Really funny how with other games, the banning of a card(s) will make the community go haywire on the company, while in Yu-Gi-Oh, players will literally party in the streets when a 25 card banlist drops
@@kevin171994 Had it a few times, but usually prizes drop well before banning because of yugioh's reprint policy, everything gets reprinted all the time. But also, compared to magic players yuigoh players treat their deck like an investment a lot less in my experience, meta shifts in yugioh can happen really quickly so people don't buy a 500 euro deck without expecting to make a massive loss, they treat it as a purchase not an investment, so when it drops in resale value they don't get all that upset. Only dedicated resellers really care about that stuff. Honestly part of the yugioh community that I like over the magic community. I don't want people to be upset their broken card that ruined the meta game got banned because it loses them money. If that starts playing into banlist decisions broken ass cards and bad formats will live longer than they should.
@kevin171994 the cards that need to be banned the most are often expensive cards, or lean on or enable expensive cards, by virtue of the same thing that makes them necessary to ban in the first place.
One interesting thing that Digimon did is conditional bans. You can't play a certain card with another certain card in the same deck. They are called banned pairs.
@@herrabanani yeah, there's also normal bans. But the banned pairs are really interesting since you can remove the toxic synergy without removing the card from the game.
Yugioh is my favorite ban strategy even though I prefer games with set rotation, bc I think the idea of limiting a card instead of just removing it outright is more interesting, and it still leaves the option to fully remove the card if it proves to be too toxic to be allowed to continue, but it also leaves open the possibility of allowing a formerly banned card being reintroduced into the metagame later if things have calmed down
also when an eternal format is the focus it leaves a bunch of cool room for old strategies to be rediscovered accidentally. ABC is still technically rogue playable 8 years after it's release for 3 reasons. 1) Link summoning lets them abuse their Non-OPT floating effects 2)Therion King Regulus carrying machine decks on his back - its best synergy is here, a free negate that functionally revives an A B or C and lets you use it's effect again? (other machine piles ahve the monsters stuck in the backrow) 3) Other random synergistic engines thatvlet you create pile decks - Brave was an archetype that disables your normal summon effects for a free negate but ABC has no effects on normal summon effect - Vaalmonica are functionally free Lv4 Pendelum scales for an archetype that has a difficult time getting monsters out of their hand. - Ancient Fairy Dragon and an associated engine to turbo it out for union hangar has made the deck significantly more consistent
I'm much more skeptical of limiting cards. IMO, it would feel really bad if a player won from topdecking their one of 60 in mtg. It would feel bad cause I, and probably many others would think "WoTC knows this card is broken, or they wouldn't have restricted it. So, I have to deal with a player randomly getting to use their broken card" 1 of 60 is not very common, so it would nearly always be a blowout from this very strong card. The only time I'd really support restricting is The One Ring. The reasons are: 1. a test of how it feels to play with a restricted card 2. The One Ring is particularly toxic when you can play another one and remove your previous counters 3. It is very thematic so it would be a great first card to test out restricting in a non vintage format
But, it also makes a lot of strategies, that supposedly flourish, died out due to the tier strategies using all broken tool since game inspection. Prime examples of this are POTE where all the strategies actually have power but just pale because tearlament using broken tools like winda, or during infernoble handloop format actually have alot lower power that just can't compete because they can't compete due too power level disparity. Like they can still reintroduce the ban card down the line, by just put into the format again, like how pokemon do.
Other games do both. DBZ does limiting and banning outright if It is way too much. Btw. One card that's banned in dbz is 0 mana blue, untap all blue lands.... Yes. They printed that it's called Zeno button. Google it
Restricted is doable for some formats, but Commander is already a "restricted" format. Any card that breaks it does so with only one copy, so bans are the only answer.
imo as functionaly banlist exist so the "big boys" (tier1-2) can be on EVEN playing field. It doesnt exist so the big boys get dragged down to rogue level, which is what some players think it should be
To be fair, Yugioh has a lot of cards that are problematic that just roam free for whatever reason. Dimension Shifter as an example. It's always on the tip of everyone's tongue come banlist season because it always finds a way to consistently worm it's way into decklists and generally acts as an instant win button against majority of decks with very little counter play. I will admit though, the community is blood thirsty though. Most of the time people are calling for a slaughter of all the top decks to the point that they are unplayable in any fashion.
@@TylerMcVeigh1 shifter Is hated but needed, there Is a reson the graveyard Is called "the second hand" and whitout shifter grave decks would spiral out of hand into constant tier zeros. You either make a substitude for shifter (bystials are a good alternatice but not enough) or you keep It.
Another reason why yugioh might limit a card instead of banning them is because they may have unique effects that only function when you can play multiple copies of them. Zoodiac ratpier is a card that allows you to summon multiple copies of itself from the deck. So by limiting it to 1 copy per deck, its problematic effect can't be activated and the card becomes balanced.
Destiny hero malicious was a card that could banish itself from the graveyard to summon another and was kept at two copies for a long time as to keep it playable but not cause problems- probably the best use of the semi limited section apart from testing unbanned cards to see if they are too broken
Malicious escaped the semi-limit purgatory for now. But with its two biggest abusers outside heroes banned (Isolde and Beatrice), maybe he'll finally be free after all these years.
There's also the weird dichotomy where certain cards have to be banned, or unlimited. Like Max C, if you only have one, then it turns into a gane of "who draws it first" which is really unhealthy. So it's 3 copies or nothing
Something worth noting about Yugioh : Sometimes, limiting a card actually reduces the power level of the card/deck. For example, Psy-Framegear Gamma is a very strong card but requires you to run a Psy-Frame Driver (it sucks). By limiting the card to 1, needing Driver becomes more annoying.
Yeah basically any engine with a garnet becomes instantly worse when it’s limited. I remember back when brilliant fusion got limited and it became sooo much worse (tho it still saw play).
Yeah pokemon bans really only affect expanded format since it's really hard to break the game in standard with the limited number of legal cards in the format. In fact, we haven't had a banned card since sun and moon.
My favorite thing to remember about YuGiOh is exactly how broken the Dragon Rulers were. They were down to just 1 of each main ruler, zero of the babies and a few surviving generic supports (also at 1) and they were STILL too powerful.
Yugiohs bans also cover a larger catagory of cards than most games, we have disruptions that stop single cards, cards that stop classes of cards, draw cards, payoff cards, combo cards, unexpexted synergy cards, ftk cards and plain simple power cards. Because its the only game balance tool we have, its used to solve every problem almost uniformly. And thats talkong about bans alone, limit 1s have a lot of unique affects too.
I think there’s another aspect of limiting cards in Yu-Gi-Oh! which you can see with Snake-Eye Ash and Snake-Eyes Poplar and that is limiting guaranteed third turn plays. Not only does Snake Eye often play Birch now as a strictly worse Poplar, but often lists have been on 2 Oak since you can no longer go Ash search Ash for next turn.
Magic: The Gathering also has a format which does bannings similar to Yu-Gi-Oh. Vintage can have cards which are legal (4 copies), banned (0 copies) or restricted (1 copy). Some of the most broken cards in Magic’s history are only restricted in Vintage, so whenever they have to fully ban a card, it makes waves. Nothing gets banned in Vintage.
Cue Lurrus a card so powerful that it had to be obliterated from existence despite the limit rule because of its use case and was still deemed too powerful that it had be banned in numerous other formats. Also, the racist cards have been kicked from the MTG as a whole.. But that isn’t really on topic.
But the main problem with the racist cards is usually the name or artwork, not the effect itself. They can always reprint the card with a different artwork, or a new card with the same effect but different name
Poplar is a real interesting case because it's a card you DON'T want to open because that disables its first effect reducing it to a worse normal summon. Conversely having two copies available was desirable because it allowed potentially more advantage to be generated on the second turn and it allowed a backup for the standard lines of play if you opened a Poplar. Now at 1, if you open the 1 poplar thats all you get and you can't search another one to special summon it. The other likely reason why Snake-Eye Ash and Snake-Eye Poplar were limited rather than banned is because of the incoming release of the related Azamina cards which Konami likely wishes to allow to use Snake-Eye as a booster until their second wave of support comes out in Supreme Darkness. Poplar received an early Mega Tin reprint likely for this same reason in anticipation that a more severe hit to Snake-Eye (more severe than cutting out several of their starters and endboard pieces) in the next couple of months or so
On the topic of Forest Of Giant Plants, I wanted to explain one of the biggest factors in its ban because it's frankly a hilarious deck to me, as busted as it is: There are a few cards that earned it a ban, like a Vileplume that prevents your opponent from using items (thats a huge part of any deck). The issue comes from getting this up turn one. But what I want to mention specifically, the Giant Fan Shiftry card. It has an ability that allows you to shuffle one of your opponent's Pokemon into their deck when you evolve into this card. There's no ruling stating you can't do this to their only Pokemon left, and if they don't have any Pokemon, you win. What FoGP allowed was an entire deck around this strategy that could allow you to shuffle every single one of your opponent's Pokemon into their deck BEFORE THEY GET A TURN. It's basically you saying "nah, pack it up, go home". You might as well bring a real fan and physically blow their cards off the table, because they wouldn't get a turn to play anyway.
