#but I was mostly focused on HOLY FUCK KAIJU
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im going fucking feral about noelle now. thought about echidna too long .augh!!!!! the arc was SO WELL SET UP holy shit it was SO cool. noelle was one of the few big plot points Not specifically elaborated on in an interlude a la Cauldron in Battery's interlude. not one single spoiler!!!!! it was teased in tiny tiny increments and that was so. fucking. good. CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE PART WHERE COIL AND DINAH HIDE IN THE BASEMENT???? CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS?
“Pet, the chance that Crawler kills us, now that we’ve undertaken this route?”
(...)
“Three point one percent,” Dinah gasped out.
“Reassuring,” Coil said. The vault door opened before them. “Trickster? Would you announce our imminent arrival to Noelle?”
“Yeah,” Trickster sighed. “Fuck. I hate to do this, but can I get a number?”
“Trickster!” Sundancer admonished him, sounding horrified, “You can see how much pain it’s causing her.”
“It’s important. Kid, what’s the chance that Noelle kills us?”
(...)
“Nine point eight percent,” she managed.
literally the BEST greatest ever hype buildup for a villain. that was SO chilling!! number 3 moment that made vibes go and infodump to her mother AND her irl friends, neither of which had read worm, because they were the only ppl who would listen.
sobbing. i thought that carol's interlude was a noelle interlude at first lmao with the opening focusing on 'dark and hunger', and then i was. lowkey disappointed. but also the lack of a noelle interlude as I said made her buildup More and Better drawn out.
and how the fight follows directly from coil's death!! so good!!! the way all the big villain arcs follow from one another like dominoes. SO FUCKING GOOD. i had so much Analysis in my head about how Wildbow maintains tension even with non-stop villain fights while I was reading, should write that out.
and then THE FIGHT JUST. STARTS. AND . ADN!!!!! !!! TRAVELLERS INTERLUDE ARC!!! holy. SHIT. holyshit. the SIMURGH. who has been teased as the worst horriblest endbringer for All Of Worm. and the tension of what echidna is doing while we're stuck in madison. draws out the buildup even further. critical hype levels. seeing her get renamed was iconic too but I have a Names Post in the works that dives deep into that.
h.oughh, , . her power is cool as shit but I've already written about that a lot. then the fight is solved with THE PORTALS?? ?that were set up from LITERALLY ARC TWO!!! talk about setup/payoff!!! !and then cauldron reveal kicks off the next arc. augh. also vista is there 👍
#echidna#noelle meinhardt#vibes goes rabid#I WAS SO HYPED FOR THE ECHIDNA FIGHT YOU HAVE NO IDEA. dying at school waiting to get home so i could read it#this rant is seven months overdue#i'm sure there was also great setup for weaver and khepri with how taylor coordinated with the heroes#but I was mostly focused on HOLY FUCK KAIJU#worm#worm spoilers
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Warm-Up Fun Post: Collective Banlist Re-Review
I need to put an original post on this blog and noticed I had only reviewed two out of five of my previous banlist analyses, so I’m making this post to comment on the remaining three for the first time and to re-review some cards which have seen a change in favor since then.
Let’s get started.
September 2017
Denglong, First of the Yang Zing
Denglong was usually the other part of True King of All Calamities, since you could change his level to 9 by dumping any of the True Kings into your Graveyard. He also led to a 1-card double Quasar negate combo off of one Souleating Oviraptor (or Fossil Dig, or basically any way to summon Oviraptor). I really doubt Yang Zings will be playable after this, but Yang Zing Dinos needed to get hit for sure and I guess this is one way to do it.
I knew nothing about Yang Zings when I wrote this post but the deck has been through hard times ever since. Yang Zing Zefra is alright though. Correct.
Daigusto Emeral
Wait, what the fuck?
…
Seriously? Gusto have a banned card now? Who thought they had it in them.
The Gusto archetype has never made much of a splash competetively, but they eventually got a generic Rank 4 (that they can barely use) in the form of Daigusto Emeral, which was a key part of the Zoodiac Fusion Substitute combo… which was totally wiped out last banlist. The deck still ran two copies for a while after, but eventually once Link Summoning came around, the space just wasn’t there. Few decks run it at all nowadays.
Which makes its appearance here all the more confusing. Seriously, Konami, what the fuck?
