The New September 2010 Ban List: How Well Did Konami Do? Part 1

The new ban list for the TCG has just been announced, and will be in effect on september 1st, 2010. There has been some major changes, mostly in the staple area. While also there were some long coming additions to the forbidden list, as well as some "what the hell..." additions to the list in general. Lets take a look at the list shall we?

Here is a list of the cards that have been MOVED since the last ban list:

Banned:

Substitoad
Rescue Cat
Heavy Storm
Brain Control

Limited:

Infernity Launcher
Black Whirlwind
Monster Reborn
Dark Hole
Royal Oppression

Semi-Limited:

Chaos Sorcerer
Snipe Hinter
Dewloren, Tiger King of the Ice Barrier
Mystical Space Typhoon
Ojama Trio
Magic Cylinder

No Longer on List:

Goblin Zombie
Cyber Dragon
Black Rose Dragon
Treeborn Frog
United We Stand
Royal Decree


There are some cards on this list that are not worth talking about (treeborn frog, for example), but most of them will recieve my two cents.

Now lets start from the forbidden. Each card here deserves to be banned.
Rescue cat was defining the meta, and should have been banned a long time ago. It made X-Sabers too powerful, and with konami releasing the TCG exclusive XX-Saber Darksoul, it could be tuned with X-Saber Airbellum for a level 6 (prefably XX-Saber Hyunlei). but inherently, rescue cat's ability to summon 2 monsters from your deck is clearly unbalanced and hurts the game. it also limited what beast types konami could release in future booster sets.

The next card is Substitoad. This card was the best card to ban to stop the frog FTK decks running rampant in every tournament. With this card gone, the deck no longer has an efficient and consistent way to dump frogs into the graveyard. I feel like this card was the best choice to ban, rather than Mass driver and Ronintoadin (the other 2 key parts to frog FTK).

The other two newly forbidden cards are Heavy Storm and Brain Control. Heavy storm was the only way to keep stall decks and burn decks at bay. But with it banned, players are no longer punished for overextending their backrow on the first turn. I think that konami made a huge mistake here, and they tried to compensate by semi-limiting Mystical Space Typhoon, which does not replace it by a long shot.

Brain control being banned was a long time coming. This card requires no skill to play, and the 800 life point payment is almost always payable. There is not much else to say here, but dont expect this card to come off the list. EVER.


Coming up in part 2: The limited list.