Shiftry Officially Banned from Expanded!
Pokemon.com has announced that starting today, Shiftry is banned from the Expanded format in order to “maintain a fun and healthy play environment.” This is the second time in only a few months that TPCi has banned a card from official play.
As of September 1, 2015, Shiftry will be banned from all sanctioned Play! Pokémon tournaments that use the Expanded format. This card has created an undesirable play environment because it:
- Creates a strategy that frequently wins on the first turn of the game
- Creates a non-interactive play environment where the opponent has little impact on the outcome of the match
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As new expansions are released, powerful card combinations with older cards may arise. Therefore, we will aggressively monitor tournament results and new expansions for any unhealthy card combinations. If any cards have a negative or centralizing effect on the metagame, we will ban them to maintain a fun and healthy play environment.