Discussion Do you think Buzzwole is OP in Standard?

The Last Shaymin said:
Chalk?
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CHALK is an acronym for Cresselia, Heatran, Amoonguss, Landorus-T, and (Mega) Kangaskhan. It comes from 2015 VCG, where literally every top team was using at least four of those Pokémon, and has since become a meme referring to how stale metagames can get and how complacent gaming syndrome affects them. And it's far from a Pokémon thing: it leads to things like
  • Ken Fighter 4: Sagat Strike
  • No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination in Smash Melee
  • Every Spy in Team Fortress 2 using the Dead Ringer
  • Everybody fortifies Australia in Risk
  • Nobody declines to buy the deed when they land on an unowned property in Monopoly
  • This sort of thing is why RSTLNE is given out by default on Wheel of Fortune, since before that everyone that made it to the Bonus Round always put out those letters. Even afterwards, most people go for CDMA.
One thing I've tended to notice is that, somewhat paradoxically, the more choices you give players, the less creative they get with their strategies because they will always gravitate towards the "strongest" choices. Compare the top players from the aforementioned "CHALK" season, which allowed basically every non-Uber or Mythical Pokémon to be used, to the year before, which was Kalos-Dex only. See the difference in variety? I feel something similar happens in the TCG, especially as a given year progresses and more sets come out, and it can happen at a scarily fast rate, invalidating top decks before. Seriously, who would have thought at the beginning of the 2017 tournament cycle that the top two decks (Golisodor and Gardevoir-GX) were based around cards that didn't even exist in English until mere weeks before worlds?
 
Attix said:
CHALK is an acronym for Cresselia, Heatran, Amoonguss, Landorus-T, and (Mega) Kangaskhan. It comes from 2015 VCG, where literally every top team was using at least four of those Pokémon, and has since become a meme referring to how stale metagames can get and how complacent gaming syndrome affects them. And it's far from a Pokémon thing: it leads to things like
  • Ken Fighter 4: Sagat Strike
  • No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination in Smash Melee
  • Every Spy in Team Fortress 2 using the Dead Ringer
  • Everybody fortifies Australia in Risk
  • Nobody declines to buy the deed when they land on an unowned property in Monopoly
  • This sort of thing is why RSTLNE is given out by default on Wheel of Fortune, since before that everyone that made it to the Bonus Round always put out those letters. Even afterwards, most people go for CDMA.
One thing I've tended to notice is that, somewhat paradoxically, the more choices you give players, the less creative they get with their strategies because they will always gravitate towards the "strongest" choices. Compare the top players from the aforementioned "CHALK" season, which allowed basically every non-Uber or Mythical Pokémon to be used, to the year before, which was Kalos-Dex only. See the difference in variety? I feel something similar happens in the TCG, especially as a given year progresses and more sets come out, and it can happen at a scarily fast rate, invalidating top decks before. Seriously, who would have thought at the beginning of the 2017 tournament cycle that the top two decks (Golisodor and Gardevoir-GX) were based around cards that didn't even exist in English until mere weeks before worlds?
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We definitely aren’t in CHALK. The meta has got a bit tighter, but there’s still a good chunk of options.

Now, Yugioh. That’s a CHALK game.
 
Cheach said:
Reasonable logic. Do you not buy any TCG products anymore then?
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Correct. I currently only play via the PTCGO. Granted, I also have next-to-no discretionary income, so it is much easier to resist for me than for others. ;) Of course, if I didn't enjoy writing about and discussing the TCG so much, I'd have probably ditched it like I have the video games. I don't classify Gen II as the best out of nostalgia (that would lead me to pick Gen I), but because Gen II was still on limited enough hardware that various design decisions still made sense, as well as keeping the core game almost identical and just grafting on a few new bits and pieces here and there.

Merovingian said:
We definitely aren’t in CHALK. The meta has got a bit tighter, but there’s still a good chunk of options.

Now, Yugioh. That’s a CHALK game.
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I think we've been in such a format at certain times. For example, I still wonder if Feraligatr w/Riptide was truly as great as it seemed in the Rocket-On and Neon Standard Formats, or if it was just the deck everyone knew plus we had to deal with the mess that was Slowking (Neo Genesis).
 
Otaku said:
I think we've been in such a format at certain times. For example, I still wonder if Feraligatr w/Riptide was truly as great as it seemed in the Rocket-On and Neon Standard Formats, or if it was just the deck everyone knew plus we had to deal with the mess that was Slowking (Neo Genesis).
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True, this game has had some fair share of “Chalk”. Slowking was definitely one of them. Sabledonk is another I remember.

The internet at these ones made Feraligatr seem like the next unstoppable Slowking deck. In reality, Rocket-in was pretty diverse. Feraligatr was still pretty old, but the format wasn’t in a choke hold about it
 
There will always be a dominate deck in the format. It's up to the players to change up the Meta and stop brainlessly playing other peoples lists. (which really annoys me). I can understand testing out a new idea but everyone playing the exact same Zororoc deck is not good for the game. Even if it is just for a few more months.
 
Otaku said:
Correct. I currently only play via the PTCGO. Granted, I also have next-to-no discretionary income, so it is much easier to resist for me than for others. ;) Of course, if I didn't enjoy writing about and discussing the TCG so much, I'd have probably ditched it like I have the video games. I don't classify Gen II as the best out of nostalgia (that would lead me to pick Gen I), but because Gen II was still on limited enough hardware that various design decisions still made sense, as well as keeping the core game almost identical and just grafting on a few new bits and pieces here and there.
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You're forgetting about the tyrant king that was CurseLax.
 
Attix said:
You're forgetting about the tyrant king that was CurseLax.
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Not what I'm talking about.

Forget balancing things, I'm saying that even with everything well balanced I don't care for a lot of "legacy" game mechanics that were tolerable only because of hardware limitations. I don't like PP for each attack, just give me a "PP" meter and have each attack drain it according to that attack's stats. Yeah, I know that is what most other RPG's (not even just video game RPG's!) do; that's just the better way to do it. I don't like having to forget attacks, or at least, I don't like this universal "four attack cap", especially when so many attacks are so closely related. A good solution was shown as early as Shining Force for the Sega Genesis; related attacks take up the same "slot". I want hit locations for attacking. If Types must be kept (I say do away with them and just have everything react to everything else how it is meant to) then we need less, not more. It is like the developers couldn't decide between three or four different "elemental" systems and smooshed them all together. Pokémon can be a Type because they are composed of that Type, utilize that Type for attacking, or simply live/move in that Type... which are three very different things!
 
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Diancie + Strong Energy and even add a Hoopa for giggles... I'd say it's pretty decent. Maybe not OP, but very, very good choice for a deck.
 
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