Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Mario: Why?

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Ambush doesn't need a setup man because its strategy to spread early with a stage 1, which is very easy to setup. It is NOT easy, however, to set up a stage one AND a stage two by turn 3 (to be effective), which is about when the first Lucario should die to a good speed deck

You keep mentioning that you have to setup a stage 2 and stage 1 by turn 3. That isn't the whole idea of the deck. You can follow up a Lucario with another Lucario or with a Machoke. It's not T3 Machamp or lose. And depending on the list, and the luck, you can get a T3 Machamp doing 70. I mean, it doesn't require much, does it? Machop, rare candy (or machoke), Machamp, and 1 fighting energy. 4 cards.

Most stage 2 decks focus on setting up for the late game, not trying to get in damage early, which its why its acceptable to run fewer tricks because the late game power in the end alone will win games. Mario will not win anything without tricks as a bland 70 damage won't cut it.

Again, you assume that Machamp is there for early damage, not for mid-late game damage. Have you played Mario before? And no, I don't mean taking the list off the Pokegym and playing it. Have you actually taking the time to take apart the deck and refine it and test different engines, etc? It really doesn't sound like it. It sounds like you are basing your comments off of what you've seen, or what you feel the deck is about without even playing it. That's not the best idea, especially if your going to preach to the community and try to explain to the community why a deck is bad.

Bobby wrote this part because he has through personal experience outplayed Mario players even if they get lucky. Other good players can say the same. It is easy to outplay because of its simplicity.

Well, it doesn't matter who wrote what part. When you put your name at the top of the article, you signed a hidden agreement that says that you agree with everything the article says. For you to come out and say, "well, someone else wrote this, and this might not be the exact view of mine," only makes your article look less solid and easy to pick apart.

Don't put your name on something you might not have any experience with either. It makes the article look stupid when you talk about an idea you have no knowledge of.

LBS and Rock Lock were setup decks. Mario is trying to be a speed deck, even though it runs a stage 2. When has a speed stage 2 deck ever worked in the past without a setup Pokemon. I didn't play before last year, but I know that decks like Queen needed Pidgeot to run effectively.

Is Mario a speed deck? Isn't that an opinion? Some people might see it as a speed deck with Lucario in it, but some might see it as a hybrid, because of the added stage 2.

Again, the whole comment about not playing before last year hurts the argument. Nothing against you or anything, but maybe if someone else, with more experience would have submitted the article and put you down as someone who helped, the article would have had a better base to it. Because having knowledge of the decks that used to be played helps a ton when looking at current ideas, and especially discussing the legitimacy of those ideas.

While some of that is true, you need to take a look at the decks in question. Empoleon/Lucario covers its weakness with Lucario covering for Empoleon's Lightning weakness. Against anythign else, just spreading damage should be enough to win most games. I personally don't like the deck and wouldn't play it at a tournament but I can see it working. There's really nothing you need to tech against right now. Infernape HAS teched in the past, as some people played the Mew* or the Roselia for mirror last year. Every Infernape also ran Celebi ex by the end of last year.

Lucario protects Empoleon's electric weakness, but what protects Lucario's weakness to psychic? You make a big statement about how Mario is bad because it can't protect it's weakness to psychic but then don't talk about how most other Lucario varients (all lucario varients this season) don't protect their weakness to psychic either.

You don't like the deck, but feel the idea is infinitely better than Mario?

You could call Celebi ex a tech, but it wasn't a tech that improved any matchups. It just brought back a card. Mario could have easily played Celebi ex for the same purpose, but Celebi ex isn't in the current format is it?

I rarely, if ever have a "lucky" streak. I know some very good players who can say the same thing. There is no way I'd risk running a deck that requires a lucky streak to top cut a tournament. When I play a deck, I want my expected win % to be AT LEAST 90% vs any random, non-archetype deck, and good to decent matchups vs the archetype field. Minimizing the luck factor is the key to being sucessful at tournaments for good, unlucky players, even though tournaments can still be lost to luck factors such as supporter screw.

I never said people would play it because of it's lucky streak, but that players might think for a second about playing it because of all the T1/T2 KO's it got last season. I played it for a single tournament just to see how good it was, and I feel many players have played it once just to really see how good the deck was.

