Yu-Gi-Oh! Banlist 2024: Full Updates and Key Changes

The Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series Anaheim 2024 ended-up with a big surprise for every duellist that was there or that was watching it online. This was not liked to the excitement for Steven Trifunoski topping the championship but for the unexpected announcement that Konami Digital Entertainment would release an updated Forbidden and Limited List update at the end of the show. On top of that, the announcement was done in a very unconventional form with Yu-Gi-Oh R&D Jerome McHale revealing the changes one category at a time by taking a summary card from a “Kaiba-style” suitcase.

The show they put together was quite fun to watch although there was some clear tension in the air as not everyone was expecting more changes to the Yugioh banlist 2024 so close to those revealed in September. Overall, the most recent changes were not too dramatic but there was enough to not consider the new banlist a nice present just before Christmas. Now that the dust settled a little bit, we thought of going through all the changes to discuss the main impacts and how they can affect our beloved decks.

Fist things first: what is a Banlist?

The Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden and Limited List (or in short, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Banlist) is list of cards that cannot be used in competitive official events at all or that are limited to a certain amount of copies. These are usually identified as “Limited” (only 1 card can be used) or “Semi-limited” (only 2 copies of that card can be used) or “Forbidden” (cannot be used at all). It is also important to know that these limitations apply to the Main Deck, Extra Deck, and Side Deck combined.

Limiting the number of cards a player can use to create their deck and strategies seem to contradict what is the best part of playing this amazing Trading Card Game. However, as Yu-Gi-Oh! has been around for 25 years and new cards are released every quarter, there are cases where players came up with some unexpected strategies that made the game unfair and not enjoyable for all their opponents. The very example was a strategy known as the “Yata Lock” that was discovered in 2004.

For those that were not playing this TCG back in the day, this strategy was setup by having “Sangan” or “Witch of the Black Forrest” on field and then summoning “Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End” in order to remove all the cards from both player’s hands and from the field. The effect of Sangan or of Witch of the Black Forest would then allow the player to summon Yata-Garasu that forces the opponent to skip their turn if Yata inflicts battle damage to them. Since the opponent has no cards on the field and in the hand, Yata would effectively lock the opponent out of the game and set them to lose. This unforeseen combination of cards lead to the creation of the very first banlist.

Together with preventing any type of unfair strategy, periodically limiting the use of some cards is also a good way for Konami to influence the competitive scene by restricting cards that are too strong or too prevalent, thus prompting players to adapt and come up with new decks and strategies. As a result, moving cards in and out from the banlist also helps promoting a more vibrant gaming environment and providing periodic challenges to all player. In a lot of cases, in fact, while some changes effectively have a negative impact some Archetypes, they also create an opportunity for others to fill the gap helping this Trading Card Game to always be interesting to play.

Yu-Gi-Oh! December 2024 Banlist: What has changed?

The most notable change introduced in December is the move of “Original Sinful Spoils, Snake-Eye” into the Forbidden list. Making this card unavailable has a large impact on Snake-Eyes, Fire Kings and Rescue-ACE based-decks that were relying on this card in their strategies. Some players also felt a bit frustrated that this ban came just after the recent reprint of key support for Diabbelstar and Wanted although the ban of Snake-Eyes has been in the air for a while considering how well the Fire decks have been doing competitively last year.

Interestingly, Rescue-ACE decks also received a positive boost in the new banlist with Rescue-ACE Air Lifter moving back into Unlimited from Limited tier. This change may offer some options to this Archetype to remain relevant in 2025 considering also some good cards recently released (for example “Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames”) that can fit its mechanics quite well.

Tenpai has also been hit heavily with both Tenpai Dragon Chundra's and Sangen Kaimen being set as Limited. This change impacts the consistency of the deck greatly leaving the players with reduced option to make their plan work. In addition, there are not many cards that can replace the banned ones and it is unlikely we will see much of Tenpai in 2025 competitive although there is always the chance players may get very creative and bring back some of the early options for this engine.

The last two Archetypes hit by the December Yu-Gi-Oh! banlist are Branded and Yubel. Not surprisingly, the first one will lose the unique abilities of “Gimmick Puppet Nightmare's” that is now listed as Forbidden. Konami decision was quite expected to be fair considering the Puppet ability to stop an opponent from Special summoning during their whole turn when Gimmick Puppet Nightmare's is sent to their field using Branded Expulsion.

Limiting Phantom of Yubel to just one copy was instead a very unexpected choice (at least for me) as this card has been literally just released last June in the set “Battles of Legend: Terminal Revenge”. Interestingly, the players are quite divided on the impact decision with only some of them complaining this ban to be extremely detrimental to their Deck. Some other players are just changing their engine to be able to recycle Phantom over time and it will be interesting to see if the new engine for this Archetype will keep be efficient and consistent.

Last but not least, we should complete this review by checking which cards are moving out from the banlist. “Zoodiac Barrage” moves from Forbidden to Limited while “Cyber Jar”, “Danger!? Jackalope?”, “Danger!? Tsuchinoko?”, “Eva”, and “Performapal Monkeyboard” move from Limited to Semi-limited. A lot of cards are also reverting to Unlimited from Semi-limited and the list includes: “Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos”, “Dinowrestler Pankratops”, “Lunalight Tiger”, “Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders”, “Rescue-ACE Air Lifter”, “Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms”, “Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls”, “Thunder Dragon Colossus”, “Ib the World Chalice Justiciar”, and “Opening of the Spirit Gates”. Most of these changes would likely not have a massive impact on the metagame but there is always a possibility we may have some unexpected surprises later this year.

Banlist 2024 aftermath: what to expect in 2025

Overall, I think the latest list of Forbidden and Limited cards released at the end of 2024 has definitely put an end to the era of Snake-Eyes and Fire Kings. From the ashes of 2024 metagame, we will likely see the rise of some of the newest Archetypes with Maliss and Ryzeal being the most likely. Ryzeal Fiendsmith for example already raised to glory by conquering all other decks at the YCS in Anaheim, the very same event that saw the release of the Banlist.  

Considering the current scenario, it would be wise to start looking for any staples you may be missing for these two archetypes. If you haven't really committed yet to any of them, the good news are that most of the cards for both of them can be pulled from the “Crossover Breakers” set that is still on sale on Magic Madhouse at the time of writing. As you may remember for a recent content, the set features 60 cards (40 Rare, 10 Ultra-Rare and 10 Super Rare) although some of them can be pulled with different level of rarity. On the other hand, if you already have any of the key cards for Maliss or Ryzeal you can browse the website for any single card you need and still take advantage of very good prices and the free shipment to UK. In addition to this, Magic Madhouse is also a trusted vendor that treasures customer satisfaction and these two aspects should always being weighted when purchasing single cards considering how frequent is to bump into counterfeit cards in this hobby. Happy hunt and let's get ready to DUEL!