Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Consistency over Creativity

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I like to see new decks, but it makes me sick when someone uses it as a crutch.

"Yeah well I coulda won this tourney, but I decided to try my fun deck instead of the standard stuff."

No, shut your mouth! If you bomb a tourney, its your fault, because either A. Your fun deck is bad, or B. Your fun deck was a bad metagame choice.

If you bomb with a fun deck and have no sour grapes though, thats cool with me.
 
Perhaps simply having a bigger card base to choose from would spark the creativity? Using sets from RG-DP3 seem to work over in JP. Why arn't we trying it here?
 
I think I have a bigger problem that nearly 60% of decks are 1 of 2 different decks this year. Either Blissey Variant or Gardy/Gallade. If you going have ranking invites you have to make the format a bit more diverse. That fact is 2 decks should not control the format. It makes it who can go to the most tourneys with either of those 2 decks.

JMO,
Drew
 
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64% of the decks that placed 1st or 2nd in CCs were either G&G variants or Blissey variants...
78% if you add Magmortar and Honchcrow Varients
 
I dont think this is due to the rating system changing. I think the more powerful cards are much more obvious now and much harder to counter with anything else.

Before Dragon Frontiers for something to do 80 damage was rather rare and it was usually tagged with either a very high energy cost, a significant draw back or both. Now it is rather common, and most of the time cards capable of this are the ones that are going to become popular.

The weakness system changing and the HP increasing has made life even harder for rogues. Before some Rogue decks were good because they had a weakness that wasn't played very often or were of an ideal typing for the format. However weakness and resistance matters a lot less now, Given nobody liked to lose because of weakness, and although I think it was a good idea at the time to change it, I'm not so sure now.

Gallade is a perfect example of this as its pretty much able to drawa prizes at will, and few psychic pokemon can OHKO it with only +30 weakness, they need 100 damage to OHKO. Kricketune is another example, no stage 1 aside from Ninetales is capable of doing two energy for 60 damage and Ninetales has to discard an energy to do that. Obviously there is Magmortar now to beat Kricketune but that's also a popular card. Lake boundary is generally a risk and next set that risk will be higher with better stadiums coming out.

I'm not too worried, I'm just having fun and I don't care for losses but IMO that's these are the reasons why creativity just doesn't work anymore. In fact since Flygon d ex (because of no weakness and very good typing) creativity has been a bit pointless.
 
I don't see how someone can see this thread as a sour grapes thread. This isn't about me doing well at tournaments and still not walking away with an invite. This isn't another attempt by me to spread how much I deserve to play at Worlds. This is just a simple observance of the format and the game.

Creativity doesn't work at the moment. If creative deck could still do as well, the same 3 decks wouldn't have won 75% of the cities. Sure, there will always be a popular deck, but it's apparent when everyone you know switches from their own favorite deck to the same deck when one deck is dominating and nothing else can stand up to it.

Sometimes you can get away with a rogue deck, but I don't feel that is that possible for the non-brilliant players. There are very few brilliant players out there that could get away with a rogue deck. Everyone else ends up in the same situation. Play one of these 3-4 decks or don't play at all.

We've always had the game dominated by a handful of decks, but never before have I seen such a format where you really had to play those top decks to do well.

I'm not stating any facts, as there are always exclusions to my statements. But for the most part, the format is very stale imho. Hopefully the next set brings more ideas into the game.
 
Prime said:
Sometimes you can get away with a rogue deck, but I don't feel that is that possible for the non-brilliant players. There are very few brilliant players out there that could get away with a rogue deck. Everyone else ends up in the same situation. Play one of these 3-4 decks or don't play at all.
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This has always been true if you want to win. If you aren't a great player, it's a good bet your creative deck isn't as good as a proven winner. A weaker player with a proven winner of a deck has decent odds vs better players though, and winning it all. There have always been very few people who win with rogue decks.
 
It's always been true that rogue decks don't have as much chance to do well as the better decks.

But what I was trying to say is that I don't remember a time when there was such a small number of good decks. You play G&G, Magmortar, or Blissey. You can't play decks to counter these decks because you will definitely lose to one of the other and often time not even get to the top cut where you would face that deck you tech'd for. The times of an RaiEggs deck countering the format has ended imho. You won't see concrete counters anymore. You will see other mega-powerful decks step up to replace decks that did ridiculous damage but not as ridiculous as the newer cards.

Creativity is stifled because the creative decks just aren't as consistent, as powerful, as fast as the popular decks.

Again, there is always exclusions from my statements as people have done well with a rogue deck here and there.

But for the most part, rogue decks, creative decent decks, and counter decks have been duds recently.
 
RaiEggs was a very good rogue deck, that was thought up by good players, and tested a lot in preparation for a large event. I don't doubt something similar could happen if we took this format to nats. There's just not as much time/incentive to work a long time on something game-breaking for cities.
The only difference in this current format is the lower number of archetypes. I think rogues are still equally unviable as they usually are.
 
