This season's Pokemon Reversal..."Heads up for BRs!"

[tinox6]

Hey everyone, I've been doing some testing and coming into a lot of contact with a card that really reminds me of Pokemon Reversal.

(Intro...) I remember during the SP seasons when Pokemon Reversal was considered one of those cards you used if you were just crazy enough to pull it off (like Erik Nance did with his Charizard deck that took 2nd at States). Heck, I remember (as I'm sure most of you do) even when Switch, Dual Ball, and PokeGear 3.0 were fairly marginalized cards as far as their usage is concerned. Obviously, we all learn over time that some cards are better than we thought, and the process of mainstreaming overlooked cards may not the point, but I did want to take a moment to reminisce about days when a few popular cards weren't very popular, as is the case with the card I'm talking about, Super Scoop Up.

Recently I have been feeling that same old "man he/she flipped a heads again" feeling about Super Scoop Up as I, and a lot of us did, about Pokemon Reversal. I've seen it and played it in a LOT of decks...basically from quad Entei, to Darkrai variants, to even some Zek Eels and Mewtwo Celebi variants. It seems like the going trend is to play high hp basics that can't be OHKO'd, move some energy, then Scooooop 'em up! I think I first started to encounter this strategy as pertaining to our current metagame at this past Spring Regionals. I saw a Mewtwo Celebi variant that ran only Mewtwo and Celebi and a bunch-o Super Scoops, which is a really good idea if you think about it, and I think our 1st and 2nd place Zek Eels decks even ran a SSU or 2.

I don't necessarily see this trend as a bad thing tho. I mean, it certainly provides more deck variety, which is never a bad thing, but of course it does mean that lucky flips will greatly effect the outcomes of games once again, and depending on your viewpoint that could be good or bad. I ALWAYS have liked decks that had an element of fliping to them, from Gengar to Healix and even my current favorite deck, Cinccino/Vileplume, all ran a LOT of key flipping cards. I'm just really attracted to the idea of doing everything possible to plan out the entire game, only to have a coin flip vindicate or destroy your hard work and thinking, haha. And as maniacally unstable as that thought may be, and as much as I like it coin flips, I know the vast majority of players aren't really big fans of the idea. So, I just want to see what everyone's feelings are towards Super Scoop Up.

 

[psychup2034]

I just want to see what everyone's feelings are towards Super Scoop Up.

Every time you make a deck choice or whether to include certain "flippy" cards, you're choosing a probability distribution of potential outcomes. Super Scoop Up is no different. I ran 1 Super Scoop Up in my ZPST list from Fall Battle Roads because I liked the 50% probability it gave me of completely swinging a game around (75% when used with Junk Arm). Regardless of the phase of the game, Super Scoop Up could almost always be played for a benefit because it is so flexible; it can save an almost knocked out Zekrom, allow you to reuse a Shaymin, pick up an energyless Zekrom on the bench to prevent it from being Catcher bait, etc. I played that list in 4 Battle Roads, and won 2 of them.

A vast majority of players may not like coin flips, but those players may not understand that using flippy cards is the same as using non-flippy cards, in the sense that the player is choosing a probability distribution of potential outcomes in both cases. Evaluate the entire probability distribution, not just the "flippiness" of one card. A lot of players would improve their game by not categorically dismissing cards because they are flippy, but rather take time to think about how playing each particular flippy card might affect their chance of winning before making a conclusion.

Regarding Super Scoop Up, it is certainly a card that can change games. The biggest question to ask is "What should be cut for it?" followed by "How will this particular change, over the course of a tournament, affect my expected probability of winning?"

 

[TRAINER HEZ]

A very nice reply psychup2034!
Cards like Super Scoop Up are an attempt at balancing older Trainer cards that proved to be over-powered (the B+W sets designers didn't get that memo apparently -_-) I used a disruption deck with Honchkrow Lv.X and four copies of Energy Removal 2 to get to Worlds in 2008, so I'm sure in a format with Junk Arm you can make Super Scoop Up work. If it is core to the strategy of your deck and you can draw plenty of cards each turn to negate a failed Trainer use it should be fine.

 

[Otaku]

The thing is, if you have an overpowered effect, does adding a coin flip really balance it? We saw this with Pokemon Reversal and Pokemon Catcher; the effect was potent enough that at the beginning of the format Pokemon Reversal was run heavily. No, not in all decks; but in most. Why? When it worked it was usually going to generate a Prize plus some significant in-play advantage, and when it failed it was one card from a large hand, and often could be re-used via Junk Arm that very same turn.

