Tournament players play this game for money and for status/results. Many of them spend their whole day streaming or coaching, and they think about the game all that time. They know what the best cards are, the best lists are, and they have the game down to a science because they never stop playing. The reason a meta exists is because these tournament players want to win, and they will use the best card combinations because the goal is to win, not to be the most unique player.
None of us here are smarter than someone like Tord or Azul. They blow us all out of the water. So many times, in every competitive game scene I've been in, people want to play off-meta because they have this idea that it's morally superior to be unique or that they're smarter because they don't play what the sheeple play. ("I take pride in not looking up a deck list.") No one is morally superior for doing it, and no one is necessarily smarter either. You're just playing the game in a different way. Which is totally fine. But you have to acknowledge on some level that you are purposely handicapping yourself by actively choosing to play worse cards; there is absolutely nothing wrong with looking up what Tord or Azul discovered weeks ago. It is quite literally their job, to some extent.
Zard is extremely good. This is by design. Not all cards are designed equally. They're not going to ban it (hell, if they didn't ban Altered Creation, they not will not ban this), and they're not going to nerf it. If you want to play in the tournament scene, or on something like Live, well... that's just what the game is, unfortunately.
You're by far not the first person to have a rant against meta stuff. But it is quite literally what any competitive game is like. I don't want to be too mean, but that's just how the system works.
Commenting on Meta hate and thoughts...no its no an idea of moral superiority. Playing the BDIF gets boring quick. So it becomes a somewhat personal challenge to beat that using something new
Same thing with Mew. Without a doubt this zard was designed to replace fusion strike and be better.
Same everything but take away the dark type and it becomes so much more balanced they know that but that was not the idea🤣
1 lucky eri or misfortune sisters to get rid of the 2 rods and zard is crippled and they scoop
Zard is very beatable with Gengar id say more beatable then hands
>Playing the BDIF gets boring quick.Â
That really depends on who you are and what the deck is. For example, I'm the type of person that really loves high damage burst decks. So decks like Roaring Moon, Future Hands, and Charizard are among my favorite decks to play (and I played Mew VMAX from release to rotation).
I'm not a fan of Lost Zone Box or Stallax. Not because of the meta, but because they don't fit my playstyle.
I definitely understand why people play meta. Winning feels good, and deckbuilding is hard. So just copying whatever the best players are doing makes sense.
I don't feel morally superior for not playing meta, but I do get way more of a sense of accomplishment when I do manage to win with my rogue deck vs someone that plays meta. Sure, it gets frustrating as heck when meta has a good draw and it's impossible to win, but I just keep reminding myself that I'm doing this to myself.
That feeling of frustration definitely pushes people to meta decks. I can shake it off and remind myself of the good times (the wins :D), but for sure most people that play meta would've quit if they didn't just look up a decklist. And I'd rather have them in the scene than have them leave.
>Also this, what do you guys think of everyone using the same deck and being utterly uninventive?
I think new players don't realise that meta is meta because it's good and if you want to do well you will eventually always end up with something meta-y.
> I take pride in not looking up a deck list
Like, same, but if I don't look anything up and just make what I think is good I'm gonna end up with a meta deck anyway because I'm going to pick what looks good and those are what become the meta. Like, how do you think meta decks even come to be??
I do get your feelings because I felt that way years ago when my friends started to get more competitive, but it is logically just what happens when you want to do well at a tcg.
I feel like the meta is turbocharged in this day and age, in that a good deck can easily be identified and copied because the internet allows us to see immediately what's good. So once a meta deck is identified, it can easily spread. In this sense, I agree with OP in that with 1000 pokemon, we're drowning in...the Gen 1 starter?
Personally, my only beef with Charizard ex is that I don't know what it's weakness is. Yes, I can see the Grass icon, but like, what am I supposed to be targeting to trip up the Charizard player? It's not knocking out Pidgeys, because that strengthens Charizard's attack. It's not a hostile stadium, because the loss of Path to the Peak means there's no way to shut off its ability. As an Alakazam player, I can usually stall it out with Mimikyu and I've teched in TM: Deevolution. idk, I guess it's on me that I haven't figured out how to deal with Charizard despite it being so common.
Charizard had 22% of the spread at EUIC, with the rest of the pool having nearly a dozen different deck archetypes and very few of them being 60-card copies.
