Mass Driver was released in 2003, as a part of the Magician’s Force set. This card was a key point of a couple of FTKs, and was ultimately banned because of this. However, This still does bring up the question “Why is Mass Driver Banned?”
What does Mass Driver do?
Mass Driver is a continuous spell card that has no playing costs. While Mass Driver is on the field you can tribute a monster during your turn. Then you in return you hit your opponent for 400 life points. This can be done as many times as you want per turn. Despite the simple text, the possibilities are endless.
Mass Driver is a part of burn strategy decks which are decks that focus on dealing direct damage to your opponent through effects. Typically burn decks use spell, monster effects, or trap cards to do quick damage directly. Burn decks in Yugioh go in and out of fashion, and they can often fall under the category of OTK or one-turn kill decks.
Frog FTK
Frog FTK is a combo that was actually easy to pull off. First, you needed to summon Substitoad and send as many frogs as possible to your graveyard. Then you need to get Ronintoadin on the field with a Mass Driver in play. Then you can return Ronintoadin to the field every time you tribute him by banishing one frog. However, you need to have 20 frogs in your graveyard in order to do 8000 lifepoints.
This combo was able to snag someone the title of Yugioh World Champion in 2010. However, the fun didn’t last long as Substitoad and Mass Driver were both banned soon after.
Can Mass Driver be unbanned?
Probably not. Yugioh players love finding ways to make FTKs, and this card is made for that. However, I could see this getting an errata that puts a limit on how often you can use the effect per turn. Despite this, I think that putting a limit on the effect changes the core of what this card is. Players will find a way to do 20 tributes per turn if this card is unbanned. However, these strategies would be way less consistent if Mass Driver is put to one.
If you want learn about another FTK card may I suggest this article on Butterfly Dagger – Elma?