These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: Pokémon Trading Card Game
Anti-Climax Boss: Everyone of the not-Elite Four final bosses of the GBC game are obsessed with playing their signature legendary cards who are clearly in the Awesome, but Impractical zone. The issue is that the energy cost for these cards are so crippling (6 energy cards attached to a single card, plus requiring a coin flip to do only decent damage?) and the AI prioritizes giving them energy over anything else, to the detriment of any useful cards in their deck.
Awesome Art: As a trading card game, this is a given. The Full Art cards from the Black & White series stand out in particular.
Fridge Brilliance: Tons of it, although some of the most recent examples really stand out:
In the United States, the base set had several different versions, each of which having its own special peculiarities, such as an error Pikachu. Flash forward almost a decade and a half later: with the release of Black and White, you had no fewer than three different releases, as well as...An error Pikachu.
In the original Black and White expansion, Reshiram has a big attack that involves discarding energy while Zekrom has a big attack that requires self-damage. Fast forward to Next Destinies, when both receive powerful EX versions...Only this time the Reshiram does self-damage and the Zekrom discards! Yin-yang in card form!
Other than secret rares, the international release of Dark Rush (called "Dark Explorers") has 108 cards in it.
Game Breaker: Trainer cards often had game-changing effects, leading to the eventual "Prop-15" that limited the number of trainers one could use in their deck. With the Diamond and Pearl expansion, a handful of the old Trainer cards have been remade as "Supporter" cards, a class of trainer card that you can only use one of per turn. Pokemon Breeder (skip an evolution stage) and most card-drawing or deck-searching cards especially.** In addition, many players considered the Darkness and Metal types as this when they were first introduced in Neo Genesis. One such Dark type card, Sneasel, was actually banned for a brief period due to being obscenely overpowered, capable of doing a maximum of 140 damage in as little as two turns if you were really lucky. Also, prior to the release of the Diamond and Pearl expansion, Darkness and Metal Energy were both Special Energy cards, making the Pokémon they were attached to even more powerful.
The new Pokemon Tool Cards are also incredibly overpowered. One such card, the Expert Belt, gives plus 20 attack and plus 20 health to anything it is attached to. There is no penalty for using it and you can have up to four in a deck. Oh and did I mention that the plus 20 damage is applied before weakness?
The Expert Belt allows the opponent to take 2 Prize cards instead of 1 for knocking out that Pokémon. That's the penalty. It's arguably a small one considering an Expert Belt can cause a snowballing advantage in your favor, however.
Energy. Gain. And any SP cards for that matter. I will be so glad once the Platinum sets get rotated out.
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. So YMMV, indeed.
That One Boss: Bernard, leader of the GR Fire Fort, in the second game boy game. His "special rule" is easily one of the most unfair in the game: Fire type Pokemon have no weaknesses! Why is that so unfair? Well, unlike the other masters' rules, there's pretty much no way to possibly use this to your advantage, since his deck doesn't have any Water cards to hit your Fire types' weaknesses. So basically, it's just The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard disguised as a rules change. His deck is by no means bad either, and with no weaknesses to exploit the only real strategy is just to play really, really well. Or hope his A.I. Roulette gets handed the Idiot Ball.
Woolseyism: Occasionally attack name translations differ from the video games' to better fit the context of the card game move's effects; for example, "Nenriki" (literally "willpower") is "Confusion" in the video games (it has a chance of confusing the opponent) and "Psyshock" in the card game (it can cause paralysis).
alternative title(s): Tabletop Games/Ptitlei015gc004kw 4
