Pokemon request! - Page 8

On April 07 2010 17:50 haley wrote:


In regards to ibanez's post, UU tier stands for under-used tier. So you can't conclude that illu needs to study more "pokemans" simply from his post. Scyther is in UU 'cause he is not good enough to be in OU tier (Over Used tier).

And in regards to PanoRaMa's post:
The Scyther you are referring to is not in the Fossil set, but in the Jungle set. If you played competitive Pokemon TCG, you would know they use Modified rules which bans those sets and older sets. And you would also know that if an exception was made for Jungle Scyther, that card is still not very good in competitive play.

No need for you two to put strawman arguments up to jump on illu (saying Scyther is good in Under Used (UU) tier doesn't negate the opinion that Scyther sucks and saying Scyther from an old and outdated set is good, which he isn't in today's competitive metagame, does not negate the opinion that Scyther sucks in game.)

But Scyther does indeed look at a badass.

Edit: I just realized that Jungle Scyther was reprinted in Platinum set (thus making it legal in Modified.) But he still isn't that great in current competitive TCG metagame.

On April 07 2010 16:20 Mystlord wrote:

I don't like boring images for wallpapers :3 White for 95% of the image? No thx.

On April 07 2010 23:10 PanoRaMa wrote:


Yeah Jungle, that was a typo. Forgive me it's been years.

Stopped playing competitively before Neo tbh, so I don't know much about the modified rules. Prior to that I'd think it's hard to argue Scyther wasn't the most versatile pokemon. No rules on retreating prior to modified, btw. It was also when you could stack 4 pluspowers and 2nd hit ko a 70hp base starter. Resis to fighting which pretty much killed the viability of Hitmonchan, weakness to fire but there were very few fire archetypes back then.

I don't even know why I'm talking so much about Scyther, things just happen like that somehow I guess - best pokemon ever, clearly. Either way, I was/am just geeking out intentionally/being sarcastic and I think ibanez was too, so no need to get too serious about it. It's a pokemans thread, after all .

On April 07 2010 16:40 Jack_Acer75 wrote:
Ok, first off, was I the only one in Red and Blue that actually would buy the magikarp from the salesman before going into mount moon just so I could get a gyrados faster? haha
?

On April 08 2010 00:20 haley wrote:

Yeah, the metagame (the rules, too) have changed drastically since then. Also, the newer Pokemon cards are much more powerful while the trainer cards are much less "haxed" (it's mostly the old Trainer cards working with the new Trainer cards that killed competitive play for Pokemon TCG and that's why Pokemon Organized Play adopted the Modified rules for official tournaments).

Current metagame is rampant with low energy decks that are super fast (some decks have as low as 4 basic energy cards and 2 special energy cards). Most viable Pokemon in competitive TCG are those who are "fast" (i.e. power up really fast with very few energy) or help you set up quickly. Scyther needs 3 energy before he can attack (which means 3 turns since Double Colorless Energy was taken out and won't come back till the HeartGold/SoulSilver deck is released) which is considered slow. (Also, you can only retreat once per turn now, so no doubling your retreats to remove status or battle effects.)

And with the Trainer Rare Candy (which lets you skip a stage in evolution or evolve the same turn the Pokemon was played), Pokemon that evolve are much more common than Pokemon that don't as they are stronger in general and Rare Candy (and some other Trainers) help them come out just as fast. The exception to this are SP Pokemon, who make the bulk of competitive play and they are Basic Pokemon (they're like Gym Leader's Pokemon but don't evolve, e.g. an SP Alakazam that is considered a Basic Pokemon and can come out right away and in addition, SP Pokemon have a ton of Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums/abilities that benefit only them).

SP Decks have made this card very popular:

A Machamp with 130 HP and can 1HKO any Basic Pokemon for 1 Fighting Energy. Retreat costs do not matter as he is almost always run in a deck with a Flygon whose Poke Body is to make the retreat cost of any Pokemon to be 0 if Flygon has on him an energy card that is the same type as that Pokemon (Flygon himself has 0 retreat cost and he is colorless so the energy is not wasted going on him.)

This Machamp can come out super fast (you can get him out on your second turn without too much luck).

I knew you guys were intentionally geeking. But there's no harm in me doing, too, even if I seem a bit more serious. It's fun to see how much more advanced/competitive/hardcore Pokemon has become compared to our old childhoods of playing RBY and trading cards in school.

