Fun If You Could implement a Metagame Format For This Game, How Would You Do it?

[Zygarde]

Because a weird human thing is to blame something else other than the real reason a game isn't "fun" to play.
I'm too tired to comment on the rest of what many blame but I have to say this. None of what is listed are problems. And the Tier thing wouldn't help either. Why? Because the real reason is the game has shifted to become more luck based. It's that simple. Who sets up first wins. If your deck has a bad matchup, too bad, sucks to be you. AUTO LOSS.

Just wanted to say this: Auto Losses and bad matchups happen mostly because of x2 Weakness, which is listed on the OP and you said is something not to blame. IMO moving back to DPt style of Weakness and Resistance system would be very beneficial.

About this topic in general, I don't think that doing simplistic bans like "no EXs", "no Item lock" would actually solve the problem.

 

[asdjklghty]

Just wanted to say this: Auto Losses and bad matchups happen mostly because of x2 Weakness, which is listed on the OP and you said is something not to blame. IMO moving back to DPt style of Weakness and Resistance system would be very beneficial.

About this topic in general, I don't think that doing simplistic bans like "no EXs", "no Item lock" would actually solve the problem.

I was too tired to type about the Weakness. It should be variable on the type of card.
And no there are auto losses that happen without Weakness. Stupid Raichu/Bats beats M Manectric unless the wolf is partnered with Garbodor which alleviates the problem a little. Night March also auto wins against Manectric no weakness involved. Like wise, NM and Bat decks struggle against Primal Kyogre.

 

[Draaka]

It also causes a looooot more time to perfect a deck, deterring a lot of competitive players from the game. Instead of testing one decks, you effectively have to test two, and effectively play two. This would pretty much nullify the point of having one deck in a tournament, and sticking with it. .-.

Not at all, you are looking at it inversely, it's not about having two decks in one, it's about having a viable back up strategy in your deck. Instead of one trick pony decks that win or loose on turn one. Archies blastoise, shiftry donk etc. It's about having decks that can win on turn one, but if your opponent is countering it you don't throw the match away you have a back up plan. this is something you can't really do at the moment. I think it would encourage more creative competitive deck building. Not less. The really good competitive deck builders don't just net deck a list and go win regionals or states. They build their own lists based on the meta and test it again and again. Shiftry donk is great, until it gets so annoying everyone starts running counters in their decks all the time. Then it becomes useless again. This would mean that even with counters you could still play the deck and not have an instant win or instant loose based on wether your opponent brought anti donk tech.

If rogue decks didn't exist, then every deck you versus would be similar or the same. Always versing Toads, M-Manectrics, Bronzongs and that's it. Nothing fun, nothing new, nothing creative. I know that I can nearly always look a deck and notice a hard counter for it; they are rarely obscure. Hard counters will, perhaps at the beginning, be creative, but eventually people will realise the significant of the counter and it will be used much more often. Even though, many rogue decks I don't have a practical counter to their counter, meaning the rogue would be destroyed anyway.

Again I don't think you are right, so last season I played four tournaments, where the only decks I saw were night march or toad. Non stop. Night march or toad. 16 games in a row at four tournaments, playing four rounds of swiss (plus another six games top cut). I played only night march or toad. A fixed card pool of any game ever will have always some decks that are a bit stronger, and a bit better and a more common. But at the moment the only way to beat a deck is to build a whole deck based on beating it. But with a side board you could play whatever deck you want then have the counter in the sideboard for IF you hit that deck. Meaning the games where you aren't against that deck you have a much better chance of winning. Because at the moment if you are expecting a ton of toad decks at a tournament you have to build a deck to beat toad. And if you don't play toad one match you most likely won't have as much of a chance at winning. And the thing is, a lot of people play rogue decks, but very few actually get anywhere near top 8 at a regionals or nationals. Most rogue decks just fall flat, and if you enjoy playing a rogue deck win or loose good for you, but the discussion is about how you would open the meta game up. And that means finding a way to get more deck archetypes viable, and more cards viable. Rogue decks would stop being a thing because the main tier decks wouldn't be so cookie cutter defined. Meaning you could play a off the wall creation or something that hasn't been seen before (which is basically what rogue decks are) but it wouldn't be a big deal or need a name because everybody would be doing it because there wouldn't be such defined tiers.

