I've been playtesting a lot the past few days to prepare for States/Regionals, and I have to say I love the format. It really makes you think. If you overbench, you will lose. If you start ramming with Mewtwo (or really any EX) too early in the game, you will lose. If you overattach, you will lose.
The opening hand seems to play much less of a role in deciding games. I got bored yesterday and played a good 10+ matches on PlayTCG against random opponents. I started horribly in almost all of those games because I'm playing with new lists I haven't come close to perfecting and probably just had some bad luck. However, I only lost once. Misplays become much easier to exploit when you have the ability to OHKO an undamaged Pokemon for two prizes. My one loss was because I opted to attach a third energy to the Mewtwo I started with, and my opponent of course retaliated with a Mewtwo of their own to take the prize lead right back.
There also seem to be a lot less donks. You don't want to open Mewtwo if you can avoid it, so 40HP basics are often safe even though it's counter-intuitive. Said basics are much less popular now anyway since the top decks seem to be all big-basic. Furthermore, ZPST has a huge amount of trouble donking most decks and will probably end up seeing less play in general.
The format is much faster, which I don't really mind. Once the almost inevitable EX OHKO chain starts, it usually doesn't end until the game ends. That's the one thing I can imagine people would complain about, but we'll see.
Edit- I forgot to add that Celebi/Mewtwo can be a little donky, but it's nowhere near as bad as ZPST and if it doesn't open Celebi, it usually doesn't donk. 80 damage is much less threatening than 120, especially in an EX format.
The opening hand seems to play much less of a role in deciding games. I got bored yesterday and played a good 10+ matches on PlayTCG against random opponents. I started horribly in almost all of those games because I'm playing with new lists I haven't come close to perfecting and probably just had some bad luck. However, I only lost once. Misplays become much easier to exploit when you have the ability to OHKO an undamaged Pokemon for two prizes. My one loss was because I opted to attach a third energy to the Mewtwo I started with, and my opponent of course retaliated with a Mewtwo of their own to take the prize lead right back.
There also seem to be a lot less donks. You don't want to open Mewtwo if you can avoid it, so 40HP basics are often safe even though it's counter-intuitive. Said basics are much less popular now anyway since the top decks seem to be all big-basic. Furthermore, ZPST has a huge amount of trouble donking most decks and will probably end up seeing less play in general.
The format is much faster, which I don't really mind. Once the almost inevitable EX OHKO chain starts, it usually doesn't end until the game ends. That's the one thing I can imagine people would complain about, but we'll see.
Edit- I forgot to add that Celebi/Mewtwo can be a little donky, but it's nowhere near as bad as ZPST and if it doesn't open Celebi, it usually doesn't donk. 80 damage is much less threatening than 120, especially in an EX format.
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