As a YGO player who dabbles in EDH the recent bans to commander and the reactions have been hilarious to me. the MTG community seems like they can not handle multiple bannings and us YGO players look at them like that "fist time?" meme.
I think the reason is MTG’s ban structure has created an investment aspect of the game where people get comfy thinking their “investments” are safe and the game’s regulatory bodies are afraid to do anything to hurt those investments. The recent MTG banlist was a genuinely good move in a gameplay sense, but it angered the finance bros that the game has unfortunately cultivated a community with
@@AsterDXZit's actually insane how bad the investor problem is. In two instances this year multiple banned commander cards had their price spiked because of speculation that they might be unbanned, and another card was bought out because of a new legendary creature being released in diskmourn, which spiked from a couple cents to over 10$ at one point. I've played commander for a long time and have been interested in the game for longer but never built anything until recently. Didn't buy anything worth over 30$, but it's still too much money to spend on cards that, just a couple years ago were about 1/3 of the price. commander has gotten wildly popular within recent years, but so has the investorbro mindset that forgets mtg is a game first and the cards are just game pieces. ~𝐓𝐋𝐃𝐑~ 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐱𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠
In my opinion yugioh has the best concept for a non digital card game because of the no rotation format it can lead to some funny things like a card that is 5 years old could get into a meta game just because a new card was released. Plus you have a little bit more control over the cards because Konami can decide if a card can be played 3 to 0 times
@@danidadevitos1838 You know very little about Magic then. MTG has multiple non-rotating formats, and absolutely did it first, considering the game is 6 years older
What I do like about Heaerhstone is when a card is nerfed that you get a full dust refund. So you can at least use that dust to craft a different card you want.
Still salty when they nerfed warsong to remove combo warrior from the beta that gave a 0 dust refund since it was core and thus leaving the thousands of dust needed to craft the surrounding shell that was only useful in that deck not refundable leaving you high and dry.
Except when they choose to ban another card in the deck that gives you less dust and the actual culprit of the deck being meta warping goes unchanged. Gotta love blizzard they never miss
I quit because they'd make legendaries and epics that only worked because of certain commons and rares. They let the deck run wild for 3 weeks, then they nerf the commons and rares, which kills the leggos but no refund. No thanks.
In general I think bans are very good, but I do think that the problem of having to spend real money on cards can shift the discussion in many cases. An interesting thing I've heard about the Japanese YGO format, the OCG, is that Konami is obsessed with consistency hits over there since it has a larger casual fanbase. Basically the idea is that instead of hitting a deck's ceiling, they usually hit a deck's consistency - so casual players can keep playing the deck in a weak form, but it'll be less likely to make it to top tables in tournaments. This is kinda the justification behind Maxx "C" too - the insane combo decks are "fine" because they auto-lose a portion of their games to the card in a way decks that can afford to do 2 or 3 summons and pass don't. Personally it sounds like this just makes the overall gameplay swingier and less fun on an individual level because so many decks become binary "I could play through it / I couldn't play at all" situations... but I at least understand the logic behind the argument. I just overall prefer limits to be actually fundamentally something that affects a deck's play pattern instead...
Wow you actually managed to perfectly describe the situation and detail the exact differences in the ygo tcg and ocg banning philosophies. Props to you. Most would stop after the first sentence and call it good enough
@@Iceyia thanks haha. tbh i only really started to understand it after i watched the vid called "OCG Player Complains About Banlist" by Sunny where he kinda explained some of this when talking about maxx c
idk if you guys know this but maxx c is now semi limited for the first time in ocg history Hopefully they ban it all together since having it at 1/2 is worse than 3 because it would be even more sacky than it is
@@FyrenRei yeah i saw the ocg banlist, but given the new mulcharmy cards, I'm not too upset about them semi-limiting maxx C, since they already have 6 extra copies so it doesn't feel as sacky
One interesting thing with Pokemon is that Broken Time Space never needed a ban, but Forest of Giant Plants ended up getting one. Sometimes a card can be okay in a vacuum, but end up needing a ban depending on the format around it. Rare Candy also used to break the usual evolution rules too, but it was changed to just allow the skipping of the middle evolution.
one thing to note is that EDH bans in MTG, while made in close communication with developer Wizards of the Coast, are decided upon by a seperate entity Edit: oh fcking well
Hearthstone has infrequent bans. When a card is okay in standard but is too good in wild, it gets banned until rotation. Currently the only card on the ban list is Crimson Clergy
From my understanding Sol Ring is something that WotC has a difficult time banning because its included in a LOT of preconstructed Commander products and likely has more such products too far along in the production pipeline to change.
Technically, Forest of Giant Plants was only banned in Expanded, which is essentially the "Eternal format"; of the two Pokemon cards you listed, only Lysandre's Trump Card was banned in Standard (the tournament format) due to it being very toxic for the game. In fact, the reason Forest got banned wasn't because it gave immense speed to Grass-type Pokemon, but because it had synergy with a few specific cards that let you evolve a Seedot up to a Shiftry that had an ability to return a Pokemon on your opponent's side of the field to their hand on evolution, then devolve it back to Nuzleaf, putting Shiftry back in your hand, and re-evolve it for a first-turn win without your opponent ever getting to play the game. That kind of thing is normal in Yugioh, but it's hideously broken in Pokemon and they don't allow it.
One thing to note about Pokemon TCG is that they favor printing "counters" over doing bans. If a card or strategy gets too powerful in standard, you will almost certainly find a card printed to stop that exact strategy in the next two sets
@@dvastit depends on the solution. If it's as narrow and simple as "counter card Y", this is bad, but some of those solutions are great, because they don't just fix a single problem, but they patch the whole design problem. Also, it allows to print a counter to counter later, still allowing the strategy to exist, but making it slower without directly nerfing the cards
@@dvastYou could either sell the solution, or instead ban the original card that likely has more value than the 1 of you would play of the counter. Banning is even worse from a financial standpoint imo.
@@greninjaboi I dont know about that. It seems a lot more sinister to me if they print OP card X, wait a few months for everyone to buy card X, then print card Y that totally blows out card X. So now everyone has to buy card Y if they dont want to lose to X.
@@dvastyoud be suprised how fine tuned it gets, like having a new basic for a t2 deck with an attack that can 1 shot the basic of a t1 deck it has a type advantage against for 1 energy. That was from the first gx sets, garde and metagross
I remember a comment by a MTG designer, maybe Mark Rosewater, about how card game gameplay nowadays is different from 10 or 20 years ago. With widespread internet usage, not only the metagame spreads differently, but with popular online clients for games, more people play more games than before. So instead of seeing the best deck one to three nights of the week when you go out to play a game, you see it everyday.
>Forest of Giant Plants makes games too fast >The main abuser of the card was Vileplume which locks the opponent from using Item Cards, making games slower Huh
Setting up your win condition faster than you should be able to is still progressing the game too quickly, even if the win condition is a lame stun effect.
At that point you won, your opponent just hasnt conceded yet, but they probably arent coming back without weird outs like porygon or mew to devolve you
The recent Dockside ban in Commander really shows how important format and context are in regards to a card's power level. The main reason Dockside was as strong as it was is because of several factors more specific to Commander: not only is it a 4-player format, but the rules for deckbuilding and increased starting life try to encourage slower games with more built up boards, as well as actively encouraging the use of 'mana rock' type artifacts. To my knowledge, Dockside was rarely even used in other formats, but was widely considered a headache card in Commander.
Dockside was from a commander set, so the only other formats it's legal in are legacy and vintage. Very few designed for commander cards are ever good enough for those.
one other thing id add for the yugioh ban list philosophy, specifically with limits, is the potential for limits to affect decks mechanically in ways other than consistency. this is usually done to either prevent going through the same extra deck monster with a non once per turn effect multiple times (for example, tg hyper librarian) or to limit a deck's resiliency or follow-up potential (like with kitkallos in the master duel format)
I don't know if this would be an interesting idea for you but maybe you can do a video on starter decks in different card games. You could talk about how intuitive and fun the decks are for new players, what mechanics are included and excluded, cards in them that see competitive play, and how closely the decks resemble competitive playstyles. Might be a bit tricky to make because a lot of games have different starter decks for paper and online (eg: Magic Arena uses different starter decks than paper), but I think it would be a good video.
