Discussion Why you should never ever play Greedy Dice

Mora

Mora

Don't Panic
Member
So I knew this card was too gimmicky to not be bad, but I was curious exactly how bad. I did some math, of which I will spare everyone the details, and I found that if you play four of them, you can expect to prize one a little less than 50% of your games. Taking into account the times where it's your last prize card (and therefore does absolutely nothing) you'll flip heads and draw an extra prize card in 17% of your games. That's about 1 every 6 games.

I didn't think it would be that terrible though. Like this card could do without the coin flip clause and still be bad. So just in case anyone was thinking about playing this card, please don't. Or do you think that extra prize card 17% of the time is worth it? Feel free to discuss.

8bf7f6b1-405f-4ced-a36d-b5f9522258f1_1.428e485f15eea39284030deb61d67eff.jpeg
 
Hehe, good warning I guess. But yeah, this is one of the most gimmicky cards in the format.

Would be fun to make this a whole topic about the most gimmicky Pokemon cards in general, this one is not alone :p
 
It's not all bad. Think about it - it's not such a rare thing to have cards that are dead except in some situations in your deck. Some examples could be: Pokemon Ranger, Zebstrika, Oricorio, Karen, Glaceon EX, Jolteon EX, Magearna EX etc. Some of the decks that you are teching against may be things that you only meet once every six games - but increasing your chances against these decks just once may just be worth it to include into your deck. At other times where these cards are useless, they merely become discard fodder - not exactly dead cards.

Thus, if only the investment for Greedy Dice was not so huge (Four Cards) and the opportunity cost was not so great, dead cards that help you win sometimes may not be all that bad. LOL who am I kidding. A card like Greedy Dice could only do better if it was rebalanced to have less investment. But I also remember that Brad Curcio piloted the deck to a Top 32 at a Regional sometime back. So maybe it should't be written off so quickly. Maybe it just needs a good partner card.
 
Definitely a gimmick but for the sake of argument, if 4 of these were to be played, you'd want to couple it with Town Map so you can at least take the guessing out of grabbing it from the prizes. While we're being greedy (ba-dum-pum), might as well add in Articuno to maximize the profits - all in all, this might be a good fit for a Lapras deck!
 
wonderful_whismur said:
It's not all bad. Think about it - it's not such a rare thing to have cards that are dead except in some situations in your deck. Some examples could be: Pokemon Ranger, Zebstrika, Oricorio, Karen, Glaceon EX, Jolteon EX, Magearna EX etc. Some of the decks that you are teching against may be things that you only meet once every six games - but increasing your chances against these decks just once may just be worth it to include into your deck. At other times where these cards are useless, they merely become discard fodder - not exactly dead cards.

Thus, if only the investment for Greedy Dice was not so huge (Four Cards) and the opportunity cost was not so great, dead cards that help you win sometimes may not be all that bad. LOL who am I kidding. A card like Greedy Dice could only do better if it was rebalanced to have less investment. But I also remember that Brad Curcio piloted the deck to a Top 32 at a Regional sometime back. So maybe it should't be written off so quickly. Maybe it just needs a good partner card.
Click to expand...

Someone played this a deck and did well? Do you have any more details because that's pretty cool. I think I'd prefer to play a tech for a particular matchup I'm struggling with over this card. Like what if I pull Greedy Dice off in a game where it doesn't make a difference, and I would have won anyways, but if I had played a good tech, it's always going to give me a better chance where I need it the most. If anything, I feel like just having consistency cards over Greedy Dice helps you take more prizes in the long run by not whiffing things like Energy and Choice Band.

BKRapper said:
Definitely a gimmick but for the sake of argument, if 4 of these were to be played, you'd want to couple it with Town Map so you can at least take the guessing out of grabbing it from the prizes. While we're being greedy (ba-dum-pum), might as well add in Articuno to maximize the profits - all in all, this might be a good fit for a Lapras deck!
Click to expand...

I was thinking Time Walk Azelf would have been helpful for prizing Greedy Dice more often.
 
BKRapper said:
Definitely a gimmick but for the sake of argument, if 4 of these were to be played, you'd want to couple it with Town Map so you can at least take the guessing out of grabbing it from the prizes. While we're being greedy (ba-dum-pum), might as well add in Articuno to maximize the profits - all in all, this might be a good fit for a Lapras deck!
Click to expand...

Wouldn't Town Map negate Greedy Dice though? The card specifically reads "You can play this card ONLY if you took it as a face-down Prize card, before you put it in your hand."
 
It's a bad card, although you can improve your odds slightly by using Rotom Dex to try and ensure you get some prized
 
it's Rotom Dex you combine greedy dice with. though you likely would wait tell you thin your deck some before playing it to improve odds. still its very gimmick and uses up a lot of space that could be better spent elsewhere.

there's an unlimited combo that works though. it's greedy dice, mallow, and undaunted Rotom. mallow puts greedy dice on top of deck, Rotom switch top of deck with a face down prize.
 
wonderful_whismur said:
Maybe it just needs a good partner card.
Click to expand...

