Ok, I was asked to do this, so I'm doing this. I skipped the last one but I will be giving my analysis on the forbidden/limited list changes and what I think will be the best decks for the next month and a half (until Hidden Arsenal 7 comes out)
Wind-Up Carrier Zenmiaty to Forbidden
Wind-Up Magician to Limited
These two have to be talked about together since they are limited to one deck. Banning Zenmaity eliminates the scariest part of the Shock Lock. Whenever my opponent opened Magician/Shark, the immediate threat was always Zenmaity because it could just summon another Xyz to go with the Shock Master, Photon Pap, and Zenmaity next turn, without using the normal summon, allowing them to OTK. Without Zenmaity, they don't have any real follow up for the turn after they summon a Shock Master, nor can they generate massive advantage while summoning Shock Master. This also hurts the consistency of Wind-Up's going first turn Rabbit/Factory since one of the common ways they brought out Rabbit was by using Tour Guide to summon Zenmaity. Overall, hitting Zenmaity was a good thing for the game, but still gave Wind-Up's some crazy Magician/Shark Combos, which is why I believe they hit Wind-Up Magician. Without 2 Wind-Up Magician's, Wind-Ups can't go Maestroke/Tiras (their strongest non Shock Master play), and lose any consistency of even opening a Shock Master. Overall, good call by Konami, hit the unfair parts of Wind-Ups while still giving them SOMETHING to do with Rabbit, Factory, and Rat. It's not good enough for it to compete in the current metagame, but it can be a decent fun deck.
Sangan to Forbidden
Easily the change that will have the largest impact. I tried to count all of the decks that would be worse without Sangan but I lost count somewhere in the 200's. Dino Rabbit is the most notable deck hit by this because now they absolutely have to draw Rescue Rabbit in order to efficiently make an Evolzar instead of being able to draw Sangan, or TGU Sangan to the field. Inzektors are another deck hit by this because they absolutely need to see their Inzektor Hornet to do anything. Now they have to rely on either drawing it (or Foolish Burial) or milling it with Card Trooper. Just a small list of other decks weakened by the banning of Sangan; Plants, Zombies, Exodia, Empty Jar, Wind-Ups, Agents, Destiny Hero's, and every deck that can run Tour Guide from the Underworld (which at this point, is pretty much anything besides Water, Legendary Six Samurai, and Fire Kings). This also got me thinking, what is the best Tour Guide target now? Is it Night Assailant? Dark Mimic Lv3? Dark Resonator? I eventually settled with this decision. The only TGU target I will run in any deck not named Dark World or Chaos Dragons (who do have a neat trick with Night Assailant) is the other TGU. Night Assailant was only run in Rabbit because the first TGU was normally used to get the Sangan search and they needed a 2nd target to make the 2nd TGU live. Night Assailant just happened to be the next best target because it wasn't horrible to draw and was a decent card against Rabbit and Wind-Ups. The problem is Water can easily destroy it with Marksman and Fire Fists can just destroy it with Bear so thats 2 popular decks that Night Assailant is dreadful against. For these reasons, I would highly suggest just running 2 TGU as your TGU engine. The 3rd target (Night Assailant) is only good against one deck (and even then, Snowman Eater is better) and there is no good 4th target that isn't absolutely useless when you draw it.
One Day of Peace to Limited
Thank you god that this card got hit. One Day promoted decks with alternate win conditions such as Exodia, Final Countdown, Empty Jar, Chain Burn. In other words, this deck promoted decks that didn't involve any of the mental aspect of Yu-Gi-Oh.
Solemn Warning to Limited
The 2nd biggest change to the ban list. I honestly have a hard time explaining just the impact of losing one copy will have but it was clearly the best way to stop summons. Bottomless can be stopped with a Forbidden Lance or Forbidden Dress and doesn't negate trigger effects on summon. Bottomless is also useless against monsters that can negate it such as Barkion, Laggia, Shi En, or cards that are immune/resistant to destruction effects such as Maestroke, Zenmaines, Gachi Gachi. Solemn Warning has none of these flaws. Genex Undine is now much more likely to resolve, as is Stratos, Rescue Rabbit. I hope you get the picture if not, I'm sorry for not being able to explain it better.