This is more of a point for last year as people played Mario last year as well. And there are great Psychic cards in DP3 and DP4.

Okay, so your article is partially trying to tell people not to play the deck last season. I think that was accomplished well enough with the season change. There aren't that many great psychic cards in DP3. DP4 is filled with endless numbers of good cards, so every deck is going to be hurt by the release of DP4.

One point that was not presented in this thread so far is that decks become more/less playable as the format goes on. Mario seems to be a decent play for Battle Roads. Now, Mario might not seem that good with DP3 cards added in. Not because it isn't good, but because there are different decks in the format and Mario might have better/worse matchups against them. For all we know, when DP4 comes out, and Darkrai is unleashed onto the format, Mario might be the right play against all the fighting weak pokemon being played.

Only a few decks stay playable throughout an entire season. Can't put down Mario because it isn't one of those decks.

These decks didn't need to cover weakness because they could beat random decks of the respective weak types. I don't see Mario doing that, as I've heard of Mario losing to such things as Drapion and Claydol ex. Infernape could beat a bad Empoleon deck most of the time. Banette could beat a bad Sharpedo ex deck most of the time.

LOL, do you have any experience with Mario outside of what KingGengar posts? KG lost once to Drapion and once to Claydol ex. I'm sure you've lost against something because of bad luck or just a bad matchup nobody expected. We all have. How can you use that against Mario if it can apply to any deck?

You also put down the players that were playing Drapion and Claydol ex. You assume their lists were automatically bad.

People choose to run Lucario by itself simply because it's a good card. And all of those Lucario variants have been kept pretty under the radar (except Lucario/Empoleon), and the FEW people who played them DID do well.

Those lucario variants aren't under the radar. If I know about them, then they aren't under the radar. Think about that for a second. Me, with no affiliation with any group, knows about the so-called "under the radar" ideas.

A "few" people did well with mario too. Why can one "bad" idea get bashed while another "bad" idea not get mentioned at all?

That leads to a good point. Why bash just Mario? Why not bash other decks you don't like? Why single out Mario?

I hate kricketune so much more than mario. Kricketune is so consistent and is a monster to play against. I'd love to see a card made called "Bug Spray" with just one effect, "KO all Kricketune on the field." And if I ever mention hating other decks, I will mention hating kricketune because that's only fair.

Again, Lucario/Blissey is 2 very good turn 2 starts. They are both stage 1s so no matter who you start, you have a good start and should win the game vs almost any given deck unless its built to counter it, as both a T2 Blissey and a T2 Lucario is tough for the opponent to handle. A T2 Machoke, on the other hand, doesn't scare anyone. This same factor is the reason Medicham/Hariyama worked. I didn't play back then but from what SHPanda has told me, it was a deck that could consistently do things T2, no matter who started.

You still don't address that Lucario/Blissey have no synergy outside of them being two good stage 1's. Seriously, people bash on KG's ideas because he pairs up two good pokemon (not talking about mario, but his other ideas) and then Lucario/Blissey comes around and people praise it. -_-'

Boost energy IS what makes that deck tick. You use Dodrio as a finisher of sorts and a midgame setup spread for Lucario to finish sometimes. You don't go powering up a Dodrio one energy by one enrgy early. This lost viability in it folding to Rampardos, but with Rampardos pretty much out of the picture (fold to Blissey), it might be viable again.

Boost Energy helps keep the deck from falling apart. I agree with you there. But Lucario doesn't do anything with Boost Energy, so a big part of the deck is just useless in many situations. Lucario/Dodrio have synergy, but just don't work because of how different they are in how energy efficient they are.

3-4 slots make all the difference in a consistent trainer engine. Simply put, Mario either sacrifices tricks (Lake boundary, PP) for consistency, or vice versa. Because of its inefficiencies, there is no room for both. I've said before that I personally think Empoleon/Lucario is inconsistent and wouldn't play it, but it's still 3-4 draw more consistent than Mario

I can agree that 3-4 added trainers can change how good a deck can run. I just don't understand why the mario engine can't come close to the empoleon engine. Why does the mario engine have to automatically be bad while the empoleon engine is automatically good?

