Konami hit the big, red “BAN IT ALL” button with its most recent banlist for the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, blasting Tearlamanets off the face of the meta by banning or limiting every core piece of what many players view as the game’s most powerful deck.
The new banlist will go into effect on Feb. 13, meaning many competitors planning to attend upcoming Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series (YCS) events like the Last Vegas Team YCS from Feb. 18 to 19 or March’s YCS Lima will need to completely pivot their strategies.
If you need a basic overview, all of the following cards were moved to either the Forbidden or Limited section of the official Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG banlist. This means no copies or a maximum of a single copy can be used in any deck list at a given time, while many of the most prominent Tear decks used two or more of each—outside of Tearlaments Kitkallos, though that is now banned anyways.
Banned
- Tearlaments Kitkallos
- Spright Elf
Limited
- Agido the Ancient Sentinel
- Kelbek the Ancient Vanguard
- Keldo the Sacred Protector
- Mudora the Sword Oracle
- Tearlaments Havnis
- Tearlaments Merli
- Tearlaments Scheiren
Now this likely won’t completely kill Tear, as the deck is versatile and can fit into a number of different molds. However, the Ishizu Tear variant that has been rampant since last November will no longer be an issue—at least at the level it had been in the OCG when just the additional Team monsters were Limited and the Ishizu core was left untouched.
In other areas, Artifact Scythe got banned at a time when its usage has dropped out of the meta almost entirely, Barrier Statue of the Stormwinds getting hit will make Floowandereeze a little more bearable, and Ancient Fairy Dragon is about to make a return after years of being locked away.
On that last point, AFD was already poised to exit the Forbidden list since it is getting a reprint and errata in an upcoming set. Much like Firewall Dragon last year, AFD will be a late move on this banlist effective March 10 once the new printing is available for players to grab.
We won’t know how big of a shift this ban list will cause outside of the decimation of Tear until it goes into effect. However, Spright seems poised to jump back on top early, Floowandereeze didn’t get hampered by much, and with something like Destrudo The Lost Dragon’s Frisson back on the table, Bystial Dragon Link could get a bump.
