Donking, and why it is suddenly a big concern for the community

[Amt]

I got donked yesterday by Machamp. Not a fun feeling.

 

[Scipio]

I saw a league game last week that is a PERFECT example of how stupid SP is.

Player A was playing an Omastar deck for fun. He had a pretty good setup actually, getting 4 fossils in the discard and 2 energy under his Omastar, having an Omanyte in his backfield as well. The SP player pulled 3 Crobats (well, 2 and a turn) and Dragon Rushed the Omastar. Omastar retaliated for 80 damage. Retreat Chomp, Turn the Bat, Flash bite KO, DRush Omanyte and voila, no more options for return. Spray on Uxie doesn't help either.

That is all SP does. Make fun builds impossible to run simply due to their sick options.

Just had to throw that out there.

 

[DonphanAtoZ]

no, SP distances good players from bad ones.

 

[Scipio]

No, bad players with SP can beat good players who try something new by virtue of how broken most of the cards (Garchomp in particular) are.
Therefore SP makes interesting builds completely unviable.
In the mirror, yes, SP distances good from bad.

 

[Porii Sames]

^Anyone can play any deck and get the basic gist of it.

Only great players can play that build perfectly.

 

[Yoshi-]

Yeah, the bad ones who get lucky enough will be higher placed then the good ons trying to find counters but getting bad opening hands.

Seriously, if MACHAMP!!! cant beat SP constantly, how much more of a sign that sp is overpowered do we need?

I agree that, IF! the game doesnt end t2/3 sp can be somewhat tricky to play and has lot of options. But the most games sp wins are like this:

Opponent goes first, garchomp, calls
I have a meh opening hand, play collector, retreat, evolve with spiritomb
opponent drops cyrus, searches stuff, drop garchomp x dce shoots machoke.
i do stuff evolve again, opponent retreats, luxrays, kills machoke
i promote machamp (if i get one), kill it, he drops uxie x kills it
i scoop

this is basically how most of my testing matches end. And IMO this is the way sp wins most of its games. And honestly, is this that much different from a donk? Is this an interactive game? It feels more like Im setting up targets for SP to shoot down.

Opening hands have always been the most luck dependent factor this game has and I really thin opening hands should matter as little as possible because, and dont kid yourself, you cant do anything about it. YOu can increase consistency but that might not help you. IF you had some time to setup you might make something out of your opening hand but if you play against sp you dont, so a bad hand aka bad luck means instant death, and rush rush bright look spray impact spray is nothing but a 3-turn donk, a los you couldnt do anything about because your opening hand didnt have the resources to do anything. SP can keep you out of the game and doing this is a complete and untter no-brainer. So what matters against sp? Skill? Hardly :/ Opening hands? Yeah .

T16 nationals, I won game 1 and game 2 my opponent t2s my bronzong 4, sprays my dol, kills it next turn and then kills a turtwig to "win". Why did I loose? Because my opening hand was meh and I wouldve needed some time to setup and make something happen, did I loose because I played badly? Did my opponent win because he played good? Yeah.

And then we played a 3rd game and I got t2 2 claydol 2 flygon nidoqueen and bronzong 4. I can still hear him complaining. Did I get lucky? Definitly. Was the game over at that point? Pretty much. Why did he loose? Because he couldnt block my setup. Could a deck that has a strategy besides "gather cheap prices and prevent your opponents setup" won that game? Why not, its not like I coul prevent him from playing, I was just a step ahead.


I just HATE it if I dont get to play because with my opening hand their is no way to do anything. I wnt to show my skills, I want to interact. But against sp its not "will I be able to outplay my opponent" but "will my opening hand allow me to play". T2 Snipe spray (which isnt hard to get) and a bad opening hand means an instant loss without doing anythng. How is that any different from a donk? How is that a game at all?

Im not saying sp dosnt take skll, in close games its definitly a deck thats hard to play, but its main strategy is as brain dead as it gets and there is nothing you can do about it, spray uxie, snipe pokemon with energy, drag off main pokemon, gg. This isnt skilled, this isnt a game, this is opening hands, this is ygo.

^Anyone can play any deck and get the basic gist of it.

Only great players can play that build perfectly.

Bad players will still beat good players if their opening hands are good enough, if you dont have any options bcause sp shuts them off there is no game and no skill to be shown. SP makes bad players win.

 

[poinko]

I saw a league game last week that is a PERFECT example of how stupid SP is.