Tsukuyomi to Semi-Limited
This card saw next to no play while it was at 1 outside of being used as a cool side card in Wind-Ups for the Agent match-up. However, Tsukuyomi might actually be a decent card against Fire Fist since it can, for all intensive purposes, turn off the Fire Formations, making the Fire Fist monsters easier to attack over (though you will need another monster to do it usually since Tsukuyomi can't attack over Bear or Tiger King while they are in defense) Otherwise, nothing about this card has really changed. It still takes up your Normal Summon, and it can't attack over most of the monsters you want to use it's effect on (Barkion, Beast, Shi-En, Laggia, Tiger King, Bear, Neos Alius just to name a few). In short, the game is too fast paced and there are too many relevant monsters with 1100 defense or higher for Tsukuyomi to be an effective card in most decks.
Thunder King Rai-Oh to Semi-Limited
The best thing I have heard about Thunder King Rai-Oh (and Gorz, the Emissary of Darkness) is that it helps deal with Konami's poor card design. (small list of examples of cards with poor card design, Judgment Dragon, Dark Armed Dragon, Rescue Rabbit, Tour Guide, Gateway of the Six Samurai, Legendary Six Samurai Shi-En, Inzektor Hornet, Lonefire Blossom, Glow-Up Bulb, Elemental Hero Stratos, Fire Formation Tenki/Brotherhood of the Fire Fist Bear, Atlantean Dragoons, Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World, Spellbook Day of Judgment, Substitoad, Infernity Archfiend, Infernity Launcher, Wind-Up Factory, Wind-Up Zenmaines, Black Whirlwind, Trishula, Goyo Guardian, Brionac, Gladiator Beast Gyzarus, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon) Thunder King's best trait, and why I think the card should always be at 3, is that it at least hinder's most of these cards and doesn't let them get too carried away. With the impending release of Spellbook Day of Judgment (which threatens to make Prophecy Tier 0) I absolutely want Thunder King to give people who can't afford the deck or don't want to run a deck with very little player interaction a chance to counter it. Nope, Konami want's none of that. They want their poorly designed deck's to run free. This, in my opinion, is one of the worst forbidden/limited decisions that konami has ever made
Advanced Ritual Art to Semi-Limited
Meh, I don't think this will have much of an effect. It forces you to run normal monsters, and while Demise King of Armageddon and Herald of Perfection are powerful cards, I don't think giving those decks an extra ARA will make them more relevant in the near future.
Spore to Unlimited
As long as Glow-Up Bulb remains Banned and Lonefire Blossom and/or Dandylion remain Limited, there's no way for Plants to make a return. Add in decks running Dimensional Fissure, Macro Cosmos, and Soul Drain and the deck is too easily countered
Blackwing-Kalut the Moon Shadow to Unlimited
Blackwings are just too weak. All they gained was a Kalut and while it might lead to random OTK's, cards like Bora, and Sirocco are just too weak in todays metagame. As long as Black Whirlwind remains at 1 like it should, then Blackwing's will have trouble competing above the local level
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner to Unlimited
I guess if you wanted to increase Lightsworns playability this is the way to do it without actually increasing it's consistency. The problem I have with the deck is that if a newer player picks it up, it doesn't actually do anything to teach you about the mental aspect of Yu-Gi-Oh. It's entirely reliant on what you mill.
Shien's Smoke Signal to Unlimited
Why Gateway didn't get the axe is beyond me. Samurai are again, a deck for newer players that requires very little thought process and rewards overextending. As for Smoke Signal, it honestly won't do much, Samurai bring out Shi-En extremely easily thanks to Aceticism anyways and the deck still loses to Water unless it opens D-Fissure/Macro/Soul Drain. If not for that, I'd say this is by far the worst thing to happen on this list and wouldn't even consider there to be a close 2nd.
Mind Crush to Unlimited
Meh, Trap Dustshoot is gone so why not. I do think this will be a useful side card this format against Water and Fire Fists but I wouldn't use more than two copies.
So with that done and over with, I'll talk about what I think the meta will be.
Tier 1
Water
Fire Fists
Dino Rabbit
Tier 2
Six Samurai
Dark World
Agents
Chaos Dragons
Tier 3 and lower
Everything else
Water: I think this is clearly the best deck just because of the explosive plays it has. Being able to special summon a 2400 monster while generating advantage is something no other deck can do right now. On top of that, you have all of the Abyss-Sphere tricks and Deep Sea Diva plays. The problem this deck had was a horrendous Wind-Up Match up but with Wind-Ups dead, I think this deck will be one of the top contenders. This deck does have some problems though as it is hard countered by any card that shuts off graveyard effects such as Macro Cosmos, Dimensional Fissure, and Soul Drain. So while it might be the best deck, its also somewhat easy to counter. Debunk and Mind Crush are also effective side options.
