Discussion Is Delinquent OP?

Agidyne

Agidyne

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hello all,

I have been playing the pokemon tcg for a few years now but I am new to this forum, so forgive me if I put this thread in the wrong place.

Anyway, I saw the new supporter from RoTBS and thought it might break the game in a way. The idea is simple:
4 houndoom ex
3-4 Bunnelby (multi-strike)
4 red card
4 vs seeker
4 deliquents
4-or more stadiums

Boom, all of a sudden your opponent has one card in their hand the whole game while you are milling them and you have plenty of free space to work with. The only real limitation I see is not being able to get your red cards from the discard, but you could even run a couple of judge to set yourself up for next turn. Any thoughts on how this strategy could be even better or perhaps not as OP as it sounds to me?
 
The setup for this combo is strong, but it is quite a buildup before it isn't wasting your turn also.
You need to draw at least 5 specific cards before you can do it once(pokemon, energy, red card, delinquent and stadium), and after that you need 3 more cards to repeat( red card, delinquent/vs seeker and a stadium).
Take this with the fact that you can't use any other supporter each time, you might most likely put yourself in an as nasty dead draw as your enemy.
Yes I can see it being useful if they got a buildup deck and you use the 1 energy mill strat. But I don't see it being over powered.

But the red card + delinquent combo is so strong that I believe we will see it being used in most standard decks also.
 
You need an unlikely good hand and a lot of luck to make it work. A Basic Pokémon, Red Card, Delinquent and a stadium. The deck list will probably need to run many Basic Pokémon. If you do not start the game a mulligan could be really bad. Most regular decks play 4 stadium cards, however I rarely start with a stadium card in hand. A Delinquent deck should definitely run more than the usual 4 stadium cards. Or else your strategy is lost.

And then you have to continue to let it work, I think this is the tricky part. After you got this almost perfect hand you also need a new stadium and a Delinquent. Or else your opponent will slowly recover. This deck should definitely play Trainers' Mail. You can't refresh your hand either with the use of draw supporters, so I think It's necessary to have other means like Acro Bike, Trainers' Mail and Pokémon with drawing abilities like Octillery, Slurpuff and Shaymin EX.

...That's why I'm not very frightened of scary lady. The meta game is so fast It's hard to slow it down. If you don't get to start the game then your opponent may be able to set up half of his or her deck.

Note: all of this is speculation...
 
Last edited:
You know what? This card is getting more discussion than Lysandre's Trump Card, and that got banned. Considering that this is only a 2 card combo that very much corrupts your opponent beyond repair turn 1, if this card gets banned, I just want everyone to acknowledge that I called it.
 
It is something to be concerned I think. Red Card and this is quite strong but I can't see decks making the space for it. Maybe the meta will evolve to this. I mean most decks aren't draw supporter heavy so I guess anything can happen. Time to test!
 
gumball51321 said:
You know what? This card is getting more discussion than Lysandre's Trump Card, and that got banned. Considering that this is only a 2 card combo that very much corrupts your opponent beyond repair turn 1, if this card gets banned, I just want everyone to acknowledge that I called it.
Click to expand...

Trump got banned due to making some games taking over 40 min to complete, making the time limit in tournaments running out more often then not.
I would compare this card more to the Toad, just 2 cards needed to start the pain, and with all the crying from people that Toad should be banned, nothing happened. I see what you are saying but I do not think this will be banned. They have not showed that they are banning things people think is "anti fun", just things that break the meta of how games are played to much. As in turn 1 wins or endless games.
 
Last edited:
Here's a scenario. I get Red Carded down to 4 cards, then my opponent uses Delinquent. The chance that I won't have either 1. Sycamore, 2. Birch, 3. Shaymin, or 4. Trainer's Mail/Acro Bike (I'm not even going to list all the options in Expanded) in my hand to have be the 1 card that isn't discarded is SUPER low early game if I'm playing the right count of what I'm using. Is there the chance? Sure. There's also the chance I could also top deck any of these cards just mentioned. There's also the chance of you not being able to get the T1 Delinquent, and even if you do, if I'm able to hit the card I need to get a new hand, what then? You wasted your entire turn milling through your deck trying to get Red Card, a Stadium and Delinquent, and now I'm a turn ahead of setting up.

Delinquent is a good card, don't get me wrong, but the people who try creating an entire deck around it are going to be very upset to find out that the chance of this actually working is not consistent enough to do well in Tournament play.
 
Okay... let me explain why I see this card as really bad for the metagame...

