Discussion Altering Prize Rulings and Going 2nd

[Duo]

So I think I'm going to get a lot of flak for throwing this out there, but I figured it was a topic worth discussing.

I'm not sure how everyone feels about how prizes works and, in my opinion, how much of an advantage going 1st is in this TCG (especially the mirror match), but I think both of them are problematic and I wanted to discuss the possibility for change.

If nothing else, these changes could be applied at a casual level as "house rules."

Altering Prize Rulings and Potential Benefits

Everyone is familiar with the current prize rules. Draw 7, if you or your opponent don't mulligan, top 6 into prizes. Now, I believe the fun part of this is that neither player knows, for the time being, what those prizes are and how they will affect the game, and that introduces some variance that makes things a little more lively as well as the blind opportunity to beat your worst match up if they get bad prizes and you get good prizes. I believe this is fine at a casual level, but I don't think it's fine at a competitive level. And no, I'm not just someone who's salty after prizing Brigette at a League Cup. I legitimately think that changing things around can be healthier for the game and introduce more strategy and deck building variety.

My proposition is that for any competitive event, all players will submit their 60 card deck list as well as their 6 card prize list. Taking a step back, this means that each player is allowed to choose what their 6 prizes will be in advance, and that prize pool, much like your deck list, cannot change throughout that tournament. To be clear, this is not a 60 card deck and 6 prizes. This is picking 6 prizes from your 60 card deck that you separate in advance.

Now, the major issue that this introduces is the unbelievable opportunity for cheating, so let me get that out of the way first.

At a League Cup level, when you are given your match slips at your table, your prize list is printed beside your name. Before you even draw your opening 7 cards, both players will show their prize cards to one another to confirm that they are list accurate, and then each player will shuffle their prizes and set them face down in the prize area.

At higher level events, a judge would perform this operation for the players to make it "official."

I think this operation accomplishes several things:

1. Even though the prizes are not random, the order that you receive them in is still random since they are shuffled. When you take a prize, you have a 1/6 chance to get what you want, and 1/3 when you take two, so on and so forth. Variance is still a factor, but you absolutely cannot open a game with Lele and just scoop because you prized 3 basics in your stage 2 deck.

2. By having the prizes out of your deck before you open 7, games will be able to start more consistently and less time is wasted on mulligans. You will open from a 54 card deck instead of a 60 card deck.

3. 9 out of 10 games begin with an Ultra Ball or a Lele to search the deck. This search is always used to confirm your own prizes before you actually search for the card(s) that you are looking for. This saves even more time since people will no longer dabble in their decks on the first search. You already know what your prizes are.

4. Your opponent knows what your prizes are but they don't know what you're going to get. Prizes can now be a pivotal factor in turning the tide of the game because you can set up your prizes to work that way if you wish. More on this in a second.

5. 1/1 lines of Pokemon no longer have any risk, meaning deck building can include more splashable tech and less linear deck building based around the concept of knowing that you're going to prize things. Builds can be more unique, personal, and adaptive.

I'd like to take a moment to elaborate more on point number 4, as point 4 is one of the biggest reasons why I think hand-picked prizes can make things a lot more interesting.

Prizing Strategies

The number one thing that I find interesting about this is that the honest truth is no one wants to prize anything just like how people wish they could fit just 3 or 4 more really good cards into their deck, but now you have to approach this with some sort of strategy involved. I'd like to run through some examples.

1. Let's say you are a spread deck who runs Espeon EX as a potential win condition. This can be a very valid prize choice since you never want to open Espeon EX and is a Pokemon that you don't usually play until the middle or end of a game. At the same time, prizing your Espeon EX might mean it's stuck in the prizes that you didn't take when you're down to the wire and you really needed that Espeon EX to win. It becomes a risk reward decision.

2. Guzma is one of those supporters that we love to use in the mid to late game. Prizing one on purpose is probably a good idea so that after you take a knock out and your opponent tries to protect something on their bench, you will have grabbed a Guzma from your KO to continue your pressure.

3. Everyone hates starting Lele, but you need 2 to 3 copies to get your supporters. Do you intentionally prize 1 so that you reduce your odds of starting it with the risk of not opening Lele/Brigette? Do you prize an Ultra Ball instead?

4. Let's say you run a handful of 1 of tech cards in a tool box style deck. You can opt to prize some of those one ofs to make your core strategy more consistent and aim to grab prizes early to have access to your strategies later.

5. Playability of cards like Gladion, Counter Catcher, and Counter Energy increase substantially. Prizes matter a whole lot more, meaning more people want to take them and have access to them. Playing Gladion is incredibly powerful under an environment like this so that you have full control over your resource pool, and since people will be taking prizes with the intent of digging up cards they want or need, the counter cards can help you directly counter the advantage your opponent gets from taking their prizes.

