The following cards, and any alternate printings they may have, are now banned in the Eternal format, effectively immediately.
Area Zero Underdepths. Simply by targeting your own solitary Tera Pokémon in play, this card can be used in conjunction with a few other cards to create infinite and pseudo-infinite loops in the game, like using, discarding, and then reusing Giratina LOT 97’s in a loop to eliminate your opponent’s bench with very little counterplay.
Because a similar and less-exploitable card exists in the form of Sky Field, this card is not much of a loss to the format anyway.
Celebi P2 17. This card was exploitable in the same way as the card Puzzle of Time, a card already banned in both the Eternal and Expanded formats. It made it possible for decks that ran the card to be able to use and reuse extremely powerful cards with no real expense or tradeoff. For example, a player using this card in a Tsareena V deck could use and then easily reuse Prime Catcher six or more times over the course of a single game.
Thus, for the same reasons as Puzzle of Time, Celebi P2 17 has now joined the Eternal format ban list.
Dragonair SUM 95. Because Dragonair made it possible to attach any sort of Energy to your Pokémon on your following turn, Dragonair SUM 95 was part of an OTK deck that abused a variety of Holon’s Pokémon like Holon’s Magneton and Holon’s Electrode to constantly reattach a Basic Energy and then bounce it with one of the Holon’s Pokémon to have a very large quantity of “rainbow” Energy to execute any high demand combo, like that of Togepi & Cleffa & Igglybuff-GX’s Supreme Puff-GX, before the opponent has a chance to engage in any meaningful degree of counterplay.
Further, because of its combination with the Energy-bouncing effect of Holon’s Pokémon, this Pokémon is also exploitable in the same way as the banned combination of Shuckle HGSS15 and Espeon AQ 11. The player plays a drawing Energy card like Speed Lightning Energy, Draw Energy, or Enriching Energy, draws cards from their deck, bounces that Energy back to their hand with the effect of the Holon’s Pokémon’s attachment, and then once again reattaches the Energy with the card-drawing effect start the same cycle anew, drawing again and again until the Dragonair player has as much of their deck as they need to complete their combo.
A Change to Time Rules for the Eternal Format
If, after time has been called in a round, a judge notes that a player’s turn is taking an excessive amount of time (five or more minutes) to complete a turn, the judge may initiate the Countdown Rule, which is this:
The judge begins a timer immediately for the current player and then for each player’s turn as soon as that player draws a card. Players will have five minutes to complete their turns before their turn ends and the turn automatically passes to their opponent.
This new rule is being made available to judges of the Eternal format to break cycles of excessively lengthy strings of actions that could prevent an Eternal format tournament from advancing to the next round in a timely manner.
