“Stellar Miracle” Pokemon TCG Set Featuring Terapagos ex Revealed!

@Yaginku :
I wouldn't try to argue with that person... In my oppinion is he trying to aggrevate you with the intent to just ignore any information provided and only focusing on their own mindset.
You could rather move a rock with your arguments than certain people.
It's scientificly proven that the more you try to convince people and the more you give them proven facts, the more they'll belive their own belives even if proven wrong/false.
the staggering irony of a statement like this should be evident.

@the whole discussion:
The EX era this time tried to bring back stage 2 but failed at it imo.
You now got a heavy focus on strong, bonkers base Pokémon and the whole part of evolving Pokémon feels like a gimmick for tier 2-3 decks.
THAT is something I meant with powercreep for example, a whole portion of the games mechanics just not beeing useful or even considered in design.
Or as already mentioned, you got trainer cards, not even supporter, attaching energies on a Pokémon without drawbacks and it has become the norm for cards to attach energies for free.

i don't know how to even begin to explain why this is wrong without coming across as a bully, because I think it should be really obvious that this current era is so saturated with evolution decks, especially Stage 2, at all levels of play including the highest performing tournament decks, that one could only make a statement like this if they're completely checked out and firing off outdated frustration blindly into a cloud of smoke with a complaint they "think" will sound apt. evolution is a part of the majority of decks in the game right now.

as far as the supposed "normalization" of item cards attaching free energy, i would like to remind everyone that such a thing only exists for three colors and two archetypes, and the long-term success of these effects vary wildly (no one would, for example, consider Gutsy Pickaxe to be comparable to Mirage Gate), with them either requiring meaningful external setup or risk-taking in the form of card-checking or coin flipping.

The usual amount of players who belong to the hyper-competitive category - they min-max and look up guides - is below 10%. In a PvE game I saw numbers below 5%. Pokemon TCG, being a game focused on PvP, might have these numbers skewed higher (you can look up ranked vs unranked players in some of the more popular online games), but I don't believe they would be an extreme outlier from the industry average. Even if it's something unreal like 50%, that's still millions of players who are not competitive.
In Pokemon TCG, the official leaderboards show below 1M who ever gained a Play! Point. It's hard to imagine that someone who attended a single prerelease qualifies as "Spike", but also the amount of PTCG customers is way higher than just 800k.
there is no demonstrated correlation between your argument and the statistic you are trying to connect to it. as a reminder, what you are conflating with exclusively hyper competitive-minded players of this game is the very idea of "enjoying energy accelerating effects" or "liking to draw additional cards in their turn". believe it or not, i'm willing to go out on a limb and make the outlandish assumption that casual players probably also like effects that let them put more cards into play during their turn than they could without them and don't actually have some staunch, principled stance against ever using them because they're icky. similarly, you would also not be able to gesture in the direction of a statistic of how many people exclusively collect pokemon cards rather than play the game in order to assert that a majority of people both have an opinion on and also specifically agree with your position on the mechanics of the game they don't play. hope this helps!

Only held back by this insistence that they need to have "Basic [X] Energy" on the card.
they're far more strongly held back by generation 9's disgusting "bingo chip" shape for energy. definitely the least desirable middle ground between "spheroid" and "2d circle" and i hope that the next generation doesn't fumble their energy designs like the last two have.
Oh you mean like base set Blastoise? So you're not mad about power creep you're just a rule follower and are mad they don't follow their own rules? I'm sorry but there's zero chance I'm playing this game if ionly get to attach one energy per turn. It slows down the game a ton and makes a lot of Pokémon unplayable. I'm sorry but no I don't think that over shadows the rules. And if it does it's better for the game so boo hoo.
my post was not combative, and i'm not mad about anything. i was trying to, reasonably charitably, explain what i thought they meant by that. the problem is that describing the act of any energy acceleration or card draw as "overshadowing the rules" needlessly negatively charges it and, at least in reply to you, made a post explaining what i thought the meaning was come across as taking a position against it.
 
For real? The rules stipulate that you can only attach one Energy card per turn, and that you only draw one card per turn. The latter was overshadowed basically on the game's release day, so nobody really minds. But think about cards in the current Standard that attach multiple, if not infinite amount of Energy cards.

