News Lysandre's Trump Card Has Been Banned

Doomdesirer

Stardoom warrior
Member
Because some people think they have enough prediction skill/competitive skill to say "Oh yeah I totally know how this game works" sadly. I mean yeah I'm upset by the ban, I think this hurts a good amount of decks people use that just aren't top tier enough but at least competitive. I know this hurts me because with my main deck, I found decking out was very harmful/likely to happen because sometimes I needed those risks and the only way to at least stand a chance was dropping my whole hand with Juniper. When Trump Card came out I was very happy because it helped me plan ahead in case I desperately needed it.

However I'm hoping, because I DO love this card game, and wish it would become significantly balanced again - that this was thought out with the future sets in mind. Because with two sets being revealed right around the corner there has to at least be a better reason or alternative to ban this in order to make things balanced again. But because we DON'T know what to completely expect, predicting the format ahead of time has always been a pet peeve of mine. The fact that this ban doesn't go into effect immediately could mean there's something, or it could just mean nothing. Either way, I'm not gonna jump on this format prediction bandwagon. The only time to ever try and predict a format should be when it's already happening and you want to prepare a deck for it.

I've seen people who instantly think something is broken/competitive the moment it's revealed and then build the deck, only to find that they had no clue what they were doing because they didn't know enough about the game.
The response to this is if two players were at each other's throat's with seismitoad decks, they are going to deck out if they are foolish enough to compressor away both lysandre's trump cards. even still, whoever goes 2nd will have an edge as they will be able to stop the opponent's items first.
 

WhoopsyDaisy

Aspiring Trainer
Member
You just contradicted yourself; Night March will no longer be able to be so reckless - while a well timed Lysandre's Trump Card can wreck a Night March deck, there are games where I've spammed it multiple turns in a row and every turn my opponent simply redid his/her set-up. There is a reason some Night March lists run their own Lysandre's Trump Card.

How does Night March not needing to worry about their setup being disrupted make them LESS reckless? I might have waited until I can cross the threshhold from 2hko'ing to 1hko'ing before battle compressing away the last few Night Marchers for fear of LTC. Now they don't have to think about it at all anymore. It removes a variable they need to keep track of, and a source of tension. In a Night March deck you only have to attack 3-6 times in total. You don't have to worry about decking yourself.

You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts; while I was confused at first I went to the trouble of quickly reading about how this last weekend's Regionals as well as latest tournaments in Japan went. This decision completely reflects the results of both of these and is very dependent upon the metagame. As for being skill-intensive... does it require skill to use well? Yes, but it also decreases the skill needed elsewhere: it is a net loss. You go from needing to be careful with what you discard as well as what is KOed or used up to just recycling it all.

You don't have to believe me but I've been around for a while; I see more and more reckless plays and less and less skill required to make them. That doesn't mean people who use the card aren't trying to use it well or lack skill themselves, just that we have replaced multiple things that require more skill with something that requires less.

Are you saying Sycamore and N are skill-intensive cards? There are cases when there is some ambiguity about whether to play them or not, but in general it's obvious. LTC'ing or not is a much more interesting question, and sprint-through-your-deck-and-hope-you-don't-die is still fun to use. It just sucks that right now the best deck to use the strategy of sprinting through itself is Seismitoad, which is extremely unfun to play against, despite the fact that it's one of the most interesting decks I've played.
 

Cookie-Knight

Aspiring Trainer
Member
most of the players I know are shoked by that new announcement. I am actually very reliefed (im playing night march ;-) )because this ban will slow down all the seismotoad decks. all those super scoop up, crushing hammer, lasers and so on becoming less dangerous now that they arent aviable that often anymore.
i really look forward to all the changes the metagame will have the next few weeks
 

orthusaku

Tired Trainer
Member
most of the players I know are shoked by that new announcement. I am actually very reliefed (im playing night march ;-) )because this ban will slow down all the seismotoad decks. all those super scoop up, crushing hammer, lasers and so on becoming less dangerous now that they arent aviable that often anymore.
i really look forward to all the changes the metagame will have the next few weeks


All the night march players I know are happy with this change, but I'm not I was running a scoop up/shaymin engine to keep up and disrupt night march. Now I'm worried I won't be able to make my deck as viable as it was with trump card and shaymin engine.
 

Elbow

Klinklang V Plz
Member
This is also being banned in Japan and they have been experiencing it dominating over there as well. Odds are that at best, one bullet point is owed to Ness' two hour game.

