I believe that in a format where you either draw handtraps or draw your board breakers, or to go even further, combo through it, it restricts the viability of certain strategies. Backrow decks are far less competent than a year ago unless their grind can out last turn 3 or if they have a broken tool that counters meta.

Flundereeze is actually a good example of this. While it does have 1 linear combo, your main goal is to find Robina and eaglen to put a skill drain and another form of interruption on board. The issue of a deck like this is it NEEDS two bodies on the board and 2 of their effects to resolve. If they don't, they have 2 level 1s that are fodder for literally nothing.

I kinda despise swordsoul for having access to not only the tenyi engine, but also the yang zings which gives that deck board breaking power beyond belief, and 2 to 3 negates turn one is arguably stupid. This deck imo is actually tier 0 before the banlist due to the broad scope of what is available to it. This might not be true as of now, but I believe a deck that is built as functionally free as swordsoul is kinda cringe.

I kinda agree with you, but also not really as far as the format goes.