04-14-2011, 01:18 PM | #1 |
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SableDonk, a review of the TCG equivalent to Charlie Sheen.
Howdy people, I'm here to primarily bring you plentiful information on all things around Pokemon based card games
But first, I'm bringing you the coverage of a deck that has been reviewed by many in preparation for the upcoming rule changes (which are to be seen in an upcoming segment). This deck has been dubbed by my local league as 'Charlie Sheen', after the infamous quote; “You borrow my brain for five seconds and just be like ‘Dude, can’t handle it! Unplug this bastard!’ … It fires in a way that is perhaps not from this terrestrial realm.” The Charlie Sheen of the TCG world comes in the form as a single deck that has caused many players sleepless nights as the format in which it outperforms swiftly approaches. The deck itself is based on an old, but still in rotation Sableye that proves to be a card that many decks simply cannot handle and I'll be informing you today about the deck, cards within it, counters and what the opinions of some of the most renowned players are (skip to the end of the post for a tl:dr summarization). The Deck. We'll start with a breakdown of the namesake and focus card in the deck, to get you up to speed on how the card works and how the deck works around it. Sableye, from the Diamond & Pearl: Stormfront expansion, is a simple basic pokemon, holding 60HP, no weakness a -20 resistance to colourless pokemon and a single retreat cost. However it's built itself up on these next few qualities. Firstly, it's Poke-body, Overeager forces you to take the first turn if Sableye is active unless your opponent has a Sableye of their own. The attacks come as Impersonate, which allows you to discard a supporter card from your deck and use that card effect as the attacks effect, and Overconfident, which deals 10 damage unless the opposing pokemon has less HP than Sableye causing it to instead deal 40. Those not informed about the upcoming rules or possibly the TCG won't instinctively think this as a powerful card, but they'd be wrong. The up-coming rule changes will allow players to use their trainers, supporters and stadiums on the first turn and this will cause a Sableye deck's potential to sky-rocket if built as a 1st turn win deck. But of course, no single pokemon is a god in the TCG (sorry Arceus, not even you) and needs support and I will of course be listing a variety of possible cards to have in the deck (note, anyone building a deck around Sableye should use some, but not all of the cards suggested for consistency). The Cards. Firstly, let's look at the pokemon (aside from Sableye) who might be suited in this deck and why you should use them. They include;
Now, running the deck is delicately simple yet complex at the same time. The goal is to obtain as many KO's as possible with damage dealt by Crobat G's Poke-power and Sableye whilst removing one of their bench with a Seeker. Normally, the best way to add the damage is by placing Crobat damage on their active pokemon until it's KO'd before any other pokemon as they would be unable to pick up that pokemon with Seeker. After that, you'd need Sableye with a Special Dark and an Expert Belt to deal 70 damage on any pokemon that has less than 70HP. The mix of this can usually allow for a knockout using Crobat G's Power, remove a pokemon from the bench with Seeker and then KO the active Pokemon with Sableye to deal with 3 cards in a single turn. This means that unless the opponent has 4 or more high HP pokemon, they're likely to lose without taking a single card from their deck. The Counters. Now, their are but a few counters to this deck but I'll give you the ones that have been suggested. Firstly, there is starting with your own Sableye, be it in your own SableDonk deck or just as an extra card. This will bring the first turn down to a coin flip, causing the match to be more luck based rather than being forced into victory/defeat. The second option is to have a Spiritomb (from the Platinum: Arceus expansion) as your active pokemon. This prevents all players from using basic Trainer cards, although Supporters and Stadiums can still be used, and stops most of the deck dead. However, with Regice being a threat as well as PokeBlower+, you're likely to need at least 2 Spiritomb at the start of the game to have a better guarantee on a maintained Trainer lock. The third and most challenging option is to use Mesprit to lock their Poke-Powers for their next turn. The only problem to this is that you'll have had to either win the coin flip of survive the first turn win. In either of these scenario's, you have a better position before using Mesprit and a Power lock might not actually be necessary. The final option is the most basic (lol, puns) and unreliable. The method is to simply have more Basic Pokemon in your deck to fill up your bench and help prevent all your pokemon being KO'd. It's unreliable though as you might not draw the numbers you need from your deck at the start, even if you have them in and if you do, you might not have the support in your hand to allow you to make a comeback after surviving. The