PokeBeach Podcast: “Twilight Masquerade” Officially Revealed and All “Crimson Haze” Cards!

By: Water Pokémon Master · Posted Posted onMar 15, 2024 at 1:39 PM · 19 Comments

In this week’s PokeBeach podcast we discuss the huge reveals of “Twilight Masquerade,” “Mask of Change,” and “Crimson Haze,” a deep dive into the gameplay differences of “Pokemon TCG Pocket,” more TCG vending machines in the U.S., and more!

The PokeBeach podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and our YouTube channel.

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Sad to see Ogerpons being evaluated by the standards of today's powercreep. There is no need to have another Charizard ex or Lost Box or Genesect or [...] until the game is pushed so far we just show each other our starting hands and decide the winner based on that. For H-on, and for just the rules of the game as they stand, Teal Mask Ogerpon ex is a completely fine and playable card.
 
They were evaluated based on how competitive they could be in the current Standard format. Without something else to boost them, they aren't good enough to survive for exactly the reason I gave in the podcast: their damage output is just too low. Their output is okay for a single prizer, but for a 2-prizer, they're just not worth the prize trade.
 
JustInBasil said:
They were evaluated based on how competitive they could be in the current Standard format. Without something else to boost them, they aren't good enough to survive for exactly the reason I gave in the podcast: their damage output is just too low.
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And that's a great thing. Trying to make new cards that compete with the old broken cards like Charizard just pushes the problem back to another generation.
My problem is not with the quality of the evaluation, it's with acting disappointed and saying they "suck", when these are exactly the types of cards we should be getting right now. Powering down a game is a painful process for competitively-oriented players, but it's often a necessary one to maintain the health of the game. Teal Mask is not an unplayable card, it actually looks like a fun build-around, it's just not ridiculously fast and doesn't give you everything for free.
 
It's not an act.

I was and am disappointed.

It's fine that they power stuff down, but it does hurt the game if the star deck introduced in a set can't compete with any of the previous decks that already exist in the format (see: Coalossal VMAX). That creates and perpetuates a stale competitive environment.

I'm not asking for a broken card. I'm not asking for it all to be *easy* for Ogerpon, I just want her to be able to compete, even if she requires more pieces to do it. As it stands now, at best she's a tech card in a deck or two. And even that's a bit of a stretch.

In SVI so far, they've been powering down decks by making them need more pieces to do their thing. Even 'Zard needs Rare Candy. More and more decks are starting to lean on TM: Evolution.

That's fine.

Give Ogerpon ex a TM, ACE SPEC or otherwise, that makes her viable and call it a day. She'll require setup--far more than something broken like Mew VMAX or Lugia VSTAR when they were introduced. But she'll compete, even if not at the top of the top, and not just end up as an "also existed" in the scheme of the set's release. Perhaps as we shift into G-on, she'll perhaps rise toward the top. We need fair archetypes that help to shift the meta, not to upend it. But the meta also can't be left to stagnate.
 
JustInBasil said:
It's not an act.

I was and am disappointed.

It's fine that they power stuff down, but it does hurt the game if the star deck introduced in a set can't compete with any of the previous decks that already exist in the format (see: Coalossal VMAX). That creates and perpetuates a stale competitive environment.

I'm not asking for a broken card. I'm not asking for it all to be *easy* for Ogerpon, I just want her to be able to compete, even if she requires more pieces to do it. As it stands now, at best she's a tech card in a deck or two. And even that's a bit of a stretch.

In SVI so far, they've been powering down decks by making them need more pieces to do their thing. Even 'Zard needs Rare Candy. More and more decks are starting to lean on TM: Evolution.

That's fine.

Give Ogerpon ex a TM, ACE SPEC or otherwise, that makes her viable and call it a day. She'll require setup--far more than something broken like Mew VMAX or Lugia VSTAR when they were introduced. But she'll compete, even if not at the top of the top, and not just end up as an "also existed" in the scheme of the set's release. Perhaps as we shift into G-on, she'll perhaps rise toward the top. We need fair archetypes that help to shift the meta, not to upend it. But the meta also can't be left to stagnate.
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I’m hoping that they’ll give ogerpon a triple rainbow energy, but then it might be too op
 
Dabfamlet said:
I’m hoping that they’ll give ogerpon a triple rainbow energy, but then it might be too op
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I don't think Energy Acceleration is the biggest problem hurting her. Teal Mask has built-in Acceleration, at the cost of (usually) locking you out of Hearthflame's 2nd attack, that can be moved around with Energy Switch, and Luminous Energy for the different forms.

What Ogrepon really needs is her own version of Ancient Booster Capsule (that IS NOT AN ACE SPEC). +60 HP with an extra upside. With Maximum Belt and Keiran giving damage boosts now, it isn't gonna be difficult for even a lot of Single Prize Pokemon to 1HKO her at 210 HP. 270 HP wouldn't make her tanky by any means, but it means you could potentially use Hearthflame's first attack for meaningful damage. Or have Teal Mask survive long enough to build up enough energy on her so you can deal meaningful damage.

