Pokemon Battle Deck Sales Are A Scam for New/Casual Players
It's a big scam that there are these ridiculous rotations of cards that become "illegal" just to force people to buy new cards. It's also garbage that for new and casual players that want to buy a pre-built deck to spend a lot of money on a deck they can no longer use. There should be a requirement that these decks go on major discounted sales if they are no longer usable for play. I had no idea about all of this rotation garbage and spent a good amount of money on a Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX League Battle Deck that is basically now completely unusable.
IMO, it's all a scam by the Pokemon company to sell more cards.
Comments
-
LOL, I don't see how anything would become stale. At the very least they should have real deck classifications so that old cards can be played with matched opponents. There are so many low health cards and evolutions that could be fun to play but anyone wanting to use those cards online would be stupid to do so. They'd just get matched up with someone with all V or ex cards that will just waste them.
0 -
Yeah that makes sense, I think where it can get stale is especially at irl highly competitive events. For example, there was a format a few years ago that Lugia VSTAR just absolutely DOMINATED (you could get along fine playing Lost Box but Lugia was the top deck by far), and because it lasted for longer than usual, almost everyone loathed it. The only thing that stopped Lugia’s rampage was when Aurora Energy and Amazing Pokémon rotated…and Lugia is still completely viable, just not over-powered. So if there hadn’t been rotation, Lugia would have ruled the roost (pun intended) for even longer, which very few people wanted. But I could see how in a more fun-oriented (or at least less hardcore) atmosphere, it could be depressing to have good cards rotating periodically. And that really is annoying about your League Battle deck.
0 -
Okay, there’s a lot to break down here…
It's a big scam that there are these ridiculous rotations of cards that become "illegal" just to force people to buy new cards.
Rotations are a part of most TCGs and they’re done to keep the game fresh and prevent overpowered combos from forming, the only other way to prevent this is with a banlist (something that Expanded has despite it being about as competitively-relevant as a dirty sock). If you’re smart about rotations (unless you were a Worlds competitor before TPCi moved the rotation time from shortly after Worlds to its current April dates, the you’d have to keep the cards in your deck for obvious reasons) you usually sell 1-2 months before it hits and take a break from Standard events during that time.
Also, rotations are usually announced on Pokémon’s official site a few months before they’re set to occur. In addition to that, 2023’s rotation was hinted at back in 2022 when TPCi announced that season’s rotation and brought up the rotation marks introduced in Sword & Shield.
It's also garbage that for new and casual players that want to buy a pre-built deck to spend a lot of money on a deck they can no longer use.
If were being painnfully honest here new players are better off checking out Live or attending a prerelease than they are buying pre-built decks, that should only be done after chatting with other players (some of whom may be competitive players themselves) or doing research online.
There should be a requirement that these decks go on major discounted sales if they are no longer usable for play.
Well that’s not going to happen, just look at how everyone is currently scooping up products that contain Evolving Skies or Cosmic Eclipse packs.
I had no idea about all of this rotation garbage and spent a good amount of money on a Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX League Battle Deck that is basically now completely unusable.
That one’s on you, not only was the Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX League Battle Deck released back in July 2022 and it also features a handful of cards that would rotate by April 2023 (Air Balloon, Evolution Incense, Marnie, Quick Ball, and Training Court were heading out. Great Ball and Switch were saved by Scarlet & Violet while Boss’s Orders was saved by Astral Radiance). There’s also the issue of Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX decks being competitively-irrelevant by October 2022.
IMO, it's all a scam by the Pokemon company to sell more cards.
It really isn’t. Keeping up with rotations and the meta is on the buyer’s end and it’s relatively easy to do thanks to TPCi and other sites posting tournament results, TPCi posting advanced notices regarding rotations, and Creatures Inc./TPCi printing regulation marks on the cards (the regulation marks are a recent development, before they were added to the game in SWSH/SUM rotations were a guessing game).
2 -
Casual players are under no obligation to follow the rotation, they're free to play the game how they want, rotation is for the competitive environment, official tournaments.
There's no way for TPCi to force stores that have bought product to sell it at a discount, that's not how retail works.
It's always best to research and ask questions before spending money.
2 -
So I'm just going to point out that none of these rules about rotations are anything that is mentioned anywhere if you are just starting out and deciding to buy some decks to play. I really don't appreciate being told that it's my fault for buying a deck I can no longer use. That is now how you treat new players.
I didn't find out any of this until I found that cards in my new deck were already invalid after I entered them into TGC Live. On top of that before I was aware of any of this we already bought a deck for my son's birthday that we now find out he will never be able to use in a tournament if he wanted to do one. He's only going to be twelve.
It's a bunch of crap to put this kind of blame on new users that have no knowledge about any of this and the whole points of prebuilt decks is that you have everything you need to just start playing.
0 -
I often find that it is best to start out with a casual deck, not worrying about whether it is up to date with standard. Then, when you've learned how to play the game well and all, you can start keeping up with rotation and building more and more decks. At times I like rotation, as it gives us a change in the meta and all, but at times I just wish I could play certain decks for longer.
2 -
I think where I'm probably more frustrated is when trying to bring your physical decks to TCG Live. I guess I do appreciate that TCG Live did give us some starter decks when we migrated over from TCG Online. I had been playing TCG Online for a number of years until they canned it and never realized there was anything with rotations. My son just started going to a pretty new local League and so I'm hoping they aren't strict about standard format decks when he goes there to play. It just stinks that he asked for a specific deck he saw in the store for his birthday which he is getting but now he's not going to be using it with TCG Live because of the rotation. He doesn't have many to play with besides myself so playing on TCG Live is where he gets most of his play time.
0
