Misstep in Boundaries Crossed Release

[Tapin]

Bottom line: Pokémon produced a set for the first in a long time that had me get everything I needed already from the secondary market alone, rather than buying their packs.

I feel the same way -- the combination of the increased prerelease cost and the removal of cards I was looking forward to from the set has me second-guessing my prerelease plans and regretting the box I preordered. I'll probably end up buying DEX packs (or DRV blisters) when I go to league after the official release.

The prerelease thing is somewhat ironic, since if nothing else this should be a much better drafting set than DRX.

 

[Magmortar]

Oh my god! I can't believe they made a set like this! Ether, Bicycle, Virbank Gym, and Escape Rope were the only cards in the set that were playable. This is HORRIBLE. I would rather lose all my cards than to buy this set. I hate you TPCi.

Next time they make a set like this, I will kill myself.

 

[Aron Figaro]

The last set I recommended people buy packs from was Dark Explorers; with all the cuts, and all the new chaff in the rare slots, this set is going to be a total flop. I don't know if I'd compare it to Call of Legends, but it's another Emerging Powers for sure.

 

[cmak37]

I honestly don't think this set will be nearly as bad as people are making it out to be. It's not going to be anywhere near emerging powers bad, that's for sure. I definitely would have loved to be getting ether and bicycle, but I still think it's going to be a pretty good set. Skyla, Blastoise, Keldeo, Landorus, Computer Search, Ditto, and Cresselia are all very good cards that will be coming in this set. We'll also be getting some very playable FA supporters. As long as this set has some decent pull rates, I think it won't be bad at all.

 

[losjackal]

regretting the box I preordered.

Can't you cancel a preorder?

 

[raxl]

Can't you cancel a preorder?

Depends where you preorder it from. I preorder from a seller on ebay --- I get a good price but I can't cancel it. I'd never wanted to before, so it hadn't occured to me to value that in choosing a preorder venue. Oops.

 

[psychup2034]

By definition, the game designers have more foresight than any player, because they see more things than just the cards being released in Japan. So perhaps they do see it, and other factors have to influence their decisions.

Actions speak louder than words. By taking the action of removing Ether, Bicycle, and to a lesser extent, Escape Rope from Boundaries crossed, someone at TPCi demonstrated a lack of foresight into how their decisions would affect the metagame.

They may actually have foresight, but their actions clearly demonstrate to the player base that they are not using they foresight they do have to make good decisions, especially with respect to shaping a metagame that the Japanese card designers had created.

 

[Team CREAM]

Ether would've been terrible for the format. But cutting Virbank, Bicycle, and Escape Rope is pretty lame. Virbank makes sense, I guess, since the next set *probably* has that poison gun thing. But why replace Bicycle and Escape Rope with bad cards? Bicycle would've been great, as it is draw in the form of an Item. Ho-Oh, Darkrai, Eelektrik, and other decks could easily use it. Escape Rope is okay.

 

[cabd]

Ether would've been terrible for the format. But cutting Virbank, Bicycle, and Escape Rope is pretty lame. Virbank makes sense, I guess, since the next set *probably* has that poison gun thing. But why replace Bicycle and Escape Rope with bad cards? Bicycle would've been great, as it is draw in the form of an Item. Ho-Oh, Darkrai, Eelektrik, and other decks could easily use it. Escape Rope is okay.

Although you're being sarcastic, you're very close to being right.

TPCi is certainly considering what cards they have to slot into sets in the future, but TPCi is staggering along blindly with no foresight of the detriment to the health of the metagame caused by omitting certain cards that are instead slot into future sets.

However, it does seem like some people on these forums stagger along blindly in their defense of TPCi.

I think having these cards pushed back is not as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. It's not like these were the only playable cards in the set; far from it in fact. The format is still going to be shaken up a bit. Pokemon almost always holds a few cards back from an upcoming set anyway, this is nothing new.

That said, I would have liked to see these cards. But what can you do?

And this is why in the end, I'm willing to accept TCPI's decision. Some people want all the cards in, some want only some of them pushed back, some of them are okay with them all getting moved back. The
"Health" of the game is purely subjective at this point.

