Discussion The New "Safeguard" Abilities are Broken...
- Thread starter crystal_pidgeot
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I agree with Rezolution about Garb - almost ninety percent of the decks I faced in July ran a Pokemon with some kind of ability. I would not be surprised to see people starting to tech Garb back into decks again. Most decks are running two field blowers at most, and some people have dropped it entirely.
It also rotated.
I think the whole "tech Garb" approach is the wrong one anyway. The game shouldn't be designed in a way where a deck is required to have a 2-2 / 2-1 line of pokemon just to counter some random other pokemon. The game designers should have realized this after we spent nearly an entire season using Beedrill EX / Rattata as the only tool removal for Garbotoxin Garbodor this last season. A simple supporter or a tool would have made all the difference in the world last season and when it finally came, people went freaking nuts about it (and still do saying crazy stuff like "you can't use FFB because Field Blower" even though FFB has been used successfully in Expanded in spite of the fact that there was tool removal all over the place).
Long story short, some version of Hex Maniac (or even a straight reprint) removes any and all issue with this card without requiring silly techs like Garbodor.
As for the "other attackers" approach. That is fine for some decks, but it is actually the goal too. I absolutely WANT you to use things like Oranguru, Garbodor, etc. Why? Because you *have* to and most times it is either inconvenient or completely breaks the other deck's strategy to force them to do so. Garbodor is strong later in the game. The point where I have this card up is early and I sit there and chuckle while you hit me for 20 damage because I didn't bother using tools and Garb is the only non GX / EX attacker you have. Or Zoroark...which is great until I have one card on my bench and continue laughing at you.
To be clear. I don't think this card in particular is going to be great or even used that much. I don't think it is broken. I do, however, think the game design point is both valid and salient. It is my same reasoning for why I dislike Trashalanche TBH. There should be a supporter that lets me grab 5 cards out of my discard and shuffle. Make it an ace spec type of card that can only be a 1 of in any deck. It should have been released with Garbodor the same way a "Hex Maniac" type of card should have been released with Ninetales.
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I will say I do like a game design that tends to force you to balance your deck. I kind of like that aspect that it does push us to be more creative in how we build our decks.
I don't think teching in BKT Garb is necessarily going to be a bad thing, but most of the decks I like running right now have abilities.
I don't think teching in BKT Garb is necessarily going to be a bad thing, but most of the decks I like running right now have abilities.
Right, but that's part of the issue. I can't tech Garbodor into a Metagross list because it kills Metagross more than it kills Ninetales (probably a bad example since the rest of Ninetales is metal weak, but you get the point). I also can't tech it into something like BuluVolt for the same reason. Yeah, in that deck I can attack with Vikavolt, but that is exactly what the other player wants you to do
I don't necessarily have an issue with that last part either. I just think that a simple one card solution makes this entire discussion go away and it is somewhat irritating that this seems to happen rather frequently. I don't want the game to always remain the same, but I also don't think reintroducing a better safeguard when the one true ability lock card that is techable throughout the meta just rotated is a great "shift" in the game either.
So the new safeguard is stronger than old versions of the same thing.
That doesn't make it poorly designed. That just makes it more competitively viable. Which isn't super relevant in terms of whether it's well designed.
It's an ability that forces your opponent to either get around the ability or lose. The fact that it's better at doing so than an older version of the same thing doesn't make it not fundamentally the same thing.
I won't speak for @crystal_pidgeot, but my issue with it has nothing to do with the ability. I don't like the fact that they didn't release a tech card to kill abilities along with it. You know...for game balance and all that. The card itself is just fine. The ability itself is just fine. The lack of a supporter to kill abilities is what I object to.
Yeah, that's fine.
My only issue is the argument that new safeguard is more poorly designed than previous incarnations purely due to the fact that it's stronger.
I personally hate all of these absolute "You cannot win unless you draw into a counter" type cards, but there are legitimate arguments for why those effects are good or bad in terms of game design.