I think what Prime is getting at, is the fact that nearly every round the game matchups look something to the effect of "Blissey vs something, Magmortar vs something, Gardy vs something"

Next round is Blissey vs Gardy, Magmortar vs Gardy, and the ever funny to see :
Blissey vs some dude who went second with Electrode, Voltorb, Rare candy and DRE last game

Its interesting to watch games sometimes, many different decks performing at different rates. Same cards in many decks but all being used differently. Last year, lots of people had Nidoqueen, some for searching, some for purposely getting pokes into their discard fast and slamming for 90 damage turn 2 or 3.

Now watching games is dull. Seeing a Mag vs Gardy match, next to a Gardy vs Mag match, next to a Gardy vs Blissvire. Next round, all 6 of these players will be playing one another most likely, sending the games into mirror matches of complete boredom.

You thought Shedinja vs Shedinja was boring, then you thought Scizor EX vs Scizor EX was boring, now we have each player using 4 supporters a turn to really make people lose interest.

Come one, come all, to the worst carbon-copy net decking season ever!
 
In the Absol threads, there are people pointing out that there are like 10 viable decks ATM. Is that not enough?

10 decks = varied environment in my book. (Correct me if that's not true though, I wouldn't know)
 
votalesin said:
I think what Prime is getting at, is the fact that nearly every round the game matchups look something to the effect of "Blissey vs something, Magmortar vs something, Gardy vs something"

Next round is Blissey vs Gardy, Magmortar vs Gardy, and the ever funny to see :
Blissey vs some dude who went second with Electrode, Voltorb, Rare candy and DRE last game

Its interesting to watch games sometimes, many different decks performing at different rates. Same cards in many decks but all being used differently. Last year, lots of people had Nidoqueen, some for searching, some for purposely getting pokes into their discard fast and slamming for 90 damage turn 2 or 3.

Now watching games is dull. Seeing a Mag vs Gardy match, next to a Gardy vs Mag match, next to a Gardy vs Blissvire. Next round, all 6 of these players will be playing one another most likely, sending the games into mirror matches of complete boredom.

You thought Shedinja vs Shedinja was boring, then you thought Scizor EX vs Scizor EX was boring, now we have each player using 4 supporters a turn to really make people lose interest.

Come one, come all, to the worst carbon-copy net decking season ever!
Click to expand...

WARNING THIS POST CONTAINS SPAM.

Ok I know my Spam post in this thread has been deleated and I got my OMG first infraction point of 2008 but I am not posting to express my sour grapes about it.

votalesin- what I bolded in the quote, too freaking funny, some dude, T1 Electrode, DRE, GG..... ROFL, GG SIR YOU JUST WON THIS THREAD.

And just to try to get off without another infraction point and since the theme of the day in my house is act like cavemen...

Creativity low.

Number of sets low.

More sets=more Creativity

Late season. More Sets. Big rock size Card Pool. Lots more decks.

STICKS MAKE THE HOT HOT. I Shall call it fire.
 
dogma said:
In the Absol threads, there are people pointing out that there are like 10 viable decks ATM. Is that not enough?

10 decks = varied environment in my book. (Correct me if that's not true though, I wouldn't know)
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Even if 10 decks have been pointed out, look at the "What Won Cities" Thread. Seventy-Six Gardy/Gallade have won all over, with Blissy/Magmortar variants following behind it. Not exactly varied.

Honestly, I believe that the only reason that there's been little creativity at the moment is from the fact that there is very little time to prepare, and the card pool is limited. It gets hard to try and find counters to the big things when there's a limited amount of cards to choose from (considering that the sets before DP offer very little to the format nowadays.)
 
Pidgeotto Trainer said:
RaiEggs was a very good rogue deck, that was thought up by good players, and tested a lot in preparation for a large event. I don't doubt something similar could happen if we took this format to nats. There's just not as much time/incentive to work a long time on something game-breaking for cities.
The only difference in this current format is the lower number of archetypes. I think rogues are still equally unviable as they usually are.
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I don't think its 100% unlikely, but I think with something like Gallade running about this isn't looking likely. Gallade just says 'die' to anything it can kill for two or less prize cards flipped maybe three if the situation is right and drains anything else, either way its easily doing 70-100 damage a turn. Few things (aside the obvious) at this stage can return the favour to Gallade as easily.

Secret Wonders Pidgeot I think is a card that is simply waiting to be comboed with something. It isn't bad against Gallade but its tagged with the problem, what do you play it with, it is simply too weak alone, and although you can play holon WP to block the drain that requires water. I'm thinking Pidgeot/Omastar DP4 next set could work though but the lack of damage and the lack of speed it has is a source of concern for me, I might find away around it. We'll just see, give it a few sets.
 
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Someone at league used Pidgeot SW and Weavile SW. It was a beast.
Because Pidgeot turns evil and gets the dark boost. PLUS has resistance to Gallade.
But Gallade is still too good.
 
Agrees with original post. Well thought out and very much a non sour grapes view.