Super Scoop Up actually improves on the original Scoop Up; it'd be like if Super Energy Removal had you flip a coin instead of requiring you discard an Energy. Try thinking about it that way and my point becomes clear; Pokemon is a TCG with ample draw and right now, good recursion for Items.

I am not sure if it is possible to "balance" an Item, Supporter, or Energy effect with a coin flip. Since they are usually "one-and-done" effects, generally making them coin flip based ruins them or as I stated, just makes them luck-based overpowered cards instead of overpowered cards. Effects used more than once tend to be a bit difference, and/or when it is for an incremental difference instead of "tails fails".

Focusing in on the main topic, Super Scoop Up is an amazing card. When it was first introduced I remember shying away from it because it was in Neo Genesis: pre-Modified you still had Scoop Up and mostly low Energy attackers, post-Modified you didn't have anywhere near the level of draw, search, and recursion one was used to running. In a format with ample draw-power and a card like Junk Arm, a single TecH Super Scoop Up can be amazing in most decks, and the only reason I don't use it in everything is simply a lack of space.

 

[tinox6]

I thank you all for having such awesome and thought out responses.
Psychup, I have friends who shy away from flippy cards simply because they believe they don't flip well, and I mean that's fine and all, but the point you make about just the chance of the successful flip increase the deck's viability is a very good one. Thanks for pointing that out !
Trainer Hez, your old deck sounds really cool, even though I didn't play back then....anything that increases the ability to disrupt sounds fun to play to me
Also, I think all of you are starting to hit the nail on the head as to why SSU and Reversal (before we had catcher....and even the "problem" of Catcher being broken to some extent) are so playable right now, and that's because of Junk Arm. Otaku has made a good point about card effects outclassing or becoming better as the format shifts, as I like his point about Super Energy Removal.

As has been said, access to cards through ample draw support (Juniper, Oak, Poke Gear, Receiver) plus the ability to recover a failed attempt with Junk Arm put these cards over the top, which is why I think our emphasis on these types of cards will decrease some in the near future when Junk Arm is rotated out. Of course we will still have Sableye, but at least we can see that one coming a turn a head of time and the game won't come down to Junipering into a Junk Arm....

 

[FunnyBear]

When a format is full of OHKOs, the SSUs lose their utility. This was the case up through Regionals. I suspect we are now moving a bit away from this as there are so many EXs that you cannot have a one shot counter to all of them. Consequently, people see the advantage of SSU again.

 

[baby mario]

Heck, I remember (as I'm sure most of you do) even when Switch, Dual Ball, and PokeGear 3.0 were fairly marginalized cards as far as their usage is concerned. Obviously, we all learn over time that some cards are better than we thought.

I don't think it's a case of those cards being better than we thought. Cards are only good or bad in the context of the format and at the time they were correctly judged to be marginal.

When you have Uxie in the format, you can use Collector and still get massive draw. Without Uxie it has to be Dual Ball + Supporter . . . so the rotation effectively made Dual Ball a much better play.

On topic, I think that SSU is a very useful card to have when playing EX Pokemon and it may well get a lot more use in the near future.

 

[QD4U]

I will never like cards that add more luck to the game. The game is already so full of luck it's not even funny. Cards like Reversal (pre-Catcher) and now SSU with EX's in the format just make games even more random and I don't like it. I do agree that part of the problem is Junk Arm. When JA is rotated cards like SSU become a lot weaker actually, and we should be fine. Until then.. just hope you can flip a lot of heads, and that your opponent can't! SSU will be a major card in almost every deck that plays a lot of EX's, so you better learn to deal with it.

 

[Champ Buster]

SSU will be a major card in almost every deck that plays a lot of EX's, so you better learn to deal with it.

Or you can run a kling klang deck and max potion to ignore all the flipping.

 

[solo59486]

SSU is really good in emboar decks also because you can just pick them up then reattach all those energies use emboar's ability.

 

[chrataxe]

A vast majority of players may not like coin flips, but those players may not understand that using flippy cards is the same as using non-flippy cards, in the sense that the player is choosing a probability distribution of potential outcomes in both cases. Evaluate the entire probability distribution, not just the "flippiness" of one card. A lot of players would improve their game by not categorically dismissing cards because they are flippy, but rather take time to think about how playing each particular flippy card might affect their chance of winning before making a conclusion.

