User:MrVariant/Why Yu-Gi-Oh Advance Format must be Unoriginal

Here is a list I was working on for weeks to balance Yu-Gi-Oh; it's a lot of cards, but generally games can be won too easily via free removal/combos that is so powerful that drawing multiples rarely hurts you (like getting 2 Foolish Burials in your opening hand). I had to get rid of a lot of clone cards to slow down monotony, like if a person wanted to use 3 Waboku, Threatening Roar, and Thunder of Ruler, by which the only way to stop is by Jinzo/Royal Decree or by destroying the set card with Mystical Space Typhoon/Dust Tornado. I also think there should be a new rule to allow one to shuffle cards in their hand back into the deck and redraw to start the game, to get rid of the problem of drawing multiple Thunder Dragon, Destiny Hero - Malicious, or drawing all/no monsters which pretty much guarantee a loss solely due to bad luck.

I'd probably have a side deck rule for 15 different cards to actually give running a theme a chance rather than splice your deck with the most powerful cards. Think of it this way: many restrictions in the Advance Format undermine themselves. Restricting Smashing Ground is pointless because I can also use Torrential Tribute, Fissure, and Bottomless Trap Hole for free 1 shot removals or Dark Armed Dragon, and Snipe Hunter for monsters (who would stay on the field after removal) to wipe monsters, spells, and traps. In other words, restricting cards that nearly copy one another (to the point of being abused in any deck) is the same thing as allowing 2 or 3 copies of one of the cards.

The game is so fast-paced (even in the format I made up) that I don't even get a chance to summon multiple Synchro Monsters, especially of the same level. Advanced Ritual Art with 3 Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands to search for either the spell or the monster makes restricting any ritual monster, like Demise, King of Armageddon, pointless. I got tired of playing by Advance rules, using an especially boring Raiza lock deck, to which I'd actually keep tribute summoning Raiza the Storm Monarch on consecutive turns to directly attack and remove their monster; it makes me feel sorry for my opponent when I start off with one and have one of my 2 Foolish Burials I mentioned in my 1st paragraph to let me special summon Wulf, Lightsworn Beast and tribute it for Raiza turn one if I go 2nd.

Given the fast pace of Yugioh with all the new draw cards like Destiny Draw, Allure of Darkness, etc., losing a draw phase is crucial and needs a cost like Back to Square One to balance it; unlike that card, Raiza stays on the field and has 2400 attack to ward off any weak or nomi/tribute monsters my opponent may play. Just creating this deck I mentioned pretty much makes creating any kind of themed deck completely pointless. For example, Raiza is stronger than any playable zombie (Despair from the Dark and Vampire Genesis are both pointless cards given their work to summon and/or lack of a powerful effect) and zombies in general do not remove monsters unless you have Plaguespreader Zombie synchro summon.

To beat my Raiza deck, one would have to bombard me with removal monsters or discard because I'd just chain Compulsory Evacuation Device to nearly anything. For example, if a person uses 3 D.D. Warrior Lady and 3 D.D. Assailant, my deck bouncing is completely meaningless because they'd just kill whatever I played beforehand by ramming me and them losing a draw phase. I also mentioned discard since I can't pull this combo off without Raiza. Advance format dueling in Yu-Gi-Oh encourages a cheap side deck full of cards to ruin the game. Imagine running a Lightsworn deck only to run into 1 of 3 Light-Imprisoning Mirrors. It makes it pointless to play since your Lightsworn deck just became composed of normal monsters, in which the lack of self-milling will make getting Judgment Dragon much harder to summon. Therefore, you're forced to throw in a bunch of Breaker the Magical Warrior to compensate for this annoying counterdecking playstyle; it's about as frustrating as playing a burn deck against one who uses 3 Des Wombat or 3 Prime Material Dragon.

Creating a ban list to duel casually (after all if you've done this, you quit on formal dueling at tournaments), is difficult. If your luck is as bad as mine, people will stand you up when they say they'd play against you with it, or they'll actually try to pick a fight with you for just suggesting the idea due to some blind devotion. I remember one person actually had so much faith in their (15 card) side deck in regards to the game's lack of balance that they believed that I'm only making this idea solely because I'm losing, which isn't true at all plus it's a condescending way to act towards a new idea. Some just don't want to listen; even the Advanced Format that I criticize bans cards for a good reason; side decking will not always bail you out, especially in a lock like Yata-Garasu or infinite loop like 2 Manticore of Darkness with Card of Safe Return in an Exodia deck if they go first and play Foolish Burial on one Manticore of Darkness, with the other Manticore of Darkness in their hand.

Even if you can't get any regulars for a list you might make, you can at least explore the different decktypes on your own. I never thought that Kinetic Soldier would have so much support given DNA Surgery to turn every monster into a warrior so you can use Assault Armor, Mysterious Guard's effect, Warrior Elimination and Puppet Plant. This deck would never work in Advance Format, but at least it has potential with the format I created. It's also important to note that not every deck works even if Yu-Gi-Oh was completely balanced; Flying Fortress SKY FIRE, Gate Guardian, Archfiends and Psychic are too difficult to use given how many cards do things easier, so you're probably better off just throwing in Emergency Teleport with Krebons and/or Psychic Commander to get a quick synchro summon.

