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Article 60: It's time to bannnnnnnn!!

Every late February and August, the players around the world are waiting anxiously for only one thing: the ban time.

As usual, I would try and explain why the cards are ban or not. Of course, they are not official reasoning so they can be off a bit. Of course, there's also my "always wrong" predict-the-meta and some "what they did wrong".

Anyway...

Banished:
Confiscate - Well, the hand-destruction trio are all banned again. Why? If you had not notice, hand destruction control is running rampant in each and every Japanese tournament deck, and certainly Konami do not like people just using cheap hand destructions to disrupt opponent with ease, and sometimes, win with luck.
Theft - Don't ask me why it's NOT banned in the first place.
Destruction Ring - This card is one of the most unfair monster destruction card. So I have no ida why it's unbanned in the first place.
Metamorphosis - This card makes Cyber Twin and Cyber End just too easy to be brought out. With an increase in level 8 and 10 monsters being use, this card gets the axe, again.

Restricted:
Saint Magician - Although this card is unfair, but well, with decrease of number of Magics in deck because of the new ban and restriction, some recursion is need to balance out the deck.
Magic Warrior - Breaker - They feel they should rotate this back to one...OK, the real reason? The game simply lack any true M/T removal without this card anyway. Is this card VERY good? Yes...but broken enough to warrant a ban? Not exactly.
Destiny Hero Discguy - This card creates a lot of unfair advantage situation with some freebie draw 2. Just too cheap of a card draw anyway.
Card Gunner - This card is just running RAMPANT in TCG and also in World Championship. Need to be restrict just because well...when the top 8 deck includes over 15 copies of this card in a tournament, this is the result.
Snipestalker - Yes, you do need to discard a card to activate, and yes, this card only have 2/3 chance of destroy a card. But it's "a card", and this card can do some amazing things to opponent's field, a.k.a. complete obliteration. Not to mention, Gadget deck LOVE this card.
Giant Growth - Basically because of Demise OTK: Demise + Dozer + Morph + Demise already clear the way = 8000 lifepoint instant win
Brain Control - All I will say is...FINALLY! This card, while not exactly as broken as [Change of Heart], is still a pretty good card. Now especially with people rarely set monster, getting a face-up monster to your field is not exactly the hardest thing to do. Not to mention, high tribute deck loves this card...
Earth Crush/Fissure - While I can say [Earth Crush] is like single most broken monster removal left in the game since how much things are being not used because of this single card, [Fissure] is more of a pre-emptive strike on Gadget deck. We all know that people WILL replace their Crush with Fissure once restricted...to curb the stupid and unfun deck to play against in Removal-Gadget, both restriction are warranted.
Dust Chute - Well, with all the other better hand-destruction card restricted, it's time for this one to come onto the list. While this card itself is very limited since it only discard monster and opponent need more than 4 in hand to be activate, but being a Trap itself means drawing one or two in early game is VERY deadly to opponent.
Phophecy of Reincarnation - It may be hard for non-OCG player to understand. Although the best deck to abuse the combo, V-Dragon Lock, is long gone, but people continue to use this card to either combo with [D.D. Borderline] for who knows how long of stall, or purely recycle second copy of this card plus some important cards to continue abuse the broken card and making the restriction looks stupid.
Wall of Revealing Light - The single best stall or combo-enable Trap card in the game...who knows why Konami take so long to take action?

Semi-Restrict:
Gadgets - To make sure Gadgets are use the right way, they put all of them to two. This would not exactly destroy Gadget combo deck, but curb the 9 (5th Gadget - Removal version anyway) enough.
Destiny Hero - Diabolicguy - This card makes [Light and Darkness Dragon] or [Bloo-D] really easy to be brought out. Now at 2, it make this card half useless...while not dead, it's now nowhere as good to be use as tribute bait engine.
Android - Psycho Shocker - Because nobody use this card anymore...this card is this list's Lily: while bringing it back may bring some "WTF", at the end, still nobody will use this card...
Pot of Avarice - Very few people use Recruiter-Turbo-Pot deck right now, so it's not a surprise to me that this card is semi-restricted now. Also, this card makes some other theme deck easier to draw cards. Two of this card also would not be abuse like crazy like the recruiter-pot decks...
Apostle of Obliteration - I have no idea why this card is at one anyway. Although this card curb Reverse effect monster like crazy, but this card also hose [Treeborn Frog] pretty good...
Royal Decree - I don't know why. While I hate this card a bit, this card is worse than Shocker...maybe this is to stop the Decree-Gadget deck...(P.S. This card is #1 side deck card, so that maybe also a reason, but this card is more anti-Gadget than anything in side deck)

Off:
Protector of the Shrine - Finally...Konami realize nobody use this card with combo with [Metamol Pod]
D.D. Assilant - Not much usage when at 2, so why not bring it back to 3?
Goblin's Management Expert - Just not enough combo deck in this game anymore to warrant a restriction.
Deck Destruction Virus of Magic - Because this card suck and is bad...

Other Comment? Well...what I think they did wrong and some of my opinion on why some are not restrict
1. Frog still not ban. However, there is enough hate for this card, so I guess they don't need to...
2. Old cards still getting banned/restricted. Some of the cards on the list had lose their effectiveness over time. They did a nice experiment with Shocker (Jinzo) this time, but it's time to do more than one card experiment at a time since the list is getting long.
3. Why LnDD not restrict? They did the right thing: they curb the engine. While LnDD is good, it's still a 2 tribute monster.
4. I like, for once, this list. They only restrict or ban all the engine card, but not BOTH the engine AND the card.
5. I like, however, that they correct their mistakes and re-banned the "true" broken cards

Now, the metagame...one is almost every top tier deck in the Japanese OCG is affected by this list, the other is there's no way I can name all the good decks...and there're new cards coming out.

Tier 1:
Light-Dark variant
Emperor

Tier 1.5:
Cy-Cali variants
Undead variants
Turbo Pot

Tier 2:
Horus
Burn
Six Samurai (although...ehh...yeah, TCG only)
Gadget

Tier 12832721
Judai deck wins

- Baron, 8/19/2007