Is it the format that's stale - or the players?

[prodigal_fanboy]

I found this post to be very insightful.

In light of this it is pretty clear that it's the format. You're saying then, that it's not that there aren't ENOUGH decks, but the QUALITY of the decks is poor?

In which case, reflecting on it, I agree.

It's not that the decks themselves are poor quality, with the notable exception of most Vileplume + Spiritomb setup decks, which typically run without the highly idealized consistency I've become accustomed to, but by shifting the tempo of the opponent's setup as well, can get away with this to a larger degree.

The fact remains that the spirit of the format is, and has been, denial.

Disruption is a very good strategy across TCGs, to my knowledge. However, because Pokemon is so resource-intensive from a card advantage standpoint, the significance of it is amplified.

Look across formats, quick effective disruption has been the norm in most formats (to my albeit limited knowledge).

The issue is now disruption has replaced strategy. You can get trainer-locked from the get-go, have your hand absolutely wrecked, donked with three basics, or find yourself against something you cannot KO, or in the case of Scizor, cannot actually attack (some ill-prepared players).

To my knowledge, the only deck in the format that doesn't rely predominantly on disruption to win in Magnezone/Regirock, and that is the "rogue" that has the hardest time handling the Luxchomp matchup when you're dealing with players competent enough to matter to the top cut metagame.

And that's the issue. SP mirrors can be very skill-intensive, but that's a subset of games played, and ignores all the SP mirrors where a start imbalance handed player A or B the game based on chance and the skill to not blow a lead.

So every game you either face disruption or an insurmountable obstacle, and for those who aren't as dedicated to the game, it can become wearisome.

 

[Yoshi-]

Im shocked seriously. I thought you quit the game and yet you manage to express what I was trying to so often so easily.

Im out of thanks but this post is genius.

 

[vaporeon]

Thats the way I feel. I work on my list for months working the bugs out of it and then lose to something some put together in a few minutes. Thats not right.

---------- Post added 04/09/2011 at 07:16 PM ----------

So what happens when every remotely viable strategy has been discovered? Should there be a limitation on how many people are allowed to play because there can't possibly be more than about 30 decks in any given format that could be considered "viable"? And that's pushing it.

At least here in Florida, that's less than the average turnout of a single tournament. For anything bigger than City Championships, calling repeat decks "cheating" is a completely asinine assertion.

Edit: And in the case where someone DID discover the single best deck (e.g. LuxChomp or Storm or RockLock) does that effectively give them a free pass for the season since anyone copying his deck is "cheating"?

Its just a problem I always had. Someone taking someone elses work and doing well with it. I'm not saying a limit should be kept. There is no way you could track it. I just feel cheated out of a win when I lose to them.

 

[Tagrineth]

Thats the way I feel. I work on my list for months working the bugs out of it and then lose to something some put together in a few minutes. Thats not right.

. . .

Its just a problem I always had. Someone taking someone elses work and doing well with it. I'm not saying a limit should be kept. There is no way you could track it. I just feel cheated out of a win when I lose to them.

So you're saying the only factor to winning should be how much work you put into your deck? Nobody should be allowed to build a good list first or second try?

Never mind the idea that you might also go up against bad type matchups, which will always skew results.

People are far too uptight about the deckbuilding aspect of this game...

 

[LoTad]

@Thread: Luxchomp hasn't been winning for roughly two years now just because of numbers. It is the best deck. It is able to capitalize on every single one of the best cards in the format. It is able to tech for the matchups you think you'll see that aren't Luxchomp with ease. It can win it's autolosses. It can donk going first or second. If Luxchomp's numbers dropped it would probably still win because there is maybe one deck in the format it just can't beat (Scizor).

I've never lost to scizor with luxchomp.....so......idk what you're talking about.

 

[vaporeon]

So you're saying the only factor to winning should be how much work you put into your deck? Nobody should be allowed to build a good list first or second try?

