In regards of allowed vs not allowed commanders, on some level I'd rather any creature be allowed to be a Commander. One of the most annoying aspects of EDH for me personally, is I am unable really able to build around my favorite card; Underworld Cerberus. The reason I love the card is he is a Grave Hate and Grave Matters all at the same time. You cannot really run most reanimation spells, and your limited with what removal spells you can and cannot play. But he is all grave protection. It truly a fascinating card.
This isn't to say said card couldn't result in dumb things, sense his interaction with Commander rules, makes his death ability reusable. It wouldn't fix everything, see Brothers Yamizaki and the shadows, Gisela and Bruna. Or the various totally not Legendary Creatures, Legendary Creatures (see Genju). However it would mean that we are no longer waiting for certain archetypes to get explicit support with Legendary Creatures (U/R Artifacts for example). The other issue is that it makes troublesome creatures, that aren't legendary, Prophet of Kruphix when it was legal, all the worse.
I guess comes down to as is often said 'ask your playgroup' and 'don't be an ass'. I think personally if a card became a known problem, Commander such as Narset. It would become pseudo banned, by many playgroups anyways even with that kind of rule change. I will admit, its partly because I do just really want to build an EDH deck around Underworld Cerberus, sense its a card that doesn't really fit into constructed 60 card. And casual 60 has died, replaced by Commander. So take that for what it is. (Through I will admit that Dwarf Onslaught Legend, plays similarly at least aesthetically. But the issue is for me, he doesn't provide as interesting deckbuilding questions Cerberus does).
Been busy with college, so let me respond to everything in turn. First the issue with Smugggler Copters, as you said it was because of the lack of answers. Riddle me this, would a 3/3 no loot, no flying, and crew 1 see play. Maybe, maybe not. Its another variant on Fleecemane Lion, and Call of the Conclave. Or Watchwolf if you want to go back that far. Is it safe? 3/3 for two even nowadays are....lackluster without another upside. But it could have been printed and no one would bat an eye.
Instead take that same card, instead of just going what is safe, you decide to push it a bit. It needs another card to activate itself, and it doesn't gain immediate value, so maybe it'll be fine? So you give it a the ability to loot. Is a 3/3 Crew One that Loots on Block or Attack, playable? Would you play a card reads "2 Mana if it attacks or blocks, draw 1 discard 1." Well how many Merfolk looters see play? Vryns Prodigy, but you know he has the upside...of being a snappy caster. Well perhaps all the various red or blue cards that often do have a form of evasion or otherwise have combat damage, draw 1 discard 1.
So you need to try and push, maybe you want something playable and similar style cards have no broken anything and this requires a creature to activate. So its...top deck ability might leave something to be desired. However it turns out evasion, the lack of effective answers or more precisely answers are too few or too slow to effective do what is needed, and looting on attack, as well blocking, was just too good. But instead we could have gotten a rare sky skiff that is just a 3/3. Now then if you always play it safe, you'll never print a broken card. And you end up with blocks and sets, which don't do anything after they rotate.
Theros, a set from the start was played completely safe from top to bottom. There are cards from it that see play, fringe to nominal, like Nykthos Shrine to Nyx, Master of Waves, Courser of Kruphix, or Thassa, God of the Sea. Sometimes a Keranos in Grixis decks. You also see Gary in some monoblock decks. Take Master, until its recent extinction by Fatal Push, one of its best aspects was not being boltable. But well, that could end poorly. Worse it might increase the number of non-games. Lets remove the protection. And push it up a mana, we don't want to accidentally allow a midrange-tempo deck, going like Azorius Familiar, Azorius Charm, D-Sphere, then flood board with Master on 4.
I could go through each card, but its easy to make card that is safe and irrelevant. Its almost impossible to find it if your not willing to experiment, or try and find it. All cards can be made useless if you want a perfectly safe and sterile environment. If you think just essentially reprinting the same cards over and over again, is sign of a good development, that is sign of no development. A development sometimes requires you to push, to make a mistake. Your accepting failure, before you even tried. If as a result of the development, you go a little too far. Maybe leaps too far, that should been blatant in hindsight. But part of development is trying to push that envelop, to make that card a bit more interesting.
Grim Flayer for example, a NotGoyf from Shadows. There are 1001 ways a 2 mana card filters deck and is good at any point in the game could well break the game. 1 Mana Deathrite is a prime example. Had Grim Flayer been pushed to 3 mana, maybe even made a 3/3 base in that case. Would it had even been notable or even cared for? But it certainly would not have broken anything at 3 mana. Now lets deal with the Twin no? There are several issues with Twin, is it the best deck? Or is not? Well maybe. But between able to threaten the win and go for the game at any stage, while playing a strong tempo game. Is that balanced? Well maybe. How would you deal with that deck. Keeping it off the combo.
Well take AV, was that unbannable with twin? It allows Twin to make up having its hand stripped by same decks. And while its best turn 1. Against certain slower decks. Playing 2-4, will not be a bad thing. As the game likely to go that long. But you know, that is fine and dandy clearly. Twin wouldn't do anything to break the game. It didn't do anything to break the game. Maybe my metagames were weird, but everyone I know was building twin. Some in part because it was "Miracles of Modern". Is that title fair? I don't know. Could Twin have stayed legal with Opt and AV now in the format?
Would Twin gone the way of GB/X and the ways of the dodos? I would personally doubt it. If Twin wasn't that good, and 'mediocre' element of the deck, that ran by tempo'ing out and not the ability threaten the combo every turn, 3 and onward, Kiki-Jiki would see more play than it does. But the fact Jiki is while similar a far worse card. Sahaali and her kitty in modern are similar. Twin existence onto itself, enable what was clearly a lackluster pile of cards to t8 regularly, become the go to deck for a plurality of metagame, shows that Twin was that good.
