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Doomkaiser Dragon
Card# CSOC-EN043
Doomkaiser Dragon's effect isn't just for Zombie World duelists: remember that its effect can swipe copies of Plaguespreader Zombie, too!
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This is an article that I’ve wanted to write for a while. Now that the new Forbidden and Limited lists have been announced, it’s a good time to put these changes into historical context.
In the beginning, there were two starter decks, and in each starter deck, there was a rulebook. In the back of that rulebook, there was a box titled “Powerful Cards.” In that box, there was a single sentence followed by a list of cards. The sentence said, “The following cards will help strengthen anyone’s deck: Raigeki, Monster Reborn, Dark Hole, Pot of Greed, and Change of Heart.”
These five cards, along with the limbs of Exodia, were the first cards ever to be limited to one copy per deck. Alongside them was a shorter list of cards that were semi-limited to two copies per deck. The semi-limited cards were annoying but not game breaking, and the list included Swords of Revealing Light and Card Destruction. No one really questioned the lists at all. Every card on the lists needed to be there, and the players recognized this. They even went so far as to start the tradition of following the lists even in casual games, making the snobby duelist with three copies of Raigeki play on even terms with everybody else.
With the release of Metal Raiders, there was only one new addition to the Limited (one copy per deck) list: Mirror Force. Once again, it was obvious why the card was there, and nobody questioned the restriction at all. Metal Raiders also had a few cards that made it onto the Semi-Limited (two copies per deck) list: Witch of the Black Forest, Sangan, and Heavy Storm. These cards weren’t totally broken yet, but they certainly had the potential to reach that level of brokenness in the future.
The release of Magic Ruler was about the time when things started to get out of hand. This set had an unprecedented (and never repeated) record of seven cards that were immediately limited to one copy per deck. All but one of these cards have had a profound impact on the evolution of the game. The newly limited cards were Delinquent Duo, Confiscation, The Forceful Sentry, Upstart Goblin, Painful Choice, Cyber Jar, and Snatch Steal. Surprisingly enough, many players didn’t immediately see the usefulness of Snatch Steal and Painful Choice. In fact, Painful Choice was only used in Exodia decks until Labyrinth of Nightmare was released two sets later. The spell didn’t enter the tournament spotlight until the release of Pharaonic Guardian, when hand-disruption decks took center stage.
Pharaoh’s Servant continued the trend of increasingly powerful cards, with the set adding another six cards to the growing Limited list. These cards were Jinzo, Imperial Order, Premature Burial, Call of the Haunted, Ceasefire, and Limiter Removal. There were a few new arrivals to the Semi-Limited list as well. Morphing Jar #2, Backup Soldier, and Nobleman of Crossout were deemed to be too strong for three copies per deck, but not so strong that one copy per deck was the maximum. The Jar was semi-limited because it was annoying. Backup Soldier made Exodia decks more than a pain, and Nobleman of Crossout was aggravating to players who ran flip effect monsters.
In fact, some of these newly limited cards were so powerful that they pushed cards that were previously only semi-limited onto the Limited list. Pharaoh’s Servant brought us the first instance of cards being “upgraded” from the Semi-Limited list to the full-fledged Limited list. When Giant Trunade was released in the last set, the card lent itself toward brokenness with Swords of Revealing Light, so Swords was limited to one copy per deck. In addition, Witch of the Black Forest had become far too powerful when running two copies per deck, especially considering it could be used to fetch your single copy of Jinzo. Therefore, the Witch was upgraded to the Limited list.
Labyrinth of Nightmare brought a couple of big surprises to the Yu-Gi-Oh! world. First, the set marked the introduction of the first “vanilla” 1900-ATK monster, Gemini Elf. Second (and more important to our story), Labyrinth of Nightmare released the equally unexpected Magic Cylinder as the set’s other secret rare card. This set did a much better job of stopping the rapid power inflation that plagued the previous sets. There were only three new cards on the Limited list from Labyrinth, and strangely enough, two of them were equip spell cards.
Normally, equip spells give some sort of ATK or DEF boost, or they change something about a monster’s type or attribute. Previously, equip spells were limited when they did things that they weren’t supposed to do, like Snatch Steal and its villainous monster-stealing ways. The limiting of Mage Power and United We Stand was the first and only instance of equip spells being limited solely because they could make monsters arbitrarily large. The last new card to be limited was the aforementioned Magic Cylinder, because it was the only trap card that could flat-out defeat an opponent.
It’s also important to note that at this time, Morphing Jar was released in TP2 and limited to one copy per deck. This in turn caused Card Destruction to be limited to one copy per deck as well, because running more than two “discard your hand and draw” effects in a deck was considered to be too powerful. In addition, it was around this time that Upper Deck announced that video-game promo cards would be tournament legal, so everyone was hoping that good promos would be released. This was indeed the case, as Sinister Serpent and Harpie’s Feather Duster were released soon after the announcement. These cards were joined soon after by Graceful Charity from the Pegasus starter deck. All three promos were limited, but not before players had a couple of weeks to abuse the cards freely.
The last set I’ll be talking about this week is Legacy of Darkness. Most of the set was excellent for the game, with the power level kept nicely in check. Creature Swap, Marauding Captain, Last Turn, and Reinforcement of the Army were semi-limited to two copies per deck, because the cards were just a little too good to be unlimited. Meanwhile, Exiled Force and Injection Fairy Lily both hit the one-per-deck roster (and rightly so), and Twin-Headed Behemoth was limited because of its nasty interaction with the also-limited Fiber Jar.
That leaves just one limited card from Legacy of Darkness that I haven’t talked about, and that’s Yata-Garasu. Arguably the biggest mistake in the game’s history, Yata-Garasu was the dominant force in tournaments for more than a year. In fact, the card was so powerful that it forced Sangan to be limited as well. Yata-Garasu’s dominance was responsible for turning players on to the idea of forbidding cards, although at first, Yata itself was the only card that duelists had in mind.
Next week, I’ll cover the evolution of the Forbidden and Limited lists from the time of Pharaonic Guardian to the latest incarnation that’ll take effect in a couple of weeks. Until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
Jerome McHale
jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu
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