These are just a few examples, but I think these examples are all it takes to help people get where I'm going with this, assuming you agree with my logic up to this point.

All in all, I do think that a system like this would make the game more interesting. You have 2 levels of deck building where you have to build a "60" card deck and choose 6 cards from amongst them that you think will give you the greatest advantage if/when you take them from your prizes. The same deck list can be played differently by choosing 6 different prizes, and builds could change altogether now that you open your hand from a 54 card deck instead of a 60 card deck.



The other thing I wanted to bring up briefly is "buffing" the player who goes second. I know the rules for this have changed several times in the past, and I'm not sure if what I'm about to suggest has been done before, but feel free to call me out if it has.

Right now, I think going 1st has a noticeable advantage and that advantage can be reduced with one small change. I think it would be completely fair to allow the player going second to have the choice of either attacking with their active or choosing to evolve one Pokemon on the bench. This also means that if you can managed to switch your active to the bench, that Pokemon can be evolved.

Doing this offers more freedom on turn 1 going second and the ability to be flexible with more decks. If you're playing something like fire and you want to swing with baby Volcanion going second, then you can still do so. If you're playing a mirror match of Gardevoir and you want to evolve up to protect your bench, you can choose to do so. The main advantage that the player has going first is that they can evolve AND attack on their 2nd turn before the player going second even has a chance to set up their defenses. With a system like this, you have the option of either offense or defense, not only offense, and you won't be as "behind" against other evolution decks.

These ideas have been in my head for a while since I wanted to take some time to think about what I think the "optimal" changes would be.

I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts.

 

[uncleyuri]

It's a very interesting idea. It would likely shake things up a bit to much for most I'd say. With Gladion coming out, the way we interact with prizes will change quite a bit for some. That's probably enough for the company to shake things up for now.

 

[swaginator5000]

I think the idea of being able to evolve 1 pokemon on the second turn is neat but the prize idea could make certain decks gain a super big advantage over others. Example greninja always has 4 frogedier t2

 

[Rooie]

If you actually want people to read your rambling, maybe make it a bit more concise.

 

[Draskk]

If you actually want people to read your rambling, maybe make it a bit more concise.

Try making your point a little better and your post a little less rude.

@swaginator5000 raises a good point. Certain decks benefit greatly from having good Prizes. I think this is an interesting idea but Prizes add to the randomness of the game which is kind of a good thing IMO. I do like being able to play 1-1 lines without fear, it would be great. I also agree with all your other points. However I don't think TPCi will do this since rule changes are so rare, and the game is meant to have an element of randomness and Prizes add to that.

 

[Duo]

If you actually want people to read your rambling, maybe make it a bit more concise.

If you aren't going to read posts on a forum, don't post.

Thanks.

Try making your point a little better and your post a little less rude.

@swaginator5000 raises a good point. Certain decks benefit greatly from having good Prizes. I think this is an interesting idea but Prizes add to the randomness of the game which is kind of a good thing IMO. I do like being able to play 1-1 lines without fear, it would be great. I also agree with all your other points. However I don't think TPCi will do this since rule changes are so rare, and the game is meant to have an element of randomness and Prizes add to that.

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong if some decks have "better prizes" than others. That same advantage can be applied to saying that Metagross will always have 4 Beldum, and Gardevoir will always have 4 Ralts. Having all 4 of your most important pre-evolution gives any evolution deck an "advantage," and, at least in theory, would cancel that out.

To me it's like trying to argue that Ultra Ball is a better Pokemon search card in one deck than another. When everyone can utilize 4 of it, I don't think there's a matter of discussion because no one is ever going to play less than 4 of it, and so if no one is going to prize their pre-evolutions, every evolution deck is on the same playing field.

Plus, just because you have them doesn't mean that they're going to achieve the end goal of becoming the BREAKs that you need.

EDIT: Ultimately I don't think things are ever going to change, which is part of the reason why I made the disclaimer of treating these as house rules for casual play. It's just a bit unfortunate that the greatest strength of prizes, variance, comes bundled with the greatest weakness, auto losses beyond your control.

I do think that the game would still contain enough randomness, first and foremost being that it's still a card game and your draws are always random, and you can't guarantee what prize you pull unless you use Gladion or Town Map still. It's basically like having a big deck and a little deck. You know exactly what's in both, but the order of occurance is still random.

