Will Dragon energy exist?
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Otaku
Active Member
Are you certain?
I'll be honest I made two mistakes while contemplating deck builds. First I had a significant mental failure by not remembering that a card like Prism Energy would have to be discarded whichever Type I chose to discard for Dragon Burst... then I forgot that might not be a bad thing. :lol:
We may be entering a format of OHKOs for even Pokemon EX, or else where it is worth dropping a Max Potion between turns to clear off accumulated damage. Even if you only can use Dragon Burst four times during a match, it's "60 damage per Energy discarded" output will allow a Prism Energy and two of the appropriate Basic Energy OHKO anything lacking protection... so you just need two of those OHKOs to be against opposing Pokemon EX.
So now I can see advantages to either approach, though I am starting to favor taking my chances with the Prism Energy.
HerpTheDerp
New Member
My current testing is modifying the ZekEel deck. In all honesty it't the same thing just with Rayquaza in it and I run Prism, Creative, yes I know. But it seems to work wonderful. Rayquaza is a mid to late game sweeper. Zekrom decks fare so well because Zekrom is a basic and is a huge contender with EX pokemon on it's own and often is a 1/2 prize trade off ratio. So you keep it up with Zekrom and Eels on bench as normal and then when you run out of Zekrom you just sweep with Rayquaza. Obviously we all know this but it runs fantastically with prisms. So I don't know where it has been said that you need to run lightning AND fire(in response to the guy you quoted in your quote).
signofzeta
New Member
I'm going to go back, and say that the way they did dragon type is a good thing.
Making dragon energy with dragon types using its own energy for attacks is a bad thing.
First of all, I stand by my claim that adding a new basic energy, and its associated type still doesn't add to gameplay, or at least, it is adding more of the same to the game.
Just think about it. Think about how you build your mono fire, mono water decks. I'm sure you are going to use the same mindset to build a mono dragon deck, if they actually did something stupid and made basic dragon energy. The way you interact with these decks would be similar, and not different enough to call it different.
Their current way of doing dragons is something fresh, something different. No longer can you use the conventional mono type deck, and shove a bunch of energies of that type. No longer can you make a 100% dragon type deck, as the costs are all over the place. Dragons are now used in specific decks, and are in quantities of one or two in each deck, rather than have the entire deck be a dragon deck.
One difference between Magic and Pokemon is the willingness for WOTC to try something completely new. Adding a brand new type, with its own basic energy and uses its own energy to attack, is not trying something new. It is adding more of the same. What the Pokemon company did was take something that was existing, the EX DRAGON dragons, and gave them a new coat of paint, and a new name just to make them distinguishable.
I don't know about you, but here is what I think if they decided to make a type, with their own basic energy for the 16 pokemon types in the games, except normal. Depending on the meta, players would play only 8 of the types anyway, making the other 8 types a waste. It's already happening now, most decks are Lightning, Dark, or Psychic, while there are less players playing the other types, and very few players playing some others.
Making dragon energy with dragon types using its own energy for attacks is a bad thing.
First of all, I stand by my claim that adding a new basic energy, and its associated type still doesn't add to gameplay, or at least, it is adding more of the same to the game.
Just think about it. Think about how you build your mono fire, mono water decks. I'm sure you are going to use the same mindset to build a mono dragon deck, if they actually did something stupid and made basic dragon energy. The way you interact with these decks would be similar, and not different enough to call it different.
Their current way of doing dragons is something fresh, something different. No longer can you use the conventional mono type deck, and shove a bunch of energies of that type. No longer can you make a 100% dragon type deck, as the costs are all over the place. Dragons are now used in specific decks, and are in quantities of one or two in each deck, rather than have the entire deck be a dragon deck.
One difference between Magic and Pokemon is the willingness for WOTC to try something completely new. Adding a brand new type, with its own basic energy and uses its own energy to attack, is not trying something new. It is adding more of the same. What the Pokemon company did was take something that was existing, the EX DRAGON dragons, and gave them a new coat of paint, and a new name just to make them distinguishable.
