Discussion Most Broken Pokemon Cards

[CYL]

EX requiring DCE to do fragile damage to avoid knocking out and doing a Bianca is broken? You guys clearly don't remember Uxie from Legends Awakened. Neither Claydol from Great Encounters. If Shaymin is broken then what the hell were these.

(Calm down, CY...) This is the rest of that post:
"they're not afraid of the Trump Card ban, since they'd knock you out by turn 5 anyways. I've played quite a few of those decks in TCGO, and it is really boring to watch. First turn, they draw, discard, draw, discard, draw, have 20 cards left in the deck, and take up 5 minutes. Turn 2, you're most likely finished. Can't even enjoy a long game anymore, since the only thing I did in the entire game was stare and press end turn, a grand total of 10 seconds of action."
If you read more than the first 6 words, and read post #68 as well, you would understand that my point is that the entire format is broken. Shaymin-EX isn't broken on its own, as I later clarified; its the combination of Shaymin and all the other cards present in the format that makes the format broken. Why is that? Because the games nowadays are not much fun when your opponent finishes their deck and the game in two turns, while you sit there, doing nothing for 10 minutes, and wait for them to crush you.

 

[Draaka]

I don't think colourless card draw will ever be broken, any deck can (and does) play shaymin. If it could only be played in one type of deck (say fighting) then it would be broken, but as it's completely neutral then I don't think it is broken. You still have to be careful about decking out, leaving an easy two prizes on the bench, and not drawing anything useful (ok that last one is minimised by running a even half workable deck list). Not to mention if you are only running one then you can prize it. It's not invincible, it's not a OHKO on anything in the format, it's not all that useful after you played it (unless you are running a way of getting it back to your hand before it gets sniped like bats lists) but overall it's just a strong card that anyone can use and to use it with no draw back is not easy.

What I think really "broke" the game was the stuff that accelerates evolution so you can be swinging with a fully tooled up Mega ray or Mega Sceptile on turn one. Energy acceleration, control decks, OHKO's from evolved pokemon, Super strong EX (lv x., Prime, etc.) pokemon. These are all parts of the game that have been around and by themselves are not too much of an issue because they have counters and they have ways of being stopped.

But there is no way of stopping a turn one Mega Rayquazza deck. Or a turn one Blastoise into Keldeo swinging for 240 damage.

There is no come back other than to play the same deck back at them. Therefore I suggest that evolution acceleration (in it's modern iteration) is the most broken thing in the format. Rare candy and Evo soda were good but not broken.

But Spirit links, giant plant forest, delta evolution ancient trait on a mega, being able to bring any pokemon from your discard pile strait to your bench turn one and still draw five? That is what makes the format broken. That is what lets people get off stupid turn ones. At least with night march they could spend five to ten minutes setting up and all you had to deal was 120 damage. That is a fairly easy number to hit. And you got two prizes for it. Nightmarch as a glass cannon deck was perfect.

But turn one sceptile, turn one vileplume, turn one mega ray? These are the things that break the format. Because they break one of the most important rules that limits the game (you can't evolve turn one, you can't evolve the turn you already evolved or were put into play) for no drawback. If they had a drawback then they wouldn't be broken. Mega turbo breaks another important limiting rule (the one energy per turn rule) but it's only on a one for one basis and cannot easily be recycled so it is powerful but not broken. Blastoise isn't broken because it has the downside of being on a stage two pokemon, when it was designed it was meant to be out at the earliest turn three. But archie is broken because it lets you bring out a stage two on turn one with no downside.

 

[Otaku]

I don't think colourless card draw will ever be broken, any deck can (and does) play shaymin. If it could only be played in one type of deck (say fighting) then it would be broken, but as it's completely neutral then I don't think it is broken.

This is because you're choosing to define "broken" as "exclusive". You're free to do that, but especially in a game like Pokémon where one major branch of cards (Trainers) are usually "Colorless", it is not especially useful.

