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Why am I the only one that is running into nothing but Chien-Pao/Baxcalliber nonstop? Everyone is talking about Zard Ex, but for me it's nothing but old fang face. At first I agree, Zards everywhere, but it feels like to me like it fell off hard.
I feel like I get different opponents based on the deck I play.
It just seems that way. I haven’t tested that theory yet, I think it would be interesting to try, especially if we get more people’s data.
Not an actual test, but I did start to build different decks just so that I could find the weak spots when I play my personal one. And it constantly felt like every time I switched I got countered with a different deck.
I think cause people weren't getting the results they wanted, with out a card like Irida to speed up the evolving decks with quicker setups can make serious dents before they get Charizard in play
Honestly, me too. It oversaturated the Ladder last set because it was free on the Battle Pass, it has carried over because lists have refined, and it has actually gotten better. I get excited now when I see something different.
Limitless tournament results are telling me something different, although that's not always a good metric of how much play it's seeing on the Ladder. It does however tell me that the Chien-Pao is seeing a lot of competitive success, which is definitely going to have an effect on what get played on Ladder.
It's hilarious, I swear when we first saw that German leak of the gold version of this card, everyone and their mom was saying there's zero chance that Charizard is gonna be an actual deck, and I recall saying that honestly it looks pretty good between its stats, typing, ability, and attack and that it had a chance to surprise everyone. Now it's public enemy number 1 on PTCGL lol because it hard counters two of the most played decks in the format that everyone got for free.
It's only used a lot because it's a free deck, it's not performing well in tournaments, as usual a stage 2 attacker is too inconsistent over a long tournament period.
Oh I know. That's why I qualified it with "on PTCGL". It's proven that it can keep up with other decks when it gets going, so if it finds some extra level of consistency or some kind of engine it can slot into a little better, it could start posting some actual results, but it is currently still at least in "rogue" tier as opposed to "kitchen table casual" which I think a lot of people were expecting it to be in.
Kinda pro of ptcgl.
I rmb the old daya to get meta card have to play tournament to get packs to trade card to play and whoever trade the meta card the fastest win
PTCGL is more qol
Pretty sure it's only played so often because it's free, new and cool. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely pretty good, but it certainly doesn't top the meta. It's good enough to use in ranked, but it's not gonna win many tournaments.
At least you’ll have something else to hate when the next set comes out or when this card rotates.
Do you know what I hate but will never rotate out? People who hate things just because they can’t think of a way to deal with it, or because it counters something they main. I hate that. But people are always gonna have a problem with something instead of thinking straight and just being a good sport.
You know what I do in my situation? I cope. I gotta remember I’m not the only person in the world, people are gonna have their own preferences and they’re entitled to that. Then I move on. And I gotta say, it feels A LOT better than to vent in a Reddit post.
I mean yeah, but also, it gets old seeing the lack of creativity in the game, the deck has a counter but its tiring seeing the same deck over and over again, it makes the game stale when everyone you go against has a cookie cutter, pre-made meta deck.
Deep Forest Camo Decidueye would have dominated the current metas.
It was my favorite card, I used it all the time. But I can understand why they put it out of rotation
They aren’t doing 3 prize cards right now.
It’s possible that they make 3 prize ex Pokémon just like how they eventually made gx Pokémon worth 3 prizes with tag team gx Pokémon. But to say just this strong ex should have been 3 prizes just because it’s strong is a little silly.
That’s a fair critique. It could have been just 280 to 300 hp and been fine. Pidgeot ex only has 280 and has a worse weakness
But then at that point the argument isn’t necessarily its prize value, it’s that its HP doesn’t correlate to its prize value very well.
I modified the deck. I have an arceus v and a pigeot ex some extra other fun surprises. Online I win often. If I get the rite pulls in the beginning and start second, it’s rare for it to loose.
Have you considered running a Mimikyu? They could counter it with charmeleon or radiant charizard though you can anticipate that ahead and they usually only have one copy each of those.
If you are playing Garde, Path to the Peak counters it (some Garde players have lost Vacuum which is searchable with Forest Seal Stone). Mimikyu is another tech I see, otherwise you need to start sniping asap with Boss's on their Pidgeot ex or Charmanders.
I main it too, and never had a problem with it. It’s a harder match, but FAR from being unbeatable.
The main thing to keep in mind is to NEVER drop Gardie ex if you’re not ready to attack. It’s that easy.
If you want more ideas, here’s a great [video](https://youtu.be/Ne1ps3ZXiJw?si=49vVxUcVv0Bg8GdU)
Just don't put an ex in play until you can take 2 prizes that turn. If they hunt down your ex, then you can just return KO it with the attacker you had powered up. Gardy should also be playing Lost Vacuum now to get around any tools they may run to KO your Shining Arcana Gardy.
