Next Destinies Shiftry Banned!

[Lanstar]

I'm really hoping they don't ban Forretress too, as some people are speculating. It's a decent card when not abused, and only now can it be abused by such a stupid game mechanic.

I've been experimenting with Forretress in an Expanded donk deck with Latios-EX on the TCGO AI (Wouldn't be nice to do it on real players v_v ). I find that I can consistently activate the Thorn Tempest Ability at least 7 times on the first turn, 9-10 at the most. Though I often deck out too much after that, and can only do 40-60 Damage alongside it. In other words, it can threaten to donk teams of low-HP pokemon, but not so much big basics, and it can dry out quickly...

However, one thing could scare me: Using Forretress as a Bat alternative for cards like Landorus-EX, Flygon, Even Noivern. Now, this could be quite overpowered if the strategy is used correctly.

 

[Draaka]

They will always ban the card that has least effect on the meta game, this is why they won't ban GPF. It would destroy other decks that aren't innately broken.

The pokemon company want to avoid solitaire style playing, no turn losses/one turn wins. There is a better way than just starting an "aggressive" ban list.

What would be better is a rule saying you cannot loose if you don't have any pokemon on the bench until after you have ended your first turn. It's clunky and needs better rephrasing, but would end all donk decks. Donk itself is what they don't like, that's why they got rid of t1 first player attacks (iirc), to stop donks. Just make an anti donk rule.

So something like

If you have no pokemon in play you loose, unless you have not yet taken your first turn of the game. You only loose the game for having no pokemon in play after the end of your first turn.

That way you are guaranteed at least one turn to sycamore or shaymin or whatever ball into another basic. Problem solved, no ban list needed. Would love to see what the local professors think, could it be worded better so it's viable?

That way you can play your shifty donk deck, but there is always the chance that even if you do go off flawlessly the opponent has a turn to play more pokemon and survive, especially since donk decks have this tendency to deck themselves out turn one, all you would have to do is get a basic out your deck and end you turn and you beat the donk deck.

 

[Sjin]

Then just ban Forest of giant plants

just watch forretress get banned next.

Banning Forest of Giant Plants would get rid of a whole lot of non-broken, otherwise meh decks.
Instead, we should ban Shiftry, the pokemon which was complete trash without it, and leave the stadium be.

 

[Sjin]

Honestly, at this point with people complaining about Forretress as well, tPCI needs to think hard about unbanning Shiftry and possibly errata-ing FGP to only allow you to evolve a pokemon once per turn, or even banning Devolution Spray instead.

 

[redsky22]

Honestly, at this point with people complaining about Forretress as well, tPCI needs to think hard about unbanning Shiftry and possibly errata-ing FGP to only allow you to evolve a pokemon once per turn, or even banning Devolution Spray instead.

I feel like banning deovlution spray would help a little bit but still there are cards like super scoop up and scoop up cyclone sure you have less of a chance of winning with shiftry so who knows where this format of expanded will lead us.

 

[CYL]

About time, really. I've faced the deck a few times in TCGO. Wonder if they'll ban it as well. They should!

 

[pkolaboy]

Yes. Yes we can. They make this game. People are giving Forest of Giant Plants nicknames like "Broken Vine Space" because this isn't a new mechanic; this is a Type specific version of the previous Stadium card Broken Time-Space. While the designers could not specifically know that Shiftry (DEX) could one day be overpowered they should (and probably did) know that if a future card made it hypothetically reliable to get off the effect first turn (either by spamming it and going with the odds or by improving the odds of getting a single Shiftry into play), we'd have an issue.

Just looking at Forest of Giant Plants this mess is just an example of what one should have expected; semi-obscure older cards comboing with the new stuff when we are already concerned about the new stuff. I mean we just got a method to perform a T1 Item lock from the Bench in a format where we have cards like Professor Sycamore, Ultra Ball and Shaymin-EX (ROS). We need the game's pace to ease back quite a bit and instead? Pedal to the metal!

I do worry about "aggressive bans" because while they are needed, they also are unlikely to be properly applied. For example, this Shiftry deck needs Forest of Giant Plants to work. Even just issuing an erratum so that you have to also Evolve into a Grass-Type (and not just from a Grass-Type) would have shut it down. Other troublesome decks just need Forest of Giant Plants gone. Other problem decks in general need cards like Shaymin-EX (ROS) and Professor Sycamore gone. It... actually can get really complex if we keep naming specific cards. The main thing is that all forms of acceleration (draw, search, Energy, Evolution, etc.) are out of control and the-powers-that-be really need a reset.

I was talking about introducing expanded play in general. Ok I do see FGP as the middle man making Shiftry too viable/broken, in conclusion Pokemon should of done differently with FGP? Are we really this upset that we can't play Shiftry in expanded, or just dumbfounded that Pokemon missed the advantage that Shiftry has with FGP? Honestly, I think Pokemon wanted to introduce expanded play and KNEW of the hardships it would bring, but did anyways for they knew the game has to smooth the edges over time. This makes sense IMO.

 

[CYL]

Honestly, at this point with people complaining about Forretress as well, tPCI needs to think hard about unbanning Shiftry and possibly errata-ing FGP to only allow you to evolve a pokemon once per turn, or even banning Devolution Spray instead.

Devolution Spray is only a support card. Shiftry is the main problem.
Forretress isn't really comparable to Shiftry. Even with Forretress, you won't always win in the first turn without even attacking. (I think.)

