Anti-Catcher Stadium?

[Card Slinger J]

It's nothing to do with whether BDIFs exist, rather the game is advancing in a very childish manner - increasing the HP and damage and reducing energy costs dramatically and making abilities more and more abusive like Bright Look and Inferno Fandango, to the point where it takes away a lot of the tactical aspects of the game such as switching and building counters.

Here's an analogy. You have the Dragon Ball Z in it's premier season so you are introduced to Super Saiyans. Suppose they had continued for another few seasons, and gave you Mega Super Saiyans. Suppose the next season gives you Ultra God Mega Super Saiyan X. At some point you're just gonna think: "This is getting dumb."

The game is regressing really, you wonder why donks get more and more prevalent until the point Sabledonk actually exists, and metagames can be stale as Luxchomp, it's because whoever is designing this game thought something was wrong with doing 50 for two energies and you couldn't OHKO without weakness (barring a few exceptions).


How does Catcher do anything for all this? Well, it's not improving, but it's giving everyone a fair shot in this OHKO-crazed game, so to sound a little more on topic, I don't think there needs to be an Anti-Catcher Stadium because Catcher is fine in this game as it is now.

Although I would smile if there was an Anti-Catcher Stadium and the illustration contains "4Kids - No Guns Allowed".

You have alot of good points though, personally I don't think the upcoming return of ex Pokemon is going to help with the metagame either cause with Catcher in the format and Donks being easily achieved getting a 2 prize advantage is going to be alot easier now but who knows. I just hope it doesn't come to that, Expert Belt sort of proved that it wasn't that bad of an issue last format however the format has changed drastically since then.

One of my friends who recently quit the Pokemon TCG told me that the designers of the game should've kept the +10, +20, +30 Weakness from the Diamond/Pearl and Platinum blocks instead of going back to x2 Weakness like in the old days so that donking would be harder to achieve than it is now when x2 Weakness is already back in the format. Why did we need to bring back x2 Weakness anyway?

Not that I really mind at all I just think it doesn't help in our format when especially with the Rare Candy errata the designers were supposed to stop donks from happening not ensuring they stay in the game itself. Because of Cleffa in the format even Tyrogue donks are common especially Zekrom donks but that's a given.

 

[scizorlicious]

Well, the 2x Weakness makes it easier to have counters. Otherwise, Magnezone would be even more OP than it already is. At least Donphan can counter it now, but if it were +30 Weakness, even Donphan couldn't OHKO it.

 

[Dork Void]

Donphan can't OHKO it (not with Earthquake) unless it has a pluspower. But I think it would've been nice if they gave worse resistances to evolved pokemon, like +10 to a pokemon like tepig, +20 to pignite, and x2 to Emboar or something like that. Still giving fully evolved basics or stage 1s like reshiram and donphan x2, of course.

 

[scizorlicious]

^Yeah, I meant either with its second attack or EQ+PP. I just think fully-evolved Pokémon should have x2 Resistances; any other Pokémon don't matter so much, seeing as no one plays them.

 

[catutie]

One of my friends who recently quit the Pokemon TCG told me that the designers of the game should've kept the +10, +20, +30 Weakness from the Diamond/Pearl and Platinum blocks instead of going back to x2 Weakness like in the old days so that donking would be harder to achieve than it is now when x2 Weakness is already back in the format. Why did we need to bring back x2 Weakness anyway?

Lol...it's not the weakness that is the problem...its the attacks that do 120 for 3 energy. We need to go back to slapping down 4 energy on a poke to do 70 and that is considered a GOOD attack. OHKO's shouldn't exist.

 

[Card Slinger J]

Good luck trying to tell that to the Japanese Designers of the Pokemon TCG.
The power creep in this game just keeps getting worse and worse throughout each
set. Reshiram and Zekrom? What I thought SP Pokemon were already rotated out.

Apparently we still have Basic Pokemon that can hit for 70+ damage for less than 4 energy and they use the Rare Candy errata as an excuse to prevent donks when
doing so much damage for little energy is the problem from a Basic or Stage 1.

 

[konter5683]

I do not think that a stadium like this would matter. Look at our current games. Pokemon Reversal, 50% Chance of Heads.. Junk arm (Discard 2 cards) Pokemon Reversal 50% Chance of Heads. People are willing to discard now, for a chance to get the switch. What makes you think that they would not play Catcher, when they would have the Guarantee of a switch at the cost of 2 cards.

 

[scizorlicious]

Reshiram and Zekrom? What I thought SP Pokemon were already rotated out.

Powerful Basics are a completely different problem from Pokémon SP. Pokémon SP weren't particularly powerful by themselves (60 for 2 energy, whilst doing 30 recoil? Not even worth having Bright Look on what was effectively a Stage 1); but rather had the SP engine giving them a horrid advantage against the rest of the meta.
Instead, Reshiram and Zekrom are just cards that are powerful because they can OHKO most of the format on sheer power, turn after turn, and usually not get OHKO'd back. They have exorbitantly high HP and damage output, but only work because of the energy acceleration that we see in Pahi/Shay and Emboar/Typhlosion.
And then they have another attack that's not bad in Outrage– because of course we need to give them a good attack for CC, just so they can be teched into any deck that runs DCE.
They're both problems, sure, but different problems.