The deck looks too reliant on either retreat-locking a support mon with WellSpring while you build up Teal Mask or hoping that Cornerstone can just completely wall the opponent's entire deck. As soon as it goes up against something that can actually deal damage to it, the deck folds.
 
JustInBasil said:
I'm not asking for a broken card.
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But you are. To be "on the level" of broken cards Ogerpon (or some kind of support card they can use, see: Electric Generator) would need to be equally broken. Teal Mask Ogerpon is probably most similar to Miraidon ex in being a basic with some kind of set-up Ability. Miraidon ex is barely in Tier 1 now and yet, printing another set of cards on the level of Miraidon ex + Electric Generator would ruin any plans at de-escalating the powercreep.

Speaking from a place of experience, Pokemon TCG is not in a situation where things can be powered down while making the new sets exciting for competitive players. In most cases you could slightly power-up some underpowered sub-set of cards to make them exciting, but Pokemon TCG has currently maxed out every branch of cards and every mechanic available. Card draw, acceleration, damage output, health pools, set-up speed and many more. As you've pointed out yourself, we are at a point where a Rare Candy, a card that allows you to skip a core mechanic of the game, is considered to be a drawback.

Finally, I am assuming you are asking for a slower de-powering, perhaps introducing a few Tier 2 decks along the way as we move away from F and G blocks. I believe that would only prolong the suffering and do nothing about the hegemony of cards like TCharizard ex, leading people to complain an equal amount, but ruining any chance at having a great and balanced H block. Who could have predicted that designing five-to-seven incredibly broken decks that give you every resource for free is going to have terrible consequences after rotation. At this point it's better to rip off the band-aid - PTCG is in a unique situation where they can absolutely nuke the powerlevel of H-on and continue selling cards with minimal impact.

Again, this has nothing to do with quality of the evaluation, but the main driver of powercreep in most competitive games - it is the players inadvertently asking for it.
 
ElSilverWind said:
I don't think Energy Acceleration is the biggest problem hurting her. Teal Mask has built-in Acceleration, at the cost of (usually) locking you out of Hearthflame's 2nd attack, that can be moved around with Energy Switch, and Luminous Energy for the different forms.

What Ogrepon really needs is her own version of Ancient Booster Capsule (that IS NOT AN ACE SPEC). +60 HP with an extra upside. With Maximum Belt and Keiran giving damage boosts now, it isn't gonna be difficult for even a lot of Single Prize Pokemon to 1HKO her at 210 HP. 270 HP wouldn't make her tanky by any means, but it means you could potentially use Hearthflame's first attack for meaningful damage. Or have Teal Mask survive long enough to build up enough energy on her so you can deal meaningful damage.

The deck looks too reliant on either retreat-locking a support mon with WellSpring while you build up Teal Mask or hoping that Cornerstone can just completely wall the opponent's entire deck. As soon as it goes up against something that can actually deal damage to it, the deck folds
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if it does get a special energy, you'll be able to do some insane stuff turn 1 going 2nd, so it won't matter how much hp you'll have, because you can just outpace everybody. the reason i think we're getting some kind of ogerpon energy, is because if you're just attaching basic energies, the mask item they revealed is pretty much useless. if there isn't some kind of energy revealed though, i don't think it'll be a deck at all, just a bunch of tech ex's
 
Yaginku said:
But you are. To be "on the level" of broken cards Ogerpon (or some kind of support card they can use, see: Electric Generator) would need to be equally broken. Teal Mask Ogerpon is probably most similar to Miraidon ex in being a basic with some kind of set-up Ability. Miraidon ex is barely in Tier 1 now and yet, printing another set of cards on the level of Miraidon ex + Electric Generator would ruin any plans at de-escalating the powercreep.

Speaking from a place of experience, Pokemon TCG is not in a situation where things can be powered down while making the new sets exciting for competitive players. In most cases you could slightly power-up some underpowered sub-set of cards to make them exciting, but Pokemon TCG has currently maxed out every branch of cards and every mechanic available. Card draw, acceleration, damage output, health pools, set-up speed and many more. As you've pointed out yourself, we are at a point where a Rare Candy, a card that allows you to skip a core mechanic of the game, is considered to be a drawback.

Finally, I am assuming you are asking for a slower de-powering, perhaps introducing a few Tier 2 decks along the way as we move away from F and G blocks. I believe that would only prolong the suffering and do nothing about the hegemony of cards like TCharizard ex, leading people to complain an equal amount, but ruining any chance at having a great and balanced H block. Who could have predicted that designing five-to-seven incredibly broken decks that give you every resource for free is going to have terrible consequences after rotation. At this point it's better to rip off the band-aid - PTCG is in a unique situation where they can absolutely nuke the powerlevel of H-on and continue selling cards with minimal impact.

