IMO, Lt. Surge, while certainly powerful in Expanded, is nothing to worry about in Standard, and, overall, is over-hyped.
The card that should be banned from Expanded is VS Seeker. It would prevent fast-supporter combos, would make it so that Trade and Plumeria actually have a downside, and would make a successful Lt. Surge turn ten times harder to pull off.
Lt. Surge sounds broken but I think it's overhyped. We can use Dual Brains Magnezone in expanded and that sees some fringe play but nothing game breaking. And you can do the Ace Trainer + Delinquent combo today, right now, with Marshadow GX + Dialga GX + Milotic. Granted, Lt. Surge might make that combo a little easier to pull off and won't require that elaborate set up, but it's not Lt. Surge that's the problematic one but Delinquent (which can already do similar stuff right now with the aforementioned Timeless GX + Milotic and Red Card + Delinquent + Peeking Red Card.) And it's hard to imagine a scenario where you have a perfect hand of Lt. Surge + 2 other timely supporters. Even with VS Seeker, you'd probably have to burn 2 VS Seekers to do whatever you want to do that turn which makes that pretty balanced in my opinion.
In Standard, Lt. Surge falls under this category of situational supporters, which are significantly weaker in a format without VS Seeker and thus if you want to use Lt. Surge consistently, you need to run 3-4 copies of Lt. Surge. But you do that and you have 3-4 mostly unplayable cards floating around in the early game which kills your deck's consistency, so you'd rather play just 1 Surge. But that means you can't play it consistently when you need to, because you only have 1 copy of Surge, so... And in the end will likely see very little play outside of dedicated stall decks and maybe Zoroark.
I know it's a card with so many possibilities, but I'm afraid I'll wait for someone else's "Golden Combo" on Stardard. I can't think of anything else so basic than Guzma and some other trainer to help my hand.
Just wasted an hour trying to type up a careful post, where I explained myself to prevent confusion or misunderstanding... before realizing the length just makes it more confusing or easy to misunderstand. The short version is:
I am not currently convinced one way or the other about the expected performance of Lt. Surge's Battle. Lt. Surge's Battle might be broken, or it might still be a "dud". He does raise several red flags, and wave them vigorously:
Prize Count/Come-from-behind card
Mitigates major part of own cost (give up your once-per-turn Supporter to... use two more Supporters)
All Supporters ever released were supposed to be balanced against Supporters being a once-per-turn thing.
The above applies whether we are discussing cards that have received errata for reasons other than correcting a printing error or which have made the Ban List, as well as my far-easier-to-meet qualifications for wanting something banned. Again, saying it could go either way... which normally isn't too useful except when folks are either too worried or not worried enough about a card. XD
Anything that alters the rules of a game to such an extent is something to be concerned about imo. The once-per-turn supporter rule was introduced for a reason, and every supporter since then was designed with that rule in mind.
I mean, some people complained about N being too long in the Standard format, which is a very tame come-back card, esp. compared to Lt. Surge. Sure, it is not as strong in Standard as it is in Expanded, but I don't think it will take too long to find in which deck and with what other cards it can be abused best in Standard. In all honesty, Lt. Surge reminds me a lot of Beast Ring, another card that people used to (and some still do) complain about a lot and many suggested that it should have been a {*}, just like many people do now with Lt. Surge.
Also, there were abilities/poke-bodies in the past that that let you play 2 supporter per turn, but those can be shut off. Beast Ring can be sort of played around, but there is no way around Lt. Surge. (Unless you're playing stall and don't take any prizes.)
Anything that alters the rules of a game to such an extent is something to be concerned about imo. The once-per-turn supporter rule was introduced for a reason, and every supporter since then was designed with that rule in mind.
I mean, some people complained about N being too long in the Standard format, which is a very tame come-back card, esp. compared to Lt. Surge. Sure, it is not as strong in Standard as it is in Expanded, but I don't think it will take too long to find in which deck and with what other cards it can be abused best in Standard. In all honesty, Lt. Surge reminds me a lot of Beast Ring, another card that people used to (and some still do) complain about a lot and many suggested that it should have been a {*}, just like many people do now with Lt. Surge.
Also, there were abilities/poke-bodies in the past that that let you play 2 supporter per turn, but those can be shut off. Beast Ring can be sort of played around, but there is no way around Lt. Surge. (Unless you're playing stall and don't take any prizes.)
You could also play the new Kabutops (not-yet-released outside of Japan), as it has the same Ability as Stoutland (though probably with a new name).
