TPCi's 'Core Player Survey' Asks Good Questions, Needs Great Answers

JustInBasil

Grass-Type Gym Leader
News Staff
Member
I hope some of these hypothetical formats become a reality. I run weekly tournaments on my Discord server and once each month we do alternate formats in place of the usual Standard format. The "Evolution" Format would be practically identical to our Aceless format and Aceless is such a blast to play in.
 

Clam

Almost decent
Member
They seem to want to help the format improve and the Evolution format seems something a ton of players would love during this standard format which is one that even the people who like playing standard don't seem to enjoy. I am glad they want to help but I just hope they actually do something instead of just listening.

But personally I would LOVE that evolution format for the PTCGO as the closest I have to that is theme deck format and that's great but I want to play something still budget friendly but actually fun
 
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Bdez90

Aspiring Trainer
Member
If you're really still crying about ADP when its going to be rotated in a few months you need to just get a life.
 

Yaginku

H-on Will Save Pokemon
Member
Single-Prize Only got officially recognized!! And that can be met with my resounding- no!

I've never seen this format as an alternative to the regular Standard, where broken multi-prize Pokemon roam free. I want it to be the standard, perhaps just for a waiting period and to show interest in games that aren't decided on Turn 2.
I also don't want to repeat the mistake of Magic's Pauper - a format for "poor people", that can always be used as an excuse to keep the prices of Standard high.
 

jamestajames

Aspiring Trainer
Member
If you're really still crying about ADP when its going to be rotated in a few months you need to just get a life.
Yeah. Let me just go and get a life real quick for having an opinion. I forget in 2020 we can’t have opinions because it hurts peoples feelings.
 

snoopy369

Aspiring Trainer
Advanced Member
Member
I think more supported formats are never a bad thing. As much as it's hard to imagine, many people *like* the speed and consistency that comes with the current Standard format. Other people like a more nuanced game with less consistency perhaps but also more time to do complex strategies. Those are both good things, and having more formats is great - even if they don't make it into tournament play, even if they just get official card lists and PTCGO support it would be sufficient for a _lot_ of people.
 

TokenDuelist

YGO TCG is Cheaper. Fight me.
Member
I would absolutely love an Evolution "Expanded" Format because it honestly feels like good non-multi-prize Pokemon got the spotlight stolen by EX Pokemon. Giving them a chance to shine would be really fun.

If you're really still crying about ADP when its going to be rotated in a few months you need to just get a life.

Bruh, people want to enjoy this game and not have to wait it out for the format to rotate things out. This card game is hella flawed and this Survey is them trying to correct these flaws.
 

The Fish

0.o
Member
Booster draft format would be so much fun. It'd be like pre release tournaments. RNG as hell but sooooo much fun and creativity
 

Falling Skies

The Traveler
Member
While I like the idea of a no-multiprize format, I'd rather not have it as a seperate format and would much prefer if it just was the official Standard format, with TPC finally letting go of the "big, shiny basic that gives up more than 1 prize" thing that's been around for almost ten years at this point. It's way worn its welcome, and there's virtually no difference between Vs and the original EXes except for higher HP values. Unfortunately, we're stuck with Vs until gen 9 now, but maybe we'll get lucky and they'll actually think of something new for once then.

And an ADP ban in both formats would be lovely, so hopefully enough people bring it up that they decide to do it.
 

Macke

Master of deckbuilding
Member
OMG THEY WILL FINALLY LISTEN!!!

I really hope they will read this and change the direction of the game
 

The Last Shaymin

Floof
Member
I filled it out and ...yeah. adp needs to be banned. read my rant, i wrote a lot more about it there if you want to see my full opinion
 

Number51x

Blasting off at the speed of light!
Member
If you're really still crying about ADP when its going to be rotated in a few months you need to just get a life.
A few months?? The hell are you talking about; that's a good 8 months out. 8 more months of something making the game un-fun for a lot of players. I think we can all relate to what 8 months of drudgery feels like at this point.
 

Scoop

Literally a sheep
Member
If you're really still crying about ADP when its going to be rotated in a few months you need to just get a life.
God forbid people have criticism to an un-fun part of a game they enjoy and care about because they want to enjoy it, right?
 