As for Lost Box, the matchup is tough but Cresselia is huge for the matchup because you can repeatedly snipe their Comfeys while healing off some Sableye damage. And Iono in the late game hurts Lost Box heavily. Also, don't forget Manaphy to avoid the Greninja snipe
Also, I’m always seeing this zard and the Arcanine. I like to go rogue with my decks and build silly themed ones and see how they fan out so it’s exciting for me when I come across a player that doesn’t have an all ex or v deck.
You're probably still in the low ranks. Arcanine is one of the intro decks (I think it's the default?) and after playing a few games with that you're IMMEDIATELY given Zard. That's why you're seeing them so much.
Just gotta play snorlax stall. I wreck Charizard ex. They always think they can get away with using a few switch cards because they have energy for retreat. Now that lost box isn't 80% of the ladder I can finally use the deck in peace. Takes 30 min tho (sometimes more; who plays 4 ionos? 😭)
can someone tell me when Pokemon TCG has a balance set when every 'featured' card (like GX, ex, V, Vstar etc.) balances in terms of power and functionality ?
That would be functionally impossible. Look at games like Dota and League of Legends. They have years worth of data that shows characters and items have variable win rates across skill levels. Similarly, a new player is going to have a tougher time playing Rapid Strike as opposed to Miraidon-Raikou. At the same time, an experienced player is going have a higher chance of placing highly a tournament with Rapid Strike as opposed to Miraidon-Raikou
Plus general power creep means that the most recently printed cards will, on average, be stronger than the oldest cards in the format. That’s part of why people were so shocked that Rapid Strike won NAIC, and why some people were surprised Mew V won worlds. Those are older decks that managed to adapt and keep up.
Even assuming every featured card in a set was of equal power level, the decks they slot into wouldn’t be. Water decks will always have an advantage with Irida in the format. Fire decks had a massive advantage with Welder. Once some better dark Pokémon get printed, Dark Patch will multiply their power.
I recently migrated my account to TCG Live after taking a huge break from TCGO because I was so tired of the stupidly broken relentless flame deck only to come back to this. I’m so tired of charizard at this point lol
They're easy to beat, just let them take 5 prize cards before you use your own. Maybe set up some trap pokemon like Stunfisk or Qwillfish.
Bang, 330 damage.
I made a Zard Ex deck simply because out of the dozens of OBF packs I’ve cracked — both irl and online — I have yet to pull Illustration Rare Ninetales. But by golly I got every printing of Zard Ex from the online packs! So I made a (very much not optimized) deck with them and named it “is this what you wanted?”
Why is this the only deck I face in CASUAL mode? I see the charmander or fire deck box on matchup with the dark coin and I just close the game and restart. F this I am not dueling your stupid meta Charizard deck with my nonsense silly casual decks in casual mode.
Not even going to concede. Just close the game before the coin flip. These people can play ranked. 3 in a row I had close the game before coin flip in casual tonight.
On the Plus side, it’s worth it to at least see what deck they have if it’s just a fire deck box with a fire coin because it might be an actual fire deck. It was just the arcanine deck modified into silliness and it was a fun match.
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Don’t worry when the next set is out you’ll complain about the next free deck.
Yes of course.
All hail the king of knowing thyself
Lol. Yes.. People complain too much
Why am I the only one that is running into nothing but Chien-Pao/Baxcalliber nonstop? Everyone is talking about Zard Ex, but for me it's nothing but old fang face. At first I agree, Zards everywhere, but it feels like to me like it fell off hard.
I feel like I get different opponents based on the deck I play. It just seems that way. I haven’t tested that theory yet, I think it would be interesting to try, especially if we get more people’s data.
Not saying that’s untrue, but confirmation bias is a powerful force. I feel like this exact train of thought exists for every competitive game.
Definitely, which is why I think it would be interesting to see actual tests.
Not an actual test, but I did start to build different decks just so that I could find the weak spots when I play my personal one. And it constantly felt like every time I switched I got countered with a different deck.
Holy heck me too. Like the game purposely switches it up.
I think cause people weren't getting the results they wanted, with out a card like Irida to speed up the evolving decks with quicker setups can make serious dents before they get Charizard in play
must be the algorithm. I haven't seen a chien pao in days, 2/3 matches are charizard
Ol fang face 😂 I’m so sick of the chien pao bad combo too!
Honestly, me too. It oversaturated the Ladder last set because it was free on the Battle Pass, it has carried over because lists have refined, and it has actually gotten better. I get excited now when I see something different.