Here is a hypothetical example:

Say we get a new Victini-EX. It has the Ability "Absolute Victory" that states the turn you put it into play, if you KO an opponent's Pokémon you win. Any deck that takes Prizes can use it for a fast win and it works with any "color" deck. It won't help mill decks and lock decks, but it also kind of makes them worthless. I would hope that this card is seen as blatantly "broken" because it

• Provides a disproportionate reward for the effort of actually playing it
• Promotes an even faster pace to the game or alternatively, a very slow one where everyone tries to get "the perfect hand" before using it.
• Renders even more of the current card pool obsolete

Shaymin-EX (ROS) would be no problem in a much slower format, but in this one we have already seen what it does; while there are exceptions it disproportionately favors the fastest decks as compared to the slower ones and enables tactics that are designed to largely turn this into a one player game. Whether "I rip through my deck to enact a first turn lock!" or "I rip through my deck to set up a first turn juggernaut of an attacker!" it "breaks" the state of the game, where it was supposed to be a two player game. A lock that takes both time and skill to implement and thus results in the opponent actually participating is not the same as one where you have to pray your opponent's deck hiccups or they make a misplay while you yourself have at least a "good" hand with which to work.

Keep in mind, you're making far more sense than @Vitinic who somehow thinks a bounce attack for [CC] that does 30 on a Pokémon that is fragile and has a phenomenal "coming-into-play" Ability is a draw back and not a bonus. It reminds me of how when Yveltal-EX was new I heard people complaining about Y Cyclone requiring your move an Energy off of Yveltal-EX when you use it. Fast forward where now, while it isn't "Remedial Pokémon Strategy" or "Pokémon Strategy 101", using Y Cyclone to hit hard while keeping a precious Double Colorless Energy bouncing from one Yveltal-EX to the next (or another strong attacker) is probably still a "100" level course (referring to college courses, if it wasn't clear). The seeming drawback becomes a beneficial feature!

What I think really "broke" the game was the stuff that accelerates evolution so you can be swinging with a fully tooled up Mega ray or Mega Sceptile on turn one. Energy acceleration, control decks, OHKO's from evolved pokemon, Super strong EX (lv x., Prime, etc.) pokemon. These are all parts of the game that have been around and by themselves are not too much of an issue because they have counters and they have ways of being stopped.

But there is no way of stopping a turn one Mega Rayquazza deck. Or a turn one Blastoise into Keldeo swinging for 240 damage.

There is no come back other than to play the same deck back at them. Therefore I suggest that evolution acceleration (in it's modern iteration) is the most broken thing in the format. Rare candy and Evo soda were good but not broken.

But Spirit links, giant plant forest, delta evolution ancient trait on a mega, being able to bring any pokemon from your discard pile strait to your bench turn one and still draw five? That is what makes the format broken. That is what lets people get off stupid turn ones. At least with night march they could spend five to ten minutes setting up and all you had to deal was 120 damage. That is a fairly easy number to hit. And you got two prizes for it. Nightmarch as a glass cannon deck was perfect.

But turn one sceptile, turn one vileplume, turn one mega ray? These are the things that break the format. Because they break one of the most important rules that limits the game (you can't evolve turn one, you can't evolve the turn you already evolved or were put into play) for no drawback. If they had a drawback then they wouldn't be broken. Mega turbo breaks another important limiting rule (the one energy per turn rule) but it's only on a one for one basis and cannot easily be recycled so it is powerful but not broken. Blastoise isn't broken because it has the downside of being on a stage two pokemon, when it was designed it was meant to be out at the earliest turn three. But archie is broken because it lets you bring out a stage two on turn one with no downside.

You're not wrong here, you're just missing part of it. You see, you've got non-Evolving attackers that hit hard and fast, leaving little time to set-up... which is partially why the-powers-that-be took the foolish move of accelerating Evolution instead of, ya know, not making anymore fast, hard hitting Basic attackers and waiting for the current crop to rotate out (possibly while raising HP scores across the board on the newer cards, effectively reducing the damage done by the original problem attackers). You also have Energy acceleration to get these monstrous attackers going so quickly and getting back to Shaymin-EX, far too much "deck acceleration": M Rayquaza-EX is fierce but much harder to speed into play and hit for good damage without Shaymin-EX.

 

[redsky22]

Broken Time Space might be what we need in our format, in order to provide defense against the EXs.

So you want the format to be even more broken?

 

[Otaku]

So you want the format to be even more broken?