Again, this has nothing to do with quality of the evaluation, but the main driver of powercreep in most competitive games - it is the players inadvertently asking for it.
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That is a lovely thought. But they are just not gonna do that. Creatures Inc is never gonna make every card they print for the next two years suck just so Ogrepon can maybe be good for a year after T.Charizard ex, Chien Pao ex plus Baxcalibur, and Iron Hands plus Electric Generator rotate out.

They ARE going to print actually competitively strong decks in the H, I, and J blocks. Honestly, they already HAVE made some successful decks so far with Ancient Box and Turbo Iron Hands ex.

Either they're gonna reveal some more cards that make Ogrepon better (which let's be fair. It is a 101 card set themed around Ogrepon and we've only seen like 14 cards so far. There's GONNA be more revealed that will make SOME version of Ogrepon ex work. Either in this set or in a later set. For goodness sake, people are actually experimenting with Dialga VStar again. Not because everything else got weaker, but because we finally got a better Metal energy accelerator in Metang).

Or the Ogrepon package stays mediocre, gets set aside for better decks as they're released, and we all look back in a few years when H cards rotate and think, "Oh wow, that was a neat gimmick. Too bad that it didn't quite have what it needed to find success" like the countless other rogue decks the game has had.
 
ElSilverWind said:
That is a lovely thought. But they are just not gonna do that. Creatures Inc is never gonna make every card they print for the next two years suck just so Ogrepon can maybe be good for a year after T.Charizard ex, Chien Pao ex plus Baxcalibur, and Iron Hands plus Electric Generator rotate out.

They ARE going to print actually competitively strong decks in the H, I, and J blocks. Honestly, they already HAVE made some successful decks so far with Ancient Box and Turbo Iron Hands ex.
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So far they are doing just that. So far the H-block is well-balanced beside perhaps Prime Catcher, and I feel even that card isn't as oppressive as predicted. Note that the cards you've listed are not from the H-block.
ElSilverWind said:
Either they're gonna reveal some more cards that make Ogrepon better [...]

Or the Ogrepon package stays mediocre, gets set aside for better decks as they're released, and we all look back in a few years when H cards rotate and think, "Oh wow, that was a neat gimmick. Too bad that it didn't quite have what it needed to find success" like the countless other rogue decks the game has had.
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It's fine to think wishfully, just be careful what you wish for. Either the designers power down the game - which they seem to be doing by the cards they are printing - or we keep playing a boring format with broken cookie-cutter decks that's extremely unwelcoming to newcomers.
 
Rather than fighting about this, let’s consider what Pok are making a splash in Temporal Forces… it’s mostly Pokémon that rely on cards from previous blocks to keep pace with the broken cards from this era. Cinccino slots well into Lugia VSTAR without ruining the H-J format. Ancient Box, Great Tusk, and Raging Bolt ex rely on Ancient Professor Sada. Even Future Box will lose both mobility and utility in the H-J format thanks to the loss of Future Booster Energy and Iron Hands ex. These are great examples of depowering the H-J format without letting the F-H format become stale.

This is actually sustainable. We’re just going to need a few more cards of this sort to make Twilight Masquerade more exciting. Even if Ogerpon ex received just enough support for Ogerpon ex/Toedscruel ex to become viable, that would be something. If you don’t believe this is realistic, we could have an entire Create a Card contest over on the forum just to explore the concept. If a card can rely on broken Energy acceleration in F-H and yet exist in a healthy way in H-J, it checks all the boxes.

Incidentally, this format is much healthier than the COVID formats, but I would love to see the game become even healthier by shifting to a 2HKO, low-power Energy Acceleration format. I’m just wondering if Metang falls into the latter category.
 
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Dratini! I really enjoyed this episode this week! I'm looking forward to all the card reveals, but unless they reveal something I like I'll probably just buy 2-3 singles and call it a day. I like the idea with the ogerpons but so far they don't seem to work together enough to be any good, but only time will tell. Keep up the great work and have a good week!
 
I suppose the effect goes the other way, too, since Metang is a new form of Energy acceleration that gave an existing “broken” Pokémon the support it needed to take advantage of its strengths and keep up with more broken cards.

Unfortunately this method limits Pokémon to creating new archetypes for types they’ve already given lots of support in the past. Lightning could benefit from, say, a stage 1 attacker with an Ability that stacks the deck for Electric Generator, and such an attacker could compete with the best now without keeping cards like Greninja ex out of the format in the future, but Pokémon would be hard-pressed to make Ting-Lu ex a top deck without giving Fighting brand new Energy acceleration.