For those who didn't know about this card, I was aware of it with my previous comment:
Potent effects versus potent countereffects may balance out, but is just as likely to fail entirely or create a kind of "heightened balance" where those two take care of each other but still wreck like 80% of the cardpool.
Besides, there is already a stall Stoutland archetype in Expanded which wouldn't even work with Kabutops because the deck also uses SUM Herdier for item retrieval.
Even so, you lose the ability to use Surge if you're winning or tied, so I don't see it as that broken. Even Garchomp won't be that broken with it, since the +100 damage for playing Cynthia during your turn doesn't stack for the number of Cynthia's played during your turn. The only card I see being a problem with this is the new Venomoth GX.
1) Magnezone being a Stage 2 Ability versus Lt. Surge's Battle
2) Magnezone's efficacy while it was legal
#1 is a legitimate concern; just having to play one particular Supporter before being able to play two more is one thing, while having to run an entire Stage 2 line is another. There are ups and downs to either approach and Magnezone [Plasma] is old enough to have been around for the BW-era First Turn Rules (T1 attacks allowed) and Pokémon Catcher pre-erratum (when it did not require a coin flip), though it was around after these changes as well. @_@
#2 is that few (if any) competitive decks arose that used Magnezone [Plasma] well. Even though it was legal when there were many, many potent Supporters. I list all the Supporters available in each of the two Standard Formats where Magnezone [Plasma] was legal. Since it gets pretty long, behind spoiler tags they go:
Bianca
Cheren
Cilan
Colress
Ghetsis
Hooligans Jim & Cas
Hugh
N
Professor Juniper
Shadow Triad
Skyla
Team Plasma Grunt
Note: Magnezone [Plasma] released in February of 2013, while Ghetsis and Shadow Triad released in May. That still meant at least two months (I think it was more like three) of overlap. Also, this Format would have been entirely under the BW-era First Turn rules (T1 attacks allowed) with a pre-erratum Pokémon Catcher (no coin flip to use it).
Bianca
Blacksmith
Caitlin
Cassius
Cedric Juniper
Cheren
Cilan
Colress
Elesa
Ghetsis
Hooligans Jim & Cas
Hugh
Iris
Lysandre
N
Pokémon Center Lady
Pokémon Fan Club
Professor Juniper
Professor Sycamore
Shadow Triad
Shauna
Skyla
Team Flare Grunt
Team Plasma Grunt
Note: about halfway through this Format is when the modern rule about "No Attacking T1" went into effect, as well as the erratum for Pokémon Catcher (causing it to require a flip to work).
Archie's Ace in the Hole
AZ
Battle Reporter
Bianca
Blacksmith
Caitlin
Cassius
Cedric Juniper
Cheren
Colress
Elesa
Fossil Researcher
Ghetsis
Hugh
Iris
Korina
Lysandre
Lysandre's Trump Card
Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick
N
Pokémon Center Lady
Pokémon Fan Club
Professor Birch's Observations
Professor Juniper
Professor Sycamore
Shadow Triad
Shauna
Skyla
Steven
Team Aqua Admin
Team Aqua Grunt
Team Flare Grunt
Team Magma Admin
Team Magma Grunt
Team Plasma Grunt
Teammates
Tierno
Trevor
Wally
Winona
Xerosic
Note: Lysandre's Trump Card was banned in June of 1015, so it wasn't legal for the last few months of this format, so Supporters from XY - Roaring Skies (the final set released during this period) only had a few weeks to a month of overlap.
Very few of these were vanilla draw, whether of the straight or shuffle-and-draw varieties, though most were about some form of draw power (usually with costs or conditions) or search of some sort. While some of the disruption available was just bad (Hooligans Jim & Cas) or quite niche (Hugh), you still had Ghetsis and N right away. They were joined by some standouts like Team Flare Grunt, Lysandre, and Xerosic as they released. The rest of the cardpool featured some fantastic disruptive Item cards. If you put it all together, on paper it looks like Magnezone [Plasma] ought to have been great!
Now I come back to that first point again; running the Magnezone [Plasma] Evolution line proved too taxing, even though as long as you could keep a Magnezone [Plasma] in play, you enjoyed the power of double Supporters turn after turn. Lt. Surge's Battle just means running an extra Supporter but it also means you have to open with that Supporter and each copy of Lt. Surge's Battle is turn of using two other Supporters (give or take recycling effects). In both cases, having plenty of Supporters to combo together without them clutting your hand at the wrong time is a concern.
Edit: Oh yeah, and while writing this post (not the others) I'd forgotten that Lt. Surge's Battle required you have more Prizes remaining than your opponent. While technically a part of the first point, the "issue" with come-from-behind cards is almost worth an entirely separate thread. Then again, a double Teammates or double Iris wasn't enough to save Magnezone [Plasma].
