Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

When did pokemon die?

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This game has been going downhill for a long while now, when did it peak though? When was it the most skill based? In the format now bad players with a little luck can consistently beat fantastic players, I don't think I've ever seen more heartache in any other game. So when did the need for talent and skill start to diminish?

By what standards are we calling players bad/fantastic?

Your response to this question will dictate my response.
 
I remember there being a huge downfall not long after Gold and Silver were released. It seemed like a Base set Charizard went from over 100$ to about 10$ overnight.
 
Hold on right there. When did the game die? The answer is never. This game is the highest rated card game out there. So who ever put this crazy notion in ur head, the game is never better and will never die. Case closed.
 
For me the decline came with platinum. Once Dialga Palkia showed up, it took over the area pretty hard core and only got worse as the platinum arc panned out. Sure with sf and LA we had donk decks, but in all honesty at least back then I saw tons of different decks when I walked in to a tournament. Kingdra, AMU, Leafeon, Machamp, Dusknoir, Gengar, regigigigas, G&G. Now it's like I show up and I can 100% say theres a ton of luxchomp, 2-3 vilegar decks and a splash of gdos and other sp. Oh yeh and me with Gigas...

I can't say I mind the format all that much. Sure sp is really overpowered against most of the meta, sure fainting spell is probably the WORST power ever invented and of course I want to flip the table every time I see someone turn over a machop but all in all that's just another reason I picked a deck to run at the beginning of the year and stuck with it.

In today's meta, someone mentioned we're playing openinghand mon, but you have to realize that consistency is actually the winning factor. I can plow through just about anything not because the deck I play is capable of it, but because my games pan out the same just about every match I play because I build my list for consistency. Sure it doesn't alwlays work, and those games that could've gone different if you just had a collector in your hand suck, but the better players should still be able to adapt and succeed in today's format
 
Because we all know that popularity and quality go hand in hand...

Ive played a ton of ygo a few years ago and I still stand by saying that the reason ygo is popular is because its awful. (At least back then). Have no skill? Play ohkos. Have a bad opening hand? PotGraceDuokthxbye? So many games came down to one thing:

Both players only had their initial 6 cards and no fuel except for the one draw per turn. So opening hands mattered a lot, if you didnt raw your keycards you couldnt do anything about it etc etc etc. So if a less skilled player has a better opening hand youd still loose, there was nothing you could do about it. II dont know how many cyber-steins I ate from beginners. Back then I switched to because it was about long games, epic battles, long setup, complex strategy, incredibly teching options. And what do we have now? THe description of ygo fits with pkmn perfectly right now. I was disgusted with ygo back then but right now Im confidently saying its a better game.

Heck even YGO players laugh at me for stuff like knockouts on coinflips and sableye...

So IMO and several "top" players will agree with this, pkmn is dying right now, dying as a complex and fun game. Its still has the sales and stuff but the complexity of the game, the fact that opening hands didnt matter too much, this is all gone. Its become a game you can play by icking up a deck 5 minutes before a tournament and with average knowledge you can still win. Its a game where an average player is unbeatable on a good day, just because his opening hands wont even ALLOW! you to play. You loose just lke this without having a shot at anything, t2 look, rush, spray, bat turn turn impact gg thank you.

And this is why I cant wait for la-pt to finally get rotated, for the day openinghand-mon turns back into pokemon, and when I never have to worry about my 140hp guy dying to a pokemon with 90 max damage output because my opponent manages to topdeck 3 turns with 1 uxie, I never have to worry about my opponent starting with uxie/call to my tomb, me getting magneton t1 because my opening hand was bad only for him to promote luxray, drag something up, turn it, drop chomp x, drop gain, drop uxie for 4, burn some stuff, drop another uxie, draw the dce and snipe my magneton. Back then we had scramble energy and stevens advice, we had starters that could draw 4 cards turn 1-3 and would SURVIVE! for those 3 turns, Now we have DCE and basics that cant hide.

Pokemon is a great game and I happily quit playing ygo back then because I knew pkmn was the superior game by far, but right now a chain of unfortunate stuff has really damaged this game and I cant wait for it to finally rise again.

