Pokémon Thread XIII: Our Ponies are ON FIRE!

[tgva8889]

Does it matter what the mother of your brood is named? I thought your plan was to breed an actually good Gligar from this one.

[Forrestfire]

Ah, sorry for the confusion. I meant to say that I was fine with waiting for a good one (in which case I'd want it named).

EDIT: Sounds good to me. Again, whatever works for you is fine by me.

[tgva8889]

I was just going to get you an Impish Female for ease in your own breeding. Save you some steps, rather than making you go through all the same steps I have to go through to start breeding.

[OracleofWuffing]

Because we keep having bursts of card game discussion on occasion, today's Penny Arcade reminded me that I had a no-energy deck that wrecked a few dudes (in the card game video game). I understand there's been no-energy attacks for some time now, is that sort of strategy kinda more-viable now?

Also, I should schedule some sort of thing aside because I saw there's been a new translation for TCG 2, it might be fun to Let's Play.

[boj0]

Originally Posted by OracleofWuffing

Stuff about the card game

I wish I had actually learned how to play that instead of just collecting them, I had a Charizard and knew it was awesome, but never actually used it.


So after someone told me that having the same phone for 5 years is kind of lame, I finally upgraded to one of those "smart phones" that all these kids are talking about, and hey what do you know?

Pokemon Online has an Android app!

That isn't updated to PO v2 yet...

[Agent_0042]

Originally Posted by OracleofWuffing

Because we keep having bursts of card game discussion on occasion, today's Penny Arcade reminded me that I had a no-energy deck that wrecked a few dudes (in the card game video game). I understand there's been no-energy attacks for some time now, is that sort of strategy kinda more-viable now?

Not in the current format. Gyarados, Mightyena, and Yanmega were things until they were rotated out (we lose Yanmega this year), but there aren't any decent energyless attackers from Black-and-White on, which is the upcoming rotation. There are tons of good one energy attackers, though.

[tgva8889]

From what I've seen of Black and White, the first few Black and White sets felt like a return to the original game. A lot of the cards were definite call-backs.

[OracleofWuffing]

Originally Posted by boj0

I wish I had actually learned how to play that instead of just collecting them, I had a Charizard and knew it was awesome, but never actually used it.

Sounds like it was probably this card. It got incredibly hyped and kinda overinflated in value back in the day. I mean, it's pretty spiffy, and it can use any kind of energy card, but you basically had to rely on a stream of Double Colorless Energy to keep attacking with it (The short explanation is, you see all those red orbs with fire on them on Charizard's card? That means you need to have four "Fire Energy" cards attached to the card in order to use that attack. You can only attach 1 energy card per turn, so you need at least 4 turns to attack once, but Double Colorless Energy provides two "Normal Energy" and Charizard treats all energy cards attached to him as "Fire Energy," so you could cut that down time to 2). Granted, it obliterated anything short of Chansey back in the day, but every deck had four Energy Removals and Charizard took double damage from water, which was a really powerful and frequent type. (Blastoise lets you attach as many Water Energy cards as you want per turn to any Water pokemon, with very little threat to itself.)

The TGC2 Video Game's based just after the Team Rocket expansion came out, but the thing is, I stopped following the cards after the eReader line. I really think the funnest part of a play through on that would be seeing how the game's "different" now and what sort of strategies wouldn't work any more. The basics are still the same, though.

Originally Posted by Agent_0042

Not in the current format. Gyarados, Mightyena, and Yanmega were things until they were rotated out (we lose Yanmega this year), but there aren't any decent energyless attackers from Black-and-White on, which is the upcoming rotation. There are tons of good one energy attackers, though.

Ah, thanks. Those all don't look too particularly helpful, I was hoping for something more along the lines of shuffling cards into the deck, but that's probably more of a Trainer card thing as well.

[Mercenary Pen]

Originally Posted by OracleofWuffing

Sounds like it was probably this card. It got incredibly hyped and kinda overinflated in value back in the day. I mean, it's pretty spiffy, and it can use any kind of energy card, but you basically had to rely on a stream of Double Colorless Energy to keep attacking with it (The short explanation is, you see all those red orbs with fire on them on Charizard's card? That means you need to have four "Fire Energy" cards attached to the card in order to use that attack. You can only attach 1 energy card per turn, so you need at least 4 turns to attack once, but Double Colorless Energy provides two "Normal Energy" and Charizard treats all energy cards attached to him as "Fire Energy," so you could cut that down time to 2). Granted, it obliterated anything short of Chansey back in the day, but every deck had four Energy Removals and Charizard took double damage from water, which was a really powerful and frequent type. (Blastoise lets you attach as many Water Energy cards as you want per turn to any Water pokemon, with very little threat to itself.)

There was also the possibility of splashing that Charizard into a Rain Dance Blastoise deck, combining Rain Dance and Energy Burn to reload Charizard even quicker... I even recall people who combined it with the Energy Trans power on Venusaur to speed up Reloading times.

