And I am curious why baby Pokemon are banished from the TCG?
I suspect because mechanically speaking they are quite awkward.
The video game definition given on Bulbapedia for baby Pokémon is:
Bulbapedia said:
- Must be obtainable by breeding.
- Must be the lowest form in a family chain and must be able to evolve at least once.
- Must belong to the Undiscovered Egg Group.
and qualifies
- Azurill
- Bonsly
- Budew
- Cleffa
- Chignling
- Elekid
- Happiny
- Igglybuff
- Magby
- Mantyke
- Mime Jr.
- Munchlax
- Pichu
- Riolu
- Smoochum
- Togepi
- Tyrogue
- Wynaut
In the TCG,
Togepi and
Riolu are Basics because they were released alongside their next Stage of Evolution, the others were released after that next Stage had been established as a Basic Pokémon. So you end up with two Basics, one of which must Evolve into the other. The first generation of Baby Pokémon (an official, named-in-game-text subclass of Basics) were released in the Neo sets and were simply broken. The second generation (or second wave of the first generation, depending upon how you want to break things down) were as well, though not as much as the first; these were from the e-card sets.
Next came the only ones that kind-of worked: those which were mechanically speaking "regular" Basic Pokémon but all shared the same Poké-Power (a precursor to Abilities) called "Baby Evolution" that let you fake Evolving into the correct Basic Pokémon for the "baby" Pokémon in question, with the small bonus of healing any damage it had taken as well. Still, clunky and constraining for design purposes, and only a few were really worth it.
The most recent attempt was from the HS sets and they sort of split the difference; the old "Baby Rule" that broke the first two waves of Baby Pokémon was updated into an Ability which toned them down, but it was still pretty potent and they couldn't Evolve, so even if they were totally balanced they also were not totally there.
I favor the-powers-that-be just incorporating "baby" Pokémon as regular Basics and changing the former Basics into Stage 1 cards at the earliest convenient moment. Expanded kind of messes that up... or rather the-powers-that-be messed it up by not doing it during the BW era. Get the cardpool to where you won't have any of the Basics and Stage 1 cards you need to convert to Stage 1 Pokémon and Stage 2 cards, then release the new Basic "baby" Pokémon and Stage 1 form of the former Basic of the line (and if there was a former Stage 1, release new iterations as a Stage 2). If absolutely necessary, just do it regardless of a good gap period and rule that the two different lines with the same name can't be in the same deck, a la
Professor Sycamore and
Professor Juniper.
Since that might be kind of confusing, what I mean is that the next
Pichu should be a Basic, future
Pikachu should be Stage 1 cards and future
Raichu should be Stage 2. If people are going to have a hard time giving up on Basic versions of
Pikachu and company, give them an Ability that allows you to play it as a Basic to give people longer to adjust.
