Discussion BKT-On Supporter Counts

Right now the default is

4 Sycamore
4 N
3 Guzma

Others depend on your deck, most decks with evolutions will want 1 Brigette for the t1 lele play, Volcanion runs x2 Kiawe for t1 Kiawe plays, Rare Candy decks will want to run 1 Skyla because it helps you get the card combo you need in your hand.

When SM4 hits the US, we'll see Gladion as 1 of in every deck and 2-3 Lusamine in most decks.

To me, the 'what supporter' question gets much more interesting after next rotation. Sycamore leaves with STS and N with FAC, next rotation will probably be SM on and the Japanese standard will rotate to SM on as well. Supporter design is way more interesting in the newer sets. Sophocles suddenly looks like a good card, we'll see more people running early GX attacks for use of Hala.

As for Lele count, you should be running 3 most of the time these days. You need to play down 2 in most games. One being prized is kind of a big deal for most decks. 4 isn't excessive. It's not a waste of deck space, it's about consistency.
 
FlavorfulPineApl said:
Thats what I'm solid on running, along with 2 Tapu Lele. People will want to use 3 or even 4, but thats wrong. You are wasting deck space, and you mostly only ever need one. If you dcck needs more than 2 Lele you're deck is inconsistent and you're a bad player. (No offense, but I really don't see the point in 4 Lele!)
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There's so much wrong with this statement, I don't even know where to start.

Number of Lele in a deck does not correlate to a player's skill. Tord used 4 Tapu Lele and won the biggest Pokémon TCG tournament of all time at the NAIC. So by your logic he's a bad player?

Also by your logic, people shouldn't run 4 Professor Sycamore because rarely do you use ALL 4 Sycamore every game. But why do we run 4? For consistency. To make sure we are giving ourselves the best chance to draw into them. It's the same concept with Lele.

If you only want to run 2 Lele, that's fine, but don't assume that someone is a bad player for running more.
 
HouchinsDJ said:
There's so much wrong with this statement, I don't even know where to start.

Number of Lele in a deck does not correlate to a player's skill. Tord used 4 Tapu Lele and won the biggest Pokémon TCG tournament of all time at the NAIC. So by your logic he's a bad player?

Also by your logic, people shouldn't run 4 Professor Sycamore because rarely do you use ALL 4 Sycamore every game. But why do we run 4? For consistency. To make sure we are giving ourselves the best chance to draw into them. It's the same concept with Lele.

If you only want to run 2 Lele, that's fine, but don't assume that someone is a bad player for running more.
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But basically YOU are saying that if you have 4 Tapu Lele makes you a good player. Anyway, Lele is a dead card, if you run out of supporters. I highly doubt Tord even used his 2 extra Lele.

I never mentioned anything about Professor Sycamore, if you can draw into him you can draw cards, if you draw a Lele, you won't always have a bench spot, or a supporter you want in your deck.

I appreciate you stating your opinion.
 
FlavorfulPineApl said:
But basically YOU are saying that if you have 4 Tapu Lele makes you a good player. Anyway, Lele is a dead card, if you run out of supporters. I highly doubt Tord even used his 2 extra Lele.

I never mentioned anything about Professor Sycamore, if you can draw into him you can draw cards, if you draw a Lele, you won't always have a bench spot, or a supporter you want in your deck.

I appreciate you stating your opinion.
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Why are you so obsessed with the facet of being a "good player" based on the number of Lele you have in your deck?

This is mathematics, not opinions, and definitely not who is a good or bad player. You need to not take this discussion personally.

Someone with 3 Lele is more likely to draw a Lele than someone with 2 Lele. That's a fact. Whether or not you care is your opinion.

Most, if not all, decks play at least 12 supporters. The only way you run out is if you play a 12 turn game and have played a supporter every turn. I have never played a game longer than 9 turns, and most games I don't have a supporter to play literally every turn. Your concern is moot.

Tord won his final game at internationals playing Lele for Lysandre. IIRC he had 3 on his bench on the winning turn.

You won't always have a spot for Lele, but you want to have Lele in hand for the times that you do. That's why you run more, because the math is better. You reduce the number of variables that prevent you from accessing the play you need by having more of what you need, in this case access to supporter cards.

If you have dead cards, then that just makes playing Sycamore and Ultra Ball that much easier. Running extra copies of cards is great, because you can just discard them without negatively impacting your resource pool for the rest of the game.

