Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Misstep in Boundaries Crossed Release

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ryanvergel

ryanvergel

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Rumors have been spreading like wildfire.

Since the sets that pokemon releases are in alphabetical, one need only see 2 cards from a range to make certain assumptions about what cards can and can't be in the set. Since we have quite a few scans of cards, it is quite obvious that neither Ether, Escape Rope, Bicycle or Virbank City Gym will be in this set.

This is awful.

1. The set designers at Creatures create sets with a certain balance in mind. Not releasing certain cards is bad enough, but these cards were important ones. There was a lot of potential in each of these cards.
- Bicycle. A new engine assistance, and great addition to any deck running Skyla. Without this card, Skyla loses impact, and we have few creative options to make new, rogue decks.
- Escape Rope. We haven't had warp point in the format for a long time now, and many people were quite excited about this card. I know I was. It's a very skill intensive card. It is much more difficult to use than Switch, but it can provide much more flexibility and disruption. Having two options to remove your active pokemon without switching was going to be great. This also reduces Skyla's effectiveness.
- Ether. It's an obvious fact that the BDIFs all manipulate energy. If you want to be competitive, you need to have energy acceleration. This has been true since Eelektrik was introduced. CMT followed with celebi acceleration. Then Darkrai. We were supposed to have Ether, which could have opened the door for a possibly new BDIF/archetype deck. More importantly, it makes cards like Lunatone stupid. If they release Lunatone and no Ether, well, that's just silly.
- Virbank City Gym. Another card that could have allowed new rogue decks to come up, and possibly a new archetype/BDIF. Making poison do 30, and having another stadium would have been great for creativity. Cities format is usually one of the most fun because of how much openness there is in the format. The States sets are historically groundbreaking, but around Cities you often have the largest number of playable decks.

Losing these 4 sets disrupts the balance of the set's design. The set is no longer as balanced or cohesive in the card pool.
Why are we getting reprint after reprint of the same stupid cards. Another Potion? Another Rocky Helmet?


So, I feel this was a huge misstep for the brass. The set's balance was thrown off, there is going to be less creativity in the game, we get more useless reprints, and a less vibrant and healthy metagame.

All in all, this was an awful decision.


What are your thoughts?
 
I couldn't agree more, Ryan. Ether could've easily made some "lower tier" decks very good, and certainly made a lot more variety in the format. Bicycle and Virbank I'm not sure I agree as much, but they definitely have places. Why add Rocky Helmet and diminish the impact of having the shiny version in this set as well?

I don't see a reason for changing the sets, as it seems like a heavy-handed attempt to "balance" a format with more balance than ever(At least in the 3-4 years I've played). Definitely missed the mark.
 
As a general rule, they should try and mirror Japanese releases as much as possible. That was the format the cards were designed for, and that is the format they work best in.

I realise this is difficult as Japan has lots of different releases, while we get more or less everything in 4 big sets per year. I would be interested in knowing why those specific cards were held over though.
 
It sure looks like a misstep from here. I've been pretty unhappy about it, and trying to think about why they might have chosen to release the set this way. Here are a few that I've thought of:

  • They could be prioritizing having a slightly different format from Japan. This would also explain keeping Dragon Vault a separate set and releasing it after DRX, making our Battle Roads format slightly different from theirs (no First Ticket or Salamence, limited access to Rayquaza 128). This would have the downside of meaning the in-house testing from Japan wouldn't 100% apply, but would mean that copying Japanese decks would be less likely to work. If true, I think this is a really interesting goal, although I am unhappy that these particular cards are the ones that got pushed out.
  • They could believe that these new trainer cards really break the format and make it less interesting, and want to push them back to the next set where they are more balanced. This belief could be based on Japanese results, their own internal testing, or something else. My limited testing suggested Ether is pretty ridiculous, and maybe it's even more ridiculous than I think? If true, they might have made a right decision that we'll never get a chance to see is the right decision, or a wrong decision with good intentions.
  • They could be trying to keep the game as simple as possible for as long as possible in order to help new players. Perhaps where I see most metagame decks sharing 30-40 cards in common as a problem, they see it as beneficial, allowing new players time to learn how deckbuilding works? If true, I'm not sure that I agree with their goal, but admit pushing back these trainers spreads out the new engines offered by Skyla, Computer Search, Ether, Bicycle, &c. over multiple sets, which could benefit this goal.
  • They could be releasing these cards as theme deck only (or league promo only or something similar). If true, I'd roll my eyes at it a little bit, but you can bet I'd be buying theme decks, or going to league more, or what have you, which means at least in my case it would be an effective strategy. (I do still wish I could reduce my box preorder, but them's the breaks.)
  • They could have just chosen this arbitrarily: "Oh we have a bunch of trainers we want to fit in. Let's just push all the trainers back to the next set!" I don't think this is true, but if it is, it would be really disappointing.
  • There could be something I missed.

Spending a lot of time thinking about this is a little silly as there's nothing I can really do about it personally, but it helped me be less angry to think of potentially good reasons they might have made this decision, so I figured maybe it was worth sharing.
 
