Discussion Does Garb affect the meta in a good way? Or a bad way?

[mrfr1day]

For one energy. It single handily forces everyone to play differently because an attack that costs 1 energy. What? I personally hate this card with a passion. Now I'm not an expert on PTCG. What do you guys think. Is this card what this meta needs or is this card just not what it needs right now?

 

[Frosstoise]

I look at Garbodor as a wonderful card long term for the game. A good portion of deck building has become too regimented around a base set of items; Ultra Ball, Vs Seeker, Trainers Mail, Belts of varying types. Garbodor is going to serve as a contrary force to this rather long held pattern; cut items down, or suffer it's wrath. It's complicated enough that it's not going to be in every deck, but it'll be in lots. Everyone is going to have to adapt, and likely slow the format down as a result, which is 100% good in my books.

 

[mrfr1day]

I look at Garbodor as a wonderful card long term for the game. A good portion of deck building has become too regimented around a base set of items; Ultra Ball, Vs Seeker, Trainers Mail, Belts of varying types. Garbodor is going to serve as a contrary force to this rather long held pattern; cut items down, or suffer it's wrath. It's complicated enough that it's not going to be in every deck, but it'll be in lots. Everyone is going to have to adapt, and likely slow the format down as a result, which is 100% good in my books.

I feel like every deck is going to have garb. It's too good not to include in it. If the player isn't running Garb then they have to limit items or run the risk of getting destroyed by it. The garb player can use items freely against decks that don't run it making it play faster than their opponent's deck. However against a deck that also runs Garb both players need to watch their items.

 

[Lanstar]

To me, the new Garbodor is a nasty item deterrent that has an even stronger effect than normal item lock has had.

Think about normal item lock - you can't play items at all as long as the lock is in effect. However, remove or deter the effect, and there are few drawbacks to using items again. That is how decks like Night March were able to still go haywire in the last format.

Against Garb, you can play items anytime, but you risk losing if you play too many. The way the old meta works, 'playing too many' is so easy to achieve - especially when you are trying to add consistency to beat other decks besides Garbodor.

In such, I feel like this card forces a huge conflict of ambitions to a deck builder that is rather unhealthy to the skill of playing. Item cards are used for consistent executions of a given strategy, and to play around one card, you must cut the consistency back from your deck - and then you risk having a subpar deck against other decks that do have the consistency from plenty of items. In other words, deck building becomes more like gambling over the item matchups against who plays garb and who does not. It's just too polarizing towards the meta for my taste.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

I think the card affects the meta in a negative way, not because it punishes the common core but because it attempts to "patch" a problem with the games pace. Garb is just a way for them to cover up the fact they have made very bad decisions with how cards are made and what common TCG mechanics they refuse to utilize. With the fact you have to run certain cards without alternatives for them means you can just lose because of your deck type. What is even worse is it doesn't even matter what deck archetype you run, you still can lose and I think this is a problem.

With that said, I do think its a card the game need currently. We are already seeing players look at other cards and the pace of the game has changed slightly as a result. I just hope TPC/i can take this data and do something meaningful with it and give us healthier supporter based cards or alternatives to discourage the use of Garbodor but I never like the idea of silver bullets being made to be silver bullets.

 

[Rindon]

Garbodor is a nasty card, however there are ways around it. I modified my greninja deck to contain 6 items and lots of supporter cards. I have beaten Garbodor each time I played iT although I don't think I played against a very good deck. On the flip side I have been destroyed many games playing against Garbodor with decks relying on items (essentially 10 items played is game over). I also play a Garbodor espeon gx deck which has been relatively successful. One last point: it is interesting that most people can't stand vileplume, including myself, however I think of Garbodor Has a "hidden ability" being item lock as well...or at least it appears many opponents are very hesitant to play item cards the second they see trubbish on the bench

 

[Fayld]

I look at Garbodor as a wonderful card long term for the game. A good portion of deck building has become too regimented around a base set of items; Ultra Ball, Vs Seeker, Trainers Mail, Belts of varying types. Garbodor is going to serve as a contrary force to this rather long held pattern; cut items down, or suffer it's wrath. It's complicated enough that it's not going to be in every deck, but it'll be in lots. Everyone is going to have to adapt, and likely slow the format down as a result, which is 100% good in my books.

