Duel Portal March Tournament Banlist [Discussion Thread]

[Marco Polo]

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[宇佐見 蓮子@C94]

Vanity's has two main uses:

"Let me chain this to your play so you're not gonna do anything"
or
"Let me chain this to your play so you're not gonna fight back against my big bad scary monster"

Vanity's has to go. Like Marco said, it's a card that you use when you're winning to assure you do win, or a card that stops your opponent from doing jack shit while you set up, for however long that may be. Overpowered archetypes will continue to exist, and it's the cardmakers job to balance them before the tourneys. As for the Miko problem, saying that Vanity's doesnt cripple them is flat out wrong, just saying.

[Marco Polo]

While I proceed to engage with Cirrus on a slew of other matters I can't help but note that I have never agreed more than the following statement:



Vanity's is so open to destruction that it should not readily impact the game. The problem is that DP archetypes (well the vast majority anyway) are spam engine monster generators that at there worst don't promote anything than overwhelming spam slaughter. And not the good kind of spam slaughter like arguably Fire Fist in their hayday the bad kind where you set oppressive conditions or that your spamming translates into minuses for your opponent. Therefore you get shutdown by Vanity's. This is not Vanity's fault...this is your fault for making such a horribly linear concept that you can't participate in a gamestate that has slowed down slightly. That card designing is what has to be addressed not Vanity's as a card.

And again, arguments of the worst kind. "oh but that's so prone to destruction so its fine" claiming the opponent has a destruction toolbox in their hand at any given time.
With current DP decks, I can safely assure you that it takes less time for the opponent to win / otk with his vanity's than it is to draw said destruction. Keep in mind vanity is only flipped in case there's clear advantage for the opponent.
I love how you're so sure that all it can do is at most lock spam archetypes that provide nothing besides spam slaughter. Wrong. There are many different mechanics and playstyles also revolving around SSing and at times it is enough to just stop that single special SS to cripple the opponent.
Next, you need to aknowledge vanity is not a double edged sword but rather a card your opponent flips when they're winning to assure they do win.
It does nothing besides widening the gap between you and your opponent, assuring they don't catch up when you're all set.
Now, away from the theoretical stuff, Mikos and Breeze rants float up every few posts here, usually in the context of players not able to catch up against them, or being unable to stop them when they get going. What can we do?

@post by grandmaster:

Vanity is the only reason I came close to winning in any of my matches, but I shouldn't have to clutch onto such a card to win. By keeping Vanity legal, you're basically saying as long as it's around everything is ok, but then Decks like Shaddoll and Diva Zombies with Oppression proved you can use it to keep every lower tier Deck out of the meta. That's why I stand strongly by the statement that Vanity should not be legal in a stable format. Even in our format, Decks like Miko and Breeze are quite functional under Vanity, and as one of my matches proved, I fold to that instantly. It's one way or the other, and I don't see a happy medium anytime soon. As a result, it's gotta go

This. Perfectley phrased, thank you.

[Cirrus]

Vanity's is not Royal Oppression. It is used not to make sure that you win more, but to make sure that you do not lose. This is a very important distinction. If you are winning with Oppression, oftentimes you can just ignore it as your opponent will not be able to keep up with its repeated payments; additionally you can feel free to negate only the important things, making your opponent waste resources attempting to push past it if they try to. Lastly, Oppression lacks the all-important self-destruction clause. How would you protect Vanity, seeing as you activating any S/T (save, ahem, Fiendish Chain) will make Vanity die?

 

Vanity is not just a card that, as implied, takes no skill to maintain. It is not even -difficult- to push past Vanity with a well-constructed deck even if there was no original intent as such. If you have an effective S/T lineup at all, then Vanity's should not be a problem. To quote Nationals winner Korey McDuffie, "Vanity’s Emptiness is healthy for the game. In some scenarios it’s more powerful than Solemn Judgment - in others it taxes you more than the opponent. It’s a card that is easily overcome by cards that put one of your opponent’s cards in the graveyard. Every deck should have a way to easily remove it!  It keeps other decks in check during deckbuilding by reducing the amount of degenerate special summon effects that exist in the game [..] I hope that Vanity’s Emptiness is never less than Semi-Limited; it’s good for the evolving metagame."