I didn’t make any prediction here, but in the interest of transparency, I’m gonna take every opportunity to decry my younger self for the knowledge he lacked. Daigusto Emeral was most likely banned for causing FTKs because it’s a generic Rank 4 that can revive Gaia Saber, the Lightning Shadow, which enables easy spam of multiple copies of Firewall Dragon. I didn’t know this at the time.
Miscellaneousaurus
A monster that gives Dinos protection during the Main Phase, recursion from grave, a free engine to summon a level 1 Tuner from deck, and an easy way to build up a huge Tyranno Infinity when needed. Miscellaneousaurus did all this and more. The OCG hit Oviraptor instead, so I’m surprised this got hit, but either one hurts the deck a lot (although I think Oviraptor is the stronger of the two).
Correct, it did hurt the deck. It eventually saw play again and Misc got unlimited a couple of years later. Oviraptor is the better card.
Dark Hole/Interrupted Kaiju Slumber
This is an interesting one. Slumber was obvious because it was another two copies of Dark Hole that synergized with the Kaijus that everyone would have run regardless, but Dark Hole at 2 has been a thing for a while. For what it’s worth, getting hit by this hurt a lot if your board consisted of the only Link Monsters your deck had the space for, but if that was that huge of a concern, they’d have hit Raigeki too. Hmm.
Slumber was probably a Kaiju Zoo hit since that was a popular variant. Destruction was infinitely better this format than it’s been in the nearly 3 years since. Both of these cards are now at 3 and see no play whatsoever.
BLS Envoy of the Beginning
It is weird to say that this card is now completely irrelevant, but here we are. BLS Envoy has been power crept. What a game. (It’s probably still fun to play around with, though.)
It eventually saw play in Burning Abyss until it later got cut. I’ll take the L and say this was mostly wrong.
Luster Pendulum, the Dracoslayer
Luster Pendulum was a free reoccurring +1 after a Pendulum Summon, but that hardly matters now that Extra Deck Pendulum Summons are restricted by the new format. He’ll probably still turn up in Pendulum decks, though; do not take this to mean that the card is bad now.
Luster sucked for a while and eventually saw play in some variants thanks to Guardragons Elpy and Agarpain. I didn’t understand the direction of Pendulum very well at the time since I had hardly played Pendulum decks. Maybe?
Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
I have literally only seen this card played in Mermails since its errata. It’s doing nothing at 1 and will do nothing at 2.
T.G. Hyper Librarian
Synchro spam is also more-or-less dead, so this is probably fine coming back as well. Level Eater is still creeping in the distance, however…
Brain Control
Same story as Brionac, has seen no play since its errata.
Correct on three counts. T.G. Hyper eventually got hit again but that required a then-unthinkable rule revision and I’m not counting that.
Preparation of Rites
Nekroz hype? That’s the deck that got this limited, and they’re almost playable now that nearly every other deck has been nerfed. We’ll see.
EDIT: This is for Vendreads, don’t know how I didn’t realize this immediately.
EDIT 2: Vendreads don’t use this card, what am I saying. This is for other decks.
Said a lotta wrong things here. Vendreads don’t use it and were also bad. Nekroz plays it but that deck sucked hard until they got more copies of Brionac. Gonna say wrong because “almost playable” is definitely incorrect.
Debris Dragon/Dragon Ravine
Remnants from the Dragon Rulers banlist. These haven’t seen play in a while at 2, probably won’t at 3.
I was so bad at this game, holy smokes. Debris has seen no play but Dragon Ravine is an outstanding card that has only gotten better with time. 1 wrong, 1 correct.
Rescue Cat/Witch of the Black Forest
More cards that have seen no play since their erratas.
This skirts by thanks to lack of a prediction, but Rescue Cat eventually saw play in Burning Abyss to make Dante/Cherubini/Naturia Beast.
Rescue Rabbit
Holy shit.
This card is still way too good.
I think this is supposed to tell us to go buy World Chalice, but this is the nuttiest way to go about doing that I could possibly imagine.
Konami, are you feeling alright?
Saw play in Dinos, World Chalice, and eventually Metalfoes, so I’ll say I was correct, but it did fall off hard.
Wavering Eyes
Hardly relevant, since Pendulum mirrors don’t happen much and decks aren’t so focused on popping their own scales. Back in the day, though, Konami made a huge mistake printing this as a common.
EDIT: I could not possibly have been more wrong. This card should not have been unhit, holy shit. Pendulum mirrors are actually everywhere since the deck’s only expensive card is Duelist Alliance and this card is too fucking good.
That’s pretty funny actually. The revision is wrong and the original post is correct, Wavering Eyes saw play for a week and fell off hard immediately after.
