Hello again everyone. Hopefully you’ve all been able to have some success at Cities so far, and haven’t gotten too aggravated over the sometimes very annoying variance this format seems to throw at players. I know way too many good players who have gone 4-2, 3-3, or even worse at a number of events this year, despite playing the same decks that either they have won with previously, or players at that same event succeeded with.
I know it is common place for people to complain when they lose that they got unlucky, and I know it is equally popular for other players to say that you can overcome luck with preparation and skill, and I am usually in the latter camp. Unfortunately, the more I play this format, the less I feel like I am really in full control. To be fair, this sentiment is always in place for most trading card game formats.
You can do your best, and you can certainly do a lot to influence the results of a performance, but there are legitimately a number of games which are foregone conclusions, regardless of who is on either end of the game, and that can provide a very frustrating experience. Even the games I win, I seldom get the sensation that I played such a great game that I really outplayed my opponent. I merely get the sense of relief that my deck drew better than theirs and I won.
I don’t find myself in many situations where I have to play super tight Pokemon in order to pull out a close game. The tough game states still somewhat offer up their own solutions. I’m not sure what I’d suggest as a solution to this format’s issues, but for every time I miss sleeving up a deck and throwing down at my local card shop, I certainly feel like I picked a good time to step away from the grind of competitive Pokemon.
No Grind, Take it Easy
The stress of having to push for as many points as possible is something I am glad to not have crushing down on my shoulders anymore, no matter how much I enjoy the experience of playing the game itself.
Now, that being said, I still remain active in the game, not only so I can provide the readers and members of the Underground with good content, but for other reasons as well. First, I can’t ever just really step away. This game is a huge part of my life. I’ve been playing it for literally half of my life, more when you consider that most of the stuff up to about age 8 doesn’t really count.
Even though it took me a few years to decide that it was best for me not to continue the grind, I still do, and always will, have a deep seeded love of this game, and not only do I know I’d never be able step away entirely, but I know I’d never want to. I have too many friends, and memories with this game, and even not being as actively involved in it, I still enjoy following what happens with it.
I guess after 12 years straight of doing this, I finally managed to burn myself out. In addition to this, I’m not sure I COULD step away entirely, simply because all of my friends force me to help them with their decks anyways, and apparently linking them to various tier 1 Magic deck lists when they ask me “what the best deck in the format is” only deters them a little bit before I get hit with “No seriously, what should I play?” so rather than fight it, I cave in and suggest things. In addition to that, I really do enjoy playing on Pokemon Online…
What gives Nintendo?
… Which requires I branch off on a slight tangent I guess. Nintendo REALLY needs to get their things together and work out the kinks for it. Not only has it been months of play without any improvements being implemented, we have very little information regarding what type of structure we can expect for the improved non-beta version.
I wish we had a more clear idea of their vision regarding this game, especially considering the amount of time and money some of us are putting into the game. While I use it quite a bit, I still log nothing compared to the number of hours players like Pooka and Jason Klaczynski put on it.
More importantly, I wish they would fix the glitches. Eviolite is one of the most game changing cards to be released out of the new set, and warps the metagame. Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t WORK on PTCGO, so all of that impact is negated, which makes playtesting on the program near worthless because a major factor is simply gone.
I’ve been using Kyurem Feraligatr Prime on there a lot, and the deck has been crushing everything because one of the primary “answers” to Glaciate spread is Eviolite, especially in ZPS, and well, that counter measure can’t be played, so instead I get skewed results. Now, I’m not going to stop Glaciating since its winning, but it would certainly be nice to have the real format line up with the online one.
It shouldn’t even be that hard from a programming perspective! It literally replicates an effect already programmed into Defender…they got the “stays attached” part right, and the “only works on a Basic” part down, but the already available coding they screwed up? That is just annoying.