This is just completely untrue. Instead of going into some long argument about why,I'll leave it really, really simple: if there were truth to this, replace all of your Catchers for Reversals. I see the point you are trying to make, but it is grossly misleading. To imply that there is no difference...is, well, for a lack of better words, dumb. Lastly, I would assume the overwhelming majority of players don't make the decision to not run flippy cards based on the fact THAT they are flippy, rather because the weigh the risk/rewards factor. As an example: a deck that might NEED a lot of scooping, SSU effect becomes much more rewarding. So, in a deck like ZPS, the ability to scoop up Shaymin, Pachi, and banged up Zekroms, the rewards start outweighing the risks quickly, especially when you factor probability. On the other hand, running SSU in a deck like Steelix, its completely worthless since it has no energy acceleration. Then again, Life Herbs are golden while they are worthless in Mew Prime decks. Then, you factor in the fact that it takes away from consistency...is the reward worth losing consistency? For cards like Reversal, yes....other cards, not so much. In a deck like Gyarados that was hard to OHKO, needed no energy, had BTS, was meant to tank, and dropping it back down was easier than recovering (since you had to discard your other evolution lines), yeah, losing some consistency was ok. Then, you have to ask yourself, what happens when I hit tails? Is it game changing in that I lose? In your situation, running one with Junk Arms and not a being a huge part of your strategy, but rather a "oh crap, I'm gonna lose, lets try to change the outcome" kind of scenario, that is fine. But, if you deck NEEDS the heads, no, its horrible, that risk is far outweighed by its reward. Case in point, Jim and Cas will never see play because its too risky...even though the reward is pretty sweet, especially with current disrupting potential in. Paired with N and Persian HGSS, you could potentially lock your opponent to nothing...but, no one is going to run a deck that requires 6 flips per turn to go off....not because they dismiss it BECAUSE its flippy, rather, because its OBVIOUS the flippiness isn't worth it.




My opinion on the subject as a whole:

Game 2: He gets the first kill as I have to mimic 3 times to get set up. we trade kills till it is 1-1 in prizes. He plays a super scoop from his hand for the win in game 2. TAILS! *whew*. He uses uxie to draw 2 cards. Super Scoop Up.... TAILS! He then uses cynthia for 8. I am watching the crowd as he is drawing all of his cards. the first 7 are blanks. Card #8.... Super Scoop Up.... TAILS!! He passes and I warp point ftw.

 

[Otaku]

Obviously I am not psychup2034, but I read his statement much differently than chrataxe did, and even if how I read it is not how psychup2034 intended, I want to make what I got from it clear.

A vast majority of players may not like coin flips, but those players may not understand that using flippy cards is the same as using non-flippy cards, in the sense that the player is choosing a probability distribution of potential outcomes in both cases. Evaluate the entire probability distribution, not just the "flippiness" of one card. A lot of players would improve their game by not categorically dismissing cards because they are flippy, but rather take time to think about how playing each particular flippy card might affect their chance of winning before making a conclusion.

This is just completely untrue. Instead of going into some long argument about why,I'll leave it really, really simple: if there were truth to this, replace all of your Catchers for Reversals. I see the point you are trying to make, but it is grossly misleading. To imply that there is no difference...is, well, for a lack of better words, dumb. Lastly, I would assume the overwhelming majority of players don't make the decision to not run flippy cards based on the fact THAT they are flippy, rather because the weigh the risk/rewards factor.

Your suggestion that psychup2034 should change out all of his Pokemon Catcher for Pokemon Reversal ignores the point entirely, and probably undermines what you are trying to say. He isn't saying that there is no difference between two identical cards where one requires a coin flip to succeed and the other requires merely being played. Rather, in the grand scheme of things players often forget that most TCGs (including Pokemon) have a variety of luck based mechanisms in them.

When I read that post it came across as "some players may not grasp that cards that don't require a flip can still be dead in hand". We are talking about a pretty standard TCG model; default access to a card is only when it is in your hand, and the main way of getting a card into hand is to draw into it.

I've had to swallow my pride when decks I thought were awesome (and usually tested well very early on) were revealed to be horribly unreliable (coin flips or no). Looking at individual cards in specific situations, the build made perfect sense. However actually getting the card I needed when I needed it proved challenging, and in the end even when the card(s) in question required no coin flips, I'd lose.

