Losing to the Game

[crystal_pidgeot]

As a content developer and soon to be artist for intractable arts and the most important thing for me with all kinds of media is to make them as enjoyable for all, whether or not you lose. Respawn times should be fast if you have a game where you die in a single hit often and all deaths should be the fault of the player and not because the game threw bull crap at you or hit the player with things like leaps of faith, see this video here;

What am I getting at? Well, as a content designer, I have to find that balance of control while minimizing things they cant control. Now these things are (or should be) easy for PvE game but when you have a PvP game, which the Pokemon Trading Card Game is, the developer has more responsibility to the players of their game to not make things, well, toxic for the players.

How many of you player the Tekken series and played against Eddy? You remember that feeling you have of "he's so cheap" "All you did was spam" and not really understanding that feeling but you knew it was right? Yeah, Eddy is an example of bad character design because at times, what can you do? Even the best players in Tekken lose to this character or something close to home; Mewtwo and Shadow Mewtwo in Pokken Tournament. They just remove options from the player.. you know, losing to the character and not the player.

When I lose to something, I want it to be my fault that I lost, and I'm sure you do too. Its the sign of a good game! You can learn something from your losses or deaths. A lot of the time you just don't have a firm grasp on the mechanics and that's okay, because you'll learn them as you get better at the game but currently with the Pokemon TCG, the player is being punished just for playing.

Night March and related decks are an example of losing to the game and not the player. Its not the player that beat you, its the deck and I can almost guarantee that you have MUCH more fun when you're not playing against lock decks and NM but this is what the developers seem to want for their game. I don't like losing to things I can't control and thats one of them. With item lock, what do you do when your opponent goes first and they get a turn one trev? Before you even have a chance to play, the game is over. Suddenly the deck you spent hours testing and building can't work because you have no access to the things to make it work like if you were playing in a video game tournament and 3 of your buttons on the controller just didn't work. You lose and they your opponent says "good game" when you're like "what, really". It wasn't a good game because you couldn't play. I didn't lose to you, the player. I lost to the deck.

This is why I don't like the new card Karen against Night March because in that case, it would be a card winning the game rather than my own player skill. If I beat Night March, it would have been because of Karen and the Night March player would feel like I just got lucky because I drew that card. Sure I don't like NM but if I win like that, its not like I did anything and its not like I even outplayed my opponent. I just played a single card that, to the the NM player, says they lose.

Now there are things to consider here. Its not the fault of the game if I lose because I played a low energy count and missed a few turns of energy drops. Its my fault as a player for taking that risk so I could run an extra Muscle Band, which in a twisted fate back fired because I couldn't attack anyway or when I get benched because I decided to play low Pokemon counts. As a player I can control some things. If I lose to those things, its up to me to look at the reason I lost and fix it but against NM, what does one do if they get everything on ther first turn? Against item/lock decks, what do you do when they shut you out of your resources? In Best cases you get one turn to play but in most other cases, there is a 50/50 chance that you don't get to play. So most of the time, I'm losing to the deck, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth because its not something I can get better at. I simply have to hope things go my way and when the game is trying to say its fun, losing to things I can't control makes the game less fun.

Sure there are somethings you can't avoid. A bad matchup is a bad matchup and there are little ways to work around weakness but in that case, its just game mechanics and what happens, happen but this doesn't mean the game should be like this. Its the job of the developers to make sure things are as balanced as possible and for the TCG, they should make that at least a handful of Pokemon from each type are viable and with how they have been mixing up weakness, this may be less likely at thing but maybe they should move away from the x2 weakenss and treat it like resistance but that's for another subject.

I feel the biggest thing to take away here is, just like with Super Mario Maker, if you give the players the means to break your game, they will. Like bad level design where its clear the maker has no idea what makes for a well designed levels, players will play these decks because they want to win and overall that the game allows for it. Karen is a card issued to deal with it but the next thing are all the lock decks. Remember when back in the day how hard it was to keep a lock? There was a houndoom that had an example of how a lock should be but nowadays, a lock deck has to start as soon as the pokemon hits play and unlike video games, TCGs have a ton of effects that can cause unintended effects.

Its clear the developers intended for the new vileplume to work with broken vine-space and if it wasn't, why wasn't this researched and prevented? It was clear the players weren't happy with X-Ball but the developers made the attack 3 more times. For a player like me who want the ability to lose on my own terms and learn from it, its clear the developers don't care for the game. Why do they keep making these things? Well, big business (and yes, Pokemon is a business and not your friend) likes to make money and printing these over power concepts make money because it whats the players, for better or for worse, like. The player will always follow the path of least resistance because it requires less work than actually understanding the cards.

