Do we spend too much time worrying about deckbuilding?

[prodigal_fanboy]

If you don't have the ability to build a good deck, you won't have good testing data, if you don't have good testing data, you won't have good competency of matchups, if you don't have good competency of matchups, you won't have the ability simply to not misplay. Talent, effort, learning, and thought beget more of the same -- look at what Ryan, Ross, and Jay posted.

 

[aade8]

I feel like it's a 'chicken and egg' issue.

It takes a keen mind to develop a competitive list. You have to know your metagame (#1 most important), and know the 'chemistry' of the format. Having an encyclopedic memory of every card in the format couldn't hurt either. Point being, you have to have the skills to anticipate and analyze; these skills are developed BY playing.

However, you aren't going to develop these skills at all if your list is lacking in basic function. Knowing that consistency is key is a good start. I don't like to tell my little league-goers that they can't put every single one of their favorite Pokemon in their decks if they want to win games, but.... Knowing all the different game mechanics open to you and then using them effectively is very important, and accomplishing that is when in-play skills start to develop and mature.

Luck is the most dominant factor in my opinion, though. The most consistent list in the world will be subject to absolutely horrid starting hands and draws. But realizing that it takes both a good list and a solid fundamental understanding of the game is when things get exciting.

 

[kwisdumb]

As others have said, deckbuilding is the foundation of success.

I was actually having this discussion with a few Magic, Naruto, and Dragonball players, and I came to the conclusion that Pokemon is all about the techs. The metagame, while open right now, is very defined, and what makes a great player instead of an average player is suiting the deck to your needs and making small tweaks. Anybody can grab a deck online, and almost everyone does, but very few take the time to test the list an edit it to their playstyle.

Good discussion!

 

[Shen]

You have no idea how many times I have seen players misplay a Shadow Room. Gengar is tougher to play than people admit.

Thank you! Someone credible needed to say this. Too many people put Gengar up there with scrubby auto-pilot decks. Yeah, part of the card is luck based... but Fainting Spell can't win games by itself! The rest is left up to the player. And really, how far could Gengar even get without Fainting Spell? It needed something to give it a little oomph without breaking the card.

 

[Yoshi-]

But it IS broken because every normal deck has to sacrifice an arm and a leg to play around it. And with the new Set it gets even worse, this deck is beyond broken. I see so many people talking about how you can play around FS so easily, this doesnt work if your opponent knows what he does. No Uxie/Belt tricks will get a good Gengar player

I know it has to get somethign but a power which slows you down so much sicne you basically cant attack him unprepared in combination with an attack this powerful and disruptive? If at least his Power would do something predictable :/

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How do you get ahead of prices against Gengar? Yeah I know it happens but usually is fast in gathering cheap prices. It is possible to play around it but its so hard. Seriously, I build a Gengar deck today and sat around the entire day thinking about how you could avoid FS somehow. I dont even mind the unpredictability that much, its bad but not as bad as certain other things.

And yeah the format doesnt attack big anymore, exactly because of cards like Gengar. But e.g. I was messing around with a Magnezone Deck, Gengar cant even touch me but then you sit their with your Magnezone and stare at Gengar... I hate it

 

[Shen]

I never said you can play around Fainting Spell. Believe it or not people DO flip tails on it, so as long as you get a prize ahead your opponent can go 5/6 on the flip and still lose. Even still, they can go 6/6 and not win. It's a game changing power but not enough to be a winner by itself.

You contradict yourself a bit there... you say people need to sacrifice a lot to play around it... and then you said no good Gengar player will get played around. Why not improve your Gengar match-up outside of Fainting Spell if you think you won't have the opportunity to play around it?

I do agree, his Power should have been regulated somehow. Like you only return a KO every other time you use the Power. I dunno how that'd work but it can't be too impossible to figure out. This game's unpredictability has gone so far, that's my biggest complaint about the game. If I knew my opponent had 4 PokeTurns and a Crobat, I may have played a situation differently. It's so annoying you can never predict how much damage your opponent is doing. A year or so ago, you may have given room for 10 extra damage off an attack via Strength Charm or something. Now you can see 30+ damage hit the field at any given time, and now we have Expert Belt in addition to PlusPowers, Crobat, Poketurn, and in some cases Poke-Blower and Super Scoop Up (in combination with Crobat). Don't forget the unpredictability of cards like 1-0-1 Dusknoir or 1-0-1 Machamp. It takes the skill way out of this game, and these techs have a hard time holding up in Top Cut when your opponent KNOWS what you're playing, it's annoying they got them that far.

