Re: General Chat: The Smashening

by Captain Mon Jul 28, 2014 5:13 pm

I thought OJ had XY now... or was it not the right internet? Idk

by invisibleTerrarium Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:36 pm

Man, I get Polar Pattern which is the dumbest thing bc it's summer and it is literally too dang hot to be outside and i mean why the hell am i still finding "polar" butterflies?? What????

by OverlordJ Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:53 pm

Well, first of all, Blue beats everyone because we get card drawing and counterspells, so the other colours can suck it.

Also, there are five colours, each getting along well with two colours and opposing the other two. This is what is known as the pentagram of colours.

pentagram of colours picture:

Green and Red get along in their simplicity and by both following the rule of the strongest. Green and White get along in their worship of life.

Green opposes Blue in their oppinions on Tradition vs Progress and on Nature vs Science. Green opposes Black in their oppinions on Life vs Death and Blacks willingness to exploit whatever they can exploit.

I totally agree, breeding patterns would be the best. Plus, I forgot to try and get the holding hands one and I think it'll be too late the next time I can.

And yes, I have Y, I just don't have internet on my DS most of the time.

EDIT: And I'm not going to Cologne just for it. Also, why are there english names for german places that are way different then the german names? I needed to google cologne before I was sure they were talking about Köln. I mean, it's not even a translation or anything or a "more english" version, it's a completly different name. I'd have understood it if you had called it koln or heck, even coln but cologne? That's just weird.

by **Hanky Panky** Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:38 pm

OverlordJ wrote:Yeah, I agree

Hey, wanna help me with a descision?
I am planning to build a B/G/U or G/U EDH deck based around +1/+1 counters, should I buy "Devour for Power"? Most cards in it don't support my theme too well, but it has some lovely black cards and is the best way to get a B/G/U commander that fits my theme.

Sounds like you need to get a Mimeoplasm. He does +1/+1 counters well. Dead Mike (Mikaeus, the Unhallowed) is a duh, doubling season, Prime Speaker Zegana, Bane of Progress, Woodfall Primus, Varolz, Forgotten Ancient, Kalonian Hydra, Decree of Savagery, Scavenging Ooze, Unspeakable Symbol, Glen Elendra Archmage, Champion of Lambholt, primal vigor, Ob Nixilis, Unshackled.

now, do you want to drop fatties all day long or do you want to play control?

BUG does control very well. but you do have access to both black and green, which tend to drop some hella creatures. personally, i'd go with control. add in mystic snake, cyclonic rift, damnation (or life's finale, or whatever black board wipes you like), your basic counterspell package (i like to keep my counters political and cheap, 2 mana max. arcane denial is great because even though i countered that person's spell, i gave them two cards.), maybe plasm capture. maybe stifle. bramblecrush - pops noncreature permanents, good for getting rid of pesky maze of ith's or planeswalkers. terastodon. same. shadowborn demon, is a kill spell with legs. hero's downfall. pops a planeswalker. putrefy. pops creature or artifact. i'm sure you can tell the direction i'm headed in. versatility is king. you want answers in your hand that can answer whatever you feel needs answering. krosan grip. reverent silence. back to nature. deadbridge chant. sepulchral primordial. chasm skulker. avenger of zendikar. hydra broodmaster. vigor. triskelion. anavolver. sapphire drake. bioshift. blade of the bloodchief. bow of nylea. bramblewood paragon. bred for the hunt. chlorophant. chronomaton. any of the arcbound and clockwork artifact creatures you would desire. crowned ceratok. curse of predation. cytoplast root-kin. dark impostor. death's presence. desecration demon. dragon blood. draining whelk. realm seekers. entrails feaster. evolution vat. experiment kraj. fangren firstborn. fathom mage. gyre sage. feast on the fallen. fertilid. festercreep. forced adaptation. forcemage advocate. frostweb spider. give//take. golgari guildmage. grave betrayal. grimgrin, corpse-born. heroes' bane (finally, a use for that shitty hydra). increasing savagery. incremental growth. ivy lane denizen. jugan the rising star. kavu predator. korozda gorgon. lorescale coatl. lotleth troll. master biomancer. mephidross vampire. mindwarper. nature's panoply. necropolis regent. ordeal of nylea. phantom nantuko. plaxcaster frogling. predator ooze. primordial hydra. protean hydra. quest for the gemblades. quirion dryad. renegade krasis. repentant vampire (even if it turns white when you have threshold, it still works with the deck because there are no white color symbols on the card). rite of passage. rushwood elemental. sage of fables. sage of hours. simic basilisk. simic guildmage. skullbriar, the walking grave. the three slith that fit your colors. sphinx of magosi. spike weaver. spiritmonger. sporeback troll. vastwood hydra. vigean graftmage. vigor mortis. zameck guildmage.

