Tego
New Member
Since I'll be temporarily moving to Japan in August, I've been looking for information about Japan's tournament format lately. It turned out I just didn't look very well, and that it could be found on the info page about Japan's Spring Battle Road (on the official Japanese website). On the topic about Japan's leagues, the question about their format and whether foreign cards can be used there was brought up again, and the topic went more and more off-topic (having less and less to do with Japanese Leagues), until I've now decided to create a new one. It was claimed in the previous topic that the Japanese format has been discussed on the 'Gym before, but I've never seen a single topic about it, so forgive me if there actually already have existed some. Here's the reply I planned to give the Japanese league topic before I decided to make it into an own topic:
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I finally found the part of www.pokemon-card-com that explains Japan's tournament format.
It answers both the question of using English cards and of which sets are allowed (proving me right). Let me translate for you all:
Tournament regulations
Nomination rounds
Deck size: 30 cards
Cards you may put in your deck: "Pokémon card game" series, "Pokémon card game ADV" series and all promo cards from these series.
*When cards share the same name, you may put a maximum of 2 of them into your deck. (Basic Energy cards are an exception)
*Cards in other languages than Japanese, proxy cards and cards that say "not tournament usable" can not be put into your deck.
*When cards are from other series than "Pokémon card game" series and "Pokémon card game ADV" series, you may not put them into your deck even if they share the same name as their newer versions. (You can't have cards with the yellow border in your deck)
[Now follows illustrations showing what they meant about yellow border, silver border is allowed, yellow border is not. Note that this not only affects Chickorita, which after all has different game mechanics, but also Potion! This is quite unlike the way we do it outside Japan.]
Apart from this, you must follow the newest version of the official rule book.
Final selection rounds (Playoff)
Deck size: 60 cards
Cards you may put in your deck: "Pokémon card game" series, "Pokémon card game ADV" series and all promo cards from these series.
*When cards share the same name, you may put a maximum of 4 of them into your deck. (Basic Energy cards are an exception)
The rest from now on is identical to the "nomination rounds" rules. In the end, there's a notice saying:
Battle form: single battle
(If anyone finds errors in my translation, please correct me. I'm learning the Japanese language at the moment and I'm far from fluent in it)
Some of the information revealed here should be very interesting. Japanese players have a MUCH bigger card pool than we have, they have remarkably less rotation of sets, and they have a totally different, and much more newbie-friendly, way of seeing whether a card is tournament legal or not. Silver or yellow border? Perfectly simple for even the freshest newbie. The downside is obviously that they can't play Base Set Potion, Expedition Copycat & Elm's Training Method etc.
--
I finally found the part of www.pokemon-card-com that explains Japan's tournament format.
It answers both the question of using English cards and of which sets are allowed (proving me right). Let me translate for you all:Tournament regulations
Nomination rounds
Deck size: 30 cards
Cards you may put in your deck: "Pokémon card game" series, "Pokémon card game ADV" series and all promo cards from these series.
*When cards share the same name, you may put a maximum of 2 of them into your deck. (Basic Energy cards are an exception)
*Cards in other languages than Japanese, proxy cards and cards that say "not tournament usable" can not be put into your deck.
*When cards are from other series than "Pokémon card game" series and "Pokémon card game ADV" series, you may not put them into your deck even if they share the same name as their newer versions. (You can't have cards with the yellow border in your deck)
[Now follows illustrations showing what they meant about yellow border, silver border is allowed, yellow border is not. Note that this not only affects Chickorita, which after all has different game mechanics, but also Potion! This is quite unlike the way we do it outside Japan.]
Apart from this, you must follow the newest version of the official rule book.
Final selection rounds (Playoff)
Deck size: 60 cards
Cards you may put in your deck: "Pokémon card game" series, "Pokémon card game ADV" series and all promo cards from these series.
*When cards share the same name, you may put a maximum of 4 of them into your deck. (Basic Energy cards are an exception)
The rest from now on is identical to the "nomination rounds" rules. In the end, there's a notice saying:
Battle form: single battle
(If anyone finds errors in my translation, please correct me. I'm learning the Japanese language at the moment and I'm far from fluent in it)
Some of the information revealed here should be very interesting. Japanese players have a MUCH bigger card pool than we have, they have remarkably less rotation of sets, and they have a totally different, and much more newbie-friendly, way of seeing whether a card is tournament legal or not. Silver or yellow border? Perfectly simple for even the freshest newbie. The downside is obviously that they can't play Base Set Potion, Expedition Copycat & Elm's Training Method etc.