And finally, YGO and PowerCreep, is far more complicated than simply 'power creep'. For example, Dolls (Shaddolls for those curious), is one of the stronger archtypes and was printed four years ago. A card pre-errate, Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End, printed over a decade ago, is the strongest single card in all of YGO. Zoodiacs, the most recent broken archetype, and their comrades True Draco, are weaker than the cards printed in the previous four years.
Additionally 8-4 Years ago, during 'Zexal', it was until year 7-8 did the cards, 'creep' older synchros. Even then, that is less creeping and more along the lines of proper answers. In fact some decks, Gadgets a notable example, often return to tier status after decades of obscurity. One archetype known as Water, came is 7-8 years old. Now are decks in YGO significantly stronger than the decks of past YGO. Yes and No. But in some ways, you cannot tell me, pre-Etch Champion Affinity and Mox Opel, without Artifact Lands are better than Modern Affinity. Or that NewUla is worse than OldUla. Its all relativeness. Its not just as simple as 'power creep'. BLS - Envoy of the Beginning, in the TCG recently move, semi (two are allowed per a deck), why? Well we have better answers than we used too first of all.
Second there are no decks currently competitive that use competitively Light and Dark attribute monsters regularly. That might change soon in the TCG, due to Spyral and Vendread Tier 1. But currently its more complicated than just "Ban and Creep". Actually a recent card banned was something known as Grandsoil. A reanimate if you reach certain conditions it was banned because of an interaction with a newer card called FireWall Dragon. They easily could have either of those cards, unable to interact with anything outside their era or made not to relevant with later cards. FireWall having a clause that says "if you do x, only activate Cyberse monsters for the rest of the turn". That kind of interaction is known as xenophobia, I was once asked why YGO players like stat based archetypes not named based.
Stat Base can sometimes result in the above interaction. But it also allows a card like Fire Formation Tenki help any Beast-Warrior deck and not just Fire Fists. My personal YGO deck, I created and have built, as well as maintained for almost 15-18 years now. Several times a year because of my deck looking for type-line for certain effects, I can get new cards or buffs. And having old cards be banned for that reason tells me the game card creation isn't xenophobic with itself. If you care for a specific MtG example. Allies and Rebels. Two highly for if they were from YGO xenophobic archtypes that can never expect much in the way of new toys to help them (at best something like CoCo).
Such xenophobia is any easy way to balance and is easier on the development side because well its xenophobic and they need not worry about unintended interactions. Its a sign to me of a partly sterile design, unwilling to risk they choose the safest method. Its a sign of a sterile development mindset. Which all brings me to my original point. Bans are good, because they demonstrate, that the developers are willing to push the envelop. To try something new or interesting. I'd rather a development team, be willing to try and experiment then run that always play it safe. The latter is unhealthy in the long term as the game simply becomes sterile.
You simply sell them at big box stores and sell them till demand is stasitified. YGO does it quite a bit and you never see sculptors try and buy YGO products for these purposes. Because Konami does it frequently and often enough to render sculpting pointless.
So I often see bans are a sign of bad game design, honestly I see the exact opposite, I somewhat regular bannings as healthy game design. Riddle me this why do bans happen?
"A deck or card is overpowered, or too strong for its cost." See Smugglar Copter espacially. Or another good example "Hinders design space." Case in point Splinter Twin or Pod. Another way I see it.
"The developers are willing to push the enevelop, experiment, try something new." If the Dev teams never tries to push something or do an interesting design, we would rarely get banning. It's too cautious. Developers aren't willing to try and experiment for new and interesting developers.
Instead just give us Generic.Big Creature 84. Thopter was a conditional looter (filter), a non-hasty two drop with no immediate Board impact. It can be used in Aggro or control effectively.
Splinter Twin, tells me that cards are 'future proof' are a card from previous sets still interact with newer cards. So I hopefully don't need to sit and twiddle my thumbs as I wait for decades to get a new card.
What I am trying to say here, is cards being banned tells me Development is just that Development. Willing to take risks, willing to draw unique and weird playable designs. No Bans tells me they wanted to play it safe were unwilling to try and push the enevelop a bit more. Experiment to make something new and improve.
The other case, for design, if no old cards are banned either tells me Power creep too strong. Or old cards are irrelevant and xenophobic or the new cards are. Telling me I shouldn't bother buying anything. Sense even if like a deck t won't A) ever get support, B) power creeped out of the game
It can also remove some tap abilities being essentially instant speed (for example SFM being only creature you control) for all the relevance of that particular interaction
Is Force of Will still bad in that threat assessment when you if you pair it with a cards like StandStill, Sphinx's Rev, Stroke of Genius, and Blue Sun Zenith? Throwing a card like Force willy nilly into a deck, won't break it.
Rarely is any card unfair simply onto its lonesome. (Would a land that only tapped for Red, be overpowered? When said land is also an artifact and is part of a 5 land cycle- yes).
Of the top 10 Legacy decks, half don't use force of will. That implies that there is a decently steep opportunity cost to using it, and of those five two of them don't use it and are playing blue.
Having a 'steep' cost and being a fair a card are related but not the same thing. Is Emerakul a fair card? It has a pretty steep cost and the amount of top decks that play it in legacy are limited to something like Hypergenesis and Cloudpost or some other way to cheat it into play.
I'm gonna go against the grain here and disagree. FoW is in an innately unfair card. Why? Because how it fits into the game itself. Blue has a couple core weakness. The first and foremost is it's inability to permanently deal with resolved threats easily. Having to rely on bounce and counter magic. One way for midrange-style decks to beat play decks is to play enough threats in a turn that is more than then number of counter spells the opposing Blue Mage can play in a single turn.