 

[crann777]

I dont think the deck is a problem, people are overreacting way too much. As far as I know, both Shiftry and First Ticket are legal in Japan and its no big deal.

Let's be honest here, the Japanese kinda suck at exploiting loopholes in the game. I mean, they had Seismitoad EX for months before we did and it didn't take off over there until the US started doing well with it.

 

[redsky22]

hey at least it was a coin flip can you think how broken it would have been if it just said when you eov in to shiftry just shuffle your opponets pokemon back in to his or her deck.

 

[ruperto1607]

a googd errata for FGP wouldbe to disable abilities during the turn the pokemon evolves,

 

[CYL]

And for Foretress you would have to achieve all 18 possible Thorn Tempest (all 4 foretress, 4 scoop up heads, 4 devo spray, 1 scoop up cyclone, 1 AZ, 4 recycle heads on devo spray) or 12 of them followed by attacking with a muscle banded latios-EX if they have a single big hp EX in play, with the all thorn tempests being required if they have 2 (or just 17 with 170hp EX).
That also requires that not a single one of these 22 cards is prized. Nowhere near as likely as getting 2-6 forest fans out of the same possible 18, even if the coin flip makes half of them not work.

Beyond that even if the deck did work consistently its much less polarizing to the game for players to run basic pokemon with decent HP than it is for them to have to run wobbuffet or baltoy.

Yeah. I mean, you really shouldn't be able to win an entire game just by using an ability, and a non-damaging ability at that.

 

[CYL]

hey at least it was a coin flip can you think how broken it would have been if it just said when you eov in to shiftry just shuffle your opponets pokemon back in to his or her deck.

That would be worse. With Devolution Spray, AZ, etc, unless that player has really, really awful luck, even a full bench would be finished before it's your turn.

 

[CYL]

Let's be honest here, the Japanese kinda suck at exploiting loopholes in the game. I mean, they had Seismitoad EX for months before we did and it didn't take off over there until the US started doing well with it.

I think they're more in the 'spirit of the game'. (Not judging.) They try to use good combinations and look for KO's rather than win with, as you said, loopholes.

 

[RealSlim]

good riddance.

"It's something unpredictable,
but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life"

Goodbye Shiftry.

 

[Rocket The Shellos]

This isn't the only turn 1 lose deck. I remember playing against a Latios EX/Hypnotoxic/Virbank deck in a PTCGO tournament and not even getting a turn because i had the misfortune of only drawing 1 pokemon that only had 60 hp. How do you fix that?

 

[bbninjas]

This isn't the only turn 1 lose deck. I remember playing against a Latios EX/Hypnotoxic/Virbank deck in a PTCGO tournament and not even getting a turn because i had the misfortune of only drawing 1 pokemon that only had 60 hp. How do you fix that?

Honestly the thing is that in competitive tournaments offline decks like this are simply not good enough to win consistently, especially win best of threes. There isn't really much you can do about it to be honest.

 

[asdjklghty]

...why?


The card was printed 3 years ago. How about banning the more dangerous card, Forest of Giant Plants? Or not making Regionals BW on? Or better yet, how about not printing broken as hell cards?

Like others have said banning the stadium won't do anything good. An errata would help since you would only be able to evolve grass into grass Pokemon. So far there are no broken combos with that. The Stadium is a necessary and fun stadium to play. Imagine Vileplume without that Stadium. Right now Vileplume isn't even that good even with the Stadium (and don't ask me for a list or whatever I have enough draw power).

 

[Yo-yos]

I wait for the day in earnest that we stop talking about shitry in general.

Fortress is alot easier to deal with then shiftry, the fact that fortress's consistency is about 90 dmg per turn and even if it hit for 90-100 per turn means that it only has 2 turns to win the game or die trying due to the lack of long term consistency in the deck, you can easily tech 2-3 max potion or 1 wobbuffet to counter the use of turn 1-2 fortress, it can only garnish 2 EX ko's until eventually you can just over power the weak 40-60 dmg latios and destroy the deck because there is nothing else in the deck, they can use to win, lysandre up shaymins and win the game, easy. Versus 9-11 times per turn they could flip heads to put pokemon back into your hand.

Why ban broken vine space? Why ban something that gives grass pokemon open support? People will just think up obviously dangerous strategies even if another one can't be played, if fortress or broken vine space something else will be considered for expanded or probably has, like eggs/vileplume, cards aren't broken, people are for making these combos.

 

[Drusenija]

We're now moving into a world where there are two different formats; Standard and Expanded. First up, they will want to keep the Standard environment fresh and competitive (and let's be honest, they print a ton of grass Pokemon every set that rarely see play, so FGP was a way to try and make them a bit more viable).

Secondary to that, the cards in Standard also become part of Expanded. If you take the approach of "don't print cards that will create broken combinations in Expanded", then you're actually crippling the Standard format as instead of only considering the most recent rotations, you have to consider all the way back to B&W, even when a lot of the time tournaments will be running Standard and don't care about the older cards.

So realistically, if TPCi are adamant about running both formats (and personally I don't like the idea of Expanded becoming a mainstream thing, as it sets a much higher cost of entry to the game for new players as they need to acquire the older cards to be competitive - but that's just my opinion), you need to have a ban list for Expanded to protect the Standard format.

Banning Shiftry in this case was the least intrusive way to fix the problem they had perceived. They clearly are happy to have other FGP based decks out there, and rather than cripple every deck based on that stadium, if they perceive a problem in the future (Forretress for example), they'll likely ban that card rather than FGP to ensure that they kill the specific problem deck rather than an entire subclass of decks.