What Would you Ban in the Format to Make it Better?

The card which is really causing the problem in every scenario isn't Battle Compressor, nor VS Seeker, nor DCE, or Even Night March.
It's Ultra Ball.

Ultra Ball is what Makes Shaymin-EX actually viable
Which in turn allows explosive first turns and Night March
And players searching through their deck with no difficulty
And doubling the length of turns with extra deck searches + shuffles

Ultra Ball also supports turbo Sycamore Play:
If you can search out one card with an item, it won't hurt as much if you discard another.

It's also what makes magical 1-of Jolteon-EX techs viable
Or Using Big Basics without slow draw support.

It has also caused the largest ever difference in price between playable versions of the same card.

It's not a big-EX, nor a unqiue draw function that completely powers a deck. Rather than that huge chunk of gold holofoil (the secret rare) weighing it down, I don't see why it hasn't been banned yet.
I feel like it was unintelligently printed just to go with the fast paced nature of Roaring Skies...
 
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Double Colorless Energy is probably the only one that I would agree with. Even then, I'd probably rather go for a limit rather than an outright ban. So many Pokemon can do huge damage with just a DCE or DCE + 1 Energy.

That said, if DCE is banned I'd rather have some more type-specific Energy acceleration. Water, for instance, has no reliable acceleration that I can think of outside of attaching a DCE.
 
Ms Hugo said:
Double Colorless Energy is probably the only one that I would agree with. Even then, I'd probably rather go for a limit rather than an outright ban. So many Pokemon can do huge damage with just a DCE or DCE + 1 Energy.

That said, if DCE is banned I'd rather have some more type-specific Energy acceleration. Water, for instance, has no reliable acceleration that I can think of outside of attaching a DCE.
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What they need to do is stop making Pokemon with the double colorless attack cost. I always felt the energy should have only been usable for colorless Pokemon, even more so now considering that different types are getting special energy cards. I would like to see DCE go away in favor of a DCE that can only be used by colorless pokemon.
 
I could get behind DCE leaving the format. I don't know about "banning" it persay, but it has been out for a sorta long time consecutively (ever since it came back in the SP era).

Maybe bringing back Scramble or something similar. I dunno, I just miss there being reasons to play slower, conservative decks rather than just a competition of who can brute force through the most cards the most quickly.
 
I feel like DCE is a bit of a integrated mechanic in the PTCG, and couldn't really see it leaving (nor do I really want it to leave). However, the thing that kept DCE in check is a) Enhanced Hammer variants b) the fact it can only be used 4 times. However, with things like Puzzle of Time, DCE is becoming waaaay too easy to get back, which is becoming problematic.

(The other thing is that most Pokemon that TCPi pushes for competitivty have [C][C] costs, which isn't exactly great.)
 
True enough, but the game did go a pretty long time without DCE. The latter part of the RS era and the first half of the DP era there was no DCE, but rather other special energies like DRE & Scramble
 
TheUltimateAbsol said:
The card which is really causing the problem in every scenario isn't Battle Compressor, nor VS Seeker, nor DCE, or Even Night March.
It's Ultra Ball.

Ultra Ball is what Makes Shaymin-EX actually viable
Which in turn allows explosive first turns and Night March
And players searching through their deck with no difficulty
And doubling the length of turns with extra deck searches + shuffles

Ultra Ball also supports turbo Sycamore Play:
If you can search out one card with an item, it won't hurt as much if you discard another.

It's also what makes magical 1-of Jolteon-EX techs viable
Or Using Big Basics without slow draw support.

It has also caused the largest ever difference in price between playable versions of the same card.

It's not a big-EX, nor a unqiue draw function that completely powers a deck. Rather than that huge chunk of gold holofoil (the secret rare) weighing it down, I don't see why it hasn't been banned yet.
I feel like it was unintelligently printed just to go with the fast paced nature of Roaring Skies...
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Except Ultra Ball was first released in BW: Dark Explorers and the issues predate that. It would be a serious blow to many decks but I am uncertain if it is as bad for some of what you name. Your strongest case is with Shaymin-EX (ROS), but we were having issues before that card released. Expanded Format still has Pokémon Communication and both formats have several other Ball cards and/or Pokémon Fan Club. Losing Ultra Ball would definitely hurt a lot of common tactics but I do not believe it would be as bad as you think.

