Category talk:Trainer cards with discard costs
Pay Up: Move this Category
"Cost" is one of those terms which looks fine at first glance but actually is super problematic to use. This is because the term is "loaded", in that it has specific meaning in the context of Pokemon such that using it in situations that are close to but not exactly what the term means is very bad. In this case, it's down to how the TCG works under the hood.
There's an meta rule about how Trainer cards are allowed to be played. Namely, a Trainer card cannot be played in a case where it would have "no effect". A "cost" is a requirement to play a card, but it isn't an effect. Meaning that the act of paying a cost is not enough to make playing the card legal.
Some of the cards in this category do not have "costs" in this sense. Hapu having you discard 4 of the 6 cards you look at isn't a "cost", it's just a detrimental part of the effect. As such, this category needs to be dealt with in some manner. I sense options:
- repurpose to being exclusively about discard based "costs",
- change the title to "Trainer cards that cause the player to discard cards"
- Delete it, using Category:Cards that discard from hand's subcategories, Category:Cards that discard from deck's subcategories, and some third group to handle Super Potion, Hyper Potion, and Max Potion.
I think doing 2 and then making a new category exclusively for costs makes the most sense. Salmancer (talk) 11:03, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- super late but what about "Trainer cards that discard cards from player's hand"? (and then we can rename the "Cards that discard from hand" categories as well so that they say eg. "Trainer cards that discard cards from opponent's hand"). ~ Anzasquiddles ~ 2222(:D)SSSS (talk) 05:35, 17 May 2026 (UTC)