Look at the new m Gardevoir card that is coming out. A player like me saw that it was BROKEN in its first translation. A Pokemon that can attack for ZERO energy that can effortlessly KO a mega Pokemon, that is worth 2 prize cards (this is important!) and can do it turn after turn, WHILE having the very strong support of BOTH fairy AND psychic and the players, from what I read, were saying the card was bad because it can't KO everything in the meta in a single hit. Are you kidding me!? Despite all of what it has going for it. Its because the players want the wins given to them. When you lose to such a deck, are you losing to the player or the deck?

I know this is getting late into it but what do I mean by losing to the player or losing to the deck? Aren't they the same thing? Well, no. When you lose to the player, you are losing to that persons skill, his play style and his knowledge of the game and deck he plays. When you lose to Night March, you are losing to the deck itself and not the players skill or knowledge of the game. Take this video of me playing Night March.

(WARNING, IT VERY VULGAR) If link gets removed, its fine but trying to prove a point

This was my first time playing Night March and yes, I make a lot of jokes here but I never played this deck before and I wrecked with it. I didn't use any of my skill here. I simply just played cards as they came and at no point was I ever worried because I always had an answer. I was winning because of the deck, not because I was actually playing well. To give credit to Night March, I did learn a lot about the deck and how it works by playing it but its clear I was only winning because I was playing this deck.

I think its time to end this since I can go on forever but what do you all think about this and how it should affect gameplay? I know I can't be the only one thinking this. How do you feel about losing to the game rather than the player?

Thank you for reading!

 

[Scubasage]

I definitely agree with your sentiment of it being frustrating to lose to the game rather than the player, but the thing about TCGs, and in particular the Pokemon TCG, is that it's very hard to actually lose to the player. How often do players actually outplay someone? Is it really them out playing the opponent or just getting lucky by having the answer? If I know their only way to win is to use card X, but I have no way to stop that card, and they had it, is it because they played well or is it because they got lucky? If they held off from using card X for multiple turns in anticipation of such a checkmate-like scenario, then yeah, they outplayed the other guy. If they just happened to have no reason to use the card until then, it's not really outplaying, is it?

Likewise, losing to "bad beats", ie, drawing the wrong cards at the wrong time, is very common in TCGs. You can't really do anything about it if all 3 of your main attackers are literally in the last 7 cards in the deck/prizes (actually happened to me >.>).

I feel that in Pokémon especially, bad beats or good beats for the opponent is the reason for a loss in the vast majority of matches. Why do I feel that? Because Pokémon in general is a very solitaire-like game. Unlike Magic the Gathering or Yugioh, Pokémon has only one method of interacting with the opponent on their turn, which would be passive Abilities that affect the opponent. Yugioh has Trap Cards, Quick-Play Spell cards, and a plethora of Monster effects that can activate on the opponents turn, from the Hand, Field or Graveyard (discard pile). Magic has Instants, spells designed around the fact that you can play them during your opponents turn from your hand at more or less any time you wish, as well as Activated Abilities of any Permanent card, which essentially follow the same rule as Instants except you can't hide your plans by keeping the ability hidden in your hand like an Instant would be.

In those games, because you and the opponent are able to interact with each other at the same time at more or less any time during the game, it feels much more like a back and forth where you can play smart and outplay the opponent, or play badly and lose because of it. An example of this would be back in 2012 when I played my first ever MTG Legacy tournament with some friends. The tournament was the Mana Deprived Canadian National Championships. Not an officially licenced event, but similar to say the PokeBeach cup, just on a larger scale. Long story short I end up 2nd in Swiss, we start the top 16 playoffs, and I lose my match because of a misplay on my part. I was in game 3 and if I had survived the next turn I had lethal, and I had a way to do just that, but I conserved my card to try and stop a more powerful card of his instead of killing the one that would kill my only creature. So I lost. I still remember the circumstances exactly, because it was such a big tournament (relatively speaking) and I got so far only to fail because of my own errors.

With Pokémon...that's something that's a lot harder to experience as there's a lot less interaction available to players by the rules of the game. That's not to say Pokémon doesn't take skill, because it does. It's just that the ceiling on the skill is much lower than other TCGs because of the mechanics.

On the topic of M Gardevoir, since you brought it up, I disagree with your assessment. Yes, her initial translation was broken, but that doesn't make her good when the game is how it is right now. There's so many things that are even more broken, and require less effort to use and abuse, that she is weak by comparison. In other words, in a vacuum, broken, in context, hardly. And when you look at things from a competitive player's mindset, context is key.

