Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

6TH Gen and the Competitive Scene

Benzo

Benzo

Front Page News Editor<br>Forum Moderator
With 6th Gen coming out in October adding in more Pokémon- What do you think about it changing the competitive scene with the current Meta Game?

Fairy Type will for sure shake things up, but in what ways?

There will be newer moves, hopefully some stronger Attacks will be included into Types that have very little support, like Poison Types. Do you think Pokémon will have stronger Attacks that will switch up the tactics a bit?

Will the first Regionals VGC Tournament be 6th Gen Pokemon only?

So many questions, I do not want to make a lengthy list of them, but change is coming soon to the VGC format.

What are your thoughts on the VGC Competitive Scene with the release of 6th gen?
 
I want to see some balance in the game. I dont want to see Shell Smash or moves like it. I just want to know more about the fairy types matchup.

VGC will be different for sure this yeah. Fairy types having immunities to dragon type attacks are huge for sure.
 
Does Fairy actually have immunity (or even resistance) to Dragon? Or are Fairy attacks merely Super Effective against Dragons?
 
IMO, Fairy's effectiveness will ultimately depend on its immunities or resistances; for example, if it doesn't have either vs Dragon, I'd much rather have a Steel type still because something like Metagross can take Dragon attacks with impunity and still nab a 2HKO in good situations. Otherwise, what's the benefit of a SE Fairy attack on a Dragon when you can use your own Dragon to beat it in also? So guess we'll see if that rumor is true or not, otherwise just weakness to Poison and Steel isn't that bad. What I don't get is the fire resistance, kinda odd Fire Pokemon would randomly be resistant to Fariy.../shrug
 
Fairy Type Attacks will be interesting to see what comes about.

Attacks like Will-O-Wisp- a possibility that Fairy type couls recieve support in this area.

It will be interesting to see what Pokemon will have access to any Fairy type attacks- this I can not wait to see what comes about in all of this. Like a TM?
 
A couple of questions...

I'm not really much of a competitive player -- play for fun -- but I do value competitive stats and whatnot versus other Pokemon in a game. With that said, I have a couple of questions.

1) First, why did they make Dragon type so powerful in the first place, only to find a need to balance it out with the Fairy type? Seems silly on hindsight. *Shrug*

2) Regarding a comment someone made on restoring the "power creep" in the game. How would you do that, besides maybe either lowering and/or increasing overall base stats? And wouldn't that upset people if, say, Dragonite's base stats dropped 50-100 points?

I'm personally looking forward to seeing Fairy types, though, and hope that there are some nicely balanced, if not powerful Pokemon in that category. The second thing that piques my interest from the new information is the horde battle. One on five sounds awesome, unless your Pokemon isn't prepared, of course. Oh, and stepping on Pokemon...LOL.
 
0bserver said:
I'm not really much of a competitive player -- play for fun -- but I do value competitive stats and whatnot versus other Pokemon in a game. With that said, I have a couple of questions.

1) First, why did they make Dragon type so powerful in the first place, only to find a need to balance it out with the Fairy type? Seems silly on hindsight. *Shrug*

2) Regarding a comment someone made on restoring the "power creep" in the game. How would you do that, besides maybe either lowering and/or increasing overall base stats? And wouldn't that upset people if, say, Dragonite's base stats dropped 50-100 points?

I'm personally looking forward to seeing Fairy types, though, and hope that there are some nicely balanced, if not powerful Pokemon in that category. The second thing that piques my interest from the new information is the horde battle. One on five sounds awesome, unless your Pokemon isn't prepared, of course. Oh, and stepping on Pokemon...LOL.
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The first thing is Base Stats need to change. Some Pokemon have a base stat of 470 as a stage 2 Pokemon while other have 600. Yes some species of Pokemon are better then other and it should be that way but all Pokemon need a competitive edge. The way to do this is not by making attacks like Shell Smash. Balanced Base Stats should be the thing looked at and tied with the species the Pokemon is based on but animals have a competitive edge over others even though they may not be stronger.

