Banlist for march of 2013, what id like to see happen. I really doubt this will happen but itd be cool. Also this isnt necessarily a good banlist, im promoting variety but that doesnt mean its more balanced.

Forbidden:
Dark Hole, Monster Reborn, Gateway, Wind-up Carrier Zenmaity, Ultimate Offering

Dark hole because i dont like sacky cards that can win you games;
Same with reborn, its just stupid;
Gateway needs to go because with gagagacowboy/emeral coming out its a free ftk;
Zenmaity needs to go its just too good. free +'s every turn and just makes otks super easy;
Offering is one of those cards where if you have it turn1 its game with a few decks, and others dont care. With cards like tinplate goldfish coming out, gadgets dont need a free otk.

Limited:
DMOC, Glow-up Bulb, Rescue Cat, Trish, Laggia, Dolkka, Onslaught of the Fire Kings, Royal Tribute, Torrential, AbyssMegalo, Genex Undine, Magician, Factory

DMOC: with reborn banned it cant be used too stupidly brokenly. its more support for prophecies and a fun card that might promote some interesting strategies. a real boss for spellcasters would be cool. also not broken cause it cant be searched or gotten back with spellbook of life;
Glow-up bulb: I feel like a little more plant support would be good. glowup would be the last bit to push them into really playable and competitive;
Rescue Cat: With DSF banned and it only at 1 it cant be abused too much. it would be a good card that might promote Xsabers or beast decks;
Trishula: More help for plants, also its one of those fun cards that while very good, is really hard to get out and as it is a -2 just to summon its not too broken;
Laggia/Dolkka: hurts rabbits without killing the deck. They now MUST be careful with how they play theyre xyzs and cant just mindlessly go into laggia or dolkka without being sure NOW is when its optimal, promotes more skill to the deck;
Onslaught is just too broken, gets you straight into garunix for the infinite loop its ridiculous, while it can be gotten out of the ease of use for the difficulty of stopping is just not right;
Royal Tribute: I just dont like this card, its very sacky against monster heavy decks like merms or chaos or agents;
Torrential Tribute: I think this is one of the best traps right now, and at 2 its just too much. with darkhole banned this will act like every decks one dark hole. with more skill and dificulty to use(do i think hes gonna combo more or should i drop it now?);
Megalo/Undine: water is super good. Megalo to 1 makes the big otk play harder and makes linde/sphere for megalo a move you have to think more about. undine to 1 is because its a free +2 and thats not something that should be so easy, its also like running a million searchers because there are so many ways to abuse dragoons as is;
Magician to 1 keeps the deck playable but stops the otk. Factory is like a better version of cards like black whirlwind, so logically should be more restricted. its super good still though.

Semi-Limited:
Garunix, Dragoons, Diva, Black Whirlwind, Dark Armed Dragon, T.g. Striker, Fire Dance - Tenki, Horn of the Phantom Beast, Barong, Blackwing Gale, Bestiari, Secrets, High Priestess

Garunix: super good, drawing it with yaksha is amazing. putting it to 2 makes that harder but not impossible.
Dragoons: Really good searcher thats just too easy. with all the discarding mermails as well as undine, this will put dragoons effectively at 3 which is enough i think.
Diva: TGU for water, tgu at 2 so diva at 2?
Black Whirlwind: Im trying to really bring back bwings here, and i think this to 2 is a huge step in that. with offering gone you cant otk with it anyways.
Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind: Again trying to bring blackwings back, i think with these changes to them they will be competitve at top tier. I think gale is a big piece and at 2 gives the deck a lot more power.
Dark Armed Dragon: Im trying to bring tele-dad back, and i think dad at 2 wouldnt be super broken for any decks, though it would power up Chaos Dragons significantly nothing else in this banlist does so and as such i think they would still be balanced.
T.G. Striker: Tg stun is cool and this card to 2 would be a big step in making tgs top tier. its just so useful and spashable itd be nice to see at 2.
Fire Dance - Tenki: Im being slow here, with very little damage to the brotherhoods. I think they are strong but as of yet its unknown how strong. Tenki, however, deserves 2 or 1. Its rota for beastwarriors, as such lots of decks may be able to splash it in.
Horn of the Phantom Beast: Easy plussing and super good. I think this and tenki to 2 is enough to see where brotherhoods go from here while limitting them enough they dont break the game.
Fire King barong: to 2 because its a very easy to access searcher and as such needs to changed with care. As it can search both garunix or onslaught, or even other fire king spells/monsters/traps its incredibly versitile and never a bad card.
Gladiator Beast - Bestiari: this on its own will give glads a huge buff, and will provoke players into giving them more thought and possibly bring them back in.
Spellbook of Secrets: With divine judgment coming out, this card is ridiculously broken. it may need to be limited, along with spellbook magician. For now I want to keep the deck easily playable and see where it goes from here.
High Priestess of Prophecy: A really strong easy summon boss that will be really easy to get into with divine judgment, leaving it at 3 is just not something i want. it might even need 1, we'll see.

