PkmnCards
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Computer Error · Wizards Black Star Promos #16

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Computer Error
Trainer › (Item) › Rocket's Secret Machine

You may draw up to 5 cards, then your opponent may draw up to 5 cards. Your turn is over now (you don’t get to attack).

illus. Sumiyoshi Kizuki
Promos › Wizards Black Star Promos › #16 : Promo · ↘ May 1, 2000
Formats: Other: 1999–2001 · Modified: 2002, 2003
External: Bulba ↗ · #ad / Affiliate Links: TCGplayer ↗, cardmarket ↗, Amazon ↗, eBay ↗

Rating

Overall: 20.00% (1 win, 4 losses)

Within Set & Formats:

  • Wizards Black Star Promos: n/a (0 wins, 0 losses)
  • BS-on (1999–2001): n/a (0 wins, 0 losses)
  • Neo-on (Modified 2003): 0% (0 wins, 1 loss)
  • RO-on (Modified 2002): n/a (0 wins, 0 losses)

Note: The rating system is currently disabled.

Reader Interactions

84 comments

  1. Adam Capriola

    I finally fixed a glitch in the card rating display where it would randomly freeze on you (I realized it was happening only when cards were legal in the same format together). I also removed basic Energy cards from the ratings because it doesn’t really make sense to rate basic Energy cards (they are a fundamental part of the game).

    Reply

  3. Adam Capriola

    Hey all, I’m going to be working on a slight redesign of PkmnCards the next couple of weeks. My top two objectives are to improve performance (speed up page loads for those on mobile and with poor connections, in particular) and displays (more accurately depict the actual text on the cards).

    Any requests while I’m at it? New features, things to fix that aren’t working quite right, etc.

    Reply

  4. Fletcher Thomason

    Im sorry adam, but i really dont like the new pkmncards, i understand making money to pay for the server costs, but not being able to use the site on weekends and now not being able to use advanced search really limits everyones ability to find cards easily. Especially for kids like me without jobs and cant pay for the cost, and i really hope you revise the new changes. I can understand not being able to access it on the weekends where they’ll be the most traffic, but not being able to use the single most important thing on the website (advanced search) makes the site in my eyes, less useful. Again, i hope that use remove the restriction on the advanced search, and a suggestion: add a donations button.

    Reply

    • Fletcher ThomasonFletcher Thomason

      Yeah i’ve been using the official pokemon database, but it’s so annoying that even if you use the correct syntax, it doesnt show every card that has the phrase you’re looking for since stuff like erika isnt considered an item or supporter and they dont have a option for “trainer”

      Reply

    • Robert MatoFletcher Thomason

      I agree. Some of the search limitations are especially strange to me, like not being able to view Image Only anymore, which sounds to me like it would be lighter on servers than a full search (though I don’t know details about the back-end of the search system). When sites like Bulbapedia exist, as well as PTCGO, the biggest draw this site has is the high quality scans. That one unique feature alone isn’t worth a subscription for someone like me who only searches through the site every few months. I’d gladly donate, and would have by now if there was an option (Maybe there is, and it’s just not very clear? I haven’t seen a button anywhere.), as when I do come around to search through old sets of cards I really appreciate the ease of use. But I don’t like the idea of paying monthly for a site I don’t use monthly, when I could just use other sites and only miss out on higher quality scans. I’m very surprised that locking features behind memberships was put into place before even opening the option for people to give money to support the site out of their simply generosity.

      Reply

    • Adam Capriola Fletcher Thomason

      I’ve held off responding to anyone who’s expressed dissatisfaction with the feature restrictions because I don’t know how to respond in a way that is going to change anyone’s opinion. But here’s what I’ll say:

      Nothing is free. Things that don’t receive support (peoples’ time or money—which are one in the same) go away.

      If you like the functionality PkmnCards provides and you want PkmnCards to always be available, then support it. Purchase a membership or contribute your time (though I can only handle so many volunteers, and we have enough at the moment). If other websites or services provide the same functionality as PkmnCards, and they don’t charge you, then use them instead.