maybe reanimator should be your thing. especially with all those great creatures.
jesus, dude.

also blue gets along just fine with green. it's just that they traditionally have conflicting ideas and that simic is usually the weakest color to play because it has the weakest removal. that being said, U/G is the best color combination for combo decks in EDH.

by kotakun Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:46 pm

~~digital~~cardstock sports

by phantasmalDexterity Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:52 pm

I used to be real into MTG back in high school. still have my old deck. it's a white-red artifact one. take that, pentagram of colours mspa

Actually, it's mainly white artifact with a few red cards.
i haven't had much chance to play since then, so I don't know the new rules and whether my old deck is still good

by **Hanky Panky** Mon Jul 28, 2014 9:31 pm

high school.... boros artifacts.

were you playing during ravnica block

by phantasmalDexterity Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:44 am

nah, before and during scars of mirodin

by d_what Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:57 am

i know some of these words u say

ttly

by OverlordJ Tue Jul 29, 2014 7:27 am

Yeah, I am totally getting Mimeoplasm if I am playing B/U/G, if I'm only playing two colours I'll use Kraj, because I can pull some really fun infinite combos.

I'll look through your card suggestions to see which of those I have/can get and then decide. For now I plan to buy Devour for Power andthen I'll test whether B/U/G or U/G fits my style better.

In case you want to know the combo:

by d_what Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:08 am

Yo, Captain: a wild scrafty thread appeared! http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/scrafty.3513289/

Fairy is OP guys. I am convinced of this and terrified that Game Freak won't do anything about it. Personally... I wouldn't object to the idea that every new gen GF messes with the type chart, within reasonable/logical bounds, just to see what happens?

(Psychic > Fairy) (defensive nerf)
(Poison > Water) (offensive buff)
(Bug !< Fairy) (defensive buff)
(Something fair involving Ice THAT DOESNT INVOLVE ELECTRIC OJ Razz

) (defense buffs are probably pointless at this stage, lost cause IMO)
(Ghost, something something Ghost... Dunno what though. Bug resist Ghost?? Poison??) (Offensive nerf)

by OverlordJ Tue Jul 29, 2014 9:23 am

FINE!

Jokes aside, it's a bit tricky with Ice.

I get that an electric resistence would be bad because Ice/Water and Ice/Flying are common. Grass resistance is tricky for the same reason nd Grass really doesn't need toget worse...

Lets see
Normal - makes no sense
Water - This could maybe work?
Fire - HAHA, yeah, no
Grass - See above
Elecrtic - See above
Bug - doesn't really make sense and bug doesn't need to be nerfed more
Flying - This could work but I can't quite imagine why Ice should resist it
Ground - Similar to Flying
Stone - Yeah, not really either...
Poison - Definitely not
Psychic - No?
Dark - Why?
Ghost - This is going nowhere...
Fighting - No for obvious reasons
Steel - No
Fairy - A case could be made for being super effective but resisting?
Dragon - Won't really help much I think
Ice - Well...

