Fun If you were to change one fundamental rule of the PTCG, what would it be?

[Tapu Lele]

"If you were to change one fundamental rule of the PTCG, what would it be?"

I'm trying gather a few ideas for a little game development. It's a thought experiment more than anything, but I thought it would be fun to ask the question here more than anything. ♪



For me, I would think cards should have the ability to perform attacks without an energy requirement (and no, I'm not just talking about the 0 energy costs fromt he DP series).

I remember when I was young, people I knew would pick up the cards and try to fight with them, but they just ignored the energy costs altogether. Even when I was older people told me they wanted to learn to play but they couldn't understand what the energy was for - there was no "energy" in the Pokemon games outside of "PP".

 

[Otaku]

As it is just one rule, and not something like a design principle - no Otaku lecture, yay! - how about this as mutually exclusive options:

Pick Your Prize Cards

After you draw your opening hand and resolve all mulligans, you select the cards that go into your Prizes, and put them there, face down. While your opponent still doesn't know what Prize cards are where, and while there is a chance any card may show up in your opening hand, you know exactly what Prize card is what. Nothing can be locked away in your Prizes unless you choose to squirrel it away there, which should make it a little easier to manage things like TecH. Don't need a counter for Deck X this game, because your opponent is using Deck Y? Make the counter a Prize, and make sure to take it last! Even some general use cards can be handy to have in your Prizes, though; make sure you've got a clutch draw card, healing, gusting effect, etc. there so that taking a Prize can set off a comeback... or let you push ahead for the win.

Yes, certain existing cards will no longer serve a purpose, but that's happened before with actual rule changes, so I don't believe that is a real concern. On the other hand, I've never tested this so I could easily have missed some big problems!

Optional Mulligan

If a player does not like his or her opening hand, that player make take an optional mulligan. For each optional mulligan you take, that player's opponent gets the choice between

• drawing a card
  
• making you start with one additional Prize card
• taking no action

Drawing a card is clearly far smaller a bonus than starting with an extra Prize is a penalty but I'm trying to think ahead. Even decks which do not win on Prizes are hurt by adding extra Prizes, as something they need may be locked away where it is difficult or impossible for them to access it. Still, to prevent hypothetical shenanigans, much like the actual mulligan rules, if a player takes an optional mulligan, you can choose to not penalize them at all. Then, as a double precaution, I'm including the option of drawing an extra card for your opening hand, instead of the Prize penalty.

 

[CrownAxe]

Personly I think a more elegant set up procedure would be to draw 13 cards and pick 6 of them to be your prizes and keep the remaining 7 as your starting hand. This just does a lot that is good for the game. Not only does greatly reduce bricking and removes the complete rng of prizes it adds to the depth of the game by increasing the decision making in the game as players have a lot of choice in dividing their 13 cards between prizes and starting hand. And it maintains part of the upside of random prizes which is higher variance between games as you'll still have a difference in card pool from game to game but get to mitigate its randomness to prevent outright losing to bad prizing.

Now the rule I want to rework is evolutions but that would pretty much need a rework from the ground up so is probably too big for just a single rule change

 

[Mega Mewthree...]

I think it could be cool if you picked more cards as the game went on. Or if you could only play a certain number of cards per game.
For example: if you have 1 prize card remaining, pick 2 cards at the start of your turn. Or you can only play 10 supporter cards per game.

 

[Otaku]

>.>

<.<

Okay, I let two more people post, I'm going again!

Alternate T1 Attack Rule

During a player's first turn, ignore all damage done by attacks to their opponent's Pokémon.​

I don't think I've made any secret my displeasure over being unable to attack T1, as well as how I don't like the first two attacks in the game being capable of donks. Better solutions are probably available, but outside of the scope of this thread or beyond my capacity to concoct in the time I have available for this post. I also wish to apply the KISS principle (Keep It Super Simple), because I find that is best for Pokémon (and most games). Speaking of which, the explanation is behind Spoilers, since I tend to be long-winded and who needs to see that unless they want to know?

Spoiler

So... what good does it do? It prevents attack damage based donks or highly advantageous, tactical KO's during the first two turns of the game.* In turn, this means evolving Basic Pokémon have one full turn of being mostly safe from KO's or becoming so damaged that evolving is a waste. In turn, that should help balance the game a little more between Stage 1 and Stage 2 Pokémon. It also creates a slightly larger window for good, non-damaging first turn attacks.

