Why is Pot of Greed banned?

Question

Out of all the Forbidden (banned) cards in Yu-Gi-Oh!, the one that confuses me the most is Pot of Greed. The card effect is simple:

Draw 2 cards.

I don't see why this is so game-breaking that it has to be banned. You just get cards. What's the big deal? Heck, the anime uses it all the time (especially Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, where Jaden and/or his opponents use it in nearly every episode), and it doesn't seem to cause problems there.

Most of the cards on the Forbidden list are clearly there because playing them makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for your opponent to win. The rest of them seem to be there because there is a loophole in the rules that creates an unintentionally powerful effect. But neither of those seem to apply to Pot of Greed. You won't necessarily win by just drawing two cards, and there aren't any loopholes.

Unfortunately, the Internet has been less than helpful. I just seem to get forums where people say that it's an incredibly broken card, but don't explain why.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe having three of them in an Exodia deck makes it too easy to win before your opponent can do anything. But even then, I don't see why it must be banned instead of limited to 1 or 2 copies.

So could someone please explain to a casual Yu-Gi-Oh! player why this card is banned?

Answer 1

The simplest terms I can think to put it is:

Your deck requires 40 cards. Imagine you could have a 12 card deck - your 4 best cards, 3 copies each. You'd probably win every game against those 40-card deck losers, since you're always drawing your best cards and deploying them.

Every card you put in your deck makes you less likely to draw those game winning spells. So you replace them with some themed cards to bide your time until you DO draw into them. So it makes sense that a 15 card deck is weaker than a 12, and a 20 weaker than a 15. The important fact is that a 37 card deck is stronger than a 40.

Now imagine Pot of Greed just said "draw 1 card" instead of 2. What it would essentially do is let you get take your 40 card deck down to a 37, because every time you drew Pot of Greed, you would immediately exchange it for the next card.

So if it were draw 1 card, it would immediately be banned because it turns any deck from 40 into a 37 card deck. And if at draw 1 it's too powerful, then at draw 2 it must be even more powerful.

Another very simple way to put it is this: when it comes to making games fun, the key is to make interesting decisions. Pot of Greed has no interesting decision: you play it, you always benefit. It's not like a burn spell where you choose a monster to burn, or a monster that you choose "should I put this out now? Or wait for him to use up his monster kills..." Pot of Greed doesn't make games more fun. It makes them less fun.

Answer 2

In most Trading Card Games drawing a card is generally one of the most powerful effects that can be printed. Having access to more cards means you have access to more options, and Yu-Gi-Oh is no exception to this. Another thing that is really important in TCGs is the ability to play cards at no cost. This applies to all Spell Cards in YGO (unless the card has an additional cost on it).

If you take two of the most powerful things you can possibly have in a TCG and combine them into a single card, that card will probably be broken. It greatly increases your card quality and deck consistency. Being able to run 3 of these cards makes it so that you both see more cards and are more likely to see the cards you need at the current moment in the game.

For these reasons it is a card that will go into every single deck which is usually considered a bad thing because it decreases the diversity of cards being played and tends to make those cards very expensive.

Some similar cards from other TCGs include Divination from Magic (which costs 3 mana) and Bill from Pokemon (which has no direct cost, but is of a class of cards called Supporters that allow for only 1 supporter to be played in a turn, giving it a fairly high potential opportunity cost).

For a more detailed reasoning for why this card is banned I found a discussion on Reddit that expands on my points.

Answer 3

To a casual yugioh player, it is not very clear why it is banned, to be honest. To anyone that goes to tournaments it becomes abundantly clear why it is banned. Draw power is huge in major decks. Upstart goblin has recently become limited down to 1 copy. That is simply draw 1, and your opponent gets to gain LP. Upstart is good because you effectively get to play with 1 less card in your deck, because if you draw it, you immediately replace it. This adds a lot of consistency to decks that need it. Pot of Greed is a lot more powerful. It allows you to simply draw 2 cards. it has no downside, or once per turn clause; it simply lets you draw 2. This means that you replace the card in your hand, and then get an extra one. In the entire game, there is no other card that lets you draw 2 without giving up a card from your hand (Cards of Consonance) or that let you do it so quickly. The closest any card comes is Accumulated Fortune which needs to be set first, then has to be avtivated as a chain of four or higher and is very difficult to pull off. Pot of greed takes the cake when it comes to card advantage.
To summarize, Pot of greed lets you draw ridiculously easily, and draw a lot. That is why it is banned.

Answer 4

While it is a straight card advantage card with no downides, what others fail to mention is the potential it took away from the game. It restricted Konami in what kinds of card draw cards it could create, as any 2 card draw with downsides would automatically in every situation be worse than pot of greed.

Instead, because it is banned, we can now have a ton of variety in our 'draw 2' cards that would not otherwise have been possible, and that is also why it can never be brought back: it would invalidate 10s if not 100s of cards instantly.

Answer 5

It adds a couple of things to decks that define the power level of YuGiOh decks.

Firstly it gives card advantage. Simply put when two decks of similar power level play each other, the one which draws the most cards will in most cases win.

Secondly, you have small deck sizes in yugioh. The general consensus in TCG design is the fewer cards decks start with, the greater the power of drawing a card becomes. If you think about you are getting 40 percent of a starting hand back with it every time you play it.

Thirdly, it is free. There is no cost in playing it. That makes it so that unless there is better draw (Unlikely) it will always be correct to play as many of these as the format allows.

This will take away a lot of deck creativity. Seeing as this game already starts with a limited amount of cards, having cards that are auto-includes really hurt the health of the format.

Lastly, it is old and uninteresting. This card had its time in the sun. It will not provide new formats with any new type of gameplay. It will also not really sell packs as this is not a rare card.

Answer 6

Pot of Greed draws two cards, that doesn't sound dangerous or overly powerful, does it?

Lets look at what the card actually does. Pot of greed shrinks your deck. Use 3 Pot of Greed, and 3 Upstart Goblin, there's 9 card draws that didn't take a turn. Since pot of greed draws 2 the math on it is more complicated but simply put running three each of those two cards effectively makes your deck about 31 cards instead of 40. This matters for the same reason people tend to only play 40 card decks, the minimum size, because a good deck is consistent and in a smaller deck you find the right cards more often/faster. How much more consistent, and easier to win, will it be when your deck is 1/4 smaller?

This is why the card was banned, cards like this that can be freely played and do nothing but draw speed up the game too much.

Answer 7

A lot of decks, it IS game breaking. Like you said so yourself, you're gaining cards. From a competitive point of view, the more cards you have available, the more resources you have available to work off of. Many decks rely heavily on drawing the right cards at the right time, and cards that give you free draws like Pot of Greed gives you such an advantage