Read the whole thing before replying so it makes sense, but:

If they had cut ALL the B2W2 related cards Skyla/Hugh/Town Map/Ether/Virbank/Aspertia/etc it would've made more sense.

More sense in that they could have done a Dragon Vault styled set based on early cities of B2W2 or so that it all came up at once.

Why some appeared and some didn't I don't know? Admittedly #Spoiler Virbank is where you first see Team Plasma so the logic could have been there on holding Virbank over, but it's also the first time you and Hugh really get to do something aside from the obligatory "U haz PKMNZ two! Lets battlez!" in the opening town.

My worry is that as has been mentioned we face a CoL style set with mostly reprints but the six or so cut cards so you "have reason to buy it."

Also going to kick in with some of the added in cards they are common new format cards and if they do rotations something like:
2013-2014 NXD-On (Start of the EX era)
2014-2015 Boundaries Crossed-On (B2W2 Base set)

It would let some common cards stay in.
 
To be completely honest, it seems as if it might make more sense looking at it from what was included standpoint, rather than looking at what was omitted. In light of the old Computer Search ruling (how Base Set Comp. Searches are now unusable), and the statement that this same kind of ruling will continue in the future, it honestly makes sense that they are reprinting old staples. Super Rod and Exp. Share were reprinted in Dragon Vault. Potion, Energy Search, Great Ball, Pokeball, Potion, Rocky Helmet, and Switch are being reprinted in Boundaries Crossed. Eviolite, having been reprinted in one of the releases surrounding Boundaries Crossed in Japan, will most likely show up next set.

Essentially, it seems like the plan from TPCi is to reprint as many staple trainers as they can now, and then release a ruling that says cards from older sets are no longer playable. This way, they mitigate the potential uproar from the player base, and force the purchase of packs from the competitive community (temporarily ignoring the secondary market).

As a reminder, this is all speculation, and I am also very unhappy with the decision to omit those trainers from Boundaries Crossed. I was loving Ether and Escape Rope.
 
LibertyFigter said:
To be completely honest, it seems as if it might make more sense looking at it from what was included standpoint, rather than looking at what was omitted. In light of the old Computer Search ruling (how Base Set Comp. Searches are now unusable), and the statement that this same kind of ruling will continue in the future, it honestly makes sense that they are reprinting old staples. Super Rod and Exp. Share were reprinted in Dragon Vault. Potion, Energy Search, Great Ball, Pokeball, Potion, Rocky Helmet, and Switch are being reprinted in Boundaries Crossed. Eviolite, having been reprinted in one of the releases surrounding Boundaries Crossed in Japan, will most likely show up next set.

Essentially, it seems like the plan from TPCi is to reprint as many staple trainers as they can now, and then release a ruling that says cards from older sets are no longer playable. This way, they mitigate the potential uproar from the player base, and force the purchase of packs from the competitive community (temporarily ignoring the secondary market).

As a reminder, this is all speculation, and I am also very unhappy with the decision to omit those trainers from Boundaries Crossed. I was loving Ether and Escape Rope.
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This is the running rumour, yes. I've been playing TCGs since I was little, and reading game industry rags for 10 years, and one thing that is historically well documented is that doing this NEVER goes well for a game. Especially a fringe game (which Pokemon is at this point), and especially a game with a low budget demographic (which Pokemon always has had).

I don't think they're that crazy, and I think even if their product manager is, he'll quietly get axed before it happens.
 
I'm not disappointed at all. That means we will have a different meta game from what the japanese had. That also means people will need to abandon all those netdecked builds from japanese blogs and will have to rely on builds of their own. The first 2 weeks of Cities is going to be interesting.
 
OldMan_GG said:
I'm not disappointed at all. That means we will have a different meta game from what the japanese had. That also means people will need to abandon all those netdecked builds from japanese blogs and will have to rely on builds of their own. The first 2 weeks of Cities is going to be interesting.
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You're going to see the same Eels and Darkrai variants, but now with Skyla and Comp. Search added. The only interesting thing will be if people add in First Ticket or not.
 
SMP88 said:
You're going to see the same Eels and Darkrai variants, but now with Skyla and Comp. Search added. The only interesting thing will be if people add in First Ticket or not.
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Landorus Ex is going to hit these decks really hard to be honest. They will also have to reckon with Blastoise-Keldeo too. We will have a varied meta and in the end the player base will be happy.
 
OldMan_GG said:
I'm not disappointed at all. That means we will have a different meta game from what the japanese had. That also means people will need to abandon all those netdecked builds from japanese blogs and will have to rely on builds of their own. The first 2 weeks of Cities is going to be interesting.
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Yeah, its so cool that no one will be able to netdeck all those poison decks weve seen around and people will be stuck having to build something completly new with creative cards like landorus ex... And have you seen all those bicycle engines the japanese were using? Horrible...
 
Such a weird set. TPCi had over 100 Pokemon to release from Cold Flare/Freeze Bolt, and 30 more from the National Beginning Set--just a ton of Pokemon to squeeze out over the next couple of sets. So when deciding what to delay releasing until the next set, they chose...Trainers? They must have the season rotation in mind, is all I can imagine.

