March 2013 Ban List Speculation

Hey, guys! As usual, I will do ban list speculation as well. This time I feel that not much cards will be hit by the ban list but certain decks such as Wind-Up, Mermail Atlantean, HERO, Prophecy Spellbook and etc may be hit by this ban list. Below is my prediction list:

Ban List:
Monster Reborn

Limited/Restricted List:
Dark Magician of Chaos
Goyou Guardian
Deep Sea Diva
Wind-Up Magician
Divine Judgment of the Spellbook
Wind-Up Factory

Semi-limited/Semi-restricted List:
Formula Synchron
Mezuki
Fire Formation - Tenki
Dragged Down into the Grave
Miracle Fusion

Unlimited List:
Reborn Tengu

For the banhammer, I think only 1 card is deserve to be ban and that is Monster Reborn. This card is too strong and it can be say as the most important card to turn the table. Thus Konami may drop this card to the ban list again.

With the ban of Monster Reborn, I don't think Konami will reopen Premature Burial because the loop of Dewloren to recycle it is still valid. I do think that the another member of Chaos which is Dark Magician of Chaos will be released from the ban list and become limited again. Apart from that, I would like to see Goyou Guardian back to the stage of synchro again. Blackwing player certainly want Goyou Guardian in their extra deck again.

In order to hit Mermail Atlantean, I think Konami will not hit the Atlantean engine but they may limit the copies of Deep Sea Diva in the deck so that the speed of the deck will slowing down. Deep Sea Diva is act as one of the key for Xyz or synchro easily. If you are aware of it, most of the time Diva will SS Heavy Infantry so that they have extra normal summon and then fill-up the graveyard so that Moulinglacia can be SS from hand. It is a card that enable Mermail Atlantean to have variety of play style and combo.

Wind-Up is still tier 1 especially in TCG environment(OCG Wind-Up players is dropping due to Constellar and Evilswarm can overcome them easily), it is necessary to limit Wind-Up Magician and Wind-Up Factory so that their speed will slow down. With Wind-Up Factory, they can gain a lot of hand and proceed with OTK when necessary. Combo of Shark with Magician is too strong and they only need 2 hand to generate the combo. Their OTK combo is far more easy compare with the other deck such as Inzektor, Mermail Atlantean, Hieratic and etc. As a result, they should be limit.

This time I do include a not yet released card in the speculation list. Divine Judgment of the Spellbook is a spell card that enable Prophecy player too have up to 6 hands every turn and it does not limit on adding itself to hand during the End phase. The most important part of it is as long as EITHER player successfully activate any spell card during this turn then they can add Spellbook from deck up to the number of spell card activated within the turn.

By playing Spellbook of the Master and mimic the effect of Divine Judgment of the Spellbook, Prophecy player can SS up to 3 monsters on the field during the End Phase(NS Fool of Prophecy then release Fool to SS Reaper of Prophecy, Reaper of Prophecy SS random lv5 or above Dark Spellcaster from deck, resolve Divine Judgment effect and SS Justice of Prophecy and banish to add High Priestess of Prophecy and any Spellbook. Then resolve Spellbook of Master effect and in the end you can have 3 monsters on the field). I bet Konami won't limit this card as if they do it then they have create new record for limiting a card before it was officially released.

Besides that, I wish to see Formula Synchron goes to 2 as synchro deck is hardly to be seen nowadays. Without the appearance of ultimate monster, Trishula on the stage, Formula Synchron may not effective enough compare with synchro era. Mezuki may be back to 2 as well as it can helps to gain back the speed of Undead deck. Undead deck is a nice deck that capable to do Xyz and synchro easily. However, they most afraid of DD deck and the biggest problem is Mezuki at 1 while Plaguaspreader Zombie at 1. As a result, we hardly to seen it on the stage.

Fire Fist is started gaining popular in OCG and it has rise till tier 1.5 as its build is simple and consider cheap(without playing expensive promo cards). Fire Fist gained advantage by having Fire Formation on the field and not easily to out of monster due to they have 3 copies of pseudo-ROTA. Fire Formation - Tenki is a pseudo-ROTA for beast-warrior and boost the ATK of beast-warrior. Although we can only activate it ONCE per turn, but it is a re-usable ROTA by combo-ing it with Mist Valley Falcon or Blackwing -Zephyros the Elite. You can found this build in YGO OCG News.

I think most of us have seen the powerful combo of Dragged Down into the Grave with Mind Crush. Although Dark World still in tier 1.5 but I believe Konami will create an environment whereby their army can be rise to tier 1. I can see the days where they are coming and most probably will be after this March. Although HERO players is dropping down due to incoming of Evilswarm, I still can see that it is powerful enough as Miracle Fusion will always do the job. With 3 Miracle Fusion straight in a row and have enough of monster, they can almost guarantee a win and it almost costless compare with Super Polymerisation.

Reborn Tengu is less appearing in major deck due to Xyz are more flexible and Tengu cannot trigger its effect if it was used as Xyz material. Compare with Tour Guide of Underworld, it is a bit difficult to play as you may hold 3 Tengu at a time while TGU allow you to SS another copies of itself even you have 2 copies of it in your hand. Thus I personally feel that Tengu may be back to 3 after this.

Before I ended up my post, I predict that the new tier 1 will be Spellbooks Prophecy, Fire Fist, Evilswarm, Constellar, Harpie Lady and Phantom Beast Plane. For those whose still thinking of what is the reason of reprint Naturia Beast as common, Konami hope us use it to against Spellbook Prophecy, Dark World, Harpie Lady and FTK deck. After effective of March 2013 ban list, I believe the whole environment will change back to backrow-oriented environment.

FYI, the real March 2013 ban list will be revealed within the period of next month 15th to 20th. Thus if there is any leaking ban list before these date then most probably it is a fake list. Okay, that's all I wanna share with you guys. Thanks for your time and wish you guys have a nice day. Please stay tuned for my next post.