Pokémon Trading Card Game Thread

[Otaku]

This is a thread for discussing the Pokémon Trading Card Game.

I will begin by informing any who still don't know about the pending changes coming with the advent of the Gen VI Pokémon.  They are not in effect yet, but will be going into effect on the same day the Pokémon TCG: XY—Kalos Starter Set launches: November 8th, 2013.

New Pokémon & Basic Energy Type
Fairy-Type Pokémon and a new Fairy Energy basic Energy card are already confirmed for the TCG.

First Turn

Flip a coin before drawing your opening hand. The winner of the coin flip now decides who goes first. Also, whoever goes first now can’t attack on his or her first turn. If you win the flip, decide carefully if you want the first turn or not!

Errata – Pokémon Catcher

Flip a coin. If heads, switch 1 of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon with his or her Active Pokémon.

Changes: This card now requires a coin flip. (This makes Pokémon Catcher functionally identical to Pokémon Reversal.)

Professor Juniper and Professor Sycamore

While there are no functional changes to these cards, you may not include both of them in your deck. That is, you may have up to 4 copies of Professor Juniper or up to 4 copies of Professor Sycamore—but if you have any Professor Juniper cards in your deck, you may not put any Professor Sycamore cards in your deck, and vice versa.

I've definitely got an opinion on this, and what is more it is based on historical analysis within the game... but I'll hold off saying anything for now. ;-)

[Drago]

Coin flip: YGO already does this, but you don't get 6 hits in that game before you're guaranteed to lose like in Pokemon. Kind of confused on this rule change.

Pokemon Catcher: I can understand this one, even if I don't agree with it. It's for the sake of balance, even if it does lower the value of the card in your deck (as another card already does what it does).

Juniper/Sycamore: If they do the same thing as one another, then I don't care. It makes it a little harder to make a deck if you have two of each, but 4 of neither, but it doesn't affect me. I would just live with having two of each, even if I don't agree with the rule change. If they do in fact have different effects, then this rule makes no sense.

[Otaku]

The first turn without attacking rule concerns me because Pokémon has been, based on my nearly 15 years of play, at its best when on a player's first turn, using a set-up attack was the norm (and not on anything "special").  This is now not possible for the player who goes first, and given that the current card pool was already aggressive on the (overall) first turn of the game... the player going second will more than likely shift directly to offense.

There is also the concern that this isn't the first "first turn rules" change the game has had.  The current rules (that this change will alter) were just a return to the original rules the game began with.  We had two or three variations since then, each with varying degrees of success at "balancing out" the benefits of going first versus going second.  During a period where I barely played, some claim the rules were balanced, but I am doubtful.  Even if they were, the reason players were given for changing to what we currently have was that "special first turn rules make the game harder to learn"... which means this could easily flip again.

The solution to this imbalance needs to come with a more dramatic rules change and/or better card design.  One would simply be to acknowledge that going first is going to be an advantage, and once the second player's turn begins, they get to take a Prize.  This would mean whether the player going first just "breaks even" when cashing in on the advantage.  Whether they are going aggressive and take a Prize right away or whether that extra turn of set-up enables bigger combos sooner turn two or three.

There could also just be cards made that reward you for going second.  My preferred is finally making the Evolution rules simple.  Allow a Pokémon to Evolve if it was in play before the end of the opponent's previous turn.  This would mean the player going first couldn't Evolve any Pokémon put into play before the game began, but the player going second could... and this likely would become a serious enough advantage to level things out.

On a related note this nearly eliminates the possibility of being "donked" (having your only Pokémon in play KOed first turn) as well as nearly eliminated the ability to KO something first turn, but this has only been a problem due to intentionally designed cards and combos, so this only makes sense as a "stopgap" measure.  The real solution to this problem has always been to just design cards so that nothing has a damaging attack that can be accessed first turn.

This already went long, so I'll comment on the rest at a later time.

[Otaku]

So... the change to Pokémon Catcher is especially frustrating.  Remember how I keep going on about the-powers-that-be intentionally designing Pokémon that hit hard and fast?  Combined with Pokémon Catcher this makes any deck that is not nearly as fast "slow" by comparison (and on unfavorable, uneven footing).  This means Pokémon Catcher is bad, right?

Wrong.  Pokémon Catcher performs a simple action (forcibly promoting one of your opponent's Benched Pokémon).  The history of the game has made it abundantly clear that this is a necessary balancing agent.  One could radically alter the card pool to make Pokémon Catcher (or a similar card) unneeded, but having a card like Pokémon Catcher is the simplest (and I believe most effective) option.  You pay an Item, you get a very limited effect.  The problem lies in those overpowered, overly fast Pokémon in the format, coupled with some other long running issues (like HP scores being too low given damage output and source material, Pokémon that Evolve being "filler", etc.).  Changing Pokémon Catcher doesn't fix these issues... and it may make them worse!