The power creep in this game just keeps getting worse and worse throughout each set.

I do agree, though, with this. I thought that when the format changed to HGSS-on that they would try to limit the power creep, but I guess not. It would have been a perfect time to make less powerful cards that people could still use but weren't OP, and try to slowly transition into a format where games didn't end by T10 at the latest. And I thought that once Uxie was gone, at least the game would be slower– but not really, it just creates consistency problems for most decks, and the speed of the game has stayed pretty similar. Instead of some drawpower from Collectoring into an Uxie, now we can only hope to draw into Judge, Copycat, Juniper, PONT, etc, unless you want to use up some space for PokéGear– which I know I don't.
I don't want to have Pokémon with 230HP and attacks that do 170 damage. That just gets confusing. Please, Pokémon, reduce the power creep.

I do not think that a stadium like this would matter. Look at our current games. Pokemon Reversal, 50% Chance of Heads.. Junk arm (Discard 2 cards) Pokemon Reversal 50% Chance of Heads. People are willing to discard now, for a chance to get the switch. What makes you think that they would not play Catcher, when they would have the Guarantee of a switch at the cost of 2 cards.

I don't think the point was that the Stadium would make you discard 2 cards to play it; it would probably come at more of a penalty. Or maybe just that you can't play it at all. Either way, be sure that if this card does come, Pokémon will make you think twice before running Pokémon Catcher.

 

[konter5683]

But why would they make a card to penalize one card? They have done it one time and that was a much bigger deal. Energy removal could win you a game in one turn. I don't get why everyone is making such a big deal of catcher tbh. Sure it ruins dual stage 2 decks, but aside from that it just takes the luck out of the game and stops n00bs from beating skilled players as easy. There was never an "anti-sp" card aside from Rapidash AR, and it was never played. If pokemon didn't do anything about SP, I don't see why they would do anything about 1 card.

 

[scizorlicious]

Well, I agree. I'm not saying there will be this "anti-Catcher" card, and I actually think there won't be. All I'm saying is that if it does come, it'll come at a large price, and will probably not be something that just penalizes the use of it.

 

[ogeray]

there will be no anti-catcher stadium.

if there was a no gust of wind stadium in the base sets, then it may be a different story.

but as everyone here has stated, catcher is not broken, there are cards to counter it, there are strategies to recover from it as well.

end of discussion. (for me)

 

[WailmerMan]

Catcher is a great addition to the game. Much better than reversal (which is a staple anyways). I expect a much less flippy format next year

 

[catutie]

Catcher is a great addition to the game. Much better than reversal (which is a staple anyways). I expect a much less flippy format next year

*Thinks about mentioning Victini about the flippyness....but doesn't*

This format is fine...it doesn't need GOW Catcher, with a poke that can do 120...yaaaaaaa good luck having any techs because they are all just bait for a Catcher. If the top decks only did like 60 for 4 energy...then it would be fine because you aren't OHKOing all the time but when you can do 120 T1 and just catcher up some 30 HP poke from the bench we have problems...

 

[Dork Void]

And you could reversal up a 30 HP basic from the bench and OHKO it with 120 t1, but there was a 50% chance, so games came down to coin flips. Now it will no longer be, whoever gets the most reversal flips wins, because the field will be completely even. So people will have to make decks that don't pray the opponent fails reversal like most decks do, they will have to make decks that can beat you if you get every reversal flip heads (because that is what catcher is), so it will be a more skillful game.

 

[Soul]

I doubt there will be a Gym of that kind. There might be a reprint of Energy Removal, tho, because there's already Crush Hammer.

 

[scizorlicious]

*Thinks about mentioning Victini about the flippyness....but doesn't*

I'm actually conflicted about Victini. On one hand, it does make coin flips more of a sure thing, and thereby less luck-based, but on the other hand, it provides more of a reason to play flippy cards. Overall, it's probably a bad thing for the flippiness, but not entirely.

 

[Soul]

Victini is gonna be fun.

 

[Zhaituki]

Victini is gonna be fun.

Mew prime (with Vanilluxe in lost zone)/Vileplume/Victini. Fast and consistent paralyze lock

 

[catutie]

And you could reversal up a 30 HP basic from the bench and OHKO it with 120 t1, but there was a 50% chance, so games came down to coin flips. Now it will no longer be, whoever gets the most reversal flips wins, because the field will be completely even. So people will have to make decks that don't pray the opponent fails reversal like most decks do, they will have to make decks that can beat you if you get every reversal flip heads (because that is what catcher is), so it will be a more skillful game.

Ya...but Catcher doesn't need a flip and that is the problem >_>

I want Victini...and Vanilluxe...and Politoed

 

[Dork Void]

How is Catcher not needing a flip the problem? Catcher is the solution to all of our problems (except that going first is unfair). Because of Catcher people won't use Reversal or Babies, the main flippers in the format. That will make the game much less luck based and more skill based.