Saturday, August 24, 2013

Answers to questions about the 2013 Banlist



By now the initial shock of the banlist has passed.  Solemn Judgments, extra copies of Compulsory, and (*gasp*) Trishulas are making their way back into the binders.  A portion of us are salty that our $800 E dragon deck is wasted, while others are grateful that the Dracossack poundings may be a little less common.  Though there is no shortage of commentary, I thought I would add my thoughts and observations to the Blogosphere.  So here are the answers to the Yugioh communities most burning questions:

1. Who is helped by this ban list?
While this list affects all of us, there is one group that is truly its beneficiary: Yugioits!  Though many think the term yugioit is a combination of the term Yugioh and idiot, the actual derivation is from Yugioh and pundit. Pundits are the often self-appointed experts and spokesmen for some area of interest.  In the yugioh community, yugioits include bloggers and yugitubers.  This group is helped immensely by the radical change in the list and the policy of introducing new lists every three months.  Here’s the cycle

a.       Banlist predictions:  Predictions are usually good for two episodes.  The first is the What-the-banlist-should-be and the second is What-the-banlist-will-be.  Most yugioits need to comment on both because it gives the audience the impression that they know what is both good for the game and good for the corporation.  If there is a need for more content, they can also comment on the idiocy of someone else’s prediction.
b.      Reaction to fake banlists: That’s right – thanks to Konami we will be treated to twice as many photoshopped banlists.  You have been warned.
c.       Reaction to the OCG list:  For a while it seemed that we would have uniformity between OCG and TCG.  Ask all of this people who bought Trishula several weeks ago. Alas, our lists are once again quite different.  Nevertheless, the Yugioits were given fuel for their commentaries.
d.      Reaction to the TCG list: This is the part of the cycle that we currently find ourselves. 
e.      The reality of the TCG list: Pundits like to point out their correct predictions and often ignore the wrong one.  Yugioits are not really much different.  Hence, we don’t get as many of these submissions. But who cares? Everyone will get to do it again in two months. 

2. Who is hurt by the ban list?
Frequent banlists really hurt individual traders. Though Yugioh is a trading card game, most of us are not trying to gain any real value or income from trading. To those that are, I say beware!  Trading for value or income is a bad idea.  I should know; I traded mortgage-backed securities and I think Yugioh makes that market look like blue chip investing.  

To understand why trading for value is nuts, look at the bid-ask spread.  This is the difference in price that professional traders will buy (ask) and sell (bid) a security.  It’s their “take” for the transaction.  The more the value of the security changes, the greater the bid-ask spread is.  Traders use the term volatility for describe these changes in price.

Here is an example of some typical bid-ask spreads for some common stocks:


  • Google: 873.19 – 877.05  (0.44%‎)
  • McDonalds: 95.38 – 95.65 (0.28%)
  • Facebook: 38.56 – 38.8‎ (0.61%‎)


Here is an example of some typical bid-ask spreads for Yugioh cards 


  • Black Ship of Corn: 11.00 – 19.99 (45.0%)
  • Diamond Dire Wolf: 13.91 – 28.49 (51.1%)
  • Ally of Justice Catastor 5.25 – 20.38 (74.2%)


That’s right – the volatility in Yugioh cards is 100 times more than that seen in stocks.  Of course, this is a tongue-in-cheek analysis.  Still, my advice is don’t chase after high rarity cards. Your battle pack rare CardCar D gives you the same extra draw as the secret rare.  

I’ll give more answers to the burning questions at a later time. 

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