We posted a brief description of it over a month ago — and now the “Special Set Deck Zacian Zamazenta vs. Eternatus” has been revealed!
It will release on November 5th for 5,550 yen. The package will include a 60-card deck featuring shiny versions of Zacian V and Zamazenta V, another 60-card deck featuring Eternatus...
Not too bad, it's thank goodness they didn't update the legality. Both cards are widely disliked by competitive players. I personally think Marnie is a brilliantly designed card but it has a ton of issues in a format where the game most often ends between turn 4 and 6.
But Boss' Orders is our reliable Gusting. Without it, pulling an opponent to take KOs would be that difficult.
But having a card this consistent and this strong being able to be played 4 (In a format where you only really need to kill 3 Pokemon to win) times per game makes the game feel a lot less fun and more of "I really hope he doesn't have boss's orders," each turn you have a card with less than 100 HP on the bench.
The cost is that you don't get to use a draw supporter that turn. The only thing making it feel broken is Shady Dealings.
Why do we need to be gusting out opponent's Pokémon to take KOs? Not having gust would increase the length of games which is something we absolutely need right now. Eventually your opponent will run out of things they can hide behind. Sniping decks could get around it, and 1HKO decks could take extra setup time to build up for 1HKOs. We have Cross Switcher coming out for gust, that's all we need.
Cross Switcher is bad because it's useless as a single card. The only reason it would see play is because it is the only option, or maybe with Shady Dealings.
Custom Catcher was bad when Guzma was in format regardless of the fact that it has a single use effect. Custom Catcher and Cross Switcher are almost strictly worse than Supporter gust, but that's a good thing for the game because the cost of giving up your supporter for the turn isn't high right now.
I would keep boss's orders but limit the amount of them you can have in the deck to 1. I am not against guaranteed gusting but I just think that having such a powerful card be available at almost any time just feels wrong. Although even if boss's orders was set to one the game may just be decided by "I top decked boss's orders I win," But that frustrating interaction will happen a lot less. Plus if it was limited boss's orders will have to be played much more strategically to maximize value.
Removing gusting doesn't add strategy though. It just makes it so that either you're running a snipe deck or your opponent decides your prize trade.
Being able to control prize trades is strategy. You can control your opponent's prize trade, and your opponent can control yours. There have been many formats in the game's history with none or very limited gust, and there's plenty of strategy in all of them because of that reason.
Those formats were before the modern era. And while you're right that it is strategy, it's one that exists with or without gust; it's just more successful without it.
It doesn't matter if it was the modern era or not, what's worked in the past can work again. And I agree, manipulating the prize trade still exists, but without gust it plays a significantly larger part of the game which is what we should be hoping for.
We? I dislike when there's absolutely no counterplay for a prominent strategy. That doesn't make the game more interesting at all. I guess it gives single-prize decks a slightly better chance by removing the punishment for playing Crobat or Kricketune, but with the amount of spread in the format that's not very impactful. And while it extends games on paper, in a 3-prize format it can also just result in some games being unwinnable halfway through.
So you dislike more skill-based games? Most games in this format are decided by the player who wins the coinflip, lengthening the games by removing gust will add actual depth and decision making.
I don't think it'll be more skill-based just because it's slower.
I am not sure if links are allowed on here so I don't know if this will post, but here is a Twitter thread by Xander Pero on the negative effects of rapid formats and why making the game slower would improve it.