Discussion If you could bring back one retired mechanic, what would it be?

Oh, almost forgot something else I'd like to bring back, but once again, it is technically a rule change. Actually, this time it is strictly a rule change; in the early days, even though you could retreat as many times as you wanted, you had to flip a coin to successfully retreat while Confused (and if you failed, no more attempts with the Confused Pokémon). You had to pay any Energy you for the Retreat Cost before trying. Now that we only get one manual retreat per turn... for some reason you retreat without flipping.

This was the great nerfing of Confusion!

ScrawnyMeowth1 said:
Dual type cards were actually produced for a couple of years back in the EX series, like this Meowth (who also happens to be a delta species at the same time).
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The earliest dual-Typed Pokémon I recall - and I'm not counting stuff that had like an attack, Pokémon Power, etc. that faked it - were some (but not all) of the Team Aqua and Team Magma Pokémon, followed closely by the Rocket's and Dark (as in that was part of the name) Pokémon which represented Team Rocket in the EX (Gen III) era. [D] Types remained [D] Types, [C] Pokémon became [D] Pokémon, and everything else gained [D] Typing in addition to their normal Typing. I could be mistaken - I can't remember if a few or all-but-a-few Evolving lower-Stages retained their natural Typing.

Edit: Oh, and note that prior to their Gen III return, Dark (in name) and Rocket's Pokémon (plus the oddball "Team Rocket's Meowth") were not dual-Types. If you look up Dark Vileplume (Team Rocket 13/82, 30/82), for example, it is purely a Grass-Type.
 
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I liked it when having your fossil Pokemon in play knocked out netted your opponent no prize cards. Made fossil decks (almost) viable. Nowadays fossils a just a big bench liability until they evolve once. Or twice.
 
ScrawnyMeowth1 said:
Dual type cards were actually produced for a couple of years back in the EX series, like this Meowth (who also happens to be a delta species at the same time).
MeowthEXHolonPhantoms71.jpg
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I forgot some deltas were dual type. But personally I always thought it was a little farfetch'd. A pelipper being a type it is 4x weak too just doesn't work for me. Also for some reason all the dual types were metal back then (???).
 
Pokenerd said:
I forgot some deltas were dual type. But personally I always thought it was a little farfetch'd. A pelipper being a type it is 4x weak too just doesn't work for me. Also for some reason all the dual types were metal back then (???).
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1) The idea was for Pokémon δ to be bizarre, completely incorrect types. The "justification" there's something in the Holon Region that does such a thing.

2) A major point of this was to balance out the type representation more. Metal Types were very underrepresented at the time (this was Gen III, and they'd only been introduced in Gen II).

It may also help to remember how unrealistic the Pokémon-Typing system is, especially in the TCG. In general the typing system treats being composed of an element the same as living in an element the same as wielding that element. It also plays fast and lose with "elements" as things like Fire and Water are chilling alongside... um... using martial arts or being a Psychic? Being really sneaky? XP

For me personally, I borrow a chestnut taken from many 90's era comic books. Superpowers work by somehow tapping into extra dimensional energies; all the laws of physics and such that are being blatantly broken on our end aren't if we could see the full picture. Characters can channel these energies to do things like release beam attacks, electric blasts... even convert the energy to matter so that stuff like Water-Types can gush forth far more liquid than they could possibly hold!

...

Okay, maybe that last one won't actually help. ;) For me, it means the wrong "energy" easily justifies any bizarre Type changes. It is just a few of these ended up replicating Alolan Typing in the future.
 
Otaku said:
1) The idea was for Pokémon δ to be bizarre, completely incorrect types. The "justification" there's something in the Holon Region that does such a thing.
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I remember, in the Holon Region (a TCG-exclusive region), the science lab had released Delta rays and some of the Pokémon changed their type as a direct result of coming into contact with them, but maintained their weaknesses and resistances from their original type, and thus Delta Species was born. Gligar is a Lightning type as a Delta Species Pokémon, but has the weakness of the Ground-type Pokémon, which in this scenario was Water. And then there was Mewtwo was was either a Pure Lightning type, or a Dual Fire/Metal type, but still maintained Psychic Weakness from being a Psychic-type.
 
