For the sake of reference (and so no one feels the need to keep doing triple pronouns), Otaku is a guy. If you check out Pojo, a five year old picture of him is displayed by his articles.
I also am not the originator of the "let's just require two basic Pokemon to start" rule, though I think I brought it up first in this thread. Like adding the optional mulligan, it's been suggested time and again every time we hit one of these unpleasant spells in the game.
I think its important to note that none of the past changes have really, truly worked... which is why they were abandoned. I think the most logical way to proceed is to try something new and/or avoid changes that needlessly complicate the game because it is an established pattern that TPC is going to try to stream line the core rules of Pokemon as much as they can to make the game more and more accessible to new players. Even adults can find the rules of a TCG (especially their first one) overwhelming; how hard must it be for someone who has only just learned how to read or the needed, basic math skills?
Since it keeps coming up, let's really think about what some of the past proposed changes have done.
No Opening Draw
Losing the opening draw just gives slightly worse opening hands for player one. It does hurt to lose a card, but its hardly crippling. It creates a "special circumstance" to the normal rules and people who are
not new to the game get the joy of possible penalties because most of us instinctively start to draw at the beginning of our turn. I mean, I've played TCG where you
don't draw first thing and it actually goofs me up quite a bit.
No Trainers (at all)
So now the first turn weighs heavily on the opener's attacks or opening turn Abilities. This then becomes a great example of over-correction creating a new problem. The ideal opening turn situation would be to have several Pokemon and/or Energy that aid in set-up... but most such cards will clutter the field later in the game and become a nuisance or even easy Prizes. This decline begins or against a speedy opponent might be in full effect by said opponent's second turn!
I also believe it will make second turn the "turn of donks".
Zekrom focused decks will indeed just want to go second. The odds are not that good of opening and drawing into three Basic Pokemon naturally, unless your deck is so loaded with Basic Pokemon it under performs elsewhere. The donk loss is a little less likely if the format has good openers. The problem in this case is that the best available opener is probably
Cleffa, so we are
cementing its place in the game... but if it is being run, now "baby donks" remain a strong possibility for many aggressive decks.
Items Only
Losing your opening supporter does indeed hurt, but you've unintentionally provided incentive to super aggro decks, which usually by their nature end up as functional donk decks. Player's learn to spam Trainers. We saw how this worked, though I will confess there are two major difference:
Rare Candy no longer functions as it used to, and we've got one established Item-denial deck with a possible second on the way. Not really all that comforting since for example,
Zekrom decks will find it harder but still too easy overall to donk. They really are just losing the option to
Seeker a second opening Basic back into hand or (against a lone opening Pokemon) use a Supporter to make setting up easier.
Non-Item optimized decks will be just as vulnerable to most of the problems being faced now. Item-optimized decks will just fear that challenging match against a Trainer denial deck, and even then it isn't an autoloss for them. A speedy deck is a speedy deck, and since
Vileplume or
Gothitelle won't hit play until the opponent's second turn, all decks will (just like now) have at least one full, real turn with everything except Evolutions. Unless the above two decks make up a majority or dominant minority of decks, I'd say odds are by the end of a tournament, one speedy deck (which usually does fall into one of those two categories) will have taken them out.
What about Stage 1 decks? Well, they can still be speedy and aggressive. They won't be likely to "donk" but if that player goes first, they still have an excellent chance of taking an early lead that just keeps expanding. If they go second, they just have a slightly lower chance. A good example of "better but not by enough to be worth the headache".
No Items
Zekrom donk decks take a hit but still won't be rendered unplayable... in fact once again second turn they are fairly appealing. They just won't have as easy of a time ruining the set-up of Stage 2 decks. Once again, it is my best prediction (granted one being made after some personal issues woke me up after half a night's sleep) that the end result is going to be getting less than we are "paying for". Going second might become too good or it might make no difference to the fast Stage 1 deck.
