Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG January 2018 Banlist Revealed

Yes, its that time once again as V Jump announced the new set of banlist for the Yu-Gi-Oh! Official Card Game (OCG) that will take effect next year. Check out what card/s got banned and limited.

And the card got ban hammered is none other than, tatatada... (drum rolls)!

FORBIDDEN:

ANCIENT FAIRY DRAGON

This card got banned as it has abusively hiders decks that are dependent on Field spell cards. Ancient Fairy Dragon's effect is to destroy Field spell cards on the field (as many) and gains 1000 Life Points (LP) to the controller and the ability to special summon a Level 4 monster from hand; combining the effect of Set Rotation, it becomes more formidable. So, yeah I agree this card gets banned.

LIMITED:

SPYRAL GEAR - DRONE
SPYRAL QUIK-FIX
DANDYLION
BLACKWING - STEAM THE CLOAK
FIREWALL DRAGON
SPYRAL RESORT

SPYRAL has been dominating in the OCG meta for quite sometime and the more abusive cards in the deck are these three, Quik-Fix, Gear - Drone, and Resort (and here I thought the key card, SPYRAL Super Agent gets limited). Quik-Fix has the ability to add SYPRAL Gear card from deck to hand if this card is normal or special summoned (which it also has an effect if SPYRAL Super Agent is on the field and this card in the graveyard). Gear - Drone, has an effect that it can add Super Agent from the graveyard to hand if the former is in the graveyard which you can banish it to activate its effect. Also, if this card is normal or special summoned, it has an effect which you can see the top 3 cards of your opponent's deck and placing them in any order, which disrupts the gameplay. Resort has the ability to return 1 card from graveyard to deck and also it has an effect that SPYRAL monsters cannot be destroyed by card effects and it can add 1 SPYRAL card from deck to hand. Yes, this is kinda abusive if your opponent plays a SPYRAL deck, its a good thing that these cards got limited.

Okay, seriously Dandylion got back to its Limited status from being Semi-limited, which I'm surprised that this happens because of its abusive effect by summoning 2 Fluff Tokens if the card is destroyed on the field or discarded from hand and/or deck (if using Foolish Burial), using its tokens to easily Tribute, Synchro or Link summon monsters, that goes with Steam the Cloak (also has an effect which it can summon 2 tokens on the field if the latter was destroyed on the field), which just also added to this list. The biggest surprise to see is Firewall Dragon which just got added to this list, making the first Link monster to be Limited as this gets abusive (if you have multiple copies) and it has an effect to return card/s from field and/or graveyard to hand, up to the number of Link monsters that are co-link with Firewall Dragon, it also has an effect if Firewall gets destroyed, it can special summon a monster from your hand. So, yeah I agree that this card gets limited as well (and luckily, I only use 1 copy of Firewall Dragon in my Deskbot deck).

SEMI-LIMITED

TRIBE-INFECTING VIRUS
GRINDER GOLEM
SHURIT, STRATEGIST OF NEKROZ
MATHEMATICIAN
LONEFIRE BLOSSOM
PANTHEISM OF THE MONARCHS
SET ROTATION
SOLEMN WARNING

Rounding-up on this list are the cards that went down and returned to Semi-Limited status. Cards that went down from Unlimited to Semi-Limited are the infamous Set Rotation (which I already explained above regarding the combo with Ancient Fairy Dragon), Grinder Golem which was recently reprinted from Structure Deck: Powercode Link (I felt sorry to the players who bought set copies), Mathematician, Lonefire Blossom, and Pantheisim of the Monarchs.

And cards that went from Limited to Semi-Limited are: Tribe-Infecting Virus, Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz, and Solem Warning (which was a surprise that it now allows 2 copies in the deck after it was been Limited for years).

And now for the cards that were released from the shackles of the banlist.

NO LONGER LIMITED (UNLIMITED):

ATLANTEAN DRAGOONS
MAXX "C"
DARK HOLE
FUTURE FUSION

Wow, Dark Hole back at 3 copies, but also its sad that Maxx "C" is also back to this status.

Remember, the list is applied not only to Japan but to other Asian countries who are using the OCG (Official Card Game) format, please don't forget it when playing in the official sanctioned tournaments. The list will take effect January 1st, but here in the Philippines, it takes effect a week before the date or on the day itself (which it will be decided by the official judges).

Source:

The Organization
Yu-Gi-Oh.jp