I've never lost to Mario in my life, nor have most of the people who contributed to this article, if that's what youre implying.

That wasn't what I was implying. You've made it very clear to everyone that you have never, ever, in your entire life time, even before playing Pokemon, lost to Mario in any competition with cards and people.
 
ambush had no setup man

Ambush had a setup man, maybe the lists you played didn't run budew to grab your single tech rare candy on the first turn so you can scramble next turn.

I don't get the references to ambush, mario is an aggressive deck that tries to do too much with too little space, ambush played for the late game. By the logic some of us are putting up, you might as well say flygon is the same deck as mario because it ran stage ones =\.
 
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KG said it best. He agreed with the points. On paper, which is what we're basing this off of, the deck doesn't work well enough to be a tier 1.

In game? Who knows. Maybe it donks, maybe it rocks. I know I'll never play it because there are better options out there for me.

It's nice to see both sides of a popular deck. I happen to be on the anti-mario side, but who cares.

As for Ambush comparisons. Please don't make them. You guys have no idea what went on with the creation with Ambush. Jimmy the genius and the apprentices (me included) made a very good deck that would have had a bigger impact if it wasn't leaked. So it goes. As far as a lack of setup... It had a budew and roselia, and the idea was to let pokemon die and scramble. You didn't want to setup at ALL. You had to quickly start aqua showering. There was no time for a setup pokemon. You didn't need one. If you thought you did, you had a suicidal plant willing to grab a candy or something, or even stall with roselia.

I'm going to call a weak comparison between the two decks. I'm also going to call a weak comparison between blissey/lucario. Blissey and lucario works together better than machamp and lucario because blissey is the best card in the format, and ANYTHING works with it. ANYTHING AT ALL! Not everything works with machamp. The two decks aren't comparable.

The main point of the article is this
: There is ALWAYS a better option. There is a better deck for that day.
 
Rock-Lock, which was prevalent during DX-On, combined the Poke-Bodies of Dark Ampharos and Dark Tyranitar to hit every stage of evolution with additional damage.

Hey Kant,

I know you didn't play back then, so I mean no disrespect, but Rock-Lock wasn't prevalent during DX-On. It was illegal during DX-On. Dark Ampharos and Dark Tyranitar were from EX: Team Rocket Returns, the set directly preceding EX: Deoxys.

I think the most important and well-written point of your article was that Mario isn't versatile, and it's very easy to play around. As long as your deck doesn't lose outright to anything fighting, it's easy to see what your opponent is going to do next.

You still don't address that Lucario/Blissey have no synergy outside of them being two good stage 1's.

Prime - You're right, that's not exactly fair. But I think that Blissey is the better Pokemon than Machamp. Blissey doesn't require Rare Candies, Chansey is a better starter than Machop because of the T2 kill factor, Blissey is quicker and, if you have a Boost in hand, always more efficient. Even without the Boost, Blissey will usually grab a 2HKO just like Machamp would, only Blissey doesn't have the "if you took a bit hit last turn" limitation. Blissey also rids you of a mono-psychic weakness. It accelerates itself.

The biggest problem with this article was that the word "synergy" was thrown around far too often. Not all decks are combo crazy, like Blastoise from two seasons ago, or Metanite last season. And that's okay. But when your deck isn't a synergetic KO-machine, it needs to beat the metagame. Lucario/Blissey did, and Mario didn't. True story.
 
Blissey and lucario works together better than machamp and lucario because blissey is the best card in the format, and ANYTHING works with it.

By FAR, this is the statement I've been waiting to hear. You can make a deck with Blissey with a can of stale tuna fish and it would do great. *That* is how great Blissey is.

As for Machamp, Prime hits it on the head. 4 cards, 70 damage.

And yes, thank you for pointing out that Machamp only *must* be the strategy when you start with Machop. Why do you think I run 3 Machop and 4 Riolu? To start with Riolu of course!

Swarm Lucario is a viable option for Mario. I have also heard players claim that Machamp swarm works better, but I disagree (respectfully).
 