There are people - the majority, in fact - who would like to play cards beside the few that are allowed to break the rules.
OK so then you and this "majority" of people start your own format and play together and only use base set cards and only the ones that don't break the rules. Have fun, it sounds horrible to me but whatever floats your boat. When I play with friends we have our own rules we play by but that breaks even more rules so it would probably infuriate you. Seriously though pioneer a new format of you're not happy with the current one. But that doesn't mean the rest of us that like it should have to play the way you want to play. Personally I like attaching lots of energy and drawing lots of cards
 
It really isn't, in fact you don't have to spend minutes each game watching your opponent set up their engine.
Energy is just a part of the equation for deck speed - commonly called "tempo". You need damage to progress the game, and you need Energy to power up attacks that do damage. If you have Type-conditional energy acceleration, it simply allows that Type to be faster by doing more damage quicker. If you have it on an attacker card (like Charizard), it just allows that deck to be faster.
The last part of this equation is discarding energy from knocked-out Pokemon. It's an additional punishment for committing to high-cost attacks. Acceleration can help you past that penalty and focus on your high-cost attacker.
A card like Crispin is great because it's universal, has a clear drawback (being a Supporter) and forces you to play multiple types of Energy, encouraging deck variety.
But then wouldn't it become whatever attacks for the least energy cost and the most damage and then you can just lose to a boss, I feel like the one energy accels are fine especially stuff like Crispin, I feel like it'll be ok if everytype had the same acceleration
 
I don't understand why people get so mad about power creep. Why does it matter if cards are stronger than they were 5-10 years ago? All that matters is that they are a similar power level to current cards. Having over 300 HP doesn't matter if there are other cards that have the same HP.
I think the main issue at play here isn't the concept of power creeping itself, but moreso the fact that it is only primarily happening with a specific class of cards (i.e. the 2-Prize Rule Box Pokémon), and the rest of the game isn't compensating for their increased power with them. Consider that:
- Stage 2 "baby" Pokémon still haven't broken the 200HP ceiling since their last known power creep in Gen V, (as least as best as I can think of right now on the spot, by all means correct me if there is one)
- Damaging status conditions are hardly significant dents for modern Rule Box 'Mons
- Basic Pokémon are still getting introduced with 30HP, which is open season for many of the stronger cards

It's creating an inconsistency between the cards in the game. By power creep logic, 30HP in the early days of the game should be equivalent to 50-70HP today, and Poison/Burn damage should have increased by a minimum of one damage counter, but we're not seeing that. Even the only Trainer card that somewhat responded to power creep is Potion, and nobody uses that.
 
there is no demonstrated correlation between your argument and the statistic you are trying to connect to it. as a reminder, what you are conflating with exclusively hyper competitive-minded players of this game is the very idea of "enjoying energy accelerating effects" or "liking to draw additional cards in their turn"
No, that's a correlation made up by you. In general, casual players are not interested in "winning at all costs" by copying decks from online sources. There are also creative players, who detest the idea of netdecking as a principle, even if they are quite skilled at the game. There are many player profiles participating in every game.
The main feature making Pokemon TCG inaccessible right now is the gap between "haves" and "have nots" in the form of cards that allow you to accelerate large amounts of Energy at once. Casual players are not known to stumble on a "have" deck by accident, usually.
similarly, you would also not be able to gesture in the direction of a statistic of how many people exclusively collect pokemon cards rather than play the game in order to assert that a majority of people both have an opinion on and also specifically agree with your position on the mechanics of the game they don't play.
That is quite a leap to make from "you can't prove these people exist" to "okay, these people exist and they're a known player profile, but they wouldn't agree with you anyway" (as though players have to "agree" with design, not just experience it). Keep in mind that the original reply started with the assertion that power creep is okay, because there are multiple decks being power-crept at the same time.
 
I think the main issue at play here isn't the concept of power creeping itself, but moreso the fact that it is only primarily happening with a specific class of cards (i.e. the 2-Prize Rule Box Pokémon), and the rest of the game isn't compensating for their increased power with them. Consider that:
- Stage 2 "baby" Pokémon still haven't broken the 200HP ceiling since their last known power creep in Gen V, (as least as best as I can think of right now on the spot, by all means correct me if there is one)
- Damaging status conditions are hardly significant dents for modern Rule Box 'Mons
- Basic Pokémon are still getting introduced with 30HP, which is open season for many of the stronger cards

It's creating an inconsistency between the cards in the game. By power creep logic, 30HP in the early days of the game should be equivalent to 50-70HP today, and Poison/Burn damage should have increased by a minimum of one damage counter, but we're not seeing that. Even the only Trainer card that somewhat responded to power creep is Potion, and nobody uses that.
I guess I'm just not worried about if burn and poison are viable. The 30 HP is a valid point but there are still Basic evolving Pokémon that survive just fine. I mean the best Deck being Charizard shows they're doing fine because that deck relies on Charmander and Pidgey staying alive. I don't don't think there that much inconsistency myself and what there is makes sense. There should be a gap between single prize and 2 prize Pokémon because of the prize cards cost difference.
 
