Wo-Chien ex, Flamigo Illustrator Rare, and More from “Snow Hazard” and “Clay Burst!”

[Charmaster:)]

I don't know why they were on about Giacomo "finishing" Lugia, it accels 4 energies at a time and often to the same mon, Giacomo would only remove one of the 4 energies in the most common scenarios...

… except in the insane, meme-deck scenario where you use Dusknoir from Brilliant Stars to move those energy onto different Pokémon. But there aren’t enough special energy in the format to justify playing that type of deck right now, meme deck or otherwise. Still, it’s a funny scenario to imagine.

 

[Diego Lima]

Forretress ex feels really busted to be honest.
You can powerstart what ever you have on your bench.
And since it's a knock-out is synergizes really well with Wo-Chien EX.

Overall I'm just annoyed that they didn't really bother to tone down the power of the legendary base EX.
We are kinda back at the start here with the evolving ones beeing, mostly, not worth the hassle.

Forretress / Wo-Chien is not supposed to be a deck, putting yourself 2 prizes behind to gain access to a 120 snipe to the bench is not a winning proposition. Like I said in my previous post, Chien is just supposed to be a tool in other grass decks, it's not supposed to be the focus. And if Forretress ever amounts to anything it will probably be in some crazier, more degenerate deck that can really pull off some insane payoff to justify all that trouble.

Basic exs are fine, even the legendary ones. Besides, it's too early to jump to that conclusion that evolving exs aren't worth it. And by the looks of it, there will be more and more good stage 1 and stage 2 decks as more and more cards get printed down the line, they really pushed the HP of evolving cards to make sure, the baseline is already there, all we need is a card to be a bit more pushed or have some good support to spring stage 1 and 2 decks to life, it's going to happen eventually.

 

[Diego Lima]

You actually bring up a very good point. Zapdos V is being looked at as the primary tech against the upcoming storm of Miraidon decks, but if Miraidon gets Spiritomb on the bench, it removes that threat. Spiritomb is shaping up to be very good in some popular decks.

Except for the fact that lightning is not nearly living up to the hype that was created when everyone saw Miraidon and the Item and went nuts. Yes, many people are playing it, but it's not making results. Plus it's a deck that has lots of iterations, and many of them aren't even Regieleki variants, which is the only one that Zapdos would work against, so in conclusion, if Spiritomb ends up seeing play, I doubt it will be because people are worried about Zapdos of all things...

 

[Diego Lima]

I really wish they would print anything that would work as "the straw that broke the camel's back" for grass. It really feels like it has lots of interesting options and a reasonable amount of support, but nothing that really makes it "real". Sure looks like you can have fun with it post rotation, but I wish it was a real contender again. When was the last time grass was all the rage, back when Forest was legal?

 

[Bewear The TERRIBLE]

Stadium getting worse and worse... Ugh! ??

 

[Gethbert]

That new support card will play havoc on mew deck too, getting rid of two double turbo energy on turn two is huge. It should give miraidon deck some breathing room by shutting down fusion strike system.

Yep, after playing mew in a regional. I love playing it but it’s getting old and a bit unhealthy in a lower power format, I’m all right to see it go down.

 

[The Blast Boys]

The artwork on those stadiums is absolutely stunning.

 

[thejukies]

Temple of Sinnoh, Drapion V, Klefki, now Spiritomb & Giacomo, pretty much they hate Mew lol

 

[Charmaster:)]

Forretress / Wo-Chien is not supposed to be a deck, putting yourself 2 prizes behind to gain access to a 120 snipe to the bench is not a winning proposition. Like I said in my previous post, Chien is just supposed to be a tool in other grass decks, it's not supposed to be the focus. And if Forretress ever amounts to anything it will probably be in some crazier, more degenerate deck that can really pull off some insane payoff to justify all that trouble.

Basic exs are fine, even the legendary ones. Besides, it's too early to jump to that conclusion that evolving exs aren't worth it. And by the looks of it, there will be more and more good stage 1 and stage 2 decks as more and more cards get printed down the line, they really pushed the HP of evolving cards to make sure, the baseline is already there, all we need is a card to be a bit more pushed or have some good support to spring stage 1 and 2 decks to life, it's going to happen eventually.

Makes sense. Forretress ex is going to have potential as long as it’s in standard, but it would take some remarkable numbers or an unusual gameplan to catch up on prizes. Perhaps if we get some really aggressive Venusaur ex with 330 HP and an exceptional attack (as in one that OHKOs most Pokémon) in the Kanto set, we might get a workable offensive deck, especially if it had Energy Trans so it could tank hits with Cheryl. But that would be a setup heavy deck with its own struggles. A control deck is a likely prospect, but, for many players, an unwelcome one. We’ll just have to see where Pokémon keeps going with both their evolving Pokémon ex plans and their comeback enabling effects plans. Maybe a good contender for Brilliant Stars onward will shake out by the time the E block rotated out. And yes, Wo-Chien is definitely the tech, not the deck. You could theoretically pop two Forretress ex and try to lock your opponent, aiming to chain 240 damage bench attacks, but that strategy is too shaky to play out reliably enough.

 

[fleshrum]

Wait, I just realized something. This would be a FANTASTIC time to introduce Ice and Ground types. Chien-Pao and Ting-Lu are the two mascots of these sets and they've revealed two new Stadiums that explicitly benefit Pokemon that live in Deserts and Icy mountains respectively?? I don't think it's crazy of me to say that if they added some more cards to support them besides the stadiums, this would've been a good time to bring in Ice and Ground types.

