This all started because a previous post didn't like that Stadiums now had split effects, specifically feeling it was "wrong". The reason that person gave was because that person didn't believe it fit the animation's treatment of stadiums. Such a position is pretty easily refuted; "Stadiums" isn't literal in the TCG and it just means the location where two Trainers (the players) are having a Pokémon battle. It has been a while since I watched the animation regularly, but even limiting things to the battles at sanctioned locations for Pokémon League battles, some have indeed had varied terrain, though arguably it might count towards something more like
Scorched Earth where the different features just favor multiple kinds of Pokémon for different reasons, and either side can take advantage of it.
RealSlim, you made a post claiming this wasn't an issue because the TCG is based on the video games, not the animation. I put forth the counterargument that the Pokémon franchise is such that you can't be sure what influences what anymore and that in fact either the TCG has been influenced by the animation directly or the video games have been influenced by the animation and then the TCG by the video games. I cited examples like
Copycat (original art),
Here Comes Team Rocket! and
Team Rocket's Meowth.
So why do all this? It isn't just because I enjoy debate (though I generally do, and kudos to keeping a nice friendly attitude during it). There is a danger in getting something correct but having arrived at that conclusion incorrectly. You see it a lot with people that adhere to a particular stance on an important matter, but only do so because it is the popular opinion (sometimes only relative to the people whom they know) and then cannot properly defend it when called up
or by using their faulty reasoning in a similar situation they arrive at an incorrect conclusion about something else (usually something similar but different).
A non-controversial example is from when I was in the second grade (I think) and we were learning how to estimate. Now of course we were being taught with super-easy examples and while I'm no genius, the actual problems were so easy I could just glance at them and solve them in my head. They were designed to actually equal the estimated answer or else I was rounding them off, but this meant I got enough of them correct that until the exam over that section everyone assumed I knew what I was doing. It was only when the format shifted slightly and instead of estimating the answer we had to look at a simple addition problem, round up the two individual numbers being added then add them together to get the estimate answer. So... got those wrong because I kept using the wrong method that managed to often enough get myself the correct answer until that point.
Yeah, sometimes I really am just that old guy that goes on and on.
