Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

What's wrong with trainer lock?

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losjackal

losjackal

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I thought this could be a good discussion topic:

vaporeon said:
XY offers nothing new to the game. We have trainer lock, that exist on a stage one now. They need to stop with all the trainer lock.
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Why? My son and I built a rogue Nationals-winning deck with trainer lock, so that biases my personal opinion. If trainer lock is bad for the game, I'd really like to understand why.
 
He probably just got knocked out of a top cut by a trainer lock deck. So he's mad. That's all.
Nothing that implements a new way of strategically playing the game is bad for the game.
If anything is bad for the game it was the raising of the HP cap over 120. That is all.
 
rileysill32 said:
He probably just got knocked out of a top cut by a trainer lock deck. So he's mad. That's all.
Nothing that implements a new way of strategically playing the game is bad for the game.
If anything is bad for the game it was the raising of the HP cap over 120. That is all.
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This is incorrect. You may want to do some research before you speak like this.

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losjackal said:
I thought this could be a good discussion topic:



Why? My son and I built a rogue Nationals-winning deck with trainer lock, so that biases my personal opinion. If trainer lock is bad for the game, I'd really like to understand why.
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Let me be clear on this. I have no issue with trainer lock when their is a cost to it other then being active. Going into a new block, cards should change. Now we have a Gothitelle's ability on a Stage 1 Pokemon. Why is that bad? Evolutionary Soda, Red Card, Call for family, Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank. We all know how bad Trainer Lock has been the last few years.
 
there are 2 problems with trainer lock, firstly it's that its gotten more powerful as a tactic, it used to hit both players (vileplume UD), today it just needs to be active to only hit the opponent and as vaporeon pointed out thats not much of a downside.

secondly there has been a rise in the number of items used in decks as more useful all around ones have been printed, which has upped locks usefulness.

admittedly what made lock so powerful recently has been the other lock its been paired with to do almost a full lock.

so how to deal with it, one way would be to make better supporters/poke to shift emphasis from items, the other better would be to make trainer lock with more of a downside or replace trainer lock completely with things like togekiss variant that protect you from opponents trainers
 
vaporeon said:
This is incorrect. You may want to do some research before you speak like this.

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Let me be clear on this. I have no issue with trainer lock when their is a cost to it other then being active. Going into a new block, cards should change. Now we have a Gothitelle's ability on a Stage 1 Pokemon. Why is that bad? Evolutionary Soda, Red Card, Call for family, Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank. We all know how bad Trainer Lock has been the last few years.
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I still don't see a problem with it. It's a strategy of the game. There are two very simple options. Dealing with it or quitting the game because of it.
I don't like the power creep and low strategy of the game, so what did I do? I quit. Having my entire collection stolen was also a catalyst in this movement,
but I don't see it as a problem. If something seems too powerful then it's up to us as a trainer community to come up with counter strategies to combat that.
We have become too liberal democrat in the pokemon community in the sense that if something becomes too powerful everybody screams "ban hammer" on it.
 
LunarWolf21 said:
They should make a new variant of Goop Gas Attack which blocks Abilities for a turn, as a Supporter.
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We need this card so bad. We're already step in the right direction with disruption supporters like team flare grunt.

Part of me doesn't mind the trainer lock cards because at least it's something other than big ex basics. Then I remember how much of a pain in the rear Gothlock was and yeah, can't say I'm looking forward that in stage 1 form. I think cards like Dragonite (PLF) have a better overall design for trainer lock.
 
@ rileysill32

It's not easy to deal with trainer lock. There is no reliable way of turning it off. I see it the same way as them making a ability that says as long as this pokemon is active, they cant attach energy cards from their hand to their pokemon. Pokemon needs to turn away from over dominant abilities.
 
vaporeon said:
@ rileysill32

It's not easy to deal with trainer lock. There is no reliable way of turning it off. I see it the same way as them making a ability that says as long as this pokemon is active, they cant attach energy cards from their hand to their pokemon. Pokemon needs to turn away from over dominant abilities.
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Red Signal is very reliable at turning off Item lock in this format.
 
Charranitar said:
Red Signal is very reliable at turning off Item lock in this format.
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That is true but lets look at some things here. Running Genesect EX in a deck that does not main it means you have to sack 6 to 8 deck spots for it. You also have to use your energy attachment for the turn to force that switch. If you play Emboar or Blastoise then more power to you but what about those who play decks who dont run it? We are back at the same issue of decks overcenturalizing the meta which will make the XY format the same its been the last 4 years.

Like I said, there is no reliable way of dealing with trainer lock that the deck can deal with.
 
There is nothing wrong with the new trainer lock card coming in the next set. If you didn't notice, its weak to one of the most powerful Pokemon out there in Darkrai. Also, a single Absol can take care of it.
 
There's nothing wrong with item lock inherently, but it's just such an un-interesting mechanic (hard denial is rarely interesting) and punishes players for good deckbuilding.

also the one-sided, nearly-drawback-free item lock of Gothitelle is just obnoxious.
 
IDK why you guys think having it active is so easy. It makes you rely on a hit-and-run attacker, right? The ones that exist just don't have huge damage output.

Red Signal and Garbotoxin are the biggest counters obviously. XY is indeed stepping up the pressure of trainer lock by putting it on a Stage 1 instead of reserving it as a Stage 2 ability. So if it becomes a popular disruptor, decks will just need to be simpler to set up…not a complex dance of Item cards. For instance, Keldeo with 3 turns of attach will OHKO every Trevenant. Same for Darkrai, especially since Trevenant is weak to Dark. Which means Absol could probably see play in every deck to KO Trevenants, especially with Rainbow Energy coming back.
 
why not just run rainbow energy virizion ex as the main problem was paralyze with trainer lock and if they set up a dusknoir then bigger problems start?
 
I actually don't mind trainer lock when it is in the form of something like Vileplume UD, where it affects both players. What I dislike is one-sided trainer lock, where the player that is locking down the other doesn't have to significantly alter trainer lines to fit the locking nature of their deck. It's less obnoxious now with Catcher nerfed, but when Catcher was in full force, one-sided trainer lock felt very unfair, even if it was never THAT good. It just wasn't fun to play against, particularly combined with paralysis. Hard locks like there where one player just draws and passed make for games that are not fun to play.
 
zaeden906 said:
why not just run rainbow energy virizion ex as the main problem was paralyze with trainer lock and if they set up a dusknoir then bigger problems start?
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That solves the problem against accelgor decks, but I suspect our tree pokemon will cause other headaches beyond that lock.
 
The tree can't attack efficiently, just like the Goth. 60 and 20 to 2 bench for 3 when Mime is a VERY popular tech play and is impossible to shut off without also shutting off the tree. It's got relatively low HP, and is one-shot by pretty much anything that can attack for a single turn. So I don't know how a lock involving the tree can work without some other form of opponent disruption.
 
vaporeon said:
That is true but lets look at some things here. Running Genesect EX in a deck that does not main it means you have to sack 6 to 8 deck spots for it. You also have to use your energy attachment for the turn to force that switch. If you play Emboar or Blastoise then more power to you but what about those who play decks who dont run it? We are back at the same issue of decks overcenturalizing the meta which will make the XY format the same its been the last 4 years.

Like I said, there is no reliable way of dealing with trainer lock that the deck can deal with.
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1 genesect ex - 3 plasma energy

there are your 4 catcher spots in any old format deck. mk
 
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