Is it healthy for a card like Karen to be printed? I'd argue yes, as it allows more interaction with the opponent than is otherwise available and therefore raises the skill ceiling slightly. However, this is a long term view of the card. Right now Night March is very dominant, and Karen is a very, very strong, skill-less counter. But having Karen around opens up design space for the people who make the sets. Prior to Karen being around, the discard was essentially off limits because of Trump Card's history and Night March. It was very unlikely they'd print anything interesting involving it because everything has been so over the top previously. Karen, however, means there is a reliable answer available to counteract the old, mistaken design choices of Night March. Having such an answer around lets them experiment with other discard pile effects, knowing that if they end up accidentally making Night Match 2.0, there's already a strong answer present for players, and Night March 2.0 won't become as dominant as the original. At the same time, while Karen is strong, she doesn't eliminate deck out as an option like Trump Card did, and she doesn't allow the player to recycle all those important Trainers that help power through and set up strategies.

 

[PokeDadTC]

This game changed significantly when Shaymin EX was printed (imo for the worse). I personally started playing pokemon tcg during the phantom forces period and remember being impressed with the power of night march back then, but it still had its limitations and could be challenged. After roaring skies everything became extremely fast, and non-draw supporters became usable on turns that could still net you 20+ cards. Why can Trevenant play 3-4 Wallys in a deck with hardly any repercussion? How nuts is it that night march can get DCE, dimension valley, draw a ton of cards to enable itself to get 180+ amounts of damage and still somehow play Lysandre on a first attack turn (second turn overall) to knock out a bench-sitter powering up energy? Same deal with Vespiqueen. Why does a deck like Speed Entei get blacksmith after blacksmith after blacksmith? Shaymin. That card, sadly, must destroy hopes for any casual-type player. I see it in leagues. A casual player will watch a turn 1 loaded with Shaymins and go "Jesus...Forget this game" pretty much immediately, which is kind of what I think the OP is alluding to by "losing to the game" or the concept of basically watching your opponent play solitaire vs. you.

Jirachi was far superior in terms of game balance. It gave you the ability to get out of a bad draw with an ultra/level ball, but it wasn't a multi-use-per-turn deal because it was limited by supporter limitation.

The Shaymin card has definitely created a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" situation. I'm sure some people love it...cuz there is nothing more annoying than having dead draw and Shaymin does solve that issue. But man, adding Shaymin to the mix was like going from a mini van to a Ferrari. The gap is so wide from what was pre-Roaring Skies to what is now.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea if the Shaymin card was just thrown out, would the meta be more or less diverse? I can't definitively say. I'd love for PTCGO to shut Shaymin off for a few weeks just to see what would come out of the woodwork. My hunch is more variety at the top. But highly likely that my confirmation bias is speaking to me on that expectation.

Que sera sera.

 

[Lanstar]

Reading your post... I think it would be a great topic for a Pokebeach blog article, if you're willing to write one. I think your insight here as a content could be very valuable for us to understand the problems of this game.

For me, the only times I've ever felt that I lost to a player vs towards the game itself are against truly clean matchups that really are highly dependent on skill and decision making: Ones of which neither of the decks were prepared to face each other, as they were not really the 'super high tier' types of deck matchups we know about. For instance, M Mewtwo Y vs. M Scizor, or M Manectric vs. Palkia/Kyurem EX. Even M Gardevior vs. Serperior, or Glalie-EX/Slurpuff vs. Mega Tyranitar.

Matchups like these are many times more fun to play, as the outcomes are hard to determine! You have to really think cautiously of what your opponent has in mind of doing and what strategy they are planning out. Scouting out the opponent's moves are quite important to figuring this out to find a counter strategy you're uncertain about. The same goes for your opponent, whose equally in the dark.

This sense of anticipation, sadly, feels like it turns into a lost art, when you play the Monolithic deck archtypes we all know about. Those crazy BDIF's make people feel like they are 'losing to the game' rather than the player, as both players literally can scout the outcomes and tactics immediately after each player reveals their starting Pokemon. Take Night march for instance: When you see your opponent playing that deck, you already know their plans. "Oh... It's yet another boring night march deck," and watch for minutes the same old horror movie unfolding. The same goes for Vespiquen/Vileplume and Trevenant Break and the like. "Should have play 'this' deck instead," you think to yourself...