I feel like you didn't explain why Limiting is actually useful, especially in the case of Poplar. Snake-Eye Polar is a card you NEED to have in your deck, witch is why every single Snake-Eye deck played 2, otherwise cards like Bonfire or Original Sinful that have the ability to search Poplar become dead cards if you draw it. And again with Snake-Eye Ash the limiting meant that during your turn, when your opponent would summon back the Snake-eye Ash it was common to add another Snake-eye Ash, because then when it becomes your opponents turn they could 1, decided what level 1 Fire monster they want at that moment, instead of giving the opponent that information early and potentially making a play to deal with that card, and 2 so they would get the extra body of the Snake-eye Ash itself. Those limits were not for consistency or to create more unique decks, but instead to reduce the utility of the cards around them in there respective decks.
Some of the better formats in Yugioh happen after the first banlist. Full power releases often get soured by degenerate interactions such as the wind up hand loop or the djinn lock. However, the banlist cleans up problem cases and sets the major decks at roughly the same power level, leading to generally better formats after the first banlist.
Its interesting to note that the ban on forest of giant plants in pokemon was mainly to nerf a vileplume turn 1 item lock. Both lysandre’s trump card and the item lock are disrupters, much different from other games that were more focused on banned cards that were too powerful straight up
Another insightful video! I'm not sure if you want to change this or not, but the bright white background is hellish on the eyes when watched at night; perhaps a grey or other faded background might be worth looking into?
Pretty much. But the worst of Pokemon's hand control decks are really, really bad for gameplay. I mean "remove your opponent's entire starting hand, control what you will top deck permanently from that point on, and remove any energy if you manage to get one (they will probably make you draw one for this reason)" and you can get all of this before your opponent even takes a turn. They even reverted supporter card rules due to stuff like this.
Forest of giant plants got banned specifically because of 2 broken vileplume cards that essentially locked your opponent out of playing the game not because it was too fast
Also worth noting, I think, the Odd and Even cards in Hearthstone. While they weren't 'banned' and also haven't been changed at all, they were rotated out of the standard meta a year sooner than they had intended because they were simply too strong and disruptive. If you weren't playing an Odd or Even deck, you didn't have a chance it seemed.
sableye from diamond and pearl stormfront was so strong with the black and white turn 1 rule changes. That the best 60 list was actually solved and turned every game into a 50-50 coin, flip of who went first. Three weeks later, they rotated the entire format early.
Similar to Hearthstone, Marvel Snap is all digital and does bi-weekly balance patches that help shake up the meta game and keep power creep in check. I really like their approach, because if a card is really problematic you usually don't have to wait too long for it to be shaken up.
Another thing to note is Japanese Duel Masters (yes, that Duel Masters, it's still a thing) is sort of like Yu Gi Oh aside it only has one or 0 copies and the bans/restrictions were like 2 to 4 cards at a time, and the cards that usually got hit are degenerate combo winter kill-loops (or anything that enables it) and a few ridiculous game enders or kill-locks.
Another comment so that I can talk about a different subject: Marvel Snap. The way the game works lends itself to a different structure even compared to other digital card games. I’d say it’s more similar to a MOBA but with a many times faster rate of balance changes. Right now, this is how the game works: a single eternal format of singleton 12-card decks with no deckbuilding restrictions, with a new card released every week. Additionally, there are balance changes almost every week (usually 3 out of 4). Finally, the devs have suggested that sometimes they’ll nerf a card or deck into a state that’s underpowered to let it take a break from the meta. (And players take a break from playing against it.) I did quite enjoy the rate of changes during my time playing, although I think they could also have done them every 2 weeks, but I recognize there are internal considerations on the company’s side. P.S.: I also like the philosophy behind some balance changes. Sometimes a card gets buffed to a point it’s strictly better than a vanilla card… and it’ll still be terrible. Indeed, some effects just aren’t worth the cost (in resources, or card advantage, or opportunity cost). Thus rather than raising the ceiling of the game, it ends up raising the floor-which is what vanillas (or any card) represent. After all, if vanillas were the ceiling, you’d run them instead of anything else. (And, frankly, a game where vanillas are the best things to run doesn’t sound very interesting.)
If the reason they won't reprint lightning bolt in standard is that it would ruin pioneer, a format no one plays, just print it next standard set and ban it day 0 in pioneer. Problem solved
As an ex-pokemon player I gotta disagree with your assessment. I was there when they banned Jessie and James before the products hit the shelves, along with Delinquent which both are really weak cards all things considered but fall into an archetype that the company doesn't want to support anymore. It was one of the reasons I quit, the variety of deck types in that game feels severely anemic in comparison to other games, in my opinion.
I think there should be 1 more category between limited and forbidden: Selective. You're allowed 1 copy of 1 card from the entire list. There are some powerful cards that if combo-ed with specific cards really pop off but are still manageable. If you put the combo pieces into the Selective category, the pieces can still be used in other, less abusive ways without being allowed to be used in their broken combo. My knowledge is dated, but I feel like Chaos Emperor Dragon would have been a good candidate for this back in the day since while he was strong, it was the consistency of it with yata and sangan that made the deck dumb. Sangan probably could have been another one of these cards, along with Witch. Yata and Magical Scientist probably would have remained forbidden, but imagine if Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity were Selective instead of Forbidden. You would presumably have to give up incredible combo pieces just for the sake of getting more consistency. Maybe that's a great trade off, maybe not. It just always seemed that there was room for a bit more of a restriction since Forbidden means Forbidden.
Chaos Emperor Dragon is so insanely powerful that without it's errata it would still be banned today despite being printed 20 years. It breaks so many fundamental rules of yugioh that I would posit that the og printing it would never be fair enough to be legal no matter the power creep. I have not played a lot of the "Traditional" format and I am sure it would look much different in today's landscape but my understanding of how it plays is half the decks are degenerate fragile ftks using banned cards for the combo or degenerate resilient otks using banned cards to insulate the main game plan. Not quite what you are suggesting but I think a similar principle would apply that fair decks get very little out of such a system in comparison to decks that can now suddenly commit war crimes. Now, there are some banned cards that would probably end up being fair and healthy, but the thing is cards that are fair and healthy should not be on the ban list. Besides, the greatest flaw in what otherwise is very elegant way of card bans is the potential for non-games where one player draws their limited bombs and the other person does not and is able to generate insurmountable advantage early on. By allowing one normally banned card, even if vetted and not degenerate, only furthers the gap between hands with power cards and hands without.
@@brennantmi5063I’m pretty sure based on ocg tournament results and other fan tournaments the no banlist format is currently dominated by Tearlament bc of its ability to abuse Painful choice better than any other deck and well as its ability to play on the opponents turn when going second. And you know cuz it’s prolly the strongest deck ever printed.
Pokemon will sometimes ban cards in standard when they have global distribution issues, or they are just collector promos. We had soccer promos that released that never saw play because the cards were bad, but also because they weren't released world wide at the same time and had distribution issues. So because it was hard for everyone to get the card, they banned the promos
You should take a look into marvel snap. Every two weeks they drop OTA's to nerf and buff cards. Sometimes these buffs make new archetypes on the spot (recent War Machine buff for example). It keeps everything fresh combined with the weekly new card release
Hearthstone also banned cards: In Standard they rotated Baku and Gen out early during their first hurrah and Wild also has cards banned because they are too degenerate in Wild specifically
Yugioh hasn't really what you called "Warning Shots". Normally there is a reason for every ban/limit/release. In the example that you made with Poplar (and other limits that happened for that deck) it wasn't only for consistency, but also they didn't want to completely kill the deck so they could sell off their next line of product better with the Azamina cards, which are played alongside Poplar and friends. That is something that was done for years now and is just purely a marketing strategy aspect. Does it make sense in a business way? Yes. Do the Players like it? Not at all.
The banning of Lysandre's Trump Card caused the Night March deck, that was previously checked by that card. To suddenly terrorize the format. For those who don't know how that deck works. It relies on getting as many Pokémon as possible in the discard so it can power up a Night March attack with glass cannon Pokémon for one energy.
At least at the tail end of the format we got our revenge on the archtype (along with Beemarch) with Pyroar+Talonflame BREAKs and Greninja BREAK decks.
Awsome video! I don't know if you are kind of familiar with the Digimon card game, but as of lately i'm playing it instead of Yugioh. It would be awsome if you would consider to include Digimon in those videos too.
