Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Where's My Phione (and others)?

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Since HP on it has been a dull format.... Isnt improvement something that can be learned? They did so well in those RG, TRR, SS sets, why are we getting dumb cards like.... duh..

It's also really unfair that we have lesser card to use compared to japan. What, they must think that Americans (and others) are insanely rich that they can keep buying cards like no tomorrow? And Japanese are so poor that they have to use cards from..... 3 or 4 years ago?

But thankfully, I think the format will be better in DP on *points at RS on.
 
Give us more or let the game implode! Who knows, maybe there will end up being more usable stuff in GE after all.
 
While I agree it is a bit disheartening that we have to wait for another set to get some of the neat cards in Japan already, I still think GE has a few cool things to look for.
 
*adds to the discussion to show he was not being serious in his first post*

I am sure PCL has some involvement with PUSA's decisions, but I'm not sure why delaying cards that should come out NOW (since they came out at the same time on Japan's time line) should happen. I think it is a marketing move on PUSA - it builds anticipation for the next set. Since they are also splitting up some good cards into this set and the next (more with the next), you can't buy them all at once, which means you have to poor more money into different sets.

When in doubt, always think from a marketing point of view!
 
First off there is 11 scans for this set. Darkrai was the 11th, if you include the Pre-Release Card.

JLYK,
Drew
 
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Sorry Erik, I do appreciate your posts and this thread. The card pool is limited now and more cards should help. Who knows what is in this set, except for PCL, PUI. (see.....I can contribute too!)

There are enough good players out there that will figure out ways to make some of these alleged cards work in combo with other cards previously released. The addition of new cards to the pool will allow other decks to at least be built and tried. Wailord w/ Ray d (HP) w/ a WP energy makes all water Pokes lose their weakness. Or using Xatu from SW to rub the status effect from your active to oppo's active.

Wait until the set is actually released before you jump to conclusions. Better yet, go to your local PRs and see for yourselves in 8 days. Dont rely on others to tell you if this is a great set, an OK set or a sucky set.

Keith

EDIT: Drew, you are correct, we have 11 cards released early with Darkrai's intro.
 
Were this could really change the metagame is the release of Claydol. If Claydol is released, then Absol will get the proverbial KO, but if for some reason he is ommited fron GE, the Absol may still be a force come states.
 
If we get Claydol, that would be pretty cool. I wish we had Eeveelutions, Fossils, and Phione, but Claydol/Pachirisu/Porygon are good enough, I guess, and should make DP5 incredible. Assuming they don't just leave stuff out, and maybe we'll eventually get all these LV.Xs that we don't have.
 
First of all, great discussion so far. Let's try to stay on topic, as I'd really like for something constructive and productive to come out of this. One of the great things about this game is that I feel my voice is heard by people who could possibly change things. For instance, whether or not you agree with the decision, I feel that more invites this year have been given to North America simply because so many people expressed their opinions on the subject. I like to think that this thread could possibly create such a change for our game in the future.

Drew mentioned something that I think should be reiterated a bit here:

TheDarkTwins said:
Anyone who says why did POP/PUI do this doesnt know that they have restrictions put on them by PCL. While some choice they maybe able to choose on their own, I would bet that most of the stuff they come out with has to do with if PCL is okay with it.
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I can understand if POP/PUI can only do certain things because of restrictions set on them by PCL, but what about the Power Keepers set? I mean, my understanding is that we got the PK cards before Japan did, so how did that work out? Additionally, why would PCL want the time gap to exist between when we get our cards and when Japan gets theirs? I know that probably nobody can answer that question for me, but I'd rather push until a few gears get moving somewhere than have to keep waiting... and waiting...


Water Pokemon Master said:
*adds to the discussion to show he was not being serious in his first post*

I am sure PCL has some involvement with PUSA's decisions, but I'm not sure why delaying cards that should come out NOW (since they came out at the same time on Japan's time line) should happen. I think it is a marketing move on PUSA - it builds anticipation for the next set. Since they are also splitting up some good cards into this set and the next (more with the next), you can't buy them all at once, which means you have to poor more money into different sets.

