Captain Oats said:
If you play a complex deck you don't deserve anything, it's a game, you should never be entitled to anything. People hate Durant not just because of what it does (nobody hates KGL or Slowking/Weavile/Ampibom even though they do the same thing, disrupt and stall) but because it does it well and people don't like losing. If you can beat it you don't mind it but if you can't you complain.
What Durant does is simplify games against it to be 90% luck-based. It doesn't just mill a deck. It uses Crushing Hammer, Lost Remover, Black Belt, etc. Also, it's simpler to play than those other mill cards. If you successfully set up a KGL and keep it attacking the whole game, you deserve to win because that's nearly impossible to do.
And in my opinion, a game should be fair, and the person who puts more work into playing and plays better should win. Furthermore, a game where all you do is draw and attack is not fun in my book.
But if you get out multiple attackers and burn those resources you help Durant. It's not just about beating them, because while you play you inevitably help them if you aren't careful. There is nothing wrong with playing conservatively, even if it means just running 1 attacker all game. google didn't ever say "I hate dominating Tyram with SEL all game every time I play it, this isn't fun", he said "Hey, easy strategy easy win. I'm gonna set up and steamroll through the win, sorry 50% of the meta, deal with it." It's the same against Durant, you have 1 strategy you use in that specific matchup and you do it, every time. You only react to a certain extent, no matter the matchup, and yes, despite what you apparently believe, you do still have to react to Durant.
Easy strategy? Are you kidding? You have to set up two Stage 2's and a legend without any built-in draw without losing six prizes or getting overloaded. Flare Destroy also makes the matchup much harder for the Truth player. It's nowhere near as easy of a strategy as Durant is. And please explain how to react to Durant. I get setup and kill a Durant every turn or I don't. That's it.
I'm really confused at why so many people's opinions on the deck have changed both ways since this was a thread but whatever http://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thread-heatmor-the-answer-to-durant?
What happened between that thread and now was Black Belt. Nobody was running it with Durant during the time that thread was active. In that thread, a V-Create Victini was literally enough to run through Durant. Now Durant is a much better deck.
James with post too long to quote- That's a great summary of Durant and ways to beat it. However, you didn't account for Black Belt and Crushing Hammer/Lost Remover at all. These cards wreck the strategy you describe.
Riskbreakers said:
First of all, I hate it when people say a deck takes no skill to play it. All decks require skill. It's more of a grammatical/technical error anyway but that's not what I'm weirded out about.
For me Celebi23 is representing the ideology of a perfect world where "the hardest worker and most skilled gets all the glory" but we all know in reality this is a farce. Don't believe me? Look up Justin Bieber and you know why this ideology is impossible. I admit that I believe in this ideology to a certain point and then get struck by reality that luck will really play a factor in our lives.
We're not talking about the real world, though. We're talking about a game where ideology is almost possible if the people making the game do a good enough job.
Why am I talking about all this crud when the topic is Durant? It's because there is some co-relation to it. Durant takes less skill than most decks and yet can win a few tournaments here and there. Why people hate it so much? It's because it looks like a shortcut to victory rather than most standard decks. But with all shortcuts we all know they have flaws and Durant is no exception to that.
If someone has been playtesting for 14 hours and loses to that bad luck? That's life. I lost to a little kid before after winning the prior week a few years ago. We all have our bad days and that will be unavoidable. Here's what I can say, Durant isn't exactly going to be the best deck ever considering it doesn't have the majority of Cities wins but it presents another way of winning which I actually can smile from.
Again, that is life. In my opinion, Pokémon should not be like that. But that's just my opinion.
Bottom line, don't spend all this time hating on Durant. I know it's auto-pilot but it shouldn't be the biggest threat people should be seeing. Losing to Durant once to surprise is understandable. Losing to it over and over again is inexcusable because you haven't learned your lesson once from Durant.
Also, HenryP. "Good Players don't play Durant"? I'd rather say, "Good players know how to play against Durant." IIRC Kenny W and Jason K have played Durant before so does that mean they are not good?
I honestly found Gyarados+Sableye and Sabledonk more annoying because you technically can't play against it. Once they go first, you'll most likely scoop anyway.
Durant or Sabledonk? Durant any day. At least I get a turn. With Sabledonk, it was, "Oh, I started Sableye and you didn't? Well, you lose now. Just sit back and relax while I take a 20 minute turn." That doesn't mean Durant is good for the game.
Riskbreakers said:
IMO Durant isn't to be teched against but rather to be outsmarted. Just don't play all your resources and keep a PONT handy.
Look, there are such things as an auto-loss that one has to accept. No deck is 100% foolproof, you beat eels already, that should be good because that comprises most of the meta.
Back during pre-Catcher era. I was running DonphanDragons. I always had to accept that any TyRam there would give me problems but I just accepted it so as long as I could counter majority of the other players.
Again, it's not that Durant is broken. It is a beatable deck. It's that the mechanic behind it is bad for the game.
Card Slinger J said:
Explain to me how Victini is a terrible tech in this format against Durant and Cobalion. There are ways to get around Ditto TR like Catcher or using Glaciate twice with Kyurem, yes the Fire tech will get milled but that's why we have stuff like FSL and Super Rod in the format.
Because one Black Belt wrecks it. And you can Catcher my Ditto, but you're still not killing it. Good luck Glaciating twice when I have Crushing Hammers and Lost Remover and you also have to charge Victini without drawing too many cards.
PMJ said:
edit I'm not posting this to be trolling, but I am under the assumption that Durant had its share of tournament wins, but not so much so that it's overpowering the format. If Durant wins a majority of States I could see people making this argument. I can see why people would hate playing against this deck in any case. But until it gets powerful--like Plox powerful--it's just going to be another deck you have to prepare for.
The number of tournament wins don't necessarily reflect how good a deck is. Durant was the deck to beat last weekend. This does not mean it's overpowered or unbeatable. It just means it's bad that such a simple deck that's boring to play against can be good. Plox was a good format in my opinion because if I beat somebody in a Plox mirror, I felt like I was the better player.