Player A was playing an Omastar deck for fun. He had a pretty good setup actually, getting 4 fossils in the discard and 2 energy under his Omastar, having an Omanyte in his backfield as well. The SP player pulled 3 Crobats (well, 2 and a turn) and Dragon Rushed the Omastar. Omastar retaliated for 80 damage. Retreat Chomp, Turn the Bat, Flash bite KO, DRush Omanyte and voila, no more options for return. Spray on Uxie doesn't help either.

That is all SP does. Make fun builds impossible to run simply due to their sick options.

Just had to throw that out there.

That's just how Pokemon is played, for better or for worse. There are always going to be decks that have incredibly interesting strategies; the problem is that they usually take a couple of turns to get revved up and going. These are the decks that will never be tournament-viable and will be continually crushed by decks like SP, because the majority of people will gravitate towards the decks that hit hard, hit fast, cost the least and are able to stop the opponent from retaliating.

This was true at the inception of the game, and it's true today. If you want to play fun decks with deeper strategies, you're going to be stuck playing casually at league and not in tournaments. I have a deck built around Platinum Ludicolo that's able to set up pretty well, and it's really fun to play; but if I take it into a tournament (and I have), it's going to get swept away because the decks that everyone else runs are too fast.

Omastar is a good card, and it's awesome that people are taking these cards and building fun decks with them; but unless Omastar can be played directly from the deck, does 60 damage for :colorless::colorless: and stops your opponent from playing Trainer cards, you're not gonna see it in a tournament.

 

[Yoshi-]

That's just how Pokemon is played, for better or for worse. There are always going to be decks that have incredibly interesting strategies; the problem is that they usually take a couple of turns to get revved up and going. These are the decks that will never be tournament-viable and will be continually crushed by decks like SP, because the majority of people will gravitate towards the decks that hit hard, hit fast, cost the least and are able to stop the opponent from retaliating.

This was true at the inception of the game, and it's true today. If you want to play fun decks with deeper strategies, you're going to be stuck playing casually at league and not in tournaments. I have a deck built around Platinum Ludicolo that's able to set up pretty well, and it's really fun to play; but if I take it into a tournament (and I have), it's going to get swept away because the decks that everyone else runs are too fast.

Omastar is a good card, and it's awesome that people are taking these cards and building fun decks with them; but unless Omastar can be played directly from the deck, does 60 damage for :colorless::colorless: and stops your opponent from playing Trainer cards, you're not gonna see it in a tournament.

And this is the exact problem, IMO you shouldt be able to prevent your opponent from playing. If a strategy is slow a player might have to sac 2 prices but then he probably has a better setup and it becomes a battle of using the better setup to make up for the prices. But if decks prevent you from playing, not because your deck is inconsistent but because you just got locked and didnt topdeck?

An opening hand and topdeck reliant game is a bad game because winners get decided on factors that players cant do anything about . The faster a game gets the more do opening hands / topdeck focused it becomes. A deck cant become much faster then sp.

I dare anyone to proof me wrong on this.

And, just in case you didnt know, just because the game we play right now is played like this doesnt mean it always was like this. I didnt play during the base set days but from what ive read (ive read a worlds report from ness somewhere) it sounds like a terrible mess tbh.
But did you play during the delta days? You had some time to setup, if you had a bad opening hand you could draw tons of cards with castform/stevens advice and even if your opponent was faster you could still fight back. Dead hands where rare because there were enough setup cards and no overpowered disruption. You had cards that COMBOED and combo meant "pokemon that support each other" and not "pokemon that are good and can be stuffed into the same deck", you could play tons of techs because they wouldnt get in the way, you could cmbine different decks, different lines, lines often had multiple options so you could e.g. tech 1 metagros delta i your metagross dx deck, you could basically fit pokemons that you thought might have some strategy into your deck and could make it run, somehow. Anf then it came down to who had the better strategy. This is the game I started playing back then, this is the prime of pokemon, right now were like in the dark age of pokemon.

 

[poinko]

And, just in case you didnt know, just because the game we play right now is played like this doesnt mean it always was like this. I didnt play during the base set days but from what ive read (ive read a worlds report from ness somewhere) it sounds like a terrible mess tbh.
But did you play during the delta days? You had some time to setup, if you had a bad opening hand you could draw tons of cards with castform/stevens advice and even if your opponent was faster you could still fight back. Dead hands where rare because there were enough setup cards and no overpowered disruption. You had cards that COMBOED and combo meant "pokemon that support each other" and not "pokemon that are good and can be stuffed into the same deck", you could play tons of techs because they wouldnt get in the way, you could cmbine different decks, different lines, lines often had multiple options so you could e.g. tech 1 metagros delta i your metagross dx deck, you could basically fit pokemons that you thought might have some strategy into your deck and could make it run, somehow. Anf then it came down to who had the better strategy. This is the game I started playing back then, this is the prime of pokemon, right now were like in the dark age of pokemon.

