Arceus Worst set for a while.

[The Dark Toxicroak]

To be fair obviously cards will get better with DCE. The set was very lacking for me. For some it was probably great though. I don't usually make a big deal out of sets but when I really only want 2 cards.... ?

 

[The King Of Magikarps]

HGSS doesn't really seem like it will be all that good either. Sure DCE and Copycat and a few other cards but for the most part the set doesn't seem all that good. I only really plan to attend maybe one or two.

 

[waynegg]

While yes, AR did produce a bunch of viable decks that placed well in a few tournaments, you're being overly generous.

You're looking at the results as of here and now and not out of your little box at all. I was stating the potential a lot of the cards on that list have when HGSS and the set after are released, not just the right now aspect of them. And, if you can't see that Luxray was made for DCE, ... Most of the ones I listed are worthless right now.
That's why I said:

Several of these won't see their full potential until the next set is released

 

[prodigal_fanboy]

You're looking at the results as of here and now and not out of your little box at all. I was stating the potential a lot of the cards on that list have when HGSS and the set after are released, not just the right now aspect of them. And, if you can't see that Luxray was made for DCE, ... Most of the ones I listed are worthless right now.
That's why I said:

Luxray maybe but I'm doubtful with DCE.
Fossils will still be bad. Ditto for Rapidtrash et cetera.

Also, how do you have any knowledge of what's in the set after HGSS to even be making speculation like that?

 

[nnaann]

Ypu must be seeing a completely different set than me. These are all cards from Arceus with real potential:

1 Charizard
4 Kabutops
5 Luxray
8 Salamence
13 Aerodactyl
15 Cherrim
16 Gengar
20 Hariyama
23 Omastar
28 Rapidash
32 Spiritomb
42 Haunter
46 Ponyta
67 Kabuto
70 Omanyte
74 Shinx
83 Bench Shield
85 Department Store Girl
87 Expert Belt
88 Lucky Egg
97 Gengar LV. X
98 Salamence LV. X
SH10 Bagon

Several of these won't see their full potential until the next set is released, but I guarantee you will be clamoring for some of these you overlooked sooner or later. For the first time ever, Fossils are consistent enough and with decent enough attacks to actually be playable. When HGSS dumps DCE on us, both Hariyama and Luxray will be a handful for anyone facing them. I can go on and on, but this set will definitely have a large impact on the game in coming sets.

The cards you wrote down are decent, but not good enough to consistently win CC's/States. Haunter and Gengar Lv X are in there mainly because of the Gengar.

 

[ShadowGuard]

No, Arceus is not a bad set.
In fact, it's a great set, with some really nice and innovative Pokémon.

Besides Expert Belt and Spiritomb, let's take a look at Gengar, Salamence, Tangrowth, Sceptile, Luxray and Charizard. All are playable and could be viable decks in a healthy Pokémon metagame.

The only problem is - our metagame is not healthy. First, it's too much focused on speed, so that most strategic decks (except for SP stuff) have disadvantage against simple and fast decks. Second, SP Pokémon broke almost every single rule of Pokémon's individual and successful game concept, guiding it towards YGO and other card games.

The last good metagame has been DX-on. However, HG/SS are quite ok, they give some good consistancy cards. Pokemon Trader gives strategic stage 1/2 decks a chance to compare with simple decks in setup and speed. Copycat etc make Power Spray and other lock stuff less powerful.

To conclude this - it's not the Arceus set that's bad, but our metagame and the power creep.

 

[JBowroxmysox]

The metagame is fine right now. Sure, there's an emphasis on speed, but that's the way the format works sometimes. Would you rather have the format as completely mundane to the point where the earliest you get a decent setup is T4-T5+?

Our metagame has a great amount of playable decks...

