Little Cup: A New Fan TCG Format

MewtwoberTCG

MewtwoberTCG

Vespiquen Player
Member
Hey 'Beachgoers. A few months ago while doing the norm (looking through Pokebeach) I stumbled across an article where there was a format with only common Pokemon and special rules for basic Energy. (I wish I could give credit but I can't find the article) I decided to develop this format even further with my own rules.

Little Cup Rules:
50 card decks
5 prize cards
PCL-On (or whatever standard is at the time)
Same banned cards as standard
NEW Only Pokemon with less than 100 HP
Only uncommon Trainers
Only basic Energy
No Promos
Each Energy has an effect
All other Standard rules apply

Energy Effects
Water: When you attach this Energy, heal 10 damage from each of your Pokemon.
Fire:When attached to a Pokemon, this Energy can't be discarded by your opponent.
Grass:When you attach this Energy to a Pokemon, search your deck for an Evolved Pokemon and put it into your hand. Shuffle your deck afterwards.
Lightning:When attached to a Pokemon, reduce the retreat cost of the Pokemon this card is attached to by 1. This effect stacks to 4.
Physic:When you attach this Energy to a Pokemon, move 1 damage counter from one of your Pokemon to one of your opponent's Pokemon.
Fighting:When attached to a Pokemon, the attacks of the Pokemon this card is do 10 more damage to your opponent's Active Pokemon. This effect stacks to 3
Darkness:When you attach this Energy to a Pokemon, place 1 damage counter on 1 of your opponent's Pokemon.
Metal:When attached to a Pokemon, the attacks from your opponent's Active Pokemon do 10 less damage. This effect stacks to 3
Fairy:When you attach this Energy to a Pokemon, remove a Special Condition from a Pokemon (yours or your opponent's)

\/ Here is my deck in this format
(look at AOR for Pokemon ideas)
Cat Mario
Pokemon 19
3 Meowth FAC
1 Meowth AOR
4 Persian AOR
3 Inkay AOR
1 Inkay ROS
4 Malamar AOR
3 Unown AOR

Trainers 22
4 Level Ball
1 Evosoda
1 Town Map
2 Professor's Letter
1 Escape Rope
1 Lysander
2 Shauna
2 N
2 Judge
1 Winona
1 Fisherman
4 Scorched Earth

Energy 9
5 Dark
4 Fighting

Please give any suggestions.
-Mewtwober
 
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All Trainers are already uncommon in rarity, so how is this a change?

By limiting it to common Pokemon only, you reduce the competitive pool to almost nothing. I can't think of very many Pokemon that would fit this rule.
 
PMJ said:
By limiting it to common Pokemon only, you reduce the competitive pool to almost nothing. I can't think of very many Pokemon that would fit this rule.
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I can think of two, Pumpkaboo and Joltik.
 
Even worse then.
 
PMJ said:
All Trainers are already uncommon in rarity, so how is this a change?
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some trainers are ultra rare or promo/trainer kit

NinjaPenguin said:
I can think of two, Pumpkaboo and Joltik.
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One, NM is rotating
Two, No special energy are allowed
Three, No lampent

PMJ said:
By limiting it to common Pokemon only, you reduce the competitive pool to almost nothing. I can't think of very many Pokemon that would fit this rule.
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This is to make a balanced format without things like NM
 
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PMJ said:
All Trainers are already uncommon in rarity, so how is this a change?

By limiting it to common Pokemon only, you reduce the competitive pool to almost nothing. I can't think of very many Pokemon that would fit this rule.
Click to expand...
I agree with PMJ, not many Pokemon will fit in to the criteria, decks might get a bit repetitive. I appreciate the creativity though. :D
 
Quagsire AOR is probably the bdif, with the Fighting Energy rules you can Dig Out for obscene amounts of damage and you hit all the other would-be big players in this format for Weakness.

Raichu XY was also reprinted in Generations as a common, so there's that, too.
 
Hey folks. I've gone ahead and moved this over the general TCG discussion forum since this doesn't pertain to Standard/Expanded or Play! Pokemon events.

This is very similar to a Professor Cup format from a couple years ago - might be worth looking into how that went!
 
If anyone thinks any of the energy effects are too OP I can always nerf the effect.

PMJ said:
Quagsire AOR is probably the bdif, with the Fighting Energy rules you can Dig Out for obscene amounts of damage and you hit all the other would-be big players in this format for Weakness.

