Let's talk about Side Decks for Competitive Play

[rivershock]

Keep in mind that Pokemon's cardpool (keeping only Standard in mind, of course) is far smaller, so countering the entire metagame is far, far easier in a game like Pokemon than it is for something like YGO, where you need to be smart with what cards you side deck, as it isn't possible to counter everything. (Also, there are cards like Garbodor, Frozen City and Enhanced Hammer here that counter a wide variety of decks.) That combined with the fact 60 cards is a rather large deck size to begin with (though if I remember correctly, Magic is similar in this regard), which allows a fair amount of space for techs already and the fact that Pokemon has a lot of draw and search cards, making low-Pokemon-count builds perfectly viable, giving even MORE space for techs, makes me feel a Side Deck would be a bad idea for Pokemon. At the very least, if they WERE implemented, they would have to be very small to not unbalance the game IMO. (Even a Side Deck of something like 5 cards changes a game along the lines of Pokemon pretty drastically.) 20 cards is absurd, and would allow you to hard counter the entire metagame. (There's probably even enough space with which to make counter-siding harder, as there'd be multiple possible options.)

 

[TRAINER HEZ]

The prizes system really messes with putting 1 card in a deck as a counter/tech, it's one of the worst things about the game as a whole I think (regardless of specific meta).
Anyway, 20 cards is WAY too big for a sideboard, especially in Pokemon. In Magic it's 15 cards for a 60 card deck but there's a lot less draw and search in that game. In Pokemon the sideboard would need to be smaller than Magic's 15 I reckon.

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The prizes system really messes with putting 1 card in a deck as a counter/tech, it's one of the worst things about the game as a whole I think (regardless of specific meta).
Anyway, 20 cards is WAY too big for a sideboard, especially in Pokemon. In Magic it's 15 cards for a 60 card deck but there's a lot less draw and search in that game. In Pokemon the sideboard would need to be smaller than Magic's 15 I reckon.

 

[vaporeon]

It may need to be but its worth testing. Magic is much more of a controlled game though. Pokemon puts down energy faster than mana. Im Magic when I watch higher level of play, I dont see players using creatures higher than 4 to cast. Blue and Black are overpowered, even more so when spliced with other colors. Counter Spells are very good. Yugioh turned into who can get their boss monsters out the fastest so its not uncommon for a player to blow through 20 cards in 1 turn. The biggest thing those games have over Pokemon is they can counter plays during their opponents turn while Pokemon does not and Im sure we all remember how bias Power Spray was... A good concept but not implemented right.

I'm will to test a 10 to 15 card side deck but I want to do so along with a ban list. It does not have to be a sanction format but would be nice for a more competitive series of fan tournaments.