For me, the top decks are so ridiculously overpowered over the other available options that there's too much predictability in what will happen, and what decides the outcome of the match. When I play against one of them with a untiered deck that, while it is well built and incredibly balanced it isn't a true counter to that deck, I feel like I'm not facing a 'player' but instead facing the matchup-creation RNG snakebiting me into playing an unfair autoloss matchup.

I must tell you all: I'm no longer afraid to forfeit matches at the start against Night March and first turn Item Lock when I play online. Those decks don't make good matches at all, and just playing through them is straight out unfun, even if you do beat them.

 

[tehsquirrel]

My other TCG experience is Magic and I have to say that while I like Pokemon a lot more, there is certainly more luck in Pokemon. There is way too much put on winning the coin flip to go first in Pokemon, and there is no way that you should be item locked before having a turn in a game where you can only do things during your turn. It basically creates a much more rock-paper-scissors type of meta, and the weakness X 2 greatly exaggerates this further. The structure of the game is what allows night march and vespiquen to survive, along with players complaining about the power of EX's. They are printing answers and expanding the skill cap of the game by including more Pokemon that can attack multiple Pokemon, trickier abilities, and offsetting (counter) cards that can fill multiple purposes.

I know when you start a game with a fighting type deck and you see the random grass type deck not only win the coin flip, drop a T1 item lock, and hit for 2X with weakness it feels like something is wrong with the game itself. Shaymin-EX makes it all more consistent, but also generally faster.

 

[asdjklghty]

Look at the new m Gardevoir card that is coming out. A player like me saw that it was BROKEN in its first translation. A Pokemon that can attack for ZERO energy that can effortlessly KO a mega Pokemon, that is worth 2 prize cards (this is important!) and can do it turn after turn, WHILE having the very strong support of BOTH fairy AND psychic and the players, from what I read, were saying the card was bad because it can't KO everything in the meta in a single hit. Are you kidding me!? Despite all of what it has going for it. Its because the players want the wins given to them. When you lose to such a deck, are you losing to the player or the deck?

Except that it's gonna take time to get set up, at least 1 turn unlike NM and Shiftry/Hammers is gonna be good. Its attack will shut off Stadiums and Tools.

I know this is getting late into it but what do I mean by losing to the player or losing to the deck? Aren't they the same thing? Well, no. When you lose to the player, you are losing to that persons skill, his play style and his knowledge of the game and deck he plays. When you lose to Night March, you are losing to the deck itself and not the players skill or knowledge of the game.

I agree with you 100%.

This game changed significantly when Shaymin EX was printed (imo for the worse). I personally started playing pokemon tcg during the phantom forces period and remember being impressed with the power of night march back then

I have to disagree. Shaymin makes other decks stronger so it evens things out and there has always been a period in the game where you have to "draw till you have x cards in hand". Before, it was Tropical Beach. Before that, it was in the era where I got introduced to the game and it was with Uxie which was even more broken cause you drew till you had 7 cards and it gave only 1 prize.

I must tell you all: I'm no longer afraid to forfeit matches at the start against Night March and first turn Item Lock when I play online. Those decks don't make good matches at all, and just playing through them is straight out unfun, even if you do beat them.

I was 1012% with your post until I saw you think Item lock is ruining the game. It isn't. And I don't say this as a control player generally. It isn't hard to play without Items, at least temporarily. With the cards we have now, even a T1 item lock isn't that effective anymore. And that's if you go first. You're not starting the game all the time. If you think Quaking Punch or Forest's Curse inhibits you, that's your deck building skill/in-game decision making, not the game.

What's making this game too luck-based is decks like NM as you mentioned and stuff like ArchieStoise. The ones that OHKO everything from T1 are dangerous to the game.

 

[Latte1504]

Why can Trevenant play 3-4 Wallys in a deck with hardly any repercussion? How nuts is it that night march can get DCE, dimension valley, draw a ton of cards to enable itself to get 180+ amounts of damage and still somehow play Lysandre on a first attack turn (second turn overall) to knock out a bench-sitter powering up energy? Same deal with Vespiqueen. Why does a deck like Speed Entei get blacksmith after blacksmith after blacksmith? Shaymin. That card, sadly, must destroy hopes for any casual-type player. I see it in leagues. A casual player will watch a turn 1 loaded with Shaymins and go "Jesus...Forget this game" pretty much immediately, which is kind of what I think the OP is alluding to by "losing to the game" or the concept of basically watching your opponent play solitaire vs. you.

This situation could still happen, but it would take a much more dedicated engine. Think about cards like Roller Scares, Acro Bike, and Trainers' Mail. I have a Night March deck that will constantly go through up to 30 cards with only one Shaman-EX.

