Hunga

Oh no! Rotation in sight
Member
The visual indications of Lost Zone cards look neat, but my interest in the Lost Zone mechanic is… the mechanic. Now take this with a grain of salt because I have been out of the loop with the Trading Card Game for years now, and the fact that I have a strong opinion of a mechanic rather than collecting says a lot--but these just seem lackluster to me. Almost every card focuses on putting YOUR cards in there, and few make use of the cards that are in there. Like, you can aim for a free 110 damage with Cramorant, a single use 1HKO from Giratina VStar, or energy acceleration with Mirage Gate. ...But then what are you accelerating energy onto if Cramorant attacks for free and if Giratina makes use of the Lost Zone once? I guess attacking with Giratina VStar's regular attack? But if this is in any other deck, can you afford to put all the cards required to make use of that energy acceleration in your deck, on top of having 7 cards completely removed from play?

If these new cards are mainly going to focus on you sending cards to the Lost Zone in order to gain some sort of benefit, there needs to be a drawback for making use of the Lost Zone aside from cards simply being removed from play. As I was reading it, what I THOUGHT that Banette Ability was going to be was Once during your turn, you may choose a Supporter card from your Discard pile, reveal it, and use that Supporter card’s effect as this Ability, then place that Supporter card in the Lost Zone. If that’s too much of a broken Ability, it could go further by saying you cannot use more than one of this Ability per turn and/or if you do, put this Pokémon in the Lost Zone, like it already says. That would be a strong effect! But it has its drawbacks.

What I remember liking about the Lost Zone was that you had to use it to your advantage and to your opponent’s disadvantage. The only cards revealed here that disrupt your opponent are Lost City and Lost Sweeper. But unlike previous attacks that send KO'd Pokemon to the Lost Zone, Lost City doesn't include energy and Tools. And there doesn't seem to be any specifics for what you want to be in either your or your opponent's Lost Zones. There's nothing like Mew Prime, the Lost March Pokemon, or Raikou from Lost Thunder that uses those specific cards in your Lost Zone for a greater effect.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I liked the variety that the Lost Zone previously brought. I'm looking forward to more cards being revealed, now that we've seen that Lost Zone binder with Rotom and Shiftry in the artwork. But right now, not considering the Expanded format, these cards get funneled into "Chuck 17% of your deck away, power up Giratina's single use attack, ???, profit!" But again, I've been out of the TCG for years now, maybe there are other uses for these cards that I'm not aware of.

I think you're missing the point that cards that might help you can also help the opponent and that you're losing ressources for advantage/power.
Lost City is a good example as are Giratinas attacks.

Your opponent might be using the Lost Zone too, which you power up with Lost City.

In the end you're trading ressources for card advantage and power. Since you can't just keep on returning certain cards to your deck over and over, energies gone are gone and not endlessly recycled (like they used to be during my TCG playing days). The same is true with other cards.
So you're forced to play more energies than you'd usally do. Which is not something you really want.

I'm really eager to see if they do more with it or if it's one of those "side-gimmicks" that get 1-3 set support and then are dropped totally like the fighting styles, Pokémon SP or BREAK and everything similar.
 

Skeleton Liar

サーナ~
Member
I think you're missing the point that cards that might help you can also help the opponent and that you're losing ressources for advantage/power.
Lost City is a good example as are Giratinas attacks.

Your opponent might be using the Lost Zone too, which you power up with Lost City.

In the end you're trading ressources for card advantage and power. Since you can't just keep on returning certain cards to your deck over and over, energies gone are gone and not endlessly recycled (like they used to be during my TCG playing days). The same is true with other cards.
So you're forced to play more energies than you'd usally do. Which is not something you really want.

I'm really eager to see if they do more with it or if it's one of those "side-gimmicks" that get 1-3 set support and then are dropped totally like the fighting styles, Pokémon SP or BREAK and everything similar.
No? I'm not missing the point of how the Lost Zone works. Perhaps I worded something oddly or didn't explain every situation, but I started playing the TCG late in the DPPt era when the Lost Zone was introduced, and it's one of my favorite gimmicks introduced to this day. So I do know that resources are being lost by using it.