1) Magnezone being a Stage 2 Ability versus Lt. Surge's Battle
2) Magnezone's efficacy while it was legal
#1 is a legitimate concern; just having to play one particular Supporter before being able to play two more is one thing, while having to run an entire Stage 2 line is another. There are ups and downs to either approach and Magnezone [Plasma] is old enough to have been around for the BW-era First Turn Rules (T1 attacks allowed) and Pokémon Catcher pre-erratum (when it did not require a coin flip), though it was around after these changes as well. @_@
#2 is that few (if any) competitive decks arose that used Magnezone [Plasma] well. Even though it was legal when there were many, many potent Supporters. I list all the Supporters available in each of the two Standard Formats where Magnezone [Plasma] was legal. Since it gets pretty long, behind spoiler tags they go:
Bianca
Cheren
Cilan
Colress
Ghetsis
Hooligans Jim & Cas
Hugh
N
Professor Juniper
Shadow Triad
Skyla
Team Plasma Grunt
Note: Magnezone [Plasma] released in February of 2013, while Ghetsis and Shadow Triad released in May. That still meant at least two months (I think it was more like three) of overlap. Also, this Format would have been entirely under the BW-era First Turn rules (T1 attacks allowed) with a pre-erratum Pokémon Catcher (no coin flip to use it).
Bianca
Blacksmith
Caitlin
Cassius
Cedric Juniper
Cheren
Cilan
Colress
Elesa
Ghetsis
Hooligans Jim & Cas
Hugh
Iris
Lysandre
N
Pokémon Center Lady
Pokémon Fan Club
Professor Juniper
Professor Sycamore
Shadow Triad
Shauna
Skyla
Team Flare Grunt
Team Plasma Grunt
Note: about halfway through this Format is when the modern rule about "No Attacking T1" went into effect, as well as the erratum for Pokémon Catcher (causing it to require a flip to work).
Archie's Ace in the Hole
AZ
Battle Reporter
Bianca
Blacksmith
Caitlin
Cassius
Cedric Juniper
Cheren
Colress
Elesa
Fossil Researcher
Ghetsis
Hugh
Iris
Korina
Lysandre
Lysandre's Trump Card
Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick
N
Pokémon Center Lady
Pokémon Fan Club
Professor Birch's Observations
Professor Juniper
Professor Sycamore
Shadow Triad
Shauna
Skyla
Steven
Team Aqua Admin
Team Aqua Grunt
Team Flare Grunt
Team Magma Admin
Team Magma Grunt
Team Plasma Grunt
Teammates
Tierno
Trevor
Wally
Winona
Xerosic
Note: Lysandre's Trump Card was banned in June of 1015, so it wasn't legal for the last few months of this format, so Supporters from XY - Roaring Skies (the final set released during this period) only had a few weeks to a month of overlap.
Very few of these were vanilla draw, whether of the straight or shuffle-and-draw varieties, though most were about some form of draw power (usually with costs or conditions) or search of some sort. While some of the disruption available was just bad (Hooligans Jim & Cas) or quite niche (Hugh), you still had Ghetsis and N right away. They were joined by some standouts like Team Flare Grunt, Lysandre, and Xerosic as they released. The rest of the cardpool featured some fantastic disruptive Item cards. If you put it all together, on paper it looks like Magnezone [Plasma] ought to have been great!
Now I come back to that first point again; running the Magnezone [Plasma] Evolution line proved too taxing, even though as long as you could keep a Magnezone [Plasma] in play, you enjoyed the power of double Supporters turn after turn. Lt. Surge's Battle just means running an extra Supporter but it also means you have to open with that Supporter and each copy of Lt. Surge's Battle is turn of using two other Supporters (give or take recycling effects). In both cases, having plenty of Supporters to combo together without them clutting your hand at the wrong time is a concern.
Edit: Oh yeah, and while writing this post (not the others) I'd forgotten that Lt. Surge's Battle required you have more Prizes remaining than your opponent. While technically a part of the first point, the "issue" with come-from-behind cards is almost worth an entirely separate thread. Then again, a double Teammates or double Iris wasn't enough to save Magnezone [Plasma].
I was talking primarily about BW-On. Virtually every deck played 4 Juniper, 4 N, 2 - 3 Cheren / Bianca, and some amount of Random Receiver for pretty much the entirety of BW-On (with Colress replacing Cheren / Bianca when it was released). Magnezone did nothing to change that. No one really played Ghetsis that much either, until we got VS Seeker. That's when players started taking these non-draw Supporters seriously because you could play just one copy and still have access to it when you needed it. We did eventually get some interesting Supporters later that, along with VS Seeker, might have made Magnezone worth consideration if we hadn't also gotten Shaymin which made decks less dependent on Supporter based draw, meaning you could just play Ultra Ball and Lysandre in lieu or Sycamore and Lysandre.
