Hello everybody, this is what I guess is a long overdue primer/pitch for Burst Limited? This format, and its counterpart, Burst Classic, have been around for about 4 years now, and were actually developed at the same time around 2018, in response to the opposite spin LAD-centric Cho-Z meta.

Identity(?) of the Format

While BSC being almost entirely single spin was a huge and refreshing departure from the current state of BST at the time, the nuances between BST and BSL were a bit harder to pinpoint, especially as BST moved through what would eventually become GT format before settling back into what seems to be a more Cho-Z like state at its end. However, there are a bunch of connected concepts that I think might serve as a way to differentiate what BSL should "feel" like as opposed to BST.

1. The weight class/power level scale. Similarly to Classic, which is balanced around a Single/Dual Layer meta, BSL is balanced around a late God/early Cho-Z meta. This is an important weight class for several reasons:

• When BSL was in development, this was the weight class of Layers that had been outclassed by hS/aH/CzS/pP, making them almost immediately unusable in tournament play.
  
• This low teen-low 20g weight class is also the same weight class of every subsequent Hasbro release barring the Pro series.
  
• Finally, and somewhat overlooked, is that this is the last major weight class where Layers are lighter than Disks. This is important for the Burst mechanic, especially once Dash Drivers come into the picture.
  

Without super-heavy Layers stifling nearly all of Hasbro's catalog, this restriction boasts the highest level of diversity in viable Layers out of any Burst format.

2. The low LAD Floor. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, I define it briefly here, but it is essentially the lowest amount of LAD a combo can have in order to be considered viable in a format. The LAD Floor is why something like Rubber Spike from MFB is not necessarily a viable defense tip - in the wrong matchup, even if it resists being knocked out, it can still be outspun by an opposite spin Attacker, which fundamentally breaks the Attack < Defense < Stamina triangle. As an Attacker should not win by outspin if it fails to KO/Burst its opponent, Attack must set the LAD Floor. So if your combo cannot out-LAD an opposite spin Attacker, it's not viable in a dual spin format. This is why RDF, Rage Drift, and F230GCF were so toxic in their respective formats, they threaten same spin combos offensively and... don't even need to threaten opposite spin combos offensively, because they can weak launch and pretty much auto-win due to LAD.

Many of the subtypes of combos that you see in Burst Classic, such as Mixed Attack and Burst Attack, as well as the deep Stamina sub-meta that has even been praised by MFL players, are only effective in same spin, and pretty much all of them got killgated in the original God Layer series just because opposite spin (dF on Atomic) was such a monumental force. You could not OS it in same spin, or opposite spin, because its Driver had simultaneously the best Stamina and LAD, you could not KO it consistently because it outweighed V2 by 4 grams and if dF was weak launched, its burst resistance against both spin directions would increase, as well as its KO resistance against right spin, *and* its chances cause opposing attackers to self-burst. This, essentially, gave dF, a Stamina/LAD type, a functional immunity to the burst mechanic, giving it a significant amount of "defense" as well. Although more parts were released that eventually addressed dF.At specifically, the circumstances that created its dominance persisted, and were only exacerbated by the weight creep of the generation.

As Layers got heavier, their natural burst resistance increased as they took up a larger portion of the Beyblade's matter during collisions, meaning that weak launching in same spin became less necessary and upping the functional Stamina cap of things like Atomic or Bearing. In addition, the heavier Layer is also harder to KO in opposite spin when weak launched, which, combined with the implicit burst resistance buff, increases both the overall defense and the stamina of the combo. The Cho-Z trio in particular jumped the shark on these by having Burst Stoppers, making CzS Br a pretty spammable combo even if it wasn't totally optimized. Offensive Dash Drivers like X', Z', and Qc' were a step in the right direction, as they also allowed Attack to be launched harder more safely, but their potential didn't really show until they had the proper Layers to support them (Judgement, Zwei). By this point though, most viable things had a built-in burst stopper of some sort or a Dash Driver, so at this point the combos focused on intentionally bursting the opponent that could be pulled off in BSC had basically vanished from the game, turning it into the more simple, but still good KO > Stamina <-> LAD meta you see in GT.

Where the original God era fell short, and what makes RDFless Standard, MFL, PLA/HMS, and GT so fun is the feeling of spin direction balance. Since the LAD Floor only applies to dual spin formats, and Attack must set the LAD floor, it should follow that each spin direction should have at least 1 viable Attacker (ideally, all types are present on both sides). MFL has Attack L-Drago, Defense L-Drago, Stamina L-Drago, and Gravity which can essentially sub in as any of those for left spin, giving representation to all the types. Without RDF, you can make Attack, Defense, and Stamina Dragooons, with the only thing holding you back from running a functional all left spin deck being the No Shared Parts rule. GT might not have a huge Layer pool, but there's enough to represent all types in both spin directions. Everything in Bakuten is dual spin. Meanwhile, Nightmare Longinus didn't show up until pretty late into the God season, and L2 was inconsistent without X', so the only left spin representation for most of God was dF, which as I established was essentially the best and only thing at everything not attack.

These issues with not only the God era of Burst, but just the overall interaction between dual spin and the Burst mechanic in general are what Burst Limited is attempting to address. By applying the philosophy of creating a banlist that allows for the highest amount of diversity in viable types of combos in a metagame balanced around the Late God/Early Cho-Z era, Burst Limited intends to create an inclusive format that does not particularly favor any spin direction, brand, combo type, or playstyle. This makes the format accessible as there are many different viable parts and you don't need anywhere near a complete library of them to succeed, but also incentivizes testing, exploration, and counterplay since there are so many different possible matchups. Now that left spin has a larger selection of Layers besides dF/F3 and L2 (aB, nL/L3, bL, gF, Roar, Inferno, Fierce, maybe even Erase) you have more types represented for that spin direction, essentially scaling up the BSC meta so that it works in both spin directions. Ideally, playing LAD is riskier in BSL than it would be in a heavier Burst Format simply because encountering a Stamina or Attack type specialized for a same spin matchup should be a common occurrence and not necessarily a "niche counter".

3. Spin direction tradeoff. This is different from the spin direction balance I used it earlier in the context of the LAD Floor, it refers to something I've said multiple times is one of the core balancing principles of Burst Limited: a combo must trade off same spin performance for opposite spin performance, and vise-versa. Drivers like Atomic, Revolve, Bearing, and Dimension-S are good Stamina/LAD examples of this, whereas with Attack this is less obvious: using a more KO-focused setup like nL or hK on X' gives you coverage against both spin directions, but due to lower Stamina/RPM and user error is overall not as consistent as bL Om or bX Ch' would be against a same spin opponent.

Keeping spin direction tradeoff in mind, remember that intentionally bursting an opponent is almost exclusively a same spin strategy because of how the burst mechanic works. It is difficult to intentionally burst an opposite spin opponent, because if you are attempting to do so, it would be because you lose by LAD, in which case they would be weak launching, decreasing their chance of bursting and increasing yours. Having a combo with both high LAD and high burst resistance is inherently more OP than having high stamina and high LAD, or high Stamina and high Burst resistance, because while a high LAD/high BR combo cannot be reliably bursted or OSed in either spin direction, and by nature the only other answer, KO Attack, is unreliable, whereas a high Stam/high LAD combo can be consistently bursted by a same spin Burst Attacker and a high Stam/high BR combo can be consistently OSed by an opposite spin LAD type.

