Pokemon rant

Dammit! This was my initial Jack-Bauer like reaction when I learned that my pokemon deck had been banned. Not one or two cards in it. Like, half the deck. Even the energys. Luckily, my freind had a cell phone and called our ride to pick us up. Then we went to target for the notably cheaper decks and upgraded them.

Now let me give you the full story on this. My friend just got into a pokemon league and invited me to come with him. Soon we were beating everyone in sight. Well, until yesterday. The card shop had canceled the league this week, and both our decks were horribly dated and we could not participate in this official tournament. So we went to target ( cards are cheaper) and updated our decks. Now they're better then ever, and we are both ten bucks poorer.

Most trading card games will ban certain cards. This is fine, as it really only affects big tourneys. It usually happens when a certain card dominates every deck, and for the sake of keeping things fresh, they ban it. No one complains, but the rule is not enforced too much in casual games either.

Pokemon USA went the next step, and banned every card that had not been released within a year. This move comepletely alienated anyone even thinking of joining competitive play with a somewhat old deck. In order to get a really competitve deck, you may need to spend well over a hundred dollars. And this really sucks, not because of the price, but for old times sake, everybody wants to use an old card or two.

Now what would have been better is to graually increase the strength of new pokemon, making it harder to play an old deck in a tournament. This would have created the same effect. But no. They had to ban thousands of cards. And then remake them in the new sets. And while this makes a lot of money, it pisses off a hell of a lot of people. Including me. Lame.