The fact that the newest incarnation is stronger than previous incarnations but can still be countered by the same kinds of decisions is not relevant to the analysis of card design.
My only issue is the argument that new safeguard is more poorly designed than previous incarnations purely due to the fact that it's stronger.
I personally hate all of these absolute "You cannot win unless you draw into a counter" type cards, but there are legitimate arguments for why those effects are good or bad in terms of game design.
The fact that the newest incarnation is stronger than previous incarnations but can still be countered by the same kinds of decisions is not relevant to the analysis of card design.
My issues is that the other way around--that older stuff doesn't has any effect on the new stuff. Silver Bangle doesn't do anything against Metagross. Sigilyph and Suicune are now bad because if you're playing that, you might as well play the new and improved versions. A lot of attacks that reference EX in Expanded aren't going to do anything against the newer stuff. But yet the apparent trend with the newer stuff is to have if effect GX and EX the same. I guess it's not so much that it makes the newer stuff broken, but that it makes the older stuff weaker. But maybe it's all irrelevant. As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that Choice Band outclasses Silver Bangle anyways, so the fact that Silver Bangle isn't as good isn't important. But still they could have saved themselves from a ton of complications by just calling them EX's.
Abilities like this are bad because of how the game is designed. Pokemon dug themselves a hole by making EX cards the go to. I didn't mind this because it game Pokemon that wouldn't see play a chance to because they were faster. The old Safeguard for example blocks EX Pokemon, which is a remakes of another PokeBody Safeguard that blocks ex Pokemon. The newer (now old) Safeguard doesn't block ex Pokemon but EX Pokemon. The issue from design is this new Safeguard stops Pokemon-EX, which are naturally weaker than Pokemon-GX and since Pokemon-EX are no longer being printed in sets, they shouldn't be targeted by newer card and if they are designing for Expanded as well (something they should do carefully), then they need to make sure to not completely break the format because EX Pokemon will be in the format for another two years at max and that is a lot of time to make EX hate cards.
I was also never a fan of making "trap" cards, where if a player has no answer to it, then they lose. I consider this new Safeguard card poorly designed because it blocks Pokemon-EX and was designed to be played in Expanded, where this Ability already exist. Cards don't need to exist that can do everything and this is a problem with design because they are comfortable with doing this. A player shouldn't be punished for what they decided to play and since not all players use the same decks, they all can't afford to run something like Garb or Zoroark. I know for a fact I can't and I don't want to change my deck.
This would be less a argument if they were still making Pokemon-EX going forward because I would still love to get a Decidueye-EX and I can still see application of Basic EX Pokemon since we know both GX and EX Pokemon can coexist. Please give me Decidueye-EX.
I would like to see a weaker Hex Maniac for sure. Something that doesn't hit every Pokemon but one or two of them but without VS Seeker it would be harder to chain it but I know they are going to reprint VS Seeker in some form so I can't say I'd want a 1:1 Hex Maniac print.
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Hopefully it stops people from playing broken basic ex and gx pokemon. And actually play well thought out decks
It can't do everything, because it can't block regular pokemon.
The fact that it can block more pokemon is irrelevant to the fact that it's designed to block certain kinds of pokemon.
If these new safeguard abilites are broken, then so are the old ones.
Saying "The new safeguard abilities are broken" implies that the old ones aren't, but the old ones are the same exact thing, just slightly more narrow. It's the same game design concept, so both are equally good or bad in terms of game design.
People DO play well thought out decks. The decks are just optimized.
It doesn't matter what cards exist, there are going to be optimized decklists at the head of the meta with little variation, because that's how card games work.
The amount of thought that goes into optimizing a deck within 2 or 3 cards is really high. If you think that the current meta decks take no thought to build, then you're just salty.
