Pokemon TCG

[R_N]

4 pieces just seems like an exhausting level of effort, even the VUnion effect they all come with (if all 4 pieces are in the discard pile, summon them to the bench) requires 4 spaces on the 5-man bench

It also just seems wildly excessive. LEGENDS were much more managable with just 2, much less 4.

 

[spookysocialist]

4 pieces just seems like an exhausting level of effort, even the VUnion effect they all come with (if all 4 pieces are in the discard pile, summon them to the bench) requires 4 spaces on the 5-man bench

It also just seems wildly excessive. LEGENDS were much more managable with just 2, much less 4.

To be fair, while these are bad, they will only count as one pokemon together and will only take one bench space.

Source:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1403270374813405186

 

[R_N]

To be fair, while these are bad, they will only count as one pokemon together and will only take one bench space.

Source:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1403270374813405186

Well that's good. I think they would be basically unplayable otherwise, but at the same time I wouldn't put it past them.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Just revealed the Willow version of the Professor's Research card for the GO promotion:

Distribution is to-be-determined. Nothing major usage wise, just your regular Professor's Research (discard hand, draw 7 cards), but makes for a nice memento for GO players and/or TCG collectors. Who knows, maybe they'll do this again and this time do the three Leaders (which you'd think would have more unique effects, or at the very least re-use effects from the typical Professor's Research card).

 

[R_N]

Just revealed the Willow version of the Professor's Research card for the GO promotion:

Distribution is to-be-determined. Nothing major usage wise, just your regular Professor's Research (discard hand, draw 7 cards), but makes for a nice memento for GO players and/or TCG collectors. Who knows, maybe they'll do this again and this time do the three Leaders (which you'd think would have more unique effects, or at the very least re-use effects from the typical Professor's Research card).

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1404940414944153613

 

[Take Azelfie]

Goltres + RS Urshifu

Cinderace

Turbo Zeraora

I've been playing some SwSh onwards (or the format that will be our next rotation) with the new set and am having fun with these three decks in particular. The Goltres is a pretty good partner for RS Urshifu as RS Urshi can use a darkness energy w/ a RS energy for max flow and set up a Dark energy in the retreat and Piers is actually a decent supporter since he can fetch both the RS Energy and any of your dark mons (whether you need Bat/Goltres/Liepard.)

Single Prizers are much better in the next format due to the lack of ADP and some decks not being as prone to Telescopic Sight/Passimian bench damage. Cinderace can also make use of the Single Strike Supporter package fairly easily and the new Cinderace can use Karen's Conviction to even boost to OHKO numbers when your opponent is down to their last prize or two. It's not shown there btw but I swapped over to a 2-2 Cinderace line rather than a 3-1, the old Cinderace still has good damage output and is much better in the early game.

Finally is Turbo Zeraora which is a bit of a highrolly deck but pretty fun. One of the issues with Turbo Patch before was that we didn't have very many good basic pokemon we could use it with besides Zacian who already has Metal Saucer. On top of that we also got Electrode and Sobble line to help with the chances of acceleration. If you go second you can use Sobble's attack to get Zeraora's condition ready for the next turn and start blasting people with your great bench damage.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Take Azelfie:
Um, whatever you're using to compress the card images, can you stop using it? I can barely tell what some of those cards are and their names have been badly distorted. If you want specific ones:

• Goltres + RS Urshifu: Most of the Trainer Cards I can't tell what they are except for Escape Rope, Quick Ball, Air Balloon, & Tower of Water. Don't know what the card with Giovanni(?) is or what the card after that one is. Don't know the Pokemon right after Liepard and the one just before Octillery.
  
  
• Cinderace: Only Trainer Cards I can recognize are Quick Ball, Rare Candy, Air Balloon, and Tower of Darkness. And there's that Giovanni(?) card again.
  
  
• Turbo Zeraora: Level Ball, Quick Ball, & Tower of Water I only recognize. Giovanni(?) Card. Don't know the Pokemon before Voltorb.