If you have 5 mana normally that means only two to three counterspells. And to the nature of blue control you often run quite a large number lands. So control decks will run of 'true cards' or active/useful cards faster than a 22-24 land midrange deck. So we are in top deck mode or less.
I have grinded your defenses and play a threat. You have a Blue Sun/Stroke/etc in hand. Normally when you play those X spells you have to leave 2-3 mana up so you can counter my threat. Force changes that situation entirely. Now you can dig 2-3 cards deeper, because Force of Will requires no mana.
Suddenly your that Draw for Spell for X, which would only dig you 3-4 cards deep. Will now dig you 7-8.
Another example is that Blue/control normally gives up a T2 play, sacrificing tempo to advance their game plan. Force enables you to play something like T2 StandStill. When your foe casts a threat. You draw three cards. Then you can force for 'free'. (It's actually parity for you, sense draw 3, -1 for stand still, -2 for force). While your opponent had just -1.
To claim in force is a -1 is ignoring a) the cards surrounding force of will, b) the practical and massive increase of Tempo being able to tap out is for u/x decks.
Is it unfair? Let me ask is Cranial Plating unfair? Or are the decks that play Cranial Plating innately unfair? Due to having large enough artifacts to reach a critical mass. The two situations I listed above was deck synergizing. In which FoW is an 'unfair' card due to the situation for which the deck was built to abuse and use. (Espacially in the case of Standstill).
Is FoTW a fair card? Maybe by its lonesome in the abstract. I'd argue the decks that can and will play it, make it unfair.
And our average card is better quality than the MtG equivalent.
It took YGO four separate errata on Waboku to get people to realize that it has always functioned exactly like Fog. (And considering Emissary of Harmony was first printed in the very first precon decks for the OCG, that's kinda sad.) UDE's mishandling of localizing (Demon) screwed up a major mechanic present in the Threat of the Demon World set. Somebody at Konami thought that a 0-mana Divination would be a good idea. When they finally realized their screwup, they decided that a 0-mana Ponder that stopped you from casting other copies on the same turn would be a good idea.
Waboku was so poorly worded and understood for years.
What was wrong with the Archfiends?
If you are going to face palm about localization, look no farther than Amazon Archer. Every card with the Amazoness theme has to specifically call out Amazon Archer in the text because it does not fit the naming theme. Which is one thing that bugs me about YuGiOh, they use names rather than types and subtypes to create thematic groups of cards. It would be so much easier if they just had a type called "Grave Keeper" or "Elemental Warrior", rather than relying on every card having a specific name to fit the theme.
One day I am gonna make a thread in off topic about "Myths and Lies about Yugioh", that is not true anymore*. For example the deck I listed above the Lyricals, mechanically call for "Lv1 Winged Beast Type Monsters", save their swarmer. Another deck, Magician Girl (related to Dark Magician Girl), call for mostly Spellcasters (through a few do list "Magician" Girl"). Another Lavals call for "FIRE" Monsters with 200 Defense.
Their is a set of HEROs, (The Elemental Warriors you referred to), that look for an Elemental HERO + (Attribute). And their is another new deck Triamid that looks for "Rock-type." And the new VWXYX Retrains search and support "Unions" in general or for "Light Machine Union". And finally there is a new card call Force Strix that searches "Lv4 Dark Winged Beast". And that is the just the tip of the iceberg.
More relavently, it depends on the era. Certain Era's tend to be "Name" Matter more. Other eras (such as the current one) often are "Stat/Attribute/Type Matter". However there is considerable overlap of these eras.
*The latest era, beginning with Code of the Duelist (which introduces Link summon) has swung the Pendulum back to name matters over "attribute/Stat/type" matters
Before I fully respond, Lithl let me be clear, as a poster I respect you. You normally post and explains thing in a reasonable fashion. And I apologize for excessive snark. I do not intend any offense.
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I hear Garfield thought Ancestral Recall was a fair card. And let us not forget good old Black Lotus. How about how some old artifacts could be deactivated tapping them down. (And later they would received a errata when the rules of the game changed). Hello "Howling Mind".
If the second card you are referring to is Pot of Duality, the card is fair in YGO. Because it has the additional clause "you cannot special summon this turn". Which means only Stun (Control) decks can play it.
Also instead looking at a cards from DM to GX Era. How about we compare cards from recent sets? Lyricals, a deck of just commons, is playable. And by playable I mean "can reasonably execute its strategy of summoning and protecting its boss".
Any pack printed during the last 4 Years (Duelist Alliance or Advent to Maximum Crises). Barring the DM nostalgia packs, any common or card you pull is useful (reasonably) somewhere. If you want to buy a pack and send me a list of cards you pull. I'll find and make you a deck that can play them.
Third, Lithl as I said I respect you immensely. When you talk about MtG, but given everything I assume the last pack of YGO you bought or played with was Duelist Genesis. The game has changed a lot sense then. For better and for worse.
Totally unrelated you want to talk about annoying translations, my favorite card King Dragun, got a counterpart about 7ish years ago, named Queen Dragun Djinn. However if King Dragun does have the Djinn as part of his name back in the OCG. I like at these two cards and the naming difference annoys me greatly.
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Tangent aside. I am not saying MtG should copy YGO. YGO can afford to print 'better' commons for a lack of a better word. Because YGO doesn't have a limited environment (okay it does but we don't talk about it. Save for the Battle Packs). And our packs are smaller. So design has less cards to make and print. And less filler overall. But what YGO does do, is that whatever you pull, you feel you got something useful or a card that belongs somewhere. Or is a meme card.
That means I feel more incentive to buy packs because even if I pull "*****" value I feel the cards I did pull belong somewhere.