 

[bbninjas]

Not at all, you are looking at it inversely, it's not about having two decks in one, it's about having a viable back up strategy in your deck. Instead of one trick pony decks that win or loose on turn one. Archies blastoise, shiftry donk etc. It's about having decks that can win on turn one, but if your opponent is countering it you don't throw the match away you have a back up plan. this is something you can't really do at the moment. I think it would encourage more creative competitive deck building. Not less. The really good competitive deck builders don't just net deck a list and go win regionals or states. They build their own lists based on the meta and test it again and again. Shiftry donk is great, until it gets so annoying everyone starts running counters in their decks all the time. Then it becomes useless again. This would mean that even with counters you could still play the deck and not have an instant win or instant loose based on wether your opponent brought anti donk tech.

You will need to spend excessive time versing each and every deck to find each and every counter that would work in each and every of your deck. I don't see your point about decklists. I don't think this would solve things like Shiftry Donk either. If you don't play Shiftry Donk, then these counters in decks shouldn't affect you (although could be perhaps negatively impact you, depending). I'd personally like it if everyone made rogue decks, rather than everyone following everyone else's decks and counters.

Again I don't think you are right, so last season I played four tournaments, where the only decks I saw were night march or toad. Non stop. Night march or toad. 16 games in a row at four tournaments, playing four rounds of swiss (plus another six games top cut). I played only night march or toad. A fixed card pool of any game ever will have always some decks that are a bit stronger, and a bit better and a more common. But at the moment the only way to beat a deck is to build a whole deck based on beating it. But with a side board you could play whatever deck you want then have the counter in the sideboard for IF you hit that deck. Meaning the games where you aren't against that deck you have a much better chance of winning. Because at the moment if you are expecting a ton of toad decks at a tournament you have to build a deck to beat toad. And if you don't play toad one match you most likely won't have as much of a chance at winning. And the thing is, a lot of people play rogue decks, but very few actually get anywhere near top 8 at a regionals or nationals. Most rogue decks just fall flat, and if you enjoy playing a rogue deck win or loose good for you, but the discussion is about how you would open the meta game up. And that means finding a way to get more deck archetypes viable, and more cards viable. Rogue decks would stop being a thing because the main tier decks wouldn't be so cookie cutter defined. Meaning you could play a off the wall creation or something that hasn't been seen before (which is basically what rogue decks are) but it wouldn't be a big deal or need a name because everybody would be doing it because there wouldn't be such defined tiers.

I find it interesting that two rogue decks made it to the top two in Nationals, a couple in Worlds, couple in past Worlds (Truth, anyone?); Donphan, Flareon and Eggs all debuted as rogue decks. If your rogue deck is actually decent, it will not fall flat, or at least very easily, however making it so anyone can counter it at any time will definitely make it fall flat (Wailord wouldn't exist, Hippos probs wouldn't exist, others as well).

 

[Draaka]

Well as we are disagreeing over a theoretical thing which is likely to never happen we will just have to agree to disagree, but from my experience in other TCG's the sideboard I believe would be very useful.

I find it interesting that two rogue decks made it to the top two in Nationals, a couple in Worlds, couple in past Worlds (Truth, anyone?); Donphan, Flareon and Eggs all debuted as rogue decks. If your rogue deck is actually decent, it will not fall flat, or at least very easily, however making it so anyone can counter it at any time will definitely make it fall flat (Wailord wouldn't exist, Hippos probs wouldn't exist, others as well).