 

Say, theoretically, that many archetypes lose to Mirror Force. Is this a problem with Mirror Force? You run cards, at least in the side deck, to remove opposing problem cards. This is a good practice, as you do not want to be playing solitaire, and the existence of Vanity's forces you to make alternative decisions in the Deckbuilding phase (take notes!). Vanity's is one of the most interactive cards to see print. Especially in such a varied and unpredictable (power-level-wise) metagame that Duel Portal presents, it is difficult to debate that Vanity's is one of the best cards to keep the format under a good level of control. Playing with and against Vanity takes thought both in deckbuilding and in play, as opposed to just going from enabler X -> monster Y -> destruction Z.

 

You might not have the perfect hand to deal with Vanity, but this is a problem you should've fixed in the deckbuilding phase. It's not Vanity's fault if you see it, don't run a good number of outs, and then have to fold because the nature of your deck is too linear. (Warmasters loses pretty hard to Vanity; I lost both of my games to BtanH because of Vanity. I ran the correct number of outs and eventually lost to variance, but we definitely fought some interesting battles over Vanity's Emptiness and it wasn't just "instantly fold if you see it" because I took Vanity into account during deckbuilding.)

[宇佐見 蓮子@C94]

I will say this: Vanity's is actually a pretty good card in that it does encourage thought into the deckbuilding process. However, it is not a fair card. I'd even argue as far to say that the destruction when a card is sent to the grave is actually beneficial, as I can make it go away whenever I feel like it whenever the pieces I've setup can come into play, just by playing an MST/Dark Hole/Raigeki/Insert Tribute Summon here.

 

The problem comes in that it is, in practice, a winmoar card that is always beneficial. Early game it stops your opponent from making plays while you set things up. Mid-late game you just help preserve that field presence.

 

It will have to go, and it will be followed by nerfing the more prominent archetypes. Shutting down an entire playstyle is never a good thing.

[Marco Polo]

I will say this: Vanity's is actually a pretty good card in that it does encourage thought into the deckbuilding process. However, it is not a fair card. I'd even argue as far to say that the destruction when a card is sent to the grave is actually beneficial, as I can make it go away whenever I feel like it whenever the pieces I've setup can come into play, just by playing an MST/Dark Hole/Raigeki/Insert Tribute Summon here.

 

The problem comes in that it is, in practice, a winmoar card that is always beneficial. Early game it stops your opponent from making plays while you set things up. Mid-late game you just help preserve that field presence.

 

It will have to go, and it will be followed by nerfing the more prominent archetypes. Shutting down an entire playstyle is never a good thing.

 

thanks, you pretty much summed up all I was going to say while I got carried away writing detailed arguments how "Every deck should have a way to easily remove it!" is a really shallow argument and "vanity taxes you as well" is a really silly myth.

Just can we all remember back row doesn't live in the Extra Deck and can't be pulled at any given time? Drawing onto the right removal against a Vanity's before you get otk'd is also kinda rare. 

 

For protocol, I'm actually fine with floodgates and see no problem in siding appropriate removal. But hearing people argue Vanity's Emptiness to be healthy gives me green.

[Cirrus]

The guy who made those arguments has a lot of insight into the game. He's the guy that won the North American WCQ with HAT. You can't just say "it's a really silly myth" and "it's a shallow argument" without anything to back up your claims.

 

What's fair and not fair is entirely subjective. If it's a good card for format health, it should stay until there is no reasonable doubt that it is no longer needed. That is not the case at present, clearly. The existence of Vanity, once again, -keeps degenerate summoning effects that might exist- in a certain level of check and forces player interaction to happen. Someone resolving a Vanity shouldn't automatically win the game, and it is once again a problem with design if your deck is too linear such that you're unable to force either your opponent to activate a backrow, kill a dork by battle, or whatever else. It is any time that a card is sent to your opponent's Graveyard, not whenever you activate an MST. In fact, I would argue that Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo is a worse designed card than Vanity's Emptiness, because it's much harder to fight a Pachycephalo backed up by a million backrows than a Vanity's.

 

Backrows don't live in the Extra Deck, but the probability that you'll have at least something relevant should be great enough that it shouldn't matter (unless you're running something janky like 40-monster.dek). Like I said - losing games to variance once in a while is not a bad thing.