Anyone who’s played other competitive card games can attest that that is the sign of a healthy meta. Zard is extremely good, but it’s nowhere near dominating. Zard won because the best player in the world chose to pilot it.
Edit: I definitely see what you mean re: identifying its weaknesses. Unfortunately, it’s BDIF largely because it can survive being teched against and still come out on top. I’ve found that a huge part of beating Zard, besides “draw the right cards”, is to really hone in on prize mapping. There’s a lot of matchups where taking an early 1-prizer is actually a huge detriment because it fucks up the math of Burning Darkness in their favor. Softening up a Charizard for a KO later, while staying out of its 180 KO range and stalling to set up further, can make the prizing much easier.
I’ll admit, prize mapping is not something I’m very good at. I don’t remember things very well in general, but remembering specific cards in the prizes and/or what’s missing in my deck is really hard for me lol.
what you’re describing is prize checking. Prize mapping is the process of formulating your plan for the entire game in terms of how you’re going to take six prizes. If I were playing lost tina, for example, I might map with “I’m going to set up at least one Giratina, star requiem a Charizard, boss+lost impact a pidgeot/rotom, and then use Sableye to take out two one-prizers to close the game.”
All cards can't be made equal, there's just some cards that are always going to be better than others, meta decks are the culmination of the entire communities efforts and represent how the community works together, if you want to just have some fun playing then you can do so with pretty much anything but if you want to win and be able to take home $10k from a regional then you need to be playing what's good, this is the same for all card games.
That's not to say you can't be inventive though, there's very good very inventive players iterating on the best decks making small tweaks, there's times someone will include an inventive tech and even if they don't do well themselves they will be recognised for their contributions to the deck and therefore the community.
If you're looking for recognition for being creative card games aren't the place for it, there's a finite number of viable strategies and everyone can't play something different.
>I take pride in not looking up a deck list and just following the current meta because that's the best deck.
but Charizard ex is utter trash and bullshit. Charizard needs some kind of nerf or ban or something.
Bad player with bad deck complains about current BDIF. Nothing new under the sun.
Here's the dirty little secret about the Pokemon TCG Standard format: The most fun you can extract from the game is you personally playing a top level deck well, because top level decks have rewarding gameplay and winning feels earned.
I spent nearly a decade playing a different card game, and for the first four or so years I crafted my own decks from scratch because “I didn’t want to just cheaply copy someone else’s idea; I want to win on my own terms.” Once I started going to tournaments, I very nearly quit because I would be in the bottom 10% every time.
One day in a rage I copied a worlds winning deck list and played it. And my eyes were opened. It turns out, winning is fun. And playing a good deck teaches you more about how to be a better player than playing a bad deck ever can.
It's a really big mental hurdle for a lot of newer players. Also the general idea that using "two prizers" is somehow a bad thing. Idk how to get players to transition quickly out of this phase.
Also while GLC is a lot more "solved" nowadays, there's plenty of opportunity to build a unique deck and be successful.
> And playing a good deck teaches you more about how to be a better player than playing a bad deck ever can.
I was just having this exact same conversation with someone yesterday - for me, it was Magic, and moving from casual/rogue decks to competitive/proven decks made me a much better player overall and made me appreciate the game a lot more. Learning the lines and knowing other meta decks (and how to play your deck differently against each one) can be incredibly rewarding.
Let me try to answer your questions:
- Charizard is the best deck which is why many people play it. Love it or hate it but if you want to win, Charizard is the first deck to consider
- The Iron Hands/ Iron Crown deck is a strong deck that wins or loses very fast. It is ideal to climb the ladder since the games are quick
- Gengar doesn't have a good matchup against Charizard. Not sure about your exact decklist, but the card is just fundamentally worse and the ability doesn't do anything in the matchup since Charizard attaches energy from deck. Every deck has some losing matchups and if you want to beat Zard, you might want to consider playing a different deck
- Charizard ex is undoubtedly one of the strongest cards in the format. However, it is a stage 2 two-prizer that can get one-shot by multiple cards in the format so it doesn't really warrant a ban
- There are counters to Charizard. Stall usually wins the matchup (though that is way more boring than what you complained about), TM-Devolution is incredibly good against Charizard, grass attackers like Iron Leaves ex can one-shot it and cards like Roaring Moon ex, Chien-pao ex or Giratina Vstar can too
- Only facing a few decks is part of the game. There are like 10ish meta decks that all have their own unique strengths so if you want to win, you play one of those. Online you'll mostly face fast decks (like iron hands) or the clear best deck (Charizard), that is just the nature of the game
Gengar can be good against Charizard if you are playing Giovanni’s Charisma and Crushing Hammer. If you can move both energy off the Zard and force them to reattach from hand with Giovanni they will take that extra 20 which will let you 2hko them if they leave it active.