Even if it was a mere oversight, look how long its been since the set went live. There is no excuse from a company this large for fixes not to be implemented yet. As I’ve said in previous rants, we aren’t talking about some smaller company trying to break into video games… this is a game owned by NINTENDO, one of the leading video game companies from the past 3 decades. Stupid programming blunders like this are less excusable.
Oh where, oh where is my Tropical Beach?
Now, we have another major issue to address as well. We need access to Tropical Beach online. I understand that the card is hard to obtain in real life even, but the card is being played in a pretty hefty number of decks now, and a lot of them suffer pretty substantially if they do not have access to it, so again we are stuck with an inaccurate representation of how decks perform online.
Now, that being said, I’m less angry about this than I am about all the glitches, simply because I’m not really sure how I would go about introducing the card online. It could either be available at a fairly high cost in booster credits, or perhaps when the non-beta goes live, it could be offered as a prize for tournaments. Win one of the online tournaments, and get X booster credits and a Tropical Beach?
This keeps it exclusive and keeps with the spirit of its worlds release, but also means that the players who are competitive enough to really demand the card are able to earn it. Another idea would be to include it “randomly” as a chase card in packs, perhaps one in every few boxes of any set, which would certainly provide incentive to getting people to open more packs.
If they do decide to offer the card as prize support for the online tournaments, they could even “stamp” the card with what place the player finished in what type of respective tournament, similar to how they were stamped at Worlds. I know they desired to compensate players from the closed beta for however much time they logged in the game, so with open beta they could even give out Tropical Beach “Staff” cards to those who put in a set period of time in beta as a reward.
Reprint, or not to reprint? That is the question.
Sadly, while those solutions are all valid and I have faith that the issue will eventually be addressed, the issue of what to do with Tropical Beach in terms of actual printed cards is a far more difficult task to address. I know I’ve ranted before on my dislike of Yanmega Prime getting reprinted (even though Yanmega is a far worse card now than it was months ago, so the impact is even lessened as I’m sure the price of the card would have come down quite a bit by now already) and my stance is somewhat similar to mine on Tropical Beach.
This game is not only a game, but something to collect. People who do choose to invest in rarer items do so with the knowledge that a card is available in certain ways, and thus it has a stagnant rarity, which offers a comparable value. If you trade for a rare card at a higher value, the next print run isn’t going to feature it as a common, for example.
I object to the reprinting of valuable cards because it really screws with the secondary market, and betrays consumer trust when you do “suck it up” and drop a lot of money on a more expensive card. With the economy as it is, disposable income is already low, and with the demographic of players who play this game, most do not have a lot of it.
Buying Pokemon cards is often excused because, worst case scenario, they can be sold off for a good percentage of the price they were bought at, generally. This “safety net” inspires consumer confidence, especially when they aren’t sure if they should be spending money on cards.
Now, I understand, especially with the Tropical Beach scenario, that there really is a need for the card to have increased circulation. But they really need to do this SOON. My biggest issue with the Yanmega re-release was with how long it was done after the initial printing. I didn’t mind the various tin-ing of cards from sets because they happen roughly about the same time that they sets were released, so players had a general knowledge that the cards would be tinned when the set came out.
Price Flux
Plus, the prices of the cards were already volatile due to the initial “new set” hype so nothing was close to set in stone yet. Releasing specific valuable cards from a set over a year after the fact is a suspect decision, as it then casts doubt over ANY valuable card. It would be like having the U.S. Treasury release an additional “held back” print run of “limited edition” coins from 1960 after the collectible had 50 years to establish their worth.
While I know there is no requirement for Nintendo to behave any certain way with the release of its product, the game is marketed as a collectible and I think it is a bit irresponsible to the games collectors to do this. I don’t collect, I’m primarily a player, and I’m sure most of the people on this site are too, but people buy this game for a number of different reasons, and the challenge for Nintendo is to offer things to all demographics without alienating others, and I think the Yanmega decision was a poor one.
