What's Wrong with this Format?

C

Card Slinger J

Aspiring Trainer
Member
After playing through HGSS-On recently I admit that DP-On and MD-On were MUCH better formats in the Pokemon TCG. The way Modified is right now is just very stagnant with only a few good decks being competitive almost akin to Yu-Gi-Oh! back in the "Chaos" days that resulted in the banhammer and limited list. Except instead of having just 2-3 playable decks in the format we now only have 9-10 while we had more playable decks last format in MD-On (15-20 playable decks?) despite the annoyance of SP Pokemon.

The only good decks I see are ZPST, MewBox, TyRam, Stage 1 Rush, DonChamp, MegaZone, MagneBoar, Gothitelle/Reuniclus, and google.deck, that's really about it. Everything else being played doesn't even come close not even Samurott/Electrode which risks falling behind too much on prizes at the cost of energy acceleration when Electric decks are seeing alot of play these days. There's also hardly any good Fighting Pokemon in the format other than Donphan that matches to the current speed of the format itself.

MewBox is only good If you're running 4-4 Yanmega Prime with or without a 2-2 Sunflora line to fetch for your Vileplume to ensure Trainer Lock. Running a budget tech like Roserade just doesn't cut it either. MewBox is also great at going Aggro without needing to Trainer Lock and with only needing to LZ Jumpluff while sweeping with Mew and Yanmega games end really fast. I only managed to beat MewBox with Samurott/Electrode but only because my Opponent was stalling with Pichu to get that Mass Attack boost from Jumpluff that he needed. Had he not stalled with the babies I would've lost.

That's another thing I notice about players running Cleffa for Eeeek or just Baby Pokemon of HGSS-On in general, they basically give their opponent's a 1 turn advantage before they can make a comeback or they are garaunteed to lose no matter what. Without that 1 turn advantage they give to their opponent's they basically have tempo advantage to where they have higher odds of winning the game alot better than their opponent does and that goes back to the Black & White rule changes of the 1st turn, where players get to play their stuff first which almost seems like games are decided based on coin flips or whoever goes first.

The balance of luck and skill is lost, where with the way the rules and Modified in the Pokemon TCG are setup nowadays luck is higher than skill. By removing restrictions of the 1st turn, that basically increased the luck of the game which overrides the skill of the game in general. This is why I enjoyed DP-On and MD-On alot more than HGSS-On, the format was balanced at least before LuxChomp, SableDonk, and Gyarados but at least whoever went first weren't the ones who end up deciding the game itself but it does play a part in general.

Another problem I see with HGSS-On is the current card pool, there just isn't enough playable cards in the format to make a dent in the metagame and when you consider that the best cards we were supposed to get from Japan aren't being released until next set in Noble Victories it does make you wonder though. Emerging Powers while it gave us Catcher, Max Potion, and Tornadus didn't really offer anything new to the table and left us with like 9-10 playable cards while the rest of the set is junk. Where is that definitive answer to Yanmega Prime other than Zekrom or Magnezone which costs an arm and a leg to get ahold of? See what the problem is right now?

Sorry If I'm complaining but this is something I needed to get off my chest... >_>
 
I'm going to assume that you've only been playing a couple seasons because:
1. The cardpool is usually this small.
2. This format isn't bad. We've seen Plox. Now that was bad.

Besides, this format is awesome. This is the first complaint thread I've seen about it. The only time the opening flip decides the game is in a speed deck mirror and if the skill difference is huge, the better player usually wins out there too. And you can either a. not run fast decks or b. run tech cards like Twins and Weavile to swing the matchup back in your favor even when going second. In SP, there wasn't any deck variation. SP dominated the format ever since SP Radar and DCE were released.

EP gave us Gothitelle, which is an entirely new deck. Beartic has seen a little bit of play too and Catcher basically changed the format from being one of the worst the game has ever seen to the best we've had since DP-SF or arguably since DP came out.

As far as babies, they aren't that relevant in deciding the winner of a match. Most of the fast decks have basically cut them completely with the exception of some Stage 1's. And then the Vileplume/Gothitelle and Magnezone decks run Twins, so the baby is basically just a suicidal starter to set Twins up faster without losing anything key. And when it appears they decide the winner, it's often that Cleffa was used to save you from a useless hand that you would have lost anyway, and the slow start cost you the game, not the baby.
 
