Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Tropical Beach is good for the game...however the price tag is not.

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Jaeger said:
your ignoring the fact that the November 8th rulings make Beach better.
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Me? Marginally better. The X/Y rules only affect the affect the player going first on the first turn. And they have to draw into the Beach. That's like a 25% proposition at best. If you achieve that 25% chance, you still need a small enough hand to do something more than "Beach for 2". And then hope you don't get N'd. Everything beyond that (opponent gets to use it too, it helps setup decks, etc) is the same regardless of X/Y rules.

I respect your opinion Jay, and if you say 7 out of 8 decks work better with Beach right now, I'd believe you. But I don't believe it's going to be detrimental to the game.
 
Decks that play Beach get considerably better since Bench Sitters can't be Catchered and they can't donked on T1. Beach being the only viable T1 opition isn't the only reason the card gets better.
 
Very good. I'll agree that set up decks benefit from increased draw power of Beach. So that we can try to quantify it, can you share more about your experience with your decks?

1. How many copies in a deck?
2. Do you also include other stadiums like Virbank?
3. How often do you get it in play T1? And how often does that require Skyla?
4. For how many turns do you typically Beach instead of attack?
 
Sorry, I'm fairly new to the game but is it true there was a rule before that allowed 10% of your deck (6 cards) to be in a foreign non-Japanese language? If so, I could see a return of that ruling being beneficial in bringing down the cost of the card without printing a bunch of a soon-to-be-rotated promo card that drastically reduces the prestige of the card.

I agree with the OP that Tropical Beach is good for the game and I'd hate to see it banned mid-season and would welcome a solution that allows it to be more attainable without absolutely destroying the value of the card.
 
1.) 1-3
2.) In Turn 2/3 Basic decks of course
3.) A lot of the time yes
4.) Depends on the deck but I'd say 3 times or so.
 
Honestly the best solution to this problem seems to be allowing any language of Tropical Beach to be played at sanctioned events. That way, the supply of playable copies rises, which reduces the cost for players; however, the overall number of Tropical Beach in existence doesn't change, meaning it retains its exclusivity as a Worlds Promo.
 
Print a completely different card with same effect. Have a Sycamore/Juniper-like restriction to prevent 8 in deck. Done.
 
But has TPCi ever been able to introduce a new card like this into the general card pool? (More than just an exclusive trophy card.) Genuine question, I don't know the answer.

My understanding is those kind of changes come from the card lab in Japan. They are aware of Tropical Beach, and their course of action right now for tournament play is to simply prohibit the card…not stimulate the use by making another card with the effect.
 
SP Toxicroak. Plasma Landy. There are a few others that weren't gamebreaking that I'm forgetting. You just make it the fronting card of a blister pack if you want to sell it as its own product.
 
losjackal said:
Tropical Beach was designed and released over two years ago. What do you mean by the above?
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They still knew that they were creating a "unique" exclusive (as opposed to a card that had been or would be released elsewhere with different art) - this is the risk always taken when releasing such a card. Even when releasing an intentionally bad card, the game's designers know that the card pool is not static and they have to consider it for all future card interaction as well as rule changes.

Because it can be difficult to keep track of so many different cards, and it is likely that the game's designers never really "expect" to change the rules (I assume that they want to find something that works and stop fiddling with it), it just makes sense to not create a unique exclusive. Creating a non-unique card like an alternate art or treatment (like a specific holofoil pattern) promo of an existing or soon to exist card is perfectly fine for an exclusive.

This problem has always been a problem for as long as such promos have existed, but like so many things it wasn't as big of a problem.

Oh, and FunnyBear, thanks for proving my point:

A TCG isn't a game of chess; I question messing with the tournament rules to so heavily favor a champion, but that still doesn't compare with altering what one uses to play the game. As we all know, you don't get special chess pieces that alters how the game is played for being the World Chess Champion, a special board, etc. Now, if you really do want TCGs to give such an advantage to players... you're allowed to want that. You don't get to dismiss people rejecting that just because "life isn't fair" or because you believe some players have "earned" that. At best you can claim the current success of the game indicates that there is sufficient demand for your preferences...

...but then we have the issue of "How long does it take for the customer base to react to a bad decision?"
 
