Planning ahead, rotation times: How would new decks work?

zero2exe

zero2exe

Veteran Breeder - Expert Translator
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Ok so there have been a lot of rumors circulating the tcg forums in the internet about when will the next rotation be (supposedly around september if I'm not mistaken) and most importantly: What will be rotated?
Most guesses imply that the whole HGSS set will be wiped out for a fresh new start with BW-on and here comes the topic of this thread:

"If the rotation was BW-ON. How would you build your new decks with the available cards? Which cards would rise up as threats or fall into obvlivion? What would be the general impact to the metagame?"

In short, no more PONT, Collector, Junk Arm, Cleffa... and a lot of strategies which would go away.
Share your thoughts and ideas here. I'll start with a "simple" example :p

<I believe that the loss of JArm will mean a rise in the number of item cards in decks (catcher specially, pkm. communication and so on) unless they run DExp sableye. Still the massive amount of item cards would encourage building decks around Gothitelle in a struggle to replace Vileplume's item lock, but since it needs to take the active pokemon spot to work and with mewtwo ex flying around I think item lock is harder to pull off than ever>

Major Edit
Since this is all speculation and discussion has already thrown some valid points indicating that a CoL-on rotation is very plausible as well I suggest we try to consider this scenario as well although aside from the scenario you pick for your point of view I'd like to see people elaborating also on their thoughts as to why you think it'll rotate that way along with the changes in the meta and how you'd deal with these changes to adapt your current deck
 
The removal of Collector will already be a game-changer, but Dual Ball will most likely be going with it. Without using Pokemon with searching attacks like NV Elgyem or the upcoming Dragon Blade/Dragon Blast Emolga, you're limited to Pokemon Communication or the various Ball Items. Poke Ball is near-useless, Great Ball only searches the top-7 cards and is also not that reliable. That leaves Level and Heavy Ball, that search on certain criteria, the Ultra Ball that discards two cards from your hand to search, and the aforementioned Communication. My Zekeels deck doesn't run enough Pokemon to reliably use Communication (at least, in my experience), and Heavy Ball only searches out Zekrom-EX. Level Ball can get Eels, but won't get anything else. Thankfully, Ultra Ball's downside of discarding doesn't matter to Eels if I can discard my Energy Cards, so that will probably end up replacing Collector there. Reshiboar-EX, on the other hand, has most of the deck searchable with Heavy Ball (which comes with its own disadvantages, but meh).

In short: The removal of Collector and Dual Ball will make deck builders have to consider their search options as they include Pokémon.
 
Catcher* wouldn't be removed because it was reprinted as a secret rare in Dark Explorers, so it isn't going away for quite a while.
 
RBG said:
Collector wouldn't be removed because it was reprinted as a secret rare in Dark Explorers, so it isn't going away for quite a while.
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I think you mean Pokemon Catcher, not Pokemon Collector. If Collector is a secret rare, it's so secret I haven't seen it on any of the setlists. ;)
 
RBG said:
Doi, I instinctively read C********* as Catcher cause it's the card I hate the most.
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I was all excited here already checking pokebeach and bulbagarden for info I could have missed -_-

so back on topic: what this new meta will lack is search power. What about pokemon types then? I've seen water/grass decks working quite efficiently, specially one built around Beartic and Shaymin Ex (and Virizion-Kyurem as back up), the first deals a lot of damage while forcing switches and the later sweeps for a comeback if things go nasty, although it could be better I feel it still loses to Reshiboar because of energy acceleration if cubchoos aren't handled with care .-.
 
I think you're mistaking the general concensus a bit. There's a fair bit out to suggest that the rotation will actually be CL-on and not BW-on. No one knows for sure but:

The 2012 Professor Cup is a CL-on format where basics are banned and stage 1s are basics, stage 2s are stage 1s. Now... granted that this isn't the same format as modified constructed, but they do acknowledge that CL is a different series from HS, and TPCi did create a format that rotated from CL.

So that would let us keep key supporters, some trainers and some babies, and special dark and metal energy. There was a lot of curiosity about why they wouldn't reprint Special Dark in Dark EXplorers, if they were planning on keeping it in the format. Well either Special Dark will be reprinted later, not at all, or it doesn't need to be because CL will provide it.

Just food for thought since this discussion is already assuming it's BW-on, and that's not necessarily the case.
 
FearZeCrawdaunt said:
I think you're mistaking the general concensus a bit. There's a fair bit out to suggest that the rotation will actually be CL-on and not BW-on. No one knows for sure but:

The 2012 Professor Cup is a CL-on format where basics are banned and stage 1s are basics, stage 2s are stage 1s. Now... granted that this isn't the same format as modified constructed, but they do acknowledge that CL is a different series from HS, and TPCi did create a format that rotated from CL.

So that would let us keep key supporters, some trainers and some babies, and special dark and metal energy. There was a lot of curiosity about why they wouldn't reprint Special Dark in Dark EXplorers, if they were planning on keeping it in the format. Well either Special Dark will be reprinted later, not at all, or it doesn't need to be because CL will provide it.

Just food for thought since this discussion is already assuming it's BW-on, and that's not necessarily the case.
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While you bring up some valid points, the main reason I think it will be BW-on are two-fold. History and Consistency.