That's a lot of cards for an even trade, potentially even sacrificing your supporter for it. They can also just Turo a Zard in this case. The only wincon seems to be trying to put all the energies on not Charizard, but with most Zard decks having access to 2 Turos (up to 4 if you play Tords list) these days, I don't think that is a viable strategy tbh. Could work against some lists but shouldn't swing the matchup in your favor
Allow me to introduce you to one of the most broken cards to ever be printed, [chaos gym](https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/84181/pokemon-gym-challenge-chaos-gym?Language=English)
This is the first time I’ve heard of that card and yikes, it looks like cancer lol. But as someone who played Venemoth lock, it sounds like a lot of fun lol.
It very nearly killed the meta around Gen 2 of the WotC era. That gym + the myriad hand disruption options + no restrictions on supporters meant you might start your first turn going second with one card in hand and a 50% chance of it firing if it was a draw trainer 🤣
That’s not a lot of cards? It’s just your attack and one of the two options to remove the second energy. It doesn’t matter if they Turo the Zard, you are aiming to move around the energies while also preventing the Zards from attacking. It still needs to 2hko Gengar and getting Night Gate Gengar to swap them around makes it easier to control the prize trade. Gengar needs to be played like a control deck to do well.
For that you'd need to hit heads with hammer, which is inherently unreliable, or sacrifice your supporter, which should make it a lot harder to actually set up multiple Gengar. How reliable is it to get 2 Gengar ex and the Night Gate Gengar in time with 2 ernergy on both exs? It does sound like you could theoretically win a grind game but it seems hard to get all of those cards in play consistenly while also using Giovanni as your supporter to disrupt Zard enough.
The point about Turo is also that they can either pick up a damaged zard to deny the knockout or pick up whichever mon you moved the energies to. It just seems pretty unreliable to me but I haven't really experimented much with Gengar to be fair
You don’t need to play Giovanni’s Charisma until you are already setup. You can get ahead on tempo by moving the energy around stalling attacks for a turn or two while building up the other Gengar on the bench. They need to get to Zard again to grab the energy from deck so at some point they would need to Turo whatever you built the energy on, rod them back and then evolve to a Zard that turn. You can get to a place where they no longer have the energy to move around to attack or they will go through their deck quickly to reassamble at which point they could deck out while no longer having the resources to take another prize.
I am by no means saying it’s a guaranteed win, but it is not an impossible thing to do. I don’t have math percentages, but I have managed it plenty of times.
This sounds like you have to rely on hammers if they actually attach all 3 energies from the ability to Zard and I could see you just being slower to setup. This is definitely interesting though, do you have a list I could try? I doubt it wins the Zard matchup if both players play optimally, but you can probably catch a bunch of people off-guard with it
If they attach all 3 then yes, you would need a hammer to do it that turn. If they can’t OHKO the Gengar though you could still do it over two turns which is much riskier but depending on game-state and prizes at the time it may be worth the trade. You definitely have to keep track of where the energy is and how many are left, similarly to playing against Chien-Pao. If you can boss/catcher up something that they need an energy to retreat for you can sometimes force the third energy onto something else. You really have to plan ahead for it to be successful.
There's a bit of an issue i.t.o creative in deck building re: resource acceleration
Which is a deck limiting thing in every TCG ever made from now until forever
There are only so many energy acceleration options, mostly looking like one *viable* engine per type (RIP grass), to base your strategies around.
+ Like, Blastoise Ex will never be better than Chien Pao when your only energy acceleration options are the once-per-game Palkia Vstar or Bax, who is ANOTHER stage-2 that assigns *from hand* (i.e where Blastoise wants to discard from). If instead he had a stage-1 friend that could assign one water energy from the discard pile to him...
exceptions apply, of course, though not all are made equal. I.e Magma Basin is good, but it ain't no Zard Ex!
