We’re talking about the promo Lele. For [P][C] it rearranges opponent’s damage counters. In combination with Black Ray GX and Silent Fear it is flat-out broken. Banning D-Vally will significantly harm this strategy.
Ghetsis, Hex Maniac, and More Banned from Expanded Format!
- Thread starter Water Pokémon Master
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From 2015: http://www.pokebeach.com/2015/06/lysandres-trump-card-now-banned-in-america & http://www.pokebeach.com/2015/09/shiftry-officially-banned-from-expanded
So trev was only nerfed because it was a popular lock deck, so does that mean all lock decks will get nerfed if they get popular or see high level play?
I meant quarterly bans. Those 2 were banned because Shiftry was a lock deck. And LTC removed a win condition. Now we get a ban list every quarter (though many are empty)
Trev got nerfed because it can get its lock out on the first turn before the opponent can even play. That's why the banned Wally, and not Trev itself
Thank you for (unintentionally) backing me up, Latte1504. I'm about to explain how and why; please pardon me if it comes across as condescending, but your post that I quoted suggests you aren't seeing the forest for the trees.
Why do sets rotate? The following are steps to understanding, so some are reasons in their own right, but others are not and instead support those reasons where they appear.
1) Business - The powers-that-be don't get a cut from the secondhand market, and I'm not arguing that they should. I'm just pointing out that they want us buying new cards, to the point that they spend money and even reward us for playing (Organized Play).
2) Keeping a TCG "healthy" is difficult. It is easy to mess it up right away, like what actually happened with the Pokémon TCG itself.
3) The larger the card pool, the more difficult this task becomes. A larger card pool creates more card interactions to track, and please remember that we aren't just checking card-to-card interactions but also card-to-deck, deck-to-deck, etc.
4) Something similar happens with card design. #3 applies even if you have a static card pool (apart from changes to a Banned List). However, it gets doubly difficult when you're trying to design and release 500 to 1000 new cards per year. That is because...
5) ...what is bad can become good and what is good can become bad, due to card interactions.
6) Any banned cards is a sign that the designers "goofed", at least in most TCG's. The larger the list, the more awkward it is to remember and police. Put those together, and companies have an incentive to keep banned cards to a minimum.
7) Most cards are filler, but even if they are harmless now, remember what I said about future releases making bad cards suddenly good. They can also make good cards even better, mediocre cards good, etc. So, filler makes balancing the game more difficult.
So, before we consider that you just named one card at least some people believe is ban worthy (Exeggcute), an entire class of cards I've said was a mistake and believe are ban worthy (Ace Specs), one useful Supporter (Colress) that specifically rewards big Benches a.k.a. doing what normally helps you win, and a Supporter that just joined the actual banned list, yeah, I'd say cutting BW-On is a good idea. Even without those, it would just be a necessary step in "the process".
There are two things you need to understand:
There isn't some fixed, obvious threshold for when a card is deserving of a ban, and even if there was, companies (not just TPCi) don't like banning too many cards at once. Having to ban something is admitting to a design flaw, and also means cards some customers own suddenly have no competitive value. The longer the ban list, the more difficult it is for players to remember it and for Organized Play to effectively enforce it. So the ban list is to be kept as small and changed as infrequently as possible while still keeping the game healthy and the customers happy.
Which is why it is we only see bans in the case of extreme emergencies or periodically throughout the year according to the schedule TPCi revealed to us. I don't remember the specifics, but its something like two weeks before the release of the newest expansion. Yes, it is supposed to prevent game balance issues caused by the newest cards, as well as resolve older ones.
So... some cards get a "stay of execution" because the designers feel it is better for us to suffer through it for a while. This is especially true when it is the Standard Format, as cards usually leave it via set rotation sooner or later. Expanded has never rotated, so it doesn't seem to be an option there.
Wally is a card that could be fine if the designers made sure no cards were ever unduly enhanced by it, but that ship already sailed. Ban Trevenant (XY), and something else is likely to come along, especially as Wally pre-dates Pokémon-GX.
There are two things you need to understand:
There isn't some fixed, obvious threshold for when a card is deserving of a ban, and even if there was, companies (not just TPCi) don't like banning too many cards at once. Having to ban something is admitting to a design flaw, and also means cards some customers own suddenly have no competitive value. The longer the ban list, the more difficult it is for players to remember it and for Organized Play to effectively enforce it. So the ban list is to be kept as small and changed as infrequently as possible while still keeping the game healthy and the customers happy.
