Before I've even drawn a card...

[Cisqoe]

In an event and facing another one of these players with huge head-start decks.

On his first turn (before I've even drawn a card) there is a Wailord + Magikarp with 7 energies on it and a Blastoise with 3 energies on it on bench.

 

It's reminding me of Night March like, in situations like this there is a lot of times where nothing you can do will turn it around. If you draw bad or play a deck that isn't full power on your first turn then its over and I don't think it's fair for the majoirity (considering TCGO does contain casuals looking for fun believe it or not). At least night march there is more of a chance you can get what you need and knockout those little pests early, but when there is a 300HP 7 energy fully loaded Wailord + Magikarp and Blastoise right behind him its near impossible..

 

 

 

p.s. for anyone interested, I played Lapras on active and Alolan Vulpix on bench energy to Vulpix. He starts his 2nd turn and drops a 3 energy Lugia EX. He uses W+M to knockout Lapras (could've GX'd to win here so idk what up with that). Next turn after some clever tricks I pull a Alolan Ninetails and double energy from my deck and evolve (hoping the active effect will be my saving grace). Hit him ended turn. Next turn he retreats Wailord (putting lots of energy in discard) and switches with blastoise. Uses super energy retrieval to get them all back, uses Deluge to put them all on Blastoise and game over.

Just so brutal it was the most amount of energy i've ever seen get put down on first turn, second turn there is no turnaround.

[SuperStone]

I'm sorry- I'm not quite understanding the complaint.  Did you experience a glitch?  If so, please provide a clearer description of what you think went wrong.

 

If not, then it seems that your point is that competitive cards should be banned for the sake of casual play?  (Don't want to put words in you mouth but that's what it sounds like.)  If so, I must strongly disagree.  It is perhaps unfortunate that less competitive players are matched up against meta decks from time to time, but then again the exact same thing would happen in a tournament IRL.  The simple fact of the matter is that the game has to try to cater to all audiences, and it can't sac the people who spend the most time on the game to enhance another demographic's quality of play.

Edited February 5, 2019 by SuperStone

[Cisqoe]

I should clarify, I'm saying this kind of deck needs some kind of nerf..?

The way he pulled it off was within all the games non-glitch features but it makes me roll my eyes whenever I see someone manage to take a 5 minute first turn and end with a total of 10 energies on the field, a 300HP GX and a stage 3 on bench. It just seems unfair for some players that draw bad (but even if your draw good there's barely anything you can do), boring for those having to watch this whole thing take place and idk, makes the game just feel a bit stale and robotic.

 

As I mentioned earlier, Night March is very similar to this, on they're first turn they are able to do some ridiculous damage leaving you with sometimes just no options around it BUT at least you have a CHANCE to get good draw or pull something off to get a chance to breathe and knock out something cheaply, or rearrange their hand.

It seems with this deck, there is no way around it. I can't think if a way to defeat a 300HP pokemon with 7 energies without any evolution pokemon (since his GX wipes the bench too) and a stage 2 on bench within your opening turn. It's very difficult.

 

I'm interested in hearing what 'pro' players think about it, since people who play for the fun of the game really don't stand a chance against this kind of deck.

 

(For reference, my deck by no means is professional. It's what I have put together over the years it does me well against a lot of decks (night march the hardest) but this new deck now takes the cake) 

[Sadra]

To be honest, your opponent even isn't that good. Who puts lugia EX in a archies blastoise deck? Night march isn't even top tier at the moment and I haven't lost to night march in a very long time now, even without karen or oricorio. The main problem is strategy and deck building. I understand that it is as you mentioned above, you don't have all the cards you need and I understand that could be frustrating. But the sad thing is everything no matter this card game or anything else requires certain effort , time and money. I can tell you that no cards will be nerfed at the moment and the meta is pretty well balanced, at least for now. If you start pressing the banning button, then new cards would become op and this viscous cycle never ends. In terms of dealing with archies, here is a few suggestions:

 

1. Ability lock it with either wobb or garbodor.

 

2. Use trashalanche garbodor as they are heavy on items

 

3. Use decent non-GX decks to 2 hit KO those whales. Notice the new mr mime card that is great for non-EX GX decks (giratina malamar, buzzwole weavile zapdos). Add shrine to these decks too.

 

I think option 3 may be the best for you since you said you don't have a lot to spend. But again, what I think the main problem here is your skill and deck building abilities since you use lapras GX  and think that its good against most things. Trust me, any competitive deck would destroy alolan ninetale/lapras. A lot of new players whine about those GX decks but many cheap non-GX EX decks are really good as well (not top tier but still has a chance against competitive decks). You can also check the decklists on limitless or the Japanese official site for latest tourny results. You might not understand their choices at first but you will gradually when you understand better at the game.

 

Again, what I wrote may be something that you would not love to hear but its the truth. Archies is a great deck that has a viable strategy but at the same time requires a lot of skill to handle. There is also no such thing as 'playing for fun' and I have heard it a lot from salty new players. It is normal for any card game to have a strategies that are dominant and these are called 'tier 1 decks', the less powerful ones are called 'tier 2' and so on. Nobody should be mad when they play non-competitive decks and lose against decks with more decent strategies and use an excuse as 'playing for fun'. As far as I know, most of us here are 'playing for fun'.  

[DudeofValor]

I played vs a deck like this on my first expanded tournament (I have been playing for about a month now).

 

To me it looked like a very well constructed deck that required very good game knowledge to see the chains and then set it up. I was pleased to see this as so far my experience of player battles has been more casual than competitive.

