Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

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

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LOL, so you go around feeling proud that you "won" 4 games on the first turn, while i go moping about me going 4-0, but my games took soooooo long.
 
And our point is that your result only further soldifies how stupid donk decks are.
You're proud of your achievement? By donking 4 opponents who as such didn't get to PLAY A GAME? Honestly, that attitude will never cease to amaze me.
 
Donk decks say this about the player behind it, "Hello, I can't win a legitimate game so I am going to play a deck that keeps you from getting more than one turn because I can't win if I have to actually play you."

Coming from someone who's been donked and seen my friends donked too often, this is the impression left in the mind of the person getting intentionally turn one'd. You gain nothing from a game you don't get to play and that makes it difficult to learn from the loss.
 
No, they don't.

Donk decks say "I have learned how to construct a deck, using the legal format rules, that will either force all of my opponents to play a counter, or suffer horribly"

It is no different than the "Play Gatr or lose" days of Neo Genesis Feraligatr

I am not sure how the new Japanese rules will even slow this down.

Only the rotation of Uxie will slow this down.

Certainly not a fun deck to play against, but then again, neither was Gatr unless you were playing either (a) another Gatr or (b) crobat.

V
 
Meganium, the big difference in your Gatr analogy is that unlike donk decks, Gatr (as well as Plox, just before anyone else mentions it) allows for a full game. Its not like your entire game consists of...

"Draw a card...attach energy...attack for lulzy damage"
"Game"

And its not exactly hard anymore to construct a solid donk deck list. If you just read around a bit, you can find plenty of info on what cards donk decks run.
 
The last game I had was pretty hard; had to save a lot of resources late-game, and every one of them was needed. I did misplay once, but that was it.

Still, not too much skill. To get the final decklist, though, that was hard.
 
No, they don't.

Donk decks say "I have learned how to construct a deck, using the legal format rules, that will either force all of my opponents to play a counter, or suffer horribly"

It is no different than the "Play Gatr or lose" days of Neo Genesis Feraligatr

I am not sure how the new Japanese rules will even slow this down.

Only the rotation of Uxie will slow this down.

Certainly not a fun deck to play against, but then again, neither was Gatr unless you were playing either (a) another Gatr or (b) crobat.

V
I didn't say anything about the deck not following legal format rules, I said that donk decks that are constructed for a T1 win do NOTHING for the game except end a game before it's played. I'm sorry, but I highly doubt you'd like to sit down for a round and not get to play because someone would rather deny you the ability to have more than one turn.

It's a huge difference between "play gatr or lose" considering at least you got to play a game that could still come down to prizing, misplays, whiffing, etc over the period of a full game. Losing or winning a game in one turn because of an intentional donk deck speaks nothing of the skill of the person getting donked since they didn't get a chance to even play a game, but gives them a loss and point reduction and nothing learned from it. It's one thing to tech for a deck in the format and another to have no control over your opponent getting to go 2nd. Last I checked, you can't play collector going first.
 
Please.

Pokemon has always been full of "high risk, high reward" decks that either do well, or fizzle.

There was the Machamp that had all the cards roll right for it, and went 7-0 in the Grinder one year at Worlds, only to fizzle at the main event.

Donk decks are set up to either do what they do, or go down in flames because it does not work.

The lists I have seen on the gym are subpar.

I give credit to the "master" for killing his list. Rob was making people in Chicago miserable. Good people, great players, all had to counter his deck to have a chance, or a better chance.

Even Rob didn't go perfect, but got so disgusted with his own deck that he quit playing it and refused to give out the list.

I hate the donking decks. I hated LBS and Mewtric in the day, but they were played, why? Because they were the best.

Don't tell me that Mewtric wasn't little more than an extended donking deck. LBS was an apocolypse deck. SP is a toolbox deck. All have their place, even this nasty Quaddonk.

What card would cripple it that you would have to get rid of? Uxie? Crobat? Turn?

In every format there are cards we will HATE. For a while, there was a group (of at least 1) that HATED Pidgeot (FRLG).

There was plenty of hate for Gatrs (Team Gatr Hatr)

In every one of these situations, the deck was surpassed by something else.

We don't hear about Uxidonk winning multiple cities and being dominant. We hear people whining about it the same way they whine about Chop candy machamp, GG, or Garchomp DCE gain GG.

There have ALWAYS Been donking decks in this game. Erika's J'puff, DCE...

The problem is when the donk combo did not go off, the deck LOST.

Did it snatch a few games, sure.

Would Rob's deck have wrecked even more face had it continued? Sure.

Will Quadonk be seen again. ABSOLUTELY.

More good players are now playing the game with better decks. The days of the "Gods" number being small and the "Clods" number bing large are over. At every event, the best players are being picked off by other players.

Man I sure can ramble.

V

---------- Post added 01/10/2011 at 05:05 PM ----------

Austino, sure you can play collector going first, with Sableye, problem is, NONE of your cards will ever see the light of day against Quaddonk.

Everyone minimized their use of call energy, and this little donk deck came in to fill the void.

That one card is an easy reaction to the donk deck. 2 pokemon easy, 3 pokemon, everything has to go right.

V
 
Problem is, all the decks you mentioned have something NOT in common with uxie donk...that is, you get to PLAY A GAME.