EXTRA: Cards That Did Not Get Hit, Somehow
I listed Master Peace, Dragonic Diagram, Maxx “C”, and Trickstar Reincarnation as the most problematic cards left in the format at that point. The OCG limited Reincarnation and the TCG has banned or limited the remaining three; Trickstar Lightstage is also limited here. These weren’t meant to be predictions but it’s interesting to see how many of them came true.
EDIT: Extra 2: Cards That Did Not Get Unhit, Somehow
I listed Ritual Beast Ulti-Cannahawk, El Shaddoll Construct, Evilswarm Exciton Knight, and Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz. The last one was meant to be a joke, but for some reason, Cannahawk is the only card here still on the banlist, and its position has not changed since 2015 or so. What a joke.
Current totals are 8-3-1 correct/wrong/maybe. Not doing math on this ‘cause I did a bad job anyways. Moving on.
October 2017
Blackwing - Gofu the Vague Shadow
Opinion on this card has been surprisingly divided. Opening Gofu is nuts, but every single one you draw after the first is useless unless you’re running Allure of Darkness, since you can’t even Summon it unless you control no monsters. As it turns out, there’s not really a second turn against good boards of Link monsters, so the advantage is just way too high. This card also breaks the Crystron link we’ll be getting in maybe three years, but there’s no doubt it would have been hit by then, so better sooner than later.
Gofu was way too good and got banned the following list. We got Crystron Halqifbrax about two and a half years after this prediction, too. Correct.
SPYRAL GEAR - Drone
SPYRAL Quik-Fix
These cards did not serve the same purpose, but they were limited for the same reason: they’re both valid targets for Machine Duplication, which led to insane plusses off of drawing it alongside either of these cards (or any card that searches them), and with a combined nine copies of SPYRAL Resort, you would usually open both, so really the Machine Duplication was the inconsistent part. Machine Duplication with Quik-Fix gets three searches, and Drone stacks the deck so there isn’t even any guessing involved with the Super Agent effects. Both combos can immediately make Double Helix with a monster left over. So why didn’t they hit Machine Duplication? In truth, it’s not actually that broken of a card for two main reasons.
1. These are basically the only relevant targets for the card, so hitting it would fuck over decks like Deskbots etc, which is totally undeserved (though this hasn’t stopped them in the past, see Emergency Teleport and ROTA.)
2. Ash negates it. People have been seriously playing Double Summon instead for exclusively this reason. I wish I was joking.
So that’s that. Quik-Fix was expected, but I didn’t see them hitting Drone. Good riddance though, the deck can search both of these cards just fine at one copy.
No other decks played Dupe until Cyber Dragon got new support. SPYRAL ended up being so strong after this it required a second banlist. Correct.
What will the next format look like? Probably just like the post-Zoo ban pre-CIBR format
Effectively Pendulum-Draco format, which came later. This was still wrong because SPYRAL was still tier 1.
2 correct, 1 wrong. I reviewed Februrary 2018 already, so let’s go over some stuff that deserves further comment.
Firewall Dragon
“But they won’t hit a main character card!!”
The leadup to MR4 had me exhausted seeing a new Firewall loop with every passing week. The only one that saw competitive success was Dino FTK, but it took no time at all for this to be highlighted as a problem card, and only six months or so for it to finally get hit. Good riddance. This card is unfair at any more than one copy per deck.
Okay, me, let me stop you at “this card is unfair.”
SPYRAL Resort
Much of SPYRAL’s consistency is dead outright, since their usual combos involved more than one copy of this, and dealing with it is immensely easier. Ogre can practically end their turn. Even if they open it, that means they can’t resolve Master Plan. Another elegant hit.
I’m not grading it differently because of this information, but “even if they open it, that means they can’t resolve Master Plan” turned out to be wrong because that combo route uses Knightmare Unicorn to spin your own field spell so you can search it off of Master Plan.
Artifact Moralltach
This card was not $7 a day ago, I swear. The hype is real.
Artifacts have strong potential for Side Deck play, and possibly in the main with Sanctum as accessible as it is, though that hasn’t been too successful since the days of Artifact Invoked Windwitch. Keep an eye on this for sure.
Artifacts did eventually see Side Deck play, in the form of a 4-card package of Sanctum and Scythe (and optionally Trap Trick to optimize copies). I was wrong about Moralltach, though.