The thing is, a deck is only really rogue until everyone is playing it. Donphan for example. It was a rogue, for a few months, then it was the best deck in the format and the uncommon Donphan jumped to about £6 on ebay because of the high demand, before night march came out it was probably the most popular deck in format apart from toad. (due to relative cheapness compared to toad). So you can't really describe that as rogue once it's meta tier 1. Same with flareon. That was a serious tier 1 contender for quite a few months until pure night march took over. Wailord is the only proper rogue to win big this season, and hippowdon making top 8 in US nationals I suppose. But Wailord got second at Nats because it is a one trick pony and after everyone worked out how to beat it you couldn't win with it. That's why you didn't see it at worlds, because it was a true rogue, it was very effective against a specific meta game and relied on an unusual strategy. But once the meta shifted slightly, and once people knew your strategy then it's a winless deck. The best rogue decks stop being rogue after one regionals win because then they become main stream. Rogue players are like hipsters, one person finds something old, cool and unique, then all his mates see it, get there own and post it on instagram and then within two months primark is covered in mustache t shirts and own dresses. (or the meta is covered in rampaging Donphan if you got lost in the analogy)

Too many people use rogue to just describe any old deck they have come up with and thrown together that has no real strategy against more than one or maybe two other meta decks. Oh, so grass is big? So is metal? Yeah your fire rogue deck is cool, deals well with metal and grass decks that will be big this year, but if it can't also handle toad, energy destruction decks, ray, mantric, bats, speed vespiquen decks that are expecting to get one shot every turn and all the other weird as hell stuff that is starting to surface this season then you aren't gonna be winning any regionals with it just because it has a auto win match up against sceptile and metal. At best you are gonna go like 2-6 or something. That's not a rogue deck that's a poor deck. A rogue deck needs to have a 50-50 match up against the whole meta to really work, and a unique strategy that people aren't prepared for. Another great rogue from last season was Toad/Crawdaunt. Even before the LTC ban if you rocked up with one of them, people expected a toad bats, or toad puff and they played against you wrong. Because the toad daunt deck had different goals to any other toad list, so it worked well in my local area and regionals for about a month, then people started getting wise to the strategy and changed their play style as soon as they saw a corphish hit the board, then suddenly the deck wasn't as good. That's rogue. It will buy you a few cheap supprise wins at a one big tournament, maybe even making top cut if you have done your job well. But after that the supprise is gone the win is gone.

 

[homeofmew]

When Black and White came out I liked it it reminded me of the original base set, until mewtwo ex.
So BW-LTR with No Exs would be an intresting format

 

[bbninjas]

Well as we are disagreeing over a theoretical thing which is likely to never happen we will just have to agree to disagree, but from my experience in other TCG's the sideboard I believe would be very useful.

He, fair enough. I'll just respond to this though.

The thing is, a deck is only really rogue until everyone is playing it. Donphan for example. It was a rogue, for a few months, then it was the best deck in the format and the uncommon Donphan jumped to about £6 on ebay because of the high demand, before night march came out it was probably the most popular deck in format apart from toad. (due to relative cheapness compared to toad). So you can't really describe that as rogue once it's meta tier 1. Same with flareon. That was a serious tier 1 contender for quite a few months until pure night march took over. Wailord is the only proper rogue to win big this season, and hippowdon making top 8 in US nationals I suppose. But Wailord got second at Nats because it is a one trick pony and after everyone worked out how to beat it you couldn't win with it. That's why you didn't see it at worlds, because it was a true rogue, it was very effective against a specific meta game and relied on an unusual strategy. But once the meta shifted slightly, and once people knew your strategy then it's a winless deck. The best rogue decks stop being rogue after one regionals win because then they become main stream. Rogue players are like hipsters, one person finds something old, cool and unique, then all his mates see it, get there own and post it on instagram and then within two months primark is covered in mustache t shirts and own dresses. (or the meta is covered in rampaging Donphan if you got lost in the analogy)

No, I don't agree. I do not think a rogue deck is a deck that everyone is playing - at all. I think a rogue deck is a deck that performs well under the pilot of a good player that people have not seen before and/or expecting. Donphan was rogue when it first debuted, same with Flareon, Hippowdown and Wailord. And especially eggs.

