Gishki Aquamirror

[Aerion Brightflame]

Lore: This card can be used to Ritual Summon any "Gishki" Ritual Monster. You must also Tribute monsters from the field or your hand whose total Levels equal the Level of the Ritual Monster you Ritual Summon. You can shuffle this card from the Graveyard into the Deck to target 1 "Gishki" Ritual Monster in your Graveyard; return that target to your hand.

 

Ok, so we all (Presumably) know what this does, being the heart of Gishki's, and part of at least 2 OTK/FTK varients, and formerly the Kraken Hand-Loop.

 

However, what I kinda want to discuss about it this time is well is it solely to blame those?

 

Since, in my spare time lately as I always do, I've been making threads on other forums about cards that I feel are controversial (I.E. This, Rekindling, Gorz ect) and how in an ideal game state they should be banned. And how they are all dreadful design. And it's led to a lot of arguments with terrible logic (Like how Rekindling's end phase clause balances it, and that without Gorz, OTK stoppers can' rectify the OTK situation as being the only reason it should stay against all the counter arguments.) And out of the whole thing, only two interesting things came up, this and a thought about OTK's that involved someone having a mental breakdown. 

 

Essentially, what I want to discuss is that is this the actual issue with the loops it has been apart of? Since it is dreadful design (Though apparently that doesn't matter to most people or they can deny it by factoring in the current format... I love YCM for actually caring for it properly), but is it singularly the fault of this, or is it a mixture of it and the other things.

 

In which case, what should be hit and stuff? Using the Gustkraken loop lets say, what should be hi from that? (I personally go for banning this, and at least limiting all the level 6 Hieratics, if not ban them for being designed to abuse costs)

 

So the majority of YCM.... please be intelligent for once. I know it's hard at times. And discuss the card, and the proposition about what is at fault in the loops.

[Cute Rotten Yoshika]

it is a major issue because the targets it recycles (itself and any gishki ritual) are normally very difficult to get out of the grave. ritual spells only have preparation of rites iirc and for the monsters youd need to do something like use emeral (which trying to summon will likely eat up a whole turn) or avarice (which doesnt directly aid the deck goal and can dead draw) to keep their loops and degeneracy going. this completely circumvents it and while it isnt the SOLE reason (as youve said, hieratics are problematic too and many of the gishki rituals have effects only supposedly balanced by being ritual monsters) but it is a major one and theres no way to make gishki a fair deck with this in it.

[Wildflame]

Fault in Gustkraken loop is, well, the lack of a once per turn clause in Gustkraken. That and a bit of responsability on M7's side. I wouldn't blame the Hieratics in this one (although I'd rather see them in the banlist before any Gishki card), I find their interaction with the Gishki engine to be pretty cool and innovative.

 

I'd like to blame the Mind Augus loop on the ridiculous amount of very generic draw cards that the game has, but I have to admit that this card's recycling effect has a big responsability. ODoP being limited decreased the consistency on this one though.

 

Zeal Gigas OTK..., well, Zeal Gigas itself is a pretty big motherfucker. And you know, Gustaph.

 

Not exactly the epitome of good card design, but it's probably my favorite Spell Card ever, such a long list of fun (mainly casual) decks I've made around it. Should definitely not be banned. However, if any variant of the deck becomes relevant again, I would (reluctantly) accept a limiting on it.

[Lonk]

Really, if I can say this, how about Konami just makes a Gishki Ritual Spell Card that has the recycling, but only triggers when a Gishki Ritual Monster is sent to the Graveyard or banished either by a card effect (controlled by your opponent) or battle and ban this card?  That way, Konami can keep the Gishkis (and potentially unlimit Gustkraken since it wouldn't be able to loop as much) without being stupid in design.

[evilfusion]

Gishkis have a lot of issues involving their design. It's just spread out enough that it's nearly impossible to point at one single card and say "This is the issue".

 

First off, Vision Gishki and Gishki Shadow are absurdly good. They took Senju and Sonic Bird, made them Gishkis, and said "You can be discarded from the hand instead of being Normal Summoned". In exchange for this power, they are only Gishki searchers.

 

But...they're WATER monsters with 1500 ATK or less and 1000 DEF or less. Which means the other host of Gishki searchers can grab them, and Salvage can grab them. This ordinarily wouldn't be an issue because unless you cram a dozen Gishki Ritual Spells into your Deck, Vision will eventually run out of targets.

 

Which is why Aquamirror is somewhat problematic. It returns itself to the Deck, letting it be searched again. On a further note, Vision and Shadow can count as full Tributes for WATER Rituals. Which means that Salvage combos even BETTER with Aquamirror, as you not only get a Ritual from the Grave to your hand, but Aquamirror is back in the Deck. Salvage grabs Vision and Shadow. Send Vision, grab Aquamirror. Activate Aquamirror, send Shadow, play the retrieved Ritual. Or any Gishki Ritual, most of which get some sort of effect that enables a + from Summoning them.

 

Aquamirror is considered the only "good" Gishki Ritual Spell because it's the only one that isn't absurdly conditional or overly costly. Aquamirror just needs you to give up exact Level. Forbidden Arts requires exact Levels, but from either side of the Field, so that's really hard to pull off consistently. The last one costs you 500 LP per LEVEL, so that's like 3000-5000 LP for one Ritual monster.

 

Compared to the other two Gishki Rituals, they genuinely do need Aquamirror to have any chance of being played. What they should get, however, is a Gishki Ritual Spell that does the same thing as Aquamirror without the self-recycling. The self-recycling is what leads to horrible loops, because there's no cost in returning a card in the Graveyard to the Deck to get a monster in the Graveyard to your hand.