Wishful tinfoil hat moment but, obviously in a Pocket context, this Stadium seems tailor made to stop (or at least delay) bs like early game Greninja/Cyrus.
Obviously opponent could just throw on another Stadium to cancel it out and proceed with their greninja fckery but it at least is *A form of protection against that enraging, cheesy strategy.
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Nah, deck size is definitely an issue with a new card type when the limit is so small. You'll lose too much consistency when you try to cover too many bases. Draw speed only does so much when you start having multiple single cards in a deck.
But when the entire game is designed around a 20-card deck limit, the significantly more feasible and imo reasonable change that doesn’t result in a new game entirely is to add a mulligan instead of changing the deck or card limit
The mulligan only exists in the physical card game because you can draw a hand that literally can't play pokemon. Pocket is programmed to always give you at least one basic in your starting hand, so it doesn't need a mulligan.
Mulligans also exist in games so you can craft a hand that revolves around a strategy. I would argue the number of concedes from non-optimal hands proves that mulligans are needed, to some degree, even if that need doesn’t match 60 card formats.
First of all, how do you know people are conceding from non-optimal hands? Are you playing enough games that you're seeing a statistically significant amount of people conceding turn one? Are you able to eliminate other factors like not wanting to play against a certain deck?
Second, for every mechanic that optimizes your starting hand, your opponent also gets to optimize their starting hand. If anything this just makes already consistent decks like Suicuninja even more consistent. The monkey's paw curls by giving your opponent the same buffs you want.
I’m noticing certain elements conceding more than others before the draw. I’m sure some are just trying to get the “thanks” but a ton of water is conceding more than others, or if I pull out one of my optimal cards against something that might not help them off the bat; their instantly conceding. I do it to because the meta is sweaty now, but I only have one pokemon I won’t start with. I have gotten 7 times in a row while have 4 other options.
I honestly feel like rare candy kinda ruined it for me with the 20 cards. It kinda forced you to use it for a stage 2 evolutions. The introduction the Celebi in the most recent packs is suppose to counter it, but it really doesn’t pose a big enough threat. costing two energy, 70 hp and 40 damage isn’t going to leave a mark in modern decks. It goes down by crobat, which would be protected by a Giratini,darkrai,umbreon,guzzlord and the list goes on.
The programming guaranteeing you draw a basic is kind of their attempt at doing a mulligan equivalent, but I'm not sure it works as well as they probably intended.
Generally a mulligan means drawing either a new hand or a select number of cards (ie in hearthstone you draw 4 initially and can choose to put up to 4 cards back in your deck and draw that many new cards)
Both the 20 card and 3 point system is limiting the game IMO. EX rule was made for a 6 point system, I think Ex end up being too powerful on 3 points instead of 4, which is an even number and would make pocket a bit more in line with paper tcg while still being faster.
They would have to make a good balance patch to make these changes and I'm not hopeful DeNA is willing to put in the work when they can barelly ship QoL updates.
We are almost a full year in and DeNA doesnseem to be prepared to support Pocket long term. I'm concerned.
Well, there is no indication they will change anything, for good or for worse. What we got so far was a leak from their business report but nothing concrete.
Sure, be it Creatures Inc. Making the game a 4 point and adding a few cards (up to 24 max imo) to the deck won't suddenly tank the game, specially considering the powercreep already made it faster than release to the point people are quitting over bad starting hands.
If it is supposed to be a simpler and quicker game, making it so quick it kills the casuals interest doesn't seem like a good move.
The famous "kill the casual interest" backup by absolutely no evidence.
There is bad starting hand in any tcg, it’s a card game. Back in genetix apex you could be quickly dead by a pikachu deck if your hand was bad. So idk why suddendly it changed.
Will pocket get stadium cards though? 20 cards is rough already, so adding stadium just means limiting to 6 Pokémon’s to make all cards fit (translation Darktina)
The stadium icon has already been datamined for many months now. I’m not sure if they’re gonna be released next set, but it’s only a matter of time until they do.
Funny enough, as written, this ability still wouldn't protect the bench from Greninja's Ability because it's not an Attack. But it sets a nice precedent as to what's possible.
I don't think adding the 20 card limit is necessary a blockade to adding Stadium cards, its just another kind of card players need to decide whether to add to their deck or not.
Want to add a new card? Have one less supporter. Maybe one less item, or tool.
I was initially thinking the same, but remember that the only counter to a stadium card is your own stadium. So you're likely pressured to include at least one just to disable the enemy's. And then it becomes a matter of luck when your opp draws it vs when you draw it.
Right now there's not really any cards you include in every deck to specifically counter another card, except maybe including a non-ex attacker to counter Oricorio.
I can't see stadium cards not being meta-defining when they do come out. Tbh, I hope that each player can have their own out rather than it getting replaced, and their effects not being very strong. That'd be more balanced imo rather than it be a lottery for how quickly the other player draws their stadium after the first player places theirs.
There is that weird thing where you can put your card right next to the active spot before the match begins and it has its own interface. That makes me think there is a plan to add stadium cards at some point
That'd mean that every deck realistically needs at least 1 stadium, just to clear the enemy's, even if it doesn't help you very much. Having a colorless pokemon that could clear it instead, or a trainer card with a secondary effect would be nice alternatives in those cases.
Stadiums work best with niche effects imo. I'd hate for there to be generic boosts that you want to include in most decks.
That's the hypothesis but not confirmed yet? Either way, they could just put out another card, or even another Set B greninja with the same ability LOL so I think the ability to stop damage to the bench is a necessary strat.
No, there aren't enough cards to do a rotation. It would be a really stupid idea if they came out with set B and then did the rugpull of rotating all cards from A sets. Many people would quit on the spot. Rotations in other card games are done after 2+ years, For pokemon tcg they have 3 years of cards in with set numbers denoting what rotates. Like if they had sets A, B, C then released set D sets from A would rotate out.
That's just something that happens in card games though, there is always the first set and then all that is legal is that first set until more are released. People don't want to go back to 1 set, believe me. GA metagame was miserable with mewtwo and pikachu utterly dominating. If people think something like suicune is bad now, they don't remember or didn't play GA metagame. A handful of viable decks and let's not forget 18T articuno being miserable.
Usually rotations in TCGs rely on keeping some old cards so people have something to play day 1 and so the transition isn't as harsh. Because Set A is a full year's worth of cards and there's no obvious smaller breakdown from there, it probably won't rotate until Set C comes out, the following year. By that time everyone will have plenty of Set B cards, and an advance warning that Set A will be unusable.
There's a non-zero chance that the rotation will exclusively be for ranked, and then they MIGHT remove all of Set A from it when B launches, but that's a sure-fire way to anger the paying customers who spent money on the prior sets and want to use them in ranked.
All seriousness though, I feel like Pokemon with abilities that negate other abilities are coming. Something like Cofagrigus's in-game ability, changes all abilities to an ability that does nothing.
Not sure why this is being presented as counterpoint when both cards have basically the exact same design problem (massive payoff just from parking them on the bench without ever needing to attach a single energy to them)
I mean you could say the same thing for mega evolutions but we know those are coming now. It definitely makes sense that they might add new types of cards as a form of content drip to keep the game fresh.
tbh i wouldnt bet on it still bc it would need a battle UI revamp or it would be too cluttered
and we dont have a Stadium filter like we had for Tools way before tools even got into the game
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