MFB: Limited :: Ban List Discussion (v1.5 - 9/20/16)

Wow Shining God MS have you actually played limited at all.? Let's unban a wheel that dominates in attack and stamina and has a defensive balance set up that wrecks like 75%+ of the format, a track that destroys the most populous type in the meta (because a track that generally can't handle that type is tenuously legal pending investigation into exploitability) and a tip that wrecks any attack type not called lightning or gravity. Wow.
Double posting but if this isn't notable enough to justify it I'm not sure what is.

Everyone talking about unbanning Hell despite it not being on the potentially unbannable list (unless Ingulit forgot to remove it) seems to be forgetting that its scariest combo wasn't with BD145 at all:

MF-H Hell Kerbecs 230CS vs Earth Cancer AD145EWD
Both Straight Shot as this is a stamina demonstration and frankly hell doesn't need an aggro launch to handle Earth.
EWD used because I find it absolutely superior to WD, though yes I did check WD, it fares no better. My EWD is not aggressive at all and spins very freely.
CS still has a bit of a point but is noticeably dulled, a mint one generally works better, and as this is my best condition CS I really hope this is worth another 20 rounds of wear on it.
The solo spin time of this particular Hell is 3m45s (Hell is prone to variance, Uwik made a thread about it back when it was popular for stamina).
Hell launches First R1, launches Alternated.
Detailed Results (Click to View)
Results:
Hell: 18/20 = 90% (2KO, 17OS)
Earth: 2/20 = 10% (2OS)

Earth's outspins came about when instead of rolling on EWD's side around the stadium, it stayed in the centre rolling around on the tip whilst Hell circled the stadium on the side of CS, failing to make the contact it needs to stop Earth spinning. Even then, Hell's last gasp breakdancing in the centre of the stadium made both occurences extremely close things for earth, and in R16 Hell managed to outspin it despite that.
It also outspins Earth Cancer 230D and Earth Cancer 85WD just as easily, Libra doesn't have the stamina to keep up with it. BUrn, the best stamina wheel in Limited that I own also gets outspun on low tracks and is KO bait at 145. If Metal Fury Duo or Phantom stand up to it then it'll only be because they're similarly overpowered. On RSF, this combo can still OS Earth AD145EWD reliably, though it doesn't handle Earth 85WD well. Finally, while 145 height attackers fare well against the CS version (though its elevation does make it somewhat harder to handle than other 230CS setups), the RSF Variant is extremely difficult for right spin attack to handle, so legalising Hell would further increase Gravity and Lightning's dominance.


I'm honestly disappointed I actually had to test this, because I cannot for the life of me work out how someone looks at a wheel that is roughly the same weight as libra (IIRC it's slightly heavier), has all that weight distributed around its edges - which are some of the widest in the entire MFB series and has an elevation which makes it even trickier to handle with offense and thinks "yes this will be completely fine and not completely devastate a format of lighter, smaller metal wheels"
Everyone saying x part that is banned should be unbanned really needs to question how confident they feel that they're right, because as someone who had heavy involvement in the development of that list, in particular going through every single part I own and making sure nothing I can do with any of them is broken, I'm very confident that every one of the parts on that list deserve to be there for the sake of maximising the number of viable metal wheels.
^ I second that.

Hell would be broken in this format, seriously broken. I've used Hell Libra 100 R2F, and KOed Basalt 230. What more Earth GB145 RSF/CS.

IIRC, Hell 230 CS gave the infamous Lightning L-Drago I BD145 LRF some trouble in the past, as it was too high to hit consistently. Just look at how tall 230 + Hell is, seriously. A BD145 LRF Attacker with one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful Left-Spin wheels (generally a bane to tall tracks) had trouble with this. I really doubt the capability of even Gravity TH170 RF or Pegasus TH170 RF in KOing it, what more the general re-introduction of Pre-HWS and other wheels such as Vulcan, Quetz, Forbidden, Beat into the scene, where a Hell 230 CS would WIPE THE FLOOR with all of them, easily.

