btw meganium d was a GREAT card last format. Sry to break it to you but its true.
You're right. I should have qualified my statement. Megalix *was* good for a time and kind of dropped off the map. I assumed this was due to the reasons I gave (Cursed Stone, Cessation Crystal, Ray d EX, Infernape), but I could be wrong about those reasons. It just seemed to me (in my metagames) that Meganium ebbed quickly. Probably my opinion is skewed by my observations rather than by true statistics.
Also, I'm not saying Meganium d doesn't have potential. It does. That potential may or may not have been fully exploited last season. I can only go by what I noticed at tournaments and on Pokegym. My *opinion* then is that Meganium wasn't fully appreciated until recently, and certainly that's true of me.
No, that's called making someone's deck for them. There's deck advice, then there's building a deck for someone. "You should cut this for more draw," because it isn't helping you in (insert situation here), that's deck advice. Posting some fix build only contributes to the sheep on this board.
Two things:
(1) if your Mario criticism had always been "cut this for more draw" then no one would have questioned your intentions or helpfulness. However, since your criticism has included "Mario is not a deck" and "get rid of Machamp for something else" whatever sincere deck help you offer is tainted by your unwillingness to "allow" such a deck to peacefully co-exist in your Poke-universe.
(2) a "fix build" is *also* deck help, even if it "contributes to the sheep on this board."
Also, Meg d would of done very well at US nats (possibly won) if not for ONE poor choice of cards (dropping windstorm for tauros/briney) which caused the people playing it to lose the 1/2 games to stay out of top cut.
I agree. I remember thinking to myself at Nats, "where are the Meganium decks?" Granted, I didn't have access to everyone's decklist so I don't know how many were played, but I personally didn't see any (that I remember). Probably in my mind I was thinking, "Wow, I see a lot of Mario being played (because I did see that). Maybe they're wiping out all the Castform decks." Remember, these were my thoughts at Nats, so there's no need to repudiate them. However, if you have some
facts about Mario's impact at Nats, I'd like to hear them.
Meganium's been a sick card for a while, but MMs was ALWAYS under the radar. It was in the original draft of the Love Letter.
I have a number of Meganium d decks under testing myself. We're not arguing whether Meganium d is or was good. We agree on this. We're not even arguing whether Meganium d is a better partner for Lucario or Machamp. If I didn't think Mario could be improved, I wouldn't have tried Megachamp at BR (of course, you might argue that Lucario/Meganium is better, and that's fine- it may be).
Which kinda brings me to this point. This article purports to "show" certain things about Mario which are, to be honest, obvious. I don't know if you've noticed, but I haven't really argued your points. Basically, we (Mario-players) play the deck "warts and all." We play it *knowing* it has flaws, even gaping holes like Energy drought. We play it because we like it or, in my case, love it. Some of us play it because we like the Fighting Weakness disruption which, if you're honest with yourself, is a valid strategy, since Fighting Weakness affects so many decks (Delcatty, Castform, even Blissey). Whether Mario exploits that Weakness "optimally" or "sub-par" is not our concern since we have confidence in certain things, like hitting hard on T1, another strategy and, to be honest, our form of Energy Acceleration. 1 Energy = 30 (Riolu), 20 (Machop), 70 (Machamp DP).
No one ever said Mario can't be beaten, doesn't have autoloss at times (Banette EX), won't possibly diminish as the season progresses. These are all risks everyone assumes when they play Mario (or any deck). You can't reduce that risk by much, and you can't promise people instant success by dissuading them from Machamp and/or Lucario.
As the saying goes, "any player can beat any other player on any given day" just due to matchups, deck-building, luck of the draw, luck concerning who goes first, and the skill of the player. But there's no way you can say that your day is instantly more successful by dropping Machamp for something else. It's just not predictable that way, nor is it even appropriate to say it.
Pokemon players (even those some call "sheep") understand these things. I think that's why, ultimately, your message will be ignored and people will continue to play Mario.
That's probably as serious as you'll hear me get on the subject.
