Scoop Up Net banned for Extra Regulation format Pokémon TCG tournaments in Japan from October 27th - first card banned in almost three years

Earlier today, in a brief update posted on the Pokémon Trading Card Game's official Japanese homepage, the first card ban in almost three years was announced with the notice that the Scoop Up Net card, first released in the Japanese Rebellion Crash expansion in March 2020, would no longer be eligible for inclusion in Extra Regulation format decks from Friday October 27th.

The Expanded format, known as the Extra Regulation format (エクストラレギュレーション) in Japan, is one of two formats used for officially-sanctioned Play! Pokémon events. It was added to the Standard format in the 2014-2015 season. It allows a greater number of expansions than Standard format but is not as unpredictable in card combinations as Unlimited format. Scoop Up Net rotated out of the Standard format with the start of the 2023-2024 season on April 14th, 2023.

Typically, cards are banned from the Expanded format in response to strategies that may unbalance play. In the past, this has included strategies involving hand disruption, such as those that could dwindle an opponent's hand up to no cards on their first turn; or which had the potential to stifle creativity by acting as a hard counter for a wide variety of deck archetypes. Today's ban notice was unfortunately somewhat vague, only saying that it was being made in order to make the Extra Regulation format more enjoyable, and not specifying the exact strategies which led to this decision being made.

As of 2023, there has not been an official Expanded tournament since 2020, and the format is not fully supported in Pokémon Trading Card Game Live. While it is currently unknown if Play! Pokémon will continue to support the format into the future, the addition of a new card to the banned list does suggest the format will continue to hang around for some time yet.