  1. Shaymin-EX usage may take less of a hit than you suggest. It would remain viable; the current draw engines that rely on Ultra Ball => Shaymin-EX would not.
  2. Without Ultra Ball the Night March focuses on Level Ball. Losing the Shaymin-EX draws hurt but didn't the deck predate Shaymin-EX? The deck would be diminished, but as almost every deck takes a hit with the loss of Night March, it probably is affected less and not more.
  3. Without Shaymin-EX and just focusing on the extra time for searches and shuffles... no, Ultra Ball is not increasing turn length in a significant fashion because similar search effects have been used most formats.
  4. "Ultra Ball also supports turbo Sycamore Play:" misleading as it is only one of dozens of cards that promote what (I believe) this references. My evidence is the heavy Professor Juniper usage that predates Ultra Ball. Again decks become less efficient as instead of discarding two to search for something you can Bench immediately with Ultra Ball, you're shuffling in a single Pokémon with Pokémon Communication, using a Level Ball, etc. in the same manner and discarding one or two extra cards with your hand when you use Professor Juniper or Professor Sycamore.
  5. Again your comments about Jolteon-EX TecH applies to several other search cards; only a few will truly be unable to work it in that don't already. Big Basic decks are probably the least affected because they can rely more on raw draw and whatever substitutes are found.
  6. Your fixation on the Secret Rare version of the card is either a red herring as it doesn't matter how valuable the super-special-awesome version of the card is when players can get the super easy to obtain regular version in the form of many reprints. If a card only needs to be banned because it is too rare... the real solution is to make it more common. That was (is?) the real issue, for example, with Tropical Beach.
Compare and contrast these to what happens with banning Double Colorless Energy (or at least finally allowing it to rotate out):

  1. Very little effect on Shaymin-EX (ROS); bouncing it through its own attack wouldn't be quite as easy in most decks, but that is all.
  2. Night March takes a serious hit because now only Mew-EX (and the pending Mew) can really use the Night March attack well. This actually wasn't a chief concern of mine, but it is a legitimate difference.
  3. Turns may take less, the same, or more time but the pacing of the game should slow. Only a little I am afraid, but instead of most decks being able to bust some great attackers out ASAP now it would only be certain ones.
  4. I guess technically not having to worry about losing Double Colorless Energy to Professor Sycamore/Professor Juniper actually makes using those two easy... but gone are people being able to use those cards to dig for Double Colorless Energy in a tight spot. Given the significant role it plays, I cannot help but stress that.
  5. Unless you have another form of Energy acceleration, Jolteon-EX now takes three turns to power-up. Many other TecH attackers can still be searched out, but only decks with dedicated Energy acceleration can still drop them and go from zero to attacking in a single turn.
This still leaves me thinking Double Colorless Energy would be the better card to ban. In fact Ultra Ball is mostly an issue due to the other pacing problems; other cards break it more than it breaks other cards.

bbninjas said:
I feel like DCE is a bit of a integrated mechanic in the PTCG, and couldn't really see it leaving (nor do I really want it to leave). However, the thing that kept DCE in check is a) Enhanced Hammer variants b) the fact it can only be used 4 times. However, with things like Puzzle of Time, DCE is becoming waaaay too easy to get back, which is becoming problematic.

(The other thing is that most Pokemon that TCPi pushes for competitivty have [C][C] costs, which isn't exactly great.)
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Not sure why you feel it is an integrated mechanic. Could you explain this more?

I will state that Double Colorless Energy is not being kept in check. What you just stated applies to all Special Energy and if anything keeps Double Colorless Energy usage down it would be competition from other Special Energy that may crowd it out and then the attackers that just don't need Double Colorless Energy in the first place. In fast paced games, Enhanced Hammer isn't even a check: player drops a Double Colorless Energy, attacks for a KO, then that player's attacker is KOed. Enhanced Hammer just keeps that player from attaching anything before the exact turn it will be used.
 
Otaku said:
Not sure why you feel it is an integrated mechanic. Could you explain this more?
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The whole game is designed with DCE in mind. If you take away DCE, it feels like a very large amount of cards are pretty useless. It's also been printed in nearly every rotation to date if I recall correctly, so it's sorta like completely part of the game now.