 

I acknowledge all of your beneficial situations to exist, sure, but they're not particularly convincing. Doesn't this just mean that the opponent is also freed from the lock and can make plays the following turn? If the opponent doesn't have at least one or two disruptive backrows, then it's either variance or deckbuilding - which is why it encourages interaction. Mentioning Vanity's performance in one or two games rather than considering its performance over a long string of games is unwise.

[Marco Polo]

The guy who made those arguments has a lot of insight into the game. He's the guy that won the North American WCQ with HAT. You can't just say "it's a really silly myth" and "it's a shallow argument" without anything to back up your claims.

What's fair and not fair is entirely subjective. If it's a good card for format health, it should stay until there is no reasonable doubt that it is no longer needed. That is not the case at present, clearly. The existence of Vanity, once again, -keeps degenerate summoning effects that might exist- in a certain level of check and forces player interaction to happen. Someone resolving a Vanity shouldn't automatically win the game, and it is once again a problem with design if your deck is too linear such that you're unable to force either your opponent to activate a backrow, kill a dork by battle, or whatever else. It is any time that a card is sent to your opponent's Graveyard, not whenever you activate an MST. In fact, I would argue that Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo is a worse designed card than Vanity's Emptiness, because it's much harder to fight a Pachycephalo backed up by a million backrows than a Vanity's.

Backrows don't live in the Extra Deck, but the probability that you'll have at least something relevant should be great enough that it shouldn't matter (unless you're running something janky like 40-monster.dek). Like I said - losing games to variance once in a while is not a bad thing.

I acknowledge all of your beneficial situations to exist, sure, but they're not particularly convincing. Doesn't this just mean that the opponent is also freed from the lock and can make plays the following turn? If the opponent doesn't have at least one or two disruptive backrows, then it's either variance or deckbuilding - which is why it encourages interaction. Mentioning Vanity's performance in one or two games rather than considering its performance over a long string of games is unwise.

Myth or not, is kinda pointless to discuss.. You'll say it occurs, I'll say it doesn't because you don't flip Vanity's if you're at disadvantage, and if you do - getting rid of your own Vanity's is a far easier thing to do than what the opponent has to do to get rid of it.

"if you can't then your concept is linear".. Dear, that's just ridiculous. Being linear is being predictable and having a really narrow set of options to procede with your plays. Saying non-linear decks have 'easy to pull' outs for vanity is ridiculous.
What you fail to understand is that Vanity doesn't slow a gamestate; it locks it for certaim decks that need this mechanic. Your resources are numbered, your backrow might have, or not, already been used to block much more extreme plays, your opponent is set up with clear advantage and so he has just flipped vanity's for free.
What he did is to widen the gaps between the players, putting you in a worse place while keeping his advantage!
You are most likely in the corner. But hey! You can just use the heart of the cards and pull raigeki your next draw right? No.
Let's try metaphors then, Vanity's is basically "bread is entirely forbidden. Eat cake."
Thing is, your opponent has already eaten and is satiated.
And while you can *occasionaly* make cake, that's no fair game.

Vanity's is considered for the banlist because looking at the last formats, it's been devastating and made countless decks fold and is so far pushing lower tier decks out of the meta. Wonderful healthy design is obvious.

Variety in deckbuilding might just be the only thing I can agree with in regards to vanity's positive effect.

[Darj]

Personally, I find Vanity unfair.

To begin with, it is a floodgate, and these are arguably unhealthy for the game because of their "you can't play Yugioh" nature.

The way I see it, the "it destroys itself" effect is often irrelevant because most of the time it doesn't end as a -1. For instance, when you activate Vanity on a Special Summoning effect (a Fusion Spell, Ritual Spell, monster effect), either it resolves and effectively "negates" the card, resulting on basically a +1 for you; or the opponent spends its a Spell/Trap remover (e.g MST) to pop it right away, ending up as a +0. And if Vanity is face-up and destroyed afterwards by its "suicide effect", most of the time it won't matter as it already did enough damage, or at the very least it paid itself off.

 

Yes, the card can be removed by decks prepared for it, in the same way as most floodgates; but also, in the same way as with those floodgates, if you don't draw or search for those outs on time, you basically lose; even if you build your deck with 4+ outs, if you don't draw into them, you lose anyways. That's one of the unfair aspects of the card, and any floodgate for that matter. Except that Vanity has a stronger impact than, let's say, Mistake or the Imprisoning Mirrors, because it locks one of the most important mechanics in the game: Special Summoning.