When in doubt, always think from a marketing point of view!
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Yeah, I think you're right about the marketing thing. I mean, I really wish that someone "up there" could understand how hard it is for some people to stay in the game with the poor shape the format is in right now. Many players could care less, and they'll continue to go buy cards no matter what, but other players like myself are truly concerned with how such decisions have affected the state of the game as of late. When in doubt, I think it's a good plan to try and appeal to everyone. PUSA may end up not doing this, but they can at least try. Power Keepers seemed to support that idea -- a new set meant new cards for people to spend $$$ on, collectors wanted the reprints with alternate art, and competitive players (as well as casual ones) welcomed many good cards back into the format. I mean, I've seen more ideas emerge with cards from PK than cards from Holon Phantoms (aside from like three cards). Imagine if we didn't have Delcatty or Magneton in modified right now. So the reprint/Japanese DP4 new set idea sounds like a winner, though I'll still express my disappointment with having had to wait for so long for a revolutionary set.
 
Lawman said:
There are enough good players out there that will figure out ways to make some of these alleged cards work in combo with other cards previously released. The addition of new cards to the pool will allow other decks to at least be built and tried. Wailord w/ Ray d (HP) w/ a WP energy makes all water Pokes lose their weakness. Or using Xatu from SW to rub the status effect from your active to oppo's active.
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Don't mean to start an argument here. But, Erik is currently ranked 39 in the US in Master. Like I've mentioned before other top notched players have also expressed to me how much they dislike this year's format. Those combos that you mentioned, while they are good combos we don't know if they will actually stand up to the metagame. That's what most of the top players are looking for. Good options. Not bad ones. Porygon2 will good get shot down by two other cards cessation crystal and battle frontier. With Togekiss getting a lot of hype and also being very good I believe that Battle Frontier will be played a whole lot more. Then you add Delcatty and Honchrow to the mix, and why wouldn't you play Battle Frontier? Because there is also Cess. Crystal.

It's not a complain it's simply stating the obvious. There are good cares coming out this next set. But there aren't enough interesting trainers to combo with those good cards. In Felicity's Drawing (or what ever the name is) you pretty much get a Holon Adventurer but without having to be Delta Pokemon, a Tv Reporter but having to discard first. Felicity's Drawing would most likely be a valid option for Magneton/Delcatty. But other then that I don't really see it being that useful.

Premier ball while being good also has it's limits, only pokemon lv. X. What the format needs are cards like Swoop, cards like Jirachi (HL) which was going to be Phione, cards like Pachurisu and Dunsparce(SS, not sure as I wasn't around for those formats). Those are cards that could be put into any deck and help the deck out in a lot of ways.

Another thing that is kind of ruining the format is Cess. Crystal. While this year I've actually played it in some of my decks I still feel that it took out one of the other better aspects of the game which were the stadiums. We only have now less then nine months before that evil card is gone. Hopefully, it doesn't get reprinted in any future set or Pop sets.
 
So 6 sets here make up 5 sets there. Fair enough really if they have a delay in between DP4 and DP5 and we don't, and holding back some of DP4 makes sense in that respect. But the choice of cards is the frustrating part, personally I'm most concerned about Call Energy and Moltres.

I do think we'll be caught up by August though, if that means printing 6 or even more Lv.Xs per set from now on then that could realistically happen. Why there were only 2 in Secret Wonders is what I find weird. We got the OTHER DP4 Lv.Xs early. Why on earth leave out Garchomp?
 
I don't see PUI/POP printing more than 4 lv.X in a set. It's not a good marketing move, since they could just hold off some for the next set and draw even more people to buying that set. Also, it wouldn't go with the consistent theme of 2-4 lv.X in a set that has been used for DP/MT/SW/GE.

How can we catch up with Japan in August if they have another set out by then?
 
Christian: No offense taken. I personally know Erik Nance and his brother. Both excellant players. I respect their opinions greatly. I understand the argument. I guess what I am saying is this.....wait and see what is actually in the set before you diss it.