Right now, supporter-based draw is rather weak, but other ways to draw are incredibly powerful. Shaymin, Trainer's Mail, Acro Bike, Ultra Ball, Unown, Battle Compressor, Hoopa, Etc. have really sped up the development of strategies at the start of matches. I've seen people set up their strategies on turn one without even having to use a draw supporter - and capable of using disruptive cards like Hex Maniac first turn.

Now we have this card. With all the ways you can start a match ready to perform your powerful strategy, you now also have a card that can directly force your opponent into discarding 3 cards for their hand. With red card, the opponent would be left with only one card to use on their first turn. Given the speed of the game as of right now, this is really significant. And the three cards that the victim must discard, and make sure they could still be able to refresh their hand... Discarding them could literally effect how they must play the rest of the match! It could be, say, a Special Energy, a Hammer, a VS Seeker, a Max Potion, or other cards that, once discarded, cannot come back to play again as of now.

Now, the worst part: It also can prevent your opponent from using this same powerful Delinquent effect against you. They would have to be lucky enough to have a Shaymin left in their hand and capable of using its ability to refresh their hand. If not, they would have to use up their supporter to refresh their hand - and thus cannot Delinquent back. In other words, this card mainly benefits the one that uses it first, and it imposes luck in part of who is capable of using this powerful card.

Hopefully you see why this card really disturbs me. When something this powerful can potentially swing the balance of the game to the card user even before the victim can even play their turn, that to me sounds too much like how a strong donk deck can mess up a metagame. I'm really not looking forward to this card coming out...
 
Lanstar said:
Okay... let me explain why I see this card as really bad for the metagame...
Click to expand...

I have a really hard time seeing anyone pulling of a Delinquent combo on turn 1 constantly without having a deck that is totally gonna dead draw forever after that.

There is lots of cards that swings heavy to first hitter on mirror matches, Toad, Trevenant, Giratina and so on.
And the fact that you as the victim gets to select which 3 cards to discard, if you got a supporter, vs seeker or shaymin you can just hold on to that. Or if all you need next turn is an energy card to start attacking, you can hold on to that.
Already after getting Red Carded, you are lucky to hold 1 good card most of the time, so then having to discard the 3 bad cards isn't that damaging in my point of view.
I believe the meta will pretty easy counter it. Less use of Ultra Ball, more Energy Letters, less stadiums, more Sycamore, more copies of important cards, more gravediggers, Lucky Helmet might even see more play.
Your opponent needs at least 3 cards to do the combo so just a single Red Card would interrupt that.

But whatever anyone thinks, I believe we should keep an open mind too it until we see the card in play. It is always easy to cry over something that will change the status quo, but the meta needs to evolve to keep things interesting :)
 
It's not overpowered. It's a good disruption card, but certainly not overpowered. It requires three cards to work successfully (Delinquent, Red Card, and a Stadium of your choice), and relies on the opponent not drawing an out to more draw off of the Red Card. It's certainly a strong concept, but with all the draw options we have right now (Shaymin EX, Trainers' Mail (sometimes), Professor Sycamore, Professor Birch's Observations and Judge to name a few), it feels like it's too risky to be a main deck strategy. Also, keep in mind that they don't really have a one card hand, it's two (because of their draw-for-turn), so it's not as hard as one may think to draw that out.

Another thing to note is that being Judged on the first turn isn't that devastating because of all of the draw options available (as outlined above), and making the opponent discard three can actually help them make the right play. For example, if I had a Professor Sycamore, an energy, and two VS Seekers, I'd be very unwilling to go for the Sycamore knowing I'd lose the Seekers. But force me to discard three cards, and you make the decision a lot easier for me.

So while the concept appears strong (and under the right circumstances, it is), it's certainly not overpowered.
 
I generally don't like cards that can ruin a players first turn before they had a chance to play a single card. Like Lanstar said, this could affect how they play the rest of the game. Anything can happen. Lets say you Red Card someone into a Birch and 3 Max Potion, they would be forced to discard at least 2 Max Potion for free. This effectively cripples the player. If the card gets banned it would be for its ability to cause odd interactions and remove autonomy from that player. You start the game at -5. In Yughoh, such concepts were removed from the game because of how it affects the first turn and all turns after it.

Sure starting hands may have a way to draw cards but this isn't something that happens all the time. We watched streams where players weren't able to get anything at all. There were even cases when a player got N to 6 at the start and didn't draw anything. This concept IMO isn't healthy for the game, no matter how much draw is around.
 