I guess I'm just not worried about if burn and poison are viable. The 30 HP is a valid point but there are still Basic evolving Pokémon that survive just fine. I mean the best Deck being Charizard shows they're doing fine because that deck relies on Charmander and Pidgey staying alive. I don't don't think there that much inconsistency myself and what there is makes sense. There should be a gap between single prize and 2 prize Pokémon because of the prize cards cost difference.
There should be a gap, but I think the gap is still too big. For example, I don't really think basic 2-prizers should be better than Stage 2 1-prizers considering the Stage 2s are much harder to get into play. The Stage 2s may be better in some ways already (such as lower attack costs or cool abilities like Frigibax's), but I don't get why Stage 2 1-prizers still have much lower HP a large percentage of the time. Still, it isn't game-ruining, just frustrating.
 
I think the main issue at play here isn't the concept of power creeping itself, but moreso the fact that it is only primarily happening with a specific class of cards (i.e. the 2-Prize Rule Box Pokémon), and the rest of the game isn't compensating for their increased power with them. Consider that:
- Stage 2 "baby" Pokémon still haven't broken the 200HP ceiling since their last known power creep in Gen V, (as least as best as I can think of right now on the spot, by all means correct me if there is one)
- Damaging status conditions are hardly significant dents for modern Rule Box 'Mons
- Basic Pokémon are still getting introduced with 30HP, which is open season for many of the stronger cards

It's creating an inconsistency between the cards in the game. By power creep logic, 30HP in the early days of the game should be equivalent to 50-70HP today, and Poison/Burn damage should have increased by a minimum of one damage counter, but we're not seeing that. Even the only Trainer card that somewhat responded to power creep is Potion, and nobody uses that.
pokemon who are worth two KOs when they are defeated having roughly two times the HP of equivalent cards who are only worth one KO makes sense, doesn't it? as with multi-prize monsters, there is a range that results in tankier and less tanky examples among single prizers. there isn't really any "reason" for single prize monsters to necessarily need to be "only" some smaller amount of total HP behind cards who are, again, by design "worth two pokemon". i'd say the gap now is the healthiest it's ever been.

HP30 is no more "open season" for rule box cards than it is for non rule box cards. as it is now, HP30 is reserved for archetypically "puny" monsters, like Baby Pokemon and assorted small fries like Magikarp, and that's why most basic pokemon now range from 50-80 HP. and even in spite of this supposed hyper-vulnerability and incapability of keeping up, there are still multiple HP30 cards seeing regular play.

poison not, on its own, doing "proportionally" more damage in all instances isn't a failure to keep up, what it instead creates is opportunity for "Poison as Archetype" effects to render the mechanic into a style of play without erasing design space for "Poison as chip".

No, that's a correlation made up by you. In general, casual players are not interested in "winning at all costs" by copying decks from online sources. There are also creative players, who detest the idea of netdecking as a principle, even if they are quite skilled at the game. There are many player profiles participating in every game.
The main feature making Pokemon TCG inaccessible right now is the gap between "haves" and "have nots" in the form of cards that allow you to accelerate large amounts of Energy at once. Casual players are not known to stumble on a "have" deck by accident, usually.

That is quite a leap to make from "you can't prove these people exist" to "okay, these people exist and they're a known player profile, but they wouldn't agree with you anyway" (as though players have to "agree" with design, not just experience it). Keep in mind that the original reply started with the assertion that power creep is okay, because there are multiple decks being power-crept at the same time.
you are again continuing to conflate "using Dark Patch" or "using Electric Generator" with an "[interest] in winning at all costs", now also pivoting to the equally unrelated tangent of netdecking for some reason? as if to suggest that players will actively shun using widely available and accessible cards because someone else is using them? i would go as far as to say that there are very few if any meaningfully inaccessible energy acceleration effects in the game (almost all of them being common or uncommon and even most that aren't being worth pennies on any secondary market) and you are welcome to cite literally any examples of the attack on the have-nots instead of avoiding any subatance. without distractions this time, please.
 
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There are people - the majority, in fact - who would like to play cards beside the few that are allowed to break the rules.
This has nothing to do with power creep, this has to do with game balncing, and game balncing is very very Bad for pokemon.

Power creep is just a natural phenomenon whitch happen when game designers can't balance the game and they have to peint stronger cards to compete with the broken card they accidentally made
 
There should be a gap, but I think the gap is still too big. For example, I don't really think basic 2-prizers should be better than Stage 2 1-prizers considering the Stage 2s are much harder to get into play. The Stage 2s may be better in some ways already (such as lower attack costs or cool abilities like Frigibax's), but I don't get why Stage 2 1-prizers still have much lower HP a large percentage of the time. Still, it isn't game-ruining, just frustrating.
Yeah 1 prize stage 2 need to average 200 HP to be good in current format
 
I guess I'm just not worried about if burn and poison are viable. The 30 HP is a valid point but there are still Basic evolving Pokémon that survive just fine. I mean the best Deck being Charizard shows they're doing fine because that deck relies on Charmander and Pidgey staying alive. I don't don't think there that much inconsistency myself and what there is makes sense. There should be a gap between single prize and 2 prize Pokémon because of the prize cards cost difference.
Charmander and Pidgey aren't 30HP Pokémon though, and the deck depends on getting your Pidgeot/Charizard out turn 2 at the earliest before your opponent can attempt to snipe/gust them anyway. And of course many decks want you set up by turn 2, but Charmander and Pidgey have a little more survivability than a 30/40HP Poltchageist.