MtG really should use the restricted list more. They could restrict cards that are extremely unfun to play against, but still not format warping. Restrict The One Ring, Sheoldred the Apocalypse, or Grief would probably not be as oppressive if you could only have one copy.
That whole Patches segment was a little weird. You talk of it like it was banned but we said it wasn’t, you say the voice line changed even though that was an April fools patch, the card is more infamous for its lack of ban than the ban itself (similar to Dragon Rulers but Patches was nerfed right before it rotated out anyways and was/is still strong afterwards)
Hearthstone has had banned cards in the past. Sometimes it's a ban in standard, sometimes wild, sometimes both. Stealer of Souls got banned first, gutted later. Demon seed was banned then gutted and released back into wild. Technically Hall of Fame was HS' ban list before they started actually banning cards in wild too. Also Crimson clergy is still banned in wild.
Flesh and Blood might have the best bannings in TCG history, in terms of how they approached it and convinced the community of their validity. In the most recent bans, James White, the creator of FaB, made an entire article outline the manifesto of how an expected game of FaB is too suppose to play and the core tenets. Along with power bans, it was bundled with cards that broke the turn cycles of playing 4 cards per turn, even if they were not powerful yet. They also have a very consistent track record of pre-banning cards before they have a chance to break. For example, they banned Berserk, a card that keeps drawing 6s from the top of your deck every time you discard a 6, right as they announced Savage Sash, an equipment that reduces the cost of all your 6s for the turn.
Hearthstone does ban cards. It's called the hall of fame and cards are sent there when they are just way too overpowered or have really bad play patterns. It's basically just rotating them out of the standard format early.
heartstone actually got two cards banned, baku and greymane got out 1 year earlier of their rotation because it was impossible to play the game at higher lvls if you didn't have one of them.
I wish Yugioh could do that too. A ton of cards are broken when they use them in decks not related to the archetype (Beatrice for Burning Abyss, Halqifibrax in Crystron, Union Carrier in Union decks). For iconic cards we errata them, but not everything needs to be errated if to play Beatrice you had to use some amount of BA cards.
7:14 this is not correct Yugioh didn’t ban the first card until late 2004. It was seen as a very drastic step to take, since the game had been out for several years already. They only limited or semi limited cards before this. It was called the limited list, but they changed it to “forbidden and limited list” FNL. “Banlist” is a fan made term
Hearthstone is able to do what it does because it is a strictly digital card game. They're 1s and 0s, not printed pieces of paper. So if they want to ban or Nerf something, they can do so with a few keystrokes and change EVERYONE'S cards. All other games ... Not so much.
That's because MTG and YGO have very little draw power compared to Pokemon. In Pokemon you can easily see almost your entire deck in the majority of games, so shuffling your discard into your deck means you are delaying the end of the game without advancing the gamestate. YGO has banned other cards that incentivize unintended game behavior like all the cards that force draws. It's not that these cards are powerful, it's that Konami doesn't want the game to be like that.
I really have no idea bc im a magic player but if you pretend it's endurance and every pokemon deck is like Nadu because of how reliably they draw through their deck, i can kinda see how it's good, but I feel like I'd have to see it to believe it
For pokemon even though there are no bans I really despise how you can look at a tech card and see exactly how it lines up against a certain meta deck. Patches being the feared card in HS? Uhhh no? It was used because of its insanely hyper consistency. Something like Yogg randomness or Warsong is. Something must’ve happened after I left HS (shortly after the introduction of standard right before the rush era) for that patches change to be made MTG has way many reasons for bans. I will at least grant them the ability that none truly breaks the game. The only one in my eyes that broke MTG’s rules would be True-Name-Nemesis, which somehow didn’t eat a ban, followed by Companion in second which ate numerous bans. Oko is a very recent card that was feared so this isn’t just a past problem.
For pokemon I think it is also important to talk about extremely limited print runs. The Worlds stadium card is only given out to attendees at one event. 500 copies of a card and no more would cause problems for deck building. Which had to be abruptly changed after it was seeing competitive play for eating a ban. Ten thousand dragon from YGO could also fall under this. If it reaches such a state.
OG printing of Patches is quite possibly the most powerful card ever printed in any trading card game. Yes, there are cards that read "win the game" and Patches did not do that. However Patches goes beyond consistently, it gives the player playing patches a head start in with the cost of potentially drawing patches on the mull being so tiny it had no impact. Every deck archetype became a patches deck and the effectiveness of a deck in the meta came down to how well it ran patches. It would be like if you could play chess but your king pawn started pushed before either player made a move. Ultimately a tiny little thing, but a compounding advantage that only grows and is multiplied over the course of the game. Patches was feared because its appearance presented the opponent with a disadvantage for zero cost.
I think pokemon gets bans once you start looking at the expanded format instead of standard. Standard ofcourse being whatever is in the current rotation while expanded letting you use just about every card ever printed. Granted the power creep in it kind of limits the pokemon you end up using anyways. Noone is gunna use og hitmonchan with modern cards. 70 hp, on a card that has no ability and hits for 40 for 3 energy isn't good when there are mon with 300+ hp and can some times hit for 180 also at 3 energy.
Yugioh bans are so aggregious that it gatekeeps undesirables from their consumer base. Konami is so cut throat, never forget that they care way more about pachinko machines that art and entertainment
I'm so confused why Lysandre's Trump Card can cycle a second copy of itself. They should just make a ruling that it also cannot shuffle other cards with the same name.
LTC does say "except Lysandre's Trump Card" in its text, which in theory would prevent looping. However, it was released into a format with Vs. Seeker, an Item that says "Put 1 Supporter card from your discard pile into your hand."
I think part of the reason bans don't feel "special" anymore or it's a relief when cards get banned is because these games have grown in popularity. More people play them, more people make videos and post and discuss and figure out the best decks. So you're much more likely to be exposed to these ban worthy cards. Not to mention the player base has grown up, we have more money now and so people more regularly have the powerful expensive cards
Really funny how with other games, the banning of a card(s) will make the community go haywire on the company, while in Yu-Gi-Oh, players will literally party in the streets when a 25 card banlist drops
Do you have 100+$ cards getting banned ?
Yes@@kevin171994
@@kevin171994 Had it a few times, but usually prizes drop well before banning because of yugioh's reprint policy, everything gets reprinted all the time. But also, compared to magic players yuigoh players treat their deck like an investment a lot less in my experience, meta shifts in yugioh can happen really quickly so people don't buy a 500 euro deck without expecting to make a massive loss, they treat it as a purchase not an investment, so when it drops in resale value they don't get all that upset. Only dedicated resellers really care about that stuff.
Honestly part of the yugioh community that I like over the magic community. I don't want people to be upset their broken card that ruined the meta game got banned because it loses them money. If that starts playing into banlist decisions broken ass cards and bad formats will live longer than they should.
@kevin171994 the cards that need to be banned the most are often expensive cards, or lean on or enable expensive cards, by virtue of the same thing that makes them necessary to ban in the first place.
@@kevin171994 Yes, Cyberstein is the first one that comes to mind. That said, most of the times they first get limited.
One interesting thing that Digimon did is conditional bans. You can't play a certain card with another certain card in the same deck. They are called banned pairs.
That may have a place but
1. It can be confusing
2. Many times a card is good enough on its own
@@herrabanani yeah, there's also normal bans. But the banned pairs are really interesting since you can remove the toxic synergy without removing the card from the game.
This is how Yugioh Duel Links works as well
God I wish Yugioh did something like that...
@@McFlyIncognitoduel links limited system was actually so sick it was the only part of that game I really fucked with
Yugioh is my favorite ban strategy even though I prefer games with set rotation, bc I think the idea of limiting a card instead of just removing it outright is more interesting, and it still leaves the option to fully remove the card if it proves to be too toxic to be allowed to continue, but it also leaves open the possibility of allowing a formerly banned card being reintroduced into the metagame later if things have calmed down
also when an eternal format is the focus it leaves a bunch of cool room for old strategies to be rediscovered accidentally.
ABC is still technically rogue playable 8 years after it's release for 3 reasons.
1) Link summoning lets them abuse their Non-OPT floating effects
2)Therion King Regulus carrying machine decks on his back
- its best synergy is here, a free negate that functionally revives an A B or C and lets you use it's effect again? (other machine piles ahve the monsters stuck in the backrow)
3) Other random synergistic engines thatvlet you create pile decks
- Brave was an archetype that disables your normal summon effects for a free negate but ABC has no effects on normal summon effect
- Vaalmonica are functionally free Lv4 Pendelum scales for an archetype that has a difficult time getting monsters out of their hand.
