The ban list, current state of format, and thoughts about the game

When the new ban list was revealed, a lot of people deemed it fake, despite it appearing on shriek. With its removal, the player base cheered. When its credibility became unquestionable, the crowd silenced.
First of, the Mars 1st ban list blows. It kills of decks confined to tier 2, while leaving all TCG and OCG tier 1 decks completely unharmed. The point of the ban list is to balance the format. This ban list kills off the rogues.
The good things that happened was the banning of Trishula and Dustshoot. Trishula was the lone game-breaking synchro, the only one giving advantage by merely being summoned. It's gone and I won't miss it. Dustshoot on the other hand was never as inherently broken as Trishula was, but it was the closest thing we had to a turn 1 one card FTK, and the card basically fills all the criteria for being banned; very strong, a tad imbalanced, only useable in some situations.
Unlimited CotH won't change a thing, Emergency Teleport on 2 is better than 1, but still close to mediocre. I won't go through all the happenings,  since it had all already been thoroughly dissected by others.

The second topic I want to talk about is the state of the game. For this, I advise you read through the top 16 feature matches from YCS Atlanta. Notice something which happened in all the matches?

The disadvantaged player had to resort to setting Maxx "C" in order to survive. Inzektor and especially Wind-Up are broken decks, and the only answer is hand traps. If your opponent drops turn 1 Rai-Oh, for example, your previously useable cards suddenly turned into blanks.
And that is the fall and defining feature of this format: Hand traps. These cards are now not only a tech, but a necessity to survive this format, which is not only a symptom of a unhealthy format, but a pitfall. In order to fight the faster decks, you have to play hand traps, significantly weakening your anti-meta match-up. Therefore it isn't such a big surprise that T.G, an extremely stable deck, won.


What I'd like to say however, is a different story than the 'under the radar' T.G. deck winning.
This format is crazy. And next format will be worse. In fact, I think the March 2012 format might just be the worst format of all time. Worse than Chaos. Worse than Tele-DAD. Worse than Frog FTK.


Frog FTK could potentially win turn 1, but had issues with unplayable hands, weakness to D.D. Crow, not drawing Mass Driver, etc. Inzektors are a manageable threat (don't set anything, so they can't destroy it, remove their resources, use disruption, and more).


Wind-Ups can realiably discard around 3 cards from and opposing players hand turn 1, 4 cards if they instead choose to do so turn 2, 6+ cards if they have Foolish Burial/Pot of Avarice, and Wind-Up Hunter sends rather discards, taking away the otherwise auto-loss of Dark Worlds.


The worst thing is Konamis attitude about this. On the judge forum they ask players to "step up their game" instead of apologizing. Or committing suicide.

Ban list.

What I suspect might happen:

Banned:
Sangan
Wind-Up Hunter
Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
Card Destruction
Monster Reborn

Limited:
Inzektor Dragonfly
Magician of Faith

Semi-limited:
Master Hyperion
Rescue Rabbit

Unlimited:
Thousand-Eyes Restrict




What should happen:



Banned:
Wind-Up Hunter
Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
Evolzar Dolkka
Royal Tribute
Card Destruction
Monster Reborn
Future Fusion

Limited:
Cyber-Stein
Tribe-Infecting Virus
Inzektor Dragonfly
Magician of Faith
Dark Magician of Chaos
Tour Guide from the Underworld

Semi-limited:
Master Hyperion
Grapha, Dragon God of the Dark World
Debris Dragon

Unlimited:
Necro Gardna
Magical Scientist
Destiny Hero - Malicious
Thousand-Eyes Restrict
Burial from the Different Dimension
Emergency Teleport
Magical Stone Excavation
Wall of Revealing of Light
Ojama Trio

[DECK]Strike Ninja

Strike Ninja is a cool card. Especially when comboed with D.D. Scout Plane, which was kind of worthless before. But with XYZ monsters, I think the deck has some potential.
Another previously worthless card is also very good in the deck; Card of Sacrifice.
Why? Well, Strike Ninja doesn't summon himself every turn, he simply returns to the field. Order of Chaos also released some new Ninja support cards, and even though they aren't particulary useful for this deck, it is worth keeping in memory.

3 Strike Ninja
3 D.D. Scout Plane
2 Card Trooper
1 Sangan
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1 Armageddon Knight
3 Ninja Granmaster Hanzo
1 White Dragon Ninja

1 Reinforcement of the Army
2 Pot of Duality
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Foolish Burial
1 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Book of Moon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mind Control
1 Allure of Darkness

3 Card of Sacrifice
1 Ninjutsu Art of Super-Transformation
1 Ninjutsu Art of Duplication
1 Ninjutsu Art of Rust Mist
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Trap Dustshoot


2 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
1 Number 96: Dark Mist
2 Daigusto Phoenix
2 Blade Armor Ninja
1 Steelswarm Roach
1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Lavalval Chain
1 Daigusto Emeral
X other generic XYZ monsters.

The deck should be fairly obvious when it comes to playing. Get Strike Ninja going, use Daigusto, Gachi Gachi and Blade Armor Ninja to push for unsuspected amounts of damage. Remember that Blade Armor Ninja targets a Ninja monster, and that Daigusto Phoenix targets a WIND monster.
So if you have Blade Heart, Strike Ninja and Daigusto Phoenix, you hit for 9300 and not 9100.

I might redo this deck after some testing, perhaps to play Envoy of the Beginning and some lights. I heard people like splashing that, so why not? But to be honest, I'm kind of tired of the same EotB+Tour Guide brokeness decks. Feels like I have to run 2 Veiler 2 Maxx "C" in all decks (which is partly true), but I can at least hope my non-super competitive decks aren't killed by the ban list, which undoubtly will kill a lot of other things.