And that would be great except that VS Seeker and Trainer's Mail (usually 7 cards alone) are going to rotate unless they are reprinted (which nothing I have read says they have plans for these being reprinted). That makes Garbodor a card that works in the current meta, but becomes a fair bit less effective in the meta that is currently expected to exist post rotation (most assume breakthrough on will be the next standard set). While the card still serves as a deterrent, I wonder just how much of a deterrent it will actually be if there aren't really items people want to run for consistency. I know I am planning on upping supporter counts post rotation and I am guessing I am not the only one. Basically my point is this: if Pokemon was really concerned about changing the way decks are built, all they have to do is not reprint VS Seeker and Trainer's Mail. If they want to take it a step further, they can rotate everything from the XY era altogether leaving us with precious few items for any kind of consistency. Long story short, they didn't need to release anything to change deck building...all they have to do is wait for the sets to rotate.

From my perspective, I don't think Pokemon was doing anything of the sort. I think they thought about different ways to do damage that are currently in the game, realized they didn't have this particular approach, and decided to make a card because they thought it would be fun and balanced which was probably confirmed by their testing team.

 

[Perfect_Shot]

It's mostly just a lazy way for TPC to force people to change their playstyle. They've been releasing these fast-paced Item cards for years now, and it's like they finally noticed that the game may be faster than they wanted.

I don't mind the card personally; the same decks which set up quickly will burn through the Trubbishes before they evolve. Sadly though, Garbodor will punish any attempts Stage 2 decks have at trying to set up at a reasonable pace, and those are probably the decks that the card was meant to slow the format down for.

 

[Xeynid]

likely slow the format down as a result, which is 100% good in my books.

It MIGHT slow down the format.

But do you want a slower format where your deck is either running garb, playing to beat garb, or both, with no other decks being viable, or do you want a format where the cards that push the game to be faster don't really exist?

The reason the format is so fast is because TCPI wanted the format to be fast, so they made a ton of super good basic pokemon with good cheap attacks. With sun and moon, they've shown that they're trying to make the best cards slower, so that the format as a whole will have more of a focus on slower decks.

But trying to instantly force the meta to be slower by warping the entire game around whether you can beat a single card is a patchwork solution at best, and not a good one.

As they release more good stage 1 and 2 GX's in the coming sets, and as the XY era starts to rotate out, the game will slow down dramatically because all the best cards are going to require focusing on slower strategies, but there's no need to try and force the game to be slower right this moment.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

It MIGHT slow down the format.

But do you want a slower format where your deck is either running garb, playing to beat garb, or both, with no other decks being viable, or do you want a format where the cards that push the game to be faster don't really exist?

The reason the format is so fast is because TCPI wanted the format to be fast, so they made a ton of super good basic pokemon with good cheap attacks. With sun and moon, they've shown that they're trying to make the best cards slower, so that the format as a whole will have more of a focus on slower decks.

But trying to instantly force the meta to be slower by warping the entire game around whether you can beat a single card is a patchwork solution at best, and not a good one.

As they release more good stage 1 and 2 GX's in the coming sets, and as the XY era starts to rotate out, the game will slow down dramatically because all the best cards are going to require focusing on slower strategies, but there's no need to try and force the game to be slower right this moment.

There are a number of things that contribute to this though. I don't believe TPC intended for the game to be fast. Before, the game used to favor Evolved Pokemon and Basic Pokemon (the ones that don't evolve) were left useless. Pokemon like Mewtwo were never good, even the Ultra Rare version of it. if it didn't evolve, it wasn't good, and that was through mechanics. They felt cards that took less resources to put into play, they should be weaker than a card that took three cards to get into play but this makes Pokemon like Zangoose forever bad. Black and White (though I believed was the downfall of the game) gave Pokemon like Mewtwo a chance to be good since all the EX Pokemon were legendary Pokemon. It wasn't till XY that we saw something other than legendary Pokemon get an EX so this meant a Pokemon like Zangoose could be good. I'm still sad Zangoose doesn't have a EX.