History
When Limited was first introduced, right at the beginning of the pandemic, the LAD Floor was a lot lower than it was today. Destroy' and Xtend+ were banned, and Mobius had not even been released. After 1 tournament, Ds' got unbanned because apparently gF Ds was having trouble beating F3 Dm-S? I'm not sure if there is more to that but I think Shadow Amaterios captured most of our attention back then - it was on the watchlist for several months before being banned after it dominated several tournaments on At, Br, and later Drift.

Mobius, Zn'+Z, and Drift all made huge splashes in Burst Standard and the popularity of the latter two carried over to Limited, so much so that there were calls to ban them. While I wasn't so sure that any of them were really as broken as they had been made out to be, Zn'+Z stood out to me as the only Dash Driver of the bunch. Though it didn't always have the best LAD, on some setups, it was still able to compete on mostly even footing with Drivers that did... while also having the benefit of the Dash Driver spring, which not only increases its burst resistance but also same spin stamina. While it was certainly able to be beaten by KO Attackers, opposite spin max LAD, and some same spin Stamina combos, it still had very safe, reliable coverage against most of the meta and stifled a bunch of other Drivers, and I think that overall it wasn't healthy and that banning it was the right move.

Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of a series of shark-jumping LAD Drivers: Zn'+Z was soon followed up by HXt+', Bearing', Metal Drift, Bearing Drift, Metal Bearing Drift, Bearing Mobius, and now finally Hasbro Bearing has been unbanned to keep up with the TT releases. This resulted in a massive oversaturation of Drivers that have some combination of: a high amount of Stamina, a high amount of burst resistance, and a high amount of LAD. These parts remained in the game not because people really wanted them there, but because there wasn’t enough of an argument or a push to ban them. This might be a fault of using tournament results as a primary way of evaluating whether something is banworthy. The argument for this was that if something was broken, then people would want to use it and it would dominate tournaments, thus proving its broken-ness, but in reality, when people have multiple formats competing for their attention and wallet, they would rather just opt not to play the one being “ruined” by the currently broken part. Having been released during the height of the pandemic, BSL already had a pretty sparse tournament count, so by the time it was being played all of these new Drivers that were left legal by default were kind of obfuscating the base form of the format.


However, now that Burst is officially over, and no new parts are being released, I actually think this is the best time to iron out any kinks in the restricted format banlists. First and foremost, I personally think Limited needs a huge scaleback on legal Drivers - I hope I've already gone into sufficient depth as to why Drivers that have both high amounts of burst resistance and LAD are extremely problematic for the game, so those should be no surprise, but there are also a few other Drivers I want to see banned because they set the LAD Floor too high for this format - they mandate a level of LAD that severely limits both the number and type of Drivers that can be used:

Ban:
Bearing Drift: Even if it can be KOed and bursted, it still overcentralizes the Stamina and LAD meta far too much.
Metal Bearing Drift: probably, I can't imagine it performing too fundamentally different from BDr
Bearing Mobius: probably, for good measure. Although it hasn't disrupted the format yet, the kind of inaction that would keep it legal is part of the reason why BSL is in the situation it's in.
High Xtend+': Pretty self explanatory, same boat as Zn'+Z for me
Hasbro Br: Unbanning this made sense in context, but it is a step in the wrong direction imo
Destroy': This is going to be a contentious one, but I've already given a bit of an explanation on Ds' in the LAD Floor post. As an Attack Driver, Ds' just sets the LAD Floor too high, meaning that if your Attacker uses Ds', they will auto win against Defense, and even some Stamina Drivers like Ab-S and At, in opposite spin. I kind of hate to see it go, because there are a few quirky Layers that can make tasteful use of it (dC, aB, bK), but ultimately I think allowing the dash version does BSL more harm than good.


Do not Ban:
Metal Drift/Drift: This might be another contentious opinion but I've always thought the normal strength spring of Dr/MDr and its tendency to go into 'death orbit' are significant enough drawbacks that it can stay. With Attack getting the Dash Driver buff I'm not so sure a nerfed spring for LAD is entirely necessary.
Bearing': Same as above, minus the death orbit part.
Atomic': I've gone over why high Stam/high BR is not gamebreaking, At' is also very responsive to launch and can be used as a pseudo-Burst Defense type as well as Stamina
Wave': This one seems fine. Like, I remember having Wave and Ab-S as about equal, so Wv' should not be any better than a tight Ab-S, which already exists just fine?
High Wave': I don't really know anything about this one, but I can't imagine it being better than Wv' in this format?

Unban:
Xt+: Xt+ probably never should have been banned. While during the Cho-Z era when this format was developed it certainly was used on high LAD/high BR combos while also having high Stamina but that was more due to the heavier Layers.

Do not unban:
Zn'+Z: I stand by what I said earlier, it's not unbeatable and it can lose to multiple types of combo, but I think having these kinds of Drivers gone will really open up the format in terms of what types of combos are usable.


On top of these Drivers, there are a few other parts that fall under the "legal by default but maybe should not be" umbrella - namely Whirl, Gambit, Tp-Q, and the QD tips - but that's another discussion for later, if the format even makes it that far. If we do go ahead and make such radical changes to the Driver banlist I think we should wait to see how the format adjusts before banning anything else, except maybe Whirl... I think BSL will definitely be healthier with these Drivers gone, but I can't say for sure whether their absence will make these other problematic parts less problematic, so we should still keep an eye on them imo.

And that's about it. Sorry this was such a long post, and that it was all over the place, but I think it at least partially explains about how the issues of Burst made Burst Limited the way it is. For what it's worth, despite its unpopularity, I really think it has the potential to be a format that can be seen the culmination of the Burst series over the years - one that does the burst mechanic "right" rather than leaning into the series' design flaws that treat it as an afterthought to be avoided.

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I definitely agree with a large percentage of this, but I do have a few small things I'd like to say regarding it:

1. QD tips are fine. They don't cause any problems with anything tbh. None of them have exceptional LAD, and while some do have massive same spin versatility, I think its better to encourage that same spin style of play instead of using the safer equilizers. It adds a bit of incentive, and its really important that none of them have good LAD, cuz then it would be broken. As of right now, you can pretty much only switch from different same spin setups, and I think that might even lead to stallers becoming usable, cuz if you're wrong, you can still be a traditional stamina type.

2. I'm not really sure why Br' should stay but HasBr shouldn't. I think its very much none or both here. Some would say that Hasbros is better, and that's fair to say, but I think TT having a better layer selection on it makes up that difference. I think its hard to argue that something like gF Br' has worse defense than F3 hasBr, as despite potentially better burst resistance, you have lower KO resistance. Its a trade off and not just a strait upgrade for Hasbro. But even if we came to the conclusion that hasBr is better, I do still think it should stay as we need it for brand parity. Its unfair if TT gets a bunch of things like Dr, Br', XT+, ect if Hasbro only gets a worse drift (Drift-SP), a worse Xt+ (Dm-S) and nothing else at that level besides HS stuff, which probably could be banned too. I think hasBr provides enough incentive to consider Hasbro over TT without causing too many problems with the meta. I've always said this, but we need to do our best to equally limit both sides as well as possible, and if it were up to me, I'd have no Br', HasBr, or Xt+. Dr is fine (even though death orbit seems quite avoidable with proper launching, like I think if I can get HS to stay in on a mid launch, I should be able to with Drift also, but idk tbh). So that would leave us with TT having Br and Dr, and Hasbro having Dm-S and Dr-SP (HS too, but they basically like drift IMO, probably too much for options sake). I'm totally open to more, but we have to be careful and make sure its relatively even, cuz otherwise there will just be a clear brand to go with, if TT has the better drift, and Hasbro has the better Br, it means diversity (if wanted, more theoretical diversity overall than one player's though process. Kinda hard to explain, but I mean if you had a large group of people, only choosing based of viability and nothing else, we should strive to have as equal pick rates as possible.

