A Welcome Restriction
Well, the first Ultimate Cup write up is still in the works, but between locals last night and, wow, just this morning, something else took a bit of priority!
We’ve known for about a week now that we’d be getting a Banned and Restricted list update today, which will go into effect April 1st, and card game nerds being the rampantly speculating goblins we are, well, rampantly speculated. But before I dive into that nest of bees, because, yes, yes I will, the important thing for those who avoid Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, because who can blame you?
A single card, BT11 Greymon X Antibody is restricted to 1 copy per deck.
For context, this card was released on February 17th, along with a new Agumon (X Antibody), MetalGreymon (X Antibody), and the first BlackWarGreymon (X Antibody). The deck built around them went on to take 13 of the top 32 spots at the NA Nationals, the largest Digimon tournament in the past year with 1001 players. Oh, and This Greymon X was also a 4 of in the 2 WarGreymon X decks that topped as well.
15 of the top 32 decks ran 4 copies, 7 of the top 16, and 4 of the top 8. Bandai’s reasoning is a bit… wrong, since most players actually used Greymon (X Antibody)’s evolution reduction effect to go into BT8 MetalGreymon for only 2 memory, you know what, let’s run down what a BWGX combo turn looks like for those who haven’t seen it.
So, in a single turn, and without passing turn if they were at 3, or at 2 with a single Cool Boy, BWG could, push a Greymon out of Raising, going into BT11 Greymon (X Antibody) for 0 memory, draw for evolving, go into BT8 MetalGreymon for 2, draw for evolving, De-Digivolve something, an effect almost no deck, save BWG can ignore, pop something, like a floodgate rookie, go into BT11 MetalGreymon (X Antibody) for 1 memory, draw for evolution, suspend Cool Boy to draw another card and recoup the memory, keeping turn, get impressive protection on the stack, AND pop another body.
That’s 4 card draws without passing turn, no searches that could potentially bottom deck anything, just gas and three forms of removal, all enabled by BT11 Greymon (X Antibody). And that’s not even getting to the way the deck ideally finishes that turn, by sliding BT9 X Antibody under the stack, turning on Greymon (X Antibody)’s protection inheritable, declaring an attack, either at security, or more likely, using the BT8 MetalGreymon inheritable to attack the opponent’s lowest cost Digimon, then using X Antibody’s [When Attacking] inheritable to evolve into BlackWarGreymon X. Sure, they just gave the opponent 5 whole memory, but it doesn’t matter much.
See, BWGX will unsuspend during the opponent’s unsuspend phase too because it has <Reboot> which will trigger it’s own [Opponent’s Turn] effect, deleting the opponent’s Digimon with the lowest Play Cost, AND BT11 MetalGreymon (X Antibody)’s [Opponent’s Turn] inheritable, trashing the top card of the opponent’s security.
So yes, when almost 50% of the topping decks from your largest event are running a single archetype, and that archetype is primarily locking the board down and getting a long term protection effect from a single card, that’s probably the card that should be hit. Sorry WarGreymon X, I know you could also use it, but you’re an OTK deck, so you deserved it.
But X, Y, and Z Cards!
No, Grandis did not need to be hit, MagnaAngemon didn’t need to be hit, neither did Mervamon or what ever Xros Heart thing folks currently dislike, and while I would have been giggling my ass off if they did, X Antibody and Cool Boy did not need to be hit.
Grandis has never been an amazing deck, look I ran it, I got my nationals invite off of it, but the deck has zero consistency. It’s win condition involves building the perfect stack, blasting all of it away, making 6 checks in a single turn and hoping no security card kills it, then needing to either have enough memory to go into a hybrid on an unsuspended tamer, having two Mimis at once, or just hoping you don’t kill them before their next turn. It’s an OTK deck that needs an extremely delicate and specific stack, and doesn’t even really OTK most of the time. Heck, it was run at NA Nationals because folks thought it had an amazing game against BWGX.
4, 4 whole Grandis deck’s made it into the top 32, and the last 2 got knocked out in the top 8, in games against BGWX. No, the deck did not need to be hit.
