The Great Librarian Conundrum

If you look at the internet forums for Yugioh and and my fellow blogger sites, you will see that a lot of people are talking about the same thing. As we approach August, our final days before the September banlist are numbered. You will see threads about what should be banned, what should be taken off the banned list, arguments on how Konami ignores TCG exclusives, links to Konami employees saying things AREN't Imbalanced, and then "TELEDAD TELEDAD TELEDAD TELEDAD." Luckily, I wasn't around when Tele-DAD was, so you won't hear me mentioning that same, tired comparison.

What I do want to talk about today is the very hot debate on Tech Genus Hyper Librarian.

How do we fix this?

Ban it.
A lot of people want Hyper Librarian outright banned. It has only been legal in the TCG for a couple of weeks, but it has been tearing up the East with Junk Doppel decks. Here in the West, we use Plants and Reborn Tengu(and Junk, Doppel, TGs, Diva, etc) to make our Hyper Librarian decks. So, as you see, Librarian is pretty popular. What is interesting is a card that is very similar to Hyper Librarian that our frien at YGO-Outstanding Innovations posted about. Hyper Librarian is a lot like the now banned Card of Safe Return. Actually, it is a CoSR with 2400 ATK that you can draw out of your extra deck. CoSR is banned because if you build a deck around a certain strategy, the reward for doing your strategy was imbalanced. Since CoSR rewards graveyard summoning, you can build whole decks based on Yusei cards, Plant Cards, or Zombies and draw 3+ cards in a turn. Librarian can do that too. Since a lot of the best tuners to make level 5 synchros can put ANOTHER tuner on the field, each Hyper Librarian in your synchro strategy will probably get you 1 additional card draw in the same turn it is summoned. Combine it with cards like Formula Synchron and you're suddenly drawing 3 cards from your deck for the cost of whatever you used for synchro summoning. Of course, like any other card, Librarian is vulnerable to spells and traps, so a well timed Giant Trunade or trap stun should enable your "broken" card. But wait, doesn't Giant Trunade followed by multiple synchro summons usually spell disaster for your opponent anyway? The extra draw do cement your win a lot more easily, but any deck that can synchro more than once in one turn could drop 4000+ damage on the opponent with the same backup as a hyper librarian. Perhaps it isn't the cards that clear the way for Librarian that are the problem, for all we know, the tuners and synchro material that are designed for multiple synchros per turn that could be the problem.

Limit it!
There are a LARGE variety of cards that are meant to annihilate the Synchro Strategy.
-Desynchro disassembles 1 target synchro monster. If it is controlled by the opponent, the synchro material doesn't come back to the field.
-Intercept Wave puts all face up synchro monsters in defense position and will return them to the extra deck at the end of the turn(doesn't negate their effect)
-Sound Proofed is a cold wave for synchro monsters. If you control no synchro monsters, then neither player can perform synchro summons until your next turn.
-Synchro Control can take control of an opponent's synchro monster for the cost of 1000 life points. And its Quickplay. They make Librarian, then proceed to make Formula. You take control of their Librarian and now you both draw 1 card!
-Tuner's Scheme does the same thing as Synchro Control, except in Continuous Trap format. Also, there is no cost aside from keeping Tuner's Scheme face-up.

Of course, if your opponent clears your backrow with 1 card(Trunade/Heavy Storm/Trap Stun/Full House) then you probably have no chance of stopping their victory push. In fact, the only cards that would probably save you in this situation would be Effect Veiler, D.D. Crow, Shiny Black "C", Maxx "C", or a similar card that could preemptively hit one of their key cards, Gorz, Battle Fader, Tragodeia, or hope you have a good monster on the field and they don't make Brionac, Stardust or Scrap Dragon. With 1 Hyper Librarian in their deck, they have 1 chance to do "Librarian Shenanigans" and that is it, until they draw Pot of Avarice. If you look at it this way, it isn't too far of a stretch to imagine Konami banning and limiting other cards while simply limiting T.G. Hyper Librarian. I mean come on, there are tons of cards out there that you can side against Synchro Decks if that 1 Hyper Librarian is really a problem. Don't forget that they have 14 other cards to choose from, it is a "Synchro Deck" after all.

Semi-Limit it!
This changes nothing. Most people would never run 3 copies of 1 Synchro monster except for Formula Synchron.

Ban all the OTHER overpowered cards!
We can't do this, but there are some choices you could make. In the above examples, things like the 1 Giant Trunade in the deck can win you the game, simply because of how defenseless your opponent will be. Trap Stun does the same, but at least it is vulnerable for a turn. Some Tengu Synchro users actually use 2-3 Pot of Duality in their deck, just to increase their chances of getting Giant Trunade and winning on the next turn. We have been without Heavy Storm for a long time and have seen the rise of backrow-heavy fields. Even with this, Tengu Plants are still topping most events, so that goes to show that, a lot of the time, those backrow cards aren't strong enough to stop that Synchro push. We also have Tuner monsters and non-tuner monsters that enable multiple synchros per turn. Things like Glow-Up Bulb, Spore, and Doppelwarrior are the fuel to the these decks, and getting them onto the field is easy. We have things like One for One, Lonefire Blossom and Reinforcements of the Army that can pluck those cards from the deck(and ultimately onto the field) for little to no cost at all! Even with the existence of Hyper Librarian, these are very consistent ways to drop Synchro Monsters out of your Extra Deck and onto your opponent's lifeless body.

Some people want to take it a step further if we keep Librarian in the game but remove field clearing effects like Trunade. The next step would be to return 1 or 2 Book of Moon to the player, the 2nd best anti-synchro card available. In my opinion, Book of Moon makes decks like Hero Beat and Xsabers a little too strong, as their main counter are better monsters. Book of Moon is the 1st line of defense against the synchro strategy, stopping your opponent in their tracks and wasting the resources dedicated to their set-up. If they get past Book of Moon, you can Solemn Warning their Synchro Monster. If they get past Solemn Warning, you have Bottomless Trap Hole. If they get past that, you have Gemini Spark or Dimensional Prison. Book of Moon is just annoying to have to deal with. It just isn't fun not being able to play a monster onto the field.

So what do I want to do about Hyper Librarian?
I would actually like to see Hyper Librarian limited to 1 and Giant Trunade banned. With Trunade banned, Mystical Space Typhoon can go up from 2 to 3. In my opinion, banning fun strategies isn't good for the game. Limiting them and removing the over-generalized cards that prevent your opponent from defending themselves is a better way to go. Either way, there is no way to really predict what Konami will do about it since the card has equal chances of being banned or limited.