PTCGO Oh man the chaos begins

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Fafnirchaos

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I recently got my hands on 100 packs of lost thunder, which I was able to open today online and to my surprise I got a RR Zeraora Gx, The only 1 I got so I threw it in my Rayquaza deck to see how well it played....

HOLY ....

Every deck I went up against forfeited either right away, 2-3 turns in, or during the final show down.

Lost march just couldn't keep up.

Steel, Fire, Fairy, they just couldn't hold their own against a Zeraora with vikavolt combo, That with free retreat ment I had no worries about charging up my rayquaza's on the bench(Even without using their abilities) and if one of them ever went down getting those energies back was easy AF. It feels really broken.

I did notice a card nobody seemed to mention(that I could find) is Donphan- study ability- with rolling spin, that with hustle belt and diance prism star is a 220 damage hitter for a stage 1 none GX pokemon.

So many combo's, so little time.
 
Fafnirchaos said:
I did notice a card nobody seemed to mention(that I could find) is Donphan- study ability- with rolling spin, that with hustle belt and diance prism star is a 220 damage hitter for a stage 1 none GX pokemon.
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Mentioned months ago when it was newly revealed by any commenter worth his or her salt, unless they don't discuss Japan-only stuff. ;)

Donphan wasn't super hyped, but it unless it becomes the new BDIF, it received its due.

Zeraora-GX received massive hype at first, but our [F] heavy metagame caused folks to start doubting it... and this has been supported by at least some of the results from Japan. It could be the fact they are functionally one set plus miscellaneous promos ahead of us could explain the difference, but that would mean Zeraora-GX will plunge in playability soon.

I am curious what kinds of decks you were facing when you tested Zeraora-GX, and how much experience you've actually got with it. The results of the first dozen or so games can vary greatly from the first 100. ;)
 
Otaku said:
Mentioned months ago when it was newly revealed by any commenter worth his or her salt, unless they don't discuss Japan-only stuff. ;)

Donphan wasn't super hyped, but it unless it becomes the new BDIF, it received its due.

Zeraora-GX received massive hype at first, but our [F] heavy metagame caused folks to start doubting it... and this has been supported by at least some of the results from Japan. It could be the fact they are functionally one set plus miscellaneous promos ahead of us could explain the difference, but that would mean Zeraora-GX will plunge in playability soon.

I am curious what kinds of decks you were facing when you tested Zeraora-GX, and how much experience you've actually got with it. The results of the first dozen or so games can vary greatly from the first 100. ;)
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Well I'm new here(and newer to the game) anyways, I was looking for anything based upon Donphan and couldn't find it.

I have Donphan Currently Combo'd with Sylveon-gx with 4 Last chance potions and 4 life herbs. That gives me 160 on normal attacks and 220 in case he's about to die.(Edit: with Hustle Belt)

The only card I have had a problem with this deck so far is Scizor-gx he does just enough damage just before last chance potion kicks in(and requires 2 Life herbs to heal), Can tank too much for me to do any damage towards it, and can wipe out my Slyveon in 1 or 2 shots. Because of Blacephalon I not too worried about running into this deck very often, I'll be play testing more and possibly use him in tournaments.

As for Zeraora-GX it's fairly solid, It's a great supporter card, I wouldn't use it in it's own deck. It's GX can be useful in desperate situations, same goes for it's attack. I did use this from pre-release packs so I got it a day early. I did run into a lost march deck and he couldn't do barely anything to my team while I was wiping out his cards. Haven't touched it since, I've been trying to prefect that Donphan Deck.
 
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Update: I'm seeing a lot of counter decks specifically for Donphan now, I guess the popularity is growing.
 
Fafnirchaos said:
Update: I'm seeing a lot of counter decks specifically for Donphan now, I guess the popularity is growing.
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Be great if you could unpack that.

You're new here, so without an explanation we can't tell if you've serious got something or if - for example - you built a new deck, the PTCGO starts it off facing easier opponents (the PTCGO at least used to work that way) and now you've beaten them, you're encountering more competitive decks that happen to counter your strategy, versus legitimately countering it. For that matter, if it is still early enough, you could even be facing lowl-evel or non-competitive decks that just happen to have an edge.
 
Well most of the decks I was fighting where heavy hitters, Rayquaza, slyveon/gardevoir, buzzwole, ando garbodor. All of which could be easily counterable with proper healing. Tapu Koko was a little bit of an issue but still manageable.

