News Japan's SM6b, 'Champion Road'!

@sandsmash23

First, Ness actually did run a single copy of Mary's Request in his deck.

Next...

Hau is clearly not Mary's Request. Hau draws three cards, Mary's Request draws one but lets you draw two more if you have no Stage 2 Pokémon in play. When Mary's Request first released, most competitive decks either ran Pidgeot w/Quick Search, ran stuff just to counter it, or did both. XD Half the World Championship decks ran Pidgeot in 2006, and that underrepresents the actual, competitive metagame of the time. Even then, most decks weren't running TV Reporter. Why? Here's a quote from Ness's own article covering his time at the 2006 World Championship:

One thing that may seem weird is I am opting to play TV Reporter over Mary’s Request. The main reason is simply because Mewtric often has cards it would opt to discard if it could, mostly useless Battle Frontiers and basics. Discarding these basics benefits you later in the game, increasing your odds of drawing good cards through you & your opponents’ Rocket’s Admins.

In addition, TV Reporter has the added bonus of allowing me to discard supporters to copy Banette’s Shadow Chant for a OHKO, and allows me to discard basics in my hand that can be pulled through Unown E.

No link because I'm not sure if it is allowed (it is a non-subscription, but still commercial, TCG website). Googling "Jason Klaczynski 2006 Worlds" or the like should bring you to it, or a list of articles written by him which contains it.

This may sound pretty obvious - especially if you know what all those cards do - but circumstances matter. TV Reporter was not a new card for the metagame; instead, it was the older one that most decks have moved on from using: look at the other three World Championship Decks from 2006, and you'll see none use TV Reporter. Even those with a Stage 2 Pokémon favor other draw options. This was a time when the "Holon Engine" was legal and when we still had cards like Steven's Advice kicking around.

Ness had a TecHed out deck and feared Rocket's Admin. That isn't too dissimilar to the present, actually, but our metagame is much less Stage 2 heavy and we've currently got a lot of better options. Post Rotation, we'll still have a decent amount of options, but there is a chance TV Reporter will see more than niche play in the competitive sphere.
 
Is there any Pokemon / Trainer that would be Meta Relevant Now from the EX/ Neo era? I know Dunsparce from Sandstorm is one.
 
Now we just need reprints of:
Banned Sneasel/Slowking
BS Computer Search
Dowsing Machine/Junk Arm
BS Muk
BS Professor Oak
Vs. Seeker
Is there any Pokemon / Trainer that would be Meta Relevant Now from the EX/ Neo era? I know Dunsparce from Sandstorm is one.

Some of this has been said by others, but I'll have my own thoughts mixed in; also, in most cases, these cannot be true reprints because the cards in question contain obsolete game mechanics. There are several cards I'd like reprinted to functionally errata/ban the originals in the Unlimited Format; I haven't' played Unlimited for years but from what I understand, not a lot has changed with a lot of the crazy FTW and FTL decks working because of specific older, overpowered cards common to most decks. Do something to those cards, and you might open up the entire metagame!