Hey, now the "Good" players don't have to complain about losing to "scrubs who netdeck Japan" because we have our own format.

 

[espeon200]

They may actually have foresight, but their actions clearly demonstrate to the player base that they are not using they foresight they do have to make good decisions, especially with respect to shaping a metagame that the Japanese card designers had created.

How do we know that TPCi didn't have the oversight of the card creators with their release schedule? This is as much speculation as your post, but the Japanese card creators have had months to see how the cards they designed have actually impacted the metagame. What if this were a decision made by the card creators to balance things out until the counter cards from a later set were released at the same time?

I understand your frustration. I'm frustrated too. But I still wonder how much say so Pokemon Japan has over TPCi's set releases.

 

[Glaceon]

Whether or not it's a poor decision, an accidental mistake, or some impressive foresight somebody had behind the scenes who is secretly saving us from what we thought would be a good format, it doesn't really matter to me. Bottom line: Pokémon produced a set for the first in a long time that had me get everything I needed already from the secondary market alone, rather than buying their packs.

I agree. If those trainers would have came out I probably would have gone to the PR.

 

[StormFront]

I honestly don't think this set will be nearly as bad as people are making it out to be. It's not going to be anywhere near emerging powers bad, that's for sure.

I would say this set is much worse than Emerging Powers and thats because it had proportionally more playable cards compared to Boundaries Crossed. These cards either were playable at some point or have become more playable...

Beartic,Bianca,Cheren, Crushing Hammer, Gothitelle, Liliigant, Max Potion, Pokemon Catcher, Recycle, Virizion, Thunderous, Tornadus, Thunderous FA, Tornadus FA

The set had 98 cards and 18 of them could be featured in winning decks at some point (I've included the evolutions as well). So that means 18% of the set has some value to the player base. You'd be lucky if 5% of Boundaries crossed is playable, and its made even worse when everything with the exception of Skyla is ultra rare. So whats the point of a player even considering buying a box or pack?

 

[Bigbowlr1037]

I would say this set is much worse than Emerging Powers and thats because it had proportionally more playable cards compared to Boundaries Crossed. These cards either were playable at some point or have become more playable...

Beartic,Bianca,Cheren, Crushing Hammer, Gothitelle, Liliigant, Max Potion, Pokemon Catcher, Recycle, Virizion, Thunderous, Tornadus, Thunderous FA, Tornadus FA

The set had 98 cards and 18 of them could be featured in winning decks at some point (I've included the evolutions as well). So that means 18% of the set has some value to the player base. You'd be lucky if 5% of Boundaries crossed is playable, and its made even worse when everything with the exception of Skyla is ultra rare. So whats the point of a player even considering buying a box or pack?

I disagree. Yes NOW EPO has alot of good stuff. But go back to its release. The cards we were talking about were catcher beartic gothitelle and tonadus. Max potion was a card people wanted to be good but needed the right partners(which werent released til NVI eelektrik). The rest of your list were maybe cards. We cant judge BC the same as EPO now because EPO has been out for a year.

 

[Aron Figaro]

How do we know that TPCi didn't have the oversight of the card creators with their release schedule? This is as much speculation as your post, but the Japanese card creators have had months to see how the cards they designed have actually impacted the metagame. What if this were a decision made by the card creators to balance things out until the counter cards from a later set were released at the same time?

I understand your frustration. I'm frustrated too. But I still wonder how much say so Pokemon Japan has over TPCi's set releases.

That got discussed in a series of editorials in Guild a couple years ago. TPCi barely talks to Japan as far as rules development and metagame maintenance goes, and they only employ product management and translation staff over here, not developers, last I know. That's why the whole private-zone ruling for things like Roast Reveal, Terrakion EX, and Smeargle + Engineer's Adjustments took so long to resolve. If the Rules Team had ANY development support at all, it would've been one email back to Japan, and bam, done 3 years ago. There's no reason for that barrier, except for a simple one: this game isn't serious enough to warrant that kind of development. Given the set release rate in Japan, and the number of obvious chaff cards in a set, they could be (and probably are) running with a team as small as one developer and one tester who doubles as technical writer. Obviously this does not include the art team; I haven't bothered looking at the card artists lately to know if they're contracting or have a small group of in-house artists.

