The release of the newest Pokemon set, Lost Origin brings with it the reintroduction of “The lost Zone.” Which is a game area that usually doesn’t come up in most Pokemon games. With that said, with the mechanic getting a revamp, I thought it appropriate to give a little refresher on what it is and how it works. Let’s jump right in, starting with what The Lost Zone is.
The Lost Zone is an area considered to be a more advanced form of the Discard Pile. Cards moved to the Lost Zone are kept face-up, but unlike cards in the Discard Pile, are considered to be “outside” the Play Area due to the fact they are not kept on the playmat if one is used. Cards moved to the Lost Zone are no longer considered to be in play, and cannot be retrieved at any time, or by any means during gameplay.
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With just this general definition, most Pokemon players probably grasp the general idea. However, there are quite a few other things to go over. For example, we’ll look at how The Lost Zone works in a few different in-game situations. As well as some of the newest Pokemon cards that interact with this mysterious zone.
What Is The Lost Zone?
The Lost Zone is somewhat similar to your traditional discard pile. However, there is a huge key difference as well. Unlike your discard pile, once a card enters The Lost Zone, it is considered removed from the game and can’t be interacted with by most cards. Think of it as a more permanent version of your discard pile.
Players of Yu-Gi-Oh will recognize this as “Banished” and MTG players will know it as “Exile.” If you’re familiar with either of the games, The Lost Zone is functionally the same.
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How Does It Work
The Lost Zone works about like your regular discard pile. When a card instructs you to “put a card into The Lost Zone”, you’ll place the card face-up, usually somewhere to the right of your game mat. Where it differs is that those cards are no longer accessible by many cards.
For example, take Magnezone pictured above. Its ability lets you un-attach energy cards from your Pokemon and move them to the Lost Zone to further power up the attack.
A commonly played card such as Ordinary Rod could get those discarded energy cards back if they’d gone to the discard pie. However, considering they are in The Lost Zone instead, cards like this can’t grab them anymore. So, be sure you’ve built your deck accordingly if you’re going to build a deck around The Lost Zone.
Conclusion
Lost Origin has just been released and will probably bring tons of fresh eyes to The Lost Zone. If you are one such set of eyes I hope today’s article had been of some use to you in understanding it. Regardless of if you’re a new player seeing it for the first time or a returning player looking for a refresher now that you know what it is and how it works, get out there and build those Pokemon Lost Zone decks.