I don't know about you, but here is what I think if they decided to make a type, with their own basic energy for the 16 pokemon types in the games, except normal. Depending on the meta, players would play only 8 of the types anyway, making the other 8 types a waste. It's already happening now, most decks are Lightning, Dark, or Psychic, while there are less players playing the other types, and very few players playing some others.
That's entirely player choice though. There's a viable deck of every type right now.
:fire:
Quad Entei EX
Reshiram Variants
:grass:
Accelgor/Plume
Meganium/EX
:water:
Empoleon
:fighting:
Quad Terrakion
Troll
Quad Groudon
:lightning:
Zekrom/Eels
sychic:
Mewtwo/Celebi
:colorless:
Tornadus/Celebi
:dark:
Darkrai
Zoroark
:metal:
Kliklang/EX
:fire:
Quad Entei EX
Reshiram Variants
:grass:
Accelgor/Plume
Meganium/EX
:water:
Empoleon
:fighting:
Quad Terrakion
Troll
Quad Groudon
:lightning:
Zekrom/Eels
sychic:Mewtwo/Celebi
:colorless:
Tornadus/Celebi
:dark:
Darkrai
Zoroark
:metal:
Kliklang/EX
signofzeta
New Member
That's entirely player choice though. There's a viable deck of every type right now.
:fire:
Quad Entei EX
Reshiram Variants
:grass:
Accelgor/Plume
Meganium/EX
:water:
Empoleon
:fighting:
Quad Terrakion
Troll
Quad Groudon
:lightning:
Zekrom/Eels
Mewtwo/Celebi
:colorless:
Tornadus/Celebi
:dark:
Darkrai
Zoroark
:metal:
Kliklang/EX
So if there were 16 types in the TCG, that there would be 16 types that are viable decks, and that no one type is rarely used?
So basically, to make all 16 types viable, that TPC has to print powerful cards of each type, and I seriously don't think that they are planning on doing that. In this situation, there would be always a type that more people would play, just because there is this one card of that type that is powerful. I think that the time we get a brand new type with its own basic energy, note that Colorless and Dragon, although are types, I don't consider them as types because they can use basic energy of other types, is when the sun engulfs the earth, that is, we will never get a brand new basic energy type. It would be a stupid move.
If these were split into the 17 types, then dragons, ghosts, poison, fighting, ice, normal, and rock are not even represented right now. Since Dragons and normal, aka colorless, act differently than the conventional type, I am going to take it out, thus ghost, poison, fighting, ice, normal, and rock aren't represented. So out of the 15 types, 5 aren't used. Because the ghost type shares the same type as psychic type, that a ghost card could potentially be used, but if they were separate types, that ghost card would never be used, because you guys all love to make mono type decks.
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I don't personally see a problem with them adding in the rest of the games' types as cards- just keeping the basic energy we have now. Where as ICE type would still require WATER energy but would have a different weakness and resistance than WATER type cards.
I realize that water and ice types DO already have different weaknesses in the card game, but I think the TCG really needs to get back into resistances and adding new card types could allow them to make a more fleshed out type chart- and would really add to strategy and less "Mono type" decks. You could run water type and ice type cards with the same energy requirements and tech in some electric or even fire types with a few energies for those.
I also think its non-sense that there are so many cards out now that have no resistance at all, when they should clearly have something. Resistances should be a staple with all types, not just types like steel and dark.
Bug types could use grass energy, but be resistant to grass type cards.
Ghost types could still use psychic type energy and resist psychic types.
Rock types would use fighting and resist fire etc. etc.
Another thing it would get rid of would be this psychic type card being weak to psychic type card crap.
If more types and resistances were available I believe it would add to the variety of strategy which could be used in deck building, as long as said new types still used existing energy like the Dragon type cards.
I realize that water and ice types DO already have different weaknesses in the card game, but I think the TCG really needs to get back into resistances and adding new card types could allow them to make a more fleshed out type chart- and would really add to strategy and less "Mono type" decks. You could run water type and ice type cards with the same energy requirements and tech in some electric or even fire types with a few energies for those.