 

[Low-Key]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1404940414944153613

I really wonder what's behind those 0s. Is it just for show or is it something the Pokemon Company doesn't want to reveal until the cards release?

 

[Deleted User 465389]

I really wonder what's behind those 0s. Is it just for show or is it something the Pokemon Company doesn't want to reveal until the cards release?

if i had to guess, it would be a code for something in pokemon go. The tweet did say ‘a code for special research’, so it might be related to that, although they would probably have to add in something, so you can type the code in.
edit: they already have a thing to enter a code

 

[Pikachu315111]

if i had to guess, it would be a code for something in pokemon go. The tweet did say ‘a code for special research’, so it might be related to that, although they would probably have to add in something, so you can type the code in.

There already is.

Open the Pokemon GO app, go into Map View, tap the Main Menu, tap Shop, and at the very bottom of the page is a space to type in promo codes:

From what I can tell they release dozens of promo codes for Pokemon GO every month so it's not a new thing.
I'm going to assume every card is going to have its own code hence why the code is written on the card. Though here's a question: are the codes one use or can you activate the special research multiple times as long as you use a different card's code (instead of the system keeping track what code has been used or not, instead the account keeps track if a code has been used)? Though I suppose they could also make it so once you done the special research, even if you enter another card's code, it'll say you've done the special research on the account thus can't do it again.

 

[R_N]

It's just an ID code
it's not used for anything other than marking that "your" card is unique.

 

[Take Azelfie]

Take Azelfie:
Um, whatever you're using to compress the card images, can you stop using it? I can barely tell what some of those cards are and their names have been badly distorted. If you want specific ones:

• Goltres + RS Urshifu: Most of the Trainer Cards I can't tell what they are except for Escape Rope, Quick Ball, Air Balloon, & Tower of Water. Don't know what the card with Giovanni(?) is or what the card after that one is. Don't know the Pokemon right after Liepard and the one just before Octillery.
  
  
• Cinderace: Only Trainer Cards I can recognize are Quick Ball, Rare Candy, Air Balloon, and Tower of Darkness. And there's that Giovanni(?) card again.
  
  
• Turbo Zeraora: Level Ball, Quick Ball, & Tower of Water I only recognize. Giovanni(?) Card. Don't know the Pokemon before Voltorb.

Whoops my bad. Those images are just from the deck viewer in a program I used called LackeyCCG which is basically just a program that simulates card games like Tabletop Simulator (and the cards don't normally look that shrunk up it's just what I needed to do make it all fit on the screen). I'm so use to sharing images like this to people who pretty much just already know most of the cards already so it never bothered them anyways.

This should definitely work for now
though i'm genuinely shocked people don't know what Full Art Boss's Orders looks like

Goltres + RS Urshifu
Cinderace
Turbo Zeraora

 

[Pikachu315111]

though i'm genuinely shocked people don't know what Full Art Boss's Orders looks like

Well it's very nice artwork, let me see what it does... switches one of their opponent's benched Pokemon with their active Pokemon...

Oh, I know that card...

Back when it was called "Gust of Wind".

Yes, I'm that old... and yes, I know since then there's been a few cards which had this effect, as I said, when I think of this effect THIS is the card I think of.

Heck, a few of these Trainer Cards effect sound familiar, which isn't a surprise as with old sets being removed from play for certain useful trainer effect cards they'd have to make a new Trainer Card to take their place.

 

[Deleted User 465389]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2021/06/c...ry-set-includes-reprint-of-base-set-charizard

so they revealed info about the 25th anniversary set! There’s going to be new lv x’s, stars, dark/lights, and delta species cards.
(they might not be compatible with tournament play though)

also can’t wait for this to be sold out like right now probably

 

[R_N]

When I glanced through the descrption, I thought it'd just be repreints of old cards, not new cards in the old styles. That's a really fun gimmick for a thing like this,

 

[spookysocialist]

It sounds like the promos will not be legal for play, but the actual cards in the set will be? From Pokemon employee Mia:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1408101884338925572

 

[Pikachu315111]

There’s going to be new lv x’s, stars, dark/lights, and delta species cards.

