Banned from the Expanded Format: Oranguru, Shaymin-EX, Sableye, and Energy Grace Milotic!

TPCi has announced that effective November 27th, the following cards will be banned from the Expanded format: Junk Hunt Sableye from Dark Explorers, Shaymin-EX from Roaring Skies, Energy Grace Milotic from Flashfire, and Resource Management Oranguru from Ultra Prism.

TPCi explained their reasoning in their announcement:

• Milotic‘s Energy Grace Ability doesn’t work with Pokémon-EX, but it still works with Pokémon-GX and Pokémon V. This created some undesirable combos, such as the one with Trevenant & Dusknoir-GX and Ace Trainer. As more Pokémon V come out in the future, there’s a high likelihood of even more combos with Milotic being discovered.
• Oranguru‘s Resource Management attack and Sableye‘s Junk Hunt attack allow for infinite resource recursion strategies that are relatively simple to achieve. In an attempt to curb the effectiveness of some of these control and lock strategies, these cards have been banned.
• The sheer amount of card drawing provided by Shaymin-EX‘s Set Up Ability allowed dangerous combo decks to function at an alarmingly consistent rate. With the introduction of Scoop Up Net, it became too easy to use Set Up repeatedly in a single turn. Crobat V and Dedenne-GX provide effects similar to Shaymin-EX, so this type of card isn’t gone completely, but their Dark Asset and Dedechange Abilities are limited to one use per turn.

No changes to the Standard format’s ban list were announced.