      The site is still functional without a membership. Everything is there—the images, text, sets, taxonomies, etc. This is fine for most people. The average person does not need to change displays or use advanced searches. If you are someone who uses these features, and you feel entitled to them, but you don’t want to or can’t contribute, then I don’t know what to tell you. PkmnCards didn’t magically come together. It took a lot of work, and it will continue to take a lot of work to keep going. All I’m asking is for the people who leverage it the most to support it.

      Reply

  5. James

    I agree with the users above. There’s literally no good reasons left for me to use this website as a free user, that I couldn’t get from another source. if I don’t have access to advanced search, you may as well put the entire website behind a subscription log-in page.

    Sad :( seems as if many people would have been willing to donate to keep the site going but it’s not worth paying a monthly subscription. Ive heard of some other card databases in development, guess it’s time to check them out.

    Reply

    • Adam Capriola James

      Before rumors spread about people being eager to donate and not given the chance:

      Donations were accepted from 2011 through last week. There had been a link on the About page and in the footer. I received $155 in total donations over those eight years. That averages to less than $20 per year. That is abysmal and a large factor in why I’ve started memberships.

      The new version of PkmnCards—launched in Oct 2018—that added/improved almost all of the displays, sorting, and searching filters (which some people like so much) was only possible because of the people who contributed through Patreon. I would not have spent over a month (200+ hours) coding all that if it were not for their support.

      Reply

      • Robert MatoAdam Capriola

        I have to say, that’s just about the worst place to put donation/Patreon links. Is there any tool available to you to check how often a page is viewed? Because hardly anyone ever looks at the footer of a site, or an About page for that matter. And the About page is only linked to in the footer. If the donation link is so tucked away there’s no wonder you barely got anything over all those years.
        Why wasn’t there simply a “Donate” or “Support” or “Tip” link in the nav-bar or the homepage? People see those all the time. I feel like it’d fit in easily enough up by the Advanced – Syntax – ??? – Sets links.
        I understand the need for monetary support to keep a site going, but I just feel like the means of supporting the site wasn’t clear in the slightest. Even this, finding this page where people are discussing the site, including this topic specifically, I only found by Googling “PkmnCards.com membership”. The Twitter account is basically dead and aside from emailing you directly, which is a very different form of communication than a public forum, I couldn’t find anywhere that anyone was talking about this change. I really don’t think it’s fair to call the claims of people wishing to donate “rumors” when the means of doing so are so tucked away.
        I don’t want these comments to come across as angry or heated. I like this site and want to see it stick around, but I don’t think that such a hard lock-down of features is going to end up being good for it. I may certainly be wrong, it’s only my perspective, but I really do feel like those of us saying we’d have been happy donating would have if we’d only had access to the option without being expected to dig through the tiny links at the bottom of the page, below the actual content we’re browsing.

        Reply

    • 100000VoltsJames

      Wow, I am surprise he didn’t delete your comment or any who oppose the subscription.

      Reply

  6. J

    “Everything is there—the images, text, sets, taxonomies, etc” – I disagree. The primary benefit of this site, to me, is the advanced search. When I’m looking for cards to collect, it’s great to have a gallery of supporters, or ultra rare Kingdras, etc. Other sites have set and taxonomy galleries. Card transcription is useful to blind folks using screen readers, which is great, but that’s a small audience – most people just read the cards. I greatly appreciate the high-quality scans without wordmarks, but I don’t see it being critical to most people’s use cases.

    I’m sure you’ll find a few people to subscribe, and I’m sure the site’ll be generating more income than before. But is it worth it if usage of the site decreases drastically? As a hobbyist web developer, I like making things for people to use. I want as many people using my thing as possible. If you don’t share that philosophy, fine, but you also have to consider that as usage goes down, so do things like community and search engine relevance… there’s a possibility pkmncards.com will fade into obscurity due to this *highly* prohibitive paywall. As existing supporters get tired of the $50/yr and unsubscribe, there’ll be no one new to replace them.

    But what do I know? Just my thoughts.

    Reply

    • OtakuJ

      Without knowing how this side is actually coded to work, I would assume the transcripts are what you search whenever you do an Advanced Search and enter something into the “Card Text” box. Adam wouldn’t have needed a volunteer to type up the cards from SM – Team Up if that stuff was all automated.

