Remember that time a Shifty Card from 4 years previous ended up being so fudging strong because of Forest of Giant Plants that they had to ban it in Expanded (when that was a thing), because you could donk your opponent turn one?
“Hop’s Zacian ex Box” Revealed for March!
- Thread starter Water Pokémon Master
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All the strike decks were playable to meta for their entire life, idk why this would be any different
From someone who just likes cards and a competitive player, the new set seems to be important to the TCG because the trainer sort of gimmick (even though there's a lot of hate for it which is definitely reasonable). I don't know how old you are, but as someone growing up with B&W era the reintroduction of N into the TCG is super cool to me and I'm sure I'm not alone there. I wouldn't put a lot of emphasis on the other trainers like Hop, because who really cares about him ngl.
Don’t think it has anything to do with the set itself but with the general uprise of the TCG atm wig prismatic E.
I personally hate N. I think he is one of the most annoying characters in the franchise.
To be precise, Urshifu VMAX and Mew VMAX were near the top for most of their lives, and Rapid Strike Malamar held on for a solid year. Limitlesstcg seems to say that Single Strike Urshifu VMAX was generally the best Single Strike deck in 2021, but from just reading Pokébeach's articles program as a recent researcher of competitive Pokémon back in the day, it felt like Single Strike was playing hot potato trying to figure out what it's poster child would be.
Yep, this basically sums up how I saw Single Strike. (Although by the time we got to the bottom right two items, I wasn't thinking nearly as much about the rest of the chart and probably would have looked up the decks on Limitless before assuming they were all viable.)
You have the stage. Feel free to soapbox on specifically makes N annoying before the N fans in the room can collect the tar and feathers.
Yeah either we get a strong character focused deck or some rogue deck that no one plays
I really dont see how the new cards are inferior in any shape or form compared to past cards that also include trainers. And we've seen like what barely 6 illustration cards? If the issue is very few trainers ok I can see then but aside from that, huh?
Trainer's pokemon have always evolved from specifically that trainer's pokemon. At least they did originally, back in gym heroes.
This is fair, and for some characters it will be true. One major difference with strikes is that they were all meta upon release. They didn't gain much else after though. For instance, Mew lists played only fusion strike pokemon. If fusion strike didn't have good attackers, Mew would never have a chance to be good because it is not splashable in decks that aren't almost entirely fusion strike. The issue with splashing is even stronger with these because they evolve from completely different pokemon. Something like Leon's Charmander not being able to candy to zard ex feels awful to me. I am positive some of these are viable, but the ones that aren't likely never will be unless they find a way to be splashed, such as single strike Lugia that didn't use the single strike engine.
Single strike was very nice both because it had special energy for Lugia, had strong V's that work outside of the mechanic for arceus, and had at least some use for houndoom. I want all characters to be as splashable as single strike, but the volume of them and the fact that is seems each trainer will have less of them makes it tough to do that.
But what if that shifty only evolved from the dark type Gardenia's nuzleaf? That shiftry couldn't have been viable without mixing lines from different sets. Trainer cards simply do not allow this.
With this set's release the whole F block is rotating out, so a lot of existing decks literally become unplayable. This set is the mandatory "New Toy" for a lot of players and we're (sort of) looking forward how it shakes up the meta.
Notably for Hop's entire pokemon lineup and kit it gives off a very familiar archetype vibe, if you were around during early Sun/Moon era with Buzzwole/Lycanroc GX, Hop's Zacian ex is very close to that card, so a lot of older/returning players are excited for this.
I think it's a fair downside. So far the Trainer's Pokemon all have insanely powerful abilities that would have some potential game breaking effects if they're allowed to evolve from/interact with non-Trainer's Pokemon.
Even then, consider this: if you're a fan of a pokemon that happens to have a Trainer's Pokemon version of them, you can now run 8 of each if you want. I think that's really cool and I'm personally looking forward to run 8 Beldums, 7-8 Metangs, and a mix of Metagross/Steven's Metagross ex. It's probably going to be bad, but it's cool.