The New Solo Expert Decks

Camkitsune

Originally I was going to title this 'please stop doing this' - but that wasn't specific enough. In all honesty, five of the six new AI decks are excellently designed for solo matches, because all of them have a unique game-plan that requires the player to think about their approach going in. The Zapdos EX deck was clearly designed by some kind of closet sadist, but in that sense it fits in with the Team Rocket theming perfectly.

Then there's the Articuno EX deck. Which is really just Mega Sharpedo EX again, but worse.

I already feel like Mega Sharpedo EX is not a balanced card - 190 HP is too much for something that can get spawned on turn 1 thanks to Wallace, and 70 damage is too much damage for an attack that inexplicably also puts energy on the bench. Combining it with Rocket's Articuno EX means that the deck now also has the ability to play Turn 1 Misty and start swinging for 130 damage immediately.

I do not doubt that a strategy like this is not viable in a competitive player-versus-player setting - nothing cemented the notion that the computer has semi-fixed starting hands quite like trying to run an identical strategy. Misty is likewise not a reliable way to win matches instantly - the fact that the card can do it at all is, in my opinion, a pretty serious problem, but since the rest of the world has moved on I suppose I ought to as well.

The critical problem is that all of this goes out the window when you're playing Random Battles against Expert Decks.

Having your win streak broken because the AI opened with Rocket's Articuno EX, flipped three heads with Misty, and then one-shot the only Pokemon you drew in your opening hand - all before you got to do anything - rather severely negatively impacts the experience of playing the game, to put it mildly. This is a problem with all of the other decks to lesser degrees, in that while it's easy enough to build a contingency for one, building answers for all of them doesn't really seem possible with the 20-card limit (which is really a 14-card limit, but that's another topic entirely).

And that would be acceptable, except the designers apparently think players should be able to win ten matches in a row. As the number of AI decks increases this becomes increasingly dependent on just… Not getting one of the decks that hard-counters the one you've built.

This could be salt from getting to 7 wins and then getting shut down before getting to take a single turn, but I don't believe it's just that.

Does anyone else see this as a problem?