For some people, probably. But right now, having to test against a bunch of different decks and not being able to fit the tools to beat all of those decks is boring for me. I'm sure some people would get bored of a smaller format, for sure. I wouldn't, though.
Is it the format that's stale - or the players?
- Thread starter Kayle
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For some people, probably. But right now, having to test against a bunch of different decks and not being able to fit the tools to beat all of those decks is boring for me. I'm sure some people would get bored of a smaller format, for sure. I wouldn't, though.
100% not trolling at all. My honest opinion.
Kayle
Active Member
I understand your reasoning, Kenny, and it's perfectly sound. You tend to choose one deck and just stick to it, don't you? Haven't you played Luxchomp for virtually every event as long as I've known you? ;P
From that perspective it makes a lot of sense, but honestly I got tired of Luxchomp. The only really engaging games were mirror matches, which have turned out to be less engaging and more of a huge migraine waiting to happen. I enjoyed going into matchups I DIDN'T know. Remember the day I slaughtered 3 Machamp decks in BRs this year? Second to last round was T-Tar... I have never played against TTar in my life, so that match was super intense because I had to think on my feet and figure out what the best tactical plays were. And in the end I was able to do so enough to pull out a win. But it was probably one of the most difficult games I've managed to win for a while, if not ever.
That game was much more fun than any others I played that day (spraying uxies and getting good luck vs Champs, shutting down a rogueish stage 2, and getting demolished by Michael were not as fun, though Giant Tail for the prize in top 4 was pretty good), and I attribute that directly to my realizing that I needed to actually work for the win.
An entire format based on that concept sounds like a lot of fun to me, but different strokes for different folks.
From that perspective it makes a lot of sense, but honestly I got tired of Luxchomp. The only really engaging games were mirror matches, which have turned out to be less engaging and more of a huge migraine waiting to happen. I enjoyed going into matchups I DIDN'T know. Remember the day I slaughtered 3 Machamp decks in BRs this year? Second to last round was T-Tar... I have never played against TTar in my life, so that match was super intense because I had to think on my feet and figure out what the best tactical plays were. And in the end I was able to do so enough to pull out a win. But it was probably one of the most difficult games I've managed to win for a while, if not ever.
That game was much more fun than any others I played that day (spraying uxies and getting good luck vs Champs, shutting down a rogueish stage 2, and getting demolished by Michael were not as fun, though Giant Tail for the prize in top 4 was pretty good), and I attribute that directly to my realizing that I needed to actually work for the win.
An entire format based on that concept sounds like a lot of fun to me, but different strokes for different folks.
Shino Bug Master
Front Page News Editor
I don't think it's even the fomrat being stale, as it is the lack of playable cardpool. We may have a lot of sets at our disposle, but how many things have been added to the format that actually do something special? Magnezone Prime, Vileplume, Gengar Prime and Scizor Primere all have their niche's that are supportable in this format. What else introduced past AR holds that interesting of stats going along with it? Steelix is just a tank, Jumpluff is just Beedrill's big brother, Torterra has nice built in healing but can't function anymore, ERL is nice but only usable as a tech, Gatr Prime is too bulky for his own good and just a bad Blastoise, and likely a bad water Emboar. We haven't actually had enough new mechanics to work with (Lost Zone has proved pretty fail), and the few we have gotten aren't meant to deal with Dialga and/or the fierce speed of LuxChomp.
Obviously some people have gone a long way with rogue decks, and some players take that as a mark of "oh well then maybe its viable if people didn't play LuxChomp so much". In this day and age in the game, it just means they didn't get donked out of Top. At least an opponent had supporter droguht, at least one had energy drought, at least one missed a crucial FS flip. Knowing that the game is going to be a complete luckfest, what's your motivation to get away from a deck with a dedicated Support system made up of high Hp basics(Sablock, LuxCHomp, DChomp), or something made to polarly prevent there use (Machamp, Vilegar)?
