Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

2013-2014 Modified Format?

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Honestly... why shouldn't Pokémon (as a company) need to be more thoughtful in releasing promos? If they need "quickie" promos they don't want to have to worry about releasing in the U.S. they just need to be reprints (or "pre-prints") with new artwork (or a stamp on the old commemorating the event, or a new treatment, etc.).

International TCG maybe should function as international TCG? I agree though; if there are a lot of new cards in Battle Boost, this could be a sign we are getting that set after all and the slow turnover will continue. I'd at least like to see them close the gap; part of why it is so awkward now is that there is such a long turn around time between Japan getting the set actually released and us getting ours.
 
The longer this goes without any announcement about a rotation, the more I am inclined to believe there isnt going to be one.

In years past, announcements were made no later than June 9th. What could be holding up an announcement? Possibly there isnt anyhting to announce.

I find it difficult to believe that Japan used a filler set to ensure global release dates for X and Y, only to allow everyone outside of Japan to follow whatever format that country deems viable...

I am leaning more and more toward.... NO ROTATION in 2013-2014

But heck, what do I know?!?!

Jimmy
 
Even if there was no rotation, they would still make an announcement for no rotation. Here's to hoping we find out tomorrow. Rotation or not, Chandelure EX killed my hopes of the game ever being good good again like in the past.
 
Pablo said:
Even if there was no rotation, they would still make an announcement for no rotation. Here's to hoping we find out tomorrow. Rotation or not, Chandelure EX killed my hopes of the game ever being good good again like in the past.
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Seconded; both on the hope we do get an announcement before Nationals (moving something back a month would be unusual, but it wouldn't be unthinkable) and the thoughts on Chandelure EX. I am hoping that it ends up proving to be a hoax.
 
People, Chandelure EX is obviously the best thing ever. Gosh. :rolleyes:

In all seriousness, unless the Chandelure really is a well planned hoax, it's looking less and less likely we really are going to catch up to Japan, meaning rotation is a bit more up in the air then I'd come to hope.

However, it does make sense that nothing will be rotated considering we've yet to hear anything.
 
I Don't think I will play next season if we don't get a rotation. I realllly want DRX-on because it creates so many viable cards and all of a sudden in a catcherless format.

If we get EBB, it just shows that the game designers are being really lazy and not even trying to fix the problem. They're not even trying to create new (good) archetypes. just rehashing old ones! They are even making these Basic Final Evos! They know it can't be fixed! The only easy solution is to release seemingly underwelming XY sets and then rotate to XY-on and just forget about this whole mess.

UNLESS XY1 retains EXs, we will probably just see a bunch of weak cards that no one will play in BLW-on because the older EXs are just that much better.

XY-on is really the only "solution" I can think of. There are just too many good/broken cards right now and so many good reprints that a meta shift is really needed and won't happen unless a lot gets rotated.

I could see them go to XY-on mid-season (suggesting we have synchronized release, of course) and then we have ~3 XY sets to use and keep XY-on until the next year kind of like HGSS-on was.
 
Alann said:
I realllly want DRX-on because it creates so many viable cards and all of a sudden in a catcherless format.
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  1. This assumes no reprinting of Pokémon Catcher, which has been reprinted multiple times in Japan besides what we've gotten in the U.S. As such there is a realistic (though hardly guaranteed) chance we'll see it here.
  2. What actually becomes viable that wasn't already, and how much of an impact does it make compared to established decks? Fast, hard-hitting decks will remain so, they just won't be able to disrupt set-up quite as easily... but all decks lose that capacity and thus things remain the same except for the most broken that will do things like