      Transcripts are also useful when discussing rulings, writing articles, etc. which is my main reason for coming to this site. Yes, I’m near-sighted, but I’m far from blind. ;) Some cards are just difficult to read even in person, let alone in quality scans. No, I’m not always going by the transcripts; I do read the actual scans more. Often enough, though need to copy/paste text for discussions.

      Reply

  7. Chris P

    I think Adam has done a fantastic job on the site. I like the search options better than before, and the layout of the site as a whole is way better. I am one of these people that is on the site multiple times a day, 7 days a week. And I’m happy to support and contribute. Keep up the good work Adam and Co!

    Reply

    • Adam Capriola Chris P

      Thank you, Chris! I appreciate your support. On the roadmap: I’m hoping to get images for the Energy symbols added (to replace the brackets, like [G], [R], [W], etc.) in the next few days.

      Reply

  8. TCGfan

    So, basically you want it to become a private site. You know very well that the average user does use the advanced search features that are now behind a paywall.
    I’m not even mostly disappointed that you turned it into your personal business, or want to make it your paid job, but that you think that it is not a big deal, and the users are just a bunch of entitled ingrates.
    Also, I don’t like how you talk about entitlement, when you charge $5 monthly compared to Wikipedia asking for a single lifetime payment of $10, especially when you consider that your site and features are copy and pasted design from magiccards.info(now Scryfall, a site with a mode modern design, and still free).
    And one more thing, you shouldn’t be using people’s endorsements when you didn’t mention that now the site is going to be paid, especially when groups like YGOPRODeck.com are against segregating playerbase by monetary power.
    I know I’m not being persuasive, but this is what you get when you are being honest. I’m not going to lie saying that I would gladly pay $39/yearly for a site I use every couple months when a new set comes out, but disabling adblock is something I already do on most sites I trust that asks for it, and I have never seen you ask for it(although I did not look up everywhere if you needed or not).

    Reply

  9. Dinell

    Hi I’ve been using this site for a long time. In fact it has become the main way I deal with card searches, and rulings as a Professor of this game. I’ve also been singing its praises since I was able to use it, abandoning Pokegym’s Researching Tower in the process (I’m the one who introduced this site to WeeWeeBoi btw). All-in-all, I’m a big fan of this place!

    So it’s a pretty bitter taste to be told after being on here as long as I have to pay for basic site functions that should be free. Yes it takes work, yes it takes time, but you’re taking away something that is the very reason people showed up to your site without adding anything new and worth justifying $39/year or $4.99/month.

    With that being said, if PKMNcards gave paid members something extra other than “giving them back the site”, that may be worth it. Please consider the following free suggestions that you could give paid subscriptions. (These could be added overtime and promised prematurely as incentive)

    – A reasonable one time life-time payment

    – Deck List Creator: A functional deck list maker of your account similar to Pokegoldfish.com. Said section would also work with PTCGO text import/exports and would link to the card’s page (make it better than all the others and you can have my wallet!)

    – Oracle Text on Each Card: Add the references that contain the up-to-date wordings for all cards in the tcpi judge’s Pokemon Compendium.

    – A paid app version that is faster

    – Creating a limited discord bot that can curate small response images to a person’s “!card” search. This would also link to the main site for a higher image version

    – Work with TCGPlayer and get member-only discounts to their site through stuff like codes, deal through only you, etc.

    – Lock out Card images to non-subscribers and only give them “Text View” and “List View”, still keeping the full site free and open

    – Last Resort, lock out non-Expanded legal cards ONLY. (And this is coming from someone who mostly uses this site to search older card effects)

    I would like to also address something I’m seeing in this discussion: it always disappoints me to see a creator getting criticism, constructive or otherwise, and brushing it off with an “I don’t know what to tell you”. The customer is not always right, but they do always matter. You are going to get flack for a move like this, period. Its not fair to essentially give a “whatever” response, ESPECIALLY if you’re asking them for money!

    There are many more ways to promote a monthly fee that are not taking the site away from the masses. And I would put my money in your pocket on that fact!

    Reply

    • Adam Capriola Dinell

      Hi Dinell, I am at a loss for what to tell certain people. Those who are upset and most vocal about it aren’t likely to change their opinion. I’m not looking to get into a long back-and-forth with someone who’s never commented before, never sent an error report, etc. that will go nowhere when I have other things to. I am responding to you in particular because I have had interactions with you before.

