Current(?) TCG Meta

[Alolan Slowpoke]

So I've been messing around for a bit with the online Pokemon TCG. I've only really played with Theme decks because, well, it's all I've had.

After a while, I broke down and bought one of the 2015 World Championship decks, specifically the Punches n' Bites deck. This deck features Seismetoad, Hypnotoxic Laser, and Virbank City Gym as its main points, and also includes Manectric EX and a lot of bats.

I can't even lie, this is literally the most boring deck I've used in any card game ever. I have never been so disappointed. It's such a basic, cheap strategy to just itemlock and spam hypnolasers. It's literally the least fun deck to use, and from what I see, it's the most common type of deck build. The main issue I see is that EX Pokemon are BASIC POKEMON FOR SOME REASON. You can push out a 180HP EX Pokemon first turn and have it ready to wreck in 2 or 3 more. Stage 2 decks are hardly viable at this point.

So I have to ask, is all of the current meta like this? I'm super disappointed, and I feel like this whole deck was an awful waste of money. Has this garbage rotated out of play yet?

 

[PaulTheProtist]

EXs have been dominating very recently, with the vast majority of decks using them. It's been that way ever since Next Destinies released Mewtwo-EX, which was uncounterable until the next set released Darkrai-EX, which in turn was uncounterable until the next set released Rayquaza-EX, and things have been going on like that ever since.. The fact that many EXs such as the aforementioned Mewtwo-EX can end up attacking as soon as the first turn has made them super broken in today's meta. To be fair, TPCI seems to recognize this, and they've tried making evolved Pokémon more powerful (check out Flashfire Shiftry for a good example) and by introducing BREAK evolutions, but it's nowhere near enough to stop EXs.

 

[Alolan Slowpoke]

EXs have been dominating very recently, with the vast majority of decks using them. It's been that way ever since Next Destinies released Mewtwo-EX, which was uncounterable until the next set released Darkrai-EX, which in turn was uncounterable until the next set released Rayquaza-EX, and things have been going on like that ever since.. The fact that many EXs such as the aforementioned Mewtwo-EX can end up attacking as soon as the first turn has made them super broken in today's meta. To be fair, TPCI seems to recognize this, and they've tried making evolved Pokémon more powerful (check out Flashfire Shiftry for a good example) and by introducing BREAK evolutions, but it's nowhere near enough to stop EXs.

It really is a shame. There's soooo much room for cool strategies to be viable, but EX's shut them down by sheer power alone.

 

[Lanstar]

Technically, the 'big basic EX' strategy is mainly viable in Expanded play (Black & White-On). In Standard play (XY-On), The meta is very different, where the biggest strategies in tournaments are non-EX attackers. The scariest strategy here is, in fact, Night March - in the latest tournaments right now, it is getting a ridiculous 50% win rate. The greatest counters to it are also non-EX cards, mainly involving first turn item lock with Vileplume or XY Trevenant.

Is Seismitoad viable there? It is, but not as much as you'd believe, as the Lasers and Virbank aren't allowed in standard play.

 

[Bulbasaurado]

Yeah, that sounds like a very cheap strategy.

There is very little counter play to this except from stopping Seismetoad from coming into play which is pretty hard for some decks.