Is a side board viable now

[camerongira]

is a 10 or 5 card viable now with the new match implications for the tournament structure i feel so. You can help your better matchups with adding in a few or taking a few cards out.

 

[EricDent]

Never gonna happen.
It didn't happen when Wizards of the Coast owned the game, so it won't happen now.

If it did happen you would see even more lopsided wins.
Since once you know what deck your opponent is using, you could just swap out for the cards that would shut down his/her deck.
If your opponent is not prepared for your deck by doing the same thing, then you trounce him/her.
Thus you have to sit around & wait until the next round begins (if you go 2-0).

This is exactly what happened with those decks that were designed to win on the first turn.
AKA Donk decks (near the end of Platinum).

 

[vaporeon]

^ to be fair, this is the first time we are having best of 3 in swiss to my knowledge. IF PCL designs their cards with balance in mind, a 15 card sideboard will be great. Dont forget both players will have them and can swap out cards between rounds. If you opponent chooses not to side in and out cards against you, then its their fault. The way the game is now, we need side decks. Decks are way too powerful now because of the space we have in our decks to run techs.

I for one would like to keep my tool scrappers and a few Pokemon to get around safeguard side decked.

 

[ajhawk]

Nope.

Just 5 cards so drastically changes a single deck in this game that is would be unfair. Darkrai/Garbodor could easily change into straight Darkrai when your opponent doesn't have any abilities.

Virizion/Genesect could play ultra consistent and then tech in a whole Drifblim line when it was against Plasma.

Several structural portions of the TCG make side-decks a bad idea:
-weakness (even if they move back to a + system)
-evolution lines (other games generally are not reliant on things like this)
-the active slot and retreat costs (in MtG and Yugioh any thing on the field can attack/defend)
-specific targets cards (could you imagine how different nats 2013 would have been if people could have teched in 3 audino, or if any deck could tech in enhanced hammers against plasma)

It would have to be like a 2-3 card side board, but then the effects would be negligible.

 

[vaporeon]

Its clear Pokemon players dont see side decks the way they are suppose to. The purpose of side decks are to help against bad matchups or improve one. Side decks can change a deck and its up to your opponent to learn how to deal with it. Its what makes games more competitive. Any card side deck less then 10 to 15 would be bad for Pokemon. If you are scared of drifblim, dont play heavy plasma. If you are scare of audino wrecking your game, dont play heavy status cards and if you are scared of E Hammer, dont play heavy special energy.

I would like the option of siding in Articuno Zapdos and Moltres into my deck over the EX ones if I'm playing a safeguard deck or a deck that can stop EX attackers. Perhaps I need 4 tool scrapers for my deck against Garbodor or some tool. Perhaps I side my own cards to deal with plasma and such. To me it sounds like you dont want side decks.

This is the purpose of side deck.

 

[camerongira]

Exactly i feel like a 10 card sideboard makes the game better the only reason that people dont like it is becasue they have not had it before.

 

[espeon200]

I think that side decks are always one of those things that players will disagree about no matter how tournament structures change. On one hand, side decks do create a richer play environment for great deck builders. On the other hand, proficient players who play a certain deck that a friend helped them build (or a netdeck, but I ask that we don't sidetrack this discussion with that topic) have a disadvantage. Now the disadvantage can be overcome with practice, but it makes straight play testing more difficult since now you have to test against more decks with more options.

Surprise wins games in Pokémon. Look at The Truth, which Ross played to a second place finish at Worlds in 2012. No one had seen that deck before, and no one knew how to play against it. Would Ross have still gotten second if he were playing a more mainstream deck? Honestly I don't know. He very well might have, but there's no way to know for sure. So from this perspective, adding a side deck makes the game more rich and complex. It fosters a greater sense of yomi.

But one major argument against it is that if the card game is supposed to be a simulation of the video game (another thread in and of itself), then having a side deck is counter to the way battles are handled there in a tournament setting. You can't switch out the moves your Pokémon know in the middle of a tournament in order to better tech against what your opponent is playing. And while you have a choice between the six Pokémon you bring into the tournament, you can't pick a seventh Pokémon if your opponent fields something you didn't expect. In the same way, you build your deck based on what you believe others are playing and accept losses that may come your way because you misjudged the tournament.

In the end, it all comes down to what Japan does. If The Pokémon Company finally decides to implement side decks, we'll see side decks. But until then we won't see them.

 

[ajhawk]

Its clear Pokemon players dont see side decks the way they are suppose to. The purpose of side decks are to help against bad matchups or improve one. Side decks can change a deck and its up to your opponent to learn how to deal with it. Its what makes games more competitive. Any card side deck less then 10 to 15 would be bad for Pokemon. If you are scared of drifblim, dont play heavy plasma. If you are scare of audino wrecking your game, dont play heavy status cards and if you are scared of E Hammer, dont play heavy special energy.

