Putting cards to 2 is not an effective nerf in a lot of scenarios

[Flint]

Often when I see banlist discussions, there will always be someone who suggests a card go from 3 to 2 and suggest it as a "nerf". I want to explain why this is not precise what-so-ever.

Depending on the power of a card, you'd nerf it appropriately, as such, I've never seen a situation at all get solved if put from 3 to 2. Such examples I'd like to use is Nekroz Brionac and Qliphort Scout. Both of these cards are searchers, meaning they are very important to the deck's consistency, even then when putting the searchers from 3 to 2, it didn't even overall affect the deck from being a viable deck in the meta game.

What if other cards that people want hit such as Farmgirl, Reasoning or Dracoslayer went from 3 to 2? How much would it overall affect these decks that use them? At the very best, you'll only hurt a very small bit of the deck's consistency, although not enough for it to make a noticeable difference, a difference so small that it wouldn't even be worth putting the card at 2 to begin with.

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The only reason a card should go from 3 to 2 is to prevent a loop or combo that might require a card to be at 3. Even in most situations like that, they more often than not get limited. Some of the very few situations include Card Trooper. For those unaware, Card Trooper used to be part of a combo called "Troop Dupe Scoop". How the combo followed through was summoning Card Trooper then using Machine Duplication and summon 2 more Card Troopers. You'd mill 3 from each Trooper, having milled 9 cards and 3 monsters with the effect to draw 1 card if destroyed and sent to the grave. And occasionally Limiter Removal.

It worked back then when this combo was used as somewhat of an engine, roughly in 2007, but it was also it's own deck. The reason is worked putting this card at 2 from 3 was because Machine Duplication requires you to summon 2 of them from the deck, you didn't have a choice with "up to". Although, with today's current meta, having Card Trooper at 3 wouldn't make a lick of difference now. So even the best example I have to support "3 to 2" is very rare. Only 1 example and that example has become archaic enough for that card to be Unlimited again.

Other than my previous reason of how semi-limits should be use, the other only good reason cards should be put at 2 is from being limited. Put cards from 1 to 2 is great for testing how potent a card is, especially if the card has been limited for a long time.

In conclusion, there is near to no reason a card that should go from 3 to 2 when you can just straight up limit the card instead. Only from very rare scenarios where it would be appropriate to put a card at 2 from 3.

If anyone has criticism or their own thoughts of semi-limits, I'd like to hear it.