The big thing on everyone’s mind right now is City Championships, and rightfully so – marathons are coming up and the amount of Championship Points (CPs) available for the taking at Cities can make or break a season. I’ll go in depth into the intricacies of the format in a minute, but first I’d like to start this column off with some good old-fashioned controversy:
This format stinks.
The foul fluid from its rear is so revolting that it can make people feel queasy up to a mile and a quarter away.
Yup. You heard me.
This is easily one of the worst formats I’ve ever played in, and many top-level players would agree with me. The current format leaves too much to luck and closes the gap between good and average players way too much. Many people have complained about this, but I don’t think people can really explain WHY they don’t like this format.
I’ll go right ahead and dive into the details that are dragging down this format, as well as detail exactly what this format is missing.
1. Lack of universal consistency options
This is reason #1 why this format is stale and even most archetypes just don’t feel right. Past formats had Pokémon that could improve consistency and make decks that would normally be way too inconsistent and unreliable run smoothly and become playable.
In the last couple formats, Claydol GE and Uxie LA were easily searchable draw that could fit into any deck, evening out draws and erasing bad starts, letting skill and deck building shine rather than the “who sets up wins” luck some games come down to right now.
Before those, we had Nidoqueen delta, which made crazy toolbox decks like M&Ms* (Meganium ex, Steelix ex, Mew delta) viable. Before Nidoqueen, Pidgeot RG made the ultimate “power” deck playable, LBS**, which would absolutely not be a consistent archetype without the help of its Quick Search bird.
Cards like these are good for the game because they enable creativity and create a very diverse metagame. They make it so people who spend the time and effort to come up with unique ideas at creating synergy get rewarded because their crazy ideas can come to fruition in the form of something other than an inconsistent mess.
In today’s format, deck building is pretty much finding Pokémon that can function with the limited consistency options available to it, which is why it seems like everyone is coming up with the same decks (mostly running the powerful basics) and seriously random, uninspired decks like Typhlosion/Magnezone (Just take the best energy acceleration option and pair it with the OTHER legit draw Pokémon available! Yay!) are popping up, despite STILL being clunky options that require some degree of luck to succeed with.
An upcoming Venusaur has this same Power.
If one of these types of Pokémon existed today, many very interesting Tier 2 archetypes would be viable in Tier 1 play, and we’d be seeing stuff like Hydreigon NVI, Feraligatr Prime, Chandelure NVI, or even crazier stuff like Seismitoad NVI become consistent enough to do well at some events.
An encouraging sign on this front is the leaking of Venusaur from Dark Rush, whose power is a functional reprint of Nidoqueen delta. Hopefully Pokémon Card Laboratories (PCL) has realized this and is looking into creating more deck smoothing Poke-Powers to give more decks more consistency overall and give more evolutions a chance to shine.
2. Lack of call Basics/Call Energy compounded with the new Rare Candy rules
This one is another reason Stage 2s are being hindered so greatly. In the past we had Dunsparce SS, Pachirisu GE, and Call Energy, which gave us options to fill our benches and evolve the turn after, and this is when you could still Rare Candy the same turn you benched a Pokémon. Dunsparce enabled a deck like Rock Lock*** that played TWO clunky Stage 2s to ascend into Tier 1 status.
Now in a post rule-changed Candy world, the fact that none of these options exist hinders the consistency of Stage 2 decks and even Stage 1s in general, and this is even worse when one of TWO good draw Pokémon happens to be a Stage 2, making it unnecessarily difficult to even get the first one out with the resources we have available.
Now consider trying to play a Stage 2 Pokémon that isn’t Magnezone Prime and can’t use Ninetales HS, and we can clearly see why the only viable Stage 2 Pokémon in today’s format – other than the Ross components – are Magnezone and Typhlosion. Pichu doesn’t count because it ends up helping your opponent a lot more than it helps you after turn 1, as they get the ability to evolve right away while you have to wait a turn.
[Editor's Note: To clarify, if you use Pichu's Playground turn 1 going first, your opponent can't evolve right away. However, if you use Playground any other time, your opponent can evolve during their turn.]
Olly olly oxen free!