Oh, that's a really need idea!

Here's some more info from Serebii which has some more details:

The Pokémon Company International have announced a new set to celebrate Pokémon's 25th Anniversary; Celebrations. This small set features over 45 cards, a subset of 25 remakes of classic cards, 4 Pokémon V and 2 Pokémon VMAX including returning mechanics such as Dark Pokémon, Delta Species, Pokémon C,Pokémon Star, Light Pokémon, Lv. X Pokémon Pokémon Prime and Pokémon V-UNION and remade cards including Base Set Charizard, Umbreon ☆ and Tapu Lele GX. It will start on October 8th across 9 products
Pokémon TCG: Celebrations Collection—Dragapult Prime (available on Oct. 8, 2021)
Pokémon TCG: Celebrations Collections—Lance’s Charizard V and Dark Sylveon V (available on Oct. 8, 2021)
Pokémon TCG: Celebrations Deluxe Pin Collection (available on Oct. 8, 2021) - Contains a promo Zacian Lv. X
Pokémon TCG: Celebrations Elite Trainer Box (available on Oct. 8, 2021) - Contains a promo Greninja ☆
Pokémon TCG: Celebrations Mini Tins (available on Oct. 8, 2021)
Pokémon TCG: Celebrations Special Collection—Pikachu V-UNION (available on Oct. 8, 2021) - Contains 4 promo cards to make Pikachu V-UNION
Pokémon TCG: Celebrations Premium Figure Collection—Pikachu VMAX (available on Oct. 22, 2021)
Pokémon TCG: Celebrations Ultra-Premium Collection (available on Oct. 22, 2021) - Contains Gold Version Pikachu V, Gold Version Poké Ball, Base set Pikachu &Charizard metal cards
Pokémon TCG: Celebrations Collector Chest (available in October 2021) - Contains Mimikyu Delta Species, Light Toxtricity, Hydreigon C

• Dark & Light Pokemon: Wow, Light Pokemon!? They haven't been used since Neo Destiny, which was also their debut! Now the gimmick with most Light Pokemon were they had higher HP than normal (which should be interesting considering how HP amounts have ballooned) and their Moves were more supportive. I could really see Light Pokemon becoming very useful, if possibly broken, if they keep to this theme. Already a Light Toxtricity is confirmed which should be interesting as it's not a Pokemon I would have picked to be a Light Pokemon.
  
  Always nice to see Dark Pokemon come back, they've been around here and there. Dark-types at first were opposite of the Light-type, they had lower HP but attacks did more damage and/or debuffing effects. However later sets gave them a new gimmick: not only were they their normal-type but they were also considered Dark-types. Dark Sylveon V should be interesting to see, especially since Fairy Pokemon didn't exist during the last round of "Dark" cards and I can really see them play around with the concept with them considering the origins of the fey.
  
  
• Delta Species: One of my favorite concepts I wish they brought to the main game, pretty much Pokemon that are differently Typed (and some part Steel-type). Probably not going to include much of the Holon lore, but that stuff is probably best save for its own TCG set. Mimikyu is getting a Delta Species and curious what alternate Type it would be, maybe Electric like it always wished to be?
  
  
• Pokemon C: For those who may not remember these, the "C" stands for "Champion" and were part of the Pokemon SP (which stands for "Special Pokemon") which were the successors of the "Owner Cards". You know, the Pokemon which had a notable NPC's name in front of it like a Gym Leader. They were really only around for the four sets during the Platinum era. While collectively call "Pokemon SP", they were split into four categories: "G" for Team Galactic, "GL" for Gym Leader, the Katakana for "4" for Elite Four", "C" for Champion, "FB" for Frontier Brain, and finally a stylized "M" that looked like Pikachu's tail for the Movie Promo cards they gave out in Japan. Once again, A LOT here that probably deserves its own TCG set if they decide to bring it back fully and modernize it. Being the new Pokemon C is Hydregion, is it going to belong to Iris?
  