Just don't, please.
MF-H lld r145rf handles it okay though it is less suited to that than gravity pegasis handles the Cs variant but falls to the rsf version . The fact it handles every stamina and defense combo in the format that has been checked to ensure nom-brokenness aside from mld b: d which can avoid the ko through weak launching and wins the lad battle, as well as having a variant that does pretty well against attack (and this is all with a simple 230), is why this combo is basically the entire reason he'll is banned (though there are probably other ways to abuse such a well designed metal wheel.
Having tested like more than half of the wheels mentioned under "needs more testing" for attack (against things a lot tougher than Earth defense) they could all potentially be on the top tier list.. but then I want to ask you something: are we going by how well attack combos do against defense anymore? It seems futile imo unless you're using low track defense, which will typically tell you which attack wheels shine from the rest (reliably destroy any low track defense combo). Or are we going to be basing this on which attackers do best against other attackers? Which is the best cannibal?

The latter makes more sense but god damn it this seems like a big re-run of the italian meta. I do not see a big deal in having Libra back. I have not tried Libra and it only goes by its reputation for a lot of people, I'm sure, as Metal System is not quite as popular as the newer, more qualified top tier beys. Libra is probably totally fine staying. Gravity is absolute hell. I'm a super Lightning fan, but Gravity has way more utility, and if any of you remember the italian meta LITERALLY EVERY SECTION WAS GRAVITY GRAVITY GRAVITTYYYYYY. sandra bullock.

I think you should either ban Gravity now or include one of the straight-up rubber defense tips in there. (hopefully one that can cope with Gravity, I'm not sure if there is one though.) What is so oppressively bad about having RS available? I think it just gives Defense at least a little bit of a leg to stand on. I've never had RS, don't recall much about it other than it worked best against same-spin but somehow I'm not seeing it as a killer beast like Fyuuor did. I'll go back into my time machine and check out what RS had to offer in its prime, and take your word on the fact you want it banned already, but I don't think it would be a bad addition.
Gravity, in any circumstance, should be banned.
I'm surprised you don't have Gravity listed in the defense section already, it's that versatile.
Gravity can't do as much outside attack without bd145 to help its recoil, and even attack Perseus only puts up an extra 5% on lightning offensively (and lightning is easier to use). MLD surpasses gravity for any stamina use and often balance wise too. Most beys in the format are best at right spin attack which RS wrecks, and RS is ridiculous on LTDC. Anyway, you were around when wb was the best defense tip right? Was LLD the entire meta in actual tournaments? RSF also still puts up respectable numbers against attack outside of LTDC too, admittedly less so left spin, but that is unavoidable. Anyway, I stand by what I said about seeing if attack really does dominate the format in practice before we take any action.
(Dec. 07, 2013  10:40 AM)th!nk Wrote: Wow Shining God MS have you actually played limited at all.? Let's unban a wheel that dominates in attack and stamina and has a defensive balance set up that wrecks like 75%+ of the format, a track that destroys the most populous type in the meta (because a track that generally can't handle that type is tenuously legal pending investigation into exploitability) and a tip that wrecks any attack type not called lightning or gravity. Wow.

#REKT also where is the ban list located currently?
I believe it's located in: "MFB Limited Discussion".

There's something I wanted too mention. I just need to test it more.
(Dec. 07, 2013  6:59 PM)th!nk Wrote: Gravity can't do as much outside attack without bd145 to help its recoil, and even attack Perseus only puts up an extra 5% on lightning offensively (and lightning is easier to use). MLD surpasses gravity for any stamina use and often balance wise too. Most beys in the format are best at right spin attack which RS wrecks, and RS is ridiculous on LTDC. Anyway, you were around when wb was the best defense tip right? Was LLD the entire meta in actual tournaments? RSF also still puts up respectable numbers against attack outside of LTDC too, admittedly less so left spin, but that is unavoidable. Anyway, I stand by what I said about seeing if attack really does dominate the format in practice before we take any action.


Good point. Let's see. Maybe it won't be a problem.
yeah hahahahaha storm 100RF I have no idea why people didn't just use attack 24/7.
I can't wait! And uh try out Grav GB145CS or something.. I'm curious and I can't try it all out anymore. Defense CW any value?
(Dec. 07, 2013  7:13 PM)Draciel516 Wrote: #REKT also where is the ban list located currently?

