Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Restoring skill to the Pokemon TCG

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Another thing I should have given more thought to is to make sure the Top Cut is big enough that you give the good players a reasonable shot at getting into it. Let me explain.

The idea of Best of 5 is to increase skill involved in the TCG. However, if we do a Top Cut that is too small, too many of the top players will simply miss the Top Cut due to bad luck in swiss. While adding more swiss rounds and lowering the Top Cut size saves time, you wouldn't want to play more swiss rounds, but then make a Top Cut SO small that records like 9-3 or better could miss a Top Cut. I think a good goal is to allow players who won around 70-75% of their wins to make the cut. Not sure how the numbers work with the estimated timeframes I posted, though.

Someone run some numbers? Say we had 1,024 Masters and played 12 rounds of swiss.

What records would usually make a Top 32? Top 64? Top 128?

What about only 11 rounds? Top 32, Top 64, Top 128?

10 rounds? Top 32, 64, 128?
 
1024, 12 Rounds
Record/Number of Players

Round 1-
1/0-512
0/1-512

Round 2-
2/0-256
1/1-512
0/2-256

Round 3
3/0-128
2/1-384
1/2-384
0/3-128

Round 4
4/0-64
3/1-256
2/2-384
1/3-256
0/4-64

Round 5
5/0-32
4/1-160
3/2-320
2/3-320
1/4-160
0/5-32

Round 6
6/0-16
5/1-96
4/2-240
3/3-320
2/4 240
1/5 96
0/6 16

Round 7
7/0-8
6/1-56
5/2-168
4/3-280
3/4-280
2/5-168
1/6-56
0-7-8

Round 8
8/0-4
7/1-32
6/2-112
5/3-224
4/4-280
3/5-224
2/6-112
1/7-32
0/8-4

Round 9
9/0-2
8/1-18
7/2-72
6/3-168
5/4-252
4/5-252
3/6-168
2/7-72
1/8-18
0/9-2

Round 10
10/0-1
9/1-10
8/2-45
7/3-120
6/4-210
5/5-256
4/6-210
3/7-120
2/8-45
1/9-10
0/10-1 (Poor person!!)

After Round 10, it gets complicated with the odd numbers. For all intents and purposes of making this easier, I'm going to assume the higher seed in pairdowns will win.

Round 10-Top 128 Cut
10/0-1
9/1-10
8/2-45
7/3-62 (Just over half get in)

Round 10-Top 64
10/0-1
9/1-10
8/2-43 (2 of the 8-2's don't get it in)

Top 32 would be so focused on luck and the resistance (which I think the point is to avoid) that I'm not even going to spend my time typing it out.


Round 11
11/0-1
10/1-4
9/2-27
8/3-82
7/4-165
6/5-233
5/6-233
4/7-165
3/8-82
2/9-27
1/10-4
0/11-1


Round 11 Top 32
11/0-1
10/1-4
9/2-27


9/2 or greater make it

Round 11 Top 64
11/0-1
10/1-4
9/2-27
8/3-32 (Less than half of the 8-3's make it)


Round 11 Top 128
11/0-1
10/1-4
9/2-27
8/3-82
7/4-14 (Resistance is a huge factor for the 7-4's)


Round 12 will not come tonight, as my head is dead sick of doing all that mentally (Just realized there is a calculator on here...)
 
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Would it be at all possible to have shorter swiss rounds with longer round times. In stead of 30 plus 3, just do 1 hour best of 3 but with less rounds.
 
Best of 1 is better for swiss because part of the fun of the game is being able to play against a variety of different players and decks. It also decreases the luck involved with getting paired against bad match-ups. With less rounds, some unlucky match-ups become more detrimental to your odds of making it in the Top Cut.

Looking forward to the math on a 12 round tournament (with 1024 players) for a Top 32 and Top 64.
 
I've noticed a significant glaring problem with s lot of the arguments made here, and I find it important to notice something.
As pointed out in an earlier post with this link
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html
there is a certain type of skill to the game.

The important thing to note here is that a good player should be aware of what possibilities are at the opponent's disposal, what they're likely to do, why they're doing it, and most importantly how to counter it. That's how the game is played, and what all this complaining about specific cards like Primes and Catcher says to me is 'I don't like how abusive this card seems to be and I don't want to play it,' which is fine but it also says, 'I'm too lazy to find a counter to these problems, so I'm just going to complain and try to get it banned instead of find a way around it,' which I do have a problem with for reasons that are rather clear.

In truth this format is far from broken, there is plenty of variety, and game changing cards, but they mostly equalize things in the long run. There's enough here that allows one to find solutions with the problems they're faced with in a match-up.

