State of the Format.

[Prime]

I wouldn't mind this to much. Maybe a better rule would be the first player isn't allowed to take a prize on THE first turn of the game? Not being able to attack really would hurt things like pachy, but not taking a prize would even things out IMO. It sucks so much right now going first with one basic and a Roseanne and losing because your opponent got to use as many trainers as he wanted. :frown:

So you place the damage, and inbetween turns, it dies.

You can't be specific with these things or people will abuse them.

You can't attack if your going first, period. If your deck has the right Call Energy (which doesn't count as an attack), Roseanne and/or Great/Luxury ball, you shouldn't have any problems getting another basic.

 

[TSDMage]

I fully agree. I played a good GG list at regionals against a guy who was actually mentally challenged (playing a Dialga deck) and almost every movie of EVERY turn was a misplay on his part, LITERALLY; NO JOKE. Every single movie he made was terrible and allowed me to tie him at 2-2 after being down 6-2, yet a few Energy Gains, Poketurns and Power Sprays completely stopped me from taking the win against a very poor player.

Machamp, Dialga, Kingdra, etc. This format is such a joke, IMO. There's so much lucksacking going on right now it's sickening.

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

I think that the player that goes first should be allowed to play a supporter but no other trainer cards. Supporters are designed to help you set up and would keep players from getting donked on the first turn, but the player going first wouldn't be able to get too aggressive themselves since they woudln't be able to do things like rare candy or attach energy gain.

THIS. Going first and not being able to do anything while the player going second being able to use BTS (that is one of THE most horrid rulings I've ever heard of as long as I've played this game) or Candy and set up a Skuntank/Crobat board, etc. to win right away is really stupid. It can be done so easily and in so many ways.

 

[dreamdemon]

ther is nothing wrong with the format. if you dont like it ts. it will change in a few months. until then stop trying make your self feel better with crapy threds like this one.

 

[Naki Feralkin]

Man, here comes the waaaambulance again. You guys don't have diplomatic immunity, y'know. You mean if you went out and insulted some guy because of the way he looked, you wouldn't get punished by having a fist shoved in your face?

Get real. Some of you guys cry way too much. Especially about being infracted on an intraweb forum. I think its rather humorous.

 

[vietgamer1021]

last format was either GG or empozong or lose...

at least in this format its either SP or some stage 2 deck thats not just GG

 

[TSDMage]

last format was either GG or empozong or lose...

at least in this format its either SP or some stage 2 deck thats not just GG

I'm not denying that, but before you had YOUR turn to clean things up. It was a little harder to pull off a donk, too. Now you Energy Gain and Power Spray everything. It's so frustrating to see your opponent do everything he needs to set up (which with the setup and Cyrus, etc. is pretty easy considering) for his turn and then have your turn voided of the same rights as you get Sprayed. G just has too much advantage over a player in general.

 

[SlimeyGrimey]

I think this format is great. The only qualms I have is the ridiculous, skilless first turn wins that occur at the hands of primarily Machamp and Kindgdra, but also Sableye, Gengar, whatever. In round 4 of my regional championship I was turn 1'd and my friend sitting next to me lost on turn 1 as well. In a few seconds I learned of 2 other people that had been turn 1'd. It happens, I don't have sour grapes, I've won on the first turn as well, but the lack of skill in this is kind of stupid. I lost 22 rating points for losing on turn 1 at regionals.

The most ridiculous example for me was at STP's in the fifth round. My opponent was playing Rampardos and I was playing Kingdra. He 'won' the opening roll and flipped over his fossil. I candied into kingdra and ko'd him to win the game. He shows me the candy/Rampardos/energy in his hand. Whoever won the opening roll lost the game. how stupid.

If you can get past the first turn of the game this format is great. But having to attach/pass and then losing instantly is not exactly determining of skill.

 

[mine is cooler]

You think without power spray, poketurn, or energy gain that a pokemon with x2 weakness with 80 hp would last?

If every body hates the "broken" trainer list because of an easier donk what deck are you playing??

If you know something is coming, and you don't do anything to counter it, you lose. There is always 1 or 2 decks every format that reign supreme, and it's always "I don't like this cuz it's to hard of a deck to beat.", come on!

 

[ShadowGuard]

I can't stand the elitest attitude. How can you deny the G Deck alone ignores so much skill and makes up for it all with luck? I've seen good players beaten by terrible players running G simply because a Power Spray here or a Poketurn there can save their asses.