Wait, what is going on with modern? What in the world are you talking about?!
I think that post was referring to the state of both formats - Standard is in the worst state it has been in the past decade while Modern has been the best it has ever been (there are a few problems like color-imbalance, but diversity-wise it probably has never seen better). WotC recognizes that and is actively removing Modern from the competitive scene and/or focus as much as possible, because Standard (and rotation) is their main business and Modern is now legitimately threatening it.
Ultimately for the company a rotating format makes more money in the long-run (think 25 years) with less R&D hurdles to jump (because rotation solves power-creep issues) than non-rotating formats, so non-rotating formats must always plays second fiddle to rotating ones, if Standard suffers they would make Modern "suffer" along with it so that it doesn't overshadow Standard massively all of a sudden. They aren't going to actively sabotage gameplay and ironically they managed to fix that portion up the exact time Standard is in its largest crisis, so they're actively shushing the format in the other ways (less marketing basically, and by extension products are marketing and so, by further extension the reprint problem has partial roots in it as well, just not wholly in it).
I wouldn't say they'll regret the decision eventually, because seeing from their long-term corporate standpoint, it was a defensive measure to keep Standard the throne of marketing. They'll eventually revert it when Standard recovers. So bluntly put, the "health" of Modern is dependent on the health of Standard because it's not allowed to be "healthier" than Standard in all aspects.
Standard is going through turbulent times with its structural changes. If the latest structure goes well and Standard recovers, they'll naturally have more time to pay attention to Modern and the aspects we've all been debating about here.
So, bluntly put, the "health" of other competitive formats is dependent on the "health" of Standard to some degree. You can disagree with this "structure" (or more of (in)active interference), but I'm not stating this as an opinion, but more of an interpretation of actions already taken and from a (long-term) corporate standpoint it does make some sense.
That post prompted me to take a look at Yu-Gi-Oh.
I didn't realize that YGO only officially supports two formats. Comparable to Vintage and Legacy for MtG. However, Konami seems to treat Legacy more like Standard.
More to the point...
Yu-Gi-Oh has...
7627 (U.S.) and 8245 (Asia). I saw 22000+ cited but this appears to include the manga, cartoon, video games, etc.
For the equivalent Legacy...
76 cards are banned
83 cards are restricted and 16 more as a sort of pzeudo-restricted.
This represents about 2.2% of the total card pool that are banned or restricted.
MtG.
Legacy...
16729 cards (estimated)
86 banned cards
This represents half of 1% of the card pool.
Standard
1721 cards
5 banned
Represents .2% of the card pool or rather 1/5th of 1%.
You are referring to the TCG here. There is actually 3 supported YGO Formats (well 5, but one is an off shoot of another, and the other is for prerelease only). TCG Advanced, TCG Traditional, OCG Advanced.
And the OCG (official card game), is what Asian Countries play. Same game. Slighty Different rules, and different ban list. Also a slightly different card pool due to exclusives. Their list is smaller than the TCG and favors combo decks. And has less feel bad bans (I.e nothing like Blood Moon banned)
TCG is what you are referring to here. Trading Card Game, the OCG only has one format where the TCG has two and a half. Advanced, Traditional, Promoless Advanced. Because certain countries cannot use Manga or Jump Promos (they are not sold in those countries.
And then we have the once a year format called Worlds. In which exclusives, (but not Promos), are banned. The Two ban lists are combined into one ban list. Furthermore, it should be noted that YGO has smaller pack sizes (average back side if memory serves if about 75). And our average card is better quality than the MtG equivalent. Comparing the ban list sizes in that respect is highly unfair. As both companies design their packs and ban lists to suite different purposes.
YGO as you said instead of rotation has a once year meta Nuke. In TCG our is is December while OCG is in February to June. Rotation in many ways is organized mass banning. But I tangeted here. All I trying to say comparing ban list sizes are unfair due to fundamental philosophy differences. And frankly I don't see the issue with mass banning. If memory is the issue you kinda just get the hang out of it after all
I only just recently got introduced to YGO and am largely turned off by the wall of text cards. So my knowledge of the game and meta is limited.
I did notice the TCG/OCG but wasn't able to find a ban list for the OCG. This is why I mention the region counts (and did the calculation only against the TCG). As an aside, the card counts I found listed about 600 more cards for the OCG. I'm not sure where else to get them from (Konami seems to be very strict on disseminating data like this)
The YGO site only listed two formats, Traditional and Advanced. Comparable to, what I think, Vintage and Legacy with Standard-like support. I tried to get amore comprehensive list, but again, wasn't able to find one.
Honestly, I fail to see what pack or (I assume you meant) box size have to do with anything. There was a time MtG came in 8 card packs so. Even from the MtG world, it's obvious why Konami does 9 card packs. My local LGS charges between $3 to $4 for YGO packs and about the same for MtG packs. Quality of cards not withstanding.
I won't touch the quality of cards. I have opinions about YGO and how Konami runs the meta and none of it is really appropriate for here.
The point of my post is, if the health of a format is defined by the number of banned cards, the YGO suffers from higher percentage of banned cards than MtG does.
Though I think it's important to realize that MtG Standard rotation is the equivalent of a mass banning. This is why I kept an eye on Legacy with my numbers. Soumds like you're saying this explains the higher ban count.
It wasn't obvious to me when cards rotate out, if at all. This would be a factor in deciding how to cut the numbers.
A large YGO set has a total of a 100ish new cards to MtG packs that can reach well over 200. And MtG has draft chaff where YGO does not.
The only reason i see that WotC has ban modern from the competitive scene is because the industry was going to collapse.
