Fun My Only Complaint with TCG

swapforce1

swapforce1

Shaymin lover
Member
Ok welcome to my first actual discussion. I feel that in the TCG competitive play that there isnt much variety . Ok there is more variety than in VGC where it's the same six hacked teams agisnt each other and to it's credit TCG doesn't have anybody using counterfeit cards ( at least not that i know of) . But there still isn't enough variety to me. Yu-Gi-Oh has billions of decks and almost every card has useage in some way. But here in pokemon it's just these decks.

STANDARD : Vileplume , Mega ray , Mewtwo , Houndoom , Greninja , Giratina , Volcanion, Darkrai.

EDIT :there are more decks out there i just wish that there was more.


Expanded : Night March , Trev and the rest i don't know


I know i know it isn't fair at all to compare Yu-Gi-Oh a card game with no rotation ( but a big ban list ) to a game where every year you have to build a new deck ( Pokemon ) but i just want two things from pokemon.

EDIT : I dont know much about yu-gi-oh's competitive play and i do understand what some people are saying but i personally like how they say the archetypes on the card so its easier to get into ( i think )


1- Make every card Playable.

I like to live by karen's Favorite quote “ strong Pokemon , Weak pokemon. That is just the foolish perception of humans. Truly skilled trainers should try and win with their favourites”, now put you hand up if you like Joltik as a pokemon. Ok now if you are lying put your hand back down. I personally liked Trevenant so seeing that he was good was awesome. But seeing that how my favourite pokemon ( shaymin land form ) is somewhat bad ( ill post a decklist you could use it in in the future ) i can't make decks off your favourite Pokemon. Granted a Youtuber named YellowSwellow uses every card that has even the potential of being good every time a new set is released but you don't see Chandelure ( steam siege ) being played ever even though he beat night march with it .



2. Format Rotation

Now this is what keeps the format fair and intact but i personally feel like maybe i would prefer the game without it. “But wait” you say “if we didn't have a format rotation then Night march would rule the format still” but to that i say we could just limit or ban Joltik , Pumpkaboo and Lampent. Instead of Banning Lysandres trump card Limit it to 1 a deck. I don't want to build a new deck every year.


Final thoughts


Anyway what do guys think about the meta? Let me know it the comments below.
 
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I think you have a very limited view of things that isn't supported by the competitive scene.

You've missed a good number of competitive decks. In Standard, there's also Yveltal, Gyarados, Rainbow Road, Raichu/Bats, and maybe the best deck in the format right now in M Gardevoir-EX. In Expanded there's a huge variety of decks: Yveltal, Greninja, Toadbats Rainbow Road, RaiEels, Rainbow Road, Accelgor, Primal Groudon, Vileplume, DarkTina, Sableye, Turbo Dark, Mega Manectric, Volcanion, and more.

Those are just decks that have topped a recent Regional Championship. There are many more that can be built, and the community is consistently finding new decks that have a space in the metagame. Gyarados surprised everyone a few weeks ago.

Not all cards have top competitive potential, but people can still have fun with anything they want. I don't think there's anything that says every card "should" be viable competitively - that's just not a reasonable demand when you have smart players figuring out what has small but significant advantages against other matchups. Most well-constructed decks have a chance to win games, though.

I think the metagames in Standard and Expanded are very healthy right now, with the possible exception of Trevenant in Expanded. Different games have different approaches to balancing things, and Pokemon has never liked bans and that seems unlikely to change.
 
You compare the meta of the PTCG to yugioh complaining that it is too limited? Have you even seen the yugioh meta game right now? It's a very diverse format with ABC, Blue-Eyes, PK-Fire, Kozmo, Majespecters, and demise varients. That's really all there is this format. A few Zombie top, and a couple merlantians too. But it's nowhere near as diverse as the PTCG meta. And this is one of the most diverse metas in yugioh ever (Beaten only be HAT)
 
I think the only problem with the game right now is the pace of it and the balance of the cards.
 
VGC is surprisingly diverse, but not in a way you can appreciate just by looking at team preview; moreover, since the last two seasons have shown dwindling popularity, changes in the new game will offset big-six fatigue.

You listed six viable archetypes for TCG. Consider the variance between those lists and the various levels of skill required to play them. Add rogue players (one of whom even replied to this thread already) and their unique ideas.

Consider how the reported tournament scene is only one sample of this game's playerbase. Consider that 60card four-max Constructed is only one of several game types.

Expand your mind, OP.
 