Stats. Now you know the deck and counters, let me give you some statistics from J-Wittz, who used a deck without Regice for these numbers. If Sableye runs against any deck that's unprepared (isn't using Sableye or Spiritomb), Sableye has a 40% chance of staring with Sableye and running away with the first turn for a win and a 30% chance of not starting with Sableye but being able to go first and do the exact same thing. Although the actual effectiveness each time will be affected by draw and the way the cards are played, that's still a 70% chance of having the opportunity to win on the very first turn. If it goes up against a deck using Spiritomb, then the numbers come out a bit differently. There's a 40% chance of going straight up against Spiritomb, which can be make the match drastically harder almost to the point where it's un-winnable. The rest of the time there's a 40% chance of a Sableye start with no-Spiritombs (40% of the remaining 60%) giving a 24% chance of a first turn win. The rest of the time it'll go down to a coin flip with no Spiritomb or Sableye active, resulting in a potential win if the Sableye starts first. This brings the win chance against a Spiritomb based deck in the first turn to around 42%. Against another Sableye, then things start to get weird according to J-Wittz, so there's no numbers for that yet. Thoughts. In his (J-Wittz's) opinion, the format will come down to either Sableye or Spiritomb as a players starting pokemon until the rotation in August/September and with those win percentages, a well built Sableye deck can dominate the format with 1st turn wins. PokemanDan believes that there is no answer to Sableye, but Spiritomb is the best option. But at best it provides a temporary wall and a quick prize as the lock can be broken easily. He also thinks that the best option would have been for the upcoming rules to be introduced as the rotation occurred, causing many of the cards involved in this deck (including Sableye) to be rotated out. The tl:dr. For those who believe this is tl:dr, here's a summary;
I'll sign off now, but I'll be back either next week or the week after to bring you the low-down on my local pre-releases and peoples opinions towards some of the new cards. Hopefully, I'll be able to contact J-Wittz and possibly PokemanDan for their views towards the new pokemon and I'll bring their thoughts into the mix as well. |
04-14-2011, 02:24 PM | #2 |
時の彼方へ
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Can you demonstrate the Turn 1 win scenario? I've read this twice and I'm still not seeing it. It doesn't seem like SableDonk ...
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04-14-2011, 03:44 PM | #3 |
TOO SLOW! LOL
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I admittedly haven't read this yet, but I do very much like the idea of a dedicated TCG post. I've moved on to other TCGs in my life, but its nice to know that the Pokemon TCG is still going, a couple of these posts and I may be tempted to dip into it a bit.
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04-14-2011, 03:58 PM | #4 |
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Donk refers to destroying the entire active/benched Pokemon field. On early turns, many decks have weak starting Pokemon like Magikarp, Baltoy, Hoppip, Unown Q, and others who can all be taken down easily by Sableye as they start with less HP than said Sableye, thus doing the bonus damage, totaling to 50. Since those starters have less than 50 HP total, they're as good as dead. If Sableye's opponent has no other active Pokemon, it's a donk! GG.
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04-14-2011, 04:25 PM | #5 | ||
時の彼方へ
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Quote:
Quote:
This is why I asked for an explanation via example and not just more words. It would be nice to see someone demonstrate how this is a Turn 1 victory condition besides the obvious "he only has his active Pokemon and that's all" condition, a scenario which is obviously not something you see 40%+30% = 70% of the time. If the only reason we're calling this deck a Turn 1 win deck is because he can deal Okay. Found the card, went back through the post and changed most of the 50s to 40s. And I'm starting to think (given Loki's post) that what Yougirasu meant when he claimed "Turn 1 win condition" was that the game was as good as over, and not that it was actually over over, on Turn 1. Still: I'm not seeing it. Run better creatures, send out sacrificial lambs to let Sableye munch them, build up a behemoth on the bench, bring him out, and have your shot at winning. Doesn't mean you did it wrong if you lose: it's a game. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But I think you should definitely be able to beat this deck ~50% of the time if all it's banking on is the fact that you should have less HP than Sableye. (Get a 70 HP guy in your deck and you're good to go for at least three turns -- he'll take 10, he'll take 10 again, he'll take 40, and he'll still be alive on Sableye's fourth active turn. Plenty of time for you to have been laying down energies on a benched Pokemon who can bring the hurt to Sableye.)