Never mind the idea that you might also go up against bad type matchups, which will always skew results.

People are far too uptight about the deckbuilding aspect of this game...

Hard work is always rewarded and I'm a strong believer in that and it kills it for me when I see net decks everywhere. The best player should win, there is not question about that but when the same decks are winning, what does that say about the player?

I made top 8 with Pidgeot SW and Empoleon MD with Omastar MD, I made the finals with Articuno ex, Zapdos ex, and Moltres ex, an deck people at the gym said would not work. This is my work and I did well with them. I had 3 different version of Chaos Legends. I played this deck since FRLG to the end of the rotation. Sure I had bad match ups and Desert Ruins hurt me a lot, yet I still won.

So, I guess no, the only factor of winning should not be how much work goes into a deck. My decks never worked the first time I used them but I worked months on in working with it. I stay up all night the night of a tournament testing my deck, checking for flaws yet said net decker gets a good night sleep KNOWING he or she will do well or win the tournament. I'm a rogue player and it hurts me greatly knowing that I will have a slight chance of making the top cut or win a tournamet because I get beat out by someone who, does not have good deck building skill but played a list that wins. It also hurts knowing my hard work will not pay off.

I don't play in all tournaments or report the ones I play in but I'd like to see more players play their own list and do well with.

 

[Porii Sames]

^Same as me.

Heck, I won a CC and I think everyone saw what happened on here.

I don't whine about top decks because I can't beat them. I can accept the loss, win by luck/outplaying, or tech against it. I've beaten a LostVileGar in a Tournament before,

In all honesty, you think Morten, Curran, or Cody got their list on the first try? No...but each of them had their own successes, and by not whining about top decks, they got amazingness (New Archetype, 1st and 3rd at States, 1st at States).

 

[chrataxe]

Sounds like somebody loses to Luxchomp a lot.

@Thread: Luxchomp hasn't been winning for roughly two years now just because of numbers. It is the best deck. It is able to capitalize on every single one of the best cards in the format. It is able to tech for the matchups you think you'll see that aren't Luxchomp with ease. It can win it's autolosses. It can donk going first or second. If Luxchomp's numbers dropped it would probably still win because there is maybe one deck in the format it just can't beat (Scizor).

People play to win at competitive tournaments and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Saying people should play inferior decks just to "diversify" the format is absolute nonsense. The format we have right now isn't the best and I'm looking forward to next year but people really whine about Luxchomp (other strong decks, too) so much it's annoying. If you decide to play Eeveelutions at Regionals you have to accept that you probably won't do that well because they just aren't the best cards right now. Say there 2 Luxchomps in a tournament and X amount of bad deck (talking things that are only league worthy here) I'd be willing to bet that one of those Luxchomps would win the whole thing. Moral of the story; there is nothing wrong with playing what you think is the best deck.

I think this here is the epitome of this what this thread is about. Yes, Luxchomp HAS been winning for 2 years based on numbers. Yes, it IS a good deck. But, when there is a deck that is overwhelmingly dominant mostly due to numbers, there is always a HARD counter to it...the problem is coming up with a counter that will fair well against the rest of the meta. In your given situation, Eeveelutions obviously aren't a good counter to the meta. So, implying that is should do well based on numbers is bad...the difference between Eeveelutions and Luxchomp is that Luxchomp is good to begin with. So, when a large percentage of people play a good deck, of course it will do well. When a large percentage of people play a bad deck....well, it will have a better performance than if only a handful of players played it, but of course its not going to win, bad decks are bad, regardless of how many play it, while good decks are good and more people playing it only increase the odds of it winning. I think what the heart of the thread is about is that there ARE other GREAT decks out there, but they aren't being played. And more importantly, we have a HUGE selection of cards to make a great deck out of, yet, everyone keeps going back to the same exact cards.

I'll compile the numbers from States of the next few days, then I'll post them along side the numbers from cities.

