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Shiftry banned from Expanded format in TCG: Next Destinies card deemed to promote und

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BulbaBot

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Shiftry banned from Expanded format in TCG: Next Destinies card deemed to promote undesirable ...

The Next Destinies card Shiftry has been banned from the Expanded format in the Pokémon Trading Card Game.

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The Outrage

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Re: Shiftry banned from Expanded format in TCG: Next Destinies card deemed to promote

Its good that they made this move, but its a bit reactionary. A better move would have been to make sure that the Pokemon affected by GPF were Pokemon evolving into grass types. Shiftry on its own isn't even playable.

Though maybe they should have been smart and not made GPF in the first place
 

PaulTheProtist

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Re: Shiftry banned from Expanded format in TCG: Next Destinies card deemed to promote

Which is why the expanded format will one day fail. Look at unlimited - all the donk and lock decks make an undesirable playing environment, and at this point, it would practically be impossible to control the chaos. To fully eliminate all known donk and lock decks, fifty cards or more would have to be banned. Then people will discover new donk and lock decks, and people who had strategies that involved banned cards that weren't donks or locks would be angry their favorite card is banned. Then rinse and repeat. And that's why expanded will fall apart in 5-10 years. The writers are actually pretty good at keeping the game somewhat balanced (at least against locks and donks)(aside from the occasional bout of stupidity like Lysandre's Trump Card) in Standard. But in the long term? Balance can be difficult if not outright impossible.

Though maybe they should have been smart and not made GPF in the first place


It's an effort to make evolved Pokémon more viable in an EX dominated era. FF Shiftry (no, not the one that was banned) could really benefit from cards like GPF and Clear Skyfield. It's like when Broken Time Space was released in an SP dominated era and made decks like Mother Flygon viable, and how Spirit Link was made to buff M-Pokémon EX. The latter didn't really work though, as most if not all M-Pokémon EX still suck. A good example would be the Dragon-type Mega Rayquaza from Roaring Skies - even with Double Dragon energy, there is no conceivable way Mega Rayquaza could pick up six prize cards unless he manages to knock out 3 Pokémon EX. I guess you could make a point about pairing him with another attacker, but considering you need 13-16 cards to run a M-Rayquaza EX (3-4 Rayquaza EX, 3-4 Rayquaza Spirit Link, 3-4 M-Rayquaza EX, and 4 Double Dragon Energy), the card is too inefficient to be viable.
 
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SnorlaxMonster

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Re: Shiftry banned from Expanded format in TCG: Next Destinies card deemed to promote

Which is why the expanded format will one day fail. Look at unlimited - all the donk and lock decks make an undesirable playing environment, and at this point, it would practically be impossible to control the chaos. To fully eliminate all known donk and lock decks, fifty cards or more would have to be banned. Then people will discover new donk and lock decks, and people who had strategies that involved banned cards that weren't donks or locks would be angry their favorite card is banned. Then rinse and repeat. And that's why expanded will fall apart in 5-10 years. The writers are actually pretty good at keeping the game somewhat balanced (at least against locks and donks)(aside from the occasional bout of stupidity like Lysandre's Trump Card) in Standard. But in the long term? Balance can be difficult if not outright impossible.
The game designers are clearly focused on the Standard format (since they're Japanese, and Japan doesn't have an Expanded format). I imagine TCPi is starting to use bans again in the Expanded format because they see that the new cards aren't designed thinking about rotated-out cards, so there are going to be broken interactions. More bans are going to happen in the future, but I don't see that as a bad thing, nor do I think that it's going to spell the end of the Expanded format.
 

Yoshi1001

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Re: Shiftry banned from Expanded format in TCG: Next Destinies card deemed to promote

I suspect that at some point they'll move the baseline for expanded forward, which should help.
 
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