There are many strong Stage 2 Pokémon, the best of which already see play.  The difficulty of setting such things up acted as a balancing agent, and this nerf of Pokémon Catcher likely swings things too much the other direction.  An established deck such as the one built around Blastoise (with its Deluge Ability), Black Kyurem EX (with its Black Ballista attack), Keldeo EX (with its "Step In"Ability) and Float Stone (so that "Step In" functions as a free Switch once per turn) gets to act like Marvel Comic's Juggernaut; once it gets going it is almost impossible to stop.

As such the net result is likely that the dominant decks will "shuffle"; few new decks will be added, few old decks lost.  Mr. Mime becomes very good because you would expect this change to make Bench hitting attackers a lot better... but its Ability protects from those.  The erratum makes Pokémon Catcher behave like Pokémon Reversal, a card that has been with the TCG (almost continuously) for about 10 years.  Pokémon Reversal exemplifies the problem with "tails fails" coin flip dependent effects; except for the format where there was finally nothing better and a good combo for it, it was largely ignored because it wasn't good enough, but then it became "broken" and games were being decided by coin flips.  You'd get to the top cut and players there rarely had "bad luck" with their coin flips.

The first turn rules were more than enough to shake-up the metagame.

[Drago]

Very interesting. I haven't been keeping up with the recent Metagame, so I didn't know that switching was so much easier nowadays. Knowing that, the coin flip doesn't balance the card. It just nerfs it to near uselessness (coin flips rarely go my way in the Pokemon TCG).

I agreed with you on the First Turn rule change. Like I said, YGO already does it, but you have a TON of life points, so it was okay. Pokemon has a guaranteed 6 hits before you're dead, so I don't agree with the rule change. And yes, I know that's how it originally was, but that doesn't make it good.

[Otaku]

So, as for the Professor Juniper/Professor Sycamore deal, I get to sound like the crazy doomsayer by pointing out how bad it really is.

Professor Juniper has basically set the standard for Supporters this format, despite having been released in Black & White, the very first BW set (and it has been reprinted, so it survived rotation).  It contributed heavily to the fast pace of the game as it favors decks that can play down their hands and/or have cards they can easily afford to discard.  Despite this, I cannot safely call it "broken".  What I can call it is unsurpassed; two years and a total of 10 sets plus promos have not produced its equal.

So there was big interest in a new Supporter, the hope that we would get a "real" alternative to what we had.  That was dashed.  Instead we get complications; a rule stating we can't use a card that is literally "same effect, new name" of what we've had for a while.  This shows a certain amount of incompetence and laziness.

1) If the desire was to turn "discard hand, draw seven cards" into a cornerstone for the future, issue an erratum for Professor Juniper changing the name to just "Professor".  Then you can just print as many alternate art versions as you want with the correct generation's "professor" character: you could even tap the more obscure ones!

2) Frankly running more than four Professor Juniper is of questionable use; it would be more to ensure drawing one of either the first few turns of the game; playing six would deck you out unless you made a serious effort of replenishing your deck (remember to subtract for opening hand, Prizes, and mandatory draws at the start of your turn).  If they were that worried out it, create a Supporter that actually discards cards from your opponent's deck/forces your opponent to draw without replenishing his or her deck.

TL;DR: This simple decision that looks innocent adds another rule to remember (avoiding such things for new/younger players has been the justification for many past rule changes) and creates what amounts to more filler in the game.

[Drago]

Quick question. Wasn't Professor Juniper just a rip-off of the original Professor Oak? Wouldn't that make this the second time they've done this?

[Otaku]

Yes and no; Professor Oak was one of the iconic Trainers from the original Pokémon Base Set, with an effect that let you discard your hand to draw seven cards.  Since that time, Trainers have been subdivided; Professor Juniper is a "Supporter": Supporters (barring a few outliers) depict characters (people) from the series (some specific, some generic) from an aesthetic standpoint while from a mechanical standpoint, are their own sub-class of Trainer that has a built in restriction of being only able to use one Supporter on your turn.  This compromise allowed the many other powerful aspects of Pokémon to be retained without much of the insanity that was produced by the earliest sets.