Thunder King Rai-Oh
I heard about this banlist about an hour into playtesting against Thunder Stun because I had absolutely nothing better to do, and this analysis post was delayed for an entire day because my brain was so fried from the monotony of playing fucking Thunder Stun that I couldn’t actually think any more for the rest of the day.
This card is frustrating, but I guess it’s there to keep you honest. Droll on a 1900 body that can negate inherent Special Summons is absolutely nothing to sneeze at. Perhaps it could see Side Deck play in Pendulum strategies?
Rai-Oh never saw play in Pendulum, but Thunder Dragon rarely did, for the sole purpose of making Thunder Dragon Colossus, which similarly locks down searching.
Mind Control
Now THIS is actually an interesting prospect. This card has not seen an errata of any kind, and is arguably still playable going second. Taking control of monsters actually breaks Co-links and the card itself doesn’t prevent you from using your opponent’s monsters to summon from the Extra Deck, so this could actually be a strong counter to some strategies. Mind Control is definitely a card you should keep in mind.
I commented on this already and my predictions have come full circle. Mind Control was so good that it’s back at 1 now.
Bottomless Trap Hole
Another interesting unhit. Trap cards in general were thought to be powercrept, so Konami has been taking strides in releasing a number of the most powerful ones ever, such as this. Note: HAT did not have 3x Bottomless. Also note that HAT will not come back because of this and Moralltach, and that Bagooska is still pretty much a better card than Rafflesia.
I feel fairly confident in saying this card isn’t good enough to be played even at 3, but I feel as though there’s a small chance I could be proven wrong.
BTH saw no play until Traptrix got a Link Monster, and it’s their second best target; Floodgate is usually more destructive.
Onto May 2018.
Master Peace, the True Dracoslaying King
Yep, this is Luster Pendulum. He’s now Zoodiac Drident crossed with Apoqliphort Towers, and naturally he’s on the banlist again. Feel old yet?
To continue on that analogy, I fully expect this deck to go the way of Qliphorts and continue to see play as a stun variant. Note that nerfed Draco is still a better deck than Qliphorts, unfortunately.
Nerfed Draco remained a viable anti-meta deck until Diagram got banned.
Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
Compulsory Evacuation Device
Fairy Tail - Luna saw no play and Solemn Strike is still at 3. Who cares.
I only decided to re-review the reviews because of this and the next card. Grand Mole has seen no play, but Altergeist eventually started playing Compulsory and other Trap-based decks soon followed suit. It’s a pretty outstanding card.
Mathematician
This is still a solid card, honestly. I could see it seeing play again in decks that don’t need a Normal Summon, or if they finally unban Construct. I don’t think that deck’s in the game right now, but it could be soon.
So Mathematician saw no play whatsoever, but I still think it’s because the right deck doesn’t exist...
Orcust was that deck. Math was sometimes favored over Scrap Recycler thanks to There Can Be Only One (and the fact that Recycler was upwards of $20).
Finally, May 2018.
A - Assault Core
A - Assault Core is a threatening card because it can infinitely loop with itself and Firewall Dragon as long as you can get it off of the board. This can be by linking with it, or by tributing it (as with Cannon Soldier, which causes an FTK). Does that make it a problem card? Sort of. Let’s look at the harms.
ABC can Extra Link you pretty easily already, and Extra Link boards aren’t that impenetrable anymore with Goblin out of the game.
ABC is otherwise a fair deck and has limited competitive results outside of extremely talented and dedicated players.
The Cannon Soldier FTK isn’t consistent without Crystron Needlefiber, which hasn’t been released yet.
Firewall Dragon causes a million more problems than it deserves.
So did A - Assault Core deserve a hit to 1? No, absolutely not. I suppose it had to go so that Firewall could stay, but that card has really, really overstayed its unwelcome.
A got unlimited once Firewall got banned. There’s an implicit prediction here, I think. Correct.
Morphing Jar
Read this card’s effect and tell me that the first five characters don’t remove this card from competitive relevance. I’ll wait.
We have a control deck based around Flip Monsters and it sure isn’t Jar Control. Correct.
Evilswarm Exciton Knight
Going second doesn’t suck as much! This card is certainly going to see play, though there are fewer decks that can make it nowadays, I suppose.
Remember to read this card’s effect five times before you try and summon it–the restriction WILL catch you off guard.
Card saw play, yeah. Correct.
