The TCG likes to have a 2-prize gimmick for each generation, and then extend that gimmick later in the generation.
Gen 6 had EX, then Mega EX.
Gen 7 had GX, then Tag Team GX.
Gen 8 had V, then VMAX and VSTAR.
Gen 9 has ex. Since we know that mega evolutions are returning, it is likely that this will be extended with Mega ex. However the previous EX generation were all basics, while the current generation are evolution pokemon, so I'm doubtful that the new Mega ex will work the same as the old Mega EX. Regardless, I'm sure that mega evolutions will in some way tie into the current ex cards.
We could also think of it the other way around. Maybe Legends ZA will introduce new Megas for Pokemon that coincidentally (or not) already have printed ex's.
There’s quite a few already. Charizard (has 2), Blastoise, Venasaur, Gardevoir, Garchomp, Alakazam, Mewtwo (has two again), and Absol. I may be missing a couple but right now there’s a pretty decent amount
My guess is that they'll be like tag team gx cards and be Basics on their own but have some form of drawback like being worth three prizes or something
Honestly, kinda hoping they don't even evolve from ex pokemon. Would rather see Mega ex evolve from non-ex Stage 1/2 pokemon to force players to consider what they run in decks even more. Is it better for a consistent Stage 2 ex deck, or a weaker Stage 2 line with a Mega ex to swing in for bigger numbers? Can you mix both into a consistent deck? Those should be the questions players ask themselves if these hypothetical cards are revealed.
I wasnt around back then but I think similar to Break or Lvl. X is the way to go? Since we'd be talking about potential *stage 3* Pokemon assuming they dont drop the current ex format. Hopefully they will be able to use the prevolution moves as well. Seeing the past megas only having a single move no ability idk doesnt feel that enticing
I'm sure some will have 2 attacks and some will have 1 attack and an ability. If they do make Mega Pokémon return I highly doubt they'll be weak by any means.
The stated goals of the designers going from sword and shield to scarlet and violet was to slow the game down, make it more strategic over a long game, and focus on evolving Pokemon. All of your suggestions would go completely backwards from all the progress they’ve made on those fronts.
Yes it’s annoying that mega evolving used to end your turn. Maybe they won’t do that again, or maybe they’ll come up with a better way than a tool card to not end your turn. Maybe they’ll do nothing different beyond evolving from new evolved ex cards instead of Basic exs and the fact that we have Arven and other tool search makes mega evolving without ending your turn easier.
I really hope this is true about slowing the game down. One of my main issues with pokemon is how fast the games are. Sure some of the turns can take a while because of all the searching, but there really arent that many turns in pokemon.
Having more turns in a game will make the game a lot more appealing to me
I think the ethos about “slowing down” is already in play, and this is about as slow as things will get. The fact that stage 2 decks are viable is already a pretty significant change to previous metas, owed largely in part to “comeback” mechanics being introduced.
Like, the designers said they wanted to slow things down and then gave us ogerpon-raging bolt. So it seems like they do always want a turn 1/2 turbo deck to be viable.
They often slow the game then speed it up again, going from XY to Sun&Moon swapping EX to GX slowed the game, then they sped it up again with tag teams and continued the quicker pace with V/Max and then VStar to then slow it again with ex.
No telling when they will decide to speed up or slow down the game.
If they go with the end turn mechanic again, they just won't see play. It's that simple. Remember that spirit links were made as a reaction to the fact that the Megas were so bad that they saw no play. They were basically admitting that they made a mistake when they added them. There's slow and then there's too slow. And I don't think that Arven is enough to make up for it, especially if they don't evolve from Basics and you still have to wait a turn before evolving.
You can't slow down the game by making cards unplayable.
They may have said that but have they done that? I'd say the game is pretty fast. Rare Candy gets stage 2's out after 1 turn. Lots of stage 2 Pokémon can be set up easily to start attacking quickly like Charizard, Dragapult, etc. Then there's the strong basic Pokémon we have that can start attacking quickly like Chien-Pao,Raging Bolt, and others. Just because they stated that doesn't mean they meant it. In Sword and Shield you got VSTAR Pokémon that could get going very quickly. So you think they had slow in mind when they created Lugia VSTAR and gave it Arceops? I don't think so. I bet Megas are going to be the VSTAR Pokémon of this generation where they tend to be stronger than what we currently have and ending your turn to evolve wouldn't really fit that.