The evolution of the decks during cities has been very interesting. At the first few cities, there were a great variety of decks being played. As we hit the mid point, the local NE metagame evolved into 4 deck types with either Gardy/Gallade, Magmortar, Honchkrow, or Blissey. All with Absol or Furrett...

It has come down to a lot of meta gaming. How is this person's build? What tech did they have? All that stuff. Is it due to points, lack of card pool, or something else?

My thoughts are that the folks that want to win and get points gravitate to the top tier decks. Those who don't have a shot go rogue and have fun. The card pool is tragedy. Very, very few POKÉMON in HP to DF can be used. Here is a few that I can think of (don't go crazy on judging my choices, they are just examples).

HP: Latias (11), Latios (12) for Lati-lock
CG: Delcatty ex, Skitty (by default), Mawile (maybe), Sableye (for sure), Ascension Shuppet, Tauros (maybe).
DF: Feraligator d, Flygon ex d, Kingdra ex d, Meganium d, Mew * d, Nidoqueen d, Ray ex d
PK: Claydol ex (just kidding), Delcatty, Machamp (maybe)

Compared to ALL the cards that DP-on has to offer, there is a serious imbalance in card pool. In rough numbers:

HP to DF: 20 "Playable" to 400 in pool. 5%
DP to SW: 45 "Playable" (~ 45 per set) to 300 in pool. 15%

Just my thoughts.
 
But from the standpoint of the game growing into what it becomes by Nationals and Worlds.....why would POP put out ALL the cards at the beginning of the season for BRs and Cities? From a business standpoint, they want people to keep buying cards to build more, and different, creative, unique and better decks as the season moves forward. They put out cards in sets so the decks and choices grow as the season moves on. The beginning of the season would always naturally have less of a card pool, therefore less choices to build from (especially if the player is playing for points and to win -- they've naturally got to go with the more consistent winning deck) As the Feb and Spring PR come around the card pool grows therefore the choices for decks available to be played grows, thus growing the creativity. I'm sure if you go back in time and look at the differences between early season choices and later season choices you'll see that it is probably the same each year.

Also, I don't think it's fair to assume that just because players are playing for points and to win that they are not also having fun!
 
I personally think the lack of creativity is a direct result of having such a small cardpool. As pointed out before, HP-PK sets are nearly worthless for competitive purposes, leaving a whopping 3 sets to work from right now. I recently had to remind a friend that Holon Phantoms was a legal set because she had completely forgot about any of the cards from it. My brother made a joke the other day about playing Raieggs for a tournament. Point is, HP-PK is, for the most part, laughable when it comes to being competitive.

Not having as many viable cards to work with really, really, really hurts creativity. One single card from another set could completely change the format. Think of how many decks could abuse Rainbow Energy, Swoop! Teleporter, or Banette ex. Many of these cards could have been reprinted in POP6, but they weren't (which is why I was so upset when I saw that POP6 was nothing more than cheesy reprints). I will say that I think DP4 will change things. Most people who have talked about the set haven't picked out one or two good cards (like Gardevoir/Gallade before DP3 was released). Instead, there have been a number of positive remarks on many different cards (Call Energy is my personal favorite). I think that a little bit of time will help fix the problem that we're all facing, but until then I'm still upset that Rocket's Admin. wasn't reprinted (or Rainbow Energy, or Pokemon Reversal, or etc. etc. etc.). I know that someone somewhere has a reason for denying us good reprints, but I wish they knew just how frustrating it is for competitive players such as myself to have to continue playing this game in a way it's not meant to be played. I can only dream of Japan's awesome format where almost any card can be effective if given the right synergy.
 
The card pool isn't rich enough right now. With a limited card pool all of the effects in the opening post are likely.

The rating system will have some influence but I don't see it as a root cause in any way whatsoever. Even without ratings invites there are enough players who want to win stuff that dominant decks will emerge, and well dominate. There are so few dominant decks primarily because the card pool is small.

The creativity is still there, but the fruits of such creativity are constrained by the cards available.
 
I am frankly surprised at Jimmy Ballard's comments in this thread.

Jimmy has always tried to surf at the front of the creative playing edge, and now seems to be abandoning that post.

There are certainly enough good decks out there to keep the envio from being a "Gatr or else" envio (neo block reference).

We had a cities won this weekend in a ROUGH Seniors envio with a ... Machamp Deck. Too much Blissey, and she just SLAMMED through the competition.

There are some other nasty psychic decks if your envio is too heavy in Garde/lade, that are stage 1s, hit hard, and are NOT weak to psychic themselves...

It all comes down to metagaming.

The true problem here is that there are 3 main types of decks that are causing havoc at this time, and everyone communicates well enough to realize that. Magmortar, Blissey and Gardelade. Just so happens Absol is as prevelent in these decks as Cleffa was during the neo block!

To stop any real ghost counter to Garde/lade, there are just enough Honchkrow decks to make you go oof.

The envio is strong right now.

Vince
 
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