  • Run Escape Rope; if you open with two Pokémon, don't expect to safely hide one on the Bench against aggro decks. If you need to spam something on your Bench and losing even one hurts... Escape Rope again delivers.
  • Expect decks built around Big Basic Pokémon to just run Ninetales (and maybe a few Devolution Spray) the same as some have diversified by running Garbodor and some extra Pokémon Tools... oh and a deck lacking an alternative to Pokémon Catcher or good spread/snipe action won't be able to touch that Benched Ninetales, will it?
  • Genesect EX doesn't have to be the focus of a deck; some decks will run that with Plasma Energy instead of the Ninetales idea, and if a deck already runs Plasma Energy (especially with other Team Plasma support), this is a no brainer.
If you want more decks to be viable, consider asking PCL to start designing lower Stages worth running that don't overshadow the final Stage; we don't need the forgettable filler we've been having or more Eelektrik. We also need non-Evolving Pokémon to be paced so that there isn't such an extreme "speed" advantage. Nothing says a Basic Pokémon should have low Energy, hard hitting attack... and if said Pokémon is meant to be a deck's main attacker, it probably shouldn't so that Evolutions have time to set-up. The deck using such Basic Pokémon already enjoys a two card slot advantage.

This also means again, there are alternatives to format fail or X&Y-On; we've seen it done before in past rotations where major changes were happening in the card pool, after all.
 
I guess you could do no rotation this year, then next year rotate to Plasma Storm. If I had to guess, that's what is going to happen.

Drew
 
If they don't rotate, and they ever at any point plan on slowly reversing the power creep throughout the XY sets, it's still possible to reverse the power creep, without having the new XY cards be outclassed, by focusing more on Abilities, like giving some neat draw/search Abilities to the evolving basics and stage 1s in the same vein as Uxie's Set Up and Claydol's Cosmic Power (but maybe not that powerful). For attacks, the first few XY cards' attacks can be anti-EX, anti-high HP, anti-Basic, and/or anti-Plasma.

There could be an evolving Basic with an Ability that lets you draw 1 card per turn, and when it evolves it Paralyzes the opponent's Active Pokemon if it is Basic, puts it to Sleep if not. And then Tools that let you use Abilities from previous stages, etc. There could also be Abilities (or a Stadium) that raise the attack cost of Basics by 1.

A Hammer Item that discards any 1 Energy from a Basic.

Stage 1s can have single energy attacks that say something like "if the Defending Pokemon has 120 or more remaining HP, put damage counters on it until it has 10 HP left". A lot of single energy attacks could Paralyze Basics, which would give more incentive to run evolving Basics (so you could evolve and make the Paralysis pointless).

The new cards don't have to be playable by brute force alone, they just have to fill a niche that other cards don't.
 
@Otaku- The importance of catcher in BB vs "Slow" decks is mostly about the first turn. If you get passed turn 1-2 or something, you have a fighting chance. Ninetales takes longer to set up and is easily KO'd by snipe damage in the late game. DKT can't run it because it needs bench space, Garbo can't run it because that'd be silly. Only one I could see viably running it would be Darkrai since it already has a lot of Ultra Ball and HTL.

Rotating catcher suddenly makes Vileplume BCR decks more playable, Makes Chandelure PLF/Things a deck, and makes Dusknoir BCR a better card as well. I think rotating catcher does more good than bad.
 
^The thing is the game needs catcher. Like you said, bench sitters become even more powerful and with the high damage output of attackers and cards like Dusknoir, nothing remains safe and you have Lock decks/ Articuno EX with Dusknoir and thats the format. I dont like catcher as much as the next person but the game is far too damaged to remove such a powerful card because of the power creep. If anything Catcher is now the balance of the game and it sound weird saying that.
 
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I'll echo vaporeon's post by saying that I once compared Catcher to the card Heavy Storm from the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG, by being both a bad card and yet necessary.
 
vaporeon said:
^The thing the game needs catcher. Like you said, bench sitters become even more powerful and with the high damage output of attackers and cards like Dusknoir, nothing remains safe and you have Lock decks/ Articuno EX with Dusknoir and thats the format. I dont like catcher as much as the next person but the game is far too damaged to remove such a powerful card because of the power creep. If anything Catcher is now the balance of the game and it sound weird saying that.
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Not only that, but can you imagine a game where Genesect Ex becomes the new Luxray GL LV X?