So whoever put the notion into your head that sucess means quality, idk turn on your tv or something, the game is probably still growing but gameplay wise its in the worst spot Ive seen it in, there is no connection between those two. Case Close

edit@cetra

No offense dude but did you ever consider the reason WHY your games all play out the same? Because you play gigas. And that means you're playing mesprit. And this means that youre playing solomode most of the time. I remember the first time I got an 8 turn psychic lock from a regigigas. This makes sp look like a fair concept. The problem is, the metagame shifts into so many extremes that you cant fight them all. You cant have a setup that produces something that can stand in the way of gyarados, doesnt have any trainers and still can setup against sp. The difference between gigas and e.g. magnezone is that you can just block of your opponent with mesprits, you dont have to counter a strategy that will never get executed. And what does that mean? Unless your deck is a disrpuption deck, dont even consider it. Ive tried soo much stuff but unless you can throw of your opponents gameplay you cant do anything but pray for good hands. When was the only time I felt magnezone was playable? When I played 4 tomb 4 judge 1 mesprit 3 seeker to just bomb my opponent into oblivion.

No matter how your deck is built, if you cant just openly stop your oppoennt from doing anything youre at his mercy. I played 4 tomb/call/judge/collector and still got stuck on bad opening hands all the time, even if I didnt, what good is a t1 magneton if your opponent has the t2 rush despite having neither powers nor trainers? So in the end what is gigas? Prevent your opponent from setting up and kill his guys before they are ready to fight while your opponent can do nothing about it because the only way to counter mesprit is playing sp... or playing mesprit. Have you ever heard this before?

So I cant really say Im more thrilled about something like gigas then i amm when playing against sp, It feels exactly the same, if your opening hand is trash or youre reliant of powers you loose. And IMO thats the only winning concept right now, Disruption Disruption, Opening Hands. "Back then" a bad opening was manageable, in case you neither had a transceifer or a mentor (8 cards) youd still only need a castform (a starter which served as an energy card) and 1 or 2 other pokemon to drw some stuff, then youd hopefully draw into something, if not you could try again, or drop a stevens which would basically give you another hand to your original one. Or get a pidgeot/nidoqueen/metagross d up, because even evolved pokemon could increase your consistency (in case of metagross d it was your main attacker and claydol at the same time, but neither parts where TOO strong)
 
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@dreamd There's more than 1 way to kill a man and there's more than one way to kill a card game. While the franchise itself is as booming as it will ever be, the cards game has faced some serious changes, most agreed to be worse if not flat out awful. Yes T1 wins are nothing new, but beign able to base a deck conssitantly off this feat without being a gimmick certainly is. Even the lightning quick original metagame with Haymaker wasn't about winning the first turn of the game, it just intended to hammer the opponent from turon one until the game ended.

But to get directly tot he threads' point, i'd say the game died with the relevance of synergy in the format. Decks used to be multiple cards working off of eachother to make a strong force. Sure some cards were put as standalone and rush decks, but they were few and far between. DP is a good era to sight the sudden powerleap that lead to more standalone cards, such as Blissey MT, Gardevoir SW and Infernape DP. The cards were stronger and faster without as much support, but none of them got around solo with much success. They had limiations and comobs like Empozong, and Toxicroak/Scizor could keep them in check. Even the weak link of Mario had the cards playing off eachother, Lucario a fast and cheap attacker to fuel Machamp's Revenge. Beedrill was one of the first really successful standalones of its day, but it only shone when the RR Beedrill came out.

Most people will say that Legend's Awakened and Stormfront were the one two punch to the game's structure, and that' rather accurate. LA brought us Kingdra, which totally reshaped what speed and power could be, with (L) being a great wekaness at the time, it didn't have that many checks to it. And ofcourse, Uxie, CLaydol's second face at half the pace that speed Kingdra up to top tier glory. Still, LA gave use AMU, mewtwo, Rhyperrior, Magnezone, Rayquaza and Metagross, cards that tried to have synergy, or needed something to work with to be effective without being total trash. Stormfront threw that out the window. Gengar, Machamp, Gyarados, Dusknoir, Regigigas, Abomasnow and Scizor with Luxury Ball and the new Poke+ cards. That was the decline.