Fixed.
And something to add here - Toxitank is the most terrible donk deck in format. It's inferior to Dialga Swarm and Legos, but against non-G-decks, Toxitank donks more often than Machamp and Kingdra do. I never got actually donked by Kingdra or Machamp in a tournament this season, even if some games came very close to a donk, but I got donked twice by Galactic Toolbox decks.

btw Plox took skill too, but this didn't change the fact that unexperienced players did better results with Plox decks. With Galactic it's the same.

C. Can't/won't build G decks because they either don't have the money or never use a archetype. Doing the later of those is utter stupidity if you want to be considerd a good player.

So people who prefer individual playstyle and fun above victory aren't good players? The best players are those who win with rogue decks, because building a deck that's not an archtype but can survive in the metagame (think of Destiny, Beedrill, Torterra, Scizor/Toxicroak) takes a lot of creativity and skill.

 

[Rogue Master Mime]

C. Can't/won't build G decks because they either don't have the money or never use a archetype. Doing the later of those is utter stupidity if you want to be considerd a good player.

I for one take extreme offense at the sheer ignorance displayed by you, a member of this fine forum.

As a Rogue mastermind ("Master Mime"), I do use G decks. In fact, I invented the first true G deck.

What I do is not play archetypes - I create them for YOU. Is what I am doing "utter stupidity"?

Many in the United States already consider me an excellent player, despite have only been to one event. Is my desire to follow the path of rogue "utter stupidity"?

Is a religious man behaving in a manner of "utter stupidity" when he has seen the glory of God?

I, like that religious man, have seen the truth that is rogue. You haven't.

~Mime out.

 

[sdrawkcab]

Donk's have been around for as long as pokemon has been. You weren't around to witness the days of haymaker and such. Pokemon has come a long way to help prevent games consistently being finished by t2.

I do understand with Machamp, Kingdra and Honchcrow (or other g pokemon) that winning / losing on turn 1 has became an issue. However like any other format the threat of losing turn one - turn two has always been there. Rare candy pidgeot boost ko. Lucario/Machamp from a couple years ago. any of the t2 decks like banette ex or medicham, this is a part of the game and in order to win you will need to be able to overcome this adversities.

Playing decks with multiple basics help your odds at not being donked round 1, but even then there will always be the posibility of losing on your first turn.

Now the start of game procedure has been changed quite a bit in the last few seasons, and no matter what you do one of the players will have an advantage (of going first or second) regardless.

The ONLY solution I can think of at this time that will help reduce the number of early game losses would be if we implement a systeme that prevents pokemon from doing damage to the opponent for the first 2-3 turns. Even then i'm sure this approach would reveal only more headechs and more flaws....

 

[vietgamer1021]

So people who prefer individual playstyle and fun above victory aren't good players? The best players are those who win with rogue decks, because building a deck that's not an archtype but can survive in the metagame (think of Destiny, Beedrill, Torterra, Scizor/Toxicroak) takes a lot of creativity and skill.

i think what darthpika is trying to say is that NEVER dabbling even once in archetypes to purely go against whats popular is stupid. to try to be the best, you have to somewhat dabble in playing archetypes a bit, at the very least understanding how they work, then being able to counter them. it is guaranteed that if you never want to associate yourself with archetype decks, then you will totally fail at pokemon.

in order to make a rogue deck there needs to be archetypes for it to counter. the successful rogue decks test against the metagame, attempting to to counter the popular archetypes. so anyways, without archetypes, there wouldnt be rogue (or you can view it as everything is rogue)

 

[GrandmaJoner]

This format is good right now, except for something thats not really in anyones control...stupid first turn donk wins.

If you go first, if you don't have basics or a pokemon that has call for family or call energy or something like that then it is completely our of your control.

And sure you can increase your amount of those types of cards but everyone needs to play baltoy and stuff like that and the chance of it happening is ridiculous.

The deck that won regionals here relied so heavily on t1 donks, all 4 of the games he won in the top 8 and top 4 were won on t1.

I had 3 losses at regionals, all t1. All of them all I need to do was survive the first turn and my deck wins. That I call skill as opposed to winning on t1.

There is so much donk potential and people who are less skilled are leaning towards playing cards like Machamp and others because it levels the playing field.




Slimey Grimey's solution seems perfectly reasonable...no trainers on your first turn but Supporters would be allowed.