Fire Fists: Where Water thrives on its power and speed, Fire Fists thrive on the consistency of having a searchable RoTA that's at 3 per deck and just the power that is Bro Fist Bear. Bear sending used Tenki's to destroy opposing monsters and then setting more Tenki's (or any Fire Formation) can just lead to a snowball effect and make it easy for Fire Fists to just out advantage most decks and reduce the number of resources at your disposal (similar to Wind-Up Rabbit and Wind-Up Factory though not nearly as powerful since that combo can search a 2 card OTK). On top of Tenki and Bear, the deck can use Rescue Rabbit very effectively to summon Tiger King in order to search for MORE Tenki's. Unlike Dino Rabbit, Fire Fists don't have to run subpar cards like Kabazauls to do this effectively since Gene-Warped Warwolf is stronger than nearly any other monster that can be normal summoned. So while the deck has plenty of consistency, and makes efficient Rank 4's, it can't handle absolutely everything Water can throw at it and it relies on D-Fissure, Soul Drain and other side cards such as Banisher of the Radience to shut Water down. Outside of that, I think they deck remains a very solid choice and doesn't have any exceptionally poor match ups across the board. Side options against this deck include Mind Crush, Overworked, Macro Cosmos, Fiendish Chain, Breakthrough Skill, and Effect Veiler. It's a lot like Blackwings in that there's no one card that can shut it down and many of your side options are cards you might be maindecking already.
Dino Rabbit: This is the deck I feel least comfortable about putting in tier 1. I think the lack of Sangan hurts a lot and without it, they are limited to 1 TGU play. Another problem the deck has is that many of it's monsters are subpar outside of being used for Rabbit plays. Sabersaurus is ok but it's not a card Fire Fists and Water will be threatened both decks can easily deal with it. Kabazauls on the other hand, is absolutely terrible. The only possible monster it can run over is Bear, and that's if there isn't another Fire Formation on board. I also think Guaiba is subpar for the same reason though you might be able to run over a stray Undine every once in awhile. Other than that, the deck is only playable because Evolzar Laggia and Dolkka exist but I just don't think you can summon those cards fast enough over the course of a Regional or YCS.
Side options against this deck remain the same. 1 for 1 removal (D-Prison, Soul Taker), Breakthrough Skill, and Snowman Eater.
Now some interesting cards I like for this format
Debunk: Solid choice against Water since it can negate Megalo and any graveyard effect. Also serves duel purpose since you can side it against Dark World
Mind Crush: Respond with it to Megalo Reveal, use it after a Tenki Search or any search for that matter. Hit cards added by Duality, I think there are many functions that this card has and it shouldn't be overlooked
Overworked: Effective against Fire Fists and Inzektors since Fire Formations boost the Bro-Fists and Inzektor Hornet and Ladybug boost any other Inzektor.
Banisher of the Radience: Destroys Water end of story
Maxx "C": Effective against Water and Samurai.
Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo: Have I mentioned Samurai yet?
Kinetic Soldier: Seriously why does this deck still exist
Warrior of Elimination: Can't we just ban Gateway already?
Decks I don't like
Geargia: Deck relies too heavily on Geargiarmor and Fire Fists can easily destroy it with Bear and Water with Marksman. I really don't like monsters that have to be set in general this format (outside of Snowman against Rabbit) since Fire Fists and Water can easily destroy them and Sangan is no longer around to punish players for recklessly destroying F/D monsters with effects.
Legendary Six Samurai: The deck relies on shutting down opposing S/T cards. The problem is Water relies entirely on monster effects.
Dark World: There's already a very good Graveyard based deck, and as long as one exists, Macro Cosmos and Dimensional Fissure will be played in Side Decks.
Inzektors: Fiendish Chain might be one of the best traps this format since it's one of the few traps effective against Water, Fire Fists AND Dino Rabbit. Because of that, other decks hurt hard by Fiendish Chain are going to struggle.
Gladiator Beasts: Fire Fists and Dino Rabbit run a large number of removal cards and Gladiator Beasts rely on surviving battle. Add the increase in play of Fiendish Chain and I just see no way this deck can do well.
Well that's all, sorry for the massive wall of text. I'll respond to any comments.