I do get why people make the mistake though of thinking "let's make the game faster/bend the rules more" instead of trying it legit. The-powers-that-be have never really gotten this right and the closest they have come was either during or for a few years before Broken Time-Space came out. It is just the more I review things, the more I think it also depended upon how we did things back then (information moved more slowly) and the fact that it was "new" then. Now? We've got mistakes from multiple different generations, some on their third or fourth go-round. Sometime they weren't a problem at first: I don't recall a lot of people playing Energy Removal 2... but that was because it wasn't so easy to spam them in multiples and the pace was just a bit slower so if you did get hit, it wasn't "...and now your only attacker is KOed and next turn you've got nothing in reserve."

 

[Imposter Oak]

One problem is that a lot of people (card designers included) seem to think that basing a card around the simple structure of "give card upside-> give card downside -> make sure upside is equivalent to downside" is "balanced" but there are far too many factors to consider.

At face value, Pokemon Catcher seems balanced:

Upside: Force an opponent's Pokemon off the bench
Downside: You have to flip heads (~50% success rate)

...but it's only "balanced" at face value. The other cards present in the format can easily upset that balance. Example: If the format contained a lot of low-HP bench-sitters with great abilities, it's effect would become more useful, while it's drawback would remain the same.

The same goes for a lot of cards. The format can easily change the effectiveness of a card's upside and alleviate or circumvent certain downsides, which means the card that was balanced in it's basic idea is now no longer a balanced card.

 

[redsky22]

I do get why people make the mistake though of thinking "let's make the game faster/bend the rules more" instead of trying it legit. The-powers-that-be have never really gotten this right and the closest they have come was either during or for a few years before Broken Time-Space came out. It is just the more I review things, the more I think it also depended upon how we did things back then (information moved more slowly) and the fact that it was "new" then. Now? We've got mistakes from multiple different generations, some on their third or fourth go-round. Sometime they weren't a problem at first: I don't recall a lot of people playing Energy Removal 2... but that was because it wasn't so easy to spam them in multiples and the pace was just a bit slower so if you did get hit, it wasn't "...and now your only attacker is KOed and next turn you've got nothing in reserve."

I can think of another donk deck that would work if broken time space was in format. Bats donk and donk decks are really unhealthy for the game.

 

[Otaku]

One problem is that a lot of people (card designers included) seem to think that basing a card around the simple structure of "give card upside-> give card downside -> make sure upside is equivalent to downside" is "balanced" but there are far too many factors to consider.

At face value, Pokemon Catcher seems balanced:

Upside: Force an opponent's Pokemon off the bench
Downside: You have to flip heads (~50% success rate)

...but it's only "balanced" at face value. The other cards present in the format can easily upset that balance. Example: If the format contained a lot of low-HP bench-sitters with great abilities, it's effect would become more useful, while it's drawback would remain the same.

The same goes for a lot of cards. The format can easily change the effectiveness of a card's upside and alleviate or circumvent certain downsides, which means the card that was balanced in it's basic idea is now no longer a balanced card.

This brings up a specific misconception indeed: that "tails fails" balances out an effect. Time and again we have seen that to not be the case. When the format revolved around Pokémon Reversal... oh, quick history lesson: Pokémon Catcher originally did not require a flip. It received an erratum I think around the time of XY. It used to be an Item version of Lysandre, or more accurately a "new name, same effect" version of Gust of Wind (an card originally released in the Base Set). Before Pokémon Catcher, Pokémon Reversal hit it big, though it actually had been in the format for a surprisingly long time without being a major deciding factor of the game.

This was when I realized that "tails fails" tend to appear quite overpowered or notably under powered. It isn't a hard and fast rule: I am sure there are some that at least seem "well balanced", but based on personal perception it seems more likely that either they don't have a good enough effect to compensate for failing about half the time or they do... and when they do they really do! I just don't like it when the game is influenced by yet another coin flip. I realize that TCGs include luck (or variance or whatever you wish to call it), but by this point I would prefer that to be a matter of

• My card choices
• My opponent's card choices
• Sufficiently randomized deck

I've learned I hate losing by a coin toss... and it isn't as much fun winning by them, either. =/

 

[Draaka]