The idea is to balance out the stats so the competitive scene does not become about using the best or making a team of "good stuff". Since this is a new game, they have the change to fix this. Perhaps the Lati twins dont need a base stat total of 600, the same as other Pokemon like Metagross and other who also have very powerful movepools. Abilities also need to be unique to the Pokemon and be useful. Keen Eyes which is a ability on most bird Pokemon should mean their attacks always hit. Most abilities are useless in competitive play.

If you remember, the ability Sturdy use to be where the Pokemon was unable to be hit my moves that KOed in 1 hit but not its changed to if a attack would KO them at full HP, they have one HP left, like Focus Sash. That ability is overpowered in competitive play. The game as of now fixed power creep with more power creep and it needs to stop. They have a fresh start for this so I hope they do this.
 
vaporeon said:
The first thing is Base Stats need to change. Some Pokemon have a base stat of 470 as a stage 2 Pokemon while other have 600. Yes some species of Pokemon are better then other and it should be that way but all Pokemon need a competitive edge. The way to do this is not by making attacks like Shell Smash. Balanced Base Stats should be the thing looked at and tied with the species the Pokemon is based on but animals have a competitive edge over others even though they may not be stronger.

The idea is to balance out the stats so the competitive scene does not become about using the best or making a team of "good stuff". Since this is a new game, they have the change to fix this. Perhaps the Lati twins dont need a base stat total of 600, the same as other Pokemon like Metagross and other who also have very powerful movepools. Abilities also need to be unique to the Pokemon and be useful. Keen Eyes which is a ability on most bird Pokemon should mean their attacks always hit. Most abilities are useless in competitive play.

If you remember, the ability Sturdy use to be where the Pokemon was unable to be hit my moves that KOed in 1 hit but not its changed to if a attack would KO them at full HP, they have one HP left, like Focus Sash. That ability is overpowered in competitive play. The game as of now fixed power creep with more power creep and it needs to stop. They have a fresh start for this so I hope they do this.
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Guess that would kind of line up with the example that I gave, in reducing Dragonite (and other pseudo-Legendaries). I would love to see more of my "favorite" Pokemon with better/balanced stats. In studying base stats rather extensively the last couple of months, there are few non-Legendaries that even break 100 in both Attack and Special Attack...for example. Of course, that may or may not be a focus to people in the more competitive circle. I don't like to zone in on Legendaries to make a great team...variety is nice.

As for abilities, what you suggest would be nice...Heatran, for example, seems rather unique in ability as combined with stats. But there are many...most?...that I look at their abilities and gloss over them as being completely useless to my agenda. Maybe, with Pokemon like Reshiram and Zekrom...though part of their appeal are in their stats, it seems what makes them so cool are their ability to bypass Sturdy, etc. Heh, then again, is that power creeping the power creep still? A good marriage of the two (stats with ability) would go a long way to make more interesting Pokemon.

Just my two cents. Oh, and I guess it was you who mentioned the power creep comment...finally found that post. (Just wanted to clarify "credit" as such.)
 
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Another thing with abilities is to balance them. Why give a Pokemon with Dragon Dance the ability Moxie? I would like more Pokemon unique abilities and not those that change the flow of battle. Speed Boost needs to only go off once, not 6 times.

As for the legendaries with abilities, they also need balance. Mold Breaker was hard to deal with but a pokemon with 670+ base stats with a ability that ignores everything is a bit OP.
 
Your complaints are with a bunch of combinations that don't even see much play in tournaments. I can't remember the last time I saw a Scrafty use Dragon Dance or Moxie (ok maybe 2011). The most use Sturdy sees is LV1 Aron of all things. I don't think I've ever seen Shell Smash used by a competent player and nerfing Latias is the last thing that needs to be done...

Benzo, the games will likely come out either around or after the first set of Regionals. Gen 5 will still almost certainly be used for the first regional of the new season.

0bserver said:
I'm not really much of a competitive player -- play for fun -- but I do value competitive stats and whatnot versus other Pokemon in a game. With that said, I have a couple of questions.

