>I read your article about the propositions and I agree with allot that you
>said.  There are also some suggestions that I would like to make to Wizards
>of the Coast and the DCI.  First I play pokemon with my 10 year old
>daughter and we have done some league play at the pokemon league time in
>our neighborhood.  Our decks are probably balanced decks 20/20/20 and use
>some evolutions.  We have also played specialty decks like Raindance/Energy
>Burn decks.  I do believe that the problem they are facing is designed into
>the game.
>
>Look at 3 pokemon.  Hitmonchan (basic), Dodrio (2nd stage final), and
>Butterfree (3rd stage final).  They all have 70 HP.  Of those Hitmonchan
>has one of the best low-power attacks (F - 20) vs Butterfree (OO - 20).
>   He also has a 3 energy attack that makes him "broken" in my opinion  (FFO
>- 40).  This makes him a perfect starter and then also a threat once
>powered up.  Contrast that with Machop (F - 20) with no second attack makes
>him a good starter but he can be overcome in time with a bigger pokemon and
>is helpless against birds.  If you also factor in that a large number of
>pokemon in the game are weak to F (lightning and colorless including the
>popular Electabuzz)  and you have a basic that is more than a match for
>more than half of the pokemon out there.   If you also factor in that there
>are no "heavyweight" psychics yet with the ability to be a staring pokemon
>(P - 20 and HP 50 or more) and you see very few enemies for Hitmonchan out
>there.   Scyther has gotten 2 good enemies in Base Charmander and Fossil
>Magmar, so people playing Scyther have something to think about.
>  Electabuzz has Hitmonchan/Machop to worry about so it is held in check.
>
>Generally only a couple of stage 2 final pokemon are worth developing
>(Wigglytuff / Archanine) and Dewgong/Gyrados in a Raindance.  Archanine has
>the problem that both of his attacks are relatively high power and in
>today's ER/SER environment he would probably find himself helpless.  Only 1
>Stage 3 pokemon is worthy of evolution and that is Blastoise because of
>it's Raindance power.  I actually develop Charmander to Charmeleon because
>it is a decent
>2 stage but Charizard is totally worthless it the ER/SER environment.
>
>Next looking at Wigglytuffs under-powered do the wave and you have a
>pokemon doing 60 damage on turn 2 with no backlash.  (It would be different
>if it damaged the benched pokemon or itself).  Also there is Clefables
>metronome, turning the tables on the high powered evolved pokemon.  Being
>able to guest them to the front, use SER to render them powerless, then
>pummel them with their own attacks for (O with no discarding) should be
>almost illegal.  The only reason this card isn't getting more play  is
>because of the aforementioned Hitmonchan that is so prevalent.
>
>Looking at trainers, what did they think would happen when the trainers
>went from the more docile Japanese market to the aggressive speed hungry
>American market.  Apparently this wasn't a problem in the original market
>for the game and from what I understand, most of the foreign decks were
>apparently less aggressive and more evolution based along the lines they
>imagined.  I think that some of the new "trainer disrupting" trainers
>coming in Rocket / Gym Leaders may help some, but they may also exacerbate
>the problem.
>
>One solution I would like to propose is a new series of cards, call it
>evolution.  This needs to come out soon after Gym 2 and needs to improve
>the evolutions proportionately This would contain big bad evolutions with
>decent basics.  The cards would generally look like this for 3 level
>evolutions:
>
>    Stage 1 -   O - Paralyzing/Confusing/Poisoning possible or just 10
>damage straight
>                     X (colored energy) - 10 with possible poison/paralysis
>for the first attack
>                     XO or XX second attack that would do 20 with status
>changes or 30 without or OO - quick attack.
>                    This pokemon would have 30-50 HP and any < 50 would have
>free retreat.  Some of them would have
>                    a attack or pokemon power that would speed getting out
>the evolution on the second turn.
>
>    Stage 2 -    X - 20 damage + status change possible
>                     XX - or XOO - 30 damage straight or XXX for 50.
>                     These pokemon would have 60-90 HP.
>
>    Stage 3 -    X or XO first attach that does 30 - 40 damage or XX - 50.
>                     XXOO or XXX - does 70 - 80 damage  or a pokemon power
>that helps him power up, heal or dramatically
>                               alters the landscape, like Raindance / Energy
>Trans.
>                     This stage would have HP in the 100-160 range.  The
>higher HP to pokemon with attacks that need more
>                     energy to run.
>
>For 2 stage pokemon this could be adjusted so that basics are bigger (40 -
>60HP) with a bigger 3 energy second attack and the 2nd (90 - 120HP) with a
>good 1 energy attack and a good 3 energy - 60 attack.  The goal is that the
>evolutions get you something worth going through compared to the current
>basics.   There would also be a low energy attack that does a
>proportionately more damage so there is a benefit to evolving. There would
>still be room for special basics like Mr. Mime and Ditto and the other
>basics would be more in line with the evolutions.  Then if you compared an
>"Evolution Butterfree" to Hitmonchan you would see a more fair comparison.
>  Butterfree would have around 120HP and have a single energy attack equal
>to Hitmonchan's second attack and still have a higher energy attack that
>could take Chan out in 2 turns Max.  Now it is worth getting to the top of
>the tree.  The same would be true of all of the other 3rd level Evolutions.
>  Two level evolutions would also be worth it because in the  higher hit
>points and more powerful attacks.  One downside with this is it would make
>almost all of the evolution cards to this point worthless as they would be
>out of step with the power curve.  Some could be salvaged (a new charizard
>would make that line more attractive even in this new world and Blastoise's
>Raindance is valuable at any level).
>
>The second solution (complementary not exclusive of the first) is to limit
>trainers based on the pokemon count.  Allow 1 trainer per basic pokemon, 2
>trainers per stage 2 and 3 trainers per stage 3.   This would encourage
>people to use evolution and reward them for doing so while not putting a
>global limit on the game.  You said that people with evolutions need more
>trainers and this would recognize that.  Also the total number of cards in
>a deck would have to be bumped to 65 (or higher but not more than 70) to
>make room for the evolution trees (4-3-2 or 4-0-4 plus breeders).  The only
>restriction is that evolution trees be viable.  You cannot have (1-0-4) to
>get the extra trainers.  You must have at least as many basics of an
>evolution as you have of the higher branches.   To generally the 20/20/20
>  rule would hold up.  To get 25 trainers, you would have to have 25 basic
>pokemon and only 10 energy.   And it would make it impossible to have 30 as
>some of the winning decks had.  That would force people to use a wider
>variety of basic pokemon putting their victory at risk by not having a
>Haymaker (Scy/Chan/Buzz) in their opening hand.  There is one problem, some
>of the wigglytuff haymakers would actually still be legal  12 basics + 4
>wigglys = 20 which would still make it one of the tougest decks out there.
>  No solution is going to be perfect.
>
>Please feel free to publish this under the name Dark Magneton if you find
>it of worth.  I have played this game for over a year and enjoy it very
>much (given that I'm 36 I am probably older than most).
>
>
>
>
>Faron Anthony Williams (fwilliams@dsrnet.com)
>Digital System Resources - http://www.dsrnet.com
>
>Try not.  Either do, or do not.   There is no try.
>- Yoda