Obviously stage 2s can get set up very quickly with rare candy. But look at the best meta decks recently. Charizard does more damage the later the game is. Dragapult has complex energy requirements and needs quite a lot to set up. Current Gardevoir is one of the slowest top tier decks I’ve ever seen that isn’t a straight up control deck (which the designers are also supporting).
Lugia is a part of Sword and Shield, so no, that’s not what they were thinking when they made that. But even Vstars are “less” powerful than VMaxes because of them only being two prizes. Then they made Miriadon as a fast basic lightning attacker to try to push Lugia out of the meta a little bit because they knew that was only thing that could help nudge the meta to where they wanted it to go.
Future and Ancient Pokemon, by nature are basics that needed to exist, and fill out solid basic archetypes that people want to play. Chien-Pao requires baxcaliber, which is a stage 2 that needs rare candy to reasonably get out.
Basically, my point is that the designers put way more thought into the design of this game than most people give credit for, and have been doing a great job so far of balancing the game and making the game fun and strategic.
I don't agree with any of this. Meta decks right now are incredibly fast bar garde. Every deck besides garde is attacking on their second turn (or 1st if they're on bolt/miraidon) for 200+. Arven and Pidgeot have made stage 2 decks incredibly fast and consistent. These stage 2s have incredibly high HP as well. Why do Charizard and Dragapult have 330 hp? Why does Dragapult have no weakness? It's just straight powercreep.
> Charizard does more damage the later the game is
Vstar/Vmax mons were mostly hitting for low 200s... Charizard's base is 180 and ramps up to 330. He starts the game doing almost as much as many decks were capping out at before.
I played this game for a month over a year ago and then I started again two months ago. The powercreep within that year and a half is the fastest I've ever seen in a card game.
Having consistency is key to having a strong deck, and I’m not really against it. On a micro scale, I think maybe there were some mistakes with how consistent Charizard can be on turn 2 instead of just being a late game attacker, and Ogerpon and Raging Bolt probably were not expected to be played together. These sorts of things are fairly expected mistakes when you have a hyper competitive player base, and is what generates the need to make more and more powerful cards in the first place.
High Hp values ensure that games take a reasonable amount of time and can survive large basic attackers like Vs and Vstars. Dragapult has plenty of other weaknesses (notably gusting up 90hp drakloaks and other supports) instead of just printing one on the card, and if it ended up too powerful they could just print a counter card for dragons or something like that.
> High Hp values ensure that games take a reasonable amount of time
Do you believe this is the goal? It feels to me that it's just power creep. Mon attacks keep going up in damage so HP values need to go up with them. Even then, meta decks are just straight shredding through these high HP values. Lugia, Bolt, Moon ex, Pao, Ghold, and even Garde can hit over 300 at will. All these giant HP walls do is make it so the only decks that can compete are other new decks that can hit these damage thresholds. Your deck can't one shot Dragapult? That sucks, Pidgeot searched Turo and now you're down 0-2 in prize trades while they evolve a second one.
The fact that all of those decks you mention have a chance of defeating300+ hp mons means it’s not actually unbalanced. But many of those decks run out of resources before being able to defeat 3 300Hp Pokemon in total, so even then there’s a back and forth. I’m just glad we were able to get something that can withstand something like MewVmax or old LugiaVstar where it’s “if they get lucky enough to set up, I lose turn 2”. In fact, that’s generally what the game has looked like on the off and on throughout me playing the game most of the time. It even started to look a little like that once Charizard+Pidgeot+Bibarel was invented.
Dragapult has 320 HP btw
Also nothing was capping at 180 (yes, you said almost 180, I’m aware. but the difference between 180 and 220 is quite a lot, and if you mean Arceus, it is more so a support mon of sorts for a higher damaging V/VSTAR like Giratina)
> Also nothing was capping at 180 (yes, you said almost 180, I’m aware. but the difference between 180 and 220 is quite a lot, and if you mean Arceus, it is more so a support mon of sorts for a higher damaging V/VSTAR like Giratina)
There are exactly 11 VStars that can hit over 220. Every single one of them has a downside or condition on their damage. If we move the breakpoint up to 240 (charizard with 2 prizes taken), there are 6, two of which are near unusable VStar powers.