The "death" was Platinum era. Sps. Powerspray. Chatot G. Cards that looked at Gengar and Machamp decks as Gastly's and Machops. Claydol fought the fight to keep stage 1 and 2 decks viable, allowing comobs like Blastcatty to function poorly, but function if they had too. When Claydol hit the lost zone we saw that speed had become everything. Uxie is our draw power and dictates how we can play the game. And because Power Spray is the perfect check to it, SP flourishing is to be expected. When SP rotates out, the game will be in shambles, but it could be salvagable.
 
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Well, I'll chime in since I've been around the 'gym off and on since 1999, and am afaik the oldest Canadian on the 'gym.

Up here the game died earlyish in Neo. Rocket Zapdos turned the game into a two deck metagame (mime lock vs haymaker, with haymaker usually winning), removing Rain Dance completely. Big Man/Arcanine was never big here - even if it was, Rocket Zapdos basically accomplishes the entire point of that deck without having to go through the motions.

Shotgun Sneasel made it worse, and people started realizing this was the way the game was going to be developed. Then came Slowking and people pretty much started yard saling or flat out tossing/burning their stuff. The game was dead.

Expedition block pretty much didn't exist in this country. A few people, myself included, cared for a little while but I don't know a lot of people who did.

EX block surprisingly was what revived the game for a while here, but it again choked quickly. The PK-on metagame revived everything and the game has not been healthier since before Gym came around.

My personal opinion on the current metagame? It's bad. That said, it's pokemon TCG. It's ALWAYS been bad.

The ONLY stable metagame that has ever existed in Pokemon TCG was Base through Rocket. It had enough checks to keep Mime Lock from being an instant win, Rain Dance was still semi-viable, Haymakers did what Haymakers did, and "rogue" decks like Insanity, Wiggly, Big Man, and other "haybreaker" variants were all over. I honestly do not believe any set after that point has made the game better in any significant way. Even then, it was still shaky, and the balance seemed almost accidental given how short it was - stop at Fossil and Mime Lock is easily BDIF - heck, no-energy stall (NES) was still seeing lots of play the. Stop at Gym 1 and the haymakers get a little faster. Stop at Gym 2 and haymaker becomes the only deck in the format.

Pokemon IS a poor quality game right now, and it has been for a long time. I'm personally building up a card pool for this Base through Rocket era, big enough for anyone to build anything and play against any other deck including mirror matches. I'm hoping to create enough interest in this Golden Age play that people will flock back to it for a while so we can have some real fun with Pokemon TCG.
 
The game has not died, the intentions behind the game have not died. The game has had changes, and the company has made changes.

The atmosphere has changed only because of the players and their choices to continue to play or move on.

Considering that if you have been around since Pokemon began, it all is in the eye of the participant in the video game, the card game, and the anime as to whether or not the game has died.


All in all- it is in the spirit of the franchise, and your own personal experiances with what Pokemon has done for you, then-now- or in the future.
 
Thank u. I mean really. The game is not dead. When the new rules come around the game will change dramatically so that also could reinvigorate the game for all u skeptics out there.
 
POkemon will never die at this point its the highest selling game in retail market .
Who ever said Pokemon was a game?

Unfortunate as it is, Pokemon TCG was probably never seriously designed to be played; but people tried playing the game anyways. This is akin to Yugioh! except Yugioh! is even worse in this regard. -.-
 
Both the peak and the well's bottom for this game are associated with the variety in methods to achieve victory. The whole 2004-2007 period as a whole was great because you had HUGE variety in viable ways to win.