by d_what Tue Jul 29, 2014 10:05 am

Yeah, I think Game Freak are suffering from the same issues. For a start, I don't think they can decide on what ice really IS. I mean, on the one hand, it's hard and solid and tough. Hence Avalugg/Cryogonal/Every single defensive ice type. On the other hand, it shatters really easily. Hence anything remotely hard or powerful smashing it. And you can't give it an offensive boost (which, TBH, it would make use of, it being a sweepy-type already) without making further ice types redundant (because Ice Coverage on non-ice pokemon is more common than Ice types). And you do hit problems like "oh, I'll fix it by making it resist THIS" but then THIS doesn't need any nerfing? Ice resisting water is honestly the only one that makes any bit of sense at all, but Game Freak's record of mutual resists is poor. If not non-existent. But I don't know if Water could handle my two Water related changes, since Gen 5 ended it's no longer THAT good. (And I think Water being weak to Poison would really open up things for many Pokemon, without being OP. Ludicolo won't notice and Azumarill kind of deserves it.) Honestly if I had to pick I'd go Ice > Bug because cold is really only a problem to living things, and Bug, besides Grass, is the best example of a living thing, but again Bug doesn't need any more nerfs.

For Ghost, (and this is kind of a big change so I can't see it being popular) how about removing one of its immunities and making it a resistance? Indirectly, that boosts Normal types, since Normal types *would* love Fighting coverage only it's completely blocked by Ghosts. If Fighting: Aegislash would be neutral to Fighting and I'm okay with that. If Normal: Mega Khan gets a lifetime in Ubers, nobody minds, and Pokemon like Ursaring/Staraptor/Ambipom/Normal Move Spammers get a lifeline. On the face of things it's actually a pretty small change (and what gives Gastly the right to be immune to Boomburst, anyway?).

EDIT: You know what, screw type changes. The problem with ice is not just it's terrible defensively (though I'd still approve of Resist Water) but the fact it's redundant on a team slot. Hidden Power Ice is one of the most common HPs, Ice Beam is run by every special Water Pokemon and its mother, Ice Punch is typically the most popular Punch, except on Medicham... Ice types need better moves to use!

Spoiler:

by OverlordJ Tue Jul 29, 2014 10:37 am

Removing one of Ghosts immunities would make Ghost types pretty useless in my opinion. Especially if the immunity to Normal is removed. Removing the Fighting resistance could work. Maybe. But I quite honestly don't see the point behind that. Plus, it'd make attacks and abilities that allow Normal and Fighting attacks to hit Ghosts even more useless.

You are right about Water, giving Ice a resistance to it AND making it weak to Poison would be a nerf they just don't deserve. But making Ice resist Bug moves would make Bugs even weaker then they already are and the argument that Bugs don't like cold is a pretty weak reason to give Ice a resistance to it. Maybe it could work by removing one of Ices weaknesses? If they make Ice a sturdy type, maybe they could remove the Fighting weakness?

by d_what Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:06 am

Fighting nowadays is pretty well balanced as-is, though. Especially seeing as Fighting is paired up with most if not every other type, there's guaranteed to be a lot of collateral damage to the change (Whereas Poison > Water goes down rather smoothly).

If there were types I think should be left as-is, because they contribute to a decent balance, they'd be the following:

Spoiler:

Things that could reliably handle a nerf:

Water
Fairy
(debatably Fire if it was a balanced nerf)
Steel
Ghost
Fairy (I know, but it's important)

Types in sore need of a boost:

Spoiler:

Ghost isn't exactly a Defensive type to begin with, and it rarely has to deal with Normal types anyway - even if it does, it can still be relied upon to handle Normal types, better than Steel does - Ghost is immune or neutral to the most common Normal coverage moves, sans Crunch sometimes. The only notable defensive Ghosts are Cofagrigus, Dusk-anything, Giratina and Aegislash; none of them will really care what Boomburst or Return are doing in any case. Also, Ghost types get Will-O-Wisp, so defenses aren't even a concern.

