Official Limited Ban List Discussion

I think that is something hosts will hopefully bring up if they have issues with explaining it to people at tournaments - if that happens, we can address it, but I think people will manage (we can also look at simpler ways to summarize the banlist, too - generation based rules up front and then the list of exceptions, for example, might make it easier to understand - I've been planning to look into it when I have time but this tournament and a couple of other things are taking up most of that right now, haha). I don't think Jade is any more damage to that than Omega, and the banlist probably is only looking at another, what, three changes maximum? (Scythe, Libra, and maaaaaaaaybe at a stretch something from F230(G)CF). We should be okay, I think, and if not as long as hosts let us know if there's a problem, we can fix it before it actually causes any serious problems for the format.
I have worked on an easier-to-edit Rulebook anyway, so if we can just get the latest version out soon, we can easily edit it in time for every new ban, therefore hosts could simply print the new versions and show the updated ban list at the event, at least.
Oh really? Well that is awesome news for Plastics and Limited, then.

The way I see it hosts should be printing the banlist as it is, but that would make things much simpler.
Welp, the first scheduled update is tomorrow; do we want to try unbanning Jade now or should we hold off until the next scheduled update to allow more test results to come in? I'm personally totally cool with unbanning Jade now based on what I've seen, but I figured I'd ask Grin

I hear ya about the "overly complicated ban list" thing, though I think if we only had two exceptions to the "No 4D/Hyperblade Wheels" rule it wouldn't be that bad. If we ended up unbanning more (I don't know if there are any others that would be safe to unban tho?), then, yeah, rewording that rule might be prudent to make things more understandable.
Well, that makes three of us, so I would assume we're good to do that, unless anyone wants to bring up an objection at the last minute.
So guys what's happening? Are we shirking the monthly updates, I still really like the idea, could agree with perhaps moving them to the Monday before the 20th of each month, to give people enough notice (~5 days, given tournaments are rarely held outside weekends). Obviously if there's no update to make then we don't make one, but right now we have three of us okay with Jade, so unless there's opposition or people want to hold off or whatever, we do have something to do.

I would at least like to have a decision on an update schedule made clear (personally I am rather strongly in favor, updates coming out of the blue aren't good for host/player confidence in the format, so a schedule helps a lot).
Yeah, looks like we stumbled a bit when it came to the February update, lol! I'd personally advocate just saying there are no changes for the Feb 1st update and kick the Jade can down the road a few weeks for the March update.
Well, as long as we get 5 days notice for the tournament I'm planning on March 2 (which is probably more like March 1 in North America) on that update I'm fine with it, though it's kinda a shame, I guess it gives us more time to make sure jade isn't broken (I've got one coming that should get here next week or thereabouts, which would do a lot for my confidence in the decision (though generally L's testing has always been very solid IMO, so I am not really doubtful of his results)).
Okay, so I got my Jade today and its stamina and recoil are far too poor to be a real threat to the balance of the format - it will probably make the CC list for attack, but that's about as good as it's going to get. I can do some tests if you guys need that to make your minds up but yeah, it should be unbanned.
Okay so everyone is satisfied with what we have on Jade then? I've heard no opposition or requests for further testing, and I'd like to have an idea of what parts I'll be able to lend/use relatively soon, and Jade is one of the better parts I could lend (or use, I'm torn between that and another combo). Selfish of me to use my ability to post here for this, perhaps, but we should probably sort this out as it's really pretty simple.
Okay, so with the qualifiers starting in March, despite this being my fourth post in a row (don't get me wrong, I know y'all were/are busy with GBT2 amongst other things, but kinda eager to get this one done with that announcement), I think it's really important we get Jade sorted. Here's the proposal (not sure what version we'd call it but I'll go with v1.2), with the formatting and all of that jazz.