It's in the first post of this thread lol
But can you gaurantee koes with rubber tips? It's not like everyone is Meow. And using attack is way riskier in a competetive situation, as you have a real opponent taking up space you might need to launch perfectly.

While there is defense, there is also anti attack.
Like Brad's combo long ago, it does make a good job of quetzalcoatl. (Libra CH120RF)

And is 230 banned? I believe not. It still can block LTAC attacks reliably.
Attack is not invincible. It's a high risk, high reward type of beyblade. But , it still has viable counters.
LIMITED IS BROKE WBO PLS NERF: A Response

This is long and almost entirely theory but it's only meant for people actually interested in the whole game balance thing in Limited, and if you're posting in this thread and can't be bothered to read a long post within it, well, you probably shouldn't be posting in this thread in the first place.

Basically, it's my personal "official" response to all the talk about bans and game balance and so on.


The Problem with Banning Gravity

Once you ban Gravity, Lightning, which is at worst only marginally weaker than GP (ATK), and the metal fury wheels and chrome wheel setups that are looking more threatening than Gravity offensively (all of which will likely already be popular) will fill the void for attack types, so the gain to defense will be negligible anyway.
Gravity spin stealers may be an issue but really, defense and stamina are otherwise entirely right spin anyway, so meteo will happily fill that void too (and with gravity gone spin stealing becomes scarier all over as there's now no dual spin wheel that can mindgame with them/straight up wreck their game plan). All in all, nothing really changes if we ban gravity, except a few wheels that already are or certainly will be popular (it's just that not many people have metal fury wheels and no one has really experimented with zg wheels yet) become more popular, people still keep whining that ATTACK 2 STRONK WBO PLS NERF I CAN'T SLIDE SHOT OR RF DEFENSE and we've banned one of the more interesting wheels in the format. Okay, so I guess we keep going to chase this perfect balance:

The next step then for fixing defense is to ban that slew of attack wheels that are similarly powerful – so there goes lightning, beat, cosmic and probably a bunch of chrome wheels, particularly ones that work offensively with Dark Knight, because Left Spin wheels generally fare better against RSF and therefore are the main choices for attack. Aside from making the banlist a pain in the carp to understand (which while being something we're putting aside for this format anyway is still a problem), we're left with right spin wheels that can't really handle RSF (which I honestly would've campaigned to had banned to allow a broader range of attack wheels to work, had I not known people would whine about defense being weak without it), and a bunch of left spin ones that don't do any better because they're not really that good offensively (MLD, maybe the metal fury LDrago3's, kamen rider dragOOOn, some carp dark knight things and variares which doesn't count as it is a total waste of dual spin), which are also kinda weaklaunch bait.

RSF destroys the lot of these, so we'd probably have to ban that if we want attack to be worthwhile now, and at this point Metal Fury Duo will probably need to bite the bullet too because it's huge round and decently heavy and our attackers aren't that great.
So CS will be the main defense tip, and even if we don't ban RSF, CS will probably come back to the fore in defense anyway, but now our Attack wheels only net around 50% against even that under the absolute best conditions (perhaps less considering LTDC), which isn't nearly enough for attack to see much use at tournaments. The format then becomes extremely similar to regular mfb, where defense and stamina dominate (as while stamina should bring back attack people tend to counter stamina with stamina, and defense is generally useful against random combos kids come to tourneys with that might KO stamina, so attack is still not safe and therefore not really used (this being part of why metas don't really rebalance themselves typewise if defense is at an advantage as it has often been throughout MFB).

So, we've made the format dull and the banlist is huge, and a lot of wheels just won't see any real usage.