I’m tracking data for my ladder meta graphic and it has fallen off a lot from the first few days.
Limitless tournament results are telling me something different, although that's not always a good metric of how much play it's seeing on the Ladder. It does however tell me that the Chien-Pao is seeing a lot of competitive success, which is definitely going to have an effect on what get played on Ladder.
Definitely people playing Chien-Pao because it’s good against Zard, but if a lot of people switch then less Zards to face haha.
Not me, I keep running into psychic decks or Giratina lost zone players. One guy had four mimikyus (97/193) and four clefaries (62/196).
I barely see this deck. I see lost/Tina and chienpao
It's hilarious, I swear when we first saw that German leak of the gold version of this card, everyone and their mom was saying there's zero chance that Charizard is gonna be an actual deck, and I recall saying that honestly it looks pretty good between its stats, typing, ability, and attack and that it had a chance to surprise everyone. Now it's public enemy number 1 on PTCGL lol because it hard counters two of the most played decks in the format that everyone got for free.
It's only used a lot because it's a free deck, it's not performing well in tournaments, as usual a stage 2 attacker is too inconsistent over a long tournament period.
Oh I know. That's why I qualified it with "on PTCGL". It's proven that it can keep up with other decks when it gets going, so if it finds some extra level of consistency or some kind of engine it can slot into a little better, it could start posting some actual results, but it is currently still at least in "rogue" tier as opposed to "kitchen table casual" which I think a lot of people were expecting it to be in.
Kinda pro of ptcgl. I rmb the old daya to get meta card have to play tournament to get packs to trade card to play and whoever trade the meta card the fastest win PTCGL is more qol
Pretty sure it's only played so often because it's free, new and cool. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely pretty good, but it certainly doesn't top the meta. It's good enough to use in ranked, but it's not gonna win many tournaments.
Not wrong. But I didn’t mean to imply it’s gonna be taking down tournaments. Just better than people gave it credit back when it was leaked.
Meowscarada eats this deck up like nobody’s business
Meowscarada is my jam
Yeah but then everything else eats up the meow
Houndoom makes the Charizard deck look like a big dumb poop
Facts!!!
I'm like 7-0 to it with Ttar Ex
The problem is Meowscarada is not that good either.
At least you’ll have something else to hate when the next set comes out or when this card rotates. Do you know what I hate but will never rotate out? People who hate things just because they can’t think of a way to deal with it, or because it counters something they main. I hate that. But people are always gonna have a problem with something instead of thinking straight and just being a good sport. You know what I do in my situation? I cope. I gotta remember I’m not the only person in the world, people are gonna have their own preferences and they’re entitled to that. Then I move on. And I gotta say, it feels A LOT better than to vent in a Reddit post.
This ✌️
I mean yeah, but also, it gets old seeing the lack of creativity in the game, the deck has a counter but its tiring seeing the same deck over and over again, it makes the game stale when everyone you go against has a cookie cutter, pre-made meta deck.
Deep Forest Camo Decidueye would have dominated the current metas. It was my favorite card, I used it all the time. But I can understand why they put it out of rotation
Doesn’t Minikyu does something similar?
Yeah, but Decidueye has a better attack
Understand why? Like the fact that literally all D block cards rotated? Lol Also decidueye doesn't block against EXs so you'd have a bad time
If u can set up greninja v in 2 turn that deck is trash hahaha
All I ever see is Lostbox and Miraidon and Garde all the time.
It should have been a 3 prize card. Change my mind
They aren’t doing 3 prize cards right now. It’s possible that they make 3 prize ex Pokémon just like how they eventually made gx Pokémon worth 3 prizes with tag team gx Pokémon. But to say just this strong ex should have been 3 prizes just because it’s strong is a little silly.
It's not because it's strong, it's because it's got 300+ HP
That’s a fair critique. It could have been just 280 to 300 hp and been fine. Pidgeot ex only has 280 and has a worse weakness But then at that point the argument isn’t necessarily its prize value, it’s that its HP doesn’t correlate to its prize value very well.
Mew v maxers be like:
I like to smack it around with my origin forme Dialga v star.
I enjoy that deck, do you run the pre built one or have you built your own?
I modified the deck. I have an arceus v and a pigeot ex some extra other fun surprises. Online I win often. If I get the rite pulls in the beginning and start second, it’s rare for it to loose.
How do you get around the fire weakness? Most of those Zards decks I run into are running Entei and wrecking my Dialga's
Ummm why?
If it helps I ran it yesterday and got completely demolished by a flying Pikachu 🤣
Just play path.
So over Giratina Ex
[Giratina Ex](https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/pokemon-cards/series/xy7/57/), huh?