I also think its non-sense that there are so many cards out now that have no resistance at all, when they should clearly have something. Resistances should be a staple with all types, not just types like steel and dark.
Bug types could use grass energy, but be resistant to grass type cards.
Ghost types could still use psychic type energy and resist psychic types.
Rock types would use fighting and resist fire etc. etc.
Another thing it would get rid of would be this psychic type card being weak to psychic type card crap.
If more types and resistances were available I believe it would add to the variety of strategy which could be used in deck building, as long as said new types still used existing energy like the Dragon type cards.
signofzeta
New Member
I agree with this strategy. I posted on the beach stating that they should add the Ice type, but still make it use water energy. After all, ice is solid water. The ice type card frame should be a lighter shade of blue, so that when you look from a distance, you couldn't tell water and ice types apart, but since they both use water energy, it doesn't matter, but if you look up close, you can tell that one is water, and one is ice.
Bugs use grass energy because they live in grassy areas, near plants, and represent the element of nature.
Rock, Fighting, and Ground represent the body and the earth, or the element of earth, and in any games, monsters with the earth element usually has high physical power, which is what fighting energy is. The energy of the mind.
Psychic and ghost types uses psychic energy because it is the energy of the mind. Usually you can't kill ghosts, in other games, with physical attacks, so you have to use magical attacks. Ghosts also have weak physical strength, hence the reason they use psychic energy, the energy of the mind.
Poison, I don't know. They feel more grassy, but they moved them to psychic because there were way too many cards that use grass energy back in the day.
Dragon I feel doesn't use dragon energy in the games. In other media, dragon breathes out fire, water, any element, but they never use all the elements. So what I am saying is, the dragon specializes in one element, but another dragon specializes in another element, and dragons as a whole group use a wide variety of elements. To make them distinguishable from conventional fire types and water types, they decided to make them use 2 elements at once. It fits the flavor perfectly, and they don't use dragon energy. None of the dragons in other fiction use "dragon" energy. They use fire, water, or lightning, or whatever, depending on the kind of dragon it is, and this is already represented on the existing dragon type cards we have.
I would remove metal energy and make them use lightning energy. We know electricity represents industrialization, and metal types represent urbanization, so the lightning energy represents the creation of cities and the destruction of forests. Their card frame could stay grey I guess, since changing them to greyish yellow would get people confused, but I don't really care for this change.
In place of the removed metal energy would be wind or air or flying energy for flying pokemon, who uses the element of air, but I can understand flying and normal types being colorless. Colorless means nothing special, and normal types represent nothing special. Air is also colorless, and nobody really takes notice of it compared to the earth, fire, and water. Air is only noticeable in tornadoes, hurricanes, and devastating disasters.
So we don't need Ice energy, Ghost energy, or Rock energy, or any more energy types, as the existing 8.
Grass = Nature
Fire = Fire element
Water = Water element, which ICE belongs to
Lightning = Light
Psychic = mind and mental strength
Fightning = physical strength, and physical objects like the earth
Darkness = evil, but I would rather have it represent darkness and the night, so maybe ghost types can use darkness energy instead
Metal = Industrializatoin and Urbanization.
This formula makes it so that each type has its opposite. Nature vs Industrialization. Fire vs Water. Light vs Dark. Body vs Mind.
If any of the 17 types uses one of these motifs, then a basic energy isn't needed for them. I already explained the how dragons use any of these motifs, but never all of them at once, but some uses 2 of these motifs, or any combination. Colorless doesn't use any of these motifs, so therefore, can use any basic energy they want.
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TheRolesWePlay
New Member
I think you've missed a major part of what pokemon is. Pokemon is at heart a rock-paper-sicssors system. Meaning type A beats type B which beats C and so forth, Different types are weak to other types, which aren't weak to the first type.
The line of thinking is fine for anything that's not Pokemon. Keep in mind that the TCG is based off the VG's material, and the VG doesn't include stuff like 'industrialization vs nature' in that sense (the element is there, but it isn't something defined by typing). To try and include such themes would be a betrayal to the source material that the game is based on.