[tgva8889]

Originally Posted by Mercenary Pen

There was also the possibility of splashing that Charizard into a Rain Dance Blastoise deck, combining Rain Dance and Energy Burn to reload Charizard even quicker... I even recall people who combined it with the Energy Trans power on Venusaur to speed up Reloading times.

That doesn't work, unless your Charizard somehow became Water-type.

Charizard's biggest problem is that it can only attack every other turn pretty much no matter what you do. Using two Double Colorless Energy would just result in you discarding both, because you have to discard energy cards to use Charizard's attack.

Energy Removal is one of the biggest things missing these days. That and all the numbers on every Pokemon are higher than they used to be. Pokemon nowadays have attacks that hit for 120+ with minor drawbacks and have 180HP.

[Mercenary Pen]

Originally Posted by tgva8889

That doesn't work, unless your Charizard somehow became Water-type.

Charizard's biggest problem is that it can only attack every other turn pretty much no matter what you do. Using two Double Colorless Energy would just result in you discarding both, because you have to discard energy cards to use Charizard's attack.

Energy Removal is one of the biggest things missing these days. That and all the numbers on every Pokemon are higher than they used to be. Pokemon nowadays have attacks that hit for 120+ with minor drawbacks and have 180HP.

Fair enough, its been a while, and I think in retrospect that was one of those exploits that came about because neither player read the card quite correctly- the Venusaur trick does work though, but needs a few turns of setup first...

[OracleofWuffing]

Originally Posted by tgva8889

Charizard's biggest problem is that it can only attack every other turn pretty much no matter what you do. Using two Double Colorless Energy would just result in you discarding both, because you have to discard energy cards to use Charizard's attack.

For what it's worth, the card has been reprinted and it lacks the "cards" part on that discard now. Sadly, it probably still can't compete nowadays. I can't remember off the top of my head which way the video game rules, though. Mostly because, yes, I blitzed through the game on Rain Dance whenever possible.

[tgva8889]

Originally Posted by OracleofWuffing

For what it's worth, the card has been reprinted and it lacks the "cards" part on that discard now. Sadly, it probably still can't compete nowadays. I can't remember off the top of my head which way the video game rules, though. Mostly because, yes, I blitzed through the game on Rain Dance whenever possible.

The video game forces you to discard multiple energy cards when you discard a Double Colorless Energy, I'm pretty sure. And the changes in wording don't change how the card works: "discard 2 energy" still means "discard 2 energy cards attached to this."

[Agent_0042]

Originally Posted by tgva8889

Energy Removal is one of the biggest things missing these days.

You don't even know, man. We have Crush Hammer, Energy Removal that requires a coin flip to work, and even then you still see four of them in most decks.

RE: Charizard, Ninetales was the real boss. 80 every turn, instead of 120 every two? Yes, please.

[tgva8889]

I've watched the new game a bit. I've seen it. Removing energy is just so necessary for controlling some strategies.

[OracleofWuffing]

Originally Posted by tgva8889

The video game forces you to discard multiple energy cards when you discard a Double Colorless Energy, I'm pretty sure.

Yup, just checked on my end. So it's more for having that ideal turn 2 Fire Spin, but not much else.

Originally Posted by tgva8889

And the changes in wording don't change how the card works:

Was that an official ruling somewhere? Generally speaking, when you change the wording of a rule, the way the rule works changes. And, uh, your last post kind of emphasized that things work this way because the word "cards" was used. I couldn't find anything in the most recent rulebook indicating that "$foo Energy" means the same thing as "Energy Card," and all the other pseudo-official resources I could dig up are still running off the old text and specify "cards" as the reason why as well.

Then again, it looks like the most recent rulebook is in direct contradiction with the most recent Organized Play Tournament rules over what Sudden Death is, which is a huge headache because I remember back in the day there was the whole Attack-Resolution Order of Operations thingy that made it virtually impossible to get in to Sudden Death anyways and aaaaaaaaaaa-

Nevermind, someone decided it's a good idea to shove the Video Game Organized Play Rules with the Card Game Organized play rules and I got confused between the two.

Attack Resolution order of operations is still a headache, though.

Edit again: Wait, how the heck can you get a tie on the video games in tournament rules?

[Aotrs Commander]

So, I'm assuming that the DW only gives you a random chance of connecting to someone who's currently online or something. I went on with my White game, ad spent most of the hour (actually timed out for the first time ever) searching for a) anyone I recognised (me ideally, since I've encountered a lot of islands with the same user-name, which I assume makes it possible) or b) anyone with EV reducer berries on their share shelf. (One chap had, like two, but no-one else.)

Notably, the same names kept coming up time and again, leading to the same cluster of dream pals. I wouldn't have expected that should happen several times, if it was randomly picking islands from the entire available ones.

*sigh* More luck-based tedium, DW could REAAALLLY use a method in which to link up dream pals (I dunno, using the friend code or something, since we already have those!!). All the random wandering is just tiresome.

[tgva8889]

I mean, the most likely literal reading of the new wording of Charizard is that it turns Double Colorless Energy into the equivalent of basic Fire Energy. Literal readings never worked that way. I think all such cards that required you to discard energy have always required you to discard the specific cards anyways. Usually the word "discard" implies cards anyways.

