Donking, and why it is suddenly a big concern for the community

[yoyofsho16]

But limiting Uxie prevents pure donk decks from happening. And being able to manipulate damage on the field isn't such a bad thing. Why has PlusPower almost always been a popular card? Why is Kingdra still borderline playable?

BTW, nerfing PlusPower the way B/W has done will also help in limiting pure donk decks.

Limiting uxie drops to one per turn is WAAAAAY more hurtful than Uxie donk is and ever was.
Not having the option to search for 2 Uxie to break a Power Spray barrier is bad.

And lol at anyone who thinks that running "donk counters" would lower your consistency against other decks. Donk counters are essentially maxing out your Call and Collector counts... playing 4 of each would finally mean people are doing things right!

 

[Ness]

Banning Uxie is the best solution to recreate a fun & fair format. I think we all know that isn't happening, though. We'll have to wait until September for an Uxieless format, and hopefully by then, there aren't more overpowered cards producing Turn one wins.

Notice how I said fun AND fair. Not only does Uxie allow turn one wins constantly, but it also produces extremely long turns. Try to go through your deck turn one without using Uxie. It isn't happening. Over the years, Japan has made the mistake of printing too many time-consuming cards. Cards with Poke-Powers you could use each turn to search through a deck/use a supporter/shuffle in & draw cards. Cards like Gardevoir SW, Claydol GE and Cyrus's Conspiracy are bad for the game. Remember how fast games were back in the day? It wasn't just because of quick knockouts. It's because there weren't many cards that allowed you to go through your deck and pick 3 things every turn, too. There were also no cards requiring a bunch of coin flips (Sneasel). Pokemon needs to return to this form of simplicity. The game is still extremely deep, fun & strategic without these time-consuming cards.

And on the issue of time-consuming, I cringe anytime someone pulls out a paper & starts asking around for a pen after they use Azelf's Time Walk. Notes should not be allowed, either.

 

[Box of Fail]

Slow, did you mean Zapdos MD, by chance? I'm not finding a Zapdos in LA.

Anyways, I can't speak from tournament experience in Pokémon, perhaps, but I can say that even in Yu-Gi-Oh!, where you do have best-of-3 matches, losing before you get to take a turn is a horrible experience. It takes a lot of system mastery to build a deck that can consistently FTK, but while I can respect that, I also can't help but feel some resentment that I was never given an opportunity to play. And because of that feeling amongst players, Konami uses the Forbidden/Limited List to destroy FTK decks that arise.

But Pokémon doesn't ban single cards, at least not since Sneasel and Slowking from the Neo days, and that was under WotC. Furthermore, I think that any of the key components of Uxie Donk would cause an uproar if they were to be banned. Ban Uxie? Almost no player wants that. Ban Seeker? That just came out, and Uxie can still reliably KO 2-3 Pokémon anyway. Ban Crobat G? That one damage counter allows a lot of decks to get that critical KO with a 60 x2 attack. So where does that leave us?

Also, I don't really think that TCPi has the authority to change how Uxie is to be played, making killing the deck through ruling change impossible.

Really, the options are endure it until Uxie LA is rotated, or stop playing until then, I'm afraid. Unless TPCi decides that the deck merits a single card ban.

I have to disagree with the single card ban. One thing that I love about Pokémon is that the guys in charge do not artificially nerf the format, which imo they shouldn't. Everybody has access to the same cards (marginally - $40-60 cards tops aren't really terrible relative to other games, and most don't exceed 20), and once a card is printed, it shouldn't be rotated until its set is. PCL nerfs cards the way it should be done - when Luxray is forecasted to win, make Promocroak. I remember when I played Yu-Gi-Oh and I had to check the banlist all the time (which I didn't memorize cuz it was HUGE). Banning sets is the right way to go about things - a card should not be banned by virtue of its threat to a balanced format, but by virtue of its age. Just as the government should not try to balance the economy, Pokémon should not try to balance the format - both will balance themselves.

Also, errata is supposed to be used to correct an error. They have been used to fix our cards so they perfectly mirror Japanese cards. either because the Japanese made a mistake with their cards, or because there was a mistake in translation. Using errata to repair a broken format is abuse of errata imo.