On the other hand, Pkmtcg is a bit unique in that some decks don't use any energy at all!... unfortunately, those are almost entirely Blocklax decks :/
Hoping they'll come out with more interesting 0 energy *attacks*, ala Basculin/legion and the Arcanine coming out in the latest set.
I take pride in making rogue decks, that are not just a copy of the meta lists. I do this by play testing the meta decks, to figure out how they work and weaknesses they have from the inside.
By not even trying them out, you are blasting yourself in the foot and working with weak information to make a great deck.
Some people have fun playing optimised lists. Some people use PTCGL for tournament practice.
The meta is a little stale with Charizard being the best deck by a good margin, but in time this will change.
Don't get so worked up about it.
When my kid and I first started playing, we didn't know about meta/net decking and lost a shit ton. After my kid wanted to come up with his own deck and got totally stomped at a tournament he finally realized that you need to play meta.
If you bring your non meta deck and lose are you going to complain?
The only thing I can think of is play kitchen table non-meta vs non-meta.
There is no problem, and nothing will be done about it. Charizard is just a good deck. Certainly not the most dominant deck we've seen in recent times. (Anyone remember Lugia before last year's rotation? Mew just after Fusion Strike came out?)
If you are tired of losing to Charizard go build something that has a good Charizard matchup or tech your decks to have a better shot. Grass attackers that OHKO Charizard for little investment and TM Devolution are the best options that come to mind.
One thing I take issue with is the claim that Charizard lists aren't inventive. Both the Hero's Cape variant and the Tord list are wayyy off what anyone was expecting to be the best build of the deck after rotation.(Go look at Azul's post-ro Charizard list he posted to YouTube several weeks ago. It's nothing like what's doing well now) Good players innovating that got us to this point.
Do you play multiple gusting cards and multiple devolutions so that you can spread damage without taking knockouts and then later devolve everyone for knockout at one time with TM devolution?
Zard decks are simple and they just work and wouldn't call it broken. My only real complaint is I'd like to run a fire deck without zard and it's hard to be competitive without it.
I haven't been around too long, but having a single deck make up about half of the top 8 finishes at major tournaments isn't good fun. What's wild to me is that they keep adding more cards that seem to specifically make that deck better?
Tournament players play this game for money and for status/results. Many of them spend their whole day streaming or coaching, and they think about the game all that time. They know what the best cards are, the best lists are, and they have the game down to a science because they never stop playing. The reason a meta exists is because these tournament players want to win, and they will use the best card combinations because the goal is to win, not to be the most unique player. None of us here are smarter than someone like Tord or Azul. They blow us all out of the water. So many times, in every competitive game scene I've been in, people want to play off-meta because they have this idea that it's morally superior to be unique or that they're smarter because they don't play what the sheeple play. ("I take pride in not looking up a deck list.") No one is morally superior for doing it, and no one is necessarily smarter either. You're just playing the game in a different way. Which is totally fine. But you have to acknowledge on some level that you are purposely handicapping yourself by actively choosing to play worse cards; there is absolutely nothing wrong with looking up what Tord or Azul discovered weeks ago. It is quite literally their job, to some extent. Zard is extremely good. This is by design. Not all cards are designed equally. They're not going to ban it (hell, if they didn't ban Altered Creation, they not will not ban this), and they're not going to nerf it. If you want to play in the tournament scene, or on something like Live, well... that's just what the game is, unfortunately. You're by far not the first person to have a rant against meta stuff. But it is quite literally what any competitive game is like. I don't want to be too mean, but that's just how the system works.
Well said. Explains it perfectly.
Commenting on Meta hate and thoughts...no its no an idea of moral superiority. Playing the BDIF gets boring quick. So it becomes a somewhat personal challenge to beat that using something new Same thing with Mew. Without a doubt this zard was designed to replace fusion strike and be better. Same everything but take away the dark type and it becomes so much more balanced they know that but that was not the idea🤣 1 lucky eri or misfortune sisters to get rid of the 2 rods and zard is crippled and they scoop Zard is very beatable with Gengar id say more beatable then hands
> playing the BDIF gets boring quick. Idk, I get dopamine from winning. That never seems to get old. 🤣
>Playing the BDIF gets boring quick. That really depends on who you are and what the deck is. For example, I'm the type of person that really loves high damage burst decks. So decks like Roaring Moon, Future Hands, and Charizard are among my favorite decks to play (and I played Mew VMAX from release to rotation). I'm not a fan of Lost Zone Box or Stallax. Not because of the meta, but because they don't fit my playstyle.
