Please, make a format with no EX/GX Pokemon allowed

[Yelf59]

GX pokemons and escouades are a real problem with balance and fun.

It's really too bad, I think.

 

I win with my deck based on Tokorico GX but it's no fun at all.

 

It would really be cool if there were a format with no EX/GX pokemon allowed.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Yelf59

[DonZaloog95]

Hi. While on paper the GXs/EXs have numbers that would make them look unbalanced, I don't believe that is the case. Actually, I believe if they didn't exist, we would have formats that would only include "best zapdos decks at the time". The fact that they give up 2 price cards is really the big thing here. To be worth, they need to knock out 2 pokemons  separately while in return they can be knocked out in one hit especially if hitting for weakness.

In case of pikarom, zoroark gx, koko gx and so on, one hit from buzzwole(while pikarom has 4 price cards) will knock it out. In case of Reshizard, Flareon Gx etc. one hit from slowking with triple boost energy will knock it out. Also yet choice band is adjusting these jumbers quite nicely. I don't think we are playing gxs/exs just because they have the higher numbers just in the same way as we aren't picking any non-gx/ex  to our decks especially in tournament play. I don't believe the format that includes non-GX/EX pokemons would be any more balanced, while I have feeling that the opposite could be true.

[SandaledOtter]

What will you do about the BREAKs?

 

Can we remove all status effects too?

[XK920XK]

5 hours ago, Yelf59 said:

It would really be cool if there were a format with no EX/GX pokemon allowed.

There already is, its called theme.

[Otakutron]

10 hours ago, Yelf59 said:

It would really be cool if there were a format with no EX/GX pokemon allowed.

 

The only reason it would be "cool" is just to enjoy the salty, salty tears of the folks who think it won't be just as competitive and almost as pricey as the "regular" Standard or Expanded Formats.  I'll mostly agree with @DonZaloog95, mostly differing in that certain cards who happen to be Pokémon-EX or Pokémon-GX might be "too good"... but so are some non-EX/GX Pokémon, some Trainers, and some Special Energy cards.

 

Given most specialty mechanics are restricted to the higher rarities... maybe the real answer is a "No Rares" Format, where all you can use are Commons and Uncommons.  No, Promos wouldn't be allowed either.

 

If I sound radically different from some of my past comments on this matter... maybe I'm just in a better mood, but I'm intentionally ignoring how we can only have so-many Formats available for the Rewards Ladder.  If that wasn't an issue, I'd very much enjoy one "extra rules" Format.  Probably would need to swap different "alternate rules" each Reward Ladder.  Like one Rewards Ladder might be "No Rares".  Another might be "No non-Evolving Basic Pokémon".  Another might be "No Special Energy".  Etc.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Otakutron
Typo; censored whatever I said instead of "Reward Ladder"

[GR0]

While I'd still stay in Theme Duels, I still agree with this. It'd be nice to have a format where you can still build your own deck but won't face cards that are deliberately grossly overpowered in return for giving away 2 prizes. EX's and GX's are just bad design and should've never been introduced (complaint about the physical game, I of course don't blame the Online game adding them: it's only natural to release all physical cards in the Online game as well).

[DonZaloog95]

1 hour ago, GR0 said:

EX's and GX's are just bad design and should've never been introduced

Let me tell a story, namely base set meta. You remember, there were cards like base set Charizard, Base set Venusaur and Base set Blastoise and so on. The numbers were low, each of those 3 only having 120 hp. Attacks did also considerably less damage. This has to be balanced environment, right? No crazy EXs, no crazy GXs,right? But how wrong could one be. While you would think that everyone would play something along the lines of evolution cards(such as the forementioned 3), the combination of Electabuzz and Hitmonchan rose supreme, both being basic pokemons.  The reason for this was simply speed. While evolution decks would like to set up their basics, hitmonchan hitting 20 for 1 fighting on their first turn or with DCE on their second turn for 40 is already quite threatening. However, then comes the real star of the show:trainers. The most important think to note first is that  player could play each and every single trainer card as many as they liked per turn. There were cards like computer search without ace spec tag, professor oak having same effect as sycamore, item finder having same effect as Dowsing machine, energy removal discarding any energy on one of opponents pokemons, scoop up having same effect as on az, gust of wind having same effect as on Lysandre and finally plus power giving 10 dmg boost after applying resistance and weakness. What this meant was that hitmochan and electabuzz deck, deck that is known as haymaker, would deny every single chance opponent has to either attach energies or try to evolve something by hitting relatively big numbers thanks to plus powers starting on turn one, while also doing this really, really consistently thanks to the crazy amount of search and draw power.