 

The "you can destroy its monsters to pop Vanity" argument is dependent on the deck. If your deck mostly uses weak monsters that turn into bigger ones, and/or the strongest thing you can Normal Summon is, let's say, a 1800+ATK beater while the opponent controls a stronger monster, then you are out of luck. Sure, you can prepare your deck by running stuff like Raigeki/Dark Hole to destroy those monsters by effect, or Lance to drop their ATK and beat them, but then we go back to the "if you don't draw them soon, you lose".

 

Also I agree with Toyo that it sometimes is a better Opression, because it is a lock you can remove by using a card and proceed with your Special Summoning play once you get your pieces.

 

Cirrus does have a point in that it promotes a healthier environment by encouraging the use of more backrow in order to counter it, and decks with backrow are often slower and arguably more fair, while discouraging decks that heavily rely on Special Summoning and thus are helpless when they can't Special Summon. But still, considering the above, I think the impact of Vanity is too high.

 

And if Fossil Dyna is almost as good as Vanity, if not better, then I guess Fossil could easily replace Vanity in a metagame where the latter is banned.

[Cirrus]

Fossil Dyna fits in a much smaller subset of decks, and has different applications as a result; but it is significantly more "unfair" than Vanity. STUN only got hated out because we have a dearth of actually good defensive Traps (see the banlist that limited CED and BTH, among other things) and decks are too fast these days. Plus STUN is only fine in formats that would actually get, you know, stunned, and is never good except as a rogue pick when no one is expecting it.

 

The dream with Vanity is trading 1-for-1 for a fusion card or Ritual Spell. But aside from those - trading a Vanity for a monster effect, unless that effect involved tributing a monster, isn't a net gain for the Vanity user. Vanity is the most balanced floodgate because your opponent doesn't necessarily have to draw backrow removal, just a card to push against your cards. It is in fact not very good against decks of yesteryear that would likely get smashed by current DP archetypes. You can't even chain it to inherent summons like Black Luster Soldier or Cyber Dragon (which are good effects, by the way. Take notes.)

 

Take a look at the extant decks. The only deck that folds in recent memory in the TCG to Vanity is Nekroz, and that's because Nekroz hinges on their Ritual resolving. Yet, nobody complains that just because Nekroz gets destroyed by Vanity, it is a bad deck or that Vanity is somehow unfair in the Nekroz matchup. The same thing with Karakuri or Plant Synchro in older times, or even Hieratic. Most other decks have decision trees that don't utterly destroy their own lives when faced with a Vanity for various reasons. Why is it that DP archetypes fold to Vanity so much more often than even random tier 2/3 decks? You don't need to be more than somewhat prepared if three-quarters of your deck isn't devoted to playing solitaire, but apparently that's fine these days.

[Darj]

Vanity is equally good when negating a monster effect that would Special Summon a monster (e.g. Pirika, Altair) because not only you would prevent a would-be ED monster from occurring, but also leave that monster helpless on the field. In that case, it is as good as Fiendish Chain, which is not a bad card either.

 

I wouldn't call BLS a good/fair card but we are not discussing that right now; I agree on CyDra, though. But not being chainable on inherent Summons doesn't make the Vanity any more fair, as it is still effective against the rest of the Special Summon mechanics. I know it is not exactly the same, but it reminds me of the flawed "it can be countered so it's fair" argument.

 

I have not brought Necloths up to discussion because, personally, they are so strong that in a way they deserve to be hard-countered by Vanity; the same goes for Hieratics and Karakuris, which are annoying OTK decks and I am fine with them losing to Vanity for relying on such strategies. However, and leaving  bias aside, if they were balanced archetypes, then most likely I wouldn't like the way they auto-lose to Vanity.

[Cirrus]

Sure, but in that case you don't necessarily lose your monster. You just lose the +1. The monster still sticks around and if you manage to protect it, you can do stuff with it next turn. For example, you could trade a Mirror Force into your opponent's attack, get rid of Vanity, and make a play with your now-live ED.

 

The argument is more "it can be countered by so many things and the macro benefits greatly outweigh the occasional game loss". Of course you may have a bad time against Vanity one or two games; everyone has that. I have those games too. But as a whole, Vanity helps far, far more things and does wonders for format health.