Also if you stop to think about it most types do distinguish themselves from their grouping, for instance Poison type pokemon almost always have an attack that poisons, Bug Pokemon focus on low energy attacks and swift evolution, and Rock type Pokemon tend to have higher HP, and costs than their :fighting: type cousins. There are small trends that are inherent to their original typing throughout the game, that while they may go unnoticed at times they are often present.
signofzeta
New Member
But do you think they should:
1. Keep it the way it is
2. Make separate rock type cards, and they still use fighting energy
3. Make separate rock type cards and they use their own energy.
You could replace rock with Bug, Ice, Ghost, Poison, or Ground, and replace Fighting with the respective energy that they use.
I don't have any rush for choice number 2 to happen, but I don't want choice 3 to ever happen. I think that something could be added to the gameplay if choice 2 happened, as more resistances and weaknesses could be added, but doing choice 3 would ruin the game. As I said, both bugs and grass types are part of the nature theme, therefore bugs use grass energy, and not "bug" energy. Same with water and ice. Ice is solid water. Ice and water are the same element, therefore using water energy. That is one way to have all 17 types without having to make 15 different basic energies, which would dilute the cardpool. Now Ice and Water types can be used in the same deck, rather than in different decks. To represent the fact that they use the same energy, but are different types, both types would have a blue frame, but a different shade of blue, that is, the ice type has a lighter shade of blue than the water type.
For the fighting type, the fighting type is the current orangy frame. Rock type would be dark brown, and ground types would be tan colored, but all would use the same energy. That is the better way to have all 17 types in the TCG.
Even if in the games, there is no fire vs water, or light vs dark, or the TCG does not make use of the enemies, I figured that it would be nice to have opposites with the energy types, even if they don't mean anything. As such, I think the Dark type should represent darkness, rather than evil. The Psychic type is supposed to represent the mind, and mental energy, or Special moves, while Fighting type represents Physical moves. Most Ground, Rock, and Fighting types have Physical moves. So as such, I think if they start separating the types into its own colored frame, but still using the 8 existing basic energy, I think the ghost type should start using darkness energy to represent the fact that it uses darkness or attacks of the night, and the fact that ghost attacks are mostly physical, although it being a "ghost", it doesn't make any sense, as ghosts aren't solid beings, and can't make physical contact themselves.
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TheRolesWePlay
New Member
Here's the thing given the way the TCG is structured having all 17 types would just complicate the game, making it harder to access for new players and older players alike.
The current structure of things now keeps things relatively simple and easy to play. And keeping things this simple is preferable.
signofzeta
New Member
As I said, I like the way the TCG is right now, and my main argument is to not add any more basic energy beyond the 8. I think that having all 17 types, but them using the existing 8 energy is something they could do to allieviate the fact that psychic's weakness is ghost, and not psychic, and as I said, I am in no rush for that to happen.
What I don't want is for the game to have a certain type diluted and hard to make a deck just because they made 15 or more different basic energies. I hope that never happens, and I hope that whoever said something about the Dragon Energy is either an idiot, or just tired or drunk, and couldn't think straight at the time.
I agree with your argument that having the TCG the way it is right now, without the addition of more types makes the game more simple, and not overly complicated. Comparing the current dragon type, and the fictional dragon type that uses its own basic energy to power its attacks, although the current method may seem complicated, it makes you think differently when you handle those cards, than you normally would if dragon types used its own basic energy. In that case, your mindset would be similar if not same, as you would if you used a grass or psychic deck. Even if the energy costs may be different, or the attacks have different abilities and effects, the way you set up and draw the energies required to power the attacks would be different than if you used the current dragon types. The dragon types now adds complication to the game, but it does not confuse newer players.
If I were to actually have all 17 types, I would have done it how I suggested it in the posts above. There are 10 colors.
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Purple
Black
White
Gold
Silver, or Grey
Then 10 types use these colors, and in an unrelated note, most sleeve brands have those colors, while a select few have more than those colors. My suggestion was that, for example, fighting, Rock, and Ground types should have card frames based on the color orange, without making them look red or yellow, so you could tell that it uses fighting energy, like any orange framed pokemon, or brown, however you see it, but the different shades of orange distinguishes the pokemon between fighting, rock, and ground.