Meanwhile, Offensively, the Ghost type is factually OP. It's resisted by TWO types, just two, both of which are typically not great at being defensive (excluding Tyranitar and Chansey) and BOTH of which are seriously weak to Fighting, which every notable Ghost type gets some form of access to. Last gen Ghost was pretty balanced but now, with the right Pokemon in charge, they can power through most things. (Un?)Fortunately, Ghost types themselves typically underperform, with Gengar and the soon-to-probably-be-banned Aegislash being the only reliably decent ones. But if they ever get the Dragon treatment, they'll be alongside Fairy on the list of types that break the game. Also Normal types suuuuuuuuuck. I mean really, really suck, because of Fighting, Steel and Ghost types. Kangaskhan would have been a million times more broken had it been any other type except maybe Bug or Poison. And this gen, Fighting and Steel both got nerfed while Ghost actually improved. I'd say it was only fair, wouldn't you?

by phantasmalDexterity Tue Jul 29, 2014 12:36 pm

what ice really needs is speed. it could actually be a decent type already if it were faster. but it's hard to find a reason why ice could be fast. i mean ice is not commonly associated with fast aside from things like ice skating and skiing.
but if it were to get more speed i personally think this would be the best way to balance ice

Offensive		Defensive
Power	Type	Power	Type
2x	Dragon, Flying, Grass, Ground, Fairy	2x	Fighting, Rock, Steel, Fire
1/2x	Fire, Ice, Steel	1/2x	Ice, Flying

personally i think water resisting ice doesn't make much sense, it should be the opposite, but i like the idea of poison se> water and that's probs enough of a debuff already
ice resisting flying makes the biggest sense as a potential resistance, you can't really break ice with feathers and beaks after all
ice se> fairy is not easy to justify, but the same goes for poison se and fairy needs a debuff like that.

hail could also use a buff. i think it should do damage based on type, sort of like an ice version of stealth rock
1/4 - 1/8 - 1/16 - 1/32 - 1/64?

bug should have a lot of resistances, after all one of the most resistant creatures on earth are cockroaches

by d_what Tue Jul 29, 2014 2:29 pm

Ice > Fairy would be a terrible idea. Ice is a horrendous type to be weak to, but more to the point, it would completely invalidate people using Poison or Steel types to counter Fairies with their STAB moves when they could just slap on powerful Ice moves on to more overall reliable Pokemon. It'd be like Grass - sure, you CAN run Poison to take out grass types, but why bother when more reliable Pokemon exist?

I think I'd be okay with Ice resisting Flying. In my head, it's the wind attacking a snow cloud or a white mountain; the snow actually appreciates it. It's already SE, although flying is pretty balanced as is... But it will help stop fly spam a little.

Though not against Pinsir, Talonflame or Staraptor, who all have SE coverage moves, and are the three Pokemon that make up fly spam. On second thought, this was kind of an iffy change. But at least it's small, so yeah, I'm all for it. (Rotom-F for Bird Defeater)

Poison > SE Fairy makes sense if you go for the Disney idea of fairies, which Game Freak often do, I.e. lovers of nature and anti-corruption. In that regard it's odd to have no relation to the Grass type in their type chart, but rather than suggest a change there I think we should leave that as-is and let Game Freak work it out for themselves. Unlike most of the changes we're suggesting, that one actually seems like something they'd do.

Stealth-Rock themed hail would only exacerbate weaknesses that Hail teams already have to deal with, particularly Steels. One idea I heard to support the defensive aspect is that in hail, all non-Ice moves are decreased 10%. Seems both too strong and too weak, but I kinda like it. It's two-sided as well, since Ice type mon coverage moves would also get nerfed. We can't do anything about Ice type speed (in my head, speed for ice types represents a lack of friction; ice is slippy and liable to move suddenly), since a lack of bulk means they won't get the chance to use, say, an ice type Agility. And Ice-type Chlorophyll still won't be good and will get limited distribution.

by OverlordJ Tue Jul 29, 2014 2:37 pm

Alright, I'm gonna give my two cents

As Offense:

I have to go buy food now, I might type the rest later.