 

I understand your opinion, but Karakuri and Hieratic are pretty balanced. "Annoying OTK decks" have a place in the grand scheme of things, and I find that playing against them is / was nevertheless enjoyable. I am not a big fan of playing that style of deck, but I know that some people are and ample counterplay exists.

[VampireofDarkness]

Are there any other cards to be addressed? I know some talk on the Miko of Kirishma among other things getting hit, but I can't say of anything I think should directly be hit without a potential nerf first

[Darj]

Personally, I think we should hit only official OCG/TCG cards in this list; if a DP card is suspect of being hit, can't it be nerfed/fixed or outright scrapped instead? I understand that in some cases cards are designed to be 1-of or 2-of, but in that case, wouldn't it be healthier to simply make it more difficult to use and discourage the player from running multiples?

[VampireofDarkness]

Personally, I think we should hit only official OCG/TCG cards in this list; if a DP card is suspect of being hit, can't it be nerfed/fixed or outright scrapped instead? I understand that in some cases cards are designed to be 1-of or 2-of, but in that case, wouldn't it be healthier to simply make it more difficult to use and discourage the player from running multiples?

This is true, though sometimes a certain card helps or runs an archetype, for example Dragon Ravine in Dragunity. Although this was the only Field Spell to ever be banned, Dragunity used it as the center of the whole engine, and thus the moment it got banned, the Deck died. I can't think of an outright example of this on DP, however, but I feel it should be kept in mind

[Cirrus]

This is true, though sometimes a certain card helps or runs an archetype, for example Dragon Ravine in Dragunity. Although this was the only Field Spell to ever be banned, Dragunity used it as the center of the whole engine, and thus the moment it got banned, the Deck died. I can't think of an outright example of this on DP, however, but I feel it should be kept in mind

That's a good example of an easy-to-fix card, as it could have been easily fixed to prevent Dragon Ruler abuse by restricting it to archetypal monsters. Many cards that are too broad can use this restriction if absolutely necessary, although I feel it is a rather bludgeon-y tool myself.

[宇佐見 蓮子@C94]

Are there any other cards to be addressed? I know some talk on the Miko of Kirishma among other things getting hit, but I can't say of anything I think should directly be hit without a potential nerf first

 

The reason I suggested Kirishima getting hit is because the only other solution is to nerf the rest of the Mikos, and lets be honest, that's a lot of work. I'm at a point where I can't really change her effect without making it useless. I've given it a normal summon only clause, but I haven't seen how that holds up. Kirishima to 2 should do much to drop Mikos powerlevel, imho.

[AGATHODAIMON BANGTAIL COW]

Maybe Kirishima could reveal as part of the effect, rather than the cost? Doesn't do much other than make effect negation work better against her, as what you reveal can just be used for a free kill + ED play.

[Maeriberii Haan]

Just going to drop in a point that might really need to be addressed here. Cards having counterplays =/= balanced cards.

 

Also, regarding vanities, one important thing is that you -don't- always draw your vanities out. Depending on deck, it can pretty much spells game, and it's not really healthy. It also makes deckbuilding actually less flexible. In a vanity-less meta, Forbidden Lance becomes an actual option to pick over MST, or you can even run no anti-backrow card without being outright murdered. While yes, Vanity kills SS-spam decks (which is not exactly healthy), it gives them a margin of autolosing outright.

 

You can't always attack over a monster they control when they have Vanity's up, and even if you can, you lose a turn's worth of damage momentum. If you can pop it, of course, it's good for you, but the problem is, you can't always do that. A big problem when it decides whether you have a chance of winning or not. Vanity needs to be addressed immediately, since if it's up even for one whole turn, it'll slow your opponent down enough for you to gain enough advantage and momentum to pulverize them. Not applies to all decks, of course, but it affects a really significant amount of the game to be an issue in itself.

 

Floodgates are always a problematic type of cards in the game. Vanity's just the one that covers one of the most vital thing in the game.

 

Regarding banlist for custom cards, I prefer if they're nerfed instead, yeah. But, in some cases, I think we can get away with giving exceptions.

