Power Creep and Bias towards Basics/EXs

[thood]

The Power creep and absolute bias towards Basics/EXs extremely obvious. EXs have been ruling this format since Next Destinies, and by looks of Rising Fists so far, the trend is going to continue. Because you can just slap down a pokemon with 180 HP and attach a couple energy, then start KOing, EXs are very easy to use and spashable. That's fine, most EXs are legendary Pokemon, so it's fitting that they be powerful, nothing wrong with that. What is wrong, is that Stage 2 Pokemon cannot even dream to compete with this power. The earliest you can get a Stage 2 out is T2, and then on top of that, most of them have lackluster attacks, relying on abilities to warrant a spot on teams. Any deck that runs stage 2's is more inconsistent, takes longer to set up, and has less space to work with, so there should be some reward for this. Sure, not all stage 2's have to be homeruns, but come on, a Pokemon like Machamp, Metagross, or Dragonite should be able to go toe-to-toe with an EX! Plus, as if putting Stage 2's at disadvantage wasn't enough, they are hindering M evolved Pokemon too! Having to end you're turn to evolve? It's like they are trying to explicitly say that EXs are the ONLY way to play. It's better to play a basic EX than it is to use Stage 2's or M evolved EXs! I think this needs to be fixed! Either that or take me back to DPP!
Okay rant is over now.

TL;DR - EXs are OP, Stage 2's are extremely UP, and even the new Mega Evolution cards that evolve from EXs are worse than using a plain EX without evolving.

 

[Auride]

There's no particular reason why stage 2 Pokemon have to be the focus of the metagame anymore-so than basics, EX's, or even Stage 1 pokemon. That's simply the nature of the metagame right now.

Why is the metagame focused on EXs right now (in terms of attackers)? Because they are stronger (In terms of greater HP, higher damage output, and faster to setup). Why are EXs so much stronger than Stage 2s? Well it started in NXD. When TPC printed the first EX cards (read: exclusively Mewtwo-EX) they were clearly overpowered, un-balanced, and became the focus of the metagame. This quickly devolved competitive play into (mostly) Mewtwo wars. So TPC, realizing their error, printed equally powerful EX cards (read: almost exclusively Darkrai-EX) to counter Mewtwo and balance things out. The result was that now everyone played one overpowered EX card or another (or, often, both) and the metagame revolved around basics.

At this point in time the immediate concern was just balancing the EXs against eachother, NOT balancing them with non-EX cards. As a result, stage 2s disapeared as attackers, only showing up as support pokemon (Eelektrik (STAGE 1), Blastoise, Emboar). Only in the past few sets have TPC begun revamping their approach to developing the metage.

But they ARE doing it. Since the beginning of XY, TPC have shown a clear interest in reducing the strength of EX cards by printing not only worse ones (such as Blastoise, Venusaur, Emolga, Skarmory, Magnezone, Garchomp, etc.), but by printing counters to them (such as Sigilyph, Suicune, Silver Bangle, and Pyroar). The only notable EX printed so-far in the XY era is Yveltal, which was (in my opinion) cleverly designed to be powerful (like the old EXs) in the current format, but lose much of its power in future formats when its best parters (Sableye and Dark Patch) are rotated out. Even in the format right now, decks running non-EX attackers (such as Miltank, Flareon, Empoleon, Raichu, Pyroar, etc.) are stronger than they've been since the release of NXD.

Really, I would argue that DPP and HGSS were not that different from our current format. Sure, stage 2 decks were clearly a lot more powerful, but that can be blamed almost exclusively on Broken Time Space. By removing the setup-period from Stage 1s and 2s, they effectively behaved like EXs: greater HP, higher damage output, and speed. The difference was that instead of having the 2-prize penalty, their were balanced by requiring the player to have good draws to play them at their maximum speed. This meant that the format focused a lot more on minimizing that luck factor (which was still pretty large) than on maximizing damage output. Also, the different rules at the time made donking a huge problem (to the point where several archetypes focused on winning through turn-1 knockouts).