*Hand disruption (anything running Admin)
*Conditional Energy/Retreat disruption (Pow/Team Aqua's Hideout)
*A million and one general lock-down strategies (Muk, Cham, Cessation Crystal)
*Come-from-behind decks (anything aggressively utilizing Scramble Energy not called Gardevoir/Gallade)

...And so much more. However, while one can make the claim that the downturn occurred around DP, I am confident that the game's cancer kicked in with the releases of Mysterious Treasures and Secret Wonders. This led to the diversity of strategy devolving into three decks:

Deck A) smash people in over the face (Blissey)

Deck B) smash people in over the face, or two-hit everything while constantly locking them out of an un-counterable Power denial (Garde/Gallade)

Deck C) smash people in over the face, or two-hit everything while constantly spreading tiny pockets of damage (Magmorter/Typhlosion)

Empoleon made things better, but by and large, the format didn't ever exit this stage. Although variety of decks has waxed and waned since then, the complete and utter lack of methods of is still very present. Although I appreciate the effort to remedy this with "Lost World," PCL's attempt with this was shaky at best.


Come on, PCL...Where's the creativity?

Where's the card that says, "poison your opponent's benched pokemon"?

Where's the card that says, "if you have 35 or more cards in your discard pile, you win the game"?

Where's the card that says, "search your binder for a card and put that card into your hand in exchange for your opponent drawing three prize cards"?

Heck, where's the card that says, "sing a song for your entire turn. When you are done singing, do 30 damage to the defending pokemon"? (Oh wait, that card actually existed at one point...Too bad we never saw it in the States!)

Don't take these examples too seriously...They're just there to show you some of the possibilities that PCL _could_ take this game in. While I won't profess any particular direction, I do feel that the game is, relatively, stale, and that they desperately need to stir things up in order to save it.
 
Thank u. I mean really. The game is not dead. When the new rules come around the game will change dramatically so that also could reinvigorate the game for all u skeptics out there.

The game is in bad shape right now, if the new rules and b7w will change that... We dont know yet, I really hope they do, but for now this topic seems to be pretty spot on.
 
There's a lot of potential in BW if two things happen:

1) the new design team really pushes the limits of the game and tries to make it more interactive (which reprinting Gust of Wind and Alakazam seems to be a good sign of, at least we're going back to a better time)

2) the US localization team doesn't completely knacker it by timing releases badly, not rotating sets soon enough, etc.
 
Gust of wind is the card that ruins b/w for me, for once I want to play with my bench save again :/ GoW / Junk Arm and some beatstick like idk, kingdra prime, and well still play 6 turns / 6 prizes mon :/
 
Who ever said Pokemon was a game?

Unfortunate as it is, Pokemon TCG was probably never seriously designed to be played; but people tried playing the game anyways. This is akin to Yugioh! except Yugioh! is even worse in this regard. -.-

I was speaking as a TCG it is number one seller in retail for the TCG I don't know the selling scores for pokemon's other media products.
 
Both the peak and the well's bottom for this game are associated with the variety in methods to achieve victory. The whole 2004-2007 period as a whole was great because you had HUGE variety in viable ways to win.

*Hand disruption (anything running Admin)
*Conditional Energy/Retreat disruption (Pow/Team Aqua's Hideout)
*A million and one general lock-down strategies (Muk, Cham, Cessation Crystal)
*Come-from-behind decks (anything aggressively utilizing Scramble Energy not called Gardevoir/Gallade)

...And so much more. However, while one can make the claim that the downturn occurred around DP, I am confident that the game's cancer kicked in with the releases of Mysterious Treasures and Secret Wonders. This led to the diversity of strategy devolving into three decks:

Deck A) smash people in over the face (Blissey)

Deck B) smash people in over the face, or two-hit everything while constantly locking them out of an un-counterable Power denial (Garde/Gallade)

Deck C) smash people in over the face, or two-hit everything while constantly spreading tiny pockets of damage (Magmorter/Typhlosion)

Empoleon made things better, but by and large, the format didn't ever exit this stage. Although variety of decks has waxed and waned since then, the complete and utter lack of methods of is still very present. Although I appreciate the effort to remedy this with "Lost World," PCL's attempt with this was shaky at best.


Come on, PCL...Where's the creativity?