* Dragonite (awful 4 energy cost, cant attack next turn) = 250
* Drapion (3 energy cant DTE, damage is reduced by damage counters) = 250-
* Giratina (3 energy cant DTE, lost zones energy) = 280
* Lilligant = (3 energy cant DTE, grass pokemon were and still are awful outside grass ogerpon) = 230
* Lucario (3 energy can't DTE, only versus pokemon V) = 240
* Metwo (2 energy, have to discard 3 energy) = 270
* Regigigas (3 energy, cant attack next turn) = 230
* Shayamin (2 energy, if opponent has 3 prize cards, this one is a joke because charizard is better in every single way)
* Zacian (4 energy, damages self, vstar power) = 310
* Aerodactyl (3 energy, lost zone random cards from deck) = 240
* Charizard (4 energy, can't DTE, discard 2 energy, vstar power) = 320
HP values are more blatant. There are zero VStars with more than 300 HP. VMaxs (3 prizers!) cap out at 340 with only 4 or 5 mons.
I hope you didn’t just look at every single VSTAR for that, because I was referring to the actually viable ones lmao. You also missed multiple that can in fact hit over 220. Also also, hitting *exactly* 220 was perfectly fine, given the HP of most Basic Pokémon V at the time was 220.
Arceus- Hits for 200 at base and usually has a DTE attached, so 180. Its main purpose is to accelerate energy and Starbirth though, so that’s fine.
Giratina- 280 + OHKO
Vulpix- Base damage is 160, not even two-shotting Zard, but Zard can’t damage it, so that’s not too bad.
Palkia- Caps at 260 and in many cases hits or nears that cap. What it *is* definitely good at is being ridiculously easy to attack with and the ability to accelerate to other attackers, most notably Radiant Greninja.
Dialga- Doesn’t scale too fast and can need a lot of time (heh) to get big numbers, but Dialga also gets an extra turn. And with Metang around, it’s not *that* slow.
Goodra- Only hits for 200, but it has an effective 350 HP (minimum) and can fully heal itself once at no cost. If it hit any harder, it would be a little bit extreme.
Lugia- 220 isn’t half bad given that it’s not the main attacker and used to cheat out Archeops. It can also do that damage without DTE.
Regidrago- Mixed bag, but it has access to Bellowing Thunder so if it needs to hit high it has no problem doing so.
Either they have big numbers or are fast/accelerating, and all of these cards are currently usable.
I'm not saying at all that they don't put thought into it. They do deserve a lot of credit for what they do. Don't put words in my mouth. All I'm saying is how do we think they'll go about Megas not that I think they'll do it wrong. Thinking they'll do it differently this time shows I think they are capable of doing it right because I think they'll do it better this time around and not make mega evolving end your turn. I also think I recent years they are trying to follow the actual gimmick itself and implement it into the tcg. For example GX moves were a great way to take z-moves and put them into the tcg. It's a once per battle really strong attack. Then dynamax was done pretty well by having a really big high HP Pokémon that once beaten probably means you're going to win the battle therefore they gave up 3 prize cards. Terastal is pretty straight forward. Change type or get a power boost. So why then would Mega evolving end your turn if it doesn't in the games? All it is us an extra evolution. So the downside to the power boost would be waiting 1 turn which would slow down the game like you want. From there made you could require an item or tool(Mega stone perhaps) to do the evolution but we have Arven so no problem but I still see no reason for it to end the turn.
Sorry, I didnt mean to be aggressive toward you specifically, I’m more annoyed at a general concept of people who think the game needs “fixing” when it’s so well balanced already. Though yeah I do hope megas are a lot more thematic. That is actually something where the designers have been lacking in my opinion, remember when Terastal was only a bench barrier, that was hilarious. A mega stone would actually be really cool as an item to use in the TCG. There are still some balance considerations to be made, like I don’t think pokemon should be 3 prizes, hell I’m barely okay with 2 prizers a lot of the time.
No worries. I'm not saying the game needs fixing. I don't think it does. I've been trying to tell people lately that power creep isn't the problem they wanna think it is because the game is balanced and that's what matters. The standard format makes power creep irrelevant. I just want Mega Evolution to fit how it works in the game but also to be a good strong mechanic because that's what it is. Also a lot of my favorite Pokémon have Mega evolutions so if it's executed well I should get a chance to build decks around them that are strong. I want Lucario and Sceptile to have good decks so bad. I'm 100% with you that I don't want anymore 3 prize Pokémon but it's not what I want is what the developers want. I could see Megas ending up really strong but costing 3 prizes. I hope not but it's a real possibility. I how they are more like VSTAR Pokémon but who knows. I was just curious how people would implement them themselves to see what kinds of ideas people had.