Japan's format has been different every year since PUI started Worlds 2004. Japanese players were scrambling like heck in FL trading for Team Magma cards. Why can they adapt to our format so quickly why we have good and great players bemoaning ours?

Its like in golf or billiards, sometime you just have to deal with the course/table in front of you. I'd love more variety, but this game is very much a cookie cutter world. Someone gets beat on in a BR, CC or even league with XYZ deck, the next week the player either A) Builds the same type deck or B) Builds a counter to XYZ deck. Right now, we have a few decks dominating.....Mag & GG. IMO, the new set will bring some cards to either improve these decks and/or give some options ag'st these decks.

Keith
 
I know that many people will disagree with this since it doesn't match up with capitalist thinking, but I personally think that some lines need to be drawn when it comes to marketing schemes. I remember inquiring about Yu-gi-oh sometime back and was told that at one point they were releasing something like a new set every month or couple of months. I mean, new cards are cool, but that was an obvious attempt to suck the pockets dry of many kids (and their parents). I just think that some leniency should be given when it comes to a game that people love and play for fun. Otherwise, you'll have players consider leaving because of stale formats or frustration from having to keep up with newly released cards.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it isn't always about the money. I know, I know... many of you will want to say otherwise, but just suspend that urge for a minute. Sometimes it's about the game's integrity. PUI can make marketing moves that support both the competitive player's desire as well as their bank accounts (I believe). It's not that hard to have the best of both worlds. I know I'm going back to this again, but POP6 was a perfect opportunity for this. By balancing sets to aid the competitive player while appealing to the casual player, we can all breathe easy about the Pokemon TCG's future. In my opinion, POP6 should have included much more than what it did.

Current sets should do the same. Imagine if Swoop! Teleporter were reprinted in Great Encounters, or if POP7 included those Lv.X's that we're missing. It's not that hard to keep the game fresh and creative. If PCL is literally restricting our use of everything except what we have now, however, I'd be surprised and somewhat offended. Was it their idea to keep our format absent of hand disruption for a whole season, or is it because nobody asked about the possibility of a Rocket's Admin. reprint (or Desert Shaman)? Are we currently stuck with a troubled format because PCL likes it that way, or is it PUI's failure to plan ahead?

__________

^To Keith:

I have seen early images of the cards that PUSA has released, and what I still see (no matter what is or isn't in the set) is that there are only 106 cards in the set. A friend of mine already has a few boxes of Japan's DP4 set, and I know that there are plenty more cards than that, so I can at least see that cards are getting cut. That's my argument first and foremost, that we can never catch up to Japan with cards being cut here and there. It may be marketing maneuvers, which I understand, but it hurts the player base and the format (both of which should be considered).

I don't know much about Japan's performance at Worlds 2004, but I will say that the situation for them so far has been a double-edged sword. In one way it's hard for them to adapt to us because they have to take a step back from their own format to play in something entirely different. However, they also have the advantage of knowing what worked and what didn't. It's the reason that nearly all the Japanese players used MetaNite with Pow! Hand Extension/Pokemon Reversal at Worlds 2006 -- they had obviously figured out a way to beat decks based around Pidgeot. In my opinion, things would work more smoothly if we were all on the same page.

I see what you mean about dealing with what you have (like in golf or billiards), but you also have to consider the fact that we're playing the game in a way that it's not meant to be played. It's like playing Poker with a 26-card deck, everything that we use has been filtered in some way (chess with missing pieces, again). I'll continue to try my best with this format no matter what (which I think is what you meant), but unless I move to Japan I'll never play this game like it should be played. And it seems that recent "maneuvers" have only further supported this gap.

Okay, time to go to Target...
 
I don't know. Focusing just on the set size, for a moment.
I think 100-120 is a great size for a set.

We've seen small sets (Jungle and Fossil) and we've seen mega sets (Aquapolis and Skyridge) and neither of those were satisfying to me as a collector, which is what the majority of sales are to, if you count the kids as collectors.