  
• Pokemon Star: Aka Shiny Pokemon. Now I don't think Shiny variants ever went away, they just weren't labelled "Star" so I don't think its as special as bringing back the Light Pokemon or Delta Species. Infact, I could think of another kind of Pokemon they could have brought back instead but I'll leave that for the end. Anyway the new Star is Greninja which is a nice one to pick.
  
  
• Pokemon Lv. X: These were a unique spin on the "super" cards as they were sorted treated as an expansion of the base card. The Pokemon Lv. X not only used the Poke-Powers and Moves it had but also the ones the base card had too, giving it more variety and letting it have more specialized moves instead of just being a heavy hitter. Using Zacian could be a neat idea if the base form is in its "Hero of Many Battles" form and the Lv. X depicts it in its "Crowned Sword" form.
  
  
• Pokemon Prime: These aren't really all that interesting, which is odd as they were one of the replacements for the more interesting Lv. X. All they were was just a more powerful variant and the art was a close-up of their face, ~whoo... Sorry Dragupult, maybe better luck next time.
  
  
• V-UNION: Wait, what? This isn't a returning feature, it's the newest one! Granted, its an expansion on the LEGEND cards which needed two cards to use, but that was at least "manageable" instead of needing FOUR cards for V-UNION.

However, I noticed some other oddities with the cards they mentioned:

• Lance’s Charizard V: Now this is odd as this sounds like they're brining back the old "Owner's Card" I mentioned above with Pokemon C/SP. And its especially odd it's for Lance and Charizard, you'd think it would have been for Leon if they were going to use Charizard. FUN FACT: There is an old Lance's Charizard card, would be neat if they drew the new Lance's Charizard V in a similar style of it.
  
  
• Gold Version: Now, when they say "Gold Version" do they mean just the secret rare variants they've been doing recently where it's just the same card as the normal except the card is colored "gold" instead of what it usually is (Item Example)(Pokemon Example)? Alright, odd way to phrase it. I guess better than whatever they were trying to do with the Pokemon BREAK (pretty much the Lv. X Pokemon but with horrible artwork of the entire Pokemon colored gold).

So a nice handful of old gimmicks, though they're still missing some I would have liked to see more of like the Crystal Pokemon and TAG TEAM. Would have definitely included some of those instead of Prime and Star.

 

[spookysocialist]

• Delta Species: One of my favorite concepts I wish they brought to the main game, pretty much Pokemon that are differently Typed (and some part Steel-type). Probably not going to include much of the Holon lore, but that stuff is probably best save for its own TCG set. Mimikyu is getting a Delta Species and curious what alternate Type it would be, maybe Electric like it always wished to be?
  
  
• Pokemon C: For those who may not remember these, the "C" stands for "Champion" and were part of the Pokemon SP (which stands for "Special Pokemon") which were the successors of the "Owner Cards". You know, the Pokemon which had a notable NPC's name in front of it like a Gym Leader. They were really only around for the four sets during the Platinum era. While collectively call "Pokemon SP", they were split into four categories: "G" for Team Galactic, "GL" for Gym Leader, the Katakana for "4" for Elite Four", "C" for Champion, "FB" for Frontier Brain, and finally a stylized "M" that looked like Pikachu's tail for the Movie Promo cards they gave out in Japan. Once again, A LOT here that probably deserves its own TCG set if they decide to bring it back fully and modernize it. Being the new Pokemon C is Hydregion, is it going to belong to Iris?

Just wanted to point out we've seen these cards and mimikyu is water type and hydreigon does belong to Iris:

Also we've seen light toxtricity and I wouldn't exactly describe it as having the traditional traits of high hp and low damage attacks:

[C] Slow Ballad: Heal 30 damage from both Active Pokemon.

