Input on 2 cards from the November 2015 Banlist

[Flint]

It's been about a month since our last banlist, and I wanted to put my thoughts on 2 specific cards from the banlist.

1. Reinforcement of the Army
2. Ritual Beast Ulti-Cannahawk

1. Both of these cards I believe didn't deserve the hit at all. I'm well aware that Satellarknight won 2015 Worlds which is why they got nerfed but with the options they could have nerfed to Satellarknight, they chose the worst option. Hitting ROTA hits every single Warrior deck as well, and Satellarknight have a spell card that can be described as Lonefire Blossom. Tribute a monster to special summon another Satellarknight from the deck, although with a different name. Satellarknight were overall barely affected from this hit.

If they hit Deneb, this would have been a better hit. Deneb to 1 and ROTA to 3 still make it that Satellarknight have 4 searchers in the deck rather than 3 Deneb and 1 ROTA. The difference being that the first option doesn't negatively affect every single Warrior deck that did nothing wrong in the format. This is why I feel hitting ROTA was an extremely poor choice.


2. Ritual Beast were not at all a dominant deck in the previous format whatsoever. Nerfing Ritual Beast by hitting Ulti-Cannahawk to 1 is a weird thing to do in the beginning. Most people who aren't experienced with Ritual Beast say that it is to reducing looping when in reality, it only takes 1 Ulti-Cannahawk to do the loop. Although putting it at one makes it much more fragile and overall unnecessary since Ritual Beast had a tendency to brick with it's lack of searching and had one of it's most reliable searchers nerfed for seemingly nothing.

Konami will nerf anything that gets in the way of selling the newer cards, if I had to guess, this is probably a huge reason as to why they could have done it. Ritual Beast was among one of the only, and best, deck that can main deck Macro Cosmos and D-Fissure. For those not aware, Macro Cosmos being active on the field makes it so Pendulum cards get banished instead of going to the Extra deck. It could have deterred users from using Ritual Beast since Konami is currently in a state of being very lenient to Pendulums.

Or this could be a repeat of 2012, when Wind-Ups and Inzektor was the dominant deck although they were newer decks, and a T.G. Agent deck had topped near the banlist time, and they had left Wind-Ups and Inzektor without a scratch and nerfed T.G. Striker. Everyone's reaction as to why Ulti-Cannahawk got Limited was the same reaction everyone had in 2012 when T.G. Striker was Limited.

Those are my inputs on the November 2015 banlist. If anyone has criticism or their own inputs on different cards that were affected in the banlist, I'd like to hear it.

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[Zaio Volnutt]

Funny thing is Satellarknights are an old archtype they are done giving supports alongside shaddolls and yet not one card is hit from them where as shaddolls get Construct Banned and El shaddoll Fusion at 1. Seriously? never bothered hitting Deneb and keeping Rota at 3 for Rogue decks to get a chance.Maybe im biased cuz i have a strong dislike for Tellarknight's repetitive rank 4 spamming topping off with backrows, but its cant say no to the fact that they already have enough control with Stellanova Alpha which is another card i wish to see it be at 1 or 2 the very least, seriously with deneb and alpha played there is no minus at all.

(Reason i didnt mention Qlis is simple: "who takes them seriously anyway?")

As for Ulti-Kannahawk its partially cuz the Spirit Beast deck is a budget deck which is highly affordable so yeah a low shot to budget players and impractical in a sense cuz i played Spirit Beasts for a long time and felt that it wont do much competitively even with potential floodgate cards like Macro and D Fissure.I would totally be ok if it was Semi-Limited but hey its Konami their choice their moves.

[mimgrim]

I'm actually mixed on ROTA. While it most likely was attempted as a slap on the wrist to Tellarks (HEROes as well most likely) and there weren't many other decks making an impact that were utilizing it a lot (Nekroz used it but at, like, only 2 I think and they still got hit other ways as well).

That being said it is a very generic searcher that can be splashed into many decks, even decks that weren't themed around warriors (like Madolches that utilized Spell Striker or T.G. Striker, or the up and coming Monarchs or other stuff I currently can't think of off the top of my head), making it a very splashable card overall. And has no cost and its only restriction is level 4 or lower (general the majority of searches anyways, usually) and warrior-type (which is a rather populated typing). So yea, I'm not really quite sure how I feel about RoTA being limited yet.

As for Ulti Hawk. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

I get the why, but god do I hate the why (and find it completely bullshit and unjustified).

Yea Pend decks are the reason. Not only do they have easy access to banish flood-gates like Macro and D Fissure but also have a good way to punish Pend decks for spamming to carelessly through Steeds (at which point I'd rather they had just hit Steed tbh).

Ulti Haw at one doesn't even stop loops it just really hurts the consistency of the deck. Not only is the deck screwed if Ulti Hawk ends up anywhere but the extra but it also makes Pengu plays weaker giving the deck another, comparatively, weak card to draw into. And if a way had been found to really make RBs consistent and avoid brick hands most of the time, and people were getting close with Brilliant Fusion and field techs, they would have ben a huge threat to the Pend format because of them having an, arguably, good mu with Pend decks in general but now doesn't matter because Ulti Hawk at one just screws with the consistency way to much.

[Stardog]

The only things I have to acknowledge were some of the late or questionable hits.

Evilswarm Exciton Knight seems like an extremely late hit which makes me think that Konami did this since it harms Pendulum scales.

El Shaddoll Nephilim was the hardest hit I think to any on this list. They could have gotten away with limiting Construct but I assume this was also done to promote the newer decks to be used. Which I guess they did a good job since Nephilim was the heart to this deck.

Mathematician. I can only assume this was either a nerf to Burning Abyss or Shaddolls. Or maybe both. Although I felt this was already overdoing it for both decks already since Konami by this point is now just adding insult to injury with this card going to 1.

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