Otaku, you are right, but you are saying kinda what I wanted to say. I don't think shaymin is broken because, simply it only lets you draw more cards. Because it is usable in any (every) deck it is a balanced tool that everyone can take advantage of it speeds up the whole meta game just by existing. What is broken is the cards it's paired with. Shaymin EX in a camerupt or mega aggron deck isn't broken, an extra supporter won't help those guys set up faster. When shaymin is seen to be broken is when people play three of them to get a bench full of mega rayquazza, bronzong, alteria etc all fully operational on turn one. That is when shaymin is viewed as broken. But shaymin isn't the card that makes them win, it's just one enabler. Shaymin itself is no more broken than sycamore or bicycle. But it allows you to get to broken cards. Things that break the basic tempo (for lack of a better word) of the game system. The evolution and energy mechanics which are effectively the limiters on a F1 engine. Decks that can take the limiters off (mega ray) can go 300 miles an hour, but decks that cannot remove the limiters can only max out at 80mph. Turn one wins are the problem, and shaymin can and often is used and abused to facilitate this, but that by itself doesn't make shaymin broken. The same mega rayquazza deck, without say, spirit link, or without say delta evolution would be a balanced deck. But a rayquazza deck without shaymin still has the same turn one potential, it will just be a bit less consistent, and it could spam acro bikes, battle compressors, roller skates etc to get to the same kinds of consistency it has with shaymin.

As you said, in a slower format it would be no problem and I agree, but that means the card itself isn't broken. If you put ray, mega ray, sky field and spirit link in ANY format it would break it. It would still be able to get off it's turn ones in any format with even mediocre item/supporter based draw. Even without shaymin. Shaymin makes strategies more consistent. That is all, the strategy you choose is what is broken. To go back to the car analogy, it's like saying a turbo is broken. Say you could put a turbo in any engine to make it 20mph faster. That's cool, but if you have an engine that without the turbo goes 180mph, and one that goes 120mph. Give both a turbo and you will still get the same results. After all, night march was wrecking face long before roaring skies came out, after roaring skies it still wrecked face, just a little bit more consistently. (and it was a damn consistent deck anyway)

All shaymin does is let a deck do it's thing more consistently. As it's playable by any deck it isn't broken in itself. But the cards that are played with most often are.


Also I agree with the problem of hyper basics, big basics have always been a part of pokemon from the days of chansey, snorlax, mew two and kangaskhan in base and jungle. But yes, the modern hyper basics (Ex's I'm looking at you) are unbalancing the game, and I agree, they tried to up the arms race to balance the issue and just made it worse, because throwing petrol on a tyre fire isn't a good idea. But heres the thing. That's how trading card games work, at the end of the day, power creep happens. Things will always get harder and faster, and pokemon has been around long enough that the only way to really make things from a new set better than stuff from an old set is to start chipping away at the rules that limit. That's how they make money. But it doesn't lead to a balanced game. Some of the most balanced TCG's in the world have died after just a few sets because nobody needed to buy the newest expansion because it was balanced equally to the previous stuff, there are dozens of beautifully balanced card games that only lasted 2-4 expansions because the designers didn't make the new set powerful, and therefore nobody bothered buying it. Same goes with collectable mini games. Power creep has to happen, but pokemon have kinda messed it up lately, maybe because they feel they are running out of options without just making crazy stuff. Can't wait to see how Break works because it's new and will be powerful. Otherwise why buy the set? If break can't beat Rayquazza, can't beat Toad, can't beat Vileplume/Giritina. Then why would we buy the cards?

So don't worry, soon Big basics and megas will be tier 2, and within a set or two we can all complain about how Break ruined the wonderful days of EX pokemon. But I bet the first few break pokemon to come out aren't very good. They will have a limiter on them like the original megas had, so people will adopt them slowly, then soon they will make something to get them out faster and make them better like spirit links, and that is because otherwise people won't play them, people won't buy them. They won't make money. Then Break will be broken. But it's all just a cycle.

P.S. Coin flip cards are the worst. It's like playing vanguard and your opponent top decking three heal triggers just as you are about to kill them.

 

[Otaku]

@Draaka

Here is the thing... do you dislike using the word "broken"? If you are, I don't blame you as it gets abused so badly that it can be hard to take serious. When I use it, I don't just worry about "Deck A versus Deck B versus Deck C versus..." etc. in terms of game balance. I look at the overall balance within the game, including deck mechanics. Yes it is ultimately true that "the game" breaks a card as much as the card breaks "the game", but one can be reasonable when evaluating which is likely more at fault.