Limited Ban List v1.2 DRAFT PROPOSAL, 3/1/14 Wrote:CHANGE LIST
Newly Unbanned
  • WHEEL: Jade
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
WHEELS
  • All Synchroms (NOTE: Non-Synchromed Zero-G wheels are legal!)
  • All 4D/Hyperblade Metal Wheels EXCEPT Omega and Jade
  • Basalt
  • Hell
  • Gravity
TRACKS
  • BD145
  • SA165
  • E230
  • SP230
BOTTOMS
  • RS
  • RDF


Obviously I'm a little uneasy about Metal Fury Scythe being legal for qualifiers, but oh well Tongue_out
I'm totally in favor of that update based on what I've heard about Jade. Does anyone have any objections or anything? If not, I'd be happy with that being the March 1st update.
No one in any of the discussions has raised any objections so I'd assume it's fine. It's going to be the 1st tomorrow so if we could get this done now, that would be really nice.

EDIT: Oh, and just in case anyone was wondering, Time asked me today about Jade H145RSF and I played around with variants of that (mainly H145/GB145 and the two Jade modes) and while the weight makes it okay against stamina it gets wrecked by defense (just doesn't have enough stamina or aggression) aaaand it's really easy to knock out.
It is not much of a change, so personally it looks like it should be fine.
There really should not be any issue with it - we already have Omega in the format so it's not unique in breaking the no-4D rule, it's very much not a problem part (to the point no one has argued against its introduction - which is pretty significant given there seems no shortage of argumentativeness in the banlist thread at any given time), and while it's heavy, its shape is just awful - to the point it acts like something 7-8g lighter - offensively it's pretty much on similar ground to Pegasis, which is great but definitely not something to be worried about. It doesn't really stand to do any damage to the format, heck, at most the effect it could have is probably limited to reigning lightning in a little, maybe making more defensive ltsc's slightly more popular if Jade+RSF somehow takes off.

Plus it means those who may have started in the 4D era and bought Jade for RB now have a good Metal Wheel to use for Attack, though I guess most of them would have things like Phoenic, Wyvang, Gryph, Dragooon etc anyway.

So can we go ahead and do it? I know Kei is a busy guy, but we've basically been ready to go for weeks now, and it's not really a difficult or contentious decision that requires further/deeper discussion.
I'm also in favour based on what I've heard about it. If nobody has any other objections, I'll post the update tomorrow. I think it definitely should be done now as well because Naijalak made a good point in the GBT2 announcement thread:

(Mar. 01, 2014  1:06 AM)Naijalak Wrote: Just a thought, but will the ban list for Limited be locked during the Qualifiers and until after the Championship?

I'm sure people would complain if it changed drastically between Qualifiers.

What do you guys think? Perhaps leaving it until the qualifiers are over would be the best course of action. Then we can make an update (if necessary) before the championship (in enough time to make sure everyone has time to prepare, of course).
The part apparently makes little impact, so I would do it now even if there are some tournaments next weekend. However yes, unless something is urgent, it might be better to wait until after BeyDays to change something else, I suppose.
Id agree with keeping it the same for the qualifiers and championships. That way everyone is on the same list for qualifiers.
I generally think a stable banlist for qualifiers, then dealing with any problems before championships is a good idea - personally, aside from Scythe there really isn't anything that is actually problematic right now anyway - I've played around with a lot of stuff in the past few weeks and think I've been pretty thorough, and I don't think there's anything aside from Scythe that is problematic or a good idea to change (as I see it, the main points of discussion will be the inevitable calls for action against Libra - be it a Libra ban or RS/RDF unban, but as I'm going to pre-emptively blog about in the next few days, neither of those measures are necessary or well-advised.)

Of course, I do worry about Scythe - now to be fair, I've spent a long time experimenting and it seems to just fall mercifully short of breaking the "no safe spammable skill-free combos" thing that I personally consider an integral/signature component of Limited's gameplay (basically Attack tends to KO anything that has the stamina to do that and the type balance means attack has the presence to enforce this). However, it still forces Attack to adapt quite drastically (avoiding 145 height tracks on things other than lightning basically, so most chrome wheel attackers are sidelined and attack centralizes around Lightning and Pegasis (not sure about Cosmic/Beat for people who can get it to work)), and more importantly, it is still noticeably stronger than any other wheel in the format - It's better than Libra defensively, better than anything else stamina wise, and has strong offensive potential as well which makes Scythe Anti-Attack arguably more dangerous than the already powerful Libra Anti-Attack. Because of the fact the stakes have changed since I agreed to leave Scythe be, I am going to voice the following, and leave it at that unless someone wishes to discuss it further:

My personal advice would be to temporarily ban Metal Fury Scythe for the Qualifiers and Championships as a safety measure based on the results it has put up for each type. In a case like this, the part's rarity contributes to the problem it presents - it puts those who have an AA2 Scythe at a significant advantage for their qualifiers, and it's not something easily rectified by other competitors given it's difficult if not downright impossible to guarantee you'll get an AA2 one without significant financial investment. I'm pretty sure at least one Qualifier will have someone in attendance with one, so it's also not so rare I think it can be completely ignored. Jade CH120RF goes some way to check it as a defensive threat, doing better against it than most things thanks to sheer bulk, but on the whole, AA2 Scythe is still significantly stronger than any other wheel in the format.
Personally I see little cost in doing so - most people with Scythe are probably aware of the fact it's legality has been under scrutiny for a while now, and the things that take its place - Burn/Earth/Metal Fury Duo for stamina and Earth/Libra/Bakushin for Defense are not too uncommon anyway (MSF-H Samurai Genbull 85RB (Crystal Up) is quite respectable defensively too, from what I've seen), Stamina would be the main concern as there is another wheel that becomes the "top" thing, but that's Metal Fury Duo, which has all the ability to take hits of rice paper anyway. The other cost is less immediate data on it (though something could be worked out in that regard w/ non-qualifier tournaments on the off chance that's a concern), but the fact Qualifiers are in the short term means that even to me it's not exactly a tough choice. But yeah, that's my recommendation, and that's all I'll say unless anyone wants to discuss it further.


Either way, I do agree that freezing the banlist for the duration of Qualifiers, then dealing with anything necessary before the Championship itself is the way to go. Everyone who wins a qualifier does so on the same terms, but the championship itself is as balanced as possible.

And obviously, I think we should push out the Jade update right away. Was really hoping to have it done March 1st so it looked nice and everything but oh well...

EDIT: Okay well we did get it done on March 1st but I gotta wonder how Blizzard Aftermath is going right now because I think we may have just legalized a part mid-tournament?
I updated the OP with the 1.2 update! Thank you to Kei for posting the announcement Grin

I really like the idea of freezing the ban list for the qualifiers, that makes a lot of sense given the scale of the tournament. That means the next "scheduled" update would be, er, June 1st? July 1st? (I forgot when the tournament is lol I'll look it up)
In this case as the last Qualifier is in the same month as the championship, so we should leave open the possibility of a mid-May update to deal with anything problematic (though as I said, bar Scythe I think any major change from this point on is probably going to be ill-advised, given what I expect those changes to be).

Which also means we're getting extremely close to that "stable" banlist point I talked about as a point where we could start looking into the other things we were discussing...
I just noticed our current Banlist isn't quite comprehensive - the fact L-Drago Destroy and L-Drago Guardian Cores and the Hyperblade L-Drago III "Fusion Wheel" are legal when used with the Metal Fury "Guardian" and Non-Hyperblade "Destructor" "Energy Rings" isn't clear (this is due to being considered an identical subcomponent through all releases and thus interchangeable).

This is the simplest way I can think of to say that, though even then I'm calling L-Drago Destructor's version it's Core, rather than the L-Drago III Fusion Wheel:

Limited Ban List v1.2b: Update For Clarification Wrote:WHEELS
  • All Synchroms (NOTE: Non-Synchromed Zero-G Wheels are legal)
  • All 4D/Hyperblade Metal Wheels EXCEPT Omega, Jade and the Core (Plastic/Rubber Part) of L-Drago Destroy/L-Drago Guardian/Hyperblades L-Drago Destructor
  • Basalt
  • Hell
  • Gravity
TRACKS
  • BD145
  • SA165
  • E230
  • SP230
BOTTOMS
  • RS
  • RDF

For what it's worth, there isn't color-scheme crossover between the 4D/Hyperblade and regular ones so a ban is possible, heck, it's easier than telling apart the original L-Drago Destructor and L-Drago Destroy, but it'd be an unnecessary ban (and a change in ban status which we're not doing til qualifiers end from what I gather) and would kinda clash with them being interchangeable in standard thing/be akin to saying they're not the same part (then again, if Hasbro's Hyperblades version of the Core were as heavy as the Takara/SonoKong ones and the Spark FX L-Drago Guardian's wasn't then maybe that would not be so bad, but I somehow doubt that will be the case).

