Energy Removal 2 · Expedition (EX) #140

4 comments

1. 

   Brian Duddy

   (10 years ago)

   Shouldn’t this have been “Energy Removal 1/2”?

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     AmbassadorBrian Duddy

     (1 year ago)

     well, well, well

     The Japanese print of this card and Super Energy Removal 2 have the exact same name as their originals – the “2” was added by WOTC. Note that this wasn’t the case for some other e-Card Trainers in similar positions – JP’s Pokémon Reversal is effectively a flippy Gust of Wind, but has a different name as compared to the original card – so it seems deliberate. For the Japanese TCG, it wouldn’t have made a difference since they were in two completely different cardgames/formats anyways, but for the EN TCG, these prints could’ve also had the same name and served as erratas to them.

     Following from a comment I left on Fossil Muk, it seems PCL might’ve been aware that the EN TCG was going to continue to stubbornly insist on a full unlimited format (re: refuse the cardback change), and was trying to design rules and/or cards to make such a format half-viable. So why did WOTC refuse to implement the errata? The addition of a “2” can’t just be a simple mistake. I suspect it’s for a pretty simple reason – WOTC didn’t want to have to significantly change the text of any of the Base Set cards, they set that they wanted to print forever and ever. There’d be no way to justify printing ER/SER without the errata if they released their new e-Card prints with updated text, so how do you solve this? You change the names of the new prints so they *don’t* errata the Base Set cards.

     It’s either that or deliberate malice on WOTC’s part, because I can’t imagine anyone who would be keen to see ER/SER retained going in the EN unlimited format.

     This premise – “Base Set über alles” – can help explain a lot of things, actually;
     · Why the EN game never got the e-Card era print of Bill. Reclassifying a Base Set card into a Supporter? Nope, that’d require an amendment of a Base Set card, so WOTC would rather pretend it didn’t exist.
     · How about the reclassification of Pokémon Powers into Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies? That would’ve require amendments to several Base Set cards. Definitely not doing that!
     · It even explains why WOTC refused to ever errata BS Clefairy’s Metronome, despite how nightmarishly stupid it was making certain interactions. (I suspect there are probably a lot of other WOTC-era rulings and erratas that will suddenly make a lot more sense if you come at it with a premise of “WOTC considers BS sacrosanct, everything else is negotiable.”)

     The only exception that’s coming to mind for me is Best Of Hitmonchan, but that’s (1) their most egregious instance of “play as printed”, which arguably *reinforces* rather than negates this premise, and (2) printed after they knew they lost the contract. (Scorched earth?)

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       TwylisAmbassador

       (1 year ago)

       Their seemingly-deliberate change to Neo Genesis Slowking as a presumed attempt to nerf trainer cards is also interesting in light of this. Making a change to Slowking like that, while horribly misguided, would seemingly represent an awareness of how toxic cards like Energy Removal and Gust of Wind were — and yet, when given a chance to errata Energy Removal, WotC still didn’t take it. The underlying implication being that perhaps it was specifically the *drawing* trainers WotC hated, not the disruption cards.

       It could just be they were *that* committed to leaving Base Set as is, of course. Best Of Hitmonchan represents an arbitrary change to an existing card incentivized by WotC disliking the current state of the meta, but it being “play as printed” meant there was no real errata in place. Anyone wanting to use Hitmonchan could just opt for the superior version — and if they had nerfed Gust of Wind or Energy Removal with the same “play as printed” mentality, it wouldn’t have changed anything: people would just keep using the superior Base Set versions. Which is basically what happened anyway. Slowking, however, was a card they hadn’t printed yet — if they implemented their “fix” on its initial print, there would be no pesky erratas necessary.

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         TwylisTwylis

         (1 year ago)

         Thinking further, WotC’s Neo Slowking, if in play in every game, basically results in the intended state of Pokemon Reversal and Energy Removal being coin flip dependent. It just executes it in a way that requires no erratas of existing cards, doesn’t have to navigate the different names of Pokemon Reversal and Gust of Wind, and also ruins drawing consistency (likely a bonus for WotC) and results in horrible lock situations (likely an unforeseen consequence). I suspect the ability stacking for every Slowking in play might’ve been something they didn’t even consider.

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