Now how am I going to relate this to Tropical Beach? Well, acknowledging it needs a reprint, I’d like to see at least an announcement regarding what, if anything, is going to be done about it. The longer they wait, the more people assume it is safe to invest in the card, and pay huge prices for the limited supply. The longer they wait, the more people they burn with the release.
I know some people suggested including a copy in with the World Championships decks, which would have been an awesome idea. I think they could have been included as a tournament prize, either for Cities or Regionals. The idea of it being a random “chase card” in boosters would be fine even. OR! More importantly? Change the policy regarding foreign printed cards. Allow the use of other language cards and suddenly we have a vast influx of available Tropical Beach cards which can be used.
There are a lot of different solutions, but of course, what we are given instead is silence and no answer at all. You’ll see how much use Tropical Beach gets in the deck lists I’m going to include, so I really do think we need to know what’s going to happen. If there will not be a re-release, at least say so, that way people can buy their copies now.
Shut Up Already!
Focus, young grasshopper.
Anyways, let’s get to the actual content, shall we, and leave the ranting behind. I had a blast of a time judging Regionals, and I wanted to congratulate all of the players who did well at Great Lakes, and around the country. The Championship Points earned there will be huge towards qualifying for Worlds. I wanted to give a great shout out and thanks to Derek Farber, AJ Schumacher, and all of the others who helped out at Great Lakes for an awesome tournament. It is always great to watch a large tournament go so smoothly.
Anyways, I’ve said this countless times, but a player’s season is often determined by their performance at Cities. It was always the biggest point in the year for me, and required me to hit up 2 Cities pretty much every weekend just to stay competitive. Unless you plan on expecting yourself to just run super hot for a small number of tournaments, you really need to aim for volume.
Especially with the “take the best 5 performances” effect, you really need to aim for 5 wins. I know one player, who through attending marathons, will be playing in over 20 Cities.
I know in the past years, it determined how you approached States and Regionals. If you had a really high rating, you had the option of merely aiming for points over a high place finish, so it changed how you approached events. Now, thanks to the much needed fix in the invite structure, that’s not an issue, but getting a bulk of CPs from Cities is still huge. Cities also comes at a beautiful time: Right after a new set release.
This means that a majority of players will likely be “behind” in the first few events, their decks not quite ideal yet as players struggle to grasp the new format. This is when top players who put in a lot of effort have a real edge until players start to copy whats winning and the deck choice edge you could experience starts to drift away. The first few Cities are the easiest to snipe wins at if you really are on top of the format.
Unfortunately, we are past that point by the time this gets printed. Things will likely be quite cutthroat by this point, as individual little metagames have already developed. So enough talk, let’s hit up some of the decks.
ZPS
Yes, I know its “ZPST” by now, as Tornadus plays a pretty major role in the deck, but it’ll always be a simple ZPS to me, especially now that the focus is back on Zekrom due to Eviolite. Let me be the first to say that the format is still rather wide open at the moment, and debate over what the “best deck” is is still raging. It doesn’t appear that we have a clear-cut front-runner, but to me, I think if I had to play anything, I’m liking ZPS.
It is the fastest deck, it can steal games, it has a great match play advantage, and it is now durable due to Eviolite. I also feel that a lot of people underestimate the deck, and take for granted that most of the top players seem hesitant to play the deck. I’ve had a ton of conversations with good players who propose new deck ideas to me, and I ask them how its ZPS game is, and they tell me “Eh, pretty bad, but it’s great vs the rest of the field!” and that just seems to be a concession people are willing to make.
It seems that they either assume weaker players will lose with the deck anyways, or other players will play stuff to knock the deck out? The format is pretty wide open, so a loss to any specific deck is a legitimate write off, but it seems this deck is a popular one to have. I think people really underestimate just how good the archetype has gotten since it received in the initial stigma of being a flukely donk deck at the start of this format. Even now, I see a plethora of different approaches which can be taken towards building this deck.
