Celestial Storm Brings Back Friends From the Past

The newest Pokemon TCG release, with Prereleases being held this last weekend and next,  is Celestial Storm. And it is blast from the past, featuring new takes on cards from sets dating back to the e-series. A lot of the  Pokemon cards feature the same art as older cards, but each one has been updated, either with more HP, stronger versions of their attacks, or sometimes just with changed Weaknesses.

There was ONE Pokemon card, however, that many players were anticipating would be identical in Game terms to the original print, and that is Dunsparce. Unfortunately, in the new print, there is a clause in the Strike and Run attack which requires the player to have put a Pokemon from the search onto the Bench in order to then Switch Dunsparce. Since that clause is not in the original print from Sandstorm, the old copy of the card will not be legal to play in Standard or Expanded. It is not an exact reprint.

So, while none of the Pokemon from the set are exact Game Play reprints of many of the older cards, many of the Trainers found in the set are exact reprints, or identical in Game Play terms, and therefore will be playable.
BUT NOT ALL OF THEM!

We consulted with Pokemon Organized Play and R&D to get a definitive list of which original prints of the Trainers from the set are playable and which ones are not. Most of the reprinted Trainers had identical game effects, however a couple of them had differences that were significant enough to keep them from being used in current formats.
To make this an easy reference for players and judges, we will list all of the Trainers below that have older prints and what their status is. We will also soon incorporate this information into our “Legal Card List” resources, found in links over on the right hand side of this page.

Reprinted Trainers from Celestial Storm

Trainer	Legal Prints	Notes
Acro Bike	Primal Clash 122/160
Apricorn Maker	No old prints are legal	The original version from Skyridge allows a search for all Trainers, not just Items
Bill’s Maintenance	Expedition 137/165 FireRed LeafGreen 87/112 Crystal Guardians 71/100 OP Series 5 6/17	Some text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.
Copycat	Expedition 138/165 Team Rocket Returns 83/109 Dragon Frontiers 73/101 HeartGold SoulSilver 90/123 Call of Legends 77/95	Some text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.
Energy Recycle System	Dragon 84/97 Unseen Forces 81/115 Power Keepers 73/108	Text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.
Energy Switch	All of many, many versions	Commonly Reprinted
Fisherman	Skyridge 125/144 HeartGold SoulSilver 92/123 Breakthrough 136/162	Text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.
Friend Ball	No old prints are legal	The original version from Skyridge has a template that does not include all types of Pokemon, such as Restored Pokemon.
Life Herb	Platinum 108/127 Unleashed 79/95	The Prints from Hidden Legends and FRLG exclude a type of Pokemon from the effect and are therefore NOT legal
Lure Ball	Skyridge 128/144
PokéNav	No old prints are legal	The original version from Crystal Guardians has a template that does not include all types of Pokemon, such as Restored Pokemon.
Rare Candy	All of many, many versions	Commonly Reprinted and Errata allows old versions with different Game text
Super Scoop Up	All of many, many versions	Commonly Reprinted
Switch	All of many, many versions	Commonly Reprinted
TV Reporter	Dragon 88/97 Dragon Frontiers 82/101 OP Series 2 11/17	Text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.
Underground Expedition	Skyridge 140/144 Rising Rivals 97/111	Text changes, however they do not affect the game play of the cards.
Rainbow Energy	All prints from Aquapolis and newer	Early versions (Team Rocket and WotC Promo) did 10 damage, rather than place 1 damage counter when attached, so those are not legal.