Banning Uxie is the best solution to recreate a fun & fair format. I think we all know that isn't happening, though. We'll have to wait until September for an Uxieless format, and hopefully by then, there aren't more overpowered cards producing Turn one wins.

Notice how I said fun AND fair. Not only does Uxie allow turn one wins constantly, but it also produces extremely long turns. Try to go through your deck turn one without using Uxie. It isn't happening. Over the years, Japan has made the mistake of printing too many time-consuming cards. Cards with Poke-Powers you could use each turn to search through a deck/use a supporter/shuffle in & draw cards. Cards like Gardevoir SW, Claydol GE and Cyrus's Conspiracy are bad for the game. Remember how fast games were back in the day? It wasn't just because of quick knockouts. It's because there weren't many cards that allowed you to go through your deck and pick 3 things every turn, too. There were also no cards requiring a bunch of coin flips (Sneasel). Pokemon needs to return to this form of simplicity. The game is still extremely deep, fun & strategic without these time-consuming cards.

Personally, I like the complexity of the decisions made when using Cyrus - having a long first turn is beneficial to the game imo. Besides, why is it a bad thing for games to last longer? That would seem to increase the fun of the game, not decrease it.

And on the issue of time-consuming, I cringe anytime someone pulls out a paper & starts asking around for a pen after they use Azelf's Time Walk. Notes should not be allowed, either.

Agreed completely. IMO, without Gallade in the format, they should just let players flip over their prizes after Time Walk, or look while they're taking them. At the very least, people who do not bring a pen and paper beforehand should not be allowed to take notes.

 

[Amt]

And on the issue of time-consuming, I cringe anytime someone pulls out a paper & starts asking around for a pen after they use Azelf's Time Walk. Notes should not be allowed, either.

Definitely agree with this. I don't get why they changed it this season. \:

 

[Rainbowgym]

And on the issue of time-consuming, I cringe anytime someone pulls out a paper & starts asking around for a pen after they use Azelf's Time Walk. Notes should not be allowed, either.

Instead you could start counting loud: 21, 22, 23 up to 40 and call a judge if that player didn't finish his time walk+writing in those 20 seconds. (in the case the player is not prepared by having a paper/pencil ready)

When I was HJ at BR and CC's I told the players to finish their time walk+notes in 20 seconds otherwise they would get a warning + prize penalty.
Sorry but I have no mercy with those people who are unprepared that way.

 

[eriknance]

Please what?!
Banning uxie would be the best decision ever, no player would like that, Id love if youd finally have to manage your resources again instead of just burning all your stuff and draw a new hand.
And banning crobat? Pokemon finally doing as much damage as they have printed on them? Would be sooo good :thumb:

It wont happen but I doubt a lot of players would be against it

I can't remember who it was, but some time ago a well-known player commented on how fragile the format was getting because of trainers like PlusPower and Buck's Training that allowed players to do 30, 40, 50+ damage more than expected in a single turn (achieving KO's when not otherwise possible and leaving little room for opponent's to plan ahead). There has been similar complaints made of Scramble Energy (though I would love to have that card back right now). Since then, Crobat G and Poketurn have been printed, Expert Belt has made its way into the format, and other cards like Black Belt have helped make sure that the damage output printed on a Pokemon card can NEVER be trusted.

10 damage you say? More like...

... 4 PlusPower, Expert Belt, 2 Crobat G's, 4 Poketurns, Black Belt, couple of PokeBlower+...

... 190 damage!

Of course, it's rare for people to drop all of that stuff in a turn (except for with Uxie donk), but it's a bit annoying to see damage variability exist so readily in our current format (especially when Strength Charm was all there was back in the day).

I think damage variability in the form of trainers is something that's here to stay; losing Crobat G and PlusPower, however, would be nice.

 

[Scipio]

Think about this for a second regarding Crobat G. In 2008, Jolteon* made it into the worlds decks.
Jolteon*. Only 1 copy a deck. No auto-return-to-hand-cards available for it. No useful attack either (Say about Toxic Fang what you want, but it still gives Donphan fits). No free retreat. Exceedingly rare. 10 less HP. No free retreat. No ability to hit benched Pokémon. Self-Damaging.