By the way, I also threw a "full" list together, including Hasbro names for parts where relevant. (Click to View)
I like the detailed ban list, and I definitely think that should be added to the threads (as a matter of fact, I'll do that now).

As far as the L-Drago stuff is concerned, I wholeheartedly agree that it needs to be mentioned somewhere, but I personally would rather that be kept to the detailed list and out of the main ban list so that the main list is as understandable/least complex as possible.

EDIT: Added it to the OP!
I suggested an addition to the appropriate area of the Rulebook that should cover the L-Drago stuff, so to that extent, assuming it is implemented that will likely resolve itself.

Anyway, I mentioned this in the public thread, but so far I'm not particularly intimidated by Gravity F230, and I think the rise of Burn Tornado Stallers in particular, which tend to cause problems for it (heck, one of them countering gravity f230 is really how they got their foothold competitively) has made things a lot less friendly to it than when we banned it. In addition to this, even though I'm quite handy with Gravity, I find Pegasis, Omega and Jade all perform better against low opponents (which is where defense has headed) than Gravity does, and with how divided discussion about gravity in comparison to other attack wheels was, I don't know if we can say for sure that dominance over other attack wheels would be an issue with it, especially with Jade and Omega both being much heavier than it.
The main issue though is that Gravity as a wheel is rather safe due to its adaptability. The dual spin takes it past the helpful but not excessive level of being equivalent to two separate left and right spin combos or whatever and largely removes spin direction prediction all together after the first round of a beybattle, aside from against other gravity combos.
So, I want to test the water amongst you guys on this - would it be permissible to alter the Dual Spin rule for Limited to remove the ability to change spin directions between the different rounds of a beybattle? Basically, you start Right Spin, you stick with Right Spin, etc. That removes gravity's biggest advantage (esp. with regards to stalling clause), and doesn't hurt much else - the only other dual spin wheel is Metal Fury Variares which is the very definition of mediocrity.

As it stands, Limited with Gravity would be the only MFB format where a dual spin wheel was actually relevant - and HMS is the only other format overall where this is the case, and there it's a system-level matter, and HMS is already a format that people are generally unfamiliar with (thus will basically have to look through the rules for anyway). That means even if it is a little confusing as to what is/isn't acceptable in standard/zero G (though it would all be clearly stated in the universal rulebook anyway), the different ruling based on the format is probably not going to cause issues for people - maybe those who are still using Variares, at worst - and in that case I'd imagine they'd be familiar with the rules as they applied to Standard when it was competitive anyway, which wouldn't be changed by what I'm proposing.


tl;dr: Thoughts on removing the ability to change spin directions on dual spin wheels between rounds in Limited and only Limited, with the aim of giving Gravity a trial reintroduction with that condition in place once GBT2 is over? Particularly whether that ruling change would be acceptable, and whether you think gravity would still be a problem.

Obviously I like the idea, though I'd definitely want to experiment more with gravity before actually making a call on giving it another shot.
Burn tornado stallers are doing well?? THAT WAS LITERALLY MY FIRST MFB CUSTOM EVER (which inspired me to make the Phantom tornado staller I later posted about) *U* this is exciting, I need to catch back up in Limited happenings

As far as the rule change goes, that actually sounds like something that could warrant its own thread in here as being a global rule change. Are there any other formats where dual-spin is relevant, or is it really just Limited (provided Gravity is legal)? That is to say, if that became a global rule for all formats, would it have an impact anywhere else for WBO tournaments?

(personally, I like the ability to change spin directions mid-match if you have a dual spin Beyblade, but it's worth discussing at least)