[GAME] Versus Mode - Matched with stronger decks

[OrigBitmancer 2]

In Versus mode, it seems that I am constantly being paired with people who have better decks, not equivalent decks. Three moves and I concede. This gets tiresome. Is this a property of the user who responds? Or is this a bit of tuning for the AI?

 

I have tried to post this to the correct sub forum. If it is wrong, please tell me.

[Sakura150612 1,143]

I'm pretty sure that the matchmaker is working as intended. A couple of different things could explain this, so here are some ideas:

 

> Your ELO has raised to a point where you're starting to face better opponents. It eventually happens to everyone after playing for a while. This doesn't mean you have to start using top tier decks, but you'll probably have to make some adjustments to your current decklists. Feel free to go to the Deck Construction forum and share your lists, there is almost always something that can be done to improve a decklist without having to change the whole deck.

 

> On the contrary, you've played very few VS games. The matchmaker can struggle to find you a fitting opponent in your first few games because it doesn't have enough data to calculate your real ELO. You just need to keep playing and eventually you should be facing opponents of your own skill level (whichever that skill level happens to be).

 

> You could be forcing yourself to use decks that just don't have much potential even if they're well built. To give you an example that happens to me, I have a Venusaur/Sceptile deck in Standard that's very fun, but is sadly not very competitive. The deck takes too long to set up and falls behind pretty quickly, so I almost always lose with it against anything other than Ultra Beast decks (since Sceptile's ability helps me buy time). When I play this deck, I face people of my same skill level, but I inevitably end up being paired with people who use decks that are better than mine. However, these are the same people and the same decks I'd be facing regardless of what deck I'm using; the matchmaker only cares about your hidden skill vale (your ELO), it can't account for stuff like "who has the better deck in this specific match", "who has type advantage", or anything else.

 

This last point kind of goes hand in hand with the first one. If you rapidly raise your ELO but you keep your decks unaltered, you will probably experience an exponential rise in the difficulty because you're not just facing better players, you're facing better players who also use better decks.

 

I'm 90% confident that if you shared some of your decklists and allowed us to give you advice on them , you'd notice a notorious improvement on you Laddering experience. Give it a try if you feel like it.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Sakura150612

[OrigBitmancer 2]

I understand what you wrote. Thanks for details!

 

I have played 789 games. I have only been In PTCGO since 5 September.

 

I am only playing with cards I have pulled from boosters or preconstructed decks. Is there a way to use my tickets and “coins” (85; 1585, respectively) to buy ? Singles ? I have looked for the trading post but cannot find it, just values of cards in terms of packs.

[Sakura150612 1,143]

While you cannot directly buy singles with tickets and tokens, you can use them to obtain tradable packs and useful staples (respectively).

 

As you probably know already, you can spend your tickets in Events, which reward you with tradable packs (which in turm you can use to "buy" singles from the public trades). Now, without a deck that can consistently win, I wouldn't recomend that you play Standard and Expanded Events, yet. A couple of things I'd recommend in this regard:

 

Until you can make a strong Standard/Expanded deck, stick to playing Theme Events. It's a bit borring to see Blazing Volcano in literally every other match, but you have a much better chance of winning here right now. You can use your tokens to buy a good Theme Deck (like Blazing Volcano. Personally I use Hydro Fury, which still works wonders and it has type advantage against Blazing Volcano as a side bonus). Using that, you could make 30+ packs with the current number of tickets you have (very rough estimate; take it with a grain of salt).

 

Before you do that though, I'd like to point out that it might be better to sit on those tickets for a while. The most profitable point in time to spam Events is after a new expansion is released and all of the Event rewards are the new pack instead of random packs. For the release of Lost Thunder, I burned the 140 or so tickets I had in Expanded Events using my best deck (well, more like my only deck xd Night March), and I ended with 76 LOT packs in my collection. Which is a TON. With that many packs you can build whatever you want to. So, whether you spend your tickets now or wait until February is up to you. Do keep in mind that you have less tickets than what I had, and that you probably won't have the same crazy winrate in Theme Events (there will be a lot more mirror matches and because Theme Decks are less consistent than custom ones there will be a larger luck factor in play). Keep in mind too that Events, unlike VS games, actually have zero matchmaking. The first 8 players that join are faced against each other and end of the story; you could be playing against complete noobs just like you could be playing against veterans.