Also, for Fairies, you could argue that they are weak to ice because Fairies are killed by COLD iron

EDIT: Just to be clear, I am not saying Ice > Fairy is a good idea, just that that argument could be used

by d_what Tue Jul 29, 2014 3:57 pm

Aegislash's voting is up, and the reqs are closed... the 60% is the only thing throwing it off for me. It's really subjective but I think the pro-bans have the marginally better argument. The last person to post had a good way of putting it:

"Right now Gliscor is A rank because it can stop Aegislash just like Mega Venusaur was S rank when Genesect and Mega Lucario were roaming around. The presence of broken threats in OU causes their counters to be considered more viable than they actually are. Like Genesect, Aegislash is a crutch to lean on to check a ton of threats and substitute for good teambuilding. Understandably, there are a lot of people who don't want to lose this crutch because teambuilding becomes much more difficult without it, so they try to put a square peg in a round hole by hyping up Aegislash's checks and counters and making it look easy to stop. Ultimately, though, the opportunity cost for running a counter to Aegislash is much higher than the opportunity cost of running Aegislash, and that makes it broken just like every other Uber." though I'd object a little about the last line... Aegislash isn't broken LIKE every other Uber. It's another case entirely. Landmark, really.

With any luck ORAS will introduce something that makes our favourite little sword a tad less effective., and it can be retested (though the best argument, I feel, for the anti-ban crowds is that things are very rarely retested and Aegislash is such a borderline case that it's better to keep it for a while longer.)
On the other hand, I haven't trained one yet, and now I don't have to, woooh for me?

EDIT: God I hate it when I find reasons to argue with myself. Gonna post quotes that do that for me, starting with the one above and continuing below:

Spoiler:

by OverlordJ Tue Jul 29, 2014 4:20 pm

The answer is simple, switch to MtG and complain that Blue is too strong. It's true and there is pretty much nothing that can be done about it. Have I told you how much I love Blue? ;P

by Captain Tue Jul 29, 2014 4:54 pm

Tbh, the only fairies that are *OP* are Azumarill and Clefable. Especially Clefable. Oh god I hate Clefable. One Cosmic Power and you're screwed. Or at least I am anyway. Got nothing to counter it but Gunk Shot, Poison Jab on my Scrafty (Clefable's quicker tho I think so lolmoonblastohko) and Taunt on my Aerodactyl. So idk, I think Fairies aren't too bad to face.

Ghost types on the hand, ho boy. Ghost types are the new Dragon type in terms of OP imo. They are only SE hit by Dark and themselves, similar to Dragon with Ice and itself. Granted, Ghosts don't have the same level of resistances and defensive power, but they make up for it in support. Ghosts are support scumbags and they will throw stuff at you to cripple you utterly. Any non Fire-non Guts Physical attacker is completely fucked with Will-o-wisp being a thing that exists. That's the main reason why Ghosts are terrible, but they do plenty of other scummy things just to piss you off.

So I have an idea. To try and Curb Ghosts' commonness, I suggest these changes.

Fairy resists Dark (Not a change)
Fairy is Super-effective against Ghost.
Fairy hits Dark types for neutral damage.

It makes Scrafty not totally crippled, means that Sableye and Spiritomb still have a weakness, whilst still not removing the minor debuff to Dark's offensive presence needed since its buff against Steel is a thing.

I also like the idea of Grass resisting Fairy, maybe that would debuff Fairy sufficiently.

Poison being SE vs Water is an excellent idea.

Removing Steel's resistance to Psychic could work? Maybe?

by OverlordJ Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:14 pm

No, Fairy hitting Dark for Neutral would make Dark too good and would further cripple Psychic types, who were happy to finally get coverage against Dark types, besides some Bug move tutors and a Fighting move with 70% accuracy, which is bad for anything that doesn't have the bulk to take some hits. And Dark is a pretty decent defensive type, only wak to Fighting and Bug without Fairy.

Also, if the problem with Ghosts is them getting mean support, would an added weakness really stop them? Plus, aren't we saying Fairies are too strong? Wouldn't them being a counter for "the new dragon type" make them even stronger? (Also, calling Ghosts the new Dragon type seems just wrong to me, the reason Dragons were so strong was that they had great stats, a pretty defensive typing, strong moves and plenty of coverage, the thing that is giving them trouble now is that their STAB nolonger has awesome neutral coverage and in fact, someone being now immune to it, that lots of mons get access to Fairy type attacks that were previously useless against Dragons and that Fairies have no exploitable weakness for Dragons.)

