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

[BlaineistheBest]

Ultra Ball. It gets Shaymin, Hoopa, and literally everything. If it was gone, we would have no problem with NM or anything else. If we made something like Dual Ball again, it would help, but it wouldn't solve the problem. That said, Ultra Ball does provide consistency, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If we returned to the Delta Species pace of play, we would have a much more skillful game, rather than a format where the coin flip decides your fate.

 

[Otaku]

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

How many of these are legitimately competitive and have no other alternative?

Not letting anyone label these as collateral damage without better reasoning. Why? They seem to fall into one of two categories:

1) Already in ruins. Several of these are not part of successful, competitive decks. If something that is not seeing play (or at least successful competitive play), "damaging it" is rather subjective.

2) Already has an alternative. Many of these already have alternative options they could be running or in fact already use. They come off a lot better seeing the top decks taken down a notch, even if it means instead of being the 40th best deck it only jumps to the 30th best.

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

Some may be but I assure you I am not. See, the problem is you're discussing the wrong things here.

You know me, crystal_pidgeot. With a bizarre mixture of sad resolve but joy for being heard out, I can explain how the games pacing is the ultimate problem, and that to fix the game's pacing requires the slow process of the card designers doing it on their end. Bans and rule changes can at best patch things a bit, but not truly fix the problem.

That isn't this thread though: this one is about banning one card to try and improve things.

With that kind of restriction, as I keep explaining the most logical card to hit is Double Colorless Energy. With so many cards that can make use of [C] Energy, having a Special Energy that provides [CC] is just too good. It contributes to the pacing issues of the core game. Strip all the deck acceleration (the draw and search power) from the game and... [CC] from a Special Energy with no drawbacks is still great. All you've done is up the luck factor from using them.

Any single card we ban will have a replacement. Unless you do something odd like ban a single Night March Pokémon, anyway. If you ban Professor Sycamore, it means nothing to Expanded, except perhaps at the personal level if someone lacks Professor Juniper to replace it. It would shake up Standard, but mostly things would work the same save using inferior draw options, because we have such things.

As stated above, that even applies to Double Colorless Energy; many decks will simply have to make do with using Max Elixir, perhaps Ether, Exp. Share or (and this is probably good) make room for a Pokémon that accelerates Energy. S'why I called foul on that list; Heatran remains viable because the competitive decks that run Heatran do so with another form of Energy acceleration. It might not be as good, but then again it might do better because so many of its competitors across the board have now been weakened.

Make no mistake though: banning a single card means the right choice is better than nothing, but it still isn't really a good option but the issues that plague this game are systematic and present in most (if not all) of the comeptitive card pool. What we need is a radical shift in card design for future sets, and the time for the current card pool to eventually rotate the present cards out.

 

[Lanstar]

How many of these are legitimately competitive and have no other alternative?

Not letting anyone label these as collateral damage without better reasoning. Why? They seem to fall into one of two categories:

1) Already in ruins. Several of these are not part of successful, competitive decks. If something that is not seeing play (or at least successful competitive play), "damaging it" is rather subjective.

2) Already has an alternative. Many of these already have alternative options they could be running or in fact already use. They come off a lot better seeing the top decks taken down a notch, even if it means instead of being the 40th best deck it only jumps to the 30th best.

How odd... I've used many of these cards in wonderful rogue decks throughout the months in the format - Doublade-Ariados, Golurk with countless kinds of support, Ursaring to drag away supports from the bench, Jolteon-EX, Mega Glalie and Normal Glalie as good water attackers, Regice, Hippowdon and Beautifly for EX resistance (Different decks, of course), Mega Ampharos-Stall, M Aggron as a great risky, but high HP mega, Xerneas-EX/Sylveon-EX with Max Elixir and Bats, Rainbow Force Xerneas Toolboxes, M Tyranitar/Bats...

All of these strategies are anything but useless, and they use DCE to work. The biggest issue is they get out-manuveured by, well... primarily the OP explosive DCE users like Night March and Vespiquen/Vileplume. If you take just these crazy decks out of the way, you actually give other deck choices the right to shine.

However, if the process of taking the small number of unfairly OP decks away means taking away a card that is essential for loads of other strategies to be made, you could end up making the the metagame still very undiverse and stale to play in. There are lots of great strategies I actually like playing with that use the DCE, and they are really quite balanced in design compared to the non-DCE type of decks. It's just the very small handful of cards that the designers decided to give them moves with incredibly stupid power, and the simple 2 colorless attack cost to fuel it, that abuse the DCE effect.

No seriously: Compare EVERY CARD in this Standard Format with the DCE in its cost - not just the small few with it that dominate the meta.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

Thats why I say its not one single card that contributes to the unhealthy meta. Its a bunch of them so its hard to pick one single card but DCE is a problem.