But the big thing here is you KNOW Gengar can KO you. You can always prepare for the worst case scenario, assuming you get KO'd. But how much of the format even attacks for beyond 1 or 2 energy anymore? It's not like you're losing resources... you can still come back. You're losing a prize, not that that's a good thing, but that's what keeps Gengar going. You can get another attacker up and going. Case and point... I don't see his attack being entirely disruptive with the amount of consistent draw out there right now to get another attacker going on one energy.

And you keep referring to a GOOD Gengar player. If it's so lucked base, shouldn't there be only one kind of Gengar player? No good or bad? What I'm agreeing on Jaeger with is that Gengar DOES take some skill to get somewhere, and you obviously agree if it takes effort to be GOOD with Gengar. You need to know what you're doing to make it move... you can't sit there and win on a coin flip. You need to know what to do with Shadow Room, even if you think Fainting Spell is so luck based there is still skill involved in the deck.

...

On topic for a moment:

Just wanted to say I think good deck building and skill of the game go hand-in-hand. You need an understanding of the game to be good, and if you know what you need for certain plays they should be reflected in your deck builds. Of course you need to playtest to figure out what you need for certain match-ups, and you can modify your deck for that.

 

[Rogue Archetype]

if..less than good players are playing them, they either netdecked or it's probably not a very good list. If they NetDeck, the deck isn't optimized for their style of play. Everybody has their taste and preference, and certain cards give different people a better chance of winning. It's just in the way people play. List A won't necessarily work for Player B. If it's not a very good list, then they just don't have the deckbuilding skill of some of the better players.

I, absolutely, love this.

Well said Contro...

 

[Yoshi-]

How do you get ahead of prices against Gengar? Yeah I know it happens but usually is fast in gathering cheap prices. It is possible to play around it but its so hard. Seriously, I build a Gengar deck today and sat around the entire day thinking about how you could avoid FS somehow. I dont even mind the unpredictability that much, its bad but not as bad as certain other things.

And yeah the format doesnt attack big anymore, exactly because of cards like Gengar. But e.g. I was messing around with a Magnezone Deck, Gengar cant even touch me but then you sit their with your Magnezone and stare at Gengar... I hate it

 

[Shen]

Lol, I do like how you think. Most people go on about how Gengar is no good because its easy to play around. In contrast, you say how its hard... and I completely agree, I think its disruption is what makes it truly good. Your opponent does have to sacrifice a lot to win.

But if it were so easy for Gengar to win on Fainting Spell so often, wouldn't we see more of it? It was almost non-existent at worlds. Something's apparently wrong with the deck... maybe Gengar Lv. X will fix it but time will tell.

The issue of getting ahead in prizes is as simple as getting a tails on Fainting Spell. Plus its not like every other Pokemon in the deck is unattackable. Most decks have a way to get to bench anymore, and Luxray GL is a popular tech to take out Claydol.

Most top decks have a way to cope with Fainting Spell or have a bad match-up in the first place. Blaziken/Infernape both have Luxray, Palkia can hit the bench, and Flygon is more focused on deck outs anymore. Machamp and Beedrill (And sometimes Kingdra depending on Nidoqueen's situation) all have a hard time with Gengar anyways IMHO, but it's not uncommon to see any of those running Luxray. Gyarados must be doing SOMETHING right, I think Rogue Archetype went up against pretty much all Gengars at Nats and won most of 'em.

 

[Yoshi-]

It was easy to play around Gengar, you could just stack Unown G on everything and stall them out somehow. But with Relicanth thats not a good idea anymore either. I realised this at my first Br, I didnt prepare and forgot about Relicanth, just played down my 2 Unown G, there goes my claydol, thank you very much :/

Gengar saw no play at Worlds since people dont want to rely on anything flippy and it autolossed to FLygon pretty much. SPs only win against Gengar cause they can disrupt it and dont really have to deal with Gengar anyway, the moment the Gengar player has 2 Gengar and a Queen down you might as well scoop if you use SP.

Gengar was a oneway deck, nothing I'd like to play against because it always beat me thanks to dump luck (1. 2 baltoy priced / 2. Turn 2 Gengar/Gross/Gengar/Dol / 3. Badstart and lost on a flip when I slammed Ditto into Gengar for 150) but a good player with an ok setup could play around it. But with AoA this is nothing like before anymore.