Unlimited: Destiny Hero Malicious. just to promote teledad more and make it a real deck again, this should be enough to make them playable and useful. Also helps any Synchro decks and such, keeps more variety in the game isntead of all this spam xyz.

you are a derp y u fail u n00b


i needz gatway 4 my sams it not broken sumtims i lose when open gatway

ggbulb needto say baned

Rescue Cat is a better version of Rescue Rabbit. It was banned for a reason and with the release of xyz's it needs to stay banned. That's just wrong.

i liek diva tho my divasams is 2 gud

I don't think dark hole should be banned, simply because it's become such a unique card. It's really not all that broken, as it is often a mere setback to the opponent of its user. I have also found it's good at bringing a topdecker back into the game, and shutting down plays that rely on an endless and obnoxious snowball of pain. Monster reborn, however, I fully agree with. The purpose of the banlist is to balance out the game, and to get rid of any card that ends up stapling into EVERY deck or almost every deck out there. Monster reborn, like change of heart, is a card that does just this. I also think creature swap should be semi-limited, as it basically gives phantom beastcraft and other token-dependent decks a free beatstick.

if we should be getting rid of staples like you say, then shouldnt dark hole go? I feel like its just too easy of a plus. while you could say it balances windups forcing them to be careful when to combo or something, im killing the otk with this anyways. Its just too versatile and too easy. its like soultaker or smashing ground at worst, and needle ceiling at best. it IS stapling in every deck, period. its just so good you cant afford to not run it.

Heavy storm i did not ban because there are so many good backrow cards right now i think a card like this is needed to limit what they can do, set 5 pass without defense or anything.

Creature Swap is fine at 3, it has strong counters. Cards like compuls can stop it, or you can just side Remove Brainwashing. its just not broken, and i never see decks run 3 anyways.

bringing DMOC back right b4 tachyon galaxy is just asking for total spellbook domination and a huge price jump in card prices. you're going to be looking at $60 spellbook cards and $100 high priestesses. you're going to be looking at close to tier 0 deck. if you want to promote variety, i dont think unbanning DMOC with divine judgment is even FAIR for buyers out there. its just too good. everyone will swarm it. semi'ing high priestess and secrets REALLY doesnt hurt the deck after divine judgment. IMO what is broken is divine judgment, and allowing DMOC is going to give prophecy at least +5 per turn. you're asking for a deck with insane hand advantage, field presence, and deck thinning. dont bring back DMOC and then go and say priestess is broken while saying DMOC would be an actual boss monster. even with priestess to 1 there are other options in spellbooks. rescue cat + spellbooks would actually be insane. its not even +-0 any more for monk. its like +2. might as well keep priestess at 3 and limit the consistency/search power of the deck so you cant even run priestess at 3.

THEN AGAIN. you're bringing back cat, trish and bulb. so i can see a little variety. but the format you're set up for is a synchro spam format. i dont think that's healthy for the game. infernity loops with trish first turn is just unfair. that's worse than windups. cat @1 and monk @2 is still amazing. i dont want to see double arcanite --> pop 4 --> big eye --> steal monster. dats like +3. and glow-up is just too broken.
hell. bring back goyo + dsf if you want synchros back in the game. they dont speed up the format. dsf isnt good if you cant spam out your field and otk.

and RABBIT NEEDS TO GO either to 1 or 0. i can see your reasoning on bringing back some stuff, but that doesnt matter if rabbit + ophion is in the game. bulb doesnt matter, malicious doesnt matter, trish doesnt matter, DMOC doesnt matter, priestess doesnt matter, garunix doesnt matter. hell, you can disregard everything i said in the post but dont ignore this. RABBIT + OPHION NEEDS TO GO. i dont care WHAT format you want in the game. you're never going to have it if rabbit ophion is still in the game.

lastly, ^after of course rabbit goes, you get rid of rekindling. if you dont get rid of the cards im talking about, you will get a really one-sided format, probably even worse than march 2012. verzrabbit + macro is going to DESTROY the format if they open even decently, macrorabbit is still good. spellbooks are going to dominate for as long as rabbits dont open decently with +100000 advantage every turn with huge boss monsters. you will see a bit more junk doppel and lavals that are really going to screw the format. ALL THESE DECKS are just going to go to the huge imbalance of going first. open quasar, ophion, judgment + high priestess/dmoc. you will see the death of mermails with fire kings/verzrabbit/quasar, the death of wind-ups, the death of sixsams, the attempted revival of teleDAD and cat synchro, and ultimately archetype dominant formats which will just be a game of who has the better deck matchup, with spellbooks being basically the criteria of consistency. side-decking becomes way overrated.

hastily written during class. might have made a few mistakes and made a few holes in my logic. if you need anything further explained, just ask. my hope for ban lists (not predictions) is a for a format where there is a variety of decks, counters to those decks, and a bit slower with emphasis on "skill" and "siding" instead of just blowing opponents out of the water with advantage #march2012format

I actually agree with all of your post. Rabbit/ophion wasnt in mind, and i hadnt thought about judgment. i made this right before i started playtesting it... I think if judgment is emergency banned, its ok for dmoc to be at 1. otherwise just no. I do not think this format(the one i wrote) is good for skill. Me and twi actually constructed what we thought about what fixes the format over what is more "fun" (though i did forget about rekindling). Ask him about it, basically banned a lot of stuff and were more careful about what is a reason for limitting/semilimitting, and why we ban.