What are the potential problems? Besides people just not liking it, I can't apply KISS and have it deal with the non-damage effects of attacks, or any effects of Abilities. Donks/tactical KO's are still possible through these methods. I don't want to completely prevent early game disruption, but Pokémon is bad about designing such effects in a manner our seemingly underpowered disruption (compared to other TCG's I've played) still leads to a total hand crush T1 or T2. If that becomes a problem, the rule may have to be revised, cards may need errata, and/or bans may be required.

Miscellaneous: This is a rule variation derived from my messy, untested hypothesis on balancing out the game. That's part of why there is an oversight; the rule was originally intended to accompany some other rule tweaks, as well as design guidelines for Pokémon Card Laboratories (or whatever the division who designs the cards are called). It might be a case of rose-colored glasses, but I think the game was better when players spent their first turn building, instead of immediately going on the attack for KO's. I don't want to deny aggro players their fun, however; ideally, if they don't already exist, Pokémon capable of using an attack that would ultimately benefit the aggro strategy would emerge. Maybe their attack pumps up attacks for the next turn, or it is just because they too can try for a great hand/field so that on that player's second turn, they will be able to enact a more developed, but still aggressive, assault.

*I favor overall turn counts,so this means Player 1's first turn and Player 2's first turn, not each player's first turn.

 

[FireLizard]

I think that they should add a limit to use a certain move.

Example:Sobble's Pound attack can be used for 20 times,while its Water Gun attack only 15 times.
They should add the number of times you can use these attacks near them,next to the damage numeral.
This new technique will be resetted every time you switch the Active Pokèmon

 

[Scoop]

I think that they should add a limit to use a certain move.

Example:Sobble's Pound attack can be used for 20 times,while its Water Gun attack only 15 times.
They should add the number of times you can use these attacks near them,next to the damage numeral.
This new technique will be resetted every time you switch the Active Pokèmon

I’m not even a hardcore TCG player but doesn’t this just add unnecessary complication to things? If they don’t want an attack to be spammable it usually comes with drawbacks that can only be played around with various strategies (i.e. Buzzwole GX’s second attack). I don’t see what a limit would accomplish that already isn’t being accomplished, especially if it’s reset anyways as you switch.

 

[FireLizard]

I’m not even a hardcore TCG player but doesn’t this just add unnecessary complication to things? If they don’t want an attack to be spammable it usually comes with drawbacks that can only be played around with various strategies (i.e. Buzzwole GX’s second attack). I don’t see what a limit would accomplish that already isn’t being accomplished, especially if it’s reset anyways as you switch.

Probably you're right.I tought it was cool adding the limit of moves like the PP in the original game.

 

[Lanstar]

Seeing how horrific the stage 2 issue has been, and nothing has been done to fix it, here's one rule I made up:

If your regular stage 2 Pokemon is knocked out by the attack of a basic or 3-prize Pokemon, your opponent takes no prize cards.

This is the only rule I could think of adding that could balance the power creep implemented in this format right now. Seeing how much effort and gains it takes to put out a Stage 2 compared to a Tag Team/V-Max right now, stage twos deserve to not give up prizes at all to them. It even follows the prize philosophy: Big GX's give up lots of prizes, normal pokemon give only one prize, while putting loads of effort upon evolving a regular pokemon grants an immunity to giving prize cards to those that put no effort in such evolution at all.

 

[Yaginku]

Special Conditions stay, even if you bench your Pokemon. You need to use a Trainer or a special attack to get rid of them.

The only one that would get seriously overpowered would be Poison, and mostly in a good way. The existence of Full Heal suggests to me that this was the case at some point in the development, given how terrible this card becomes when switching does exactly the same thing.

 

[Otaku]

Special Conditions stay, even if you bench your Pokemon. You need to use a Trainer or a special attack to get rid of them.

The only one that would get seriously overpowered would be Poison, and mostly in a good way. The existence of Full Heal suggests to me that this was the case at some point in the development, given how terrible this card becomes when switching does exactly the same thing.

Heh, this was another one on my list, but with a slightly different tweak, but it is actually simplest to explain by showing the actual rules (from p. 15 of the SW1 instruction booklet) and how I'd change that:

Some attacks make the Active Pokémon Asleep, Burned, Confused, Paralyzed, or Poisoned— these are called “Special Conditions.” They can only happen to an Active Pokémon—when a Pokémon goes to the Bench, it recovers from all Special Conditions. Pokémon also recover when they evolve.
​

becomes:

Some attacks make the Active Pokémon Asleep, Burned, Confused, Paralyzed, or Poisoned—these are called “Special Conditions.” When a Pokémon goes to the Bench, ignore the effects of Special Conditions on that Pokémon until it becomes Active again.
​

As with Yaginku's suggestion, this means Switch and the like won't remove Special Conditions. It also means evolving won't remove it (just like it won't remove damage counters). The other difference is that you don't "progress" the Special Condition while it is on the Bench. This keeps Poison from being more powerful, but it also keeps Burn, Paralysis, and Sleep from going away during the Pokémon Checkup while that Pokémon is on the Bench.

