Patch 1.11
First of all, thank you for all your continued support!
Excuse this incidental blog post, but I want to address the state of the project at this moment. You might have noticed a lack of updates in the recent times. On one hand, I have always intended for this project to "end" at some point but, on the other, I was actually sitting on some changes I wanted to bring into the format. The reality of the situation is that, in recent months, I have switched jobs a few times, making it quite a chaotic time. It's all good now - I have found a studio making a kick-ass game that I am sure will compete with the best in the business. I am also working on my own RPG project on the side. All of this is to say, Base Set Remastered has taken a back seat during this time. That is, until now.
If you've visited the Set List recently, you might have noticed that all the pictures are missing. This is because Discord has stopped allowing of hosting images outside of their platform. This has forced me to re-upload all cards to a different host website and, given that it's quite a bit of work to fix the Set List, I have procrastinated of this task. This is because I also wanted to make a Patch at the same time. But enough self-deprecation - if you're reading this, I have done it, all the pictures are back on the site and these are the new patch notes.
Putting "Special" back in "Special Conditions"
One of the first changes I've implemented in this format, before the cards were even finalized, was to make a blanket rule - or more specifically, remove a rule from the original game - that all Effects on a Pokemon stay on it, even if it was retreated. That, to me, was sensible at the time - for starters, just from experience I knew that this rule was confusing to new players. If an Effect says a Pokemon cannot do something "this turn", it stands to reason this change sticks around for "this turn" and not just for as long as the Pokemon is Active. Additionally, I wanted to remove cases where double-Switching a Pokemon would just remove all effects and make it brand new.
In reality, the latter case would never happen, as I made it impossible to double-Switch a Pokemon during a single turn - on purpose. As such, this rule doesn't really apply anymore. Additionally, it's somewhat inconsistent with the video games - in the games, it's the Special Conditions that stick around, while all effects, good or bad, wane from a Pokemon once it's switched. As such, the rule is changed - all Effects are cleansed from a Pokemon when it is switched UNLESS it's a Special Condition (that's not Confusion, of course).
Now that we're on the topic of Special Conditions, there are a few changes in that category as well.
Resident Sleeper
After many games of testing, I really felt like Sleep is in a weird place. In many ways it's just a "better Paralyze", that needs flips to go away. That said, it doesn't feel satisfying even for the attacking side, as Sleeping Pokemon tend to get immediately Benched until they wake up, which they usually do quite fast. Any attacks such as Nightmare have a low chance of succeeding, as nobody would stick a Sleeping Pokemon in the Active Spot. There had to be a better way.
We had a few great discussions on our Discord (thank you!). Ultimately my thoughts wandered back to the video game for the inspiration. The video game sleep has one major difference from the TCG Sleep - the owner of the Sleeping Pokemon chooses an attack, then a check is performed if the attack went through. If it did - great, the attack goes through! If not, the Pokemon continues sleeping. Now, this was NOT the case in Generation 1, but since the theme of the format is to bring "modern design to the old game", that's a piece of official balancing that I'm happy to bring back.
So, what's the rule exactly? Sleep is now a permanent effect - it doesn't go away on its own, and stays on the bench. The only way to get rid of it is to announce an attack (or pass the turn) when your Active Pokemon is asleep. After you do, you flip - just like you would during a Confusion. If you flip tails, the Pokemon stays asleep, and the attack does nothing. If you flip heads, the attack goes through and Sleep ends permanently.
What does it mean? This Special Condition is now completely different and plays differently. For starters, it objectively has 50% chance of doing nothing. Your opponent might flip heads on the attack and render the effect useless. However, unlike in the official game, where you get that information immediately at the start of your turn, here you get it after you announce an attack. This completely flips the planning on its head - are you going to risk your attack to wake up your Pokemon, or are you going to retreat into a fresh attacker? If you do, the Sleep sticks around to annoy you another day.
I believe the old Sleep and new Sleep have roughly equivalent power levels, meaning I won't change the costs of any attack that afflicts it. I am excited to see how this change will affect gameplay.
Toxic
In design you often spot mistakes that need to be fixes. Sometimes you can manage to do it on your own and, the better you are, the more likely it is you'll do so. Often, however, these mistakes will be pointed out by your coworkers. And when you work by yourself on a project, like I do here, it is very likely that some mistakes will be spotted by the players themselves. So was the case with Poison.
