Zoroark, Zorua from “Night Wanderer”

[Charmaster:)]

This is a lot of arguing on a post about such a cute illustration art.

There's been some arguing, yes, but there's also been some discussion.

It seems like the one struggling with the term Rule box is you not gonna lie. Do not insult the kids intelligence it really isnt the hardest concept to grasp. Cards that have "stop effects of attacks" or "ignore any effects on your opponent's Active Pokémon" seem to be harder for players to understand for any age from what Ive personally have seen. Idk its just hard to understand that Zoroark and Lana for example, these are very deliberate choices, I just dont feel theres a randomness to it, they choose what they think is best, again, wether you agree or not it was the best and regardless of their motive at large

Yes, the two examples you named are ones that many people struggle with even after they have been playing the game casually for many years. I wouldn't say Yaginku is insulting the intelligence of kids, though. One point worth considering is how many rules many kids actually learn when they start playing the game casually. I saw the rules booklet that came with my friend's Chien-Pao ex deck, and it was surprisingly bare-bones (even the "advanced steps" felt like extremely fundamental game rules). The playmats that came with the XY era theme decks I remembered learning to play with were more detailed, but they couldn't hold a candle up to the Legends Awakened theme deck rules book that I got along with someone's collection. That rulebook was packed with rules I never learned from the playmats, possessed many cross-generational interactions (the only features of any older era featured on the XY playmats were free attacks, which required them to use Magby from Call of Legends as an example), and it even had a small compendium at the back (It also had an advert for the Play! Pokémon program of the time, which mentioned events like Battle Roads and Nationals which no longer exist).

I doubt the children of today are less intelligent than those of the XY era (at least I can't think of evidence to that conclusion), but for whatever reason, Pokémon is providing fewer and fewer rules in the instruction booklets to their entry-level decks, meaning that children who want to thoroughly understand the game will have to resort more and more to searching for additional sources. I'm not sure how many will.

How does this apply to the discussion about the intelligence of children? It shows that Pokémon has seen a need for simplifying the TCG experience, regardless of whether the average child has actually become less intelligent since 2014 or 2007.

Let's say a new player who has only read the rulebook from an ex Battle Deck reads the effect of Lana, which mentions "Pokémon with a Rulebox." This statement is followed by the clarification "(Pokémon ex, Pokémon V, etc., have a Rule Box). This player has a deck containing an ex, a V, and a Radiant Pokémon (Probably Radiant Charjabug). They may notice that the box on the Radiant Pokémon is titled "Radiant Pokémon Rule" and lump it in with the ex and the V, they may assume single prize Pokémon with a box saying "gimmick Pokémon rule" were excluded from the clarifying statement on purpose, or they may just not notice. Will the new player just look up the answer online? Other people will know the answer better than I will. And are there better solutions than simplifying the rulebook and using "Rulebox" few and far between? Several. But I thought this trend of slimming down the rulebooks might be relevant to the conversation.

 

[ShinxieDim]

This card seems just alright, DAA Golisopod was basically the same thing and it wasn't ever too good from what I can remember, even at the height of an abysmal format where Tag Teams and Vs obliterated everything.

Just for my two pennies on this topic, i think the problem is that the "Rule Box" term assumes that all rule boxes are equally powerful and require equal restrictions. This isn't true at all though, cards like prism stars and radiants are too strong to be, say, searched with Artazon, but punishing them with attacks and effects on the same level as ex cards would be overkill. And who knows what other kinds of rule box pokemon we'll see in the future.

IMO the solution is what kourasmeni said, there should be a term specifically for multiprize pokemon. It might be kinda difficult for new players to understand the difference between that and the rule box term, but I think radiants/prism stars/regular stars add more to the game than they take away so.... it is what it is.

 

[Errffy Jones]

Can't wait until we get matazo and REND SARs! Such a cool fresh take on how to depict pokemon

 

[Yaginku]

Not to be super reductive about it all,

Then don't be, as you've tried nothing but being combative on a topic you don't seem to have much knowledge on. I found that a lot of people who want to argue about the "subjectivity" of design simply want to use it to sneak in their own idea unchallenged - not to mention that entire topic of rigid "subjective vs objective" distinction should be left in the 8th grade classroom.
There's really no point continuing this discussion beyond anything that has already been said. You are free to believe whatever you want to believe.