TokenDuelist

YGO TCG is Cheaper. Fight me.
Member
God forbid people have criticism to an un-fun part of a game they enjoy and care about because they want to enjoy it, right?

It's a shame, on top of that I don't know why people think rotation is a viable solution at this point. The "it'll rotate out eventually" defense of card games is the excuse from people who either play the deck, are new to the card game, or have some ingrained protection for "If they designed it this way then they know what they're doing"

Which, as someone who has played this game for over 10 years, can tell you - They haven't known what they were doing since the implementation of EX Pokemon.
 

The Last Shaymin

Floof
Member
ok know what im bored enough to write this out so lets do it

ADP has been a problem for the format for the entirety of its existence at this point. For the past 2 years or so, it has been a high tier deck where it has gatekept an entire deck archetype from seeing the light of day, which is the weak 2shot single prize deck archetype. This deck is mostly known as Zapbeasts or Mally, and I think Zapbeasts would have had a shot in last format had ADP not existed. Naturally, ADP exists, so Zapbeasts was trash and Mally needed to hit a specific combo to not instantly lose the game. This is ridiculous to me, that an entire archetype of possibly good decks is literally unplayable due to a single card. ADP has more problems than that, however. In a format with incredible consistency due to Dedenne and Crobat, the reward for killing those pokemon is way too high for an ADP based deck. You can win by killing 2 support Pokemon which have basically no HP in this format, and you just win. The existence of gust effects with the extra prize granted is just utterly stupid and causes the deck to not require any skill.

Guess what?

My mom got second at a team qualifier playing ADPZ with only a day’s worth of experience with the deck. Its absolutely ridiculous how braindead this deck is. A completely linear format with no creative deck building is really boring to me. I played Flapple Mawile Surprise box at that tournament and won just because I brought a deck that nobody else expected and had heard of before, and I sniped extra dedenne and other pokemon with the mawile surprise box and won, due to the …surprising combo that I played. This survey is important because it seems that they want to improve this stupid braindead meta, and the easiest way to do this is to ban ADP and promote better creative deckbuilding by making combos NOT obvious. Everyone and their grandma knew that ADP would be really good with Zacian. Everyone and their dog knew that Eternatus would be good with zigzagoon and crobat. A interesting format is when stuff isn’t laid out as if people were blind. I really hope that things change with this survey, and they promote creativity and strategy rather than playing 2 dummy broken cards together and chucking cards onto the table like a casino dealer.

If you're really still crying about ADP when its going to be rotated in a few months you need to just get a life.
Know what? Sure. I think I will just get a life. Thanks for the idea. You know, I quit playing a few months ago just to come back for the team challenge and guess what? I get greeted with this toxic format. You know, Life is about having fun. Enjoying yourself. I would say that it is somewhat difficult to enjoy myself when a card such as ADP is punishing creative deck building for almost the entire existence of the card. I hope you enjoy playing in this toxic format.

I don't.
 
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Pone

Delta Species is best species
Member
Pretty much all of my answers for every question in the survey boiled down to "immediately remove EX, GX, V, and whatever other BW+ multiprize Pokémon you have plans for from the game" and "reverse the power creep that has been rising out of control since BW released". The latter I kinda doubt will happen, but the former seems to almost be a universal opinion. I don't think I've talked to a single person that doesn't agree that the multiprize-dominated format has got to go. It's just not fun.

It really gives me hope and excitement knowing how much praise the proposed "Evolution Format" is getting. It will be so refreshing if they actually add it to PTCGO and I can actually have fun playing the game again for the first time in 10 years.
 

Lanstar

The Cutest of Ladies
Member
I tried watching the Player II Cup stream last week... I've never seen more boring gameplay and a centralized metagame than the current standard format. It's so weird how Expanded looks like a much more stable and enjoyable format right now - Who knew banning a bunch of restrictive cards in expanded could improve it that much? ;)

Watch as players overwhelmingly promote the "Evolutions" format through the survey. And even more: Should TPCi create such a format for their client, watch as tons of 'unofficial' tourneys embrace it much more than standard itself.
 
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