Which is why it is we only see bans in the case of extreme emergencies or periodically throughout the year according to the schedule TPCi revealed to us. I don't remember the specifics, but its something like two weeks before the release of the newest expansion. Yes, it is supposed to prevent game balance issues caused by the newest cards, as well as resolve older ones.
So... some cards get a "stay of execution" because the designers feel it is better for us to suffer through it for a while. This is especially true when it is the Standard Format, as cards usually leave it via set rotation sooner or later. Expanded has never rotated, so it doesn't seem to be an option there.
Thank you for explaining those two things to me. However I feel you might have missed another point about banning cards. It is not that it is admitting a design flaw but that they may want to adjust the format, We know we are getting back into a item heavy format and likely going to have turbo style engines again which is why I think they banned ghetsis because it would have shut down a new item engine coming to us.
Edit: hopefully I get this in before anyone replies
I think TPCi is using the expanded ban list not to take care of problematic cards, but shape expanded for future cards to ensure those cards sell. Removing Ghetsis and Hex from the pool means that we have build a deck to counter items or counter abilities and not have splashable cards to tech against those kind of decks.
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Why didn't they ban it last quarter or the quarter before that, they knew it was a thing, its been a thing since wally was release in may of 2015. I want to say it was not nerfed because of the T1 lock but because of the incoming sets will have a heavy focus on item based engines.
Again, because banning is a last resort. If they had done things as they intended, they wouldn't need to ban anything because the new releases alone would steer the game to a healthy place. If you've been paying attention to the quarterly announcements on the Ban List, which can be found on the official Pokémon website about two weeks before the official release of the latest set, while they haven't been banning anything new (until now) they have stated they are monitoring certain cards. Even Lysandre's Trump Card lasted a little while before being banned, but it took players only a few weeks to really start abusing Lysandre's Trump Card alongside VS Seeker.
Remember, these bans are for Expanded and decks are already heavily Item-based. If you mean a "true" Item-based engine, where Supporters are all cards like Guzma and none are Cynthia, I doubt we are heading there. I do think we'll see more Ability-based draw/search, which frees up Supporter usage for other purposes and specific examples like Magcargo (Smooth Over) will reward Item-based draw (as well as Ability-based draw).
Thats to assume what they intend or intended doesn't change from season to season. Thats also to assume that any of this has been designed with expanded in mind.
I'm talking about the Psychic promo Lele that moves around damage counters got [P][C]. Banning Valley means they can't use a Stadium to sub for Energy. The deck (as well as Night March) have to build differently.
To expand on Latte's post, I too think that the Expanded format isn't really that big compared to other card game's eternal formats and I also think that it's being managed exceptionally well. The amount of banned cards in the Expanded format is pretty minimal and all seem to be done with a clear direction in mind. The Archeops and Forest bannings were to address the upcoming "evolution cards matter" format of Sun and Moon. These new bannings are mostly to promote interactive gameplay and to stop first-turn scoops due to not being able to play the game. I don't see what's wrong with either approach. If you need some context I invite you to play yu-gi-oh and mtg's Modern/Legacy formats and see just how many banned cards it's taken to keep those formats together (that is if you can afford either game
I didn't use Yu-Gi-Oh as an example because I assume every knows its a trash game. MtG I would think is different because everything cost something to play, well most things do anyway. I don't play the game but I know since everything thing has a Mana Cost, its harder to do something broken but Pokemon is a game to where things are absolute. Your opponent does something and it does it and nothing can be done to stop it. It does me no good to counter Choice Band when it already killed my Pokemon and two Prize cards taken. This is an example of course but this wouldn't have happened easily in Yu-Gi-Oh or MtG.
I honestly think they banned it because of easy it was to recover DCE in Night March and Zoro decks. I think they need to ban DCE in Expanded.
Cards are being designed with Expanded in mind. Its why they target Pokemon-EX on the Sun and Moon cards, something I think they shouldn't be doing. The game is aware of formats at least back to B/W base.
On the topic of “why not ban card X”, the cards that have been banned so far are all cards that stop gameplay. When people point to Dimension Valley or VS Seeker to be banned those cards aren’t stopping any gameplay and both players can utilize it. Hex Maniac stops the opponent from using abilities while you’re in control of when that starts so you can use all the abilities you want before triggering it. Wally and Ghetsis create one sided games locking out items before your opponent gets any opportunity. Why not ban trevenant is because if your opponent gets at least one turn they can attempt to prepare against it making a better match.
I don’t think the expanded format needs to rotate as it lets card collections hold relevance. It’s impressive that older cards still hold up thanks to low power creep.