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Last edited by Talon87; 04-14-2011 at 04:27 PM. |
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04-14-2011, 04:42 PM | #6 |
TOO SLOW! LOL
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It's 50 because of the "Special Dark Energy".
The donk happens only when they only have one pokemon, I assume in the competitive tier of pokemon TCG there are a number of decks that are basic pokemon light. Also from my experiences playing the game it happens quite often that I only have one pokemon on the first turn. I think its the sheer power of the opener of Sableye compared to most of the strategies in the developing meta of Pokemon TCG that lends it this power. They've certainly scaled back basic pokemon in recent times, something like Sableye means many people have to build their decks around a 50 damage powerhouse that can be played on turn one.
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Last edited by Weebos; 04-14-2011 at 04:45 PM. |
04-14-2011, 05:02 PM | #7 | |
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Quote:
Back when I played (circa 2000-2002), the dominant decks were ones that ran few or no evolutions. When we only had three expansions (Base, Jungle, Fossil), the dominant deck was one with Scyther because of the perfect trifecta: (1) high attack power for low energy cost (2) high HP for a Basic Pokemon (3) low retreat cost Then when they rolled out the GSC Pokemon in the Neo expansions, a popular (and quickly banned) deck involved Slowking. Slowking is only a Stage 1, even, not a Stage 2. While the deck I preferred to run (Fossil Gengar) made use of Stage 2's and liberal use of the Pokemon Breeder (to allow Gastly to evolve into Gengar directly), it was frowned upon as being "too slow." If today's metagame has honestly slowed down so much that kids are able to play their Stage 2 Charizards and Salamences, then maybe all Sableye will end up doing is having the effect of swinging the momentum back in the direction of the game's roots: prioritizing speedy punches over sluggish cannon blasts. Even Jungle Scyther might get felled by this mischievous little ghoul, but similar strategies ought to work just fine against it. For instance ... HeartGold SoulSilver Arcanine - at 110 HP and only needing two energies to do 50 damage per attack, this is an easy winner to set up. Get a Growlithe on the bench, buy time by having something else eat two punches from Sableye, repeat with another time-buyer, and you're good to go. And if not? You tried. Next idea ... This Scizor takes little setup and courtesy of those Steel energies his defense should go up, right? If that's the case, then while he's dealing 50 damage a turn, Sableye is only dealing 10 damage the first time (10+10-10) and then another 10 the second time (10+10-10) and then he's dead. So why not just run Scizor? Sounds like it'd be easy to setup. Unless you're limited to only having four Steel energies per deck. Are you? Or are all energies equal now? If so, then this ought to be REALLY easy. What about this Espeon? Can't it basically shit all over Sableye's strategy? Say he deals 20 damage on the first turn against an Espeon who is brought out to meet him after he's felled one of her comrades. On her turn, she uses her top move and migrates the damage counters to Sableye himself. So he attacks again, and once again it's only for 20 (10+10) since she isn't weak to Dark and since she has 90 HP. And once again, she transfers the damage counters. Shouldn't Espeon basically SHUT DOWN a Sableye deck? O_o This is why I don't understand why the article makes it sound like SableDonk is OMFG BROKEN. Sounds like you guys have lots of ways to deal with it if I can go on Bulbapedia, randomly select three stage 1's or stage 0's from the HGSS list, and hit paydirt. God only knows what perfectly crafted antidote to this deck already exists in your legal card pool ...
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04-14-2011, 05:57 PM | #8 |
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I think that the reason many of those cards don't work is because you can't evolve pokemon on the first turn. Having dabbled in the TCG a bit, it's not too uncommon to only have one or two basics in your starting had- if I understand this correctly, a situation like that generates an almost guaranteed first-turn win for a Sabledonk deck, thanks to Seeker.
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04-14-2011, 08:05 PM | #9 |
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The Jungle set is out of rotation. It's like referring to Black Lotus in Type 2 tournaments. Yeah, it would be great if we had Black Lotus and it would totally turn the game around. But it's not available!
