Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Promo cards have returned to Leagues!

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khit said:
Hate to sound cynical but could this be a sign of the game being on the decline? why else would they start giving more stuff away that costs them more money?
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A couple of years ago they gave away useful competitive cards as league promos (Uxie, Expert Belt, Spiritomb, etc). Two per row in fact. This year seems to be a nice balance of real-world cards (2x Skyla total), an online code card (not sure what unlocks yet), and a physical keepsake at the end.

thepokemonnetwork100 said:
not offering badge cases? thats cute i just placed an order for one a couple days ago
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This option still exists for players who did not yet receive one for last season. I placed an order for another one too as soon as the option was available, but it was not fulfilled. :)
 
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khit said:
Hate to sound cynical but could this be a sign of the game being on the decline? why else would they start giving more stuff away that costs them more money?
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Not really giving away "more". Just giving away "different". If you read the announcements that discussed changes from last season, TPCi noted that they were shuffling rewards around (ie, discontinuing the existing Player Rewards program to move that budget elsewhere). So the new stuff is a result of the reallocation. Also, many people have been asking for playable league promos for awhile. This may be a sign that TPCi is trying to be responsive to that feedback.
 
Looks like N is the next league promo card. It's also has the last remaining art of N from the Japanese box promo and is marked BW100.
 
Salamencetrainer34 said:
The release of EX's was the sign of the decline. Boy, did we see how that turned out to be.
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Tell me about it, not to mention that League Challenge Tournaments not being mandatory compared to Battle Roads which was mandatory also leads me to believe the game is still in decline. How does TPCi expect players to play the game on a competitive level when they severely limit the amount of localized sanctioned events to play in?
 
What do you mean Battle Road are mandatory? For whom?

We have yet to see how many LC's there will be for a given season, I don't understand how you can condemn the structure already.
 
losjackal said:
What do you mean Battle Road are mandatory? For whom?

We have yet to see how many LC's there will be for a given season, I don't understand how you can condemn the structure already.
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I thought Battle Roads was mandatory but it turns out I was wrong, I was making assumptions on that regard. I was condemning the structure of League Challenge Tournaments because I'm concerned that the overall player attendance for those tournaments won't be the same as in Battle Roads where you had 30-40+ players show up to play.

You're right that there hasn't been an official announcement as to how many League Challenge Tournaments will be held in a given Season, hopefully it will be more than Battle Roads was where there was only Spring and Autumn events but If you're lucky you had multiple LGS's to attend for them. I just recently found out that one of my LGS's is holding a League Challenge Tournament on December 7th so If it isn't as big as Battle Roads was I'll be disappointed.
 
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Yeah, we'll see how many LC's show up on the tournament locator this week.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't more tournaments with lower attendance a good thing for players? It means there are more points being awarded overall with less competition that day, and thus easier to end up with multiple 1st - 4th place finishes. Anywhere between 13 and 32 Masters would be 5 rounds, which is what I think will be most common.

Asking another way, why would you want Battle Roads-type tournament to be big in general? How big?
 
More tournaments with lower attendance seems like it will discourage players from playing the TCG competitively on a localized level but then again the current Standard/Modified format as it stands is already discouraging people from getting back into playing the TCG competitively no thanks to the price tag on Tropical Beach as well as the power creep of Basic EX's which hasn't changed much with how Mega Evolution cards are designed as Basic EX's that can only be played on top of Basic EX's just like with M Venusaur-EX.

Sure the Catcher errata with the XY 1st turn rules helped Stage 1/Stage 2 Setup decks but there's still no Supporter printed in the current format that helps fetch for Basics like Roseanne's Research and Pokemon Collector to make up for not being able to use Call for Family on your 1st turn If you go first. I'd still love to see a functional reprint of Broken-Time Space that gets reprinted as much as Rare Candy does to enable Stage 1/Stage 2 Setup decks to go on par with Big Basics instead of evolved Pokemon getting printed as Basic EX's to make up for it.

13-32 players in the Masters Division with 5 Rounds I think was the norm for Battle Roads with a Top Cut for 1st-3rd place finishes, I could be wrong on that though but If I'm right I'd like to see it get implemented for League Challenge Tournaments. Also the number of rounds applied should still be based on how many players attend the tournaments like it always has been in the TCG. About your last question, wasn't Battle Roads-type tournaments always big in general cause I don't recall Battle Roads only having 5-10 or less playing regardless of age division.
 
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as of last year battle roads did not have a top cut; standings after swiss were final. LCs will be the same.
 
Yeah I almost forgot that there's no Top Cut in Battle Roads anymore same with League Challenge, oh well. It would've been nice to have it back for League Challenge Tournaments though...
 
actually los not all the league challenges for this round have been approved yet, so that 259 number may climb as just under 500 leagues were given the option to run league challenges for the first season.
 
treyh37 said:
actually los not all the league challenges for this round have been approved yet, so that 259 number may climb as just under 500 leagues were given the option to run league challenges for the first season.
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Just around 500 were given the option in the US and Canada. Internationally there are another couple hundred as well. As we get past the growing pains that come with launching a new event type, we will see more and more of these LCs getting sanctioned in future seasons.
 
BTW the online card says it won't be active until Dec. 11.

Tried it earlier today while entering codes from various boosters.
Also from the new theme decks.
 
So anybody try the new code card for Season 1 yet?
I was going to try today, but after installing (in the library) it just sat there & never did the refresher.
Let it sit for at least 5 minutes.
 
yeah the chespin code gives
4 grass
2 nincada
2 ninjask
1 skyla

fennekin code
4 fire
2 daramaka BCR
2 darmanitan BCR
1 N
 
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