- Ancient Fairy Dragon and an associated engine to turbo it out for union hangar has made the deck significantly more consistent
I'm much more skeptical of limiting cards. IMO, it would feel really bad if a player won from topdecking their one of 60 in mtg. It would feel bad cause I, and probably many others would think "WoTC knows this card is broken, or they wouldn't have restricted it. So, I have to deal with a player randomly getting to use their broken card" 1 of 60 is not very common, so it would nearly always be a blowout from this very strong card.
The only time I'd really support restricting is The One Ring. The reasons are: 1. a test of how it feels to play with a restricted card 2. The One Ring is particularly toxic when you can play another one and remove your previous counters 3. It is very thematic so it would be a great first card to test out restricting in a non vintage format
But, it also makes a lot of strategies, that supposedly flourish, died out due to the tier strategies using all broken tool since game inspection.
Prime examples of this are POTE where all the strategies actually have power but just pale because tearlament using broken tools like winda, or during infernoble handloop format actually have alot lower power that just can't compete because they can't compete due too power level disparity.
Like they can still reintroduce the ban card down the line, by just put into the format again, like how pokemon do.
Other games do both. DBZ does limiting and banning outright if It is way too much. Btw. One card that's banned in dbz is 0 mana blue, untap all blue lands....
Yes. They printed that it's called Zeno button. Google it
Restricted is doable for some formats, but Commander is already a "restricted" format. Any card that breaks it does so with only one copy, so bans are the only answer.
Its kinda funny
Yugioh has a lot of banned cards already, but when a new banlist comes up, everyone complains that they should have banned more.
Probably because the banned and restricted list is the game's rotation system
@@StarlitWitchy yeah
imo as functionaly banlist exist so the "big boys" (tier1-2) can be on EVEN playing field.
It doesnt exist so the big boys get dragged down to rogue level, which is what some players think it should be
To be fair, Yugioh has a lot of cards that are problematic that just roam free for whatever reason. Dimension Shifter as an example. It's always on the tip of everyone's tongue come banlist season because it always finds a way to consistently worm it's way into decklists and generally acts as an instant win button against majority of decks with very little counter play.
I will admit though, the community is blood thirsty though. Most of the time people are calling for a slaughter of all the top decks to the point that they are unplayable in any fashion.
@@TylerMcVeigh1 shifter Is hated but needed, there Is a reson the graveyard Is called "the second hand" and whitout shifter grave decks would spiral out of hand into constant tier zeros. You either make a substitude for shifter (bystials are a good alternatice but not enough) or you keep It.
Another reason why yugioh might limit a card instead of banning them is because they may have unique effects that only function when you can play multiple copies of them. Zoodiac ratpier is a card that allows you to summon multiple copies of itself from the deck. So by limiting it to 1 copy per deck, its problematic effect can't be activated and the card becomes balanced.
Destiny hero malicious was a card that could banish itself from the graveyard to summon another and was kept at two copies for a long time as to keep it playable but not cause problems- probably the best use of the semi limited section apart from testing unbanned cards to see if they are too broken
@@tjkiwi3252 Malicious died so Stratos could live. He was a real hero.
Malicious escaped the semi-limit purgatory for now. But with its two biggest abusers outside heroes banned (Isolde and Beatrice), maybe he'll finally be free after all these years.
@@waves5249 nah, he's been in and out of semi for YEARS. give it a format or two, he'll be back in there
There's also the weird dichotomy where certain cards have to be banned, or unlimited. Like Max C, if you only have one, then it turns into a gane of "who draws it first" which is really unhealthy. So it's 3 copies or nothing
Something worth noting about Yugioh : Sometimes, limiting a card actually reduces the power level of the card/deck. For example, Psy-Framegear Gamma is a very strong card but requires you to run a Psy-Frame Driver (it sucks). By limiting the card to 1, needing Driver becomes more annoying.
Yeah basically any engine with a garnet becomes instantly worse when it’s limited. I remember back when brilliant fusion got limited and it became sooo much worse (tho it still saw play).
Yeah pokemon bans really only affect expanded format since it's really hard to break the game in standard with the limited number of legal cards in the format. In fact, we haven't had a banned card since sun and moon.
My mistake Scoop up net was the only card from sword and shield to get banned
Well if the card pool is limited by a set rotation doesn't that mean all non-available cards are banned lol...
I guess if you want to be a smartass about it sure but I think it’s a little silly to say old cards not belonging to current standard are banned.
@@thestylemage2092 If you exclusively play in the standard format and completely ignore expanded then yes
also reprints of old cards are, while rare, something that can happen so no, not really
My favorite thing to remember about YuGiOh is exactly how broken the Dragon Rulers were. They were down to just 1 of each main ruler, zero of the babies and a few surviving generic supports (also at 1) and they were STILL too powerful.
Yugiohs bans also cover a larger catagory of cards than most games, we have disruptions that stop single cards, cards that stop classes of cards, draw cards, payoff cards, combo cards, unexpexted synergy cards, ftk cards and plain simple power cards. Because its the only game balance tool we have, its used to solve every problem almost uniformly. And thats talkong about bans alone, limit 1s have a lot of unique affects too.
I think there’s another aspect of limiting cards in Yu-Gi-Oh! which you can see with Snake-Eye Ash and Snake-Eyes Poplar and that is limiting guaranteed third turn plays. Not only does Snake Eye often play Birch now as a strictly worse Poplar, but often lists have been on 2 Oak since you can no longer go Ash search Ash for next turn.
Magic: The Gathering also has a format which does bannings similar to Yu-Gi-Oh. Vintage can have cards which are legal (4 copies), banned (0 copies) or restricted (1 copy).
Some of the most broken cards in Magic’s history are only restricted in Vintage, so whenever they have to fully ban a card, it makes waves. Nothing gets banned in Vintage.
Cue Lurrus a card so powerful that it had to be obliterated from existence despite the limit rule because of its use case and was still deemed too powerful that it had be banned in numerous other formats.
Also, the racist cards have been kicked from the MTG as a whole.. But that isn’t really on topic.
But the main problem with the racist cards is usually the name or artwork, not the effect itself. They can always reprint the card with a different artwork, or a new card with the same effect but different name
@@AgusSkywalker i think many of these problematic cards are reserved list, so reprints or functional reprints are off the table
@@AgusSkywalker I mean, Invoke Prejudice's name combined with its effect, not sure there's ever gonna be a way to reprint that one lmao
Then Lurrus arrived...
Poplar is a real interesting case because it's a card you DON'T want to open because that disables its first effect reducing it to a worse normal summon. Conversely having two copies available was desirable because it allowed potentially more advantage to be generated on the second turn and it allowed a backup for the standard lines of play if you opened a Poplar. Now at 1, if you open the 1 poplar thats all you get and you can't search another one to special summon it.
The other likely reason why Snake-Eye Ash and Snake-Eye Poplar were limited rather than banned is because of the incoming release of the related Azamina cards which Konami likely wishes to allow to use Snake-Eye as a booster until their second wave of support comes out in Supreme Darkness. Poplar received an early Mega Tin reprint likely for this same reason in anticipation that a more severe hit to Snake-Eye (more severe than cutting out several of their starters and endboard pieces) in the next couple of months or so
On the topic of Forest Of Giant Plants, I wanted to explain one of the biggest factors in its ban because it's frankly a hilarious deck to me, as busted as it is:
There are a few cards that earned it a ban, like a Vileplume that prevents your opponent from using items (thats a huge part of any deck). The issue comes from getting this up turn one.
But what I want to mention specifically, the Giant Fan Shiftry card. It has an ability that allows you to shuffle one of your opponent's Pokemon into their deck when you evolve into this card. There's no ruling stating you can't do this to their only Pokemon left, and if they don't have any Pokemon, you win. What FoGP allowed was an entire deck around this strategy that could allow you to shuffle every single one of your opponent's Pokemon into their deck BEFORE THEY GET A TURN. It's basically you saying "nah, pack it up, go home".
You might as well bring a real fan and physically blow their cards off the table, because they wouldn't get a turn to play anyway.
As a YGO player who dabbles in EDH the recent bans to commander and the reactions have been hilarious to me. the MTG community seems like they can not handle multiple bannings and us YGO players look at them like that "fist time?" meme.
I think the reason is MTG’s ban structure has created an investment aspect of the game where people get comfy thinking their “investments” are safe and the game’s regulatory bodies are afraid to do anything to hurt those investments.