[Cirrus]

That decks running no backrow removal instantly die to Vanity is a myth. If I recall correctly either two or three formats ago in the OCG, basically nobody ran maindeck MST and Vanity's was at three, and yet people didn't instantly fold to Vanity. The only reason decks would always lose games to Vanity would be if they did not run enough cards that do not care about cards the opponent plays - which is really bad, because that's solitaire (for example, playing Hieratics used to resemble solitaire). I agree that cards having counterplay doesn't make it balanced, but my point wasn't just that Vanity has counterplay, it was that Vanity has a) a lot of counterplay, b) acts as a check for decks in the format, and c) is overall good in that it requires increased interactivity from the opponent.

 

Many of the arguments here may also be used to call cards like (as previously mentioned) Fossil Dyna, Vanity's Fiend, Majesty's Fiend, and Archlord Kristya too strong. However, are they really too strong? Once again, I addressed the single-game case and totally agree that it can win individual games. But its ability to do that doesn't necessarily invalidate its status as a balanced card. Vanity's Emptiness is a unique card among floodgates in that it destroys itself. Over tens of games - hundreds of games - there will be some games that the opponent doesn't feel the impact because you don't have a way to answer the on-board threat anyway, or as I said before, it trades slightly or even quite a bit worse than one for one when it gets immediately removed. You don't need to convince me of the case that Vanity's Emptiness can single-handedly win games; I acknowledge that, but I am unwilling to call a card immediately overpowered because of one or two games here and there.

 

We can look at it another way as well. Vanity, despite being out for a few years now, has never seen time on either the OCG or the TCG banlist despite a slew of defensive Traps being Limited and / or Forbidden in the TCG. It also hasn't impacted the skill-testing nature of formats, even when dominant decks would theoretically fold to Vanity's Emptiness (if they had no outs). What has happened to the game such that it is being considered an overbearing card in the Duel Portal metagame? What would a card need to be to be considered overpowered? I actually think that as the game has progressed, Vanity has become less and more powerful, for good and bad reasons (decks have more effects that are crucial to disrupt, but are also harder to disrupt with Vanity) and that is why I think its presence as a check against degenerate summoning effects is welcome.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Since March is coming up as of next week, need to figure out which cards on DP are problematic, so we can get a list set up for next month.

Remember that I'm in charge of this one.

 

Later on, we can leave said thread as a sticky as the effective ban list.

 

Please note that I haven't had access to DP lately, so can't particularly check on the problematic ones.

Also keep in mind that there are others that haven't been noted lately, which should be checked.

 

 

Modifying them ourselves is an option, but if that's done, make sure that we agree on appropriate changes that everyone can agree on.

Otherwise, put them on the list accordingly based on their interactions.

 

 

tl;dr, someone compile all of the problematic cards into a list, and Nai and the rest of us can sort through them.

[Maeriberii Haan]

That decks running no backrow removal instantly die to Vanity is a myth. If I recall correctly either two or three formats ago in the OCG, basically nobody ran maindeck MST and Vanity's was at three, and yet people didn't instantly fold to Vanity. The only reason decks would always lose games to Vanity would be if they did not run enough cards that do not care about cards the opponent plays - which is really bad, because that's solitaire (for example, playing Hieratics used to resemble solitaire). I agree that cards having counterplay doesn't make it balanced, but my point wasn't just that Vanity has counterplay, it was that Vanity has a) a lot of counterplay, b) acts as a check for decks in the format, and c) is overall good in that it requires increased interactivity from the opponent.

 

It's not a myth if it happens. Three formats ago in OCG, nobody runs maindeck MST since the game is revolved around getting out Shock master first turn ASAP first turn, a time when Vanity won't matter anyway. Also, it doesn't increase interactivity as much as it forces your opponent to interact with it or get crippled.

 

Many of the arguments here may also be used to call cards like (as previously mentioned) Fossil Dyna, Vanity's Fiend, Majesty's Fiend, and Archlord Kristya too strong. However, are they really too strong? Once again, I addressed the single-game case and totally agree that it can win individual games. But its ability to do that doesn't necessarily invalidate its status as a balanced card. Vanity's Emptiness is a unique card among floodgates in that it destroys itself. Over tens of games - hundreds of games - there will be some games that the opponent doesn't feel the impact because you don't have a way to answer the on-board threat anyway, or as I said before, it trades slightly or even quite a bit worse than one for one when it gets immediately removed. You don't need to convince me of the case that Vanity's Emptiness can single-handedly win games; I acknowledge that, but I am unwilling to call a card immediately overpowered because of one or two games here and there.