[OracleofWuffing]

Originally Posted by tgva8889

I mean, the most likely literal reading of the new wording of Charizard is that it turns Double Colorless Energy into the equivalent of basic Fire Energy. Literal readings never worked that way. I think all such cards that required you to discard energy have always required you to discard the specific cards anyways. Usually the word "discard" implies cards anyways.

Yeah, I kind of felt that the ruling was wonky, apparently WotC made the ruling that Double Colorless Energy provides two Fire Energy back when they were managing the game, so maybe the whole thing's just founded on inertia and on-the-fly reading.

Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander

*sigh* More luck-based tedium, DW could REAAALLLY use a method in which to link up dream pals (I dunno, using the friend code or something, since we already have those!!). All the random wandering is just tiresome.

Apparently, Dream World had that functionality, but it was removed when it launched outside of Japan. Ideally, we could keep a list of everybody's "stranger" Dream Pals, and then by playing three degrees of someone's name here, we might connect together. Shoot, I should log in sometime, too.

[boj0]

Originally Posted by OracleofWuffing

Wait, how the heck can you get a tie on the video games in tournament rules?

In tournaments, later rounds use a best of 3; otherwise in a normal match the only one I can think is a recoil double down? Everything else either breaks Self KO clause (which I believe Nintendo still uses) or doesn't trigger before the game checks to see who's still active.

I checked the 2012 VGC rules and they don't have anything on the subject.

[Ryuho Tsugu]

Originally Posted by OracleofWuffing

Apparently, Dream World had that functionality, but it was removed when it launched outside of Japan. Ideally, we could keep a list of everybody's "stranger" Dream Pals, and then by playing three degrees of someone's name here, we might connect together. Shoot, I should log in sometime, too.

Something I came across: How to Make Dream Pals 2.

Even if we did make a list of our Dream Pals, there's a high chance we wouldn't even be on the same server to find each other on.

[OracleofWuffing]

Originally Posted by Ryuho Tsugu

Something I came across: How to Make Dream Pals 2.

I

Buh

Wha

Nintendo, I've been taking potshots at SEGA for how horrid PSO2's backend must be all month. I don't have time to point out how silly you're being.

Well, then, now that we've confirmed the only reason why that functionality doesn't exist is because there isn't a view to allow it, um, I'm on World 4 and my id is 971082. We can at least keep track of who's on what world, because, I mean, one in four chance isn't too bad.* Also, my last activity was tucking in Smeargle on the last day of March.

*Yes I realize the server picked is probably not random and actually based on server load and other variables so statistically that's inaccurate, but dang it, let me keep this simple.

[tgva8889]

That'd probably be useful for you guys, as I have over 80 of every EV-reducing berry.

World: 1
ID: 1218227

[Mando Knight]

There's only four servers, so actually there's a good chance that we'll each be able to visit some of each others'.

I'm 958265 in World 1, by the way.

[Aotrs Commander]

Originally Posted by Ryuho Tsugu

Something I came across: How to Make Dream Pals 2.

Even if we did make a list of our Dream Pals, there's a high chance we wouldn't even be on the same server to find each other on.

Well, I'll give that a try tomorrow. Worth a shot, right?

Edit: Both World 4 (Galwen)

Black 1476151

White 2257536



As a note, as standard practise, I leave one of each type of EV berry and one Lum on my Black share shelf (and continually grow and restock the EVs and nowt else), restocked every time I log on (berry supply withstanding). I'll be doing the same with my White as soon as I can.

And THIS is probably how all those people I saw had managed to make themselves their own Dream Pals!

[Mando Knight]

Once we get a few, I'll add a table to the OP.

[OracleofWuffing]

Originally Posted by Mando Knight

There's only four servers, so actually there's a good chance that we'll each be able to visit some of each others'.

I'm 958265 in World 1, by the way.

Originally Posted by tgva8889

World: 1
ID: 1218227
Last edited by tgva8889 : Today at 06:32 PM.

Well, that was fast.

Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander

Well, I'll give that a try tomorrow. Worth a shot, right?

Edit: Both World 4 (Galwen)

Black 1476151

White 2257536

Booyah, friend me, I remember having a very good supply of EV berries. I might not be on tonight, though.

[Ryuho Tsugu]

World 1, ID 979948 (Black)/1523220 (White).

My Dream Pal lists are full up, though. I wish there would be a notification that popped up when you send a request to someone at the cap; I feel bad for these people that make requests of me, knowing I can't tell them "sorry, already at 20".

[tgva8889]

I've started leaving EV berries on my share shelf. I found out I actually have over 100 of each. You know, just in case. I guess.

I am being the crazy person who tries to collect every item in Dream World, so if you have anything particularly rare or cool (but isn't particularly useful in-game), I'll take it.

[Forrestfire]

I wish EV berries were obtainable in-game in Black and White... For the longest time, I didn't have an internet that would connect to my DS so I could not try to get them.