P!P/Rules Is TPCi Phasing Out Burn Status Condition?

TheStrictNein

Has tried turning it off and on again
Member
So I'm looking at the XY-on rotation, and it hits me. Not a single XY series card inflicts Burn. As of the rotation, all cards that inflict burn status are no longer in the rotation.

Do you think TPCi is phasing out burn as a status condition in the TCG? Obviously, with old cards that do inflict it they always need to have it in the rulebooks, but will we eventually see damage counter sheets without a burn marker?
 

Ms Hugo

Aspiring Trainer
Member
It seems like it, which is odd because Flashfire is a mostly Fire-focused set. Maybe if the next set is based around Volcanion, they'll bring Burn back along with the Fire/Water Special Energies we're missing.
 

crann777

I See You
Member
Maybe? Burn is the weirdest of the special conditions and difficult to describe to younger players, so I can see why they might want to phase it out.
That said, Fire still doesn't have a Special energy or a Spirit Link Mega, so we could see a return of it once both of those come out.
 

Yo-yos

DP and hoenn era, when tcg was dope
Member
Considering that they constantly make burn counters for elite trainer boxes it's hard to say, on the other hand turning regionals into completely expanded tournaments burn still has some precedent for play if any at all as burn hasn't been that solid of a status effect since 2011 and houndoom prime.
 

DevinTheWelf

A Mach Punch User
Member
I think it's just poor card creation on Pokemons side. I mean, the only type that is barley getting recognized by Pokemon is poison. Every condition only has a few insignificant cards (except for burn I guess). I really wish Pokemon would bring condition more into the game without making it so apparent that the game because a game of coin flips, which may actually be the reason the game is staying away from conditions.
 

NintendoAlian

Frontier Brain
Member
I think it's just poor card creation on Pokemons side. I mean, the only type that is barley getting recognized by Pokemon is poison. Every condition only has a few insignificant cards (except for burn I guess). I really wish Pokemon would bring condition more into the game without making it so apparent that the game because a game of coin flips, which may actually be the reason the game is staying away from conditions.
I wouldn't say poison is barely getting recognized because of the poplularity of HypnoToxic Laser and Virbank City Gym over the past three years. Also, sleep is overlooked sometimes, Laser can set the defending Pokemon to sleep and Malamar is played in a lot of Fairy Toolbox decks. But yeah, besides that, the special conditions are pretty much nonexistent, especially burn.
 

DevinTheWelf

A Mach Punch User
Member
I wouldn't say poison is barely getting recognized because of the poplularity of HypnoToxic Laser and Virbank City Gym over the past three years. Also, sleep is overlooked sometimes, Laser can set the defending Pokemon to sleep and Malamar is played in a lot of Fairy Toolbox decks. But yeah, besides that, the special conditions are pretty much nonexistent, especially burn.

I'm talking about recognition by Pokemon, not the players. Having 2 cards represent poison isn't really showing much of the condition, over all conditions don't get a lot of cards related to them
 

NintendoAlian

Frontier Brain
Member
I'm talking about recognition by Pokemon, not the players. Having 2 cards represent poison isn't really showing much of the condition, over all conditions don't get a lot of cards related to them
Yea, not much with Pokemon. All there really is is Toxicroak and Gengar.
 

Doomdesirer

Stardoom warrior
Member
All there really is is Toxicroak and Gengar.
It seems like it, which is odd because Flashfire is a mostly Fire-focused set. Maybe if the next set is based around Volcanion, they'll bring Burn back along with the Fire/Water Special Energies we're missing.

We are not getting volcanion until 2016 in june people!
Stop talking about volcanion .

also there is nidoqueen (no aincent trait) PRC dragalge FLF crobat PLS need I go on?

Man I am having a bad day
 

Materious17

Pokemon Geologist
Member
So as someone with plenty of time of my hands, I took it upon myself to go through all standard sets of XY-on format and counted/cataloged the number of Pokemon and Trainer cards that can inflict special conditions whether it be on the opponents Pokemon or on themselves.

Set's included (XY, Flashfire, Furious Fists, Phantom Forces, Primal Clash, Double Crisis, Roaring Skies, Ancient Origins)

Poison - 27 Pokemon, 1 Trainer (4 EX's, 1 Mega EX)
Burn - 0 cards
Sleep - 25 Pokemon (4 EX's)
Confuse - 22 Pokemon, 1 Trainer (1 EX)
Paralyze - 31 Pokemon (1 EX, 2 Mega EX's)

So special conditions on whole seem pretty common and evenly spread (31-23 range). So it looks like burn is just gone, out of the picture, though the Ancient Origins elite trainer box does contain another burn token (presumably for Expanded format and older which still include burns).

If anyone wants to check out the spreadsheet I have a link here
 

NintendoAlian

Frontier Brain
Member
We are not getting volcanion until 2016 in june people!
Stop talking about volcanion .

also there is nidoqueen (no aincent trait) PRC dragalge FLF crobat PLS need I go on?

Man I am having a bad day
Well, Nidoqueen only double poisons aside from triple poison on Toxicroak, also, Croak is only a basic and Nidoqueen is a stage two and even with Rare Candy, it's slower than Toxicroak and you can't do it on the first attacking turn. Dragalge is good for poison decks but switch and escape rope get around it. Also Crobat is rotating. But, burn has less support :p
 

Jaaaaay

Fear the Six Karp Fisherman
Member
So as someone with plenty of time of my hands, I took it upon myself to go through all standard sets of XY-on format and counted/cataloged the number of Pokemon and Trainer cards that can inflict special conditions whether it be on the opponents Pokemon or on themselves.

