Discussion Repel, possible Lysandre replacement?

[Mr. Rhyperior]

Hello, guys!

Lysandre is one of the BREAKThrough cards in the format as of now. It drags off the target Pokémon, especially the good 'ol Flying dog for a OHKO. But the problem is... There are only few months left for the card to become standard-legal, until a reprint comes in, but there's no reprint of Lysandre right now ( especially VS Seeker :'(). But "Hey, how about Escape Rope?" Hey, it has also a duration of legality same as Lysandre.

One of the possible way to replace the good 'ol Lysandre, aside from Pokémon Catcher... Is Repel.
Repel is one of the new cards from Sun & Moon Base which does switch your opponent's active to their bench, but unlike Lysandre, Your opponents takes the control.

What do you think, guys?

 

[totodile_it_down]

Escape Rope will always be better, but assuming that also doesn't get a reprint, I can imagine playing a copy or two of Repel to try and create an easy KO.

The worst part about these Lysandre "replacements" isn't that they don't have the same effect, its that they aren't Supporters, and therefore they cannot be recalled via VS Seeker (which will also be gone, as you mentioned). Not having instant accessibility to create these plays is what overall hinders them more than the fact that they lack the word-for-word effect that Lysandre brings to the table, IMO.

At current, most Expanded decks play 1 Lysandre because of the powerful combination of Battle Compressor and VS Seeker. Most Standard decks play 2. What combination of Repel and Catcher do you think we'll have to play (again, assuming no reprints/introduction of something better) to even come close to the efficiency that these previous engines offered? I personally don't think it's possible, but using 4+ deck spots so I can maybe get the benched Pokémon I want active...sounds terrible. Maybe I'm just spoiled haha.

 

[superdan51]

I believe that people will move to pokemon catcher as a replacement to Lysandre after the rotation. I think that despite the coin flip that people will see that you do run 4 of them, and that you can use more than one per turn + another supporter. I cant tell this far ahead, but like every rotation we will have to see what happens when the time comes

 

[Fayld]

I believe that people will move to pokemon catcher as a replacement to Lysandre after the rotation. I think that despite the coin flip that people will see that you do run 4 of them, and that you can use more than one per turn + another supporter. I cant tell this far ahead, but like every rotation we will have to see what happens when the time comes

@Otaku can give a lot more history on this, but if I remember correctly Pokemon Catcher (or whatever it was called back then) was the card of choice prior to Lysandre and I think it was considered a pretty big deal when it was released.

That said, I think you will start to see more pokemon like the new Lycanroc GX seeing play. Might see people tech in a copy of Hawlucha too.

 

[Otaku]

@Fayld *tags in*

Alright, a couple things to affirm or add.

1. Set rotation probably won't happen until September 1, 2017. The-powers-that-be have been pretty good at hitting that date the last few years.
2. Historical trends both overall and recent suggest the cut will be three to five sets, based on mean, median, and mode amounts.
3. Stuff like Double Crisis doesn't count as a "set" for this purpose.
   
4. XY: Ancient Origins, which contains the most recent reprint of Lysandre, is thus almost certainly gone as even a three-set rotation will cut XY: Ancient Origins.
5. Escape Rope also gets the axe with the low-end three expansion rotation.
6. During this time, we have various smaller releases and a completely unseen (even in Japan) pair of sets (that will be merged into one elsewhere) that could supply Lysandre or additional alternates.
7. Pokémon Catcher originally required no coin flip; during the brief window after the errata (occurred shortly before the release of XY) and the release of Lysandre (XY: Flashfire), people used Pokémon Catcher as their go-to trick. Exceptions were decks like VirGen, because of Genesect-EX and its "Red Signal". Some folks were skeptical of Lysandre actually being used in place of the coin-flip requiring Pokémon Catcher at the time, because of how integral Supporters were for setup and maintenance.
8. We have a potential contradiction from the times before Pokémon Catcher. That is because of Pokémon Reversal; in spite of some awkward wording on the earliest copies, Pokémon Reversal is just Pokémon Catcher by another name (post-errata, of course). Pokémon Reversal didn't see the kind of heavy play as Pokémon Catcher until around the HS-era, possibly because of the release of Junk Arm (Item - Discard two cards from hand, add an Item other than Junk Arm to your hand from your discard pile). Hard to tell if Junk Arm made the difference, if the various alternatives to Pokémon Reversal prior to that point made the difference, etc. As a comparison, Energy Removal 2 never hit it big, but Crushing Hammer (same card, new name) is huge. XD
9. Pokémon Circulator was just Repel by a different name; I don't believe it saw much successful competitive play, but maybe saw some.

