Has anyone ever thought about adapting the new rules? If your that afraid of sabledonk, speed champ, g- dos, aka getting turn 1'd, why not build a deck with a combination of spiritomb and sableye as your starters? If sp players are afraid of sabledonk, I don't see them justifying not changing decks. It could eliminate a lot of sp and form new metadecks.
Well...
I feel like this was the "easy" way out. Yes, it fixes a lot. And, as pointed out by previous posts, it IS more than just Sableye, it is the overall speed. But, we could have easily done away with MUCH of those problems with a smaller rotation. How would making a SV-on format be any worse than HGSS-on speed-wise? We could have gotten a RR-on format and that would have killed just about EVERY deck in the format right now: ALL SP, Gengar, Machamp, Kingdra, Gigas, Steelix, and would also get rid of BTS. The older the PT set, the more I can see it being justified, but it seems hard to make a valid argument about rotating SV and AR from a "speed" perspective. I see no reason we don't go RR-on.
If there has to be a format change, why not cut to rising rivals? Cutting to hgss means we lose Volkner's Philosophy, Underground Expedition, Lucian's Assignment, Sunyshore City Gym, vs seeker, cynthias guidance, expert belt, spiritomb, bench shield, prof oaks visit. Not all of the above are playable in todays format, but a shift to rising rivals could make some of these cards playable. There are a lot of stage 1 and 2 pokemon that can't be played simply because sp is too strong. With sp still possibly playable but much weaker, Dusty arceus luxrays, hippodons, venosaurs, tangrowths, arceus, rhyperior, garchomp sv, and swampert could see play. Just to name a few.
If this is at all about the sp reign, then sp would take a tremendous hit without having to cut to hgss. Losing poketurn, cyrus, power spray, energy-gain, bronzong g, and crobat g. How could it be nearly as competitive as it has been without those crucial staples?
There will be a lot pf people with a lot of unplayable cards if seven sets get rotated.
FYI---The whole new donk situation could have been prevented by not implementing black and white rules until after worlds.
Is this an unreasonable viewpoint?