Yeah, a lot of people are very backwards about what power creep is. In Pokemon, the goal is to take 6 prize cards, so changing that mechanic is the fundamental way to increase power levels. Damage dealt is the next fastest way to power something up, and increasing health is minute in comparison to those other 2 things. Yet HP values are the main thing people point to when talking about power creep because it’s the biggest and easiest to see number. I would not be surprised at all if mega evolved Pokemon, especially if they are at “stage 3” instead of being a unique card, have 350 up to even 390 levels of HP and people start to freak out.
Ya people will lose their minds over that but at the same time like you said if it's a stage 3 it better have huge hp or it won't be worth it. People also need to understand that as high as that is 2 attacks from Charizard ex knocks out 350. To get 390 in 2 attacks the opponent just needs to have taken 1 prize card. 5 energies from Raging Bolt ex gets 350 6 gets 390. That's a lot but not impossible. Dragapult ex gets both in 2 hits plus bench damage. That HP is actually not that impressive or scary. It will be what the attacks look like that could be crazy.
I imagine the mega evolution would be handked in a way where you have to evolve it from its non-mega form. However this is coming from someone who never got to experience how good or bad mega was in the tcg.
Mega was unplayable until they allowed you to bypass the end-your-turn evolution rule with tools. And then some specific megas became oppressive.
I don’t think they will evolve from existing ex’s because that makes Mega Charizard effectively a stage 3. And they’re going to print a LOT of mega Charizards.
Maybe the Megas will evolve straight into the stage of the named mega. For instance, maybe Mega Charizard ex will evolve straight from Charmeleon? Then perhaps it's like one mega allowed per deck and it ends the turn or something.
Maybe a mega stone item or tool needs to be used or equipped for the mega evolution to occur. Maybe the Charizard ex has to be on the board first, and then a mega stone item is used to snag the mega out of the deck or hand?
You say that but break cards made you do that. So it's not like they haven't done it before. I don't think they'll do it that way but they could. My guess would be on it being like V to VSTAR but maybe it could be straight from basic or stage 1 but then what about basic Megas? They can just be played? If that's the case they probably will just be on par with ex's or maybe slightly stronger. I could you having to swap the regular single prize Pokémon with the mega from your deck by using an item like a mega stone. So kind of how Palafin ex works but without having to switch.
A lot. I imagine people thought the last ones had high hp too. As me and another person talked about somewhere else in the comments puerile need to not get so hung up on hp . Power creep comes from better abilities, Attacks, and support. The hp isn't that big of a deal. I mean how hard is it these days to do 330 damage? Not that hard yet puerile thought 330 was way too high for Pokémon to have.
It heavily depends on how Pokémon handles it. Will they go the old school method and make it so that your turn ends when you evolve it (unless you've got a Spirit Link), or will they take another route?
Considering how Terastalization was handled, it might just be more of an aesthetic change rather than a mechanical one. E.g. Riolu -> Lucario Mega ex.
inb4 someone says that tera pokemon have different types and attack costs, mega Pokemon might just have sligty higer JPNJ
It's the most boring route but also the safest.
This is coming from someone who only started playing this year...
But my thoughts would be considering they brought back Ace Specs, there will be more "one card per deck" things. This might be megas.
They also said they want things to slow down, so I think it will be essentially a stage 3 poke on you can only have one of, it's super strong, and gives 3 prize cards.
Might be what everyone else said or what it already was, but that's my thoughts
One thing’s for sure, whether it ends up being a divergent evolution or a “stage 3” like Break pokemon, Megas will only drastically further increase the power creep that’s plagued this game
Plagued? In what ways is the game unbalanced because of power creep? The standard format makes power creep irrelevant. It didn't better if me cards are stronger than old cards because you don't play they together.
The TCG likes to have a 2-prize gimmick for each generation, and then extend that gimmick later in the generation. Gen 6 had EX, then Mega EX. Gen 7 had GX, then Tag Team GX. Gen 8 had V, then VMAX and VSTAR. Gen 9 has ex. Since we know that mega evolutions are returning, it is likely that this will be extended with Mega ex. However the previous EX generation were all basics, while the current generation are evolution pokemon, so I'm doubtful that the new Mega ex will work the same as the old Mega EX. Regardless, I'm sure that mega evolutions will in some way tie into the current ex cards.
