Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

How important is the LUCK factor, in today's format?

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davidy321

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For most people, the main/important factors deciding an outcome of an event, or game in general would be based on the following three elements.

1/. Deck Choice. This basically includes play testing to come up with a list, deciding what to play - including metagaming with techs, or playing original rogues with a surprise factor.

2/. Player Skill. Although arugably has a huge impact on deck choice, this mainly refers to a players actual ability to play what cards they have in their hand/cards they have in play, based on the information they have (i.e. opponent's discard, cards in play etc) the most effectively for the situation.

3/. Luck. An element nearly enevitable in every card game (even if it is less significant in some games, any game that requires shuffle/draw, involves at least 'some' luck.

With every format, that is older sets rotated out, newer sets introduced, and even new rulings on cards, can change how important of a deciding factor luck is in the format.

My question to you is, in "today's format", in this case which I define as EX-Holon Phantoms - Diamond and Pearl 5: Majestic Dawns, including all erata/rulings imposed, how important is luck as a deciding factors, when juxtaposed, compared and contrasted? :rolleyes:
 
In contrast to what I'd usually say, Luck probably isn't as big a factor anymore; Deck Choice seems to be winning it to me, just simply because anyone can throw together a standard PLOX or G&G or Maggy list and expect it to do moderately well. Player skill comes in second, which would be taking the deck choice further with customized builds for any particular metagame.
 
Luck is the biggest factor in making the game attractive to the majority of players. The certainty that with a bit of good luck you can defeat even the best players.

Luck in pokemon allows players to play outside their league and still have an enjoyable game. Something that cannot be said for Chess.

Skilled players are sometimes accused of being lucky. In reality many of the best players know the behaviour of thier deck so well that when necessary they can play to maximise the chance of a "lucky" draw.

If you play magikarp then luck could be huge :D
 
Regis_Neo said:
In contrast to what I'd usually say, Luck probably isn't as big a factor anymore; Deck Choice seems to be winning it to me, just simply because anyone can throw together a standard PLOX or G&G or Maggy list and expect it to do moderately well. Player skill comes in second, which would be taking the deck choice further with customized builds for any particular metagame.
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Both GG/Plox and Magmortar require play skill on a moderate (at least level).
For example

You have Candy/Celio and Ralts.
It's a big skill thing to decide which G to get (when it's not obvious... of course)..

But if you say anyone can do decent with gg/mag, then the most important would be deck choice, someone who finds a counter, or rogue that has a surprise factor to make it hit even harder.. (Jimmy B ftw?)
 
Luck factor is a lot bigger than last season imho.

With cards like Team Galactic's Wager (and RPS cards allowed to make the decision more random), Omastar MD and decks like Plox you can lose your field or ability to take benefit of supporting powers and are forced to draw into some good cards.

Additionaly, we don't have the Holon engine any more, a problem that not only makes every deck need Claydol or something similar, but also makes bad starts and early T2donks/ploxouts more common.


Deck choice also got more important, because some decks are just superior. This leads to the conclusion that player skill got less important, and indeed, at least in my country, players who are not known to be very skilled were often seen in the top cut this season. It's not necessary something bad that new players got more chances, but I would be happy about a new Holon engine to make more decks playable, reduce luck factor, and of course weaken plox.
 
True, RPS can often decide a game with the addition of what you 'topdeck' from the RPS cards (whether it be 3 or 6)
 
I agree with ShadowGuard. Bad starts, early T2 donks, good decks not working for good players and good players not winning favorable match-ups is something we see way too often this season, compared to last season. I don't really know why, but it's interesting to hear others experiencing the same. At least as a judge, I've experienced the above examples often, and I've seen many players going X-0 in Swiss only to lose in a strange way in the top cut.
 
it's skill. i can go give a n00b a G&G or mag deck and he will do great in a tourniment. i will never play metagame, so my decks that i make have a lot of tactics that i have to follow. i just hate how the creativity of the game left.
 
Regis_Neo said:
In contrast to what I'd usually say, Luck probably isn't as big a factor anymore; Deck Choice seems to be winning it to me, just simply because anyone can throw together a standard PLOX or G&G or Maggy list and expect it to do moderately well. Player skill comes in second, which would be taking the deck choice further with customized builds for any particular metagame.
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I disagree with that entirely. A player has to have to have the skill to play out the archetypes. A big mistake people make is thinking that any Tom, Dick, and Harry could throw together G&G and win tournaments, which is not true one bit. Obviously there is deck choice which decides everything; you don't expect a theme deck to win a tournament. But considering every G&G/PLox deck is getting closer to the same build every minute, there is definately player skill playing a major part.

As for my opinions on the luck factor, luck is always a major factor in any game, not just a card game. A player at a chess tournament, while not seeing luck in the actual game, will see luck when pairings come up. The same thing goes with Pokemon. If you are paired early on with some amazing player that will go on to win two states and a regional, you obviously had bad luck on who you are paired with. My regionals record was destroyed because I got the bad luck third round---I got the odd stronger player who was paired down. As for luck in-game, nobody likes a bad hand, and it must be a killer to get a bad hand in a high-up tournament, as is when I get a bad hand at, let's say, regionals. Luck will always be a factor in any game no matter what.

Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:

davidy321 said:
True, RPS can often decide a game with the addition of what you 'topdeck' from the RPS cards (whether it be 3 or 6)
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Watch what you say! Believe it or not, there are actually RPS championships out there in the world. Someone high up in these kind of competitions might tell you (as much of a load of crud as it seems) that there is a system of eye contact that can tell you what a player's favored move is.
Ahahaha.
 
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I feel that while luck is a big factor, the longer the game goes on, the less of a factor it becomes. It just seems that the biggest part of luck is can I get setup fast or can I get a decent starting hand/draw. Late game, most of the time your setup or should be making luck less of a factor then in at the beginning of the game.

Drew
 
with set up speed at an all time high LUCK is the crucial point. If you can get the start you win, if you drag it out on skill you may win but if I have a choice i'll take the luck of a great start every time and win a high percent. Every tourney I have gone too this year of the game I lost honestly i think my bad luck or their better luck is the cause of my loss.
 
Haha yeah, imo, even against someone you've never played before/met, if you play RPS anytime after the first time, a little bit of psychology becomes relevant..
 
I think in order to win consistantly (ie: most important factor) you need a deck that is just better than anyone else's for the metagame you are in. (This has always been true) However, that is not always possible, so what happens when your deck is about even with some other players? Both luck and in-game skill becomes a much greater factor. Because the format is so narrow right now, luck and in-game skill play a bigger role. I would argue though that because everyone has been playing basically the same deck, there has been a lot more luck involved this year. If one player is lucky enough to candy down a gardevoir turn 2, while the other player only gets a kirlia... There is really no "outplaying" going on.
 
I believe that luck plays a large part in the pokemon trading card game modified format, particularly cards such as Porygon-Z from Great Encounters, which does forty damage times the number of heads you flip in three coins and Kangaskhan in Majestic Dawn, which does twenty damage times the number of heads you flip in four coins. I personally hate it when I am beaten by a player who is very lucky when it comes to coin flips, but is not necessarily skilful at playing the Pokemon TCG. The majority of my Pokemon Card decks rely on some pretty sick and insane tactics, so I do not usually need to hope for good luck. However, I suppose that the Pokemon Trading Card Game would not be as enjoyable as it is without some form of luck involved.
Finally, I dislike it when I use an attack such as Healing Milk on the card Miltank from Secret Wonders, and flip two tails, but in the same match my opponent has an incredible streak of luck.
Jak[/COLOR]
 
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