February 2023 TCG Banlist Thoughts

Hey, everyone, this is The_SynchroGuy, here to talk about the new February TCG banlist that was recently announced. Let me just say, wow! Wow! Konami brought the ban hammer down! And with a little over a week before the Team YCS Las Vegas starts. It’s going to be really interesting to see how this event is going to go down.

Now while I could go over the whole list, there’s not really much to talk about besides how it’s going to affect the current meta. If you want to see the whole list, you can click here.

Before we start, let me remind you that this list only affects the TCG area, which is everywhere but Asia. If you do not live in the TCG area, then this list will not affect you in any way.

Tearlaments

Let’s start off by addressing the elephant in the room. Ishizu Tearlaments got wrecked on this new list! All of the Ishizu monsters and all of the main deck Tearlaments monsters, besides Reinoheart and the new Tearlaments Kashtira, got limited, and Tearlaments Kitkallos received the ban treatment.

Right away, this is much different from how the OCG treated them on their banlist. And let me tell you, Tearlaments are still doing well in the OCG under that new list. But here in the TCG now, that may not be the case.

Now do not get me wrong. Tearlaments is still a good deck. While, yes, they did lose Kitkallos, which was their main way to summon out Rukallos, they can still summon out Rukallos thanks to King of the Swamp, along with any other certain Fusion Monsters. No particular ones though… Well maybe except for the new Dark World Fusion.

They can even retreat back to the little Shaddoll strategy they used in the early days and summon out El Shaddoll Winda. So yeah, the deck still has plenty of Fusion strategies that they can use.

While all of their monsters that Fusion Summon did get limited, the deck still has plenty of ways to get access to them and trigger their effects. Such as Reinoheart, Perlereino, and just about any other Tearlaments card, along with the Ishizu monsters, despite being limited now.

And as I mentioned before, they also have a new support card in the form of Tearlaments Kashtira. On that note, Tearlaments could start working together with the Kashtira archetype in order to help increase their chances (more on that later). We have seen this happen over in the OCG, so there can still be a chance for that to happen here in the TCG as well.

Overall though, I still think Tearlaments is a good deck. Players are just gonna need to rework their strategies with it. Will it still be one of the best decks in the game right now though, that’s the big million dollar question right now.

Spright

While Spright did not get hit heavily on this list, the banning of Spright Elf is going to cause a big impact to the metagame, not just to Sprights in general.

Spright Elf has been used a lot in many different meta decks. Simply because of how generic its summoning requirement is, and how many different decks have Level 2 monsters they would love to bring back. Tearlaments being one of them.

Now that it has become a reality, this is going to really change up how some decks play out their combos. Especially Sprights themselves. To them, Elf was part of their big overall strategies, but now they need to look for a different way to play their cards.

I honestly don’t know how it’s going to look for them moving forward. Again, that Elf ban is huge for them. But still, the deck still has some good plays and different deck builds they can go with, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Floowandereeze

Another deck that didn’t get hit directly, but the loss of Barrier Statue of the Stormwinds definitely hurt this deck. To be fair though, we saw this coming.

After this card was banned in both the OCG and Master Duel, we figured it was only a matter of time until it happened here in the TCG. And if Konami was going to ban this card, it was when they decided it was time to fully hit Tearlaments.

They kept the Barrier Statue untouched so that Tearlaments had someone to contest with. But it’s the dawn of a new era, so it’s time to go out with the old and in with the new.

Floowandereeze is still a good deck, and they can still use some strong floodgate cards like Dimensional Fissure and Necrovalley, so they’re not entirely dead. In terms of meta relevancy though, that remains to be seen.

I think Floowandereeze players are going to try their best and see if there’s something there for them to do. But with the way things are looking, this archetype may get bumped down to tier 2 or 3 status. We’ll see what happens.

Artifact Scythe

Scythe has been a long time coming. While it has not done anything as of late, this is still something that players have been asking to get banned for years.

Scythe is notorious not just for its effect, but for how players were able to find many ways to constantly trigger his effect whenever they go first. Along with a board full of disruption to deal with whatever possible stuff the opponent may have.

Again, while Scythe has not done anything lately, he has been known to disappear and then reappear later on down the line. And it looks like Konami does not want to see that happening again for a while.

How long Scythe will be banned for remains to be unknown. Many players though, in the meantime, are going to take solace in the fact that they don’t have to worry about this card anymore. At least for the time being.

Kashtira

While Kashtira did not get hit on this list, considering how they just got a whole bunch of support, I feel that it’s still important to talk about them here. Especially because they just got new support!

In the OCG, Kashtira proved themselves to be a meta contender with all of their support. The only deck they couldn’t fully overwhelm over there was full power Tearlaments.

But now that Tearlaments got hit here in the TCG, it just made a clear path for Kashtira to try and become the new best deck in the game. With one guy being a Macro Cosmos on legs, and one guy that can lock out the opponent’s zones, this deck has a good chance at taking that number 1 spot.

Now this does not guarantee the archetype will get the number 1 spot. There are still some other strong decks out there to stand in its way, so if it wants that spot, it will have to earn it. And again, they could team up with Tearlaments to keep things spicy for all the other decks.

Final Thoughts

Many of us knew something like this was going to come at some point, but probably not this soon..

Ishizu Tearlaments got hit hard. The loss of Spright Elf hurts some decks, but not as much as Sprights themselves. Floowandereeze is probably going down to rouge contender unless it can come up with something new. And Kashtira is looking really good right now.One cool card to see back in the game is Ancient Fairy Dragon, but it will most likely have its new errata when it becomes playable on March 10th, which is when the Maze of Memories set gets released so expect this card to be reprinted in that set.

One other thing I forgot to mention was how big the hits to the Ishizu monsters were. Most notably the ones that shuffle multiple cards from the GY as a Quick-Effect (those cards being Keldo and Mudora).

Having multiple copies of cards that can do that almost every single turn is very powerful in today’s game. They can help you keep yourself from running out of cards in your deck, and mess with the opponent’s strategies that revolve around the GY.

While Tearlaments will still be fine, other decks that have also been using these cards, such as Naturia, might suffer quite a bit.

Overall, this is going to be an interesting new format. A lot of rouge decks are definitely gonna try to place themselves on top of the meta ladder now that Konami has opened a path for them.

I still think Tearlaments is going to be a good deck as we move forward. But other decks such as Branded, Runick, and Labyrinth might be some good decks to pick-up at the moment. Especially if we know that it will be getting more support later on.

Without a doubt though, Kashtira is probably going to be the deck to beat, so everyone is going to be focusing on this deck, at least for the first few weeks until we get some tournament reports that either confirms or denies Kashtiras their spot.

On that note, Team YCS Mexico is going to be very interesting to see since it starts just before the new banlist goes into effect, but just in time for the cards in Photon Hypernova to be legal. Meaning, this is going to be the only event where we will see full power Ishizu Tearlaments duke it out with full power Kashtira.

Overall, I feel that this list is going to bring some very interesting changes to the game since we have no idea how this is going to look moving forward. I’m super excited to see what players are going to come up with.

Anyway, let me know what your thoughts are about this new list in the comments section!