On the opinion that competitive players that have earned beach should have a advantage over the other players because they have been competitive longer, I know and I'm sure a lot of people know that Pokemon is a growing game and LOT more competitive players are added every year to the game. Some maybe arguably better than the ones before. But with beach it creates the problem of
1) competitive players from before that are not as good as newer players have a better cardpool allowing older competitive players a more diverse deck pool.
2) competitive players from before in game when they play beach and get to use it first it creates a card advantage for the older player that can easily shift the tide of a game.

Plus there is also the fact of a diversified meta if beach were open to everyone I'm sure people would find more satisfaction in the new rules because more stage 2s would be viable. But people will most likely keep groaning because the meta will still be flooded with these "Over powered big basic Pokemon" because everybody can't afford beach which argueably gives stage 2 decks the last push over the line into viability. But 1-2% of the game will be the people who will have access to these decks which is unfair and makes the meta unhealthy.
 
As far as trophy cards go, I would not mind them making good cards, like junpier and such as gold rares and give those out. I think the new Gold Reshiram and Zekrom should be trophy cards. This would work because it wont break the card pool.
 
FirestormXVI said:
Sorry, I'm fairly new to the game but is it true there was a rule before that allowed 10% of your deck (6 cards) to be in a foreign non-Japanese language? If so, I could see a return of that ruling being beneficial in bringing down the cost of the card without printing a bunch of a soon-to-be-rotated promo card that drastically reduces the prestige of the card.
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As I recall, the rule was originally, "Use as many foreign cards as you want, just make sure you bring official references." That became problematic as decks consisting largely of foreign cards started appearing (this could be attributed to a "cool factor" as well as some cards being cheaper to get non-English versions of*). Initially, TPCi was going to make a rule of "no foreign cards", but later changed it to "maximum of six cards this season, none allowed thereafter".

*I'm not saying that TPCi purposely made this rule purely as a way to make more money-it's more that the original situation was (partially) a result of having to cram promos that would otherwise be released separately into sets, increasing the rarity of other cards. You can make up your own mind from the archived threads I linked.
 
Its now painfully obvious that Pokémon (the Japanese creators of the game) the right hand has absolutely no idea what the left hand is doing. So no there never was any thought to tropical beach actually being a useful card. I bet they thought that the text that made a player end their turn to play it meant that no one would use it. I also believe that no consideration was given any impact that the new first turn rules would have on players with or without tropical beaches. The new rules were not made to bring any kind of balance to the game, but were done because well golly gee we have a new block starting so I guess we have to do something different.
 
Agreed with the OP. What's crazy is I've seen so many world's competitors say they would be fine with it being reprinted for the good of the game, and TPCI still not acting.

I think going forward they should re-work the way they do promo cards. I think doing Full Art Champion Cards of Existing cards would be best. For example: Mewtwo EX and Darkrai EX were big the last year they did Tropical Beach as the promo card. They could have done a special Full Art of Mewtwo EX chilling on a Beach as the world's promo. Top Cut players get another art of the card. Top 4 gets Mewtwo chilling on a beach with a Trophy.

These types of cards being used as the world's promo would do a few things:

1. Give world competitor's useful cards while not interrupting the overall card pool for the general player base.
2. Give world competitor's exclusive cards that will retain value through exclusivity, as well as the awesomeness of such a card giving them good value beyond their competitive use.

At the end of the day, I can play 4 Tropical Beach in any deck I want, so any inaction by TPCI regarding the issue doesn't effect me negatively, and keeping Beach exclusive would actually have a positive effect on me than reprinting it. With that said, it's totally unfair for me to be able to build deck archetypes that other players cannot just because I have access to Beach and they don't.
 
Well since TPCi went the YGO route with regionals, they should follow KDEs example and reprint SJC/Konami Champ cards into special edition versions. Re-release beach as a blister promo or some type of promo. Watch sales go up like crazy because people will buy stores out of the blisters. I know I would buy 8 blisters, 4/4 for my son and myself.

Come on TPCi. Want to make money since this will probably end up being the only factor, reprint it as a blister topper and watch the regional/premier level tournaments attendance rise.
 
Any argument about the designers not foreseeing how good Beach would be is irrelevant. They printed Beach twice as a worlds promo. By the second time around, they had to have known how playable it was. Still, they decided to release it again. If they did not reprint it, we would not even have this problem right now because it would have been rotated.
 
The other thing that as not been discussed is a limit on Beach...you can only play 1 Tropical Beach. Not the best solution, but once again better than banning it.
 
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