Specifics

    Here are the major changes to how cards are read or interpreted. Most are for consistency between older and newer cards, while others are changed for sake of balance. And a few weren't necessary, but were fun playing with.

• “Professor Oak” is now considered a Supporter card to keep in line with other cards with the same effect.

• All “Great Ball” cards, regardless of printing, cannot search out Pokémon ex.

• All “Rare Candy” cards, regardless of printing, use the EX Sandstorm print.

• Using "Baby Evolution", Tyrogue, Elekid, Magby, Mime Jr., and Happiny can be evolved into Hitmonchan ex, Electabuzz ex, Magmar ex, Mr. Mime ex, and Chansey ex respectively.

• Quilava (Neo Genesis N1 47)’s “Char” effect is now the standard “Burn”.

• “Miracle Berry” now heals all Special Conditions.

• Memory Tool Rule: All Memory tool cards have the same effect as “Crystal Shard” for their respective typing. (e.g. As long as [Memory] is attached to a Pokémon, that Pokémon’s type is [Memory Type]. If that Pokémon attacks, discard this card at the end of the turn.

• “Choice Band” has no effect if attached to a Pokémon ex or Lv.X

• “Eviolite” has no effect if attached to a Pokémon ex or Lv.X or any Pokémon with a maximum HP of 60 or more. 

• “Float Stone” has no effect if attached to a Pokémon ex or Lv.X

  

  Believe it or not, this card's Poke-Power can grab
  you zero cards and still end your turn.

  
  

• “Venomoth (Skyridge SK 111)” and “Ledian (Skyridge SK 15)” do not end the user’s turn after using their e-reader Poke-Power.

• “Max Potion” can only be used on a Pokémon with energy attached to it. It cannot target Pokémon ex.

• “Gold Berry” has no effect if attached to a Pokémon ex.

• Mysterious Fossil Change: All cards that evolve from Dome Fossil, Helix Fossil, Skull Fossil, Armor Fossil, Old Amber, Root Fossil and Claw Fossil can also evolve from Mysterious Fossil. (This applies to Fossil Egg, Omanyte’s “Revive Fossil” Pokémon Power, etc.).

• The following are played as if they’re ACE SPEC cards: Computer Search, Item Finder, Junk Arm

    A few other changes needed to be made to the "passive" aspects to cards (Powers, Bodies, Abilities).

• Pokémon Powers are now considered Poke-Bodies or Poke-Powers depending on their effect. This is decided based on whether the effect is always present (Poke-Body) or is Activated (Poke-Power).

• Any trainer card, attack, or Pokémon-Power that affects Pokémon Powers or Abilities now also affect both Poke-Bodies and Poke-Powers.

• All Pokémon Powers that have the following clause “This power stops working while (this Pokémon) is Asleep, Confused, or Paralyzed.” Now have this clause instead, “This power stops working while (this Pokémon) is affected by a Special Condition.” This now includes Poison and Burn. (It does not include Imprison markers or Shock-wave markers).

From here on out I'll be focused more on individual cards. A cardpool will be posted eventually so an understanding of the meta can be seen.

General Rules and Eratta

    In addition to culling a large portion of cards available (though there's still a sea of cards to choose from), I felt like some balancing and errata would make for more interesting games.

• Firstly: All Pokémon printed before Diamond and Pearl have the following weakness modifier: Basic Pokémon: +10, Stage 1: +20, Stage 2: +30, Pokémon EX: x2

    Diamond and Pearl introduced maybe the greatest feature in all PTCG-dom. It wasn't Lv.Xs, it wasn't separating Trainers, Stadiums, and Supporters, and it sure as hell wasn't Pokémon SP (yeah that was Platinum, whatever). It was changing weakness multipliers to additive damage. Unfortunately, all the older cards were at an immediate disadvantage because mid power damage would score KOs that Diamond and Pearl cards could avoid. By making this change, it's now way easier to build decks around older attackers without being afraid of them getting dunked on immediately. 

• Secondly the Lv.X Rule: All cards that apply to in play Pokémon ex also apply to Pokémon Lv.X (e.g. Silver Bangle causes attacks to do 30 more damage to Pokémon Lv.X). (This effect does not go both ways, so a card that affects or is affected by in play Pokémon Lv.X does not apply to Pokémon ex.)

Boy, that is an Extreme Attack

    This one basically just makes older cards from the EX series more viable in stopping Lv.X decks. In addition to this, the fact that it's "one way" means that cards like Flygon Lv.X aren't sniping ex Pokémon for easy 2 prize turns. 

• Retro-Mode cards: Any card that applies to Pokémon-EX, Pokémon-GX, Pokémon V, or Pokémon VMax now instead applies to Pokémon ex and Pokémon Lv. X

    Kind of a no-brainer. Effectively just groups all of these cards into the newly coined "Rule Box" group. Which they don't seem to be doing anything else with officially outside of a handful of cards. Techs like Phoebe now have even more use than they do in their proper formats.

• Type Rollback: Any instances of [N] (Dragon) or [Y] (Fairy) are now read as [C] (Colorless)

Why use dragons when you
can use Wigglytuff ex?

    Those types didn't exist back in the day, so now they refer to the types that their majorities used to belong to.

    There are a few more changes and specific errata that will be elaborated on next.

Intro to the Format

    I've been playing the Pokémon TCG for a long time. Over the years I've accumulated mountains of cards from Base all the way up to modern sets. Exponentially getting more and more colored cardboard as new sets dropped. However, this casual approach never supplied me with the right cards to make truly viable decks, resulting in funky kitchen table unlimited games being the bulk of my experience. Cube formats intrigued me, but I wanted to keep a level of customization and freedom for players to be able to keep their decks for multiple games and maintain them over time so they could create a deck that really suited their playstyle. 

    There were a few issues though.

Burning Energy anyone?

    Powercreep is a terrible thing. Yes it's needed to keep sets fresh and keep players coming back for more, but it also meant dropping old cards so as to not have to make complex bans or errata. Instead of playing with the newer (and in my opinion, lamer) cards, I decided to ignore a decades worth of new Pokémon and go back to Generation 1-3 (later including Diamond and Pearl/Platinum era sets). To spice things up and keep me and my friends excited for newer sets, I decided to excuse most Trainer and Energy cards from the restriction, so cards like Burning Energy and Path to the Peak can coexist with older cards like Infernape DP and Medicham ex. 

    A few sweeping errata were made as well, but I'll save that for another post. Hopefully my format inspires you, reader, to go and make the Pokémon Trading Card Game your own so you can have even more fun with a great game.