But that's exactly what should happen. If you wanted to play Exeggcute in your deck way back when, you knew full well that in at least one game somewhere down the line, you were probably going to get donked by LaserBank. You should expect that to happen when you build your deck, and so when you get donked, you kinda can't be salty because you should have known the risks when you built your deck that way. Same thing with non-EX's. You can choose not to play them I guess if you wanted to with the understanding that you're going to pay for it in a matchup somewhere down the line. But just know that there are consequences if you do so. It's no different from playing a deck that has solid match ups with a number of things that you think are going to be popular, but has one or two auto losses. It's a risk; you choose whether or not you wanna take it. That's the name of the game. And really if there's anything that deserves to be punished, it's players who don't take into account other aspects of the game, such as meta calling, which like it or not is a thing you have to do if you wanna win.
On another note:
What is this Buzzfeed?
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You don't have to play Exeggcute, in like any deck, unless you're playing Weavile with Exeggcute, which has to play it. That is a completely different thing than what we're talking about. The game should be about punishing bad or poorly optimized plays, not someone who showed up with a solid M Blastoise-EX deck.
You don't have to play Exeggcute in Weavile. You don't /have/ to play anything in anything. If you show up to a tournament with a M Blastoise EX deck, and if M Blastoise EX is bad, then yeah you should be punished for playing it. It might be the case that M Blastoise is the only thing you can afford to build, in which case I'm sure we can all sympathize as we've all been there; however, you shouldn't expect to be winning any games with it. Sympathy points don't get your World's invite. So not only should you be punished for poor plays, you should also be punished for poor deck building choices such as not having an answer to Safeguarders.
just going off the title id like to point out the safeguard and other blocking effects are made considerably less broken by cards like lysandre and guzma if such an effect was broken people would build decks to have an answer to said counter. for instance mayb running multiple stage and type attackers such as a deck like zoroark/drampa. effects such as these actually should help make cards that are not gx be more viable and make deck builds be more varied
You know which Weavile I'm talking about right? Also, you can replace M Blastoise with any other Pokemon-EX you like. If the deck is competent (keep in mind I'm talking about competitive builds), it doesn't mean the build was poorly put together because of designs. A deck doesn't have to play Exeggcute to still do what it wants at its core. A <insert EX mon here> needs that mon for its core gameplay to work.
I agree poor deck building will be punished and exploited by the better player but if someone played a M Gardevoir-EX deck (a highly competitive deck) and lost this new Safeguard, which should have never referenced Pokemon-EX to begin with, then you can't say their deck was bad. Also, Prizing your techs (which none would exist post rotation) also will yield the same results.
You're playing M Gardevoir-EX (Despair Ray) and a Hoopa is in the Active spot (or A Ninetales). What do you do?
I don't think you really get the point of good design or the advantage GX designs have over EX. What I believe to be the case is that GX Pokemon are actually fantastic designs, as they are both powerful but not basic exclusive either. The advantage here is that you can expect them to have HP, high attacks and even a Power here and there.
Pokemon never dug themselves a hole with EX, all they did is speed up some formats. What I see as a continueing trend in Pokemon is that we have had slower years and faster years. To me the GX era will be actually an example of an eventually slightly slower format. However as long as EXs are still in the format the difference in speed isn't as huge as it was for example to switch to Diamond and Pearls format, where at one point no EX was available.
Practically all decks run cards where ideally an opponent has no awnser to it. Sometimes this is in the form of a Pokemon being able to continiously 1HKO. In other cases it's in the form of being unable to get KO'd. Alolan Ninetales is just an example of the latter. So was Wailord EX.
What you seem to ignore is that Alolan Ninetales actually doesn't bring more as the Power. With this I mean that it's a poor attacker and actually can get KO'd by many Basic non-EX, non-GX Pokemon.
Lastly Hex Maniac isn't even required to adress this. In standard we have Guzma and Guzma allows you to bypass this defence completely. The Alolan Ninetales might return after your KO to active but due to it being such a poor attacker and Alolan Ninetales GX being such a good one I can assure you that litterly no top competititve deck will ever run more as 2. It's a wall that does not awnser every legit card in this format. The format gives a huge ammount of awnsers into Alolan Ninetales, luckily the format isn't just EX's and GX's being the only viable cards...