By FAR, this is the statement I've been waiting to hear. You can make a deck with Blissey with a can of stale tuna fish and it would do great. *That* is how great Blissey is.

Lone Blissey works great with Vaporeon *, which imo is almost useless, lol.
Lucario has the same thing on for it too, but it also needs speed. 2nd Turn Celios, 2 Fighting. Blissey needs almost the same thing, replace the second energy with boost and TV Reporter for Speed. That's why Lucario and Blissey works together.

If Mario is great as they say it would be, they would have no problem killing Blisseys now do they?
Mario only won some BR cause people thought it was good and they only played Mario. In any BR if someone played Blissey, they would make top-cut or close to it, no question. Mario cannot beat it on weakness alone (when it can), doesn't that tell you something? The problem is always the consistancy and the speed it has, and we all seen Blissey out by T2 and doing 60s right?

If Mario is a deck, then Golem/Exploud is as well, and we all can agree it ain't.
 
I totally agree with you. Mario is a bad deck. Machamp isn't a bad card. Lucario isn't a bad card. Together, they make a bad deck, based almost entirely on luck.
 
What is the state of the game right now?

We are having a discussion about the legitimacy of a deck!

Really...


1st. If people really think that Mario is that bad and inconsistant and not a deck, they should make more people play it! Seriously, that gives players more wins, because a mono-Mario format would be so easy to beat.

2nd. In all the years I've played this game, I've never seen a deck get such a hostile response as Mario. Never (in my experience) has a deck actually had an article written about it for people to STOP playing it. There are some people on this board who dislike Quicketune, but has an article trying to kill it's playerbase come out yet? Not that I know of, but I doubt one will.

3rd. I don't think that this is actually an article about the legitimacy of Mario. We all know it can win. (and I mean any form of winning, because even luck is needed in Pokemon)

4th. Mario can easily beat Blissey. In fact, I can make the claim that any deck can beat Blissey at any time it wants too. You know why? Because any deck can be modified in an almost infinitum number of ways. All Mario needs is a few ER2s and a few Lake Boundaries and the match is basically in it's hands. The deck doesn't need to be played rote from the list below us. That's the brilliance of this game. Anyone can beat anyone else if they just invest the time to test and tweak.

5th. I've played Blissey about 6-8 times with Mario. I've NEVER seen it doing 60's T2. The set up has been much slower than that. (it's only a few games, but they were 3-4 different lists, and still didn't see it)

6th. Golem/Exploud is a deck, it's just really bad.

If your claim, that Mario is even worse than mediocre: it's a downright unintelligent play, then why weren't other decks discouraged in a formal way? Like other mediocre decks such as Super Stantler, Sallygross, T2 Dark Steelix, GatrQueen, and Dark Slowking, but did anyone make a ranticle (rant+article) about not playing them? No.
(now, I do not mean any disrepect to the creaters/writers/players of the above decks. I've personally played about half of them)

I do realize that Super Stantler was a very looked-down upon deck, but never was there something like this about it. (in fact, the reponse to Super Stantler was very similar to the reponse to Mario, and yet everyone let Stantler die in peace...)


In actuallity, I almost see this as an strike against the players/creater of Mario. Because you list all these "reasons" that Mario is bad, (and while some are true) you are in fact going after the creator saying "The deck you worked and tested with is utter rubbish, and no one should play it."

I know if I had created Mario, I would have been hurt by this article.

Kudos to you KingGengar, you've really taken this in stride.
 
In actuallity, I almost see this as an strike against the players/creater of Mario. Because you list all these "reasons" that Mario is bad, (and while some are true) you are in fact going after the creator saying "The deck you worked and tested with is utter rubbish, and no one should play it."

I know if I had created Mario, I would have been hurt by this article.

Kudos to you KingGengar, you've really taken this in stride.

I'm happy someone sees the bigger picture.

And for the record, I don't play Mario and don't really like it either.

Ryan, just like I have no idea what went into making Ambush, you and others have no idea what went into making Mario.

My questions, This article: why?
 
Thanks, Sandslash.

One thing has still not been made clear: why does Mario win, or rate highly, at tournaments on a consistent basis?

