News Lysandre's Trump Card Has Been Banned

MegaButterfree

Old Timer
Member
Regarding the comments on the night march decks, I presume both Mew EX and Flareon EX will be rotated out soon, so that will greatly diminish that deck's viability. Sidenote, anyone who's played against one with a Pyroar (Flashfire) knows the joys of instant winning. I would venture to guess that after the rotation, decks might try using Galvantula and Gourgeist with Shrine of Memories (which I have never seen happen for some reason...). Maybe LTC's effects will come back in the future via a neo-Ace Specs kind of card?
 

Ms Hugo

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Why are people making knee-jerk decisions as to the state of the format literally about an hour after the ban was announced?

This is exactly the same as what happened with Vileplume when it was revealed, let's just wait and see. It at least means watching Pokemon games won't consist of "and he gets the laser...flip...it's heads...okay, hammer, flip...tails...Quaking Punch..." etc etc for 2 long, dull years
 

TokenDuelist

YGO TCG is Cheaper. Fight me.
Member
Why are people making knee-jerk decisions as to the state of the format literally about an hour after the ban was announced?

This is exactly the same as what happened with Vileplume when it was revealed, let's just wait and see. It at least means watching Pokemon games won't consist of "and he gets the laser...flip...it's heads...okay, hammer, flip...tails...Quaking Punch..." etc etc for 2 long, dull years

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.
 

King Arceus

Aspiring Trainer
Elite Member
Advanced Member
Member
I don't think this was a good move to do only a month before Nationals. I think it would've been better to do after Worlds when next year's format gets officially announced. Even then, possibly it could be reprinted as an Ace Spec like Computer Search was.
 

PMJ

happy thoughts
Forum Head
Articles Head
Elite Member
Advanced Member
Member
Pokemon doesn't take bans lightly. There's a reason that there hasn't been a ban since Slowking, and that's because they care about how the game develops. No matter how much testing you do for any game, players will always find breaking combinations. When that happens, developers will do their best to balance it.

It's not the end of the world. Rejoice, everyone! Mill decks are a thing again! \o/
 

Fokale

Aspiring Trainer
Member
what devinthewelf said is true. my night march deck could pretty easily get 10 night marchers back in the discard the turn after LTC was played. Not quite sure what to think of this ban. it's the first one that has happened (outside of japan) since i have been playing competitively, so ill just wait and see what happens. All i know is that yesterday i was wondering if taking my night march deck to nationals was a competitive choice... not anymore...
 

asdjklghty

-------------
Member
"Allows repeated use of powerful Trainer cards"

So what? It's not like LatiBats is a viable deck in this format even without Hammers, Lasers, Banks, etc. I just get donked even by a Hammerhead with a Strong Energy, Muscle Band and Fighting Stadium. When I play LatiBats, I will need to reuse resources since it takes a lot just to KO an EX (maybe several Ultra Balls which require discards, Energy, etc). I think you know what I'm saying. Reusing "powerful" Trainers doesn't make the game broken. EDITED: Again, the only deck that's broken with recycled Trainers is Seismitoad EX.

"Extends the time of battles"

Says the people who reprinted Vileplume with Item lock.
 
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Materious17

Pokemon Geologist
Member
Ultimately, there's an element of stall in mill decks because you don't want to run out prizes (all the mill cards I've seen are low HP) before you can deck out your oppoent
Mill doesn't play with the same mindset as stall however. Mill decks want the game to go quickly, they want the opponent to go through their deck and discard as many cards as they can as fast as they can before their opponent takes all 6 prizes. Stall works with the opposite mentatlity, of dragging a game out and slowly taking prizes while denying prizes to the opponent.

I don't mind that LTC is gone. That card enabled players to not have to think about the reprecussions of discarding specific cards during their turns with Ultra Ball or waging whether you should Sycamore your opening hand away because you have no other options besides top-drawing.
 