I would like the option of siding in Articuno Zapdos and Moltres into my deck over the EX ones if I'm playing a safeguard deck or a deck that can stop EX attackers. Perhaps I need 4 tool scrapers for my deck against Garbodor or some tool. Perhaps I side my own cards to deal with plasma and such. To me it sounds like you dont want side decks.

This is the purpose of side deck.

I have played plenty of other games with side decks. I perfectly understand how they work and what they are supposed to do. I'm saying that Pokemon is a structurally different game from the others that use side decks. Side decks would flat out make some deck unplayable. Recent successful decks that would be completely unplayable are: Garbodor, Quad Sigi, Suicune, any of the EXP. Share based decks, and GothGor.

With side decks, especially 10-15 card side decks, most people would play a big basic deck. Many decks' Pokemon lines are only 10-15 Pokemon deep. That means you could completely change decks. You could go from Plasma to Virizion/Genesect between games. Or from Blastoise to Dragonite. Most decks share at least 20 cards, meaning that you could change from one deck to another.

Yes, I don't want side decks. I don't want them because they are bad for the game. If you are going to have side decks, they would have to be limited to less than five cards in Pokemon.

 

[vaporeon]

Again, that's the purpose of side decks. Quad decks aren't suppose to work. They do in Pokemon because of poor card design and weird card interactions. Lock decks are not suppose to be the end all of a game. Safeguard decks are suppose to have their surprise factor for that one game, win or lose and then the opponent can side deck against it. ( in my case, I remove Zapdos EX for Zapdos and a few cards for DCE) and against GothGor, I side in my Audino to beat the paralysis and perhaps a 3-3 ninetails over in place of catcher)

Again, with a 15 card side deck, it is up to me as a player to tech against decks that can ruin my deck. I cant side against everything. I will side against decks that I have a shaky matchup against. You as a player have to account for cards that players can side against you.

With side decks, no card will be safe. Quad decks stop working and lock decks get harder to play. Its how the game should be played. You can still play the decks, just dont expect easy auto wins.

 

[SMP88]

Again, that's the purpose of side decks. Quad decks aren't suppose to work. They do in Pokemon because of poor card design and weird card interactions. Lock decks are not suppose to be the end all of a game. Safeguard decks are suppose to have their surprise factor for that one game, win or lose and then the opponent can side deck against it. ( in my case, I remove Zapdos EX for Zapdos and a few cards for DCE) and against GothGor, I side in my Audino to beat the paralysis and perhaps a 3-3 ninetails over in place of catcher)

Again, with a 15 card side deck, it is up to me as a player to tech against decks that can ruin my deck. I cant side against everything. I will side against decks that I have a shaky matchup against. You as a player have to account for cards that players can side against you.

With side decks, no card will be safe. Quad decks stop working and lock decks get harder to play. Its how the game should be played. You can still play the decks, just dont expect easy auto wins.

Take the top 3-4 decks that are played and write out their deck list. Then eliminate the cards that are the same between each other. How many cards are left that aren't energy? 20? Maybe 30? If you have a 10-15 card side deck you can literally change the way the deck works. You don't get to just tech against a deck by adding an additional tool scrapper or something. You can turn plasma into speed virizion/genesect. You can turn Blastoise into a safeguard lock deck. You can switch between whatever Darkrai variant you want.

The only way I can see a side deck being implemented is if it were 2-3 cards. Even then, you can completely stop certain decks from being played. There's no reason to play a deck reliant on tools when I can side deck in 4 scrappers.

 

[vaporeon]

No game can prevent that. Of course for this to really work, PCL will have to design cards with balance in mind and make it work for it does not break the side deck. You cant prevent people from changing their deck. If you opponent sides against a all ex deck with safeguard cards you can either side in Garbodor and a bunch of tools OR Latias EX and lock down the whole deck. Of cource if you want to waste your side deck teching for one deck, then go for it.

We can go back and forth about X can become Y and do this and so on but this is the purpose of a side deck. A smart player will make good side decks.

 

[HoLoN_TrAiNeR]

There are little kids playing this. And to be fair, the side deck mechanic is kinda kid-unfriendly. This is why deck building plays a very big role in this game(making a generalization on all the formats across the years). I took a break from pokemon a couple of years ago and decided to play competitive ygo, the side deck mechanic does actually add more skill to that game, and allows you to pull off mind tricks that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

But, I believe that this would create tons of time issues, and that this is the main reason sideboards will never be introduced...

 

[Raen]

No game can prevent that. Of course for this to really work, PCL will have to design cards with balance in mind and make it work for it does not break the side deck. You cant prevent people from changing their deck. If you opponent sides against a all ex deck with safeguard cards you can either side in Garbodor and a bunch of tools OR Latias EX and lock down the whole deck. Of cource if you want to waste your side deck teching for one deck, then go for it.

We can go back and forth about X can become Y and do this and so on but this is the purpose of a side deck. A smart player will make good side decks.

I tend to disagree with most things you say, vaporeon, but I think you are at least partially right here. You are correct in stating that PCL would have to design the game with sideboards in mind for them to really work.

This, however, will never happen. As such, sideboards are an awful idea.