Raichu XY was also reprinted in Generations as a common, so there's that, too.
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What dig out attack?
 
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Sorry, I meant Golurk AOR :p
 
Why no VS Seeker? The only in-format one being Ultra Rare shouldn't make a difference seeing as all three of its previous prints are Uncommon, and are also usable in Standard. (And if it does for whatever reason, your rules should reflect that.)

50 cards seems unnecessary, 60 seems like it would work fine. Change for no reason is pointless.

Why isn't the Metal effect tied to it being attached to your active Pokemon? You shouldn't be able to just have 3 Metals on your bench for free damage reduction.

I feel like the Common-only Pokemon thing makes the format fairly stale. There's only so many usable cards. (Much more of an issue than Standard, since there are plenty of rogue options as well. Here there really aren't.)

What the heck, I'll go ahead and do a sample deck.

4 x Team Magma's Poochyena
3 x Team Magma's Mightyena
4 x Team Magma's Zangoose
4 x Team Magma's Aron
1 x Team Magma's Lairon

4 x Professor Sycamore
2 x N
1 x Team Magma Admin
1 x Lysandre
3 x Sky Field
4 x Team Magma's Great Ball
2 x Ultra Ball
4 x Max Elixir
3 x Fighting Fury Belt
1 x Super Rod
1 x Switch

8 x Fighting Energy


Didn't put a TON of effort into it. But this isn't a format I'd ever play anyway, this is just meant to be an example.
 
I made this to be a balanced format and yes i feel like it may get stale so i may change it to having pokemon with less than 100 hp
 
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That is a huge amount of mods and it is difficult to follow with special rules for each energy.

There are some easiest ways to "balance" the game, for example limiting card quantity by rarity.

4 copies for commons/uncommons
3 for rares/holo rares
2 for ex/break
1 for ultra/secret
1 copy for each promo or non rarity printing (example, you can field 1 mewtwo xy100 and 1 mewtwo xy101 because the promo has 2 printings)

Use the highest amount if able (and prove it)
 
RiverShock said:
Why no VS Seeker? The only in-format one being Ultra Rare shouldn't make a difference seeing as all three of its previous prints are Uncommon, and are also usable in Standard. (And if it does for whatever reason, your rules should reflect that.)

50 cards seems unnecessary, 60 seems like it would work fine. Change for no reason is pointless.

Why isn't the Metal effect tied to it being attached to your active Pokemon? You shouldn't be able to just have 3 Metals on your bench for free damage reduction.

I feel like the Common-only Pokemon thing makes the format fairly stale. There's only so many usable cards. (Much more of an issue than Standard, since there are plenty of rogue options as well. Here there really aren't.)

What the heck, I'll go ahead and do a sample deck.

4 x Team Magma's Poochyena
3 x Team Magma's Mightyena
4 x Team Magma's Zangoose
4 x Team Magma's Aron
1 x Team Magma's Lairon

4 x Professor Sycamore
2 x N
1 x Team Magma Admin
1 x Lysandre
3 x Sky Field
4 x Team Magma's Great Ball
2 x Ultra Ball
4 x Max Elixir
3 x Fighting Fury Belt
1 x Super Rod
1 x Switch

8 x Fighting Energy


Didn't put a TON of effort into it. But this isn't a format I'd ever play anyway, this is just meant to be an example.
Click to expand...
I don't have vs seeker in the deck because i don't have any extra vs seekers
 
Do the effects of basic Energy that activate when they are attached to a Pokemon happen only if attached from your hand to a Pokemon in play or can they happen if attached through other means like Max Elixir?

Jumpluff Steam Siege can hit for 100 damage on the first turn due to being able to set up via Forest of the Giant Plants. It gains Grass Energy as a search card as well. This turn-one 100 damage is enough to Knock Out everything in the format, given they don't have any HP-boosting effects on them. However, this attack does 20 less damage each time you take a Prize card, thus limiting its effectiveness to the first couple of turns.

Both Durant BREAKpoint and Bunnelby Primal Clash mill decks are much stronger in this format due to the smaller decks, slower pace, and softer attacks, but they can be easily countered by Fire Energy, which interrupts their Energy disruption.
 
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Jumpluff STS is rare, so it's not allowed in this format.
 
Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't see a rule under the Little Cup Rules about the rarity of Pokemon. The only rule I see about rarity is about Trainer cards. It is very possible that I overlooked such a rule.
 
Ah, he edited it out. I didn't know the 100 HP thing was a new rule.
 
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