Overall, yes, 100% agree with the idea behind it, but that's my two cents on the matter. Let's start a discussion!

Skip to the bottom for a proposal that I think works for most.

Adding some of my own thoughts to this thread. I will preface my post by saying I am basing my opinion on feedback I’ve received from hosting 4 Burst Limited tournaments in the last 6 months, between August 2022 and February 2023. I do not have the wider historical context of the format – Vancouver started playing BSL at the height of Driger V2 dominance and now in an era of relative balance.

1. State of the Format
These changes appear to be aimed at addressing complaints that old estranged BSL players have been vocal about with the current format. I do not believe these changes will have far-reaching effects on player turnout, for either old estranged players and new interested players.

This post identifies parts of the format that are problematic, and where the format should ideally be - but I argue it is already there in most places. The proposed changes aim to make the format "healthier" but the format is healthy as-is. To me, these changes feel like they are aiming to please a very specific set of old estranged players who have been out of the loop on the current state of the format. The format doesn't feel unbalanced, nor in a problematic state (for the most part - I will elaborate further down). For example:

Having a combo with both high LAD and high burst resistance is inherently more OP than having high stamina and high LAD, or high Stamina and high Burst resistance.

Despite being the specified Drivers being legal, I have a hard time finding a combo in the current meta with the qualities listed above. The closest we could argue is perhaps Gambit on Bearing, which requires FS specifically to counter it.

2. Banning Parts

These parts remained in the game not because people really wanted them there, but because there wasn’t enough of an argument or a push to ban them.

This assumes these parts are a problem and nobody pushed to ban them. I argue the reverse: nobody pushed to ban them because they are not a problem.

This might be a fault of using tournament results as a primary way of evaluating whether something is banworthy. The argument for this was that if something was broken, then people would want to use it and it would dominate tournaments, thus proving its broken-ness, but in reality, when people have multiple formats competing for their attention and wallet, they would rather just opt not to play the one being “ruined” by the currently broken part. Having been released during the height of the pandemic, BSL already had a pretty sparse tournament count, so by the time it was being played all of these new Drivers that were left legal by default were kind of obfuscating the base form of the format.

I disagree with this section. I believe in having evidence of a problematic part, in the form of tournament results, and not on the basis of theorycrafting. When people have multiple formats competing for attention and their wallet, it is quite the opposite: they would rather play the one where they can splash BDr in and not buy Revolve, not because BDr is 'ruining' the format. The number 1 reason people didn't want to play BSL in Vancouver was because they didn't have access to meta relevant Layers and Discs, ONLY Drivers like HXt+' and BDr, as they happen to have those from BST. I believe  "opt not to play the one being ruined by the currently broken part" is a very vocal minority of disgruntled players.

It feels like we are arbitrarily shifting blame to different Drivers. Zn'+Z was blamed for killing interest, but not much has changed. The response by those who didn't like Zn'+Z was to accuse newer Drivers like BDr of causing the same interest killing. But have those people hosted/participated in tournaments with these Drivers legal? Do we have people who have hosted/gone to tournaments, done testings, or is it just creating a problem that doesn't exist based on theorycrafting? I have received negative feedback about the BSL format over 4 tournaments, and Drivers have never been any of them, nor has BDr/HXt+' actually shown any evidence of being powerful, overcentralizing parts.

BSL has had 18 tournaments in its lifetime, and "I am going to stop playing BSL because DriverNameHere'" largely seems to be coming from players who are overestimating performance based on theorycrafting rather than the actual reality of its performance. If a part was truly causing widespread issues, I would expect to hear consensus from several regions and players - not just a few outspoken individuals. The only part that I find that was historically this problematic across all regions was Driger V2 and MAYBE Gambit on Bearing.

I guess I don't really see the point of the bans. Is Geist Fafnir Wheel-SP Bearing Drift making players avoid BSL? Or is it that players in general do not care for BSL? There will always be a least popular format, and BSL seems to be that, in part by having the most complex and balanced banlist. It isn't as easy to understand as something like BGT or even BSC. By restricting accessibility, at best we are appeasing and seeing the return of a few old estranged players. At worst we turn off new interested players by reducing accessibility even further.

3. Proposal:

With all that being said, there is a compromise that works for everyone, piggybacking off of an idea that originalzankye recently posted about in BST regarding BDr. This post and current BSL is not much different, only differing by a net change of 5 Drivers. The difference is minor enough where we could introduce these bans as an optional ruleset. It is a compromise that gives Organizers the option to target both old estranged players (by addressing complaints that estranged players have), and new interested players (by having a version of the format with more accessibility). This also avoids fracturing an already small BSL playerbase.

Ban: Whirl (Hasbro's Wind). It is largely the same as the already banned Garuda G3, with the same high Burst Resistance and performance. Makes every other Hasbro Layer obsolete.
Unban: Xtend+ for the reasons stated in this post.

Optional ruleset: Ban Gambit, Fierce, Bearing Drift, Metal Bearing Drift, Bearing Mobius, High Xtend+', Hasbro Bearing, Destroy'.

Tp-Q can be OP or mediocre depending on who you ask, but I am inclined to agree with other people about QD Drivers. They are almost exclusively Same-Spin (Stamina) use, with abyssmal Opposite-Spin (LAD) performance.

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Currently fan translating the Beyblade X manga. Beyblade Wiki Administrator and occasional manga scanlator.

1. I agree with this very strongly. Even for formats like GT, I feel BDR has become way too overcentralized in how much it is in most of the Burst winning combos. It also gives left-spin options for TT way too much of a gap for even the best of Hasbro combos can't realistically overcome the LAD ceiling presented by the most centralized TT drivers. High Xtend+' I see as pretty problematic especially its usage on Geist Fafnir, one of the left spin options and few Cho-Z layers allowed in the format can make the combo not only pretty heavy with great burst resistance, but also provide it with good stability if it's used with a level chip where it would be hard to KO with attack for burst limited.

2. I feel those that currently play Burst Limited don't exactly see the problems that the format has. If the format was healthy and assuming the proposed part bans presented here are not a problem, why aren't there more people/regions willing to play the format whether it be for fun, testing, or even competitive. Also, it's extremely unfair that we should only really consider the opinion/testing from one of two regions that play it who aren't willing to directly challenge why these parts shouldn't be banned or why they aren't considered problematic.

3. While I may not know much about Burst Limited in general. My experience so far playing competitive Burst in any format has shown me how problematic high LAD drivers can be for formats, especially for formats where attack can be harder to use successfully, especially in Burst Classic. From the little research I did on BSL, the best attack options such as Nightmare Longinus, Hazard Kerbeus, and Twin Nemesis still struggle against high LAD combos especially if its Geist Fafnir, the heaviest and best left-spin option in the game for Burst Limited. I feel those who still have an active interest in Burst Limited need to seriously consider this ban list proposal or at least test it out as it was provided by someone who has helped developed Burst Limited format in the first place and it would be disrespectful to ignore his work.