 

As for tokens, the best use you can give them is to 1) Buy strong Theme Decks to win Events, and 2) Buy Theme Decks that contain cards you need to make Standard and Expanded decks that you'd have a hard time buying with packs otherwise. For example, lets say you want some LOT Naganadels. What a lot of people are charging for them in public trades is a ripoff, so you're better off buying Storm Caller once or twice for Tokens (this is just an example though).

 

---

 

As I usually do, I can offer you to give you some staples that you might be missing. I don't have everything, but I do have some extras in a lot of things. This might help you get going.

 

But on top of that, I'd like to offer you to teach you my own deck (Night March) if you're interested. It's relatively cheap, and it's still one of the strongest decks in Expanded. It's excellent for both laddering and grinding Events. You'll notice a world of difference when you try a deck that's as lightning fast as NM. Let me know what you think, and I'll see what I can do for you.

 

EDIT: Btw this means I'm also offering to help you get the core cards for this deck. I know the problem is you're having a hard time finding singles in the first place, so I'll give you what you need to get started. If you're interested, of course.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Sakura150612

[OrigBitmancer 2]

Thanks * 10^6 to use an oldie! I did redeem for a half dozen precon theme decks. All were S&M or later. I have stayed out of Expanded because I lack knowledge of those cards.

 

I did not get that Volcano deck. I favor steel and dark energy-powered Pokémon. Psychic and Lightning come second. What is in Night March?

 

I have redeemed for:

Mental might

Born of Fire

Crushing Current

 

Destruction Fang

Hidden depths

Hydro Fury

Mach Strike

Steel Sun

Storm Caller

Twilight Rogue

 

Should I start with Hydro Fury? Or your Night March?

 

I am grateful for any and all assistance!

[Sakura150612 1,143]

Night March is actually an Expanded deck, but it's the most amazing deck I've ever had the pleasure to play xd It's pretty much the only thing I play nowadays, but I honestly never get tired of it. I'll give you my list so that you can take a look at it.
 

****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ******

 

##Pokémon - 21

 

* 2 Shaymin-EX ROS 77

* 2 Marshadow-GX BUS 80

* 4 Joltik PHF 26

* 3 Mew FCO 29

* 1 Oricorio GRI 56

* 4 Pumpkaboo PHF 44

* 1 Tapu Lele-GX GRI 60

* 4 Lampent PHF 42

 

##Trainer Cards - 35

 

* 4 Professor Sycamore STS 114

* 1 Computer Search BCR 137

* 1 N FCO 105

* 3 Trainers' Mail ROS 92

* 1 Rescue Stretcher GRI 130

* 2 Dimension Valley PHF 93

* 4 Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear PHF 92

* 2 Special Charge STS 105

* 2 Field Blower GRI 125

* 1 Teammates PRC 160

* 1 Guzma BUS 143

* 4 Ultra Ball SUM 135

* 2 Choice Band GRI 121

* 1 Lysandre FLF 104

* 2 Float Stone BKT 137

* 4 VS Seeker PHF 109

 

##Energy - 4

 

* 4 Double Colorless Energy FCO 114

 

Total Cards - 60

 

****** Deck List Generated by the Pokémon TCG Online www.pokemon.com/TCGO Sakura******

 

The idea behind this deck is to stack damage really fast. If you're familiar with the more recent Lost March, this is similar but it stacks with Pokemon in your discard pile. There are 3 cards in this game with the attack "Night March", and you can use a maximum of 4 copies of each (as it is with any other card), so you can have a total of 12 cards with the attack "Night March" in your deck.

Night March does 20 damage for each Pokemon in your discard pile that has the attack "Night March", meaning that if you discard 9 out of the 12 NM cards you're already in the 180 damage range, which OHKOs most Pokemon EX and a lot of Basic Pokemon GX. Because you have a good type advantage coverage (Electric with Joltik, Psychic with Pumpkaboo and Mew, Fighting with Marshadow-GX), discarding as few as 5 NM cards is enough for a OHKO against a lot of popular decks. Discarding with this deck is also very easy because you run 4 Battle Compressors and 4 Ultra Balls. Using Ultra Ball to discard what remains of your hand, dropping a Shaymin-EX to draw up to 6 cards (without using any Supporter cards yet), and then discarding again with Professor Sycamore means that you can almost always reliably score a KO on your first turn.

 

Speaking of which, this deck makes the start of the match coin flip a win-win scenario for you. If you win the coin flip, you make your opponent go first. If you lose it, most people will chose to go first anyways. Because of how easily you can KO anything in your first turn, you always want to go second to attack right away and take the lead in the prize race.

