It's all go in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! at the moment. Recently, Konami announced an update to the Official Card Game's (OCG) Limited/Forbidden list, as well as a brand new selection pack for Master Duel. Now, Master Duel is getting its very own update to its Limited/Forbidden list.
Coming into effect on April 10th, the legality of four cards is being changed in this coming Master Duel update.
Lifting of Some Restraints
In this update to the Master Duel Limited/Forbidden list, only one card is becoming unlimited. On April 10th, Purrelyly will be released back into the wilds after a rather weird stint on the semi-limited list.
This change is not exactly the most contentious decision that Konami has ever made. The fact that Purrelyly made it into the semi-limited list in the first place had many players scratching their heads.
Some players hypothesized that Konami was just giving the archetype a minor slap on the wrist. Even though the Purrely archetype was far from being the most competitive deck in Master Duel, it was -and comparatively still is- a consistent engine that people could use with enough mastery.
Purrelyly coming off the list doesn’t really change the state of Master Duel's metagame. It can function as an excellent extender for the Purrely engine once a quick-play spell hits the controlling player’s graveyard.
Being able to special summon one of the more powerful extra deck Purrely monsters like Epurrely Beauty or Epurrely Happiness off an easily obtainable board set-up just strengthens the deck’s overall consistency.
The Movement of the Shackles
It looks like Tenpai is taking another hit as Sangen Kaimen is being bumped down from two legal copies to one. This was probably a long time coming, considering that the archetype’s other consistency card, Sangen Summoning, is also limited.
While Sangen Kaimen’s search and/or special summoning capabilities aren’t as bitter as Summoning’s blanket protection during the controlling player’s main phase 1, it is still a very powerful tool, even at two copies.
There’s a reason why Reinforcement of the Army, a spell card that only does half of what Sangen Kaimen can potentially do, is still on the limited list even after all this time.
It’s Back
In a move that no one probably saw coming, Konami has decided to bring back Block Dragon to a single copy in Master Duel. This will mirror the OCG’s format where Block Dragon is already limited.
For anyone who likes the Adamancipator archetype, this might entice you to visit it again after April 10th.
Block Dragon is one of those older Yu-Gi-Oh! cards that, over time, became ripe for abuse in the right hands. If it wasn’t for the “once per turn” clause tacked onto to Block Dragon’s search effect, this card would probably never see the light of day again. Even with the “once per turn” clause, Block Dragon’s ability to continuously re-summon itself onto the field made it a terror to play against.
The aforementioned Adamancipator archetype had access to two tuners with two different levels (level 2 and level 4), allowing the controlling player access to any generic rank 10 or 12 synchro monster with Block Dragon as material. As if that wasn't good enough already, Block Dragon is incredibly difficult to remove.
So long as you have enough fuel in your graveyard or Rock monsters in your deck, Block Dragon can be continually replayed. This makes it an incredibly useful tool, however, it's not actually meta-breaking. Block Dragon is hardly a dominant force within the OCG metagame.
Hopefully, this card also won't be a problem once it's playable in Master Duel. Unless things get unexpectedly broken, this card should just be a silver bullet helping out Rock-focused decks.
Paving the Way
Last on this rather short list of changes is the full out banning of Beatrice, Lady of the Eternal. This finally completes the trifecta, as Beatrice has already been banned in both the OCG and the Trading Card Game (TCG).
Amidst the celebration of this card being forbidden, one has to wonder why it took Konami this long to reign in this behemoth in Master Duel.
A Foolish Burial on legs with ‘quick effect’ speed, Beatrice is a generic rank 6 nightmare in the arsenal of any deck that can get onto the board. It didn’t help that before this update, she was -and still is for the moment- at full power (max copies).
If a player could get more than one copy of Beatrice on the board, that could lead to a lot of shenanigans.
There are a lot of other Yu-Gi-Oh! cards that activate once in or sent to the graveyard, this could let Beatrice function as a proxy for other effects like negation or banishment -to name a few- depending on the context of her use.
Also, if Beatrice was being used in a Burning Abyss deck, she could float into a Burning Abyss monster from the extra deck if she was destroyed and sent to the graveyard.
Speaking of Burning Abyss, there is now a possibility that with Beatrice’s banning, we might see more Burning Abyss card support down the line. Without one of the main ways to cheat out their extra decks monsters -limited as they already are- Burning Abyss’ roster is just a little bit emptier. That said, this is just speculation on our part.
Now, with both the OCG and Master Duel getting their updates already announced, all eyes are on Konami as the community awaits the official update for the TCG limited/forbidden list.
Perhaps Konami might mirror the OCG and restrain the current reigning champions (Ryzeal and Maliss) of the competitive scene? We can only hope that we don't have to wait too long.