1) First, why did they make Dragon type so powerful in the first place, only to find a need to balance it out with the Fairy type? Seems silly on hindsight. *Shrug*
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There was only one Dragon type in Gen 1 and no dragon attacks aside from Dragon Rage which always did a set 40. So when GSC came along, they didn't have anything to fix. That was the last time the type chart was changed. 4 generations later, enough has changed that they feel the type chart needs to be changed up a bit!
 
vaporeon said:
As for the legendaries with abilities, they also need balance. Mold Breaker was hard to deal with but a pokemon with 670+ base stats with a ability that ignores everything is a bit OP.
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Agreed. That would be the flipside to what I said about Reshiram/Zekrom. (Though I must say, I do love Mold Breaker when going again something with Sturdy. Rogenrola drives me crazy. LOL) I think, in part, that's what the horde battles are supposed to counter?

In the games I play, I've come to the point where I try to use Pokemon other than Legendaries and pseudo-Legendaries. It's a challenge, though, given that the stats are so stacked in their favor; and it is no doubt worse in actual competition. Honestly, I'd probably not do well against such competition.

Realistically, I can see them MAYBE giving some of the new Pokemon greater power, but not doing much with the older generations. It is much easier for someone to upgrade on a macro-level than it is to downgrade. Makes me think of the Power Rangers. As the series progresses, the creators find the need to mega the mega-zords or whatever. Eventually, it gets entirely ridiculous and they reboot with a new Power Rangers series...starting the cycle over again. Similarly with the TCG. Can X/Y actually reboot?
 
If they have decided to up the base stats of Pokemon, this alone will break the normal for sure. So many Pokemon that I like can't hang at all in the VGC- even with an ability.

Some abilities are circumstantial, some are useless, while some make me wonder how it even helps the Pokemon with weak base stats in the first place.

One thing that would be nice is not having to rely on Dream World to get Pokemon with a new ability. As it is, breeding for some Pokemon is time consuming since it has three abilities and requires the female to pass it on.

Base stats alone even with a 31 IV still make a good number of Pokemon unable to hang in VGC, yet with in the game story line they are great battlers. I would like to see more balance in available Pokemon Types become more worthy of seeing the battle front line.

In many ways- I tend to forget the game itself as I focus on the competitive side. It is not like you start a game out with the toughest of Pokemon (unless your like me and trade over Pokies after having 6 and blast through the main story line to get to the "building" a competitive team which most of the time is not right away available until later on in the story line)- so I do see why some Pokemon are just "stepping" stones just to get you through the story line.

I think they should balance out or add in some Pokemon that do make for battle worthyness. Like, how many Poison Type Pokemon see the VGC? Bug? Ground? Flying? Just an increase of competitive worthy Pokemon for each Type.

Sure, Dragon Type is the Psychic Type of 1st Gen currently- so adding in balance to that is understandable. But advancing into the competitive side of additional Pokemon into the roster Type wise- probably the last thing they consider to change in the games, since the game is RPG and not an all out "VGC" game only feature.

I wonder how the transition of the move sets will go for converted Pre 6th Gen Pokemon goes as far as move line-up. It almost seems as if the move leveling up process will lose some moves to be replaced by the new Fairy Type, but will this be a good change or bad? Or will there be an option to choose either or move at level up?
 
I hope XY can reboot. With them adding fairy type to the game and making some older Pokemon fairies as well, they also have the power to change the stats of Pokemon. XY is a completely new game to the series as its adding things. BW was handled poorly and I do hope they learned from it. The best place to start would be to raise the stats of Pokemon who need them or lower the big ones altogether.
 
They've said IV/EV will be more noticable in X/Y and I hope it is easier to control that massive breeding/hatching that leads to players RNGing.
 
Benzo said:
I wonder how the transition of the move sets will go for converted Pre 6th Gen Pokemon goes as far as move line-up. It almost seems as if the move leveling up process will lose some moves to be replaced by the new Fairy Type, but will this be a good change or bad? Or will there be an option to choose either or move at level up?
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While I have reservation of them changing base stats to any significant degree, move sets have the greater potential to alter the game, imo. It's been mentioned for Types like poison and so forth...give them better attacks. It could make a big difference on which Pokemon one uses. I wouldn't mind losing some of the old moves if it means upgrading quality of attacks. But they probably don't even have to cut any/many out to add more; the games themselves are becoming more efficient at holding more information.
 