I didn't play during the Delta series run, but I did play during the early days of Pokemon; before cards and sets were rotated on a regular basis. The playing field that we have right now is a renaissance compared to that period. Today we have Machamp, SP, Gyarados, Gengar/Vileplume, UxieDonk, that's 5 different, tournament-viable decks just off the top of my head. In the early days? You faced either Haymaker or RainDance. So basically, it was which Haymaker variation are you facing? Are they playing Wigglytuff or Sneasel? Both? Are they using Chansey? Magmar?

When WotC finally were able to rotate sets, the Haymaker tapered off and other decks got to see play, like Tyranitar, Feraligatr and Typhlosion. Stage 2 decks got to see play, but every one of those decks would run Pokemon Breeder Fields or any other cards that would get the big hitter of the deck out faster. That's the way it's always going to be with Pokemon though. SP Pokemon is a bit of a throwback to it, with your Garchomp Cs and your Blaziken FBses. The only real difference is that now, Pokemon cards have taken the place of Trainers. Crobat G instead of Plus Power. Luxray instead of Gust of Wind. Garchomp X instead of Pokemon Center. Uxie instead of Professor Elm.

When the Platinum series is rotated, the playing field will slow down a bit and we'll see more decks come up that have been played with for a while but were unplayable because of SP. But like every other era of the game, there's going to be another fiercely dominant archetype like Haymaker and SP; that's just the way the card game works.

 

[Yoshi-]

But every other archtype doesnt ignore every basic rule of the game, every other archtype will loose to a deck thats designed to counter it, every other archtype wont nessesary win/loose depending on opening hands.

Sp ignores the entire rulebook and its so fast that its hardly counterable and only if you get lucky. Machamp doesnt beat SP. If this doesnt show how overpowered sp is I dont know anything anymore. You can counter strategies, you cant counter "you dont get to play", you cant counter speed.

 

[SLOW DECK]

Why do many good players NOT play SP, because ... playing SP is TOO EASY. Nuff Said. SP in the hands of a good player is obviously stupid over powered. It's the best deck type without.

Why don't you folks try to play SP, with Cyrus, Spray, Turn, and Gain?

 

[Porii Sames]

^Um, we do.

SP is VERY hard to master. If you THINK you have it, trust me, you don't. It is riducolously hard, especially Sablock, Sabletech, and SP Toolbox.

 

[poinko]

While I think SP does take a certain amount of... finesse to play, you don't need to be a seasoned expert or even a middle-of-the-road player to be able to win with SP. It takes some seasoning to know what to do during a specific situation during a game, you can't just give a new player an SP deck and they'll come out on top in a tournament. It just won't happen. But SP decks are extremely straightforward in what they do, a lot moreso than your standard Gengar or Machamp, in addition to all the options afforded to the player because of the Trainers and Powers granted to SP Pokemon.

That was PCL's mistake; making all of the "owned" SP Pokemon interchangeable. You have five different types of SP Pokemon: GL, FB, 4, C and G. However, since they are all SP Pokemon, there's not much point in giving them a secondary designation. All of Team Galactic's Inventions work on Pokemon that aren't designated as G Pokemon. Imagine if Poke-Turn only worked on G Pokemon, or if Cynthia's Feelings only allowed you to draw extra cards if a C Pokemon was knocked out. Most SP decks play heavily with Galactic Invention trainers, so imagine if Luxray, Infernape, Blaziken and Garchomp weren't part of the equation. Sure, you would still have Dialga G, Absol G, maybe Skuntank G and others, but not anywhere near the ferocity that we have already.

SP does kind of hinder the variety of decks that could see play, but Pokemon has been through worse, and SP will get rotated out for new things.

 

[Porii Sames]

OK, here;s my thought. SP Can, as said before, win without too much experience. I've played Luxchomp, I know. HOWEVER, if you want to win bigger events like States and up...you need skill to play SP. Serious skill.

I'll prove it to you. Find a good SP player; not necessarily an amazing player, but a good one. Now get the same SP deck he/she is playing and play it against them. Each time you realise you make a mistake (I should have Cyrused for a Poke Turn, I shouldn't have dropped PONT, I shouldn't have Azelfed so late), make a mark. EVERY time you could have done something better, make a mark. At the end of the game, count up your marks. Those are misplays.

