Lately Quad decks have been popping up. I believe this is because of how good disruption is right now between all the hammers and grunts. I even responded and made a Quad Pidgeot deck, which I'm like 35-2 with right now and I happen to like it a lot because I can turn my brain off and play it.
I feel these decks can be a bit of a problem with the way the game is heading because these tend to be the best decks in any format and with TPC/i planning on banning cards that prevent play (like these decks do), I wonder what the future of the game will look like.
When I play my Quad deck, it doesn't really feel like I'm interacting with my opponent but just stomping on everything they do. I don't feel like Garbodor is like this since you can play other decks but every deck needs to run Energy and with running four to eight Pokemon, you have the space to run anything you want.
What do you guys think about this? This is like the Quad Suicune deck that was winning, this is something else.
I actually agree with you, to a point. Quad decks do seem a bit boring and auto pilot. But they also have a great weakness of, if what you do gets shut off then you loss. For example your article "Return of an old friend." Was great and I immediatly went to build the deck. The deck had a simple goal of get smacked, heal and counter. But once someone figured it out it just seemed to fall apart. At least that was my experience with the deck.
Now I recently went against Quad lapras control for the second round in this months PokeBeach Tournament. As I'm playing Dragon Ray my energy cost is insane and this should have been a fast loss for me. But after 3 very close games I emerged victorious. The point of that is to say as good as these quad decks are they are only as threatening until you figure out what they do and make a quick counter if you are able.
Lately Quad decks have been popping up. I believe this is because of how good disruption is right now between all the hammers and grunts. I even responded and made a Quad Pidgeot deck, which I'm like 35-2 with right now and I happen to like it a lot because I can turn my brain off and play it.
I feel these decks can be a bit of a problem with the way the game is heading because these tend to be the best decks in any format and with TPC/i planning on banning cards that prevent play (like these decks do), I wonder what the future of the game will look like.
When I play my Quad deck, it doesn't really feel like I'm interacting with my opponent but just stomping on everything they do. I don't feel like Garbodor is like this since you can play other decks but every deck needs to run Energy and with running four to eight Pokemon, you have the space to run anything you want.
What do you guys think about this? This is like the Quad Suicune deck that was winning, this is something else.
I loathe everything about the current Quad decks, but that is my own personal hatred for that particular style of control deck coming through rather than any rational thinking. It is, however, exactly the reason I prefer playing expanded. The only reason these decks work is because the card pool isn't deep enough in standard to effectively counter them...that and Sylveon GX is flat f'n ridiculous. That GX attack alone completely turns many games on their head.
Oh, if you get a chance, could you send me your quad pidgeot list? That sounds interesting.
I loathe everything about the current Quad decks, but that is my own personal
hatred for that particular style of control deck coming through rather than any rational thinking. It is, however, exactly the reason I prefer playing expanded. The only reason these decks work is because the card pool isn't deep enough in standard to effectively counter them...that and Sylveon GX is flat f'n ridiculous. That GX attack alone completely turns many games on their head.
Oh, if you get a chance, could you send me your quad pidgeot list? That sounds interesting.
The only problem I see is if quad decks do become such a hindrance to the meta, then what do we do? We can't exactly ban the use of 4 duplicate Pokemon.
The only problem I see is if quad decks do become such a hindrance to the meta, then what do we do? We can't exactly ban the use of 4 duplicate Pokemon.
Yeah, we can't do that but we can hit the cards that make them work, which is why I opted for a ban on things like Hammers and Grunts. The Sableye that forced a three month early rotation wasn't the problem, it was the draw power.
Yeah, we can't do that but we can hit the cards that make them work, which is why I opted for a ban on things like Hammers and Grunts. The Sableye that forced a three month early rotation wasn't the problem, it was the draw power.