Yellow swellow is great, he does all decks that have the slightest chance
 
Sure Yu-Gi-Oh has a lot of decks you can play, but you always see the same 2 or 3 as top decks - when I stopped playing they were Burning Abyss, Shaddoll and Sattelarknight and Kozmo and Majispecter after that. Pokémon has much more diversity when it comes to metagame, at least for me. There's a bunch of meta decks you can choose. I don't play Magic, but there's a Brazilian card game called Battle Scenes that is about Superheroes and the metagame is smaller than Pokémon's too.
You also forgot to mention Xerneas, Yveltal, Scizor and many others I see a lot more now. And I don't see a problem with metagame, it gives us the chance to be prepared to what we believe we are going to play against or even build decks to play against the meta (see the worlds' MAudino for example), which is great since Pokémon TCG doesn't have side deck.
 
DSV686 said:
You compare the meta of the PTCG to yugioh complaining that it is too limited? Have you even seen the yugioh meta game right now? It's a very diverse format with ABC, Blue-Eyes, PK-Fire, Kozmo, Majespecters, and demise varients. That's really all there is this format. A few Zombie top, and a couple merlanteans too. But it's nowhere near as diverse as the PTCG meta. And this is one of the most diverse metas in yugioh ever (Beaten only be HAT)
Click to expand...

I will never say i know anything about Yu-Gi-Ohs competitive play
and i never said that there wasn't any verity in the Pokemon TCG i just said i wasn't happy with the limit of it
 
Calcab said:
which is great since Pokémon TCG doesn't have side deck.
Click to expand...

I actually Think a side deck would be great. Lets say you know that Night march will be trouble but you also know that not everyone will be playing night march. thus Karen will be in a 5 card side deck
 
Asclepius24 said:
I think you have a very limited view of things that isn't supported by the competitive scene.
with the possible exception of Trevenant in Expanded. Different games have different approaches to balancing things, and Pokemon has never liked bans and that seems unlikely to change.
Click to expand...

Personally i don't think that there was anything wrong with trev Ancient origins Hex Maniac balanced it. it was just a popular troll deck.
and yes i dont think that pokemon would ban cards ( that arnt broken as all crap )
 
swapforce1 said:
I actually Think a side deck would be great. Lets say you know that Night march will be trouble but you also know that not everyone will be playing night march. thus Karen will be in a 5 card side deck
Click to expand...
Good example, but Karen doesn't exactly fix Night March and side decks would cause less variety because several decks are very easily kill with 5 or less cards.
swapforce1 said:
I will never say i know anything about Yu-Gi-Ohs competitive play
and i never said that there wasn't any verity in the Pokemon TCG i just said i wasn't happy with the limit of it
Click to expand...
If you are NOT happy with the variety of PTCG, you will not be happy with the variety in any games. I know for a fact that Hearthstone has the same issue and they use a limited format to fix it.
swapforce1 said:
Personally i don't think that there was anything wrong with trev Ancient origins Hex Maniac balanced it. it was just a popular troll deck.
and yes i dont think that pokemon would ban cards ( that arnt broken as all crap )
Click to expand...
So you like running 4 Hex so you know you will start with it?

On a side note, you do know that you can reply to multiple posts in one post, right?
 
M Beedrill EX Locks up the field while you set up reg Beedrills. They have free retreat so you can keep switching and Paralyze then come out next turn for a bench snipe with reg Beedrill while 4x poison knocks active pokemon for an easy 3 or 4 prize gain in one turn, My Beedrill/M Beedrill EX deck wrecks. I have a 15 win streak with it.
 
swapforce1 said:
Ok welcome to my first actual discussion. I feel that in the TCG competitive play that there isnt much variety . Ok there is more variety than in VGC where it's the same six hacked teams agisnt each other and to it's credit TCG doesn't have anybody using counterfeit cards ( at least not that i know of) . But there still isn't enough variety to me. Yu-Gi-Oh has billions of decks and almost every card has useage in some way. But here in pokemon it's just these decks.

STANDARD : Vileplume , Mega ray , Mewtwo , Houndoom , Greninja , Giratina , Volcanion, Darkrai.

EDIT :there are more decks out there i just wish that there was more.


Expanded : Night March , Trev and the rest i don't know
Click to expand...

I dont play Expanded so I won't talk much about it but Pokemon, like Yugioh has many cards that are of use. I do play Yugioh from time to time but the newest thing for them are the ABC decks, which can win a game in a single turn. Both these games have a few decks that win at the highest level. Yugioh suffers because it uses its ban list as a way to sell new card and Pokemon suffers because they lack the ability to balance cards or make new blocks without breaking the format. Not every card in any competitive card game has a use. Some cards are much better than others. For example, a card that could draw 2 cards without a drawback will always be used over a card that draws 1 card if you flip head.

As for the VGC claim, while I do agree with you that this seems to be the way to play the game but without some hard facts, its hard to say that.