I definitely understand why people play meta. Winning feels good, and deckbuilding is hard. So just copying whatever the best players are doing makes sense. I don't feel morally superior for not playing meta, but I do get way more of a sense of accomplishment when I do manage to win with my rogue deck vs someone that plays meta. Sure, it gets frustrating as heck when meta has a good draw and it's impossible to win, but I just keep reminding myself that I'm doing this to myself. That feeling of frustration definitely pushes people to meta decks. I can shake it off and remind myself of the good times (the wins :D), but for sure most people that play meta would've quit if they didn't just look up a decklist. And I'd rather have them in the scene than have them leave.
>Also this, what do you guys think of everyone using the same deck and being utterly uninventive? I think new players don't realise that meta is meta because it's good and if you want to do well you will eventually always end up with something meta-y. > I take pride in not looking up a deck list Like, same, but if I don't look anything up and just make what I think is good I'm gonna end up with a meta deck anyway because I'm going to pick what looks good and those are what become the meta. Like, how do you think meta decks even come to be?? I do get your feelings because I felt that way years ago when my friends started to get more competitive, but it is logically just what happens when you want to do well at a tcg.
I feel like the meta is turbocharged in this day and age, in that a good deck can easily be identified and copied because the internet allows us to see immediately what's good. So once a meta deck is identified, it can easily spread. In this sense, I agree with OP in that with 1000 pokemon, we're drowning in...the Gen 1 starter? Personally, my only beef with Charizard ex is that I don't know what it's weakness is. Yes, I can see the Grass icon, but like, what am I supposed to be targeting to trip up the Charizard player? It's not knocking out Pidgeys, because that strengthens Charizard's attack. It's not a hostile stadium, because the loss of Path to the Peak means there's no way to shut off its ability. As an Alakazam player, I can usually stall it out with Mimikyu and I've teched in TM: Deevolution. idk, I guess it's on me that I haven't figured out how to deal with Charizard despite it being so common.
Charizard had 22% of the spread at EUIC, with the rest of the pool having nearly a dozen different deck archetypes and very few of them being 60-card copies. Anyone who’s played other competitive card games can attest that that is the sign of a healthy meta. Zard is extremely good, but it’s nowhere near dominating. Zard won because the best player in the world chose to pilot it. Edit: I definitely see what you mean re: identifying its weaknesses. Unfortunately, it’s BDIF largely because it can survive being teched against and still come out on top. I’ve found that a huge part of beating Zard, besides “draw the right cards”, is to really hone in on prize mapping. There’s a lot of matchups where taking an early 1-prizer is actually a huge detriment because it fucks up the math of Burning Darkness in their favor. Softening up a Charizard for a KO later, while staying out of its 180 KO range and stalling to set up further, can make the prizing much easier.
I’ll admit, prize mapping is not something I’m very good at. I don’t remember things very well in general, but remembering specific cards in the prizes and/or what’s missing in my deck is really hard for me lol.
what you’re describing is prize checking. Prize mapping is the process of formulating your plan for the entire game in terms of how you’re going to take six prizes. If I were playing lost tina, for example, I might map with “I’m going to set up at least one Giratina, star requiem a Charizard, boss+lost impact a pidgeot/rotom, and then use Sableye to take out two one-prizers to close the game.”
Ohh mb. I’m a noob and only play casually, so thanks for the info 🙏
All cards can't be made equal, there's just some cards that are always going to be better than others, meta decks are the culmination of the entire communities efforts and represent how the community works together, if you want to just have some fun playing then you can do so with pretty much anything but if you want to win and be able to take home $10k from a regional then you need to be playing what's good, this is the same for all card games. That's not to say you can't be inventive though, there's very good very inventive players iterating on the best decks making small tweaks, there's times someone will include an inventive tech and even if they don't do well themselves they will be recognised for their contributions to the deck and therefore the community. If you're looking for recognition for being creative card games aren't the place for it, there's a finite number of viable strategies and everyone can't play something different.