It's not that the format is bad, it's just there isn't enough playable cards in the current card pool right now. Like I said before there is still no solid counter to Yanmega Prime and it's the most dominant Pokemon in the current metagame since Luxray GL Lv. X last format. Oh sure there's also Zekrom and Magnezone but do you expect people to drop a load of money to get those cards just to counter Yanmega? There's just very few alternatives that are competitive enough to break the mold, Raichu Prime? Jolteon? in your dreams.

Beartic isn't good enough to see a solid amount of play, I'm sorry but I'm just not sold on it especially with Scizor Prime which is highly underrated right now no thanks to TyRam. I've already mentioned Gothitelle/Reuniclus and yes it is an amazing deck as I've seen it beat ZPST on YouTube. You mention Weavile but it doesn't offer that good of hand disruption at least with the upcoming N Supporter it's hand disruption and drawpower combined especially for decks utilizing on Twins and/or Sage's Training engines.
 
Yanmega hasn't even gotten that many BR wins. I got 1 with it, Jason K got 1 and I think one Yanmega/Magnezone won but that's it. Donphan, Zekrom and Reshiram have been taking the most wins. Also, Yanmega is way more expensive than Magnezone and Zekrom so I'm not sure about your logic behind that statement. Yanmega is a very balanced card - it's fast, but it's somewhat possible for an opponent to manipulate it and it can't do a lot of damage or hit for weakness.

Claw Snag can be the difference between a win and a loss in the Stage 1 mirror. Axing their draw support for a few turns can really hurt them (or killing a key Catcher, PlusPower, Donphan etc). Beartic isn't good, but it's seen some play. You were saying that nothing from EP except Tornadus and Catcher was seeing play.
 
One of the great things about this format is that there's no clear cut best deck. Last format we had Luxchomp which, although it didn't win every tournament, still had the more wins than any other deck in the format overall. Sure there were a lot of decks to choose from last format but only a few of those were actually top decks and in the end Luxchomp could still dominate them all.

In the HS-on format, there may not be quite as many options for decks but there are still a lot of options for top decks. Decks like Stage 1s and Zekrom have fairly good matchups across the board but I think they're still far from as dominate as Luxchomp was. Trainer lock variants can even give good Zekrom or Stage 1s decks a run for their money.
 
If Yanmega is a very balanced card then why should it be able to attack for no energy cost by matching your hand size with your opponent and have free retreat? I just don't get why it has to cost $40 per copy to get ahold of when it should be a $15 to $20 at best especially in this economy. Luxray GL Lv. X went for more than that by $30 more and it was a $70 card at it's peak last format.

Claw Snag from Weavile is meh but it's not good enough in terms of hand disruption. Cards like Judge are good for hand disruption especially N in Noble Victories, then of course there's Sharpedo with Strip Bare but even then the odds of getting 2 Heads is very small. That combo with Sharpedo and Victini is okay but it's not even close to being a 50% chance I don't think.
 
While it can attack for free, it also has a pretty low damage cap which means it needs to be paired with cards that have a better late-game (or cards to prevent a late-game). The fact that Yanmega goes for 40 and Luxray went for 70 should show you that this format is more balanced than the last one.

With supporter draw, it's a surprisingly good card. Jason K took Yanmega/Weavile to a victory in a 7 round BR with a top 4 - clearly that should show some of its potential.
 
Yeah it's either when Yanmega Prime is paired with either Mew Prime or Magnezone Prime is when it becomes a huge problem cause it either gets backed up by a massive field of Pokemon with Mew and Jumpluff about to Mass Attack or can 2HKO anything for 111 damage while being able to draw up to 6 every turn as long as they don't get their Zone Catchered or Sludge Dragged.

I still don't get Weavile is it usually best with SSU/Seeker to Claw Snag repeatedly? As for Umbreon yeah it's gotten bad however do you think it still has some potential in a MewBox/Vileplume deck? The only Ability Pokemon I mainly see are basically Emboar and possibly Samurott and yet it doesn't get enough play as it should. You think it has potential maybe?
 
Yanmega/Magnezone and Yanmega/Mew/Vileplume only account for 3 reported BR wins so far (today factored in) so it's not unbeatable by any means. Reshiram or Donphan+Dragons is well-positioned against Yanmega/Magnezone and Zekrom is good against Vileplume/Yanmega.