Standar is the main goal for them and its obvious. But what happens when expansions rotate fast and even with those rotations, standar is creepy? That everything is just a mess. If they dont ban modern from the competitive scene, that means that modern will take over standar (that is what is happening atm). As its happening, they have to take the decision to fix what they have done in the past and until they solve it, modern will be ban from the competitive scene.
They are taking measures to fix the problems they did, changing the standar meta and abusing of banhammer (which is needed). Anyway, i think its the worst standar ever.
I think that the ban of modern is completely absurd and non-sense since its the most popular format, best mechanics, healthy and so on... I hope that once they stablish standar, they regret the decision and make modern competitive again. We will wait...
Wait, what is going on with modern? What in the world are you talking about?!
I think that post was referring to the state of both formats - Standard is in the worst state it has been in the past decade while Modern has been the best it has ever been (there are a few problems like color-imbalance, but diversity-wise it probably has never seen better). WotC recognizes that and is actively removing Modern from the competitive scene and/or focus as much as possible, because Standard (and rotation) is their main business and Modern is now legitimately threatening it.
Ultimately for the company a rotating format makes more money in the long-run (think 25 years) with less R&D hurdles to jump (because rotation solves power-creep issues) than non-rotating formats, so non-rotating formats must always plays second fiddle to rotating ones, if Standard suffers they would make Modern "suffer" along with it so that it doesn't overshadow Standard massively all of a sudden. They aren't going to actively sabotage gameplay and ironically they managed to fix that portion up the exact time Standard is in its largest crisis, so they're actively shushing the format in the other ways (less marketing basically, and by extension products are marketing and so, by further extension the reprint problem has partial roots in it as well, just not wholly in it).
I wouldn't say they'll regret the decision eventually, because seeing from their long-term corporate standpoint, it was a defensive measure to keep Standard the throne of marketing. They'll eventually revert it when Standard recovers. So bluntly put, the "health" of Modern is dependent on the health of Standard because it's not allowed to be "healthier" than Standard in all aspects.
Standard is going through turbulent times with its structural changes. If the latest structure goes well and Standard recovers, they'll naturally have more time to pay attention to Modern and the aspects we've all been debating about here.
So, bluntly put, the "health" of other competitive formats is dependent on the "health" of Standard to some degree. You can disagree with this "structure" (or more of (in)active interference), but I'm not stating this as an opinion, but more of an interpretation of actions already taken and from a (long-term) corporate standpoint it does make some sense.
That post prompted me to take a look at Yu-Gi-Oh.
I didn't realize that YGO only officially supports two formats. Comparable to Vintage and Legacy for MtG. However, Konami seems to treat Legacy more like Standard.
More to the point...
Yu-Gi-Oh has...
7627 (U.S.) and 8245 (Asia). I saw 22000+ cited but this appears to include the manga, cartoon, video games, etc.
For the equivalent Legacy...
76 cards are banned
83 cards are restricted and 16 more as a sort of pzeudo-restricted.
This represents about 2.2% of the total card pool that are banned or restricted.
MtG.
Legacy...
16729 cards (estimated)
86 banned cards
This represents half of 1% of the card pool.
Standard
1721 cards
5 banned
Represents .2% of the card pool or rather 1/5th of 1%.
You are referring to the TCG here. There is actually 3 supported YGO Formats (well 5, but one is an off shoot of another, and the other is for prerelease only). TCG Advanced, TCG Traditional, OCG Advanced.
And the OCG (official card game), is what Asian Countries play. Same game. Slighty Different rules, and different ban list. Also a slightly different card pool due to exclusives. Their list is smaller than the TCG and favors combo decks. And has less feel bad bans (I.e nothing like Blood Moon banned)
TCG is what you are referring to here. Trading Card Game, the OCG only has one format where the TCG has two and a half. Advanced, Traditional, Promoless Advanced. Because certain countries cannot use Manga or Jump Promos (they are not sold in those countries.
And then we have the once a year format called Worlds. In which exclusives, (but not Promos), are banned. The Two ban lists are combined into one ban list. Furthermore, it should be noted that YGO has smaller pack sizes (average back side if memory serves if about 75). And our average card is better quality than the MtG equivalent. Comparing the ban list sizes in that respect is highly unfair. As both companies design their packs and ban lists to suite different purposes.
YGO as you said instead of rotation has a once year meta Nuke. In TCG our is is December while OCG is in February to June. Rotation in many ways is organized mass banning. But I tangeted here. All I trying to say comparing ban list sizes are unfair due to fundamental philosophy differences. And frankly I don't see the issue with mass banning. If memory is the issue you kinda just get the hang out of it after all
Someone could correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Godsend see some play in that legacy Equipment deck? (Admittedly to fight True Name mostly) Godsend itself while not Sword or Batterskull, isn't a terrible card, once on board turns makes blocking hard. And once equipped the creature itself will be Bolt Immune.
Does the Black suite of cards like Inquisition and other discard, alongside now Fatal Push, fulfill that role in modern? Why or why not? Or are the two formats and colors too different for this kind of comparison?
Gotta love the new Konami phase WOTC is experimenting with these days.
Delay Announcement Day
Treat announcing Announcement Day as its own announcement
No information except grainy unofficial leaks and "website error" leaks
Cat Saheeli Combo in Standard
Not banning said combo at the appropriate time
Emergency banning it after complaints
Teasing about stuff
Seriously is this Yugioh or what. I quit that trash game because of Konami not to have these tendencies follow me over.
Seriously what? "Delay announcement day" I have never seen Konami do that. And the "no information except grainy pictures", we have bi-weekly spoilers. If not more, where we get two new cards from upcoming sets a week from Twitter. Then there is the monthly Shonen Jump and weekly VJump which often have spoilers as well.