 

[Gliscor28]

I don't i build it, tweak it, test it, play it at league weakly until it reaches a perfection, Speedrill's just the way i go, i don't worry about deck building until it comes up to a new set release then i help my deck out and shine it with newer cards.

 

[Kayle]

The deck doesn't make the player. The player makes the deck.

So what does that mean? That means you can't simply take a build and give it to someone and expect them to win. I mean, otherwise people who bought world champs' decks and took them to league would sweep everything, right?

However, the player still has to actually make the deck. An insanely good player running SV's theme deck Ignition is still screwed in State's.

I'd say the game is 40% skill, 40% deck, 20% luck.

However, you can't just take a deck and give it to a player, even a good one, and expect them to just win with it. Decks and deckmaking is only 40% good cards - it's 60% knowledge of the game and skill.

So, it turns around and becomes 64% skill, 16% deck, 20% luck.

The luck factor is more important than the deck.

Sounds about right, don't you think?

 

[Trican]

I'd like to start out with I'm a WotC era player, but am new to the DP on series of play. So what I'll offer is a view of an older player commenting on the then and now.

Back when I played your had 2-3 real options for a deck Raindance, Haymaker Variant and Feraligator(towards the end). This game from the couple months I've been back is a completely different beast. There are supporters, level twos are common, and the amount of tech used is pretty insane.

While the game of the past was fairly bland there was a bit more skill, in my opinion, involved with a smaller focus on the deck building. Building a new deck I had a pretty good start on the deck in Computer Search(discard 2 cards, search your deck for any card and add it to your hand), Gust of Wind (Luxray GL as a trainer), Bill (Draw 2 cards no draw backs), Professor Oak (Discard your hand draw 7 cards), Plus Power(no real change), Energy Removal (Remove one energy on the defending Pokemon), Pokemon Breeder(Rare Candy) and a small handful of others.

While most of my deck could be made before I even looked at Pokemon it made the game a different beast. Supporters are so limiting in my opinion, but researching into the Donk abilities of certain Pokemon I can see the need to limit them.

So whats the round about ramblings of an old player you might ask? The game during that time was intense skill. Sure almost every big event was a TON of Mirror Matches, but your skill come out when you handled it. How did you utilize Computer Search, was it useful to Gust something up to hold yourself a couple turns, or did that Plus Power/Special Dark make a big enough of a difference?

Deck building then and now is different. Now you can put a lot of thought into your deck and get somewhere with it. I'm seeing there are some staples now, but as I said finishing staples and and energy from the game I remembered left room for 15ish Pokemon. I see a lot more thought into deck building with what your plans are. I find the utilization of your deck's attributes to be about 20%(the skill level) only because I've yet to be exposed to a hyper search engine where you can pull exactly what you need. I've seen supporters search supporters, trainers get Pokes or Energy, Energy that gets Pokes and so on, but I've yet to see a "trainer exchanger" if you will. Without that ability to pull out your Rare Candy I can't rank skill higher than deck building. You built a deck, studied the field to know what you need, put in your techs accordingly, but what happens when you don't draw into your Roseanne's,for example, to get your well planned tech?

Perhaps I still have more I need to see of the new game, or perhaps I glorify the old version to much, but thats my 2 cents for what its worth.

 

[Box of Fail]

I've lost during topcut because of less-than-optimal lists. Did I raise a huge fuss and scramble to make my deck perfect to do well the following day?

Nope. I just went to bed and played with the same list. It's no big deal whether you win or not.

 

[i like burdn of a day]

i think its 50% deckbuilding 30% Skill and 20% luck. luck does play a big part, but you cant make it through a whole tournament on it. if a good player gets donked 1st round otherwise known as gets unlucky, he can win the rest of his games and possibly make top cut. that player that donked 1st round might not get lucky in any other games and go 1-X or he could have been a good player the got lucky and win the rest of his games. either way, i dont think luck has as much to do with the game as some people believe. because its hard to win with luck if you dont have a good deck or enough skill to know how to take advantage of the situation.

 

[FunnyBear]

A few comments, some clarifying:

1. Gengar plalyers, take your OT to another thread

2. I think in general, Pokemon players do not spend enough time worrying about their decks. I was thinking about Gym members in particular, who are at a much higher level of sophistication than most league players. We have a whole forum dedicated to deckbuilding and most of the Card/Strategy forum is around deck composition as well.

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I've lost during topcut because of less-than-optimal lists. Did I raise a huge fuss and scramble to make my deck perfect to do well the following day?