I don’t think the expanded format needs to rotate as it lets card collections hold relevance. It’s impressive that older cards still hold up thanks to low power creep.
Why to all of those cards? Puzzle over vs seeker?.. wally over trwvenant? Hex over trevenant
this is a really bad ban list.
wally-it does help trevenant item lock turn 1, however of all the opponnents i fight on ptgco, they rarely are capable of getting t1, and they almost lose anyway, since the ptgco coin flip algorithim is always flipped against trev, making you go 2nd anyways.
-ghetsis, is not even that powerful , 90% time you may only see 1 or 2 cards in thier hand you can send back to the deck.
-hex maniac, have the same issue as wally, in ability heavy decks, yes it maybe good but, most of the time when they use hex, they forfeit thier abilities to use supporters, like :N,cynthia, sycamore. most decks arnt heavy in ability use.
-i cant tell you how many times puzzle of time saves people against unwinnable opponnents who use karen to counter nm, or against buzzwole or zoroark, most decks use puzzle of time, so there is an issue if this cripples most decks.
everyone know by now this probably benefits buzzwole, since he is op with having to worry about wally, ghetsis, or hex maniac.
ghetsis isnt that useful to begin with, most players dont have that many items in thier opening hand, even if they do, they stocked enough draw supporters to get back those items anyways.
wally-it does help trevenant item lock turn 1, however of all the opponnents i fight on ptgco, they rarely are capable of getting t1, and they almost lose anyway, since the ptgco coin flip algorithim is always flipped against trev, making you go 2nd anyways.
-ghetsis, is not even that powerful , 90% time you may only see 1 or 2 cards in thier hand you can send back to the deck.
-hex maniac, have the same issue as wally, in ability heavy decks, yes it maybe good but, most of the time when they use hex, they forfeit thier abilities to use supporters, like :N,cynthia, sycamore. most decks arnt heavy in ability use.
-i cant tell you how many times puzzle of time saves people against unwinnable opponnents who use karen to counter nm, or against buzzwole or zoroark, most decks use puzzle of time, so there is an issue if this cripples most decks.
everyone know by now this probably benefits buzzwole, since he is op with having to worry about wally, ghetsis, or hex maniac.
ghetsis isnt that useful to begin with, most players dont have that many items in thier opening hand, even if they do, they stocked enough draw supporters to get back those items anyways.
They needed to do something about LonZoro mainly and banning Hex, Ghetsis and POT is what they found was best. We can argue about the choice but the fact is LonZoro was really imbalanced and was above Tier 1. Banning POT, Ghetsis and Wally will not change the game very much. As a whole i think it was a valid effort to bring LonZoro down a bit. We could argue banning Eggs or Skyfield would have been better for the purpose but some people would have complained either ways. Personally i would have banned Zoroark but it takes balls and would have wrecked havoc.
Hex maniac is a different story and i am a bit more worried about the side effects but we will have to wait and see. Time will tell if the move was good or bad for the game as a whole.
So they need to hurry up and ban regice from the new set cause it is T1 stadium lock
I see so many people saying that Ghetsis doesn't need a ban because it's inconsistent and sometimes does nothing. That doesn't mean the card is balanced and good for the game though. If there was a supporter who's effect was "Roll a die and if you roll a 6 you win" that would be awful for the game to have even though it does nothing 5/6 times. But that's basically how Ghetsis works. Its effectiveness is based on the random state of your opponent's hand but sometime you just wipe their hand and they brick instantly winning you the game by itself. This is a complete roll of the dice if you play this going first. Mid game this can be mitigated by trying to keep non-item draw out in hand at all times but sometimes you just can't manage to do that or you get Red Carded first and then you back to having no control over if Ghetsis instantly wins the game or not.
Here is the solution to ghetsis play less item heavy decks. Just like any other card in a format you build around it or you accept the risk by not doing so.
A card that single handed forces the entire player base to not play a certain way is still not a good card to have in the game. That is why Archeops is banned as it singled handled made forced everyone to run no evolution basewd decks. Ghetsis basically does the same thing but for items or people play items and Ghetsis then randomly wins games for free
No, it doesn't make you run without items, it makes running with items risky and the fact the entire community forgot about that card and got burned by it should tell you something. The meta took a risk by being weak to item disruption and when it bit them in the back it should have caused a change in meta not this cry to mommy to ban it cause it hurt us for being stupid. Does having pyroar in the format mean it forces everyone to run evolutions? Does that need to get banned as well? What about alola ninetails that foces everyone to run non gx attackers does that need to get banned as well?