I don't mean "why does Mario win games?" I understand the points made: luck, luck, and... luck. However, to win a tournament takes legitimately more luck than to win a game. And to win many tournaments in many different metagames takes much more luck.

So, either Mario is the luckiest deck in the world, or else it's more than luck. Either way, you have a fair chance of winning. Not vs Banette EX however.

lol...

I just thought of an interesting publicity stunt. Kant vs me in a 3-game tournament, he playing his favorite deck, Ramen Truk, and me playing mine, Mario, and see what happens.
 
Ok...

Despite what anything thinks, this article is NOT WRITTEN TO DISCOURAGE PEOPLE FROM PLAYING MARIO. ANY of the people who helped with this article will agree with me.

The reason Mario is getting this when Super Stantler etc didn't is because this argument has been going on FOREVER. Super Stantler lost its hype after a month or so. People have been calling other people out, saying that no one ever gives reasons besides "Mario isn't a deck," and now that some of us have written why we think that, people are getting mad that we voiced our opinions.

As a matter of fact, a few people in this thread have said that stating opinions doesn't prove that a deck is bad. DUH! F_S even said in the first post that this is an OPINION piece. Also, I don't believe we said "Mario is bad" anywhere in that article. (The plumber line was a joke, in case anyone didn't pick up on it.)

Covering weakness doesn't always mean "X pokemon is weak to Y type, so I play type Z because it has Y's weakness." Having a variety of weaknesses is often more worthwhile than making a conscious effort to type-match (though, this isn't always the case) because sometimes things take out counters without using weakness.

Ambush is no comparison because, like Matt said, it WAS NOT a setup deck. In fact, you would usually HOLD your setup (for example, not playing all your basics). The entire game was a poker face. You didn't play anything until you needed to. The strategy actually revolved around Prinplup, and Empoleon was nothing more than a cleanup in most matchups. I think all the successful Ambush played 0 or 1 Candy. Ryan's post is a good read for the Ambush thing.

The original article actually did address Blissey/Lucario; I don't know why that part got taken out. Really, the only synergy IS that they're both fast stage ones that hit heavy. I won't try to argue more than that, because that's about all there is to it.

I also don't like Empoleon/Lucario. Maybe the engine isn't even that much stronger, but it appears to accommodate the deck better because it needs less to set up (though, the energy thing is what really turns me away from the deck).

I'm personally offended that people think we wrote this for "political reasons." People have been ASKING for explanations and didn't like the "Mario isn't a deck" comments. But apparently explanation isn't good enough. Once again, I don't think we ever said Mario is a bad deck (besides the last line, which, for clarification, is a JOKE). The whole point of this article is that there are BETTER decks.

I give Tom all the props in the world for creating Mario; it has performed well and proven that it is, in fact, a deck. And yes, I did test with it last season. Now, however, I just don't think it's worthwhile.

Also, if anyone is deterred from Mario by this article, that's their decision. I DO consider Mario when testing; it's one of the reasons I play so many FF and Fire in Blissey.

Prime said:
Again, the whole comment about not playing before last year hurts the argument. Nothing against you or anything, but maybe if someone else, with more experience would have submitted the article and put you down as someone who helped, the article would have had a better base to it. Because having knowledge of the decks that used to be played helps a ton when looking at current ideas, and especially discussing the legitimacy of those ideas.

I'm pretty sure the "writers" of this article are Kant and I. I'm pretty sure I have experience with Rock-Lock and LBS, considering I Top 16'd nats with the former and won nats with the latter. :D He just submitted it before I did. We both contributed what we had experience with.

RE SuperWooper: yeah, that was my screw-up, my brain lost track of which format was which when I wrote that. I'll have Kant edit it. Thanks!

Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:

I'm happy someone sees the bigger picture.

And for the record, I don't play Mario and don't really like it either.

Ryan, just like I have no idea what went into making Ambush, you and others have no idea what went into making Mario.

My questions, This article: why?

Please...