I will state that Double Colorless Energy is not being kept in check. What you just stated applies to all Special Energy and if anything keeps Double Colorless Energy usage down it would be competition from other Special Energy that may crowd it out and then the attackers that just don't need Double Colorless Energy in the first place. In fast paced games, Enhanced Hammer isn't even a check: player drops a Double Colorless Energy, attacks for a KO, then that player's attacker is KOed. Enhanced Hammer just keeps that player from attaching anything before the exact turn it will be used.
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I meant like previously; I agree its not kept in check at all now - partially because of item lock, actually.
 
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Thanks for explaining @bbninjas although I still don't quite agree.

bbninjas said:
The whole game is designed with DCE in mind. If you take away DCE, it feels like a very large amount of cards are pretty useless. It's also been printed in nearly every rotation to date if I recall correctly, so it's sorta like completely part of the game now.
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I would hope that most cards are designed with all (or at least most) of the other cards in mind. ;) The reason for wanting to ban it is that too many cards were indeed designed with it in mind and the designers badly miscalculated what this does to the game's pacing and power creep. Double Colorless Energy is both speeding up certain attackers and making them hit too hard, too fast.

One of the basic (pardon the pun) reasons why the Stages rarely seem balanced is that we have Basic attackers (or Evolutions thanks to Evolution acceleration) that hit the field and bring out "main strategy" worthy attacks immediately. That is why we no longer may attack first turn even though using your first turn attack to setup has been pretty important for setup decks; no one was using those because they could shoot for a FTKO for early advantage or potentially the immediate win. This one ban causes many of the worst offenders (but sadly far from all) to need either

a) an extra turn of setup
b) an alternative and less affordable/reliable form of Energy acceleration
c) both

I don't expect this to render anything unplayable that is currently worth it. I do expect many (most?) top decks to need to totally rethink their strategies and adapt to the new norm, but also to adapt to a hopefully slower pace. Is it perfect? Not a chance. For a single card ban though I believe it is one of the better (possibly the best) option.


bbninjas said:
I meant like previously; I agree its not kept in check at all now - partially because of item lock, actually.
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Another place where we disagree. I like to draw an analogy between overly powerful cards and mountains in a mountain range. Just as not all mountains are the same size, not all cards are equally "broken". A small mountain can hide a large mountain if you are at the base of the small mountain; a large mountain can of course obscure a smaller one. So too with broken cards.

Thankfully there are no staggeringly obvious examples in the Pokémon TCG, but we did get a mechanic that has since been abandoned but came close: Ace Specs. Ignore for a moment the many ways of spamming an Ace Spec as that is not actually important to this point. Just consider that for as good as any one Ace Spec is, it competes with all other Ace Spec cards for the exact same slot in your deck. So if we get multiple Ace Spec cards that are good enough to be broken but one is substantially better than the others, the most broken one is likely to be causing problems while the other two also broken ones see little to no play. That is the larger mountain hiding a smaller one. On the other hand if something makes one of the less broken ones more important; either being more broken thanks to deck/combo or just being more annoying to face, the lesser of the three broken cards might be the one is focused upon, even using while the most broken gets ignored.

Now add to this the fact that two wrongs don't make a right. Or if you want it in TCG terms, two broken cards, even if they are meant to counter each other, don't make for a balanced format. At least it is quite, quite rare. Sometimes even if they are perfectly balanced against each other, it just means no one bothers with either because hey, someone is probably running the counter. Sometimes one is just flatly better than the other, so while you technically are countering a card, mostly it just means one becomes at least a loose staple while the other is seldom scene because it gets countered by the one everyone is using. Sometimes the cards are both so good you get into a "run it or lose" area. Right now the only reason Enhanced Hammer isn't close to "run it or lose" would be the 60 card deck limit.

Enhanced Hammer is an Item. You may run up to four of it, and it has no built in cost to use, either for the card type or the specific effect. Special Energy cards are four per deck but you only can attach one Energy per turn (basic or Special). Items are not super easy to recycle in all decks, but there are ways. Special Energy must less so. If something isn't getting OHKOed, Enhanced Hammer is clearly overpowered. If OHKOs are probable, then Enhanced Hammer is likely to be underpowered. This does not blend to become a balanced relationship. ;)
 
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AustinD said:
How do these decks keep up with Night March? They play almost exclusively EX Pokemon, and have high energy costs
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Vir/Gen only has a two-three energy cost with energy acceleration plus the abuse of Red Signal to simply just mess around with the bench as well as the abuse of Enhanced Hammer as they have a fair amount of free space. You don't even need G-Booster as Megalo Cannon deals snipe damage too.

