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Basic Pokemon feel too Overpowered
Ever since Mega set has released, I’m already starting to notice that Absol mega deck has taken over the meta.
The majority of the deck is composed entirely of basic pokemon that are incredibly cheap and quick to set up in less than 2 turns of the game. Often coming with incredibly strong abilities, and in case of EX, coming with HP comparable to most third stage EXes.
I find it somewhat unfair that 1-2 stage Pokemon are starting to become quite unviable with how long they take to set up and their previous stages don’t offer much in their attacks or abilities on top of their HP being quite easily one shotted by a quickly set up opponent.
It kinda feels like the problem has become more pronounced when Mega set was released. And I feel that this may have potential implications for the overall meta to shift more towards to powerful single stages that are quickly set up, rendering majority of the cards difficult to reliably set up, reducing the diversity seen earlier in the year after the previous regulation mark was passed.
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1000%. Looking at my original cars from 1996 in my binder compared to the cards now, Pokémon TCG has done nothing but power creep for YEARS.
I play Magic The Gathering more often than Pokémon, and I can still play with cards released in 1991 in magic. And they are good! But try playing a Venosaur from my binder, or the machamp I got from the PC started set in 1995-96, they would be decimated in seconds. They have the same power and HP as unplayable basic pokemon today.
The Pokémon Company doesn't care though. They are selling cards more than ever before, so they are happy.
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Take this for what it’s worth, but in my opinion, the emergence of Absol Box as a meta deck led to Charizard ex winning a regional. Take a look at regional results on Limitless. There’s frequently an ebb and flow on whether big basic/low to the ground decks are good in a given meta. Gardevoir is still a top deck, if not the top deck despite it having a tough Absol box matchup. There’s still a very diverse meta. It’s not one deck dominating the top 8s like Regidrago or Lugia used to do (or Gardevoir winning almost every regional in recent memory). At Brisbane, for example, half of top cut was stage 2 decks (to be fair, 3 of the top 8 was Absol Box). But at Lille, Absol Box didn’t even make top 16.
If anything, I think the emergence of Absol Box has caused the meta to diversify even more. It also forces games with more thoughtful play due to Absol’s two attacks and the presence of Yveltal, which can retreat lock. But it hasn’t at all caused stage 1-2 decks to become unviable. Zard, Gholdengo, Gardevoir haven’t even close to disappeared and Grimmsnarl and Zoroark have been doing better than usual lately, making several recent top cuts.
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