Addendum: Also if we are going to play Create-A-Card with an errata, let us do it right. The problem was that the card shuffled things that have historically been difficult to recycle, in addition to having no amount cap. So either the amount of cards returned would have to be limited, the kind of cards returned would have to be limited, or both.

Lysandre's Trump Card
removing itself from play (for example) does not stop someone from running four copies. So while that would make it less effective, it would still likely work. What might have worked is if it only returned Pokémon and/or Basic Energy cards.
Actually, I disagree with the running 4 LTCs. I think that the deck still wouldn't run more then 2 LTC if it was errata'd right. People want consistency, and even with VS seeker and ultra ball, people would lose so much consistency if they ran too many of it. If it was a lost zone card, it would only be used, like you said, 4 times maximum. Sure, that sounds bad, but some games today have people using it every other turn. If that was an errata it would be a great solution!
 

Blui

lv85 paladin
Member
I think this is a bad idea for many reasons.

Night March and Flareon exist.

They just released Shaymin, which will hurt sales.

Mill decks could start to see play. Keep in mind, in Japan, they still have Aggron DXE and Sabeleye, which could see play with Ninjask.

Finally, LTC isn't anywhere close to overpowered. This is because it takes your supporter and it shuffles in your opponent's discard.

As a former player of Flareon, it sucks without LTC. Night March is pretty ballsy now though.
 

asdjklghty

-------------
Member
Yes an errata would have helped, not banning it. I think it should be errat'd to not shuffle back in Items; only Pokemon, Energy and Supporters. Maybe even not be able to VS Seeker'd.
 

Mr.Muffin

Cooler than Everyone who is less Cool than Me!
Member
The reason that it prolongs games is kind of mute when Seismitoad EX does the same thing. I mean this format has a lot of really unhealthy cards, and I am all for putting in a Yugioh like Ban List.
 

Camoclone

TCG Articles Head
Member
How does Night March not needing to worry about their setup being disrupted make them LESS reckless? I might have waited until I can cross the threshhold from 2hko'ing to 1hko'ing before battle compressing away the last few Night Marchers for fear of LTC. Now they don't have to think about it at all anymore. It removes a variable they need to keep track of, and a source of tension. In a Night March deck you only have to attack 3-6 times in total. You don't have to worry about decking yourself.
When LTC was still legal Night March could recklessly burn resources and have an out. It is also easier for Night March variants to deck themselves now. You need to watch the speed at which you burn through the deck. Most players found themselves close to decking out near the end of a game (if an LTC hadn't been played) pre-LTC ban. Decking out is most definitely a legitimate issue as is burning too many resources.

I'd first like to point out that this ban is purely based off of Jason Klaczynski's 1st place win in Sudden Death on yesterday's stream that lasted for 2 hours. If it was a quicker game, this ban would not have happened.
I think this is pretty gutsy to say :p. This is a huge decision on their part and should not be taken lightly. They have probably been aware of this issue for a long time and have discussed it extensively. Not to mention the time zone differences between Japan and the US (which may or may not affect an over the night decision). I doubt this was the reason for the ban. They may have just held off announcing it until after regionals.
 

DKQuagmire

Who else but Quagsire?
Member
Anyone remember this card?
Why couldn't Lysandre's trump card be Errata'd to have the effect on this card. or better yet, just bring back the power on a stage 2 (or final evolution) pokemon.
Hippowdon-LV.X-Rising-Rivals-107.jpg
 

asdjklghty

-------------
Member
Anyone remember this card?
Why couldn't Lysandre's trump card be Errata'd to have the effect on this card. or better yet, just bring back the power on a stage 2 (or final evolution) pokemon.
Hippowdon-LV.X-Rising-Rivals-107.jpg
I do and yeah it could have been similar to Sand Reset but you should only be able to shuffle back in Pokemon, Energy, Supporters and Stadiums no Items.
 

Elbow

Klinklang V Plz
Member
When LTC was still legal Night March could recklessly burn resources and have an out. It is also easier for Night March variants to deck themselves now. You need to watch the speed at which you burn through the deck. Most players found themselves close to decking out near the end of a game (if an LTC hadn't been played) pre-LTC ban. Decking out is most definitely a legitimate issue as is burning too many resources.


