What is a Perfect Format?
- Thread starter Camoclone
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This is a very interesting question. In my opinion, there will never be a "perfect" format, as there will be always people who aren't satisfied with the metagame for some reasons. However, I can tell some points what makes a format good in any Trading Card Games and I will try to compare it to other games too.
The Trading Card games are actually 3 different hobbies at the same time: collecting, deck building, and the actual matches. We need to keep this in mind when we want to find a "perfect" format.
Keep in mind that the following perspectives are just my personal opinion, which may differ from yours.
1. The Balance
I think this is the most important aspect of a format in a TCG. The gameplay must be balanced. Of course, there can be top decks and tiers, however, there should be a method to counter any of them. If there is a God Tier (Tier 0) Deck in the format, it is broken and it's not fun to play (a deck which dominates everything and there are barely any counter cards for them). Another aspect of a balanced format is that the decks are really flexible. This means that you cannot tell easily if it's Tier 1 or Tier 2. It means that you has a chance with a not as good Deck, if you're a (really) good player. That's always good in a format.
Oh, and a personal preference: it's a balanced format if it is barely based on luck. And Solitaire/OTK/FTK/etc. decks are also really boring and hurt the game.
2. The Budget
Be honest: it's really important if a game is easy to start and it won't cost you 100$ when a new booster is released. Rotation-based TCG will always have this problem, however, the cards are much cheaper than in other TCGs (MTG or Yu-Gi-Oh!). Budget decks will always be popular, as for some people (like me), it's just a game, and they don't want to spend all their money on some cards just to drop them away because of a new rotation. (This is the reason why alternate formats in rotational card games are popular.)
Fortunately, unlike Magic, which is rotating AND expensive, Pokémon is actually really cheap. Budget decks can work with a little dedication, and the highest priced decks are even cheap compared to other games' budget decks.
3. The Variety
Another problem of rotational card games: each year (or year and half), a lots of cards are rotated and they won't be useful. Of course, broken cards should gone, but we see other methods to get rid of them (and to be honest: these methods are much healthier for the game). This will allow only a limited cardpool, and the worst aspect of Pokémon currently is the fact that EXs dominate all format without a question. Only 1 or 2 decks can work without them in any format, all the others must have one, or you lose. EXs are unhealthy for the game, and they also triggered the huge BW-on basic legendaries. Only a few Evolution Pokémon can work in this format, and only if they do something really special (like Rain Dance/Deluge/Inferno Fandango energy spammers).
I can understand why most of you won't agree with me. But the key of a Trading Card Game is that everyone should have its own unique deck, with totally different cards. If you see only a few staples and broken Pokémon over and over again, it becomes repetitive after a while. This is the main problem with Pokémon in my opinion: people hate the fact that they face the same 2 or 3 decks over and over again. They want variety. They want to use their favorite Pokémon, even if it's an Evolution card.
The Trading Card games are actually 3 different hobbies at the same time: collecting, deck building, and the actual matches. We need to keep this in mind when we want to find a "perfect" format.
Keep in mind that the following perspectives are just my personal opinion, which may differ from yours.
1. The Balance
I think this is the most important aspect of a format in a TCG. The gameplay must be balanced. Of course, there can be top decks and tiers, however, there should be a method to counter any of them. If there is a God Tier (Tier 0) Deck in the format, it is broken and it's not fun to play (a deck which dominates everything and there are barely any counter cards for them). Another aspect of a balanced format is that the decks are really flexible. This means that you cannot tell easily if it's Tier 1 or Tier 2. It means that you has a chance with a not as good Deck, if you're a (really) good player. That's always good in a format.
Oh, and a personal preference: it's a balanced format if it is barely based on luck. And Solitaire/OTK/FTK/etc. decks are also really boring and hurt the game.
2. The Budget
Be honest: it's really important if a game is easy to start and it won't cost you 100$ when a new booster is released. Rotation-based TCG will always have this problem, however, the cards are much cheaper than in other TCGs (MTG or Yu-Gi-Oh!). Budget decks will always be popular, as for some people (like me), it's just a game, and they don't want to spend all their money on some cards just to drop them away because of a new rotation. (This is the reason why alternate formats in rotational card games are popular.)
Fortunately, unlike Magic, which is rotating AND expensive, Pokémon is actually really cheap. Budget decks can work with a little dedication, and the highest priced decks are even cheap compared to other games' budget decks.
3. The Variety
Another problem of rotational card games: each year (or year and half), a lots of cards are rotated and they won't be useful. Of course, broken cards should gone, but we see other methods to get rid of them (and to be honest: these methods are much healthier for the game). This will allow only a limited cardpool, and the worst aspect of Pokémon currently is the fact that EXs dominate all format without a question. Only 1 or 2 decks can work without them in any format, all the others must have one, or you lose. EXs are unhealthy for the game, and they also triggered the huge BW-on basic legendaries. Only a few Evolution Pokémon can work in this format, and only if they do something really special (like Rain Dance/Deluge/Inferno Fandango energy spammers).