It's been a little over a month since I made the original post, and I've learned or figured out some new things since then and revised my take on this issue a little bit. In general, the sentiment is the same - I believe that BSL as a whole: in terms of overall accessibility, meta health and quality, and therefore appeal to both new and returning potential audiences, would benefit from curbing some of the powercreep imposed by some of the later releases of both Hasbro and TT.

I definitely agree with a large percentage of this, but I do have a few small things I'd like to say regarding it:

1. QD tips are fine. They don't cause any problems with anything tbh. None of them have exceptional LAD, and while some do have massive same spin versatility, I think its better to encourage that same spin style of play instead of using the safer equilizers. It adds a bit of incentive, and its really important that none of them have good LAD, cuz then it would be broken. As of right now, you can pretty much only switch from different same spin setups, and I think that might even lead to stallers becoming usable, cuz if you're wrong, you can still be a traditional stamina type.

This is something I have come to agree with as well, these QD/QS tips seem to play very similarly to 230 from MFB. This is a cool dynamic and in fact good for the game, especially if players don't want to buy other parts that fill similar roles like "Revolve" or "Revolve Dash". Despite most of Hasbro's Speedstorm/QD/QS releases being lackluster there are enough interesting things in there that slapping a blanket ban on those series to just to hit HasWheel, Whirl, Tp-Q, Gambit, Ov-Q, actually hurts the format's diversity and accessibility. This tournament is at least 1 example, although due to the newness of the region the players don't seem to be very well equipped in terms of competitive parts, it's worth noting that the 2nd and 3rd placer were able to participate in the event with essentially stock combos they could have purchased from Target or Walmart beforehand. That is the "accessibility" that got GT the shark tank pitch over 4D, at least.

IMO, even from a TO perspective, it is much easier to explain to players that they can use "all of Hasbro besides a Power 8 parts" rather than specifying that Speedstorm/QD/QS is banned, and players not knowing which of their parts even belong those series, or why exactly they can't be used. It could be argued that one could just play Hasbro only at that point, but that would alienate BSL players that don't have Hasbro (which would be quite a few at least coming from higher power tiers where Hasbro is less relevant like BST or GT).

I guess the final argument for blanket banning later "gens" would be to preserve the "identity" of BSL as a "God-Layer Format", and that's just something I fundamentally disagree with, and personally think is a misinterpretation of what the "identity" of the format is supposed to be. Saying that Speedstorm or QD/QS should be banned because of X problem parts, the others "don't add anything to the format", and they "don't fit with the identity" this sounds like suggesting a blanket ban on Metal Fury and Zero-G, in MFB Limited because "Scythe and DK are too strong, the rest is dumb carp like pirates gargoyle and HasDeath that isn't viable, and both series take the focus away from the pre-maximum-series identity of the format". Like, no. Sure, Scythe and DK are at least controversial, but the other parts simply coexist with the existing pre-maximum series meta, and occasionally offer different options or interesting new combos. I've made the comment that you can use literally the first and the last release of Pegasis (maybe not the entire MFB series, but close) in the same deck in MFL and no one bats an eye.

I have always been of the mindset that the identity of the format is defined by its gameplay. MFB Limited, and both Burst Classic and Burst Limited came about because players wished to return to a meta that had been made obsolote by their respective series' power creeps, parts that overcentralized the meta and fundamentally changed the gameplay. For BSC, it was the single-spin era, before L2 and dF introduced left spin and LAD to the game. For MFL, it was the pre-maximum series era, which had a huge potential for diversity already when it wasn't stifled by Basalt and BD145. I'm not sure why BSL is constantly being held to a different double standard here.

For BSL, the "vibe" that the team that originally created it wanted to emulate was one like in this video: This was, nominally, Late God, Early Cho-Z meta. Requiem and Garuda were banned, I think, and a lot of the combos you see flying around in that video are not too different from the ones you see in some modern BSL footage. The meta felt very balanced and good imo, and I think what made it good was the top LAD Drivers were Ds and Br, which had normal and weak springs respectively. This made it unsafe to spam high LAD combos - even something like eF.Br was susceptible to being bursted or KOed by wV/zA/sX/nL/cR, or even by a more passive same spin opponent it would need to hard launch in order to OS. The weight of top attackers like the ones I just mentioned, as well as bL, allowed for natural burst resistance without dash drivers, making attack feel at least usable as well. The weakness of LAD and the strength of Attack made it so a bunch of interesting strategies and combos were viable, as the threat of the LAD floor was less looming. The inclusion of Dash Drivers has removed some of the "randomness" aspect of the burst mechanic since then - with the ability to choose what does and doesn't get dash, we can recreate that same "strong attack, weak LAD" environment more consistently.

2.  I'm not really sure why Br' should stay but HasBr shouldn't. I think its very much none or both here. Some would say that Hasbros is better, and that's fair to say, but I think TT having a better layer selection on it makes up that difference. I think its hard to argue that something like gF Br' has worse defense than F3 hasBr, as despite potentially better burst resistance, you have lower KO resistance. Its a trade off and not just a strait upgrade for Hasbro. But even if we came to the conclusion that hasBr is better, I do still think it should stay as we need it for brand parity. Its unfair if TT gets a bunch of things like Dr, Br', XT+, ect if Hasbro only gets a worse drift (Drift-SP), a worse Xt+ (Dm-S) and nothing else at that level besides HS stuff, which probably could be banned too. I think hasBr provides enough incentive to consider Hasbro over TT without causing too many problems with the meta. I've always said this, but we need to do our best to equally limit both sides as well as possible, and if it were up to me, I'd have no Br', HasBr, or Xt+. Dr is fine (even though death orbit seems quite avoidable with proper launching, like I think if I can get HS to stay in on a mid launch, I should be able to with Drift also, but idk tbh). So that would leave us with TT having Br and Dr, and Hasbro having Dm-S and Dr-SP (HS too, but they basically like drift IMO, probably too much for options sake). I'm totally open to more, but we have to be careful and make sure its relatively even, cuz otherwise there will just be a clear brand to go with, if TT has the better drift, and Hasbro has the better Br, it means diversity (if wanted, more theoretical diversity overall than one player's though process. Kinda hard to explain, but I mean if you had a large group of people, only choosing based of viability and nothing else, we should strive to have as equal pick rates as possible.

Overall, yes, 100% agree with the idea behind it, but that's my two cents on the matter. Let's start a discussion!

I think looking at it in terms of brand accessibility is definitely valid in some cases, but not necessarily when determining the objective balance of the meta. I've highlighted before and will go into again later how a combo with both high burst resistance and high LAD is toxic to the game, and Hasbro Br is essentially the definition of that throughout Burst. The original TT Bearing had a very weak spring, and the Bearing' that took like 4 years to release is still only the strength of a normal spring (like Drift, Mb, Dm-S, Xt+), whereas Hasbro's single and only release of Bearing has consistently had a much stronger spring than a normal Driver.

The comparison of HasBr to Xt+ is a little inaccurate at least in this context, the reason HasBr was not broken in the context of Cho-Z was that even with the burst resistance giving you more launch strength the best Layers usable with it could not compete with the natural stamina and weight of burst resistance of hS and aH, despite Xt+ having the weaker spring. This isn't the case in BSL, where the combo using Xt+/Br'/whatever is the same weight class as the one using HasBr.

