Hey everyone, this is The_SynchroGuy, and I’m here to talk about the newest OCG banlist that just got revealed.This new list is very interesting. It is gonna affect the OCG meta in a way, but I will say that a lot of the top decks in the OCG metagame are still gonna be topping for months to come. Except, their metagame might have one less meta deck after this list. We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime though, let’s go over this list! Also, this list only affects the OCG, which is all of Asia. If you do not live in the OCG, then this list will not affect you in any way.
Remember: Forbidden = 0 copies; Limited = 1 copy; Semi-Limited = up to 2 copies; Unlimited/No Longer on the List = up to 3 copies.
Forbidden:
True King of All Calamities
And the OCG seems to have had enough of this guy. Calamities has been this big guy that could just keep you from activating any monster effects based on the Attribute it declares. And if you have any monsters on the field, they would become the declared Attribute, meaning they can’t activate their effects! In the past, he didn’t cause much trouble, but then Virtual World came into existence. And since they could summon any Synchro or Xyz Monster whose Level/Rank is 3, 6, 9, or 12, and Calamities is a Rank 9 monster, it was very obvious people would play this card with Virtual World.
And it’s because of this fact that Calamities got Limited on the last OCG banlist. But it seems that wasn’t enough. While Virtual World still managed to remain meta, it wasn’t exactly the best deck of the format. However, having to face Calamities so much, or fearing what might happen in the future if this guy sticks around, Konami believed it was time for Calamities to go on vacation. (Not to mention, a new deck recently popped up that combined the Destiny HERO engine with the new Brave Token engine to make a deck that could also result in Calamities. The timing couldn’t have been any more perfect I’d suppose.) Will his vacation be permanent? Who knows.
Mystic Mine
Oh, the TCG community is gonna be praying for this one. For a quick clarification, Mystic Mine got limited back in October of 2019. And it remained that way until now. Even though the card was limited, it still didn’t take away how powerful it was. Some decks were still using this card in order to help slow the game down. Like Sky Strikers, for one example. Heck, there was a time period in the OCG where every top deck was playing Mystic Mine.
I don’t know what Konami has planned for the coming future, but it seems that they don’t want Mystic Mine to be a part of that future any longer. Or maybe this is Konami’s way to knock Sky Strikers off the metagame permanently in order to make room for the new upcoming stuff. Who knows. All I know is that many TCG players would love for this change to happen on the next up TCG banlist.
Limited:
Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS – Sky Thunder
Okay, this is kind of interesting. If you don’t know, ZEUS here is such a board wipe card to have! If you make any, I mean ANY, Xyz Monster, you can go into this guy. That’s how easy it is to summon him. And the fact that his effect is not once per turn is so insane! So why is it that this guy went to 1 instead of being banned? (Especially since most decks don’t really need to play multiple copies of him.) Well, Konami works in mysterious ways.
For real though, there have been some decks in the metagame that have played multiple copies of ZEUS. And going through some of the OCG deck profiles for the past couple of weeks, I noticed that some of those decks were also playing cards like Pot of Prosperity and Pot of Extravagance. I think putting ZEUS to 1 is Konami’s way of making it harder for decks that play those cards to play ZEUS. Like, at the very least, if they play Extravagance. Because if you randomly banish ZEUS, then you are playing without ZEUS in this duel.
Now that doesn’t mean these decks are gonna be kicked out of the metagame, but this change does keep players from being able to summon more than one ZEUS in a single duel. However, ZEUS is a very powerful card that could see itself on the banned section someday.
PSY-Framegear Gamma
Man, Konami really wants people off this guy pronto. Gamma here has been used in a lot of top meta decks in order to not just stop their opponent’s monster effects, but also their hand traps. While cards like Effect Veiler and Infinite Impermanence do exist, those cards can only hit monster effects that activate on the field. But since Gamma can hit monster effects from anywhere, that makes it a good card to help make sure your first turn can go on with no interruption. And if it happens on your turn, you’ll have two extra bodies on board that you can use to summon out an extra monster.
However, Konami really seems to have had enough of this and wants people to drop Gamma immediately. Or at least keep Gamma from popping up more & more frequently. This hit will be very interesting to see in the near future. Because now Gamma is that much harder to draw into. In fact, now the odds of drawing into it or Driver (the card that’s needed in order to make Gamma work) are now the same. Will OCG players still play Gamma, or are the odds of drawing into it have dropped too low now? We’ll have to wait and see.
Semi-Limited:
Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
Man, this list keeps getting more and more interesting. Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon (REDMD) is this crazy good card that Special Summon any Dragon monster back from the GY. And in the past, its effect used to be a soft once per turn. That means, if you removed REDMD from the field and summoned it back, you could use its effect again! However, it’s because of that reason that REDMD had to get an errata for its effect. And it’s thanks to that errata that it was able to go back to 1.
Now though, it looks like Konami wants to test and see if this card will be okay at 2 copies. I mean, from the looks of its errata, it looks like it should be okay since not only can you only use its effect once per turn, but you can only Special Summon it through its own effect once per turn as well. However, given that OCG players can now play 2 copies, it gives Dragon players a better chance of getting this card in their hand, or making sure they still have one if something happens to the other copy. I don’t know how this is going to go, but if we start to see a rise of Dragon Link players, or any Dragon deck really, it’ll be interesting to see how that goes down.
Souleating Oviraptor
Dinosaurs haven’t been doing a whole lot in the OCG for quite some time now. And because of that, Konami thinks they can ease up on the restriction a little. Is this change gonna make Dinosaurs good again in the OCG? I don’t know. Probably not, but Dinosaur is still a very powerful deck. Especially since the OCG has Miscellaneousaurus at 3 copies. OCG players will try to see if there is something there for the metagame, but to you Dino fans out there, don’t hold your breath on it just yet.