The recent MTG banlist was a genuinely good move in a gameplay sense, but it angered the finance bros that the game has unfortunately cultivated a community with
@@AsterDXZit's actually insane how bad the investor problem is. In two instances this year multiple banned commander cards had their price spiked because of speculation that they might be unbanned, and another card was bought out because of a new legendary creature being released in diskmourn, which spiked from a couple cents to over 10$ at one point. I've played commander for a long time and have been interested in the game for longer but never built anything until recently. Didn't buy anything worth over 30$, but it's still too much money to spend on cards that, just a couple years ago were about 1/3 of the price. commander has gotten wildly popular within recent years, but so has the investorbro mindset that forgets mtg is a game first and the cards are just game pieces.
~𝐓𝐋𝐃𝐑~
𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐱𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠
I think ANY Yugioh player can name like 15 cards they'd want banned right now off the top of their head at any given moment.
@@AkkuseruI say unban everything
Magic generally doesn’t need banning because they actually try and balance the game unlike yugioh
In my opinion yugioh has the best concept for a non digital card game because of the no rotation format it can lead to some funny things like a card that is 5 years old could get into a meta game just because a new card was released. Plus you have a little bit more control over the cards because Konami can decide if a card can be played 3 to 0 times
MTG did it first though
@michaelmcdonald2005 wrong. MTG is a rotating format, YuGiOh isn't.
@@danidadevitos1838 You know very little about Magic then. MTG has multiple non-rotating formats, and absolutely did it first, considering the game is 6 years older
What I do like about Heaerhstone is when a card is nerfed that you get a full dust refund. So you can at least use that dust to craft a different card you want.
Still salty when they nerfed warsong to remove combo warrior from the beta that gave a 0 dust refund since it was core and thus leaving the thousands of dust needed to craft the surrounding shell that was only useful in that deck not refundable leaving you high and dry.
Except when they choose to ban another card in the deck that gives you less dust and the actual culprit of the deck being meta warping goes unchanged. Gotta love blizzard they never miss
@@brennantmi5063 I miss Warsong Patron Combo Warrior.
I quit because they'd make legendaries and epics that only worked because of certain commons and rares. They let the deck run wild for 3 weeks, then they nerf the commons and rares, which kills the leggos but no refund. No thanks.
In general I think bans are very good, but I do think that the problem of having to spend real money on cards can shift the discussion in many cases.
An interesting thing I've heard about the Japanese YGO format, the OCG, is that Konami is obsessed with consistency hits over there since it has a larger casual fanbase. Basically the idea is that instead of hitting a deck's ceiling, they usually hit a deck's consistency - so casual players can keep playing the deck in a weak form, but it'll be less likely to make it to top tables in tournaments. This is kinda the justification behind Maxx "C" too - the insane combo decks are "fine" because they auto-lose a portion of their games to the card in a way decks that can afford to do 2 or 3 summons and pass don't. Personally it sounds like this just makes the overall gameplay swingier and less fun on an individual level because so many decks become binary "I could play through it / I couldn't play at all" situations... but I at least understand the logic behind the argument. I just overall prefer limits to be actually fundamentally something that affects a deck's play pattern instead...
Wow you actually managed to perfectly describe the situation and detail the exact differences in the ygo tcg and ocg banning philosophies. Props to you. Most would stop after the first sentence and call it good enough
@@Iceyia thanks haha. tbh i only really started to understand it after i watched the vid called "OCG Player Complains About Banlist" by Sunny where he kinda explained some of this when talking about maxx c
idk if you guys know this but maxx c is now semi limited for the first time in ocg history
Hopefully they ban it all together since having it at 1/2 is worse than 3 because it would be even more sacky than it is
@@FyrenRei yeah i saw the ocg banlist, but given the new mulcharmy cards, I'm not too upset about them semi-limiting maxx C, since they already have 6 extra copies so it doesn't feel as sacky
@@FyrenRei yeah we'd kinda have to be dead not to have heard tbh
One interesting thing with Pokemon is that Broken Time Space never needed a ban, but Forest of Giant Plants ended up getting one. Sometimes a card can be okay in a vacuum, but end up needing a ban depending on the format around it. Rare Candy also used to break the usual evolution rules too, but it was changed to just allow the skipping of the middle evolution.
one thing to note is that EDH bans in MTG, while made in close communication with developer Wizards of the Coast, are decided upon by a seperate entity
Edit: oh fcking well
poor timing on this one, eh?
Hearthstone has infrequent bans. When a card is okay in standard but is too good in wild, it gets banned until rotation. Currently the only card on the ban list is Crimson Clergy
Also HoF (Baku/Genn)
Honestly I'm shocked the example card of making play miserable wasn't Mystic Mine
Keep up the videos, hella high quality and I love all the different game perspectives
From my understanding Sol Ring is something that WotC has a difficult time banning because its included in a LOT of preconstructed Commander products and likely has more such products too far along in the production pipeline to change.
Technically, Forest of Giant Plants was only banned in Expanded, which is essentially the "Eternal format"; of the two Pokemon cards you listed, only Lysandre's Trump Card was banned in Standard (the tournament format) due to it being very toxic for the game.
In fact, the reason Forest got banned wasn't because it gave immense speed to Grass-type Pokemon, but because it had synergy with a few specific cards that let you evolve a Seedot up to a Shiftry that had an ability to return a Pokemon on your opponent's side of the field to their hand on evolution, then devolve it back to Nuzleaf, putting Shiftry back in your hand, and re-evolve it for a first-turn win without your opponent ever getting to play the game. That kind of thing is normal in Yugioh, but it's hideously broken in Pokemon and they don't allow it.
One thing to note about Pokemon TCG is that they favor printing "counters" over doing bans. If a card or strategy gets too powerful in standard, you will almost certainly find a card printed to stop that exact strategy in the next two sets
I kinda dislike that. Introduce a problem then sell the solution
@@dvastit depends on the solution.
If it's as narrow and simple as "counter card Y", this is bad, but some of those solutions are great, because they don't just fix a single problem, but they patch the whole design problem.
Also, it allows to print a counter to counter later, still allowing the strategy to exist, but making it slower without directly nerfing the cards
@@dvastYou could either sell the solution, or instead ban the original card that likely has more value than the 1 of you would play of the counter. Banning is even worse from a financial standpoint imo.
@@greninjaboi I dont know about that. It seems a lot more sinister to me if they print OP card X, wait a few months for everyone to buy card X, then print card Y that totally blows out card X. So now everyone has to buy card Y if they dont want to lose to X.
@@dvastyoud be suprised how fine tuned it gets, like having a new basic for a t2 deck with an attack that can 1 shot the basic of a t1 deck it has a type advantage against for 1 energy. That was from the first gx sets, garde and metagross
I remember a comment by a MTG designer, maybe Mark Rosewater, about how card game gameplay nowadays is different from 10 or 20 years ago. With widespread internet usage, not only the metagame spreads differently, but with popular online clients for games, more people play more games than before. So instead of seeing the best deck one to three nights of the week when you go out to play a game, you see it everyday.
>Forest of Giant Plants makes games too fast
>The main abuser of the card was Vileplume which locks the opponent from using Item Cards, making games slower
Huh
It allows setting up a lock faster than you should be able to, meaning you set up immediately but your opponent never has a chance to set up.
Setting up your win condition faster than you should be able to is still progressing the game too quickly, even if the win condition is a lame stun effect.
@@dariuspenner2528 Exactly.
At that point you won, your opponent just hasnt conceded yet, but they probably arent coming back without weird outs like porygon or mew to devolve you
The recent Dockside ban in Commander really shows how important format and context are in regards to a card's power level. The main reason Dockside was as strong as it was is because of several factors more specific to Commander: not only is it a 4-player format, but the rules for deckbuilding and increased starting life try to encourage slower games with more built up boards, as well as actively encouraging the use of 'mana rock' type artifacts. To my knowledge, Dockside was rarely even used in other formats, but was widely considered a headache card in Commander.
Dockside was from a commander set, so the only other formats it's legal in are legacy and vintage. Very few designed for commander cards are ever good enough for those.
@@xXSamir44Xx I would mention True Name Nemesis as a card good in legacy and vintage but I can't do that since I can't target it with words.
one other thing id add for the yugioh ban list philosophy, specifically with limits, is the potential for limits to affect decks mechanically in ways other than consistency. this is usually done to either prevent going through the same extra deck monster with a non once per turn effect multiple times (for example, tg hyper librarian) or to limit a deck's resiliency or follow-up potential (like with kitkallos in the master duel format)
I don't know if this would be an interesting idea for you but maybe you can do a video on starter decks in different card games. You could talk about how intuitive and fun the decks are for new players, what mechanics are included and excluded, cards in them that see competitive play, and how closely the decks resemble competitive playstyles. Might be a bit tricky to make because a lot of games have different starter decks for paper and online (eg: Magic Arena uses different starter decks than paper), but I think it would be a good video.