 

[Otaku]

How odd... I've used many of these cards in wonderful rogue decks throughout the months in the format - Doublade-Ariados, Golurk with countless kinds of support, Ursaring to drag away supports from the bench, Jolteon-EX, Mega Glalie and Normal Glalie as good water attackers, Regice, Hippowdon and Beautifly for EX resistance (Different decks, of course), Mega Ampharos-Stall, M Aggron as a great risky, but high HP mega, Xerneas-EX/Sylveon-EX with Max Elixir and Bats, Rainbow Force Xerneas Toolboxes, M Tyranitar/Bats...

In my previous post I gave two options for the cards listed, falling into either

1) Decks without proven track records
2) Decks that will have to use an alternate means of Energy acceleration

An example of #2 is how Regice can still be used alongside (as an example) M Manectric-EX, as well as other options in other builds, like Max Elixir.

Jumping back to #1, you mention "wonderful rogue decks" that either fit #2 or which I am not seeing listed in the Top 8 for the Masters Division of recent State Championships. Such tournaments are not the be-all-end-all of Pokémon, but they serve as a decent enough measure. I specified competitive decks. If over four weeks of State Championships a deck fails to manage a single 8th place finish, that is an issue.

But because I've messed up before I will ask; am I missing the results of an event? For example I am quite ignorant of recent European events, as well as for the lower age groups. As I am usually relying on Ctrl+F a typo could also result in me coming to a quite faulty conclusion. >.>

Otherwise if all of those decks are competitive, then I take it you advocate for banning nothing? Which is a perfectly fine stance to take. I confess I am suspicious that maybe instead you (as well as some others) are more worried about your own pet projects than coming up with something that would really be best overall. It stinks when one's favorite deck takes a serious hit from a ban, but the two decks I use (and reasonably enjoy) most right now? Night March as well as Vespiquen/Eeeveelutions. Those take a serious hit losing Double Colorless Energy but better I have to move on and we get a more balanced metagame.

 

[Lanstar]

In my previous post I gave two options for the cards listed, falling into either

1) Decks without proven track records
2) Decks that will have to use an alternate means of Energy acceleration

An example of #2 is how Regice can still be used alongside (as an example) M Manectric-EX, as well as other options in other builds, like Max Elixir.

Jumping back to #1, you mention "wonderful rogue decks" that either fit #2 or which I am not seeing listed in the Top 8 for the Masters Division of recent State Championships. Such tournaments are not the be-all-end-all of Pokémon, but they serve as a decent enough measure. I specified competitive decks. If over four weeks of State Championships a deck fails to manage a single 8th place finish, that is an issue.

But because I've messed up before I will ask; am I missing the results of an event? For example I am quite ignorant of recent European events, as well as for the lower age groups. As I am usually relying on Ctrl+F a typo could also result in me coming to a quite faulty conclusion. >.>

Otherwise if all of those decks are competitive, then I take it you advocate for banning nothing? Which is a perfectly fine stance to take. I confess I am suspicious that maybe instead you (as well as some others) are more worried about your own pet projects than coming up with something that would really be best overall. It stinks when one's favorite deck takes a serious hit from a ban, but the two decks I use (and reasonably enjoy) most right now? Night March as well as Vespiquen/Eeeveelutions. Those take a serious hit losing Double Colorless Energy but better I have to move on and we get a more balanced metagame.

I never said I advocated to ban nothing - I just said that I don't really know what exact card I would ban. I would put each of the cards I talked about in my first post in this thread on the table as cards that are ban-worthy, and figure out which one would be the best one(s) to ban in order to help improve the format.

Read all my arguments I've been saying throughout this thread in this context: I believe a format is healthy when a good amount of the card pool given to us is viable competitively. In other words, my way of improving the format is by making more cards that we already have viable competitively. The rogue decks I mentioned I believe have good potential, even if they're struggling in usage right now. But when there are too many matchups in the current meta that just burn down any kind of deck, and everything must always counter them, they can't be played at all - thus the cardpool is really small and the meta is unhealthy to me.

In this way, I believe banning DCE would still keep the metagame unhealthy. No, none of those rogue strategies were viable in the current format right now... But I want them to have a chance to shine somehow. I would rather ban cards in a way to improve the ability for those forgotten strategies to be played. Removing DCE is pretty much the death blow to them, and weakens their ability to function - the poor get poorer.

Hopefully someone out there can actually understand this...

 

[GreatEclipse]

Since all TCG are built around card synergy, trying to identity the one card that "breaks" the format will usually be the wrong way to look at balancing it. For example, DCE would be a really bad card if nothing really, really good could attack with it, since as a special energy, it is much harder to search out and recycle than a basic. There is nothing in the rules that would have stopped the designers from making Night March cost a single basic energy (colored or not), and then it would be far more broken than it is now.

Instead, they made you use a DCE, because they thought at the time that needing such a limited resource would keep the deck from being too powerful. They were wrong, but that does not prove that DCE is the problem. Infact, the deck only got as broken as it is now once they printed a card that let you get around some of those limitations (Puzzle of Time).

