Discussion Brief reflections on my first 100 games on PTCGO

[21times]

Hello fellow Beachbums,

I have now played 100 matches on PTCGO in the new standard format, and I wanted to share a couple of things I've noticed.

Please be aware that when I mention "good performing decks," that means that my opponent ran a competitive deck that performed well enough to win. It might not have won, and we all know that competitive decks don't always perform well (TF Greninja M Audino world championship match for reference).

To give you a reference, I've won 66 of my first 100 matches. I would say that my opponent's deck had a "good performance" in 32 of these 100 games.

On to the data:


In 51 of the 100 matches, my opponent played special energy.... In 20 out of the 32 good performing decks from my opponents, my opponent played special energy.

In 73 out of the 100 matches, my opponent fielded at least 1 pokemon with an ability. In 24 out of the 32 good performing decks, my opponent played at least 1 pokemon with an ability.


To be clear, I went into this rotation with the intention of studying the use of special energy and abilities. I wanted to see if it would be worth it to run assault vests and enhanced hammers. I've also posted several times in various Pokebeach threads how I think Garbodor is going to be giant in the new rotation.

As always, take what you will of this data and draw your own conclusions.

 

[Problem2]

You say 73 out of 100 matches featured a pokemon with abilities, but how many of them were simply Hoopa-EX or Shaymin-EX? Those two are so potent and quick to set-up, that even in the face of a Garbador heavy format, they're still worth playing. What about abilities that are key to a player's win-condition (like Magnezone or Greninja BREAK)? Were there many of those?

 

[21times]

Good question. I actually didn't count Hoopa EX and Shaymin EX because. as you accurately pointed out, they are normally played before Garbodor gets set up.

Below are the most common abilities seen:

12 times: Octillery - Abyssal Hand
8 times: Carbink - Safeguard
7 times: Manaphy - Aqua Tube
6 times: Talonflame - Gale Wings
4 times: Volcanion EX - Steam Up, Ariados - Poisonous Nest, Garbodor - Garbotoxin, Zoroark - Stand In
3 times: Hypno - Goodnight, Babies, Greninja Break - Giant Water Shuriken, Slow King - Royal Flash, Clawitzer - Mega Booster, Regirock - Regi Power

In my personal testing of M Mewtwo Garbodor, in 7 of the 18 matches, Garbodor made a crucial difference in the match. Overall, I have won 16 of the 18 matches played. In both losses, I was KO'd early before I could get Garbodor set up.

 

[Otaku]

Good question. I actually didn't count Hoopa EX and Shaymin EX because. as you accurately pointed out, they are normally played before Garbodor gets set up.

6 times: Talonflame - Gale Wings

Gale Wings activates during game set up, well before Garbodor can do its thing. It would make more sense to either treat it as its own thing or lump it in with Hoopa-EX and Shaymin-EX.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

 

[21times]

Excellent point you are completely correct. Garbodor will never shut down TF.

 

[21times]

Just to update, I am now up to 331 matches. Here are my observations on abilities and special energy.

78% of opponents are playing Pokemon with an ability (other than Shaymin or Hoopa).
83% of "good performing" opponent decks have at least one pokemon with an ability.
53% of all decks run special energy.
64% of "good performing" decks use special energy.

 

[Otaku]

@21times

Thanks, but what about Gale Wings?

 

[21times]

To be consistent with above, the 78% and 83% are exclusive of Shaymin, Hoopa, and Talonflame. I'm pretty sure if I included those three in the analysis, both numbers would be close to if not above 90%.

 

[Yumikora]

I played a lot of games on TCGO and 100% of my opponents played Item cards... so is Item Lock the way to win?

No, seriously... Sure it is pretty interesting but it doesn't really help in deck building.
Some decks play special energy but don't really care about energy denial like carbink break or proto groudon (or both).
Some decks play abilities and aren't as affected by garbador as others.

So yeah, it is interesting to see this statistics but to evaluate what to play it doesn't help really much.

