Banned List for December 2023

We have entered the depths of Solaris, the final battle is at hand, and… not all the cards we had before now are coming with us… Force of Will players have eagerly awaited the release of a new banned / combo banned list with the release of every new set. This season is no different. With Judgment of the Rogue Planet comes a wave of new, powerful cards and Rulers that are reintroducing Judgment in a way never conceived of before. Competitively, the game has seen several combinations of cards produce somewhat undesirable game states at times, resulting in several bans, combo bans, and even some releasing of cards from the ban list entirely. Let’s see what the design team at Eye Spy have for us this time! (From: Force of Will TCG)

BANNED

BANNED - Ragnarok, Invading Dragon Lord (EDL-096)

Ragnarok has been one of the most unique rulers released in Force of Will’s history. Being one of the only singleton rulers developed - the former being the host of the unconscious dragon of destruction in Ayu - Ragnarok was designed in such a way that it would only appreciate in value as time went on. More cards means more tools, replacing and expanding the full breadth of what Ragnarok would be able to do over time. Truly, a masterpiece of open-ended card design with powerful effects that reward deck building and player skill. It is sad to see this ruler go, but its not banned without some decent rationale. 

Ragnarok has powerful effects on its front-side to help make up for the fact that he is locked into one copy of a card in the deck. That being said, Ragnarok also had a suite of resonators that doubled-up the ruler effects given to him on cards like Wind Servant of Ragnarok and Water Servant of Ragnarok. These cards alone constituted a powerful core of resources that produced extra Will and drew additional cards, respectively. Having access to potentially six will on turn 1, provided you have ways to find Wind Servant of Ragnarok, allows for many powerful combos. The addition of Dexia’s Advice allowed for a way to find both resonators in the deck on turn 1 if you used Ragnarok’s Will production effect for free at the start of the game. On top of this, you must contend with access to consistent Will through Ragnarok’s Fiery Stone and Magic Stones of Moon Shade, a board wipe, graveyard removal, and destruction of J-Rulers. A player who understands this ruler and its capabilities is not only skilled, but they have a powerful arsenal of effects at their hands. This was always kept in check by the fact that many people did not have the desire to play with the entirety of Force of Will’s card pool to make this deck function. However, the 2023 Force of Will Festival saw Ragnarok take home the gold on the backs of Wind Servant and Water Servant’s powerful effects. 

It appears that the design team is quite aware of this fact as well. They note in their notes to players about the recent Ban List that placing Ragnarok on the combination ban list again did not fundamentally answer their concerns when it came to Ragnarok’s ability to produce 3-Will on turn 1 of any game. The power of such an effect appears to have restrained the ability of the design team to comfortably make new cards. To that end, that’s enough of a reason on its own.

BANNED - Great Dimension Library (CMB-045)

Brad’s partner in crime, but also one of the culprits behind Eins’ recent errata to only be able to reveal Gears resonators with “Solari” in the name from outside the game. At the 2023 Force of Will Festival, streamed games showed the power of Eins as a control deck alongside the additional draws that came from being able to reveal Great Dimension Library at the start of the game. 

Even on its own, it presents an issue when paired with Solaristation rulers in a different way than Brad. Not only are you able to draw additional cards, like Brad, you are fueling the strength of future Solarisation plays in future turns. Paired with the new special magic stones that remove the top card of your deck from the game, you have access to a powerful value and ramp engine that goes beyond its original design intentions. Replicants released in the set have potentially powerful effects that are most useful in decks that utilize the Solarisation mechanic, but Library access makes those rulers more splashable in other decks that would love the means to recycle cards and do so by arranging the cards on the bottom of the deck to set up future draws. Even combo-banning Library with Brad would not remedy this core design issue that would allow for such powerful synergy with Solaristation rulers. 

Great Dimensional Library in combination with Brad was also already so ubiquitous that many control decks slotted it in to benefit from the extra card per turn, even outside of Eins. It was a go-to engine that supplied you with more cards and gave you access to powerful control spells like Conflict of Memory and Soul with little to no downside for your deck. Unlike in other card games, Force of Will values its engines only as much as there are many of them that see use and Library created many situations in which the value it provided more utility than other engines currently in the game.