You're welcome to your own opinion. Just get off the obsession with thinking people are trying to compare how good of a player they are because of their Leles. This isn't an elitist realm. This is just a game of Pokemon.
 
Duo said:
Why are you so obsessed with the facet of being a "good player" based on the number of Lele you have in your deck?

This is mathematics, not opinions, and definitely not who is a good or bad player. You need to not take this discussion personally.

Someone with 3 Lele is more likely to draw a Lele than someone with 2 Lele. That's a fact. Whether or not you care is your opinion.

Most, if not all, decks play at least 12 supporters. The only way you run out is if you play a 12 turn game and have played a supporter every turn. I have never played a game longer than 9 turns, and most games I don't have a supporter to play literally every turn. Your concern is moot.

Tord won his final game at internationals playing Lele for Lysandre. IIRC he had 3 on his bench on the winning turn.

You won't always have a spot for Lele, but you want to have Lele in hand for the times that you do. That's why you run more, because the math is better. You reduce the number of variables that prevent you from accessing the play you need by having more of what you need, in this case access to supporter cards.

If you have dead cards, then that just makes playing Sycamore and Ultra Ball that much easier. Running extra copies of cards is great, because you can just discard them without negatively impacting your resource pool for the rest of the game.

You're welcome to your own opinion. Just get off the obsession with thinking people are trying to compare how good of a player they are because of their Leles. This isn't an elitist realm. This is just a game of Pokemon.
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How am I "obsessed"? I said it once> And just replied to something someone said about that.
 
FlavorfulPineApl said:
But basically YOU are saying that if you have 4 Tapu Lele makes you a good player. Anyway, Lele is a dead card, if you run out of supporters. I highly doubt Tord even used his 2 extra Lele.

I never mentioned anything about Professor Sycamore, if you can draw into him you can draw cards, if you draw a Lele, you won't always have a bench spot, or a supporter you want in your deck.

I appreciate you stating your opinion.
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Never once if my reply did I say running 4 Tapu Lele makes you a good player. I even said, and I quote, "Number of Lele in a deck does not correlate to a player's skill." So I'm not sure how you came up with that assumption...

I also didn't say you mentioned Professor Sycamore... I was using it to prove a point. By your logic, people shouldn't run 3-4 Tapu Lele because you're not going to use 3-4 in any given game, correct? How often do you use all 4 of your Professor Sycamore in a game? The point of running 3-4 Tapu Lele isn't to use all of them in a single game, it's to make sure you're consistently drawing into them so you can use them when needed.

If running 2 Tapu Lele works for you then that's great. I do, however, disagree with your statement that running more makes you a "bad player."
 
HouchinsDJ said:
Never once if my reply did I say running 4 Tapu Lele makes you a good player. I even said, and I quote, "Number of Lele in a deck does not correlate to a player's skill." So I'm not sure how you came up with that assumption...

I also didn't say you mentioned Professor Sycamore... I was using it to prove a point. By your logic, people shouldn't run 3-4 Tapu Lele because you're not going to use 3-4 in any given game, correct? How often do you use all 4 of your Professor Sycamore in a game? The point of running 3-4 Tapu Lele isn't to use all of them in a single game, it's to make sure you're consistently drawing into them so you can use them when needed.

If running 2 Tapu Lele works for you then that's great. I do, however, disagree with your statement that running more makes you a "bad player."
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OK, and just to answer your question, most of the time, I do use all 4 Professor Sycamore, but it really depends on the deck.
 
I've been running this and its run smoothly:

4 Lele
4 Sycamore
4 N
3-4 Guzma
1 Brigette

I've considered throwing in a Wicke/Hala/Lillie but TBH I don't think they are nessescary since I have easy access to Supporters through Lele and Ultra Ball. Octillery with Mallow after rotation is something to look out for. I can see a deck running something like this and doing well:

4 Lele
2 Octillery
2 Remoraid
4 Mallow
4 N
3-4 Guzma
1 Brigette

Also, I agree with @Kietharr regarding Gladion and Lusamine. Lusamine is busted IMO since it lets you get ANY Supporters including itself. You can chain them forever. Another card to consider is Marshadow from Shining Legends. I'm not sure what I think about it TBH (I think four cards is way too small, five at least IMO) but, hey, it could see play.

In an SM-on format, one-of Drampas will be everywhere for Big Wheel. In a format without N and where Hala is one of the best draw supporters Big Wheel becomes extremely good.
 