I will admit for TCG-Players who don't bother to look around, we have very few 'leaks'. However information about new sets and cards are plentiful and easy to fine. Through I will echo what Colt said.
The popularity of the Duel Links App, has affected YGO (mostly by having spell duels show up into the anime). There are no playable infinite combos in YGO I don't even. And YGO has had two emergency Ban List; one was nearly decade ago, the other one was less then a month after release of the previous set.
But yeah this a magic thread and I digress. I am honestly confused, from the sound of this post by MaRo, this thing didn't already exist. Just what? I have to honestly ask, why didn't they have a group within R&D meant to test for Constructed Balance? What was the reason?
This isn't to say said card couldn't result in dumb things, sense his interaction with Commander rules, makes his death ability reusable. It wouldn't fix everything, see Brothers Yamizaki and the shadows, Gisela and Bruna. Or the various totally not Legendary Creatures, Legendary Creatures (see Genju). However it would mean that we are no longer waiting for certain archetypes to get explicit support with Legendary Creatures (U/R Artifacts for example). The other issue is that it makes troublesome creatures, that aren't legendary, Prophet of Kruphix when it was legal, all the worse.
I guess comes down to as is often said 'ask your playgroup' and 'don't be an ass'. I think personally if a card became a known problem, Commander such as Narset. It would become pseudo banned, by many playgroups anyways even with that kind of rule change. I will admit, its partly because I do just really want to build an EDH deck around Underworld Cerberus, sense its a card that doesn't really fit into constructed 60 card. And casual 60 has died, replaced by Commander. So take that for what it is. (Through I will admit that Dwarf Onslaught Legend, plays similarly at least aesthetically. But the issue is for me, he doesn't provide as interesting deckbuilding questions Cerberus does).
Instead take that same card, instead of just going what is safe, you decide to push it a bit. It needs another card to activate itself, and it doesn't gain immediate value, so maybe it'll be fine? So you give it a the ability to loot. Is a 3/3 Crew One that Loots on Block or Attack, playable? Would you play a card reads "2 Mana if it attacks or blocks, draw 1 discard 1." Well how many Merfolk looters see play? Vryns Prodigy, but you know he has the upside...of being a snappy caster. Well perhaps all the various red or blue cards that often do have a form of evasion or otherwise have combat damage, draw 1 discard 1.
So you need to try and push, maybe you want something playable and similar style cards have no broken anything and this requires a creature to activate. So its...top deck ability might leave something to be desired. However it turns out evasion, the lack of effective answers or more precisely answers are too few or too slow to effective do what is needed, and looting on attack, as well blocking, was just too good. But instead we could have gotten a rare sky skiff that is just a 3/3. Now then if you always play it safe, you'll never print a broken card. And you end up with blocks and sets, which don't do anything after they rotate.
Theros, a set from the start was played completely safe from top to bottom. There are cards from it that see play, fringe to nominal, like Nykthos Shrine to Nyx, Master of Waves, Courser of Kruphix, or Thassa, God of the Sea. Sometimes a Keranos in Grixis decks. You also see Gary in some monoblock decks. Take Master, until its recent extinction by Fatal Push, one of its best aspects was not being boltable. But well, that could end poorly. Worse it might increase the number of non-games. Lets remove the protection. And push it up a mana, we don't want to accidentally allow a midrange-tempo deck, going like Azorius Familiar, Azorius Charm, D-Sphere, then flood board with Master on 4.
I could go through each card, but its easy to make card that is safe and irrelevant. Its almost impossible to find it if your not willing to experiment, or try and find it. All cards can be made useless if you want a perfectly safe and sterile environment. If you think just essentially reprinting the same cards over and over again, is sign of a good development, that is sign of no development. A development sometimes requires you to push, to make a mistake. Your accepting failure, before you even tried. If as a result of the development, you go a little too far. Maybe leaps too far, that should been blatant in hindsight. But part of development is trying to push that envelop, to make that card a bit more interesting.
Grim Flayer for example, a NotGoyf from Shadows. There are 1001 ways a 2 mana card filters deck and is good at any point in the game could well break the game. 1 Mana Deathrite is a prime example. Had Grim Flayer been pushed to 3 mana, maybe even made a 3/3 base in that case. Would it had even been notable or even cared for? But it certainly would not have broken anything at 3 mana. Now lets deal with the Twin no? There are several issues with Twin, is it the best deck? Or is not? Well maybe. But between able to threaten the win and go for the game at any stage, while playing a strong tempo game. Is that balanced? Well maybe. How would you deal with that deck. Keeping it off the combo.
Well take AV, was that unbannable with twin? It allows Twin to make up having its hand stripped by same decks. And while its best turn 1. Against certain slower decks. Playing 2-4, will not be a bad thing. As the game likely to go that long. But you know, that is fine and dandy clearly. Twin wouldn't do anything to break the game. It didn't do anything to break the game. Maybe my metagames were weird, but everyone I know was building twin. Some in part because it was "Miracles of Modern". Is that title fair? I don't know. Could Twin have stayed legal with Opt and AV now in the format?
Would Twin gone the way of GB/X and the ways of the dodos? I would personally doubt it. If Twin wasn't that good, and 'mediocre' element of the deck, that ran by tempo'ing out and not the ability threaten the combo every turn, 3 and onward, Kiki-Jiki would see more play than it does. But the fact Jiki is while similar a far worse card. Sahaali and her kitty in modern are similar. Twin existence onto itself, enable what was clearly a lackluster pile of cards to t8 regularly, become the go to deck for a plurality of metagame, shows that Twin was that good.
And finally, YGO and PowerCreep, is far more complicated than simply 'power creep'. For example, Dolls (Shaddolls for those curious), is one of the stronger archtypes and was printed four years ago. A card pre-errate, Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End, printed over a decade ago, is the strongest single card in all of YGO. Zoodiacs, the most recent broken archetype, and their comrades True Draco, are weaker than the cards printed in the previous four years.
