This is the YMMV page for the tabletop collectible card game. For subjectives for the video game adaptation, see Pokémon Trading Card Game (1998).
- Accidental Innuendo: An Ambipom card
shows it lying down and winking suggestively, and its first attack is named Furry Chance. - Awesome Art: As a trading card game, this is a given. The Full Art cards from the Black & White series onward stand out in particular. BREAK Evolution cards also tend to have suitably epic designs. The alternate art Pokémon V from the Sword & Shield series are also generally highly praised and sought-after, to the point of becoming an official rarity, "(Special) Illustration Rare", in the Scarlet & Violet era.
- Game-Breaker:
- Base Set to Gym Challenge sets featured Trainer cards with extraordinarily powerful effects that often meant a game would be decided on the first turn of a game (In some extreme cases, the first turn was the only turn). This lead to a brief 'Prop-15/3' format * which proved unpopular enough that it was only used at a single major event* . Trainer cards from Neo Genesis onward were much less powerful; cards reprinting old effects often were limited to coinflip success or were simply less powerful; Expedition onward introduced Supporter cards, which you could only play one of a turn, and many of the old incredibly powerful Trainers became Supporters eventually.
- The cards everyone remembers (Bill, Professor Oak, and Computer Search) allowed you to essentially draw through most of your deck in a single turn; successfully playing all twelve cards would let you draw 40 cards, four being free searches; including draw-for-turn, your opening hand of 7, and Prize cards, you could end your turn with only six cards left in your deck.
- Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal meant that any attempt at actually setting up Pokémon with attack costs of more than one or two Energy was doomed to fail, and was one of the main contributors to the dominence of the Haymaker deck archetype in the early years.
- Rocket's Sneak Attack, The Rocket's Trap, and Chaos Gym were all extremely powerful hand disruption that ultimately created the 'First turn victory' conditions- playing multiple successive Rocket's Sneak Attack cards to shuffle away all of the opponent's Trainer cards, then shuffling the rest of their hand back in with The Rocket's Trap, followed by laying a Chaos Gym card to disrupt any lucky Trainer card draws they might have, leaving them with only Pokémon and Energy cards to play without having to make a coin-flip.
- Darkness and Metal types when first introduced in Neo Genesis, were often considered this early on. Before Diamond and Pearl introducing basic Energy cards for the types, all costs had to be paid via the Darkness and Metal Special Energy cards, which usually made the cards even more powerful than they might seem on initial readings.
- Sneasel from Neo Genesis in particular was obscenely overpowered, capable of dealing a theoretical 140 damage a turn when charged up at a time when 40-50 a turn for that much Energy was considered extremely good. When the first Modified Format was created, Sneasel obtained the dubious honour of being the first Pokémon card specifically officially banned from a format.
- The Neo Genesis Slowking in the English version, thanks to a mistranslation making its Pokémon Power much stronger than intended. "Mind Games" makes the opponent flip a coin to use any Trainer card, and if tails the effect fails and the card is placed on top of your opponent's deck. The Japanese text specified that the power only worked while Slowking was active, but this was left off the English card, which meant you could stack 4 Slowkings on your bench to reduce your opponent's chances of playing Trainers to 1/16, while also shutting down the opponent's draw 15/16ths of the time. The card was (eventually) banned like Sneasel until TPCI issued errata fixing the Power when they took over.
- The 'SP Engine' focusing on Pokémon SP from the Platinum era of cards, was extremely powerful, with early-game setup options, additional search power and support tools such as Energy Gain that lead them to dominate the format until powercreep caught up to them.
- Item-based Gusting effects* have historically been very powerful, even when limited to either be a Comeback Mechanic (Ultra Prism's Counter Catcher) or a coinflip (XY-era on Pokémon Catcher). However, non-limited Gusting effects (such as the original Gust of Wind, Double Gust, Black and White's Pokémon Catcher print, etc.) tend to be disgustingly powerful in comparison to other cards. (Reliable Gusting effects are usually extremely powerful even on Supporter cards; both Lysandre and Guzma saw incredibly extensive play while legal)
- Mewtwo-EX was all but unstoppable for a year or two after its initial printing, being included in all four World Championships decks of 2012. X-Ball hit for 20 damage per energy attached to both active Pokémon, and could punish heavily-set-up opposing Pokémon with just a single Double Colorless Energy. Due to the colorless energy cost, it could be and frequently was splashed in every deck around right through until its final reprint in Legendary Treasures was rotated, even after power creep had mostly caught up to it.