Gold is close to yellow, and silver is close to white. It just so happens that gold and white don't have their own basic energy. One could use any energy, and the other uses specific combinations of energy. Also these colors of the rainbow, and black and white, are the onky colors that could be easily told apart, without the confusion of having 2 similar colors, such as light blue vs dark blue, especially with communication. "The blue cards", "Light or dark blue?" In my case, light and dark blue uses water energy, so it doesn't matter.
I also think that the Japanese people who made this game knows that it is a stupid idea to have 15 different basic energies, and maybe have each of the 17 types have their own colored frames. If they didn't think it was stupid, then we would have seen all 17 types by now. I'm sure that they know everybody wants them, but it is not viable in terms of gameplay.
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This and Meganium aren't really metal/grass decks, so much as decks that use a single metal/grass benchsitter.
Otaku
Active Member
For the record, Pokemon generally sees multi-Type decks.
We just don't see a lot of deck's running multiple-basic Energy Types. Most Pokemon have at least a few Colorless Energy requirements, and some have no specific (in terms of Type) Energy requirements at all. That is part of the strategy of the game. Rainbow Energy is seldom missing from the format, which basically means that something with a single specific Energy-Type can be added to just about any deck. Just slightly fewer formats have had multiple cards that provide multiple Energy Types.
That's why you'll see decks that will run three or more Types, often none of them Colorless, and yet run just a single Basic Energy Type. Right now this is mostly the purview of Basic Pokemon, because currently they have the "extra" "Not Rainbow" Energy card (Prism Energy); that is a card with an almost identical effect to that of Rainbow Energy, but that is not Rainbow Energy. Focusing on just the "top performers", we've had Double Rainbow Energy and Scramble Energy as well (the latter I confess wasn't relied on for off-type usage, though it made it easier).
Double Rainbow Energy debuted in EX: Team Aqua Vs Team Magma and due to reprints was legal for five formats. It stopped being legal during the 2008-2009 season (DP-On), and it wasn't until late in the format I realized they weren't just making us sweat it out (Rainbow Energy has sometimes been re-released with such timing).
That being said, you're still largely presenting opinion as fact. Your concerns over "would every type have a representative deck" and "would every type see play" are already problems now. Even if we had a hypothetical perfectly designed format, players might just underplay a type due to personal preference, ergo I don't understand how that is a valid concern. In smaller venues you can already see an environment where a Type is excluded.
Would an increase in Types similarly increase the types not played in smaller venues? Probably, but since it is already an issue, would approximately "doubling" the amount of un- or underplayed Types be in and of itself a problem? I don't think so. That too is a part of the challenge of Pokemon; adapting to the local metagame. I thought it was a part of Magic as well.
Considering that we have a TCG adapted from a video game, and the Types are supposed to be balanced in the video games all are scrambled around, how are we supposed to have balanced TCG types while following the template? It leads to awkward, confusing things like Psychic-Type Pokemon resisting each other in the video games but being weak to each other here (and not just when being a "Poison-Type" portrayed as a Psychic-Type).
As for what groupings make sense, there are so many irritating constraints. We can't rely on simple logic because the video games unfortunately throw that out of the window. We have types representing the classical elements (Earth, Water, Fire, and Electric-standing-in-for-Air), representing movement type (Flying, and sometimes Ground and Water), body composition (just about any of them, but not all the time), and fighting styles/training (Fighting-Types mostly).
You brought up Water and Ice-Types. Does "Ice" really make sense as a Type the way it was executed? As you (signofzeta) already pointed out, Ice is just the solid form of water. If it is about using water to attack, then Water=Ice. If it is about attacking with something hard, should Ice be different than Rock? As I like to point out, if it is more "elemental cold", or the ability to slow molecular motion, then it isn't "Ice", it's "Cold"; water is just a convenient medium but not necessary. I have a similar issue with Ground and Rock and several others. that aren't quite as blatant but are close enough.
You know, this might be worth its own thread.
