Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Robo Substitute and the return of no-prize pokemon

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Tagrineth

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So... the translation we originally had for this card said "play this as your ACTIVE pokemon"

But now we know you can just bench it.

So, why in the world did PCL decide to bring back the trainer-that-becomes-a-no-prize-KO ... it was such a colossal problem before, and now we have multiple GREAT hit-and-run pokemon, an item that doesn't give up a prize when KO'ed, and a Supporter that shoves them back into the deck...?
 
I just think card advantage is out of hand period but this does not help much either. With catcher being bad now and the only way to force pokes out is a supporter, cards like this make balance worse.
 
vaporeon said:
I just think card advantage is out of hand period but this does not help much either. With catcher being bad now and the only way to force pokes out is a supporter, cards like this make balance worse.
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Honestly I kinda hope multiple events this year degenerate into gengar/donphan/whatever hit-and-run stall fests with Robo Substitute.

There also isn't really a strong bench smasher in the format besides Genesect, which is poised to continue to be the top deck in the format. Woo.

edit: I feel like Blaziken could be a really killer dark horse, if only it didn't get murderfaced by Seismitoad.
 
Tagrineth said:
Honestly I kinda hope multiple events this year degenerate into gengar/donphan/whatever hit-and-run stall fests with Robo Substitute.

There also isn't really a strong bench smasher in the format besides Genesect, which is poised to continue to be the top deck in the format. Woo.

edit: I feel like Blaziken could be a really killer dark horse, if only it didn't get murderfaced by Seismitoad.
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I never liked the idea of games turning into "you must play this to be competitive". While effects like this are not bad for the game but they should be lookes at in great detail. As you know, Donphan can hit for 100 damage for a single energy. The effect also allows it to switch out. 100 for 1 is a big deal, just to have a trainer card worth nothing when KO'ed. You are pretty much trading 2 to 4 prize cards for 0 to 1. Cards to move your opponents active are also bad, since they either take your attachment for the turn or your supporter. Pokemon based draw and setup is also bad so in a game where most important setup is trainer based, losing your supporter draw just to move a pokemon is bad.

On top of that, the cards being made are too fast. While thats not a bad thing all in itself, it add imbalance because new cards being made are made to make them faster. Even if they made a pokemon that can hit a bench pokemon for 150+, it still creates a situation where nothing is safe but it does keep things like Dusknoir Donphan in check. At this rate, I would much rather have pokemon catcher back.

I just cant wait to see how this new set impacts the game. Manetric EX is looking pretty strong and a really good Yveltal EX killer.
 
What era/decks were problematic with these kinds of cards?

We're already seeing decks start to run more Lysandre (and we have VS Seeker to recover it), so I don't think it will be that hard to adjust our decks to this.
 
Walrusaurus said:
What era/decks were problematic with these kinds of cards?

We're already seeing decks start to run more Lysandre (and we have VS Seeker to recover it), so I don't think it will be that hard to adjust our decks to this.
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Worlds a few years ago had a... uh... I believe it was Politoed ex stall deck that was basically just Politoed ex + fossils, that caused a round to go somewhere in the vicinity of TWO HOURS past time being called, because neither side could draw a prize card. It's the match that prompted PCL to decide that Fossils would give up prizes from then on.

Granted, 4x Robo Substitute isn't going to be nearly as consistent as 4x each of 3 different Fossils, but that deck also didn't have Lysandre's Last Resort.

I'm not worried about it being overpowered, I'm worried about it just being a total nightmare to play against and screwing matches over due to round timers.

I guess at the time there also wasn't really any strong item lock, but those decks don't have that much trouble with seismitoad anyway.
 
I just playtested Donphan with Robochicken against Aromatisse healing deck. I hit them for 120. They healed and KOd a robochicken. The game went 40 minutes and we were both moving quickly.
 
Bear in mind, that with ties in Swiss, there can't be games going incredibly long to find a winner to delay a tournament. It will just be declared a tie and move on.
Exceptions to this will be Single Elimination Top Cuts and (presumably) LCQ.
 
In the situation FunnyBear described, the match would probably have not ended in a tie. Most likely time would have been called in game 2 and whomever won game 1 would win the match.
 
Once people get done trying them out, I doubt they will see a massive amount of play. Cards like Seismitoad EX, and even Landorus EX, counter them pretty well since there is no good way to recycle them. (Well, Dowsing Machine gets one back, once. Last Resort is a pretty bad way to recover them, especially considering it also gives the opponent back their Lysandres/Catchers/whatever to get around them again, and it's slow since you are more than likely unable to get them back to your hand quickly, especially given Last Resort slows you down.) Donphan will probably be the only deck to run them, and it still won't be a focal point.
 
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