Completely agree with everyone saying Delta Species. They were by far one of the most interesting archetypes to come to the game, but real shame they only lasted 1 year. Dual Types were also pretty cool, but the implantation of them in recent memory / XY Steam Siege was a little weird. There were only very few of them, yet most of them ended up competitively unviable (cards like Azumarill and Shiftry from the pre-mentioned set), and I don't think they even felt like dual type cards. All of them in Steam Siege had energy costs applying to one type (e.g. Volcanion-EX using only fire energy, M-Gardevoir-EX only using fairy energy, Bisharp only using Dark energy, etc.). I think it would've been nice had they actually made the costs of those cards use both types of energy, and on that note make them more rewarding since we're going through that whole process in a similar vein to modern dragon-type pokemon.

If you asked me what mechanic should be brought back, I'd say something specific. Nothing like Pokemon Lv.X or Multi-types or any particular mechanic, but a slight ruling. For the supporter cards, I wish the old rule for supporters was back, whereas the card stays in play until the end of your turn, even though the effect was resolved. This was such a great mental note to whenever I played a supporter or not to help me with playing out my plays and think about what other options I have other than a supporter, and for a few old pokemon there were a couple attacks that I remember had additional benefits when a supporter was still played. I want that specific ruling back and I'd be pretty happy.
 
CurlyCat said:
the latest set in japan dint have any prism star, since night unison. i personally thing they are done.
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I'm legitimately sad about this. I love prism star cards a lot. Also they didn't make a stadium card for every type which hurts my ocd.
 
Holden Sheeks said:
For the supporter cards, I wish the old rule for supporters was back, whereas the card stays in play until the end of your turn, even though the effect was resolved. This was such a great mental note to whenever I played a supporter or not to help me with playing out my plays and think about what other options I have other than a supporter, and for a few old pokemon there were a couple attacks that I remember had additional benefits when a supporter was still played. I want that specific ruling back and I'd be pretty happy.
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As someone who played during that time, at least some of us struggled with either
  • discarding our Supporter right away (because you did that with all your Item cards)
  • leaving Item cards in play (because you did that with Supporters)
  • forgetting to discard your Supporter (then trying to remember if you really had played one on the current turn)
Throw in rule-lawyers abusing that at tournaments e.g. "You put your Supporter in the discard right away, which means you ended your turn. Don't make me call a judge." and I can't say I want it to return. I'd be open to a better way of tracking such things but... we've got a lot of once-per-turn mechanics we just have to "remember", so I'm thinking it isn't necessary. This does not mean you can't prefer we went back to this, just explaining why I don't want to. I'm not in charge, though. ;)
 
Otaku said:
As someone who played during that time, at least some of us struggled with either
  • discarding our Supporter right away (because you did that with all your Item cards)
  • leaving Item cards in play (because you did that with Supporters)
  • forgetting to discard your Supporter (then trying to remember if you really had played one on the current turn)
Throw in rule-lawyers abusing that at tournaments e.g. "You put your Supporter in the discard right away, which means you ended your turn. Don't make me call a judge." and I can't say I want it to return. I'd be open to a better way of tracking such things but... we've got a lot of once-per-turn mechanics we just have to "remember", so I'm thinking it isn't necessary. This does not mean you can't prefer we went back to this, just explaining why I don't want to. I'm not in charge, though. ;)
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Fair enough. Those kind of rulesharks will always exists in such a competitive environment so that's completely understandable. I guess I just prefer physical notes so have my plays and turns take less time. I guess the way to avoid any of that would be to use dice or counters in some form to mark whenever or not you've used a once per turn effect (while of course, not looking like a damage counter on a pokemon for their ability).
 
Holden Sheeks said:
If you asked me what mechanic should be brought back, I'd say something specific. Nothing like Pokemon Lv.X or Multi-types or any particular mechanic, but a slight ruling. For the supporter cards, I wish the old rule for supporters was back, whereas the card stays in play until the end of your turn, even though the effect was resolved. This was such a great mental note to whenever I played a supporter or not to help me with playing out my plays and think about what other options I have other than a supporter, and for a few old pokemon there were a couple attacks that I remember had additional benefits when a supporter was still played. I want that specific ruling back and I'd be pretty happy.
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That would be a pretty big nerf to VS Seeker, especially against decks like Trevenant. Being able to use Guzma/Lysandre and then get it back before item lock comes back on is very useful and necessary.

Plus, you know you could just do that, right? I'm pretty sure no-one's going to mind it if you play a Supporter and then leave it next to your Pokemon until the end of your turn.
 
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