 

[21times]

So I went into this new rotation asking the question, "How many pokemon play abilities that Garbodor would shut down?" From the data I have, and I don't think I'm telling anyone something they don't know, but most decks play a pokemon with an ability (not including Shaymin and Hoopa). From personal experience playing a M Mewtwo Garbodor deck, I have seen Garbodor completely shut down decks like Yanmega Break and Volcanion (maybe the BDIF). However, I have also seen that it has virtually no effect against such powerhouses as Mega Ray, Rainbow Road, and mirror matches against M Mewtwo. As I've come to discover, every deck has its strengths and weaknesses, and Garbodor is simply the extension of that: some decks will autolose against it, others will be completely unaffected.

As far as item lock, I tried it with the old Trevenant, and I have tried it here in the new meta a little bit with a Vespiquen deck and a Zoroark, Yveltal EX deck, but I have not had significant success with it. Right now, the decks that I'm having the most success with are Rainbow Road, M Mewtwo Garbodor, and Darkrai EX with Giratina EX. I agree that in theory, item lock should be devastating to most decks; however, in reality, it just doesn't work out that way. Opponents can still play supporter cards and get out attackers and energy, although maybe not with the consistency they're used to. I think part of the problem is that in order to ensure you can get item lock going early, you have to devote a LOT of cards to it. After establishing item lock, those essentially become dead cards that do nothing to help you defeat your opponent. If you cut corners and go with a thinner Vileplume line, fewer than 4 FOGP, or leave out some Wally's, then you just can't guarantee that you'll get item lock going early, and your opponent will begin the game in the manner which they are accustomed to. I'm just not sure that in the current meta there's a way to ensure consistency with Vileplume while at the same time not sacrificing attacking capabilities. If there were, I think I'd seen more than 3 Vileplume matchups in more than 360 matches since Sept. 1.

Special energy falls into a very gray area: it's used by about two thirds of decks that have performed well against me, but is that enough to devote countermeasures such as enhanced hammers or assault vests? That's going to have to be a judgment call on your part. The one thing I will say is that from what I've seen, there are nine highly competitive decks. You can see my data on eight of them at the below link. I would also add Giratina EX Xerneas Break into that top tier as well - that's a deck that I've seen only a couple of times and only very recently, but it is very impressive, so impressive that I am going to add that deck to my rotation as well.

Of what I consider the top nine decks, five of them use special energy (Darkrai EX Giratina EX, M Mewtwo, Mega Ray, Rainbow Road, and Xerneas Break Giratina EX). Therefore, it again comes down to matchups: there are some times when your deck's just going to be inherently difficult or even impossible for a particular opponent to beat, and there are going to be times when your deck just doesn't stand a chance.

It all depends on the matchups.

http://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thr...mon-for-the-new-rotation.135275/#post-2830948

 

[Otaku]

I played a lot of games on TCGO and 100% of my opponents played Item cards... so is Item Lock the way to win?

If Garbotoxin didn't shut it down...

Kidding aside, @21times was just sharing some data. Right now the format is still new, and in my experience, that means all the deck lists are going to be less refined. Right now, Item lock or Special Energy denial aren't big deals because the decks I am seeing that would struggle without either are also the "mature" deck lists (and not as strong as they used to be).

Begin Edit: To be clear I mean the decks that survived the rotation more or less intact are the mature lists; everything else is still pretty fresh and as such are in that "reliability over versatility" phase. The new stuff will get all TecHed out sooner or later, namely once its gone from "new" to "firmly established" and that single copy of whatever goes from costing you a game (due to a drop in consistency) to costing you a game (for the same reason) but also winning two or three games because it counters a problematic match up. At that point, disruption also tends to work better because most decks are running the absolute minimum they can for all their cards (see the article that just went up). End Edit

Give it six months and suddenly decks are going to have razor thin margins and so crashing into Item lock or Special Energy denial? It might wreck a lot of decks, or at least enable an otherwise lesser beatstick to run roughshod over them.

 

[21times]

I definitely will say that I do not know enough about item lock. I haven't worked a lot with it and haven't had much success when I have tried. In theory if you can build a deck less reliant on item cards than your opponent you should have an advantage. I just haven't figured out how to execute it.

I also would agree that no deck is mature at this point and what the meta is today probably will not be exactly the same as 2 or 3 months from now. That's the beauty of this game it's so fluid and hard to predict.