Likewise, they could have given Joltik and Pumpkaboo more base HP, but they didn't, because they thought that, too, would keep the strategy in check. The problem is that they then printed a card that gave basics +40 with no drawbacks, and they ended up benefiting more than other decks.

But then Puzzle of Time and Fighting Fury Belt would not be the problem either, if an existing (or future) deck could not make use of them to anything like the same degree.

 

[Otaku]

Hopefully someone out there can actually understand this...

It isn't a problem of understanding, it is an issue with agreeing. I'll explain a bit but I'm putting it in spoilers because... it just seems like I should give you the option. I mean you probably feel like you're beating your head against a wall and if you're feeling charitable are simply wondering why I can't comprehend what it is you are clearly saying.

Spoiler

For years I've advocated that the healthiest state for the game is one where no Stage and no Type is significantly "better" than the others. This is because with over 700 Pokémon, everyone has different favorites. At the same time, with over 700 Pokémon and 18 Types, I realize that such a balance is highly improbable. I believe it ought to be the goal, but with the realistic expectation that the game will at best approach it and not achieve it. There is also the TCG side of things; different people enjoy aspects of TCGs. Collectors need things to collect, and players don't always enjoy the same strategies, so variety with balance is needed here as well, even if getting it exactly right is unlikely. In the end though both suffer from pacing issues.

Acceleration is an issue within this game:

• Energy acceleration allows attacks that hit too hard, too fast. This leaves little to no time for setup.
• Evolution acceleration allows cards to hit the field sooner than their design calls for, even when it is intentional.
• Hand acceleration (draw and search) is currently as such to reward aggressive strategies with comparatively simple (even if full) fields.

Probably a few I am missing, but all of these cause problems. A single banned card won't solve all of this. I looked for what could be removed that I believe would do the most good. While some decks don't even use Double Colorless Energy, losing it slows down many of the top decks just a bit, which benefits the entire format.

What about the rogue decks you (Lanstar) favor?

Being "functional" isn't the same as being "viable", even when a deck puts the "fun" in "functional". Some of them are better off without DCE. Why? As much as it hurts them to lose DCE the loss costs them less than it costs several current, top decks. The ones that aren't? What can you ban to suddenly make them competitive, and will it avoid making them simply the new overpowered deck?

 

[Buyo]

Personally, instead of banning something, I think it'd be more constructive to make new cards deliberately designed to fit most decks, which could also potentially check problem cards. Battle Compressor dominating the metagame? Make something that undoes Battle Compressor and can easily fit anywhere.

For instance, imagine a version of Sacred Ash, except you can choose which player it effects. In Night March's case, that could easily be a bunch of Marchers back into their deck. Or, if it's a supporter, you could use it for yourself if you have bad luck discarding Sacred Ash or Super Rod early game. I really like a lot of the multipurpose cards from the BREAK block, like Giovanni's Scheme, Parallel City, etc. I think these "2-in-1" cards are healthy for the game, and given the limited deck space, they could be a good medium for introducing more game-balancing cards that could also be used as consistency cards if need be.

Actually, I think there's an inherent problem in the card pool right now, where over half the cards in your deck are devoted to energy and the obligatory Trainers necessary for you to even set up and function (For instance, I have an extremely hard time fitting Rare Candy into decks without sacrificing methods to get the Basics out in the first place). I wonder if cards can be introduced to streamline the Trainer section of decks in such a way that you need less cards for a consistent setup? That way more techs that ALREADY exist (Jirachi! And Enhanced Hammer, etc) can actually fit into decks. I kinda miss Cleffa and Pichu for reasons like this.

 

[Otaku]

@Buyo

I would like to see an update to an old card that was pretty useless in the Base Set: Impostor Professor Oak. Though for some reason, it is sometimes spelled as Imposter Professor Oak even though that is now how "impostor" is properly spelled in American English and the early print runs for the card had the correct spelling.

Anyway, as the card debuted when the game began, in Unlimited play it actually functions as an Item with the following effect:

Your opponent shuffles his or her hand into his or her deck, then draws 7 cards.

I propose re-releasing it as a Supporter and with the following effect:

Your opponent discards his or her hand, then draws 7 cards.

Wiping out your opponent's previous hand while forcing them to draw replacements would make this amazing for dedicated mill decks. Possibly (probably?) too good. Still lowering the amount drawn or making the draw optional might get it to do what I want; a Supporter most decks will run as a single that can punish an opponent for brazenly over-extending.

Edit: So as the mods have reminded me, I just did that thing I hate: someone playing Create-A-Card in the middle of a discussion. Apologies.

 

[Asclepius24]

Your opponent discards his or her hand, then draws 7 cards.

In addition to that proposed card being comically broken, discussion of imaginary cards is not what this thread is about. Let's keep things on topic, please.