scuba steveE said:
I'm sorry, but I completely disagree. Now this is my opinion, but I think first turn donks are one of worst things that has ever been apart of tcg and a rule that eliminates them is good.
I never said they were good, and I spent a good deal of time explaining how they should be dealt with. If you don't want to read my posts, okay skip them... but that means responding to them is probably a bad idea. In the specific post you quoted, I was complaining because attacks that aid in set-up or go for early game disruption are now useless; this was once a major part of the game, before it got stupid fast. If that wasn't clear from the post, it certainly should have been from later comments.
Also be careful with absolutes; the-powers-that-be could easily mess this game up even more if we aren't careful.. Changing the rules of a game is always bad; the rules define the game. Sometimes they are necessary, but they are never "good", just better than the alternative. If change happens to often, it makes the game meaningless. If the company needed a rule change to prevent donks... just require players have two Pokémon in play to begin with. Unless you insist on running 30 HP Pokémon, nothing can double KO two Pokémon on the first turn.
Big thing to remember is that all of these changes mean the designers screwed up big time, one way or the other. Either the original things being changed were wrong, or changing them is wrong. The TCG is under the control of those manufacturing and distributing it. No card is created and released that they didn't choose to create and release.
scuba steveE said:
Anything that allows you to win before your opponent can do anything is bad, plain and simple. Again, is it perfect? No, but I think it does more good than bad.
Like I said, did you read other comments that were posted after the one you quoted (which was focusing on the Sycamore/Juniper thing)? I've been over this. You're criticizing me for agreeing with you, only I was more thorough in my analysis and thus came up with a more honest conclusion instead of "Yay! Major rules change that complicates the game, removes one of the best aspects of the game (using attacks to set-up), and really only solves a small problem (donks aren't fun, but they aren't as bad of a problem
right now as several other concerns).
We have to see if the new first turn rules make a real difference in balancing out the overly fast, overpowered Pokémon of the format. I think a few will be hurt, a few will easily adjust, and a few will adjust so well that they'll be better off... but
the bulk of the card pool will remain essentially useless for competitive play.
scuba steveE said:
Confusing? You can't play both cards in the same deck, how is that confusing? Juniper will eventually be rotated out, I'm guessing in the next rotation, so Sycamore will take it's slot. So it's not really a wasted slot, it's like they are updating the theme from Black and White to X and Y. I only remember hearing very small talks about Juniper being broken, but it's never been anything to write home about.
Maybe I just needed to quote your text and underline or put in bold some of your own comments to refute. When teaching a new player, this is one extra rule. When you're a returning player, this is one extra rule and
unprecedented. Even if you're experienced, it is just one extra thing to keep track of. You can be "confused" over something that is relatively simple; whether it is trying to find a cure for cancer or forgetting why you just entered a room... you can be "confused".
Unlike some extra rules, odds are this one will matter quite a bit and so far, it seems like it won't be printed on the cards in question.
Professor Juniper is either the best or second best form of draw power currently available; its only serious rival being
N which suffers because it can help the opponent and the exact results are more variable. Any card that is a name-change functional reprint for a card we already have, is a wasted space. There is apparently so much demand for another good draw Supporter that they expect players would want to run both "Professors" in the same deck.
As for the potency of
Professor Juniper, she has shaped the format. I don't know if she is overpowered, but she is definitely powerful and influential.
scuba steveE said:
See this is what I don't get about a lot of people that play competitively. People act like this TCG is a extremely unbalanced game that has a ton of flaws, which absolutely dumbfounds me since I think it pretty balanced compared to other TCGs.
That's because you have a sliding standard: other TCGs. We aren't talking about peak human capacity here, but products that are made. You can have what is currently the "best" relative TCG in the world... but objectively it could be
terrible. So many of us, be we competitive or casual, just so long as we are experienced and/or capable of solid analysis, notice the flaws in the game. If you want an actual list, I can compose one for you. I've had almost 15 years to observe some of them, after all.
As a reminder, the previous format was largely a "return" to what it was like in the early days of the game. Some things were better; Trainers had sub-classes that governed usage so you couldn't run four
Computer Search or play four copies of
Professor Juniper in a single turn like you could the original
Professor Oak.
scuba steveE said:
There will always be overpowered cards and underpowered filler cards, but Pokemon does a good job in making the overpowered cards in check.
Only if you have too low of standards. During the best periods of this game, while there were still cards with little hope of winning an tournament, they weren't so numerous or when they were, it wasn't so obvious.
scuba steveE said:
I don't know, maybe it's because I've played the Yugioh before the ban the list(now if you want to talk about a broken and nearly unplayable card game...), but I find a lot of the problems that people complain to be blown out of portion. But what do I know?
Remember... Yu-Gi-Oh has never had anything close to as balanced a game as Pokémon has at its best. At Pokémon's worst, it still tends to be better balanced than Yu-Gi-Oh as Yu-Gi-Oh's best. Most of the diversity in the competitive sphere of Yu-Gi-Oh comes from its vast card pool; it doens't rotate, it bans. The list of Forbidden and Restricted cards may be huge, but it is not the same as rotating out older sets. So while there are many decks in the best of Yu-Gi-Oh formats, they are still a fraction of the card pool, and often rely on what would be the equivalent of allowing players to run one of each Ace Spec in Pokémon.
Note that the actual underlying mechanics of Yu-Gi-Oh are fine, give or take a few that need tweaking (minimum deck size is way too small for a game that lacks a "resource" card) and the questionable idea of adding more and more mechanics (Synchro, XYZ) instead of refining what was already present (Fusions, Rituals). The game itself never properly valued the difficulty of playing a card versus what it could do, so that the cards that were easiest to play often have some of the best effects.
(At least the person who goes first isn't at a huge advantage anymore.)
