Discussion This Format is nuts because of Lele

AFEX

AFEX

Serena is too cute!
Member
Okay, the format has become extremely ludicrous thanks to Tapu Lele GX, the ability to grab supporters (Jirachi EX: Plasma Blast) has come back on this card, AND has Mewtwo EX's attack (X-Ball) ALL IN ONE CARD. Oh no, this card doesn't have a trash GX attack to make up for it... oh no... the GX attack lets you heal all damage from TWO OF YOUR BENCHED POKEMON, that's balance for you. (Not to mention you only need one psychic to do so)

Why is this card making the tcg ridiculous? The card is a staple in every single deck and costs around 60 dollars a piece, most decks needing 2-3 to run properly! A friend told me you don't NEED it, and I on one side agree but on the other, it's a choice of, do you want your deck to do well, or to do trashy. That's essentially the choice. not even Octillery is a good replacement.

I sense it, you're gonna say this, "Well, you must have been whining all the time when Shaymin was $100.00." No, I wasn't, Shaymin had an alt (Octillery).

What do you guys think, is the tcg right now just hard to afford for newer players, or is it just fine?

Discuss-AFEX
 
as a semi competitive player, i find it quite crazy, not only because of price, but because of difficulty to find it! (i have been serching for 4 weeks and havent found any!)
 
The price tag on Lele is definitely high. For new players getting into the competitive side of the game, they have to spend at least $120 for 2 Tapu Lele, which is the lowest amount of Lele any Standard deck outside of Greninja should play. I don't think the card itself is ridiculous though. I think the game needs a card like Lele that can help the flow of the game. If you ever play the Theme Deck ladder online, think about how many games are incredibly slow because each player is forced to top deck every turn hoping they draw what they need.
 
Didn't we have a thread like this already?

If you want to be competitive, you'll pay for the card. You'll find that the general improvement in consistency of your deck with the Lele outweighs the frustration and disappointment of losing all the time.

This isn't the first time the market has been like this. You need to learn to predict when the pricetag of a card will go up or not. Shaymin-EX were about $20ish dollars upon release of Roaring Skies a few years back. It would skyrocket to double, triple its value over the course of its time in Standard. Look at Tapu Lele just a few months back at maybe $30. Once discussion of Standard rotation began, it creeped up. Now that it actually happened...well. You have your post. I do admit that this does suck for new players, but unfortunately that's just how it is.
 
Just because the card doesn't have a literal parallel doesn't mean there aren't replacements.

Octillery increases your consistency. Lele increases your consistency. They do it in different ways, and lele is stronger than shaymin, but octillery is just as much a replacement for lele as it was for shay.
 
Lele is absurdly good and if you plan to play competitively without it you'll probably get worked.....it's honestly almost a crutch for me at this point I don't make a deck without at least 3 of them now(I have 4 total and share them between my 4 decks) it's price tag is ridiculous now tho kinda makes it tough for new players to hop in
 
Xeynid said:
Just because the card doesn't have a literal parallel doesn't mean there aren't replacements.

Octillery increases your consistency. Lele increases your consistency. They do it in different ways, and lele is stronger than shaymin, but octillery is just as much a replacement for lele as it was for shay.
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Not necessarily, drawing more doesn't help as much as searching your deck for X card. People played Lele over Shaymin, not only for its lackluster HP, but also because the effect is that much better. Not to mention the fact that decks that run Octillery DO run Lele as well. Also, many decks need the effects of Lele, like Gardy and Metagross who NEED the T1 Brigette to remain consistent
 
Shaymin had an alternative Octillery... 2 sets after shay came out...

In a few sets, will we have a Lele alt?
like, in the next 2 sets?
 
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If you really want to get competitive, yes, you need to spend money on Leles.
On the other hand you can still practice with proxy cards while you slowly acquire Lele. Once you have 3 you are set.
 
GymLdrJesse said:
If you really want to get competitive, yes, you need to spend money on Leles.
On the other hand you can still practice with proxy cards while you slowly acquire Lele. Once you have 3 you are set.
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In the group I'm in, none of us have lele, my friend bought like 3 boxes, no lele (yes they were GRI boxes) We have all given up on getting some, we are also super poor in cash, lol.
 
AFEX said:
Okay, the format has become extremely ludicrous thanks to Tapu Lele GX, the ability to grab supporters (Jirachi EX: Plasma Blast) has come back on this card, AND has Mewtwo EX's attack (X-Ball) ALL IN ONE CARD. Oh no, this card doesn't have a trash GX attack to make up for it... oh no... the GX attack lets you heal all damage from TWO OF YOUR BENCHED POKEMON, that's balance for you. (Not to mention you only need one psychic to do so)

Why is this card making the tcg ridiculous? The card is a staple in every single deck and costs around 60 dollars a piece, most decks needing 2-3 to run properly! A friend told me you don't NEED it, and I on one side agree but on the other, it's a choice of, do you want your deck to do well, or to do trashy. That's essentially the choice. not even Octillery is a good replacement.

I sense it, you're gonna say this, "Well, you must have been whining all the time when Shaymin was $100.00." No, I wasn't, Shaymin had an alt (Octillery).

What do you guys think, is the tcg right now just hard to afford for newer players, or is it just fine?

Discuss-AFEX
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Here's some food for thought, Pokémon wants their community to grow (for the sake of the argument let's say tcg) The only way for it to grow is for new players to join. Right? Well when someone builds a deck let's say, and they have no lele just some octillery, they play a match against someone who has better consistency thanks to lele, that person looks up that card going to buy it, they release it's a sixty dollar card, and say, "Eh I can work around it." Then that player loses due to less deck consistency without lele, then they get frustrated and leave the tcg all together.

