Will there be a non-V mode? I'm new and V-cards aren't fun.

Nubnubbud · January 2023

it's in the title- will there ever be a mode without V-cards?

Most pokemon I like are not the traditionally "super cool" ones most players and devs seem to like, like legendaries and starters, but that means playing with my favorite pokemon usually ends up with decks that aren't legal or ones without V-pokemon, which just doesn't work from a gameplay perspective. I'm totally new, still learning now(not my first TCG though), but what's with V-cards? They're more powerful than matching final evos every time, and you can play them on the first turn, and in my case, the one I can use also comes with cheaper moves, too. If the game can't be won without them, it doesn't make sense to print normal cards, except for collectors, in my opinion. Like that zacian starter deck. I'm a new player, but it feels gross that I can just throw it out, it gives itself all the energy it needs, and wait till my opponent runs out of cards trying to deal with it half the time.

Edurandomnumber · January 2023

A lot of decks in the current meta play 0 pokémon V, i don't think "the game can't be won without them" is a correct statement.

Lost box is a tier 1 deck with a lot of different variations, the only pokemon V it sometimes plays is drapion V, which is not even a part of the strategy, but a way to simplify the Mew Vmax matchup if necessary, and is completely useless against any other deck.

Regigigas is a solid tier 2 deck, and the way the deck works restricts it from play it anything but non-V Regis.

Zorobox is a cool Tier 3 deck that takes advantage of good matchups against the rest of the meta, except for its bad matchup against lost box, it plays 0 pokémon V.

Sakura150612 · January 2023

The most I could suggest to you is to find some like-minded people and play friend matches with custom rules. It's highly unlikely (or perhaps impossible, even) that they will ever create a game mode where only single prize or non-rulebox Pokemon are allowed. Right now they need to focus on making sure that the core part of the game (Standard) works as smoothly as possible and the next thing on the list would be to give us a complete Expanded format (which right now is only SM onwards). Something like what you're describing would also have to be built from scratch, as such mode does not exist either on Online or IRL. That could end up taking a lot of time and resources that might be better spent elsewhere.

Another thing that you might want to consider, which is probably more important than my first point, is that having no multi-prize or no rulebox Pokemon is not a guarantee that the format will be fun. There's been single prize decks in the past that have been capable of doing gross things. Maybe I'm going too far back, but there was a time where Night March terrorized Standard (the main attacker was a 30 HP Joltik), and it remained viable in Expanded after rotation for a very long time despite the power creep. Item lock Trevenant was also disgusting. In a format with only single prize Pokemon a meta would still form; a best deck in the format would still exist, and the S tier decks would still destroy the majority of the cards that fill out the expansions.

Even right now there are some pretty strong decks with no Pokemon V. You say that Zacian V is disgusting (by most metrics it isn't; if you look at a list with the performance of decks on Live, there's over 50 decks that perform better than Zacian V) because it gives you all the energy you need. Let me present you the Lunatone Solrock deck:

Pokemon (10):

4 Solrock PGO 39

4 Lunatone PGO 34

1 Manaphy BRS 41

1 Radiant Greninja ASR 46

Trainers (37):

4 Professor's Research BRS 147

2 Boss's Orders BRS 132

1 Bruno BST 121

1 Cynthia's Ambition BRS 138

4 Quick Ball FST 237

4 Scoop Up Net RCL 165

4 Battle VIP Pass FST 225

4 Trekking Shoes ASR 156

3 Rescue Carrier EVS 154

2 Hisuian Heavy Ball ASR 146

1 Pal Pad SSH 172

1 Escape Rope BST 125

3 Choice Belt BRS 135

3 PokéStop PGO 68

Energy (13):

13 Psychic Energy 5

This thing can attach 4+ energies every turn, no problem. It does damage that's comparable to other decks that use Pokemon V, and it only gives 1 prize per KO. This deck should leave Zacian V in the dust any day.

There's also the Regi deck, which doesn't use any Pokemon V and is one of the strongest decks in the format. I wouldn't recommend building it now because it will rotate in 3 months (the Regis will stay but it will lose so many important trainers and energies that I don't think it's worth it to spend what few resources you have building it; you'll get very little mileage out of it).

With these things considered, making a no Pokemon V format wouldn't really look the way you're expecting it to look. Most of the "normal cards" that you speak of would still be unplayable; a select few one prize decks would dominate the format.

Bornin985 · January 2023

Do you mean Theme Deck Mode?