My main issue was that the Lost Zone works in multiple different ways, but most of the cards that were first revealed in this article were focused on chucking your cards, regardless of what they are, into the Lost Zone. Nothing seemed to go beyond building up your own Lost Zone count. But now with the Barbaracle that was revealed, I'm glad there's more variety and that there are more ways to disrupt your opponent with it.

Ugh... Unfortunately, as glad as I am to see the Lost Zone back again, I think it's going to be a one and done thing in this set, just like those fighting styles.
 

beatbox2000

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Did I somehow offend you by telling a personal anecdote relating to why I don’t mind CG Art on cards as someone who’s made Pokémon a major part of their lives for two decades? Imagine we were buds and after I talk about my childhood, your immediate response is “let’s break down the FALLACIES here” rofl

Like sure I might have been incorrect to say “most” ultra rares get AA prints, but that’s not even the point.
Didn't even address your first point in my earlier reply, so you getting offended is on you.

The fallacies all come up from your second statement which was:
1) most get alternate art prints SO there's no reason to be critical of 5ban
and
2) it is grating that 5ban art keeps getting negative reviews

So, that is your point in its entirety. Don't make things up now.
I was an art kid in elementary school, and back then I thought CG renders were the coolest things because it was something I couldn’t draw. I know they’re cheaper and relatively easy to make as an adult but I still have a bit of a soft spot for them tbh.

Also regular art Vs are bulk-adjacent these days and most end up getting alternate art prints anyway so there’s really no reason to be up in arms about 5ban. I’d escalate from “a little tiring” to “grating” honestly.
What did I do?

Prove without a doubt that (1) was wrong, and showed how many arts 5ban and the like are in charge of.

So, if (1) is wrong, then there are reasons to be critical which circles back to how their art is over-represented and since nothing changes, therefore the criticisms continue to be valid and the ratio of arts suggests that it cannot be "little tiring" or "grating" because there is an abundance of it.

Let's break down the fallacies here.

First, most people are collectors not players - even though this site is player based - so obviously people focus more on the art than anything else.

Second, in a JP set there are 6-8 Vs in a normal expansion of which all get FAs and 3-4 are AAs. In a special expansion it is 0 AAs.

So "most get AAs" is a lie. 5ban and its ilk are massively over-represented as hits.

In Astral Radiance, 21-7 of Vs and VMAX/STARs are CGI artists. For FAs and above it is 27-6. So a total of 48-13 in favour of CGI art for URs.

& that's the same story every set, so grating? Not enough more like.

And nothing like alt arts being the most valuable every set and higher rarity rainbows and golds always dropping like rocks because of lack of demand to back that up.

The rest of your post is not valid to the point, but I can break it down too.

Maybe, I don’t actually know, “most people” in the hobby by revenue are adults buying cases and cases of product because they have the financial means to and love Pokémon (which is good), or people who are feeding their gambling addiction/in it for stonks. But the majority by sheer numbers are the kids, and all the kids I’ve talked to are still just as excited about regular CG, bulk adjacent ultra rares as I was when I pulled a Gardevoir ex in 2006. They don’t care that it’s CG because either they think CG is cool (like me), and/or it’s a special, shiny card, nor do they care that it’s worth $1 on TCGPlayer.

The biggest TCG YouTubers aren't players. In aggregate, their following outweighs players by an insane amount. When Brilliant Stars first dropped, these guys thought VSTAR cards were errors. The collector's subreddit is 3x the amount of the players. If players were the majority of buyers, then there would have been no hype and massive print runs because the players have been there (and declining) since the start.

I highly doubt the majority are kids. Pokemon Go was the start of the revitalizing and resurrection of this franchise and that was driven by adults and unlike when Pokemon first came around, the kids getting into the hobby or any part of the franchise, are not coming into organically but driven by adults who like or used to like Pokemon.

And if they aren't the majority, and if like you said, they don't care about anything, then what's the point of using them as an example? If you gave a kid a shiny sticker they would be satisfied, does that mean that's the peak of design? Or to put it another way, would giving them an alt art would make them less excited? No? Then they are irrelevant.

It’s alarming to me that you pontificate about how most people who buy cards are collectors, and yet you failed to recognize that collecting is very personal while the collector base is diverse. Things like market value, relative rarity, CG vs. hand drawn aren’t crucial factors for many genuine collectors, which was my original point.
How can that be your original point when none of that is in your original post?