Crossout Designator
Konami is really trying hard to find the balance with letting players go uninterrupted with their plays and making sure those players don’t have too crazy of a play. Crossout is this incredible card that can make it so your opponent’s hand traps don’t stop you. By declaring a card name and banishing a card with that name from your Deck, you can negate the effect(s) of that card for the rest of the turn. While not everyone you face is going to be playing the same deck as you, one thing players do share are stuff like hand traps, and generic cards that could help turn the duel into their favor.
So not only could players stop those cards, but since they are also playing those cards, they can use them to their advantage should they happen to draw into them. Basically, it’s a win-win situation. And if their opponent does turn out to be playing the same deck as them, then they could basically stop anything. Thanks to that kind of power, it has become a staple in many, many top decks. But now, Konami wants to put it in check. This won’t stop the card from seeing play, but it will keep players from drawing into it too often.
Pot of Desires
Oh, okay. Did not expect something like this to happen. Pot of Desires has been this insane draw 2 card for many years. While not as insane as Pot of Greed since you have to banish 10 cards from the top 10 cards of your deck, face-down, as cost, being able to draw 2 is still very good. I believe this hit is because of how a lot of the top decks have been playing this card at 3 copies. Pot of Desires will still be used, but now this card is on Konami’s radar. If they feel like getting rid of this card will put the brakes on a lot of the top meta decks, then they won’t hesitate to push the button.
Unlimited:
Danger! Nessie!
Nothing much to talk about here. This card was hit to keep a certain deck from getting too crazy with their search and draw power. But since they haven’t done a whole lot lately, Konami feels okay with letting this card come off the list. I don’t think anything crazy will happen because of this. If it didn’t happen when this card was at 2, then putting it to 3 probably won’t change that.
Mind Control
This card was put down to 2 back at the beginning of 2020, and since then, it hasn’t really done much. Not a lot of decks require Mind Control’s assistance at the moment, so because of that, Konami feels okay with letting this card come back to 3. But still, that doesn’t mean this card won’t become meta again. This card will probably be back on the list again at some point. But until then…
Pendulum Call
No surprise here. Pendulum decks haven’t been meta for many years, so they need a good amount of help if they want to become meta again. While having Pendulum Call coming off the list is nice, it won’t be enough. Pendulums need a lot more than that. Will we ever see Pendulum decks be meta again? I don’t know. Probably some day, but today is not that day.
Salamangreat Circle
Salamangreat players are probably very happy with this. Salamangreat hasn’t been meta since back in 2019. But after having this card remain semi-limited for almost 2 years, Konami decided to give them back this card at full power. However, Gazelle is still limited in the OCG, so probably don’t expect Salamangreat to start becoming meta again in the OCG any time soon.
Thoughts
Overall, this list has been very interesting. They hit a lot of cards they believed to be a problem in the future, and put others in check. Again, this isn’t gonna change the metagame too much. I’m still expecting decks like Swordsoul, Tri-Brigade, Drytron, and probably Virtual World to still be meta for the foreseeable future. But now some of them need to change up their decks a bit, as well as test out some stuff to see if anything still works or not. I can’t wait to see what OCG players are gonna come up with, or how things are going to be affected due to this new list. It’s gonna be very interesting to see.
Now let’s quickly talk about if we can expect any of these changes to happen on the next TCG banlist. As I said before, many players would enjoy Mystic Mine getting hit with the ban hammer. And while Mystic Mine hasn’t been doing a whole lot, we have had one player that’s been topping many events with a Final Countdown deck that plays Mystic Mine in order to help stall out the game long enough. I would not be so surprised if that card does get banned for that reason.
ZEUS is an interesting one. I know there are some players that also want this card’s head on the chopping block, and it could happen. I still recall the days where something that gets limited in the OCG gets banned in the TCG. I’m not saying this is guaranteeing that ZEUS is going to get banned in the TCG, but I’m also not denying the possibility that it could happen. I could see ZEUS also going down to 1 in the TCG, but I don’t think there have been a lot of decks that have been playing multiple copies of ZEUS. Could be wrong though.
Gamma did not get hit on the last TCG banlist, but we have had Called by the Grave go down to 1 for similar reasons that Gamma got hit in the OCG, so it’s not impossible for Gamma to also get hit in the TCG. If he does get hit, I don’t think he’ll be straight up banned. At the very least he might go down to 1. I don’t know for certain if Gamma will be hit here in the TCG, but the possibility exists right now, so for now, we wait and see.
Lastly, I want to talk about Desires. This card has always been good, but I never thought this card would get hit after all this time. But times have changed, so I need to broaden my horizon a little bit. Right now, I don’t see Desires getting hit on the next upcoming TCG banlist, but once Burst of Destiny comes out and we get Swordsoul, if that archetype does become meta, and they’re playing Desires, then maybe that card will get hit. But again, right now, I don’t think it’ll get hit. If it does though, then it’ll probably go down to 2.
Overall, I kind of like this list. It’s not the greatest, but it does make some interesting hits. And it does get you to think about some things. All I can say is I’m looking forward to seeing how the OCG metagame is going to look once this new list goes into effect. Again, I don’t think this will change the meta a whole lot, but it’s going to be fun to see how the OCG players build their decks from this point on.
Anyway, let me know in the comments what you think about this list! Do you love it? Hate it? Do you think this list did enough, or not enough? Are there any changes made here that you hope to see happen on the next TCG banlist? I would love to hear your thoughts!
I’ll see you guys in the next one! Hope you have/had an awesome day today! 