Set's included (XY, Flashfire, Furious Fists, Phantom Forces, Primal Clash, Double Crisis, Roaring Skies, Ancient Origins)

Poison - 27 Pokemon, 1 Trainer (4 EX's, 1 Mega EX)
Burn - 0 cards
Sleep - 25 Pokemon (4 EX's)
Confuse - 22 Pokemon, 1 Trainer (1 EX)
Paralyze - 31 Pokemon (1 EX, 2 Mega EX's)

So special conditions on whole seem pretty common and evenly spread (31-23 range). So it looks like burn is just gone, out of the picture, though the Ancient Origins elite trainer box does contain another burn token (presumably for Expanded format and older which still include burns).

If anyone wants to check out the spreadsheet I have a link here

Checking the most recent rule book, Burn is still included but you cant argue with this spreadsheet.
On further inspection this rule book also has rules for No Energy attacks. Rule book inclusion seems like useless evidence.
 

Doomdesirer

Stardoom warrior
Member
Yeah sorry
It seems like it, which is odd because Flashfire is a mostly Fire-focused set. Maybe if the next set is based around Volcanion, they'll bring Burn back along with the Fire/Water Special Energies we're missing.

This next set probably will not have volcanion as we are getting closer to card leaks for the entire set. But we still need those energies,
 

gumball51321

*thumbs up*
Member
rather than just getting rid of burn completely, I think TPCI is just either ignoring burn or forgetting about it, not purposely. don't forget, two B&W prerelease promos in a row ( Arcanine for NXD, and Volcarona for DEX ) had burn related abilities ( I actually built a deck around arcanine and burning ). but it is arguable because since DEX, I can't think of any burning cards. but it is also arguable that elite trainer boxes came out after that and all of them have burn counters.
 

Otaku

The wise fool?
Member
With a TCG, sometimes it is better to have simple mechanics represent a variety of things. "Burn" is an affliction from the video games but its main "thing" is doing damage between turns. It has been a while since I played one of the video games... does it do anything else like causing Flinch? Unless it was redone to make it more than "Poison damage on a coin flip", it would probably just be better to have Poison stand in for it on Fire-Type cards, not unlike how Sleep seems to be the stand-in for Freezing. A more generic name for it might also help.
 

tototavros

Aspiring Trainer
Member
With a TCG, sometimes it is better to have simple mechanics represent a variety of things. "Burn" is an affliction from the video games but its main "thing" is doing damage between turns. It has been a while since I played one of the video games... does it do anything else like causing Flinch? Unless it was redone to make it more than "Poison damage on a coin flip", it would probably just be better to have Poison stand in for it on Fire-Type cards, not unlike how Sleep seems to be the stand-in for Freezing. A more generic name for it might also help.
Burning actually does something else in the video games...it halves the opponent's physical attack, which means that in a meta of burn-inducers, you need to have a designated "burn" Pokemon to switch in...something that uses Special Attacks rather than Physical, and can deal with 12.5% of its health being ticked away at. However, this wouldn't be very good in Pokemon, as it would make things way too under-powered too easily (Imagine a Burned M-Rayquaza-EX [N]; it only does 150 damage). However, if TPCi were to make burns more like paralysis in rarity (which I think they're doing), then they could afford to make it such a broken ability.

On a side note, a Special Condition I always wish they introduced into the game was Bad Poison, which is like Poison, but it can only be induced by the move "Toxic", and it starts out at only hurting a Pokemon by 6.25% after a turn (as opposed to the 12.5% of burn and normal poison), and then increases the damage by 6.25% every turn.

For instance in the TCG it would be, for every turn this Pokemon has been active, put that many damage counters on the Pokemon after their turn. It's easily negated by Keldeo-EX's Rush In/Retreat combo, and (ideally) wouldn't be affected by Virbank City Gym, but instead would be more to punish high retreat Pokemon like Landorus-EX and P Groudon-EX.
 

bbninjas

Ready or Not!
Advanced Member
Member
Burning actually does something else in the video games...it halves the opponent's physical attack, which means that in a meta of burn-inducers, you need to have a designated "burn" Pokemon to switch in...something that uses Special Attacks rather than Physical, and can deal with 12.5% of its health being ticked away at. However, this wouldn't be very good in Pokemon, as it would make things way too under-powered too easily (Imagine a Burned M-Rayquaza-EX [N]; it only does 150 damage). However, if TPCi were to make burns more like paralysis in rarity (which I think they're doing), then they could afford to make it such a broken ability.

On a side note, a Special Condition I always wish they introduced into the game was Bad Poison, which is like Poison, but it can only be induced by the move "Toxic", and it starts out at only hurting a Pokemon by 6.25% after a turn (as opposed to the 12.5% of burn and normal poison), and then increases the damage by 6.25% every turn.

For instance in the TCG it would be, for every turn this Pokemon has been active, put that many damage counters on the Pokemon after their turn. It's easily negated by Keldeo-EX's Rush In/Retreat combo, and (ideally) wouldn't be affected by Virbank City Gym, but instead would be more to punish high retreat Pokemon like Landorus-EX and P Groudon-EX.
Actually, burn hasn't been used in XY-on at all (hence why people assume it is being phased out), and effectively has no "rarity". :p
Personally I've had an idea about burn quite similar to yours, in how you cut the damage done. However, instead of cutting in half, I'd say it'd make sense to cut damage by 20, like in Resistance.

The main problem with a "bad poison" idea is that there is no really good way to actually keep count of turns active. Instead PCL has sorta gone with the "more damage counters" route, which I honestly think works quite well in imitating the concept.
 
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