Wanderer Banlist – August 21st, 2020

Hello again, dear Rulers!!

After two released sets (AO3 and GitS) and gathering a good amount of results, we are back with changes to the Banlist.
We have seen the graveyard decks become too popular, dominating the format the last three months.

These are the changes that will take effect on Friday, August 21th, 2020:

NEW FRONTIERS

No changes

WANDERER

Banned:
Athenia, Deity of Harvest and Corruption (DBV-092)
Invitation to Purgatory (DBV-079)
Sacrificial Altar (AOA-100)

This is what the Wanderer Banlist will looks like (as of August 21th, 2020):

1. Interdimensional Vessel, Apollo (TMS-094)
2. Change the World, Orb of Illusion (TTW-096)
3. Horn of Sacred Beasts (SKL-099)
4. Laevateinn, the Demon Sword (TTW-099)
5. Captain Hook, the Pirate (CFC-037)
6. The Cheshire Cat’s Assistance (ENW-049)
7. Forest Meditation (SDV4-005)
8. Gretel (CMF-069)
9. Law of Silence (CMF-071)
10. Otherworld Dreams (ADK-106)
11. Speaker of Eternal Night (TSW-109) // Scheherazade of the Catastrophic Nights (TSW-109J)
12. Spinning Myths (RDE-031)
13. Severing Winds (ENW-063)
14. True Blade of Spirits (ADK-113)
15. Wall of Wind (TMS-064)
16. Demonic Dead (ENW-074)
17. Invitation to Purgatory (DBV-079)
18. Sacrificial Altar (AOA-100)
19. Athenia, Deity of Harvest and Corruption (DBV-092)
20. Kaguya, Sealed God of the Moon (DBV-095)
21. The Kingdom of Diversity, Light Palace (WOM-117)

Let us explain the reasonings that led to these changes:

Athenia, Deity of Harvest and Corruption (DBV-092)

Athenia has been a double-edged sword ever since the day she was released. She is a good card to keep graveyard decks in check, but she is also the card that singlehandedly glues pieces of the graveyard decks together. She costs less than her printed cost (due to cards like Command of Life and Death (ADK-123), Sacrificial Altar (AOA-100), Power of Immortality (SNV-095), just to name a few), and she has seen play in tons of different decks and archetypes because of her recovering ability, which pushes Athenia way over the power of other 3-Will cost cards. However, what Athenia does best is creating infinite loop combos, leading to extremely long solitaire plays and no interaction with the opponent.

Because of that, we decided that “Athenia, Deity of Harvest and Corruption (DBV-092)” had to be banned.

Invitation to Purgatory (DBV-079)

This card has shown that it can create crazy graveyard OTK combos.
As a Rune, it is always available for Divinity Rulers, and as it replaces the Will needed to be cast (you pay {B} {B} and you get {R} {B}, there are some situations where with 3 Will and one Book of Eibon (MOA-042), you can end the game with only 1 card in your hand (together with this card in the Rune Deck).

We believe that the combo archetype has to be represented in the metagame, but with at least two card combos. Since this card creates a one card combo, it had to be banned.

Sacrificial Altar (AOA-100)

This was the most controversial decision we had to make. We discussed if we should ban Sacrificial Altar or Sigurd, the Covenant King (AO3-082), as they were the pair that changed how the game is played since the release of AO3. In the end we decided that Sigurd is a good tool for graveyard decks, as the other targets it has are not nearly as powerful as Sacrificial Altar.

What makes Sacrificial Altar so powerful, is its capability to give pseudo-quickcast to every Resonator you have in your main deck, letting you play one of each good resonator you think you’re going to need at any moment when having access to Altar. Without Altar, graveyard decks won’t be able to have access to Dark Alice, Rabbit Princess (DBV-009) that easily, forcing them to use some space they don’t have to protect their plays.

For these reasons we decided to ban this card.

What is dead may never die

We believe that with this new Banlist, graveyard decks will still be very good, but they won’t be the only decks in the top spots. However, there still are several cards on our watchlist, not only for being too powerful, but for their capability to warp the format. Maybe after PofA some of the cards that are currently on the Banlist could be unbanned, but only time will tell.

Thanks for reading this far! We hope you like the changes and that you will enjoy Wanderer as much as we do.

See you soon!