Too many people use rogue to just describe any old deck they have come up with and thrown together that has no real strategy against more than one or maybe two other meta decks. Oh, so grass is big? So is metal? Yeah your fire rogue deck is cool, deals well with metal and grass decks that will be big this year, but if it can't also handle toad, energy destruction decks, ray, mantric, bats, speed vespiquen decks that are expecting to get one shot every turn and all the other weird as hell stuff that is starting to surface this season then you aren't gonna be winning any regionals with it just because it has a auto win match up against sceptile and metal. At best you are gonna go like 2-6 or something. That's not a rogue deck that's a poor deck. A rogue deck needs to have a 50-50 match up against the whole meta to really work, and a unique strategy that people aren't prepared for. Another great rogue from last season was Toad/Crawdaunt. Even before the LTC ban if you rocked up with one of them, people expected a toad bats, or toad puff and they played against you wrong. Because the toad daunt deck had different goals to any other toad list, so it worked well in my local area and regionals for about a month, then people started getting wise to the strategy and changed their play style as soon as they saw a corphish hit the board, then suddenly the deck wasn't as good. That's rogue. It will buy you a few cheap supprise wins at a one big tournament, maybe even making top cut if you have done your job well. But after that the supprise is gone the win is gone.

I feel like you think I don't know what a rogue deck is. I know that a rogue deck is not some random cards thrown together. I know a rogue deck needs to have good matchups across the board. I have made lots of rogue decks that have performed well for me (not in a tournament setting, but definitely against major decks like Toad, Nightmarch, Manectric, Bronzong etc). Back in referral to the main point of this discussion, I know that these decks have a weakness that if the appropriate card is included into an opposing deck, my deck will fail. Before Trump ban, I made a successful deck using Jellicent BCR/Forretress FF/Beartic FuF (especially well in my local meta). This deck had a few major counters, though. Firstly, float stone [+ item lock] destroyed it. Secondly, Garbodor destroyed it. Neither where overly prevalent at the time, thus it was a rogue.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

I would simply create a ban and restriction list and keep it supported.

 

[Otaku]

I would simply create a ban and restriction list and keep it supported.

Restrictions are unlikely to help. They only work in other games where it is specifically having X amount of a card in a deck that causes the problem. As Ace Spec cards helped to demonstrate, forcing something extremely powerful to be run as a single doesn't create more balance, it just results in either more "luck" from those that draw into their Ace Spec at the correct time or more abuse from the decks that were good at searching out their Ace Spec and/or reusing it.

At this point I think I have to agree with Bans. More errata may have to be issued as well. My concern is that most games just don't want to ban everything that needs to go, because usually when you get to such a point it means the-powers-that-be behind the game aren't doing their job in the first place, and likely relying on the "easy hype" overpowered cards will provide.

Here is an alternate rule's set that would absolutely require bans to work.

• First Turn Rules: No Special Restrictions
• Evolution: A Pokémon cannot normally Evolve unless it was in play during your opponent's previous turn

Sounds stupid but what gets banned/altered are all the cards that either can

• Attack for damage (significant amounts of damage?) first turn
• Energy acceleration/generic draw power that enables combos which expand first turn attack options
• Evolution acceleration

The goal is to get us back to a game where you have time to Evolve and set-up attacks still make sense at least on a player's first turn, preferably at least to their second. Odds are there would also be a bunch of stuff that would need banned/errata'd because a player's second turn is still too fast for it to do what it does. If we want Stage 2 main attackers to be viable (not dominant) then we can try to make them stronger or make everything else weaker or we can just slow the other stuff down long enough for Evolution to occur. There are a few other pieces, but long post is long enough.

 

[tototavros]

Restrictions are unlikely to help. They only work in other games where it is specifically having X amount of a card in a deck that causes the problem. As Ace Spec cards helped to demonstrate, forcing something extremely powerful to be run as a single doesn't create more balance, it just results in either more "luck" from those that draw into their Ace Spec at the correct time or more abuse from the decks that were good at searching out their Ace Spec and/or reusing it.

At this point I think I have to agree with Bans. More errata may have to be issued as well. My concern is that most games just don't want to ban everything that needs to go, because usually when you get to such a point it means the-powers-that-be behind the game aren't doing their job in the first place, and likely relying on the "easy hype" overpowered cards will provide.

