[Constrictive Discussion] Side-Deck in Pokemon TCG?

[Green778]

Constructive Discussions Part 1: The Side Deck

-->For those who are unfamiliar about what it is: Side deck is extra deck space in other trading card games. For example on Yu-Gi-Oh! Your main deck typically runs 40 cards, whilst your side deck runs up to 15 cards. During a match (=Best of 3), before you begin and after Game 1: you have the ability to switch cards between your main deck and side deck. Thus, you can add key cards for maximising your consistency and improving your matchup abilities.

So far the rules during a Pokemon Event are simple: You can't change your decklist no matter what. As a result, a deck must be complete, meaning to have an answer to everything. However, this hurts most of the times a decks consistency and might underperform against certain decks.

Personally, I feel Side-Deck is like a cancer to any trading card game. Although it lets you go full power against your opponents deck, you literally leave anything to chance. You don't have to strategise since you can have game winning cards every time. So, you pretty much leave anything to straight luck. Not skill. Not deckbuilding. Just on "first hand's" plain luck. That said, this hurts the game, because the fun thing about it is the effort the player puts in the game to think of every possible scenario. Luck was, is, and will forever be a part of the game, but with side decking being a thing, everything becomes luck.

What do you believe?

 

[Robin Aisaga]

You know I actually like the side deck concept, but like you said, it's broken, because it's basically 15 jokers that give you the possibility to counter pretty much every other deck. So my simple solution is to reduce the side deck to 2 or 3 cards. Making it an actual tech that might give a little boost, but won't change the whole deck to a players liking. I wouldn't mind this, but I don't find it necessary either.

 

[bbninjas]

I've seen this discussion on PB before some time ago, and my opinion is similar to then - Pokemon has counters for virtually every deck - rogue or not rogue. (But especially rogue). With sidedecks, rogue decks become nearly inviable. Take Wailord that won Nationals by storm - it could never have won if sidedecks existed, since Bunnelby was a hard counter. One of my rogue decks was hard countered by any combination of Float Stone and Toad-EX for some time.

 

[Otaku]

I've seen this discussion on PokéBeach before some time ago...

It hasn't been much more than three months since we had a three page, 49 post thread on it. Link here.

Otherwise yeah, the rest of bbninjas post nails it on the head. Any message board that is remotely active tends to have this discussion once every year or two. People from games that regularly use side boards or side decks bring it up for Pokémon, but Pokémon usually doesn't compare well to those games. Sometimes it is in actual mechanics while other times it is because of the card pool.

As @Robin Aisaga mentioned, for Pokémon it would at the very least have to be a far lower amount. It might also have to be restricted according to Type. For example, if you were allowed only one Pokémon, one Trainer, and one Energy. So I guess I'm the fourth person (including @Green778 himself) that doesn't like Side Decks/sideboards for Pokémon. Like Green778, it usually strikes me as a sign something isn't properly balanced in the game (I feel the same about mandatory hand size limits). Now, I do propose an alternate solution for those that do get tired of running a deck only to crash into an auto-loss. Besides the fact that the powers-that-be need to do their best to design cards that aren't going to result in a format with a lot of auto-losses for any competitive deck in the first place... just allow players multiple decks. Yeah, my wallet cries just thinking about it (or would if I weren't playing on the PTCGO). The expense means it might be good to avoid this for tournaments that aren't higher level (Regional, National, and World Championships) or maybe allow cards be shared between decks (but if you can't get your alternate deck assembled and shuffled in time, you earn a match loss).

Three full decks seem ideal to me ignoring cost; you restore that kind of janken balance to the game. You can have Decks A, B and C where Deck A > Deck B > Deck C > Deck A, and since you have room for both other decks, you either have to read your opponent or "get lucky" picking the right one of the three decks to use for the next game in the match. At the same time it requires more skill because three decks.