Skip to the bottom for a proposal that I think works for most.

Adding some of my own thoughts to this thread. I will preface my post by saying I am basing my opinion on feedback I’ve received from hosting 4 Burst Limited tournaments in the last 6 months, between August 2022 and February 2023. I do not have the wider historical context of the format – Vancouver started playing BSL at the height of Driger V2 dominance and now in an era of relative balance.

1. State of the Format
These changes appear to be aimed at addressing complaints that old estranged BSL players have been vocal about with the current format. I do not believe these changes will have far-reaching effects on player turnout, for either old estranged players and new interested players.

This post identifies parts of the format that are problematic, and where the format should ideally be - but I argue it is already there in most places. The proposed changes aim to make the format "healthier" but the format is healthy as-is. To me, these changes feel like they are aiming to please a very specific set of old estranged players who have been out of the loop on the current state of the format. The format doesn't feel unbalanced, nor in a problematic state (for the most part - I will elaborate further down). For example:

Having a combo with both high LAD and high burst resistance is inherently more OP than having high stamina and high LAD, or high Stamina and high Burst resistance.

Despite being the specified Drivers being legal, I have a hard time finding a combo in the current meta with the qualities listed above. The closest we could argue is perhaps Gambit on Bearing, which requires FS specifically to counter it.

2. Banning Parts

These parts remained in the game not because people really wanted them there, but because there wasn’t enough of an argument or a push to ban them.

This assumes these parts are a problem and nobody pushed to ban them. I argue the reverse: nobody pushed to ban them because they are not a problem.

This might be a fault of using tournament results as a primary way of evaluating whether something is banworthy. The argument for this was that if something was broken, then people would want to use it and it would dominate tournaments, thus proving its broken-ness, but in reality, when people have multiple formats competing for their attention and wallet, they would rather just opt not to play the one being “ruined” by the currently broken part. Having been released during the height of the pandemic, BSL already had a pretty sparse tournament count, so by the time it was being played all of these new Drivers that were left legal by default were kind of obfuscating the base form of the format.

I disagree with this section. I believe in having evidence of a problematic part, in the form of tournament results, and not on the basis of theorycrafting. When people have multiple formats competing for attention and their wallet, it is quite the opposite: they would rather play the one where they can splash BDr in and not buy Revolve, not because BDr is 'ruining' the format. The number 1 reason people didn't want to play BSL in Vancouver was because they didn't have access to meta relevant Layers and Discs, ONLY Drivers like HXt+' and BDr, as they happen to have those from BST. I believe  "opt not to play the one being ruined by the currently broken part" is a very vocal minority of disgruntled players.

It feels like we are arbitrarily shifting blame to different Drivers. Zn'+Z was blamed for killing interest, but not much has changed. The response by those who didn't like Zn'+Z was to accuse newer Drivers like BDr of causing the same interest killing. But have those people hosted/participated in tournaments with these Drivers legal? Do we have people who have hosted/gone to tournaments, done testings, or is it just creating a problem that doesn't exist based on theorycrafting? I have received negative feedback about the BSL format over 4 tournaments, and Drivers have never been any of them, nor has BDr/HXt+' actually shown any evidence of being powerful, overcentralizing parts.

BSL has had 18 tournaments in its lifetime, and "I am going to stop playing BSL because DriverNameHere'" largely seems to be coming from players who are overestimating performance based on theorycrafting rather than the actual reality of its performance. If a part was truly causing widespread issues, I would expect to hear consensus from several regions and players - not just a few outspoken individuals. The only part that I find that was historically this problematic across all regions was Driger V2 and MAYBE Gambit on Bearing.

I guess I don't really see the point of the bans. Is Geist Fafnir Wheel-SP Bearing Drift making players avoid BSL? Or is it that players in general do not care for BSL? There will always be a least popular format, and BSL seems to be that, in part by having the most complex and balanced banlist. It isn't as easy to understand as something like BGT or even BSC. By restricting accessibility, at best we are appeasing and seeing the return of a few old estranged players. At worst we turn off new interested players by reducing accessibility even further.

I already responded to this in part on discord before I realized it was also a WBO post, so apologies for reusing some of my talking points from there:

I think your perspective a member of a community that is not only relatively new to BSL, but Burst in general, could be biasing both your opinion and your tournament results. You mentioned people not wanting to go out of their way to but Revolve for BSL when they already have BDr in BST, but that assumes that they would already have BDr, and not R, and also that they are more interested in playing BST than BSL.

When the format was created, the goal was to avoid having to spend money on parts like BDr to keep up with the constant arms race of BST, and allow players to use the Revolve that nearly all of them had, as it had remained a powerful Stamina Driver for 2+ years beforehand. Many of the communities that actively play BST have core members that have been around at least pre-2020, and even some of those players go out of their way to invest in BSC, which is even less accessible than BSL due to having a smaller and older part pool. What makes BSC appealing to these players (well maybe not ATM) even if they started with BST is that the gameplay is different than BST. Sure, allowing all these new parts in BSL means that you don't have to go out of your way to purchase discontinued parts just to play in one format, but then you get complaints about how all the LAD turns the format into "BST with X Layers".

I don't disagree that the format is balanced right now, but I think it is balanced in a way very similarly to MFB Standard with RDF (how strong is Xiphoid Tapered Bearing?) in the sense that it could be a lot healthier, diverse, and accessible without high LAD, high Burst Resistance combos stifling most of the meta.

While some might argue that the current balance is not bad, and the format doesn't need to be changed because it is balanced, I think that over the entirety of Burst's history, the numerous calls to ban high LAD parts, match type changes, tie rule restrictions, etc. speak for themselves to the community's overall stance on a metagame with a high LAD floor. There might not be a problem, but the format can certainly be improved.

With that being said, you did say that you couldn't really think of a combo with both high LAD and high burst resistance besides maybe Gambit on Br. What I might have been mistaken about before, is mistaking symptoms of the problem for the problem itself. In the OP I talked about how high LAD/high BR is inherently more OP than other combinations of Stamina/LAD/BR, but one thing I may not have realized myself at the time is that if there is even 1 of these high LAD/high BR combos running around in a meta, the entire meta will eventually warp around it.

Gambit Br's counters are Flame 230/same spin Gambit, hK/Xiphoid/nL, and left max LAD, the latter of which also has the convenience of a good matchup against 80% of Gambit's other counters, including the other most consistent one. As LAD becomes not only the most consistent but least effort way to defeat this combo, it only causes the already viable max LAD to become even moreso. And with the oversaturation of LAD Drivers currently in the game, this gives the appearance of even moar LAD, as people will just pick whichever LAD Driver is the most accessible to them. This is why it seems like we've been arbitrarily shifting the blame to different Drivers, but I think the reality is that outside of Driger, we've struggled to pin down a good scapegoat?

This is where Vancouver specifically comes in. As stated, the majority of your playerbase doesn't have a lot of the parts that were originally released during that era, only after TT had raised the LAD floor for BST and overall creating a bias towards Spamina/LAD Drivers. On top of that, most of the tournaments you play are 1v1 format, which is a match type that especially favors the kind of Spamina combo like Gambit Br, and by extension the left max LAD to go with it. Even when the WBO realized this and expanded to 3v3 formats, decks are still very homogenized to Spamina, max LAD, KO Attack. It's a very rock-paper-scissors-shu type balance but BSL has the potential to be so much more.