This is indeed also always an option :). And while we are at the subject often the case for many TCG. As a good partner card can make or break decks.
Another example of this from the latest set is Kiawe. If it wasn't for that card I would not have given Volcanion much thought again after the rotation or Fire decks in general to be fair. However because it is there, is what it is, we can still continue to build the deck.

Now to be completely honest, I do not know what kind of partner card this card would need in order to be good. It probably has to be something as odd as including Pokemon Abilities or Attacks that allow us to place cards from our hand in the Prize Pool face down so we know we'll be picking this up and have a better chance at picking up another prize.
In general though I can't see the design team creating that any time soon, by large because the past has shown us that it's better to have "Placed" Prized information either be completely closed or open and not something in between (ergo one player knows, the other doesn't).

In general as above, I think it's a fancinating topic to talk about some of the old would be's. Pokemon through the years had a lot of these cards. The prime reason for them to excist in my eyes is to have Pokemon be a fun game with a lot of excitement involved. Because wether or not we like this card, if it does work, you'll remember. :) I feel this is Pokemon TCG design step number 2. Just after knowing which characters are the most popular ;)
 
In some odd format where you can run more than 4 of them, this card would be broken!

In reality...did someone actually run these?
 
@Mora Did you calculate the odds of getting a run on Greedy Dice? While abyssmal, that is probably the most tempting aspect of the card; if you had a way to get all four into your Prizes, especially if you still know which four Prizes they are, you could try to win the game with a single KO!

JDA said:
In general though I can't see the design team creating that any time soon...
Click to expand...

Given their penchant for repeating themselves, and the fact the final cards we need for the combo only miss Expanded Format play by three sets!

The real reason not to worry about Greedy Dice is simple; there is already a hard counter to it in the form of Here Comes Team Rocket!. Sure, it will eat up your Supporter for the turn but you can use Tapu Lele-GX to fetch it from the deck and bam! All those Greedy Dice are worthless. Unless we also get a way to flip face-up Prize cards face down. ;)
 
There were some posts regarding this when it first came out about a year ago and then some about 6 months ago when we realized that Rotom Dex basically existed for the sole purpose of increasing the odds of Greedy Dice.

In summary:

Base percent = 17%

Theorymon: you could potentially increase these odds by using Rotom Dex about halfway through your deck.

Reality: You're giving up five cards slots for a slim chance of getting an extra prize card.

I tried it in 12 matches. I pulled Greedy Dice once in those twelve matches but didn't even get to the coin flip because I took my opponent's last Pokemon with that prize card.

I prized a Greedy Dice three times in twelve matches. I played Rotom twice.

Bottom line: I went 8-4 in the twelve matches with a deck (Lycanroc GX) that I had been winning 72% of the time, and I was 100% certain I lost a match I would have won if I had the resources I cut to fit in Greedy Dice and Rotom. Greedy Dice, IMO, is the definition of wasting dollars to chase after pennies.

PLUS it's just a bad card. It lets you take an extra prize card if you're lucky. It promotes luck over skill, even if just in theory, and again IMO shouldn't ever have been made.
 
Otaku said:
@Mora Did you calculate the odds of getting a run on Greedy Dice? While abyssmal, that is probably the most tempting aspect of the card; if you had a way to get all four into your Prizes, especially if you still know which four Prizes they are, you could try to win the game with a single KO!
Click to expand...

.0001923% chance of prizing all four, and then taking four extra prize cards via Greedy Dice. This assumes that you somehow know where all of your Greedy Dice are through cheating some card effect that lets you look at your face down prize cards.
 
Mora said:
.0001923% chance of prizing all four, and then taking four extra prize cards via Greedy Dice. This assumes that you somehow know where all of your Greedy Dice are through cheating some card effect that lets you look at your face down prize cards.
Click to expand...

Alph Lithograph (HS: Triumphant FOUR) is not cheating... in Unlimited Format play. ;) Not that I plan on building it, but that could be another fun FTW deck for the Format; get all four Greedy Dice into your Prizes, use an effects to KO your opponent's Pokémon, hoping to hit a run. XD
 
Maybe not the most competitive card but oh boy is it fun to be devious with this card.

There's a small bit of joy when you flip it as you draw from your prizes from your opponent's shocked expression. Then the devilish laughter when you actually get a successful Greedy Dice

I wouldn't advice playing it for a major tournament or the like especially a full play set but when you wanna have some fun put a copy or so in a casual deck. I like a copy in a Teamplay Passimien deck because you're going to have a Rotom Dex to free one of your Passimiens. I also wanna try them with Plasma Lugia EX in expanded.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top