^That is a point I was going to mention as well: the game's memory size verses the older cartridges. If they up the amount of TM's, or cut the amount of TM's, and have more move tutors- the Pokémon can have a higher move list available to them. Dropping weaker attacks for stronger ones: I am all for it. Sure, attacks like Poison Sting will be there, but having a mid-rang attack at final evolution stage and then being able t up-grade to an even stronger attack via move tutor or TM to make it more competitive will be nice.
 
The thing is, Dragon types inherently aren't that super powerful in terms of typing; being weak to themselves and Ice hurts, and as many posses a flying subtype, that makes Ice even worse for them as well as opening up a Rock weakness and losing Electric resistance. The fire/water/grass resistance is nice, but it's not like they have tons of resistances like Steel. Again, Dragon only hits itself for Super Effective damage, only Normal is weaker from an attacking perspective since it hits nothing SE and hits 2 for resisted damage and can't touch ghost at all.

Rather, dragon is only "strong" because of a couple of factors. It possesses 2 powerful attacks: Draco Meteor and Outrage, which given the lack of resistances or immunities (only Steel types resist dragon attacks) and their high base power (140 and 120) gives them almost universal coverage and basically 1 big nuke in the case of Draco Meteor that you can inflate with Choice Specs or Dragon Gem. If anything Draco Meteor I think is the main problem, as doubles seems to centralize to a degree over it and what Pokemon can take a hit and survive it; this is why a steel type is all but obligatory on most teams, as well as having your own dragon or moves to deal with it simply because Draco Meteor has OHKO power on most Pokemon, and in doubles with only 4 Pokemon, losing one is a lot more damaging than Singles. The other thing dragon has going for it is that the most popular ones (Salamence, Hydreigon, Garchomp, Dragonite) all are in the upper level of base stats for normal Pokemon.

Consider for Psychic types (the old dominant typing back in RBY), its strongest attack accessible by most of their type is Psychic, which caps at 90 BP. Deoxys has Psycho Boost (which is a psychic Draco Meteor), but its unusable under most rulesets, not to mention Deoxys is incredibly frail defensively. And then you have ruinous Pokemon like Chansey or Blissey that can wall them to death unless they happen to use Psyshock instead.

So honestly? You take away Draco Meteor from being a tutor move just about any can get and make it exclusive to the legendaries like Palkia and such (Outrage is more manageable, being unusable in doubles and easily switched out of in singles), add in another weakness and a couple of Pokemon that can resist Dragon other than Steel, and I think that could balance them out without having to throw in a new type to counter them and others like Dark.
 
Prime said:
They've said IV/EV will be more noticable in X/Y and I hope it is easier to control that massive breeding/hatching that leads to players RNGing.
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Like someone was mentioning over at Nugget Bridge, it'd actually be kinda nice if they just did away with IVs; then junk like certain sites where you can download Pokemon wouldn't have much purpose, it evens out the playing field a bit (as every Pokemon is basically a clean slate to just imprint EVs onto), and for Hidden Power, you can simply do away with it or make it like some stones you can click on to select a type for it (like how you can swap Rotom forms by going to the right appliance).
 
Regis_Neo said:
Like someone was mentioning over at Nugget Bridge, it'd actually be kinda nice if they just did away with IVs; then junk like certain sites where you can download Pokemon wouldn't have much purpose, it evens out the playing field a bit (as every Pokemon is basically a clean slate to just imprint EVs onto), and for Hidden Power, you can simply do away with it or make it like some stones you can click on to select a type for it (like how you can swap Rotom forms by going to the right appliance).
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I mentioned this exact same IV idea over on beach, along with them blocking or simply not allowing transfer of mons from BW1&2 to not create a headache with the new mechanic. Most did not like the idea lol.
 
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