Banned:
Sangan
Wind-Up Zenmaity
Limited:
Wind-Up Magician
One Day of Peace
Solemn Warning
Semi-Limited:
Tsukuyomi
Thunder King Rai-Oh
Advanced Ritual Art
Unlimited:
Spore
Blackwing – Kalut the Moon Shadow
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
Shien’s Smoke Signal
Mind Crush
Banned:
Sangan
Seems like a decision to curb the usage of Tour Guide of the Underworld. With Sangan banned, players will have to resort to playing other Level 3 Fiend types like Night Assailant. The only deck that might still play Tour Guide of the Underworld would be Dark Worlds to bring out Broww.
Also, when Maxx “C” is chained to the effect of Tour Guide of the Underworld, the player can’t special summon Sangan to try and minimise the loss.
Wind-Up Zenmaity
The first XYZ monster to be Forbidden in the history of Yu-Gi-Oh. In my opinion, Limiting Wind-Up Magician was more than enough, banning Wind-Up Zenmaity is a little too much.
Limited:
Wind-Up Magician
Pretty much an expected hit, Wind-Ups while not really that dominant in the OCG scene are still extremely imbalanced with their 2 card Combo of Wind-Up Magician and Wind-Up Shark.
One Day of Peace
An integral part of many degenerate decks such as Final Countdown and Gishki FTK. I even tried it out when testing out the new Prophecy deck, and it worked out pretty well. It counts as a Spell card for Judgment and can protect you for the turn from getting killed, allowing you to make full advantage of the cards searched out by Judgment.
Solemn Warning
Not really a problem right now, but I can see Konami’s reasoning for this hit. Basically, the starting player gets even more advantage if they start with this card, with their opponent being unable to play around it.
Most decks will be able to pull of their key summons with ease. More relevant examples are Evilswarms and Prophecy.
Semi-Limited:
Tsukuyomi
Unbanning it made not much of a difference to be honest. It serves as sort of an out to Ophion/Rai-Oh for Prophecy, as well as flipping Magicians down. Most likely going to be Unlimited in September 2013.
Thunder King Rai-Oh
Seems like an attempt to indirectly boost Fire Fists and Prophecy. OCG players hardly play it due to Evilswarms and their 1950 attack range. Might make a much larger difference in the TCG due to their lack of Evilswarms.
Advanced Ritual Art
Could Konami be trying to bring back Rituals? Maybe in conjunction with Rescue Rabbit? I would hate to see Herald of Perfection being a contender in the Metagame again.
Unlimited:
Spore
Unbanning it made no difference at all. I don’t think Spore getting unlimited will make a difference too.
Blackwing – Kalut the Moon Shadow
Blackwings are kind of dead, so I highly doubt this will change much.
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
Just another boost for Lightsworns, similar to Blackwings. However, this move might not be very good as Judgment Dragon is extremely powerful and can easily steal games.
Shien’s Smoke Signal
An attempt to indirectly counter Fire Fists/Prophecy by making Naturia Beast much easier to bring out.
Mind Crush
Mind Crush was already played quite a lot in OCG side decks. Counters Mermails and Prophecy even more.
Thoughts:
Not exactly a good list, but it isn’t too bad since the meta before the Banlist was pretty good.
I feel that they hit Wind-Ups a little too hard with Zenmaity, the deck wouldn’t even see much play with just Magician to 1.
They missed out on hitting Water, I felt that it was pretty dominant in the OCG for quite some time. However, it is quite new in the TCG, so that may be their reason for not hitting it. Although I would prefer if they Limit Dragoons to 1 in order to curb the usage of Genex Undine as well as promoting the new Mermail stuff in LTGY.
Fire Fists and Prophecy are still quite new, so I don’t expect them to get hit. However, I feel that the latter is a little too overpowered with Judgment, but we will see in about a few weeks.
Also, Dark Worlds should see a lot more play with Mind Crush at 3 and EEV is very good against most of the Meta.
Lauren's Blog 