 

[Rodzillaj3]

I'd just make 4 Greedy Dice as part of my prize list

 

[Dar Ksereth]

rodzillaj3 got there before i could, while i agree that the idea sounds great (although counterpoint, a good part of card games is fighting the odds), the existence of greedy dice makes the whole thing crumble in the current format.

 

[Duo]

That's not a bad point, but a banlist does exist, it's still a coinflip card, and since your opponent will know that you have 4 in your prizes, assumimg you abide by the set up I mentioned, they'll just play N after you take prizes to prevent you from streamlining them. You're also removing 4 core cards from your deck to play them in, so you might be down to 3 Sycamore or 3 N in main deck to make it happen.

I usually N right after my opponent takes prizes anyway, since it guarantee drops their hand to a smaller size and denies prizes.

But yeah, not to take this too seriously. It's a good point, but it's far from an auto win.

 

[Memory]

Greedy dice instantly activates when you draw the prize. You don’t get to N it away.

 

[CaptZero]

Identifying prizes and playing around prize lock is part of being a good deck builder and Pokemon player. I don't think this aspect of the game should, or will, ever change.

Adding to that having 66 cards at your disposal (6 of which won't hurt your consistency) is a huge boon to some decks. I think a change like this would only further isolate some deck at the top while condemning others with some relevance to complete obscurity.

 

[LBelleBird]

Some very interesting gameplay ideas. I think these could be fun ways to twist up the game for casual play.

 

[Dar Ksereth]

That's not a bad point, but a banlist does exist, it's still a coinflip card, and since your opponent will know that you have 4 in your prizes, assumimg you abide by the set up I mentioned, they'll just play N after you take prizes to prevent you from streamlining them. You're also removing 4 core cards from your deck to play them in, so you might be down to 3 Sycamore or 3 N in main deck to make it happen.

I usually N right after my opponent takes prizes anyway, since it guarantee drops their hand to a smaller size and denies prizes.

But yeah, not to take this too seriously. It's a good point, but it's far from an auto win.

greedy dice have to be shown the moment you pick them from the prizes, and having 4 in there means that on average, you'll only have to draw 4 prizes (since at least 2 should flip heads) in reality it's a little bit over 4 but i'm not gonna calc that at 4:50 am. you could just modify your deck so it takes prizes early and aggresively, imagine fighting a volcanion deck that only has 4 prizes, shudder.

 

[Duo]

greedy dice have to be shown the moment you pick them from the prizes, and having 4 in there means that on average, you'll only have to draw 4 prizes (since at least 2 should flip heads) in reality it's a little bit over 4 but i'm not gonna calc that at 4:50 am. you could just modify your deck so it takes prizes early and aggresively, imagine fighting a volcanion deck that only has 4 prizes, shudder.

I speed read the card so I didn't realize it was play on reveal. Assuming these changes ever happened (which they won't), I would expect that card to just be thrown on the banlist just to be safe, like FOGP.

At the same time, things could get awkward if people started playing Nihilego GX to just throw 2 prizes right back in. You'd be 4 cards down from your standard deck build running the dice, then -2 more to damage your consistency even further.

Identifying prizes and playing around prize lock is part of being a good deck builder and Pokemon player. I don't think this aspect of the game should, or will, ever change.

Adding to that having 66 cards at your disposal (6 of which won't hurt your consistency) is a huge boon to some decks. I think a change like this would only further isolate some deck at the top while condemning others with some relevance to complete obscurity.

I want to explain here that the idea is not a 66 card deck. It's a 60 card deck still. All that changes is instead of draw 7 then prize 6, you prize 6 of your choice according to your deck list, then draw 7. You start at a 54 card deck. There absolutely would be nothing to worry about if everyone had a 60 card deck and 6 prizes. Let me just bullet point how it works for simplicity.

• You build your 60 card deck as per usual
• From that 60 card list you choose 6 cards to put in your prizes
• When you begin a game, you have your 54 card deck and your 6 prizes separated before you draw 7 and check for mulligan.

No one is adding 6 MORE cards to their deck. Just like how the game is now, you begin with 54 cards at your immediate disposal.

I have nothing against playing around your prizes. Prizing 2 basics or prizing 2 Frogadier or prizing 2 DCE or prizing 2 GX's is not an auto loss to prizing and you can come back from those. We all know that.

This is a point where we have to agree to disagree, because I don't think there's any skill involved when you prize 3 basics, open Lele in active, and have no energy or supporters in hand. Even the best lists that have topped recent Regionals or topped at Worlds 2017 can still open into an unplayable game, so this has nothing to do with being a "good deck builder." I've mulliganed 4 times in a row with a "top tier deck list" and gave my opponent every card they needed to guarantee their win. I've watched people scoop at Worlds 2017 on stream to these kinds of bad openings, so does that mean people who made it to top 16 or top 32 in Worlds but ultimately lost were "bad players" and "bad deck builders?" No. They got screwed by luck before they even had a chance to play their match because the prize system is capable of doing that.

