Allow me to preface my reply by saying that I thought Jason did an excellent
job detailing some of the larger problems facing Pokemon today. A lot of players
have spoken out about the unfairness of Pokemon, and Jason's article is one of
many written over the past year. You can visit any number of the internet's top
Pokemon websites and see how extensive and obvious the problem is. Writers from
the all over have been sounding off, and petitioning for a long time now, but
little has happened. This article, like many others, is an appeal to identify,
address and resolve this issue. I'd like to detail some of my own thoughts on
this matter, and discuss current and future solutions to this problem.
This article details one of the major problems in Pokemon: Luck. While random
factors pertaining to Smokescreen and Status Effects are acceptable, the opening
coin flip is becoming more and more important and game-breaking.. Hand
disruption is becoming more problematic, because not only is it becoming more
powerful, but also more acceptable.
Competitive Pokemon is growing an exceedingly fast pace. Information is being
transferred about on the Internet at an alarming rate. While this main seem
beneficial, there exists a significant decrease in the number of
"creative" decks being played. This is NOT because players are
uncreative. It is more indicative of the unbalanced card pool currently being
played. Hand Disruption Trainers currently comprise some of the more powerful
cards in today's card pool, and refusing to play them puts a player at an
extreme disadvantage.
While using powerful cards in and of itself is not problematic, the strength of
these cards is verging on broken. A first turn IOR or RSA can successfully
cripple an opponent beyond recovery. Bannings are an obvious solution. Magic:
the Gathering, another popular product of Wizards of the Coast, actively singles
out over-powered cards. A card is first identified and is put on a watch-list.
Cards on the watch-list may be played as normal, but Wizards evaluates card/deck
data from tournaments to analyze whether or not a card is dominating the
environment. If a card is deemed to be overpowered, it is banned.
By removing the offending cards, we can systemically deal with the problem.
However, the larger issue exists of acceptance and complacency. As I look over
the data from the first 1200 voters, about 30% want bannings, or feel that
bannings are an acceptable measure. However, another 25% DO NOT want bannings.
If these powerful Trainers are considered acceptable, then the larger Pokemon
playing public cannot reach a unified consensus. If some people feel that the
environment is currently healthy, changes cannot and will not be made.
The Pokemon Public is the first and only measure that Wizards can use to
determine the sanctity of Pokemon gaming. If the people are divided in how to
best proceed with the game, we will reach an impasse. This article is an appeal
to the players which do not want bannings to occur. With the amount of luck in
tournament gaming, Pokemon may as well be reduced to a coin flip. A lot of
people which play in local tournaments may not be good, but when you get to
large scale, professional tournaments, do you really want to play against 100
clones of the exact same deck? This is the direction that Pokemon is taking. It
should be obvious to even most skeptical players that the optimization of
certain decks will lead to an environment that supports nothing BUT those decks.
Chance should not dominate a game of skill and technique. If Pokemon is to gain
any respect as an intellectual and challenging game, it cannot support such a
lax and indifferent attitude towards such a threat to its l!
!
egitimacy.
Wizards has made some unpopular bannings in the past in Magic, most notably
Tolarian Academy and Time Spiral from Urza's Saga. Both these cards where key
component in a deck called Academy. This deck had unbridled success in the
Winter of 1998, "affectionately" called Combo Winter. The deck won a
large percentage of all the State Championships that year. When Wizards banned
the card, people were outraged. In order to keep up with current metagame and
demand for these cards, players often paid $20-$30 US for just one copy of these
cards. Wizards soon implemented a "refund" plan. For each one of the
$20 cards they shipped back to Wizards, they would be given a $3.00 pack. This
soured many people.
Magic is truly Wizards' baby. From conception to its current growth, they are
the sole determinants of the game's fate. However, Pokemon is unlike Magic in
this respect. Japan should be been an obvious indicator to Wizards about how the
tournament scene was going to progress. Cards like Rocket Sneak Attack, Super
Energy Removal, and Computer Search were singled out as very strong cards. These
three, along with Item Finder are now restricted in Japan. A deck cannot use any
more than one copy of these cards in their deck.
When we examine several of the popular "solutions" suggested for the
current environment, many fail to bridge the gap between the players which are
pro- and anti- banning players. Prop 15, while a sincere attempt to fix the
problem is doomed. If every player is limited in the Trainers they may play, the
game will be more dependent on who can draw the first Oak or RSA. With only 15
Trainers, recovery will be made even more challenging!! While we should wait
until the East STS is over, many predict that the tournament will be
dogged with uncreative decks of Wiggly/R Zapdos/Scyther and Hand Distruption.
Even Prop 15 has come under a lot of fire for being inadequate for some, and
unnecessary for others. General consensus is probably the most effective
solution is getting changes brought about in the world of competitive Pokemon.
Prop 15, along with bannings and restrictions, are among the most widely
accepted control measures. There is also, as Jason's article suggest, a
limitation on when Trainers can be played. As well, there was talk about
allowing only two Trainer per turn. While all of these suggestions are good, the
important fact remains is that dialogue is the initial step to bring about
change.
At this time, I would like to propose my own solution:
Standard Deck Rules Apply. You cannot have more than 4 copies of any non-Basic
Energy card.
There is one further restriction: You must follow this basic scheme:
You may have, at most, eight of any of the following Trainers:
Computer Search
Item Finder
Rocket's Sneak Attack
Imposter Professor Oak
Super Energy Removal
What I hope to accomplish by doing this is to allow the player to pick between
advancing their own strategy (that is, choosing Computer Search and Item
Finder), hindering their opponent's strategy (through RSA, IOR, and SER), or any
minor combination of the two. This allows players flexibility in picking the
cards they want, but limiting the total amount of these over-powered cards they
can play. Eight is an arbitrary number and can be changed. I hope that this is a
restriction which can both slow-down the environment, while affording
creativity. People have become far to accustomed to playing these cards:
weakening these cards or removing them altogether would be an unpopular and most
likely anger many players.
I hope that you've enjoyed reading this. I'd appreciate any questions and
comments, especially about my suggested restriction scheme. E-mail me at DoctorAndy@pokeschool.com.
Thanks!
DoctorAndy
November 6th, 2000
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