      Here’s some perspective:

      Scryfall has a partnership with TCGplayer that enables them to have full-time employees. PkmnCards earned $47.42 in TCGplayer affiliate commissions for February.

      I can’t do much with that. I’m one guy coding when I can, working way below the going rate of a competent web developer. (Other people contribute images and help with data entry + fixing typos, but the site doesn’t move forward unless I’m coding.) With limited finances, I have to focus almost exclusively on fixing bugs to keep the site stable. I would like to build more features/expand functionality, but I can’t justify pouring hours into this when I continually get little return. Memberships (direct support) are a way to enable me to do more.

      Re: Incentive ideas
      – life-time payment: These are extremely uncommon; almost all products and services are recurring. It’s not a longterm solution. In two or three years I’m out of funding.
      – Deck List Creator: Great idea, but it will take me a lot of time (hundreds of hours).
      – Oracle Text on Each Card: Great idea, though I imagine this would interest only a small portion of visitors.
      – A paid app: That would require either hundreds or hours or thousands of dollars. I’d have to teach myself how to build an app or pay someone to do it.
      – Lock out Card images: I don’t own the card images, and so I don’t feel comfortable restricting access to them.
      – lock out non-Expanded legal cards: I considered this, and I may revisit the idea.

      Reply

      • zeroashAdam Capriola

        So then if Skryfall has persued this route to establish themselves as a dominate and consistent website with TCGplayer, what is stopping you from doing the same or a similar deal?

        Reply

        • Sadplayerzeroash

          Most likely TCGplayer doesn’t want to do with his desire to turn this site into his job.
          Scryfall only got the partnership(this was a relatively recent change, when you consider that magiccards has been going by itself since 2005, and only in 2018 it got the partnership) because it has been the go to database for mtg players all over the world for many years innovating and making life easier to all of them, regardless of them paying money or not.
          Adam keeps talking about how he has to code, but what he mostly do is fill in data tables, since the site structure was copy pasted from magiccards.info.
          If TCGplayer had to choose, they would most likely ask their team in scryfall to make a site like it for pokemon tcg instead of giving money to Adam who has only copied other people’s work.

          Reply

  10. 100000Volts

    Here’s a suggestion, do what wikipedia does every have it on the top of the web page (that fundraising bar) every year at the beginning of the year. Say you need $5,000 a year, well make a bar:

    [=====|—————–]
    $0 $1,500 $5,000

    Something like that, if some people are able to ask for money just to go on some trip and actually gets some (see the website gofundme), I know you can get some donation.

    Reply

    • Adam Capriola 100000Volts

      Wikipedia is a non-profit organization, and that’s why they run (and are able to have success with) donation campaigns. It’s a decent idea. I’d rather do memberships/subscriptions since I’ve had success with them before, and I see a lot of other websites, services, and apps do well with them too. They’re a long-term, stable solution.

      Reply

      • 100000VoltsAdam Capriola

        Alright, but if you want to jump over competition you may want to offer more to your subscribers. I visit and play at the website chess.com. Now what makes this site better than other chess site is it gives subscribers unlimited chess puzzles, better analysis of your games, master player tips, articles to read, etc. Its free for everyone but limited resources to free users. I suggest that you may want to an article sections, such as discussing popular tournament decks or unlimited. Include deck that are fun to play that may not be suitable for tournament play (like what Wizards did in generation I). And like yugioh wikia, include some tips of using cards (combo and such).

        I don’t know you level of dedication but if you’re thinking of long term profit, you may need to do more than powered search engine. You may want to include alert for the upcoming set release, promo cards, tournament dates, etc. Just some idea.

        Reply

  11. John

    Seems Adam is taking some heat here and I just wanted to express my opinion. People need to understand that running ads and/or affiliate-based revenue can be volatile month-to-month, and simply asking for donations tends to be unsustainable for obvious reasons. A subscription model is reasonable here.

    We need to get out of the mode of thinking where we are convinced that more and more things, particularly content on the internet, should be free. It takes time and effort to maintain a functional site, and we should want skilled people working on useful projects like this. There is no better resource for card searching, filtering, and quality images. That didn’t just happen. Someone made it happen. But because we don’t see a person’s time and effort directly (you just go to the site and it magically works), we tend to take it for granted.