 

How this lines up with GXs and EXs? They break the mold of game being one dimensional who can knock out six pokemons fastest into something more interesting. While in meta that wouldn't include GXs zapdos would dominate, GXs like zoroark keep it in check, while zoroark may get beaten by reshizard, reshizard by weezing decks and weezing by zapdos(please, do not take the matchups as literally as I have presented but the idea of cycle of sort). Also the high amount of attacks, that would be inefficient in non gx matchups make perfect sense against GXes. In a short I think all in all the design of giving bigger numbers but in return giving up 2 prices adds variety to the game, both having different kinds of games but also in terms of deck variety. Also instead of having overpowered non gx support pokemons(cough, Legends awakened uxie, secret wonders Gardevoir) the fact that many of these effects being transfered to Gx/Ex pokemons such as lele-gx, Shaymin Ex, Dedenne-Gx ads a risk factor into playing these cards.

 

Edit:Ah, I mistakingly didn't notice that the original base set haymaker didn't use DCE, rather Jungle scizor bringing it up in the deck. Hitmochan can't really utilise DCE due to cost being 1 colorless, 2 fighting,silly me xD

Edited June 4, 2019 by DonZaloog95

[GR0]

Turbo Rain Dance decks, focused on Blastoise, were very able to beat Haymaker decks, only fearing variants with Aerodactyl or Muk which in turn were weak vs regular Haymakers.

But the real problem wasn't the strength of the Basics, but that there wasn't a distinction between Items and Supporters yet. Haymaker's greatest strength was how easily it could cycle through the deck (allowing things such as always having Gust of Wind available to mess with pre-evo's) and could always afford to throw away its hand compared to Evolution decks that had to spend more spots for Pokemon and couldn't always afford to throw away their hand for stuff like Computer Search, Item Finder and Professor Oak. If the Supporter rule was in place, underdog decks like Gyarados/Dewgong Beatdown would've been actually competitive and the metagame would've been incredibly diverse, and that without EXs and GXs.

[Otakutron]

46 minutes ago, DonZaloog95 said:

Edit:Ah, I mistakingly didn't notice that the original base set haymaker didn't use DCE, rather Jungle scizor bringing it up in the deck. Hitmochan can't really utilise DCE due to cost being 1 colorless, 2 fighting,silly me xD

 

Yes, it did, as the early lists also ran Farfetch'd (Base Set 27/102) to create a kind of Rock-Paper-Scissors relationship due to Weakness/Resistance.  Double Colorless Energy was included for Farfetch'd and - to a lesser extent - make retreating easier.

 

Some also included Machop (Base Set 52/102) for a better chance of opening with a 20-for-[F] attack.  Both were dropped once Jungle gave us Scyther.

[DonZaloog95]

1 minute ago, Otakutron said:

 

Yes, it did, as the early lists also ran Farfetch'd (Base Set 27/102) to create a kind of Rock-Paper-Scissors relationship due to Weakness/Resistance.  Double Colorless Energy was included for Farfetch'd and - to a lesser extent - make retreating easier.

 

Some also included Machop (Base Set 52/102) for a better chance of opening with a 20-for-[F] attack.  Both were dropped once Jungle gave us Scyther.

Ah, thank you for clearing this out! 😊

[Otakutron]

14 minutes ago, GR0 said:

Turbo Rain Dance decks, focused on Blastoise, were very able to beat Haymaker decks, only fearing variants with Aerodactyl or Muk which in turn were weak vs regular Haymakers.

