66 results for: opinion
Thoughts on the new Expanded and Standard Formats, plus a first look at Volcanion, Gardevoir, and Metagross in BKT-on “I’ve been relatively shy about my thoughts on Expanded, keeping quiet while the discussion on the format (and the game in general) raged this past season. I personally felt that Expanded was a diverse and healthy format- Expanded has been an absolute dumpster fire of a format and I freakin’ hated it with a seething passion. It was abject trash and anyone who thought otherwise was, quite frankly, wrong. Then, this past week, TPCi published an update to Expanded’s banlist, finally making due on their ancient promise of actually monitoring that format for unhealthy combos. As I’m sure many of…
Musings on the Community Invitation Structure Debate and Beginning Burning Shadows Discussion “It’s a well-documented reality that this year’s point structure left some players behind, while others were the recipient of seemingly-constant support from TPCi in their international traveling exploits. The vast majority of all out-of-rating-zone travelers at International Championships this year were the beneficiary of a Top 4 trip or Top 16 travel stipend. A few players made these trips unassisted, but most had some semblance of financial assistance in doing so. This year, the first stipends were awarded based on 2o15/16’s final CP standings. This set the top players from that season off to a booming start for 2016/17, giving…
Examining the 2017 World Championships US+CA Delegation, and Exploring the Path to Anaheim “Overall, our Top 16 Players are notable in their proficiency on the Global stage. In a way, the World Championships’ share of that is a tad misleading — Sam Hough and Ross Cawthon are beneficiaries of 500 CP boosts from Top 4s in previous years, but other than that, they didn’t have much effect. What clearly set Top 16 apart was their attendance — and performance — at International Championships. As can be seen at right, only 1 player in Top 16 — Chris Siakala — attended only the North American International Championship. Everyone else was seen playing in at least one other…
Standard v. Expanded, Juniors Recaps of Salt Lake City & Roanoke, Points, and the Box-Out! “Let me start with some thoughts on the Standard format compared to Expanded. When you look at our results, it is clear that we do much better in Expanded than we do in Standard so there is clearly bias. Regardless, my argument in favor of Expanded is this: First, the variety of cards allow for more deck consistency and this should theoretically decrease variance. Cards like Colress, Computer Search, and Jirachi-EX make decks more consistent, preventing dead-draw failures. I am an advocate of ban lists as the meta evolves, but bigger card sets create more creativity as long as we…
Salt Lake City Surprises and Discussion on Matchup-Based Formats “In Greninja’s case, the answer is the same as it’s always been: Greninja can beat almost any deck when set up, and against most EX decks, it shines, trading incredibly favorably: Turbo Dark, Volcanion, Lapras and Rayquaza are all matchups where Greninja shines…assuming you don’t brick. In almost every match, you’ll go down early, N, then mount a comeback and win. While Vileplume isn’t actually too much of a problem for Greninja (it has historically always had a strong Plume matchup), the combination of Vileplume and Decidueye is more than enough to put that deck out of commission…or so we thought!…
This Pokémon rapidly extends its retractable neck to sink its sharp fangs into distant enemies and take them down. (Drednaw)
Volcanion, Groudon, and Night March for Portland plus an Honest Discussion on the State of the Game “Volcanion is a deck that has received widespread attention in Standard, though very little attention in Expanded, up until St. Louis. This is a little ironic to me as I believe that Volcanion has consistently been a mediocre play in Standard, in spite of its victory in Melbourne (more on this below), yet has been a heavily underrated play in Expanded. This is almost singularly due to Blacksmith, which not only changes the entire structure of the deck, but also turns Volcanion’s Ability into a consistent and self-sustaining one. I had been briefly testing the deck to surprisingly good results…
A Discussion of the Privacy or Lack Thereof of Decklists at Livestreamed Events “About a week ago, Jeremy Jallen posted in HeyFonte, a competitive Pokemon discussion group on Facebook, asking the community how they felt about featuring their deck lists on a livestream in the middle of the tournament. He was gearing up to host a stream of the Dallas Regional Championships and looking for interesting content to provide for the viewers at home. Many players in the Pokemon community, myself included, love watching streams of tournaments when they can’t attend themselves and usually want to receive as much information as possible. Presently, we usually see pictures of standings hitting the internet on…