Nintendo is telling me, that in order to do well in the Pokémon tcg I have to drop $120.00 on a card that gives better consistency and grabs supporters, so Nintendo is being a bunch of money grabbers that want to tell new tcg players that in order to be good, you need to drop $120.00 to get yourself situated to do well in the PTCG.

How the heck is the Pokémon TCG community, a community that is trying to grow, going to grow very well if you need to drop $120.00 to have a good deck.
They say the Pokémon Tcg is very open to newer players, and newer player friendly, that's what Nintendo says, that is not true.

Yes I know you aren't required to buy lele on entry to the tcg, but I find it frustrating that newer players to the tcg who want to get good have a nearly $120.00 roadblock in order to keep progressing on getting better, I don't care about myself having lele, I'll wait till I dupe some kid at school for one. I just find it extremely dangerous for this kind of card to exist, no matter the benefits, it's a roadblock, for new players, this community won't grow, but stay the same.

I bet you if I somehow could analyze the player base of the tcg 3-4 months after Shaymins price tag went wacko, I bet you the player base decreased by some amount. Nobody was willing to spend $400.00 on a shareable (throughout varying decks of the player) play set of shaymin. Once Octillery came out, something strange happened for Poketubers and other players, along with their shaymin in their deck profiles, they would run at least 2-2 octillery. I'll make a bet, when octillery came out, everybody starting crawling back to the tcg after their 4 month coma-Esque disappearance, I mean wouldn't you if you caught wind of shaymin having an alt, (some thinking it was slightly better than shay)

I'm not saying lele is a bad card, I'm saying it's just too much of a roadblock to co-exist with all the other cards in the tcg. I see it a card that stirs up trouble for the newer players trying to get good at tcg (Yes they can proxy, but when are they going to get an actual lele?) The card is just a hinderance for the growth of the community, take all of this with a grain of salt.

Concerned for newer players and the growth of the community-AFEX
 
Zoroark won't "need lele. There is a supporter card called mallow. Parter that with zoroark gx and you'll be good. Talenflame works good in greninja or even octilery. Sylveon has the 2 best attacks in the game bar none. Pokemon only makes it hard for players that struggle with coming up with creative was to win so they feel forced to by cards like lele. Only to lose because of lack of experience or they just print cards to counter later on like weavile
 
i mean you can complain about lele all you want but its high priced because its good and omnipresent and theres nothing wrong with that. most tcgs are much more expensive and lele will last you a while and help just about every deck you want to try out so purchasing them now will save you allot of hassle. the card is not unbalanced because everyone can splash it in and up the consistency in fact the presense of lele helps evo decks be viable which is what pokemon should have always been about. cards that are generally unhealthy for formats are complelty lopsided on how they make one type or deck archetype to good Night march being a good example. however when my opponent plays a lele down for that first turn kiawe or briggete i dont feel any sort of unfair disadvantage because i could do the same thing. if you want to not play lele fine but your gonna not have a nearly as consistent deck and if your in an area with good players your chance of winning leauge cups is going to be severely hindered.

Also im tired of people saying octillery was a replacement for shaymin they are completely different in there function
 
AuraJackle said:
i mean you can complain about lele all you want but its high priced because its good and omnipresent and theres nothing wrong with that. most tcgs are much more expensive and lele will last you a while and help just about every deck you want to try out so purchasing them now will save you allot of hassle. the card is not unbalanced because everyone can splash it in and up the consistency in fact the presense of lele helps evo decks be viable which is what pokemon should have always been about. cards that are generally unhealthy for formats are complelty lopsided on how they make one type or deck archetype to good Night march being a good example. however when my opponent plays a lele down for that first turn kiawe or briggete i dont feel any sort of unfair disadvantage because i could do the same thing. if you want to not play lele fine but your gonna not have a nearly as consistent deck and if your in an area with good players your chance of winning leauge cups is going to be severely hindered.

Also im tired of people saying octillery was a replacement for shaymin they are completely different in there function
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If you would've actually, I don't know actually have READ one of my posts you would see I never said Octillery was a replacement for Shaymin, I said it was an ALTERNATIVE. Actually read the posts in the thread before you say something. (Not to mention it's against the terms and conditions when you post something on a forum.)
 
AFEX said:
If you would've actually, I don't know actually have READ one of my posts you would see I never said Octillery was a replacement for Shaymin, I said it was an ALTERNATIVE. Actually read the posts in the thread before you say something. (Not to mention it's against the terms and conditions when you post something on a forum.)
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Except that Octillery wasn't an alternative to shaymin there was never a deck that could do well with Octillery because they didn't have access to shaymin. Also look up alternative and replacement they are synonyms
 
AuraJackle said:
Except that Octillery wasn't an alternative to shaymin there was never a deck that could do well with Octillery because they didn't have access to shaymin. Also look up alternative and replacement they are synonyms
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Never a deck that could do well with octillery, water boxes used Octillery.
 
AFEX said:
In the group I'm in, none of us have lele, my friend bought like 3 boxes, no lele (yes they were GRI boxes) We have all given up on getting some, we are also super poor in cash, lol.
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That's why you shouldn't really buy boxes if you're only looking for one card. For the price of 3 boxes, your friend could've bought 3 Lele and still saved money.
 
AFEX said:
In the group I'm in, none of us have lele, my friend bought like 3 boxes, no lele (yes they were GRI boxes) We have all given up on getting some, we are also super poor in cash, lol.
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LOL well I made the logical choice and just bought the 3 lele upfront. It sucks when you spend that much money on boxes and dont even get a single one. :(
 
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