    Please, if you use this site a lot and find yourself upset at losing access to the advanced features, then that means on some level you valued those features. Seems to me that $5 per month is a fair request in exchange for something of value, although that’s something that everyone has to decide for themselves.

    Reply

  12. Pete

    Sorry, I can’t justify it. The advanced search was the primary thing that made me love this site. The high-resolution images are also very nice, but I can’t help but think that they’re just ripped off of PTCGO files. Without the Advanced search, your site functions just as well as TCGPlayer. I understand wanting to be compensated for your time, but this isn’t what’s going to do it. As Dinell stated earlier, your site’s gonna need to provide a lot of functionality or other incentives to use it, especially if the official CardDex app gets fully stocked with older sets. Since you basically carbon-copied ScryFall, find out what routes they took that makes that site free. Maybe crowdfunding is an option, I don’t know.

    My main point is this: Almost everything for the Pokemon TCG resource-wise has some kind of paywall for something, while other games absolutely don’t. I think people are tired of it. It’s not helping anyone. I hope you get enough people to support you, but I’m not going to be one of them. I can’t justify it.

    Reply

  13. 007manyo

    Hi Adam! I had a few questions about how the new subscription service works. I already support the site on Patreon and have for a little while now, back since favorite card badges were still a tier (Greninja <3), but I was curious what, if any, differences there would be between the Patreon pledges and the new Memberful subscriptions. As far as I've been able to read, I kinda understand that they are more or less the same? I was just a tad confused at not being able to access the advanced search features, and since it looks like the price per month is the same anyway, I just wanted to know what I'd lose – or gain, for that matter – by switching from Patreon to Memberful. I definitely want to support the site, you do a fantastic job and I totally get that you can't do it for free. Hopefully this might clear up some things for other people that also wanted to subscribe!

    Reply

    • Adam Capriola 007manyo

      Hi Alex! Maintaining a pledge through Patreon (any amount) gets you the same benefits as the Memberful subscriptions. Just make sure you are able to log in: https://pkmncards.com/login-instructions/

      I tried sending messages to everyone on Patreon about the changes in mid-February, but obviously not everyone saw them. I apologize about that—I wish I had a better way to stay in touch with everyone. I may end up installing a forum so that it’s easier to communicate.

      Thanks for your support (and go Greninja)!

      Reply

  14. Tokiwa City Smuggle

    Please, people, stop flooding the comment sections if has nothing to do with the card(s). It’s getting annoying. Why isn’t there a separate page for discussing website changes?

    Reply

  15. Pumpkin Man

    This card is real good in Pokémon Card GB2: Here Comes Team GR! for stall decks as the opponent will almost always draw five cards.

    Reply

  16. JP

    The site went down briefly due to a bug in a wordpress plugin. This should be fixed now. Apologies for the downtime!

    Reply

  17. nago

    Hey everyone – we’re experiencing some performance issues that we are still trying to diagnose. We’re aware of the problem and are working on it. If you have specific questions or concerns, please drop by the discord.

    Reply

    • Jiří z Poděbradnago

      Thanks so very much for the help!! We really appreciate all the work you do to make this website a forum for us all 🤗

      Reply

        • Jiří z Poděbradnago

          You’re welcome! And thank you, mods, for all the work you do adding hyperlinks in comments when we mention other cards — those links make it *so* much easier to hop between various cards when I’m deck-building. It’s the #1 reason why I keep coming back to your site!

          Reply

  18. nago

    We think we found the root cause of the performance issues that caused some downtime last week, and have deployed a fix. Hopefully, it’ll be a while before you see this card again!

    Reply

  19. Tokiwa City Smuggle

    Why is this comment section all of sudden the place to discuss the website’s changes? I don’t understand.

    Reply

    • JackTokiwa City Smuggle

      Not sure what you mean by ‘all of a sudden’ – as evidenced by the top comment, it’s been the case here for the past eight years, whether it’s been site changes, bug fixes, anything like that. I can also see a comment from you from a little under a year ago asking a similar thing. It’s ‘Computer Error’ – it’s a quirk of the site.

      Reply

    • nagoTokiwa City Smuggle

      Yep. We don’t have a site-wide announcements section, and it’s been tradition to leave updates on loosely related cards. I think it’s a fun quirk!

