Unexpected Pokémon Card Banned From World Championships Because It Creates 'Unique Issue'

Later this month, the Pokémon TCG World Championships will take place. Fans will come from all over the world in order to witness the ongoings and meet other enthusiasts. However, this year, one particularly unusual card will not be allowed in the game for an equally strange reason.

According to IGN, cards are typically banned for various reasons, ranging from creating unfair game states to being too powerful. This time, the card being singled out is called Blaine's Quiz Show and is a Supporter card from the Unified Minds expansion, and the "unique issue" it creates could really only occur at the World Championships.

The point of most Supporter cards is to instruct the player to do something relatively simple, such as discard an Energy or draw three cards, but in this case it's not so much the directive as it is a different issue that has caused the ban.

Blaine's Quiz Show instructs the player to place a Pokémon card face down in front of them and tell their opponent the name of attack it uses. If they can correctly guess the Pokémon, they get to then draw four cards. If they make an incorrect guess, the player gets to be the one to draw four.

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Due to the Worlds bringing in people from all over, the potential language barrier that it presents has inspired those in charge to take it out of play. Even though translators are present at the event, the "semantics of certain attack names can still create a problem."

The decision was announced on Play Pokémon's official Twitter account, as can be seen in the tweet below.

Another unusual thing pertaining to this decision is that the card itself is not considered to be compeititvely viable, so it would have been surprising if a player had even opted to use it in the first place. However, it can still be utilized in all other instances aside from Worlds.

The Pokémon World Championships will take place from Aug. 16 to Aug. 18 and will air on Pokemon's Twitch channel.