Speed Lugia is amazing at turn one set up if you know how to play it correctly and can easily trade off for two prizes with Night March. While it does have a 4 energy cost, there are even more cards in the format to easily accelerate it.

Archie's Blastoise took worlds by storm last seasons even with NM in the format and in expanded is still strong despite the lack of play with it. Mainly because of Tropical Beach.

Landorous EX was a thing too and can easily crush NM as it can snipe the bench so easily and is a very versatile card.

What makes NM such a good deck is the lack of options to counter it in the Standard format. Expanded on the other hand is a different story.
 
An important point is having a Night March player that knows what he or she is doing as well, both in building and playing the deck. Basically for everything I'm about to quote, knowing when to use Mew-EX and when not to minimize all Pokémon-EX plays is a huge deal.

SilverSilent said:
Vir/Gen only has a two-three energy cost with energy acceleration plus the abuse of Red Signal to simply just mess around with the bench as well as the abuse of Enhanced Hammer as they have a fair amount of free space. You don't even need G-Booster as Megalo Cannon deals snipe damage too.
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That isn't actually a low Energy cost for competitive decks. Enhanced Hammer really only matters if the VirGen deck whiffs on the KO or the real important thing, additional Bench manipulation via Red Signal. The Bench damage can also be handy but it still requires controlling what is up front; Megalo Cannon isn't sniping anything outright in a single shot so the obvious answer something being one hit away from being KOed is to send it up next. Mr. Mime (either Bench Barrier version) can also be an issue for VirGen decks.

In my experience this matchup favors Night March, though it is not an autoloss.

SilverSilent said:
Speed Lugia is amazing at turn one set up if you know how to play it correctly and can easily trade off for two prizes with Night March. While it does have a 4 energy cost, there are even more cards in the format to easily accelerate it.
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Very similar to the VirGen match-up; specifics matter. Even taking two Prizes per Night Marcher doesn't mean much when the Night Marchers are taking two Prizes per Lugia-EX [Plasma], Thunderus-EX, etc. The big exception is if the Speed Lugia is running Kyurem [Plasma] as Frost Spear can provide two Prizes per turn without giving up two Prizes. Though Mr. Mime will once again hamper that tactic.

SilverSilent said:
Archie's Blastoise took worlds by storm last seasons even with NM in the format and in expanded is still strong despite the lack of play with it. Mainly because of Tropical Beach.
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Vespiquen (XY: Ancient Origins 10/98) wasn't legal for Worlds 2015, was it? Honest question as World was August 21-23 but XY: Ancient Origins released August 12... and had to wait three weeks before becoming legal, right?

SilverSilent said:
Landorous EX was a thing too and can easily crush NM as it can snipe the bench so easily and is a very versatile card.
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This is true but I've had a hard time keeping Landobats competitive... while other Landorus-EX builds might still be working, thanks to Mr. Mime you usually need Crobat and Golbat placing damage counters.

SilverSilent said:
What makes NM such a good deck is the lack of options to counter it in the Standard format. Expanded on the other hand is a different story.
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Not really sure that is true. If anything it might be the lack of rivals that helps it more; Vespiquen/Flareon loses its Flareon, and while it sees use elsewhere this is probably the biggest Night March rival. Not even a hunch though; I am actually somewhat confused by Night March doing so much better in one place versus the other. Honestly there are enough counters to it in both formats that while it is still a strong deck, you'd think it wouldn't be making it as often to the top.
 
B A T T L E C O M P R E S S O R

If that was banned suddenly standard format would be interesting. Not just NIGHT MARCH.
 
If I were to ban anything it would be Double Colorless Energy. I feel that would make decks have to be more resourceful and prevent explosive T1 KOs on EXs Pokemon with Bees or Night March.
 
