Discussion (2019-On) What Supporters will we Use?

Mysticvulpix said:
Is their a way to get the energy back?
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Turtonator GX as well as Victini Prism Star.

Victini Prism Star does 20 damage for every fire energy in your discard pile, then shuffles them back into your deck.

I would still run 1-2 Turtonator GX for the GX attack regardless. Turtonator GX is immediate acceleraction - Victini Prism is for the mid game when you burn out of energy and need a restock to keep the Magcargo system going. Also just in case prizes.

And just to keep this post supporter relevant, I would still suggest 1-2 Kiawe as well.
 
CrownAxe said:
The difference is with N you know when it would put you to 1 or 2 cards in so you can choose not to play it.

That’s the difference. You know exactly what N will do to both players hands and can use that information to decide wether or not you should play N. You can not do that with Ilima
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Every card is situational. Obviously N is better than ilima, however we are talking about a post N world here. if your opponent already has 6 or more cards and you have 3 or less ilima cannot hurt you. Also the momentum swing from taking your opponent from 8 cards to 3 and going from 2 to 6 yourself is insane.
 
Do you guys think that people will play multiple Lillie or just one or two on the chance that they get it first turn?
Someone who I play with uses them regularly and I don't think they are very good except for on the first turn.
 
poke_baepe said:
Every card is situational. Obviously N is better than ilima, however we are talking about a post N world here. if your opponent already has 6 or more cards and you have 3 or less ilima cannot hurt you. Also the momentum swing from taking your opponent from 8 cards to 3 and going from 2 to 6 yourself is insane.
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Iliam isn't situational, it's inconsistent and that's always a bad thing to put in your deck in TCGs. Yes putting your opponent from 8 to 3 and your self from 2 to 6 is a great result, it also only has a 25% of happening. You may be able to find a situation where playing Iliam can't back fire but using your supporter to take your 2 card hand to a 3 card hand is terrible and that would happen 50% of the time you play iliam in that situaiton

Yes N is rotating. but Iliam is not even close to being the next best card to run after N is gone
 
@poke_baepe Even post-rotation, it is highly unlikely Ilima will be worth running. I won't rule out it ever being worthwhile, but @CrownAxe has laid out why it is so improbable. It requires understanding why N was so useful; you know how much each player draws before you use it, and early game it provides another reliable shuffle-and-draw for six, even if it extends that courtesy to your opponent as well.

Ilima can always give you a great result, but it can also always give you a terrible result. Decks that can minimize the drawback of Ilima still work better with other draw cards. The kind of metagame shifts that would help Ilima perform better would also favor several other draw Supporters.
 
CrownAxe said:
Iliam isn't situational, it's inconsistent and that's always a bad thing to put in your deck in TCGs. Yes putting your opponent from 8 to 3 and your self from 2 to 6 is a great result, it also only has a 25% of happening. You may be able to find a situation where playing Iliam can't back fire but using your supporter to take your 2 card hand to a 3 card hand is terrible and that would happen 50% of the time you play iliam in that situaiton

Yes N is rotating. but Iliam is not even close to being the next best card to run after N is gone
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What? This is just plain wrong. You have a 25% chance of a worst case scenario and a 25% chance of a best case one and a 50% chance of an average one. That's a 75% chance of a favorable or meh scenario which is why she is good.
 
Otaku said:
@poke_baepe Even post-rotation, it is highly unlikely Ilima will be worth running. I won't rule out it ever being worthwhile, but @CrownAxe has laid out why it is so improbable. It requires understanding why N was so useful; you know how much each player draws before you use it, and early game it provides another reliable shuffle-and-draw for six, even if it extends that courtesy to your opponent as well.

Ilima can always give you a great result, but it can also always give you a terrible result. Decks that can minimize the drawback of Ilima still work better with other draw cards. The kind of metagame shifts that would help Ilima perform better would also favor several other draw Supporters.
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This isn't why N is good or why I like ilima. These cards are used for their disruption. N isn't even close to being the best draw supporter, but is fantastic for it's catch up mechanic and for screwing up the opponents hand. ilima allows you to disrupt the game and win even when you are even on prize or ahead a little. Examples are if for example the opponent draws a ton with zoro or searches out a special card with vulpix.
 
But if your looking for disruption why play Iliam over Judge? Judge is a better disruption card on average and does so consistently instead of randomly
 
poke_baepe said:
This isn't why N is good or why I like ilima. These cards are used for their disruption. N isn't even close to being the best draw supporter, but is fantastic for it's catch up mechanic and for screwing up the opponents hand. ilima allows you to disrupt the game and win even when you are even on prize or ahead a little. Examples are if for example the opponent draws a ton with zoro or searches out a special card with vulpix.
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My apologies, I thought you already understood the hand disruption side of things so I assumed I didn't need to state such a thing. Which in no way changes my point; you appear to be fixating on bits and pieces of how N is used to the exclusion of other pieces.

Though there was a gap in the Standard Format, N was the premiere early game shuffle-and-draw card from September 1, 2012 (when Professor Oak's New Theory rotated from the Standard Format of the time) until Cynthia finally became tournament legal on February 16, 2018 (if I did the math right). That's five and a half years of it being a staple, often being run in multiples. The disruption matters, sure, but notice how even as an Item, Red Card (a reliable shuffle-and-draw for four) wasn't a staple while a shuffle-and-draw for six as a Supporter both was and still is.