---------- Post added 04/11/2011 at 09:11 AM ----------

^Same as me.

Heck, I won a CC and I think everyone saw what happened on here.

I don't whine about top decks because I can't beat them. I can accept the loss, win by luck/outplaying, or tech against it. I've beaten a LostVileGar in a Tournament before,

In all honesty, you think Morten, Curran, or Cody got their list on the first try? No...but each of them had their own successes, and by not whining about top decks, they got amazingness (New Archetype, 1st and 3rd at States, 1st at States).

Lets not act like you've spent a lot of time working on your deck without net decking help. You didn't invent the donk deck. You using the SP engine isn't exactly rogue. You basically run a bad version of Uxie donk. Every "idea" you had is common sense. Using cyclone energy, not your idea. Running Dunsparce in a meta filled with Garchomp, common sense. So, all you've done is take Uxie donk an make it less competitive and you actually have the audacity to sit there an act like you play rogue or that YOU spent a lot of time figuring this out? Lastly, you run a donk deck, lets not act like any of your wins come by you "outplaying" anyone.

 

[Yoshi-]

@ above

I love you <3

@Topic

Im trying to build new stuff all the time, a friend was here over the weekend and we tested a lot of magnezone stuff, at the end I finally got it working after hours. Then came the tournament and at the last second I switched to luxchomp. Why risk bad starts / iffy tier 3 matchups (charizard!) and fainting spell flips when you can just auto-answer everything with luxchomp? I still needed some points to secure my invite and why risk my invite because I want to play a deck thats actually fun? I donked 2 opponents and had a lot of time to watch animes inbetween rounds on my laptop so it wasnt a complete waste I guess lol

 

[ShadowGuard]

Hm... ok then I'll write my few cents to this topic.

It's both the format and the players. First of all, there are many interesting Pokémon combos and decks out there, most players don't even realize it. However, about 90% of them fall to the sheer broken-ness of a very few decks, most of them SP variants.

Guess everyone has heard about Blastoise/Feraligar - it's basically the LBS deck (tier 1 back in the days it was played, some of you may remember) on steroids. Why doesn't anyone play it in competitive tournaments? Because it needs two Stage 2 Pokémon to work, and unlike Vilegar, it can easily be outplayed and one-shotted by Luxchomp.

What about Leafeon/Roserade? 100+ damage for one energy, and lots of tricks and options in a simple stage 1 deck? Sounds great, until you remember to Power Spray and Dragon Rush.

The only decks that can keep up with Luxchomp or other SPs are what we call our metagame - Vile- and Lostgar, Gyarados, Magnezone and Machamp. There are a few others that beat Luxchomp, like Donphan or Steelix, but they have some autolosses against other popular decks.

If you want to show creativity and still be on a tier-1-competitive level, at the moment your only option is to take existing Pokémon or ideas and modify or improve them. My Magnezone/Steelix deck basically isn't anything more than just combining two decks to one, but it worked well, until everyone in my area started to put Blaziken into their Luxchomps.

People have interesting techs, they play Mew or Toxicroak in their Gyarados, and Palkia or Absol in their Lostgar, but at the end it still comes down to a few archtypes.

 

[LionheartEX]

And more importantly, we have a HUGE selection of cards to make a great deck out of, yet, everyone keeps going back to the same exact cards.

This is purely because of how powerful and easy the winning decks are to use to begin with, albeit they need a lot more skill to pilot as you build a winning streak. However, for the first 2-3 rounds of an event, any one of the top tier decks right now are very safe choices. Even though you're still subject to autlosses and donks, it's simply less prevalent when using one of the well known archetypes.

Players are afraid of using a lot of the cards available to us, simply because there are better options. Why pick Bastiodon to tank and heal with, when I can use Dialgachomp? Why build a spread deck, only to have a Healing Breath undo so many turns of setting it up? Why use Mewperior (A very good deck, and a fun one at that) when Dialga G LvX turns it off?

