Celestial Storm Brings Back Friends From the Past

[PokePop]

PokePop submitted a new front page post

Celestial Storm Brings Back Friends From the Past

The newest Pokemon TCG release, with Prereleases being held this last weekend and next, is Celestial Storm. And it is blast from the past, featuring new takes on cards from sets dating back to the e-series. A lot of the Pokemon cards feature the same art as older cards, but each one has been updated, either with more HP, stronger versions of their attacks, or sometimes just with changed Weaknesses.

There was ONE Pokemon card, however, that many players were anticipating would be identical in Game terms to the original print, and that is Dunsparce. Unfortunately, in the new print, there is a clause in the Strike and Run attack which requires the player to have put a Pokemon from the search onto the Bench in order to then Switch Dunsparce. Since that clause is not in the original print from Sandstorm, the old copy of the card will not be legal to play in Standard or Expanded. It is not an exact reprint.

So, while none of the Pokemon from the set are exact Game Play reprints of many of the older cards, many of the Trainers found in the set are exact reprints, or identical in Game Play terms, and therefore will be playable.
BUT NOT ALL OF THEM!

We consulted with Pokemon Organized Play and R&D to get a definitive list of which original prints of the Trainers from the set are playable and which ones are not. Most of the reprinted Trainers had identical game effects, however a couple of them had differences that were significant enough to keep them from being used in current formats.
To make this an easy reference for players and judges, we will list all of the Trainers below that have older prints and what their status is. We will also soon incorporate this information into our "Legal Card List" resources, found in links over on the right hand side of this page.
Reprinted Trainers from Celestial Storm





Trainer
Legal Prints
Notes


Acro Bike

Primal Clash 122/160



Apricorn Maker

No old prints are legal
The original version from Skyridge allows a search for all Trainers, not just Items



Bill's Maintenance

Expedition 137/165
FireRed LeafGreen 87/112
Crystal Guardians 71/100
OP Series 5 6/17
Some text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.


Copycat

Expedition 138/165
Team Rocket Returns 83/109
Dragon Frontiers 73/101
HeartGold SoulSilver 90/123
Call of Legends 77/95
Some text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.


Energy Recycle System

Dragon 84/97
Unseen Forces 81/115
Power Keepers 73/108
Text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.


Energy Switch

All of many, many versions
Commonly Reprinted


Fisherman

Skyridge 125/144
HeartGold SoulSilver 92/123
Breakthrough 136/162
Text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.


Friend Ball

No old prints are legal
The original version from Skyridge has a template that does not include all types of Pokemon, such as Restored Pokemon.


Life Herb

Platinum 108/127
Unleashed 79/95
The Prints from Hidden Legends and FRLG exclude a type of Pokemon from the effect and are therefore NOT legal



Lure Ball

Skyridge 128/144



PokéNav
No old prints are legal
The original version from Crystal Guardians has a template that does not include all types of Pokemon, such as Restored Pokemon.


Rare Candy

All of many, many versions
Commonly Reprinted and Errata allows old versions with different Game text


Super Scoop Up

All of many, many versions
Commonly Reprinted


Switch

All of many, many versions
Commonly Reprinted


TV Reporter

Dragon 88/97
Dragon Frontiers 82/101
OP Series 2 11/17
Text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.


Underground Expedition

Skyridge 140/144
Rising Rivals 97/111
Text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.


Rainbow Energy

All prints from Aquapolis and newer
Early versions (Team Rocket and WotC Promo) did 10 damage, rather than place 1 damage counter when attached, so those are not legal.

 

[The King Of Magikarps]

Im not sure why they didn't just errata the old cards to be updated with the newer text.

Some of my thoughts for some cards:

~Apricorn Maker is actually an extremely easy errata. Cards with "Ball" in their name have all been non-supporter trainers, excluding the two from Primal Clash where ball was used in the name of a supporter. (Source: https://pkmncards.com/?s=Ball&display=list&sort=date)
Since the ONLY change is ensuring players can only grab an item card and all cards from when Apricorn Maker was first released, where all trainers with ball in their name were non-supporter/non-stadium trainers, I feel strongly that at the very least old Apricorn Maker should be made legal for play. They have already confirmed you cant grab Bursting Balloon and the only card like that when Apricorn Maker was legal was Balloon Berry and back then you never were able to choose it for the effect of Apricorn Maker it would make the most sense to allow the old card.

Back when HGSS was released and introduced the new trainer breakdown I think POP turned all non-supporters/tools/stadiums from older sets into items as at the time card interactions had to be made uniform to make up for the introduction and to prevent confusion.

~Rainbow Energy I thought already had an errata that updated the older text to the new 1 damage counter. Players were required to have a reference card with them in order to use the old card ue to the update in card text, so this again makes no sense to me. Though I can understand some minor confusion this may incur.