 

I am sure those with equal card pool and game knowledge would not struggle (or at least make a fight of it).

 

It would be cool if there was options to have a more casual tournament but I don't know how one would regulate that.

[buddyglass]

It would be cool if there was options to have a more casual tournament but I don't know how one would regulate that.

 

Could sort people into tournaments by ELO rating, so that (in theory) everybody is roughly evenly matched.  Just means you might have to wait longer for a tournament to reach capacity.

 

If that's not already the way the game works, it really, really should.  Otherwise the tournaments just serve to enrich those players who are already extremely effective.

[Sadra]

I played vs a deck like this on my first expanded tournament (I have been playing for about a month now).

 

To me it looked like a very well constructed deck that required very good game knowledge to see the chains and then set it up. I was pleased to see this as so far my experience of player battles has been more casual than competitive.

 

I am sure those with equal card pool and game knowledge would not struggle (or at least make a fight of it).

 

It would be cool if there was options to have a more casual tournament but I don't know how one would regulate that.

Yes, I agree that it would be great for players with the similar ELO to attend the same tournament but this is very very difficult to apply because knowing this many would exploit the system and concede 50 games in a row to guarantee the win and thus makes no difference.

[SuperStone]

Yes, I agree that it would be great for players with the similar ELO to attend the same tournament but this is very very difficult to apply because knowing this many would exploit the system and concede 50 games in a row to guarantee the win and thus makes no difference.

I suppose we could have separate ELOs for tournaments.  I'm still not sure this is a good idea, but I won't oppose it.

Edited February 6, 2019 by SuperStone

[Felidae_]

Ignoring the potential ***** of the system, there is also the problem that even in the same ELO range decks can differ drastically in terms of strength. After all, if the OP faces those decks on the versus ladder that would mean he'd have to face them in tournaments as well.

 

Not to mentioned how long you'd have to wait to get a high ELO tournament to start, it already takes some time to find versus opponents during certain hours of the day.

 

To be honest, the amount of times I've faced a mediocre deck in the finals of a tournament, gives me plenty of reason to believe that even a beginner doesn't automatically lose in the first round every time.

That being said, I'll repeat what I always preach: Stop looking at your opponents and start to work on your own deck. I'm willing to bet that without investing anything we could improve your deck just by cards that are available for free in various theme decks. If we add 2-3 packs to get additional trainer cards we can take it to the next level in no time.

 

The majority of players are “casuals”, yet there seems to be a misconception where people confuse playing casually with throwing together a bad deck and then expecting the game to throw equally terrible decks at them.

[buddyglass]

My anecdotal experience:  I've competed in four or five tournaments so far.  In the first I made it to the final match and only lost because of a mental error on my part.  In the other 3 (or 4) I lost in the first round and it wasn't even close.

Edited February 6, 2019 by buddyglass

[DudeofValor]

Ignoring the potential ***** of the system, there is also the problem that even in the same ELO range decks can differ drastically in terms of strength. After all, if the OP faces those decks on the versus ladder that would mean he'd have to face them in tournaments as well.

 

Not to mentioned how long you'd have to wait to get a high ELO tournament to start, it already takes some time to find versus opponents during certain hours of the day.

 

To be honest, the amount of times I've faced a mediocre deck in the finals of a tournament, gives me plenty of reason to believe that even a beginner doesn't automatically lose in the first round every time.

That being said, I'll repeat what I always preach: Stop looking at your opponents and start to work on your own deck. I'm willing to bet that without investing anything we could improve your deck just by cards that are available for free in various theme decks. If we add 2-3 packs to get additional trainer cards we can take it to the next level in no time.

 

The majority of players are “casuals”, yet there seems to be a misconception where people confuse playing casually with throwing together a bad deck and then expecting the game to throw equally terrible decks at them.

 

This is very true. I haven't played the game long (but have played MTG for like 17 years) so understand totally about deck construction.

 

Having read online about deck construction for Pokemon and the way things work so much more emphasis is on your own deck doing it's thing rather than worrying about your opponents deck. However interaction is still needed. I have stopped running Hau in Pokemon. For MTG drawing three for a cost of zero is insane but here it is decent at best. 

[Felidae_]

 

 

 

This is very true. I haven't played the game long (but have played MTG for like 17 years) so understand totally about deck construction.

 

Having read online about deck construction for Pokemon and the way things work so much more emphasis is on your own deck doing it's thing rather than worrying about your opponents deck. However interaction is still needed. I have stopped running Hau in Pokemon. For MTG drawing three for a cost of zero is insane but here it is decent at best. 

 

Yeah, it's kind of crazy how fast you can cycle through your deck in Pokemon compared to the likes of MtG ( I started with the Onslaught Block in 2002, can't believe it's almost 17 years ).

Although there are interactions between players and certain decks even excel at disrupting the opponent, the best comparison I have for Pokemon is still good old Solitaire. It doesn't matter what your opponent is doing, as long as you get your own deck going.

 

The problem that a lot of beginners face is the steep learning curve between theme decks and constructed play, as the former almost feel like a totally different game.

Whenever I read “oh, he got multiple stage 1 / 2 Pokemon GX out on the second turn and has like 5 energy attached, the game is unbalanced” all I can think of is that one player clearly made the better choice regarding their trainer cards, regardless if their main attacker are GX or not.

If your deck fails to set-up and you lack consistency, then this can hardly be attributed to an unbalance in card design.