The scariest thing about buying a deck which is both expensive and strong, is the fact that there’s a chance your cards (and money) might just go *poof* after a single announcement.

During the G-Era and previous seasons, Bushiroad has done a great job of trying to make ban lists tolerable by not hitting cards directly by banning them completely. A lot of the restrictions as well were just common cards which ensured that the player wasn’t wasting his or her money because of poor card designs.

However, after the V-series started, we received our first straight out ban in Ichikishima and Elly. While it was understandable that there was no other way to see how Bushiroad could fix those clan’s win rates, it still made us question the direction of the game.

Here at The Card Game Collective, we want to be as optimistic as possible about the upcoming ban list but if it were up to us, here are some of our opinions on who to hit and why they deserve it.

1. From Colorful Pastorale, Caro (Exclusion) – Standard

From Colorful Pastorale, Caro makes decks like Riviere and Pacifica too consistent for their own good. While this card was primarily intended to use in Melody decks, we can see that that isn’t entirely what’s happening right now.

Much like how Jewel Knight, Swordmy got restricted from SGD decks before, the best way to hit Riviere’s consistency is to exclude Caro from decks that have Riviere or Pacifica in them. This will leave all decks still playable but leaves a significant weakness to the deck.

2. Samurai Chieftain, Hyu-ga (R1) – Standard

Samurai Chieftain, Hyu-ga does everything with a single soul-blast and counter-blast. Filling up your board whilst getting rid of your opponents entire board with such little cost isn’t really a mechanic that fits a healthy card game.

Restricting Hyu-ga to 1 card doesn’t necessarily make Murakumo useless since they still have a lot of useful Grade 3s in Shirayuki, Hyakki, and Zangeki. Murakumo literally has three fall-back plans in case Hyu-ga hits the road.

3. Turbo Smilodon (R1) – Standard

Tachikaze is a heavy hitter in the standard tournament. Others may think that it’s Angerblader or Sweeperacrocanto who runs the deck but in fact it’s this Smilodon which generates too much equip gauge free of cost that makes the deck so lethal early on.

Sacking the cat would hurt Tachikaze a lot but at least Bushiroad won’t hit any of the more expensive cards. Also, this is only one of many of Tachikaze’s set-up units so it shouldn’t really feel that bad.

4. Knight of Superior Skills Beaumains (V-series) (R1) – Premium

Even though we don’t consider Premium as a real format here at The Card Game Collective, we are still obliged to deliver unbiased opinions about this horrible format.

This card simple makes the deck too consistent. Despite restricting Kyrph in the previous banlist, the deck still runs too smoothly. Gold Paladin players can still opt to run the old Beaumains but at least the consistency will be toned down considerably.

5. Maiden of Gladiolus (R0) – Premium

The token generating Neo Nectars are too HIGH in the meta. This has only become worse with the recent support ensuring that the clan has more token generating units.

Hitting Maiden of Gladiolus will deny the clan from having any more multi-attacks than it already has which isn’t really bad since 5 big attacks should suffice for a premium anyway.

6. Gastille Deck (unsure) – Premium

It’s extremely difficult to attack a Premium Gastille deck, to be honest we’re not even sure what is the right card to hit. Gastille and Dark Irregulars in general just has too big of a kit to be able to ban out.

However, if we had to make the decision then we might as well hit it where it hurts and that is the engine. Perhaps, Gastille Daimonas has to go out altogether. All we know is that Dark Irregulars need to get a hit, somewhere, somehow.

7. Maturity Talent, Salena (R0) – Premium

Riviere is overpowered again even in the Premium format. This makes us wonder if this deck has developed some special favors with the Bushiroad staff themselves.

Maturity Talent, Salena let’s Riviere jump immediately to grade 2 without the need for any counterblasts. Also, her multi-attack capabilities combo with V-series Riviere to create a series of headache attacks and ensuring that you end with salty tears.