Eight Cards To Be Banned from Japan’s Expanded Format! By: Water Pokémon Master Posted 3 weeks ago to TCG 37 comments The Japanese Pokemon TCG website has announced several bans for their Expanded format (BW-on): Marshadow from Shining Legends Flabébé from Forbidden Light Mismagius from Unbroken Bonds Red Card from Generations Chip-Chip Ice Axe from Unbroken Bonds Ghetsis from Plasma Freeze Lt. Surge's Strategy from Unbroken Bonds Island Challenge Amulet Island Challenge Amulet is from Japan’s Alter Genesis and should become part of our Cosmic Eclipse set in November: Island Challenge Amulet – Trainer Item Pokemon Tool: Attach a Pokemon Tool to 1 of your Pokemon that doesn’t already have a Pokemon Tool attached to it. The max HP of the Pokemon-GX or Pokemon-EX this card is attached to is reduced by 100. If this Pokemon is Knocked Out by damage from the attacks of your opponent’s Pokemon, they take 1 less Prize card. You may play as many Item cards as you like during your turn (before your attack). The bans will go into affect on October 4th. The bans will likely come to America upon the release of Cosmic Eclipse in November. Many of the bans are to protect the hand size of the opponent on the first and second turns of the game. If you’re the player going second, using Mismagius and then Reset Stamp can dwindle an opponent’s hand down to two cards. Flabébé allows you to immediately evolve into the new Floette from Alter Genesis (our Cosmic Eclipse), which lets you shuffle a card from your opponent’s hand into their deck: Floette – Fairy – HP70 Stage 1 – Evolves from Flabébé Ability: Flower Picking When you play this Pokémon from your hand to evolve 1 of your Pokemon during your turn, you may choose a card in your opponent’s hand. Your opponent reveals that card and shuffles it into their deck. [Y][C] Magical Shot: 30 damage. Weakness: Metal (x2) Resistance: Darkness (-20) Retreat: 1 Japan previously banned the following from their Expanded: Reset Stamp from Unified Minds Lysandre's Trump Card from Phantom Forces Forest of Giant Plants from Ancient Origins Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick from Primal Clash Unown from Lost Thunder (DAMAGE) Unown from Lost Thunder (HAND) Delinquent from BREAKpoint Jessie and James from Hidden Fates Thanks goes to Bangiras and Arantxa T. for assisting with this news story!
https://limitlesstcg.com/tournaments/?id=219 Easy to see why they moved quickly, after 5 of the top 8 at Japan's first big Expanded tournament opted for total degeneracy with hand lock. Good call, hopefully they're just as quick on the uptake out here.
I have always hated these types of decks. If you are that bored that you have to resort to using decks like hand lock, why play?
Why they ban the amulet? I'll tell you why. Jirachi EX. Attaching This to Jirachi EX will immediately KO Jirachi and give up 2 prizes then the player will abuse N and distrupt their hand to 1 or 2 prize cards. And also, Jirachi can search N or Lt. Surge and can be searched out by Hoopa EX.
The reason people play those decks is because they find "normal" decks boring. Don't judge people's play styles. What you might hate, other people might love.
Yes sir cleaning up the health of expanded. No longer afraid of getting absolutely murdered on turn one.
Let them stay banned in Expanded. Standard can still play with them. If you couldn't play around them you're just bad.
There's nothing more boring than solitaire decks to me. I can see why some people get joy out of it, but they feel the least creative imo. They also contribute to a bad game state so it's good that they're addressing this.
Ghetsis we already banned internationally, Surge was gonna be the centerpiece of a broken enough strategy sooner or later, t1 marshadow or red card is nasty enough I can see the rationale, Floette is not a balanced t1 card and they banned Wally, so I'm not gonna complain about Flabebe. But I'm not sure if Mismagius still merits the ban with the other cards gone (you've gotta hit all 4 of them, and just to N to 2?) Dusk stone might've been a better ban for that, guarantee the opponent a turn. And I don't like the chip chip ice axe ban, if you can still hand lock with all the other bans in Japanese expanded you deserve to pull it off. Guess they wanted to make sure nothing like this deck appeared again instead of trying to balance it, I think they could've fixed the problem with fewer bans.
You mean like bad game states caused from degenerates like zoroark's trade or charizard reshiram with welder? Or do you mean only decks that you don't like and are not the common stupid stuff?
Reshizard with Welder and Zoroark's Trade ability are strong but they don't stop you from playing the game. Having your Opponent reduce your handsize to Zero before you even had a Chance to Play is just boring. If a deck like that gets it Combo going there is essentially only one Player left plaing the game because the other one is in top deck mode the whole game, which also gets manipulated by Chip-Chip Ice Axe. That is just unhealthy for the game.
It’s only boring if you’re the one getting it’s hand reduced to zero. Personally, I find myself this type of decks much more interesting than the standard copy & paste aggro decks that are usually played. Just sad that even if we don’t get the bans before the release of Island Amulet I won’t have the remaining cards to still try the deck in tournaments here (changing the Puzzles for something else and adding Reset Stamp). I guess I’ll have to continue playing Trevenant and Sableye
Attention please! @Everyone, but especially @JL_muserwolves @TokenDuelist @JakeTheGearHeart @orthusaku @Zeatap @Javi Blizz Always ask if you are okay losing to the deck you love playing. There can be more than one kind of "toxic" deck. I used to love locking down my opponent and seeing them helpless turn after turn... until someone pointed out my hypocrisy as I hate facing such a deck. XD Honestly, its kind of sadistic. But wait! I also love powering through my opponent with Pokémon that are either so big, durable or disposable that it doesn't matter what my opponent does... except once again, I hate facing such decks. Solitaire in a 2-player game is lame. It all comes down to issues with game balance and pacing; the powers that be made a bunch of cards that would have been fine except they can be used T1. Well, fine relative to the rest of the metagame and commonly accepted "balance" of the TCG, but that's a rant for another day. Now, if y'all wish to continue debating each other... okay, go ahead. My stance happens to be a blend of your own stances, but that doesn't mean any of you will agree with me. XD Just to clarify though: solitaire decks are boring to face whether it is one-sided because I cannot play any cards or because the actions I can take won't make any difference, or require absurd amounts of luck to make a difference. Even then, the issue is also a deck achieving such a state both quickly and reliably; if you have to play a stellar game but I have a fair chance to disrupt the strategy's set up before it gets going, then it goes back to being a "me" problem for not recognizing I had my chance. XD
I'm sincerely surprised that so many Japanese players opted for this kind of strategy it's illegal to even play for money In japan and this style of sadistic play is very unusual which really just shows why this should be banned cuz all many people In America who just love to win at all cost would eat this up
@Otaku My personal stance is we just need to stop using the term degenerate as some kind of catch all term for cards, decks, or strategies that we view as bad form or that devolve into 2 player solitaire. Especially since it doesn't make much of a leap to than turn around and use the term to attack other players. I understand that linguistically it is nice to have a catch all but maybe we just need something that can be used to describe decks but can't be used as an insult to players.