I guess I'm looking at this from a 'what if' standpoint, but if we were ban one or two cards that made quad decks that much more annoying and toxic to the meta, what about all the decks that don't use them for malicious purposes? On the topic of quads being a threat and a major annoyance, part of me just thinks that we need to step up our game and learn to either a) beat them or b) be them. Besides, TPCi isn't going to ban certain cards because we find them annoying. They banned Trump Card because from the moment it was legal,having a competitive scene with a card that can elongate games to ridiculous lengths was impossible. So the only way we will ever see a ban is if they become as much of a hazard as Trump Card (sadly).
I thought about this topic quite a bit. And i thought. hmm. he's kinda right there are a lot of "Thinking of a deck? naaaah imma just throw the same mon 3-4 times into a deck throw some energy denial into it and kaboozle. It kinda works.
I didn't really had a hard time against these things. Until i played TCGO today and GOOD LORD.
I had everything. Lapras hammers, Sylveon Hammers, Plume denial, Garbdenial. You name it. I came across it. My decks can kinda deal with that. But one of those decks was so extreme. Keyword here is 4 Team Flare Grunts. Mix that with Sylveon, Team Skull Grunt (these two cards are just evil as an combination and when you use that against me im not sure if we can be friends) delinquent of course and you got the perfect mixture for IDONTWANNAPLAYTHISGAMEANYMORE (but hey i won that match still due to him going deck out . Only had 2 out of 13 of my energys to play with at the end doe...)
But im getting of track.
Thing is. I don't think the denial cards are an issue. On their own they are balanced. There are just so fricking many distruption cards in the meta which makes these Quad Decks so good.
And the only thing thats annoying me about Quad decks is that you are kinda saying "Yeah this mon is kinda really strong. How bout imma abuse that."
Also for me it's kinda uncreative sooo yeah. Not a fan.
Tbf i'm running 3 Lapras as main attackers in my deck aswell. But those beside 5 other mon's. Only one of those beeing named Shaymin or Lele.
So i guess I'm kind of a hippocrite? oh well.
At the end these Quad decks are just like any other meta decks. You just gotta have a way to play around that. Maybe tech in an Energy Retrieval or smth like that.
I guess I'm looking at this from a 'what if' standpoint, but if we were ban one or two cards that made quad decks that much more annoying and toxic to the meta, what about all the decks that don't use them for malicious purposes? On the topic of quads being a threat and a major annoyance, part of me just thinks that we need to step up our game and learn to either a) beat them or b) be them. Besides, TPCi isn't going to ban certain cards because we find them annoying. They banned Trump Card because from the moment it was legal,having a competitive scene with a card that can elongate games to ridiculous lengths was impossible. So the only way we will ever see a ban is if they become as much of a hazard as Trump Card (sadly).
Trump Card is interesting because my deck didn't use it in a malicious but as a way to conserve the Max Potions but my deck doesn't mean the card wasn't broken because it didn't break it like Toad did. Quad decks are a thing because of the Energy disruption and my Pidgeot build was just to test that anything can be made into a quad deck because of these four card.
The thing we want to avoid is forcing players to run the deck or playing a deck that can beat it. Sure everyone can just run Yanmega but this isn't what we as players should be doing because the developers refuse to remove cards from Standard that reduce the quality of play to "prevent" your opponent from playing. Now, I'm not saying I or other players can't beat these decks, My deck is kind of immune to these kind of decks but do we really need Team Skull Grunt in the game? I'm sure most people would be glad if this card was removed from Standard.
But im getting of track.
Thing is. I don't think the denial cards are an issue. On their own they are balanced. There are just so fricking many distruption cards in the meta which makes these Quad Decks so good.
It's not like control decks are unbeatable though, they tend to lose to turbo decks that can outpace them. But turbo is shut down by Deciplume and Garb/Lele, so you're really just playing rock-paper-scissors, which is what a meta should be like. Until SUM hit, pretty much every deck was tempo/aggro and that definitely needed to change.
Quad decks really aren't a problem, but myself, I don't like them. I think a good deck should include a good variety of Pokémon, not just 1 singular Pokémon, using 4 of course, to wins games with ease. These decks normally aren't fun to play against and are pretty boring to play.