Nope. I just went to bed and played with the same list. It's no big deal whether you win or not.

Well, if you don't care if you win, then I guess nothing is important. Appropriate username, though.

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List A won't necessarily work for Player B. .

That is a good point, and I see little acknowledgement of the concept of "style" in Pokemon play. Some players will simply not be good at a particular strategy because it does not conform to their style. Netdecking in this case will lead to massive failure.

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However, you can't just take a deck and give it to a player, even a good one, and expect them to just win with it. Decks and deckmaking is only 40% good cards - it's 60% knowledge of the game and skill.?

Funny though, I've seen exactly this. I've given one of my decks to a strong player. He looks through the list, counts cards, notes techs, and sits down and plays it masterfully. The best players seem to be able to do this by virtue of an encyclopedic knowledge of the format.

 

[EricDent]

Nope I don't really worry about deckbuilding, mostly cause I don't really play in the big tournaments anyways. Mostly cause I usually have to work on weekends anyways. When I do get to play in a tournament, I usually just pull out a random deck that I have built, and those are basically "theme" decks (like Ghosts, Bugs, etc.)

 

[toxictaipan]

Funny though, I've seen exactly this. I've given one of my decks to a strong player. He looks through the list, counts cards, notes techs, and sits down and plays it masterfully. The best players seem to be able to do this by virtue of an encyclopedic knowledge of the format.

I've done this myself. My brother (who was a Junior to the time) got lucky and got a Gardevior LV.X when SW came out. Since it was his card he got the GG deck, I didn't. Well, he won a CC with it and he said I could use his deck for states. With hardly no prior playtesting I managed to get 3rd my first time playing it. In top 3, I lost to Hurricane. Obviously, I was very unprepared, but I picked up a good deck and did really well.

 

[Pidgeotto Trainer]

At worlds, more games are decided by deck than by player's in-game skill. Many good players will make the same in-game moves imo. The exact 60 cards you play has so much variance though.

 

[Ariadosman]

But it IS broken because every normal deck has to sacrifice an arm and a leg to play around it. And with the new Set it gets even worse, this deck is beyond broken. I see so many people talking about how you can play around FS so easily, this doesnt work if your opponent knows what he does. No Uxie/Belt tricks will get a good Gengar player

I know it has to get somethign but a power which slows you down so much sicne you basically cant attack him unprepared in combination with an attack this powerful and disruptive? If at least his Power would do something predictable :/

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How do you get ahead of prices against Gengar? Yeah I know it happens but usually is fast in gathering cheap prices. It is possible to play around it but its so hard. Seriously, I build a Gengar deck today and sat around the entire day thinking about how you could avoid FS somehow. I dont even mind the unpredictability that much, its bad but not as bad as certain other things.

And yeah the format doesnt attack big anymore, exactly because of cards like Gengar. But e.g. I was messing around with a Magnezone Deck, Gengar cant even touch me but then you sit their with your Magnezone and stare at Gengar... I hate it

Stop whinging. If Gengar was already broken, it would have won a lot more tournaments than it has. It isn't GG of '08 (and even that could be beaten quite handily, but that discussion is for another day)

You do have to alter your playstyle to play around one specific card that probably doesn't even make up 15% of the decks being played (at least before AoA). Big deal! Suck it up, etc. It's just a game, I don't particularly feel for the Uxie that had to get squashed on the bottom of my deck because it psy-restored to dodge the fainting spell flip.

It's not hard to play around Fainting Spell if Gengar doesn't play Nidoqueen, which a lot aren't running at the moment (I don't know why, Gengar really needs Nidoqueen). Example (this game actually happened btw):

I am playing Kingdra against someone's Gengar/Metagross (2 times worlds qualifier, real cool player): He gets a T1 Gengar/Claydol to my draw-pass baltoy start and gets 3/4 prizes incredibly quickly with Shadow Room/Poltergeist, as you mentioned, yoshi. He has a metagross in play so each Gengar I Dragon pump for 60, 20 to Claydol, then next turn Psychic Restore with a PlusPower to the bottom to avoid the Fainting Spell flip every time, eventually killing his Claydol and winning. He actually had only 1 prize left for the last 4 or so turns of the game while i was mounting a comeback. I had a G'd Claydol and a Kingdra ONLY in play and trainers kept out of my hand so he couldn't do anything really. The first few turns of the game were very tough, Gengar is amazing disruptive early game, as you have said yoshi, but it's not hard to comeback if you play smart.