Even if we got rid of the free removals, there's still plenty of things to use to get rid of any monster, making every deck need to have some sort of speed; they need to inflict damage quickly (Burn), swarm/summon in 1-2 turns, clear the field instantly (like if you have Guardian Sphinx with Vengeful Bog Spirit, or have some capable alternate win scenario like milling given Needle Worm or Morphing Jar and Book of Moon/Book of Taiyou/Book of Eclipse or Gold Sarcophagus with a lot of stalling and deck thinners. Some decks can do all of these, like if you used D.D. Dynamite in a Macro Cosmos deck with Chaos End, Necroface, and D.D. Survivor.

I created a lot of deck creation articles because of new combos I found in this format I developed since I couldn't abuse the old ones that were far too overpowered; I think that deck-building is the most important part to a trading card game, but it needs to allow room for thought. However, I'm not talking about netdecking, where one just blindly copies a tournament winner. I'm just saying one shouldn't have to use cards that will always bail them out because it becomes abusive. For example, using 3 E - Emergency Call and 1 Reinforcement of the Army pretty much took out a lot of guesswork in building that Elemental Hero deck; you don't even have to try to build a deck given how those 4 cards in the same deck will never be a bad draw no matter what your opponent has. To take things further, look at the OTK page, and you'll realize that some of these easy wins do not even enable an opponent to do anything, especially should they not draw any quickplays/traps in their starting hand, or if Giant Trunade makes those cards pointless.

The hardest part of making a ban list is to see how your old changes react to new ones; for example, Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder is not overpowered without Megamorph, plus you can't get all your crystal beasts in your spell/trap zone in 1 turn. Generally for my list: banned cards are clones or work too well, restrictions are for cards that work by themselves (or can be easily put in multiple decks/salvage a terrible hand by itself) or can set up an easy win (like Sky Scourge Invicil if your opponent has only spells) through a combo that has little difficulty to get off, but isn't unbeatable. Semi-restrictions are for cards that can be a pain at 3; they're cards that you can't tolerate happening every turn but once per duel is fine.

I never thought Chain Strike would need restriction by my format but getting 2 copies in the same chain can lead to losing over 5000 damage if you use a Secret Barrel (which is easier to get off than Just Desserts, which needs combos, and with Morphing Jar, Secret Barrel and Chain Strike only become more powerful). It's all about how removing/restricting parts of a combo balance weaker cards, like how without Dimensional Fissure and only 2 Macro Cosmos, D.D. Survivor/D.D. Scout Plane can easily be run in 3's.  Wulf, Lightsworn Beast is no longer as potent with Foolish Burial and Celestia, Lightsworn Angel both at 1. Only by testplaying a lot can one figure out how cards can work; fortunately you can do this online using programs like YVD (better filters but lacks a solitaire mode for 2 decks) and LackeyCCG (worse card filters but has a solitaire mode, so you can combine for both) to form 2 decks to play Yu-Gi-Oh in a solitaire fashion. I mention the card filters because there are over 3,000 cards made and the purpose of creating a ban list is to explore every one of these, to see if the things you take out, like me with Heavy Storm, can be replaced.

Balancing combos mean the draw cards that let you cycle your hand are not as overpowered, with the exceptions of Allure of Darkness (remove from play Necroface or use Escape from the Dark Dimension/Dimensional Alchemist, but with those restricted, it's not that powerful) and Gladiator Beast's Respite (cycling your hand lets you use Gladiator Beast Murmillo or Gladiator Beast Alexander rather than have them stuck as dead draws; it combos far better than Trade-In and the like since it's 3 cards too), which I think Respite needs to be semi'd. However, Six Samurai United is practically a Pot of Greed if you get Grandmaster of the Six Samurai in your hand and do 2 summons in the same turn, hence its restriction. Removing all the free monster removal (that have hardly any cost but work too well like Compulsory Evacuation Device and Bottomless Trap Hole) because decks that thrive upon removal with discard costs like Gadgets or Ojamas make these unbalanced; Forced Back at least works superbly on normal tribute summons but can be fairly bypassed by a special summon.

Banning Limit Reverse alone made me take off a lot of cards like Heavy Mech Support Platform, Armor Breaker, and King of the Swamp because it could be used in nearly any deck for a quick reuse/removal, and it's better than Roll Out due to its versatility). There are a lot of viable decks, but generally speaking, they need to overwhelm or lock you in 1-2 turns should you get a good hand.  You just need to find cards that work together consistently to quickly impede (using Twin-Sword Marauder or Dream Clown with position changing cards like Zero Gravity), or overwhelm (Solidarity with Ultimate Insect LV7) your opponent; using Armed Dragon does neither, making it a pointless deck to build since you need to discard (technically send to the graveyard) strong monsters to destroy only face up monsters (except for sluggish Armed Dragon LV10 where it's still face up monsters but you can discard any card you want) and it's worthless on your opponent's turn, by which comboing with Ojamagic or Gadgets does not bypass. In terms of a custom ban list, one must continuously update it when they discover things as I mentioned before. You also have to keep in mind that some decks age poorly, like VWXYZ, so testplay multiple feasible decks to balance the game to a level you are suitable with.