 

[AngryBokoblin]

Having 6 random prize cards are like the defining principle for pokemon to me. It makes it so you have to find alt win cons and makes it so decks are not extremely teched.
If you want to reduce randomness, I think a rule where you can play 2 flip a coin items at once to guarantee 1 effect is a much better rule to implement.

 

[jamashawalker]

While not a fundamental change, it would be a breath of fresh air for stage 2 pokemon and it is something that they can still implement.

-A good majority stage 1 evolving pokemon have the ability "signs of an evolution" Where you can evolve your stage 2 immediately after the stage 1. This ability would be great on attacking stage 2 pokemon, unlike stage 2 bench sitters which would still need to go the regular or rare candy route.

-ALL stage 2 pokemon have a 0-2 energy cost and an increase in damage. There is no reason cards like Blaziken DAA should have a 3 energy attack cost for 130 damage. Even if it is just a two energy attachment with twin energy, it is horrible when VMAXs are exceeding 300+ HP and require less energy attachments.

Stage 2 pokemon would be more playable if they print out them out with these two changes going foward

 

[Yaginku]

One more thing I'd consider - while not a "fundamental" change, I would change a couple of "fundamental" cards. Obviously the balance of other cards would have to change around it, but the point is to remove "unscaled" effects, just like Max Potion.

Switch - You can only switch the Pokemon, if you remove an amount of energies equal to its retreat cost minus two. Point is to stop having retreat cost be a measure of "how many switches do I have to run", but an actual game mechanic.

Rare Candy - Works the same, but you have to either discard the Stage 1 from your hand, or it allows you to immediately evolve a Stage 1 into a Stage 2. Rare Candy is the de-facto way to play Stage 2 (unless there's some reason to play the Stage 1), making it more a "Stage 1 with a required item".

Boss's Orders - Limited to one per deck ala Prism Star. Every other gust effect should come with limitations, like "only basic Pokemon", "play two copies at the same time", etc. We had a format like this once Guzma rotated and, while it wasn't a great format, lack of Guzma was one of the best things about it.

When a Pokémon goes to the Bench, ignore the effects of Special Conditions on that Pokémon until it becomes Active again.

I think this would make Paralysis extremely overpowered, since without Full Heal your opponent would have to waste a turn to get rid of it. Making all Conditions trigger on the bench would just let Paralysis "stick" for a turn.
That said, I really hate Confusion. With this change, Confusion should "roll to stay", just like Sleep and Burn. It would also mimic how it works in the games.

 

[leetic]

Replacing the Prize Cards with a shield system, in that the player who loses a Pokémon rather than the one who knocks out a Pokémon draws a card from the shields, preventing snowballing and allowing a potential comeback mechanic. Several other TCGs have similar systems, so I don't see why it couldn't work in Pokémon.

 

[Otaku]

Rare Candy - Works the same, but you have to either discard the Stage 1 from your hand, or it allows you to immediately evolve a Stage 1 into a Stage 2. Rare Candy is the de-facto way to play Stage 2 (unless there's some reason to play the Stage 1), making it more a "Stage 1 with a required item".

S'okay that this will also probably be shot down by ya, but if we are issuing an errata for Rare Candy, how about:

Choose 1 of your Pokémon in play. If you have a card in your hand that evolves from that Pokémon, put that card onto the Pokémon you chose to evolve it. You can't use Rare Candy on a Pokémon you already used Rare Candy on this turn, or on any of your Pokémon during the first turn of the game.

I still think universal evolution acceleration will backfire on game balance sooner or later, but this way anything other than non-evolving Basic Pokémon can benefit from Rare Candy, and you still need the entire evolution line in your deck. The advantage Rare Candy grants is still a speedier evolution, but only Stage 2 Pokémon hit the field "early" on a player's second turn. At least, not without mixing in another form of evolution acceleration. Which is really something of a bonus for Rare Candy users; now their purpose is the time it saves you after your second turn. Crush my Stage 1 Pokémon in a single turn? I can burn a Rare Candy to go from Basic to Stage 1 without waiting, and from Basic to Stage 1 to Stage 2 in only a single turn.

