Discussion Suggested Errata to make banned Lysandre's Trump Card Standard Legal

sonicking2004

sonicking2004

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I have been long of the opinion that outright banning Lysandre's Trump Card was an extreme solution to the problems it had created in the game. In the past, when something about a card made it broken or created an undesirable play environment, such as its accessibility or its being overpowered, an errata was issued to tone it down and make it more user friendly. Such a solution exists for Lysandre's Trump Card, and even though my proposed errata would involve utilizing two play mechanics that have not been utilized in Standard Play since the last cycle, it's still not unreasonable :

Lysandre's Trump Card

Ace Spec: You can't have more than one Ace Spec card in your deck at a time.

After you play this card, it goes immediately into the Lost Zone. Flip a coin. If it's heads, then both players shuffle their discard pile, except for Lysandre's Trump Card, into their decks. If it's tails, then this card does nothing. If either player already has a Lysandre's Trump Card in their Lost Zone, then this card can't be used.


I specifically chose to make Lysandre's Trump Card an Ace Spec in order to make it harder to get, and adding the coin toss powers it down the same way it did Pokemon Catcher. Placing it in the Lost Zone ensures that it won't be reused by means of Vs. Seeker or Pal Pad, while the text preventing it being used if it's already in someone's Lost Zone ensures that the game won't be extended too long by repeated reshuffles. Finally, keeping the original text of excluding Lysandre's Trump Card from being shuffled back in by using LTC makes it less likely that it can be used to pad the opponent's deck should they discard it before you actually use yours.

Well, that's my idea of how Lysandre's Trump Card can be fixed to become usable in Standard Play again. What do you guys think? Do you have any thoughts on what changes can be made to it to make it work? Please leave your thoughts below.
 
- This thread was moved from TCG News & Discussion to Competitive Play as the thread is intended to discuss the competitive nature of Lysandre's Trump Card -​
 
Even as a Ace Spec or even a coin flip you could still use it again with vs seeker if it was absolutely needed. The lost zone concept is gone so they would have to bring that back in its fullest and that's unlikely. and will all these debuffs there would still be overly long first turns and in late game it would remove the Deck out win condition that mill decks work for. So no this card needs to stay buried along with everyone's special energy and items.
 
I think all it needs is a clause at the end of it.

"This card cannot be removed from the discard pile with the effects of any Item, Supporter, Ability or Attack. The effect of this card cannot be used with the effects of any Item, Supporter, Ability or Attack."
 
You can only play this card once per game. I think that is fair. Just once...period
 
Most of the solutions proposed are still open to abuse, especially if we accept the stated reasons for banning the card (one was how it pretty much killed mill as a strategy).

If they wanted to bring it back with a simple erratum, @Micajah has the best solution presented, but I still think it is too potent. You still risk prolonging the game far too much for competitive play and hobbling mill strategies. So my proposal is to have it only affect Pokémon in each player's discard pile. The drawback with that is it might cripple Night March, as they tend to burn through so much of their decks so suddenly having all their Night Marchers tossed back into the deck would leave them with few ways to re-discard them. Still it removes the most problematic issue, namely that Special Energy cards and Trainers can be recycled.
 
Just one LTC would recycle all DCEs, DDEs, etc, meaning there's no need to worry about handling those kinds of resources. It also means replenishing items such as Crushing Hammer, all VS Seekers, Red Cards, Lysandres...so you can't even judge what your opponent's options are in the future.

I often look through the opponent's discard to check how many VS Seekers they've thrown away, how many Lysandre are in there, Mega Turbo, etc...if LTC came back, even as a one-use card, it just resets all that.

I think we should just call it a misguided design decision, and leave it at that.
 
Just my 2 cents.

What about making it an ace spec with this:

"Both players choose 3 cards from their discard pile and shuffle them in their deck"

that way its no where near as strong but allow it to have a diminished effect.
 
Hippydude said:
What about making it an ace spec with this:

"Both players choose 3 cards from their discard pile and shuffle them in their deck"

that way its no where near as strong but allow it to have a diminished effect.
Click to expand...
That would NOT solve the problem we are trying to solve. Night Marchers are not getting shuffled back in to limit the damage of night march and items can still be replayed.
 
Just errata it to say "Each player shuffles all Pokemon with the attack "Night Match" back into their deck."

I think that's the reason people want to see this back in format
 
For the record, the Ace Spec mechanic is dead. Notice how it hasn't been used at all in the XY-era. While this is probably because it was a gimmick never meant to actually last, let us be grateful because in all honesty, it was a bad idea. If there is no way to search, recycle, etc. an Ace Spec card then it just spikes luck in the game: either you draw into it and/or can hold onto it until you need it and it serves you well, or you can't and you get either a diminished return or a totally wasted resource. Now when you can search and/or recycle it, then you have a card that is more reliable and thus less luck based but which was designed to be balanced as if it was not easy to search and/or recycle. At least, that is the only explanation for what actually happened other than "The designers didn't care or intentionally wanted to create unbalanced but hurt to pull cards to drive sales." ;)

So all the "Ace Spec" ideas aren't likely to balance Lysandre's Trump Card. Likewise is effect is too potent to keep in tact; even when you can't spam a single copy with VS Seeker, even if you can use it once per game, it can double the length of the match. That's before we get to specific cards it may make too potent. MOst people want it back because it was a check to Night March decks (and most likely was intended as such): the catch there is that while it shuffled all the Night Marchers back into the deck, a Night March player also got back all their other cards as well, like Double Colorless Energy and their Trainer engine to dump most Night Marchers back into the discard pile the next turn. In fact a careless Lysandre's Trump Card could help Night March and some Night March lists even would run it themselves in case they needed the emergency reset.
 
This is a good idea, and I like the ways you limited it, but the limitations make it unnecessarily hard to play with. Also, does the Lost Zone exist in Standard play?
 
Chip Thrasher said:
This is a good idea, and I like the ways you limited it, but the limitations make it unnecessarily hard to play with. Also, does the Lost Zone exist in Standard play?
Click to expand...

Your Bench, deck, discard pile, and hand do not cease to exist even when they have zero cards, so I do not believe the Lost Zone ceases to exist in formats which lack effects that make use of them. That being said, do you want to explain a bit why the concerns others have espoused about this proposed erratum don't apply? Even if we assume there isn't an issue with bringing back an abandoned mechanic (the-powers-that-be do indeed do that a lot XD), does it really solve all of the problems Lysandre's Trump Card created? Or do you simply believe the benefits of issuing such an erratum outweigh such issues?

I fear I sound like I'm just lecturing, but seriously help me to understand. It isn't much of a discussion if most comments are "Here is my solution!" or "I like [insert solution]!" with no added discussion or explanation. ;)
 
"Both players shuffle back in all basic Pokemon, basic Energy, and Stadiums back into your deck."
Wouldn't shuffle in Trainers/Supporters, which made it unbalanced (VS Seeker, Hammers and all). It also means if you lose all of your DCE you do lose unless if you have puzzle of time, which is balanced already. I think being able to use the supporter over and over with this ability is fine as it gets back only a few things, but still limits decking out to a smaller, but not an improbable possibility.
 
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