At the end of the day, the prize system isn't going to change. People are too used to how prizing works now so any changes to it are just going to bring negative feedback. Realistically speaking it's not about "improving" the prize system. People hate change so it's not going to change, and that's the bottom line. I know that my mindset is a very very VERY small minority, and I expect literally everyone to disagree with what I've outlined here, but I also encourage people to try it out before you tell me it's no good.

 

[CaptZero]

I want to explain here that the idea is not a 66 card deck. It's a 60 card deck still. All that changes is instead of draw 7 then prize 6, you prize 6 of your choice according to your deck list, then draw 7. You start at a 54 card deck. There absolutely would be nothing to worry about if everyone had a 60 card deck and 6 prizes. Let me just bullet point how it works for simplicity.

• You build your 60 card deck as per usual
• From that 60 card list you choose 6 cards to put in your prizes
• When you begin a game, you have your 54 card deck and your 6 prizes separated before you draw 7 and check for mulligan.

I like this even less honestly. If you choose your prizes before shuffling and drawing you can create a thinner deck, which means you'll naturally have better chances of getting a good opening hand. No matter how you slice this I'm against it.

 

[Nick Tornell]

I like this even less honestly. If you choose your prizes before shuffling and drawing you can create a thinner deck, which means you'll naturally have better chances of getting a good opening hand. No matter how you slice this I'm against it.

Not only that but it could mean you run a bunch of garbage and guarantee no need for your prizes.

 

[Otaku]

Though I enjoyed them at first, over the last (almost) 19 years I have come to loathe the Prize mechanic of the Pokémon TCG. When I enjoy winning because an opponent Prized something important now, it is schadenfreude, pure and simple. The proposed alternate rules aren't bad, but I favor something slightly different; players select the six cards they wish to put into their respective Prize slots at the beginning of the game (and must still have at least one Basic Pokémon remaining in the deck after doing so). Then, setup proceeds as normal. This allows the Prize slots to function as something of a sideboard or side deck; selecting what goes in becomes a skill. Requiring a specific six cards go in at the start becomes too complicated, I think. Yes, even though actual sideboards are fixed at the beginning of each round (at least in some games).

I don't like the current first turn rules. If the cards' designers could get their act straight, I'd like it best if we could go back to no special first turn rules. That ain't happening, and while what you propose is interesting, I think it is a bit too complex. I also miss having helpful opening attacks from your own Pokémon. Please consider this change to the current first turn and Evolution rules:

• During either player's first turn, if an attack does damage, places damage counters, or inflicts a Special Condition, ignore that part of the attack.
• You may Evolve any of your Pokémon that were in play during your opponent's previous turn. A Pokémon that just Evolved is not considered to have been in play during your opponent's previous turn, even the prior Stage of Evolution actually was.

I used to just say "Ignore any damage done by attacks on a player's first turn." but some genius decided to re-enable Poison-based donking via Seviper (BUS), and I forgot how many cards can a significant amount of damage counters on a player's first turn (especially with my proposed change to the Evolution rules), which was my bad. This wording still allows T1 locks, but I think we really just need to deal with those cards directly. The proposed revision to the Evolution rules still prevents the player going first from Evolving but the player going second can Evolve anything that he or she opened with or was somehow able to field before the end of Player 1's first turn. While the bit about having been in play being reset by Evolving sounds like a change, I believe that is how it already works now, hence why Evolving resets most effects.

 

[Otaku]

Okay, reading through the rest of the thread (some of which was posted while I typed my first post) I don't think Greedy Dice is going to be a problem, but if it did, that'd just be another card to ban. I'd be more worried about suggestions that make existing cards like Here Comes Team Rocket! and Town Map either useless or much less useful. Yes, my own suggestion makes Town Map useless - unless the facedown Prizes are still randomized, even though they are known. Of course, if Greedy Dice becomes good, Here Comes Team Rocket! becomes a devastating counter.

I believe the Pokémon TCG has sufficient randomness from:

• Luck of the draw (prior to card effects)
• Luck of the matchup

In fact, if anything, just these two might be too much. XP

I like this even less honestly. If you choose your prizes before shuffling and drawing you can create a thinner deck, which means you'll naturally have better chances of getting a good opening hand. No matter how you slice this I'm against it.

Okay. Bye-bye*.

...

