Let’s Talk Banlist

by Nigel Copeland

Let’s have a chat about that one topic that quickly makes tempers flair and makes takes extra hot: the good ole Banlist.

I am sure most of you reading this come from a Trading Card Game (TCG) background. I for one, come from over 10 years of competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! experience and you can bet your best card that I have had some choice words to say about the banlists that Konami have released for that game over the years. Banlists for us TCG players are a part of life. Sometimes they are a perfect 10/10 hit and the community is happy about it and other times you’d think the players would storm Bandai or Konami in retaliation. Discussing whether banlists are a necessary evil is not the point of this article. Instead, I invite you to discuss the “atmosphere” around the topic. Let’s dive in.

The controversial Hades Force is the center of many banlist arguments

From the very first TCG we picked up, most of us wanted to have fun but we wanted to win more than we lost. We can get into a discussion about competitive vs casual mentality another time, for the moment let’s acknowledge that for the most part we want to win more than we lose. Many factors can play into your win rate, from deck building, concentration ability, adaptability and luck. So, in a sense, the banlist has become the great equalizer in the TCG world. Without it, many cards and decks would go unchecked and the game would suffer as a result. Now, you probably already know all this, so why I am going over it? Well, because I want it fresh in your head for this next part:

We, as a community, must be conscious of the fact that if the card is legal to use, it should not give you the inclination to attack the player using said card. As of this writing, cards like: Cool Boy, Hades Force and BT-11 Greymon (X-Antibody) are still legal and allowed unrestricted. It can indeed be argued that these cards, among others, are incredibly powerful in the context of the game. I am a massive fan of the Wargreymon line of Digimon and I will go on the record and say that Hades Force for instance can be a insane card to play at a certain point in the game with no chance for your opponent to recover. What I, and I am willing to bet, a few of you have noticed that a lot of people have let their distain for certain cards bleed over onto the players using said cards. This is something that everyone should make the effort to be mindful when engaging with other players.

Do not take this as an attack against anyone. As I said in the beginning of this article, we want to have fun playing of course, but we also want to win more than we lose. Losing to the same select cards several times in a tournament or over a short amount of time would be frustrating to anyone. Add in a competitive nature and high stress and that frustration can bleed over from anger about the cards to anger about the player using said cards. This has the unfortunate effect of players feeling like they shouldn’t play a certain deck for fear of being attacked over their choice. Do keep in mind that someone’s choice of deck may not be affected by the current meta. If, for example, someone is a major fan of Garurumon and simply likes that Digimon and therefore wants to use the deck (and has for many formats), is it fair to attack them just because the deck became a meta staple? The answer of course is no.

So, after all that, what does this has to do with the banlist? Essentially the banlist has inadvertently created an atmosphere where players develop an expectation of what cards will or should become banned or limited and as such will engage in unproductive conduct if the list does not me their expectations. More over, once one card is hit the next target the community focus in will be right around the corner. No matter what Bandai puts on the next banlist, someone, somewhere will be unhappy about it.

So where does that leave us? In summary, a lot of us have either a love of the Digimon IP, a love of TCGs, or a love of community engagement. This game will always have a deck lurking that the majority of players do not like playing against, yet some people enjoying using that very deck. Whether or not you think that certain cards the deck uses should be next on the chopping block does not permit you to act in a hostile manner to the players using it. At the end of the day, we are here to enjoy the game. If you feel yourself losing more than winning against certain decks, take it as an opportunity to re-evaluate your deck building or game play style. There are also several notable players that would be happy to offer assistance with your playing ability. If anything, the banlist should be celebrated for pushing players to develop new strategies and not used as an excuse to exhibit unsportsmanlike behavior to other players.

GG everyone.