I agree about having evidence of a problematic part in the form of tournament results as grounds for a ban, but I think reducing this proposal to "theorycrafting" is a bit negligent of the wider historical context of the format, and Burst in general. It's more of someone finally being able to identify and articulate the specific issue that so many players have had with the burst meta over the years. There's definitely a thin line between having a legitimate grievance with the LAD meta-warping phenomenon I've just described, and triple drift fearmongering, and I may have overstepped the line a little in my original proposal, but I stand by the general idea of what I said.

I don't think that players are avoiding BSL specifically because of Gambit, or HasBr, or Geist Fafnir Wheel-SP Bearing Drift, but I think they are avoiding it because of the LAD meta they perpetuate that fails to distinguish itself from existing burst formats in a meaningful way. Banning some of these newer parts might restrict accessibility to some people that already have those specific parts right now, but it increases the net accessibility of the format overall, because the pool of viable parts grows so much bigger, and the chances that any given player can make a viable combo out of parts from their collection increases, especially in the future, if the format gains new players that are entirely new to Burst and not coming with existing collections from BST.

3. Proposal:

With all that being said, there is a compromise that works for everyone, piggybacking off of an idea that originalzankye recently posted about in BST regarding BDr. This post and current BSL is not much different, only differing by a net change of 5 Drivers. The difference is minor enough where we could introduce these bans as an optional ruleset. It is a compromise that gives Organizers the option to target both old estranged players (by addressing complaints that estranged players have), and new interested players (by having a version of the format with more accessibility). This also avoids fracturing an already small BSL playerbase.

Ban: Whirl (Hasbro's Wind). It is largely the same as the already banned Garuda G3, with the same high Burst Resistance and performance. Makes every other Hasbro Layer obsolete.
Unban: Xtend+ for the reasons stated in this post.

Optional ruleset: Ban Gambit, Fierce, Bearing Drift, Metal Bearing Drift, Bearing Mobius, High Xtend+', Hasbro Bearing, Destroy'.

Tp-Q can be OP or mediocre depending on who you ask, but I am inclined to agree with other people about QD Drivers. They are almost exclusively Same-Spin (Stamina) use, with abyssmal Opposite-Spin (LAD) performance.

I'm fine with having an optional ruleset, but the banlist itself is still something that may need some tweaking imo, I am not so sure Fierce is banworthy, and Zankye has suggested Gambit is not as oppressive without HasBr. After some more deliberation I think I would want it to look like this?

Optional ruleset: Ban (in order of importance) Hasbro Bearing, Tapered-Q, Wheel-SP, Over-Q, Destroy', Bearing Drift, Metal Bearing Drift, High Xtend+', Gambit, Fierce, Bearing Mobius.

I agree with the Whirl ban/Xt+ unban though for all version of the format.

1. I agree with this very strongly.  Even for formats like GT, I feel BDR has become way too overcentralized in how much it is in most of the Burst winning combos.  It also gives left-spin options for TT way too much of a gap for even the best of Hasbro combos can't realistically overcome the LAD ceiling presented by the most centralized TT drivers.  High Xtend+' I see as pretty problematic especially its usage on Geist Fafnir, one of the left spin options and few Cho-Z layers allowed in the format can make the combo not only pretty heavy with great burst resistance, but also provide it with good stability if it's used with a level chip where it would be hard to KO with attack for burst limited.

2. I feel those that currently play Burst Limited don't exactly see the problems that the format has.  If the format was healthy and assuming the proposed part bans presented here are not a problem, why aren't there more people/regions willing to play the format whether it be for fun, testing, or even competitive.  Also, it's extremely unfair that we should only really consider the opinion/testing from one of two regions that play it who aren't willing to directly challenge why these parts shouldn't be banned or why they aren't considered problematic.

3. While I may not know much about Burst Limited in general.  My experience so far playing competitive Burst in any format has shown me how problematic high LAD drivers can be for formats, especially for formats where attack can be harder to use successfully, especially in Burst Classic.  From the little research I did on BSL, the best attack options such as Nightmare Longinus, Hazard Kerbeus, and Twin Nemesis still struggle against high LAD combos especially if its Geist Fafnir, the heaviest and best left-spin option in the game for Burst Limited.  I feel those who still have an active interest in Burst Limited need to seriously consider this ban list proposal or at least test it out as it was provided by someone who has helped developed Burst Limited format in the first place and it would be disrespectful to ignore his work.

Historically, there has always been at least 1 Spamina Driver that is overcentralizing in the standard format (F230GCF, Atomic, Xtend+, and now Bearing Drift) whose popularity has bled over into the Limited formats because of it, despite the part not being similarly powerful. Atomic and Xtend+ were banned from BSC and BSL for years just because they were a part of the combo that raised the LAD floor, without necessarily taking into account the entire context of the meta. After hearing several accounts claiming that BDr isn't necessarily better than normal Drift in this format, I'm inclined to believe that it's suffering the same scrutiny and bad reputation that At and Xt+ did? It's definitely lower on my banlist than Destroy' now, but it does seem to be pretty universally hated though especially after hearing about what it's done to BSC and BST.

---

Skip to the bottom for a proposal that I think works for most.

Adding some of my own thoughts to this thread. I will preface my post by saying I am basing my opinion on feedback I’ve received from hosting 4 Burst Limited tournaments in the last 6 months, between August 2022 and February 2023. I do not have the wider historical context of the format – Vancouver started playing BSL at the height of Driger V2 dominance and now in an era of relative balance.

1. State of the Format
These changes appear to be aimed at addressing complaints that old estranged BSL players have been vocal about with the current format. I do not believe these changes will have far-reaching effects on player turnout, for either old estranged players and new interested players.

This post identifies parts of the format that are problematic, and where the format should ideally be - but I argue it is already there in most places. The proposed changes aim to make the format "healthier" but the format is healthy as-is. To me, these changes feel like they are aiming to please a very specific set of old estranged players who have been out of the loop on the current state of the format. The format doesn't feel unbalanced, nor in a problematic state (for the most part - I will elaborate further down). For example:

Having a combo with both high LAD and high burst resistance is inherently more OP than having high stamina and high LAD, or high Stamina and high Burst resistance.

Despite being the specified Drivers being legal, I have a hard time finding a combo in the current meta with the qualities listed above. The closest we could argue is perhaps Gambit on Bearing, which requires FS specifically to counter it.

2. Banning Parts

These parts remained in the game not because people really wanted them there, but because there wasn’t enough of an argument or a push to ban them.

This assumes these parts are a problem and nobody pushed to ban them. I argue the reverse: nobody pushed to ban them because they are not a problem.

This might be a fault of using tournament results as a primary way of evaluating whether something is banworthy. The argument for this was that if something was broken, then people would want to use it and it would dominate tournaments, thus proving its broken-ness, but in reality, when people have multiple formats competing for their attention and wallet, they would rather just opt not to play the one being “ruined” by the currently broken part. Having been released during the height of the pandemic, BSL already had a pretty sparse tournament count, so by the time it was being played all of these new Drivers that were left legal by default were kind of obfuscating the base form of the format.

I disagree with this section. I believe in having evidence of a problematic part, in the form of tournament results, and not on the basis of theorycrafting. When people have multiple formats competing for attention and their wallet, it is quite the opposite: they would rather play the one where they can splash BDr in and not buy Revolve, not because BDr is 'ruining' the format. The number 1 reason people didn't want to play BSL in Vancouver was because they didn't have access to meta relevant Layers and Discs, ONLY Drivers like HXt+' and BDr, as they happen to have those from BST. I believe  "opt not to play the one being ruined by the currently broken part" is a very vocal minority of disgruntled players.

