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I wasn't sure how to go about answering this question I have about the Pokémon World Tournament feature of the upcoming Pokémon Black/White 2. I checked a few sites like the official Pokémon site and Bulbanews, etc., but can't find an answer one way or the other. So, my question is, does anyone know if all Pokémon are allowed in the Pokemon World Tournament feature, or is it going to have the same stupid restrictions as the random battle feature in Black/White? Or, perhaps the regular parts of the World Tournament will have one set of rules, and the rules for the downloadable tournaments will be whatever rules were used in that year's real-world tournaments?

I really hope they address the only real problem I had with Black/White, which was the lack of an easy venue (in-game or via Wi-Fi) in which to battle with all the neat Pokémon distributed over Wi-Fi and actually face a decent challenge. As it is, Black and White don't really provide any decent in-game trainers to battle at levels that would make using Pokémon such as the movie-inspired Reshiram/Zekrom anything other than a snooze fest. And if you want to use any such Pokémon to battle live humans, you either have to already know players locally that want to battle under such conditions, or have access to such people on your friend list for Wi-Fi battles.

Since I'm lacking in both departments, it would be great if they added a third random battle option for players of BW2 that would allow use of legendaries, etc. It wouldn't have to be rated, it could just be free play where anything goes (within reason), such as the Master Cup in Pokémon Stadium so many years ago. For the next couple months at least, I guess I'll be stuck with all these awesome distribution Pokémon and no one with whom I can try them out in a decently challenging battle. But it would really give me something to look forward to if I knew that this problem was going to be addressed in the upcoming games.

Anyway, as usual, if anyone has an answer to my question, or just wants to weigh in on the matter, post a reply. I'm kind of interested to know what Eevee thinks about all this.

That would be nice, but I don't see it happening given that the Battle Subway is essentially the Unova equivalent to the Battle Frontier, and it had similar restrictions. It just seems kind of two-faced of TPCI to restrict the use of certain pokemon (because of fairness in competitive play) and yet to constantly state in almost every pokemon game (and the anime) that there is no universally strong pokemon. In fact, every pokemon game I've ever played (and the anime, to boot) makes a point to specifically say that Pokemon are living beings, and that it is wrong to ridicule them for being weak or ugly (Magikarp, anyone?).

They also state many times that you shouldn't feel pressured to play with pokemon who are strong (or that everyone else uses), but that you should just pick a team of your favorites and see how far you can get (like Ash does). In fact, in BW, Ash seems to constantly choose pokemon for his gym battles that have a type disadvantage compared to the gym leader's pokemon.

So if all pokemon are supposed to be equal, and you're supposed to just play with whichever pokemon you like the most, then why do they keep creating "legendaries" in every generation, and then excluding them from tournaments and the like because they're so powerful? Why create such powerful pokemon in the first place if we aren't going to get to use them and show them off to our friends?

It seems to me that if they were truly worried about keeping pokemon "fair" (that's a loaded word if ever there was one) for competitive players then they should spend more time balancing the battle system, which would include not creating absurdly powerful pokemon (I'm looking at you, Arceus!) just to ban them later for the sake of "fairness."

I guess the whole point of this rant is that a little more work on the front end (play testing, balancing the battle mechanics) could alleviate this problem. That, or create customizable rulesets (think Pokemon Stadium, or Smash Bros.) that players could choose beforehand to ensure no one can whine about Arceus or Mewtwo being unfair.

That setup seems to work well enough for Smash Bros. fans. Those that want a more balanced, competitive experience can play without Smash Balls and other items, and those that just want to have fun can customize the rules to maximize the frantic and zany nature of the game (Pokeballs only, anyone? It doesn't get much more random than that!).

P.S. (Just had an awesome idea: What if they allowed us to create our own customizable rules for tournaments, etc., (as in Pokemon Stadium) and then let us swap them over StreetPass or SpotPass? Then, if somebody comes up with a really neat set of rules that makes things more interesting/challenging, then that ruleset could spread to others, much like Mii characters and the Coin Rush mode in New Super Mario Bros. 2.)

The anime and games all consider the Pokémon that are banned in competitive play as being special. That's why movies revolve around them most of the time. Whether or not they're powerful doesn't seem to have as much to do with it although 99% of them are definitely far more powerful than the rest of the cast (Phione I think not so much!

That said, the ruleset in the Battle Subway is the same as what's used for the Video Game Championships so that's the ruleset you'd be using regardless of downloadable rulesets. Remember that in competitive play, we play in the doubles format (two Pokémon per side).

The game is actually pretty well balanced - or as balanced as it could be for a multiplayer game with 693 characters.