• ADV Rulings or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb - Directed By Stanley Kubrick
• European Wizards Chat-o-Rama - ALSO Directed By Stanley Kubrick

Today's General Comments:
If you're on a Windows PC, you might have noticed a minor change in the chose of fonts for PA!. I suddenly realized how crappy Arial was, and decided to change it to Tahoma/Verdana, even though I'm so sick of using those fonts. PA! still looks better on a Mac, mind you.

By the way, I found an excuse to update today. Whoever said that there is no Pokémon news just isn't looking hard enough.

Vincent0906 spotted 7 major changes in the rulings, besides the addition of EX-type Pokémon rulings. And here they are:

[quoted from WizPOG]

1. Stadium Card
---You can only play one Stadium Card per turn.

2. Darkness Energy
---The text has been changed to:
"Darkness Energy provide one [D]. If the Pokemon which Darkness Energy attached to attack opponent's active Pokemon and the Pokemon which Darkness Energy attached to is Dark type or have 'Dark' in it's name, That attack does 10 more damage. If the Pokemon which Darkness Energy is attached to isn't 'Dark' type or have 'Dark' in it's name, this effect does nothing."

3. Metal Energy
---The text has been changed to:
"Darkness Energy provide one [M]. If the Pokemon which Metal Energy attached to is 'Steel' type, damage from pokemon attack is reduced by 10. If the pokemon which metal energy attached to isn't 'steel' type, this effect does nothing."

4. Mulligan (have i spell wrong?)
---If your opponent hasn't any basic pokemon in his/her hand in the beginning of the game, You draw one extra card(or 0) instead of 2 before.

5. First round
---In the first round, the first player cannot draw one card before his/her turn start.

6. Retreat
---You can only retreat once per turn.
---You can retreat your active pokemon even your bench is full.

7. Confusion
---The new punlishment of getting 'tails' in the confusion check when confused pokemon attack is "put 3 damage counter on that pokemon" instead of 20 damage.
---Confused Pokemon can retreat as same as 'healthy pokemon' instead of need a coin flip.

I think these ruling can shock you all! haha...

Can you believe that?! Shocking? Of course! But is it a good thing? That seems to be the question of many players. Personally, I think it can be VERY good. Here's my rundown.

Stadiums: In all seriousness, this is a fine change. Not only will it get people to stop asking "can we use more than one of the same Stadium per turn?" questions at the Wizards Chat, but it'll prevent the overuse of certain Staidums. No more 4 Healing Fields per turn. A major score.

Darkness/Metal Energy: Really, nothing has been lost. Just that the drawbacks have been shifted. Rather than giving the average Pokémon a huge negative drawback, the Energies just don't give the advantages to them. Darkness (and Dark) Pokémon are the only ones who can do extra damage. Which makes sense too. Another advantage to it would be... no more EVIL TYROGUES of DEATH. And no more Steel Chansey either. Well, provided that these rulings make their way to the US.

Mulligan: If you think about it, two is too much. One is fair. Though it kinda sounds like a Magic-esk ruling.

First Round: Again, another fair ruling addition. Players might think twice about wanting to go first. This also is another Magic-esk ruling.

Retreat: ONCE? Well... maybe for the better. Too many people seem to be abusing the free retreat costs on Babies, as well as retreating to remove Special Conditions. Limiting it to once per turn makes things more strategic. "Hmm... should I retreat my Active Pokémon to remove the poison at the cost of me not attacking with it, or should I just let it sit for a turn to attack only to get KO'd itself? Hmmmm...." Get it? At this point too, the use of Switches in eash deck will skyrocket.

Confusion: Probably the most shocking of all is the ruling change in Confusion. Not only does the damage done to itself is upped to 30 (thus confusing a Baby will screw your opponent up), but the damage is NOT damage any more. Much like how Poison got changed from "10 damage" to "place 1 damage counter", Confusion follows the same change. I also like the ruling where you no longer have to flip to retreat a Confused Pokémon, which was a ruling I really never cared for to begin with. It works well with the Once-Per-Turn retreat thing too.

But now lemme think here for a second. ADV has cards that are actually GOOD, ADV cards look like Magic cards, several of the rulings sound like they came from Magic as well, and in yesterday's news, DMTM said that he had a hand in the "next set"... [puts two and two and two together] Is it me, or does it seem as if Wizards worked with TPC on ADV1? I don't want to spread false rumors, but ADV overall seems to far in advance of TPC's own ability to make sets (VS anyone?). This is all speculation, mind you, I really REALLY don't know anything for sure. Just that all the puzzle pieces seem to fit together nicely (without having to use a hammer to boot). Either that, or TPC just did a good job of emulating Wizards.

Now there's no official word yet as to whether or not these rules will actually make it State-side. But I honestly wouldn't doubt it for a second. I like these new rules because frankly, it makes the game a heck of a lot more strategic this way around. And for once TPC actually did a good job. I certinaly HOPE to see these rulings made once ADV hits these shores. Good times for ALL!

Team Europe's Site

The link to the log is on the front page, click it for happiness!... OK, now I sleep.