Unbanning RS will not do what you want

RS completely demolishes right spin attack (and the majority of wheels in the format are best suited to right spin attack), so Beat and Cosmic will likely go away unless they are truly broken, and Gravity and Lightning and maybe Dark Knight Wyvang/whateverelse will completely dominate the attack usage, even if RS doesn't see that much use, just because of the chance of facing it. That said, RS will almost certainly see heavy use in LTDC. You can't ban those wheels as otherwise no one will use attack at all.
LTDC, where the low height helps compensate for RS's flaws and RS's ridic defensive power is very useful become even more popular. Lightning LTAC become more popular probably, but likely still struggle. This isn't even considering metal fury duo, which we're yet to see much testing on (and what I have seen indicates it'll be strong).
Seeing as unlike RF, RSF and CS, RS cannot do anything to stamina unless being used by a particularly crazy Alabaman who has presumably been injecting steroids into his triceps (that's the right muscle group for launching right?) since birth, stamina will become a lot more prominent as well, though LTSC and spin stealers are already quite viable as it is.

Now, compare what gets improved by RS to what is already popular, and you will note it only serves to exaggerate the format's theoretical meta even more, rather than rebalancing it – what is already popular becomes even more popular.

If you're introducing RS/RB to nerf two specific wheels putting out higher percentages than Gravity then you should be looking at banning those two wheels instead, which does not have a huge effect on the format aside from fixing the problem – that is an okay move, probably.

On Spin Stealers
If spin stealers are too powerful for people's tastes (admittedly being good against most stamina and defense is pretty serious), we can ban the parts for them – B: D and F230, though B: D at least is handled by EWD quite easily, though admittedly having to use EWD on tall track stamina kinda sucks. As for MLD 100EWD, it's probably a fact of life at this point but if you reallllly want you could always ban EWD as well just to completely do away with safe spin stealing. That is something that could be considered, as regular stamina will fill the void there, but we'll have to see if spin stealers really dominate in the first plce.
Banning gravity for spin stealing use when MLD works fine anyway is pointless, as mentioned above.



The Core Problem With The Main Banlist Change Requests
See, people are looking at a potential problem (given we've had precisely ONE tournament in the format so far i.e. not much time to work around it), and saying okay it's just one thing we can ban/unban another thing and be done, without considering the effects that action will have on the format (and whether or not what they're proposing will actually do anything). Unbanning RS is not healthy and also not particularly necessary, GB145RSF is already quite serviceable outside of LTDC, not to mention the entirety of RF Defense and Anti Attack, and again we've not seen metal fury duo in action. Even if Gravity Attack is too powerful, which remains to be seen, is having it around really worse than the alternative? If something is to dominate, is it so bad that it's also a particularly difficult type to use in tournaments, and one that is generally agreed upon as being the most exciting type? There's been a long standing agreement that if a format isn't to be completely balanced then it should lean towards attack, and that's what we have. It rewards skill and practice, and is also a lot more fun to play. Gravity Attack is hardly the only viable thing and it is far from uncounterable, so really, if people are having fun is having it dominate that bad that we would water down the format so significantly just to kill it?


On the Purpose of Limited
I think a lot of this is because people are mistaking the aim of the format for something that simply isn't possible – having a gigantic list of combinations that are all competitive and equal with perfectly balanced types, which is not the case. The Limited Format, at least as I see it, focuses on making a huge number of wheels viable – which is not the same as making as many things competitive as possible. Something will always rise to the top as some wheels are better at the various types than others.

For a wheel to be viable, one must be able to use it in a situation likely at a tournament and win, and win, and we've managed to make a lot of wheels, pegasis, leone, Vulcan, screw, quetz, even sagittario and bull, viable – they could all be used against things that are competitive, such as stamina types.
Even further, the fact Defense has to rely on RSF rather than CS to withstand attack means that even the lowly Dark can be used in a stamina setup and outspin defense (whereas Earth Aquario GB145CS outspins Dark Cancer AD145WD/SD for me).
Defense is admittedly less stunning in this respect, but the huge crossover between ideal properties for defense and stamina wheels means many of these wheels may be used for stamina, and furthermore, Dark, which is at best a slightly above average defensive wheel, does a very serviceable job against attack on 85/90RF anyway (and if this is too much of an issue then maybe RS could be unbanned, however I don't think the consequences of doing so are worthwhile).

