Most controversial WIXOSS ban-list change...?

Most players face after the latest ban-list reveal.

So with the latest Mayu's room update which will be implemented on October 25th (The date of WXK04 WILES release), many players are left perplexed (or even in despair) at the changes it made.  The following changes were made:

- Arcgain, Valkyrie and Apato released from restriction, allowing players to play 4 copies

- THREE OUT and Osaki are allowed to be played together again.

- Piruluk APEX and CRYSTAL SEAL/MPP are allowed to be played together again. Take note that CRYSTAL SEAL and MPP are still restricted from playing in the same deck together.

While most of the card release from restriction seems reasonable, one particular card release has sparked up huge controversy across players everywhere:

OG Cansur Card - Arcgain, Archangel of Pioneering

With the ability to give all angel SIGNIs including herself immunity to effects from everything except LRIG, thereby making most defensive and offensive response useless against her, it is no wonder why players are freaking out when this SIGNI is released from Mayu's Room. Some even questioned the sanity of the game's R&D department for releasing her. With that we will look at why releasing her is actually reasonable in this article.

How she got into Mayu's Room

To get an understanding of why her release is justified, we first need to look back at why she got in Mayu's Room in the first place. Under the official site, cards that meet any of the following conditions will be hit:

- Cards or Decks that may or have limit the variety of decks played

- Cards that can take up a huge amount of time off the time limit, influencing the progress of a match.

Since its release, Arcgain has already been a pain to deal as there isn't any way to stop it during attack phase other than calling Aztec with Ancient Surprise or healing a life with Restructure. WX05's Genesis Miko worsen the situation with its extremely strong Exceed5, gaining a double turn at the cost of discarding all your ener and hand.  

Those looking at WX05 reveals one day before Spread's
last episode probably got the episode spoiled by her.

Needing to deal against an Arcgain-angel board for 2 turns straight, EVERY deck had NO way out against her. Genesis Miko can push in lethal from anywhere between 2-6 damage. The need to guard the LRIG twice and block a total of 6 SIGNIs that can't be affected by ARTS made her the most dominating deck in the game.

As it limited the number of decks playable (most tournament only saw Genesis-Tama decks), Arcgain was restricted to 2 to affect her consistency. Take note even after this, Genesis-Tama was still dominating the meta.

Releasing her from Mayu's Room

As the game progresses, more and more ways to deal with Arcgain were also released. In WX09, not only was the generic black ARTS Grave awake introduced, the first ever LRIG attack phase effect was also introduced in Ut'ulls, allowing players to block open SIGNI zones against Arcgain. Coating Fan was introduced in WX10, while more LRIGs with attack phase effect and the infamous Four Color Miasma was released in WX11. 

As more sets were release, more LRIGs with attack phase effects were also release, with LRIG effects being stronger than the ones in the previous boxes. Generic SIGNIs such as Recorder and Mage also started to see play is some builds after is release, allowing many decks to counter Arcgain without needing to sacrifice their ARTS slot for it.

Then finally came the period during WX14, with cards such as APEX and Succeed Destruct introduced into the game, most decks by now have access to different ways to stop Arcgain.

This continued into the Lostorage period where cards like Donna FOURTH and Allos Piruluk N were released during the first half while level 5 LRIGs like MAIS and Ril 5 and SIGNIs like ZR being released in the later half. Arcgain's relevancy in the meta slowly died out.

Finally, the release of Key nailed the coffin for Arcgain's relevance in the meta. With Key, now every LRIG can easily stop Arcgain from as early as turn 2 and minimal cost. 

Looking at the current state of the game, the game is more than ready to fight against Arcgain compared to the early days during WX05 where literally only 2 ARTS are available to deal with her. Hence releasing her is not that huge of a problem anymore.

Counter Arguement

Tama has Innocence, Preventing Keys from being used!

While it is undeniable that Innocence is a strong Coin Ability especially when used with Arcgain. Other than Promeus, Tama does not have any access to angels that can open SIGNI zones while attacking. This allows players to call SIGNI to field from their Deck/Hand/Ener/Grave/Etc. to block Arcgain's effect, even Promeus herself can be stopped by placing a higher level SIGNI or banish immunity SIGNI in front of her.

There are some Tama builds that gives angels some way to bypass SIGNIs, however nearly all those builds require the use of the player's LRIG deck slot along with their Ener. This meant that if the opponent denies them the ener they need or if their combo fails, they are left with very little defense to stop your attacks, making such decks a "High Risk, High Reward" deck.

Once the player blocks that one turn of Tama's Innocence, they can still continue to use their Key to response , hence deeming Arcgain still ok in the current game.

But my deck has no ARTS or SIGNI that can deal with Arcgain's attack!

This is WIXOSS. Unlike some TCGs where deck building is standard and it will be the same no matter the meta, WIXOSS is a highly adaptive game, requiring players to build their decks to deal with whatever threats that are active in the game. Hence the release of so many Generic SIGNIs and the concept of LRIG deck, it is meant for the player to change their decks to deal with the meta if they have a problem fighting it.

Conclusion

With the release of Arcgain, the meta is definitely going to shake up, dealing with 4 Arcgains will be a pain to many. However the game's current state isn't anywhere near like during WX05 where nearly nothing can stop Arcgain. With access to so many different responses against Arcgain, it won't be an impossible match against 4 Arcgains now.

With that, this article has ended. See you next time!