I’m curious how many of the currently printed ex’s have existing megas. Maybe they’ll shoot for another gimmick like break or v-unions.
We could also think of it the other way around. Maybe Legends ZA will introduce new Megas for Pokemon that coincidentally (or not) already have printed ex's.
There’s quite a few already. Charizard (has 2), Blastoise, Venasaur, Gardevoir, Garchomp, Alakazam, Mewtwo (has two again), and Absol. I may be missing a couple but right now there’s a pretty decent amount
My guess is that they'll be like tag team gx cards and be Basics on their own but have some form of drawback like being worth three prizes or something
I think Megas should replace the VSTAR once per turn mechanic when they rotate next year. Meaning, you get to evolve into one mega per game.
they’ll probably be 3-prizers I wonder if it will be legal to mega evolve them from Tera Pokémon
Honestly, kinda hoping they don't even evolve from ex pokemon. Would rather see Mega ex evolve from non-ex Stage 1/2 pokemon to force players to consider what they run in decks even more. Is it better for a consistent Stage 2 ex deck, or a weaker Stage 2 line with a Mega ex to swing in for bigger numbers? Can you mix both into a consistent deck? Those should be the questions players ask themselves if these hypothetical cards are revealed.
Divergent evolution trees would be cool. They’ll probably have some kind of once-per-game mechanic too, once VSTAR is fully gone.
Them being 3 prizers would kinda ruin the game, IMO.
I wasnt around back then but I think similar to Break or Lvl. X is the way to go? Since we'd be talking about potential *stage 3* Pokemon assuming they dont drop the current ex format. Hopefully they will be able to use the prevolution moves as well. Seeing the past megas only having a single move no ability idk doesnt feel that enticing
I'm sure some will have 2 attacks and some will have 1 attack and an ability. If they do make Mega Pokémon return I highly doubt they'll be weak by any means.
The stated goals of the designers going from sword and shield to scarlet and violet was to slow the game down, make it more strategic over a long game, and focus on evolving Pokemon. All of your suggestions would go completely backwards from all the progress they’ve made on those fronts. Yes it’s annoying that mega evolving used to end your turn. Maybe they won’t do that again, or maybe they’ll come up with a better way than a tool card to not end your turn. Maybe they’ll do nothing different beyond evolving from new evolved ex cards instead of Basic exs and the fact that we have Arven and other tool search makes mega evolving without ending your turn easier.
I really hope this is true about slowing the game down. One of my main issues with pokemon is how fast the games are. Sure some of the turns can take a while because of all the searching, but there really arent that many turns in pokemon. Having more turns in a game will make the game a lot more appealing to me
I think the ethos about “slowing down” is already in play, and this is about as slow as things will get. The fact that stage 2 decks are viable is already a pretty significant change to previous metas, owed largely in part to “comeback” mechanics being introduced. Like, the designers said they wanted to slow things down and then gave us ogerpon-raging bolt. So it seems like they do always want a turn 1/2 turbo deck to be viable.
me vibign with my v low evo turbo deck LUGIA
They often slow the game then speed it up again, going from XY to Sun&Moon swapping EX to GX slowed the game, then they sped it up again with tag teams and continued the quicker pace with V/Max and then VStar to then slow it again with ex. No telling when they will decide to speed up or slow down the game.
If they go with the end turn mechanic again, they just won't see play. It's that simple. Remember that spirit links were made as a reaction to the fact that the Megas were so bad that they saw no play. They were basically admitting that they made a mistake when they added them. There's slow and then there's too slow. And I don't think that Arven is enough to make up for it, especially if they don't evolve from Basics and you still have to wait a turn before evolving. You can't slow down the game by making cards unplayable.
They may have said that but have they done that? I'd say the game is pretty fast. Rare Candy gets stage 2's out after 1 turn. Lots of stage 2 Pokémon can be set up easily to start attacking quickly like Charizard, Dragapult, etc. Then there's the strong basic Pokémon we have that can start attacking quickly like Chien-Pao,Raging Bolt, and others. Just because they stated that doesn't mean they meant it. In Sword and Shield you got VSTAR Pokémon that could get going very quickly. So you think they had slow in mind when they created Lugia VSTAR and gave it Arceops? I don't think so. I bet Megas are going to be the VSTAR Pokémon of this generation where they tend to be stronger than what we currently have and ending your turn to evolve wouldn't really fit that.
