Where is Mystic Mine?

Ok, finally the forbidden and limited list for the TCG format that so many have been waiting for has been released.

Not all the changes of the banlist will be analyzed but I will simply focus on the changes in my opinion that will have a greater impact on the meta and on all those changes worthy of attention.

Around this list there were many expectations and above all anyone who hypothesized the ban of "Mystic Mine", a card that was present in practically every deck of the last Yugioh European Championship.

Everyone is asking why it isn't banned

But this did not happen.

Over the years, Konami has taught us that those cards are banned or limited as they become more and more present in each deck.

Like when Maxx "C" was limited. At that time every deck in the tournaments contained countless copies of it precisely because the meta began to be full of special summons already in the first turn and it was necessary to put a stop or in any case a deterrent to the opponent if he is playing first.

Mystic Mine, just like Maxx "C" is present in every deck and its function is precisely that of a brake and deterrent to the opponent's game that in one turn can implement very long combos that put on the ground a myriad of monsters and cards that they deny and nullify almost every move of the player who has the misfortune to play second.

Let's imagine such a situation: our opponent plays an "ABC - Dragon Buster" deck (does anyone still play it?) That in the first turn is capable of summoning at least one copy of "ABC - Dragon Buster", a "Cyber ​​Dragon Infinity", "Knightmare Unicorn" (and Knightmare Phoenix was summoned before the latter) and on the next turn can add "Mekk-Knight Crusader Avramax" or "Apoullusa Bow of the Goddess".

Facing these two monsters is really really hard

Negate, negate, negate.

These decks can have infinite turns where the poor opponent is likely to stand by and watch his imminent demise for several minutes.

Ok, the Dragon Buster example is a bit anachronistic just because the hand traps that take care of stopping certain decks have been released, but in my opinion, the problem is another.

In the current state of things, if we want to build a vaguely competitive deck we don't have to choose the archetype or the strategy of deck; meanwhile, we have to fill the deck of Hand Traps, Flood Gates, Going Second cards, Super Polymerization and much more. Thus we end up having half a deck already established by the current meta and the other can be filled with our ideas.

This has been the problem of the meta for some years now.

The space to create a deck is a few cards because the rest of the deck must "necessarily" be filled by the cards that give us a hope of being competitive.

The side deck, which was used in these cases, is superfluous in certain contexts because the cards it should contain are now all inserted in the main deck.

As I said before, we found Mystic Mine in every deck of the European tournament, precisely because its function consists in blocking the activation of the effects of the opponent's monsters and its attacks when the opponent has more monsters than us on the field.

The ban or limitation of the mine has not arrived and therefore we are in a situation, from this point of view, unchanged.

The decks that "swarm" monsters on the field have suffered a bad blow, however, as one of the pivot cards of certain strategies has been banned.

We are talking about "Crystron Halqifibrax".

Every "combo-deck" used it

During the last banlist he was hit, so some kind of "warning" was given.

This link card, which can only be summoned with 2 monsters including a tuner, allows you to summon another tuner from your deck or hand, triggering the possibility of using that tuner for a further link summoning or for a synchro summoning.

Halqifibrax is one of the strongest links ever created by Konami and has been causing problems since its release (and has allowed me to create my own "Shootin Quasar Dragon" deck which I will now have to try to fix).

Virtually every deck started its own long combo with Fibrax and then ended up, as mentioned before, to have an infinite number of cards on the field that negate the opponent's effects.

We can say that this ban tries to limit a bit the strategies based on "swarming"

Another banned card is Fairy Tail - Snow, which is seen everywhere. It is very strong and was off the forbidden and limited list for a few months.

Goodbye

"Ronintoadin" is a hit that is dealt to the current Tier 1 deck (along with Tearlaments), Spright.

The Spright deck bases much of its strength on the summoning of "Toadally Awesome" which negates up to 2 cards per turn, and Ronin Toadin was just one of the useful cards to summon that monster.

Furthermore, Ronin Toadin, which came out many years ago, was the card that allowed the creation of the "Frog FTK" deck that won the 2010 World Championship.

Two staple cards of the Spright deck

Chaos Ruler, the Chaotic Magical Dragon is another ban that I personally expected and that balances the scores with Spright.

In fact, this dragon was an integral part of the other Tier 1 deck, Tearlaments, which based one of its strategies on Chaos Ruler who managed to send the deck's cards to the graveyard. The Tearlaments deck consists of summoning their very strong fusions through the effects of the cards that are sent to the graveyard (mainly from the top of the deck) and now has one less strategy to implement in their game.

It seems a Dark Souls Boss

Blackwing - Steam of the Cloak has been limited to one in anticipation of the upcoming release of new supports for the Blackwing deck.

And then we find "Cyber ​​Jar".

This card takes me back in time and I don't even remember why it was banned and especially why it wasn't released much earlier since it's a monster with Flip-Effect. The "flip monsters" in the meta for about 10 years now are not found in any deck.

Come on Konami, give us a "Flip-Meta"!

Mecha Phantom Beast O-Lion was released at 1 precisely as a result of the Fibrax ban. This is also a very strong card that allows the initiation of multiple special summons.

And again as a result of the ban of "Verte Anaconda" in the last forbidden and limited list, we have the release of "Fusion Destiny" in 3 copies which is a great boost for the Hero decks that can count on the help of "Destiny Hero - Destroyer Phoenix Enforcer"

Two core cards of the Hero Deck