Since the Charizard ex and Baxcalibur engines already have established tier 1 decks and Grass and Fighting are weak on support, Pokémon would be limited in what types they can truly design for while maintaining the best of both the F-H and H-J block formats. And I’m worried about the diversity of the G-I format, with the power level remaining the same and all the VSTARs that still largely populate this format rotating.
 
So to use a strange metaphor for what I’ve been trying to say, yes, Pokémon might be ripping off the bandaid as Yangiku put it, but they’re giving you a free lollipop to distract you from the pain. The problem is the bandaid is going to take two years to rip off, so Pokémon is going to need to get creative and find two years worth of lollipops.

Cinccino knows a lot about lollipops, don’t you, Cinccino?

en_US-BW11-RC18-minccino.jpg
 
I was kind of hoping for some feedback from @Yaginku on my lollipop theory and the rest. I admire your work and hope I was able to contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.

Also, Hearthflame Mask Ogerpon ex could be Charizard ex’s answer it Alolan Vulpix VSTAR if that variant of Arceus comes to haunt it.
 
Charmaster:) said:
I was kind of hoping for some feedback from @Yaginku on my lollipop theory and the rest. I admire your work and hope I was able to contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.

Also, Hearthflame Mask Ogerpon ex could be Charizard ex’s answer it Alolan Vulpix VSTAR if that variant of Arceus comes to haunt it.
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I think Gouging Fire ex would fit that role a bit better. 20 More HP, doesn't discard the attached Energy (Charizard REALLY doesn't want to waste energy), and is able to KO big basics ex like Chien-Pao and Iron Hands, and utility 2 prizers like Rotom/Sqwuakabilly/Lumineon, etc.
 
ElSilverWind said:
I think Gouging Fire ex would fit that role a bit better. 20 More HP, doesn't discard the attached Energy (Charizard REALLY doesn't want to waste energy), and is able to KO big basics ex like Chien-Pao and Iron Hands, and utility 2 prizers like Rotom/Sqwuakabilly/Lumineon, etc.
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Thanks for the feedback. I’d forgotten about Gouging Fire ex.
 
Charmaster:) said:
I was kind of hoping for some feedback from @Yaginku on my lollipop theory and the rest. I admire your work and hope I was able to contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.
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I think this approach will not last for long, as the design space of actually improving Tier 1 decks without giving them additional broken tools is way too small. In some cases, like Metang and (I believe) Ogerpon, these cards might power some Tier 2-3 decks.
Honestly, the best option for PTCG designers, beside just rightfully ignoring the previous blocks like a plague, is printing extremely targeted hate-cards. Imagine a Basic ex that has an Ability that says "Abilities cannot attach energy to Pokemon in play" (or similar). "Players cannot draw more than five cards each turn", "Players cannot use more than 1 Ability of a Pokemon with the same name each turn", etc. These would be exciting pick-ups without completely breaking the game - hell, in many ways they would fix it.
 
Yaginku said:
I think this approach will not last for long, as the design space of actually improving Tier 1 decks without giving them additional broken tools is way too small. In some cases, like Metang and (I believe) Ogerpon, these cards might power some Tier 2-3 decks.
Honestly, the best option for PTCG designers, beside just rightfully ignoring the previous blocks like a plague, is printing extremely targeted hate-cards. Imagine a Basic ex that has an Ability that says "Abilities cannot attach energy to Pokemon in play" (or similar). "Players cannot draw more than five cards each turn", "Players cannot use more than 1 Ability of a Pokemon with the same name each turn", etc. These would be exciting pick-ups without completely breaking the game - hell, in many ways they would fix it.
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You’re right, the design space is small even if it includes former tier 1 decks. I think Pokémon Card Labs has started doing what you describe in the second paragraph to a lesser extent with Unfair Stamp ACE SPEC, which targets turbo decks like Roaring Moon ex.

Will Pokémon be courageous to design cards like this that punish setup decks for getting too greedy? I’m not so sure. We also have Toedscruel from Paradox Rift to set a precedent for punishing certain kinds of setup decks, since it counters decks that rely on Superior Energy Removal (as well as Pokéstop, which is favored by certain turbo decks as well as certain setup decks), but I’m not sure if that particular interaction was intentional or not.

I almost wonder if Pokémon are going to use ACE SPECS as the biggest selling points for their sets from a competitive perspective. They can easily fit into existing decks, be fetched out easily with Arven, and, as time goes on, players will have far more options to choose from and can begin teching out their decks according to personal preference.

Unfortunately ACE SPECS probably won’t create any new tier 1 decks (I say probably, since Radiant Pokémon created one strong rogue deck for the 2022 Worlds Format, Radiant Charizard Inteleon Box), so while deck teching would remain lively, the format would feel somewhat stale.

(P.S. I was assuming Miraidon ex would become a tier 2 deck following rotation when I used it as an example of improving an ex-tier 1 deck. Time will show whether or not I was justified in that assumption.)
 
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