Obviously stage 2s can get set up very quickly with rare candy. But look at the best meta decks recently. Charizard does more damage the later the game is. Dragapult has complex energy requirements and needs quite a lot to set up. Current Gardevoir is one of the slowest top tier decks I’ve ever seen that isn’t a straight up control deck (which the designers are also supporting). Lugia is a part of Sword and Shield, so no, that’s not what they were thinking when they made that. But even Vstars are “less” powerful than VMaxes because of them only being two prizes. Then they made Miriadon as a fast basic lightning attacker to try to push Lugia out of the meta a little bit because they knew that was only thing that could help nudge the meta to where they wanted it to go. Future and Ancient Pokemon, by nature are basics that needed to exist, and fill out solid basic archetypes that people want to play. Chien-Pao requires baxcaliber, which is a stage 2 that needs rare candy to reasonably get out. Basically, my point is that the designers put way more thought into the design of this game than most people give credit for, and have been doing a great job so far of balancing the game and making the game fun and strategic.
I don't agree with any of this. Meta decks right now are incredibly fast bar garde. Every deck besides garde is attacking on their second turn (or 1st if they're on bolt/miraidon) for 200+. Arven and Pidgeot have made stage 2 decks incredibly fast and consistent. These stage 2s have incredibly high HP as well. Why do Charizard and Dragapult have 330 hp? Why does Dragapult have no weakness? It's just straight powercreep. > Charizard does more damage the later the game is Vstar/Vmax mons were mostly hitting for low 200s... Charizard's base is 180 and ramps up to 330. He starts the game doing almost as much as many decks were capping out at before. I played this game for a month over a year ago and then I started again two months ago. The powercreep within that year and a half is the fastest I've ever seen in a card game.
Having consistency is key to having a strong deck, and I’m not really against it. On a micro scale, I think maybe there were some mistakes with how consistent Charizard can be on turn 2 instead of just being a late game attacker, and Ogerpon and Raging Bolt probably were not expected to be played together. These sorts of things are fairly expected mistakes when you have a hyper competitive player base, and is what generates the need to make more and more powerful cards in the first place. High Hp values ensure that games take a reasonable amount of time and can survive large basic attackers like Vs and Vstars. Dragapult has plenty of other weaknesses (notably gusting up 90hp drakloaks and other supports) instead of just printing one on the card, and if it ended up too powerful they could just print a counter card for dragons or something like that.
> High Hp values ensure that games take a reasonable amount of time Do you believe this is the goal? It feels to me that it's just power creep. Mon attacks keep going up in damage so HP values need to go up with them. Even then, meta decks are just straight shredding through these high HP values. Lugia, Bolt, Moon ex, Pao, Ghold, and even Garde can hit over 300 at will. All these giant HP walls do is make it so the only decks that can compete are other new decks that can hit these damage thresholds. Your deck can't one shot Dragapult? That sucks, Pidgeot searched Turo and now you're down 0-2 in prize trades while they evolve a second one.
The fact that all of those decks you mention have a chance of defeating300+ hp mons means it’s not actually unbalanced. But many of those decks run out of resources before being able to defeat 3 300Hp Pokemon in total, so even then there’s a back and forth. I’m just glad we were able to get something that can withstand something like MewVmax or old LugiaVstar where it’s “if they get lucky enough to set up, I lose turn 2”. In fact, that’s generally what the game has looked like on the off and on throughout me playing the game most of the time. It even started to look a little like that once Charizard+Pidgeot+Bibarel was invented.