Whew! So with all that said, Repel might become a serious option post-Lysandre and Escape Rope, but I suspect Pokémon Catcher will unfortunately restore us to a coinflip-centric competitive scene.

 

[PMJ]

Catcher wins games. It may not be in every deck, but it will absolutely see play next season.

 

[superdan51]

@Fayld *tags in*

Alright, a couple things to affirm or add.

1. Set rotation probably won't happen until September 1, 2017. The-powers-that-be have been pretty good at hitting that date the last few years.
2. Historical trends both overall and recent suggest the cut will be three to five sets, based on mean, median, and mode amounts.
3. Stuff like Double Crisis doesn't count as a "set" for this purpose.
   
4. XY: Ancient Origins, which contains the most recent reprint of Lysandre, is thus almost certainly gone as even a three-set rotation will cut XY: Ancient Origins.
5. Escape Rope also gets the axe with the low-end three expansion rotation.
6. During this time, we have various smaller releases and a completely unseen (even in Japan) pair of sets (that will be merged into one elsewhere) that could supply Lysandre or additional alternates.
7. Pokémon Catcher originally required no coin flip; during the brief window after the errata (occurred shortly before the release of XY) and the release of Lysandre (XY: Flashfire), people used Pokémon Catcher as their go-to trick. Exceptions were decks like VirGen, because of Genesect-EX and its "Red Signal". Some folks were skeptical of Lysandre actually being used in place of the coin-flip requiring Pokémon Catcher at the time, because of how integral Supporters were for setup and maintenance.
8. We have a potential contradiction from the times before Pokémon Catcher. That is because of Pokémon Reversal; in spite of some awkward wording on the earliest copies, Pokémon Reversal is just Pokémon Catcher by another name (post-errata, of course). Pokémon Reversal didn't see the kind of heavy play as Pokémon Catcher until around the HS-era, possibly because of the release of Junk Arm (Item - Discard two cards from hand, add an Item other than Junk Arm to your hand from your discard pile). Hard to tell if Junk Arm made the difference, if the various alternatives to Pokémon Reversal prior to that point made the difference, etc. As a comparison, Energy Removal 2 never hit it big, but Crushing Hammer (same card, new name) is huge. XD
9. Pokémon Circulator was just Repel by a different name; I don't believe it saw much successful competitive play, but maybe saw some.

Whew! So with all that said, Repel might become a serious option post-Lysandre and Escape Rope, but I suspect Pokémon Catcher will unfortunately restore us to a coinflip-centric competitive scene.

Catcher wins games. It may not be in every deck, but it will absolutely see play next season.

Well this makes me feel better about the decision I made last November to purchase 4 SR catchers in hope that it will be the replacement for lysandre and escape rope. We will have to see what happens, but like PMJ said, catcher will bring up the pokemon that you want, not the one your opponent wants. If youre using repel you could put yourself into a bad position by letting the opponent chose what to promote, but if you use catcher the worst case scenario is you fail a flip, best case you actually get the card you want into the active.

 

[PMJ]

Letting the opponent choose their replacement isn't always a bad thing. It's slightly less effective if your opponent has something with free retreat they can bring up front to take the hit or get sacrificed, but if you can catch your opponent off guard with it, when they haven't set up their board or when there is nothing they'd want to sacrifice on the bench, you can force them to make tough calls, especially after a Parallel City.