Flygon Variants (good ones being FlyChamp, and FlyTrap here and there)
Gengar Variants (Gengar/Queen and Gengar/Spiritomb and Gengar/Machamp being the most prolific variants)
DialgaChomp
LuxChomp
BlazeLuxChomp
Gyarados
Beedrill
Kingdra

Among others. You can play SO MANY decks and do well at a tournament right now. Would you rather have it so that there's Magmortar/Leafeon, Empoleon/Bronzong, and GG only? Or choose between playing Dialga or losing? (coughStates and Regionals last yearcough)

Anyway, Arceus wasn't a great set, but it was much better than Supreme Victors. You didn't have to buy a single pack of Supreme Victors in order to get the only must-have card: Garchomp C Lv.X. No worthwhile Trainers (except VS Seeker, arguably), only one good Level X (that wasn't already available in a tin), and just a couple decent Pokemon (Chatot G and Relicanth). Buying packs of Supreme Victors was a terrible decision, as you were bound to get a pack filled with Arcanine, Milotic C, and your reverse holo as the Shiny Relicanth, who was disgusting compared to the non-Shiny version. At least Arceus had SOME stuff to play with, like the format-warping Spiritomb, staple Expert Belt, the great new Gengar and its Lv.X, and a couple interesting Stage 2s like Charizard and Sceptile. Plus, it's rather easy to trade off the Arceus you find in every other pack.

 

[EricDent]

Well I like Arceus. However I don't really play too competive. Mostly just for fun at leagues.
I tend to make 1 type "theme" decks. Like "Artic Circle" (Empoleon, Walrein, & Floatzel), Fire Dogs (Arcanine, Houndoom, & Ninetales), "Raining Cats & Dogs" (Luxray & Manectric), "Spooky" (Gengar, Dusknoir, & Banette), "The Bugs in the Bush" (Kricktune, Mothim & Cherrim), and "Beat Down" (Machamp, Medicham, & Lucario).

 

[Yoshi-]

Yeah our Metagame is so open right now, you can choose between 1 out of ~30 decks to loose to SP

 

[ShadowGuard]

Our metagame has a great amount of playable decks...

Flygon Variants (good ones being FlyChamp, and FlyTrap here and there)
Gengar Variants (Gengar/Queen and Gengar/Spiritomb and Gengar/Machamp being the most prolific variants)
DialgaChomp
LuxChomp
BlazeLuxChomp
Gyarados
Beedrill
Kingdra

The only ones that aren't either SP or pure speed beatdown are Flygon and Gengar, while Gengar imho isn't a good deck.

I played a lot of different decks at Cities. Sceptile, Salamence, Magnezone and even more. Sometimes I did quite well with them, but at least Sceptile and Salamence lose against SP decks, otherwise they would be great. So after some time I fell back to Flygon because it's the only setup deck that still can win.

btw, doesn't the fact that you list BlazeLuxChomp and LuxChomp as two different decks but put all Flygon variants in one line tell everything about the "diversity" of our format?

Would you rather have it so that there's Magmortar/Leafeon, Empoleon/Bronzong, and GG only?

If that would mean we have three decks to play long, balanced and skillful games? Yes, please.

Or choose between playing Dialga or losing? (coughStates and Regionals last yearcough)

I played Blaziken or Porygon-Z and did well.
However, the format wasn't much better that time than now, that's right. But it wasn't worse either.

 

[Scipio]

Yeah our Metagame is so open right now, you can choose between 1 out of ~30 decks to loose to SP

I hope you enjoyed your grapes lately, they seem to be pretty sour.

 

[waynegg]

The cards you wrote down are decent, but not good enough to consistently win CC's/States. Haunter and Gengar Lv X are in there mainly because of the Gengar.

I know they aren't all top tier. I was just pointing out that there are plenty of decent cards in the Arceus set. You just have to find them. It's definitely not the worst set in a while. Supreme Victors- Now THAT was bad. It has its high points, but all in all...

 

[nnaann]

I know they aren't all top tier. I was just pointing out that there are plenty of decent cards in the Arceus set. You just have to find them. It's definitely not the worst set in a while. Supreme Victors- Now THAT was bad. It has its high points, but all in all...

Agreed on SV. Arceus is an OK set, it's just not as game breaking as I remember LA-on sets being. BRs was pretty much AMU, Kingdra and Luxray. T-Tar, Aboma, Gengar, Dusknoir, Regigigas etc all were rampant for Cities. Platinum bought SP and two really strong Lv X's in Palkia and Dialga. Rising Rivals enhanced SP, Flygon, Luxray GL Lv X etc. I think they are trying to slow down the Power Creep which is a good thing in the long run. Just at the moment it may seem like this is a bad set. I agree that those are decent cards, but nothing has really shook the metagame like people are used to a new set doing.