And for the record, I also think Scyther is damn cool and I have a mint condition first edition Jungle Scyther locked up in a vacuum glass case.

On April 08 2010 07:55 SirKibbleX wrote:

Actually this is probably the most broken card of recent years... It's pretty much a completely degenerate draw engine that combined with other cards lets you filter your deck very quickly. Basically the pokemon TCG is now a clever game of positioning and damage distribution. Gust of Wind and Energy Removal effects have become almost insanely rare and have much higher costs. Gust of Wind type effects especially are now almost impossible to come by and usually game-breaking. So 'bench-sniping' attacks are much more valuable.


But more importantly yes, there is a very deep and very complex Pokemon video game metagame. If you don't believe me, look at some of the articles over at Smogon.

http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/infernape

On April 08 2010 07:13 Pyrrhuloxia wrote:

gawd and I thought sneasel was annoying as fuck back in the day

On April 07 2010 14:34 Chen wrote:

if only they stopped there ><
i had the misfortune of watching the next three series, all of which are exponentially more retarded than the last

On April 08 2010 07:55 SirKibbleX wrote:


Actually this is probably the most broken card of recent years... It's pretty much a completely degenerate draw engine that combined with other cards lets you filter your deck very quickly. Basically the pokemon TCG is now a clever game of positioning and damage distribution. Gust of Wind and Energy Removal effects have become almost insanely rare and have much higher costs. Gust of Wind type effects especially are now almost impossible to come by and usually game-breaking. So 'bench-sniping' attacks are much more valuable.


But more importantly yes, there is a very deep and very complex Pokemon video game metagame. If you don't believe me, look at some of the articles over at Smogon.

http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/infernape

On April 08 2010 10:08 cosiant wrote:


The hell, season 3 was also good (evil hand sock puppet of DOOM), I mean the epilogue in season 2 SUCKED. I also liked season 1.

On April 08 2010 07:55 SirKibbleX wrote:

But more importantly yes, there is a very deep and very complex Pokemon video game metagame. If you don't believe me, look at some of the articles over at Smogon.

http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/infernape

On April 08 2010 15:56 Chen wrote:
yeah lol, i had a friend who played competitively. people now actually spend months breeding pokemon so they can get the perfect one, (25 natures, 20 of which give +10% to one stat and -10% to another) and each pokemon has a random # associated with each of its stats 0-31, 31 being the best and basically that # gets added to their stat through the course of leveling to 100.
so people actual spend their time trying to get a pokemon with 31 in all stats and a single good nature, the probability of doing so being 1/22187592025

On April 08 2010 16:14 haley wrote:


Breeding for IV (Individual Values, the 0-31 for each stat that is the "genes" of that Pokemon) and nature is not a shot in the darkness. The developers put in many ways for you to help increase chances in your favor (same with catching Shiny Pokemon).

If the mother is holding an Everstone, the offspring has a 50% chance of her nature. If the lead Pokemon in your party has the ability Synchronize, wild Pokemon have a 50% chance of being the same nature. With these tools in hand (and Ditto who can breed with any Pokemon and chain breeding), it's very easy to breed or catch Pokemon with the nature you want.

IV stats for an offspring are also not completely random. They are passed down in a very systematic way that you can manipulate the probabilities towards your favor. It still takes a long time to do it. And with HeartGold and SoulSilver, new items were created that preserves one IV stat of the parent and with this, it's very easy and systematic to breed that perfect IV Pokemon (though still time consuming, but no where near as time consuming as a shot in the darkness with pure randomness).

However, the Pokemon games have a random number algorithm that is not very complicated (got a bit more complicated with Generation 4, but still predictable) and it is very easy to find guides to help you find out how your game's own random numbers are being generated and use frame data and timers to catch or breed that perfect 31 all IV stats Pokemon without a cheating device.

On April 07 2010 16:40 Jack_Acer75 wrote:
Ok, first off, was I the only one in Red and Blue that actually would buy the magikarp from the salesman before going into mount moon just so I could get a gyrados faster? haha

On April 10 2010 01:03 Kelly L wrote:


I also think so. Thank you for the post.
--

On April 09 2010 02:55 Pyrrhuloxia wrote:

It gets easier but it isn't easy. More boring grinding than in WoW. I wish they would simplify these games a bit or something as they are so fucking complicated for being kids games.