Then I ran into Decidueye-gx, combo'd with Silvally-Gx and tapu-Koko which to me made no sense for a deck, unless you wanted to 1 shot donphan as with decidueye's ability you do 20 damage breaking donphans ability and then taking 120 damage from Silvally. There is no counter healing counter for that deck.

That deck itself can be wrecked from any other solid gx deck, and even with garbodor/buzzwole, it is not fast enough to last against, making Donphan the only target for that deck. Because of that I'm sure I'm not the only one running it as why would anybody run that specific deck without there being a popularity shift.

Edit: Wait I just found out about the Lost march counter(I have other opinions on lost march but that's for another discussion). I may need to look into improving my donphan deck to help provide stability against lost march counters.

Never mind Lost march Ruined this card, I'll need to back burn it till something else comes out.
 
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New Note:

How Long does it take you guys to usually figure out what your next play is, I usually have my next 2 plays already figured out before I move. I just came out of a match where somebody must have been writing a book on the whole match as I was 20 Minutes left at end game and my opponent had less then 5, Either he was completely incompetent or he was a troll. I have yet to figure it out.
 
Some people take longer to decide, either because they're playing more carefully or they're playing a relatively responsive deck (as opposed to one that just moves along mostly ignoring the other deck's actions). Ray is not very responsive, relative to, say, BuzzGarbShrine or Malamar.

And some people just have slower connections, too, don't forget.

Honestly it sounds like you're playing lower level folks still. If you win the significant majority of your games you're going to start hitting harder opponents who are also faster.
 
snoopy369 said:
Some people take longer to decide, either because they're playing more carefully or they're playing a relatively responsive deck (as opposed to one that just moves along mostly ignoring the other deck's actions). Ray is not very responsive, relative to, say, BuzzGarbShrine or Malamar.

And some people just have slower connections, too, don't forget.

Honestly it sounds like you're playing lower level folks still. If you win the significant majority of your games you're going to start hitting harder opponents who are also faster.
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Yeah that game itself Really ruined it for me for the rest of that day, ended up quitting after that match to play something else. It was like the person knew the time limit before the count down for each move and literally took it in order to try to get me to concede. He knew he wasn't going to win and just played it out till the final blow.

Also How can I still be playing lower level folks, I'm level 24 been playing every single day for sometimes hours on end for the past 4 Months.

Edit: Their needs to be some sort of difficulty added to the game, So people can choose between Easy and Advanced(I can see it being abused, however have it so that Lower levels can play advanced if they choose and have high levels play advanced only)
 
Your actual level isn't relevant, as far as I know. It's just your ELO in versus matches (which goes up when you beat someone and goes down when you lose, and goes up more when you beat a better player/less when you beat a weaker player). So are you going on long win streaks often in Versus?

It could also simply be that your timezone is a problem. Are you European? If so and you're playing like, now, you're playing against a smaller player field perhaps? (I'm from the US playing at normal US times, so like 6-10 hours from now) Other European players on the site could perhaps speak to that.

The decks you say you're playing against do sound like decent players, but I notice you don't cite Malamar. If you're not running into many Malamars then that's a sure sign you're playing a more mediocre playing field - that's a harder deck to play, by far, so it limits itself to the very good players.

It could also just be random luck... you got someone with a stall approach, sucks but that's what it is. You can always just quit and play someone else. Or read a book while they're playing their turns.
 
snoopy369 said:
Your actual level isn't relevant, as far as I know. It's just your ELO in versus matches (which goes up when you beat someone and goes down when you lose, and goes up more when you beat a better player/less when you beat a weaker player). So are you going on long win streaks often in Versus?

It could also simply be that your timezone is a problem. Are you European? If so and you're playing like, now, you're playing against a smaller player field perhaps? (I'm from the US playing at normal US times, so like 6-10 hours from now) Other European players on the site could perhaps speak to that.

The decks you say you're playing against do sound like decent players, but I notice you don't cite Malamar. If you're not running into many Malamars then that's a sure sign you're playing a more mediocre playing field - that's a harder deck to play, by far, so it limits itself to the very good players.

It could also just be random luck... you got someone with a stall approach, sucks but that's what it is. You can always just quit and play someone else. Or read a book while they're playing their turns.
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Ohh so it's kind of like a K/D ratio which actually means something rather then it just being a number. So what I need to do is go on a higher win steak and keep it going in order to play with advanced players.
 
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