Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

blaze and the self fufilling domination.

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cattdreams

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Lately I have been wondering, Are Bex/bar decks truely broken super dominate cards or are they winning so much mainly because everyone is playing those decks?

While Alot of the tournament reports are indicating that blaze variants are taking first place, I've noticed at events that I've judged that 1) the decks in the cut to the top 8 have been half blaze and half rogue. 2) the better players here tend to be on the blaze side, and the newer players tend to be the ones on the red face paint side..

With a setup like that, it kinda makes sense that blaze decks would be killing everyone, they're being played by the best players (presumably because they want to be competative) and there are so many of them that they outnumber any rogue deck.

Also, I was thinking that many of the main cards in those decks are not actually overpowered.

On the other hand.........

While none of the individual cards are truely overpowered, well, maybe firestarter blaze is, it's the combo that is what's potentially broken...

and there is the idea that while the above is all true, that the blaze decks truely are broken....


Perhaps, if it is broken, I wonder what could be done to fix it.... personally, I'd think something like eratta on firestarter blaze that you could only use it's power if it's active. or maybe only use one copy of it per turn..... I think that'd probably do it........

in any case, I'd like to know how many top rank players are out there that do not play a blaze variant and how their decks fair in tournaments.... assuming there are any left around, they're harder and harder to find these days.

-CattDreams
 
Well, im going to a challange in Norway and i do not have any chance og using a BLAZE deck since i do not have the cards as probably very many other ppl. But i just have to figure out something else. But ive beaten good players using blaze dekcs with my Shiftery/Wailord and wailord EX deck. The deck does work great! :D

So im sure i can either use that deck since ive beaten blaze with it or think out a new deck. Blaze is just one deck you have to beat why don´t think about other good decks that gets played aswell?
 
Erratas would be illogical, and the only card in the deck truly broken and WORTH banning is Delcatty.

However, that'll never happen.
 
I think what is the true test of Blaze is how do they do in the Swiss rounds.
In any given match up, how likely is a Blaze deck to win vs any other deck.

Reading all the tourney reports, it seems that non-Blaze decks do well enough and I think catdreams hypothesis has some merit.
 
Yeah, if Blaze ex didn't have Blaze R/S, the deck would basically fall apart without it's power to move the energy. I don't think Delcatty is the one that needs to be errated, but that Blaze R/S should be. I like the idea of having it only being able to be used once per turn or for putting damage counters on the Pokemon it does it to. However, with all the hub-bub since it came out, I don't think Nintendo will do anything about it now since it has been so long and nothing has happened.

Of course, once Blastoise ex comes out, EVERYONE will be complaining ('cept me), but I think the clash between Blaziken and Blastoise ex will even everything out:


* BLASTOISE ex [150 HP] (Stage 2 Water Pokemon / Evolves from Wartortle)
[POWER] Energy Dance
As often as you want during your turn, you may choose 1 WATER energy card
from your hand and attach it to one of your Pokemon in play. If you do
put 1 damage counter on that Pokemon. This power can't be used if
Blastoise ex is affected by a Special Condition.
[WWWC] Ebb Tide (80)
Flip a coin until you flip a tails. For each heads, choose 1 energy card
attached to the Defending Pokemon and discard it.
WEAKNESS: LIGHTNING
RETREAT: CCC
20/52 #009 [Hikaru Koike]
 
The thing is, there are big differences between Blastoise EX and Blaziken firestarter.

1. Blaziken takes energy from the discard pile. This is an advantage. Fire Pokemon often discard energy and this power brings them back. It is hard to get that many energy cards into your hand to attach, and you do have to place a damage counter.
2. Blastoise is an EX. There is a bigger cost to having it KO'd. Blaziken is not.

As much as I feel Nintendo messed up somewhere when making these cards, it is very hard to pinpoint exactly where and what to do about it. Once Worlds is over it will be interesting to see what happens to the trainer engine of Blaziken decks.
---Nicole
WeileMom
 
Blaze/Ray w/o Blaziken ex probably isn't as broken as it is without Bex in there. What blaze ex does is creates a lock down on the later game. If you are ever stalled against it, have a bad start or anything like that... you CAN NOT WIN. Why? Because of blaziken ex, that's why. It does 100 to anything... you can't possibly power up pokemon when they are going to take 100 right off the bat once played to the bench =\.

Yes, blaze is beatable, but we do see it winning a whole lot. yeah, its popular... there were I think 3 or 4 in the top 8 of the St. Louis gc. But what were the finals matches? Niniken/Bex vs. Blaze/Ray/Bex... its good because its good, not just because its popular.
 
"its good because its good, not just because its popular."

No one is saying it isn't a good deck. They're saying the perception is greater than than what the deck is really capable of.
 
While I agree the deck is extremely good, and broken. It must be realized that the broken one is not Ray/Bex/Ninetails but it is Blaziken and his amazing power, along with the Oracle/Delcatty combo, which once we change formats will dissappear, although Blaze will not.
I do agree that the current state of the game is caused by too much hype and I'll list my reasons for this now.
Once that huge thread about how broken it would be started, it shouldn't have taken long to realize that every newbie who could get their hands on the cards would make one would, because that is their only chance at winning. Now, if they had not had a complete decklist but merely a concept its pretty much a given that they would screw up the trainer engine. Fortunately there have not been -too- many decklists posted (that I've seen)....so most newbies, who don't have skilled players to help them, are still stuck with just the concept. So, like cattdreams has said, the winning decks usually have skilled players behind them, this is pretty much the way its always been. Another factor is that if most decks are Blaze, of course the anti-deck, which only wins 60% of the time would have trouble playing through them all. Although when there is only one-two Blaze decks they stand a much less chance of winning tournements (just my own personal observations :p). If the number of Blaze is greater than the number of specifically anti-blaze then Blaze will probably win, if the number of anti-blaze is higher than Blaze then anti-Blaze will probably win (darn those bad hands...). Those are just my theories as all I have to go off are my personal experiences from watching the tourneys I've played in.