Also, you're basically talking about Single Cards being able to beat the Sableye. Yes, they can. But can their overall deck maintain their advantage when faced against all decks out there. Without knowing the metagame, you're talking about a deck with a single niche of stopping Sabledonk and nothing else. At a tournament, you would only advance if you encountered a Sabledonk in most of your games and if you ran into others... well... GG? Meanwhile, as most decks run Gyarados or Gengar as their main focus, Sableye is able to easily take them down without much worry. Can you see yourself slipping Arcanine and Growlithe into your Gyarados deck? Last edited by Loki; 04-14-2011 at 08:14 PM. |
04-14-2011, 08:37 PM | #10 |
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Meh. Just saying: a deck which threatens to shake the foundations of the current metagame does not necessarily mean that people should expect to lose to this thing 70% of the time -- provided they change with the meta and they build some new decks. Shelve your Gyarados deck for now: that's what I'd tell somebody who was upset that SableDonk made running his favorite Gyarados deck impossible in the current environment.
And yeah, no shit about the Jungle set being out of rotation. You telling me that would be like you telling me that Alpha is out of rotation in Ma-- oh wait you seriously just drew that comparison. :P Thanks though, man. I may not play the PTCG, but I'm pretty sure even I know that a card printed in 2000 would be out of rotation in 2011.
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04-15-2011, 12:39 AM | #11 | |
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Quote:
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"It does not matter anymore. We cannot change the past. The future will have to do."
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04-15-2011, 01:52 AM | #12 |
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I admit, I did give a laugh of surprise when Loki said people were playing Pokemon like Magikarp and Hopip. It's amazing how things change over time.
What I find even more interesting is that Pokemon's newer strategies seem very heavily specialized against one another, and presumably aren't as effective against older cards. It was that way in MTG too until that Artifact-heavy set where people Equipped stuff to Ornithompters came out. Yeah, Juzam Djinn and Mox Jet are great, but even cards that awesome would struggle against crazy decks like that. And in Yu-Gi-Oh!, a Shooting Star Dragon deck can not only kill most decks in modern meta, but most decks from yesteryear as well. Kind of funny, but kind of interesting.
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04-21-2011, 05:34 AM | #13 | |
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Wow, I sure didn't realize that my article would obtain so much interest or such a debate. Let me just have a read through of everything and I'll see about clearing up everything that people haven't already covered.
Okay, I've had a quick read and firstly, you wanted a demonstration of how the deck can win on the first turn. I personally don't like this deck to much and unless I had all of the necessary cards and was desperate, I wouldn't build it even as a demonstration. Fortunately, J-Wittz has made a video about the deck where he demonstrated how the deck will remove 3 80HP pokemon from the opponents field within the 1 turn. This would pretty much cover every other little detail you'd need to know, but I'll also cover them here for you (in case you can't be bothered watching 15 mins to see how all the cards are played). Damaging the bench. You asked how the bench get's hit and well, it's included in my opening post, but I seem to have worded it wrong; Quote:
Another thing people missed when figuring out how it could be so devastating (and I did get this right) was the Expert Belt. This boosts Sableye up to 80HP and improves the base damage of his Overconfident by 20, meaning that with a Special Dark it can take out anything with 70HP or less in one attack. As for sweeping the field, I've already covered the bench damage and how Sableye can 1 hit anything that isn't a legendary (something I'll cover in my next article which should come some time after Saturday) but you also failed to pick up on the 1 thing I mentioned when covering the bench damage. That thing, is Seeker. Seeker is the only Supporter (soon to be classed as Trainer: Supporter) within the deck allowing you to guarantee it's use within the first turn if you draw it. And as I said, it forces you and your opponent to pick up a benched Pokemon and return it to your hand. This allows you to either take up an Uxie for more draw or Crobat G for more damage as well as removing on of their pokemon from the field to make obtaining the win easier. If I missed anything or it isn't covered in the video, let me know and I'll check back in on Sunday, or possibly Saturday after my second pre-release and cover anything else. |
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04-21-2011, 05:58 AM | #14 |
時の彼方へ
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Nope, that was great. Thanks so much.
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