In summary, yes, you're right. There is an imbalance between EXs and everything else in the format, and there has been since NXD. However, it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. TPC is actively trying to improve the format, and there's more diversity now than there has been in a long time, with things looking up for the future.

 

[thood]

There's no particular reason why stage 2 Pokemon have to be the focus of the metagame anymore-so than basics, EX's, or even Stage 1 pokemon. That's simply the nature of the metagame right now.

Why is the metagame focused on EXs right now (in terms of attackers)? Because they are stronger (In terms of greater HP, higher damage output, and faster to setup). Why are EXs so much stronger than Stage 2s? Well it started in NXD. When TPC printed the first EX cards (read: exclusively Mewtwo-EX) they were clearly overpowered, un-balanced, and became the focus of the metagame. This quickly devolved competitive play into (mostly) Mewtwo wars. So TPC, realizing their error, printed equally powerful EX cards (read: almost exclusively Darkrai-EX) to counter Mewtwo and balance things out. The result was that now everyone played one overpowered EX card or another (or, often, both) and the metagame revolved around basics.

At this point in time the immediate concern was just balancing the EXs against eachother, NOT balancing them with non-EX cards. As a result, stage 2s disapeared as attackers, only showing up as support pokemon (Eelektrik (STAGE 1), Blastoise, Emboar). Only in the past few sets have TPC begun revamping their approach to developing the metage.

But they ARE doing it. Since the beginning of XY, TPC have shown a clear interest in reducing the strength of EX cards by printing not only worse ones (such as Blastoise, Venusaur, Emolga, Skarmory, Magnezone, Garchomp, etc.), but by printing counters to them (such as Sigilyph, Suicune, Silver Bangle, and Pyroar). The only notable EX printed so-far in the XY era is Yveltal, which was (in my opinion) cleverly designed to be powerful (like the old EXs) in the current format, but lose much of its power in future formats when its best parters (Sableye and Dark Patch) are rotated out. Even in the format right now, decks running non-EX attackers (such as Miltank, Flareon, Empoleon, Raichu, Pyroar, etc.) are stronger than they've been since the release of NXD.

Really, I would argue that DPP and HGSS were not that different from our current format. Sure, stage 2 decks were clearly a lot more powerful, but that can be blamed almost exclusively on Broken Time Space. By removing the setup-period from Stage 1s and 2s, they effectively behaved like EXs: greater HP, higher damage output, and speed. The difference was that instead of having the 2-prize penalty, their were balanced by requiring the player to have good draws to play them at their maximum speed. This meant that the format focused a lot more on minimizing that luck factor (which was still pretty large) than on maximizing damage output. Also, the different rules at the time made donking a huge problem (to the point where several archetypes focused on winning through turn-1 knockouts).

In summary, yes, you're right. There is an imbalance between EXs and everything else in the format, and there has been since NXD. However, it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. TPC is actively trying to improve the format, and there's more diversity now than there has been in a long time, with things looking up for the future.

Now that you've mentioned it, you're right with the fact that TPC is trying to improve the Meta. Another thing I forgot to address in the OP was the power creep. Now everything is about trying OHKO the active (it kind of always has been the objective), but at least in older sets it wasn't so easy to do! Hitting 180 damage is relatively easy in this format. Muscle Band/Bangle + Lasers gives you an extra 50/60 damage, which was about the average damage per turn in the Jungle Base set. It's kinda of crazy how doing 60 damage back then was considered good, while now, if you aren't hitting at LEAST 90, you're not cutting it because you aren't hitting those magic numbers. I guess, I just really hope to see some more balancing in the format. I'd also really like a more diverse Meta, rather than 5 decks/archetypes rule it all. I think it would be so much more fun if the were around 10 viable decks, without any clear BDIF. That's just me though.