NONE of us mean ANY disrespect to ANYONE. Do you honestly believe that we think Mario or KG is THAT bad when they made Top 16 at probably the most difficult event in the world? Sorry if I'm coming off rudely, but I'm a little sick of hearing how we wrote this as a publicity stunt. I say congratulations to anyone who does well with Mario! HUGE props to Tom for making a deck that has performed well! No one should take that away from any of them.

Answer to question- This article: to explain why "the elites" don't like Mario.

Would you rather have people just post Mario isn't a deck everywhere?

Again, I'm not trying to be rude. :)
 
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What is the state of the game right now?

We are having a discussion about the legitimacy of a deck!

Really...


1st. If people really think that Mario is that bad and inconsistant and not a deck, they should make more people play it! Seriously, that gives players more wins, because a mono-Mario format would be so easy to beat.

2nd. In all the years I've played this game, I've never seen a deck get such a hostile response as Mario. Never (in my experience) has a deck actually had an article written about it for people to STOP playing it. There are some people on this board who dislike Quicketune, but has an article trying to kill it's playerbase come out yet? Not that I know of, but I doubt one will.

3rd. I don't think that this is actually an article about the legitimacy of Mario. We all know it can win. (and I mean any form of winning, because even luck is needed in Pokemon)

4th. Mario can easily beat Blissey. In fact, I can make the claim that any deck can beat Blissey at any time it wants too. You know why? Because any deck can be modified in an almost infinitum number of ways. All Mario needs is a few ER2s and a few Lake Boundaries and the match is basically in it's hands. The deck doesn't need to be played rote from the list below us. That's the brilliance of this game. Anyone can beat anyone else if they just invest the time to test and tweak.

5th. I've played Blissey about 6-8 times with Mario. I've NEVER seen it doing 60's T2. The set up has been much slower than that. (it's only a few games, but they were 3-4 different lists, and still didn't see it)

6th. Golem/Exploud is a deck, it's just really bad.

If your claim, that Mario is even worse than mediocre: it's a downright unintelligent play, then why weren't other decks discouraged in a formal way? Like other mediocre decks such as Super Stantler, Sallygross, T2 Dark Steelix, GatrQueen, and Dark Slowking, but did anyone make a ranticle (rant+article) about not playing them? No.
(now, I do not mean any disrepect to the creaters/writers/players of the above decks. I've personally played about half of them)

I do realize that Super Stantler was a very looked-down upon deck, but never was there something like this about it. (in fact, the reponse to Super Stantler was very similar to the reponse to Mario, and yet everyone let Stantler die in peace...)


In actuallity, I almost see this as an strike against the players/creater of Mario. Because you list all these "reasons" that Mario is bad, (and while some are true) you are in fact going after the creator saying "The deck you worked and tested with is utter rubbish, and no one should play it."

I know if I had created Mario, I would have been hurt by this article.

Kudos to you KingGengar, you've really taken this in stride.

Very well said, Iactually thought some people had a little class , especially the Canadian players but i am being proved wrong....Pity actually. If being a "Elite" player means posting rubbish I never want me or my son having that status.
 
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But why just Mario? And why Mario? If this article was made to show that there are better decks out there, why not post some examples of better decks, and disect them to show why their engines are better? This article doesn't explain anything like that, it just gives reasons why not to play Mario.

None of us are trying to be rude, and I'll take anyone criticism towards any of my comments.
 
I'd just like to point out that most popular "Empoleon" decks can likely function without Empoleon. Prinplup is a very solid stage 1, spreading damage all over the field for one energy. It can follow up by using virtually the same attack as Empoleon for WW. Of course, I don't know every single decklist in the world, but I'd be willing to bet that successful Empoleon decks are fully capable of going without Emp itself. Even Ambush didn't focus on it.

It's not my interpretation that the article is saying "Mario isn't a deck" but that "Mario is not as good a deck as people think." The authors have done a really nice job as to backing up their claim that the deck isn't good and I just don't see it as an attack of any kind. Also, keep in mind that it's an opinion piece.

I'm sure people would be willing to write more articles like this for other decks, I can think of a few if anyone would like.
 
From personal experience, the writers and the contributers of this article have all noticed the same flaws in this "deck" and thus the article is created (along with constant bickering from both side in the matter of the legitimacy of it being called a deck).