EVERYTHING about Jolteon* is worse when compared to Crobat G. Had the power creep gone up THAT much in the 2 years between the releases of those cards? Crobat G, to me, is THE epitome of all that is wrong with the format. Ever since I lost a nigh-autowin due to Crobat-Turn-Crobat-Honchkrow G-Special Darkness-Energy Gain, all the way back in States '09 I've known something's wrong with that card. Its just become even worse lately thanks to Uxie's new toys.

 

[Box of Fail]

^IMO, it's a good thing that Crobat G is NOT exceedingly rare, otherwise virtually every deck in the format would break the bank.

 

[gallade]

I

Agreed completely. IMO, without Gallade in the format, they should just let players flip over their prizes after Time Walk, or look while they're taking them. At the very least, people who do not bring a pen and paper beforehand should not be allowed to take notes.

im not a cheater, i don't flip peoples prizes over for them. jk
Anyways, i think that banning uxie would be awsome.

 

[Ness]

The Azelf note things are ridiculous. At a City I played in this year, a kid used Time Walk, then proceeded to write on a piece of notebook paper for almost two minutes. After the game, I notice his scrap paper left on the table. I unfolded it only to find a well-drawn Snorlax.

 

[Ice'Cold]

The Azelf note things are ridiculous. At a City I played in this year, a kid used Time Walk, then proceeded to write on a piece of notebook paper for almost two minutes. After the game, I notice his scrap paper left on the table. I unfolded it only to find a well-drawn Snorlax.

Level. I'm calling it now.

 

[gallade]

The Azelf note things are ridiculous. At a City I played in this year, a kid used Time Walk, then proceeded to write on a piece of notebook paper for almost two minutes. After the game, I notice his scrap paper left on the table. I unfolded it only to find a well-drawn Snorlax.

LOL, that kid was really dumb to do that.

 

[Flaming Monkey]

The Azelf note things are ridiculous. At a City I played in this year, a kid used Time Walk, then proceeded to write on a piece of notebook paper for almost two minutes. After the game, I notice his scrap paper left on the table. I unfolded it only to find a well-drawn Snorlax.

Whoa. Did you still win the game? I would have been so mad at someone if they were just stalling and drawing a Snorlax since they had nothing else to do. I read this post and laughed so hard. I'm not trying to be mean by laughing, but I do think it's pretty funny.

 

[Pikabruce]

(But I have to admit that I think it would be funny if Uxie Donk won a World Championship, and they then released a Championship Deck like that! :lol:

Yesterday, Uxie Donk won first place at the Cities, Master Division in Anthem, Arizona.)

The situation could be easily remedied with a promo card (Mankey?) with this no-energy attack:

Anti-Donk Fury
Look at your opponent's hand. This attack does 100 damage for each Uxie and Crobat G the opponent has in play or in hand .
:redface:

 

[Scipio]

Good for you, you did 100/200 damage.
I now erupt all over your field provided I had 2 basics. GG.

 

[Porii Sames]

I won a CC with Beedrill G yesterday...went 5-0 total...

Donked a total of 4 times. lol.

Also, NO ONE there was playing trainer lock.

And I've being doing pretty badly this whole season.

Does this say anything...?

 

[amphachu]

I won a CC with Beedrill G yesterday...went 5-0 total...

Donked a total of 4 times. lol.

Also, NO ONE there was playing trainer lock.

And I've being doing pretty badly this whole season.

Does this say anything...?

It shows how bad donk decks are for the game imo.

 

[Porii Sames]

^If no one is playing trainer lock, then stuff like that happens...

 

[Parco Folgore]

^If no one is playing trainer lock, then stuff like that happens...

Donk decks are essentially playing solely to win, and I don't think that's justified in demanding that someone stop you with a certain kind of deck.

 

[Porii Sames]

um...

don't like all decks play to win...?

Gosh, why do I even bother posting on this thread anymore?

Ugghhh....