Probably underpowered, but I've rambled on about making better lower Stages for a while now while pacing what Basic Pokémon can do so there's time to evolve and something to be gained from actually using your lower Stages as more than stepping stones. So this is about as potent a form of generic evolution acceleration as I think the game can really handle. I also worded it so that any Stage of evolution could handle it; I was thinking of things like Pokémon BREAK or future game mechanics, but I probably should add a clause preventing multi-Prize Pokémon from being chosen to evolve or being the card evolved into.

I think this would make Paralysis extremely overpowered, since without Full Heal your opponent would have to waste a turn to get rid of it. Making all Conditions trigger on the bench would just let Paralysis "stick" for a turn.
That said, I really hate Confusion. With this change, Confusion should "roll to stay", just like Sleep and Burn. It would also mimic how it works in the games.

Fair point, but doing it the other way seems to nerf all the Special Conditions, except for Burn and Poison. If I'm allowed multiple, related changes to the rules, how about Special Conditions still persist until specifically cured, but everything has a chance of going away during Pokémon Checkup:

• Burn and Sleep Checks now require double coin flips. Burn only sticks around on double-tails, Sleep is only cured by double-heads.
• Confusion, Paralysis, and Poison now have the (single) coin flip check to see if they persist or go away.

 

[Yaginku]

Choose 1 of your Pokémon in play. If you have a card in your hand that evolves from that Pokémon, put that card onto the Pokémon you chose to evolve it. You can't use Rare Candy on a Pokémon you already used Rare Candy on this turn, or on any of your Pokémon during the first turn of the game.

I do like the idea of Rare Candy as "evolve a Pokemon without involving the evolution penalty", I think it would make it more flexible while keeping with the spirit of the change.
That said, I'm wary of allowing any Basic Pokemon to evolve immediately after hitting the bench. This is one of these "unscaled effects" that you should avoid. You have no way of telling which card will abuse it in the future, so you'd limit your design space significantly by having to design cards "around" Rare Candy.

Fair point, but doing it the other way seems to nerf all the Special Conditions, except for Burn and Poison.

Nerf in relation to what? Letting any SC "stick" on the bench is already a buff.

 

[Otaku]

I do like the idea of Rare Candy as "evolve a Pokemon without involving the evolution penalty", I think it would make it more flexible while keeping with the spirit of the change.
That said, I'm wary of allowing any Basic Pokemon to evolve immediately after hitting the bench. This is one of these "unscaled effects" that you should avoid. You have no way of telling which card will abuse it in the future, so you'd limit your design space significantly by having to design cards "around" Rare Candy.

I actually "lost" an incomplete post, and hadn't realized my error when rewriting my proposed errata. I think this addresses your main concern:

Rare Candy
Trainer — Item

Choose 1 of your Pokémon in play. If you have a card in your hand that directly evolves from that Pokémon, put that card onto the chosen Pokémon to evolve it. You can't use Rare Candy during your first turn, or on the same Pokémon more than once during your turn.

You may play any number of Item cards during your turn.
​

but let me know if it does not. This also might lead my earlier explanation to make sense, as I did indeed write it with the notion that I had prohibited using two copies of Rare Candy on the same Pokémon during the same turn and that neither player could use it during their first turn, as opposed to just "the first turn" (Player 1's first turn). I absolutely agree with your concerns about how generic evolution acceleration is at a high risk for "breaking" future cards.

Nerf in relation to what? Letting any SC "stick" on the bench is already a buff.

Poor phrasing on my part; a nerf to what I was proposing but you're right, your suggestions would still make them stronger than they are now, especially Poison. I misread part of what you said as well; it isn't that all Special Conditions on Bench only last a turn, but that Paralysis would only last a turn.

I think we simply disagree on how powerful certain Special Conditions ought to be; I'm worried about Poison on the Bench, but not Paralysis. For you, it seems to be the reverse. I wonder if anyone will chime in who wants something else to be better. Just to be clear, though, I now have made two separate proposals:

• Everything remains as is, except Special Conditions remain even while a Pokémon is on the Bench or after it has evolved. However, those on the Bench do not progress; no damage counters are placed for Burn/Poison, Paralysis doesn't go away at the end of your turn, and there's no Burn or Sleep Check.
• Special Conditions are no longer removed through retreating or evolving, and persist on the Bench. Everything has a chance of going away on its own, but add a coin flip-based check for Conditions that didn't already have it, and add a coin flip to existing checks.

You reminded me of some other changes I'd like to see, but this post is long enough already, and I already worry I've made too many suggestions. XP