We could post some examples of a speed deck, or a set up deck, or anything else but you cant fit it up against mario because the deck doesnt fall into a category like others.
 
I deleted posts that weren't pertinent to the topic at hand. Posting a sarcastic comment or complete nonsense isn't what we're looking for.

And to any elites or friends of elites: Keep your posts legit. Otherwise you're going to do the opposite of what the authors intended. This isn't a joke article. Having fun is cool, but if your posts are NOTHING but spam and you affiliate yourself with the authors then you're taking merit away from the authors.
 
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You keep mentioning that you have to setup a stage 2 and stage 1 by turn 3. That isn't the whole idea of the deck. You can follow up a Lucario with another Lucario or with a Machoke. It's not T3 Machamp or lose. And depending on the list, and the luck, you can get a T3 Machamp doing 70. I mean, it doesn't require much, does it? Machop, rare candy (or machoke), Machamp, and 1 fighting energy. 4 cards.

Lucario anything can just rush Lucarios so I don't see the point youre making. The problem with that is Rare Candy isn't searchable, meaning you need to hit it multiple times with limited draw. Not likely to happen consistently.


Again, you assume that Machamp is there for early damage, not for mid-late game damage. Have you played Mario before? And no, I don't mean taking the list off the Pokegym and playing it. Have you actually taking the time to take apart the deck and refine it and test different engines, etc? It really doesn't sound like it. It sounds like you are basing your comments off of what you've seen, or what you feel the deck is about without even playing it. That's not the best idea, especially if your going to preach to the community and try to explain to the community why a deck is bad.

There is much better stuff to do mid game than 70 on a stage 2, which is one of the big points I'm trying to make. The article is general opinions from a wide variety of players. Bobby and I were just the ones who decided to organize the ideas and post it.

Well, it doesn't matter who wrote what part. When you put your name at the top of the article, you signed a hidden agreement that says that you agree with everything the article says. For you to come out and say, "well, someone else wrote this, and this might not be the exact view of mine," only makes your article look less solid and easy to pick apart.

Don't put your name on something you might not have any experience with either. It makes the article look stupid when you talk about an idea you have no knowledge of.

Again, a variety of opinions from different players, some who weren't put up on the credits since there were just so many different players who put input into this. Bobby and I are just the messengers although we did put in opinions of our own

Is Mario a speed deck? Isn't that an opinion? Some people might see it as a speed deck with Lucario in it, but some might see it as a hybrid, because of the added stage 2.

Again, the whole comment about not playing before last year hurts the argument. Nothing against you or anything, but maybe if someone else, with more experience would have submitted the article and put you down as someone who helped, the article would have had a better base to it. Because having knowledge of the decks that used to be played helps a ton when looking at current ideas, and especially discussing the legitimacy of those ideas.

Again it's a collection of many people's opinions. It really could of been posted by anyone.

Lucario protects Empoleon's electric weakness, but what protects Lucario's weakness to psychic? You make a big statement about how Mario is bad because it can't protect it's weakness to psychic but then don't talk about how most other Lucario varients (all lucario varients this season) don't protect their weakness to psychic either.

You don't like the deck, but feel the idea is infinitely better than Mario?

You could call Celebi ex a tech, but it wasn't a tech that improved any matchups. It just brought back a card. Mario could have easily played Celebi ex for the same purpose, but Celebi ex isn't in the current format is it?

Celebi ex isnt a tech, which is why I included it after the techs part. It is a "trick".

I never said people would play it because of it's lucky streak, but that players might think for a second about playing it because of all the T1/T2 KO's it got last season. I played it for a single tournament just to see how good it was, and I feel many players have played it once just to really see how good the deck was.

Well nothing wrong with that, I just wouldn't risk playing a deck that would bomb if I had a bad day.

Okay, so your article is partially trying to tell people not to play the deck last season. I think that was accomplished well enough with the season change. There aren't that many great psychic cards in DP3. DP4 is filled with endless numbers of good cards, so every deck is going to be hurt by the release of DP4.

