Lysandre’s Trump Card! Banned!

[Crossroads Bulletin]

Just right off the heels of an intense and long Regional competition weekend, Play! Pokemon has made a huge announcement involving one of the most played Supporters in the current format. It has been decided that the card Lysandre’s Trump Card will be banned from competitive play.
The ban will start on June 15th, 2015 for the United States and most of the world. It will go into effect in Japan on June 20th, 2015 (Same day as the release for Bandit Ring TCG set). This means that Lysandre’s Trump Card will not be played in US Nationals in July or Worlds in August. Pokemon has claimed that Lysandre’s Trump Card has created an undesirable playing environment and with this ban it will promote a better competitive environment. Below are the reasons cited for the ban:

• Eliminates one of your opponent’s victory conditions (running out of cards in your deck)
• Allows repeated use of powerful Trainer cards
• Allows drawing through your deck quickly with minimal repercussions
• Extends the time of battles

If you watched the Madison, Wisconsin Regional stream for the TCG finals then you saw all of these factors come into play. Jason Klaczynski ran though his deck using Shaymin EX (Roaring Skies) while playing countless Crushing Hammer and Hypnotoxic Laser. Jason could have decked himself out but thanks to Lysandre’s Trump Card that didn’t happen. Jason and Dane were able to shuffle their discard back into their deck. This help draw out his match against Dane Schussler who struggled to power up his Pokemon to attack. It also allowed Jason to regain use of his Crushing Hammer and Hypnotoxic Laser and essentially force Match 2 of the finals to a draw and made the winner of the tournament be determine in a sudden death match.
Lysandre’s Trump Card is the first card to be banned since Slowking from Neo Genesis and Sandy Cloak Wormadam from Secret Wonders in a Professor Cup Tournament.
The post Lysandre’s Trump Card! Banned! appeared first on Pokémon Crossroads.


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[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Ooh how interesting. You'd think they would think of these things before making the cards. xD Does anyone know why those other cards were banned?

[MC Elesa]

Umm....I sometimes think they do not fully think out the impact that certain cards will have on the game and just like watching the world burn. I just know that watching the stream for the TCG finals yesterday that the second match lasted a long time and it was thanks to Lysandre's Trump Card. Those bullets points were all in that game.

I am not an expert on old cards but I can give it a try. I do know of some of the reasons why.

Slowking from Neo Genesis: Banned because of it's Mind Games PokePower. This ability made it where when you opponent used a trainer card that they had to flip to use it. If it was heads then your opponent could use the card. If it was tails then your opponent couldn't use the card and it would go to the top of their deck. This led to massive control over what your opponent could do and basically made it impossible for your opponent to progress because they would be drawing the same card over and over again until they flip heads.

To make matters even worst, when the card was brought over to the States, it was changed to where they opponent could use the ability from their bench. The Japanese card only worked if it was in the active but the US version of the card could work from the bench. That means your opponent could have multiple Slowking in play and you had to flip a coin for each one just to use a Trainer.

Sneasel from Neo Genesis: Sneasel had the attack Beat Up which did 20 time the Pokemon you had on the field. It cost two Darkness energy which at the time also did a boost of ten extra damage for each one attached to a Pokemon. If you have a full bench then that was six coin flips. On average, you will do sixty damage plus twenty more if you have two Darkness energy on turn two. That was a lot of damage for two energy and in a format where most Pokemon had 80 to 100 HP. There was also other ways to do more damage via items such as Plus Power.

Birthday Pikachu (Black Star Promo): Banned because players would claim it was their birthday in order to do more damage. More trouble then it was worth to keep in legal and it was just a fun card that wasn't originally met for tournament play.

Ancient Mew (Movie promo): Banned because nobody could read it and because it could easily be noticed due to the unique backing the card. This could give an unfair advantage to the player of the card.

Sandy Cloak Wormadam from Secret Wonders: This one is technical but stay with me. Pokemon Professors are people who are able to judge tournaments and are consider experts in the TCG and Video Games. Thus, many of these guys can not compete in the big tournaments such as Nationals or Worlds because they are judging these events. To help reward them for their hard work, they are able to take part in a Professor Cup if they earn enough Professor Points. Sometimes this tournament has special rules to help encourage the Professors to think of interesting deck ideas.

The year that this card was banned, there was a special rule that said cards with a Star rarity were banned from the tournament. Well, in Japan this card had a special printing where it had a Diamond rarity and was able to be used in the tournament. It completely ran over the competition in the European Professor Cup so it was decided to banned the card in the other Cups.

Tropical Beach (Black Star Promo): It was banned only in Japan because it was super rare and was only given to players who went to Worlds in 2012 and 2013.

Okay...I am sure I gave you way too much information that you wanted Sarah and this could have been it's own TCG article. Though I hope you found this super useful. Please note that Slowking was the last real card to be publicly banned due to how powerful it was and that was during early Gen 2 days. That means we went a good 15 years without banned a card because of how powerful it was.

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

That was really interesting! Thanks Mikey! You should totally post this on the site. I'm sure other people would be interested in hearing about other banned cards!

[MC Elesa]

Maybe I will do a special article on this. I don't think I am writing TCG Jump this week but I am sure I can do something special seeing how rare a card is banned.