Obviously some people have gone a long way with rogue decks, and some players take that as a mark of "oh well then maybe its viable if people didn't play LuxChomp so much". In this day and age in the game, it just means they didn't get donked out of Top. At least an opponent had supporter droguht, at least one had energy drought, at least one missed a crucial FS flip. Knowing that the game is going to be a complete luckfest, what's your motivation to get away from a deck with a dedicated Support system made up of high Hp basics(Sablock, LuxCHomp, DChomp), or something made to polarly prevent there use (Machamp, Vilegar)?
JWittz
New Member
Top 4s:
55 Luxchomp
19 Vilegar (1 w/ Dusknoir)
18 Gyarados
17 Dialgachomp
16 Sablock
11 Machamp
7 Lostgar
6 Magnezone/ Regirock
Why are you not including Vilegar in your "Top 4" to make it a "Top 5"? In all other tournaments it has consistently won and topped more than Sablock and Dialgachomp.
55 Luxchomp
19 Vilegar (1 w/ Dusknoir)
18 Gyarados
17 Dialgachomp
16 Sablock
11 Machamp
7 Lostgar
6 Magnezone/ Regirock
Why are you not including Vilegar in your "Top 4" to make it a "Top 5"? In all other tournaments it has consistently won and topped more than Sablock and Dialgachomp.
Naki Feralkin
New Member
When you look at it from another angle, however. His logic is very sound. Taking Plox for example (Gardevoir/Gallade for those who don't understand the lingo), we all are well aware as to how solid and how powerful the deck was. It was 07-08's Luxchomp. However it was an undisputed deck and people KNEW it was the best deck in format. Yes, it did win Nationals that year. Yes it was a mirror match between Gino and Drew. However, if you actually look at the metagame for that tournament, it was EXTREMELY healthy. A lot of decks came out of the woodwork for this tournament, including Banette/Blissey (Never really seen before this tournament), Torterra (Totally rogue choice by Mr. Colin Moll), Empoleon/Bronzong (Came out of the woodwork at Battle Roads Prior), and Leafeon/Magmortar (Magmortar was the other Tier 1 deck that could contend with Plox), That was an extremely healthy metagame, and probably the last healthy metagame before that abomination known as Luxray GL Level X came out.
Would it get ridiculously stale for one solid deck to be on top of the format? Maybe. However this would be the format in which it would inspire people to beat that deck. I may not have liked witnessing Gardevoir/Gallade's complete domination over the 07-08 season. But at the same time, I look at Gardevoir/Gallade now and I really wish for a deck to be like that once more. Luxray GL Level X has been a dominating card for not one season, like Plox, but three seasons now. (The later half of 08-09, ALL of 09-10, and pretty much all of 10-11),
If you were to look at other card games, there has never been a solitary deck that has dominated the format so soundly for so long. I know Magic scared some people with Affinity, but the rotations with them come early enough so that one deck would not dominate the format for 3 seasons. It might make it to two with Magic, but Wizards is exceptional in finding other decks that can usually contend with the previous demons they create. Pokemon's issue lies in this format. Should it have been MD-on last year? I disagree. Uxie should have been gone a long time ago. Honestly, I think SP's should have gone too, but thats a pretty big rotation.
We as the players are only as stale as the metagame makes us out to be. Some of us really do want a new format with different decks and a slowed down metagame where you are forced to think your way through every game, not rely on losing to overpowered control aspects.
SLOW DECK
New Member
If you don't see that Luxchomp and DialgaChompa and Sablelock are the same deck, you are BLIND to the problem.
88 SP Variants
26 Vileplum-Gengar-Lost Zone variants.
18 Gyrados
11 Machamp
6 Magnezone
Since the end of the SP set of SV, we have had 6 releases of cards. All worthless other than a few cards.
Arceus
HGHS
HGHS Undaunted
HGHS Unleashed
HGHS Triumph
HGHS Call of Legends
The only thing of signficance in the sets was the "re-release" of DCE, Spiritomb, Collector.
vaporeon
Moderator
Do you guys remember back when we had decks like Rock Lock, Zap-Turn-Dos, ZRE, Dragtrode etc. I like those days because there were so many decks that could be played. Rock Lock was feared if you played Stage 2 but Zapdos ex was around so it was a matchup you did not have to worry about much.
