Discussion Unlucky Coincidence or Event Match Play?

C

cymonguk

Aspiring Trainer
Member
So I usually play VS ladder, but after last month I had built up a healthy ticket balance so decided to play a bit of tournament Standard.

The first 2 events I ran M Gardevoir, and faced two steel decks (I never see steel any other time, expect the odd Lucario), I then played a Volcanion deck and Typhlosion and faced Greninja, then I played a Yveltal deck and faced Electric. Thinking this had to be an unlucky streak I swapped back to Gardevoir and picked up two more steel decks!

So is the event player matching actually weighted to pit against weaknesses, or did I happen to catch my weakness in every matchup by coincidence?
 
Most likely it's confirmation bias. I also gave M Gardevoir a try last night, on VS ladder standard, and ran into steel like three times in a row. I feel like when I play my Greninja break I never run into steel. (I do feel like I play a lot of Darktina/Garb with GB) However, if you think about it what you're asking is if the system is specifically geared against you personally. That's not how programs are written, at least this one isn't smart enough to do that. If it was geared towards weakness then you should also play as the strength roughly half the time.

The meta shifts, and people either play it or try to counter it. While the tournament meta may be different from the standard meta, I personally haven't noticed any significant variance. I don't play the tournament mode too often, but last week I won a few with my Greninja Break and felt like I saw roughly the same type of decks as on ladder. One thing I did notice is that the first round often can be the most random, as once the first round is over half the people are out and the stronger decks will survive, again that may be my own confirmation bias. I haven't kept track of hundreds of games since rotation to see.

I recommend trying it again, and keep track of every match for a good amount of time. Time of day may also play into the meta, as more people may be on in the evening or on a weekend than during the work/school day.
 
I'm not suggesting it's against me, a small sampling size of 7 last night is not really a viable size to judge from. Of course I would expect over a long period any system to even out, I was interested whether there was a bias toward matching weaknesses, it is possible that of course in the next 7 games I would come up against players weak to my colour type (if that was the setting).

It is of course entirely possible that I would matchup against those decks randomly too, although clearly less likely than if it was biased to weaknesses. Of course some of it could be people playing anti-meta decks (metal seems the most likely variant, as I rarely see it played in VS), Greninja in truth is played a lot, though electric rarely is.

The question would be "why would there be a bias toward weakness matching", from the Pokemon point of view I would argue that there could be a good reason for that. A fast turn over of tickets would encourage the purchasing of tickets (which I would never do), which is the only cash input for the game (outside of buying real packs).
 
Man I am running it.. two volcanion games, two water decks. One Gardevoir, one metal deck.... I am due a run of good matchups!
 
lol. Don't buy a lottery ticket today! Have you tried playing steel yet? Also, are you posting all your matches or just the ones were you match into weakness?

Also, just as an FYI, you can edit your posts to add in the extra matches instead of double or triple posting. (Not sure if that matters on this forum or not, other forums I've been in highly discourage multiple consecutive posts)

Also, are these round 1 of the tournament games or past that? Now I'm intrigued and may try a few tournaments with my Greninja Break deck to see if I experience the same thing.
 
TheGuardian118 said:
lol. Don't buy a lottery ticket today! Have you tried playing steel yet? Also, are you posting all your matches or just the ones were you match into weakness?

Also, just as an FYI, you can edit your posts to add in the extra matches instead of double or triple posting. (Not sure if that matters on this forum or not, other forums I've been in highly discourage multiple consecutive posts)

Also, are these round 1 of the tournament games or past that? Now I'm intrigued and may try a few tournaments with my Greninja Break deck to see if I experience the same thing.
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah. No these were first rounds, I won one. Greninja break probably gets hit less as its grass weak? V few players hitting Grass atm. No I dont have a steel deck might try one though!

I managed one "blank", Gardevoir vs Greninja Break, which I lost due to bad early draws, and went down to the wire.

I suspect its a luck thing tbh, maybe just i am playing meta decks!
 
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