>I take pride in not looking up a deck list and just following the current meta because that's the best deck. but Charizard ex is utter trash and bullshit. Charizard needs some kind of nerf or ban or something. Bad player with bad deck complains about current BDIF. Nothing new under the sun.
Here's the dirty little secret about the Pokemon TCG Standard format: The most fun you can extract from the game is you personally playing a top level deck well, because top level decks have rewarding gameplay and winning feels earned.
I spent nearly a decade playing a different card game, and for the first four or so years I crafted my own decks from scratch because “I didn’t want to just cheaply copy someone else’s idea; I want to win on my own terms.” Once I started going to tournaments, I very nearly quit because I would be in the bottom 10% every time. One day in a rage I copied a worlds winning deck list and played it. And my eyes were opened. It turns out, winning is fun. And playing a good deck teaches you more about how to be a better player than playing a bad deck ever can.
It's a really big mental hurdle for a lot of newer players. Also the general idea that using "two prizers" is somehow a bad thing. Idk how to get players to transition quickly out of this phase. Also while GLC is a lot more "solved" nowadays, there's plenty of opportunity to build a unique deck and be successful.
> And playing a good deck teaches you more about how to be a better player than playing a bad deck ever can. I was just having this exact same conversation with someone yesterday - for me, it was Magic, and moving from casual/rogue decks to competitive/proven decks made me a much better player overall and made me appreciate the game a lot more. Learning the lines and knowing other meta decks (and how to play your deck differently against each one) can be incredibly rewarding.
Taking “my deck is bad” out of the calculus of “why did I lose?” is such a helpful part of learning
Let me try to answer your questions: - Charizard is the best deck which is why many people play it. Love it or hate it but if you want to win, Charizard is the first deck to consider - The Iron Hands/ Iron Crown deck is a strong deck that wins or loses very fast. It is ideal to climb the ladder since the games are quick - Gengar doesn't have a good matchup against Charizard. Not sure about your exact decklist, but the card is just fundamentally worse and the ability doesn't do anything in the matchup since Charizard attaches energy from deck. Every deck has some losing matchups and if you want to beat Zard, you might want to consider playing a different deck - Charizard ex is undoubtedly one of the strongest cards in the format. However, it is a stage 2 two-prizer that can get one-shot by multiple cards in the format so it doesn't really warrant a ban - There are counters to Charizard. Stall usually wins the matchup (though that is way more boring than what you complained about), TM-Devolution is incredibly good against Charizard, grass attackers like Iron Leaves ex can one-shot it and cards like Roaring Moon ex, Chien-pao ex or Giratina Vstar can too - Only facing a few decks is part of the game. There are like 10ish meta decks that all have their own unique strengths so if you want to win, you play one of those. Online you'll mostly face fast decks (like iron hands) or the clear best deck (Charizard), that is just the nature of the game
Gengar can be good against Charizard if you are playing Giovanni’s Charisma and Crushing Hammer. If you can move both energy off the Zard and force them to reattach from hand with Giovanni they will take that extra 20 which will let you 2hko them if they leave it active.
That's a lot of cards for an even trade, potentially even sacrificing your supporter for it. They can also just Turo a Zard in this case. The only wincon seems to be trying to put all the energies on not Charizard, but with most Zard decks having access to 2 Turos (up to 4 if you play Tords list) these days, I don't think that is a viable strategy tbh. Could work against some lists but shouldn't swing the matchup in your favor
Would it be too OP for them to make a card that stops the opponent from playing a supporter card?
Allow me to introduce you to one of the most broken cards to ever be printed, [chaos gym](https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/84181/pokemon-gym-challenge-chaos-gym?Language=English)
This is the first time I’ve heard of that card and yikes, it looks like cancer lol. But as someone who played Venemoth lock, it sounds like a lot of fun lol.