I know i know it isn't fair at all to compare Yu-Gi-Oh a card game with no rotation ( but a big ban list ) to a game where every year you have to build a new deck ( Pokemon ) but i just want two things from pokemon.
Click to expand...

Actually it is fair to make to do that. Both games have a way to manage their format but I say they look at MtG for how to correctly do it.

EDIT : I dont know much about yu-gi-oh's competitive play and i do understand what some people are saying but i personally like how they say the archetypes on the card so its easier to get into ( i think )


1- Make every card Playable.

I like to live by karen's Favorite quote “ strong Pokemon , Weak pokemon. That is just the foolish perception of humans. Truly skilled trainers should try and win with their favourites”, now put you hand up if you like Joltik as a pokemon. Ok now if you are lying put your hand back down. I personally liked Trevenant so seeing that he was good was awesome. But seeing that how my favourite pokemon ( shaymin land form ) is somewhat bad ( ill post a decklist you could use it in in the future ) i can't make decks off your favourite Pokemon. Granted a Youtuber named YellowSwellow uses every card that has even the potential of being good every time a new set is released but you don't see Chandelure ( steam siege ) being played ever even though he beat night march with it .
Click to expand...

As I said, its hard to make every card playable. Also, this depends on what you mean by playable. Technically all the cards are playable. You can make a deck with each card printed. it might not be a good deck but you can do it but when we mean playable from a competitive standpoint, how is that done? A large amount of the time, the players will make something good. Sometimes they make cards for the sake of being good like Volcanion but decks like Darkrai/Giratina and Yveltal aren't planned and exist because of the players.

The biggest problem here are all the unintentional card interactions with the lack of any bans. You could also be like me and just use your favorite Pokemon anyway!

2. Format Rotation

Now this is what keeps the format fair and intact but i personally feel like maybe i would prefer the game without it. “But wait” you say “if we didn't have a format rotation then Night march would rule the format still” but to that i say we could just limit or ban Joltik , Pumpkaboo and Lampent. Instead of Banning Lysandres trump card Limit it to 1 a deck. I don't want to build a new deck every year.
Click to expand...

I think format rotations are fine but the issue here is they reprint all the cards that would have been rotated so even if a rotation happens, these cards still exist. Ultra Ball still shouldn't be a thing. Yveltal EX still shouldn't be around. Its been in the game for like 4 or 5 years now. The other issue are a lack of a real block format and when rotations happen, they often come with new rules and mechanics that break the game since these older cards exist in new formats with different rules and mechanics.

Banning Lysandre's Trump Card is a card that shouldn't exist in ANY card game. Such a card would break everything else after it. If that card was still around, the most broken deck in the game would be speed anything. You also can't punish a player who plays recklessly. It just makes the game not fun.
 
Recent rotations have meant a massive decrease in the card pool, the last two years has seen BCR-PHF disappear. That has made a massive change to the meta, which truly was becoming stale, due to a few unbalanced decks which persisted because the TCG basically bans nothing.
They tend to release very powerful unbalanced cards every once in a while that persist and enjoy wide popularity. Right now the drastic changes in the card pool have created a bit of a vacuum where there are more than a few decks emerging as front runners. I think it has become very healthy, if you can afford it.
The frustrating thing is that each set often features a broken combination that quickly becomes unaffordable and over time the meta coalesces around them and no one wants to continually invest in an expensive deck twice a year.
This year and last were especially cash grabby for pokemon, because they refused to make errata for things like seismitoad and night march and instead opted to rotate them.
What makes me so frustrated is that so many trainer cards were lost at the same time and pokemon that should finally have their time in the sun like mega charizard are in a format without blacksmith and so on. Trainers should not rotate. Why bother when they reprint sycamore and N. Just leave them all available.
 
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swapforce1 said:
Yes move set are not always the same but for VGC it's all hackers making every battle a battle of speed ties.
Click to expand...

<obviously has watched VGC for two seasons maximum with flagrant disregard of match details>

EDIT: Way to respond to all my points btw. And not just cherry pick the one you can refute with flawed data. 10/10
 
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The VGC is much less diverse than TCG, TCG is so awesome because every pokemon MAY have a chance some day. Even though we see MANY mewtwo and stuff only, I think this is a more diverse meta than earlier, just because it doesn't focus on 1 main deck and all its counters.
 
DeDeNNe said:
The VGC is much less diverse than TCG, TCG is so awesome because every pokemon MAY have a chance some day. Even though we see MANY mewtwo and stuff only, I think this is a more diverse meta than earlier, just because it doesn't focus on 1 main deck and all its counters.
Click to expand...

The previous season of VGC was less diverse, sure, in the same way previous TCG formats centralize on three or fewer strategies (unlike the current one). Why paint with such broad strokes?
 
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