I feel like you didn't explain why Limiting is actually useful, especially in the case of Poplar. Snake-Eye Polar is a card you NEED to have in your deck, witch is why every single Snake-Eye deck played 2, otherwise cards like Bonfire or Original Sinful that have the ability to search Poplar become dead cards if you draw it. And again with Snake-Eye Ash the limiting meant that during your turn, when your opponent would summon back the Snake-eye Ash it was common to add another Snake-eye Ash, because then when it becomes your opponents turn they could 1, decided what level 1 Fire monster they want at that moment, instead of giving the opponent that information early and potentially making a play to deal with that card, and 2 so they would get the extra body of the Snake-eye Ash itself.
Those limits were not for consistency or to create more unique decks, but instead to reduce the utility of the cards around them in there respective decks.
Sol ring isn't banned because it's in every precon ever sold. It's not an unfair advantage if it's literally impossible not to have one
Some of the better formats in Yugioh happen after the first banlist. Full power releases often get soured by degenerate interactions such as the wind up hand loop or the djinn lock. However, the banlist cleans up problem cases and sets the major decks at roughly the same power level, leading to generally better formats after the first banlist.
Its interesting to note that the ban on forest of giant plants in pokemon was mainly to nerf a vileplume turn 1 item lock. Both lysandre’s trump card and the item lock are disrupters, much different from other games that were more focused on banned cards that were too powerful straight up
Another insightful video! I'm not sure if you want to change this or not, but the bright white background is hellish on the eyes when watched at night; perhaps a grey or other faded background might be worth looking into?
Pokemon's banlist seems to be laser focused on stopping prison decks from being good.
Pretty much.
But the worst of Pokemon's hand control decks are really, really bad for gameplay.
I mean "remove your opponent's entire starting hand, control what you will top deck permanently from that point on, and remove any energy if you manage to get one (they will probably make you draw one for this reason)" and you can get all of this before your opponent even takes a turn. They even reverted supporter card rules due to stuff like this.
Forest of giant plants got banned specifically because of 2 broken vileplume cards that essentially locked your opponent out of playing the game not because it was too fast
Also worth noting, I think, the Odd and Even cards in Hearthstone. While they weren't 'banned' and also haven't been changed at all, they were rotated out of the standard meta a year sooner than they had intended because they were simply too strong and disruptive. If you weren't playing an Odd or Even deck, you didn't have a chance it seemed.
helping the numbers go up
sableye from diamond and pearl stormfront was so strong with the black and white turn 1 rule changes. That the best 60 list was actually solved and turned every game into a 50-50 coin, flip of who went first. Three weeks later, they rotated the entire format early.
Similar to Hearthstone, Marvel Snap is all digital and does bi-weekly balance patches that help shake up the meta game and keep power creep in check. I really like their approach, because if a card is really problematic you usually don't have to wait too long for it to be shaken up.
Pokémon also had a few erratas. One notable one is Pokemon Catcher. It was too powerful, so they added a coin flip. It’s still used to this day
Another thing to note is Japanese Duel Masters (yes, that Duel Masters, it's still a thing) is sort of like Yu Gi Oh aside it only has one or 0 copies and the bans/restrictions were like 2 to 4 cards at a time, and the cards that usually got hit are degenerate combo winter kill-loops (or anything that enables it) and a few ridiculous game enders or kill-locks.
Another comment so that I can talk about a different subject: Marvel Snap. The way the game works lends itself to a different structure even compared to other digital card games. I’d say it’s more similar to a MOBA but with a many times faster rate of balance changes.
Right now, this is how the game works: a single eternal format of singleton 12-card decks with no deckbuilding restrictions, with a new card released every week. Additionally, there are balance changes almost every week (usually 3 out of 4). Finally, the devs have suggested that sometimes they’ll nerf a card or deck into a state that’s underpowered to let it take a break from the meta. (And players take a break from playing against it.)
I did quite enjoy the rate of changes during my time playing, although I think they could also have done them every 2 weeks, but I recognize there are internal considerations on the company’s side.
P.S.: I also like the philosophy behind some balance changes. Sometimes a card gets buffed to a point it’s strictly better than a vanilla card… and it’ll still be terrible. Indeed, some effects just aren’t worth the cost (in resources, or card advantage, or opportunity cost). Thus rather than raising the ceiling of the game, it ends up raising the floor-which is what vanillas (or any card) represent. After all, if vanillas were the ceiling, you’d run them instead of anything else. (And, frankly, a game where vanillas are the best things to run doesn’t sound very interesting.)
If the reason they won't reprint lightning bolt in standard is that it would ruin pioneer, a format no one plays, just print it next standard set and ban it day 0 in pioneer. Problem solved
As an ex-pokemon player I gotta disagree with your assessment. I was there when they banned Jessie and James before the products hit the shelves, along with Delinquent which both are really weak cards all things considered but fall into an archetype that the company doesn't want to support anymore. It was one of the reasons I quit, the variety of deck types in that game feels severely anemic in comparison to other games, in my opinion.
Just found your channel. Keep up the great videos
I think there should be 1 more category between limited and forbidden: Selective. You're allowed 1 copy of 1 card from the entire list.
There are some powerful cards that if combo-ed with specific cards really pop off but are still manageable. If you put the combo pieces into the Selective category, the pieces can still be used in other, less abusive ways without being allowed to be used in their broken combo.
My knowledge is dated, but I feel like Chaos Emperor Dragon would have been a good candidate for this back in the day since while he was strong, it was the consistency of it with yata and sangan that made the deck dumb. Sangan probably could have been another one of these cards, along with Witch. Yata and Magical Scientist probably would have remained forbidden, but imagine if Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity were Selective instead of Forbidden. You would presumably have to give up incredible combo pieces just for the sake of getting more consistency.
Maybe that's a great trade off, maybe not. It just always seemed that there was room for a bit more of a restriction since Forbidden means Forbidden.
Chaos Emperor Dragon is so insanely powerful that without it's errata it would still be banned today despite being printed 20 years. It breaks so many fundamental rules of yugioh that I would posit that the og printing it would never be fair enough to be legal no matter the power creep.
I have not played a lot of the "Traditional" format and I am sure it would look much different in today's landscape but my understanding of how it plays is half the decks are degenerate fragile ftks using banned cards for the combo or degenerate resilient otks using banned cards to insulate the main game plan. Not quite what you are suggesting but I think a similar principle would apply that fair decks get very little out of such a system in comparison to decks that can now suddenly commit war crimes.
Now, there are some banned cards that would probably end up being fair and healthy, but the thing is cards that are fair and healthy should not be on the ban list. Besides, the greatest flaw in what otherwise is very elegant way of card bans is the potential for non-games where one player draws their limited bombs and the other person does not and is able to generate insurmountable advantage early on. By allowing one normally banned card, even if vetted and not degenerate, only furthers the gap between hands with power cards and hands without.
@@brennantmi5063I’m pretty sure based on ocg tournament results and other fan tournaments the no banlist format is currently dominated by Tearlament bc of its ability to abuse Painful choice better than any other deck and well as its ability to play on the opponents turn when going second.
And you know cuz it’s prolly the strongest deck ever printed.
Pokemon will sometimes ban cards in standard when they have global distribution issues, or they are just collector promos. We had soccer promos that released that never saw play because the cards were bad, but also because they weren't released world wide at the same time and had distribution issues. So because it was hard for everyone to get the card, they banned the promos
You should take a look into marvel snap. Every two weeks they drop OTA's to nerf and buff cards. Sometimes these buffs make new archetypes on the spot (recent War Machine buff for example). It keeps everything fresh combined with the weekly new card release
Hearthstone also banned cards: In Standard they rotated Baku and Gen out early during their first hurrah and Wild also has cards banned because they are too degenerate in Wild specifically
Next talk about bannable players in card game
Yugioh hasn't really what you called "Warning Shots". Normally there is a reason for every ban/limit/release. In the example that you made with Poplar (and other limits that happened for that deck) it wasn't only for consistency, but also they didn't want to completely kill the deck so they could sell off their next line of product better with the Azamina cards, which are played alongside Poplar and friends. That is something that was done for years now and is just purely a marketing strategy aspect. Does it make sense in a business way? Yes. Do the Players like it? Not at all.
We should have a how good is discarding the top 2 cards of you oppenents deck in each card game! like alternative win con vibes?