Sure you can add counters, but these simply take away from consistency and otherwise valuable room in the deck. Yet you need them to win, but these counters can cost you games against otherwise better matchups.

If you want to win right now, there's not much point in playing rogue or making failed attempts at being original. The exception to this was Magnezone, which was a successful attempt at breaking out of this terrible format - It's a great deck, but I feel a lot of it's success came from the fact that it blindsided a lot of players. Now that there's more information out there on it, people have an understanding of how to efficiently respond to it, making the matchup a lot easier. Props to the maker for actually being successful with a new idea! That's the kind of stuff I personally like to see in this game, and what this format needs more of - but refer to my above comments.

Coming up with a new strategy to break this format is like trying to look in 5 directions at once. You have to look out for Spiritplume, Mesprit, Dialga G LvX, Luxchomp and Gyarados, all of which lock out a particular aspect of the game and can only be broken out of by sacrificing prizes in most cases (Thank heavens Twins exists), or are just far to powerful and quick, thereby overcoming any sort of work the new strategy needs to use. The only viable "pre-"response, in many of these cases, is Spiritomb itself (which I feel is one of the problems of the format), given how dominant Gyarados and SP are - and both of those decks have very quick responses to Spiritomb anyway.

 

[Rainbowgym]

Actually, Spiritomb is the only reason you will see a new deck/strategy now and then.
Without Spiritomb the option are even less as they are now.

 

[vaporeon]

I'm playing with Leafeon, Magmortar and Roserade but take a guess at my match ups. My Luxchomp match up keeps going down. If I attack a Rainbow Energy to anything, it dies to Dragon Rush, but Crobat does that too. Oh Power Spray ruins my setup. What about Vileplume anything. My deck is very Trainer heavy, but I had to main 2 Umbreon MD and 4 special dark to help the match up. Which helps a lot by the way but can hurt other games.

I just hate the format. I've been working on the deck for a few months now and I can't do anything about Luxchomp because of have fast it is. Always in Luxchomp goes first, they have 3 SP pokes in play by then end of the turn with call energy and can spray the next.

 

[chrataxe]

This is purely because of how powerful and easy the winning decks are to use to begin with, albeit they need a lot more skill to pilot as you build a winning streak. However, for the first 2-3 rounds of an event, any one of the top tier decks right now are very safe choices. Even though you're still subject to autlosses and donks, it's simply less prevalent when using one of the well known archetypes.

I agree with this statement 100%....but, you're kind of making my point. Yes, anyone can coast the first few rounds with these. But, why are good players doing it? They can coast the first few rounds either way. Funny you bring this up....this is the exact opposite problem I have. If I can survive the first 2-3 rounds, my chances of Top Cutting become exponentially higher each round I win....and the later I make it, the better my chances of winning are.

Players are afraid of using a lot of the cards available to us, simply because there are better options. Why pick Bastiodon to tank and heal with, when I can use Dialgachomp? Why build a spread deck, only to have a Healing Breath undo so many turns of setting it up? Why use Mewperior (A very good deck, and a fun one at that) when Dialga G LvX turns it off?

I also agree with this statement 100%....which, I think proves the point of the OP. I'm not saying take crappy cards and make crappy decks. I mean, there are a lot of decks out there that are stupidly good that never get touched....not so much even out of fear, more laziness. Why would I want to spend ours making a rogue deck when I can net deck Luxchomp and do well? Now, that's not to say that everyone that plays Luxchomp netdecks or they haven't tried rogue decks, but that is to say that the overwhelming majority of them that do play Luxchomp won't stray.

---------- Post added 04/11/2011 at 04:42 PM ----------

Here are some "Power Rankings" of sorts I've done so far. Let me say a few things before I unveil them.