One point that was not presented in this thread so far is that decks become more/less playable as the format goes on. Mario seems to be a decent play for Battle Roads. Now, Mario might not seem that good with DP3 cards added in. Not because it isn't good, but because there are different decks in the format and Mario might have better/worse matchups against them. For all we know, when DP4 comes out, and Darkrai is unleashed onto the format, Mario might be the right play against all the fighting weak pokemon being played.

Only a few decks stay playable throughout an entire season. Can't put down Mario because it isn't one of those decks.

I'm just saying theres better ways to take advantage of Lucario. Alot of people agree on that.

LOL, do you have any experience with Mario outside of what KingGengar posts? KG lost once to Drapion and once to Claydol ex. I'm sure you've lost against something because of bad luck or just a bad matchup nobody expected. We all have. How can you use that against Mario if it can apply to any deck?

You also put down the players that were playing Drapion and Claydol ex. You assume their lists were automatically bad.

Again, they are inefficient attackers but I don't go into that. Good decks shouldn't lose to random cards just because of weakness

Those lucario variants aren't under the radar. If I know about them, then they aren't under the radar. Think about that for a second. Me, with no affiliation with any group, knows about the so-called "under the radar" ideas.

Not many poeple played them at all.

A "few" people did well with mario too. Why can one "bad" idea get bashed while another "bad" idea not get mentioned at all?

That leads to a good point. Why bash just Mario? Why not bash other decks you don't like? Why single out Mario?

I hate kricketune so much more than mario. Kricketune is so consistent and is a monster to play against. I'd love to see a card made called "Bug Spray" with just one effect, "KO all Kricketune on the field." And if I ever mention hating other decks, I will mention hating kricketune because that's only fair.

Kricketune is at least consistent. You just said it yourself. I don't think there are close to as many flaws in Kricketune, although personally, I don't like the deck either. I would be more scared facing down a Kricketune deck than Mario though.

You still don't address that Lucario/Blissey have no synergy outside of them being two good stage 1's. Seriously, people bash on KG's ideas because he pairs up two good pokemon (not talking about mario, but his other ideas) and then Lucario/Blissey comes around and people praise it. -_-'

Again, Mario isn't 2 quick stage 1's. It's a stage 1 and a stage 2, that makes all the difference.

Boost Energy helps keep the deck from falling apart. I agree with you there. But Lucario doesn't do anything with Boost Energy, so a big part of the deck is just useless in many situations. Lucario/Dodrio have synergy, but just don't work because of how different they are in how energy efficient they are.

Lucario doesn't need to use Boost Energy. There is still a huge amount of Fighting energy for it to use. 4 unused energy doesn't ruin consistency much at all

I can agree that 3-4 added trainers can change how good a deck can run. I just don't understand why the mario engine can't come close to the empoleon engine. Why does the mario engine have to automatically be bad while the empoleon engine is automatically good?

Well from what Matt Chin and some others have said, it seems Empoleon has 6-8 more slots than Mario thanks to the lowered Candy count. Even better.

l
 
I am a big desert eagle fan. I have beaten him a few times and lost to him a few more. Throne of Legends and I worked with this deck to try and win some Battle Roads. Throne suggested putting in 2-3 Girafarigs to start and draw out Rare Candy and other trainers. I suggested the name "Luigi". We played it in the first couple of BRs and picked up 4 Victory Medals, one junior, 2 senior and 1 masters. Mission accomplished and we moved on. I have built a nice Psychic deck that T1s Riolu! But, as you can see by my screen name I still like Lucario!
 
empoleon/lucario is better than machamp/lucario? i dont think so. im sure you wont like opening with a riolu with only water energy in your hand, or a piplup with only fighting nrg.

machamp vs empoleon: i would much rather do 90 damage and confusion than 70 and 20 to the bench. confusion is a powerful status effect, either forcing the opponent to retreat or risk flipping tails.

revenge: 70 dmg for 1 nrg is fine. we dont live in the lugia ex 200 dmg days anymore.

i believe the reason people are discouraging the use of mario is they think losing t1/t2 is "cheap". well i think trying to win the game as early as possible is a perfectly fine method for playing the game.

kudos to kg!
 
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