Believe it or not, my 4DCE Turbo Vespiquen deck resoundingly beats (BEATS, LIKE, KAPOW) Quad Lapras, Quad Sylveon, and that whole group (except Deciduplume) because it's so darn fast.
Plop! Combee. Plop! DCE. Plop! Forest of Broken Plants. Plop! Vespiquen. WHIZZPOW! Dead Lapras. It beats these decks because the deck is built to lose an energy every turn anyways, because Vespiquens get OHKOed. However, Quad Lapras/Sylveon absolutely steamrolls anything with even slightly higher Energy costs meaning even things that take only two attatchments can barely get one, if any, attack off. So, what i'm trying to say here, is Quad decks are beatable in multiple ways, but are part of the reason heavy setup decks never see play, which is sad in my opinion. I feel like in a Quad-less meta things like Solgaleo-GX/Metagross-GX might be more than simply wacky fun decks. But, thankfully, Forest of Broken Plants will rotate, along with Plume, which will take some of the wind out of disruption's sails. However, things like Sylveon and Lapras will be completely unaffected, which makes me think this: Okay, so TPCI wants to slow the game down. But, they gave us ridiculous amounts of disruption rendering everything except decks that are ready to go right from the start with little setup absolutely useless. A bit contradictory, don't you think? On the flip side, disruption is also good for slower decks because they can slow the game down. Look at Primal Groudon/Wobbuffet, for example. Minor disruption that lets your opponent play but slows the game down is good. Disruption that completely shuts your opponent out of the game is bad. I think that it comes down to where the line is between slowing the game down and shutting the game down, and apparently that line is a little blurry to TPCI.
Believe it or not, my 4DCE Turbo Vespiquen deck resoundingly beats (BEATS, LIKE, KAPOW) Quad Lapras, Quad Sylveon, and that whole group (except Deciduplume) because it's so darn fast.
Plop! Combee. Plop! DCE. Plop! Forest of Broken Plants. Plop! Vespiquen. WHIZZPOW! Dead Lapras. It beats these decks because the deck is built to lose an energy every turn anyways, because Vespiquens get OHKOed. However, Quad Lapras/Sylveon absolutely steamrolls anything with even slightly higher Energy costs meaning even things that take only two attatchments can barely get one, if any, attack off. So, what i'm trying to say here, is Quad decks are beatable in multiple ways, but are part of the reason heavy setup decks never see play, which is sad in my opinion. I feel like in a Quad-less meta things like Solgaleo-GX/Metagross-GX might be more than simply wacky fun decks. But, thankfully, Forest of Broken Plants will rotate, along with Plume, which will take some of the wind out of disruption's sails. However, things like Sylveon and Lapras will be completely unaffected, which makes me think this: Okay, so TPCI wants to slow the game down. But, they gave us ridiculous amounts of disruption rendering everything except decks that are ready to go right from the start with little setup absolutely useless. A bit contradictory, don't you think? On the flip side, disruption is also good for slower decks because they can slow the game down. Look at Primal Groudon/Wobbuffet, for example. Minor disruption that lets your opponent play but slows the game down is good. Disruption that completely shuts your opponent out of the game is bad. I think that it comes down to where the line is between slowing the game down and shutting the game down, and apparently that line is a little blurry to TPCI.
I guess I'm looking at this from a 'what if' standpoint, but if we were ban one or two cards that made quad decks that much more annoying and toxic to the meta, what about all the decks that don't use them for malicious purposes?
If we consider the history of cards actually banned in the Pokémon TCG, all of them could help something underpowered (relative to the other top decks) perform adequately. I do not believe this is a valid concern. Regrettable, but not a reason a card should avoid being banned. Indeed, to me a basic process of card design should be "Does this make anything too good? If so, we ought not to release this card."
If we consider the history of cards actually banned in the Pokémon TCG, all of them could help something underpowered (relative to the other top decks) perform adequately. I do not believe this is a valid concern. Regrettable, but not a reason a card should avoid being banned. Indeed, to me a basic process of card design should be "Does this make anything too good? If so, we ought not to release this card."