There's no way I'd ever be able to play perfectly in a Sablock ditto because of how hard it is.

 

[Jaeger]

Why do many good players NOT play SP, because ... playing SP is TOO EASY. Nuff Said. SP in the hands of a good player is obviously stupid over powered. It's the best deck type without.

Why don't you folks try to play SP, with Cyrus, Spray, Turn, and Gain?

Really Rob? SP offer opitions, more opitions=should equal more skill shouldn't it? I'm honestly looking for your opinion on this one.

While I think SP does take a certain amount of... finesse to play, you don't need to be a seasoned expert or even a middle-of-the-road player to be able to win with SP. It takes some seasoning to know what to do during a specific situation during a game, you can't just give a new player an SP deck and they'll come out on top in a tournament. It just won't happen. But SP decks are extremely straightforward in what they do, a lot moreso than your standard Gengar or Machamp, in addition to all the options afforded to the player because of the Trainers and Powers granted to SP Pokemon.

The same could be said about any deck. How hard is it to say take out or Polterguiest. SP offers plenty of opitions far more so than i would say a Machamp deck would offer. Playing SP mirror is incredibly skill orenitied I mean granted there is some sakeing in it but it happens in all match ups.

OK, here;s my thought. SP Can, as said before, win without too much experience. I've played Luxchomp, I know. HOWEVER, if you want to win bigger events like States and up...you need skill to play SP. Serious skill.

I'll prove it to you. Find a good SP player; not necessarily an amazing player, but a good one. Now get the same SP deck he/she is playing and play it against them. Each time you realise you make a mistake (I should have Cyrused for a Poke Turn, I shouldn't have dropped PONT, I shouldn't have Azelfed so late), make a mark. EVERY time you could have done something better, make a mark. At the end of the game, count up your marks. Those are misplays.

There's no way I'd ever be able to play perfectly in a Sablock ditto because of how hard it is.

So the deck takes no skill to win with but takes large amounts of experience to play well? You can't a hard to play SP deck like Sablock or Dialgachomp and expect to win a high percentage of games against skilled SP Players.

 

[Porii Sames]

^Yes. It is relatively easy to learn, difficult to master. Kinda like Fox in Smash Bros. I know you can't...that's my point...

 

[Jaeger]

^Yes. It is relatively easy to learn, difficult to master. Kinda like Fox in Smash Bros. I know you can't...that's my point...

What? I swear sometimes you post just for the sake of posting. Relatively easy to learn? If your playing it bad you probably haven't learned it.

 

[Porii Sames]

No...

If someone picks up an SP deck like Luxchomp, plays it a bit against something favorable (say, Mother Gengar), then they have "learned" the deck but not "mastered" it. Anyone can Bright Look stuff, and Rush the rest, but it takes mastery to predict ahead of your opponent and always be one step ahead of them.

Easy to learn, hard to master.

 

[Jaeger]

Porii Sames:

Join Date: 09/23/2010
# Total Posts: 1,600
# Posts Per Day: 16.44

What is that little over 3 months, 1600 posts, Wow thats like 500 posts a month. You better hope they don't make Pokegym like texting where you get 250 free posts a month but if you want to post more than that you would have to upgrade your plan or get slammed with overages. They would make a fortune. I wish Pokegym had a way I could see how many times you used the word "beedrill" in one of your posts. Do you intentional try and run up your post, like you pretty much have to be with that many posts.

My issues not with how much your post persay but more with the fact I feel your posts either are: about pointless topics such as public displays of affection (remember parents Pokegym is not supposed to raise your kids, get involved, be active, Pokegym cares...), Trolling just for the purpose of trolling, I understand bring up opposing view points but starting arguements just for the sense of starting arguments is down right stupid and childish. or lastly you post about topic you have almost no experience with, which is pretty much what I'm taking this as. You have almost no experience playing SP, let alone well. So telling other players they don't know how to play seems well like your posting about a topic your not very experienced with.

 

[Porii Sames]

I am a bored teenager with a lot of free time.

They have an RTC here for a reason...Random Topics. I post random topics there. A lot of people do.

I never start arguements for the sake of arguing. I try not to argue normally, it's just everyone seems to disagree with me.

I have experience playing SP, just not Palkia Lock. I stated I hadn't built the deck at least 3 times in that thread, and told him not to take my word on the topic. BM was talking about Palkiaplume, which he hasn't played, but I have. He has apparently played Palkia Lock, but I haven't.