I'll pass!
 
Okay, I made one post but several more weighed in making it redundant or more of a tangent, so I'll try again.

@LunarWolf21

Some creative ideas; some seemed good, some were downright terrifying. In short, make sure you treat the disease (underlying game mechanic issues) and not just the symptoms (specific problems of now), or else at best you'll have a short term fix (see most of the best formats) and at worst you'll waste time fixing what isn't broke. Short example: HP scores in this game across the board are too low.

@Alann

I've got to disagree with your analysis. Of course, I've been an idiot more than once so I could be wrong, but the big problem right now I am convinced isn't Pokémon Catcher but the pacing of the game. Remember, Pokémon Catcher is an issue because people use it to set up a strategic KO that turn.

Already running long, so I'll pick one that confuses me: Vileplume. Interesting idea, but terrible execution. The Ability is just not that useful this format, where a good attacker is normally going to OHKO or 2HKO something. Why run a Stage 2 and try to cover every major Weakness (you can't even adequately cover all Weakness) when I could run a Stage 2 (Blastoise) and OHKO anything regardless of Weakness or Resistance (Black Kyurem EX)?

It's problem isn't Pokémon Catcher, it is most of the format! Might have been great (even with appropriately nerfed HP and attack) if it had shown up in the pre-Neo Genesis era.
 
Vileplume was just an example of something that'd be better. I could've picked a better one like Ampharos DRX or Altaria DRX or even Crobat PLS.
 
Alann said:
Vileplume was just an example of something that'd be better. I could've picked a better one like Ampharos DRX or Altaria DRX or even Crobat PLS.
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Of what you've said...

In general it does hurt that you can't hide your Evolving Basic on your Bench to Evolve safely, but that isn't an impossible hurdle to clear. Yes, some Pokémon become better when they can more easily hide on the Bench, but for most it still won't make them competitive... or it will risk breaking them. The "happy medium" is rare.

Vileplume is an example of something that clearly won't be helped. Its problem isn't Pokémon Catcher, it quadruples Weakness in a format where Weakness usually spells a OHKO and there aren't enough easy to splash in attackers where the quadrupling makes for an inexpensive, guaranteed OHKO.

Altaria is still vulnerable to Escape Rope unless you're using a build I am unfamiliar with (if you are, please let me know! :lol:). Altaria is also small enough that spread/snipe is a much greater risk; so every Pokémon Catcher alternative is a threat to it!

Ampharos and Crobat [Plasma] are also each still lacking; even with your proposed rotation we will still have some amazing attackers that will 2HKO something their size. The Ability or strategic sniping are required to score regular 2HKOs... and you don't have true control over that. Not only might your opponent use Escape Rope to Bench Ampharos (disabling Electromagnetic Wall), but the amount of damage involved can be tricky to time. You don't actively pick what gets damaged by Electromagnetic Wall, and if it doesn't shift the turns for a KO down, it will seldom matter.

Crobat [Plasma] has a useful Ability, but it isn't enough to make it a worthwhile Bench-sitter. As a Stage 2, it requires too many resources to swarm, and a single extra card isn't enough to justify running it as a low-count Bench-sitter. The Ability is only worth it if you can make it useful as an attacker and as the attack is already relying on Poison damage for its turn, you only get two extra counters from Virbank City Gym. Why does that matter? Because it only hits 2HKO level with Virbank City Gym in play. This also means most of the counters to the general Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank City Gym combo are going to drop it back to a "so-so" attacker. Of everything you've named so far, this is probably the most promising.

tl;dr: So far all the examples you give aren't getting enough of a boost, and are arguably worse off without Pokémon Catcher as current decks that rely on Bench-sitters will be better off.
 
Crobat wasn't the best idea, Next Destinies Musharna is a Stage 1 with a more powerful ability.

Other than that, I have no real comments.
 
There is another possibility-they could be waiting until the floor rules for the season are ready to go out for inclusion there. Not the most appealing option given the recent history of that, but possible.
 
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