Announcement
Date: September 1, 2000
Effective
Date: October 1, 2000
Standard
(Only
English Base Set and Gym Set Pokémon TCG
Cards)
Super Energy Removal is banned
Impostor Oak's Revenge is banned
Trap of Team Rocket is restricted
Gym
Block
(All
English Gym Set Pokémon TCG Cards)
No Changes
Type
1
(All
English Pokémon TCG Cards)
Super Energy Removal is banned
Impostor Oak's Revenge is banned
Trap of Team Rocket is restricted
Type
1.5
(All
cards on the Type 1 Banned and Restricted Lists are
banned in Type 1.5)
Super Energy Removal is banned
Impostor Oak's Revenge is banned
Trap of Team Rocket is banned
Explanation
of Banned and Restricted List Changes
Due to the decline
of young players and increase of older players in
the Pokémon Trading Card Game
environment, R&D has decided that it would be
safe enough to proceed with a Pokémon TCG
Banned and Restricted List. As seen in the West
Coast Super Trainer Showdown on July 22, 2000 and
the Gym: Heroes prerelease tournaments on
August 5th 2000, many cards have grown too powerful
to encourage viable deck archetypes in the
Pokémon TCG. It is in R&D's best
interest to try to maximize the number of viable
deck archetypes.
Super Energy
Removal - The Haymaker deck was one of the most
popular deck types used at the STS-West, it made up
approximately 55% of the decks used in the
tournament. It was obvious that this deck was
dominating the entire environment and single
handedly eliminated the number of viable deck
archetypes. SER was the main force behind this
deck, so it's removal will allow the Haymaker
archetype to ease-up with the rest of the
environment, and will also balance other unbalanced
cards (like Item Finder and Computer
Search).
Impostor Oak's
Revenge - As seen in the Gym: Heroes
prerelease tournaments, when combined with Trap of
Team Rocket and Rocket's Sneak Attack, IOR allowed
the player to eliminate their opponent's entire
hand within one turn. This prevented any deck from
becoming playable in any environment. R&D
decided that with IOR banned, such "first turn hand
removals" are non-existant, which was decided that
it would be a problem when Gym: Heroes
becomes legal in DCI tournaments.
Trap of Team Rocket
- This card also aided in the power of IOR. Banning
IOR will balance Trap of Team Rocket, but not much.
Restricting TTR itself will balance it out in
full.
Wizards of the
Coast and DCI are trademarks of Wizards of the
Coast, Inc. ©2000 Wizards of the Coast,
Inc.