I liked it because deck could just be played with little or no techs at all and the only ones you had to tech against were the deck that really hurt your matchup, now its Vileplume. Vileplume is in like every non SP deck. Its really boring and fells like your playing on 40 percent of a game. I'm ready to see some other decks shine.This format and maybe the next one will be bad for rogue players, which kill it for new players.
What really makes it bad are this formats new players because all they know how to play is SP and lock deck.
I liked it because deck could just be played with little or no techs at all and the only ones you had to tech against were the deck that really hurt your matchup, now its Vileplume. Vileplume is in like every non SP deck. Its really boring and fells like your playing on 40 percent of a game. I'm ready to see some other decks shine.This format and maybe the next one will be bad for rogue players, which kill it for new players.
What really makes it bad are this formats new players because all they know how to play is SP and lock deck.
Kayle
Active Member
A justified question. Vilegar is a pretty solid deck and I knew it would be early on, even though I wasn't quite sure how to make it work myself.
The reason I didn't include it is because it's a different classification of deck than the other Big 4. The Big 4 focus on shutting down the opponent and preventing the real game from ever happening - driving everything else into the dirt with ridiculous speed.
Vilegar is a more casual, tactical deck that takes its time to set up. Not that it CAN'T be fast (it obviously can be), but that's not the strategy it thrives on. It's just a feature that makes it highly viable in this format - it could take some hits to its consistency (losing Uxie and Spiritomb) but still manage to be a very successful deck in a more "well-rounded" format, like the one people keep saying we need.
tl;dr, my point is that people are neglecting less "cheap" decks like Vilegar and that's why I didn't include it with the Big 4.
Of course its the players being stale. I am a firm believer in looking at the Metagame and analyzing it. Then, making a deck that isn't...T1, per se, but is a hard counter to T1 decks with reasonable matchups across the board....which is what landed me at Steelix this season. Steelix destroys Luxchomp and has very good matchups across the board. There is NO doubt in my mind that if Steelix had 10% of every field, it would probably sweep just about every tournament. What makes this SO stale, is the players choice. Everyone chooses to play Luxchomp because it is "BDIF." Really? It is overwhelmingly the most played deck in the format, but no where near the winningest deck when you start calculating percentages. That is interesting to me....the overwhelming majority of players choose to play a deck that, while having good matchups and giving a reasonable chance to win, doesn't really dominate. And, the heck of it is, half of the people that play it, don't even play it well...that's why you find Luxchomp players on the bottom half of the tables. Even worse, its not just Luxchomp, its SP in general. The extremely high SP meta drives up crap decks like Machamp into top tables. Heck yeah the format is stale. And, its stale because players are too lazy to analyze the meta...thus, it is stale because the players make it stale.
As for what Kenny was saying, I totally disagree. I've dropped a lot of matches this year due to not testing that specific matchup, but looking back, they all should have been played somewhat the same. Either way, my deck has a fairly reasonable chance of beating any deck, save Charizard. I had a Steelix player the other day tell me how he rolled 2-2 Blaze X line with ease....its not hard, just get creative. This goes back to being stale. You are stuck in the same deck building box you've been in for 2 years, you approach building your deck the same every time. Go look at the front page, its pretty evident that people that are going outside the box are coming up with different decks and doing well. The scenario you (Kenny) brings up just goes to show how stale our format REALLY is.
As for what Kenny was saying, I totally disagree. I've dropped a lot of matches this year due to not testing that specific matchup, but looking back, they all should have been played somewhat the same. Either way, my deck has a fairly reasonable chance of beating any deck, save Charizard. I had a Steelix player the other day tell me how he rolled 2-2 Blaze X line with ease....its not hard, just get creative. This goes back to being stale. You are stuck in the same deck building box you've been in for 2 years, you approach building your deck the same every time. Go look at the front page, its pretty evident that people that are going outside the box are coming up with different decks and doing well. The scenario you (Kenny) brings up just goes to show how stale our format REALLY is.
