With the state of the format pretty much lying in stagnation, being the proverbial “lame duck” until the release of the next set, and the next series of tournaments (States) not being until March, we are left with very little “innovation” to do. Unfortunately, due to the “unknown” nature of the next set, it is difficult to really test new deck ideas and theories simply because we are still in the dark over the actual contents of the set.
Let me use this as an opportunity to go on a bit of a tangent. I really love these types of sets. I loved Power Keepers, and I am extremely stoked for the new set as well. One of the issues that we run into is the fact that I feel Pokemon is a poorly tested game. Whatever “R&D” team comes up with the sets is extremely poor at it. The balance has historically always been off, more so than any of the numerous games I’ve played.
Part of this also deals with the fact that Japan has different formats (both involving what sets we have legal, and even deck size, since they use their 30 card format a lot) than we do. Cards which may not seem “unbalanced” in their format may be really difficult to deal with here.