In this case, Shaymin-EX (ROS) was introduced into the game at a time when its "Setup" ability was clearly going to be problematic. The decks that will rarely get strong draws off of it are the ones that rarely do well competitively. For the top decks a Shaymin-EX is usually a "second Supporter" for the turn. If Bianca lacked the normal Supporter clause and expressly stated she didn't count against your Supporter usage for the turn, she'd be a staple! For the fastest decks, Shaymin-EX can effectively be the third, fourth, fifth and sometimes even more (though quite rare as it requires a lot of bounce effects and Shaymin-EX and playing your hand back down).

You bring up some decks that you think it doesn't break. One of them I'd have to disagree with because I reject the notion of all broken things being "equal". Pokémon has two mechanics that guarantee no matter how powerful some cards are, they can see absolutely no play. One is the Ace Spec mechanic, which thankfully is gone from Standard play, only sticking around in Expanded until that format eventually has a rotation (eventually it'll happen, but it might be years from now). The other is how Pokémon with the same name count as the same card against the four-per-deck limit. So... if they made one Ace Spec (we'll call it "Heart of the Cards" with the effect that you get to take two Prizes when you play it, it would become a staple that everyone ran. If they released another Ace Spec at the same time (we'll call it "Screw The Rules") that stated you may take one Prize when you play it, thanks to the first card no one would. At least if they owned said first card. Turn those Ace Specs into Victini-EX with those same effects but as an Ability, and you get the same situation: two clearly broken cards but because they compete directly against one another for deck space, one would become a staple while the other would sit in binders.

So... would you think M Aggron-EX was well balanced if suddenly we got rid of most of the current top decks? It does a massive amount of damage based on a coin flip; as explained earlier I can't call that "balanced" anymore and this one isn't even tails fails (you still do a solid amount of damage with a manageable drawback on "tails"). I certainly don't call Professor Juniper or Professor Sycamore "balanced"; the game would have to be radically different so that discarding your entire hand actually was a worthwhile drawback instead of a potential benefit (some decks) and easily managed (most decks).

My apologies for the length of this post. I was even pressed for time and I went into a lot of detail.

TL;DR: Some of the cards Draaka mentioned as being "fine" I also think are overpowered and I explained why. I also explained how strange though it may seem, you can have overpowered cards that see little-to-no competitive play... because some cards are more overpowered than others.

 

[Draaka]

Ok, heres the thing. In a card pool of mixed cards with different abilities (like any tcg) there will always be over powered cards, but I don't think they are always broken. For example unless every pokemon has the exact same hp, attack, ability. Just the typing weakness and resistance differed, but were spread evenly so you had a meta of everybody just playing the exact same cards, you will always have overpowered cards. But that does not mean they are broken. I don't think over powered and broken are the same. Yeah mega aggron's (who is a reasonable example) attack is super powerful, but it has a bit of a draw back, several actually. High cost. High chance of not getting the full potential. On a mega pokemon (your turn ends when you evolve). On an EX pokemon (2 prizes). This means mega aggron isn't broken. What makes him seem broken is that you can nullify all these very easily. Bronzong and Mega turbo and double colourless energy could get him powered up in one turn nullifying the high attack cost easily. Trick coin makes a 50/50 OHKO on any pokemon into a 75/25 OHKO chance seriously lessening another serious draw back. Spirit link means you can get around his drawback of being a mega pokemon. On an EX pokemon (2 prizes), well there is currently no way of nullifying this, but his has a big HP pool however fire typing is now an issue with flareon around.

So we see that (using my definition of broken) it's not aggron that is broken, it's the stuff you play with him. Like rayquazza, he is innately broken because of his delta evolution ability, that breaks one of the main rules of the game (evolution tempo)

