Seriously? Ghetsis
Ghetsis – Trainer
Supporter (Team Plasma)
Look at your opponent’s hand. Your opponent shuffles all Item cards there into his or her deck. Then, draw from your deck the amount of cards your opponent shuffled into his or her deck.
You may play only 1 Supporter card during your turn (before your attack).
Is it just me, or is this card
stupid broken? I really don't see why this would be printed, it seems like an easy to play card, that takes a large amount of skill out of the game. There are a lot of ways to use this card for unhealthy, easy to pull off lock downs.
Even before looking into combos, the card is ridiculous. There is a pretty good chance that you will completely kill your opponent's hand. If your opponent doesn't have a Supporter when you play down Ghetsis, you're basically going to win the game unless they can draw out of it in a turn or two. Often times, a player won't have a Supporter, they'll be sitting on a Random Receiver to refresh their hand next turn. Ghetsis gets rid of the Random Receiver, along with several other potentially critical cards.
This may seem similar to N, but there are quite a few distinct differences. First off, there isn't any chance that Ghetsis will kill your hand when you play it. You are often times going to get a 4 or 5 card draw. That's an amazing amount of cards to draw for not having to send anything back to your deck. Cheren is played to an extent; Ghetsis is going to one up it before its main affect most of the time. Another thing is that your opponent doesn't get a chance to draw out of the situation. With N, your opponent has the chance to get a hand equal to, or better than the hand they had before you disrupted them. Even when they are drawing a one card hand off of an N, there is a sense of balance because there is a large chance they will be able to take their last prize simply with what is on their field. With Ghetsis, they don't have a chance to receive a hand that is equal to, or better to the hand that they had before. If they don't have a Supporter when you play a Ghetsis, their hand is going to be dead until they can draw a Supporter. Dead hands don't make for healthy game, or fun matches.
Paralysis Locks are something else that Ghetsis makes much stronger. I would feel that Paralysis locks are something that Pokémon would want to avoid. The amount of Thunder Wave Tynamo + Victini locks at Regionals was already ridiculous. It prevents your opponent from playing. The only realistic way to break a Paralysis lock is with Switch. Ghetsis successfully gets rid of any Switch that your opponent has in store to break the lock. This may be similar to a well placed N, except your opponent doesn't have the chance to draw the Switch back. They have to top deck out of the lock. The situation is even worse with something like Vanilluxe.
Another way to completely abuse Ghetsis is with the new Stoutland. After a Ghetsis, your opponent can't play any Supporters they may have, and they can't Catcher around the Stoutland. You are limiting them to only playing Pokémon and Energy, it's going to be extremely hard to set up, or do anything useful. If the lock is pulled off turn two, I really don't see a way for the Stoutland player to lose. You'd have to draw into a Catcher and have a Supporter in hand to break the lock and set up. It's an extremely powerful and easy to set up way to stop your opponent from doing... well... anything.
Assuming Ghetsis isn't mistranslated, it is going to have a massive and very likely unhealthy affect on our format. Should it be errata'd or banned? Should it be released in English? Is it a healthy card to have in print?
Poor guy.