I can understand why most of you won't agree with me. But the key of a Trading Card Game is that everyone should have its own unique deck, with totally different cards. If you see only a few staples and broken Pokémon over and over again, it becomes repetitive after a while. This is the main problem with Pokémon in my opinion: people hate the fact that they face the same 2 or 3 decks over and over again. They want variety. They want to use their favorite Pokémon, even if it's an Evolution card.
I beg your pardon? Magic is only expensive if you are that freaking desperate to win. Go ahead, spend that 400 dollars, your loss. I've been playing a $20 deck with great success. We also have only one format that rotates, while the others are eternal formats like pokemon's unlimited.Sheodon said:
I have a lot more variety and balance playing magic as well. In pokemon, I had to play Darkrai/Lasers, Genesect, or Blastiose if I wanted a chance at winning, which is not close to a 20 dollar deck. I'm not forced to run playsets of 40 dollar cards, because good deckbuilding decides who wins. Everyone who plays magic try to include cards to even matchups against 400 dollar net decks.
Pokemon is never going to have a perfect format, they prioritize kids dumping their money into their product for shiny cards rather than the competitive scene. Broken cards will be created to bring in money, and then rotated away or errata'd to the point where it has no value (Catcher).
Don't look up the most expensive MTG decks and make a biased generalization, leave that to the people who have played and love both.
If pokemon had a balanced format, I'd switch back in a heartbeat.
The Fire Wyrm said:
Without turning it into a MTG topic:
I agree with some of your statement. I played MtG or a while and actually, I liked it. The rotating format (Modern, if I remember its name correctly) is actually the most expensive in the term of decks and because you need new cardpool each year. However, I agree that the Decks are really fun if you play an alternate format. And that's the key in my opinion: Magic supports alternate formats officially. EDH is the greatest success in the history of trading card games, and there should be something like that (an alternate format) for Pokémon too to be fun.
Unfortunately, where I live, everyone played Modern (and only a few played Unlimited/EDH/etc.), but when I met with people who played alternate format, it was really fun. However, Modern was... really limited.
Sorry if I sound a bit offensive and you thought that I don't like the game. It's not true and that wasn't my goal. In fact, I enjoyed that game when I played that. And even thought I mentioned rotating as a problem: Yu-Gi-Oh! is currently a much worse game (one of the worst TCGs at the moment, and it will be worse and worse, just check out Pendulum Summon, wth?), even thought it's not featuring that method. And yeah, YGO is expensive too.
I just recently got back into the Pokémon TCG after a long break. I haven't played since the EX era, and back then I felt that I could win a lot with my own "creative" decks. I remember using a Manectric EX / Rayquaza EX deck with great success, I also had a Deoxys deck and a Camerupt EX deck that won lots of matches, even though none of them were the norm back then. Now as I return to the Pokémon TCG (starting with Plasma Storm in hopes that it won't get rotated) I notice that there are very few useful Pokémon in the different sets. Perhaps it is because I'm older and have a better understanding of the tactics surrounding the game, but I feel that there are few options for me as a new player to learn the game once more, because the staple decks of today seem to me more complicated than those of yesterday.
Alli said:
EX-Series is the closest thing to "perfect format" in the history of Pokémon TCG actually. Lots of options, EXs were not as broken as nowadays (they were all almost evolutions and actually were really risky to use), and as you said: creativity dominated those formats.
Anyone that says this format does not give you many competitive options is wrong. You most likely are thinking this because there are few decks that receive a lot of hype, thus leading you to believe that nobody has had success with other decks. What I like to do is look through the current modified set scan lists and pick out any non-EX pokemon that could have some potential, and try to build a deck around some of what I picked. There is still almost always a need for at least 1 or 2 EX in a deck, but that doesn't mean it has to control everything. Also, most of the artwork is as cool as ever, and that makes it more fun to just do some collecting.
My biggest problem with this format are cards in sets that are just udderly worthless, and they are just ineffectual and they have no point or viability, especially rares. Some examples are XY Bibarrel, XY Bisharp, XY Macargo, and there are tons of cards like that in every set. Now, that's not to say that I want every card to be amazing, but if you look at some of the D/P sets, most of the rares had some sort of interesting ability or attack, making them usable. Again, I know they weren't all top-tier, but in comparison to our rares now, they were leaps and bounds ahead. That's what I think is wrong with this format; in order to have a good format, there can't be an abundance of useless cards in the format, it just makes it bad.
Carpey said:
That's the problem actually. If the game has too much staples, the deck building, one of my favourite aspects of a TCG, becomes worthless. That was my problem with Yu-Gi-Oh! during the "Synchrocentric" format. There were too much staples, then they had so many staples that there was only 1 deck: with staples only. There is a chance that it will happen with Pokémon too. I hope it won't.