BANNED - Brad, Amnesiac Immortal (CMB-041)

Brad has combined with Great Dimension Library to create a powerful value engine for many decks. One could even argue that part of the recent erratas we’ve seen from the company can trace their origin to this two card combination. You could arguably leave Brad alone for regular Force of Will decks as the chants he’s most commonly used with are powerful, yes, but they limit the diversity of your hand to the point where you have 1-2 Brad and the quintessential “Brad spell” (the nickname given to cards like Conflict of Memory and Soul whose alternative cost require you to remove a correlating card of the same attribute from your hand, to which Brad counts as every attribute while in the hand). 

However, this limitation becomes a boon in decks sporting the new Solaristation rulers. These Rulers released in Judgment of the Rogue Planet value having cards removed from the game to benefit their Solarisation mechanic, essentially, a kind of “ramp” that turns dead cards in your hand into fodder for larger Resonators, Chants, and Additions with the Solarisation keyword. Seeing this interaction as an incentive to play Brad in any Solaristation deck is certainly problematic, but the question remains, how problematic?

Perhaps the utility of Brad, even outside of his combination with Great Dimensional Library and the “Brad Spells” is simply too strong for where the direction of Force of Will is going ahead of Pilgrim Memories launching in January and the 10th cluster after that. The rest of the list hints toward the company making large changes to affect game balance, but we will address that in later comments.

BANNED - Phantasmal Ascendant (DSD-006 & GOG-026)

This has been a long time coming, as Phantasmal Ascendant arguably was designed for a different game. Back in Duel Cluster, the intention of rotating formats in New Frontiers meant that at some point, the power of Ascendant would expire and be relegated to the Wanderer format. However, New Frontiers is no longer sanctioned as an official format by Eye Spy and Wanderer has taken its place in the Hero Cluster era. 

Ascendant has everything going for it - a low cost, provides a temporary recovered magic stone which essentially turns the clock ahead in your favor, and Quickcast - the most powerful symbol skill in the game. This would allow players to cast Ascendant in the last instance of your opponent’s turn at the “Cleanup Stage” of gameplay. Because of how Force of Will mechanics work, the gamestate has progressed past the “end of turn” and thus, you would keep the magic stone going into your turn.

Probably most famously used in Asuka decks, Ascendant would help you ramp ahead in stones so that Asuka’s contract spell, Night of the Legendary Vampire, destroyed more cards, milled more of your deck, and recurred more resonators when flipped into End of Night. It also provided numerous benefits that saw the card combo banned with a significant amount of other cards, resulting in it having the most amount of combination bans of any Force of Will card on the banlist up to this point. Cards that ramp magic stones must be considered carefully and Phantasmal Ascendent broke the mold.

BANNED - Disrupting Shout (TUS-037)

In all transparency, this one took us all off guard, but peering more deeply into some reasoning behind this ban, it has some logic behind it. Much of the competitive discussion around Ki Lua has been varied. Most people when asked would be hard pressed to say that Ki Lua didn’t need a hit on the ban list at all. But there was a lot of disagreement about which card(s) to hit or combo ban to make her feel more “fair.” Ki Lua, Girl in the City provided generic utility for a wide variety of decks, but in Ki Lua decks it essentially drew you two cards when factoring in the removal of the Ice Counter from Ki Lua’s ruler side. No Bite, No Fight also provided multiple draws, but also had a mode that allowed you to make will for large Dinosaurs - none of which had been played outside of Grandleon. Megiddo, Artificial Sun provided board control and allowed you to draw on turns when there was no board to clear. Yet, it also didn’t favor aggressive play-styles,but more control oriented play styles (foreshadowing). Grandleon is arguably a weaker Geryon,but provides utility to Ki Lua decks as a reach spell that comes back when you contract with Divine Lighting and flip into Predator, recurring Grandleon for a hefty set of stats. So then, what do you hit? Having converted very little outside of Worlds, Ki Lua was arguably mostly in check with a few exceptions (all of which are banned as of this ban list).