Also, you contradict yourself in 2 sentences. Great job gatekeeping with 'genuine collectors'.

And if CG art enables Pokémon to create ultra rares featuring more Pokémon, isn’t that a good thing? If RAs are so numerous that they’re dirt cheap on the secondary market, isn’t that a good thing for players who want to build decks and compete in tournaments? Again, the fanbase is diverse.

CG art doesn't enable anything. They already hand draw or get different styles (clay, weaving etc.) for most common, uncommon, rare and holo cards. There's no reason they can't commission those same artists to do FAs instead of having 5ban+ CGI. What does RA abundance have to do with anything? Don't make up straw men to attack.

If you find the CG RAs to be ugly and hate pulling them because they’re dirt cheap, then that just means these lines of cards aren’t for you. That’s fine, because plenty of kids hate pulling trainer cards which the competitive playerbase cares a lot about. Different cards serve different audiences.

Another straw man. I don't pull anything nor did I comment on RAs being cheap.

It’s one thing to evaluate cards solely on the type of art you like, but to shit on an entire class of cards and go after people as viciously as you went after me for expressing the opposite opinion? I find it especially uncalled for after Pokémon introduced AAs for people such as yourself.

So yes, listening to people like you is grating.

There is literally no problem shitting on a class of cards. It's called an opinion.

You, however did not express an opinion. Let's bring that back, since you keep forgetting what's actually in your post.

Also regular art Vs are bulk-adjacent these days and most end up getting alternate art prints anyway so there’s really no reason to be up in arms about 5ban. I’d escalate from “a little tiring” to “grating” honestly.

So if anyone was attacking anyone, it was you upgrading "a little tiring" to "grating", getting offended for misreading and then creating a slew of straw men to attack. Hope that helps.
 

Hunga

Oh no! Rotation in sight
Member
No? I'm not missing the point of how the Lost Zone works. Perhaps I worded something oddly or didn't explain every situation, but I started playing the TCG late in the DPPt era when the Lost Zone was introduced, and it's one of my favorite gimmicks introduced to this day. So I do know that resources are being lost by using it.

My main issue was that the Lost Zone works in multiple different ways, but most of the cards that were first revealed in this article were focused on chucking your cards, regardless of what they are, into the Lost Zone. Nothing seemed to go beyond building up your own Lost Zone count. But now with the Barbaracle that was revealed, I'm glad there's more variety and that there are more ways to disrupt your opponent with it.

Ugh... Unfortunately, as glad as I am to see the Lost Zone back again, I think it's going to be a one and done thing in this set, just like those fighting styles.

True! Agree on the point that there not really is anything beyond throwing your stuff into it!

The last time we mostly had specific cards and stuff like Lostgar, my favorite deck which got me into the tops in German Nationals (where I lost thanks to bad luck, and I'm dead serious, drew 9 cards and 4 of the same in a row and the other 5 were only 2 different cards).

Maybe they'll improve the Lost Zone a bit more and there will be something to do with it in more sets overall.
And even if it's just "graveyard hate" as I, a MtG player, would call it. :D
 

Skeleton Liar

サーナ~
Member
True! Agree on the point that there not really is anything beyond throwing your stuff into it!

The last time we mostly had specific cards and stuff like Lostgar, my favorite deck which got me into the tops in German Nationals (where I lost thanks to bad luck, and I'm dead serious, drew 9 cards and 4 of the same in a row and the other 5 were only 2 different cards).

Maybe they'll improve the Lost Zone a bit more and there will be something to do with it in more sets overall.
And even if it's just "graveyard hate" as I, a MtG player, would call it. :D
Ah, man. Lostgar was so neat. A lot of the DPPt/HGSS era ones were interesting!

Even though I think making more cards for the Lost Zone won't last past this Lost Abyss set (though I'd love to be wrong!), I'm right there with you in hoping for improvements. That Barbaracle was a surprise. Or since there was a Lost Zone set in SM, maybe they could at least make a new Lost Zone set in each era.
 

JimiCobain27

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Can I please get a translation clarification on Giratina VStar's first attack? Does it really say "Discard 2 energy from your Pokemon" rather than "Discard 2 energy from this Pokemon"? Because that would make a BIG difference.
 
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