Here is an alternate rule's set that would absolutely require bans to work.

• First Turn Rules: No Special Restrictions
• Evolution: A Pokémon cannot normally Evolve unless it was in play during your opponent's previous turn

Sounds stupid but what gets banned/altered are all the cards that either can

• Attack for damage (significant amounts of damage?) first turn
• Energy acceleration/generic draw power that enables combos which expand first turn attack options
• Evolution acceleration

The goal is to get us back to a game where you have time to Evolve and set-up attacks still make sense at least on a player's first turn, preferably at least to their second. Odds are there would also be a bunch of stuff that would need banned/errata'd because a player's second turn is still too fast for it to do what it does. If we want Stage 2 main attackers to be viable (not dominant) then we can try to make them stronger or make everything else weaker or we can just slow the other stuff down long enough for Evolution to occur. There are a few other pieces, but long post is long enough.

Your entire goal seems to be what the U150/U100 format actually is...outside of some of the speedy Eeveelutions variants, pretty much all decks are very slow to take off...the only thing that seems to be an issue with your ideal is a lack of balance between Stage 2s and others, but that's kind of gone away with things like Trevenant and Eeveelutions, from what I can tell.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

Restrictions are unlikely to help. They only work in other games where it is specifically having X amount of a card in a deck that causes the problem. As Ace Spec cards helped to demonstrate, forcing something extremely powerful to be run as a single doesn't create more balance, it just results in either more "luck" from those that draw into their Ace Spec at the correct time or more abuse from the decks that were good at searching out their Ace Spec and/or reusing it.

At this point I think I have to agree with Bans. More errata may have to be issued as well. My concern is that most games just don't want to ban everything that needs to go, because usually when you get to such a point it means the-powers-that-be behind the game aren't doing their job in the first place, and likely relying on the "easy hype" overpowered cards will provide.

Here is an alternate rule's set that would absolutely require bans to work.

• First Turn Rules: No Special Restrictions
• Evolution: A Pokémon cannot normally Evolve unless it was in play during your opponent's previous turn

Sounds stupid but what gets banned/altered are all the cards that either can

• Attack for damage (significant amounts of damage?) first turn
• Energy acceleration/generic draw power that enables combos which expand first turn attack options
• Evolution acceleration

The goal is to get us back to a game where you have time to Evolve and set-up attacks still make sense at least on a player's first turn, preferably at least to their second. Odds are there would also be a bunch of stuff that would need banned/errata'd because a player's second turn is still too fast for it to do what it does. If we want Stage 2 main attackers to be viable (not dominant) then we can try to make them stronger or make everything else weaker or we can just slow the other stuff down long enough for Evolution to occur. There are a few other pieces, but long post is long enough.

I never really cared for ace specs but the idea was decent. I never liked printing cards with the end goal of them being over powered but limited to 1 through a mechanic. Gold Potion for example was never good and even at 4 per deck it wont make much of an impact while Computer Search even at 1 is powerful because it aids sweeping. My idea for a Ban/Restriction list is simple. Ban problematic card (heavy offenders like Toad EX, laser, anything else deemed unhealthy and centralizing) and restrict other cards that are not ban worthy but have too much utility like Juniper clones, Shaymin EX, Crobat, Trainer's Mail, etc to remove easy to pull off combo or just slow down turns in general.

With this list being supported, TPC can create more balance cards, which brings more diversity to the game. Unfortunately with EX Pokemon now being basic and rightfully so, there is no way to balance Basic, Basic EX and Evolution cards without creating a way to evolve them sooner, like BTS. Even if they do find a way, Stage 2 Pokemon tend to be really powelful with either attacks or abilities. Sadly stage 2 Pokemon are in the support role. Another bad this is the new Break mechanic could have done a lot with Stage 1 and 2 Pokemon but they messed that up.

The best way I can see it is to ban or limits the amount of Pokemon that can score OHKOs and force players to respect the game and play decks that require some kind of setup.