Additionally 8-4 Years ago, during 'Zexal', it was until year 7-8 did the cards, 'creep' older synchros. Even then, that is less creeping and more along the lines of proper answers. In fact some decks, Gadgets a notable example, often return to tier status after decades of obscurity. One archetype known as Water, came is 7-8 years old. Now are decks in YGO significantly stronger than the decks of past YGO. Yes and No. But in some ways, you cannot tell me, pre-Etch Champion Affinity and Mox Opel, without Artifact Lands are better than Modern Affinity. Or that NewUla is worse than OldUla. Its all relativeness. Its not just as simple as 'power creep'. BLS - Envoy of the Beginning, in the TCG recently move, semi (two are allowed per a deck), why? Well we have better answers than we used too first of all.
Second there are no decks currently competitive that use competitively Light and Dark attribute monsters regularly. That might change soon in the TCG, due to Spyral and Vendread Tier 1. But currently its more complicated than just "Ban and Creep". Actually a recent card banned was something known as Grandsoil. A reanimate if you reach certain conditions it was banned because of an interaction with a newer card called FireWall Dragon. They easily could have either of those cards, unable to interact with anything outside their era or made not to relevant with later cards. FireWall having a clause that says "if you do x, only activate Cyberse monsters for the rest of the turn". That kind of interaction is known as xenophobia, I was once asked why YGO players like stat based archetypes not named based.
Stat Base can sometimes result in the above interaction. But it also allows a card like Fire Formation Tenki help any Beast-Warrior deck and not just Fire Fists. My personal YGO deck, I created and have built, as well as maintained for almost 15-18 years now. Several times a year because of my deck looking for type-line for certain effects, I can get new cards or buffs. And having old cards be banned for that reason tells me the game card creation isn't xenophobic with itself. If you care for a specific MtG example. Allies and Rebels. Two highly for if they were from YGO xenophobic archtypes that can never expect much in the way of new toys to help them (at best something like CoCo).
Such xenophobia is any easy way to balance and is easier on the development side because well its xenophobic and they need not worry about unintended interactions. Its a sign to me of a partly sterile design, unwilling to risk they choose the safest method. Its a sign of a sterile development mindset. Which all brings me to my original point. Bans are good, because they demonstrate, that the developers are willing to push the envelop. To try something new or interesting. I'd rather a development team, be willing to try and experiment then run that always play it safe. The latter is unhealthy in the long term as the game simply becomes sterile.
"A deck or card is overpowered, or too strong for its cost." See Smugglar Copter espacially. Or another good example "Hinders design space." Case in point Splinter Twin or Pod. Another way I see it.
"The developers are willing to push the enevelop, experiment, try something new." If the Dev teams never tries to push something or do an interesting design, we would rarely get banning. It's too cautious. Developers aren't willing to try and experiment for new and interesting developers.
Instead just give us Generic.Big Creature 84. Thopter was a conditional looter (filter), a non-hasty two drop with no immediate Board impact. It can be used in Aggro or control effectively.
Splinter Twin, tells me that cards are 'future proof' are a card from previous sets still interact with newer cards. So I hopefully don't need to sit and twiddle my thumbs as I wait for decades to get a new card.
What I am trying to say here, is cards being banned tells me Development is just that Development. Willing to take risks, willing to draw unique and weird playable designs. No Bans tells me they wanted to play it safe were unwilling to try and push the enevelop a bit more. Experiment to make something new and improve.
The other case, for design, if no old cards are banned either tells me Power creep too strong. Or old cards are irrelevant and xenophobic or the new cards are. Telling me I shouldn't bother buying anything. Sense even if like a deck t won't A) ever get support, B) power creeped out of the game
'Prepared himself for the horde of disagreement'
Rarely is any card unfair simply onto its lonesome. (Would a land that only tapped for Red, be overpowered? When said land is also an artifact and is part of a 5 land cycle- yes).
Unless Emerakul is also overpowered.
Having a 'steep' cost and being a fair a card are related but not the same thing. Is Emerakul a fair card? It has a pretty steep cost and the amount of top decks that play it in legacy are limited to something like Hypergenesis and Cloudpost or some other way to cheat it into play.
If you have 5 mana normally that means only two to three counterspells. And to the nature of blue control you often run quite a large number lands. So control decks will run of 'true cards' or active/useful cards faster than a 22-24 land midrange deck. So we are in top deck mode or less.
I have grinded your defenses and play a threat. You have a Blue Sun/Stroke/etc in hand. Normally when you play those X spells you have to leave 2-3 mana up so you can counter my threat. Force changes that situation entirely. Now you can dig 2-3 cards deeper, because Force of Will requires no mana.
Suddenly your that Draw for Spell for X, which would only dig you 3-4 cards deep. Will now dig you 7-8.
Another example is that Blue/control normally gives up a T2 play, sacrificing tempo to advance their game plan. Force enables you to play something like T2 StandStill. When your foe casts a threat. You draw three cards. Then you can force for 'free'. (It's actually parity for you, sense draw 3, -1 for stand still, -2 for force). While your opponent had just -1.
To claim in force is a -1 is ignoring a) the cards surrounding force of will, b) the practical and massive increase of Tempo being able to tap out is for u/x decks.
Is it unfair? Let me ask is Cranial Plating unfair? Or are the decks that play Cranial Plating innately unfair? Due to having large enough artifacts to reach a critical mass. The two situations I listed above was deck synergizing. In which FoW is an 'unfair' card due to the situation for which the deck was built to abuse and use. (Espacially in the case of Standstill).