I'm going to go ahead and compare this format to another fan favorite, which is the 2007 format of DX-on where delta was at the top of it's game. Holon's Pokemon among other cards made Pokemon techs far easier to play and Transceiver stabilized the searching components for a nice fast paced and varied format. And in truth that isn't too different from now, the only difference is where the major tech component is, where 2007 (and 2006 as well) focused on Pokemon techs and compatibility, this format focuses on the Trainer aspect, by giving us numerous good trainers to choose from, and amend our decks as we see fit. Need some recovery, play Super Rod, need a slight boost to KO the opponent, play Plus Power, need a Pokemon play Communication, need to retrieve energy play Energy retrieval. And we haven't even gotten stuff like Ultra Ball or Random Receiver yet. And to top things off we also have a handful of basics that can do decent attacks for a DCE, to tech against decks and so forth.

This format may not be perfect, but it's far from the travesty some of you seem to think it is, and I think that upon some thorough searching some of you may come to the same conclusion. We aren't in need of bans to fix the game, we're in need of people looking to counter their problems with the cards provided.
 
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TheRolesWePlay said:
I've noticed a significant glaring problem with s lot of the arguments made here, and I find it important to notice something.
As pointed out in an earlier post with this link
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html
there is a certain type of skill to the game.

The important thing to note here is that a good player should be aware of what possibilities are at the opponent's disposal, what they're likely to do, why they're doing it, and most importantly how to counter it. That's how the game is played, and what all this complaining about specific cards like Primes and Catcher says to me is 'I don't like how abusive this card seems to be and I don't want to play it,' which is fine but it also says, 'I'm too lazy to find a counter to these problems, so I'm just going to complain and try to get it banned instead of find a way around it,' which I do have a problem with for reasons that are rather clear.

In truth this format is far from broken, there is plenty of variety, and game changing cards, but they mostly equalize things in the long run. There's enough here that allows one to find solutions with the problems they're faced with in a match-up.

I'm going to go ahead and compare this format to another fan favorite, which is the 2007 format of DX-on where delta was at the top of it's game. Holon's Pokemon among other cards made Pokemon techs far easier to play and Transceiver stabilized the searching components for a nice fast paced and varied format. And in truth that isn't too different from now, the only difference is where the major tech component is, where 2007 (and 2006 as well) focused on Pokemon techs and compatibility, this format focuses on the Trainer aspect, by giving us numerous good trainers to choose from, and amend our decks as we see fit. Need some recovery, play Super Rod, need a slight boost to KO the opponent, play Plus Power, need a Pokemon play Communication, need to retrieve energy play Energy retrieval. And we haven't even gotten stuff like Ultra Ball or Random Receiver yet. And to top things off we also have a handful of basics that can do decent attacks for a DCE, to tech against decks and so forth.

This format may not be perfect, but it's far from the travesty some of seem to think it is, and I think that upon some thorough searching some of you may come to the same conclusion. We aren't in need of bans to fix the game, we're in need of people looking to counter their problems with the cards provided.
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tl;dr. I made the point several times the problem isn't the cards - even if it is, we probably can't do anything about that. Instead, we can make tournaments more respectable and skill-based by adding a game to the Nats/Worlds Top Cut matches.

Still waiting on numbers for a 12 Round tournament with 1,024 players. Anyone wanna do the math? What makes T32, T64?
 
Ness said:
tl;dr. I made the point several times the problem isn't the cards - even if it is, we probably can't do anything about that. Instead, we can make tournaments more respectable and skill-based by adding a game to the Nats/Worlds Top Cut matches.

Still waiting on numbers for a 12 Round tournament with 1,024 players. Anyone wanna do the math? What makes T32, T64?
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Considering your profession Ness, I would have thought something like that would be easy to figur out =)
 
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Back in the early 2000s and late 90s I would consider myself highly skilled, among the best in the States or world?

who knows? I would win local tournaments but couldnt be able to travel the distance for a Worlds, not even sure if they had Nationals back then, Worlds if I recalled was in Seattle and I got no clue where they were held after that.

In todays game no telling how long its going to take to catch up, but I am having to use a water/lightning theme deck I gutted out to use nothing but water with Blastoise, Gyarados, and Samurott and find myself having to take out darn Reshirams, Zokroms, anything else, and successfully doing so at some point and even winning games, so I cant imagine what I am going to do to players once I get fully caught deck wise.

Would I be able to make it to big event tournaments? I dont know. I could drive the distance but probably couldnt afford it unless I managed to catch a ride with someone.

I think this game requires a good thought process, but I sometimes believe some cards just does the thinking for the players to, Reshiram, Zokrom, to name some, basically any big basic hitter like that.

I also believe their is too much deck shuffing and drawing, its almost like lets just draw 25 cards and have at it.
 