The biggest problem with the game is how reprint happy they are. They have reprinted many cards and effects to the point the game has remained the same and they keep making new cards that make these cards better. We have a Yugioh effect right now because many cards that exist in the format shouldn't still exist and since we still have at least two years of XY in standard (assuming the rotation isn't something like Evolutions-On), we will still be seeing decks like Volcanion, Greninja, Rainbow Road and Turbo Dark till about 2019/2020. The decks are still powerful so we won't really be seeing SM stuff for some time as the norm. We are seeing the shift from that as of now though but its still just big basics and broken stage 1 Pokemon.

I agree with how you access Garbodor though. I feel it's a card the game needs right now because of how fast it is but this is what I was talking about when I said we'll be seeing things like this if XY cards are left to exist in a SM format.

 

[Kietharr]

I think that brief history of the game leaves off the fact that base era was utterly dominated by big basics. The extreme amount of disruption available in particular made it hard to play any evolution decks, the only exceptions were Blastoise which only worked because of how good Super Energy Removal was, and Wigglytuff, which was played in conjunction with big basics anyways. Keeping in mind 'big' back then was 70hp and the magic damage number was 40.

I don't think that it's an accident that BW started to look like base era again. The horrors of Neo caused quite a few people to quit and I think that moving back towards the base set style of play was their way of bringing players back, and at least coincidentally it seems to have worked. The game's bigger than at any time since base era. People seem to enjoy the fast style of play, and I don't think the game is actually angling at slowing down.

Sure, there are evolution GX cards (keep in mind that most of the stage 2 GX are actually pretty bad and not played much, excepting Decidueye and Solgaleo), but there are also, still, lots of big basic GX cards that hit hard and are in fact even bulkier on average than EX basics, and plenty of new acceleration options from aqua patch/wish baton/Kiawe guarantees that there will still be fast decks well into the future, even after a highly restrictive 2017 rotation.

I think a lot of the reprint happiness can be chalked up to the very odd system they have where Japan and the international scene play fundamentally different formats which makes it harder to design cards. I think Garb is definitely needed in Japan where they have to deal with seeker/shaymin/sycamore/ultra ball engine until 2018/19, but we lose seeker next rotation which pokes a massive hole in the stale staple deck engine anyways. And now we have Garb casting a shadow over any item heavy standard deck concepts for several years.

 

[Yog]

I think on balance it's a good thing. Up until now 90% of decks all ran off the exact same core - 4 Sycamore, 4 Ultra Ball, 4 Vs Seeker, 3-4 Trainer's Mail etcetcetc. And why wouldn't you? It is the established best engine you could run, and there was absolutely no punishment in the game for tearing through half your deck on the first few turns. But now there is a punishment, and it is severe.

So all of a sudden people need to get creative with their engines - that can only be a good thing. I speak only for the online metagame, but you should see some of the janky decks I've able to win with this week. These were just not possible before.

 

[AuraJackle]

Well 6 of the 8 decks in the top 8 in seatle were garb decks. I'd say it's gonna polarize the format for the next 4 months and possibly more. Garb is just to dang strong if there was nothing strong to pair it with it wouldn't be a big deal but when you start tauros or lele you just poke people until they decide they need to play 10 Items in order to put up a fight. Now from what I've learned sense I started playing furious fist when toad rose to popularity that playing Items is both the most important and in many ways the most fun part of the game. So when a deck comes out that punishes that it and becomes overwhelmingly strong and popular I'd say it's pretty negative.

 

[Kietharr]

I think Garb was definitely overplayed at Seattle. It's probably the strongest attacker in the meta both in how it punishes people for playing the game as usual and how easy it is to build around with its very low energy requirement but it shouldn't be 24 of the top 32 strong just based on what the card does imo.

