken now, we’ll see how he is in the next major set.” A lot of TCGs generally don’t screw around with experimentation after a card is forbidden. It usually takes years for a card to return, look at Elemental HERO Stratos in Yugioh who has just become unbanned after FIVE YEARS, only three cards in its history have been banned longer before coming off the list without an errata. Raigeki in the TCG at 10 Years, Harpies’ Feather Duster in the OCG after 10 Years (ironically enough both got banned at the same time initially and both came off at the same time for their respective regions), Magician of Faith in the OCG after 9 Years (the TCG unbanned her much sooner). In MtG it took 5 years for Jace the Mind Sculptor and Bloodbraid Elf to become unbanned (there might be other big time periods but I’ll leave that to more seasoned MtG vets).

Simply put, when a card is banned usually a TCG company will have the fear of god put into them from ever unbanning it until long after the card is really relevant. I think as long as the DBS Forbidden List is lean, bringing the card(s) off of it after every major set release is a smart call so they can salvage formats if its too dicey or degenerate, without sacrificing future card fidelity. Now if SS3 continues to be a pain in the ass I imagine it’ll see a longer stay, but it’s better to check than just to ban it once and forget about it.

Now before final thoughts, I just want to address one more prevailing thought process I’ve seen, and has pervaded many TCGs.

Why Ban a Card, if something else will just move up to take its place?

This is always an opinion spouted off whenever a Banning either happens or is being discussed. “It’s stupid to ban X Card because something else will just take its place because no one has creativity.” “People will just rush to the meta decks anyway so why bother?”

First off, this prevailing thought that people choosing to use Meta Decks are uncreative players who couldn’t win otherwise needs to stop. Players are entitled to use whatever they think will give them the best chance to win. I didn’t take Baby to ARG just because I wanted to goof around and be unique. I believed it would give me the best chance to win because I thought I would crush any U/R deck I saw and that U/Y Swap decks would both see small numbers and would be run by players who were still a bit raw with the deck as Goten was just released. Ultimately I got saved by not running into Mono-Blue Control as I underestimated the immediate impact of Awe-Inspiring Vegito and two Terror Assault Frost wouldn’t have been enough, but it was not a lax choice I made.

Also ultimately, creativity will often come to those who are willing to take a hard look at the current meta decks, play them, and see either where it can be improved or where it can be beaten. The U/Y advancements weren’t just “because”. People played U/Y Hiru and first realized “it would be better if we fit in Flying Nimbus and Iron Will Bardock so we don’t die as easily either on the draw or on the crackback”. Then after playing that, they moved to SS3 Goku because he provided more defense while still maintaining a strong two turn clock.

But going back to the original argument, yes, something else will inevitably rise to the top. But it doesn’t necessarily make it as bad as the previous regime, just different. Look at Yugioh, ask players what they’d rather deal with. Full Power Zoodiac, Full Power Spyrals, or Full Power Sky Strikers and 9 times out of 10 they’ll mention Sky Strikers. They’re all the top deck of their format, but the previous two were extremely oppressive and made it a coin flip format, whereas Sky Strikers while powerful is a far slower deck that endorses interaction. Even when losing, Sky Strikers is generally (at least in my opinion) a more fun deck to play against than the previous two. A similar thing from previous years, going from a plethora of Dragon Ruler decks…to HAT format.

Yes, players will always flock to what they believe the best deck in the format is. But what replaces an abhorrent deck isn’t always another abhorrent deck. How many of you would really complain if U/Y Swap got completely taken over by Iron Vow Trunks Mono-Blue Control (it’s unlikely, but just throwing out a scenario)? Very few I would imagine. Ultimately it’s better to excise what may be a cancerous part of the metagame to see exactly what happens afterwards. Sometimes something just as revolting pops up in its place, other times not. But the chance needs to be taken rather than sitting in a metagame many may not enjoy.

Final Thoughts:

This is definitely a huge shakeup for the meta. I’m up for the challenge, and have already been furiously deckbuilding. What Leader will you choose for this brave new world? I’m interested in knowing.

Next Time, Preview Season rolls on.