Scipio
New Member
Something I'd like to note...we had a full season before that, the DP-LA/SF/PT/RR format, and I had FUN that year. Particulary during DP-SF (except when I ran into Macheap). DP-SF, we had Dusknoir, Gengar, Kingdra...IIRC those 3 divided most CC's. Then there was the extremely unexpected Regigigas, and we also had Magnezone, Tyranitar, AMU and a few other decks. A lot of different tricks being played there.
On that note, Magnezone vs Dusknoir in that meta was probably one of the most fun matchups I've ever played.
Naki Feralkin
New Member
^ It was quite healthy up until RR's release in which we saw the beginning of everything involving Luxray, though Dialga/Palkia was significantly less boring.
DP-SF was incredibly fun. Abomasnow anyone?
DP-SF was incredibly fun. Abomasnow anyone?
StormFront
New Member
Not quite true. It's likely that it won't win proportionally at to how much its played, because good players who don't play Luxchomp will be playing decks that have at least a 50/50 matchup or better against it.
I honestly remember having this same kind of discussion just before Neo Genesis came out with some friends at league. We wanted to play to have fun, but there was also that group of players that were still playing Haymaker from Base Set because it was the BDIF and they knew they could win with it every time.
There will always be players who only play BDIF because it wins. It wins for a reason. That reason may be cheap and unfair for anyone that tries to come up with something new, but it's just the way the card game is. I wish it wasn't. But you have to remember that eventually the tides will change.
So to answer the thread question, "Is it the format that's stale or the players?" I have to say that it's a little of both. There are players out there who are willing to try new decks (decks like Steelix and Vilegar), and that's great. But there are always going to be those players who go out, buy/borrow the deck that wins the most and steamroll over everyone else. It makes me sad sometimes, but the only person I have the ability to change is myself, so instead of focusing on how cheap those decks are, or even building one myself, I'm going to play what I like to play, what I have fun playing and know that I'm not going to topcut at an event. For me, it's the journey, not the destination.
There will always be players who only play BDIF because it wins. It wins for a reason. That reason may be cheap and unfair for anyone that tries to come up with something new, but it's just the way the card game is. I wish it wasn't. But you have to remember that eventually the tides will change.
So to answer the thread question, "Is it the format that's stale or the players?" I have to say that it's a little of both. There are players out there who are willing to try new decks (decks like Steelix and Vilegar), and that's great. But there are always going to be those players who go out, buy/borrow the deck that wins the most and steamroll over everyone else. It makes me sad sometimes, but the only person I have the ability to change is myself, so instead of focusing on how cheap those decks are, or even building one myself, I'm going to play what I like to play, what I have fun playing and know that I'm not going to topcut at an event. For me, it's the journey, not the destination.
Rofl. Same engine? Yes. Same deck? No.
Cyrus
Iron Chef - Master Emeritus
You make a solid point, and I'm inclined to use your methodology, but I think in the end it's just mincing details - you guys are getting the point across pretty well regardless.
Anyways...To address this notion of Kayle's saying that the "players" are stale in and of themselves, with no help from the format...Please consider this:
We've been given a format where you can draw your whole deck in a single turn (Rob knows the heavy cons of this better than anyone). Chances are, something about that is...Stale!
We've been given a format where some of the game's most broken effects are given to the same deck, and can almost never be utilized by other decks.
We've been given a format with a reprint of DCE, one of the best cards in the game's history. If PCL did NOT reprint this card, then I assure you that our international (non-Japanese) metagame would be MUCH healthier. The fact of the matter is that if this format were exactly the same as it is now, with the sole difference being no DCE, Machamp would savage it.
We've been given a format that's spammed with power creep through the roof. Power creep isn't our fault - it's PCL's.
And last of all, we've been given a format running fifteen basics, 4 Call Energy, and 12 Supporters is oftentimes not enough to prevent single,double, triple, or quadruple donks.
I'm sorry Kayle, but there's no way I can agree with you here. As long as the incentive to win is there, and as long as power creep exists, people with the incentive to win will follow the power creep (or the cutting edge secret deck to beat it).
Porii Sames
Active Member
Sablock actually DOES have higher winning percentages as far as decks played goes than Luxchomp...just sayin'...
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