In my hubris I thought I came up with a cool way to manage Poison - each Poison Counter would deal 10 damage to a Pokemon. If a Pokemon would "become Poisoned", that would mean placing a Poison counter on them, if they don't have one yet. Certain cards, most notably Nidoking, expanded on that idea and allowed the player to place more Poison counters on a Pokemon. This is where trouble started brewing. Look at this Nidoking card below.
What does a "second Poison counter" mean on this card? It's easy enough to understand when that Pokemon is not Poisoned, but what if it already is Poisoned? Also, why does the last sentence specify the effect of the Poison counters? If that Pokemon had, say, four Poison counters on it, would the last sentence change how the damage behaves? It is just an extremely confusing wording for this effect.
Now, take into account Ekans as well:
Ekans allows you to move a Poison counter. This is less confusing after I explained the Poison mechanic, but the point stands - such advanced effect shouldn't exist on a Basic Pokemon, allowing you to stack Poison counters for massive damage.
As such, here is the full explanation of the Poison mechanic:
A Pokemon is "Poisoned" when it has at least 1 Poison Counter on itself. Each Poison Counter denotes 1 damage counter the Pokemon takes at the end of its owner's turn, if that Pokemon is in the Active Spot.
When a Pokemon is "now Poisoned", a single Poison Counter is placed on it unless that Pokemon is already Poisoned, in which case nothing happens.
When a Pokemon is "no longer Poisoned", all Poison Counters are removed from that Pokemon.
Effects might place or move Poison Counters.
As for the changes, Nidoking receives a new wording. Ekans, on the other hand, receives a pretty standard "apply Poison" attack - I always felt like the "Jessie & James" deck was lacking a good, early-game Poison applier.
Stand Up Applause
Finally, a small change that's all about fanservice. I have learned that, apparently, many people consider Wigglytuff's "Do the Wave" attack to be iconic. I have moved this attack to Gyarados to better suit the Water type but, in all fairness, it's also true that Normal-type has access to all effects. As such, I have gave back this attack to Wigglytuff and replaced the frankly overdesigned alternative.
First of all, thank you for all your continued support!
Excuse this incidental blog post, but I want to address the state of the project at this moment. You might have noticed a lack of updates in the recent times. On one hand, I have always intended for this project to "end" at some point but, on the other, I was actually sitting on some changes I wanted to bring into the format. The reality of the situation is that, in recent months, I have switched jobs a few times, making it quite a chaotic time. It's all good now - I have found a studio making a kick-ass game that I am sure will compete with the best in the business. I am also working on my own RPG project on the side. All of this is to say, Base Set Remastered has taken a back seat during this time. That is, until now.
If you've visited the Set List recently, you might have noticed that all the pictures are missing. This is because Discord has stopped allowing of hosting images outside of their platform. This has forced me to re-upload all cards to a different host website and, given that it's quite a bit of work to fix the Set List, I have procrastinated of this task. This is because I also wanted to make a Patch at the same time. But enough self-deprecation - if you're reading this, I have done it, all the pictures are back on the site and these are the new patch notes.
Putting "Special" back in "Special Conditions"
One of the first changes I've implemented in this format, before the cards were even finalized, was to make a blanket rule - or more specifically, remove a rule from the original game - that all Effects on a Pokemon stay on it, even if it was retreated. That, to me, was sensible at the time - for starters, just from experience I knew that this rule was confusing to new players. If an Effect says a Pokemon cannot do something "this turn", it stands to reason this change sticks around for "this turn" and not just for as long as the Pokemon is Active. Additionally, I wanted to remove cases where double-Switching a Pokemon would just remove all effects and make it brand new.
In reality, the latter case would never happen, as I made it impossible to double-Switch a Pokemon during a single turn - on purpose. As such, this rule doesn't really apply anymore. Additionally, it's somewhat inconsistent with the video games - in the games, it's the Special Conditions that stick around, while all effects, good or bad, wane from a Pokemon once it's switched. As such, the rule is changed - all Effects are cleansed from a Pokemon when it is switched UNLESS it's a Special Condition (that's not Confusion, of course).
Now that we're on the topic of Special Conditions, there are a few changes in that category as well.