Hemos

The demonic Shadow Lugia/Mystical Raven Witch
Member
Could be the perfect time to make a AT Bunnelby deck XD

Also fun fact, the other week I was testing out a deck I had made which only had one copy of Bunnelby, and I managed to win without inflicting a single proper attack - I kept making them discard all their Energy/Supporter/EX cards. They managed to take it out when they had two cards left in their deck, so I just passed my two turns without doing anything.
 

MN Chino

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Night march is much better now. I'm not saying this was the worst card against night march though. It's easy to make up for it on its own.

When you get quaking punched AND lysandre's trump carded in the same turn, and you don't have a backup DBC to back up mew EX with a quaking punch back, it's nearly game over. That's the problem. Now that can't happen anymore :D
 

Gengar master

shiny Pokémon bait
Advanced Member
Member
Oh phew...I was about to buy a FA of it :p

It is interesting to see this card banned but I kind of like it. Bunnelby deck here I come!

IMO, this makes the almighty Seismitoad / Shaymin kind of risky because you are drawing through your whole deck quickly.
 

Green778

It's always darkest before the dawn...
Member
If they did this to weaken Seismitoad they 50% did it... Although its strongest version (Slurpuff= now with shaymin) is totally out of the question, unfortunately on the other it will still see some play as it's very powerful ... Back to garbodor ?

Still (the other 50%)I find it a bit of a dumb move... MRay decks can't 100% function without it... as Shaymin can't too! If it's about toad ... then Ban toad! Not ban a card that is useful with other cards... Or ban the freaking hammers!

p.s. I wonder what J. Klacz. will use now >.<
 

don()shinobi

PokeBeach's Yu-Gi-Oh enthusiast. I guess.
Member
>implying Yu-Gi-Oh, a card that bans cards like no tomorrow, can be compared to Pokemon, which hasn't had a ban in 15 years
>Greentexting outside of 4chan
>ISHYGDDT

I understand what you're saying; I was referring to the thing about "banning a card months after it's been released" that YGO players should be used to by now. So if he played YGO, he'd be used to sudden restrictions like this, regardless of the card game in question.
 

One Approved

;
Advanced Member
Member
"Allows repeated use of powerful Trainer cards"

So what? It's not like LatiBats is a viable deck in this format even without Hammers, Lasers, Banks, etc. I just get donked even by a Hammerhead with a Strong Energy, Muscle Band and Fighting Stadium. When I play LatiBats, I will need to reuse resources since it takes a lot just to KO an EX (maybe several Ultra Balls which require discards, Energy, etc). I think you know what I'm saying. Reusing "powerful" Trainers doesn't make the game broken. EDITED: Again, the only deck that's broken with recycled Trainers is Seismitoad EX.

I don't think you understand this bullet point completely. One deck's viability is absolutely no reason to determine whether or not to ban a card. I could argue that Quad Bidoof isn't a viable deck in this format, and that it will need to re-use resources to KO an EX pokemon.

The point of this bullet point is that it creates a literally TOXIC environment where decks like Seismitoad-EX can beat even piss-poor matchups like Virizion/Genesect because they have the capability to literally play more than 4 Crushing Hammer in a turn and not let you play any energy. My friend barely top 8'd at the past Regional Championships in Madison because he was having so much trouble with Seismitoad despite playing a direct counter to it. Re-using trainer cards does, in fact, break the format. If it didn't, Dowsing Machine wouldn't have been an Ace Sec.

It also creates a less skillful format, where decks like Mega Rayquaza can blow through their entire deck on turn 1 with no reprecussions. Without Trump Card, Mega ray can easily still function, but it has to manage its resources much more cautiously.

"Extends the time of battles"

Says the people who reprinted Vileplume with Item lock.

Item lock might make for longer, drawn-out games, but it doesn't even come close to Trump Card. If it did, they would have banned Seismitoad-EX, Dialga G, old Vileplume, and any other item lock card that has ever existed. I watched players who used Trump Card in tandem with Seismitoad legitimately take 10+ minute turns multiple times in the same game. In a format where people are already complaining that 50 minutes isn't enough time for 3 games, I can easily see why Trump Card causes a reason for concern.
 
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