10 Cards that Could come off the Banlist, Part 1 (10-6)

So I mentioned in my 10 Cards that Should be Banned/Limited but Probably won't be (Part 1 of 2. 10-6) post that I do a list of 10 cards that I feel could come off the Banlist. Now, obviously, not all these cards are going to be ones that could come off right now. Some will require things to either happen to them or there might to be cards that come into the game that make these cards necessary to be legalised. Remember that Exchange of the Spirit and Crush Card Virus were Banned for a very long time, then Doom Virus Dragon was released and both Crush Card and Spirit got re-errated and came off the Banlist at 1. I've tried to be fair to why the card was Banned originally. Most cards (but not all cards) get banned because they're either broken or heavily abused. In rare cases, like Stratos, Konami just likes to, not piss off everyone, but just essentially kill a deck for the fun of it.

10. Pot of Greed

This card's effect was very simple: Draw 2 cards. Very simple. There are two reasons it was banned. Reason 1: It's highly abusable. In the game today, there are so many cards that can recycle spells like crazy, and that is ultimately what led to Pot of Greed being put on the Banlist. Reason 2: There's no negative side effect(s). Cards these days that allow you to draw, usually have some sort of downside, whether it be a cost or loss of Battle Phase or you can't Special Summon that turn, doesn't really matter, the point is that there is some kind of side effect that impacts badly on the user. Yeah, there's One Day of Peace where neither player damage until the end of the opponent's turn (this includes effect damage), but even that has a negative impact. You might be powering up Tragodia, or Ascension Sky Dragon, on either side of the field. Letting your opponent draw a card has a negative impact in and of itself because they might draw the card they really need to just finish you off. Point is, Pot of Greed has no negative impacts (unless you count that they might deck out faster).

Now, why it could come off the Banlist is like this. Even if it is Limited, it will not be abused as much. When players want to recycle spells, there's a lot more useful and dangerous spells that exist now that didn't exist when Pot of Greed was legal. If you're playing Hieratics, and you want to recycle a spell, are you going to take Hieratic Seal of Convocation or Pot of Greed? You're going to take Convocation. Raigeki over Greed, Signing Deal over Greed. There are just so many cards that players would pick over Pot of Greed now (excepting Exodia decks). I feel it could come back at 1, it would make a lot of people, including myself, happy and if they're worried about it being abused, how hard is it to just re-errata it or give it a cost or something? Not that difficult at all.

9. Witch of the Black Forest

This card has been Banned for a very long time. A decade (10 years) in fact, so well before Xyz's Synchro's and Pendulum's were even thought of. I know there's the argument that you could abuse its effect to make easy Rank 4's and 5's and even some Rank 6's. It can open up some pretty nasty Synchro combos. There's also a Solar Flare Dragon lock you can make with this card so your opponent loses 1500 Life Points and the end of each of your turns and they can't be targeted for attacks. And, if you want to go out there, go outside the box, it makes playing Exodia Necross a little bit easier.

That being said, we have Tour Guide at 1 and similar searchers to Tour Guide also at 1. Witch only allows you to add to the hand, not summon to the field, so it is a little bit slower so I feel it could be placed at Limited status. Also, like I said in my Banned Cards Part , Beelze is at 3. An almost indestructible monster is at 3, but we can't even have one copy of a card that allows to add a monster with 1500 DEF or less from your deck to your hand. Even with its combo's, having Witch Banned makes no sense to me.

8. Elemental HERO Stratos

I tried very hard to stay away from this card. I had a set of rules when I started this list that would make a card eligible. One of those rules was that it couldn't be considered by a wide portion of the Yugioh community to be a ban worthy. Another rule was that I could break any rule when I felt it necessary. In my opinion, as someone who doesn't play Heroes (although I do have a pretty strong deck that runs Dark Law), Stratos is not ban worthy. I could understand if you could bring out a Hero AND destroy backrow, but you can't. You have to choose between the two effects. It's not like Ryko where you mill 3 cards and you can choose to destroy something as well. You have to choose between the two. Probably needs to be placed at 1.

7. Imperial Order

Imperial Order is/was the Royal Decree of Spell cards. It's a trap card so you couldn't run both of them together. The reason why Imperial Order was Banned is because people broke it. They found ways to bypass the card's cost (700 Life Points during of the user's Standby Phase or destroy the card). They would either activate it at the start of their opponent's turn and then let the card destroy itself. Alternatively, they'd use a card called Solomon's Lawbook to skip their Standby Phase and therefore not have to pay 700 Life Points while keeping Imperial Order on the field (Since the Standby Phase never began).

The reason why I think Imperial Order could come off the list is because of this. We have Royal Decree (which is an excellent Side Deck card in my opinion). We can activate Royal Decree in response to their Imperial Order, which negates its effects meaning players can use their spells. Also, Imperial Order only stops spells from activating on the field, not those that activate in the Graveyard, so you can use Galaxy Cyclone (a card I've mentioned in a previous post) to destroy this card (as long as Cyclone is in your Graveyard first). Lastly, if you do find yourself locked out of traps and spells, there's a useful monster you should be Side decking called Breaker, the Magical Warrior and it has the ability to destroy any Spell or Trap card on the field. So there's three very simple counters to Imperial Order and I'm sure there are many more. Imperial Order should be at 1 (so should Royal Decree, but you generally only need one anyway).

Lastly....

6. Super Polymerization

Now, I know why Super Poly is Banned. Everyone knows why it was Banned (because of E. Heroes) so I'm going to skip going over why it was Banned. If you don't know, have a look at it. It's not that hard to figure out.

The reason I feel it could come off the list is that we are now in the age of Shaddolls, the age of Masked Heroes, the age of Nekroz... we need this card. And you don't even have to use it in an E. Hero deck anymore. You can use it in a Shaddoll deck to make Construct (TCG) or Winda. You can use it in Masked Heroes to make Absolute Zero and then Mask Change into Acid to basically nuke the field. You could use it against Nekroz. We need the card Konami. 1 is fine. There are counters to it as well, but you have to know that it's coming because it's a Spell Speed 4. (SS 4's aren't official. They're a player named thing and they are cards that cannot be chained to by anything). We just need the card, it's as simple as that.