What I mean by History is, "What have they done before?" I'm not that familiar with the formats before the current one (I only really started getting into the TCG in August of last year) I understand that Sableye from Stormfront was something of a gamebreaker in combination with several of the new cards that came out that gave rise to the Sabledonk archetype. Rather than just rotating out passed the offending set, TPC rotated out the remainder of the DP Block and the entirety of the Platinum block, leaving us with the HGSS-On format that we have now (this may also have something to do with the Pokemon-SP Dominating the format, but I digress, as I don't have a lot of knowledge of formats before the current).

While I can even see the flaws in the first reason, the second reason, Consistency, I believe is main reason anyway. To put it simply, the BW Series was made simpler so that younger kids can get into the game without having to understand as many complex rules. To this end, Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies have been replaced with the more general term "Ability". While there are only a few Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies in COL, there are still some, which to me says that COL is in danger of being rotated out simply for that reason.

I wouldn't be surprised if the format is CL-On, since it's certainly possible, but I'm also not going to be surprised if we have BW-on.
 
Your consistency argument holds little water because the Call of Legends set IS an entire block according to Pokemon.com. It's weird, yeah. Personally I don't think they'll leave us without special Metal and special Dark, so CL-On seems most likely, stupid as it is. At least it leaves PONT in the game.

Collector leaving affects surprisingly little because a lot of decks have switched to a Ball engine, and Collector is rather incompatible with Random Receiver (you want to use that whenever you want a new hand).
 
Should I modify the OP and include from CL-on then for discussion's sake? Certainly now that you've put it on the table it looks like a reasonable prediction as well. We all know that Trollfreak is anything but consistent when we least expect it (BW2 and no pkm. crystal remake in the games department and the fact that there wasn't a tcg set rotation when it "should" have happened according to players).
I'll check on this later
 
@Purim

I only started playing competitively at the BW rotation myself, but my understanding of the last rotation was that there were 13 total sets available for play, and they only rotated (mid-season) because Sabledonk became game-changingly broken.

Though it looks neat and tidy on paper, they're trying to uphold a metagame, and I don't think the supporters we currently have are enough to support one. Maybe they want that though, printing cards like Random Receiver and the high-powered EX's. Without supporters, the EX's might actually balance with stage 2's again. Certainly possible.

I do have to agree on the notion of poke-powers and bodies being rotated out though. It would seem odd to leave them in with only one set containing them. It's kind of a big toss up as to what they'll do.

But yeah, I'm not discounting the BW-on discussion, I'm just saying there is also good reason to believe that the rotation will be CL-on.

And @Zero

Yeah, I'd say just throw in the idea.

If nothing more, the biggest effect the rotation will have on decks is the loss of Junk Arm. Random Receiver is only seen as highly viable because it means you can Junk Arm for a guaranteed supporter. Otherwise, it's no different from just having another draw support in your deck. Once the rotation hits, the whole metagame and playstyle is going to shift because Junk Arm is just THAT good.

Honestly I don't understand why Catcher has consistently been worth more than Junk Arm. Any deck running 4 catcher is probably also running 4 Junk Arm. Except decks running 2-3 catcher are still running 4 Junk Arm!
 
Catcher is worth more than Junk Arm because apparently it was shortpacked in EP boxes. Like, you didn't get as much of them as you would of other uncommons. And of course because it's not rotating out.
 
Junk Arm is really a double edged sword. I actually like how it gives decks more options within less deck space, and sometimes makes you think about what you need to discard. But it does put a large emphasis on Catcher and PlusPower, which is stupid.
 
I'm guessing that the rotation is going to be CoL-On. The change in ultra rares is a pretty large indication. Pokémon likes to rotate 4 sets at a time, remember the rotation to MD-on? The reprinted a bunch of cards in Call of Legends that Pokémon feels are healthy for the format, Dual Ball, Cleffa, Oak's, Ninetails etc... Black and White on makes less sense in my opinion because then we wouldn't have a solid way to search out basics. All of that would have to be done with Ultra Ball and Level Ball. This would mean the format would be a lot more luck based, it'd depend on what you draw.
 
gabe lavail said:
I'm guessing that the rotation is going to be CoL-On. The change in ultra rares is a pretty large indication. Pokémon likes to rotate 4 sets at a time, remember the rotation to MD-on? The reprinted a bunch of cards in Call of Legends that Pokémon feels are healthy for the format, Dual Ball, Cleffa, Oak's, Ninetails etc... Black and White on makes less sense in my opinion because then we wouldn't have a solid way to search out basics. All of that would have to be done with Ultra Ball and Level Ball. This would mean the format would be a lot more luck based, it'd depend on what you draw.
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We'd still have a way --- the use of attacks like those on Elgyem, Lapras, and coming out soon Emolga and Shaymin --- but it wouldn't be as powerful. Some decks already benefit from having Pokemon search attacks on their basics, like promo Litwick in Chandelure or Foongus in a status condition deck; that role could potentially become more important, or decks could just shift to be less reliant on full benches. We could also go back to using Pokemon Communication I guess. :)

We also don't know quite what we'll get in the September set; we can look at the Japanese Dragon sets and make an educated guess, but Pokemon could conceivably juggle things around a bit to make a BW-on format more viable if they wanted to. I don't think there's much we can do except wait and see.
 
I assume that if rotation does happen it will at least go to CL-on. Most decks should be able to find a way to adjust to losing the supporters/trainers, but it seems like a lot of decks will die out when the primes are rotated. Zeels will be fine of course, but CMT, Tyram, etc won't have energy engines anymore. I honestly think losing the primes will have a larger affect on the metagame than the trainers/supporters being lost.
 
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