 

[LOTTEN]

Then don't be, as you've tried nothing but being combative on a topic you don't seem to have much knowledge on. I found that a lot of people who want to argue about the "subjectivity" of design simply want to use it to sneak in their own idea unchallenged - not to mention that entire topic of rigid "subjective vs objective" distinction should be left in the 8th grade classroom.
There's really no point continuing this discussion beyond anything that has already been said. You are free to believe whatever you want to believe.

Of course. Your ideas should not be permitted to be "snuck in unchallenged" either, no matter how much you seem to dislike someone challenging them and want to posture your way out of the sticky expectation of actually addressing any sincere refutations of what you're saying.

 

[DarkPatchTCG]

keep in mind that anyone can at any time make the decision to refer to themselves as a game designer regardless of merit and multiple people have made entire careers off of speaking from the unearned authority labeling oneself that way got them. but more importantly, i think the response you received questioning your foresight as someone who at least after the fact claims to have a game design background might have to do with your myopia when it comes to this particular topic. the answer to the question of "why don't they use a much broader umbrella term for this attack than the more specific one" is quite simply that they wanted to use more specific targets for the effect instead of the broader umbrella term. it isn't a failing or a mistake when the card R&D make a decision to not use the broadest or most infinitely convenient effect text on a card, in fact. it's probably on purpose, and coming to understand why one might make such a decision on purpose or even, god forbid, why every card revealed might not be the most powerful or open-ended possible version of itself one can imagine is probably going to help ground and strengthen your "game designer" perspective going forward.


as unlikely as it is (sadly) i would really prefer if lowercase-ex weren't retired for a much longer time because they're inevitably going to be retired in favor of uppercase-EX-styled fully-evolved big basics again, which we are almost finally rid of (again).

Give this guy the award

 

[frixam]

Then don't be, as you've tried nothing but being combative on a topic you don't seem to have much knowledge on. I found that a lot of people who want to argue about the "subjectivity" of design simply want to use it to sneak in their own idea unchallenged - not to mention that entire topic of rigid "subjective vs objective" distinction should be left in the 8th grade classroom.
There's really no point continuing this discussion beyond anything that has already been said. You are free to believe whatever you want to believe.

The lack of self awareness is off the charts

 

[TheRainmaker]

After they introduced the "Rulebox" phrasing, I kinda hate cards with planned obsolescence like this now.... that said, it might have been worth playing if Zoroark box was still in rotation. I also don't see myself running it in Expanded Zoroark box (would rather run a copy of the Foul Play one if I'm subbing a Phantom Transformation one out).

 

[axelfure]

Because Radiant pokémon are also Rule Box pokémon. And who knows, maybe we'll get other single-prize-rule-box pokémon once they rotate which they also don't want to include.

This card still wouldn't be good if it included Radient Pokemon/any new single prize rule-boxers. The multiplier is just too low.

 

[Owbione]

 

[MagnaDrake]

No yeah, while I don't agree with much of Yaginiku's opinion, I do agree on the part that this should just say Rule Box. They have the term for it, have used it on plenty of cards across two blocks. I would understand if it just says ex because that would support the notion of 'narrowing valid targets intentionally', and also because Vs are rotating in a year or so. This type of wording is strange, because they clearly want to have Zoroark to be a multiprizer hate card, since it hits both types that currently exists in standard, yet once the next relevant Rule Box card that isn't ex comes out, the card becomes obsolete like many of its kind. Even if you argue that it's to allow future single prize Rule Box cards, it's not like normal single prize Pokemon hitting for 200+ damage is a rarity anymore. There's a Scizor that can hit for 310 for god's sake.

The one thing I can think of that supports not printing it to generally target Rule Box is that they don't want to accidentally break Expanded, but come on now.

 

[PkmnMstr10]

While I get the beef going on here and understand the desire to simplify terminology and whatnot, it does seem like the intent for these attacks is to specifically target the multi-prize Pokémon moreso than containing their usefulness to a certain era of Standard rotation.

 

[tol89]

Can't wait until we get matazo and REND SARs! Such a cool fresh take on how to depict pokemon

Indifferent on RENd. While I always like the Pokemon itself , the bg on this one seems kinda empty and uninteresting compared to let’s say cutiefly

 

[LightYearLiam]

Having a term for multiprize Pokemon would be great, but this is fine. I don't think it's a huge deal; I appreciate not wanting to punish Radiants or other single-prize Rule Boxers.

Anyway, this Zoroark is OK in terms of game design and might be OK in the meta at some point. It's nothing special, but it's decent. And all the art is good. Honestly, I think it would've been funny and cool if they had just reprinted Phantom Transformation, but I get that's not really how they do things.