The thing I sorta miss is the lack of strategic evolving of Pokemon. Granted, someone needs to be pretty good at what they do if they are to make a competitive evolution deck, but I wish it wasn't that difficult. With Mega-Evolutions in particular, I honestly feel like its getting to that same old repetitive attack - 120 damage for low energy, or 240 damage for high energy, with some random, bland effect. It may just be me, but it seems like the creativity has been declining especially in EXs throughout the new BREAK sub-era.
Yup... but this isn't because of Pokémon-EX, it is because of questionable game design and that fact that most people don't seem to mind so why change what works? I mean, besides trying to make the best product you can.
Reading through some of the comments I remembered what Pokémon-EX are
good for: representing the most potent critters from the actual video games. Unfortunately they were tied into Mega Evolution and even before that, someone decided "Hey, let us just start making anything into a Pokémon-EX!". During all but the tell end of the BW-era, Pokémon-EX were based on "legendary" Pokémon, Pokémon that are typically much more potent but also once per game in video games. Making one of those be worth two Prizes could justify its strength relative to other cards.
Now that doesn't excuse the Pokémon-EX I believe to be overpowered. The game has a
serious pacing and balance issue with the two being related. Evolutions are so difficult and unrewarding (most of the time) not because they take more time, not because they require more cards but because the powers-that-be aren't willing to accept that and design accordingly. We've gotten a taste of how I believe it ought to be, with Evolving Basics being useful for early game opening and (if present) Evolving Stage 1 cards offering a useful Ability to help them be somewhere between a strong Item and a niche Supporter. Even if nothing else I think needs to change happened, these should still improve the overall game (assuming the-powers-that-be doesn't suddenly make them overpowering).
I respectfully disagree. I feel like it takes more strategy than ever. The EX mechanic has made the game incredibly competitive and incredibly creative to counter them. For instance the most recent expansion has really made some great evolution cards to play to take down EXs with no problems.
For what it is worth I believe certain strategies have been elevated while others have been downplayed or possibly totally absent, but the biggest problem comes from cards that increase the "luck" factor too much. These aren't a huge issue all the time, but they add up. The extreme example is easy because even the-powers-that-be acknowledged that "they done goofed!":
Lysandre's Trump Card in a format with
Seismitoad-EX,
Shaymin-EX (ROS), miscellaneous other support and so many "tails fails" cards that you could spam up to eight times in a single turn so that odds of all failing were nice and low.
It doesn't feel good when you lose because your opponent makes their
Hypnotoxic Laser flip while you fail the Sleep check, when they get that clutch
Super Scoop Up, etc. Honestly it no longer feels all that great to win in such a manner, either. =/ Cards like
N aren't much better; it is really hard to feel like I "deserve" the win (let alone the loss) when there really have been no misplays, one player just drew dead because it was nigh impossible not to in a given situation.
None of which means skill is absent in the game. It just stinks when all that skill means nothing because someone got the lucky draw/coin flip/whatever. I know because not only has that happened to me... I've done it to plenty of other players. Players far, far better than myself with decks far, far better than mine who played far, far better than I did.