Resident Sleeper
After many games of testing, I really felt like Sleep is in a weird place. In many ways it's just a "better Paralyze", that needs flips to go away. That said, it doesn't feel satisfying even for the attacking side, as Sleeping Pokemon tend to get immediately Benched until they wake up, which they usually do quite fast. Any attacks such as Nightmare have a low chance of succeeding, as nobody would stick a Sleeping Pokemon in the Active Spot. There had to be a better way.
We had a few great discussions on our Discord (thank you!). Ultimately my thoughts wandered back to the video game for the inspiration. The video game sleep has one major difference from the TCG Sleep - the owner of the Sleeping Pokemon chooses an attack, then a check is performed if the attack went through. If it did - great, the attack goes through! If not, the Pokemon continues sleeping. Now, this was NOT the case in Generation 1, but since the theme of the format is to bring "modern design to the old game", that's a piece of official balancing that I'm happy to bring back.
So, what's the rule exactly? Sleep is now a permanent effect - it doesn't go away on its own, and stays on the bench. The only way to get rid of it is to announce an attack (or pass the turn) when your Active Pokemon is asleep. After you do, you flip - just like you would during a Confusion. If you flip tails, the Pokemon stays asleep, and the attack does nothing. If you flip heads, the attack goes through and Sleep ends permanently.
What does it mean? This Special Condition is now completely different and plays differently. For starters, it objectively has 50% chance of doing nothing. Your opponent might flip heads on the attack and render the effect useless. However, unlike in the official game, where you get that information immediately at the start of your turn, here you get it after you announce an attack. This completely flips the planning on its head - are you going to risk your attack to wake up your Pokemon, or are you going to retreat into a fresh attacker? If you do, the Sleep sticks around to annoy you another day.
I believe the old Sleep and new Sleep have roughly equivalent power levels, meaning I won't change the costs of any attack that afflicts it. I am excited to see how this change will affect gameplay.
Toxic
In design you often spot mistakes that need to be fixes. Sometimes you can manage to do it on your own and, the better you are, the more likely it is you'll do so. Often, however, these mistakes will be pointed out by your coworkers. And when you work by yourself on a project, like I do here, it is very likely that some mistakes will be spotted by the players themselves. So was the case with Poison.
In my hubris I thought I came up with a cool way to manage Poison - each Poison Counter would deal 10 damage to a Pokemon. If a Pokemon would "become Poisoned", that would mean placing a Poison counter on them, if they don't have one yet. Certain cards, most notably Nidoking, expanded on that idea and allowed the player to place more Poison counters on a Pokemon. This is where trouble started brewing. Look at this Nidoking card below.
What does a "second Poison counter" mean on this card? It's easy enough to understand when that Pokemon is not Poisoned, but what if it already is Poisoned? Also, why does the last sentence specify the effect of the Poison counters? If that Pokemon had, say, four Poison counters on it, would the last sentence change how the damage behaves? It is just an extremely confusing wording for this effect.
Now, take into account Ekans as well:
Ekans allows you to move a Poison counter. This is less confusing after I explained the Poison mechanic, but the point stands - such advanced effect shouldn't exist on a Basic Pokemon, allowing you to stack Poison counters for massive damage.
As such, here is the full explanation of the Poison mechanic:
A Pokemon is "Poisoned" when it has at least 1 Poison Counter on itself. Each Poison Counter denotes 1 damage counter the Pokemon takes at the end of its owner's turn, if that Pokemon is in the Active Spot.
When a Pokemon is "now Poisoned", a single Poison Counter is placed on it unless that Pokemon is already Poisoned, in which case nothing happens.
When a Pokemon is "no longer Poisoned", all Poison Counters are removed from that Pokemon.
Effects might place or move Poison Counters.
As for the changes, Nidoking receives a new wording. Ekans, on the other hand, receives a pretty standard "apply Poison" attack - I always felt like the "Jessie & James" deck was lacking a good, early-game Poison applier.
Stand Up Applause
Finally, a small change that's all about fanservice. I have learned that, apparently, many people consider Wigglytuff's "Do the Wave" attack to be iconic. I have moved this attack to Gyarados to better suit the Water type but, in all fairness, it's also true that Normal-type has access to all effects. As such, I have gave back this attack to Wigglytuff and replaced the frankly overdesigned alternative.