~TV Reporter to me is a surprise as their is significant text changes that do affect how the card is played since the new card states that it cannot be played when your deck is empty and the original print allowed it be played even if you couldn't draw any cards from your deck.

~Life Herb kinda makes as many players will think that ex and EX are the same.

Overall though Im just glad to see a lot of older cards that I remember first being printed coming back into the game. Now about that Rocket's Admin

 

[Kooper Koushiro]

Why aren't PokéNav and Friend Ball (though Friend Ball calls out Baby as well) grandfathered in by this ruling?

Q. Can I use Celio's Network to search my deck for a Pokémon LV.X?
A. Yes, you can. Earlier card references of "Basic Pokémon or Evolution card" refers to Pokémon in general, which includes Pokémon LV.X. (May 10, 2007 PUI Rules Team)

My understanding would be that you could in fact Celio's Network for a LEGEND half or Restored Pokémon if you wish, as that is a "Pokémon in general" too.

Did this grandfather clause get erased in the transition from Compendium LvX to the current Compendium BW? Curious if it was intentionally removed or just something that got dropped because it wasn't relevant at the time the BW block began. Of course at the time also, all older print Trainers were legal and assumed to use the latest text...

As a side note, I'm very pleased the old Energy Recycle System is still legal--Unseen Forces has the one of the best reverse holo styles ever made.

-Kooper

 

[PokePop]

Im not sure why they didn't just errata the old cards to be updated with the newer text.

Some of my thoughts for some cards:

~Apricorn Maker is actually an extremely easy errata. Cards with "Ball" in their name have all been non-supporter trainers, excluding the two from Primal Clash where ball was used in the name of a supporter. (Source: https://pkmncards.com/?s=Ball&display=list&sort=date)
Since the ONLY change is ensuring players can only grab an item card and all cards from when Apricorn Maker was first released, where all trainers with ball in their name were non-supporter/non-stadium trainers, I feel strongly that at the very least old Apricorn Maker should be made legal for play. They have already confirmed you cant grab Bursting Balloon and the only card like that when Apricorn Maker was legal was Balloon Berry and back then you never were able to choose it for the effect of Apricorn Maker it would make the most sense to allow the old card.

Back when HGSS was released and introduced the new trainer breakdown I think POP turned all non-supporters/tools/stadiums from older sets into items as at the time card interactions had to be made uniform to make up for the introduction and to prevent confusion.

~Rainbow Energy I thought already had an errata that updated the older text to the new 1 damage counter. Players were required to have a reference card with them in order to use the old card ue to the update in card text, so this again makes no sense to me. Though I can understand some minor confusion this may incur.

~TV Reporter to me is a surprise as their is significant text changes that do affect how the card is played since the new card states that it cannot be played when your deck is empty and the original print allowed it be played even if you couldn't draw any cards from your deck.

~Life Herb kinda makes as many players will think that ex and EX are the same.

Overall though Im just glad to see a lot of older cards that I remember first being printed coming back into the game. Now about that Rocket's Admin

I have suggested issuing errata on some older cards to Pokemon. We'll see if they do that. I don't think it would be a very high priority to them though since the only effect would be to allow older players to "bling" out their decks with the older cards. But we'll see.
Regarding TV Reporter: You couldn't play the old one with an empty deck anyway, due to the meta ruling that you can't play a Trainer for no effect. The discard is seen as a cost, not an effect.
Rainbow Energy was never errata'd. Reference cards were allowed to be used years ago, but reference cards have not been allowed per the floor rules for a number of years now.
If any judge is allowing them, they need to be corrected.

 

[PokePop]

Why aren't PokéNav and Friend Ball (though Friend Ball calls out Baby as well) grandfathered in by this ruling?

My understanding would be that you could in fact Celio's Network for a LEGEND half or Restored Pokémon if you wish, as that is a "Pokémon in general" too.

Did this grandfather clause get erased in the transition from Compendium LvX to the current Compendium BW? Curious if it was intentionally removed or just something that got dropped because it wasn't relevant at the time the BW block began. Of course at the time also, all older print Trainers were legal and assumed to use the latest text...

As a side note, I'm very pleased the old Energy Recycle System is still legal--Unseen Forces has the one of the best reverse holo styles ever made.

-Kooper

Strictly speaking, you are correct. However, OP felt that, since so much time has passed since the old templating was used, that the text would be confusing to newer players.

 

[Kooper Koushiro]

Sorry for the delayed follow up.
Out of curiosity, was every printing of Poké Ball prior to Diamond & Pearl given an exemption from that feeling? I can understand if so (after all, it's Poké Ball!) but it's inconsistent with disallowing PokéNav and Friend Ball.

-Kooper

 

[PokePop]

I felt that if I brought that into the discussion with OP they might then decide to make old versions of Poke Ball unusable as well! So I left it alone.