I have faith that I and other players aren't stupid when it comes to building decks. We'll use Faba when appropriate. Some decks like Rayquaza or Buzzwole would likely have an easier time dealing with DCE (on Zoroark) by just knocking out the thing with the DCE on it, because after all, a pretty good way to remove energy is to just knock out the thing with energy. Other decks that don't have that luxury would do best with a Faba thrown in with some VS Seekers. But if tournament results and my personal experiences tell me anything, that isn't enough to swing matchups in your favor. Zoroark continues to win and you know there's a reason why. Faba definitely helps, but you need to draw into Faba first, and then you need to draw into VS Seekers after that. How do you suggest going about that? For most decks, it means playing draw supporters... which means you're not playing Faba. You can spam Faba a few times I'm sure, but then the problem is that you're not drawing nearly as many cards compared to your opponent who's spamming Trade every turn, finding more DCEs to replace the ones you've removed and continuing to take out your underdeveloped board, since you've chosen to Faba each turn instead of using something else. Again, Faba is helpful, but it's not a silver bullet by any means.
I'll say in the outset that I don't have a rigorous definition for "stupid." Somethings are "just stupid" and shouldn't exist.
Before the Hex Maniac ban, we had a Zoroark that nuked for a single DCE, drew a ton of cards, and ability locked starting turn 2 almost without fail. That's pretty stupid when no other deck could come close to doing something like that, but all that looks rather tame now huh.
Right now there's the Red Card/Marshadow + Delinquent + Peeking Red Card combination, which you could definitely argue isn't Zoroark specific. However, Zoroark is still the most efficient attacker in the format in terms of durability and power, and Trade enables you to do this again in the same game if you need to, which distinguishes Zoroark from almost anything else you could think about using this combo in. This is one combination that cropped up to more prominence, in part to Zoroark, that directly prevents your opponent from "playing the game," which is apparently something TPCi hates, so no doubt this combination is "stupid." Again, if you don't think it's Zoroark's fault, that's fine.
ZoroToad basically revolves around using Trade (or Propagation + Trade) to avoid needing to play a draw supporter each turn so you do stuff with Plumeria/Skull Grunt/Lusamine/Acerola/etc. each turn to establish a lock, while creating opportunities to recycle resources with Oranguru. I don't think you can argue that Trade isn't what enables this, since the part where you Tirtouga and Oranguru to both cheat your way out of milling yourself out and recycle resources ad infinitum respectively isn't a trait that's shared with something like Wailord + Tropical Beach, or any other deck for that matter. To break this down, 1.) you can afford to play these non-draw supporters each turn. I have no evidence to back this up, but my hunch is that these supporters were originally designed with the understanding that the opportunity cost of not playing a draw supporter is what keeps these balanced. Trade and Propagation + Trade essentially negates this opportunity cost, which is somewhat unfair but whatever. 2.) The Tirtouga + Trade combo completely avoids a clause that was built into the game and allows you to exist in a state of having drawn out your entire deck but never losing as a consequence. This is also unfair, but again whatever, because that's only 1 out of the 3 traditional win conditions. 3.) The Oranguru recycling resources basically allows Zoroark to have almost unlimited resources when combined with the point above, which just breaks card games in a traditional sense.
Now that I'm writing this, I will take this moment to rephrase what I said. There's nothing inherently wrong about a deck being unfair since all good decks are unfair in some way. Think Beast Ring attaching energies from the deck as an item card (like literal wtf), Archie's Blastoise putting a stage 2 into play turn 1 and attaching however many energies you have in hand, Garbodor denying abilities, Trevenant locking items, Lycanroc GX having a gusting effect without Guzma, etc. But I think we enter scary territory when the things a deck does bends and breaks standard conventions about how a card game should operate, in multiple ways at that. My point from my previous post was that this is not going to get any better going forward with new cards getting released and other strategies get discovered that abuse Trade. I've provided recent examples that I think illustrates the case. So just ban Zoroark now, or wait until Zoroark is power crept out somehow, which makes my head spin trying to think about.