The small sets are way to easy to get everything. You wind up getting so many duplicates, you can wallpaper with them. Not good.

The mega-sets, you never get enough of some cards, even commons and uncommons!
Also not good.

So, without talking about the specific cards in the sets, I think 100-110 is just about right for a set's size.
 
TheDarkTwins said:
Anyone who says why did POP/PUI do this doesnt know that they have restrictions put on them by PCL.
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No offense meant, Drew, in posting my contrary opinion. Maybe I'm just leery of these kinds of statements because the whole 15+ debacle was palmed off (adamantly!) by WotC as PCLs decision, when it was later admitted that this not the case at all.

The 'modified' format as an OP practice is not mandated by PCL. I'm pretty confident that is true. I would guess that behind 'modified' is a brand marketing assessment about how sets should be released (and not re-released) profitably in conjunction with the entire management of the intellectual property outside Japan.

Having visited the game in the ICU many times in 2002-2003, I'm sympathetic to the 'do less more sustainably' approach... if I'm guessing right.

vanderbilt_grad said:
Still the more the international meta drifts from the Japanese game the worse things will get IMHO.
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Differing from the creator's intended card pool has been mostly fine, but there have been disasters (Neo Gatr + Trash Exchange) and it creates cycles of doldrums (BAR) like the current one we are in. The current situation is very much like the Blaze ex days where it was King with Gardy ex Queen, as a very distant second choice . Then, up jumped 'Magma'... our best didn't see coming it then. Is there something we're not seeing now?

Dom said:
Fair enough really if they have a delay in between DP4 and DP5 and we don't, and holding back some of DP4 makes sense in that respect. But the choice of cards is the frustrating part...
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Good points; I hope it plays out like that and we don't get double secret probation delaying DP5 further outside Japan.

Regardless how 'caught up' we get, as Dom says, we'll never get any closer than 1 set behind (for logistical reasons of translation within their current creative system).

We'll most likely always have a smaller card pool due to PUI's more frequent rotations.

Lawman said:
Why can they adapt to our format so quickly why we have good and great players bemoaning ours?
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To be sure, there's room for improvement and the merits of certain choices for inclusion/exclusion in this set are most worthy of discussion (and those discussions _could_ influence future choices).

I'm guessing that PUI is very sensible of the impact of set selection decisions on the tournament players and takes this into account before they make them. That said, i also guessing there are overriding priorities related to economics... keeping those economics healthy is likely important to us so we can continue to enjoy this enormous OP program.
 
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On the side of the american players, when the japanese have had to play in our format at worlds, they have only played decks that americans were playing already. Americans knew of Team Magma before worlds since it came out in March of 04. Someone in my hometown was playing Magma and doing well before Worlds that year. Magma just wasn't the popular deck that year. The next year, Yamato played Ludicolo, a popular alternative to Pidgeot decks. In 2006, the 1st place player in the 10- was playing LBS, an already established deck in the americas. In 2007, Yamato was playing Empoleon (although with a surprise infernape tech, which was inventive) and the 1st place 10- player was running Flygon/Eeveelutions which had been known to the americas for a while.

So, I wouldn't say that Japan works miracles with our format, or that they are even that inventive or original when they play our format. If anything, they do what every other player does, pick an already established deck that does well, and run with it.

But Yamato was a genius with his Infernape tech in Empoleon. :p
 
Why does Yamato have to get thrown into every discussion remotely related to Japan? He's a great player, but Infernape as a tech in Empoleon had been discussed by players here. Let's not act like he just pulled it out of nowhere.

On topic: I'm just really dissapointed in this format so far. I did mention Metanite dominated last format during this time, but not nearly to the extent Gardevoir/Gallade is right now. Metanite didn't really have a ton of blowout matchups. I have looked at a lot of the DP4/GE cards and even playtested a lot of them already and it's not exactly looking good with what we're getting. You don't need to wait and see what's in the set all the time, especially considering we have a logical idea of what is going to be in here now.
 
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