Heres what you do: GRI Machoke, then when your front Vespi goes down, send out a Tauros-GX to tank the rest, then stick a Float Stone on the Tauros (or just attack with it) and bam! No worse off than you would be if they'd hit your Vespiquen with something else.
I don't know whether to go with a joke response or a real one because the situation with Shiftry (BW: Next Destinies 72/99) is itself so... stupid.
From a game design standpoint, Shiftry should never have been printed; it was a filler card with a kind of fun effect, but I always warn against such things just in case something is later released that busts them wide open. In this case, the truly broken cards were Forest of Giant Plants and Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108). The entire point of Evolving in the Pokémon TCG is that it should take time, but the designers don't want to design Basic Pokémon with such pacing in mind, resulting in most Evolutions then being underpowered because they are both slow and resource intensive or being so strong they can compete with all the overly potent Basics. >_<
Anyway, throwing in crazy shortcuts hurts a lot more than it helps is my point, and so Shiftry technically still matches what I said. However, I just forgot about it when I made my earlier comment, so I'll amend it now:
Other than Shiftry (BW: Next Destinies 72/99), all other cards banned for Standard (Modified) play have helped less competitive decks function or even become outright competitive, but the problem is they elevate something else to "broken" levels. Yeah, one/two that don't fit the pattern would seem like a deal breaker, but our sample size is so small it is hard to tell if exceptions are actually going to be 25% of the cases. ^^' So I'll just name the cards and give some brief examples, behind spoiler tags just to be a tiny bit "neater".
Sneasel (Neo Genesis 25/111) - Originally a non-Evolving Basic (Weavile would be introduced in Gen IV), I honestly think this card would have been balanced (maybe even bad) if someone hadn't decided to leave off its Fighting Weakness. Even apart from that, it was always dependent on other suspect cards: Slowking (Neo Genesis 14/111) to protect its Energy in the Unlimited Format (and the short-lived Prop 15/3), plus the draw/search Engine of the time to quickly set up Sneasel with two Special Energy cards (there were no Basic Darkness Energy cards at the time) in a format with Energy Removal, Super Energy Removal, and no cost-effective way of attaching [DD] to itself in a single turn. This card was banned from the original Modified (what we now call "Standard") format before the format even officially went into effect!
Anyway, it would have been a nice little pivot Pokémon/potential sweeper for Darkness decks of the day had it not been banned, but if it had not been banned it would partner with Slowking to form the strongest deck in the game.
Slowking (Neo Genesis 14/111) - The original Japanese version was worded to only work while Active; WotC had this stubborn "play as written" guideline they didn't want to violate, and ultimately they had to ban this card. I still don't know why Nintendo/TPC didn't issue an erratum for it after taking over; they've addressed other older cards since WotC failed to re-secure the Pokémon TCG license.
While Slowking was the backbone for many broken decks, what got it banned was that nearly (or possibly every) successful deck at one of the then rare major Pokémon TCG events featured it in the top cut. Some were still powerhouse decks with it banned, but others were never heard from again.
Lysandre's Trump Card - Wait, do I need to really explain this one? If a deck didn't thrive on filling its discard pile, it was packing a copy of Lysandre's Trump Card. I will add that I still think it is a problem withoutVS Seeker or a similar trick to reclaim a spent copy from the discard pile.
Shiftry (BW: Next Destinies 72/99) - See above.
A bit off topic, but given the later releases of Sneasel (HS: Undaunted 68/91), which is identical to the banned version except for Fighting Weakness and modern -20 Psychic Resistance, coupled with Slowking having been translated wrong, it is time for those two to just receive the errata they should have gotten 15 years ago. Just for posterity, if nothing else (I don't know if they matter to the modern Unlimited Format).
Heres what you do: GRI Machoke, then when your front Vespi goes down, send out a Tauros-GX to tank the rest, then stick a Float Stone on the Tauros (or just attack with it) and bam! No worse off than you would be if they'd hit your Vespiquen with something else.
. Only had 2 out of 13 of my energys to play with at the end doe...)