There was a combination of garb being super hyped up and a relatively cheap card, so I'm sure tons of people entered with it, and people not yet fully adapting their deck engines to handle garb gave it an easier path to that incredibly dominant performance.

 

[Xeynid]

So all of a sudden people need to get creative with their engines - that can only be a good thing. I speak only for the online metagame, but you should see some of the janky decks I've able to win with this week. These were just not possible before.

That doesn't mean the game is more balanced, that just means it's less optimized.

Give people a few months to sort out the best supporter/item counts and it'll go back to the way it was, with one skeleton dominating them all with slight variations.

The idea that every part of the game needs to have creativity involved in order to have a good metagame is kind of ridiculous, anyways. The engine cards you're referring to are generic consistency: that is, they help every deck do whatever that deck does. Having a single generic supporter skeleton doesn't stifle creativity. It just means that your deck can consistently do whatever it is that your deck is designed to do, and it uses similar kinds of cards to other decks that do different things.

Running 4 sycamore, vs. seeker, and ultra ball in a Sylveon GX deck and in a Mega Ray deck and in a Raticate break deck doesn't make those decks similar in terms of playstyle at all, because the game revolves around taking prizes, and each deck is going to have different methods of going about doing that.

In the end, consistency isn't something that has much room for creativity, because it is a mathematical factor of your deck. What are the chances of you having whatever card you need when you need it, and how are those chances affected by the different cards you run.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

I think on balance it's a good thing. Up until now 90% of decks all ran off the exact same core - 4 Sycamore, 4 Ultra Ball, 4 Vs Seeker, 3-4 Trainer's Mail etcetcetc. And why wouldn't you? It is the established best engine you could run, and there was absolutely no punishment in the game for tearing through half your deck on the first few turns. But now there is a punishment, and it is severe.

So all of a sudden people need to get creative with their engines - that can only be a good thing. I speak only for the online metagame, but you should see some of the janky decks I've able to win with this week. These were just not possible before.

It's interesting that you say that because my deck doesn't run the common core. Now I have to run some cards because of lack of option so my core is three Ultra Ball, three VS Seeker, four Mallow, two N and two Birch. I also play four Puzzles and four Max Potion but even at times my deck can just lose to Garb despite not running a common core and using something pretty creative. I can cut some cards completely like Ultra Ball but it just isn't worth it to potentially do worse in other matchups to avoid one that isn't all that bad for me to begin with.

I'm having a hard time finding something that works well as a supporter that is just as fast as Items.

 

[uriel serjohn m. casal]

garb for me is not a healthy card for the format. we will lose vs seekers, trainers mail and shaymin ex. why would you want to have an even slower pace of game. and considering tournaments games has time limits. its worse than lysandres trump card for me come the time the new season begins and rotation takes effect.

 

[F4H_Jay]

I think it just makes people think more when playing against it. It's easy to defeat if your item count isn't to high. I play an extra N and Lysandre now and defeat Garb pretty easily most of the time. Even dropped down to 3 vs seekers.

 

[Ilir Nikqi]

I personally don't like this card. The main reason is that I feel 80/90 % of the ladder matches are against Garb. And you are forced to play 1-2 decks that counter it. I don't feel like i can play decks that i actually want to play. I feel forced to play umbreon GX/zoroark for example. The card itself its not maybe a bad card for the game, but its just to much of the deck in the ladder

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

You have to change the way you approach the way you build decks. Instead of running Item heavy list, look for other ways of doing the same thing. Maybe you don't need a turn one Professor Sycamore of Lillie and can just play a Pokemon Fan Club or similar card. Maybe cut a Ultra Ball or two and run a Supporter. Do you need to play Max Elixir and Trainers' Mail? You might be able to cut these for more ways to find Pokemon or just add more Supporters. Do you really need four VS Seeker? Maybe try cutting one for some more Pokemon.

The goal is to look at your deck and see what needs to be there and what can do that card's job better. You'd be surprised to find out what cards work better. You just need to figure out what works to maintain speed and fight effectively against Garbodor.