 

Not all deck can run Dyna, Vanity's Fiend, and Majesty's fiend. All three costs NS, which is a huge opportunity cost to play them. Vanity's Field and Majesty's fiend are stronger, yes, but they requires resource and can't be chained to a card effect WHILE being able to be used as pseudo Royal Oppression. And...it's not one or two games. The margin of autowinning is not that crazy to be considered as something that needs an emergency ban, but it's significant enough.

 

We can look at it another way as well. Vanity, despite being out for a few years now, has never seen time on either the OCG or the TCG banlist despite a slew of defensive Traps being Limited and / or Forbidden in the TCG. It also hasn't impacted the skill-testing nature of formats, even when dominant decks would theoretically fold to Vanity's Emptiness (if they had no outs). What has happened to the game such that it is being considered an overbearing card in the Duel Portal metagame? What would a card need to be to be considered overpowered? I actually think that as the game has progressed, Vanity has become less and more powerful, for good and bad reasons (decks have more effects that are crucial to disrupt, but are also harder to disrupt with Vanity) and that is why I think its presence as a check against degenerate summoning effects is welcome.

 

You know? Most competitive players have clamored the day when Vanity's finally getting hit by the banlist. It has done too much for the last several formats. Note that Konami's not perfect. And the reason for those defensive traps getting hit are due to the loss of Heavy to deter set 5 attitude. BUT, you have a fair point regarding the difference in the metagame. Though, regarding Vanity's getting worse, not exactly. Some decks gets more ways to get over it, but most of those answers still force them to slow down instead of immediately going gungho at you, and it still hits a lot of deck enough

 

Also, degenerate summon effects shouldn't exist anyway. Ideal banning logic is not "keep a broken thing to check another broken thing so it becomes manageable". If both are problematic, you hit both.

[Cirrus]

No, OCG format was not all about getting out as many Shock Rulers as you can handle three formats ago. You can go to shriek.twoday.net to check the decklists for clear evidence of this. Vanity's Emptiness wasn't even run frequently over other competing card like Gozen Match, largely due to its inability to deal with setup fields, but the most prevalent decks at the time - Dragon Rulers, and to a certain extent Geargia and Artifact OOPArt - would have been both affected and have had ways to deal. You can see Vanity drift in and out of favor. Vanity's Emptiness isn't even played in a lot of decks there or right now! It's popular in control decks and never considered in aggressive decks, and only sees very occasional play in combo decks.

 

I'm not convinced that the margin is actually significant enough. Vanity's Fiend and Majesty's Fiend, as well as Fossil Dyna, do not lock you from using Spells and Traps the same way that Vanity's Emptiness does. Is Vanity's Emptiness itself not a resource? Contrary to popular belief, you don't always have the perfect Vanity when you need it, and it doesn't always even do what it's supposed to do.

 

Can I get a source on who the "most professional players" include? I posted a paragraph earlier from a professional player (the guy who won the NA WCQ with HAT) that endorsed Vanity. Sure, ideally we wouldn't need Vanity, but that's an impossible case and I could also say that ideally every deck would be able to deal with Vanity appropriately and not just scoop. Decks like Geargia and Fire Fist certainly wouldn't scoop and would keep playing. After all, Vanity's Emptiness - and this is a salient point - locks its user from making plays on all three fronts (if they wish to keep it around, they cannot activate S/Ts, and they can't deploy big monsters to the field with it up effectively anyway). It is not just your opponent that draws a card every turn, you draw a card too, so when Vanity goes away, you should have enough resources for the counterpush.

[Maeriberii Haan]

Whoops, accidentally used purple.

 

Anyway, I'll withdraw from this discussion regarding Vanity's. Won't really go anywhere anyway, since I'm too stubborn regarding this issue, and I don't want myself to get too heated.

[Cirrus]

I don't have a personal beef necessarily with hitting Vanity in whatever degree if people call for it; I've only been arguing for recognition that Vanity is a very, very evenhanded card over a long string of games and has a generally positive effect on the environment. I understand that it can get annoying to play against in individual games, however.