Disrupting Shout is an interesting pick mostly because it took what was so powerful about Wall of Wind and made it stronger by giving multiple modes of use. You could bounce a resonator to its owner’s hand and if you controlled it, you’d draw an extra card. A powerful effect to save resonators that are about to be destroyed or die in battle. It’s second effect - the aforementioned Wall of Wind+ - had you remove an Ice Counter for you to force your opponent to pay another will if they wanted their spell to resolve (resulting in another draw from removing the Ice Counter). As far as bans go, there is precedent for Wall of Wind-like effects being limited severely in Force of Will. The namesake is banned already and other cards with this effect are also always on the radar of players and the company (foreshadowing). Between drawing cards and essentially “canceling” cards when playing a cancel at the right time, I think Disrupting Shout should probably not be allowed to do both.

BANNED - Child of the Light Moon (NWE-003)

While I certainly am not shocked that this Moon Child was finally banned, I honestly wondered if the design team would ban it outright. This is not the second Moon Child to be banned - the first was Child of the Fire Moon - which you could argue is as powerful if not more so that Child of the Light Moon. At the 2023 Force of Will Festival, it was clear that players were able to build their decks and play the game in such a way that mitigated Light Child’s powerful ability. However, one could also argue that the fact that players had to make those accommodations of a wholesale basis gave credence to the card’s banning. It raises the question, should a card you have access to at the beginning of every game be so powerful and ubiquitous that it shapes gameplay for the era it was released? Evidently, the design team no longer thinks that’s the case. The player base has also favored Light Child over and beyond the second-place Moon Child - Child of the Darkness Moon.

Light Child being banned overall begins another conversation about what future rulers like Moon Children who have initial one-time effects that don’t perform Judgment or have a Contract process are going to be allowed to do in future years of Force of Will? Perhaps design space will shift to releasing more Sub-Rulers like those we are receiving in Pilgrim Memories in early 2024 to help do what Moon Children were initially intended to do. Until then, it’ll be interesting to come to the deck building space with this card no longer a needed consideration.

Combination Bans

Asuka (HSD-020) & Asuka, Gravekeeper of Tsukuyomi (NWE-058) + Night of the Legendary Vampire // End of Night (HSD-021, NWE-072)

Asuka has come a long way since we first were introduced to her in the Starter Decks for Hero Cluster and in the A New World Emerges set. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure how strong Asuka was going to be given that a lot of people gravitated toward Viga, Falchion, and Aristella at the start. However, as time went on, people started to catch on to the power that a targeted destruction, mill, and recursion card could offer as a mid-to-late game bomb. Night of the Living Vampire was unique in that it could enable a repeatable cascade of Contracts that would lead to powerful enter effects being repeatedly trigger, cards like Phantasmal Ascendant, Maamuu, Restoration King of the Mumu Tribe, and Dreiwing, Mechanized Wind of Destruction are some of the more infamous combo enabled pieces of Asuka’s overall toolbox. 

Of course, this looping would lead to a stone destruction combo that was put to devastating effect at worlds and was still viable even after the introduction of Muse Staring At… and Girl Staring At… in the set Clash of the Star Trees. I think that this combination ban does, in fact, stop this combo in its tracks and the loop will no longer be viable in Asuka. However, I do wonder if easy access to stone destruction in the form of Explosion og Magog will open up alternative combos that will result in that card also eating a ban in the future? It stands out as a card that is particularly ripe for abuse in future formats. Why that card did not also find itself banned and reassessed as a piece of card design, I cannot say.