I have to disagree. Shaymin makes other decks stronger so it evens things out and there has always been a period in the game where you have to "draw till you have x cards in hand". Before, it was Tropical Beach. Before that, it was in the era where I got introduced to the game and it was with Uxie which was even more broken cause you drew till you had 7 cards and it gave only 1 prize.

There is a difference. Tropical Beach ended your turn, so you couldn't play cards or attack after using it. With Uxie, there weren't many decks that would be able to get an Uxie without the aid of a Supporter. Even then, it was a liability due to Garchomp C LV.X, who was able to snipe it for an easy prize.

 

[Lanstar]

Except that it's gonna take time to get set up, at least 1 turn unlike NM and Shiftry/Hammers is gonna be good. Its attack will shut off Stadiums and Tools.


I agree with you 100%.


I have to disagree. Shaymin makes other decks stronger so it evens things out and there has always been a period in the game where you have to "draw till you have x cards in hand". Before, it was Tropical Beach. Before that, it was in the era where I got introduced to the game and it was with Uxie which was even more broken cause you drew till you had 7 cards and it gave only 1 prize.


I was 1012% with your post until I saw you think Item lock is ruining the game. It isn't. And I don't say this as a control player generally. It isn't hard to play without Items, at least temporarily. With the cards we have now, even a T1 item lock isn't that effective anymore. And that's if you go first. You're not starting the game all the time. If you think Quaking Punch or Forest's Curse inhibits you, that's your deck building skill/in-game decision making, not the game.

What's making this game too luck-based is decks like NM as you mentioned and stuff like ArchieStoise. The ones that OHKO everything from T1 are dangerous to the game.

I'm quite used to facing laser-less toad pretty well... It's when item lock occurs even before you have even a chance to use any items at all that I can't stand.

Let's face it: Items have become extremely crucial to setting up strategies at the get-go. Not even getting a single turn at all to play them feels like being unable to actually try to set up, compared to having at least one turn to get what you want to accomplish in your strategy done until the lock comes.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

I was 1012% with your post until I saw you think Item lock is ruining the game. It isn't. And I don't say this as a control player generally. It isn't hard to play without Items, at least temporarily. With the cards we have now, even a T1 item lock isn't that effective anymore. And that's if you go first. You're not starting the game all the time. If you think Quaking Punch or Forest's Curse inhibits you, that's your deck building skill/in-game decision making, not the game.

What's making this game too luck-based is decks like NM as you mentioned and stuff like ArchieStoise. The ones that OHKO everything from T1 are dangerous to the game.

This is different for players like me. My item setup isn't 'draw as quickly through my deck as possible'. Its for helping me setup and maintaining my deck. Skill and deck building has nothing to do with it and being locked out of items is just that, being locked out of items. The game doesn't care how good I am at it. A player who is worse than me can still turn off my items and still win from that alone and saying that the person is at fault for losing to it is quite the claim, considering world class players still lose to this to this day. Its not a problem with the deck but how easy it is to lock the player out of the game. I'm not losing to you, I'm losing to item lock because it makes about 34+ cards dead draws while you have access to everything. This ideal is like a rich person getting mad at a poor person complaining about not being able to afford to live.

 

[poke4trade]

The bottom line has always been if you item lock or over power for first turn dominance, you my friend, are using broken mechanics in the game. It does not make a great trainer, it just means you've used broken mechanics to win the game. In other words, someone gave you the code, and you used it. ab,ab,up,down,up,down,left,right,left,right,select,start.

For me, I just admit to using the code, yes it is broken therefore I use it. The game wins my games not me.

It is harder to deal with trainers when they honestly swallow the line that they are winning games and don't admit to the broken mechanics. It is what agitates most really good trainers the most.

 

[asdjklghty]

This is different for players like me. My item setup isn't 'draw as quickly through my deck as possible'. Its for helping me setup and maintaining my deck. Skill and deck building has nothing to do with it and being locked out of items is just that, being locked out of items. The game doesn't care how good I am at it. A player who is worse than me can still turn off my items and still win from that alone and saying that the person is at fault for losing to it is quite the claim, considering world class players still lose to this to this day. Its not a problem with the deck but how easy it is to lock the player out of the game. I'm not losing to you, I'm losing to item lock because it makes about 34+ cards dead draws while you have access to everything. This ideal is like a rich person getting mad at a poor person complaining about not being able to afford to live.