Special Conditions not being viable is somewhat a concern since it's such a backbone of the franchise's mechanics. You'd want them to work in the way they are meant to by hampering your opponent and not as a buff for your own attacks, but there's too many outs for them to be significant.

While gaps should exist, there has to be some sort of balance as well. The previous 2-prize evolutions, GX Pokémon, typically maxed out at 250HP, and now the current 2-prize ex evolutions are easily passing 300HP (which in the previous Generation not too long ago would have considered that a 3-prizer). At some point standard Pokémon have to catch up with that. If 2-prizers eventually reach 400HP consistently, then standard Stage 2 Pokémon have to clear 200HP at a minimum.
 
Special Conditions not being viable is somewhat a concern since it's such a backbone of the franchise's mechanics. You'd want them to work in the way they are meant to by hampering your opponent and not as a buff for your own attacks, but there's too many outs for them to be significant.
Status conditions are a big deal in the games, but I feel like they've rarely been super important in the TCG. I'd still like for them to be better, but I don't think it's a massive deal if they're not...just sort of disappointing/lame.
 
Charmander and Pidgey aren't 30HP Pokémon though, and the deck depends on getting your Pidgeot/Charizard out turn 2 at the earliest before your opponent can attempt to snipe/gust them anyway. And of course many decks want you set up by turn 2, but Charmander and Pidgey have a little more survivability than a 30/40HP Poltchageist.

Special Conditions not being viable is somewhat a concern since it's such a backbone of the franchise's mechanics. You'd want them to work in the way they are meant to by hampering your opponent and not as a buff for your own attacks, but there's too many outs for them to be significant.

While gaps should exist, there has to be some sort of balance as well. The previous 2-prize evolutions, GX Pokémon, typically maxed out at 250HP, and now the current 2-prize ex evolutions are easily passing 300HP (which in the previous Generation not too long ago would have considered that a 3-prizer). At some point standard Pokémon have to catch up with that. If 2-prizers eventually reach 400HP consistently, then standard Stage 2 Pokémon have to clear 200HP at a minimum.
I don't think that because GX Pokémon were around 250 that it should mean ex Pokémon can't be higher because there's no way to play one against the other in standard. The reason it's OK for them to only give up 2 prize cards is that they are stage 2. Plus I personally think 3 prize cards are bad for the game that's the one area where I think power creep is bad. Because it's not that hard to knock out a big HP 3 prize Pokémon anymore and boom 2 knock outs and the game is over. I hope 3 prize Pokémon are a thing of the past. I just don't worry too much about what single prize Pokémon have for hp because to me they are mostly support Pokémon for your main multi prize Pokémon. Baxcalibur being a prime example of this. It's not in there to take big damage or attack. It's to ride the bench and use it's ability. I don't want it hard to kill because killing it is the best way to shut down Chien-Pao. I don't really play GLC so I'm not worried about how strong single Pokémon are.
 
I don't think that because GX Pokémon were around 250 that it should mean ex Pokémon can't be higher because there's no way to play one against the other in standard. The reason it's OK for them to only give up 2 prize cards is that they are stage 2. Plus I personally think 3 prize cards are bad for the game that's the one area where I think power creep is bad. Because it's not that hard to knock out a big HP 3 prize Pokémon anymore and boom 2 knock outs and the game is over. I hope 3 prize Pokémon are a thing of the past. I just don't worry too much about what single prize Pokémon have for hp because to me they are mostly support Pokémon for your main multi prize Pokémon. Baxcalibur being a prime example of this. It's not in there to take big damage or attack. It's to ride the bench and use it's ability. I don't want it hard to kill because killing it is the best way to shut down Chien-Pao. I don't really play GLC so I'm not worried about how strong single Pokémon are.
Never said that ex Pokémon can't be higher, I'm just demonstrating how the power creep is advancing at its current trajectory while standard Pokémon continue to remain stagnant.
 
Never said that ex Pokémon can't be higher, I'm just demonstrating how the power creep is advancing at its current trajectory while standard Pokémon continue to remain stagnant.
HP on single prize Pokemon increases more slowly relative to multiprize because they are worth only a single prize card when knocked out. a lot of math hinges on this being the case and rushing to "power creep" HP on single prizers is a far bigger risk than doing it with Pokemon ex. go play some single prize stage 2 decks and get back to me. what happens might surprise you.
 
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