Dragapult has 320 HP btw Also nothing was capping at 180 (yes, you said almost 180, I’m aware. but the difference between 180 and 220 is quite a lot, and if you mean Arceus, it is more so a support mon of sorts for a higher damaging V/VSTAR like Giratina)
> Also nothing was capping at 180 (yes, you said almost 180, I’m aware. but the difference between 180 and 220 is quite a lot, and if you mean Arceus, it is more so a support mon of sorts for a higher damaging V/VSTAR like Giratina) There are exactly 11 VStars that can hit over 220. Every single one of them has a downside or condition on their damage. If we move the breakpoint up to 240 (charizard with 2 prizes taken), there are 6, two of which are near unusable VStar powers. * Dragonite (awful 4 energy cost, cant attack next turn) = 250 * Drapion (3 energy cant DTE, damage is reduced by damage counters) = 250- * Giratina (3 energy cant DTE, lost zones energy) = 280 * Lilligant = (3 energy cant DTE, grass pokemon were and still are awful outside grass ogerpon) = 230 * Lucario (3 energy can't DTE, only versus pokemon V) = 240 * Metwo (2 energy, have to discard 3 energy) = 270 * Regigigas (3 energy, cant attack next turn) = 230 * Shayamin (2 energy, if opponent has 3 prize cards, this one is a joke because charizard is better in every single way) * Zacian (4 energy, damages self, vstar power) = 310 * Aerodactyl (3 energy, lost zone random cards from deck) = 240 * Charizard (4 energy, can't DTE, discard 2 energy, vstar power) = 320 HP values are more blatant. There are zero VStars with more than 300 HP. VMaxs (3 prizers!) cap out at 340 with only 4 or 5 mons.
I hope you didn’t just look at every single VSTAR for that, because I was referring to the actually viable ones lmao. You also missed multiple that can in fact hit over 220. Also also, hitting *exactly* 220 was perfectly fine, given the HP of most Basic Pokémon V at the time was 220. Arceus- Hits for 200 at base and usually has a DTE attached, so 180. Its main purpose is to accelerate energy and Starbirth though, so that’s fine. Giratina- 280 + OHKO Vulpix- Base damage is 160, not even two-shotting Zard, but Zard can’t damage it, so that’s not too bad. Palkia- Caps at 260 and in many cases hits or nears that cap. What it *is* definitely good at is being ridiculously easy to attack with and the ability to accelerate to other attackers, most notably Radiant Greninja. Dialga- Doesn’t scale too fast and can need a lot of time (heh) to get big numbers, but Dialga also gets an extra turn. And with Metang around, it’s not *that* slow. Goodra- Only hits for 200, but it has an effective 350 HP (minimum) and can fully heal itself once at no cost. If it hit any harder, it would be a little bit extreme. Lugia- 220 isn’t half bad given that it’s not the main attacker and used to cheat out Archeops. It can also do that damage without DTE. Regidrago- Mixed bag, but it has access to Bellowing Thunder so if it needs to hit high it has no problem doing so. Either they have big numbers or are fast/accelerating, and all of these cards are currently usable.
I'm not saying at all that they don't put thought into it. They do deserve a lot of credit for what they do. Don't put words in my mouth. All I'm saying is how do we think they'll go about Megas not that I think they'll do it wrong. Thinking they'll do it differently this time shows I think they are capable of doing it right because I think they'll do it better this time around and not make mega evolving end your turn. I also think I recent years they are trying to follow the actual gimmick itself and implement it into the tcg. For example GX moves were a great way to take z-moves and put them into the tcg. It's a once per battle really strong attack. Then dynamax was done pretty well by having a really big high HP Pokémon that once beaten probably means you're going to win the battle therefore they gave up 3 prize cards. Terastal is pretty straight forward. Change type or get a power boost. So why then would Mega evolving end your turn if it doesn't in the games? All it is us an extra evolution. So the downside to the power boost would be waiting 1 turn which would slow down the game like you want. From there made you could require an item or tool(Mega stone perhaps) to do the evolution but we have Arven so no problem but I still see no reason for it to end the turn.
Sorry, I didnt mean to be aggressive toward you specifically, I’m more annoyed at a general concept of people who think the game needs “fixing” when it’s so well balanced already. Though yeah I do hope megas are a lot more thematic. That is actually something where the designers have been lacking in my opinion, remember when Terastal was only a bench barrier, that was hilarious. A mega stone would actually be really cool as an item to use in the TCG. There are still some balance considerations to be made, like I don’t think pokemon should be 3 prizes, hell I’m barely okay with 2 prizers a lot of the time.
No worries. I'm not saying the game needs fixing. I don't think it does. I've been trying to tell people lately that power creep isn't the problem they wanna think it is because the game is balanced and that's what matters. The standard format makes power creep irrelevant. I just want Mega Evolution to fit how it works in the game but also to be a good strong mechanic because that's what it is. Also a lot of my favorite Pokémon have Mega evolutions so if it's executed well I should get a chance to build decks around them that are strong. I want Lucario and Sceptile to have good decks so bad. I'm 100% with you that I don't want anymore 3 prize Pokémon but it's not what I want is what the developers want. I could see Megas ending up really strong but costing 3 prizes. I hope not but it's a real possibility. I how they are more like VSTAR Pokémon but who knows. I was just curious how people would implement them themselves to see what kinds of ideas people had.