I'll then ask you this: how does one play the TCG "properly"? If it weren't for effects of cards, how does one even play? It's because it's a card game, not a video game or a physical sport. Skill isn't only determined by how you actually can do something. The cards do some of the work for you.

There is has to be a line between skill and luck. If you don't like how luck is a big factor in this game, don't play. Even Jason K said it's a luck-based game. That doesn't mean there isn't skill but you need to accept that there's both in this game.

 

[poke4trade]

When you actually play Pokemon. I mean drop all the first turn Shanagins. There is a ton of Skill and Luck involved in the game. And it really opens up the game, when it comes to setup, maneuvering, and cards -- There is a greater back forth, and huge swings in the game that are unpredictable and fun for both players. There are tons of defensive decks and offensive decks that don't revolve around the same overpower, item lock themes. My son and I do it all the time by calling a card and dropping it. It's really really really fun!

Any game should strive to set each player in a winnable position at start of game. There are at times where a game will be based off of first turn dominance, but the consistency of that happening should be extremely limited, in other words -- lucky. Pokemon thrives on creating circumstance for the outcome of the game to be determined by first turn by building consistency to that outcome. Because the first turn out come breaks the rule of extremely limited, and is now considered consistent then the mechanics are winning games, not the trainers.

@crystal_pidgeot is absolutely right to point this issue out. Just being around games all my life, I don't know of another game where the first turn will determine the outcome of the game in such a consistent manner.

NM, Villplume, Trev, and Seismitoad DL's are all decks that play with first turn dominance. They all have mechanics that works consistently and that is why we play them. We inherently accept that the game mechanics work in a consistent manner, breaking the rule of extremely limited, or lucky. So yes, we accept the mechanics of the game will win us more games, than we will.

 

[asdjklghty]

When you actually play Pokemon. I mean drop all the first turn Shanagins. There is a ton of Skill and Luck involved in the game. And it really opens up the game, when it comes to setup, maneuvering, and cards -- There is a greater back forth, and huge swings in the game that are unpredictable and fun for both players. There are tons of defensive decks and offensive decks that don't revolve around the same overpower, item lock themes. My son and I do it all the time by calling a card and dropping it. It's really really really fun!

Any game should strive to set each player in a winnable position at start of game. There are at times where a game will be based off of first turn dominance, but the consistency of that happening should be extremely limited, in other words -- lucky. Pokemon thrives on creating circumstance for the outcome of the game to be determined by first turn by building consistency to that outcome. Because the first turn out come breaks the rule of extremely limited, and is now considered consistent then the mechanics are winning games, not the trainers.

@crystal_pidgeot is absolutely right to point this issue out. Just being around games all my life, I don't know another game where the first turn will determine the outcome of the game in such a consistent manner.

NM, Villplume, Trev, and Seismitoad DL's are all decks that play with first turn dominance. They all have mechanics that works consistently and that is why we play them. We inherently accept that the game mechanics work in a consistent manner, breaking the rule of extremely limited, or lucky. So yes, we accept the mechanics of the game will win us more games, than we will. I just described what everybody calls a meta. The meta will win you more games than you will if you play one of those DL's.

Except that there are competitively viable decks, "meta decks" (some tourney winning) outside what you mentioned. I think that omition was deliberate to support your agenda. Is Yveltal (both formats) a T1 deck? Is Manectric/Mega Manectric a T1 deck? Is Tyrantrum a T1 deck? What about Raichu/Bats or Greninja? And Trev can be beaten without Dark, even if it goes first. Trust me. And in Expanded, Primal Groudon is doing well. It's probably the slowest deck out there currently.

In an environment filled with blazing-fast strategies looking to win as quickly as possible, Primal Groudon-EX is a unique Pokémon that can bring the game to a snail's pace. It's nearly impossible to stop once it's completely ready, and that kind of strength can win a tournament on its own.

http://www.pokemon.com/us/strategy/tcg-winter-regional-championships-preview-2016/

I'm not going to deny that there arent T1 winning decks. But there's more to those decks. And like I've said, you gotta accept luck is part of the game.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

I'll then ask you this: how does one play the TCG "properly"? If it weren't for effects of cards, how does one even play? It's because it's a card game, not a video game or a physical sport. Skill isn't only determined by how you actually can do something. The cards do some of the work for you.

There is has to be a line between skill and luck. If you don't like how luck is a big factor in this game, don't play. Even Jason K said it's a luck-based game. That doesn't mean there isn't skill but you need to accept that there's both in this game.