- Shaymin-EX allowed for lightning-fast setup, making fast offense decks much more powerful; when played to the bench, you can draw cards until you have six in hand. Not only does this not take up your supporter card for the turn, you could play multiple Shaymin-EX to keep drawing cards, making exceptionally potent early-game attackers even more so. To top it off, for a single Double Colorless Energy, you could return it to your hand — and then, if you wished, play it down again the next turn!
- Tapu Lele-GX's Wonder Tag ability allows it to search out a Supporter card from your deck when played to the bench, making it a fantastic card to get you out of poorer hands or to aid in setup.* To top it off, its main attack is a copy of Mewtwo-EX's X-Ball attack that can't hit for weakness; despite having been long since powercrept past, it's far from being a bad attack, and means that it can't just be ignored and can be a powerful tool in some situations.
- Zoroark-GX is a true Jack of All Stats; it has an incredibly powerful ability, Trade, which lets you discard a card to draw two more once a turn per Zoroark-GX, which is very powerful draw support especially when combined with cards like Mallow. Its first attack, and the one it most often uses is Riotous Beating, which hits the opponent's Active Pokémon for 20 damage per each of the attacking player's Pokémon in play, is a strong attack that's easy to hit large numbers with (especially with cards like Brigette), and its GX attack, Trickster GX, allows you to pick one of the opponent's moves to use, including other GX attacks. About the only weaknesses it has are that it can almost never OHKO opposing GX Pokémon in a format where not dealing a KO every turn is slow, and that it shares a format with Buzzwole-GX.
- Buzzwole-GX is, as a standalone card, not overly powerful. However, in the 2018 BREAKthrough-Celestial Storm format, it proved ridiculously powerful; with Strong Energy and Beast Energy as boosting Energy cards, Diancie-Prism Star and Regirock-EX powering it up from the bench, Float Stone to dodge the cooldown on Knuckle Impact, Choice Band to boost to even more power, perfect partners in non-GX Buzzwole and Lycanroc-GX, and Max Elixers and Beast Rings to power up extra Buzzwole incredibly quickly, Buzzwole-GX decks racked up more wins than any other achetype in that season. Due to how simple it is to set up, (Brooklet Hill and Ultra Space stadiums are both capable of Buzzwole search) the only serious weakness Buzzwole decks had was the inherent unreliability of the Max Elixer card, with Buzzwole mirror matches freqently being decided by which player hit more Max Elixers.
- When Arceus, Dialga, and Palkia GX (aka ADP) was first released, many thought it had shown potential. ADP's GX attack, Altered Creation, not only gives the team a +30 damage boost for the rest of the game, but with an extra Water energy, allows players to take an additional Prize Card after each kill. However, it was somewhat dismissed as Awesome, but Impractical due to being slow and convoluted to set up and requiring the somewhat unusual combination of Water and Steel energy. But when Sword & Shield dropped, it introduced Zacian V, which gave ADP everything it wanted for a partner and let to ADPZ, one of the most centralizing deck archetypes of all time. Zacian V was powerful, being able to KO important support Pokémon like Dedenne GX and Crobat V in one hit and can use its ability to quickly get the needed energy for its attack, allowing ADP to focus on setting up an Altered Creation. While being unable to use its attack two turns in a row seems like a Fatal Flaw, you can easily get around this by using a switch and then retreating the new active Pokémon (since effects of attacks wear off after a Pokémon is sent to the bench). The fact that the aforementioned support Pokémon are worth three prizes after Altered Creation means you only need to knock out two of them to win the game, and those cards are in virtually every deck due to improving consistency. If you set up everything correctly, ADPZ can consistently win in only four turns, giving it a massive advantage against anything that couldn't win that fast (which was pretty much everything). It had gotten to a point that for a time there were widespread calls to ban ADP, and many people's thought process when creating new decks was "well, it loses to ADP, but at least it has a decent matchup against everything else", and while ADPZ isn't quite as hated as it once was, it is still considered to be at the top of the meta.
