Dagnabbit. I read that one too and I don't even mind Toad because there are solid ways around it. But I missed the Compressor.
Blog All I Do is Thin: The Buzz on Battle Compressor
- Thread starter Serperior
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Dagnabbit. I read that one too and I don't even mind Toad because there are solid ways around it. But I missed the Compressor.
Yeah, the reprint of the Night Marchers and Battle Compressor are certainly upsetting. I like what bbninjas said about these "toxic" decks. It just becomes a game of solitaire for one player and that's if you go first. It all is starting to come down to the coin flip, and if you play a deck with Battle Compressor you take full advantage of it.
The night marchers are being reprinted? I saw the BC portion, but not them. Link?
Ok we have to be logical here. Is BC bad for the game? Well, Night March, Vespiquen and Blastoise are the problem, not NM. Think about it. Only those decks abuse BC and get cheap OHKOs from T1 with no drawback. Even Item lock can't stop NM. Yveltal (Standard and Expanded), Mega Manectric, any kind of Gallade deck uses BC but they don't get cheap skilless OHKOs. So no, BC isn't the problem.
All we have do do is print a Heavy Hitter which has the effect:
"During your next turn, prevent all damage from your opponent's Pokemon that has any [c] energy attached to it"
"During your next turn, prevent all damage from your opponent's Pokemon that has any [c] energy attached to it"
I was thinking of an attack effect that says:
"After doing damage, shuffle as many Pokemon from your opponent's discard pile as you like back into his or her deck."
or one that says:
"Each of your opponent's pokemon with a base HP of 60 or less cannot attack during your opponent's next turn."
The attack part is key, as a Night March user can bail out of abilities with Hex Maniac. Either way, this would be so hilarious if they did print effects like that! xD
"After doing damage, shuffle as many Pokemon from your opponent's discard pile as you like back into his or her deck."
or one that says:
"Each of your opponent's pokemon with a base HP of 60 or less cannot attack during your opponent's next turn."
The attack part is key, as a Night March user can bail out of abilities with Hex Maniac. Either way, this would be so hilarious if they did print effects like that! xD
Guys - we already have Jolteon-EX. It doesn't matter. Night March can just Lysandre around it. ): It's bad news bears for everyone.
I've found with personal testing that a Jirachi tech can make or break the game, but it also comes with Benching carefully. Making sure you're not giving away Shaymin Prizes while slowly (but surely) getting rid of DCEs can force your opponent to make weird plays to dig for Puzzle of Time or DCEs. It's always helpful when your opponent has a Puzzle in the Prizes so they can only get two back, but in the meantime, you can Xerosic or something if they have multiple on board.
Furthermore, @Sabaku, Fighting Fury Belt exists.
I've found with personal testing that a Jirachi tech can make or break the game, but it also comes with Benching carefully. Making sure you're not giving away Shaymin Prizes while slowly (but surely) getting rid of DCEs can force your opponent to make weird plays to dig for Puzzle of Time or DCEs. It's always helpful when your opponent has a Puzzle in the Prizes so they can only get two back, but in the meantime, you can Xerosic or something if they have multiple on board.
Furthermore, @Sabaku, Fighting Fury Belt exists.
I know that, I was hoping for an attack like M-Diance-EX's, in which it applies to all of your pokemon, but doesn't have that silly parenthetical text:
(If this Pokémon is no longer your Active Pokémon, this effect ends.)
it was Toad/Shaymin/Hammers/Lasers/Everything disruptive that was the problem, not Trump Card, but Trump Card got the boot. Banning 1 card solved an immediate problem, not a long-term one. And Maxie techs could still exist, just slower, same with Bronzong or other decks like it - look at Eelektrik in 2011. So yes, Battle Compressor is the problem. All these decks involving energy acceleration from the discard would still exist, they would just be slowed down and rely on Sycamore/Ultra Ball to get the job done. Night March/Blastoise/Vespiquen approach a place that is considered too fast for the game. Look at it this way: What counters Night March?
- Seismitoad-EX: You still have a turn to burn through your deck.
- Giratina-EX: see above.
- Jolteon-EX: Lysandre around it or run Gallade.
- Trevenant XY: Lysandre around it if they have something else on the field, Play Hex Maniac, or if you go first you can burn through your deck fast enough to KO everything.
- Golbat/Crobat PHF: Fighting Fury Belt means that they can't take easy prizes without either attacking or lots of bats.
- Vileplume AOR: You get a turn if you go first to burn through your deck, or play Hex Maniac and take off.
So maybe you're correct and Night March isn't the problem. But to put Night March back on the level of everything else, you'd have to take 3 routes:
- Ban Battle Compressor
- Ban Lysandre, Gallade, Puzzle of Time, Fighting Fury Belt, and Hex Maniac instead of Battle Compressor.
- Ban the Night Marchers themselves.
Out of these, two of the three have problems.
- Banning Night Marchers fails to address the other decks taking advantage of this.
- Banning Lysandre, Puzzle of Time, Fighting Fury Belt, Hex Maniac and possibly Gallade in one swoop is complicated and just not really fair since you're banning 5 cards to stop what one card ban could stop.
