Hello readers,

We are near the end of August and the so much awaited Forbidden & Limited List arrived after another six months. I’m going to write about why I think that those changes were made and try to explain it. But before going into detail there are two huge changes overall coming with this List; this List only lasts for four months instead of the previous six months and after a lot of years the OCG and TCG split again and will have different lists which means that we will also have two separated formats.

FORBIDDEN:

BURNER, DRAGON RULER OF SPARKS
ELEMENTAL HERO STRATOS
LIGHTNING, DRAGON RULER OF DRAFTS
REACTAN, DRAGON RULER OF PEBBLES
STREAM, DRAGON RULER OF DROPLETS
NUMBER 16: SHOCK MASTER
CARD DESTRUCTION
GATEWAY OF THE SIX
MONSTER REBORN
POT Of AVARICE
SPELLBOOK OF JUDGMENT
SUPER REJUVENATION
SOLEMN JUDGMENT
ULTIMATE OFFERING

The biggest change is that all the baby Dragon Ruler cards (Burner, Lightning, Reactan and Stream) and Spellbook of Judgment are forbidden now. Those decks were too strong and everyone will agree that this change had to be done. This means, that both absolute tier-one decks from the last format aren’t destroyed but at least slowed down.

In my opinion the changes from limited to forbidden are the most shocking, with the ban of Heavy Storm as the biggest one. This will put us back to 2011 when the first turn “Summon a monster, set four cards to the back row and go!” will be a usual opening in many decks. We have to change our way of deck building and playing because the lack of Heavy Storm doesn’t mean that there is no way to punish a fearless four-back-row start. There are cards like Black Rose Dragon or Delta Crow which can punish you if you don’t have the right negation available.

Other cards are now forbidden because they made a big difference on who is winning when they were just drawn. These cards are Card Destruction, Gateway of the Six, Monster Reborn, Pot of avarice, Solemn Judgment, Ultimate Offering, Super Rejuvenation and Elemental Hero Stratos. They give either a great edge in card advantage, resource advantage or enabled One-Turn-Kill moves.

Card Destruction was too strong in decks which gained a lot of advantage when they just dump their monsters from the hand to the graveyard like Dark World or the Dragon Ruler deck.

Six Samurai and Gadgets would win whenever they draw Gateway of the Six or Ultimate Offering. Those cards let you summon too many monsters without a big disadvantage and this will weaken the mentioned decks.

Pot of Avarice and Super Rejuvenation generated too much card advantage and could be played in more than one deck.

Monster Reborn and Solemn Judgment are pretty strong if you drew them before your opponent. With Heavy Storm gone now, Solemn Judgment would have been a staple in nearly every deck because it’s the perfect protection for the 4-back-row play.

Elemental Hero Stratos is too strong if we look deeper into the changes and he also enabled the Elemental Hero deck a lot of One-Turn-Kill possibilities in combination with Elemental Hero Bubbleman.

The last forbidden card is Number 16: Shock Master which can win a game alone. It’s similarities to Cold Wave and easy access for the current time was the reason why it had to go. When you dropped this card on the first turn then it resulted in a win most of the times.

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