In my opinion, the best solution to this would be to reprint Call Energy. Call Energy was one of the best designed cards in the history of the game, allowing people to fit consistency into their decks without taking up extra deck space, and making it a difficult decision to balance between Energy consistency and Pokémon search during the deck building process.
Call Energy helped salvage bad opening hands, gave decks recovery ability mid-game, and also just provided an Energy when its ability wasn’t needed, and anything that helps to reduce the luck factor is a good thing in my opinion. Pokémon should definitely revisit one of the things they did RIGHT in recent years.
I also wouldn’t mind Energy cards similar to Call Energy except with draw or search abilities instead, for example “Draw 3 cards” or even Jirachi HL’s ability “Search your deck for a Pokémon that evolves from one of your Benched Pokémon and put it onto that Pokémon,” with the same drawback of ending your turn. Any of these additions to the format would be greatly welcome.
3. The first turn rules are absurd
There is absolutely zero advantage to going second the way things are right now, and also, turn one donks are occurring at a rate that is too high for anyone’s liking. I’m OK with being able to use Trainer cards and Supporters on the first turn, but there definitely has to be something done to give going 2nd some kind of a boost and also prevent turn 1 donks from either player.
My proposed rule change would be to disallow any attacks for the player going first, while the player going second may attack, but all forced effects on the opponent’s field are negated. This means that all damage is reduced to 0, all status doesn’t work and you can’t use Durant to mill (as it affects the other side of the board) on turn 1.
What the player going second may do however, is use abilities that affect their own side of the field, such as Cleffa’s Eeeeeeek, Pichu’s Playground (effect for opponent is optional, not forced, so they may use it) and draw effects such as Virizion’s Double Draw. This would give the player going 2nd a bit of an equalizer while preventing turn 1 donks altogether.
Of course I’d like to hear all your opinions on what they should do to fix the opening turn rules, so please shoot your suggestions in the comments, and hopefully we can get a nice little discussion going.
4. Lack of consistent Trainer “Engines” or “Swiss Army Knife” Supporters
Now where did I put Wilson...
This is also a big issue now, as this is the first time in a while where either a consistent Trainer engine or a versatile search Trainer hasn’t existed. By engine, I mean a series of cards that work together to provide consistency and smoothness to any deck that uses the engine.
And by “Swiss Army Knife,” I mean versatile Trainers and Supporters such as Castaway and Cyrus’s Conspiracy – cards that effectively provide you outs towards many of the resources in your deck that work to make decks more versatile and consistent. Let’s take a walk through time:
Last format had the SP engine, and while that wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good format due to other reasons, an engine similar to the SP engine would be very welcome in today’s format, being able to pick out utility Trainers as well as an additional Supporter wouldn’t be broken in the format as is, and would definitely help make some decks run considerably better.
Before that, we had the Castaway engine, which combined with tools such as Cessation Crystal to make decks utilizing them viable. This was used in disruptive Stage 1 decks that had the deck space to abuse tools such as Strength Charm, Cessation Crystal, and Buffer Piece while also ensuring said decks don’t run out of gas.
If a Supporter in today’s format could search up a Supporter, a PlusPower/Defender/Lost Remover/Crushing Hammer and an Energy, it would definitely spark interesting builds to incorporate it.
And before that we had the Holon Engine, which was definitely something me and many other players would surely welcome back, in one form or another. The Holon Engine gave decks 7-8 outs to their collectors (Holon Mentor), 5-6 outs to their token draw (Holon Adventurer), 5 outs to their Super Rods (Holon Farmer), and it gave delta decks another 6-7 outs to a Trainer that could search out a Pokémon OR an Energy (Holon Researcher).
[Editor's Note: Holon Scientist also served as an emergency draw card and Rocket's Admin (aka N) defense.]
[Writer's Note: Whoops, I knew I left one out. Yeah, Scientist was at least a one of in any deck that ran the engine for the very reason that Adam mentioned above - having an additional 5 outs to a card with the ability to draw up to your opponents hand size would be amazing now against decks that can effectively abuse N]
This made decks during that era ran smooth like a knife cutting butter. If an engine similar to that existed now it would definitely open up the possibility of more creative decks and open up the metagame considerably.
5. A rule that could solve every problem in the Pokémon TCG
And here’s my last proposal, one I call the “Tetris rule.”