Gabking5458 said:
If I were to ban anything it would be Double Colorless Energy. I feel that would make decks have to be more resourceful and prevent explosive T1 KOs on EXs Pokemon with Bees or Night March.
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DCE isn't the issue though. The issue is TPC wont stop giving Pokemon that cost. Perhaps its just the double energy cards giving bad design habits. DRE and now DDE means things that were meant to be slow are no longer slow.
 
crystal_pidgeot said:
DCE isn't the issue though. The issue is TPC wont stop giving Pokemon that cost. Perhaps its just the double energy cards giving bad design habits. DRE and now DDE means things that were meant to be slow are no longer slow.
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Be that as it may, the cards have those costs. It isn't going to change. So what could be changed in the current format giving what he have to work with? Banning DCE is a valid, though not necessarily the optimal, idea.
 
If I had to ban something, I would echo most people here: Double Colorless energy. It would slow down the format and make it much more diverse across the board.
 
xaej806 said:
Be that as it may, the cards have those costs. It isn't going to change. So what could be changed in the current format giving what he have to work with? Banning DCE is a valid, though not necessarily the optimal, idea.
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The reason I dont want it banned is because it punishes colorless Pokemon too hard, who already can't hit for weakness and normally have higher than normal energy cost. If DCE should be banned, then it should be replaced with a DCE for colorless Pokemon.

It still doesn't change the fact that they need to stop printing typed Pokemon with the double colorless cost. It would be fine if it cost 2 colored energy and 2 colorless because it would still be a 3 turn charge.
 
My opinion on DCE...

It was part of my "indict" list of bans, but I do have a conflict about banning it: The fact that you could simply over-tip the balance of the game to decks that don't use DCE in the first place. I'm serious about this: There are lots of non-DCE options out there that are still extremely strong, and they could overturn the meta if it was banned:

M Manectric
M Houndoom
M Sceptile
Flareon-EX
Greninja BREAK
M Mewtwo-X
Manectric-EX/Bats
Lucario-EX
Darkrai-EX
M-Gardevior
Primal Groudon
M-Gallade
Miltank
Raikou
Wobbuffet
Garchomp
Medicham

I probably haven't scratched the surface of the deck options already fine without the card...

Now, Let's look at the metagame decks and cards that use DCE a lot, which would get weakened from the ban:

Seismitoad-EX/Giratina/EX
Vespiquen/Vileplume
Night March
M Rayquaza
Shaymin-EX
Yveltal-EX/Zoroark/Gallade
Entei/Charizard-EX

You might say, "Hey! Fine by me. Those are overpowered cards, anyway." But wait: Take a look at the other cards you would hinder badly as a result of the ban:

M Aggron
M Ampharos
M Tyranitar
M Glalie
Hippowdon
Beautifly
Chesnaught BREAK
Ursaring
Golurk AT
Xerneas Breakthrough
Regice/Regirock/Registeel
Heatran
Dialga-EX
Krookodile-EX
Tornadus
Aegislash - XY & Breakpoint
Xerneas-EX
Raticate BREAK
Sylveon-EX
Doublade - Primal Clash
Pyroar - Flashfire
Jolteon-EX

...Etc.

This isn't even counting the cards from the next set! No doubt, there are lots of unbroken options, with a disadvantage even in the current metagame, that definitely look like they were designed for DCE usage. Even more, even if you get rid of the really broken DCE users without banning this energy card - like those OP strategies that use DCE I listed - I'd bet those unbroken DCE users would still need plenty of effort to get up to the level of the Non-DCE decks.

I.E.: Banning DCE looks like it creates too much collateral damage in the card options, all in the name of slowing down those overpowered DCE decks right now. Thinking this through, I really don't think banning it would be fair to the unbroken cards that use it...
 
In this case, I'm all for banning a card that breaks a few decks rather than leave it in any let other decks suffer. While DCE is a problem, I feel it wouldn't be a problem if the game didn't have so much damn draw power. Between, Shaymin EX, Trainer's Mail, Acro Bike, Juniper, Compressor and other cards, players can get to the cards they want.

The other problem are the rules of the game. They want best of 3 with 50 minutes, which be default favors fast decks so the developers want people to play fast and aggressive deck because it fits the current ruleset for the game. The issue isn't with DCE, the issue is with bad rules and poor card design. X-Ball like attacks shouldn't have ever exist and they know how bad they are for the game but they keep making them.

I think we are placing blame on the wrong things here.
 
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