The main advantage of this deck is that it easily OHKOs Pokemon EX and GX without having to use EX or GX attackers itself (you have Marshadow-GX, but I typically don't attack with it unless I need the Fighting type weakness), which means that more often than not you'll be ahead in prizes.

The deck is rather cheap too compared to other popular decks Like Buzzwhole-GX. The only expensive cards in this list are the Tapu Lele-GX (which I don't use that often here anyways) and the Computer Search (which is very nice but you can definitely forego without hurting the deck too much). Shaymin-EX are worth like 2 packs each, Marshadow-GX costs around 1 pack and everything else costs 1 pack or less. The NM cards themselves cost very little.

Personally I think it's fun to watch that little demonic spider with only 30 HP take out 200+ HP Behemoths like M Rayquaza-EX in a single hit in your first turn and using a single energy xd It's not as OP as that sounds though, there are some tech cards that anyone can use that can counter it pretty hard such as Oricorio (I run one in this deck myself for easy wins in the mirror match), and then there's Trevenant which is an auto-loss most of the times. But that aside, it's incredibly consistent. It's strong against a wide variety of decks and I rarely draw dead with it because of how many consistency cards it runs.

If you're interested I can showcase the deck a little for you when you catch me online. If it looks like something that you might want to try, I'll be happy to help you build one.

---

Now, for the time being it might be faster to start by getting a solid Theme Deck and using that. From the list you have there, Hydro Fury is something I can recommend for a starter. It's pretty good and it has type advantage against Blazing Volcano, which people are playing a lot in the Theme format. It's definitely not an auto-win against Blazing Volcano, but it's pretty strong. I think Mach Strike is still pretty good, although it has fallen out of favor a little.

Crushing Current has seen better days, that's for sure. At some point it was at the top of the Theme Deck food chain, but it was a little too dominant and it got nerfed in the end (online exclusive decks can be subject to nerfs and buffs; the regular Theme Decks that you can buy in stores and redeem for 500 tokens will always stay the same). I haven't seen anyone use it in VS for while. Hydro Fury, Mach Strike and Blazing Volcano (if you feel like buying it for another 500 tokens) are good places to start.

 

---

 

EDIT: Can we request to move this to the Deck Construction forum maybe (if Orig is ok with that)? This thread has become more about deckbuilding than anything so I think it would fit better in that section now.

Edited December 6, 2018 by Sakura150612

[OrigBitmancer 2]

Let us move it.

[Sakura150612 1,143]

Alright, I've made a version of my NM deck without the expensive stuff. Here's what it looks like (you can go ahead and copy this to your clipboard; when you go create a deck choose to "Import Deck"):

 

****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ******

 

##Pokémon - 20

 

* 2 Shaymin-EX ROS 77

* 2 Marshadow-GX PR-SM SM59

* 4 Joltik PHF 26

* 3 Mew FCO 29

* 1 Oricorio GRI 56

* 4 Pumpkaboo PHF 44

* 4 Lampent PHF 42

 

##Trainer Cards - 36

 

* 4 Professor Sycamore BKP 107

* 1 N DEX 96

* 4 Trainers' Mail ROS 92

* 1 Rescue Stretcher GRI 130

* 2 Dimension Valley PHF 93

* 4 Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear PHF 92

* 2 Special Charge STS 105

* 2 Field Blower GRI 125

* 1 Teammates PRC 141

* 1 Cynthia UPR 119

* 4 Ultra Ball SUM 135

* 2 Choice Band GRI 121

* 2 Guzma BUS 115

* 2 Float Stone BKT 137

* 4 VS Seeker PHF 109

 

##Energy - 4

 

* 4 Double Colorless Energy FCO 114

 

Total Cards - 60

 

****** Deck List Generated by the Pokémon TCG Online www.pokemon.com/TCGO ******

 

I went ahead and got some stuff for you, so completing this shouldn't be too hard. Let me know which of these cards you have missing to give you a hand. I went ahead and got you the 12 NM cards along with 2 Marshadow-GX, and I'm sitting on a few extra trainers too. Don't worry too much about this; I'm doing this pretty much because I want to so you can go ahead and take these.

 

Btw, do you know where to see the chat windows? I don't mean anything special by that, I just tried to talk to you in game a little while ago but it doesn't seem like you saw it xd I dunno, maybe you were just afk, but I'm confirming to be sure.