 

[Yoshi-]

I hope you enjoyed your grapes lately, they seem to be pretty sour.

Indeed...
So WHAT?
Yeah I have plenty but does that change the fact that its true?
And its not just that but I dont see this changin anytime.
HGSS takes the poweecreep away so everyome will keep using luxwhatever since new cqrds cant keep up with it.
and after the rotation whats supposed to stop sp?

 

[nnaann]

Indeed...
So WHAT?
Yeah I have plenty but does that change the fact that its true?
And its not just that but I dont see this changin anytime.
HGSS takes the poweecreep away so everyome will keep using luxwhatever since new cqrds cant keep up with it.
and after the rotation whats supposed to stop sp?

There are ways to counter SP without running Flychamp or Gechamp. If you're worried about Luxray, run a 3-3 Claydol etc.

 

[Skull Hatter]

I hope you enjoyed your grapes lately, they seem to be pretty sour.

I like how when someone mentions how SP dominates the format, grapes get mentioned and the claim is nulled.

Honestly, The best type of deck in the format is SP and will be.

In my opinion it all ended when we didn't have to evolve pokemon anymore, which is kind of a big part of the series in general.

 

[Scipio]

Maybe a big chunk of the top decks are SP's, yes, but him posting that whatever you run you're gonna lose to SP's is just ridiculous. The tourneys in which I didn't run SP these Cities I only lost to ONE SP deck, which was due to time (I would've taken 4 prizes the next turn).
That, and he ALWAYS has sour grapes, can't remember him posting anything positive about the game in the past 6 months.

 

[JBowroxmysox]

The only ones that aren't either SP or pure speed beatdown are Flygon and Gengar, while Gengar imho isn't a good deck.

I played a lot of different decks at Cities. Sceptile, Salamence, Magnezone and even more. Sometimes I did quite well with them, but at least Sceptile and Salamence lose against SP decks, otherwise they would be great. So after some time I fell back to Flygon because it's the only setup deck that still can win.

btw, doesn't the fact that you list BlazeLuxChomp and LuxChomp as two different decks but put all Flygon variants in one line tell everything about the "diversity" of our format?


If that would mean we have three decks to play long, balanced and skillful games? Yes, please.


I played Blaziken or Porygon-Z and did well.
However, the format wasn't much better that time than now, that's right. But it wasn't worse either.

So...you switch from mediocre decks to Flygon, because Flygon wins, correct? I don't see your point here. Certain things are better than others. Are you complaining because you can't play crap like Tangrowth and Salamence because they're terribly slow? Guess what, in a fast metagame, you have to be fast yourself to do well. It's the inherent nature of the metagame at the moment.

They're not too many good Flygon variants right now. Only FlyChamp is consistently winning, and FlyTrap is decent in some areas. Do you wanna pretend that Dark Flygon is still a fantastic deck? And BLG is different than LuxChomp. That's like saying that DialgaChomp is the same as LuxChomp because they share Garchomp, Crobat, Claydol, Uxie, Promocroak, and extensive use of Bronzong G. Adding Blaze gives the whole deck a new dimension while distracting from some of the goals of LuxChomp.

The point about the Gardevoir format; I'd say 90% of the people here were complaining CONSTANTLY about Gardevoir's inherent dominance over everything else. Many people disagree with you on this point. You complain about not being able to play whatever you deck you want due to the nature of a current format, and yet, you were okay with the Gardevoir season? Have you gone from one side of the spectrum to the other during the elapsed time?

You must have managed to dodge all of the Palkia, Dialga, and Dialga/Palkia in order to do well with those decks, because unless it's Blaziken against Dialga alone, you're gonna have a bad matchup.

 

[milotic101]

well to me i think DP is the worst set

 

[hectagonman]

I agree with Jbow, this format has plenty of diversity as long as you don't play trash decks. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. OF COURSE you're going to do bad with junk like Sceptile and Salamence.