But the real problem wasn't the strength of the Basics, but that there wasn't a distinction between Items and Supporters yet. Haymaker's greatest strength was how easily it could cycle through the deck (allowing things such as always having Gust of Wind available to mess with pre-evo's) and could always afford to throw away its hand compared to Evolution decks that had to spend more spots for Pokemon and couldn't always afford to throw away their hand for stuff like Computer Search, Item Finder and Professor Oak. If the Supporter rule was in place, underdog decks like Gyarados/Dewgong Beatdown would've been actually competitive and the metagame would've been incredibly diverse, and that without EXs and GXs.

 

Gotta question your presentation of history and your analysis.  You're ignoring the many strengths of Haymaker, though many were indeed Trainer-based, and exaggerating the potency of Rain Dance.  The short version is Rain Dance was rarely the top deck during the "classic" era.  Even Haymaker was long in the tooth by the time of Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge.

 

You're right about all Trainers working like modern-day Item cards caused pacing issues, but you're missing what I think is the true culprit, one that still causes problems today and is only blunted by the First Turn Rules.  The short version is, we just need Pokémon that cannot attack for damage on either player's first turn, perhaps on either player's first two turns.  Then, we need Evolving Basics and Evolving Stage 1 cards to actually do stuff.  Next, we need Pokémon to "know their role" in decks.  I'd also say change Weakness to a flat +20.  Evolutions have time to Evolve.  The "space savings" of running Basics is balanced out by you needing some Basics as openers, some as main attackers, and others as Bench-sitters but probably having room for extra Energy or Trainers versus Evolving Basic and Stage 1 Pokémon that fill those Pokémon roles, and maybe even having some Trainer-like Abilities.

 

Okay, okay, so that is all Theorymon on my part.  Let's get back to Pokémon-EX/GX.  I don't care for Pokémon-GX, because I see no need for them, but any I see which appear "imbalanced" are due to that specific card's traits and effects, not the GX-mechanic as a whole.  Pokémon-EX as they were used until BW - Legendary Treasures was fine; again, specific examples were a problem but would have been had they been non-Pokémon-EX.  Prior to BW - Legendary Treasures (at least in North America), Pokémon-EX finally gave us a good way to model the power difference between most Legendary Pokémon and the rest.  Then it was used to turn Evolutions into Basics, and then for Mega Evolution. ¬_¬

 

Okay, this seems like a tangent, so let me tie it all together:

 

1) You have opinions

2) I have opintions

3) We have real, "too good" cards that are not Pokémon-EX/GX

4) #3 means that format will still have balance issues.

5) The long mess was to explain how important proper analysis is to everything

[Zaalgia]

so...you want legacy?

[Chasista]

1 hour ago, Zaalgia said:

so...you want legacy?

 

You can play all EX of Black and white series in Legacy format. And they are the "GX cards" of the Legacy format, if you know what I mean.

[Yelf59]

Il y a 2 heures, Zaalgia a dit :

so...you want legacy?

 

The bad with legacy is that it will never evolve.

And I don't know if the EX Pokemons from BW are as unbalanced as the escouades.

[LightFlarion]

Hey all!

 

I know this topic about a no "EX/GX" format has been around for a while, so here is my take on it. Initially having a format with no EX or GX pokemon might seem like a good idea, but there are actually several decks out there that don't really rely on EX or GX pokemon that are on par with many EX and GX decks. So basically by eliminating EX and GX decks would mean that these few decks would probably dominate that format.

 

A possible solution to this problem could be that the PTCGO creates a new format that has a unique ban list to itself. Basically ban all the key cards in high tier decks, so that players in this format could only build decks that consisted of "lower-tier" cards. This would give a chance for players to build decks that didn't have any powerful "EX/GX" pokemon, but still be able to run the lower tier EX/GX pokemon that most competitive decks aren't based on. This would also mean that competitive decks that don't really rely on EX/GX pokemon such as "Nightmarch" or "Lostmarch" would not be allowed in this format.

 

Overall I think having a format like this would be good for the PTCGO, especially for new players that are just starting out or players that want to use "fun" decks.

