The focus on Legendary Pokemon in the TCG as of late

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DPaladinD

Luxray Trainer
Member
Personally, I feel the game has been focusing too much on Legendary Pokemon during the BW era. In my time of playing the game (Base to Neo, then Majestic Dawn to current), I have not seen another time where Legendary Pokemon have been thrown in our faces so forcefully.

I get that the idea of skipping evolutions to speed up the game has been a big idea that TPCi love to bits, and keep bringing it back in "new" ways time and again. But does anyone else feel that other Pokemon are being thrown to the side so people will focus on the Legendary Pokemon EXs?
 
Don't forget Legend cards.

Given there are only, at least in the Japanese sets, only 3 EX cards usually and 4 in a big set, I'd hardly call those a focus. They're usually the set mascot or staple, yes, but they aren't kitted out to be total brutes without support. We've seen Pokemon in the TCG we haven't had in a long time re-appear in the recent sets, and the fact they chewed through all of the Unova Pokemon that weren't secret legendaries in 2 sets alone so they could then put in any other Pokemon they wanted to...

Eh. I wouldn't say that they're neglected or thrown to the side. Let's see. Since the start of the BW-Era, we've had in the main JP sets a total of 809 cards released from BW1-BW8, 79 more + SR/UR to come + July's sets, and of those cards we've got 31 unique set based EX cards. Legendaries, or high profile/very liked Pokemon will always be the focals when it comes to things but they certainly aren't the be all end all.
 
Darkrai/Hydreigon, Keldeo/Blastoise, Mewtwo/anything. Anything meta is going to involve some big Basic, and by Basic, I mean legendary. I really miss having good Stage 2 decks.
 
Mora said:
Darkrai/Hydreigon, Keldeo/Blastoise, Mewtwo/anything. Anything meta is going to involve some big Basic, and by Basic, I mean legendary. I really miss having good Stage 2 decks.
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Darkrai/Hydreigon and Keldeo/Blastoise
Are stage 2 decks. There are good stage 2 decks there just aren't any good stage 2 attackers. As for me this is the only format I've ever played in so I don't miss it.
 
How did I know someone was going to do that.

DPaladinD said:
focus on the Legendary Pokemon EXs
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Are the Stage 2's the focus? In most cases, the Basic can function quite well without the Stage 2.

Even better examples: Darkrai/Landorus, Ho-Oh/ random Basic attackers, Tornadus and friends.

camoclone said:
Are stage 2 decks.
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No. Garchomp was a Stage 2 deck. Darkrai/Hydreigon has a big Basic and a Stage 2 to make the Basic even more broken.
 
Legendaries sell. The profit gained from having them on the packs and then featured inside in strong cards outweighs any sort of desire for game balance.
 
/\ But legendaries sell because they develop a huge marketing over them. I miss times when legendaries were rare creatures which we knew almost nothing about. Nowadays every generation, not only the TCG, focus on legendary Pokémon.
 
Yea. So no Stage 2 EX's like the old days that I missed out on. :( Maybe in Gen 6 they'll be something cool for that kinda stuff. And can you imagine if non evolved basics got EX's? Like Pinsir? That wouldn't sell very well.
 
It would if they chose ones that were popular enough, or if they turned out to be very playable. (How popular do you think Landorus is as a Pokemon? ;p) Something like Absol or Heracross would probably sell as long as it doesn't suck.
 
MrSquarepants said:
Yea. So no Stage 2 EX's like the old days that I missed out on. :( Maybe in Gen 6 they'll be something cool for that kinda stuff. And can you imagine if non evolved basics got EX's? Like Pinsir? That wouldn't sell very well.
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Yeah, I'm kind of hoping for Stage 2 EX's. In the first ex set, they featured unevolving Basics as ex's and then moved on to evolving ex's. I suppose they could do that for sixth gen. They'd have to do something since they will inevitably run out of Legendaries. I'm just wondering where they'd put the evocons for the evolved EX's full art card.
 
Well, since all Legendary Pokemon are EXs and EXs are the strongest Pokemon in the format right now, of course it's natural to have "Legendary" overdose. The Legend mechanic from the HG/SS series of sets was underused save for a couple decks that could take advantage of them as late-game finishers, but generally they were mostly completely useless.

I'm really hoping with the 6th Generation coming out soon that the emphasis goes down on Legendary Pokemon. I want to see a brand new mechanic because it really looks like they have milked this "Legendary EX" series so much that most people are really starting to get tired of it. Regardless of what they put in, other things other than Basics (read as: non-Legendaries) need some love.

dmaster out.
 
i'm very vocal when it comes to disliking legendary pokemon and how many they come up with unnecessarily these days, so naturally seeing so many legendary ex cards is quite disappointing, but oddly not really much of an issue to be fair.
 
The biggest issue I have with legendary pokemon are that they have made them so broken, so easy to play, and with so much HP, that even cards that would have been considered broken in past formats are now considered rogue decks. With each set that comes out, we get a few good trainers, a few support pokemon, and the big EXs. That's about 10% of useful cards and 90% crap. Every set may have been like this to an extent, but when almost all evolution lines are written off because they can't compete with the EXs, there's a problem, especially since most pokemon are part of evolution lines. And even among those big basics, only a few of them see play. (Lando and Keldeo are the only EXs in BC to see any competitive play).

I guess you could still build your deck how you want, that's what I do. But it gets discouraging when you come up with an idea for a deck only to be told "This EX pokemon does the job better!".
 
That would explain why holo-foil rares only worth like .50 cents now and rares are only like a quarter hahah. Only good supporting Stage 2's like Blastoise or Hydreigon are worth more than 5$ but even the EX's are all the hype. Except ones like Registeel and Regigigas which won't sell...

That's actually the biggest problem for me with these sets. The EX cards that overshadows the regular cards are so expensive it makes any other cards you pull incredibly worthless. I dunno why people even pay 4.19 for packs now because of that. The market is so out of control lol. That's why crummy people weigh packs or good people stick to buying boxes if they're completing sets, otherwise players/collectors who bought boxes already try to get the best deal on singles they need.

Here's to hoping when Gen 6 cards come out, we'll still get good EX's but other cards to make things not so broken and stuffed with Legendaries for marketing purposes. But in the world of Pokemon money talks, so we never know.
 
MrSquarepants said:
The EX cards that overshadows the regular cards are so expensive it makes any other cards you pull incredibly worthless.
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This is my biggest issue with the new EX cards. I got back into the TCG almost two years ago and occasionally I'd buy Black & White booster packs. Every time I got a holo rare I was super excited. Then I found out they were just about worthless. :p The blame isn't only on the new EX cards though. Companies like TnT and independent eBay sellers who constantly undercut each other will make a cards value go down.
 
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