TL;DR: This is all because Pokemon isn't developed as seriously as, say, Magic is. The competitive community just has very high expectations for what I suspect to be a very underfunded team.

 

[ApachePrime]

That got discussed in a series of editorials in Guild a couple years ago. TPCi barely talks to Japan as far as rules development and metagame maintenance goes, and they only employ product management and translation staff over here, not developers, last I know. That's why the whole private-zone ruling for things like Roast Reveal, Terrakion EX, and Smeargle + Engineer's Adjustments took so long to resolve. If the Rules Team had ANY development support at all, it would've been one email back to Japan, and bam, done 3 years ago. There's no reason for that barrier, except for a simple one: this game isn't serious enough to warrant that kind of development. Given the set release rate in Japan, and the number of obvious chaff cards in a set, they could be (and probably are) running with a team as small as one developer and one tester who doubles as technical writer. Obviously this does not include the art team; I haven't bothered looking at the card artists lately to know if they're contracting or have a small group of in-house artists.

TL;DR: This is all because Pokemon isn't developed as seriously as, say, Magic is. The competitive community just has very high expectations for what I suspect to be a very underfunded team.

Except we know for a fact that you are wrong. Pokemon Card lab was about 20 people, and was absorbed into Pokemon directly. We know for a fact at least 10 people work on development and testing, most likely as a full time employee.

 

[deckmaster]

In all honesty the Pokemon TCG is considerably flawed. The main fact of the matter is that we (the United States players and everyone who gets the set after that) are to an extent mirroring the Japanese meta-game. What we need is a worldwide release date and be on the same page from the sets release. Heck, while we are on the topic, why not add more cards and strategies?

The lesson to be learned: communication is vital to the success of a company.

 

[Otaku]

I must confess (or is that advocate) that I believe the Japan/Rest-of-the-world divide creates ample opportunity for all sides to make poor decisions: Japan's tournament structure is different enough from ours to make a significant amount of difference.

I also wouldn't sell some players short; the same logic that explains why even as we disagree we should respect the developers of the game (I never said I was good at it, just that I ought to be doing it) extends to the players as well. Someone who has only worked on the game for a year may have less knowledge than a 10 year veteran player. A world champion level player, especially one who knows business as well as Pokémon, can easily have greater insight still.

Those who make the game know more than we can about the business angle, because they are privy to information we are not. Those on the player end of it see the actual results, often first hand. I mean, employees can't be working for Pokémon and also playing competitively, so it isn't like they have 40+ hours a week of experience on the "business" side of the game while similarly cashing in 40 hours a week on the TCG angle, let alone the competitive TCG aspect.

 

[GodBlessAmerica]

it does seem like some people on these forums stagger along blindly in their defense of TPCi.

This is what makes me truly hate this website

 

[Kayle]

You'd be lucky if 5% of Boundaries crossed is playable

Challenge accepted.

Keldeo and Landorus - which occupy two card slots each - are obviously good.

Potion is good, whether or not we already have it.

Two of the Ace Specs are good. According to Japan, Black Kyurem (and its associated Ace Spec, no doubt) are also good. Black Kyurem has two prints.

Skyla's two prints are good.

The FAs of Cheren and Bianca are good.

Town Map is good.

Blastoise's full line (3 cards) is good.

Terrakion is good.

There are numerous stage 2s worthy of experimentation, primarily Dusknoir, Blastoise, Vileplume, and Charizard. Audino, Hugh, and Ditto also are all options worthy of closer examination than they have received. Upset about receiving a reprint of a playable card you already have (Cheren/Bianca/Terrakion)? Their trade value is likely to be triple if not more. Get more playable cards for them from people like me who are suckers for pretty cards.

I have always been confused about why people are so upset about BCR. I remain just as confused. The set seems awesome and I am happy to be getting a box of it.

 

[GodBlessAmerica]

The black kyurem ex in the set is not good, the good black kyurem ex that is decent is the one with Black Ballista, which we won't be getting til February (maybe even may)