Discussion Why the lack of Head Ringer in Standard?

[Grey Matter]

Forgive me if I sound like I'm completely out of it, but I am wondering why a lot of the decks in standard right now aren't running Team Flare's Head Ringer. I just started playing again after many years (think Neo Genesis) and I wanted to build a fun standard deck. The deck I'm building runs a lot of control (Team Flare Grunt, Enhanced Hammer, Crushing Hammer, Lysandre) and I figured that it would fit perfectly in the deck. I bought a pair of 'em in case I can find a use for them, however what makes me nervous is how none of the decks I've researched use them. The only reasoning I can justify its lack of use is because of the prominence of Night March and other key non-EX Pokemon (Yveltal, Entei, etc...). Can someone shed some light and help me with whether or not Head Ringer is playable in standard in this environment?

 

[bbninjas]

I'd say one of the biggest reasons is space and consistency. There are times when you won't be able to use Head Ringer, meaning it is a dead card, and you just may not have space in general. However, most disruption-based decks will utilise a couple of copies of Head Ringer, as they are valuable in slowing your opponent down. Head Ringer does lose its value when you're constantly KOing the Pokemon, too, which is why most aggressive decks choose not to include it.

 

[Elbow]

There are a few reasons. First, tools are really big right now. You have fighting fury belt, float stone, muscle band, spirit links, focus band, etc. Head ringer doesn't work if there is an EX on the field without a tool. Most of the time that pokemon is either Shaymin or Hoopa, which both are wastes for a head ringer.
Another problem is the amount of tool discard cards there are right now. There is AZ, Xerosic, tool retriever, super scoop up, and even parallel city. These cards are going to see an increase as well due to garbodor, making head ringer somewhat unviable.
Lastly is space. Sure, it's nice to have, but it cuts consistency. For me they are usually somewhere between 61st-64th wants for my deck. If there was more room I would probably add it in more of my lists.

 

[Yo-yos]

Ultimately to many basic decks that do well in standard and with break point we just get to many to handle there is almost no need to play a card that will only help 1/3 of your matchups at that.

Most people can be like the above and say that they like to play a heavy amount of tools but the truth is most people over extend on tools in their deck even though we have cards like eco arm and puzzle of time so there should be no reason to over extend and waste deck space for them, it's very popular in 90% of all standard decks, yet in expanded you'll see 2-3 slots on average see play for tools. So it's not about ssu's, xerosic's, az or reverse stadiums it's about people being to lazy to take the same effort of testing from expanded into standard.

 

[Elbow]

Most people can be like the above and say that they like to play a heavy amount of tools but the truth is most people over extend on tools in their deck even though we have cards like eco arm and puzzle of time so there should be no reason to over extend and waste deck space for them, it's very popular in 90% of all standard decks, yet in expanded you'll see 2-3 slots on average see play for tools. So it's not about ssu's, xerosic's, az or reverse stadiums it's about people being to lazy to take the same effort of testing from expanded into standard.

I know this weeks lists aren't posted, but here's a link to last week's Regional results. If you look at the Top 8 decks, all of them are running 3-6 tools each. With the exception of Sableye, none of them play Head Ringer, and most play some sort of tool discarding card.
Puzzle of time is not cutting tools in a decklist. Most likely, you will only use the effect once in a game if you run 4, meaning if you cut essential cards like Float Stone and Spirit Links for Puzzle of Time then something is wrong. It's not wasting space when you adding in tools over tool retrieval cards, which is something you mentioned. If I ran a deck with 4-4-4 Pokeball, Great Ball, and Ultra Ball, I may have 'excellent' Poke-draw power, but it will limit the amount of Pokemon I am running. This is like your example, except you value the addition of more cards that get whatever the card reads as better while it clearly isn't. You can also see that no one is running tool retriever cards from the discard outside of Sableye (who is a literal tool retriever).
I will admit that these are Expanded and not Standard lists and that the format it not XY-BKP, but once the Regional list come out tomorrow you will see the same thing. And even in standard most lists have room for the tech AZ and Parallel City techs.
I also don't know where you got this idea of people being lazy for expanded as well. If you see the decks from this and prior weekends, there was clearly no lack of creativity and ingenuity shown. The winner was a deck that people have never really seen in action with 3-4 Bursting Balloon, AKA another tool. I don't think the decks that won were just 'standard' converted deck, you can see below what they ran:
1. Aaron Tarbell – Trevenant BREAK (XY)/Wobbuffet PHF/Mewtwo EX/Burst Balloon
2. Nathan Brower – Primal Groudon EX/Wobbuffet PHF
3. Phillip Barta – Seismitoad EX/Crobat PHF
4. Mike Canaves – Primal Groudon EX/Wobbuffet PHF
5. Jared Weiss – Virizion EX/Genesect EX
6. Ryan Peterson – M Rayquaza EX
7. Brad Curcio – Yveltal EX/Darkrai EX/Maxie’s
8. Ryan Allred – Eelektrik NVI/Raikou BKT
All of these rely heavily on tools and are not converted standard decks btw.

