Blog All I Do is Thin: The Buzz on Battle Compressor

[crystal_pidgeot]

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. :/

It was useful for me to recover things like Max Potion.

 

[asdjklghty]

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.

I have to politely disagree with banning BC because I already pointed out other decks that take advantage of that card but no one thinks twice about it. YZG is very skill based so banning that will hurt it for no reason. Banning NM is correct and the most logical thing because it abuses it so much. ArchieStoise is dead. FoGP wasn't banned and Shiftry was because TPCi saw that Shiftry was the problem and didn't want to screw with other decks (and future ones) that use FoGP.

Vespiplume is trash and decks itself out. It can't beat NM. 2-3 copies of Hex kills that deck and NM runs that many. VS Seeker recycles it. Other decks too can beat VespliPlume.

Trevenant can't beat NM and loses to YZG

Literally everything that uses Compressor isn't broken save for ArchieStoise but that's dead. And not every deck in Standard uses it. Many Toad decks don't.

Yes and your second point is true. NM is the community's fault (except me). I left the game during the early days of B&W and tuned out on Pokemon. When I came back, I saw that EXs were back and didn't feel they were OP at all because the end of the B&W era and the early XY block was very skill based. NM ruined the game because the attackers give up only 1 prize whereas EXs give up 2.

Decks that need no time to initially set up or are super fast are the fundamental problem of the game. Trevenant/Accelgor didn't use Compressor yet it beat an EX deck in the Senior finals of Worlds in 2014. Empoleon won Senior US Nationals that year as well. In fact, one of the problems with the game now is EXs vs non-EXs. Look at 99% of EX-based decks in either format and you'll see that they're slower than NM. Even non-EX decks can't beat NM. This brings us back to square one which is cheap OHKOs with no time to initially power up and only give up 1 prize is the problem.

 

[Yog]

Why do you emphasise how dead ArchieStoise is @asdjklghty ? Seems to me as good as ever. Just on a downswing right now after some lashback to the World's win.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

I have to politely disagree with banning BC because I already pointed out other decks that take advantage of that card but no one thinks twice about it. YZG is very skill based so banning that will hurt it for no reason. Banning NM is correct and the most logical thing because it abuses it so much. ArchieStoise is dead. FoGP wasn't banned and Shiftry was because TPCi saw that Shiftry was the problem and didn't want to screw with other decks (and future ones) that use FoGP.

Vespiplume is trash and decks itself out. It can't beat NM. 2-3 copies of Hex kills that deck and NM runs that many. VS Seeker recycles it. Other decks too can beat VespliPlume.

Trevenant can't beat NM and loses to YZG

Literally everything that uses Compressor isn't broken save for ArchieStoise but that's dead. And not every deck in Standard uses it. Many Toad decks don't.

Yes and your second point is true. NM is the community's fault (except me). I left the game during the early days of B&W and tuned out on Pokemon. When I came back, I saw that EXs were back and didn't feel they were OP at all because the end of the B&W era and the early XY block was very skill based. NM ruined the game because the attackers give up only 1 prize whereas EXs give up 2.

Decks that need no time to initially set up or are super fast are the fundamental problem of the game. Trevenant/Accelgor didn't use Compressor yet it beat an EX deck in the Senior finals of Worlds in 2014. Empoleon won Senior US Nationals that year as well. In fact, one of the problems with the game now is EXs vs non-EXs. Look at 99% of EX-based decks in either format and you'll see that they're slower than NM. Even non-EX decks can't beat NM. This brings us back to square one which is cheap OHKOs with no time to initially power up and only give up 1 prize is the problem.

I have to disagree with you as well with some of your post. I feel abilities that allow a player to dump as much energy as they want and attackers that do X damage based on energy attached to them are also unhealthy for the game and shouldn't be around, just like NM/bee-like attacks. They offer little to no counter play and while I could like to see Battle Compressor stay around, that card allows for these discard based strategies to remain dominate because of the speed of the game. Decks can see 30+ cards a turn in a 47 card deck when at play.

ArchieStoise isn't a dead deck and I wont say something that can go off turn one isn't a threat, because it is. I don't know any deck that can take turn 1 180 damage pressure and be ready to deal with the attacker. I think Night March and Bees has the right to exist to some degree BUT they are only successful because of Battle Compressor. Without the card, they lose a lot and have the same pace of play as other decks.