-Prof. Chris
 
From what I've seen, Blaze is a very powerful card and deck theme, but not as powerful as many people are making it out to be. The problem is that the other decks that are either equally powerful (Gardy) or more so (IMO, the TA decks) just don't get enough good players playing them in order for them do really show up at the tournaments.

What would help more than "which decks won" would be, "what percentage of each deck type (Blaze, Gardy, TA, etc) makes it into the T8" or something like that.
 
I agree, it seems that the best players want to play the broken blaziken basher and well until some good players start to play others, blaziken will continue to win tournaments.
 
I think good players play Blaziken because it is very easy to play. They don't challenge theirselves with other decks because it is very easy to win with Blaziken's Fire Starter. That's why all the "good" players are using it. I personally think people take the easy road in playing Blaziken, which is why they always win.
 
Easy, no challenge, because it wins, yeah that sumarizes blaziken pretty well lol.
 
BlazikenEX by itself is powerful, not broken. It's the combo Blaziken/EX and RayquazaEX that's broken. Do we ban all three?

But then, there lies the over-riding characteristic (some call it a flaw) in the game. It can end very quickly based on luck. BEX/REX decks capitalize on that luck. But then again, so does the Wynaut/Wobby/Boost combo in Gardy decks.

As I said in another post similiar to this topic ("Are we still having fun?"), fun comes from playing a close, long match. When Pokemon are being KO'd with 1-hit everyturn, that's not close.
 
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PokePop said:
I think what is the true test of Blaze is how do they do in the Swiss rounds.
In any given match up, how likely is a Blaze deck to win vs any other deck.
Reading all the tourney reports, it seems that non-Blaze decks do well enough and I think catdreams hypothesis has some merit.
Click to expand...

Factor in the many events that run 2/3 playoffs - BEX/BAR/RAMBO dominate. That means they are winning 2 out of three on those rogue decks. And think about it - we are essentially calling anything that isn't a Gardy or BAR variant a rogue! I think that speaks for itself.
 
I dunno if I'd classify Swampert/'Cune as red face paint seeing as it has placed well in several tournements and is rather popular.
 
SteveP said:
BlazikenEX by itself is powerful, not broken. It's the combo Blaziken/EX and RayquazaEX that's broken. Do we ban all three?
QUOTE]

Nahhhh - I've seen plenty of Blaze decks with no Ray. The broken part is the energy moving to BEX who can stomp on anything.
The Blaze engine is pretty flexible actually.
Firestarter can be less efficiently implemented using TM Camerupt/PokeNurse combo.
You could use Exp Charizard in conjunction with Firestarter and do 120 - but do we? No.
Heck you could use Roselia to stockpile a TA Manectric to power that Zard.
How about a Swampert/exp Zard deck? Use water call to get 2 nrg a turn on the zard - then burn it to fire - toast, rinse, repeat. Silly? You bet. :rolleyes:
Oracle is nice but I have seen Linoone used successfully which also eliminates the Delcatty
Juggler can get the NRG into the pile with better draw (5 cards/2nrg).
Blaze/BEX is king. The ability to hit anything including the bench for 100 is simply broken IMHO.
Click to expand...
 
Professor_Chris said:
I dunno if I'd classify Swampert/'Cune as red face paint seeing as it has placed well in several tournements and is rather popular.
Click to expand...
Around these parts maybe - I don't think it is used much elsewhere. I'm pretty sure M45 popularized it - I know I took a few ideas for ours from his. We had made several Swampert variants but they weren't as effective as Vince's.
 
I remember when WotC ruled that nothing could add damage done to the bench. Kinda like if you hit a benched pokemon with 4 dark attached, the dark would not on, same with strength charm or weakness. But see, they based it off that the bench was a safe spot for pokemon that are hurt or brand new. Now with blaziken EX out, the bench is actually a place you don't want your good pokemon to go, because they can get hit for 100 and not even get a whack in on BEX.
 
yoshi1001 said:
"its good because its good, not just because its popular."

No one is saying it isn't a good deck. They're saying the perception is greater than than what the deck is really capable of.
Click to expand...


Just to make a point.. the reason why so many people play it is because they got crushed by it when a few people (my self included) introduced the true power of the deck to everyone. If you weren't running blaze around the CC time... you got killed. I played in a CC when Blaz wasn't really known so much about... it was big on the boards but other than that it wasn't really that known. And even if people knew about it they didn't seem to see how good it truly was... In a tournament where there's one or two blaziken decks I can still almost garantee a Blaziken will win if in the hands of a good player... The reason why so many people play it is because it is very good... there literally is not anything that can beat it. People think Swampert/Suicune is... well that deck is good.... but however it still only wins about 50% of the games with blaz and if the blaz sets up at the same speed as the swampert generally the swampert wins.

So I have to agree it is good be cause it's good not because it's popular... what I'm trying to say is... even if one or two people played it at a tournament you'd still be seeing the results that are happening right now. It might be a LITTLE less simply because of bad hands but it'd be almost the same...
 
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