A Detailed Analysis of the Imperfect 2017 Regional Championships Structure and Propositions for Remediation “If only because I’m writing this for a different audience than my normal pieces, I’d like to start with a brief overview of my background in the game: succinctly, over the last six and a half years, I’ve traveled through the better part of 20 states playing this game. Through an abundance of City Championships and a lot of local League Challenges, it’s come to my attention that I had the “distinction” of playing the most Pokemon of any North American Masters last year. Whatever you make of that — if nothing else, I argue I’ve seen the game played in a…
Economics of Blogging, Standard Stuff, Juniors in Fort Wayne + London, and Bigger Thoughts “This topic is actually aligned with my professional interests, so I have some strong feelings about this. First, let me say that advertising will generally not work. The audiences that you need to have a viable advertising-based business are so large that it is a generally inappropriate model for niche blogs. If one were to advertise, you would want to have a very focused sales outreach because the rate relative to the audience size would need to be so discrepant with common advertising rates that the media buyer would need to feel like your content is a home run. I…
On the Big Play! Pokémon Changes, Rotation Implications, and Three Decks That Could Dominate New Standard “I’m sure that everyone has seen or heard about the major changes that are going to occur in the upcoming 2016–2017 competitive season which were published Monday on Pokemon.com. Almost everything in the press release is extremely good news that will lead to a brighter future for this game, especially the larger cash payouts and higher number of tournaments for everyone to play in. I’ll break down each of these huge changes and discuss what they mean for the new competitive season (compared to previous seasons). Every single change that TPCi is making this new season will basically be a test-run for…
The teacup in which this Pokémon makes its home is a famous piece of antique tableware. Many forgeries are in circulation. (Sinistea)
The PTCGO vs. Hearthstone Article, Part Two “Before I dive into the article there are a few underlying points I want to discuss and I feel are important to establish. 1. I love online gaming and I feel it is the future as far as gaming goes. There could be a very long discussion involving whether or not this is a good thing, with talking points around human interaction, screen time, etc. The truth is though, the convenience of being in your own home and finding a game whenever you want is amazing. There is no traveling, no scheduling conflicts, and relatively minimal costs. In the last…
The State of Expanded, Counteractive Plays for Week 3, and the Problem of Diminishing Interactions “Cynicism in regards to the mandatory advancement of Expanded appeared to be at an all-time high when the announcement was made over the summer and though many voiced positive views of this change (myself included), we are now able to add evidence to our arguments rather than relying on the anecdotal. So what is the verdict? I am happy to report that I believe Expanded is one of the most skill-based and intricate formats we have had in years! With the colossal card pool and vast amount of card combinations, possibilities are seemingly endless. Of course, there is still a metagame…
Three Ideas for Improving League Challenges “As I discussed in my previous article on the subject, I think one of the most frustrating things about League Challenges are that they exist in a space where players are ostensibly not supposed to take them seriously, but due to the fact that they award Championship Points, competitive players are basically required to test for, attend, and attempt to win as many of them as possible. While this may not seem like an inherent problem, I do think that it introduces two very real issues into the community: No one wants to play LCs, but they have to, because…
Thoughts on the Latest Buzz, Nationals Recap, and Wailord for Worlds “Now, let’s get into the current buzz in the Pokemon world! As first mentioned, many other writers have already discussed this, so I do not want to go into great detail, but I would like to quickly address all of these current issues. Having Regionals be played entirely in Expanded is an excellent idea and an improvement from what occurred last season. Almost all of the moans and groans I had heard about this issue were ridiculous and exclusively complaints and whining rather than constructive criticism. Grievances like “it’s too hard to test for two formats” should be laughed out of…
A Follow-Up to ‘In Defense of Net Decking’ “Similar to my last article, I used data accumulated from Facebook to look at decks played by the Top 64 players at the US National Championship. I then scoured the web for articles written by players that placed in the Top 64. I found four players in the Top 64 that had written articles immediately prior to the tournament where they offered up decks that thought of as “good plays” for the National Championship. The authors and articles (in alphabetical order) were: Brit Pybas: “Dark Desire” – Crafting Yveltal for US Nationals (and a Nod to Toad/Bats) Dylan Bryan: “Night March…
This Pokémon consumes particles that contaminate the air. Instead of leaving droppings, it expels clean air. (Galarian Weezing)
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