 

[Lanstar]

This is basically my personal opinion on how I'd create one particular metagame format: Do specific bans, one of the many I'd do being Shaymin EX, and put a hard limit on the number of trainer cards you may use in a deck. I'd limit the amount of trainers down to around 20.

Okay, so this sounds just crazy, right? I mean, only 20 Trainers? How do you make a deck these days with a mere 20 trainers?! Well, simple: Slow down the pace, and understand that attaching energy is a good thing.

I feel that trainer cards themselves exhert too much power over the game. As an experimental format, a trainer limit would be quite interesting to try out... Although I'd remove pokemon I consider "Pseudo-Trainers," so to avoid loopholes to this limitation. I think more cards could be used in that regard, though my ban list would need to adapt, too.

 

[asdjklghty]

Ban problematic card (heavy offenders like Toad EX, laser, anything else deemed unhealthy and centralizing) and restrict other cards that are not ban worthy but have too much utility like Juniper clones, Shaymin EX, Crobat, Trainer's Mail, etc to remove easy to pull off combo or just slow down turns in general.
The best way I can see it is to ban or limits the amount of Pokemon that can score OHKOs and force players to respect the game and play decks that require some kind of setup.

Toad will never be banned since it's not broken. No offence but your opinion doesn't have much merit to me since it sounds like you struggle to play against Toad and this forms your dislike for it.

This is basically my personal opinion on how I'd create one particular metagame format: Do specific bans, one of the many I'd do being Shaymin EX, and put a hard limit on the number of trainer cards you may use in a deck. I'd limit the amount of trainers down to around 20.

Okay, so this sounds just crazy, right? I mean, only 20 Trainers? How do you make a deck these days with a mere 20 trainers?! Well, simple: Slow down the pace, and understand that attaching energy is a good thing.

I feel that trainer cards themselves exhert too much power over the game. As an experimental format, a trainer limit would be quite interesting to try out... Although I'd remove pokemon I consider "Pseudo-Trainers," so to avoid loopholes to this limitation. I think more cards could be used in that regard, though my ban list would need to adapt, too.

Or pray to Arceus that you'll top deck everything. In the HGHS format, people ran so many Trainers. In the DP era, people ran more than 20 Trainers.

Now this is an extreme example but look at Theme decks or preconstructed decks. Now while they don't have any draw power, they'll still play the same way as your suggestion: slow paced game with who draws better in top deck mode wins. Is that fun? No. Seeing your opponent draw a bunch of cards on his/her first turn is not bad if you can do the same thing.

Again, this suggestion does nothing to address the luck based format.

 

[Otaku]

Toad will never be banned since it's not broken. No offence but your opinion doesn't have much merit to me since it sounds like you struggle to play against Toad and this forms your dislike for it.

You usually don't support these statements: this is why I have a hard time taking you seriously. I get that maybe you use "broken" differently than others: it is slang after all. That doesn't mean you don't need to explain why Seismitoad-EX isn't "broken".

Or pray to Arceus that you'll top deck everything. In the HGHS format, people ran so many Trainers. In the DP era, people ran more than 20 Trainers.

They didn't run too much more than 20 and I believe sometimes less in the first Modified Format or two. It was hard to run a lot when one of your main draw cards was Professor Elm.

The rest is competent deck building for a different card pool. In Pokémon we are quite spoiled when it comes to draw/search effects.

 

[asdjklghty]

You usually don't support these statements: this is why I have a hard time taking you seriously. I get that maybe you use "broken" differently than others: it is slang after all. That doesn't mean you don't need to explain why Seismitoad-EX isn't "broken".

Because all it does is Item lock for a DCE. That's it. Forget Bats, forget Garbodor. By itself, Toad isn't an autoloss so banning it would be stupid. If you can't deal with Toad, that's your problem and bad deck building/choices. No one argues about including Toad as a starter in a Steel (not Ray) deck. But when you pair it with Bats, Garbodor, etc people whine. Why? Because when they lose to it, they get frustrated. Nothing more to explain because there isn't any. Doesn't help that now people are so sensitive about every little thing they want every card they lose to be banned.

