Yu-Gi-Oh! September 2023 TCG Banlist Discussion

Hey everyone, this is The_SynchroGuy, and I’m here to talk about the brand new TCG banlist that just got revealed. This list didn’t bring in a whole lot of changes. If anything, it just means one of the previous top decks just goes down the meta ladder.

Regardless though, let’s take a look to see what the TCG metagame is gonna be looking like for the next couple of months. As well as what we can potentially expect moving forward.

Keep in mind: this list will only affect the TCG, which is everywhere but Asia. If you don’t live in the TCG, then this list will not affect you in any way.

Remember: Banned = 0 copies; Limited = 1 copy; Semi-Limited = up to 2 copies; Unlimited/No Longer On List = up to 3 copies.

Forbidden:

Kashtira Arise-Heart

And with this, Kashtira’s Tier 1 days are officially coming to an end. Arise-Heart being a walking Macro Cosmos on legs was already good enough, but throw in the ability to suck up a banished card whenever anything gets banished, and being able to banish anything face-down as a Quick-Effect, and you’ve got yourself quite the boss monster. Players have also found ways to ensure Arise-Heart would be hard to get rid of to keep the deck in its Tier 1 status. But now, that strategy is out the window.

Don’t get the wrong idea. Kashitra is still a formidable deck. A card like Fenrir is still really good (and still at 3, mind you). And they still have Shangri-Ira, which over time can zone-lock you if you’re not too careful. If anything, the deck will probably just focus on that or something. Not to mention they can easily summon just about any other Rank 7 monster that exists since they can easily put Level 7s on board. And they can still use powerful hand traps like Dimension Shifter and Ash Blossom (which gives the deck access to Baronne de Fleur).

While Kashtira will not be Tier 1 anymore, I still suspect they’ll be hanging around in the tier 3 slot, at the very least. Kashtira will probably still be popping up for a while.

Limited:

Bystial Magnamhut

It was only a matter of time. Magnamhut had this coming. Being able to search and add, or recover, any Dragon monster is really good. While it may only happen during the End Phase, you can still search out say another Bystial monster, or a follow up for next turn. All in all, it helped a deck like Dragon Link stay pretty consistent. And the fact Magnamhut is a 2500 ATK body on board can help bring in some big damage.

While this hit has been coming for a while, this is probably because of how Dragon Link won the World Championship back in August. I don’t suspect this will hurt Dragon Link too much though as they can still search out the now one Magnamhut with ease. As well as being able to summon it back during the opponent’s turn to get another search. So yeah, you should probably still expect to see Dragon Link moving forward.

Chaos Space

Yet another hit to the Dragon Link deck. Chaos Space brought in some great consistency for the deck as they could search out cards like: White Dragon Wyverburster, Black Dragon Collapserpent, Chaos Dragon Levianeer, and The Bystial Lubellion. And it can recycle back one of these cards, or an Extra Deck monster even, to give you a free draw.

And again, with the fact that Dragon Link took Worlds this year, a hit was probably expected. As I said before, I don’t suspect Dragon Link to be entirely done being in the meta spotlight yet. The deck is still consistent with what it still has, and will always be on the lookout for any other Light & Dark support. Overall, Dragon Link is still going to be with meta for a while longer.

Unlimited:

Herald of Orange Light

Not much to say about this other than that it probably won’t affect the metagame that much. This card was originally hit due to Drytron, but they also played Eva in order to get access to multiples of this card. But since Eva is still banned, Orange Light won’t be that much of a threat. It may pop up here and there in some Fairy decks, but again, with Eva still banned, it won’t be as threatening.

Salamangreat Gazelle

The time has finally come. We saw this change first happen on Master Duel and suspected we might get this change at some point as well, and now’s the time. And this is especially good since the archetype received a good wave of support last month.

However, this does not mean Salamangreat is going to be Tier 1 again. While the deck has a good mid-range style of play, and can truly play the long game, there’s a whole bunch of other decks that can put out more power than this deck. Salamangreat is still worthy of respect, but it will probably just hang around the rouge or Tier 3 slots.

But hey, cool to see Gazelle finally come off the list.

TCG Metagame Potential Future

So far, it’s looking like the metagame is still going to be the same, for a while. The only big change that’s been made is Kashtira getting knocked off of tier 1 status. Dragon Link got hit as well, but it’ll still be holding strong. Not to mention, there’s plenty of other strong decks we currently have that did not receive any hits.

Purrely is still very strong with cards like Sleepy Memory to draw into a bunch of hand traps and/or stay consistent, and Expurrely Noir to keep shuffling back the opponent’s cards.

Labrynth also received no hits. Granted, the deck hasn’t done much lately, but they still have access to the virus cards. Especially Eradicator Epidemic Virus, which made a big splash at a couple of YCSs earlier this year.

Then there’s stuff like Branded Chimera and Unchained that started to garner a lot of media attention, but given how one is still brand new and the other just started to pop up very recently, it was unlikely for these decks to get hit.

Everything else, Rescue-ACE, Mannadium, Rikka Sunavalon, etc., haven’t garner too much attention that warranted a hit.Same could be said for any individual cards. Except for a few. One of them was, of course, Eradicator Epidemic Virus. But the other one was something players wanted to be gone before it could cause potential problems, and that’s Hot Red Dragon Archfiend King Calamity.

While this card did make a tiny splash in the metagame a while back, it started to garner more attention once we received new cards/archetypes that could summon out high level Synchro Monsters. And the one everyone has their eyes out is Centurion. This archetype can easily summon Level 12 Synchro Monsters. While Calamity isn’t easy to summon normally, we do now have a card like Crimson Dragon, which can help cheat it out, properly.

Now granted, Calamity’s effect is a “When” optional effect, so it can miss timing. So there’s a chance it may not be the end all be all. And it only stops things activating on the field, not the hand or GY, so there are some workarounds. Even so though, that doesn’t take away how powerful of an effect this is, and not every deck may be able to workaround this restriction.

However, this archetype won’t be making any appearances until mid-November, so there’s time to prepare. The thing to keep an eye on is the Age of Overload set. This set is going to release some powerful new cards. It’ll be introducing two new engines to the game.

The Horus engine, which can put out a bunch of Level 8s for some big Xyz plays like Coach King Giantrainer (get one now while you can!), Hope Harbinger, Galaxy-Eyes Photon Lord and any other good Rank 8s you can think of. Plus, they can threaten for lethal your next turn if your opponent doesn’t remove King’s Sarcophagus.

The other big engine is the Sinful Spoils engine, which can spit out any Level 1 FIRE monster onto the field. This engine is not just good for FIRE based decks like Rescue-ACE, but can also get you access to some special monsters like Jet Synchron for Synchro plays. If you have a deck that plays a monster that fits the Level 1 FIRE slot, then this engine will be something you’ll want.

Other than these two things, Age of Overload releases some other good generic stuff like, probably the highlight from the set, S:P Little Night, and some support for decks like Vanquish Soul and Pendulum Magician, so definitely keep an eye out on these two decks.

Final Thoughts

While this banlist didn’t bring in a lot of changes, it did kick off the “best deck” of the format, so now we wait and see which deck(s) will take that Tier 1 crown. And while we do have some time, Age of Overload and Valiant Smashers (the set that has Centurion) will definitely be shaking up the metagame once they’re released. How it’s all going to go down is anybody’s guess.

So overall, not the greatest banlist, but it does mean we have one less deck to worry about. For right now, be sure to study up, fellow duelists, ‘cause if you don’t know how to deal with these new upcoming cards, you’re in for a rough time.