 

[asdjklghty]

I have to disagree with you as well with some of your post. I feel abilities that allow a player to dump as much energy as they want and attackers that do X damage based on energy attached to them are also unhealthy for the game and shouldn't be around, just like NM/bee-like attacks. They offer little to no counter play and while I could like to see Battle Compressor stay around, that card allows for these discard based strategies to remain dominate because of the speed of the game. Decks can see 30+ cards a turn in a 47 card deck when at play.

ArchieStoise isn't a dead deck and I wont say something that can go off turn one isn't a threat, because it is. I don't know any deck that can take turn 1 180 damage pressure and be ready to deal with the attacker. I think Night March and Bees has the right to exist to some degree BUT they are only successful because of Battle Compressor. Without the card, they lose a lot and have the same pace of play as other decks.

1. You havent responded to my point about EXs being unfavourable now or the speed of tjebgame. You keep saying Compressor allows for plays you feel shouldn't happen but you never give examples beyond NM, Vespiquen or Blastoise. Yveltal is a skillfull deck yet it uses Compressor and no one says jack because you cant. Banning a crucial card because some decks are too powerful shows incorrect analysis. Like I said, FoGP wasn't banned even though some proposed that it should be, not Shiftry. But tpci made the right call.

NM has no right to exist. Again the problem here is cheap, skilless OHKOs that are the problem, not Compressor.

Would you say Tyrantrum is a deck unhealthy for the game? No. It takes OHKOs but unlike NM, you need at least 2 turns before you fan initially set it up. That's plenty of time for itnto get KO'd. I think youre frustrated at how fast the game is which I can sympathize with. However, I think as slow as a deck Tyrantrum and to an extent, Primal Groudon, they deserve OHKOs because they are slow.

2. Yes it is. Hex Maniac/Ghetsis/Yveltal/Lugia kills that deck.

 

[Ms Hugo]

Battle Compressor adds consistency and makes the game rely less on luck and hoping you draw into energy, one-of Supporters etc. The only deck that's majorly broken atm because of it is Night March - Vespiplume is a problem too but nowhere near as big an issue as Night March.

So you ban Battle Compressor to hit those two decks, and all of a sudden Mega decks, YZG decks, Archie/Maxie decks, any decks that run 1 of any Supporter and who-knows-how-many-rogue-decks are dragged down and you're back to hoping you can get what you need off a Trainer's Mail (rather than dumping a Skyla and VS Seekering her out).

It would make the game less dynamic, I think.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

1. You havent responded to my point about EXs being unfavourable now or the speed of tjebgame. You keep saying Compressor allows for plays you feel shouldn't happen but you never give examples beyond NM, Vespiquen or Blastoise. Yveltal is a skillfull deck yet it uses Compressor and no one says jack because you cant. Banning a crucial card because some decks are too powerful shows incorrect analysis. Like I said, FoGP wasn't banned even though some proposed that it should be, not Shiftry. But tpci made the right call.

NM has no right to exist. Again the problem here is cheap, skilless OHKOs that are the problem, not Compressor.

Would you say Tyrantrum is a deck unhealthy for the game? No. It takes OHKOs but unlike NM, you need at least 2 turns before you fan initially set it up. That's plenty of time for itnto get KO'd. I think youre frustrated at how fast the game is which I can sympathize with. However, I think as slow as a deck Tyrantrum and to an extent, Primal Groudon, they deserve OHKOs because they are slow.

2. Yes it is. Hex Maniac/Ghetsis/Yveltal/Lugia kills that deck.

EX Pokemon could be better in general if this is the way they want the game to continue as is. More HP would be a start but I have always liked the idea of pokemon taking less resources thus gives two prize cards and pokemon that take lots of resources give one prize card but the balance is long gone. Big basics have always been a thing but they did Night March.

Night March can be a skillful deck but Battle compressor lets them dump their damage. Without it, the deck is just as fast as other decks. Now there exist a problem still but it would be as free as it is now.

Also, I have a problem with Pokemon being able to kill in one hit as a problem in general. Energy is a resource that each deck needs and if you lose a attacker on your first or second turn, its a huge setback. I think the Pokemon should be taking KO at least ever 2 or 3 attack. DDE still creates a problem when Pokemon for it can KO in one hit.