You can go into a tournament with a great deck and have 2-3 opening hands with only one basic, lose the roll and get eliminated because of that. How lame.

 

[mine is cooler]

Wait2-3 turns to attack = t-tar hitting for 180 w/ weavile.

You can't fix this format. I personally like it. Donks happen, it's life, don't cry about it, fight it.

 

[zombieminun]

Wait2-3 turns to attack = t-tar hitting for 180 w/ weavile.

You can't fix this format. I personally like it. Donks happen, it's life, don't cry about it, fight it.

So how would you go about fighting the donk when you have a solo Uxie lead with no calls and you are first?

it's not something you just "fight"

 

[NoPoke]

There are ways of avoiding T1 wins for all time. Without banning cards or altering the starting procedure.

One such is that you don't lose when you are benched. Instead the opponent takes a prize whenever they attack the missing active pokemon. Thus in a six prize game even against the worst donk deck imaginable you will get to draw at least three cards.

Another alternative is that within the 40 minute round you continue to play games and just keep track of total prizes taken. There are lots of possibilities with this one and it has the distinct advantage of being a tournament policy change rather than a game rule change. So at least it has a chance of being implemented.

Realistically though I doubt either of the above will ever happen. So what else can be done? Right now my hope is for match play to become the standard in the swiss rounds. It has been the standard in much of Europe for some time now. Matchplay helps, matchplay helps lots.

 

[baby mario]

LOL . . . now no-one can say they don't like the format without being called a n00b. Too funny.

SP decks obviously take skill to play and hardly ever donk.

The only thing I don't like about the format is Macheap. Donks will always happen cos of extreme luck or skill, but to make a card that any idiot can play which is DESIGNED to get cheap donk wins . . . . bleh . . . that's just a bad idea.

 

[The_Lurb]

LOL . . . now no-one can say they don't like the format without being called a n00b. Too funny.

SP decks obviously take skill to play and hardly ever donk.

The only thing I don't like about the format is Macheap. Donks will always happen cos of extreme luck or skill, but to make a card that any idiot can play which is DESIGNED to get cheap donk wins . . . . bleh . . . that's just a bad idea.

I'm actually starting to think that's not why they made it, it seems very possible it was released as an SP counter but just a little early. I mean, it really is the only thing keeping Dialga/Palkia form being similar to GG in a way.

 

[afstandopleren]

Pachi is a better counter for SP decks, getting rid of their speed while hitting hard. Dialga and Palkia G are both beatable, and best of all, THEY CAN'T GET CHEAP KOs! So here is a newsflash to some of you, Macheap isn't intended to be an SP counter since it wasn't released in the same japanese set as SP pokes. And since it doesn't KO SP pokes but Basics in general, I think it was intended to 'speed' up the games in the lamest way possible.

 

[ShadowGuard]

One such is that you don't lose when you are benched. Instead the opponent takes a prize whenever they attack the missing active pokemon. Thus in a six prize game even against the worst donk deck imaginable you will get to draw at least three cards.

Most times you don't even need to draw new cards, you just need an opportunity to play your supporter. But an empty playfield doesn't work, it would be better if an auto quick ball is performed when knocking out the only Pokémon, so the 'donked' player gets a random new active Pokémon.

Pachi is a better counter for SP decks, getting rid of their speed while hitting hard.

Pachi OHKOs only Honchkrow and Crobat. It does 80 to Palkia which is quite good, but not enough for the KO --> Poké Turn. Against other G Pokémon it just discards Energy Gain which isn't a big issue with stuff like Bronzong.

Dialga and Palkia G are both beatable, and best of all, THEY CAN'T GET CHEAP KOs!

Plox couldn't get cheap KOs either.

Macheap isn't intended to be an SP counter since it wasn't released in the same japanese set as SP pokes. And since it doesn't KO SP pokes but Basics in general, I think it was intended to 'speed' up the games in the lamest way possible.

Machamp stopped Regigigas from becoming Plox 2.0, and maybe to have a counter against AMU which was very strong before SF released. This doesn't justify its existance, but at least it's an explanation.

Machamp and Galactic stuff are the ultimate result of the power creep which has already begun with the start of DP series. It destroys the metagame, but since kids love it when cards get stronger every set, the game sells better than ever and they'll continue the way the started. DX-on was a great format, HP-on and DP-on not even close to that.