Is FoTW a fair card? Maybe by its lonesome in the abstract. I'd argue the decks that can and will play it, make it unfair.
One day I am gonna make a thread in off topic about "Myths and Lies about Yugioh", that is not true anymore*. For example the deck I listed above the Lyricals, mechanically call for "Lv1 Winged Beast Type Monsters", save their swarmer. Another deck, Magician Girl (related to Dark Magician Girl), call for mostly Spellcasters (through a few do list "Magician" Girl"). Another Lavals call for "FIRE" Monsters with 200 Defense.
Their is a set of HEROs, (The Elemental Warriors you referred to), that look for an Elemental HERO + (Attribute). And their is another new deck Triamid that looks for "Rock-type." And the new VWXYX Retrains search and support "Unions" in general or for "Light Machine Union". And finally there is a new card call Force Strix that searches "Lv4 Dark Winged Beast". And that is the just the tip of the iceberg.
More relavently, it depends on the era. Certain Era's tend to be "Name" Matter more. Other eras (such as the current one) often are "Stat/Attribute/Type Matter". However there is considerable overlap of these eras.
*The latest era, beginning with Code of the Duelist (which introduces Link summon) has swung the Pendulum back to name matters over "attribute/Stat/type" matters
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I hear Garfield thought Ancestral Recall was a fair card. And let us not forget good old Black Lotus. How about how some old artifacts could be deactivated tapping them down. (And later they would received a errata when the rules of the game changed). Hello "Howling Mind".
If the second card you are referring to is Pot of Duality, the card is fair in YGO. Because it has the additional clause "you cannot special summon this turn". Which means only Stun (Control) decks can play it.
Also instead looking at a cards from DM to GX Era. How about we compare cards from recent sets? Lyricals, a deck of just commons, is playable. And by playable I mean "can reasonably execute its strategy of summoning and protecting its boss".
Any pack printed during the last 4 Years (Duelist Alliance or Advent to Maximum Crises). Barring the DM nostalgia packs, any common or card you pull is useful (reasonably) somewhere. If you want to buy a pack and send me a list of cards you pull. I'll find and make you a deck that can play them.
Third, Lithl as I said I respect you immensely. When you talk about MtG, but given everything I assume the last pack of YGO you bought or played with was Duelist Genesis. The game has changed a lot sense then. For better and for worse.
Totally unrelated you want to talk about annoying translations, my favorite card King Dragun, got a counterpart about 7ish years ago, named Queen Dragun Djinn. However if King Dragun does have the Djinn as part of his name back in the OCG. I like at these two cards and the naming difference annoys me greatly.
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Tangent aside. I am not saying MtG should copy YGO. YGO can afford to print 'better' commons for a lack of a better word. Because YGO doesn't have a limited environment (okay it does but we don't talk about it. Save for the Battle Packs). And our packs are smaller. So design has less cards to make and print. And less filler overall. But what YGO does do, is that whatever you pull, you feel you got something useful or a card that belongs somewhere. Or is a meme card.
That means I feel more incentive to buy packs because even if I pull "*****" value I feel the cards I did pull belong somewhere.
A large YGO set has a total of a 100ish new cards to MtG packs that can reach well over 200. And MtG has draft chaff where YGO does not.
You are referring to the TCG here. There is actually 3 supported YGO Formats (well 5, but one is an off shoot of another, and the other is for prerelease only). TCG Advanced, TCG Traditional, OCG Advanced.
And the OCG (official card game), is what Asian Countries play. Same game. Slighty Different rules, and different ban list. Also a slightly different card pool due to exclusives. Their list is smaller than the TCG and favors combo decks. And has less feel bad bans (I.e nothing like Blood Moon banned)
TCG is what you are referring to here. Trading Card Game, the OCG only has one format where the TCG has two and a half. Advanced, Traditional, Promoless Advanced. Because certain countries cannot use Manga or Jump Promos (they are not sold in those countries.
And then we have the once a year format called Worlds. In which exclusives, (but not Promos), are banned. The Two ban lists are combined into one ban list. Furthermore, it should be noted that YGO has smaller pack sizes (average back side if memory serves if about 75). And our average card is better quality than the MtG equivalent. Comparing the ban list sizes in that respect is highly unfair. As both companies design their packs and ban lists to suite different purposes.
YGO as you said instead of rotation has a once year meta Nuke. In TCG our is is December while OCG is in February to June. Rotation in many ways is organized mass banning. But I tangeted here. All I trying to say comparing ban list sizes are unfair due to fundamental philosophy differences. And frankly I don't see the issue with mass banning. If memory is the issue you kinda just get the hang out of it after all
Does the Black suite of cards like Inquisition and other discard, alongside now Fatal Push, fulfill that role in modern? Why or why not? Or are the two formats and colors too different for this kind of comparison?
Seriously what? "Delay announcement day" I have never seen Konami do that. And the "no information except grainy pictures", we have bi-weekly spoilers. If not more, where we get two new cards from upcoming sets a week from Twitter. Then there is the monthly Shonen Jump and weekly VJump which often have spoilers as well.
I will admit for TCG-Players who don't bother to look around, we have very few 'leaks'. However information about new sets and cards are plentiful and easy to fine. Through I will echo what Colt said.
The popularity of the Duel Links App, has affected YGO (mostly by having spell duels show up into the anime). There are no playable infinite combos in YGO I don't even. And YGO has had two emergency Ban List; one was nearly decade ago, the other one was less then a month after release of the previous set.
But yeah this a magic thread and I digress. I am honestly confused, from the sound of this post by MaRo, this thing didn't already exist. Just what? I have to honestly ask, why didn't they have a group within R&D meant to test for Constructed Balance? What was the reason?