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Monkey's Useless Ramblings

This being my first article for Pojo, I'll have to try to keep myself from looking like a complete idiot as much as possible, hopefully giving you, the reader, a false impression that I am actually somewhat intelligent. Of course, that's not the easiest task in the world, but it's worth a shot. Anyway, that's enough insulting of my own intelligence. Let's get to the topic: the state of Pokemon. It's not the most original topic in the world, but I'm unable to think of anything better at the moment, and I've already had more than my fair share of thinking for the next few hundred years.

Now, I'm going to begin by stating the obvious, in case some of you have been vacationing under a rock for the past few months.

The current Pokemon environment sucks.

But why does it suck? First thing that comes to mind is, of course, Slowking: an attempt to reduce the overuse of trainers, a card that has single-handedly changed the game, but most importantly, a sign of an overdose of illegal drugs and/or proof of some sort of mental trauma. But I'm sure you all know more than enough about the effect Slowking has on the game, so I'm going to try to keep myself from going on about that. So lets go a little deeper into the physics of the game to see if we can find the answer.

As I see it, there are three types of decks today that form a sort of lopsided game of rock-paper-scissors. There are 1) the decks that require a lot of trainers to function (Haymaker-type decks), 2) the decks that keep the opponent from using trainers (Slowking), and 3) the decks that don't require a lot of trainers, but don't really have to disable the opponent's trainers either (evolution decks). Type 1 beats type 3, 2 beats 1, and 3 struggles against both. So the only viable decks are the speed and the disruption. Then to have an edge against type 1, type 2 gets faster. Then type 1 gets even faster, and both types become as fast as possible without decking in the first couple of turns. This is where the first turn KO's, the first turn Lass/Eeeeeeek combo, and the two Slowkings on the second turn come in. The games are almost always decided on the first turn, which greatly decreases the amount of fun one can have during a game of Pokemon.

By now you would think that someone up at the Pokemon card creation center would make a card or two that keeps the game from being decided on the first turn. Sure there's Cleffa, Magby, and Igglybuff, but it's not exactly easy to get them out when you're Lassed or trapped first turn and have to get through two or three flips to be able to play a single trainer. And unless I'm mistaken, there isn't much hope in the sets to come. Perhaps after Wizards of the Coast and Media Factory realize that all of these people quitting the game will have a negative effect on their income, they might do something about it, but until then, here we are, getting more and more distressed over the horrible environment, and trying to find reasons why we should continue to spend our time and money in a game with little hope of a successful future.

Now I could go into what I think would help the game, but it's already been proven that nobody with any deciding power in the Pokemon TCG world ever listens to what anybody has to say. They probably won't be trying to find a solution any time soon either, just as long as we continue to pour our paychecks and allowances into their pockets.

Pokemon is beginning to seem a lot like the Titanic, looks so strong when it first starts, but then it sinks, and nobody's there to pull you out of the water.

~ Monkey