And generally Weavile is run with Seeker and/or SSU (Seeker can create some pretty crazy Claw Snag combos too, but it makes the deck clunkier). However, the main idea behind it is to Claw Snag them into dead draw and kill their random basics with Yanmega, then hold your Weaviles until they topdeck a draw supporter, rinse and repeat. Of course if you, for example, see a key Catcher in their hand after the first Claw Snag on their draw supporter, it might be wise to drop a second one then too. When you use them comes down to skill on the part of the player.

Umbreon could be alright with the rise in play stage 1's without Zoroark have been seeing; I actually like the idea of Celebi more for random lock decks though - Gothitelle can't do anything to a Celebi swarm lol.
 
Celebi23 said:
Yanmega/Magnezone and Yanmega/Mew/Vileplume only account for 3 reported BR wins so far (today factored in) so it's not unbeatable by any means. Reshiram or Donphan+Dragons is well-positioned against Yanmega/Magnezone and Zekrom is good against Vileplume/Yanmega.
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That's most likely because the decks that were able to beat them for Type Weakness were ZPST, Magnezone variants, and possibly TyRam. Any other deck wouldn't be able to beat those Yanmega variants unless they get lucky on making sure their hand size isn't the same as their opponent's. If you're playing MewBox/Vileplume and you don't recover the prize fallback with Twins to Rare Candy Oddish into Vileplume then you're screwed. Then again just because you get Plume setup early game doesn't mean you win automatically.
 
I personally love this format. There is a large amount of viable decks, lots of fun rogues, no clear BDIF, (which basically makes it better than about half the other formats that have existed) etc. I hate all the people complaining about how unoriginal this format is, if that's the case then why did a complete rogue no one had even thought of t2 masters with the winner being a deck everyone had discounted? The only problem with this format imo is the luck. With Catcher removing reversal and baby flips (for the most part anyway) the only problem with this format is the openning flip. It would be awesome if they changed the rules back with NV, (think about it: winning because you got a huge advanateg due to a coin flip isn't very noble, so in order to make victories more noble they should go to Pre-BW rules.) which would make this format amazing.
 
I personally think nothing is wrong. Well, no much.


My opineons are bolded.

Card Slinger J said:
After playing through HGSS-On recently I admit that DP-On and MD-On were MUCH better formats in the Pokemon TCG. The way Modified is right now is just very stagnant with only a few good decks being competitive almost akin to Yu-Gi-Oh! back in the "Chaos" days that resulted in the banhammer and limited list. Except instead of having just 2-3 playable decks in the format we now only have 9-10 while we had more playable decks last format in MD-On (15-20 playable decks?) despite the annoyance of SP Pokemon.

The only good decks I see are ZPST, MewBox, TyRam, Stage 1 Rush, DonChamp, MegaZone, MagneBoar, Gothitelle/Reuniclus, and google.deck, Ok, so there aren't that many good decks. In MD-on, there were other decks, but not good ones. If you include any decks, Samuphan, Electode Zekrom, FloatZonePlume, Reshiboar, Donphan Dragons, etc. that's really about it. there are still other possible rogue decks. Everything else being played doesn't even come close not even Samurott/Electrode Same with last format where LuxChomp dominated which risks falling behind too much on prizes at the cost of energy acceleration when Electric decks are seeing alot of play these days. Then don't use it? You can always use another deckThere's also hardly any good Fighting Pokemon in the format other than Donphan that matches to the current speed of the format itself. Why would other fighting types be needed? Name good fast {g} types. Last format there weren't good {D} or {G} types.

MewBox is only good If you're running 4-4 Yanmega Prime with or without a 2-2 Sunflora line to fetch for your Vileplume to ensure Trainer Lock. This is incorrect. Sunfloara isn't needed and 4-3 is good Running a budget tech like Roserade just doesn't cut it either.For budget run 3-2 Yanmega, not Roserade. MewBox is also great at going Aggro without needing to Trainer Lock and with only needing to LZ Jumpluff while sweeping with Mew and Yanmega games end really fast. I only managed to beat MewBox with Samurott/Electrode but only because my Opponent was stalling with Pichu to get that Mass Attack boost from Jumpluff that he needed. Well, this is why the format is good. There is no clear BDIF. ZPS beats Mewbox, as does any Donphan deck. Mewbox will beat other deck, but those other deck will beat other decks, etc.Had he not stalled with the babies I would've lost.