The banning of Lysandre's Trump Card caused the Night March deck, that was previously checked by that card. To suddenly terrorize the format. For those who don't know how that deck works. It relies on getting as many Pokémon as possible in the discard so it can power up a Night March attack with glass cannon Pokémon for one energy.
At least at the tail end of the format we got our revenge on the archtype (along with Beemarch) with Pyroar+Talonflame BREAKs and Greninja BREAK decks.
Awsome video! I don't know if you are kind of familiar with the Digimon card game, but as of lately i'm playing it instead of Yugioh. It would be awsome if you would consider to include Digimon in those videos too.
I can´t figure out what monumental bad trip led a whole team of game designers to look at Badlands Reno and say "Naaaah!!! It'll be fiiiiiineeeee!".
MtG really should use the restricted list more. They could restrict cards that are extremely unfun to play against, but still not format warping. Restrict The One Ring, Sheoldred the Apocalypse, or Grief would probably not be as oppressive if you could only have one copy.
That whole Patches segment was a little weird. You talk of it like it was banned but we said it wasn’t, you say the voice line changed even though that was an April fools patch, the card is more infamous for its lack of ban than the ban itself (similar to Dragon Rulers but Patches was nerfed right before it rotated out anyways and was/is still strong afterwards)
Hearthstone has had banned cards in the past. Sometimes it's a ban in standard, sometimes wild, sometimes both. Stealer of Souls got banned first, gutted later. Demon seed was banned then gutted and released back into wild. Technically Hall of Fame was HS' ban list before they started actually banning cards in wild too. Also Crimson clergy is still banned in wild.
Flesh and Blood might have the best bannings in TCG history, in terms of how they approached it and convinced the community of their validity. In the most recent bans, James White, the creator of FaB, made an entire article outline the manifesto of how an expected game of FaB is too suppose to play and the core tenets. Along with power bans, it was bundled with cards that broke the turn cycles of playing 4 cards per turn, even if they were not powerful yet.
They also have a very consistent track record of pre-banning cards before they have a chance to break. For example, they banned Berserk, a card that keeps drawing 6s from the top of your deck every time you discard a 6, right as they announced Savage Sash, an equipment that reduces the cost of all your 6s for the turn.
Hearthstone does ban cards. It's called the hall of fame and cards are sent there when they are just way too overpowered or have really bad play patterns. It's basically just rotating them out of the standard format early.
heartstone actually got two cards banned, baku and greymane got out 1 year earlier of their rotation because it was impossible to play the game at higher lvls if you didn't have one of them.
>"Nerfs keep the cards playable"
>Proceeds to show Warsong Commander
sure +1 to charge minions was very playable indeed
Dude I just want to say from your first video to this video you have improved SO much. Easily one of my favorite TH-camrs atm. Keep up the good work!
Nice video man
Mana Crypt, and Dockside caught strays, man...
Bruce Banner, the incredible hulk of bans.
sol ring getting banned would be really funny because it would make a lot of prebuilts unusable
Honesty, you should try covering Elestrals or Lorecana TCG, there both actually pretty good.
I really like the pace at which you talk. Fast while still maintaining clarity with each word
Cardfight Vanguard has "Choice Restriction" where a deck can run one or the other card but not both
I wish Yugioh could do that too. A ton of cards are broken when they use them in decks not related to the archetype (Beatrice for Burning Abyss, Halqifibrax in Crystron, Union Carrier in Union decks). For iconic cards we errata them, but not everything needs to be errated if to play Beatrice you had to use some amount of BA cards.
7:14 this is not correct
Yugioh didn’t ban the first card until late 2004. It was seen as a very drastic step to take, since the game had been out for several years already. They only limited or semi limited cards before this. It was called the limited list, but they changed it to “forbidden and limited list” FNL.
“Banlist” is a fan made term
I saw the thumbnail and immediately thought they had banned Reno xD
I'll always prefer Ygo's bans and eternal format system. Just wish product releases werent so delayed for the west
do yugioh warning shots bring down the price of the card?
Yes
The problem with Magic is rings, never print rings at all
It's nice to hear your delivery improving, keep it up!
Wotc ban cards slowly because they want to sell all the card stock before having to ban a card set
Number go up!
Limiting cards in Yugioh can also stop you from reusing the card as easily
you gotta start adding flesh and blood in these videos
It's so sad we can't have Legends of Runeterra in these videos 😢
Hearthstone is able to do what it does because it is a strictly digital card game. They're 1s and 0s, not printed pieces of paper. So if they want to ban or Nerf something, they can do so with a few keystrokes and change EVERYONE'S cards.
All other games ... Not so much.
Let’s go numbers!
Magic once didn't have many bans. Then they stopped caring about balance.
The fact that a Pokemon card that just shuffles discards into decks is banned is crazy. That card would be unplayable in magic or yugioh.
That's because MTG and YGO have very little draw power compared to Pokemon. In Pokemon you can easily see almost your entire deck in the majority of games, so shuffling your discard into your deck means you are delaying the end of the game without advancing the gamestate. YGO has banned other cards that incentivize unintended game behavior like all the cards that force draws. It's not that these cards are powerful, it's that Konami doesn't want the game to be like that.
I really have no idea bc im a magic player but if you pretend it's endurance and every pokemon deck is like Nadu because of how reliably they draw through their deck, i can kinda see how it's good, but I feel like I'd have to see it to believe it
fiber jar does exactly that in yugioh and its banned for the same reason
yugioh ban feels like they were nerfing the previous meta decks so they can sell the new meta archetype.
Video is good
For pokemon even though there are no bans I really despise how you can look at a tech card and see exactly how it lines up against a certain meta deck.
Patches being the feared card in HS? Uhhh no? It was used because of its insanely hyper consistency. Something like Yogg randomness or Warsong is. Something must’ve happened after I left HS (shortly after the introduction of standard right before the rush era) for that patches change to be made
MTG has way many reasons for bans. I will at least grant them the ability that none truly breaks the game. The only one in my eyes that broke MTG’s rules would be True-Name-Nemesis, which somehow didn’t eat a ban, followed by Companion in second which ate numerous bans.
Oko is a very recent card that was feared so this isn’t just a past problem.
For pokemon I think it is also important to talk about extremely limited print runs. The Worlds stadium card is only given out to attendees at one event. 500 copies of a card and no more would cause problems for deck building. Which had to be abruptly changed after it was seeing competitive play for eating a ban.
Ten thousand dragon from YGO could also fall under this. If it reaches such a state.
OG printing of Patches is quite possibly the most powerful card ever printed in any trading card game. Yes, there are cards that read "win the game" and Patches did not do that. However Patches goes beyond consistently, it gives the player playing patches a head start in with the cost of potentially drawing patches on the mull being so tiny it had no impact. Every deck archetype became a patches deck and the effectiveness of a deck in the meta came down to how well it ran patches.
It would be like if you could play chess but your king pawn started pushed before either player made a move. Ultimately a tiny little thing, but a compounding advantage that only grows and is multiplied over the course of the game. Patches was feared because its appearance presented the opponent with a disadvantage for zero cost.
I think pokemon gets bans once you start looking at the expanded format instead of standard. Standard ofcourse being whatever is in the current rotation while expanded letting you use just about every card ever printed. Granted the power creep in it kind of limits the pokemon you end up using anyways. Noone is gunna use og hitmonchan with modern cards. 70 hp, on a card that has no ability and hits for 40 for 3 energy isn't good when there are mon with 300+ hp and can some times hit for 180 also at 3 energy.
Comment for numbers!
Asking for you to talk about marvel snap
Yugioh bans are so aggregious that it gatekeeps undesirables from their consumer base. Konami is so cut throat, never forget that they care way more about pachinko machines that art and entertainment
For the big numbers
Hearthstone does ban cards they just call it "Hall of Fame" instead. Blizzard tries to put cards in the hall of fame as a last resort.
I'm so confused why Lysandre's Trump Card can cycle a second copy of itself. They should just make a ruling that it also cannot shuffle other cards with the same name.
LTC does say "except Lysandre's Trump Card" in its text, which in theory would prevent looping. However, it was released into a format with Vs. Seeker, an Item that says "Put 1 Supporter card from your discard pile into your hand."
@@mike-2499 ah I see.
you need to start use darkmode on the slide XD
I think part of the reason bans don't feel "special" anymore or it's a relief when cards get banned is because these games have grown in popularity. More people play them, more people make videos and post and discuss and figure out the best decks. So you're much more likely to be exposed to these ban worthy cards.
Not to mention the player base has grown up, we have more money now and so people more regularly have the powerful expensive cards
WOTC's favorite ring is Goatse.