So I kinda theory crafted a deck which I think could work pretty well to cripple the opponent, let me know what you guys think;

4 sesimtoad-ex
2 shaymin
1 hoopa
2 empoleon
2 regice

4 red card
4 delinquent
2 parallel city
2 silent lab
4 rough seas
1 float stone
4 acro bike
4 trainers mail
3 compressor
4 vs seeker
4 ultra ball
1 az
2 Archie's ace

4 dce
5 water

It's actually an idea combined with empoleon/toad variant which I think could really fit well with the item lock it provides. I was thinking of using manectric at first, but that's too much of resource to handle for an already resource reliant deck.
 
Thats a good combo. If this card does become good, we could see decks that can run Archie/Maxie run it as a counter.
 
Think about it this way: If your opponent has a Toad out, and they play 4 Shaymin( or if they play Silent Lab), they can easily hit the combo, as well as hit it the entire game basically effortlessly.
If that's the situation, then here's a theoretically good draft list:

Pokémon:4
4 Toad

Trainers:43
Delinquent x4
Sycamore x4
Judge x1
Silent Lab x4
Rough Seas x4
Muscle Band x1
Red Card x4
VS Seeker x4
Battle Compressor x2
Acro Bike x4
Trainers' Mail x4
Enhanced Hammer x2
Crushing Hammer x2
Dive Ball x3

Energy:8
DCE x4
Water x4

Free Space: 5
BOOM: Suddenly, your opponent is out of the game turn 1, even if you go second. They can't play Shaymins, VS Seekers, and even if they play energy, there's hammer, and with the small amount of energy they might scrape up during the game, rough seas is there too. And God forbid what this deck can do in expanded with Magnezone, and Hooligans Jim and Cas.

Let's all face it, this card's gonna get banned.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
^"IF" it win's every tournament, then yes it will be banned.

I think it should be ran this way, (skeleton list)

4 bunnelby
2-2 or 3-3 crawdaunt
2 shaymin EX

6 dark energy

4 parallel city
4 roller skates
4 red card
4 deliquent
4 sycamore
4 vs seeker
2-3 trick shovle
4 SSU
1 AZ
 
Thanks for the responses! I might do a test run of it and see how insane it can be :D
 
Yo-yos said:
^"IF" it win's every tournament, then yes it will be banned.

I think it should be ran this way, (skeleton list)

4 bunnelby
2-2 or 3-3 crawdaunt
2 shaymin EX

6 dark energy

4 parallel city
4 roller skates
4 red card
4 deliquent
4 sycamore
4 vs seeker
2-3 trick shovle
4 SSU
1 AZ
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. Shiftry didn't get much play at all except for online and a leagues( Not league challenges). It was banned after about a week within the release of AOR. Also keep in mind, that just because something runs away in tournaments with plenty of easy wins doesn't mean it will get banned. Look at Seismitoad, it easily wins tournaments all the time, and some decks just die against it. The card by itself completely ruined stage 2's in the entire game, yet people still play them. The situation with Seismitoad though, is that not being able to beat it is most likely due to bad deck building, as it is really easy to counter it if you know how to. The situation with this though, is that you can get corrupted beyond repair turn 1, exactly like Shiftry donk. And look at how that turned out. Basically, the point I'm trying to make is that a card doesn't have to win big tournaments in order to win. Basically the opposite in fact. If a card was that big of a problem this early off, they would try to ban it BEFORE any major tournaments( If you recall the time of Shiftry).
 
Yet seismetoad is tier 2 in both standard and expanded with only 2 tournament wins over 2 weeks not by itself with another deck to credit it, yet decks like vespiquen and night march is pilling up more cities wins.

If delinquent does as much dmg to ptcgo as shiftry within a week with a 90% win ratio to every deck in a format, then we can compare it to shiftry, otherwise until then there is no point in saying that it is.
 
Yo-yos said:
Yet seismetoad is tier 2 in both standard and expanded with only 2 tournament wins over 2 weeks not by itself with another deck to credit it, yet decks like vespiquen and night march is pilling up more cities wins.

If delinquent does as much dmg to ptcgo as shiftry within a week with a 90% win ratio to every deck in a format, then we can compare it to shiftry, otherwise until then there is no point in saying that it is.
Click to expand...
I would agree with you, but no one talked about Shiftry until Ancient Origins was already out. The reason I do compare Delinquent to Shiftry is because people are already talking about it 2-3 months before it even comes out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top