- Giratina VSTAR can be considered the Pokémon equivalent of Borrelsword Dragon, as the game's resident Dragon-type One-Hit KO machine. Its base form, Giratina V, is already good; its first attack, "Abyss Seeking", is good for both card advantage and Lost Zone fueling, while its second attack, "Shred", is a decently powerful attack with no drawbacks that can get rid of problematic single-prize Pokémon. Once it evolves, however, its main attack, "Lost Impact" deals a very meaty 280 damagenote for only 3 Energy. It requires you to send 2 Energy attached to your Pokémon to the Lost Zone, but that's where its VSTAR Power comes in — Star Requiem is an instant KO against any Pokémon for 2 Energy (especially useful for Pokémon VMAX and higher-stage Pokémon ex that can take a Lost Impact), with the only caveat being that you must have 10 or more cards in your Lost Zone (something that Lost Impact contributes to). This sounds Awesome, but Impractical, but the "Lost Box" enginenote can easily fill up the Lost Zone and attach Energy to your Pokémon at the same time, making Giratina a perfect choice for its main attacker. While Giratina VSTAR was initially too slow to be a top-tier threat, the slower pace and greater focus on Basic Pokémon in the Scarlet & Violet era gave it some time to shine, where it benefited from a great matchup against other meta decks such as Miraidon ex as well as the new "Beach Court" Stadium that allowed for more frequent rotation and use of Comfey.
- Base Set to Gym Challenge sets featured Trainer cards with extraordinarily powerful effects that often meant a game would be decided on the first turn of a game (In some extreme cases, the first turn was the only turn). This lead to a brief 'Prop-15/3' format * which proved unpopular enough that it was only used at a single major event* . Trainer cards from Neo Genesis onward were much less powerful; cards reprinting old effects often were limited to coinflip success or were simply less powerful; Expedition onward introduced Supporter cards, which you could only play one of a turn, and many of the old incredibly powerful Trainers became Supporters eventually.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: A number of English-speaking collectors also collect Japanese cards, for two main reasons: they almost always release earlier than their English counterparts, and the holo cards have different (often nicer) foiling than cards in English and other Western languages, making them more visually distinct. Likewise, it's not uncommon to see English cards on Japanese auction sites, especially for the few cards that release earlier in English than in Japanese and/or for cards that are easier to get in English (for example, both of the Champion's Path secret rare Charizard, while very rare in English, were $1000 prize cards in Japanese).
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Has a dedicated subpage.
- Improved Second Attempt: While "alternate art" high-rarity cards garnered a lot of praise since their debut in the Tag Team sets and were one of the most sought-after parts of later Sword & Shield sets, the latter were criticized by some fans for the ridiculously low pull rates of said "alt art" cards. This got to the point that alt-art Umbreon VMAX in Evolving Skies became one of the most expensive cards in the entire history of the TCG, and alt-art Giratina V was valued at hundreds of dollars despite depicting a Pokémon that hadn't been in heavy demand up to that point. When "alt art" cards returned in the Scarlet & Violet block as "Special Illustration Rares", their pull rates were increased drastically, making them much more accessible to many players and much easier to collect. Even the highly coveted and playable Tera Charizard ex Special Illustration Rare ended up seeing prices in the mere double digits.
- It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Some of the criticism stems from this, while others consider it a viable strength.
- Even more people would gladly point out that it's actually very challenging to play the Pokémon card game well — not just to simply play it.
- Narm: The game frequently invents moves not in the games. Some of these have rather goofy names, like Mawile's Big Ol' Bite and Forretress's infamous Everyone Explode Now.