We just don't see a lot of deck's running multiple-basic Energy Types. Most Pokemon have at least a few Colorless Energy requirements, and some have no specific (in terms of Type) Energy requirements at all. That is part of the strategy of the game. Rainbow Energy is seldom missing from the format, which basically means that something with a single specific Energy-Type can be added to just about any deck. Just slightly fewer formats have had multiple cards that provide multiple Energy Types.
That's why you'll see decks that will run three or more Types, often none of them Colorless, and yet run just a single Basic Energy Type. Right now this is mostly the purview of Basic Pokemon, because currently they have the "extra" "Not Rainbow" Energy card (Prism Energy); that is a card with an almost identical effect to that of Rainbow Energy, but that is not Rainbow Energy. Focusing on just the "top performers", we've had Double Rainbow Energy and Scramble Energy as well (the latter I confess wasn't relied on for off-type usage, though it made it easier).
Double Rainbow Energy debuted in EX: Team Aqua Vs Team Magma and due to reprints was legal for five formats. It stopped being legal during the 2008-2009 season (DP-On), and it wasn't until late in the format I realized they weren't just making us sweat it out (Rainbow Energy has sometimes been re-released with such timing).
That being said, you're still largely presenting opinion as fact. Your concerns over "would every type have a representative deck" and "would every type see play" are already problems now. Even if we had a hypothetical perfectly designed format, players might just underplay a type due to personal preference, ergo I don't understand how that is a valid concern. In smaller venues you can already see an environment where a Type is excluded.
Would an increase in Types similarly increase the types not played in smaller venues? Probably, but since it is already an issue, would approximately "doubling" the amount of un- or underplayed Types be in and of itself a problem? I don't think so. That too is a part of the challenge of Pokemon; adapting to the local metagame. I thought it was a part of Magic as well.
Considering that we have a TCG adapted from a video game, and the Types are supposed to be balanced in the video games all are scrambled around, how are we supposed to have balanced TCG types while following the template? It leads to awkward, confusing things like Psychic-Type Pokemon resisting each other in the video games but being weak to each other here (and not just when being a "Poison-Type" portrayed as a Psychic-Type).
As for what groupings make sense, there are so many irritating constraints. We can't rely on simple logic because the video games unfortunately throw that out of the window. We have types representing the classical elements (Earth, Water, Fire, and Electric-standing-in-for-Air), representing movement type (Flying, and sometimes Ground and Water), body composition (just about any of them, but not all the time), and fighting styles/training (Fighting-Types mostly).
You brought up Water and Ice-Types. Does "Ice" really make sense as a Type the way it was executed? As you (signofzeta) already pointed out, Ice is just the solid form of water. If it is about using water to attack, then Water=Ice. If it is about attacking with something hard, should Ice be different than Rock? As I like to point out, if it is more "elemental cold", or the ability to slow molecular motion, then it isn't "Ice", it's "Cold"; water is just a convenient medium but not necessary. I have a similar issue with Ground and Rock and several others. that aren't quite as blatant but are close enough.
You know, this might be worth its own thread.
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bullados
<a href="http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?
But you do have different weaknesses and resistances to different types. Water and Ice have very different W/Rs. Grass REsists Water, but is Weak to Ice, for example.
I do rather like the 17 Pokemon colors with 8 Energy colors solution. It allows for the full Type Chart to be used in the PTCG, creating more synergy with the VGs.
I mean, we already expect players to memorize the chart in the VG. There's already place on the TCGs to show these stats, even multiple stats. Why can't different cards have very different W/Rs based purely on their types? Why are Flying types resistant to all Fighting types when they're weak to Rock in the VG?
It's an idea that I'd like to see happen eventually...
I do rather like the 17 Pokemon colors with 8 Energy colors solution. It allows for the full Type Chart to be used in the PTCG, creating more synergy with the VGs.
I mean, we already expect players to memorize the chart in the VG. There's already place on the TCGs to show these stats, even multiple stats. Why can't different cards have very different W/Rs based purely on their types? Why are Flying types resistant to all Fighting types when they're weak to Rock in the VG?
It's an idea that I'd like to see happen eventually...
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