It feels like we are arbitrarily shifting blame to different Drivers. Zn'+Z was blamed for killing interest, but not much has changed. The response by those who didn't like Zn'+Z was to accuse newer Drivers like BDr of causing the same interest killing. But have those people hosted/participated in tournaments with these Drivers legal? Do we have people who have hosted/gone to tournaments, done testings, or is it just creating a problem that doesn't exist based on theorycrafting? I have received negative feedback about the BSL format over 4 tournaments, and Drivers have never been any of them, nor has BDr/HXt+' actually shown any evidence of being powerful, overcentralizing parts.

BSL has had 18 tournaments in its lifetime, and "I am going to stop playing BSL because DriverNameHere'" largely seems to be coming from players who are overestimating performance based on theorycrafting rather than the actual reality of its performance. If a part was truly causing widespread issues, I would expect to hear consensus from several regions and players - not just a few outspoken individuals. The only part that I find that was historically this problematic across all regions was Driger V2 and MAYBE Gambit on Bearing.

I guess I don't really see the point of the bans. Is Geist Fafnir Wheel-SP Bearing Drift making players avoid BSL? Or is it that players in general do not care for BSL? There will always be a least popular format, and BSL seems to be that, in part by having the most complex and balanced banlist. It isn't as easy to understand as something like BGT or even BSC. By restricting accessibility, at best we are appeasing and seeing the return of a few old estranged players. At worst we turn off new interested players by reducing accessibility even further.

3. Proposal:

With all that being said, there is a compromise that works for everyone, piggybacking off of an idea that originalzankye recently posted about in BST regarding BDr. This post and current BSL is not much different, only differing by a net change of 5 Drivers. The difference is minor enough where we could introduce these bans as an optional ruleset. It is a compromise that gives Organizers the option to target both old estranged players (by addressing complaints that estranged players have), and new interested players (by having a version of the format with more accessibility). This also avoids fracturing an already small BSL playerbase.

Ban: Whirl (Hasbro's Wind). It is largely the same as the already banned Garuda G3, with the same high Burst Resistance and performance. Makes every other Hasbro Layer obsolete.
Unban: Xtend+ for the reasons stated in this post.

Optional ruleset: Ban Gambit, Fierce, Bearing Drift, Metal Bearing Drift, Bearing Mobius, High Xtend+', Hasbro Bearing, Destroy'.

Tp-Q can be OP or mediocre depending on who you ask, but I am inclined to agree with other people about QD Drivers. They are almost exclusively Same-Spin (Stamina) use, with abyssmal Opposite-Spin (LAD) performance.

I feel like these are the arguments only someone who is too new to be in the loop in the first place. Trust me, I may be old, but I'm definitely not estranged towards this format. I've been here since the beginning of limited and I can for sure tell you that if you were there in the beginning, I can guarantee you'd agree with people like me wombat. You think it's good and balanced, but that's only because you've only known the current meta of burst limited. It's balanced to you cuz that's all you know. As far as your point on "If it was a problem, people would have pushed to ban them". We did, just not publicly. Like I debated all the time about these sorts of bans, but arguing with people in charge of bans has and always will be like talking to a brick wall. Nothing got done, so I stopped. Zn'+Z got banned, and that was a bit of hope, but the more that came out, the more exhausting it would have been to try and argue for bans. Limited was a format I cared about, and then I stopped. Even when some things happened, the damage was done. I was one of the few who cared because I saw the format in its prime when it was fun and balanced. I want nothing more than to see that again, and wombat is here to help with that. People just stopped caring because not only was burst limited really messy and bad, but also things like classic were already better, and things like GT were on the horizon. That's why nobody pushed for bans, because why play limited when you have two other perfectly good formats to play instead (ok, now classic is bad, but back then it was a reason why limited wasn't played).

Arguments and points can be equally valid from new or seasoned players. Having different perspectives is valuable. The perspective of a player and community who are actively playing the format is definitely something I personally won’t ignore or dismiss.

I feel like these are the arguments only someone who is too new to be in the loop in the first place. Trust me, I may be old, but I'm definitely not estranged towards this format. I've been here since the beginning of limited and I can for sure tell you that if you were there in the beginning, I can guarantee you'd agree with people like me wombat. You think it's good and balanced, but that's only because you've only known the current meta of burst limited. It's balanced to you cuz that's all you know.

I feel like this comes off as being reductive. I could likewise argue that if you’ve played with the currently meta parts, then I can guarantee you’d agree with me. But I can’t guarantee anything like that; I cannot speak for you, but you also cannot speak for me. I’ve hosted 4 BSL tournaments since August 2022. I will note that before considering hosting the format, I referenced the winning combinations and meta of the previous 14 tournaments held since the launch of the format. I also considered the very informative video Wombat put together in April of 2021. In my opinion, discussion on the format has been frozen in time; people are trying to balance the format around a state that it was in 2 years ago, and not considering the state the format is in currently.

To be clear, I agree that the state of the game “in its prime” was very balanced. However, I also think that the current state of the format is also very balanced in its current state. These are not mutually exclusive.

As far as your point on "If it was a problem, people would have pushed to ban them". We did, just not publicly. Like I debated all the time about these sorts of bans, but arguing with people in charge of bans has and always will be like talking to a brick wall. Nothing got done, so I stopped. Zn'+Z got banned, and that was a bit of hope, but the more that came out, the more exhausting it would have been to try and argue for bans. Limited was a format I cared about, and then I stopped. Even when some things happened, the damage was done.

If we have these conversations in private and give up, without putting anything in writing, that’s where the conversation ends. This public thread is at a great time to be having this conversation (at the end of Burst where no new parts can affect the discussion), and having a comprehensive and structured thread has helped advance the discussion we are having right now. When someone loses hope and stops caring, I would consider them estranged from the format.

I was one of the few who cared because I saw the format in its prime when it was fun and balanced. I want nothing more than to see that again, and wombat is here to help with that. People just stopped caring because not only was burst limited really messy and bad, but also things like classic were already better, and things like GT were on the horizon. That's why nobody pushed for bans, because why play limited when you have two other perfectly good formats to play instead (ok, now classic is bad, but back then it was a reason why limited wasn't played).

I again argue that the current state of the format is balanced. Well, that is if I don’t consider Whirl in the conversation, but I think the consensus on that Layer is that we can all agree it has to go.
Going off my previous post, I don’t think these Driver changes make the format any less “really messy and bad”. At best the same Layers are used with different Drivers. The interactions between staple combos will largely remain unchanged, in my opinion.

---

I also believe the newer parts appear more unbalanced than they actually are, because players aren’t using the proper responses. For example, consider your recent event in December 2022. I see Geist Fafnir Wheel-SP Bearing Drift, which appears to be very strong in the context of the tournament. However, it is also being surrounded by parts that can’t compete in the current state of the format. Geist Fafnir Wheel-SP Bearing Drift seems powerful against F3, T3, HS, etc., but against nL, aB, and Fierce, Geist BDr is much weaker. You can see this effect as much in Vancouver's recent 2 tournaments, where the WCs have not centralized around Bearing Drift. A powerful option yes, but not unbeatable, not frustrating to play against, not centralizing.