Arena Expansion: Mount Othrys (GRV-048) + Typhon's Blood (GRV-067)

The massive Darkness Control deck has been nerfed in a way that sees it limited in a way it hasn’t been until now. Initially, the combo banning of Blood and Antibodies was frustrating, but the deck managed to shift into a control-core with Typhon’s Blood as the cornerstone for that strategy. Drawing cards on top of Will production was already a powerful effect on its own, but being able to do so on your opponent’s turn with Othrys was integral to its strategy. You only get one of those cornerstone pieces to play with now. Typhon doesn’t get access to a strong draw engine, so I would anticipate Typhon players either keep playing Othrys for the ability to cast Darkness chants at Quickcast speed, or they slow the gamestate down to such a state that Blood becomes beneficial to them, which feels like the wrong strategy overall, in my opinion. We’ll have to wait and see if this ruler is completely relegated to the unviable-Rogue tier or if there are die-hard Typhon players who are willing to overlook the nerfs to embrace his novelty. 

Ayu, Multidimensional Wanderer (GRL-006) + Alice, Tales of Creation // Order of Genesis (GRL-067)

Order Alice has been around for quite a long time. As of February 2022, she will have been a full two years of meta viability since her introduction. Part of that comes from the power of Ayu, Multidimensional Wanderer, a card so efficient that it almost makes one wonder how its managed to do so little in its tenure. As the game has advanced into the Hero Cluster era, Ayu has had the same vibes as something like Atomic Bahamut - it could come down any minute, steal all the momentum of the game, and if you don’t have a plan, the game could just be done right there. A lot of this umph came from the fact that she produces two Light Will when she enters on top of the enter effects on the Order of Genesis itself. She could then filter that will into a massive stat buff or draw you cards. Not to mention your Light-attributed regalia now produce any color of Will you need, essentially netting you 3 Will off of one Order. Swiftness and Flying after you net yourself 5 regalia on board and you’re in a position to win the game outright.

Initially, the design team tried to limit the applications of this card by combo-banning Ayu with Excalibur, the God’s Sword so that additional Will wouldn’t be filtered into her draw effect or contribute to her overall win condition. To that end, the card was still a powerhouse. Like other cards on this ban list, Ayu being combo banned seems to indicate that the design team is trying to down shift the metagame as we head into Judgment of the Rogue Planet, Cluster 10, and Masterpiece #1 - Pilgrim Memories in 2024. Alice, Tales of Creation // Order of Genesis have several other win conditions available to make use of, include Pricia, Dangerous Duelist and Fairy of Ma’at, as well as a suite of control cards that include Charlotte, Chasing Light and the recently released from the combo ban list Tales of Phantasia. Alice players are now forced to reevaluate their deck building, which is also a healthy change for them to consider.

Fiethsing, 100 Years of Wizardry (GOG-047) + Falchion, Solitary Scientist (NWE-066)

Falchion and Fiethsing have been joined at the hip since the release of A New World Emerges, primarily because of the Homeland ability that revealed and put into the field a Cocoon addition from outside the game. Falchion also had the unique trait of being able to make the most use of Additions of any ruler prior. This combination made Fiethsing a consistent tool in the suite Falchion had access to. This feels like a hit to Falchion that is meant for more diverse deck building, rather than to limit Falchion overall power. As time has gone on, Wind & Water combination decks have seen a lot of intentional support that has created a powerful control combination in Hero Cluster. Daily Research as a tool to recruit new Additions from the deck has single handedly made Falchion a ruler to consider throughout these last 18 months compared to other rulers that utilize Moon Children. 

Fiethsing has been one of the more controversial tools that Falchion has had, as well, given that Homeland gave one Addition as a beginning of the game trigger for Fiethsing’s effect to be useful right away. At the time, no other ruler had that kind of innate synergy that was vying for top spots at GPs. With the reworking of the Homeland mechanic, Fiethsing’s consistency drops quite a bit. However, there’s enough of an incentive to play Fiethsing in Falchion decks that players were anticipated to still gravitate toward it regardless. The design team also seems to have seen interactions with Soalria’s support additions to be potentially problematic, meaning this combo-ban is preemptive as much as it's to foster deck diversity. 