Nubnubbud · January 2023

I've played against that lunatone/solrock deck it was cool. my zacian/zamazenta deck beat it right out, though. I just needed that command card to keep pulling their solrocks into range, and throwing on a tough cape I squeaked by with one point left 'cause I didn't understand I needed to use zamazenta at first.

I'm not even talking about the meta. I've been playing for like a week. I don't even really have a handle on all the techniques, yet. I'm just sad that I can fill a whole deck with my favorite pokemon, but if I put in a single v-pokemon that matches the energy type, that's the only one ever worth playing if it's in my hand. Yeah I can get a flygon out after 4 turns and stop them from switching, but that means nothing if they have zacian with 3 energy and a balloon on turn 2, and I have to keep it on my bench because everything but a 230hp+ pokemon won't be able to put a dent in them, not to mention they won't need to switch, as both zamazenta and zacian can beat a 2 stage flygon with one attack... as well as lugia, blissey(usually), etc.

I guess what I'm saying is, I've just thrown together a bunch of v-pokemon you're given at the start, and whatever trainer cards looked useful in a deck and it worked to beat a blissey deck (seriously, what's with these guys, it's horrendous to play against the same thing every time), but I'm looking at the non-v pokemon and you need to be actually good at building a deck to make them work well.

I understand that because I don't pay money there's no reliable way to choose which packs I open, and because I'm new, I have almost nothing and no deck building skill anyway, but that's my point. I should be losing these, but I throw a few v-cards in and if my opponent doesn't have a blissey or zacian it's a wash.

I'm not saying it's v-cards that make it unfun, but rather it feels balance wasn't thought through. sure if you beat them you get twice the points, but that doesn't matter unless your deck is half energy placement cards. The thing about risk is- you can mitigate it. so you're getting a guaranteed huge boost in power with a v-card, and a guaranteed huge boost in the speed of your deck, for the downside of... your opponent maybe getting points faster.

So to talk about the meta- pokemon V seem to be an imbalance, and while not unfun in concept, I do believe it's stifling for the game's playability and deck variation. They're like ramp decks in magic, except in this game there's no way to stop them from entering the field. You said it yourself- there's not a huge number of ways to beat these decks without being a very good deck builder with a wide variety of cards. More cards should increase your options and the depth of strategy, but adding these, in my opinion, gives an easy out for lazy deck building and stifles the format.

Nubnubbud · January 2023

also, to address other comments,

Edurandomnumber - I know, you definitely can win with a normal deck, but I've yet to see it happen, outside a turn one concede here or there. I've only gone up against one of them that posed any slight threat against a prebuilt with a v-pokemon or my own after just a single round of iterating- a weird but cool lunatone/solrock one that was obviously set up by the devs because of their matching theme and abilities. That bugged me. I really dislike it when a developer of a TCG says "let's make a set, but these specific handful of cards are gonna make this specific combo and it's gonna be powerful". you might as well not even build your own decks if the devs are just gonna hand you factory-default combos. and yes MTG does that one too, sometimes. it bugs me there too.

Bornin985 - I have no clue what theme mode is- is it a way to set rules for games you want to join? like, you're only eligible to play against another deck, so long as yours also meets the same rules? that sounds pretty good, though if it's not making use of the casual matchmaking queue it would take forever. Maybe something like a cube in MTG would be better? a large, curated set of cards where expansion does not necessarily matter? that's a good, accepted part of magic, where you can overcome any balance issues in sets by making your own set.

Sakura150612 · January 2023

@Nubnubbud Theme Deck mode was a format that only existed on the PTCG Online. Players could only use preconstructed decks (players were not allowed to make any modifications to them). It was an ok way to introduce new players into the game because it takes deck building out of the equation and lets them familiarize themselves with the basics of the game, but it does little to nothing in terms of helping players learn about Standard or Expanded. The meta was also rather stale even before Theme Decks were discontinued. Sometimes the introduction of a new deck changed things up but was otherwise stable, and now that no new Theme Decks are being made it's basically just 2 or 3 preconstructed decks dominating the format with a handful more that are viable. This mode does not exist on Live and it's highly unlikely that they will implement it in the future either.

lvlrAdam · January 2023

In an ideal world, ptcgl would get proper expanded and unlimited and maybe even some GLC format.

Edurandomnumber · January 2023

@Nubnubbud let me try to explain this as beginner friendly as possible, keep in mind i'm not trying to be rude, just trying to help a new player.