The problem with Safeguard isn't that they are cards that are broken and can't be countered (because they aren't amd their are counters to them). The problem is that cards like Hoopa and Aloan Ninetales remove deck building options in the game. In order for a deck to be competively viable you will now always have to ask yourself "can this deck consistently handle Safeguard?" and if the answer is no you can't build that deck. In the previous format, being able to answer that question with a YES would be as easy as running a Hex Maniac as Lele and VS Seeker made it a realiable option to utilize and it doesn't impede the types of deck you make. But now the you have to have specific answers to Safeguard, namely running a pokemon line that bypasses Safeguard which is much more cumbersome and some decks can't handle that burden. And Guzma doesn't work as a counter to Safeguard because it's still there on the bench and comes up to the active after you knock out the Guzma'd pokemon. You'd have to be able to take all the prizes you need through Guzama (and that's assuming you opponent left benched pokemon for you to Guzma in the first place).
A perfect recent example for reference is Archeops. Its ability to prevent evolving from the hand is certainly more potent then Safeguard but it works in a very similar manner. And much like Safeguard, it too has counter (Evosoda, Wally, Hex Maniac) but it still is a banned card in Expanded. It denied people the ability to build decks revolving around evolutions (unless they used Forest of Giant Plants to evolving everything before Archeops and hit the bench). It is this negative effect on the game's health that caused it to be banned, not a lack of ability for a player to deal with.
A perfect recent example for reference is Archeops. Its ability to prevent evolving from the hand is certainly more potent then Safeguard but it works in a very similar manner. And much like Safeguard, it too has counter (Evosoda, Wally, Hex Maniac) but it still is a banned card in Expanded. It denied people the ability to build decks revolving around evolutions (unless they used Forest of Giant Plants to evolving everything before Archeops and hit the bench). It is this negative effect on the game's health that caused it to be banned, not a lack of ability for a player to deal with.
They dont remove that at all. Because including Alolan Ninetales means you still have to work with just 4 Alolan Vulpix to make it all happen, all the while Alolan Ninetales GX is a greater allround Pokemon that will win you the game.
I personally do not think the format currently asks you if you can handle Safeguard. All it asks of you is if your certain you'd only want to rely on EX and GX and solely on EX and GX. Most decks do not have to do this. Most decks should run Guzma anyway. Again nobody currently is playing just 4 Alolan Ninetales for it's as much as a risk for the Ninetales player as it is for the opponent. 110HP is relatively easy to deal with for any non-EX/GX. It's attack is abysmal.
If anything Tapu Lele GX is the prime example of a card that alters deck construction, for there is not a single competitive deck in the format that wouldn't want to run it.
Drawing a paralel from Ancient Power to Safeguard really makes little to no sence. Ancient Power prefents some decks from doing anything. Safeguard at Alolan Ninetales and the upcomming Hoopa with Safeguard really has nothing more to do as being a wall.
To me Safeguard remains a fine balanced Power that ensures that multiple cards are a viable consideration that do not have EX or GX behind their name. This is a good thing because it keeps rogue decks viable aswell.
I personally do not think the format currently asks you if you can handle Safeguard. All it asks of you is if your certain you'd only want to rely on EX and GX and solely on EX and GX. Most decks do not have to do this. Most decks should run Guzma anyway. Again nobody currently is playing just 4 Alolan Ninetales for it's as much as a risk for the Ninetales player as it is for the opponent. 110HP is relatively easy to deal with for any non-EX/GX. It's attack is abysmal.
If anything Tapu Lele GX is the prime example of a card that alters deck construction, for there is not a single competitive deck in the format that wouldn't want to run it.
Drawing a paralel from Ancient Power to Safeguard really makes little to no sence. Ancient Power prefents some decks from doing anything. Safeguard at Alolan Ninetales and the upcomming Hoopa with Safeguard really has nothing more to do as being a wall.
To me Safeguard remains a fine balanced Power that ensures that multiple cards are a viable consideration that do not have EX or GX behind their name. This is a good thing because it keeps rogue decks viable aswell.