So, I already think that Lusamine is problem and needs an errata, not a ban. But Night Unison leaked 2 days ago, and I'm concerned for the game with Lt. Surge now. You can now Lt. Surge, Lusamine, get back Acerola and Surge/Lusamine and play Acerola. I'm not looking forward to this....
It will be interesting to see what the actual English version of the card will be... If it remains as is, expect to pay "big" bucks for that Supporter too.
I was talking primarily about BW-On. Virtually every deck played 4 Juniper, 4 N, 2 - 3 Cheren / Bianca, and some amount of Random Receiver for pretty much the entirety of BW-On (with Colress replacing Cheren / Bianca when it was released). Magnezone did nothing to change that. No one really played Ghetsis that much either, until we got VS Seeker. That's when players started taking these non-draw Supporters seriously because you could play just one copy and still have access to it when you needed it. We did eventually get some interesting Supporters later that, along with VS Seeker, might have made Magnezone worth consideration if we hadn't also gotten Shaymin which made decks less dependent on Supporter based draw, meaning you could just play Ultra Ball and Lysandre in lieu or Sycamore and Lysandre.
We're coming to similar conclusions but by very different routes.
I remember the Supporter line-up in competitive decks differently than you do; small difference, but it matters because of how it changes things. Cheren was dropped for Bianca almost right away, and Bianca was dumped for more Random Receiver. Prior to BW - Boundaries Crossed, 3-4 N, 3-4 Professor Juniper, and 3-4 Random Receiver (totally 10-12 slots) was the norm. Skyla joined the ranks, and decks had to choose; the surprising reliability of Random Receiver when it was only "picking" between two different targets or Skyla for precision search of potent Item cards... because at this time the game had a lot of them and just kept getting more. In the end, I believe Skyla or taking the risk and running both Skyla and Random Receiver won out, until Colress released and it finally made Random Receiver a less common play. Throughout this entire period, Tropical Beach was useful for augmenting certain decks.
Magnezone [Plasma] did not change this, but it wasn't because there weren't enough useful bits of disruption. It is because the simpler model was better. It was better because N and Professor Juniper are and were ridiculously good. Combined with potent Basic attackers that could function well even with a single Energy attachment and arguably more ridiculously potent Item cards, and it was clear; pack your deck full of cards you could quickly play out for even a mild advantage, then refill your hand and (maybe) do it again before attacking.
No Stage 2 Pokémon liked this; but a few found decks which were potent enough to still compete or even dominate the metagame. Now we come to Magnezone [Plasma]. Magnezone wasn't big enough to survive your opponent's first turn, so even if you went first you'd be down a Prize (and need two Magnemite to assure you'd have a chance to Evolve). With your main draw power being N or Professor Juniper, you might be forced to shuffle away or discard copies of Rare Candy or Magnezone [Plasma]. If you just stuck to the traditional Supporter line-up, you basically sacrificed a lot of the room you needed for better attackers or Energy or useful Items. Not really worth it, just to pull off a Skyla into a Professor Juniper or other combos that are "simple" when you can play two Supporters in one turn. You could eat up further space running other Supporters, but then you risked "tripping" over them when Hooligans Jim & Cas or Shadow Triad showed up at the wrong time... and possibly having to toss them all for a badly needed use of Professor Juniper.
Here's the thing... it isn't that the available Supporters were "weak" it is that N and Professor Juniper were that strong and the game's overall pacing that fast. We received VS Seeker before we got Shaymin-EX (ROS). Most decks weren't freeing up their Supporter by using a Pokémon effect, the changes to the first turn rules and shifting cardpool just slowed things down enough that, especially with VS Seeker, disruption both old and new could finally hold a candle to Item-based disruption. It still wasn't enough, though because... using two Supporters in a single turn is good, but not to the point that it was worth an entire Stage 2 line in Rare Candy (post-errata) world.
Which brings us to Lt. Surge's Battle. No we are only paying a Supporter to use two more Supporters but it only works when we have more Prize cards left than our opponent and Lt. Surge's Battle has to be the first of the three Supporters we play. If you use Cynthia and then draw into Lt. Surge's Battle, no dice. First turn opens? You'll need a Basic capable of "suiciding" itself (are there any?). Standard doesn't have VS Seeker; PalPad is handy but it ain't the same thing. Lusamine means we're using a complex combo to be a VS Seeker (plus bonus Supporter recycling, true). For Lusamine to really be a problem, I think it'll need some truly sick combo. Something that essentially wins the game, and is a serious risk as soon as you (the player facing the Lt. Surge's Battle combo) can stumble into even if you've only taken one Prize.
