aroramage |
Lost Remover is a unique Trainer
card that, among a few other cards, references a zone
that is completely separated from the rest of the game
board in TCG games: the Lost Zone.
For those of you who don't know
about it, the Lost Zone is a lot like the Banished Zone
in Yugioh or getting put into Exile in Magic or like the
Bind Zone in Cardfight! Vanguard. (And yes, I've got
experience with all of these games.) Essentially, it's a
spot for cards that can't be used in the current duel,
battle, whatever you'd like to call it - point is, they
won't be getting used anymore. And Pokemon took that
zone and made it a win condition through the effect of
Lost World, a Stadium card that says if your opponent
has 6 or more Pokemon in the Lost Zone, you can win the
game. This led to a couple of decks being made around
the card, and as a result it brought about a whole new
archetype into the world.
Lost Remover doesn't really support
the Lost World win condition - it'd be a bit crazy if
you could just get one step closer to victory by abusing
this card - but it does the next best thing. When you
use it, you can discard a Special Energy attached to one
of your opponent's Pokemon and send that card to the
Lost Zone instead of the discard pile. That's a bit more
of a descriptive and probably flavorfully rule-bending
description of the effect that's just "Put this type of
card into the Lost Zone", but that's the core of it in
any case. Point is it gets rid of a powerful form of
Energy, and that's very useful.
In the HGSS to Legendary Treasures
era, there are several notable Special Energies that
come to mind as being helpful - Prism Energy, DCE, the
Blend Energies, these are just a few Special Energies
that are no doubt present within the game. And Special
Energies are always useful, so having it completely
removed the game is an amazing effect! It denies your
opponent a valuable resource, and it can easily turn the
tables on them if they're not able to rebuild from that
loss.
Lost Remover isn't a card
necessarily for Lost World, but it is a fantastic piece
of general support that can easily disrupt plays and
keep your opponent from doing more.
Rating
Legacy: 4/5 (permanently getting
rid of a vital resource for your opponent is extremely
useful!)
Limited: 5/5 (really, there's no
reason not to play something like this here, even if
it's just Darkness and Metal here - which by the way,
they are Special Energies from looking them up)
Arora Notealus: All things
considered, the Lost Zone mechanic was pretty
interesting, and while it didn't stick around in Pokemon
for long, maybe the pace of the game has gotten to a
point where it could be brought up again. Slow things
down a bit!
Weekend Thought: What did you think
of this week's cards? How about the Legacy Format on the
PTCGO? Have you tried it out for yourself?
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Otaku |
This week we have
been looking at cards for the Legacy Format, a PTCGO
exclusive format that only allows cards from the
HeartGold/SoulSilver series, Call of Legends,
and Black & White series of releases (nothing
older, nothing newer), but follows the current rules of
the game. I’ve become fond of it and though there
are no plans for it, I would very much like to see it in
the physical TCG as well. If you want a more
detailed explanation you can read
this
article. In fact even if you have read it before,
you should check it again because I have been working on
a significant revision thanks to input from aroramage.
If it has not been posted by the time this Card of the
Day is up, then it should be by next Tuesday if not
later today.
So our final card
this week is Lost Remover (Call of Legends
80/95). This card is an Item, but since the term
“Item” wasn’t used until the Black & White
expansion (the next set released), it doesn’t actually
say that on the card. Its effect allows you to
select a Special Energy card attached to one of your
opponent’s Pokémon and put it into the Lost Zone.
The “Lost Zone” is one of the seemingly abandoned
Pokémon TCG mechanics, and is a bit like a second
discard pile. Cards only go to the Lost Zone when
specifically sent there by a card effect (unlike how
various game mechanics can send cards to the actual
discard pile). There are no card effects that can
reclaim a card from the Lost Zone; a few cards can still
make use of removed cards such as how Mew (HS:
Triumphant 97/102) can copy attacks from Pokémon in
your Lost Zone, or how Lost World allows you to
declare yourself the winner if your opponent has six
Pokémon in the Lost Zone, but nothing actually brings
them back to your hand, deck, discard pile, or Prizes.
Which is why
Lost Remover is a better Enhanced Hammer,
though as reclaiming Special Energy cards from the
discard pile is a rare effect, the difference isn’t
dramatic. Especially with Junk Arm there to
compound the effect. If you don’t have Lost
Remover you can get by with Enhanced Hammer,
but are either of them that important? Yes, yes
they are though it will vary by the exact decklist, not
even just the matchup. To give you an idea, the
Legacy Format has Blend Energy GRPD, Blend
Energy WLFM, Darkness Energy (Special Energy
version), Double Colorless Energy, Metal
Energy (Special Energy version), Plasma Energy,
Prism Energy, Rainbow Energy, and
Rescue Energy. Some decks do rely quite
heavily on Special Energy cards, but only a few lack it
entirely. Even decks focused on Basic Energy like
Deluge decks backed by Blastoise (BW:
Boundaries Crossed 31/149; BW: Plasma Storm
137/135; BW: Plasma Blast 16/101) or
Reshiphlosion decks fueled by Typhlosion (HeartGold/SoulSilver
110/123; HS: Black Star Promos HGSS09) sometimes
run some Special Energy; Double Colorless Energy
for example can be used to get Keldeo-EX
attacking when Blastoise is a no-show or
Abilities are down.
Of course these are
not enough to justify running several copies of Lost
Remover or Enhanced Hammer… but this is a
format with Junk Arm, so whichever one you
include you can reuse it up to four more times even if
you’re not also running a card like Sableye (BW:
Dark Explorers 62/108). As such a single
Lost Remover is either a loose staple (something all
decks want to run and at least many do include) or an
actual staple (...something most decks include).
If Lost Remover were to return to
Expanded/Standard play, it would be huge. Of
course some of that is simply because it would also mean
the return of the Lost Zone mechanic, but thanks to
Puzzle of Time some key decks have become even more
reliant on Special Energy (and at low counts) than
possibly ever before. The new Item card Special
Charge (XY: Steam Siege 105/114) may further
increase reliance on Special Energy, but if not like I
said, already a major presence. Where it won’t be
a major presence is in the Limited Format. Of
course it isn’t likely you’ll have a chance to use
Call of Legends cards in a Limited Format play, but
if you do then what matters is the set does have two
Special Energy cards, but they are the Special Energy
versions of Darkness Energy and Metal Energy.
Odds are you can make room for it in your deck here, so
I would still include it as your opponent will not
like you discarding what is probably their only Special
Energy card that they hoped to cash in on for a few
turns.
Ratings
Standard:
N/A
Expanded:
N/A
Limited:
2.5/5
Legacy:
3.75/5
Summary:
Lost Remover sees a lot of use as a single
(sometimes a double) in Legacy Format decks because many
decks use at least some Special Energy and a few rely on
it. Banishing the discarded Energy to the Lost
Zone adds some extra kick to a trick that still sees
some competitive play in Standard or Expanded play (via
Enhanced Hammer), though reclaiming discarded
Special Energy cards is deck specific in the Legacy
Format.
If you’re curious
you can read the review for this card from when it was
first released
here.
It scored a bit lower as not only does it sound like
Special Energy cards were a little less popular at the
time, and there were mitigating circumstances with
regards to the decks that did use them well (can’t
discard a Double Colorless Energy your opponent
already discarded for an effect cost).
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