A little surprised I didn't see any Sophocles in previous posts. I think it does wonders as an alternate draw supporter allowing you to discard 2 potentially tech cards you may not need.

Currently these are what I have been running:
4 sycamore
3 N
3 Guzma
2 Sophocles
2 Tapu Lele
Depending on deck 1 Brigette (espeon-Garbodor)
 
FlavorfulPineApl said:
You don't understand do you? Why not use more supporters instead of 2 extra Tapu Lele? Tapu Lele can only get you so far.
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Lele gives you access to all your supporters. Running 2 more supporters only gives you access to those 2 more supporters you run.

Not every deck is going to run more than 2 lele's, but saying that it's bad or inconsistent to run more than 2 is stupid.
 
Rotom dex is a filler item and those are extremely punishable right now, honestly I don't even expect people to run random receivers with how enduringly popular and techable garbodor seems to be. People thought Lillie would be more relevant with Lele for the higher probability t1 play but there are just better t1 supporters for most decks. Brigette in particular is the best t1 play for most evolution decks which is most decks in the meta atm. Volcanion is the last deck standing in the land of big basics and it's hard to beat Kiawe as a t1 play there. And without the t1 play potential, Lillie is Bianca. Bianca was not a good card by any standard.

Lillie really suffers from the slower pace of the game as well, it's harder to thin your hand to maximize your draw from it since most decks have cut item counts significantly. Sycamore and N are just more reliable cards overall. Lillie's not going to be more than a one-of in most decks while N and Sycamore are still in standard.
 
Lillie's problem right now is that there are better first turn supporters for most decks and "draw 6" isn't very good with Sycamore and N in the format.

Bianca WAS a good card, back before we got N. Most decks ran 4 Juniper (Sycamore), 4 Bianca, and 4 Cheren, substituting out Biancas and Cherens for other supporters as necessary. Once N got printed and we started getting more decent utility supporters, Cheren died out pretty quickly and Bianca followed suit.

If N and Sycamore Rotate and don't have reasonable replacements, I could see Lillie being played in decent counts.
 
Yog said:
I don't know about this, it seems like a hell of a blanket statement. The NA Champion ran four and that was a big part of why he won. The World Champ deck ran three. That ability simply can't be understated. It gets even more important once Vs Seeker leaves format.

If your deck is running DCE, I think at least three is a must.
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I would say that if your deck doesn't need a lot of bench space, play 3 or 4 Lele. Otherwise, I would just have 2 and expect to play one during the game, either early game or late game.

Decks that would want to play Brigette early game would have 4 bench spots occupied very early. You might argue that you can always use the 5th spot for a second Lele late game. This is not always truth, however. For instance, Golisopod/Garbodor would probably prefer to have Tapu Koko promo to use as a pivot rather than a second Lele, but I guess the choice depends on the given circumstance.
 
i think that n is better then sycamore in post rotation. because you can't just discard tons of supporters to reuse with vs seeker.
and with increased supporter counts in decks its much more likely that you have tons of supporters in your hand, so using a
sycamore would result in discarding tons of useful cards. thats why i think 4 n's 3 sycamores is better then 4 sycamores and 4 n's.
 
Hala is an excellent supporter in any GX decks. Shuffling for 4 is okay, but if you play a deck that will have an early GX attack used shuffling for 7 is incredibly helpful. I can see it being a 1-2 count in a lot of decks.
 
Nano_op12 said:
i think that n is better then sycamore in post rotation. because you can't just discard tons of supporters to reuse with vs seeker.
and with increased supporter counts in decks its much more likely that you have tons of supporters in your hand, so using a
sycamore would result in discarding tons of useful cards. thats why i think 4 n's 3 sycamores is better then 4 sycamores and 4 n's.
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People played 4 Juniper(discard, draw 7) before VS Seeker. There is no reason to think people shouldn't play 4 Sycamore now. You just have to be smarter about playing your Sycamore now.

The only exception to this is probably Silveon GX decks, that get whatever they want every turn and are trying to deck their opponent out.
 
I'm just getting started after a long hiatus from this game, but if I had to pick Supporter counts for post-rotation, it would probably be like:

  • 4 Sycamore
  • 4 N
  • 2 Guzma
  • 2 Acerola
  • 1 Lillie/Wicke
And that would be my bare minimum across the board.
 
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