Out of these, banning Battle Compressor is the safest option, since you're not just addressing the success of one deck and removing it or hurting the rest of the format, you are addressing one of the fundamental problems of the game right now - most Battle Compressor decks win a best-of-three on the opening coin flip. Vespiplume can pull 180+ damage and an item lock off of the very first turn, making some series with Vespiplume look like this:
- Vespiplume player goes first, gets the T1, and opponent scoops.
- Opponent chooses to go first, gets set up, burns through all their items (or as many as they can) and Vespiplume player scoops.
- Vespiplume player goes first, gets the T1, and wins the series.
If that can happen, I think there is something up. Turning the game into "who wins the opening coin flip wins a best of 3" feels extremely unbalanced and does not make for a good format.
I feel like Night March's existence is partially our fault - or at least, the fault of players (like me!) who complained that EXes were ruining the game, so they made a non-EX deck that does the same work as EX for one less prize. This is not the way to go about balancing your game. I do think banning Battle Compressor would help the state of the game slightly, as it removes the "I win if I win the opening flip" Vespiplume deck, as well as hurting Blastoise and Night March severely, as well as slowing down the rest of the format.
I don't see anything wrong with banning Battle Compressor.
This is how I'm starting to feel now that all four States have run their course. I mention this in the article, but lots of other decks use Battle Compressor as well, just not nearly to the extent and abuse of the archetypes mentioned.
This was the issue with Trump Card as well. A lot of decks (at least mine) didn't abuse the card and treated it as a resource but its not decks like mine that people play. Battle Compressor is this card and it makes decks way too fast.
I don't see a difference that dumping a night march Pokemon to get a turn one 180 or dumping a lot of energy with blastoise/magnezone to get a attacker that can get 180+ damage on one turn as well. When I play on PTCGO, I quit out of night march and bees matches because I dont want to sit there watching my opponent play and if I have to play those decks to have some kind of success, then there is clearly a problem. Treating Battle Compressor like Trump Card would fix the problem.
I think an errata to bring the discard limit to 2 sounds good. People will still be able to do their combos with Archies, Maxies, Energy, etc., yet it would also mean that Night March can't go from 0 to 180 so easily.
No errata or coin flip. Adding a discard cost to the card means nothing because its not a punishment and adding a coin flip means a player could get lucky and another could not. Super Rod is a good card because its still good, without every breaking a deck while Trump Card did. Similar effects but one isn't broken. Battle Compressor can make some combos way too good, even if it were nerfed at some point.
You have to look at it like this. VS Seeker is a card that can get back a supporter card. All decks can use this card and all decks can use it equally well. There isn't a supporter card that I know of that is toxic in a ideal situation. Even if there were a toxic card, its better to ban that toxic card rather than Vs Seeker because Seeker is a great tool for all decks, no matter if you're playing hyper offense or a deck that takes some kind of skill.
Another niche card is Aqua Ball, which can only grab water Pokemon but this card doesn't really give any real advantage since its end goal it to grab a Pokemon, just without the discard 2 effect. With Battle compressor, not every deck can use them equally and the decks that can use it, are already good and get thrown over the top because of it. Blastoise can use Battle Compressor better than Fairy Tool Box for example.
The problem with the card is it turns the game into hyper offense and decks like fairy tool box can't exist because the deck takes a few turns to stabilize. I'm playing Ho-Oh and it sucks playing against a deck with a slower deck with maybe one turn to do something before you eat 180+ damage and have to lose your support to things like catcher like effect.
Choose three cards from your deck and reveal them to your opponent. Your opponent chooses one card and sends it to the Lost Zone. The other two are added to the discard pile.
I was one of the culprits who abused Trump Card, but in a non-EX rogue since I had a big, gimmicky set-up and needed to draw as much as possible to do so.
Unfortunately that's the same with a ton of rogues to date that really do rely on Battle Compressor, however sometimes they luck out. :/
Honestly, I'm hoping that Burn gets a buff at some point. It could still be a coin flip for damage, but it should probably do something else, like reducing all damage that a burned Pokemon does by 10 or 20. You know, to reflect how Burn is in the games.
Well, I'm not a big player at the moment, so my view is more theorymon, but I have fiddled with a variety of ideas that rely a lot on battle compressors.
I've used Battle Compressors as the primary basis of my draw engine for a few rogues, especially those that involve Archie or Maxie. I also tried it with Cradilly PLB and other Restored Pokemon, as they have an Ability that puts them from the discard to the bottom of your deck so the appropriate fossil can be used. My old cancer engine during LTC days utilised Battle Compressor to get rid of clunky cards needed for speedy setup after using Trump, so I'd presume a similar strategy could be used today where discarding unwanted cards after setup could be advantageous. One of my decks also prefers a very small deck size, so discarding cards from the deck early is advantageous.
Of course, that's the more general stuff. You've then got any form of discard fishing, such as for discard-based Energy acceleration or Revitalizer, Revive and VS Seeker combos. There's probably much more, but I'm not really thinking clearly at the moment.