Why was Monster Reborn brought back?

Question

Monster Reborn has been placed back on the limited list:

Target 1 monster in either player's Graveyard; Special Summon it.

Why has such a powerful card been placed back on the limited list? I'm not complaining because it is nice to be able to play it once again. But at the same time it is very easy to abuse. Especially since it's effect let's you snatch a monster from either player's graveyard for free. I mean imagine if someone used a card like Borreload Dragon and lost it. You could use Monster Reborn to take it from their graveyard.

So basically, like I said, I'm not complaining, but why would they limit such a powerful card?

Answer 1

Why has such a powerful card been placed back on the limited list?

The ways of Konami are not always crystal clear, but consider the following scenario:

Bringing Monster Reborn back will bring balance to the current format. How could that be?

Well, this card would empower those decks that were starting to get outdated (many of them, actually), due to the notable power difference new cards, like Links and Pendulum, are having in the current format.

Monster Reborn was a Staple Card back then in all decks, as it greatly supports basically any card archetype. Monster reborn could be "just" what some older decks needed to lift their game.

With it, those decks can now take an opponent's powerful Link monster like Borreload to even the match up, giving them better competitive level and encouraging players of those decks to become more active players. Also, as older decks had "slower" dynamics (usually taking more time to summon a big monster) this will bring them up to speed so they perform better on today's games.

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Now, one may say "but modern decks could also use Monster Reborn, thus giving them further advantage, so how come there is balance?".

It is true that more recent decks could also include Monster Reborn into their build, but realistically speaking it may not be worth it. Many, if not all, modern Archetypes have their own cards that can easily bring back monsters from the GY. Many of them also have "searcher" cards, that can quickly help to build combos and fetch those other cards that bring back monsters.

This means that including a copy of Monster Reborn "just because" may not help those decks, and could even impair them; it could be a dead draw in cases where a card of their own Archetype was needed. In terms of probability this also means that you now have fewer chances of pulling your Ace card (1/41, when before it was 1/40), and even fewer considering dead draws not giving you your "searcher" cards.

In other words, modern decks already have several alternatives for Monster Reborn, whereas older ones have not. This could benefit the game in general, bringing more variety and balance to the format.

Answer 2

In addition to DarkCygnus' answer:

Monster reborn was powerful in a time when most decks contained mostly cards that had a high single-card-value. Cards that were using other cards were often the most difficult to play because the probability of getting all required cards on the hand were so low. Fusion monsters that required two exact other monsters needed these monsters and Polymerisation, before the time of fusion monster substitution and Polymerisation searchers like King of the Swamp, even if you had all required three cards three times in your deck, the drawing probability in your first turn (6 out of 40) was about 4,2%.

So with many high single-card-valued cards in each players deck, Monster Reborn could return a stand-alone powerful monster, even from your enemy, and there were almost no cards to prevent this in a meaningful way. When you returned a Blue Eyes from the graveyard after your enemy has used his Mirror Force and/or Dark Hole, in the time before Sakuretsu Armor this was almost a guarantied win. In addition the only other card to get a powerful dead monster from your enemy was Autonomous Action Unit, which appeared only shortly before the chaos decks rose.

Nowadays, there are many archetype specific cards which can return your monster, many many special summons (it is getting ridiculous) and a lot of cards that can counter these summons. Also the archetype monster's design of your enemy may just make them useless to you to summon to your side, except maybe to pose some muscle. So, as DarkCygnus explained, it increased the playability of older decks. But I dare to say, not by much.

Answer 3

It is not that powerful. It is a one-for-one, and mostly the part of the card that allows you to summon your opponent's monster is irrelevant due to most likely contrasting your deck's focus.

Also, in order to summon an extra deck monster, it has to have been properly summoned in the first place.