- Obscure Popularity: A lot of people have collected the cards when they were kids, but eventually stopped. Nowadays, the TCG is thriving, with thousands of people of all ages attending tournaments, and the cards themselves even outselling Magic: The Gathering at times. Yet, a lot of people, even from within the greater Pokémon fandom, seem surprised not just at the popularity of the game, but the mere fact that it still exists to this day.
- Obvious Beta: The Poémon Trading Card Game Live beta was full of numerous bugs that resulted in certain interactions softlocking the game (such as an opponent conceding when Gardevoir ex's ability Psychic Embrace is being used), randomly preventing certain legal play actions (such as using Gardevoir ex's Psychic Embrace ability to attach energy to an active Psychic Poémon with more than 20 HP remaining), making certain actions stronger than they should be, and just frequently crashing. Few if any of these issues were fixed by the time the game launched, despite a high volume of feedback sent by players.
- Older Than They Think: Many concepts and even attacks that appear in the game originated in the cards first. Abilities appeared in the third generation, but the cards have had Pokémon Powers since they were first released. Mega Evolutions debuted in generation 6, but Level X Pokémon appeared in the cards during the fourth generation.
- Periphery Demographic: A lot of collectors don't play the game.
- Popular Game Variant: One of the most popular alternative formats is Gym Leader Challenge. In addition to using the expanded format, which includes cards from all past expansions through Black and White, Gym Leader Challenge adds three rules to the normal rules: All Pokémon in a player's deck must be the same type, Pokémon with a rulebox and Ace Spec item cards are not allowed, and only one of each card other than basic energy may be in a player's deck. The format is so popular that it even sees play in side events at official competitions.
- Popularity Polynomial: The TCG had a resurgence in late 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic when Logan Paul made a video about buying an expensive vintage Base Set box, with stores beginning to sell out of TCG product; most notably, Evolutions, once derided as a nostalgia-baiting "filler" set, became very popular and sold out in many places due to the cards being designed after early sets. Unfortunately, this also lead to the rise of scalping and the situation is so extremely bad that most stores had to remove TCG sets to prevent this from happening as it also leads to fights (which is exactly what happened in a Target store in Brookfield, Wisconsin when a fight occurred over trading cards).
- Sequelitis: The Champion's Path expansion is widely reviled by many fans. Intended as a "sequel" to the beloved Hidden Fates, the set list is very small and largely consists of simplistic, unplayable cards with the only sought-after cards being two versions of Charizardnote that have very low pull rates.note Those two cards alone are enough to sell the set, but many have reported becoming depressed after buying hundreds and hundreds of dollars' worth of Champion's Path products and getting nothing but junk. Its successor, Shining Fates, is considered an improvement but still vastly inferior to Hidden Fates. With the rise and subsequent popularity of Illustration Rares, the set has also aged particularly poorly as its own secret rares are simply recolors of other Charizard cards, with the final Sword & Shield set Crown Zenith getting much more praise and being considered by many fans to be a truly worthy successor to Hidden Fates.
- Underused Game Mechanic: Back in the Ruby and Sapphire era, the TCG had official rules for Double Battles (officially called "Two-on-Two Battles"), with several cards having attacks or abilities that interacted with "each Active Pokemon". Unlike the videogames, the format never caught on with the playerbase and was quickly abandoned, to the point where many fans don't remember it existing.
- Woolseyism:
- Shining Legends Incineroar has an attack named "Goddamn Punch"note in Japanese. For obvious reasons, such a name wouldn't slide in the English version, so it was translated as "Profane Punch"; not only does "Profane" convey the intended meaning much better than Obligatory Swearing in a children's game, but it serves as a Stealth Pun in that the Japanese name of the attack was literally profane.
- The Japanese expansion Lost Abyss was criticized by some fans for dropping the Pokémon Legends: Arceus theming of the previous few sets despite its main featured Pokémon (Giratina) being one half of the Big Bad Duumvirate in said game. When Lost Abyss was localized in the West as Lost Origin, it was combined with Dark Phantasma, another Japanese set that heavily featured elements of the game, allowing for the Legends: Arceus theming to be retained. It also meant that Giratina and its temporary partner, Volo, could now be found in the same expansion.
