You are basing your facts(while still valid) on decks performing well with them.
Whether a deck can perform well with a card is definitely one of the key determining factors as to whether that particular card is broken. Whether a card is broken is based on real games, not based on theorymon and imagination.
For example, Sableye's interaction with the first turn rules in the previous format were well documented by the online community (and thus it was proven over and over again to be a broken combo). Pokemon Catcher has not taken skill away from this game, merely changing how the metagame shapes up.
You seem to confuse your opponent misplaying as skill. I've heard a lot of people say that.
The defining measure of the skill of a Pokemon player is in the frequency at which he/she makes the correct play. In other words, how often an individual misplays is inversely correlated with his/her skill.
I'm not confusing my opponent misplaying as skill, but merely pointing out the mind games that can be played with your opponent as a result of Pokemon Catcher. (Another example, sometimes you play Pokegear 3.0 and purposely fail the search to make your opponent think you have no Supporter.)
We are not talking about Catcher in use with N but catcher as a stand alone card. ... I judge broken based on how it interacts with the format and players.
Contradicting yourself much? You say that I need to talk about Catcher as a standalone card, yet you say that
you are allowed to judge a card based on how it interacts with the format.
In fact, if you judge how Catcher interacts with the format, you'll see that it isn't really that broken after all. Catcher may be disruptive and give free KOs, but a skilled player adapts to this fact. Knowing that your opponent plays Pokemon Catcher means that you would make different decisions about what to bench and what time to bench things. It's all about resource management, and in this format, Catcher actually adds to the amount of skill that's required to manage resources properly.
A card that says take 3 cards from your opponents hand is broken with or without a coin flip.
Why? You still have not presented any evidence. Have you playtested with the card? I have.
This is what I posted about Jimu and Sabu (the English translation is Jim & Cas) in a private forum:
- So I actually tried out Jim & Cas with Weavile. It is amazing when it works, but the problem is this. Most of the time, your opponent will have something fast in the active spot, like a powered Tornadus EX, Darkrai EX, or Zekrom. You need to invest significant resources to play Jim & Cas (finding it), find the Weavile, and also power an attacker for the turn. It seems to be "worth it" if you hit the heads, but it's not game over when that happens. It's different from TRT/RSA in the sense that in BS-GC, you'd only play 4 Bills and 4 Oaks (faster decks ran Erika as well), so if you hit the TRT and then RSA for the trainers, your opponent has many less outs to hit. Now, decks will be running at least 12 in combination of Supporters/Random Receivers (if not 14-15), so the chances of recovering from Jim & Cas + Weavile are much higher. It also doesn't help that it's a Supporter, and that RSA is now a Stage 1 Pokemon in Weavile.
- Also, despite being dark-type, Weavile has no synergy with anything (snipe Tynamos all day I guess, but everyone's going to be playing the 40 HP Tynamo now). I guess playing it with Zoroark works, but 2 Stage 1s in this format is meh.
- Lastly, I think I should mention that most of the time, taking away your opponent's Supporter (or Random Receiver) should be enough disruption. Not only do you know their entire hand except for 1 card, they can't get a new hand.
- Another problem: Smeargle renders your efforts moot.
vaporeon, please come back with real testing results and substantial arguments before saying a card is broken. Making things up without seems to be commonplace on the 'gym, but it's hard to hold up an argument when you're just making things up without testing.
