It was only a matter of time before Konami changed up the current environment within Yu-Gi-Oh! A new round of updates has just been announced for the Official Card Game (OCG) Forbidden List. While these changes won't affect the Trading Card Game (TCG), players can nonetheless glean potentially useful information about any future shake-ups in store.
The (Somewhat) Inconsequential
Effective April 1st; the new Forbidden List changes affect sixteen different cards. For better or worse, not all of these changes are hugely exciting, however, they are necessary, as always. In this update, seven cards are Newly Unlimited, two are Semi Limited, five are Newly Limited, and two are Newly Forbidden.
As usual, the Newly Unlimited cards are, for the most part, the least interesting out of the bunch. This Forbidden List update has finally released older cards like Snatch Steal or Morphing Jar from the grips of the shadow realm. Sadly, with how modern Yu-Gi-Oh! plays, even the most innovative deck builders would have difficulty piloting these cards today.
While younger cards like Zoodiac Barrage or Master Peace, the True Dracoslaying King can stretch their muscles once again, there’s still the fact that Zoodiac’s other major players like Broadbull and Drident are still stuck in limbo. As you might expect, this limits Barrage’s effectiveness.
Master Peace, on the other hand, may end up posing an issue to some. That said, since a lot of its old staple support cards like Skill Drain, Rivalry of the Warlords, and Anti-spell Fragrance, are still limited to a single copy, Master Peace is more than likely way past its prime.
There’s also the issue that Master Peace is a boss monster that sits at a confusing 2,950 attack power. This means that most boss monsters can walk all over it because the usual standard for most players is at 3,000 attack power.
Despite sounding exciting, the two Newly Forbidden cards also aren't that groundbreaking. Once again, we can see that the OCG is moving away from cards that were originally designed to stop players from playing the game. While they weren't always Forbidden List worthy, the flow of the OCG has evolved to the point where they need to go.
With more emphasis on special summoning, gone were the days of a player setting two cards and then passing the turn. Both Artifact Scythe and Summon Limit heavily restrict players from making those extreme chain-heavy turns of activating card after card after card.
Even if it can be irksome for an opponent to take a 10-minute turn, that's just what Yu-Gi-Oh! is nowadays. Limiting these gameplay patterns for the sake of nostalgia isn't the right call. Hopefully, these additions to the Forbidden List should help promote the game's overall health.
The Meat and Potatoes
Dormouse
Within Konami's latest update to the Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG Forbidden List, the Newly Limited cards are undoubtedly the most exciting. this is because both Sword Ryzeal and Maliss
Dormouse have been cut down to just a single copy.
These two archetypes have been dominating the competitive scene in both OCG and TCG. Despite Ext Ryzeal -another key component in the archetype- also being limited to one in the OCG, Ryzeal has still been hugely powerful in recent events and tournaments.
As for Dormouse, it’s not that hard to see why it got the axe as there’s just too much advantage to be had. The Maliss in-house engine can easily get Dormouse into the banish zone on turn 1 to let it special summon itself. From there, Dormouse can essentially special summon any Maliss monster from the main deck via banishing the target. All Maliss monsters share the same trait of special summoning themselves from the banish zone. So this 1 card sequence extender was just too much and had to go.
As if two major changes weren't enough, Seventh Tachyon is also a new addition to the Newly Limited list. This consistency tool is not only exploited by Maliss and Ryzeal but also by any archetype that can make use of Seventh Tachyon’s ROTA-esque (Reinforcement of the Army) search function.
It’s easy to see this as Konami trying to take a stand against problematic power creep and the suffocating consistency of these cards. That said, it’s more than likely that Konami is spearheading an opening for the upcoming Justice Hunters expansion and giving players a reason to use the new archetypes therein.
A possible future
Currently, the Newly Limited cards in the OCG like Sword Ryzeal, Maliss
Dormouse, and Seventh Tachyon are still at maximum copies in the TCG. Looking ahead, however, there is an expectation that the TCG Forbidden List will follow the shoes of its sister format in the OCG, even if to a lesser extent.
For better or worse, it's entirely unconfirmed whether or not this will happen at the moment. It’s possible that the TCG Forbidden List just veers off in an opposite direction if Konami so chooses.
Assuming that the former is to happen and we do see the eventual shackling of current competitive leading archetypes and staples, then undoubtedly there’ll be a shift in the second-hand market. As current favorites lose their value and the board is reshuffled, a lot of money could be made.
Ultimately, we're just going to have to wait and see what happens with the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Forbidden List. For now, the above changes will come into effect on April 1st, 2025, to the OCG only. Hopefully, these changes will be well-received by players and improve the game overall. Whether or not that will happen, however, remains to be seen.