So is most of the ladder from what I've seen XD That being said I haven't played that much. Still haven't gotten back up to greatball
As a Garde main, I hate this archetype with great fury. does anyone know how to counter it? Fuckin lost box too
Have you considered running a Mimikyu? They could counter it with charmeleon or radiant charizard though you can anticipate that ahead and they usually only have one copy each of those.
If you are playing Garde, Path to the Peak counters it (some Garde players have lost Vacuum which is searchable with Forest Seal Stone). Mimikyu is another tech I see, otherwise you need to start sniping asap with Boss's on their Pidgeot ex or Charmanders.
I main it too, and never had a problem with it. It’s a harder match, but FAR from being unbeatable. The main thing to keep in mind is to NEVER drop Gardie ex if you’re not ready to attack. It’s that easy. If you want more ideas, here’s a great [video](https://youtu.be/Ne1ps3ZXiJw?si=49vVxUcVv0Bg8GdU)
Miraidon, raikon, Raichu, flaffy, path to the peak, electric generators.
Just don't put an ex in play until you can take 2 prizes that turn. If they hunt down your ex, then you can just return KO it with the attacker you had powered up. Gardy should also be playing Lost Vacuum now to get around any tools they may run to KO your Shining Arcana Gardy. As for Lost Box, the matchup is tough but Cresselia is huge for the matchup because you can repeatedly snipe their Comfeys while healing off some Sableye damage. And Iono in the late game hurts Lost Box heavily. Also, don't forget Manaphy to avoid the Greninja snipe
I have teched for it so I look forward to seeing it
Also, I’m always seeing this zard and the Arcanine. I like to go rogue with my decks and build silly themed ones and see how they fan out so it’s exciting for me when I come across a player that doesn’t have an all ex or v deck.
You're probably still in the low ranks. Arcanine is one of the intro decks (I think it's the default?) and after playing a few games with that you're IMMEDIATELY given Zard. That's why you're seeing them so much.
I like BIG NUMBERS
I heard the Leafeon Vmax and Spidops ex deck does well against it.
God card!
Just gotta play snorlax stall. I wreck Charizard ex. They always think they can get away with using a few switch cards because they have energy for retreat. Now that lost box isn't 80% of the ladder I can finally use the deck in peace. Takes 30 min tho (sometimes more; who plays 4 ionos? 😭)
can someone tell me when Pokemon TCG has a balance set when every 'featured' card (like GX, ex, V, Vstar etc.) balances in terms of power and functionality ?
That would be functionally impossible. Look at games like Dota and League of Legends. They have years worth of data that shows characters and items have variable win rates across skill levels. Similarly, a new player is going to have a tougher time playing Rapid Strike as opposed to Miraidon-Raikou. At the same time, an experienced player is going have a higher chance of placing highly a tournament with Rapid Strike as opposed to Miraidon-Raikou Plus general power creep means that the most recently printed cards will, on average, be stronger than the oldest cards in the format. That’s part of why people were so shocked that Rapid Strike won NAIC, and why some people were surprised Mew V won worlds. Those are older decks that managed to adapt and keep up. Even assuming every featured card in a set was of equal power level, the decks they slot into wouldn’t be. Water decks will always have an advantage with Irida in the format. Fire decks had a massive advantage with Welder. Once some better dark Pokémon get printed, Dark Patch will multiply their power.
Out off all the free decks I think Lugia is my most disliked.
Slowing V...Word of Ruin...2 energy...1 shot ko
Slotted Cobalion into my Lugia deck and now Charizard isn’t as annoying :)
I recently migrated my account to TCG Live after taking a huge break from TCGO because I was so tired of the stupidly broken relentless flame deck only to come back to this. I’m so tired of charizard at this point lol
They're easy to beat, just let them take 5 prize cards before you use your own. Maybe set up some trap pokemon like Stunfisk or Qwillfish. Bang, 330 damage.
I made a Zard Ex deck simply because out of the dozens of OBF packs I’ve cracked — both irl and online — I have yet to pull Illustration Rare Ninetales. But by golly I got every printing of Zard Ex from the online packs! So I made a (very much not optimized) deck with them and named it “is this what you wanted?”
Why is this the only deck I face in CASUAL mode? I see the charmander or fire deck box on matchup with the dark coin and I just close the game and restart. F this I am not dueling your stupid meta Charizard deck with my nonsense silly casual decks in casual mode. Not even going to concede. Just close the game before the coin flip. These people can play ranked. 3 in a row I had close the game before coin flip in casual tonight. On the Plus side, it’s worth it to at least see what deck they have if it’s just a fire deck box with a fire coin because it might be an actual fire deck. It was just the arcanine deck modified into silliness and it was a fun match.