I don't care what Jason K says. he isn't the voice of Pokemon or dictates how I play or should play the game and saying "if you don't like it then don't play" isn't an argument. Lets say my opponent goes first against my Ho-Oh EX and on their turn, they play like 20 cards and wally into Trev. On my first turn, all I have is a Ho-Oh Ex in the active and maybe a Psyduck with 2 dive ball, max elixir, N, 2 energy in hand and draw into another N. What exactly do I do with that? Can't play the dive ball to get my setup or the max elixir to maybe get a energy. lets say I play N and hit more item cards I can't play? My deck can't with with Hex Maniac since it depends on abilities and if I did have the one, what if it were prized?

What do I do? How can I prevent a loss when my only option is to top deck something. Can't play my max potions so I cant really invest in anything. I dont know what you're trying to say here.

 

[asdjklghty]

I don't care what Jason K says. he isn't the voice of Pokemon or dictates how I play or should play the game and saying "if you don't like it then don't play" isn't an argument. Lets say my opponent goes first against my Ho-Oh EX and on their turn, they play like 20 cards and wally into Trev. On my first turn, all I have is a Ho-Oh Ex in the active and maybe a Psyduck with 2 dive ball, max elixir, N, 2 energy in hand and draw into another N. What exactly do I do with that? Can't play the dive ball to get my setup or the max elixir to maybe get a energy. lets say I play N and hit more item cards I can't play? My deck can't with with Hex Maniac since it depends on abilities and if I did have the one, what if it were prized?

What do I do? How can I prevent a loss when my only option is to top deck something. Can't play my max potions so I cant really invest in anything. I dont know what you're trying to say here.

Exactly. There's no point in trying to fight a fact. Pokemon TCG is luck based. It's not 100% luck but it's a huge part of the game. I already said, don't like it, don't play. What you're thinking of is a fruitless pursuit.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

Exactly. There's no point in trying to fight a fact. Pokemon TCG is luck based. It's not 100% luck but it's a huge part of the game. I already said, don't like it, don't play. What you're thinking of is a fruitless pursuit.

Problems were never fixed if no one pointed something out and argued it. Complaining about some does make change. A lot of problems in American history would not have been resolved if someone didn't complain. I guess back then, people should have told the black, jews, gays and other minority groups to just leave America, right?

 

[Asclepius24]

Games in the Pokemon TCG will never be decided solely on who the more "skilled" player is, whatever that really means. There are good decks and bad decks, competitive strategies and non-competitive strategies, good matchups and near unwinnable matchups.

You seem to be taking issue with the idea that some combinations and strategies are inherently stronger than others. There's nothing that says a Ho-oh-EX / Golduck BREAK deck ought to be able to hold its own against a Trevenant BREAK deck, or that anyone is entitled to build their deck any way they want and expect equal success across all matchups. Part of being a "skilled" player is knowing what decks and strategies are strong and likely to show up at a tournament and adjusting what you're doing in order to win.

There will always be players who want to play "different" decks, and that's great. There are a lot of very fun strategies out there that probably deserve to be explored a bit more. That's why casual games are fun. But there are always going to be players who want to play competitively and try to win as many matches as possible, and that's also ok. One of the problems of PTCGO is that there really isn't a way to break down competitive/casual matches due to random pairings.

Item lock and Night March are two very strong strategies that win a lot of games so people play them. The fact that you don't like the decks doesn't mean anyone who plays them is a "scrub" any more than your playing a Ho-oh-EX deck. It also doesn't mean that the Pokemon TCG is "meant" to be played any other way - the game is what it is, and as long as people are playing within the rules of the game that's a totally valid way to enjoy it. The fact that you don't enjoy those aspects of the game doesn't mean other people can't or that the game should be changed.

 

[PMJ]

That is a terrible example. People did tell those groups all those things, and what happened? They stuck it out, dealt with it, and adapted to what was now a part of their lives, which sounds a lot like what you need to do. If simply playing Night March was all you needed to do to win, it would be the only deck played, never mind that player skill is a factor no matter how much you believe otherwise.

The same goes for Trevenant. If item lock is so debilitating, why does it only account for about a small amount of States victories? Trevenant lost in Top 8 and Top 4 more than twice the amount of times it won. So did Night March (though Night March only lost in Top 4 a little less often).

No one is telling you what decks you can and cannot play in Standard, but if you want to play Standard, adapt. There will always be a best deck and you can either play it or not. If you don't, then you have to realize and accept that people will play it and you have to plan accordingly. I play Trevenant because it beats Night March, and I do that knowing that I will take a virtual auto-loss to Dark variants. Even with the T1 item lock, I still lose, and I lose even faster if I go second.