I guess to continue this discussion we need to pin down what broken actually is for us. For me it's something that breaks one of the golden rules, the things that keep the game at an equal pace. For me a broken card is something that breaks one of these rules. Off the top of my head it's (1) Energy acceleration, Blastoise, Mega turbo, Bronzong. All broken in my opinion. However if mega turbo was just turbo? And worked on any pokemon? Then it might not be so broken, because all it does then is level the playing field and a one card for one energy trade off isn't all that broken, especially if it was a supporter. But as it only allows you to power up pokemon which are innately more powerful than any other already, then it is broken.. (2) Evolution tempo. Things that allow you to evolve more than once a turn, or on the first turn are blatantly breaking one of the main rules that keep the game balanced, it's a simple fact that goes back to early pokemon, if you can evolve every turn, but your opponent misses a turn then you are almost guaranteed the win. So card abilities like giant plant forest, delta evolution, all with no down side are broken as hell, whereas I think cards like rare candy and evo soda are just the right amount of powerful because they don't break this basic rule, they just either ignore a step in the evolutionary chain (which isn't game breaking as you used the same amount of card resources with rare candy taking the place of the stage 1) or allow you to search your deck (eve soda could easily have been called cherish ball, or growth ball or something, it is basically a ball card) but they still respect the evolutionary tempo rule. I think shaymin would only be broken if there had been no other (or almost no other) way of drawing more than one card a turn. But card draw has been a part of the game since the beginning (again, why sycamore isn't broken, there has been a professor card with the same ability for the entirety of pokemon tcg's run I believe) but card draw has never been a golden rule. (3) Basic pokemon are weaker than evolved pokemon, except if they are the only pokemon in the evolutionary chain, then they may be of a similar power level. This is because it takes more work to get an evolved pokemon out than a basic pokemon, also it fits the innate flavour of pokemon. EX's break this rule, by letting you have evolved pokemon, with evolved power level attacks and abilities as basic level pokemon therefore skipping a lot of the hard work that was designed into the game.

It's late and I have a headache so I reserve the right to think of other golden rules, but off the top of my head these are the main three that are being broken in the current format and are the source of most the broken decks around at the moment.

What exactly do you mean when you call something broken Otaku?

TL;DR For me a card has to break one of the major game tempo rules to be counted as broken, not simply over powered, that is a different specification in my opinion. Something can be overpowered certainly, but that doesn't make it broken if it doesn't break one of the major rules of the game.

PS you are totally right, like the famous animal farm quote, all viable cards are overpowered, but some are more overpowered than others.

 

[Yo-yos]

rakkis, nothing is overpowered or broken, if it was pokemon would have banned it, there is a thing called good and bad matchups but that doesn't make it over powered, making a balanced deck counters these issues. I have tested most of them just due to my area, we play heavy meta which means whatever seems like the top tier #1 deck, someone will make it and play it, within a day we will easily find out the cards need to break it down, over power it and make the matchup in our favor. Everything that seems over powered has a simple counter to it, same as cards that are considered broken, not one card is broken if there is another card in the format that can counter it, for instance

giratina/vileplume loses to hex maniac quad e hammer megaman
eggs/vilplume loses to quad entei

abilities loses to hex maniac,wobbuffet or silent lab
htl loses to switch
wobb loses to silent lab

in truth tit for tat.

You get nowhere not actually testing matchups, I see why to many people fold to what they haven't actually tested to out play on before they understood the matchup, become salty and quit thinking that they have no answer for it when there is a solid answer for it outside of the simple fact of what each card does. I've seen decks win against bad matchups, I've done it before and so have many other players. What makes a card broken or over powered is the thought in someones head of thinking that it is without coming up with a strategy or idea on how to win the matchup but the truth is you'll never get anywhere without sufficient testing which most players don't do. For instance, a player in my town TJ who won the Boston open tested with the deck he used to win with for well over a month knowing full well going into the tournament how good the deck was in the format but mainly how to balance his deck against unfavorable matchups, so even if something seemed overpowered or broken and not in his favor it's not like he couldn't come up with a strategy on how to counter the matchup.

And besides pokemon is on this whole ban wagon with pooka making certain so nothing is to over powered in the format and more decks can be played, and since he has many years of tournament experience under his belt why would he lead us, the player base, astray?

 

[Otaku]

rakkis, nothing is overpowered or broken, if it was pokemon would have banned it...

That's a statement of faith, not fact. Given that we have had cards which have needed to be banned but were not banned instantly, even if I believed "broken" cards/combos/decks would eventually be addressed, we could simply be in the period before that happens. It is generally accepted that the-powers-that-be prefer to wait and allow cards to rotate out instead of actually banning them, unless they are significantly disruptive.

 

[Yo-yos]

Or significantly destructive to the format and as I stated in the same post I made about the fact that it would take away from the use of multiple decks in our format from seeing play. But the majority of what is being considered as broken or over powering strategy's are still left in the format. The powers that be = pooka will automatically decided weather or not we can balance the game, ever since he has been hired we have seen a much more balanced format and cards start to be banned since WOC, and so far this seems to be why he was hired by pokemon. But currently nothing else has hit the ban list as of yet and we are currently on day 2 of rotation.