Subject: Rebuttal to "The Folly of Legendary Collection"

When I first saw this article, I thought, "this should be interesting." 
Indeed, it was a good read, but I will have to shoot down most of it.

"New card art was rumored to be part of the new set, giving these 
geriatric cards from sets past a new, updated coat of paint.

Rumors even 
went as far as to suggest that Wizards would be printing jumbo vending 
cards in the set, providing more variety to Modified format.

Rumors also 
said that the set was supposed to be huge, pushing almost 200 cards."

Some of that seems a lot more related to WotC's earlier, abortive attempt at 
a set. Some of it was also refuted by the various information released about 
Legendary Collection prior to its distribution. After that, only bits and 
pieces of what was listed remains, namely the jumbo aspect (vending was never 
promised), and some cards were holofied.

"Nothing new came from Legendary Collection. Players were provided with 
an abbreviation of the first four sets of the game, with nothing of 
major power reprinted. "

This quote alone proves how very little the author understood about the 
actual purpose of LC. The idea was not to make Modified more like Unlimited, 
the idea was to take cards from Unlimited that would be very interesting but 
were being choked out by the power cards (I prefer the term broken).

"Even powerful, but remarkably fair cards like Base Blastoise and Base 
Clefairy were passed up for other, weaker 
versions either to put in the set, or in past sets that are still in modified.
"

I would never go so far as to call either card fair. Indeed, Blastoise ranks 
quite highly on the Japanese restriction list (generally listed as the reason 
for its exclusion), especially considering that very little lightning will 
exist in Neon. As for Clefairy, without a coin flip, Metronome will always be 
too powerful of an attack.

"This looting the game of Pokemon’s “Power Nine” is a tragedy in my mind. 
As of right now, evolution decks dominate the scene. Wizards has dumbed 
the game down to mind numbing proportions, making it truly the game 
people stereotyped it as. The format is slow, incredibly simple, and it 
painfully screams with all the agony and horror it can muster up to 
supply it with a fast haymaker-like deck, that packs a powerful punch 
within the first 6 turns of the game. "

I don't know the exact percentage, but a great many of the Pokémon in the 
game either evolve or are evolutions. The game should focus on that. It's a 
shame the author sees the current environment as dumbed down. Unlimited, in 
my opinion, is what has been dumbed down. In fact, I find it so 
mind-numbingly dull that I can't play it anymore, win or lose.

"Wizards sacrificed player satisfaction for a fair format, something they 
have done time in and time out going back into Magic and Pokemon. It’s 
time that they think of the advanced player for once in their time as a 
company and throw us a real bone, in this case, they should have 
reprinted at least some of the greats from way back when."

I've already stated the reason this is not a good idea. The author of the 
article is obviously nostalgic for the old days of Pokémon. Those days are 
dead. He even suggests this:

"Then again, Wizards must want to do away with that era in Pokemon TCG 
history, especially when they banned Sneasel, who was single handedly 
building a speed deck for the Modified format."

Then we have this:

"Gone are the real days of casual matches that could rage for a half hour 
or more, with more thinking required than with a Pre Calculus test. 
Welcome, folks, to the dull format of modified, where 99.9% of all the 
decks are slow, evolution decks, who all share a common goal: get a 
powerhouse on the bench, build him up, and let him loose on your 
opponent."

As opposed to Unlimited, where you plop down a basic, power it up, and let 
loose on your opponent.

"Jungle Flareon is a good card that will finally get some respect in this 
format."

Strangely enough, didn't I say that was the point of LC?

"Unfortunately, when looked at in a true retrospective, Legendary 
Collection does more harm to the game of Pokemon than it does help. It 
fails to help Unlimited in any one way, thus giving old school players 
yet another set to shrug off as “useless.” "

If you read that carefully, you'll understand why Unlimited is so stale.

"Players, I’ve noticed, have been doing that for the past three sets, 
groaning even louder with each small set of useless cards that are still 
marauded by the Haymaker-type decks that continue to dominate unlimited 
format. "

This is what really just doesn't make any sense. He says that Unlimited just 
isn't going anywhere, so he wants to make Modified more like it, and there 
his argument falls apart. John (and people like him) seem to be looking for 
something suitable for Unlimited to come down the pipeline, when in reality 
the format is so corrupted that things needed to be taken out of it, not put 
in. Hence, modified. Like it or hate it, it's there and it's going to get the 
attention, because WotC wants to keep things fresh and TPC is trying to avoid 
broken cards.

Steven Reich
Pokémon Professor
yoshi1001 on Wizpog
Webmaster Pokéwatch
http://pokewatch.nick15.com/