That's another thing I notice about players running Cleffa for Eeeek or just Baby Pokemon of HGSS-On in general, they basically give their opponent's a 1 turn advantage before they can make a comeback or they are garaunteed to lose no matter what. Then don't use babies. I don't.Without that 1 turn advantage they give to their opponent's they basically have tempo advantage to where they have higher odds of winning the game alot better than their opponent does and that goes back to the Black & White rule changes of the 1st turn, where players get to play their stuff first which almost seems like games are decided based on coin flips or whoever goes first. I've won many games going second... it can help you but often doesn't

The balance of luck and skill is lost, where with the way the rules and Modified in the Pokemon TCG are setup nowadays luck is higher than skill. By removing restrictions of the 1st turn, that basically increased the luck of the game which overrides the skill of the game in general. This is why I enjoyed DP-On and MD-On alot more than HGSS-On, the format was balanced at least before LuxChomp, SableDonk, and Gyarados but at least whoever went first weren't the ones who end up deciding the game itself but it does play a part in general.

Another problem I see with HGSS-On is the current card pool, there just isn't enough playable cards in the format to make a dent in the metagame and when you consider that the best cards we were supposed to get from Japan aren't being released until next set in Noble Victories it does make you wonder though. Emerging Powers while it gave us Catcher, Max Potion, and Tornadus didn't really offer anything new to the table and left us with like 9-10 playable cards while the rest of the set is junk. Where is that definitive answer to Yanmega Prime other than Zekrom or Magnezone which costs an arm and a leg to get ahold of? See what the problem is right now? All card games cost money. Think if it as an investmemt. You spend some money, and if you do well, you get rewarded.

Sorry If I'm complaining but this is something I needed to get off my chest... >_>
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This format is great! I dunno why you'd say anything's wrong with it...

There are a ton of playable decks. The 9 you mentioned plus a whole lot of others: ZPSY, Revenge (really interesting deck with Babies, Donphan, Bouffalant, etc), BlastGatr, Lanturn/Electrode, Magnezone/Floatzel/Vileplume (it actually works surprisingly well, especially against Goth.dek), MewGar, even BearPlume has some level of success. This format is wide open for rogue ideas - it'd be ridiculous to claim otherwise.

Decks can still be expensive, but that'll get better with non-SR versions of SR cards. They're doing a great job with that.

I don't like the first turn rule either, but there's still a lot of skill in the format.
 
* BlastGatr - It's seen some play but it's not as great as it used to be.
* Lanturn/Electrode - Too risky of a play especially when Lanturn can get one shotted by Donphan.
* Magnezone/Floatzel/Vileplume - It could work I guess, maybe this is the deck I would need to build over MewBox since I can't afford Yanmega's. I just don't see how this deck can setup quickly though. It's definitely going to fallback on prizes with a Twins engine though.
* Bearplume - Yanmega Prime eats this deck for breakfast, plus Scizor Prime is the perfect counter the only problem is TyRam.
* MewGar - Judging from the Results lists I've been seeing it's been getting less play at BR's this year and yet LostCario is a deck that has a hard niche in the meta.

You see the thing that gets me about this format is that there is no solid counter against Yanmega because there's hardly any Electric Pokemon that aren't x2 Weak to Fighting and Donphan is still dominant right now. Any sane player would want to run Donphan with Yanmega because they compliment eachother so well and cover for eachother's weaknesses so well to where it pratically has the ultimate defense in the current metagame. That there is VERY unbalanced. Water doesn't get played nearly as much cause it doesn't have enough support that helps keep it competitive.

After testing with MewBox/Vileplume I don't really think Roserade cuts it with Leafeon LZ'ed cause it requires a few turns to setup when by that time all your Mews get KO'ed and then If you don't use Rescue Energy or Flower Shop Lady you're screwed as well. If Umbreon doesn't work in it, and neither does Zoroark or Lucario then what does that is less than $40 to get ahold of? It's a deck that WILL do well If you run Yanmega (Jason K's variant works best out of it though) otherwise you auto-lose to the best decks in the game right now. This is one of the reasons why I thought about backing away from Battle Roads this season which is a shame.