Right now there aren't too many staples though. N can now be replaced if you so desire, juniper is a staple, skyla and Colress can be either that or bike/skates or random receiver or Jirachi engine. Pokemon catcher is no longer a four of which is nice. Even the search engine is no longer staple-matic (lol) and u can run many different options. The amount of decks that are viable in Tier 1 and Tier 2 has SKY ROCKETED with the release of XY. Anyone who complains about little diversity obviously doesn't play competitively very much (or is a senior where everything is the same).
OblivionDvdr said:
This.
I completely agree. PTCi needs to step up they're card making. I get that the product is aimed towards 5-10 year old children, but for us who actually PLAY the game, more than 1/2 of the cards in every set are complete and utter crap. And what really makes it worse is that the "Rares" are also terrible. So someone like me, who plays competitively, goes to Target, pays around $14 for three booster packs, which guarantees me only 3 "Rare" cards out of the thirty, then you're telling me that one of these "Rares" is something like FLF Furret!? That's BS! I essentially payed $4.50 for 5 useless commons, 3 uncommons (which by the way, are generally better than the rares, because at least you can get a trainer card that actually does something as an uncommon), a rev holo which is usually a common, and then a crap excuse of a "Rare". I find this hard to accept, and I feel something needs to be done.
All TCGs have worthless and downright unplayable rares, it's not Pokemon-specific.
Stay on topic guys 
. If you want to discuss the pull rates then please do it in the General Discussion.
. If you want to discuss the pull rates then please do it in the General Discussion.
A perfect format is one without huge basics with op attacks, where you actually have to evolve your pokemon to do good damage.
Price has nothing to do with a perfect format, there will lots of people who will jack the price on certain cards, that's just called life.
I think that the perfect format is a balanced format, where basic's and evos can stand on par with eachother, so in otherwords dp-on minus garchomp and luxray.
I think that the perfect format is a balanced format, where basic's and evos can stand on par with eachother, so in otherwords dp-on minus garchomp and luxray.
As much as the format has been a little more considerate to the 2 step decks by rule changes that reduce the amount of Donks that can happen. The are still strong decks that you will see over and over. And thus anti meta decks you will also see a ton of. However, on the smaller scale of random league and small tournaments. I have noticed that the most popular deck is still that of Darkrai/Yveltal/Garbodor. Being able to lock abilities while hit really hard is just too good atm to not want to play. Though it is by far the best deck in format, since it does have pretty even match ups vs a few decks like VirGen. With the release of hopefully a good fighting pokemon, engine, and decks that can out right counter this sort of deck. Will actually make Dark decks a little less common.
Things like the errata on the catcher has also changed things for the better for the rogue decks. It made certain pokemon that were fairly unusable, to an actual deck. Ampharos/Frozen City at the time where there were no consistent way to catcher, was a pretty scary deck to any non plasma. It also had no straight counter with the lack of good fighting types. Lysandre does make it a little tougher for slower decks that require setting up. But its much better than having to rely on flips, while still has a downside of being a supporter for a turn.
Either way I haven't really been playing too long. Since PLS release. But as far as that short time is concerned I think this is by far the most balanced and fair format that I have experienced.
Things like the errata on the catcher has also changed things for the better for the rogue decks. It made certain pokemon that were fairly unusable, to an actual deck. Ampharos/Frozen City at the time where there were no consistent way to catcher, was a pretty scary deck to any non plasma. It also had no straight counter with the lack of good fighting types. Lysandre does make it a little tougher for slower decks that require setting up. But its much better than having to rely on flips, while still has a downside of being a supporter for a turn.
Either way I haven't really been playing too long. Since PLS release. But as far as that short time is concerned I think this is by far the most balanced and fair format that I have experienced.
To be completely honest, people will always complain about how bad the format is. Whether it is a good format or a bad format, there are always complaints. I think it is when there are a lot of cards with potential and less luck decides games. I'm sure you all know of a "fun" card called hypnotoxic laser. That one card decides games, all due to the flip of a coin. That's just an example. When Stage 2 attackers are just as good as basics is also a sign of a very good format. Look at the SP format. I loved that format, because although SPs were very good, Machamp, Gengar, Gyarados, Gardy/Gallade, and Jumpluff existed and did well, just to name a few. All of these were just as fast as SP, with the ability to hit T2 or even T1. There were also a lot of interesting pokemon and pokepowers as well. We need more interesting abilities, less flips, and faster stage 2s to fix the format in my opinion. Frankly, I like this format because although I am a huge opponent of Laserhax, when it doesn't come through and people can draw decently, games come down to skill. Unfortunately we see dead drawing more often than not, so I guess basic support pokemon like Sableye and Uxie were would help too, but that would just turn this format into the old one.