[L][L][C] Smashing Spanking: 160 damage. During your next turn, this Pokemon can’t use Smashing Spanking.

Images and translations credit of pokebeach, here: https://www.pokebeach.com/2021/06/c...ry-set-includes-reprint-of-base-set-charizard

 

[Siria]

Ok, so today I finally got my Pikachu GX and Eevee GX box - you know which one, the one with Derp-vee. Anyway, the pulls I got from this were... well, pretty good.
First, in this box were 4 promos, and then 4 booster boxes - 2x cosmic eclipse, 1x unified minds and 1x Evolutions. I didn´t expect much from this, I bought it just for the promos, mainly the derpvee (which I wish was that oversized card, instead of Pikachu). Anyway, my best pulls were 2 rare reverse holos (Clefairy and Seismitoad), then I got full art Guzma and Hala, also there was secret rare Here Comes Team Rocket, but I guess my best pull was MegaCharizard EX full art.
So, I am pretty happy right now, as you can guess.

 

[Deleted User 465389]

they finally did it. for the first time in the tcg’s history, a perfect deck/battle of pokémon cards have been made.
(I know the mewtwo tag team has the ‘perfection’ ability, but it’s not a bidoof so who cares)

 

[spookysocialist]

Incredibly sad news coming from pokebeach.com - apparently, the website was hacked by scammers and they deleted the entire website when caught. Very sad to see an 18 year old pokemon tcg site taken down at it's peak of popularity.
https://www.pokebeach.com/2021/07/pokebeach-hacked-next-steps-for-the-site

 

[Pikachu315111]

Incredibly sad news coming from pokebeach.com - apparently, the website was hacked by scammers and they deleted the entire website when caught. Very sad to see an 18 year old pokemon tcg site taken down at it's peak of popularity.
https://www.pokebeach.com/2021/07/pokebeach-hacked-next-steps-for-the-site

How horrible and pathetic. Correct my ignorance, but Pokebeach was, even if professionally presented, a fansite right? Did the hackers really think a fansite was going to have the money to pay a ransom (or were they really asking to be sent stack of Pokemon cards, which is not only extra pathetic but just cause they report on the cards doesn't mean they have a lot of them)? And these sound like professional hackers if they went out of their way to access their offsite backups and delete those.

Part of me wants to think this wasn't about a ransom but rather some malicious hackers who just wanted to mess with a fanbase and came up with an excuse to do it. "Let's see, I really want to prove I'm a worthless person today. I know, I'll hold a fansite for "ransom" which they obviously can't pay, and if they did that's just bonus money, and then delete all their stuff and blame them for not paying up or for believing someone over the internet, evilulz".

Hopefully working with their web providers they can retrieve at least some of their missing files. Sometimes deleted doesn't mean it's immediately gone.

 

[Gooberstrawmbee]

Sometimes I just don't understand what's wrong with people. These hackers deleted a website to get pokemon cards? That's just stupid.

 

[Pikachu315111]

So, Kotaku just wrote up an article about the PokeBeach Hack and, sadly, things aren't looking so good:

We reached out to Jon Sahagian via Twitter DMs to see if there is any news about the recovery efforts. “We’ve been able to recover tens of thousands of files,” he told us, “but recovery software isn’t able to reconstruct their filenames or their folder structure. Putting all of those files back simply isn’t possible.”

So if I'm understanding things correctly, while they have gotten back a lot of the files (which I believe are all images), there's no name to them and the folder structure that was handling them is gone. Unless they're not able to open the files at all, I'm going to guess it's not that it's impossible to put back the files/images but rather would be incredibly tedious to look through every image, give it a new file name, find the article it was assigned to, and recreate the folder structure to sort them out that it may not even be worth it. Very sad news.

 

[PokemonCrusader]

18 years of Pokémon history just destroyed. The modern version of medieval manuscripts being annihilated because of a bombing raid.