TL;DR: Yeah Magnezone [Plasma] never amounted to anything; it released at a time that was terrible for Stage 2 Pokémon and when the two primary draw Supporters were leaps and bounds beyond everything else... and also less friendly to Stage 2 Pokémon. Things got better, but not enough to really make having both the space for a Stage 2 Pokémon and the additional Supporters to make good use of two per turn better than either default approach.
We're coming to similar conclusions but by very different routes.
I remember the Supporter line-up in competitive decks differently than you do; small difference, but it matters because of how it changes things. Cheren was dropped for Bianca almost right away, and Bianca was dumped for more Random Receiver. Prior to BW - Boundaries Crossed, 3-4 N, 3-4 Professor Juniper, and 3-4 Random Receiver (totally 10-12 slots) was the norm. Skyla joined the ranks, and decks had to choose; the surprising reliability of Random Receiver when it was only "picking" between two different targets or Skyla for precision search of potent Item cards... because at this time the game had a lot of them and just kept getting more. In the end, I believe Skyla or taking the risk and running both Skyla and Random Receiver won out, until Colress released and it finally made Random Receiver a less common play. Throughout this entire period, Tropical Beach was useful for augmenting certain decks.
Magnezone [Plasma] did not change this, but it wasn't because there weren't enough useful bits of disruption. It is because the simpler model was better. It was better because N and Professor Juniper are and were ridiculously good. Combined with potent Basic attackers that could function well even with a single Energy attachment and arguably more ridiculously potent Item cards, and it was clear; pack your deck full of cards you could quickly play out for even a mild advantage, then refill your hand and (maybe) do it again before attacking.
No Stage 2 Pokémon liked this; but a few found decks which were potent enough to still compete or even dominate the metagame. Now we come to Magnezone [Plasma]. Magnezone wasn't big enough to survive your opponent's first turn, so even if you went first you'd be down a Prize (and need two Magnemite to assure you'd have a chance to Evolve). With your main draw power being N or Professor Juniper, you might be forced to shuffle away or discard copies of Rare Candy or Magnezone [Plasma]. If you just stuck to the traditional Supporter line-up, you basically sacrificed a lot of the room you needed for better attackers or Energy or useful Items. Not really worth it, just to pull off a Skyla into a Professor Juniper or other combos that are "simple" when you can play two Supporters in one turn. You could eat up further space running other Supporters, but then you risked "tripping" over them when Hooligans Jim & Cas or Shadow Triad showed up at the wrong time... and possibly having to toss them all for a badly needed use of Professor Juniper.
Here's the thing... it isn't that the available Supporters were "weak" it is that N and Professor Juniper were that strong and the game's overall pacing that fast. We received VS Seeker before we got Shaymin-EX (ROS). Most decks weren't freeing up their Supporter by using a Pokémon effect, the changes to the first turn rules and shifting cardpool just slowed things down enough that, especially with VS Seeker, disruption both old and new could finally hold a candle to Item-based disruption. It still wasn't enough, though because... using two Supporters in a single turn is good, but not to the point that it was worth an entire Stage 2 line in Rare Candy (post-errata) world.
Which brings us to Lt. Surge's Battle. No we are only paying a Supporter to use two more Supporters but it only works when we have more Prize cards left than our opponent and Lt. Surge's Battle has to be the first of the three Supporters we play. If you use Cynthia and then draw into Lt. Surge's Battle, no dice. First turn opens? You'll need a Basic capable of "suiciding" itself (are there any?). Standard doesn't have VS Seeker; PalPad is handy but it ain't the same thing. Lusamine means we're using a complex combo to be a VS Seeker (plus bonus Supporter recycling, true). For Lusamine to really be a problem, I think it'll need some truly sick combo. Something that essentially wins the game, and is a serious risk as soon as you (the player facing the Lt. Surge's Battle combo) can stumble into even if you've only taken one Prize.
TL;DR: Yeah Magnezone [Plasma] never amounted to anything; it released at a time that was terrible for Stage 2 Pokémon and when the two primary draw Supporters were leaps and bounds beyond everything else... and also less friendly to Stage 2 Pokémon. Things got better, but not enough to really make having both the space for a Stage 2 Pokémon and the additional Supporters to make good use of two per turn better than either default approach.