 

Cheers! 😄

 

 

[Felidae_]

There is one major flaw with this and you already mentioned it yourself:

 

No matter how many arbitrary shackles you put on a format, there will always be top tier decks.

The problem a lot of beginners struggling with is not Pokemon EX / GX, but rather poor deck design and resulting inconsistency.

None of those problems are removed if you get rid of the “good” cards.

 

It doesn't matter if you ban 10, 100, or a 1000 cards, you'll never create an even playing field where you can throw together any pile of junk and still have a decent win rate.

[LightFlarion]

Yeah this is true. Despite whatever limitations that would be in place, top-tier decks will exist in any said format. With that said though, I would still like to see how a format like this or similar would play out in the long run. I know for myself I would definitely be interested in trying out a format like this. Also feed-back from newer players would be interesting to analyze, to see which format they prefer playing in. 🙂

[DonZaloog95]

I think if they had resources, rotating game mode like tavern brawl in heartstone would be awesome. Unfortunately it is really big if...

[Otakutron]

This thread reminded me of something else that has been proposed, and which might be a better solution for those that want a format without Pokémon-EX/GX for new players, budget players, or bored players:

 

30-Card

 

Though you won't find it there anymore, the official Pokémon TCG Rules & Formats document used to include rules for a few "fun" Formats that were not available for sanctioned main events but were permissible for their side events (side events not affecting rankings).  30-Card was one of these.  The difference between this and the "normal" version of Standard or Expanded is

• 30-Card decks instead of 60 (duh)
• 2-Copy Rule instead of 4-Copy Rule
• 3 Prizes instead of 6 Prizes

Decks simply cannot contain as many cards, and thus should be easier to build, barring bizarre metagame induced "hiccups".  A new player that doesn't yet have four [insert staple] will only need two of it, assuming it is still a staple here.  With only three Prize cards, you simply lose if your Tag Team Pokémon is KO'd (barring certain combos).

[Yelf59]

Le 07/06/2019 à 14:29, Zaalgia a dit :

so...you want legacy?

 

Just tried legacy today. 

And yes, it seems so much better. 

Thank you for the tip ! :) 

There are indeed EX pokemons but they are not as overpowered as teams :) 

[DonZaloog95]

4 hours ago, Yelf59 said:

Just tried legacy today.

Hold on, legacy is back?!

[DonZaloog95]

5 hours ago, Otakutron said:

This thread reminded me of something else that has been proposed, and which might be a better solution for those that want a format without Pokémon-EX/GX for new players, budget players, or bored players:

 

30-Card

 

Though you won't find it there anymore, the official Pokémon TCG Rules & Formats document used to include rules for a few "fun" Formats that were not available for sanctioned main events but were permissible for their side events (side events not affecting rankings).  30-Card was one of these.  The difference between this and the "normal" version of Standard or Expanded is

• 30-Card decks instead of 60 (duh)
• 2-Copy Rule instead of 4-Copy Rule
• 3 Prizes instead of 6 Prizes

Decks simply cannot contain as many cards, and thus should be easier to build, barring bizarre metagame induced "hiccups".  A new player that doesn't yet have four [insert staple] will only need two of it, assuming it is still a staple here.  With only three Prize cards, you simply lose if your Tag Team Pokémon is KO'd (barring certain combos).

Yes please!

[Sakura150612]

40 minutes ago, DonZaloog95 said:

Hold on, legacy is back?!

Legacy never left xd It's been available in the VS Ladder the entire time. It's just that Legacy Events were removed (and to my knowledge they haven't returned; I haven't logged in to play in a long time though, so I could be outdated here).

[DonZaloog95]

1 minute ago, Sakura150612 said:

Legacy never left xd It's been available in the VS Ladder the entire time. It's just that Legacy Events were removed (and to my knowledge they haven't returned; I haven't logged in to play in a long time though, so I could be outdated here).

Oh no...I have missed that part of ladder completely 😂

[Yelf59]

The little problem with legacy is that you have to wait to find an oponent. No many people there