First, its not really a Power Ranking. It is a ratio wins vs plays vs number of times Luxchomp is played. As an example:

Luxchomp was played 14 times with 71 wins in reported T8 at states, with a win percent of 20% in Top 8 (20% of all luxchomps that reached the top 8 won)...so, its "Power Ranking" is 1 as it is the arbitrary "standard." When we look at Gyarados, for example, it has a power ranking of .975. This means that proportionally, Gyardos wins .975 tournaments for every one that Luxchomp wins. So, it Lux won 14 with 71 plays, Gyarados would have won 13.65 if it had 71 plays....its a simple ratio/proportion. Yes, that ALSO means that Lostgar would have won 25.35 if it had 71 plays.

Second, when we start getting in the fringe, we can't really take the stats too seriously. But, I will vouch for a few:

Believe it or not, Arceus had a very good "power rating" in cities as well as states. I'm NOT saying its BDIF, I am saying it has consistently performed well with what little data we have been able to collect.

Some decks we can assume are fairly accurate since we know how good they actually are against the meta. Chenlock/Sablelock are examples. Whe KNOW Sablelock is a very good metadeck, and we see it had good results. While they are not 100% conclusive, we can assume they are fairly accurate. And, for what its worth, Steelix and Sablelock both had very good "power ratings" at cities. And, for what its worth, Machamp had a horrible "Power Ranking" at cities....so at the very least, I can see my stats and my predictions are pretty accurate.

Decks Wins Plays "Power Ranking"
Chenlock 2 3 3.380952381
Lostgar 5 14 1.81122449
Arceus 1 3 1.69047619
Vilegar 5 20 1.267857143
Steelix 1 4 1.267857143
Scizor 1 4 1.267857143
Sablelock 3 15 1.014285714
Luxchomp 14 71 1
Gyarados 5 26 0.975274725
Magnezone 1 9 0.563492063
Dialgachomp 3 31 0.49078341
Machamp 1 11 0.461038961

So, basically, the point is this: every deck that is ABOVE Luxchomp (higher than 1) performed proportionally better than Luxchomp. Every deck UNDER Luxchomp (less than 1) did proportionally worse than Luxchomp. So, according to the stats, Luxchomp really isn't the best deck to play...so WHY ARE PEOPLE PLAYING IT?

Yes, the people are stale.

And, for those interested in my complete stat breakdown of States, check the States thread very soon, its coming....I should have the stats all compiled today but I don't know if I will be able to write the post today as it will have a lot of explanation to it.

 

[ShadowGuard]

Decks Wins Plays "Power Ranking"
Chenlock 2 3 3.380952381
Lostgar 5 14 1.81122449
Arceus 1 3 1.69047619
Vilegar 5 20 1.267857143
Steelix 1 4 1.267857143
Scizor 1 4 1.267857143
Sablelock 3 15 1.014285714
Luxchomp 14 71 1
Gyarados 5 26 0.975274725
Magnezone 1 9 0.563492063
Dialgachomp 3 31 0.49078341
Machamp 1 11 0.461038961

That implies that a deck that goes 6-0 and then loses in top cut to a bad matchup is less powerful than a deck that goes 4-2 and wins the first top cut match, ending at 5-3.

All decks you listed here are the decks in top cut, not the decks played. Let's see an example - there are three Lostgar decks in a fictional tournament, all played by decent players. One of them wins the tournament, two of them completely fail. Then, there are five Luxchomp decks, all of them make top cut but don't win. In your calculation, Lostgar got a better "power rating" than Luxchomp (100% vs 0%), even if the first top cutted one of three times, and the second one five of five times.

btw, in Europe Magnezone has 5 wins out of 13 top cuts, making a power rating of 1.92 in your calculation and sending it to the 2nd place (while at least at the tournaments I attended, most of the Magnezone decks that have been played also top cutted, so I see Magnezone by far as the 'best' deck when viewing the playing/success rate for whole tournaments). Yes, European metagame is different, but not that much. I'd rather conclude that these numbers don't say anything about the deck, even if they're interesting statistics. But nobody would believe that Scizor is a better deck than Dialgachomp.

