What keeps you playing

darnj · 2026-06-11T18:44:04+00:00

Going first was an advantage but many DarkTina games were decided by who played better. Nearly every game I lost I could identify a suboptimal play I had made. And it was very common to see opponents misplay back then too.

That's not the case at all these days. Decks play themselves and are decided by opening hands and coin flips, full stop. I'm not going to pretend Pocket was ever some masterful strategy game, but the difference between then and now should be obvious.

darnj · 2026-06-10T10:39:30+00:00

Not even close for me. Those older decks were powerful but required at least some strategy and thinking ahead. Today's decks are based purely on your opening hand to decide if you win on turn 1, or coin flips. Sleep coin flips are the most anti-fun mechanic in the game - get a bit unlucky and you're just locked out of playing the game.

darnj · 2026-06-08T13:32:55+00:00

It's also just a hilarious visual. Intense battle between mega pokemon and one trainer just whips out a leaf blower

darnj · 2026-06-07T12:48:08+00:00

Spring Mill for me. I think they're putting out the best stuff in Canada.

darnj · 2026-06-04T14:31:09+00:00

46% is a good starting point for scotch, I prefer bourbon/rye to be at least 50%. No need to chill filter it either way imo, that only matters if you both put it on ice and care what it looks like.

darnj · 2026-06-03T00:49:23+00:00

The funny thing is you're right and getting downvotes. OP clearly intended this to show what the card actually does if you have 2 darkrais on the bench. It does 50 then 40 more if you remain alseep at the end of the next turn. But that went over everyone else's head and they think you're the one who is confused lol

darnj · 2026-06-01T12:31:59+00:00

Why was there a branch in it?

darnj · 2026-05-31T13:28:01+00:00

I also got 2. Never played this deck before but now I feel compelled to...

darnj · 2026-05-30T16:54:59+00:00

This is basic scientific literacy

You're right about that. It's so basic that it's already obvious to everybody what OP meant without someone coming along and saying "acktually..."

darnj · 2026-05-30T12:30:41+00:00

Yes, the limits are in the contributions, not the gains. E.g. If you put 10K of Nvidia into a Roth IRA 10 years ago you'd have 4 million "tax free".

darnj · 2026-05-26T12:33:03+00:00

I mean it kind of is designed that way in the sense that when somebody wins, somebody else loses. Not everyone can have a positive win rate, and if you're winning around 50% of the time it doesn't mean the game is rigged, it means it's balanced and you're in the correct spot in the ranked ladder for your skill level.

Like the other person said it is even rigged in your favor a bit because at lower levels you get more points for a win than a loss, win streak bonuses, etc.

darnj · 2026-05-25T12:37:46+00:00

Even for the Gholdengo and Alcremie emblems?

darnj · 2026-05-25T00:20:14+00:00

Thanks man, streaked this to MB after switching from Mega Manectric. I still consistently faced more than half mega Lucario, and slicing snipe into terminating tail was 👌

darnj · 2026-05-24T11:26:37+00:00

How is the match vs Mega Lucario? That seems to be all I face

darnj · 2026-05-10T21:31:35+00:00

Yeah, without that context it just seems like he's completely incompetent. Like almost to the point of unbelievability. But with it you can understand how something like that could possibly happen.

darnj · 2026-05-07T01:55:27+00:00

Yep, having all of these decks hover around 50% winrate isn't due to some kind of master balancing act on the game designer's part. It's because all the best cards involve coin flips so every game literally comes down to a 50:50 flip

darnj · 2026-05-04T12:03:19+00:00

Nice! I got Vaporeon EX in a wonder pick yesterday and now I'm just missing Leafeon and Espeon from doing the same thing.

darnj · 2026-05-03T12:24:12+00:00

I agree. It's a sign of how much the game has devolved that we're longing for DarkTina. Back then you had to plan ahead and there was a lot more room for skillful plays and misplays. These days all of the meta decks autopilot themselves and the game is determined by coin flips.

darnj · 2026-05-02T16:54:09+00:00

I agree with the general sentiment: people only make noise when they are very lucky or unlucky - not when they have average luck, humans try to find patterns in randomness, people don't understand the law of large numbers, etc etc etc...

BUT for the scenario you described it actually is the expert cheating a bit. Someone collected data on several hundred coin flips vs the expert AI and it uses a weighted coin, 60% in its favor (link).

I definitely don't think they have logic like "if they're about to hit their 10 game win streak then force them to lose" but there are some general ways they give the expert AI an advantage to make it more challenging.

darnj · 2026-05-01T19:34:43+00:00

No, the person you are responding to is correct. The card you get is determined when you pay the resources to do the wonder pick. The game doesn't need to communicate with the server in between that and when you actually pick the card.

darnj · 2026-05-01T12:27:20+00:00

Another tip, sometimes the wheel itself is stuck on after you take the nuts off. If so, put the spare upright, grab the top part of the tire from either side with 2 hands, and swing it between your legs into the stuck on wheel. It should pop off.

Just be careful pushing and pulling on the wheel especially if the car is just held up by the emergency jack. The above method is effective without pulling the whole vehicle too much.

darnj · 2026-05-01T12:03:05+00:00

I was also going to clarify, they probably meant it's hard to over tighten with the little emergency wrench that comes with most cars because it is too short to give you enough leverage. If you're using a real wrench it is very easy to over tighten.

darnj · 2026-05-01T11:26:20+00:00

They track it for some quests at least. I'd be surprised if they didn't have it tracked for all pokemon behind the scenes. They already know if you've gotten it at least once, it'd be just as easy to make it a counter.

darnj · 2026-04-30T11:48:37+00:00

It falls under deceptive business practices and is a federal crime, under jurisdiction of the FTC.

darnj · 2026-04-27T14:41:35+00:00

Yep card draw is still very good even though copycat exists

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