by d_what Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:19 pm

Nah, removing any more steel resistances is only gonna cause more collateral; check out what happened to Metagross and ESPECIALLY Jirachi. My my how the mighty have fallen. (S rank in DPPt, and 5th gen, struggling in UU now.) I prefer the idea that instead of bringing Steel down, we bring other thing up. Fairy being SE against Ghost probably qualifies as bringing Fairy Up more than it brings Ghost down, though (Ghost is already not a great defensive typing, it's its offenses you have to watch - Ghost hitting itself SE is an example of this). Resistances for many types mean more than their weaknesses; Steel AND Dragon are examples of this. Ghost doesn't really have Dragon's defensive benefits (lol Normal immunity who cares). Sableye is a great example of a Support ghost, and it does it's job very well, but it's not a problem like the others since it isn't spamming unresisted Shadow Balls.

Dark is currently a really well balanced type now, it doesn't like the new weakness, but the lack of a Steel resistance actually more than made up for it, solidifying it as a type better suited to offensive support than defensive. (The Ghost thing plays into this. There are next to no Dark types that can reliably switch into Ghost types.) IMO Scrafty should just accept it's losses and move on this gen; a 4x weakness to things happens sometimes, but that's not where it loses out - it loses out because the type it's now weak to is the strongest objective type that exists. If it wasn't for the fact that there's hardly any fairies we'd be in BIG trouble, and even then most of them perform admirably, to the point that nowadays, when suggesting type changes, it's commonly accepted that throwing on the Fairy type (preferably replacing Psychic with it) will make it uniformly better. Except for maybe Steel, that doesn't really happen with any other type. Should Fairies fall a little, which I hope they will (consider: We don't have a Fire/Fairy, a Grass/Fairy, an Ice/Fairy, a Dark/Fairy (inevitable and very scary with the right stats) a Ghost/Fairy, a Dragon/Fairy, a Poison/Fairy, a Fighting/Fairy... all of these things are gonna happen and all of them will get a new niche. And most of them, based on the ones we've got already, will be viable. Fairy Overload), then Scrafty will improve regardless of that 4x. Perhaps it'll get Parting Shot! If I were you I'd cross my fingers for tutors.

Nobody ever cares about Normal. Guys, in OU, nobody runs Normal that isn't running Aerilate or Pixilate. And the only Normal type worth running is Chansey, or maybe Staraptor WITH Talonflame support, and that's down to it's Fighting coverage, stats, and STAB Brave Bird, not because of its powerful Returns. Normal stinks, and that's a shame because as Clefable showed us, Normal types have the ability to shine once they get over their typing.

by OverlordJ Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:49 pm

While noone is running it in OU, that doesn't mean noone cares about it. I care about it. Not enough to use it, mind you, but enough not to want the fact that Ghosts are immune to it to change. But yeah, as I though, giving Ghosts a weakness to Fairy won't stop Ghosts but it'll make Fairies better. It doesn't solve one problem and it makes another one worse. By the way, I fully support Grass resisting Fairy.

EDIT: What about making Steel resist Ghost again but nolonger resist Psychic instead. It would arguably give a boost to Dark (Since it would mean Dark moves are even better compared to Ghost now), but it'd give a big boost to Psychic AND would help Metagross, since not doubly resisting Psychic isn't nearly as bad as being hit super effectivly by Ghosts

by **Hanky Panky** Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:55 pm

OverlordJ wrote:Yeah, I am totally getting Mimeoplasm if I am playing B/U/G, if I'm only playing two colours I'll use Kraj, because I can pull some really fun infinite combos.

I'll look through your card suggestions to see which of those I have/can get and then decide. For now I plan to buy Devour for Power andthen I'll test whether B/U/G or U/G fits my style better.

In case you want to know the combo:

so, i basically suggested all of the things that you have with your kraj combo. i think you ought to run BUG reanimator, honestly. it seems like it would flow better. you'd have access to both simic and golgari stuff AND dimir if you really wanted to get into that.

also @pD: it makes me sad that you didn't play during the broken mirrodin block.

w/r artifacts doesn't seem like a very good deck for 2012-ish.

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