So Professor Juniper is an appropriately nerfed update of Professor Oak.  Sadly many players don't bother learning the older sets (not even iconic ones) and so half the time they will think of Professor Oak's New Theory if you ask them about Professor Oak (PONT is a Supporter that allows you to shuffle your hand away and draw six cards, and was very useful).  This was another reason I suggested just issuing an errata to rename the card "Professor".

[Drago]

So, from a gameplay standpoint, the only difference is that Juniper can only be played once a turn. I can live with that.

Anything new in the TCG world?

[Otaku]

Of course.

It just doesn't make me feel much like sharing. I've got some of the most respected members of the community mad at me because I disagree with them on stuff... oh you meant the actual TCG and just not the online community? XD

I don't think the latest set had officially released as of earlier posts; it was called BW: Legendary Treasures and was mostly reprints with a few new cards; it is largely a filler set though some of the reprints are quite significant as they were cards that "rotated out" of the Modified format back in September.  In Japan they just got their version of what will be our next set, X/Y or "XY" or something like that).  As is the usual case, Japan actually gets two smaller sets (X Collection and Y Collection), but it gives us a heads up as to what to expect, and what to expect is... insanity, and not in the fun way.

My main source of concern is that one of the biggest problems plaguing the game that is seems like no one acknowledges is still there; filler lower Stages.  I'll go into details if you care to ask, but even without more complicated things like my own hypothesis about the game, it should be obvious that it is an issue when most Pokémon in the set come across as filler... because they are, they exist only to Evolve though they pretend otherwise by having an attack on the card.  There are some Trainers that also look abusive.

[Otaku]

I guess I'll let myself double-post as it has been so long since I updated this thread.  Also, please pardon the messy, rambling nature; I forgot how much I had to say, even though I'm skipping massive sections.  I had to hurry!

I haven't purchased any Pokémon TCG cards in... 10 years at this point. Yet I still play. How? For better or worse, back then I was using programs like Red Shark, an unofficial way to play the Pokémon TCG on line. Since sometime in 2014, I've been playing via the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online, the official online version of the TCG. Back then, I assumed I'd get back into the physical TCG, but by this point, it ain't too likely.

As for the Pokémon TCG in general, things have certainly changed since my last post.  I believe my last post was made during the early XY-era, but now?  Now the Sun & Moon-era is coming to a close!  The powers-that-be are still recycling gimmicks from the past, for better and worse.  Release schedules may be changing, but the "how" will be lost on casual consumers.  Japan has always been at least a few months ahead of the non-Japanese markets in releases; a few cards may debut outside of Japan, but usually they get Sets A, B, and C as smaller, monthly releases and we'll get Set D, made up of Sets A, B, and C a few months later.  From now on, it looks like Japan would still get Sets A, B, and C as normal but from now on, their Set C will release when our Set D releases.  Oh, and those letters are just so that I don't have to say "the first set of the run", "the final set of the run", etc.

Another big change is to the rules; looks like the player going first will no longer be able to use a Supporter on that first turn.  I don't like this change; while I want the game's pace to slow a little, they've tried something similar before and it didn't work out well.  "No Supporter" appears to be in addition to "No attack", but making it awful to go first isn't balancing the first/second split, is it?  Plus, this really hurts decks that focus on Evolutions; if they go first they cannot use a Supporter to aid in getting Evolving but if they go second they will be even slower.

Pokémon-V may be replacing Pokémon-GX.  Since it wasn't mentioned before, Pokémon-GX replaced Pokémon-EX from the Black & White as well as XY releases.  It would take a lot of time to explain each, but just knowing that we're once again going to have a mechanic that is almost the same as before but makes life complicated because of older cards not designed with it in mind... yeah, not happy.

One last thing; you'll see me pointing out that the old Professor Juniper/Professor Sycamore situation was more than a bit silly and clunky.  Well, the powers-that-be seem to have realized it.  Professor's Research is a new Supporter card for the upcoming Sword & Shield expansion with a familiar effect: Discard your hand and draw 7 cards.  After Professor Sycamore rotated from the Standard Format, they didn't release a card like this for the Sun & Moon sets.

The art features the new Professor Magnolia, but also lists her name near the label that says "Supporter" on the card.  I am hopeful this means that, at least going forward, "recycled" Trainers based on archetypal aspects of the games will use this approach, so we no longer have to explain why stuff like Professor Juniper/Professor Sycamore are either/or for your deck but stuff like Cheren/Tierno/Hau (all "Draw 3 cards." Supporters) can coexist in the same deck.  Possibly, it could also lead to Supporter "families" based on a particular character, which I think is a good thing given how often Gym Leaders, your "rival", etc. are the focus of such things.

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