Ki Lua, Fossil Girl of Melted Ice (TUS-070) + Megiddo, Artificial Sun (TUS-073)

“Ok, but what do we do about Ki Lua…?” That seems to be the resounding question a lot of players have had at the competitive level of Force of Will as a deck that is popular, potent, but also something manageable. Its control variant had to content with Library Eins decks and Brandhardt Burn. Its aggro variant also had to manage itself against decks that were prepared against and had respect for Brandhardt Burn and other Fire based decks. The design team seems contended with continuing to curtail Ki Lua with hits that shape her play style in the current meta game. Along with Disrupting Shout earlier on this list, that play style seems to continue to favor aggressive play over mid-range or control styles of play.

Outside of Ki Lua, however, Megiddo is very much still a powerful card. In other Fire/Wind variant decks, like Pricia, True Beastmaster // Reincarnated Maiden of Flame, Pricia decks, this is a powerful mid-range tool that can help stave off boards if the game goes late. Plenty of tokens fold to this card on its own and also opens up the field for last minute aggro pushes to seal games. The fact that its Quickcast effect allows it to wipe on your opponent’s turn also feel like a boon in its favor.

Eins (NWE-090) + Lifezapper Chronogear (JRP-058)

Eins can’t catch a break. He’s banned from the Library. He only gets horrific manifestations of “gearified” woodland critters and now he’s lost his new Gundam. To be fair, it was for good reason. Eins has relatively open-ended game design which always raises a little bit of a red flag when new Gears support comes out. In fact, before the errata for Homeland abilities and Eins text overall, you could make a case of Eins to be banned outright. More Gears made for more problems. The same could be said for Lifezapper Chronogear who makes some, overall, powerful token resonators with his Inheritance effect. With the reveal of Dragon of Solari at the start of the game and the production of a Darkness Will, Eins had access to a line that produced 1800 damage before the opponent had a chance to play the game. But this isn’t the only limitation to Eins on this list…

Eins (NWE-090) + Gearsification Facility of Solaris (NWE-092)

…because Eins has also been banned from the Facility as well! The power of Gearsification would arguably have been worth searching for in the mulligan phase at the start of the game because now any resonator can be made into a Gears that reaps the benefits of all of the beasts of Solari revealed from the side board. In addition, Gearsification Facility could filter Will into whatever color you needed, meaning any resonator could be easily splashed into the deck. We saw moments at the 2023 Force of Will Festival where this was the case all too often. 

Pulling these different tools away from Eins, in addition to erratas to how rulers from Hero Cluster work overall will certainly alter the legacy of the cards going into the future. It continues to prove that the design team is willing to dismantle strategies that are too powerful if their intentions are not being lived out in the competitive environment. This is the case for offering an errata to Prototype Magi Trooper and re-releasing it as a more restricted version that is only able to be utilized by Eins. The combination ban also continues to produce questions about the future of Force of Will game design and the kinds of restrictions we might see on future rulers.

Brandhardt, Blazing Stern (CST-015) + Flaming Thoughts (CST-018)

You either loved or hated this combo deck when it contained Flaming Thoughts and if you loved it, you were likely piloting it. Flaming Thought’s card design is not a new concept, but its potential for setting up the graveyard with Blazing Skills and dig for Blazing Storm to eventually land the killing blow was the most love Fire has seen as an attribute in quite a while. Granted the potential is somewhat still there with Enchanting Sortie and Conclave of Dragon Mountain still present as tools to help Brandhardt dig through the deck and find the burn spells he needs to end the game. The recent errata to the Contract process also helped to reign in Brandhardt and other Regalia-contract decks who sometimes liked having the option to perform the Contract twice or more per turn. However, the real power Flaming Thoughts offered was the additional Will on top of the cards being drawn and discarded. I’m happy to see this card gracefully leave the metagame, but I have no doubts that Brandhardt, while somewhat less consistent, is more than potent enough to still provide meta contention.

SINGLE & COMBINATION UNBANS

[Any cards that were combination banned with newly banned cards are released from those combination bans]