 

[LightningCloud224]

I don't think that it is completely the non-EX bit but it is certainly a lot of it. Han

I know this weeks lists aren't posted, but here's a link to last week's Regional results. If you look at the Top 8 decks, all of them are running 3-6 tools each. With the exception of Sableye, none of them play Head Ringer, and most play some sort of tool discarding card.
Puzzle of time is not cutting tools in a decklist. Most likely, you will only use the effect once in a game if you run 4, meaning if you cut essential cards like Float Stone and Spirit Links for Puzzle of Time then something is wrong. It's not wasting space when you adding in tools over tool retrieval cards, which is something you mentioned. If I ran a deck with 4-4-4 Pokeball, Great Ball, and Ultra Ball, I may have 'excellent' Poke-draw power, but it will limit the amount of Pokemon I am running. This is like your example, except you value the addition of more cards that get whatever the card reads as better while it clearly isn't. You can also see that no one is running tool retriever cards from the discard outside of Sableye (who is a literal tool retriever).
I will admit that these are Expanded and not Standard lists and that the format it not XY-BKP, but once the Regional list come out tomorrow you will see the same thing. And even in standard most lists have room for the tech AZ and Parallel City techs.
I also don't know where you got this idea of people being lazy for expanded as well. If you see the decks from this and prior weekends, there was clearly no lack of creativity and ingenuity shown. The winner was a deck that people have never really seen in action with 3-4 Bursting Balloon, AKA another tool. I don't think the decks that won were just 'standard' converted deck, you can see below what they ran:
1. Aaron Tarbell – Trevenant BREAK (XY)/Wobbuffet PHF/Mewtwo EX/Burst Balloon
2. Nathan Brower – Primal Groudon EX/Wobbuffet PHF
3. Phillip Barta – Seismitoad EX/Crobat PHF
4. Mike Canaves – Primal Groudon EX/Wobbuffet PHF
5. Jared Weiss – Virizion EX/Genesect EX
6. Ryan Peterson – M Rayquaza EX
7. Brad Curcio – Yveltal EX/Darkrai EX/Maxie’s
8. Ryan Allred – Eelektrik NVI/Raikou BKT
All of these rely heavily on tools and are not converted standard decks btw.

I'm in strong agreement with everything elbow has said in this post. Well said.

To build upon this, I think it has also become second nature for many to place accompanying tools on their EX to block head ringers. With more pokemon tools in decks, it is easier to guard against unwanted tools.

 

[RogueChomp]

Not many of the decks want to run it or have enough room to, especially in Standard when everything needs to try to be consistent. Non EXs are also very prevalent, limiting its effective uses. The only decks you see it in are Manectric/Bats and Toad/Bats, both of which benefit from it (Manectric with Assault Laser, and Toad Bats with disruption, even though Toad bats is bleh in standard anyways).

Basically, consistency > techs.

 

[Yo-yos]

Elbow@ Wow you didn't read my post so thank you for that, as I do quote the exact line "it's about people being to lazy to take the same effort of testing from expanded into standard." So in that regard I thank you for not reading what I typing down.

You can bring up lists from this regionals but what about the other regionals that was happening at the same time? The 5th place toad bat's deck which ran 2 tools and 4 puzzle of time giving an optional out to 4 more of the same 2 tools. Other lists that saw the run of 4 burst and the 1 ace spec that did the same thing went down to 2-3 burst, 1 ace spec and added 2 eco arm as eco arm increase's play from 2-3 to 6-9 burst balloon in the deck. Truth is it's one of those things as a meta we haven't been able to move forward from, the possibility of added in head ringer to the deck even though we have access to eco arm and puzzle of time, lowering the amount of tools in our deck and adding techs for something that can improve that playability. We Can go over winning lists or we can go over what is viable for testing right now, and the only thing that actually matters is what is happening now. Also please don't talk about list's you haven't seen, that's just bad form.

 

[Latte1504]

You can bring up lists from this regionals but what about the other regionals that was happening at the same time? The 5th place toad bat's deck which ran 2 tools and 4 puzzle of time giving an optional out to 4 more of the same 2 tools. Other lists that saw the run of 4 burst and the 1 ace spec that did the same thing went down to 2-3 burst, 1 ace spec and added 2 eco arm as eco arm increase's play from 2-3 to 6-9 burst balloon in the deck. Truth is it's one of those things as a meta we haven't been able to move forward from, the possibility of added in head ringer to the deck even though we have access to eco arm and puzzle of time, lowering the amount of tools in our deck and adding techs for something that can improve that playability. We Can go over winning lists or we can go over what is viable for testing right now, and the only thing that actually matters is what is happening now. Also please don't talk about list's you haven't seen, that's just bad form.

Revenant Break is different. To begin with, it can not be head ringered. Even if it was an EX, it is item locking, preventing them to play it in the first place. Also, its burst balloons are discarded coming into the Trevenant player's turn, forcing a need for cards like eco arm to get back the tools.