Uhm... ff Lost World is already that strong with 3 or 4 prizes, how overpowered would it be in a format with 6 prizes?
You can't look at the game just from the prize difference. They also only have 30-card decks with these 3-prize tournaments, meaning that a Professor Oak's New Theory nets them 1/5 of their deck (would be 12 cards for us) or a Cynthia's Feelings nets them almost 1/3 of their deck. It doesn't seem hard to draw most of your deck with these 30-card decks and it would make it easier to setup the combos and draw into the stadiums when you need it. Also, you're opponent doesn't have 3 Luxray GL or 3 Kingdra that they can recover with, they only have 2, meaning that Lost Zoning 1-2 of their main attacker can be devastating.
A different format means a lot of differences in how the game is played and which decks have a large advantage. Just because a deck does well in Japan doesn't mean it's going to do equally well if not better here.
A "few" of your friends spoke with a "few" japanese players who told you gengar/lost zone was powerful. Because of this, and I am stretching your new comment to overlap your previous one, all the japanese players are saying that the mechanic is broken. :/
Vilegar isn't actually an "anti-SP-aimed" deck.
I'd agree with you that Vilegar was not an anti-SP deck but the combo of the deck did put a big damper on SP decks, so we can say it was as much of an SP counter as an un-anti-SP deck can get. It pretty much counters the SP decks by restricting their trainers, the trainers that make SP so powerful.
But yes, the format wasn't the best.
That's what I'm saying. How could you be wanting to go back to the BR format for Cities? I'd take any kind of Gengar dominance format over the same old boring SP/anti-SP(okay, VileGar too) format.
However, Battle Roads are not competitive tournaments, and many players come up with tier 2 decks, making the format still interesting.
So for cities, players are going to start pulling out their tier 1 decks, meaning even more SP.
For City Championships, I expect new cards like Twins or Rescue Energy to make the format more interesting and boost non-SP-decks. Exspecially Twins helps slower decks to keep up.
I agree, but I don't know how much. Rescue Energy has very few actual uses in various decks. You can't really tech it into Machamp or Jumpluff because they need Fighting or Grass energy for their main attacks. You can try to tech it in, but it will lower consistency when you start with Basic-RC-Stage2 and that special energy. Rescue Energy makes one deck, Gyarados, a lot better, but doesn't do much for VileGar (same energy issue). If anything, it gets tech'd into a deck +2 and it doesn't make a big difference overall.
Twins/Blackbelt will make some impact, I think, but then again, SP can use them too. The only thing worse than Cyrus going to get a Supporter/Energy/Trainer is Twins going to get 2 of anything, and SP decks can search out each supporter the turn before they go low on prizes in order to guarantee using it effectively.
But none of the setup decks would have a chance against Lost World Gengar.
Why such a broad statement? Where's your proof that all of the setup decks have no chance against Lost World Gengar? Are you falling back onto what your friends said that the japanese players said? I wonder how many setup decks are in Japan's tournament format...
Also, how do setup decks fair against SP/stage 2 one-energy attack decks? I wouldn't think any better.
Why is it that Gengar/Lost World is a horrible disease to the format yet the disease that is already spread all over the format is not as bad?
My last statement is this, nobody knows exactly how Gengar/Lost Zone would affect the format. Nobody is a time traveler, and no japanese player or US player knows exactly how much of an impact it will have. Before we start saying that Gengar/Lost Zone would destroy the game, let's actually wait till after States and see how it affects the format. It may actually have a positive effect on the format for all we know!
It's almost discrimination. People don't know much about the card mechanic, they don't know how strong it is, or how much of an impact it will have on the format, yet they fear bad things coming from it, so they automatically start bad mouthing it. Wow, that is most definitely discrimination.