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Crinus said:
I think this game requires a good thought process, but I sometimes believe some cards just does the thinking for the players to, Reshiram, Zokrom, to name some, basically any big basic hitter like that.
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In what possible way do Zekrom, Reshiram, or 'any other big hitter' do the thinking for the player? There are several attributes to keep in mind, in Zekrom's case it has to be mindful of its damage or else it risks an easy Knockout, and Reshiram has to be prepared for retrieving energies the following turn, and keep a strong flow of energy, while preparing its bench. During such times the player is presented with several options to take care of a situation. To they focus on setting up a back-up Reshiram or Typhlosion, or should I search for a another Shaymin to move the energy to Zekrom. There's a number of things a player has to manage during their turn, and offensive to say that a player who can manage such things is just being played by the cards.

Sure there may be a natural flow to a deck such as these, but that's because deck builders try to set-up such a flow, so they can get the best combinations to assure victory, and its called synergy. Would Reshiram be any good without Typhlosion or Emboar, I would think not, and even if it were at the very least it would be less playable, and the same could be said about Zekrom without Shaymin and Pachi. What makes them good is the cards played in conjunction with them.

Lastly, and this is something that I've seen quite a bit of in this thread. Comparing this format to previous formats like DX-on, or HL-on is pointless, why? Because this is not either of those formats. The game has changed, new concepts have been introduced and new standards have been adopted. Since then we've had cards such as Uxie, which allowed large draws, and the SP engine. Luxray GL lv X has come and gone, and given players a taste for the old Gust of Wind effect, only in a more exclusive way, and Catcher was made due to such an event. So stop comparing this format to older formats, which had different standards, and metas. It's not those formats, and personally I feel that instead of retreading old paths the game should be allowed to evolve in a new direction, even if it means we get new 'broken' cards in the process.
 
TheRolesWePlay said:
In what possible way do Zekrom, Reshiram, or 'any other big hitter' do the thinking for the player? There are several attributes to keep in mind, in Zekrom's case it has to be mindful of its damage or else it risks an easy Knockout, and Reshiram has to be prepared for retrieving energies the following turn, and keep a strong flow of energy, while preparing its bench. During such times the player is presented with several options to take care of a situation. To they focus on setting up a back-up Reshiram or Typhlosion, or should I search for a another Shaymin to move the energy to Zekrom. There's a number of things a player has to manage during their turn, and offensive to say that a player who can manage such things is just being played by the cards.

Sure there may be a natural flow to a deck such as these, but that's because deck builders try to set-up such a flow, so they can get the best combinations to assure victory, and its called synergy. Would Reshiram be any good without Typhlosion or Emboar, I would think not, and even if it were at the very least it would be less playable, and the same could be said about Zekrom without Shaymin and Pachi. What makes them good is the cards played in conjunction with them.

Lastly, and this is something that I've seen quite a bit of in this thread. Comparing this format to previous formats like DX-on, or HL-on is pointless, why? Because this is not either of those formats. The game has changed, new concepts have been introduced and new standards have been adopted. Since then we've had cards such as Uxie, which allowed large draws, and the SP engine. Luxray GL lv X has come and gone, and given players a taste for the old Gust of Wind effect, only in a more exclusive way, and Catcher was made due to such an event. So stop comparing this format to older formats, which had different standards, and metas. It's not those formats, and personally I feel that instead of retreading old paths the game should be allowed to evolve in a new direction, even if it means we get new 'broken' cards in the process.
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For starters its a basic as stronger if not stronger than Stage 2 Pokemon.

That right there more than speaks for itself.

Its almost a GG if one of them ends up in the opening hand, its near hard to really fight one UNLESS you got one yourself to put out there. Perhaps why no one mentions it.
 
Crinus said:
For starters its a basic as stronger if not stronger than Stage 2 Pokemon.

That right there more than speaks for itself.

Its almost a GG if one of them ends up in the opening hand, its near hard to really fight one UNLESS you got one yourself to put out there. Perhaps why no one mentions it.
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How so? I've opened with Reshi and lost plenty of those games. Sure it's a basic, but it still requires several cards to set either of them up. Plus have you seen the Stage 1 decks and Gothitelle, sure they aren't tier 1, but they're still viable decks, and they suffer more from donks from Tornadus, than anything.

(Sorry, but as a side note, you might want to improve your grammar. I can hardly understand some of your points.)
 
Yeah I have faced people with Zoks or Reshirams in their opening hand I was able to kill off and win matches to.

I am an old veteran and see basic pokemon this powerful a bunch of non-sense.

But it could be worse, I could go on a 20 page rant about Yugioh.
 
ajwalker said:
And what's so hard or wrong about a ban list? "Uh, sorry, we made a mistake with Pokemon Catcher. The card is no longer allowed." Easy peasy. I will forever harp on how that card got released in the first place. In my opinion it has seriously damaged the "spirit" of the game with it's bully tactics. It's not an honorable card nor an honorable way to compete.

