Ban list updates are a big deal for any trading card game. Despite the best efforts of testers to balance their respective games, there’s bound to be something that slips through the cracks. When that happens, the only real way left to get the card under control is the nuclear option: ban it.
As much as bans are a useful tool, they can cause problems. An unexpected ban can render an entire deck useless. Thanks to secondary market values of trading cards being more ridiculous than ever, players can lose a lot of money if a ban affects their collection in a negative way.
This has caused some TCGs to become very transparent with when their bans take place. This assures players that their strategy of choice will not become unplayable before an event that they may prepare for. Overall, this transparency and communication regarding ban announcements is a great thing for the community. …And then, there’s Yu-Gi-Oh!
Ban Announcement Discovered in Description Box
Yu-Gi-Oh! Twitter Personality Farfa posted a screenshot on Twitter revealing the next Yu-Gi-Oh ban announcement. Scheduled for Saturday, August 31, one of the biggest routine announcements for an entire TCG community is just a few days away.
This information was found in the description box of a YouTube livestream for an official Yu-Gi-Oh! Channel. The Livestream focuses on the Shadow Duelist event. Needless to say, the lack of communication regarding such an impactful announcement is disturbing.
That said, the ban announcement was mentioned during this livestream. According to commenters, this information was in the YouTube description for the video before the stream actually went live. So, while this is a rather funny way of discovering a massive ban announcement.
Disregarding how players learned about a massive ban announcement, it’s happening surprisingly soon. Compared to other card games, namely Magic: The Gathering, there is an extreme lack of transparency. Other card games know about bans months ahead of time so players can make the proper preparations. A few days is not enough time to properly do this.
All that said, a ban announcement is better than a lack of one. Yu-Gi-Oh has a bit of a Snake-Eye problem at the moment, only made worse by the recent introduction of Fiendsmith Engraver. Otherwise, Tenpai Dragons continue to run rampant. Hopefully, these bans will help open up the metagame to more than just a few viable strategies.