      Reply

  20. Tokiwa City Smuggle

    When is this site going to show Japan only release sets like the Vending Sheet series and the VS sets? I ask of this because i recently discovered the Japanese Base-neo 8 point Hall of Fame format which also uses not only sets we have in the States but also their very own promos but also their vending sets, and even intro packs which had better starter Pokemon than the ones in the sets we have. They had some unique combos with cards that never made it here, so unfair!

    Reply

    • AmbassadorTokiwa City Smuggle

      The great pkmncards+pokumon merger doesn’t seem like it’s something that’ll happen. I know some folks are working on an API of the Japanese edition of the TCG that would probably better lend itself to either a sister site of pkmncards.com, or else something that could be used to expand this site if there was interest along those lines.

      All things considered, it’s a lot easier said than done..

      Reply

    • SIMBAJP

      I was just searching “silvally” (without the marks) and page one is newly released cards and page 2 is an error? Is that just me?

      Reply

      • AmbassadorSIMBA

        No, it’s not just you. I think free search without any arguments has been broken in exchange for text now handling apostrophes correctly?

        Reply

      • TwylisSIMBA

        I get that too, but most pokemon searches seem fine. Notably, “silvall” and “silval” will yield all Silvally cards like you would expect, but “silva” is the same result as “silvally”. “name:silvally” works as expected.
        The glitched results seem to be most (all?) the cards on the site, and while you can’t go to the next page, you can change how they’re sorted. If you change how they’re sorted and then try searching “silva” or “silvally” again from that page, you’ll get normal Silvally results.

        Reply

        • JP Twylis

          I don’t quite follow what the error/bug is here: can you phrase in terms of an input followed by the (undesired) output, versus what the expected output is? Also note what browser you’re using and whether this is on mobile or desktop.

          Note that on mobile, during searches I do see sometimes that cards don’t load (at the 9th card or so), and you just get a shaded square there. Then further down the search list cards can start showing up again. However, I was seeing that problem last week and I don’t believe it has anything to do with the change I just made.

          Reply

          • AmbassadorJP

            https://pkmncards.com/?s=silvally is broken. It looks like it’s returning all cards in the database right now. If you click page 2 it tells you the page “no longer exists”.

            Messing around so more it does seem entirely limited to this specific search term, and I wonder if it just happened to be the first search someone attempted after the update was pushed, and somehow idiosyncratically got mucked up for it?

          • TwylisJP

            Input in search box: silvally (or silva)
            Output: list of every single card on the site, organized by date released (so top card being Lucario VSTAR SWSH291)
            Expected output: just the cards with silvally in the name
            I think the reason trying to go to page 2 (of 265 pages) gives an error is because the URL is still for a Silvally search (URL being https://pkmncards.com/?s=silvally), but a functional Silvally search only has one page.

            I’m on Firefox on desktop (specifically Linux), though I just tested it on Firefox on Android and it yielded the same issue.

    • JP JP

      Thanks. Searching for “silvally” isn’t broken at all for me; I see just the 11 Silvally cards as expected. But I have some ideas about how to fix this (might be cache-related); will take a look.

      Edit: I cleared cache for that, should be working now!

      Reply

  22. Erika Bonchiko

    Hi pkmncards team – not sure if it is a known issue, but the TcgPlayer links on individual cards have been broken for me for a little while.

    Reply

    • Adam Capriola Gaardus

      Hey Gaardus, thanks for pointing this out. I will have to add an exclusion to the code for these two cards—I’m unable to do a quick update to them in the backend. This’ll be fixed eventually.

      Reply

  25. Dusk Mage Necrozma

    “Your turn is over now (you don’t get to attack)” is some really funny wording

    Reply

  26. Sam

    Getting 404 errors on the site atm

    403 Forbidden
    You don’t have permission to access /page/10/?s=type%3Atrainer+series%3Amega-evolution%2Cscarlet-violet%2Csword-shield%2Csun-moon%2Cxy%2Cblack-white&sort=abc&ord=auto&display=images on this server.

    If this is your Web site and you’re not sure why you’re seeing this message, the permissions on this file may be set incorrectly: the file should be world-readable.

    Tried multiple ISPs

    Reply

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