I played a PTCGO tournament where some kid was using Zygarde-EX and Regirock-EX. I gusted out his Regirock and stalled him out for the rest of the game. He was super butthurt and called me names just because his deck has a bad matchup against mine. If you're going to play in a tournament, whether real or online, you should be prepared to get matched up against decks that own you, and suck it up when it happens. This is the same whether or not you play Night March, Dark, Trevenant, or any other deck.

Now, this is not to say that TPCi does not care about its game. When Absol SW was dominating, we got a direct counter in the very next set with Claydol. In the case of Night March, it's safe to say that TPCi did not plan for it to do as well as it did. For all their potential playtesting, there is no group of playtesters better than your player base. They will find strategies that you never thought possible, and I think that's the case with Night March. LTC did a decent job of checking Night March, but since they got all their resources back as well, it wasn't too difficult to just re-do everything with the addition of having access to any prizes they've taken over the course of the game.

You might think that Karen is too little, too late, and you may be right on that, but that's no reason to stomp your feet and whine because the best decks in format are the best decks in format. If the Ascension Phantump didn't exist then Night March would be winning even more than it already is. Trevenant checks it, and Dark checks Trevenant. And that's not even taking luck into account; you can beat any deck with a bit of luck. Every deck draws dead sometimes. I lost a match to a scrub deck using Serperior BW because I stayed asleep for three turns in a row, allowing my Pokemon to get killed off by poison while he set up. I was already set up and going to town on him, but a series of coin flips that all went his way sealed my fate.

You are right that complaining gets results, but you seem to think that no one at TPCi is paying attention and leaving its players twisting in the wind, which is just plain wrong.

 

[asdjklghty]

Problems were never fixed if no one pointed something out and argued it. Complaining about some does make change. A lot of problems in American history would not have been resolved if someone didn't complain. I guess back then, people should have told the black, jews, gays and other minority groups to just leave America, right?

You seem to be ignoring the fact that this game is more luck based than other stuff like physical sports. And like I've said, this is a card game. The text does the work for you. You need a different set of skills. Like someone mentioned, knowing what to do is important and is an example of skill needed to play.

Gays having more rights isn't a parallel or even relevant. Complaining to solve what? You have no basis or premise for your thought or original post. Pokemon is luck-based. But great way to respond by throwing a red herring.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

You seem to be ignoring the fact that this game is more luck based than other stuff like physical sports. And like I've said, this is a card game. The text does the work for you. You need a different set of skills. Like someone mentioned, knowing what to do is important and is an example of skill needed to play.

Gays having more rights isn't a parallel or even relevant. Complaining to solve what? You have no basis or premise for your thought or original post. Pokemon is luck-based. But great way to respond by throwing a red herring.

The game is luck based, I'm not saying it isn't. That isn't what my post was about because all game in some degree have luck. When I gave an example of what skill was, I said "When you lose to the player, you are losing to that persons skill, his play style and his knowledge of the game and deck he plays". What exactly are a different are a different set of skill needed to play and does this only apply to Pokemon? What do I learn when I or my opponent plays a Super Scoop Up and flips heads and a win or loss happens because of it, what is learned? Maybe I should have flipped better? How does one do such a thing that doesn't involve cheating? If we really break it down, even cheating coin flips are a skill. In Mario Maker, if someone puts a wall of Piranha Flowers you have to get through by timing the fire balls or Hammers thrown by the Hammer Bros and you die repeatedly, is it your fault? What about that SSU flip you lost to. Was that your fault? How about that new Greedy Dice card? What if your opponents picks one up off a prize card and flips heads and takes their last prize, is that too your fault you lost? You're being punished just for playing, which should be avoided when designing games and mechanics.

As for my second part, I didn't mean to use a red herring since I'm not the one to throw out logical fallacies but my example is perfectly reasonable here. You said twice "if you don't like it, then don't play", which is more than likely what those groups of people were told when they raised any issue to the people who were fine with it.

Whats above in this post isn't what I'm making this thread about and I dont want to derail it for that because I like making post that are considered food for thought and that part was only said for you. This post in its entirety is meant for losing to the game and what it means. I didn't bring up luck or RNG because it related to building a bad course in Mario maker and RNG is always bad when its meant to be a way to give a challenge to the player because if a player loses to it, they don't learn anything and if they do win, they still don't learn anything because they don't get a proper use of the mechanic. RNG almost always is a deceitful way of making the player feel they did something when they didn't.

Anyone Pokemon player can get lucky and win the lottery, but not all Pokemon players can win worlds.