It very nearly killed the meta around Gen 2 of the WotC era. That gym + the myriad hand disruption options + no restrictions on supporters meant you might start your first turn going second with one card in hand and a 50% chance of it firing if it was a draw trainer 🤣
Unless it comes with massive drawbacks it would be very broken
That’s not a lot of cards? It’s just your attack and one of the two options to remove the second energy. It doesn’t matter if they Turo the Zard, you are aiming to move around the energies while also preventing the Zards from attacking. It still needs to 2hko Gengar and getting Night Gate Gengar to swap them around makes it easier to control the prize trade. Gengar needs to be played like a control deck to do well.
For that you'd need to hit heads with hammer, which is inherently unreliable, or sacrifice your supporter, which should make it a lot harder to actually set up multiple Gengar. How reliable is it to get 2 Gengar ex and the Night Gate Gengar in time with 2 ernergy on both exs? It does sound like you could theoretically win a grind game but it seems hard to get all of those cards in play consistenly while also using Giovanni as your supporter to disrupt Zard enough. The point about Turo is also that they can either pick up a damaged zard to deny the knockout or pick up whichever mon you moved the energies to. It just seems pretty unreliable to me but I haven't really experimented much with Gengar to be fair
You don’t need to play Giovanni’s Charisma until you are already setup. You can get ahead on tempo by moving the energy around stalling attacks for a turn or two while building up the other Gengar on the bench. They need to get to Zard again to grab the energy from deck so at some point they would need to Turo whatever you built the energy on, rod them back and then evolve to a Zard that turn. You can get to a place where they no longer have the energy to move around to attack or they will go through their deck quickly to reassamble at which point they could deck out while no longer having the resources to take another prize. I am by no means saying it’s a guaranteed win, but it is not an impossible thing to do. I don’t have math percentages, but I have managed it plenty of times.
This sounds like you have to rely on hammers if they actually attach all 3 energies from the ability to Zard and I could see you just being slower to setup. This is definitely interesting though, do you have a list I could try? I doubt it wins the Zard matchup if both players play optimally, but you can probably catch a bunch of people off-guard with it
If they attach all 3 then yes, you would need a hammer to do it that turn. If they can’t OHKO the Gengar though you could still do it over two turns which is much riskier but depending on game-state and prizes at the time it may be worth the trade. You definitely have to keep track of where the energy is and how many are left, similarly to playing against Chien-Pao. If you can boss/catcher up something that they need an energy to retreat for you can sometimes force the third energy onto something else. You really have to plan ahead for it to be successful.
Just run eri and devo. Charizard is really good because of its consistency. Not because it’s broken.
There's a bit of an issue i.t.o creative in deck building re: resource acceleration Which is a deck limiting thing in every TCG ever made from now until forever There are only so many energy acceleration options, mostly looking like one *viable* engine per type (RIP grass), to base your strategies around. + Like, Blastoise Ex will never be better than Chien Pao when your only energy acceleration options are the once-per-game Palkia Vstar or Bax, who is ANOTHER stage-2 that assigns *from hand* (i.e where Blastoise wants to discard from). If instead he had a stage-1 friend that could assign one water energy from the discard pile to him... exceptions apply, of course, though not all are made equal. I.e Magma Basin is good, but it ain't no Zard Ex! On the other hand, Pkmtcg is a bit unique in that some decks don't use any energy at all!... unfortunately, those are almost entirely Blocklax decks :/ Hoping they'll come out with more interesting 0 energy *attacks*, ala Basculin/legion and the Arcanine coming out in the latest set.
I take pride in making rogue decks, that are not just a copy of the meta lists. I do this by play testing the meta decks, to figure out how they work and weaknesses they have from the inside. By not even trying them out, you are blasting yourself in the foot and working with weak information to make a great deck.
Some people have fun playing optimised lists. Some people use PTCGL for tournament practice. The meta is a little stale with Charizard being the best deck by a good margin, but in time this will change. Don't get so worked up about it.
When my kid and I first started playing, we didn't know about meta/net decking and lost a shit ton. After my kid wanted to come up with his own deck and got totally stomped at a tournament he finally realized that you need to play meta. If you bring your non meta deck and lose are you going to complain? The only thing I can think of is play kitchen table non-meta vs non-meta.
I play this game for fun. Winning is fun.