Card Destruction
An interesting sort-of mulligan card. Imagine Magical Mallet or Reload, except with applications beyond Exodia decks. It won’t make any decks by itself, as no unsearchable one-of (Left Arm offering does not work for obvious reasons.) ever should, but I fully expect this to see fringe play–Dangers, Burning Abyss, Phantom Knights, and Zombies are all decks that would absolutely not mind going -1 in order to dump their hand in grave and draw a new one, considering this puts a bunch of combo pieces where they’re most useful.
It is still at 1 and saw fringe play in basically those decks. Correct.
Sky Striker Mecha - Hornet Drones
This was the right hit, but it ends up with a really mixed outcome. Hitting Drones was right because it hits most decks that ran it as an engine and prevents the pure deck from easily making huge Link Monsters by chaining multiple copies to each other. Both of these things were pretty bad for the game. On the other hand, this also means Sky Striker Mobilize - Engage!, which presently commands an $80 price tag, is even more necessary of a card in the decks that do play it, which is also bad for the game. And isn’t that the card that goes +1? Hmm.
Engage got banned a year later due to its use as an engine in Orcust. Not a prediction so no points.
Super Polymerization
The number of decks that would want to play Super Polymerization is limited, and it’s mostly powerful going second in Fusion decks like Invoked or in the fringe decks that change types/attributes along the whole board–Lair and Zombie World (once that comes out) both come to mind.
Targets of interest include Starving Venom Fusion Dragon, Dragonecro Nethersoul Dragon, and Mudragon of the Swamp.
Super Polymerization saw fringe play until around Savage Strike, where it became an invaluable asset versus Danger Thunder, Orcust, and Salamangreat alike. It is now at 3 and remained a going-second blowout until Adamancipator came around. The three fusion targets I mentioned were the most common targets which had been printed at that time, and since then, R&D has made it a point to print a strong Super Polymerization target to counter decks that may be too strong going first (Violet Chimera, Predaplants, and the new Fossil Fusions, for example). Correct.
Kozmo Dark Destroyer
It’s been a minute since this deck was even known for scoring occasional tops. Dark Destroyer’s arguably been in a position to come off of the banlist for a long time. I expect nothing from this card or deck; it’s too inconsistent and doesn’t do enough unfair things to pose a serious threat (also Called by the Grave exists), but I guess we’ll see in time whether or not I’m right.
Johnny Nguyen topping regionals in Nowhere, Kansas once every couple of months with random bad decks does not prevent them from being bad decks. Correct.
Called By the Grave
Speaking of which, Called got put to 2. I’m still torn on whether this card is nasty I don’t think 2 is the right number for this card, though; time has shown that 2 isn’t the right number for any card.
Card got put to 3 in the following list. Correct.
Limiter Removal
Fundamentally, this is still a -1 that does nothing to affect board state and might as well actually do nothing if it doesn’t win you the game on the spot. It’s not a horrendous card, but theory doesn’t play with this very well and there’s not a good deck that would want to play it at the moment.
Saw no play. Correct.
Destiny Hero - Disk Commander
People are writing this off, and I can see where they’re coming from, but I’m not convinced that this is totally useless. Demise HEROes (If you’re shocked I said those two words in sequence, I’m amazed you read all of this and haven’t come to the conclusion that I’m a lost cause) is a variant that actually saw a non-negligible amount of success and I think this fits right in with that: opening with Vyon and Mask Change, you can safely send Disk Commander, set your hand, Demise for as much as possible, set whatever you can, discard whatever you can’t. Following turn, flip up Rivalry, Mask Change, and more negation, then in end phase, flip up Back to the Front to bring back Disk Commander to draw two.
Of course I’m presenting an ideal situation here, and it’s obviously creates a stronger board if you put monsters on it that aren’t Dark Law, but I don’t think such a gameplan is totally ridiculous, either. I don’t expect it to see success, but at the same time, I have the feeling it’s in part because nobody thinks that it could.
Though I did have to jump through a bunch of hoops to come up with some reason to not send Malicious instead. I think that’s Malicious’ problem, though.
It saw no success and this suggestion is the pipe dream of a madman.
Burial from a Different Dimension
Zombies go off with this card and brick with it at 3. It wasn’t too strong to be at 3, but I don’t expect it to see play at 3 copies per deck anyways. It also has potential as an extremely niche side-deck card, but I don’t think any deck that this disrupts is shaking in their shoes at this in particular, if such a deck even exists right now.
“any deck that this disrupts” is implicitly supposed to be ABC, if that’s not clear. Burial hasn’t seen that much play, and none at 3 copies, but I don’t know how to judge this for accuracy.
7 correct, none incorrect for May 2018.
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