Ok, MagnaAngemon is a silly one I’ve seen some folks complaining about, but look, yes, Sec Con is an annoying deck, it’s not fun to play against, two of my three ties at nationals were to Sec Con lists that basically had no win condition. But MagnaAngemon doesn’t enable an entire archetype, in fact, he basically speeds it up, because at least he’s life gain attached to a body that they’ll now swing with. I will be glad to see MagnaAngemon instead of another Holy Wave.
Same goes for Xros Heart, 4 made it into the top 32, despite the fact BWGX theoretically hard counters it, but even then there are two or three different versions of Xros Heart floating around, they aren’t a single format dominating deck, they’re an absurd wild card that already got it’s legs swept out at the last banning.
While I will maintain that Cool Boy could have also been hit, and also maintain the Japanese metas are an imperfect at best guide for English formats, former Champion Hoang Zero was right to point out that Melga, Grandis and Xros Heart saw basically zero play in the BT12 format. Meanwhile BT11 Greymon (X Antibody)enabled two separate Greymon based archetypes to dominate.
Cool Boy makes X Antibody archetypes more consistent, which most desperately need, but since the hit to Alphamon, none of them are able to use Cool Boy to the same extremes, though we’ll see once we get the new DoruGreymon in BT13. Personally, yeah, I want him gone because at some point he is going to cause issues when X Antibody Digimon are revisited, and to some extent, I have the same concern about X Antibody itself.
Similar to my support of Shoutmon X4’s limit, I have concerns that the power and potential utility of Cool Boy, especially in decks that only run X Antibody Digimon, like Alphamon, will make it necessary to limit him in the future, or avoid printing Digimon who naturally have the X Antibody with alternate forms, ala Dorugamon and DexDorugamon.
My issue with the card X Antibody stems more from feeling like it naturally encourages the archetypes to be more OTK focused, which I’m always against. But until they print a replacement I doubt we’ll see any chances on that front.
Conclussion
This is the closest thing Bandai has done to a level headed Banned and Restricted update. and I think Cptcinnabun summarized it best. They hit a single card that enabled the dominant archetype, instead of hitting cards that would effect many other decks. it was laser targeted and the right call, even if their own logic is bad.
However, please take a page from MTG, but just this one, god please avoid the rest of them, set a regular time, say one a rotating cycle or maybe a month after every new set releases, to do Banned and Restricted updates. I get that the issue is not wanting to have an update that says nothing is changing, but that’s a good thing! In theory, it means the game at the moment is balanced, and helps to instill confidence. Meanwhile, announcing a B&R update just leaves folks to do, well, what they’ve done this past week. Speculate wildly and hope their personal bug bear would get gutted.
Sure a regular update might have a similar result in the short term, but after a few with no necessary bannings folks will stop seeing it as a chance to watch a hated deck destroyed and more as a regular update for Bandai to tell us how they see the health of the game.
And, a quick last minute edit because Beckmon put into words what I and others have been feeling PERFECTLY!
This restriction is good for balance, but not for the enjoyability of the game for many, and you’re not wrong for feeling that way. BT9 was aggressively OTK focused, and the meta has been fundamentally warped by it, driving all archetypes to need to keep pace. Personally I quite enjoy fast games and styles like Xros Heart, but for some people the inabilty to properly kill Xros Digimon is unpleasant, and that feeling is valid. I had similar issue with the BT7 format where many decks used the non-interactive nature of tamers to build a safe board then burst off.
The problem for a lot of us, including some folks who I’m sure are unhappy about the opinions I’ve already expressed, is that BT7 happened, and we moved on to the next thing. But BT9 and it’s focus on OTK has warped a lot of modern design and play style around it, both intentionally since Bandai has locked themselves in on what an X antibody deck is, and because we as players tend to gravitate towards what is seen as “best” and one of the easiest way to be “best” is to be as un-interactive as possible.
For a more long form explanation of the format warping through instrumental play and paratext, I HIGHLY recommend you check out Dan Olson, aka Folding Ideas’ video “Why It’s Rude to Suck at Warcraft”
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