There is a diverse range of combos that can be used in current “jank” state of the format. There are many counters you can use to address the meta parts. There is no true “safe” and centralizing combo or part, in my opinion. The only time where i truly felt this issue was the case was with Driger V2 Tapered-Q Bearing Drift, which I had the "pleasure" of hosting 2 tournaments of.

---

Currently fan translating the Beyblade X manga. Beyblade Wiki Administrator and occasional manga scanlator.

I feel like these are the arguments only someone who is too new to be in the loop in the first place. Trust me, I may be old, but I'm definitely not estranged towards this format. I've been here since the beginning of limited and I can for sure tell you that if you were there in the beginning, I can guarantee you'd agree with people like me wombat. You think it's good and balanced, but that's only because you've only known the current meta of burst limited. It's balanced to you cuz that's all you know.

I feel like this comes off as being reductive. I could likewise argue that if you’ve played with the currently meta parts, then I can guarantee you’d agree with me. But I can’t guarantee anything like that; I cannot speak for you, but you also cannot speak for me. I’ve hosted 4 BSL tournaments since August 2022. I will note that before considering hosting the format, I referenced the winning combinations and meta of the previous 14 tournaments held since the launch of the format. I also considered the very informative video Wombat put together in April of 2021. In my opinion, discussion on the format has been frozen in time; people are trying to balance the format around a state that it was in 2 years ago, and not considering the state the format is in currently.

To be clear, I agree that the state of the game “in its prime” was very balanced. However, I also think that the current state of the format is also very balanced in its current state. These are not mutually exclusive.

As far as your point on "If it was a problem, people would have pushed to ban them". We did, just not publicly. Like I debated all the time about these sorts of bans, but arguing with people in charge of bans has and always will be like talking to a brick wall. Nothing got done, so I stopped. Zn'+Z got banned, and that was a bit of hope, but the more that came out, the more exhausting it would have been to try and argue for bans. Limited was a format I cared about, and then I stopped. Even when some things happened, the damage was done.

If we have these conversations in private and give up, without putting anything in writing, that’s where the conversation ends. This public thread is at a great time to be having this conversation (at the end of Burst where no new parts can affect the discussion), and having a comprehensive and structured thread has helped advance the discussion we are having right now. When someone loses hope and stops caring, I would consider them estranged from the format.

I was one of the few who cared because I saw the format in its prime when it was fun and balanced. I want nothing more than to see that again, and wombat is here to help with that. People just stopped caring because not only was burst limited really messy and bad, but also things like classic were already better, and things like GT were on the horizon. That's why nobody pushed for bans, because why play limited when you have two other perfectly good formats to play instead (ok, now classic is bad, but back then it was a reason why limited wasn't played).

I again argue that the current state of the format is balanced. Well, that is if I don’t consider Whirl in the conversation, but I think the consensus on that Layer is that we can all agree it has to go.
Going off my previous post, I don’t think these Driver changes make the format any less “really messy and bad”. At best the same Layers are used with different Drivers. The interactions between staple combos will largely remain unchanged, in my opinion.

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I also believe the newer parts appear more unbalanced than they actually are, because players aren’t using the proper responses. For example, consider your recent event in December 2022. I see Geist Fafnir Wheel-SP Bearing Drift, which appears to be very strong in the context of the tournament. However, it is also being surrounded by parts that can’t compete in the current state of the format. Geist Fafnir Wheel-SP Bearing Drift seems powerful against F3, T3, HS, etc., but against nL, aB, and Fierce, Geist BDr is much weaker. You can see this effect as much in Vancouver's recent 2 tournaments, where the WCs have not centralized around Bearing Drift. A powerful option yes, but not unbeatable, not frustrating to play against, not centralizing.

There is a diverse range of combos that can be used in current “jank” state of the format. There are many counters you can use to address the meta parts. There is no true “safe” and centralizing combo or part, in my opinion. The only time where i truly felt this issue was the case was with Driger V2 Tapered-Q Bearing Drift, which I had the "pleasure" of hosting 2 tournaments of.

Yes indeed, it does come off as reductive! I agree! I did that to make a point. You said that the only people who would benefit from a ban list like wombats would be old players who were out of the loop, and said that it was balanced. To me, that is a slightly less extreme version of what you said in response to me. "These old players are too out of the loop to realize the format's already good" is on the same level as "These new players are too out of the loop to realize the format used to be better". I myself have been to 4 burst limited tournaments I believe, 2 before the modern meta, and 2 during it, and personally, not too big of a fan of the modern comparatively. Now, that's just me, and if you enjoy the modern take more, that's fine! But I do believe you should be open to the idea of trying out the old meta as well. My argument for modern limited is the same as classic before the LAD meta: sure, it may balanced in a technical sense, but is it well balanced? Is it fun? I'd argue not as much as how it used to be. I don't think we should settle just because "it's fine now, seems balanced to me" we as a community should make this the best format it can be.

As far as being estranged to the format. You could argue I was for a short time, but that's because it was pretty clear unless some miricals got worked, nothing was gonna change. Why beat a dead horse? As you said, the format seems balanced rn, and most would settle with that like yourself. It's not worth it for me to put in the effort by myself. But now that wombat is here to help, I'm not putting in that effort alone. At the very least, I'm no longer estranged. I've been in the loop and I've given this meta a chance, and it's fine! Yeh, it's totally fine. But I think, with a bit of effort, we can make it better! (Also, saying "not frustrating to play against" is extremely subjective, so It's a dangerous claim to make. As a hasbro player that has very little to no counterplay due to Bdr's high stamina, it's quite frustrating that I have to go super far out of my way to try and deal with it.)

Now, my solution? It's clear that we have different views on how this format should play, and that's fine. Your optional ban list idea? Good, let's work off that. This is something I plan to suggest for classic too, and even other formats that may need it: have a split banlist, with a burst limited and a burst limited+. This way, we have 2 established ban lists, if one region wants to play limited+, fantastic! Heck, if a region wants to play both, but are feeling one over the other some weeks, great! Limited back in the day and the current limited aren't really even super comparable nowadays, and while I'd personally argue that the old one is better, some might not feel that way. 

Here's how I see it: all burst formats are already ranked under the broad umbrella as "burst", so we wouldn't have to make any drastic changes to how we rank things, and if they're both established ban lists, it wouldn't have to be seen as an unranked experimental event either. If all burst/mfb formats eventually get ranked separately, limited and limited+ aren't too different from a skill set perspective, so they could be ranked together with no problems. 

Not only that, but it would allow both sides to have thier way and even change the format in ways the other side would never allow. Does old limited wanna remove all choz layers (note: hypothetical example, I'm not arguing for no ChoZ for the record)? Well now it's easier because you aren't changing it for the people who want the meta to be less God and more ChoZ on the limited+ side. Does limited+ wanna add more ChoZ stuff and lean farther into that mentality? Well, as long as the people who are super against that still have the old style limited, they wouldn't care. It let's both sides of the argument make the format truly how they want it without having to compromise with another, completely valid other side of the argument. 

And dang, I just spoiled my classic solution thesis, but hey, that's aight. Hope this compromise happens, because even if I were the all powerful format banlist creator, I wouldn't want only my side to come out victorious, I'd want both sides to be happy, and I think going forward as a community, we should strive to normalize split banlists like this, because that would be great for everyone! Thanks for reading!