I guess our next set will have a LOT of new Trainers.

EDIT: Saw the math done on another site, and it looks like upwards of 20 Pokemon are in fact delayed to the next set.
 
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I just had a really chilling idea what TPCi might do.They might make a filler set from some of the cards we haven't got or like COL and add the cut Trainer cards in so we buy it.
 
Raise prerelease prices ----> cut the good cards from the set.

Real smart guys, real smart.

Just when it seemed like TPCi were getting it together, releasing great tins and minisets... they go and do something mindblowingly stupid and cut valuable trainers from a set that was lacking in the first place.
 
Yoshi- said:
Yeah, its so cool that no one will be able to netdeck all those poison decks weve seen around and people will be stuck having to build something completly new with creative cards like landorus ex... And have you seen all those bicycle engines the japanese were using? Horrible...
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Exactly. Cutting Virbank and Bicycle of all things is just silly. I don't understand how anyone could argue that cutting Virbank is an effort to diversify the meta. It just leaves a whole, previously quite interesting, Scolipede line now unplayable. But they didn't cut it, of course.

Plus, this just freaks me out going into the next set. In my opinion, the Plasma Gale era cards are on average a lot more playable than the Freeze Bolt / Cold Flare era. So they'll make one set much less worthwhile, to make the next set even better than it already was? We're to assume the same people who thought it wise to hold back Ether are now gonna give it to us alongside Colress Machine? Uh... If Plasma Gale is so small, why don't they cram the National Beginning Set in our equivalent? Why now?

And why is no one else pissed about the lack of promos? There's like, 30 BW-P promos we still haven't gotten. Where's the Musketeer Trio that does extra damage to dark Pokemon? Where's Palace Belt? You don't think those would've helped diversify the cities meta? Like, come on! Blister after blister and we get cracked holo reprints of unplayable cards, when there's so many freaking promos sitting around untouched? Now you're gonna give us the National Beginning Set in its entirety? What a joke.

And where is Eviolite?
 
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It's unfortunate now that Ether and Bicycle will likely never have a format to shine unless Plasma Gale will be pushed back yet another set.

This same time last year, Noble Victories was our Cities set and opened up TONS of new decks into the meta. Chandelure, Kyurem, Cobalion, Durant and Eels were all tier one during that format. Then next format... Next Destinies was released and all those cards were deemed unplayable (minus Eelektrik, obviously) . If those cards were held off from NV, and were released at a later time then they would have NEVER seen the light of day and never had a chance to influence and affect the metagame (ie create a more diverse, healthy gaming experience with a multitude of tier one decks.)


I'm afraid that this is what will happen to Ether, Bicycle, and Escape Rope if (and when) they are released alongside Plasma Gale, assuming Plasma Gale isn't held off another set which would be a travesty in and of itself.

With all that aside, I wish someone who knows what's going on would humor the consumer population on the reasoning behind this madness because I don't see it at all. This is harming the game and I feel like players are the only ones that "get it"
 
K2theAblaM said:
It's unfortunate now that Ether and Bicycle will likely never have a format to shine unless Plasma Gale will be pushed back yet another set.

This same time last year, Noble Victories was our Cities set and opened up TONS of new decks into the meta. Chandelure, Kyurem, Cobalion, Durant and Eels were all tier one during that format. Then next format... Next Destinies was released and all those cards were deemed unplayable (minus Eelektrik, obviously) . If those cards were held off from NV, and were released at a later time then they would have NEVER seen the light of day and never had a chance to influence and affect the metagame (ie create a more diverse, healthy gaming experience with a multitude of tier one decks.)


I'm afraid that this is what will happen to Ether, Bicycle, and Escape Rope if (and when) they are released alongside Plasma Gale, assuming Plasma Gale isn't held off another set which would be a travesty in and of itself.

With all that aside, I wish someone who knows what's going on would humor the consumer population on the reasoning behind this madness because I don't see it at all. This is harming the game and I feel like players are the only ones that "get it"
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The only thing I disagree with in your post is that ether, bicycle, and escape rope are going to meet the same fate that chandelure, kyurem, and cobalion fate. It's apples and SUVs. While the latter are pokemon, the former are trainers that can fit into several different decks. If they held off eviolite for next destinies, it would still be played, big time.

It really is ridiculous how much the company screws up. Transferring japanese sets exactly, maybe while not even printing the "fluff" in america cannot possibly be that difficult. Instead, they print garbage like the new electrode that only make it worse for newer players. When I see people trying to defend the company on certain issues like this, it really tilts me the wrong way. From a marketing stand-point, if you make the set better by gearing them better towards drafting as well as not printing the "fluff" cards, it's beneficial to everyone. If sets were better for drafting, it could be made into an actual format for organized play, and then more people would be buying sealed packs. People would also be more willing to buy packs if they are given a better chance of getting playable cards in them. The company is disgusting in my opinion, and a lot of changes really need to be made.
 
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