One of the main things that motivated me to help with the format was that even if metal fury or synchrome parts dominated (assuming they aren't broken, in which case they can be banned without having too big a flow-on effect as there is a good stopping point between there and banning everything worthwhile), most of the older parts in the game can be used strategically to take down major threats, meaning people can come back with old parts and still do fine competitively.
Yes, a balanced format is important, however the balance of this format is by no means bad, and the number of things that are viable is in my opinion something that people have not stopped to appreciate – especially if you consider how much effort went in to making that the case.



tl;dr banning gravity is ineffectual and going further hurts the format, unbanning RS does the opposite of what people want that to achieve, people aren't considering the wider effects of their ban proposals, and people are not appreciating some of the best aspects of the format in the process, being too focussed on an impossible goal.


Also @Red2Blue: I tried some plastic tipped attackers against WB defense and came to the conclusion attack desperately needs RF to control recoil. Perhaps more moderate things might work but overall I don't think it's something that could be implemented without a lot more experimentation to make sure it actually works as a format.
Kewl, a format where I don't have to buy any of the actually expensive parts. Guess I'll do some combo/part testing sometime soon.

So did you forget to put Death in the "needs more testing" or is it just that bad? lol
Hasbro Death uses Attack Mode, so while I imagine he just forgot it, the odds of it not being a recoil-laden buttwheel are pretty low.

If anyone feels like doing some limited format comparison tests of RB and RSF (MF-H Earth Bull (etc) GB145RSF/RB vs the same attacker (preferrably right spin, if you can do right AND left spin that'd be even better but yeah), 20 rounds each, and yeah). I want to get a better feel for its defensive ability in Limited as a few people seem to think it's less threatening than RSF (conflicting with other accounts of it I've read) and I'd personally like some actual numbers on that within the context of Limited to inform my own judgment. Ingulit said he'd do some when he gets time but the more data the better.

I'd also suggest adding SA165 to the potentially unbannable parts list as I'd unban that well before I'd unban RS or RDF, and it could perhaps be an alternative way of buffing defense without hurting right spin attack in the process (also it's a fantastic attack track).
At the same time I'd suggest adding B: D and EWD to the potentially bannable parts - (MF-M) Gravity Perseus (Stamina) B: D can be weaklaunched against even libra anti-attack to survive, and EWD also works very similarly (MLD 100EWD, anyone?), and currently every standard stamina combo has to run EWD to outspin them reliably, which is not ideal (especially for tall track stamina), though perhaps I'm just being too much of a traditionalist in terms of how I see MFB Stamina. That said as long as the format generally rewards people for taking the risk of using attack, I guess these aren't a major problem.
EWD does most of the LAD work in SA165EWD anyway, but I doubt I'm alone in being generally wary of having both available at the same time, so it would make unbanning SA165 easier too, if we consider that.
As I mentioned in my last post, banning these parts causes no real collateral damage, and removing them might make anti-attack a safer choice, which could help with people complaining about defense as a whole being too weak.

Keep in mind this is just an argument to "officially endorse" arguments either way being made about the parts rather than a proper argument for/against banning/unbanning, though it's probably obvious I'm tentatively in support of both of these, pending testing.
I would like to see Metal Faces thrown in on the ban list. Where Hasbro has never produced these items which makes many young bladers unable to get them. And while it doesn't create and insurmountable challenge, it seems the Limited is supposed to be fair for everybody and I think this is an unfair advantage to kids who can only get what Walmart carries.
(Dec. 16, 2013  10:22 PM)Coach Wrote: I would like to see Metal Faces thrown in on the ban list. Where Hasbro has never produced these items which makes many young bladers unable to get them. And while it doesn't create and insurmountable challenge, it seems the Limited is supposed to be fair for everybody and I think this is an unfair advantage to kids who can only get what Walmart carries.

I disagree, haha.

Metal Faces were indeed released with all (Collector's Edition) copies of the Fusion and Masters games. So, they are obtainable by Hasbro.
Removing metal faces is a serious hit to attack, and even moreso to most of the older wheels like pegasis and quetzalcoatl. Even with defense being lighter, attack types are hurt much more because rotational recoil is devastating in MFB.

