Discussion Why aren't more Second Stage families played?

[Jimmy315]

Hey Everyone!

I've only been playing Pokemon for about the last 3 years, and it seems to me that Ex decks are very dominant, especially when looking at winners of Worlds and other competitions. I feel like there is a lot of potential being missed with second stage family decks.

For example, Haxorus has the potential of doing 230 damage after "Dragon Dance" for only two energies, which is knocking out almost everything. Yet, I barely see any decks using him. Greninja has become popular, mainly due to his Break, but other than that, it's very rare to see families being played.

http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/b/be/HaxorusBREAKthrough111.jpg

Am I wrong? Do you guys see the potential in a deck like Haxorus? Does anyone else feel like families aren't played that much?

 

[VinculumStellarum]

Personally, I don't see potential in Stage 2 decks. This is because of the speed of the current format––as it is heavily dominated by EX decks as you've stated, those EX cards can get set up much faster than a Stage 2 deck, because you need several turns to evolve your Pokémon, where by the time you get your Stage 2 into play, the EX Pokémon attacking will already be prepared to one-shot or two-shot any Pokémon you have in play. In terms of Haxorus, Dragon Dance setups require two turns to be doing the 230 damage you've stated, which leaves it extremely vulnerable.

However, with a seemingly slower format coming into rotation, as Sun and Moon have GX Pokémon that require evolution, I feel like Stage 2 decks will begin to see a comeback, as the format will be much more forgiving of their long setup times. It's a wait-and-see game for when that comes into play, but I feel like this is how things will stay for now.

 

[Otaku]

Basic Pokémon enjoy several innate advantages:

• Minimum resources to hit the field (1 card = 1 copy that can hit the field)
• Minimum time to hit the field (play directly from hand to field, no waiting)
• Can function as your opener (sometimes a bad thing)
• Natural synergy with certain effects, usually due to being a single card

This is apart from mechanics like being a Pokémon-EX. It also doesn't prevent Evolutions from rising high, they just have to be sufficiently overpowered. After all, most competitive Basic Pokémon is also overly potent.

The game's designers have this nasty habit of trying to improperly balance the Stages against each other, or else just going with the imbalance. I believe there is nothing wrong with the fundamental mechanics for Pokémon Evolution in the TCG, provided the designers adjust their design philosophy accordingly. The big thing is to remember that we need to balance out fully Evolved Pokémon against each other because everyone enjoys different Pokémon and different strategies. They often try to do this, but keep trying an approach that seems to always fail; the designers will try to make the slower, more resource intensive Evolutions more powerful to compensate or make them faster through shortcuts.

I believe the correct approach is to balance the end Stages against each other by making them more or less equals. There will be some differences, but it would be things like an Ability that would be broken if it were available the first turn, but is fine afterward and so it is only found on an Evolution that cannot be in play first turn. There should be few (if any) Evolutionary shortcuts because they are too hard to design in a balanced manner thanks to card interactions. Instead, Basic Pokémon need to be slowed down so that Evolutions have time to setup, and everything needs to go back to having specialized roles. The pacing of the game is so fast right now due not only to abundant draw/search but also due to so many effective early game attackers also being worth it as your deck's focus the entire game. Lastly, Evolutions suffer because Evolving Pokémon is filler; they ought to provide tangible benefits and help carry the deck strategy. There are some more bits, but they are less general.

 

[Fayld]

To piggy back on Otaku's statement: I think here is a great example of a stage 2 that provides a reason to be played along with the "how". Note, as Otaku stated above, this type of synergy is EXTREMELY uncommon and as far as I can tell completely unintended by the lords of Pokemon.

Here is a full evolution line stretched across two completely different expansions (Black and White / XY). If you were to play either full evolution line for these cards within only the expansion they came out in, they would do exactly what Otaku said they do. Either the stage 2 is underpowered compared to the amount of time / effort to get it out along with being underwhelming compared to its contemporary EX, or the stage 1 is complete filler and provides absolutely no benefit for you other than setting up your stage 2. Note, even in the example I am presenting, the stage 2 is *not* the primary focus of the deck. It provides benefits without necessarily being required to be out ASAP. About the only line I can think of off the top of my head that provides a useful stage 1 along with a stage 2 focus is the Greninja line. I am sure there are others, but I am not a historian.

Here we go:
Tynamo (pick one, I just happened to pick this one)
Eelektrik (Dynamotor ability to get [L] energy from your discard onto a benched pokemon)
Eelektross (Energy connect ability allows unlimited basic energy transfer from benched pokemon to active pokemon. Electricannon attack [L][L][C][C] hits for 80 with a choice to discard all [L] energy and hit for 50 more)

Based on what I put in the parenthesis, it should be fairly obvious how these synergize. Get three Eelektriks on your bench, level one into an Eelektross, = consistent energy flowing from your bench to your active for pokemon that require that kind of flow (in my case, I use this combo for a Rayquaza / Eels variant in order to have a second attacker for Jolteon EX / EX block abilities + a way to get energy up to Rayquaza without requiring a retreat).

In theory, this setup seems like the type of thing you would absolutely drive toward as fast as possible in order to "keep the energy flowing" so to speak. In practice, it completely depends on the deck and in my experience, you don't actually want the Eelektross until late in the game or until you need an alternate attacker. And even in the decks where I have this setup, Eelektross only makes an appearance about 60-70% of the time and is discard fodder in every other game. And this is an example of an evolution line with TONS of synergy.

Now take a different line. Let's go with the Delphox line. The stage 2 Delphox from Fates Collide is an absolute beat stick once you have it set up. Basically, count all the energy on the board (both yours and your opponents) add 20 for each of them. All for [C][C][C]. That is an amazing attack. Absolutely amazing. The line even has a Break evolution that allows you to dig into your deck and find a fire energy and attach it to a pokemon. Furthermore, if you go back to the earlier XY base set iteration of Delphox, there is a variant that acts like Octillery, but you get 6 cards instead of 5. So why doesn't this line rule the world? Simple. It takes too long to get multiple Delphoxes set up and there is nothing that speeds up the process enough to get you there without severely hindering your ability to do anything else.

Greninja decks *can* work without the use of water duplicates to get multiple copies set up, but you can take it to the bank that the deck wouldn't be a tier 1 deck without that attack. It would suffer the same fate as Delphox because the setup requirements would be far too great. Why? Because with Greninja (as with Delphox) it is understood that you are *going* to lose pokemon. They will go down and go down quickly in this environment. The only way to counter that is to set up enough of them that you have multiple ready to go while getting more back. That's not the only thing that makes Greninja great, but it is one of the primary reasons why it works consistently.

Long story short, Greninja has synergy up and down the line to get itself up and running fast enough to compete in this environment. Delphox has a top heavy synergy without the ability to replenish itself in time to effectively counter the speed of powerful basic / EX decks.

I am sure there are better examples and I didn't do the Greninja section justice by any stretch, but I think this illustrates some reasons why most evolution lines simply don't get played in any competitive environment.

Sorry for the book