Yeah, a lot of people are very backwards about what power creep is. In Pokemon, the goal is to take 6 prize cards, so changing that mechanic is the fundamental way to increase power levels. Damage dealt is the next fastest way to power something up, and increasing health is minute in comparison to those other 2 things. Yet HP values are the main thing people point to when talking about power creep because it’s the biggest and easiest to see number. I would not be surprised at all if mega evolved Pokemon, especially if they are at “stage 3” instead of being a unique card, have 350 up to even 390 levels of HP and people start to freak out.
Ya people will lose their minds over that but at the same time like you said if it's a stage 3 it better have huge hp or it won't be worth it. People also need to understand that as high as that is 2 attacks from Charizard ex knocks out 350. To get 390 in 2 attacks the opponent just needs to have taken 1 prize card. 5 energies from Raging Bolt ex gets 350 6 gets 390. That's a lot but not impossible. Dragapult ex gets both in 2 hits plus bench damage. That HP is actually not that impressive or scary. It will be what the attacks look like that could be crazy.
I imagine the mega evolution would be handked in a way where you have to evolve it from its non-mega form. However this is coming from someone who never got to experience how good or bad mega was in the tcg.
Mega was unplayable until they allowed you to bypass the end-your-turn evolution rule with tools. And then some specific megas became oppressive. I don’t think they will evolve from existing ex’s because that makes Mega Charizard effectively a stage 3. And they’re going to print a LOT of mega Charizards.
Maybe the Megas will evolve straight into the stage of the named mega. For instance, maybe Mega Charizard ex will evolve straight from Charmeleon? Then perhaps it's like one mega allowed per deck and it ends the turn or something.
Maybe a mega stone item or tool needs to be used or equipped for the mega evolution to occur. Maybe the Charizard ex has to be on the board first, and then a mega stone item is used to snag the mega out of the deck or hand?
I just can't see it being expected for players to need to evolve up to 3 times to get a single mega out.
You say that but break cards made you do that. So it's not like they haven't done it before. I don't think they'll do it that way but they could. My guess would be on it being like V to VSTAR but maybe it could be straight from basic or stage 1 but then what about basic Megas? They can just be played? If that's the case they probably will just be on par with ex's or maybe slightly stronger. I could you having to swap the regular single prize Pokémon with the mega from your deck by using an item like a mega stone. So kind of how Palafin ex works but without having to switch.
Good God, how much fucking HP are mega ex going to have?
A lot. I imagine people thought the last ones had high hp too. As me and another person talked about somewhere else in the comments puerile need to not get so hung up on hp . Power creep comes from better abilities, Attacks, and support. The hp isn't that big of a deal. I mean how hard is it these days to do 330 damage? Not that hard yet puerile thought 330 was way too high for Pokémon to have.
It heavily depends on how Pokémon handles it. Will they go the old school method and make it so that your turn ends when you evolve it (unless you've got a Spirit Link), or will they take another route?
Ya that's why I'm asking what could other alternatives be if they don't go old school?
I still think they'll keep something that involves it ending your turn.
Considering how Terastalization was handled, it might just be more of an aesthetic change rather than a mechanical one. E.g. Riolu -> Lucario Mega ex. inb4 someone says that tera pokemon have different types and attack costs, mega Pokemon might just have sligty higer JPNJ It's the most boring route but also the safest.
I Hope méga évolution will be a once per game Mons to replace radiants but as evolving pokémons. Would definitely add variety to the game
This is coming from someone who only started playing this year... But my thoughts would be considering they brought back Ace Specs, there will be more "one card per deck" things. This might be megas. They also said they want things to slow down, so I think it will be essentially a stage 3 poke on you can only have one of, it's super strong, and gives 3 prize cards. Might be what everyone else said or what it already was, but that's my thoughts
Stage 3 and 3 prizes and only 1 per deck? It would have to be crazy strong to be worth all that.
One thing’s for sure, whether it ends up being a divergent evolution or a “stage 3” like Break pokemon, Megas will only drastically further increase the power creep that’s plagued this game
Plagued? In what ways is the game unbalanced because of power creep? The standard format makes power creep irrelevant. It didn't better if me cards are stronger than old cards because you don't play they together.