1) i don't know if your opponent dead drew or didn't know how to play the deck, but Zacian/zamazenta sound like a free win for lunatone/solrock.

2)making decks around your favorite pokemon is a hard thing to do in the pokemon tcg, not every card is meant to be playable in the standard format or are meant to be play with older cards that are about to rotate, and some pokemon don't even have standard legal cards sometimes.

3) the flygon you mentioned (the one from darkness ablaze if i remember correctly) actually had a few purposes 2 years ago, it was a secondary attacker that was useful in some situations in the flygon GX deck, which is no longer in the standard format. It also had a useful niche in its ability, you could build a stall deck trying to deck out your opponent using flygon's ability and a bunch or cards that forces a support pokemon into their active, but that strategy worked better when we had the vibrava from cosmic eclipse in standard, also half a year ago we got a snorlax from the pokemon go set with the same ability as a basic, which outclasses flygon in that specific strategy, right now flygon is just a card that doesn't do enough damage or have a good enough ability to be playable even compared to other non-V pokemon (just look at lost origin snorlax for example, that card completely outclasses the stage 2 flygon as an attacker... and it's a basic).

4)keep in mind, you're probably very early on the ladder right now, you're playing against new players with pre-built decks, i don't think a bunch or random pokemon-V with no synergy would work against people who have play this game for a decent amount of time.

5) Again, even you are new, the players you're facing are also newer players, i don't think "i should be losing these" is a correct statement.

6) The game currently is balance around pokemon V cards, with regular pokemon often taking the role of secondary attacker or support options, that's not a bad thing tho, the best decks are often a balance between both pokemon V and non pokemon V, there's like 1 or 2 good decks in the format right now that fully rely on pokemon V (mew Vmax and Vikavolt V) and there's a lot of decks currently that only play non-V pokemon

(Next ones are more to the comment you tag me)

7) currently I'm in ultra-ball rank, and 80%-90% of the games I've played were with lost zone box, regigigas and zoroark, none of those deck play any pokemon V. Is not even that i don't like pokemon V, I'm fine playing with them, but i don't like the current ones in the format, Lugia is inconsistent, mew is fragile against techs, duraludon has barely any control of the game, vikavolt requires high rolling, etc.

and finally, 8) "combos meant to be together" are not always how people build successful decks in the tcg, lost zone for example was meant to be use with giratina Vstar, but people are not currently playing giratina in lost zone because people figured out better ways to use the engine.

Again, my point here is not trying to be rude, but i recommend watching content creators or tournaments and try to learn the current good decks right now, i know everyone wants to make their own deck to play the game but learning what makes a deck good in the pokemon tcg first is a good start.

Nubnubbud · January 2023

@Sakura150612 interesting- MTGA does that, but only for limited events, like the post malone concert. It had a few of post malone's music themed decks that had even old cards from the 90's if I recall. something like that isn't very good for replayability though- I see why it died out, and I wouldn't want to be a permanent game mode. I think of it something like "pauper" or "artisan", which is a popular MTG play mode, where you're only allowed to use commons, or commons and uncommons, respectively. In MTGA, because rarity usually means the rarity of the effects and not power of the card, it serves to slow down the game away from meta 2 turn death loop win condition insanity. I think a mode with only normal pokemon would be well received, if only by people just starting out or casueal like me.

I think I've got a handle on it now. basically, in this(every?) rotation there seems to be a handful of cards (maybe 10-12) that are well and above more powerful than most others, or that enable silly amounts of power. in this case it's blissey v, archeops(actually a favorite of mine... well, archen but I digress), zacian v, tornadus, lugia v, inteleon, drapion v, and a few others. I understand that even if those were gone there'd be a new meta- that's why rotation exists- but what I've noticed is, in nearing 50 games, I've only come across 3 of the prebuilt decks, and maybe about 7-8 others, most just variations of blissey, archeops, zacian and the occasional test deck that never gets to attack.

I'm only days in, and already tired of 90% of the format playing support on the bench to a handful of uber powerful cards with unstoppable abilities. I haven't even seen a quarter of the newer set's cards yet, and I don't need to because they can't stop me because the game just... gave me these winning cards.

also why are these deck names so... basic? what does "box" mean in a deck name? I assume it's important because half of them are called that. I'm used to deck names that include techniques, strategies, or puns, like my "I like turtles" deck or "when tuskodons fly", or in pokemon, my newer "blissed out archen" deck willed with only the happiest looking archen and blissey. That's just for winning so I can actually get packs.