  • Sneasel (Neo Genesis) would be fine; for the last several years, I've wondered if it should have ever been banned in the first place. Other cards were causing trouble at the same time, and I think it served as a scapegoat. HS - Undaunted saw a near reprint of it; everything was the same as the original from Neo Genesis except with [F] Weakness and the [P] Resistance was only -20 (the original has no Weakness and -30 [P] Resistance).
  • I'd rather an alternate art of the original was reprinted with the correct effect for "Mind Games"; it was incorrectly translated (rumored to be purposely changed) by WotC and they refused to errata it... even though they eventually had to ban it! An update of this Slowking might work, but I found having the game dictated by coin flips frustrating. An update might turn it into Trevenant (XY) that depends on coin flips but affects all Trainers. Given how similar cards have been updated, its non-attack effect would become an Ability that only affects Items, so it would just become Trevenant XY with slightly different stats, probably a worse attack, and relying on a coin flip... which sounds like a "pass". ;)
  • "No" for the Computer Search. One has to radically alter the cardpool and tempo of this game to make it not broken at four per deck. However, it might work as "Computer Search [Prism Star]. Same goes for Dowsing Machine, Junk Arm, and (not that it was mentioned) Item Finder.
  • There was no Muk card in Base Set. Fossil and Base Set 2 contained the original Muk, which shut down all Pokémon Powers in play. We already have updates of it; Garbodor w/Garbotoxin and Alolan Muk. Not unlike with the Item cards in the previous point, whether as a regular Pokémon or a GX, a Stage 1 that locks down all other Abilities by simply being in play is too good.
  • Release an alternate art card named "Professor" that depicts Professor Oak, is a Supporter, and states "Discard your hand. Draw 7 cards." Now issue an errata for Professor Juniper, the original Professor Oak, and Professor Sycamore so that they are all named "Professor". This gets rid of that special rule about not being able to run Professor Juniper and Professor Sycamore in the same deck and creates a card that can be played in Expanded and feature a variety of Professor characters for future alternate art promos. Do not make it a normal reprint (or new card) because it is time this effect left the Standard Format.
  • VS Seeker is a toughy; I miss it but I'm afraid it will do more harm than good. Hmm... remember Copycat? Just copying a Supporter (maybe any Trainer) from the discard pile might be a good effect for a Duplica themed card.

Most of what I'd like to see reprinted are the power cards from Unlimited which warp that format so badly. Of course, the idea is that the reprints would act or accompany errata for said older cards. Not sure how to handle something like Broken Time-Space, but if we slowly tweak stuff like the original Computer Search, Item Finder, Professor Oak, Erika, etc. we can possibly enhance the present, at worst just give them more nostalgic filler, and maybe improve Unlimited. Though I'm sure quite a few Unlimited Format fans would disagree with me. ;)
 
Ok, I understand how cool these are but it's incredibly lazy and is just getting really boring now, especially for GXs.
 
I meant the Muk that shuts down all Poke' Powers, reprinted as shutting down all abilities. The point is that all these cards would be broken (apart from maybe Sneasel) were they to be reprinted.
 
Wow, the riptide Feraligatr! I did not see that one coming. I might've expected the Felarigatr ex from Unseen Forces, like many others, but this was certainly a great surprise!

It's playability depends. Not only do you gotta keep getting water energies in the discard pile every turn, you also gotta keep streaming Felaligatrs in addition to it. Have a Feraligatr out? Better have another one out with the same energy onto it. I don't know, seems like a lot more work than you would think it is. On the positive side, setup plans out of the way, You're still shrinking your hand size simply by using Feraligatr's ability to use something like an Octillery or Oranguru (Granted, you'll have a month to play with Octillery since he's going to be gone, but still), or use something like a shuffle draw supporter like Cynthia after you're done discarding water energies. There's deck-thining potential with this ability, and any mad genius that can use that to great effect will make this card work in my opinion.

Playability or not, I'm glad it's printed. Now I'm gonna start a mini wish list as to what would be a dream come true.

-Copycat to copy Zoroark deck's huge hands
-Steven's Advice to draw cards off something huge currently being abused in the format
-Quick Search Pidgeot, while quite unlikely, would blow my mind and give more consistency to anything in a little unique way.
 
Non...GX?
AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
the rest of this comment has been cut off due to inapropriate content for young audiences.
 
As long as we're getting full arts of qt Supporters like this, I hope we get a remake of Relic Hunter from Skyridge.
 
But at that point, why not just play Impoleon ? Both are water stage 2's with an attack cost of 2 and Impoleon is much less combo based and is most of the time going to do more damage.

Even back in neo gen format format half of the reason feraligatr was so good was Trah Exchange. If they reprint that, we are talking !


With a Trash Exchange reprint it could be even more fun ;D
empoleon is more consistent, especially with zoroark, and requires minimal investment, to have your benched filled. feraligator is better used in expanded format. It has much use as infernape in steam siege. ribombee is a must for this deck
 
junk arm would be amazing but also break the format

well i mean as would computer search if it wasn't an ace spec or professor oak if it was effectively an item card like it was then

Make dowsing machine and computer search into prism stars
 
Shame its not a gx. Good ability, but being on a stage 2 means it likely wont see any play
 
Back
Top