Discussion Do you believe with the GX Pokemon, the Expanded Format, for Regionals will cease to exist?
- Thread starter Green778
- Start date
Why not?
Well of course it can't go on forever, humanity will eventually die out and Pokemon will cease being a thing then. Barring the eventual heat death of the universe why does Expanded need to end? There will always be players to support it, and so long as players support it so will Pokemon.
I agree with this. Expanded is a very popular format. I think the bigger question is whether it will continue to be BW forward or if SUM changes it to XY to SUM. I am on the fence about it. There are a lot of fun decks that mix BW > XY > SUM cards. I think that at least provides an opportunity for wider diversity of decks even if, in reality, there really isn't that wide of a variety of competitive expanded decks. TBH though, I think they could expand the variety of decks being played by simply banning a couple of cards. Then again, with cards like Water Patch coming up (it is exactly what it sounds like), the viability of an expanded water deck that doesn't require Blastoise suddenly becomes very real. That's why I am on the fence with it. I like what SUM brings to the current expanded format and would like to see it play out for more than a couple months. There are some exceptionally smart players out there who make incredible new decks every year. It seems like a waste to limit them to XY forward.
I think expanded will remain unrotated for at least this year, I doubt they'll rotate the entire BW block just like that either.
I could see them leaving Expanded as BW on indefinitely as well because BW marked a major shift in design philosophy back to something that looked a lot more like base set than the game has at any time between the tail end of the Neo era and HGSS. There are hints, some people have argued, that they want to slow the game back down. But cards like Phantump/Trevenant GRI and Darkrai-GX are signaling to me that they aren't really focusing on that in practice.
I think that people are right to worry about 'card glut' in expanded where there becomes such an extreme variety of cards that it gets hard for newer players to get a grasp of what's going on in the format, but for me, that's a long ways off. Hopefully if they ever do start rotating expanded they start providing support for Unlimited as a format in some manner, with a common sense banlist (ie no super energy removals, hell just ban all of the trainers in base set plus a few others like chaos gym and broken time space).
I don't see them doing much with Legacy offline since it's explicitly an 'old cards only' format that doesn't work to advertise new cards/sets in any way.
I could see them leaving Expanded as BW on indefinitely as well because BW marked a major shift in design philosophy back to something that looked a lot more like base set than the game has at any time between the tail end of the Neo era and HGSS. There are hints, some people have argued, that they want to slow the game back down. But cards like Phantump/Trevenant GRI and Darkrai-GX are signaling to me that they aren't really focusing on that in practice.
I think that people are right to worry about 'card glut' in expanded where there becomes such an extreme variety of cards that it gets hard for newer players to get a grasp of what's going on in the format, but for me, that's a long ways off. Hopefully if they ever do start rotating expanded they start providing support for Unlimited as a format in some manner, with a common sense banlist (ie no super energy removals, hell just ban all of the trainers in base set plus a few others like chaos gym and broken time space).
I don't see them doing much with Legacy offline since it's explicitly an 'old cards only' format that doesn't work to advertise new cards/sets in any way.
No Expanded needs to go away but if they insist on keeping it around, then they need to do everything in their power to balance it. No one likes going against Night March or constant lock decks. It's what ruined competitive Pokemon.
Basically the worst format in game currently, nothing is more unappealing than playing against Trev lock and Toad consistently at tournament . They really need to start banning some of these cards if they ever want any variety in the expanded format
I don't mind Expanded as a format but to me, its just draw pass and sign the match slip and I don't like that. Pokemon is too poorly designed a game to force people to run large Pokemon lines just to maybe counter a deck you might not see and with Prize cards being a thing means you might not ever see them in the first place. If they removed HTL and all the lock cards and ban things that could break other cards like Maxies and Archies, then Expanded could be a fun format.
in terms of obnoxious locks it's not like standard is any better except for the fact that Vileplume locks both players' items. Trevenant and Phantump from the new expansion are designed to make item lock strategies even better in both standard (until FOGP leaves after worlds) and expanded. Rotating to XY on doesn't get rid of item lock at all considering that both Trev and Vileplume are from XY sets. Night March isn't that big of a deal anymore with Karen around, I hardly even see it on the expanded ladder.
I agree that Archeops is too powerful but that card should just be banned because of the maxie interaction, like Shiftry was because of FOGP.
I agree that Archeops is too powerful but that card should just be banned because of the maxie interaction, like Shiftry was because of FOGP.