Machamp Take Out only donked if you only had one poke on the field, which starting with another or having call got around. Uxie gets around call energy thanks to seeker and crobat spams the other to death, meaning you DON'T GET TO HAVE A GAME.

I don't see why you can't understand the difference. There's a huge line between hating a deck because it's the best and hating it because it is unfairly ruining games by not even letting your opponent get a full turn.
 
Problem is, all the decks you mentioned have something NOT in common with uxie donk...that is, you get to PLAY A GAME.

Machamp Take Out only donked if you only had one poke on the field, which starting with another or having call got around. Uxie gets around call energy thanks to seeker and crobat spams the other to death, meaning you DON'T GET TO HAVE A GAME.

I don't see why you can't understand the difference. There's a huge line between hating a deck because it's the best and hating it because it is unfairly ruining games by not even letting your opponent get a full turn.

It's not like this is a new thing that's never happened before. Back in the Base Set-Fossil days, if you only had a single basic against a Haymaker deck and they went first, you could just give up immediately as well. I had one game where my opponent's Electabuzz FTKOed my lone starter and needed 3 CPU Searches and 4 Oaks on T1 to do it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to justify the fact that the Uxie/Shuppet/whatever donk deck exists. Just for giggles I played one against a friend's Legend deck at league yesterday; he got 3 consecutive lone Sabeleye starts, and I took it out first turn for the win all three times. In each case, he did have a complete Legend in his hand after using Impersonate. So I'm fully aware that it's a ridiculously unimaginative deck to play. The point is that this is nothing new, people just care more now because more people are actually starting to use it in a really effective manner.

Although that doesn't change that if you can't win on turn 1, you're pretty much screwed.
 
Again, lone pokemon starts....

Uxie donk doesn't care if you start with 3-4 pokemon out. It cyclones the highest HP to the bench, crobats the others to death, forces you to return the hardest one to kill back to your hand, and uxie's the last one ftw.

Donking a lone pokemon is easy to do, it's the fact that there's a deck that can remove a decent field in it's first tun of play, taking away your opponent's chances of getting to play a legitimate game.
 
Donk decks say this about the player behind it, "Hello, I can't win a legitimate game so I am going to play a deck that keeps you from getting more than one turn because I can't win if I have to actually play you."

And for such a player, what is your objection to them playing the deck that gives them the best chance to win? Do you not play the deck that you feel gives you the best chance to win? Maybe its both a smart meta choice as well as a smart personal choice.
 
And for such a player, what is your objection to them playing the deck that gives them the best chance to win? Do you not play the deck that you feel gives you the best chance to win? Maybe its both a smart meta choice as well as a smart personal choice.

The objection comes in when it takes away from an opposing player getting the opportunity to actually get to play. That's when it's dumb.

Donking a lone pokemon happens....removing 3 pokemon in play in the first turn is completely different.
 
I'm with Austino here, but I think its more of an issue of negative play experiences (like I've said in other threads).

How can you make sure you're not Uxie Donked?
Deck construction helps, but really the answer is, against a good opponent, you can't make sure you get a turn with trainers.

Playing any deck with 4 Spiritomb (AA) and 4 Call Energy seems like the best way around Uxie Donk. If you start with 2 Non-Spiritomb basics and a Call Energy (super ideal against nearly any deck) you still aren't the favorite to win.

Actually getting to play is what we show up for. I can't remember a time when playing this game I felt like I had 0 chance and it wasn't at least a potential back and forth for the win.
 
Rofl I wonder just how widepread donking, and specifically TurboUxieDonk, is in our metagame, and especially amongst all the player with huge ratings. I have 6 losses so far this year, 3 of them do to T1 donks (and merely calling the coin wrong as I had an answer to my lone pokemon field in hand) and 1 of those 3 donks being to Uxie donk this past weekend.

I'm not TOO upset about it. Yeah its lame that I miss top cut just cause I called the coin right/wrong or got paired against the lone TurboUxie player my very first match, but meh, there's not a whole lot I can do about it. I donk people all the time when given the opportunity so I don't get too mad about Uxie donk, who btw got 7 tails in a row and was one more tails away from having a dead hand.

Coincidentally, one of the best deck for counter TurboUxie that is actually a good meta deck, Vilegar, is highly susceptible to other forms of donk itself! :lol:

I wonder if there are any (usual) top players who have garbage ratings due to being on the unlucky side of T1 donks.


Actually getting to play is what we show up for.

This really doesn't apply to everyone (not for premier tournaments anyway). There are other decks that can completely shut down players and give them almost 0 chance (or some other arbitrarily low percentage) to win starting T1. Wasn't sablelock recently popular awhile back? That whole deck revolves around not letting your opponent getting any set-up going at all. I should know, that same tourney I got donked this past weekend I also locked a player the whole game using Sablelock.
 
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The objection comes in when it takes away from an opposing player getting the opportunity to actually get to play. That's when it's dumb.

Donking a lone pokemon happens....removing 3 pokemon in play in the first turn is completely different.

Ok, you feel its dumb. So? Is it really fair to expect your opponent to be concerned about your having fun? Or a fighting chance? Personally, I hate Sablelock, Vilegar, or any deck which prevents me from setting up. That doesn't mean I think that people shouldn't play it because I don't have fun playing against it. There simply are people for whom Turbo Uxie is the best chance they have of winning. Putting a requirement of "giving you a good game" is too high a bar, and ultimately, unfair.
 
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