So try to think about it in more generic terms. You can have a card with a reliable effect (e.g. no coin flips) but the nature of the game can make it less reliable than a card built around a coin toss. Let us compare running Switch and Super Scoop Up. First, it is really important to notice that they do different things with a tiny bit of overlap. :thumb: In either case, you're unlikely to use them as the centerpiece of your deck's strategy; if you are this argument does not apply!

You design a deck, and you know that you might want Switch because you've got something you want to stay Benched and/or have to deal with a large Retreat Cost, or maybe something is actually making use of the effects of attacks without Item denial. On the other hand, you find your Pokemon are relatively easy to power up and/or have amazing staying power. Super Scoop Up would be mighty handy to deny your opponent a Prize... if it works.

Note: I am not saying all those things are exclusive, either. I might want to have Switch to Bench an Emboar (w/Ability), but if I've got a Tepig and Rare Candy or Pignite ready to Evolve, or don't expect N to disrupt my hand next turn, or simply already have a spare Emboar on the Bench... in all situations Switch or Super Scoop Up get it out of the way without it being KOed.

So players must remember that while Switch is reliable, it is only good for that situation where you just need to get Emboar to the Bench. If you don't need to do that, it's a dead card. Super Scoop Up on the other hand can not only save a nearly injured Pokemon from KO (even something getting hammered by spread or snipe damage on the Bench), but salvages all cards attached to it. If you have to re-Evolve the whole line, well that is probably better than losing it outright. You might only need the top Evolution (if it isn't a Basic Pokemon) and be able to instantly Evolve an already-in-play lower Stage that same turn. You might just need the Energy you used on one Pokemon to use on another. Super Scoop Up may fail half the time (on average), but it's much more versatile and thus going to be useful more of the time.

As someone who's played the Pokemon TCG since it began (albeit it on and off) in the U.S., I got a major fear of "tails fails" back in the days of Rocket-On. You just hated having to flip so often back then, because so many cards used the mechanic. So indeed, players who have experienced those formats (like the first part of this format) may have an aversion to flips not based on carefully weighing things out, in addition to the above point.

Case in point, Jim and Cas will never see play because its too risky...even though the reward is pretty sweet, especially with current disrupting potential in. Paired with N and Persian HGSS, you could potentially lock your opponent to nothing...but, no one is going to run a deck that requires 6 flips per turn to go off....not because they dismiss it BECAUSE its flippy, rather, because its OBVIOUS the flippiness isn't worth it.

Actually, you made me realize I am getting close to finding a home for it. :lol: I have been testing an Empoleon deck for BW-On and it might be able to safely accommodate a copy or two of the Hooligans. That's the general formula for how to abuse any tails fails cards; either find a way to spam it (doesn't apply to Hooligans), or find a way to compensate for your "loss". In this case, Diving Draw mid-to-late game in a format where most decks won't have Ability based draw effects could (like I said, you just made me realize I could try to work it in) leave my Supporter usage mostly optional. I gave the list to a friend to test out and I've made him deck out against me twice because he kept forgetting he didn't need to make sure he used a Supporter each turn.

If we get Vs Seeker and/or Scott back (or something equivalent), Hooligans wouldn't be a no-brainer for a deck like Empoleon. Yes, that may seem somewhat specific, but right now the only downside I see for running Hooligans in a deck that has another form of built in draw power (or otherwise can spare it's Supporter for the turn) is you'd need to be able to run four of them. Not so happy. Vs Seeker to snag a used (or simply discarded) copy from the discard pile (let alone any other Supporter) or Scott to get them from the deck (and another Supporter, and a Stadium) would counteract almost all the negatives of running the card.

 

[Human Destroyer]

[DEL]Actually, there were multiple times I didn't use my Supporter for the turn because it would've made me deck out faster, but that's besides the point.[/DEL]

Like Otaku said, the key is knowing which card you need. Some flippy cards are useful in specific situations, and those specific situations may be a part of your deck.

On the other hand, if two cards do the exact same thing and require a coin flip, obviously the non-flippy one is better. But if the flippy one is better, then why not use it? Sure, it'll fail half the time, but if the proportions are done well enough, it can still do really good. Now, if Fliptini were to work on Trainers...hello overpowered cards!