 

[Yo-yos]

I would rather just play past formats worlds decks and leave it at that,

I would just go towards a format rule change for this format would be bring back the turn 1 rare candy rule (I mean we already have broken vine space and wally,whats the big deal already might as well just balance the rest of the format), force the 2008-2010 supporter rule (this has become a problem in the game atm, people forgetting if they had played a supporter or not), keep the turn 1 no attacking rule but also not allow use of items turn 1.

 

[Lanstar]

I might point out something about this game, and luck: It's part of the game, and you have to live with it.

So you create a deck where there will another deck will have the advantage at the start. It will always happen, because mono-type decks often have the most synergy-based cards with each other to be consistent. You just can't put a counter in a deck that counters every other deck, and making a deck all in the name of countering every single threat in the meta is next to impossible.

Now, one thing about limiting trainers like my experimental idea: I think it neither increases nor decreases luck, but rather adjusts the pace of the game so fast-paced strategies aren't as 'fast paced' and runaway compared to several others that take time to mature. So you have only 20 trainers to decide upon using: What Pokemon or energy are you going to put into the game to balance out the limited number of trainers you can use? So you may get a dry hand... But your opposing trainer has the same chances to get one well.

Trainer cards aren't - and should never be - everything in the game. Well, at least I wish it were so...

 

[asdjklghty]

I might point out something about this game, and luck: It's part of the game, and you have to live with it. Trainer cards aren't - and should never be - everything in the game. Well, at least I wish it were so...

1. Doesn't mean you can't combat luck by making a deck/strategy consistent. You, you, you and all y'all do that so saying you can't do anything about luck all the time is hypocritical.

2. I don't know which TCG you're talking about because in Pokemon, Trainer cards have been big all the time even when Pokemon had Ability-based draw Abilities. Limiting Trainers, will make the game more about luck since some decks need more Trainers to get going at least on the first turn. Some need less. Making the number of a certain kind of card fixed is nonsensical to me. Remember Empotech, LuxChomp, DialgaChomp, MotherFlygon or the decks when exs were still in the format? All of them ran more than 20 Trainers and taking some away severely would have affected the Ability to execute to strategy and maybe deal with certain decks.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

Toad will never be banned since it's not broken. No offence but your opinion doesn't have much merit to me since it sounds like you struggle to play against Toad and this forms your dislike for it.

Sure, I don't like toad like everyone else because no player likes having 40+% of their deck shut down in one turn for the rest of the game. Why I say ban toad is because the effect to lock trainers is very powerful and easy to pull off. For 2 energy you can lock your opponent out of the game, which does 2 things. It prevents your opponent from playing, which is bad for any game where it took no effort to pull off and 2, prevents the player from making any defensive plays against you, such as playing Enhanced Hammer to remove DCE, any cards to break locks and healing options. The fact this attack is on a basic and really cheap means your opponent only has 1 turn to find options. The toad player going first or second means they can get their lock. This is too aggressive and centralizing for any game.

You, based on your comment are a toad player, which means to me you have no respect for the game if you can't see how bad a card like this is for the game. Like Otaku said, you can try supporting your argument...

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

Because all it does is Item lock for a DCE. That's it. Forget Bats, forget Garbodor. By itself, Toad isn't an autoloss so banning it would be stupid. If you can't deal with Toad, that's your problem and bad deck building/choices. No one argues about including Toad as a starter in a Steel (not Ray) deck. But when you pair it with Bats, Garbodor, etc people whine. Why? Because when they lose to it, they get frustrated. Nothing more to explain because there isn't any. Doesn't help that now people are so sensitive about every little thing they want every card they lose to be banned.

Not a single toad player uses the card without the mention cards in the deck. This is nothing to do with bad deck building or choices, it punishes good deck building and uses it against you, forcing you to play decks you don't want to or like, which is centralizing and makes formats stale and boring. Even Toad be itself is bad because it can give you a turn or many to do what ever you want because your opponent can't play. Remember, for a DCE you can lock a opponent out of the game, which is almost free considering how much draw decks have access to.

What you should do is be honest with yourself and say "yes, Toad is a problem for creativity and deck building".