I think this is pretty gutsy to say :p. This is a huge decision on their part and should not be taken lightly. They have probably been aware of this issue for a long time and have discussed it extensively. Not to mention the time zone differences between Japan and the US (which may or may not affect an over the night decision). I doubt this was the reason for the ban. They may have just held off announcing it until after regionals.

The matchup made them look bad. Sure its a finals match, but no one who wanted to watch it was expecting a 2 hour long game of Jason taking 3 minute turns and Trump Carding every other turn. People were talking about it afterwards about how pokemon shouldn't have printed so many trainers like Acro Bike and Trainer's Mail that in a way endorse stalling; people are more accepting to let a player acro bike/mail for 30 seconds to a minute whereas an ultra ball would probably not be as acceptable despite being able to search your entire deck.
June is a terrible time to announce it, and I think that they saw from regionals, and especially their finals match what the card can do. They don't want a World's final to consist of this because it would be such a put off to new players. I'm not blaming Jason, but I think he's like Franz Ferdinand in this situation: He didn't do anything to necessarily start World War II, but if he wasn't where he was at the time the events could have been changed (even though it was probably already looming in the Japanese ruling department).
 

dollyholly

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I do and yeah it could have been similar to Sand Reset but you should only be able to shuffle back in Pokemon, Energy, Supporters and Stadiums no Items.
A lot of supporters work like item cards, and even though you can only use a support once per turn, it won't eliminate the abilities and delta evolution traits that let certain pokemon add double energy a turn, or the ones like slurpuff that move as many as you like in a turn. Once you start making exceptions, you start getting cluttery, and there's only so much room on the card face for long-winded English translation :p
 

Dark Espeon

Dark Avatar
Member
The matchup made them look bad. Sure its a finals match, but no one who wanted to watch it was expecting a 2 hour long game of Jason taking 3 minute turns and Trump Carding every other turn. People were talking about it afterwards about how pokemon shouldn't have printed so many trainers like Acro Bike and Trainer's Mail that in a way endorse stalling; people are more accepting to let a player acro bike/mail for 30 seconds to a minute whereas an ultra ball would probably not be as acceptable despite being able to search your entire deck.
June is a terrible time to announce it, and I think that they saw from regionals, and especially their finals match what the card can do. They don't want a World's final to consist of this because it would be such a put off to new players. I'm not blaming Jason, but I think he's like Franz Ferdinand in this situation: He didn't do anything to necessarily start World War II, but if he wasn't where he was at the time the events could have been changed (even though it was probably already looming in the Japanese ruling department).

Seismitoad Shaymin Muuna decks also did real well in Japan. Check out the Pokemon TCG tries to sell us Mega Pokémon since XY1 but those decks do not seem to make it to the finals. We received a lot of speed and support for them but it turned out that control decks can easily turn into speed control decks too and speed beatdown decks became even more affected than standard less speedy beatdown decks. The problem occured with Shaymin and Trainer's Mail being added to our already good draw arsenal. Before that it would have been difficult to shuffle the deck back and draw the reshuffled trainers right back into the hand either at the same turn, or at the next turn.
 

Cookie-Knight

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Seismitoad Shaymin Muuna decks also did real well in Japan. Check out the Pokemon TCG tries to sell us Mega Pokémon since XY1 but those decks do not seem to make it to the finals. We received a lot of speed and support for them but it turned out that control decks can easily turn into speed control decks too and speed beatdown decks became even more affected than standard less speedy beatdown decks. The problem occured with Shaymin and Trainer's Mail being added to our already good draw arsenal. Before that it would have been difficult to shuffle the deck back and draw the reshuffled trainers right back into the hand either at the same turn, or at the next turn.


true. with seismitoad in the format its just to dificult to bring the mega pokemon in the game, since you cant really attach your spirit links. if i remember right, none of the new m rayquazas (or any other mega) mad it to the top 8 last weekend on madison regionals.and even without seismitoad, there are better ways to get a huge damage output then mega evolving a pokémon (night march, aegislash, yveltal,...)
 

Clear

Birb is the Word
Member
This reminds me of what happened during the Sabledonk months, they got feedback from the environment, and this is what they are doing. In the meantime, enjoy this.
 

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Clear

Birb is the Word
Member
Oh man, I don't even remember

Sneasel? Slowking? Slowking does not even count, cause that was just them being dumb and did not errata Slowking.

And don't you worry, Megas will make it into the format as soon as all these old desert garbage (Night March, Flareon, etc) make them way to the trash can in August.
 
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