As for fairness, at a lot of tournaments people are willing to lend metal faces, I have extras for precisely that reason. They're also cheap and eternally useful, so there's not much risk involved in buying them on the behalf of those without the ability to do so, either.
I've had many Metal Faces break, especially in cold weather like it will be this weekend in Chicago, therefore that is an item I do not lend out at all. And I am very generous with new bladers needing parts. And yes Leone I do remember that as I got Vulcan Horuseus with a black one. But for practical aspect those are 2 items that had them.
I also believe metal faces help defense more than attack, yes there is recoil but attack has the momentum going in a direction where defense is just waiting to get hit.
But anyway that's just my opinion. I know a lot of newbs at my events have no clue how to get them, and this could take some fun out of a format that's main purpose is for the fun of the game.
On the whole Metal faces being banned thing, I don't see it as a good idea either. As light weight as a lot of the wheels are in this format, it would really hurt attack and defense both, probably hurting attack so much to the point where it would make it even more difficult to KO Stamina types successfully for some people.

While for Hasbro bladers, metal faces can be somewhat difficult to obtain, but, it truly surprises me at how young some members are here and they appear to have their parents order online for them extremely often, but, I know personally that some are not that lucky, as I can count on one hand the number of times my parents would order online for me during the Plastic/HMS era.

I do believe though that it is quite possible to win against a custom with a MF with a custom without a MF. Having one does not guarantee a win at all, it just may make using Attack types a tad bit more risky.
(Dec. 16, 2013  10:35 PM)Coach Wrote: I also believe metal faces help defense more than attack, yes there is recoil but attack has the momentum going in a direction where defense is just waiting to get hit.

That's pretty much entirely incorrect for most attack wheels, rotational recoil is devastating for metal on metal contact. Defense loses weight, attack loses weight and also suffers increased rotational and regular recoil.

Defense types are also generally heavier than attack, so a metal face is a larger % of an attack beys weight, though for fairness screw and gravity are heavier than a lot of defense wheels - nonetheless removing metal faces is a boon for Libra, and devastating for Pegasis in particular.
It's true I don't like the idea when it comes to banning metal faces, I dislike the idea. they make only a few grams different in weight, and I'm aware it changes performance with all types but trust me, in the WBO tournaments that are near me, nobody has all Hasbro stuff, I mean they also have Takara Tomy stuff so nobody's going to ask where to obtain metal faces since everybody knows where to buy and have metal faces, me included. I've had my metal face custom for months now and it hasn't broken since I don't play hardcore and I doubt weather affects them at all. So honestly shouldn't be banned, Hasbro bladers can buy metal faces from a bunch of video games released my Hasbro, or buy them online with legit beys if you are allowed to, so metal faces shouldn't be banned.
My biggest concern with banning Metal Faces isn't the availability disparity (which is a valid observation), but moreso the fact that banning them would remove a HUGE chunk of the possible Limited customizations in a format whose part pool is already pretty small. Beyond the fact that the entire customization aspect of Face Bolts would be gone, removing them would also make swaths of metal wheels significantly less viable (and potentially cause currently balanced wheels like Libra to become broken), which violates one of the core goals of this list. I think we all wish that Hasbro did release Metal Faces, but the fact that they didn't does not mean we should ban them altogether IMO (besides, if we did that, we'd need to ban all the pre-HWS wheels, and all the clear wheels that were only released in Japan, etc. etc. slippery slope argument).

I'll address the other topics (EWD, B: D, etc) shortly; I just wanted to comment on this first.
I've actually got a question about Variares. Is it legal to use? Aren't the Metal Fury and Hyperblade/4D wheel the same?
(Dec. 17, 2013  8:15 PM)Naijalak Wrote: I've actually got a question about Variares. Is it legal to use? Aren't the Metal Fury and Hyperblade/4D wheel the same?

No. The Hasbro one is hollowed out and the Plastic does not "move", its one piece, unlike the TT one. Tongue_out
Ah! Should have known there was some difference. Guess my ugly, lime green Variares won't see any Limited action Grin