Now, combine this with what @CrownAxe is saying and one other thing; shrinking your opponent's hand is usually the means to an end. You force your opponent to shuffle away his or her hand in the hopes that he or she will draw poorly. The same is true of wanting a larger hand; some effects benefit from a larger hand directly, but it is usually because the larger our hand the more options we have available. While the worst Ilima can do for you is make you shuffle and draw three cards, the same is true for your opponent; you're never dropping them down to a one or two card hand. While the best Ilima can draw for you is six cards, which is as good as N's best and you get it with half the possible outcomes instead of only one-sixth, it is never guaranteed the way it is T1.

This is still more jumbled and lenthier than I'd like, but I'm out of time to clarify. If you want to test Ilima for the format post-rotation, go ahead... but even with no N or Professor Sycamore in the card pool, I believe it is still too unreliable to properly do its job.
 
People are just gonna play a combination of Cynthia, Copycat and Tate & Liza. Hala, sightseer and Judge will be used based on deck composition. It's still possible something could get a league promo this summer, so it's anyone's guess, but I'm guessing TPCI is going to try and get everyone on board with shuffle-draw for the upcoming format.
 
Mega Mewthree... said:
Do you guys think that people will play multiple Lillie or just one or two on the chance that they get it first turn?
Someone who I play with uses them regularly and I don't think they are very good except for on the first turn.
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It depends on the deck. Rayquaza GX is currently the only deck that I would run more than 1 copy in because it plays 4 Ultra Ball and 4 Mysterious Treasure (A good portion of its Pokemon pool requires you to play from hand so Nest Ball is a no go) which helps thin your hand a lot, and since the deck is excusively Basic Pokemon only, you are very often able to play down your whole hand as opposed to holding onto Stage 1s or Rare candy that you can't play down on T1.

Because you have so much discard potential and the deck runs only basic Pokemon, your ability to play out your hand is actually very good. In playtesting, about 15-20% of the time I am capable of pulling off a full 8 card draw off of a Turn 1 Lillie, and I use a 2nd Lillie to fill my hand from 0-1 back to 6 in more than 50% of my games. The list I use runs 3 copies just so that I don't have to expend my Ultra Ball/Mysterious Treasure on Lele as often and can expend them on Rayquaza/Zeraora/Shuckle instead.

Outside of Ray GX, I run 1 or 0 Lillie. It depends on the deck and should not be seen as a staple. Unless you just like the card, then go ahead and play it. In my personal opinion, Stage 1 and Stage 2 decks should almost always be going for Turn 1 Pokemon Fan Club, even if you run maxed out Nest Ball. I have never seen myself draw more than 5 cards off of a T1 Lillie in a Stage 2 deck, and drawing 5+ cards happens less than 5% of the time. Some people prefer Lillie still in evolution decks, but I prefer guarantees like Fan Club.
 
poke_baepe said:
I was rounding favorably for you. So you agree i'm right then?
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What? What you just said makes no sense.

If you round Illiam that would mean that it on average puts your opponent's hand to 5 cards. Which is NOT the same as 4

But even then WHY ARE YOU ROUNDING IT AT ALL? It's average IS 4.5. I'm showing you that Judge is a better card for disruption because Judge on average puts your opponent at less cards then Illima does.
 
Plaquesanta said:
People are just gonna play a combination of Cynthia, Copycat and Tate & Liza. Hala, sightseer and Judge will be used based on deck composition. It's still possible something could get a league promo this summer, so it's anyone's guess, but I'm guessing TPCI is going to try and get everyone on board with shuffle-draw for the upcoming format.
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I've heard similar statements before, and while I don't 100% agree, the only reason for that is because I think "Smooth Over" Magcargo will see widespread usage. Maybe that is more "hope" than "think". >.> Its ancestor was such a great card and while Bench space is somewhat tight in decks, think of what this does for a card like Professor Kukui: Smooth Over to get the exact card you need most, draw one more beyond that, and do +20 damage!

Especially if I am wrong, though, we just get used to Cynthia/Tate & Liza/Copycat as the new "big three", with Copycat really being a placeholder until something better comes along or players get good at keeping their hand down to four or fewer cards.
 
I have been using Cynthia, Judge, and Hala. However Tate and Lizia haven't come out yet so we will see.
Kukui is pretty good as well.
 
Been testing out 3 Lillies in some of my deck, not too bad so far. Would be cool to see Kukui played more, always felt that card was a bit underrated.
 
As a counter-opinion, I believe Judge or Ilima will see play: Consider Sylveon-GX. Sylveon-GX is already tier-1 or close (12th at NAIC), but it's biggest problem was an N after a magical ribbon. With that problem gone, even the loss of some important cards (TFG, Puzzle, Gladion) isn't going to make Sylveon nonviable. There are other seek cards (Steven's resolve, crasher wake, Metagross-GX (for Algorithm-GX)) that might see more play unless hand disruption remains in the arsenal.

In addition, draw support is going to be considerably worse. The corollary of this is that hand disruption will be more damaging: less and lesser hand recovery to top-deck.
When one has a reliable recovery mechanism on board (e.g. oranguru, lapras-gx, metagross algorithm-gx) the downfall from an unsuccessful ilima is lessened.

time will tell. as for me, i'm sticking to my tsareena-gx deck hoping it will be significantly improved this way.
 
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