To me HGSS-On has proven to be one of the most frustrating formats I've ever played in partly because of the lack of playable cards in the current card pool that are competitive enough to stand a chance to what are the biggest threats right now and that aside from everyone keeping deck secrets to themselves yeah http://google.com/ Underground I'm looking at you and HeyTrainer.org it's hard for me to find a solid decklist to play that can stand a remote chance in this metagame that I enjoy playing. I really like MewBox cause Mew is one of my favorite Pokemon and I don't really want to tear the deck apart just because I can't afford Yanmega, I just get tired of the stereotypical jerks on these forums telling me that Yanmega is needed for it to work or you just build a new deck over it. Not everyone has $160+ to blow on a playset of cards.
 
What's wrong with this forum? Well, for starters, you're making it sorta kid-friendly which is going to invite a lot of kids or newbie players, which in turn lowers...oh wait, I misread the title. I thought it said forum, not format.

What's wrong with this format?
Everything.

Too few good decks that are playable, too few really good I/S/S floating around (we've got Collector, Catcher, PokeCom, and the ever-powerful Junk Arm), and you basically either have to play a good deck or everyone laughs at you.
I won't lie. I went into Worlds being totally excited for a new experience, and left despising the TCG with a passion. It was only due to one of my friends at League that he convinced me to stay with it (I went into a funk for at least 2 weeks).

Unless Noble Victories actually gives us a lot more deck choices to choose from, instead of things that would be good except they just keep getting killed by cheap annoying elephants (I'm looking at you, Hydreigon) - yeah, it won't be fun anymore.

I'll stick with the game, but I can safely say that MD-CoL was one of the greatest formats we've had. Sure, Luxchomp was a prominent deck, but it didn't have high matchups against everything, and it was possible to beat it (I myself loved playing against Luxchomp as it was so easy to watch them squirm), and most any good strong card had a chance (Gyarados, Gengar, Blastoise, Arceus, Magnezone, and the list goes on and on), but now?

Yanmega. Everywhere.

I loathe all dragonflies now.
 
^How long have you been playing, DNA? Did you play in the delta formats?

The point is there is no clear BDIF right now. So there's plenty of room for creativity and even if your deck has a bad matchup against a popular deck, it's not necessarily a bad play. Sure, there are a lot of filler cards but the good cards have so many possible combinations. I mean I saw a Kingdra/Sigilyph/other Sygiliph/Bouffalant/Jirachi deck doing well. Heck, we've seen Mew/Tornadus get 2nd, we've seen a total rogue get 2nd at WORLDS, and we've seen the format shift from being all about Magneboar, to all about Yanmega, to a mix of everything.

In the Luxchomp format, there were a lot of good decks, but none of them matched Luxchomp. There was a clear BDIF and I doubt anybody went into a high level tournament uncomfortable about their Luxchomp matchup.
 
Celebi23 said:
The point is there is no clear BDIF right now. Exactly! Thank you!So there's plenty of room for creativity and even if your deck has a bad matchup against a popular deck, it's not necessarily a bad play. Just like all the popular deck. There is no deck with great matchups against everything, making rogue more playableSure, there are a lot of filler cards but the good cards have so many possible combinations. I mean I saw a Kingdra/Sigilyph/other Sygiliph/Bouffalant/Jirachi deck doing well. Heck, we've seen Mew/Tornadus get 2nd, we've seen a total rogue get 2nd at WORLDS, and we've seen the format shift from being all about Magneboar, to all about Yanmega, to a mix of everything.

In the Luxchomp format, there were a lot of good decks, but none of them matched Luxchomp. There was a clear BDIF and I doubt anybody went into a high level tournament uncomfortable about their Luxchomp matchup.
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So, with no real BDIF, this is a great format.
 
^How long have you been playing, DNA? Did you play in the delta formats?

The point is there is no clear BDIF right now.
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The first statement is irrelevant to this topic and the second statement simply isn't true. Megazord is the BDIF right now, and if not BDIF, then the most widely seen.
 
DNA said:
The first statement is irrelevant to this topic and the second statement simply isn't true. Megazord is the BDIF right now, and if not BDIF, then the most widely seen.
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Though it is most widely seen, its not the BDIF. On PokeGym, it says ZPST and Stage 1s have the most wins. Stage 1s has one.

Many decks can beat it too. I've beat it with ZPST.
 
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