this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
58 points (98.3% liked)
womenby
1437 readers
4 users here now
Community for all women and non-binary people.
Some ground rules:
- Read the Code of Conduct.
- No bigotry of any kind. This includes but is not limited to: Transphobia, Non-Binary Erasure, Sexism, Racism, Ableism, Homophobia etc.
- No Harrassment. This includes but is not limited to: stalking, harassing and threatening posters.
- No Sexually Explicit Content Because of potential doxxing posting sexually explicit content of yourself will be removed.
- Don't Be a Lib No capitalism and imperialism apologia.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
@[email protected]
Last mega locked
Yeah if that's the state of the game, then it doesn't appeal to me. I thought with the short play times/iteration it would encourage experimentation, because it's easier to tweak and try out new combos and get immediate feedback, but the upshot of having a stale meta means that you have stale counterplay and less variety to try your builds against.
I wouldn't call the meta stale.. It gets shaken up greatly every 4 to 8 weeks. Sabrina forces the opponent to switch and they choose but Cyrus just came out and that lets you choose an opponent's damaged pokemon to pull back in. It requires completely different counterplay and also Cyrus makes opening with an EX far more dangerous, and you can run both to make the opponent play around both.
There are ways to attack the bench in every type, so cyrus is always a potential threat.
Stage 2 Pokemon got a huge buff from the network card that lets you trade a hand pokemon for a random poke from deck (not limited to basics like poke ball).
Mewtwo got shat on this meta because of dark type aggro threats, and pikachu is outclassed by mons with incompatible breakpoints. Charizard is still good because Moltres is so strong.
Playing non-Ex decks or decks with just one EX is now viable.
My favorite deck of last format was Scolipede/Weezing/Koga. You start with Weezing that does 30 + poison and once you get your stage 2 scolipede evolved, you use Weezing Pokémon power to poison, recall weezing to hand with koga, then free switch to scolipede for 120 damage against poisoned enemy (non-ex).
My favorite deck of the first format was Arcanine EX and Arcanine + Charizard.
One of the better ways to interact with the game is streamers. MegaMogwai on YouTube has good deck building skills and Hooglandia is also a really strong player.
It is fundamentally a gacha game though. Can't avoid that aspect, no matter how "generous" they are.
The meta water deck is gyarados ex, and you can often take out magikarp with Hitmonlee which hits the bench for 30 damage, one energy. Giant cape (+20 max hp) and rocky helmet also changed the game.
As a game, it's honestly pretty balanced. Misty is annoying, but there is no proper ladder so if they get a free win from 2 heads in a row, just concede and queue up again for zero consequences.
Like, yes, if they play Misty and they get the 1 in 4 chance of two heads, that's a loss on the spot. But you can also lose on the spot to Exeggutor EX in grass getting heads on turn 3 and 5 doing 40 base + 40 if flip heads. You can lose on the spot to moltres getting two of three heads (now just one with Dawn) to ramp their arcanine if they draw X Speed, growlithe, Moltres EX, and Arcanine EX in their first hand. Every deck has a potential to use variance and auto win, including just by drawing the right stuff on curve.
And misty has an opportunity cost of delaying opponent's professor's research draw 2. It also whiffs 50% of the time they play it. And then that dork will probably auto concede to you.
manaphy is so much more reliable than misty
Interesting thanks for the breakdown and analysis. It sounds like there is more counterplay than I had given credit. I watch the occasional Spragels video because I followed him for Pokemon Unite, and he expanded into Pokepoke content, and will probably move across fully if Unite continues to death spiral and isn't able to reverse the trajectory with the 500pt mode and Suicune. In all reality I probably will play it if Unite dies, because I want some Pokemon content to tide over until the next main game is released.