You made your position clear and made sure to state that it will not change. Ever. I'm stubborn in my own ways as well, but I also know I've changed my mind about all of this over the nearly two decades I've played. It takes skill to overcome bad luck, but that doesn't mean it is something to be encouraged. If it was, should we not pack this game as full of luck as we can? By no means! Additionally, while one player has a chance to demonstrate more skill (overcoming the luck), the other player now has a chance to only demonstrate the skill of maximising the impact of a lucky break. Part of what can make Pokémon a drag (instead of being fun) is when I realize I can't own my victories. =/

Not only that but it could mean you run a bunch of garbage and guarantee no need for your prizes.

I know this isn't my thread, but I really am trying to follow the discussion so... what are you talking about? I can read the words and know what they mean individually, but when combined into this sentence - and with an understanding of both the actual and proposed rules - they don't make any sense. @_@

 

[CaptZero]

You made your position clear and made sure to state that it will not change. Ever. I'm stubborn in my own ways as well, but I also know I've changed my mind about all of this over the nearly two decades I've played. It takes skill to overcome bad luck, but that doesn't mean it is something to be encouraged. If it was, should we not pack this game as full of luck as we can? By no means! Additionally, while one player has a chance to demonstrate more skill (overcoming the luck), the other player now has a chance to only demonstrate the skill of maximising the impact of a lucky break. Part of what can make Pokémon a drag (instead of being fun) is when I realize I can't own my victories. =/

I'm not being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. I just can't see a way where this works out. If you have a 60 card deck + 6 extra "prize cards" you have the problem I stated before. If you have a 54 card deck before shuffling and drawing that significantly changes the odds. If you shuffle, draw, then pick out 6 prize cards you've had an opportunity to look at your deck, meaning you have to shuffle all over again. The last one is less a balance problem (though once you know what your hand is being able to pick 6 cards that you are 100% sure won't hurt your opening strategy is... questionable) and more of a flow problem.

Look any card game is partly luck. You structure your deck around making the most out of the odds that you can, but sometimes you get dealt a terrible hand. Even if we change the prize mechanic this doesn't change that fact. The real solution is to have less cards that are so heavily reliant on clunky combos, but unfortunately that also has the potential to remove much of the skill from the game.

 

[Duo]

I'm not being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. I just can't see a way where this works out. If you have a 60 card deck + 6 extra "prize cards" you have the problem I stated before. If you have a 54 card deck before shuffling and drawing that significantly changes the odds. If you shuffle, draw, then pick out 6 prize cards you've had an opportunity to look at your deck, meaning you have to shuffle all over again. The last one is less a balance problem (though once you know what your hand is being able to pick 6 cards that you are 100% sure won't hurt your opening strategy is... questionable) and more of a flow problem.

Look any card game is partly luck. You structure your deck around making the most out of the odds that you can, but sometimes you get dealt a terrible hand. Even if we change the prize mechanic this doesn't change that fact. The real solution is to have less cards that are so heavily reliant on clunky combos, but unfortunately that also has the potential to remove much of the skill from the game.

You're not wrong for your having your opinion, and you're also not wrong for saying that every card game has an aspect of luck.

In Pokemon's case, it has one of the largest main decks AND has the prize 6 mechanic which introduces an extra layer of luck that, to my knowledge, no other TCG has. If we can mitigate that extra layer of luck without simply deleting the prize mechanic, then this is the only sort of solution that I could come up with.

I personally see drawing out of a 54 card deck to be a good thing not a bad thing, which I outlined as a benefit of altering prizes to be pre-picked and removed prior to opening 7. But since we're both looking at the same facts of "you start with a 54 card deck" and you say it's bad and I say it's good, then clearly there's nothing I can do to change your mind unless you try it out for yourself and then change your mind because you experienced it for yourself.

Every deck will become more consistent and every player will consistently have better games. When everyone has more consistent access to all of the strategies in their deck as opposed to choking on even bringing out their primary attacker (I'm looking at you stage 2 decks), I personally feel that would lead to more intense games.

Maybe I'm just a bad player, but honestly for me 70% of my opening plays are just Lele -> Brigette. There's not a whole heck of a lot of strategy on your first turn. If you prize Brigette, go for N or Sycamore. If your hand would be unplayable after a Brigette, then you would identify that and go for an N or Sycamore instead as well. There's really only 3 or 4 ways to open a game and it really is not that complex.

Anyway, we're clearly looking at the same topic from 2 different angles which is fine. As I mentioned before, people hate change and you are a good example of that. You wouldn't like it if the prize system changed even if other people think it's "better." Pokemon has no business going out of its way to annoy its fanbase since people like me are just a minority anyway.