Somebody said sports analogies don't work in Pokemon but I disagree.

Here's how I see Catcher: Michael Jordan is on your team but the other team has the right to say "Nah, I don't really want a fair game by playing against Jordan (your best) so I'm going to bring out your 8th string bench warmer so I can win the game against him." That's a move without honor and kills the spirit of true competition. And then celebrate like they actually "won" something :nonono:

(For the record, I refuse to play Catcher. I'd rather lose with honor than win with dishonor. I've traded away every Catcher I've pulled.)
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That remark you made makes me feel guilty for playing the Pokemon TCG nowadays, nobody should EVER have to feel guilty for playing a card that's pratically a staple in almost every deck but the sad part is that Pokemon Catcher has created this "illusion" that your Pokemon is getting a prize when the Trainer Item itself is doing the work for you.

I feel just as you do that Catcher does hurt the Spirit of the Game and personally despite how everyone says that it fixes coin flips from Pokemon Reversal I would personally love to see it banned from tournament play completely. There is no need to go all banhammer like in Yu-Gi-Oh!, that is apart of where that TCG failed, I think the card Restrictions are what hurt the TCG the most though.

Remember Luxray GL Lv. X last format on how Bright Look was alot like Catcher? Nobody around here complained that it hurt the spirit of the game itself (not to the extent of Catcher at least), and now with almost every Pokemon like Luxray it just seems to keep getting worse. Have I ever been ashamed of playing a card that's so good it deserved to never see the light of day? Hmm Skullclamp in Magic: The Gathering perhaps?

The way you say it, it almost sounds like every player should be disqualified for playing Pokemon Catcher in their decks at sanctioned events when it really is a double-edged sword. You're not necessarily playing it to "bully" Pokemon but to make strategic plays to help ensure you win better. It helps decks that have difficulty achieving donks and makes them playable while it hurts decks that require setup in order to win. It still amazes me how almost everyone on PokeBeach is oblivious to this fact.
 
Why do you feel bad for playing a card? This is an honest question, because I honestly don't understand the complaint. In fact most competitive players are offended when the opponent decides not to play it when it could give them game. Also you obviously haven't met the same people I have, as some of the players I have encountered have thought that one card or another ruins the game every format.
 
Why should players feel bad for playing Pokemon Catcher? Cause it ruins of the Spirit of the Game. If Competitive players complain that their opponent's decide not to play Catcher just cause it would give them the game then it's the Competitive players' fault for sacrificing "honor" just to win games and improve their rankings. The Pokemon TCG has almost reached a point where the game has gotten too competitive somewhere close to Yu-Gi-Oh! but not quite there. It's like they don't care about the prize support, all they care about is winning with decks that are proven to win without going Rogue.

It's hard to have fun in this format with such a staple card but as much as we try to deny it do we really have much of a choice If we want to both have fun and win? Unless TPCi does something about this problem Catcher will still remain a staple card til it rotates out of the format. Japan reprinting it doesn't solve the problem either. TPCi should do what's best for the game and balance the format not try to make it worse with each set. The power creep in this game seems to keep getting worse. Not just Catcher but the High HP Basics among other cards, namely Junk Arm.
 
Poke Trainer J said:
Why should players feel bad for playing Potion? Cause it ruins of the Spirit of the Game. If Competitive players complain that their opponents decide not to play Potion just 'cause it would give them the game (by denying the opponent a kill) then it's the Competitive players' fault for sacrificing "honor" just to win games and improve their rankings. The Pokemon TCG has almost reached a point where the game has gotten too competitive somewhere close to Yu-Gi-Oh! but not quite there. It's like they don't care about the prize support, all they care about is winning with decks that are proven to win without going Rogue.

It's hard to have fun in this format with such a staple card but as much as we try to deny it do we really have much of a choice If we want to both have fun and win? Unless TPCi does something about this problem Potion will still remain a staple card til it rotates out of the format. Japan reprinting it doesn't solve the problem either. TPCi should do what's best for the game and balance the format not try to make it worse with each set. The power creep in this game seems to keep getting worse. Not just Catcher but the High HP Basics among other cards, namely Junk Arm.
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See what I did there? Any card which you lose to can be placed into your argument. You're just embarrassing yourself at this point. For fun, try placing Pokemon Collector in there. How DARE my opponent even THINK to get three basics, even worse, on his or her FIRST TURN! That's way too strong, it should be banned. You can keep your format of sub-par cards, i'll keep my official (well-rounded, diverse, and full btw) format kthnx.

And as many others have said, keep up the good work, not having to worry about round one thanks to players with your mentality is great.
 
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