Where's the card that says, "poison your opponent's benched pokemon"?

Where's the card that says, "if you have 35 or more cards in your discard pile, you win the game"?

Where's the card that says, "search your binder for a card and put that card into your hand in exchange for your opponent drawing three prize cards"?

Heck, where's the card that says, "sing a song for your entire turn. When you are done singing, do 30 damage to the defending pokemon"? (Oh wait, that card actually existed at one point...Too bad we never saw it in the States!)

Don't take these examples too seriously...They're just there to show you some of the possibilities that PCL _could_ take this game in. While I won't profess any particular direction, I do feel that the game is, relatively, stale, and that they desperately need to stir things up in order to save it.

You said it before I did. :wink:

When I first started playing this game, there were a huge variety of strategies one could employ to have a tournament-winning deck. Special conditions at one point actually mattered (Flariados). There were also viable forms of disruption without cards like Uxie to ruin it all. My favorite strategy to play with was the "kamikaze" idea of blowing up Electrode ex, giving your opponent 2 prizes, then coming back for the rest of the game. Spread decks existed, power-lock decks existed, swarm decks existed. We've seen these pop up every now and then (Empoleon, Palkia Lock, Beedrill), but hardly ever at the same time.

Your comment on the lack or creativity is part of the reason I've taken up Magic: The Gathering as of late. There are so many inventive cards in that game that make things fun. Platinum Angel says that you can't lose the game and your opponent can't win. Memoricide lets you name a card, then search your opponent's hand, deck, and discard pile for any copy of that card and send them all to the lost zone (using Pokemon terms so people can understand). Wrath of God destroys everything on the table. There's even a card that lets you search your opponent's deck for up to 15 cards and send them all to the lost zone.

When I started looking at some of the Magic cards out there, I realized how stale Pokemon had really gotten. Everything that isn't SP utilizes a single attack for the most part to win games. Think about it. Machamp uses Take Out, Steelix uses Gaia Crush, Gyarados uses Tail Revenge. Gengar cards are really the only exception to this - they use a whopping two attacks! But even those cards usually revolve a single attack (Poltergeist and Hurl Into Darkness), especially when facing SP decks. In fact, now that I think about it, we should all just start naming our decks after the attacks it utilizes ("Yeah, I was running Tail Revenge, but my opponent got a little lucky with Hurl and managed to throw 2 Magikarps into the lost zone. So how's your Take Out deck doing today?"). This, of course, excludes SP decks, which have an awesome variety of boring attacks they can use. :cool:

Even when you don't include the competitive aspect to Pokemon, most of the cards in an HGSS-on format aren't terribly creative. For competitive play, that format looks a lot healthier, but it still looks kinda stale.
 
Heck, where's the card that says, "sing a song for your entire turn. When you are done singing, do 30 damage to the defending pokemon"? (Oh wait, that card actually existed at one point...Too bad we never saw it in the States!)

Sounds like a card you would find in a Fluxx deck.

If anyone doesn't know what Fluxx is, look it up, buy it.
 
Different people getting into top cuts isn't a bad thing.

Skilled players that get donked out of tops are going to get mad, but it's a game and they need to accept the fact that it happens. But for those 'less skilled' players that make it in, they feel a heck of a lot better about themselves.

For example, at the first city championship I went to i played Aaron curry(worlds competitor, florida demi-pokegod) first round. I thought I was fudged the whole game but I wound up winning. It made me feel like I was actually good at the game and made me strive to get better.

Yah it made you feel like you were good at the game key word feel. So are you saying we should have loads and loads of luck in the game so we can make bad players feel better about themselves? Thats honestly such a pathetic idea.

---------- Post added 02/26/2011 at 10:45 AM ----------

Ok another thing, everyone is talking about how with the new rules everything will be fixed, when bw comes out everyone will be happier. Thats not the point I'm trying to make, it comes down to pokemon right now. And how luck based to format seems to be. I think in a game where a fantastic player can lose multiple games to a terrible player is a bad game, it hasn't always been this way it's gotten worse over the years to the point we are at now.
 
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