And to add onto this upon further reflection: They're gonna do Type-changing Terastal Pokemon soon, so if they added Ice and Ground types, wouldn't it be smart to throw in a couple Tera ex Pokemon for those two to promote it? Jesus, the marketing writes itself...
ONE MORE THING!!! Chi-Yu is weak to Ground. Wo-Chien is weak to Ice. If they waited, they could've done a cool theme thing where they could sell a Wo-Chien Vs. Chien-Pao deck pack and a Chi-Yu Vs. Ting-Lu deck pack.

I rest my case.

this game has not been well-balanced for like a decade and a half, and I don't think adding new types will help. Custom card guys have been doing it for years, and it always makes sets confusing and rules bloated. If they were to do this, more than just typing would change, it'd have to be a hard reboot of the whole system. That'll never happen.

 

[Diego Lima]

Makes sense. Forretress ex is going to have potential as long as it’s in standard, but it would take some remarkable numbers or an unusual gameplan to catch up on prizes. Perhaps if we get some really aggressive Venusaur ex with 330 HP and an exceptional attack (as in one that OHKOs most Pokémon) in the Kanto set, we might get a workable offensive deck, especially if it had Energy Trans so it could tank hits with Cheryl. But that would be a setup heavy deck with its own struggles. A control deck is a likely prospect, but, for many players, an unwelcome one. We’ll just have to see where Pokémon keeps going with both their evolving Pokémon ex plans and their comeback enabling effects plans. Maybe a good contender for Brilliant Stars onward will shake out by the time the E block rotated out. And yes, Wo-Chien is definitely the tech, not the deck. You could theoretically pop two Forretress ex and try to lock your opponent, aiming to chain 240 damage bench attacks, but that strategy is too shaky to play out reliably enough.

Something I should've added to my comment is that, while I do believe stage 1s and 2s will be playable eventually because that's their intention, I fear Lost Box will gatekeep anything like that until it rotates. It's a true shame, but I think we'll essentially "lose" a year of what SV's design philosophy was made to be delivering, because of that disgusting deck.

 

[MagnaDrake]

On the whole "new night march" 20x X 30x multiplier topic:

Here's a crazy thought about it, how about to hell with the 20x or 30x discussion, and instead we ask ourselves why the f are they rehashing the same exact archetype for the 4th time instead of delivering something new?

Because it's a decently popular, yet niche archetype that people like to play and doesnt cost an arm and a leg to collect. The main reason it's always a rehash is because if you DON'T rehash it, as in, use the same attack twice, Expanded will be a hilarious race to see who can mill 24 cards of their own deck first.

 

[Diego Lima]

Because it's a decently popular, yet niche archetype that people like to play and doesnt cost an arm and a leg to collect. The main reason it's always a rehash is because if you DON'T rehash it, as in, use the same attack twice, Expanded will be a hilarious race to see who can mill 24 cards of their own deck first.

You do realize that if my suggestion is followed you're left with literally zero of the problems you made up, right? It is mind bogglingly obvious that by "don't rehash it", I didn't mean "use the same attack name all the times you repeat the archetype", I meant create an entirely new archetype. "Dump mons on your discard pile for damage multipliers" cannot be the only way they can design a "decently popular [...] archetype that people like to play and doesn't cost an arm and a leg to collect".

In fact, the biggest problem is not even creating different things, we had many attempts at the "dump x things on the discard" or "discard x things from hand", etc etc "single prize cheapies" trope, the problem is that it's never good enough to be "the new night march" (some) people hope for, hence the discussion people were having about it having 20x or 30x multiplier.

And my opinion is that the 20x X 30x argument is stupid to begin with.

First because it is obviously a very "all or nothing" way of approaching the design, and it should be clear to people that have played the game for so long, that simply tweaking the numbers on an archetype like that, risks rendering the deck either useless or completely broken. There are other "knobs" you should consider adjusting to adapt the power level of a deck like that, other than just the most glaringly obvious one.

And second, because like I suggested, other than trying to have a go for the 4th bloody time at the same archetype and bothering having to figure out how to adjust its power level to current times, why aren't they designing new ways for single prize decks to be competitive again? And I don't mean the stupid "dump 20 tools from your hand" or "have 12 of these on your discard" decks, I mean actual, old school, evolving, single prize decks. Think...PTCGO's Legacy (r.i.p. and r.i.p.). That's what a good format, with good balance between multiprize and single prize decks, should look like.

Sadly, I don't think we're ever coming back to something that resembles legacy in that sense, of having that good balance between multi and single prize options. I don't think we're gonna have something like Legacy's Empoleon, or Garchomp, in standard. But I mean, we should be glad that by bringing old school exs back, we can go back to at least being able to play into one the single most important and emblematic fantasies of the whole IP again: evolving the damn things. That is, being optimistic and assuming the stupidity that is Lost Box won't gatekeep stage 1 and 2 exs for a whole year before it rotates and is no longer a blight in the game.

 

[MagnaDrake]

block of text

Calm down, buddy. I'm just pointing out that there's still a decent amount of people that likes the Night March-like playstyle, and Creatures know it so they're just accommodating that. I'm also just pointing the fact that it is in fact a proven budget archetype that can keep up with power creep with minimal changes. Is it straightforward and all or nothing? Yes. Is it tired? I don't know. I have tens of friends that got excited when they heard it's coming back.

I'm not gonna go on a tirade on the singleprizers vs multiprizers debate because it's been done here god knows how many times, and honestly I'm in a similar boat. We both agree that in an ideal universe we would have these type of decks alongside a good mix other interesting singleprize options and the staple multiprizers.

 

[ZestyGan]

this game has not been well-balanced for like a decade and a half, and I don't think adding new types will help. Custom card guys have been doing it for years, and it always makes sets confusing and rules bloated. If they were to do this, more than just typing would change, it'd have to be a hard reboot of the whole system. That'll never happen.

yep, and that's why it's a shame. it WILL never happen.