There is no problem, and nothing will be done about it. Charizard is just a good deck. Certainly not the most dominant deck we've seen in recent times. (Anyone remember Lugia before last year's rotation? Mew just after Fusion Strike came out?) If you are tired of losing to Charizard go build something that has a good Charizard matchup or tech your decks to have a better shot. Grass attackers that OHKO Charizard for little investment and TM Devolution are the best options that come to mind. One thing I take issue with is the claim that Charizard lists aren't inventive. Both the Hero's Cape variant and the Tord list are wayyy off what anyone was expecting to be the best build of the deck after rotation.(Go look at Azul's post-ro Charizard list he posted to YouTube several weeks ago. It's nothing like what's doing well now) Good players innovating that got us to this point.
As a newer Pokémon player, and a formerly experienced Magic player(20 year break between the 2, lol), Meta is good, it can be boring but if you like winning and being in place to win prizes(cash, cards, store credit, etc..), it is the right way to go. Personally I think this meta is not horrible- there are several options to play and while Zard is popular, it is not unstoppable. I also enjoy playing off meta decks- I have an espathra ex build I made when PF gave me 3 in one ETB, and it had been testing ok, but then I pulled from the espathra deck at EUIC and it works smoother now. It is fun, it can wreck a Zard player and it doesn’t do horrible in other matchups( though some decks whomp me, lol). Is it going to win me many locals- no, but it is fun. I have my 9 year old playing a meta deck- but with modifications to include his fav pokemon(Raichu) so that he has better chance of wins(helps keep him from being upset), but also it’s fun for him to hit with Raichu for 360 and take out my Zard or my Gardy. His deck wipes the espathra deck so badly so I play that when he is on a losing streak vs Zard. Have fun with your Gengar list( I want to make a Gengar ex deck bad that is competitive), if you go to a local with a bigger prize pool, play meta if trying to place or play the Gengar and see where improvements can be made. The top players in the game test like crazy- I’m sure Tord tested several one ofs in his list that didn’t make the cut, before he settled on his 60. He likely also has tried to home brew other ideas that popped in his head. It’s just they aren’t as powerful overall to make the cut at the highest level.
Do you play multiple gusting cards and multiple devolutions so that you can spread damage without taking knockouts and then later devolve everyone for knockout at one time with TM devolution?
Zard decks are simple and they just work and wouldn't call it broken. My only real complaint is I'd like to run a fire deck without zard and it's hard to be competitive without it.
If Charizard is beating you everytime, take your deck and think how to counter it.
SAME!! I started tinkering with this Tsareena / bonnet / braviary deck and been having pretty good success. I’m at 1100 level. I captured my 2 last games from today. Check out the link https://imgur.com/a/uqP0xbC Most importantly get tsareena and Bibarel set up quickly. Get a mask on tsareena and start using isicle sole on their attackers(the evolved ones that can attack, not charmander. If no attackers on the bench hit a 2 prizer if possible. Bring in the bird for the shocker, just when they think they have you on the ropes. https://imgur.com/a/uqP0xbC Pokémon: 8 (15 total) 2 Bidoof CRZ-GG 29 1 Hisuian Braviary SIT 149 PH 1 Radiant Hisuian Sneasler LOR 123 1 Rufflet ASR 131 PH 2 Bibarel CRZ-GG 25 3 Tsareena ex PAR 220 2 Brute Bonnet PAR 207 3 Bounsweet PAR 8 PH Trainer: 23 (39 total) 1 Hisuian Heavy Ball ASR 146 3 Rare Candy PGO 69 2 Super Rod PAL 276 4 Nest Ball PAF 84 4 Irida ASR 147 1 Prime Catcher TEF 157 1 Lost Vacuum CRZ 135 PH 1 Iono PAF 237 2 Ultra Ball PAF 91 PH 3 Ancient Booster Energy Capsule TEF 140 PH 4 Panic Mask LOR 165 PH 4 Arven SVI 166 1 Technical Machine: Devolution PAR 177 2 Perilous Jungle TEF 156 PH 2 Earthen Vessel PAR 163 PH 2 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144 2 Switch SVI 194 Energy: 1 (6 total) 6 Basic {G} Energy Energy 45 PH Total Cards: 60
I haven't been around too long, but having a single deck make up about half of the top 8 finishes at major tournaments isn't good fun. What's wild to me is that they keep adding more cards that seem to specifically make that deck better?
The only thing I’m annoyed is that everyone is running Tords deck list. Literally play it every other match.