 

[chrataxe]

That implies that a deck that goes 6-0 and then loses in top cut to a bad matchup is less powerful than a deck that goes 4-2 and wins the first top cut match, ending at 5-3.

All decks you listed here are the decks in top cut, not the decks played. Let's see an example - there are three Lostgar decks in a fictional tournament, all played by decent players. One of them wins the tournament, two of them completely fail. Then, there are five Luxchomp decks, all of them make top cut but don't win. In your calculation, Lostgar got a better "power rating" than Luxchomp (100% vs 0%), even if the first top cutted one of three times, and the second one five of five times.

btw, in Europe Magnezone has 5 wins out of 13 top cuts, making a power rating of 1.92 in your calculation and sending it to the 2nd place (while at least at the tournaments I attended, most of the Magnezone decks that have been played also top cutted, so I see Magnezone by far as the 'best' deck when viewing the playing/success rate for whole tournaments). Yes, European metagame is different, but not that much. I'd rather conclude that these numbers don't say anything about the deck, even if they're interesting statistics. But nobody would believe that Scizor is a better deck than Dialgachomp.

You're correct, its not perfect, thus my disclaimer about being in the fringe. But, the huge difference between my stats and your fictional tournament is that my stats took 43 tournaments into account, not 1. I dare say 43 tournaments is somewhat reasonable to make a ruling on the meta game. And, in all fairness (to you and me both), these are just part of my meta game analysis, but it illustrates the OP's point. Is the meta games a bit stale? Yes, Luxchomp has been dominating for 2 years now. But, is it the players that make it stale? Yes. There are other good decks, that if they saw the same amount of time at the tables as Luxchomp, would win. You've played many different variants of Steelix throughout cities, you know as well as I do it has as good of a chance of beating just about anything out there and has an awesome Luxchomp matchup. That being the case, if Luxchomp is so dominant (and predominant), then why aren't hard counters, such as Steelix, being played more?

 

[prodigal_fanboy]

Chrataxe, you're making extrapolations that aren't supported by the parameters of your data collection.

1.) You're assuming that reported Top Cut is representative of the field as a whole.
3.) You weight all metagames equally (but that's another basket).
2.) If I'm not mistaken, the predictive power of your power ranking statistic increases with the sample size. E.g., at low frequencies, the predictive power decays. In other words, decks with very few top cut appearances/wins cannot necessarily be claimed to be "better" if played in greater proportions, as you have much less certainty.

 

[PhadedPhione]

You would have to take the data from states and parse it separately since week one of States, the metagame was quite a bit different and did greatly affect deck choices going into week two.
(Idaho states saw 4/8 top cut slots to Dialga and a win by Arceus. The following week at Utah states, their field was a bunch of hate decks eg Machamp and SP was underrepresented, as was Arceus, with 1 SP deck and 1 Arceus making top cut.)
Dialga was probably stronger week one than week two in most areas. Metagame shifts fast enough during concurrent events to skew the data in one direction or another. With everyone looking forward to a merged metagame at regionals, the winning percentages/power lvl of decks is less important, imo, than your ability to play your deck against an unknown field. Dialga will probably return in force at regionals just because its very safe versus randoms in rounds one through four, and can hold its own against every established deck.

 

[espeon200]

So basically, just like quantum theory, we can know what might happen or we can determine what will dominate, but trying to figure out one makes the other unknowable to us...

 

[PhadedPhione]

So basically, just like quantum theory, we can know what might happen or we can determine what will dominate, but trying to figure out one makes the other unknowable to us...

Metagame analysis is possible, inferring the correct deck/techs to play is possible as well. There are only so many fixed variables in that respect. Uncertainty principle is a bad example in this respect, as the number of metagame decks are finite and deterministic.