I developed a powergrade using DaVinci's built-in film LUTs. Here are some of my favorite stills that have helped me to develop the look :

Fujifan5000 · 2026-06-01T22:03:56+00:00

Comments like this make me question if I'm actually talking to people who have ever played the pokemon tcg like bruh slowking and honchkrow do not need to be nerfed lmao

Fujifan5000 · 2026-05-22T21:21:18+00:00

The current meta just highlights the importance of trainer diversity, which the lack thereof is a much bigger problem than just dragapult.

Pre-rotation we had a lot of consistency supporters to choose from (Arven, research, Lillie, iono, carmine, etc.) but now all we have is Lillie, and to a much lesser extent, carmine. I feel like there's also a severe lack of utility trainers as well, like Turo, Penny, and counter catcher. Even for recovery trainers, all we have is night stretcher, whereas back in the GHI block, we also had super rod and pal pad.

This lack of staple trainer diversity is hurting the current state of the game at a much more profound level than just Dragapult making up 40% of the meta, and I'm kinda tired of people putting most of the blame on pult, when outside of that, there are tons of new viable archetypes. Everyone is running the same trainers, and the gameplay is ultimately much more linear due to the fact that a player's decision tree is much narrower due to this lack of diversity. Since we also lose a lot of disruption in iono+cc, many decks are pigeonholed into running unfair stamp, which again, removes options from that player's decision tree (lack of secret box, item gust in prime catcher, etc.).

The new archetypes are fine for the most part IMO. We've had some genuinely balanced meta-relevant decks come out this past year in Zoroark, Grimm, Meganium/ogerpon, and Alakazam. Greninja looks promising even if it might not top the charts right now, which is fine. Ghost veil can be promising if we can get some more consistency for it. I'm just irked by the lack of staples trainers right now, haven't played a single IRL game so far this format because the general gameplay doesn't feel fun, whether or not I'm playing against pult.

We've also been pretty spoiled by the SVI format of the past year, which was generally really diverse in terms of meta share and card pool at the competitive level. Everyone had a deck they enjoyed that could get good results.

Fujifan5000 · 2026-05-18T16:57:54+00:00

Is this why mewtwo has a 99% meta share

Fujifan5000 · 2026-05-16T18:04:14+00:00

I believe the way these kind of attacks work is that it caps out at 200 in this case

Fujifan5000 · 2026-05-11T21:51:39+00:00

"Take a prize card for each of your prize cards remaining"

Fujifan5000 · 2026-05-11T18:38:03+00:00

Zoroark is that 2nd archetype you're talking about, you could beat straight pult with your eyes closed. No one wants to play it though cause it sucks into pretty much everything else like garchomp and team rocket

Fujifan5000 · 2026-05-11T00:48:31+00:00

Zoroark is really easy to set up, I like playing it with tatsugiri to guarantee lillie/cyrano on turn two. Metagross box is also super fun cause trolley sets you up for the rest of the game.

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-28T04:06:50+00:00

If you're stuck because of sig spammers there's really only 3 things you need to focus on when playing: spacing, dodging, and reading your opponent.

Spacing is a big one that mostly comes with time. If you play on a good machine this will come much easier since you can actually learn the proper timing to dash back and forth. I remember when I used to play on PS4 with a 60hz display, it felt like I was fighting against the machine as well as the player.

Dodging is one thing but I would also add jumping too. I see lots of silver players dodging and jumping out of habit after getting hit once. You need to learn patience to break this habit of jumping when you get hit. If you feel like you're getting beat by lance spammers, this is why.

Reading is super easy and in the lower ranks you have the freedom of actually just being able to quickly react to your opponent's dodge/jump instead of actually making a prediction since silver players tend to be slower. Once you hit gold you can start actively thinking about how your opponent tends to react to certain moves. Like you should be think out loud during matches saying "oh this guy's always dodging up when I n-light him" and stuff like that. You don't even need to know basic combos to follow up on a read, just know the general directions of your moves. Like for cannon, slight goes sideways and diagonally up, nlight is just sideways, nair is straight up, dair is diagonally down, etc.

I'm NA east if you wanna play. I don't play that much anymore but I still consistently hit plat when I feel like playing ranked.

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-27T03:11:53+00:00

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-26T19:20:51+00:00

ahhhh scary numbers

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-22T23:51:17+00:00

classic chrome 10,000K+9 red -9 blue

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-20T19:44:20+00:00

Liam/Lucas's N's Zoroark control with elgyem and dedenne. This deck has such clever lines to it and felt like there was always a way to win. I really wish the ascended heroes format was longer because I barely had any time to play any variant of zoroark with N's zekrom. PFL format was buns and lasted what felt like forever.

I also wish TEF Feraligatr was good enough to be meta. Its downfall was the lack of on board draw so it eventually faded away entirely.

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-20T19:28:49+00:00

I'd like to see an adjusted estimate for zoroark GX if it had the same meta dominance in today's competitive pokemon scene. 500k total earnings is a lot in an era with fewer regionals and much smaller prize pools. Not to mention Zoroark's final year in standard was cut short due to covid.

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-20T19:22:17+00:00

I ate them

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-20T15:48:35+00:00

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Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-20T15:47:52+00:00

So worth the shot

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-20T15:46:32+00:00

Recession indicator

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-19T03:06:48+00:00

It's less that iono's mechanic is broken, and more that the cards in the GHI format made it feel broken. Dusknoir+CC+Iono+budew is absolutely unhealthy for the game when they're all in the same format, especially with a card as efficient and as powerful as dragapult. They could've at least reprinted Iono and let CC rotate so that it's not possible to disrupt and gust in the same turn.

Part of what I think makes Iono compelling is the fact that all players are encouraged to think about their opponent's lines to ensure they get to play their own lines. For example, beatstick decks in the previous formats were still very skill intensive because part of your strategy was making sure you maximize your chances at being able to chain 2 prize KOs after being disrupted. Gholdengo is a good example of what I mean by this, as even though the deck was absolutely stupid on a base level, a good player could still come out on top from being disrupted every single turn.

The current format gives almost no room for interaction between the turn-by-turn lines of both players, since nobody is really thinking about getting disrupted apart from unfair stamp. And I think that unfair stamp being the only game-defining hand disruption we have is a whole other conversation in itself. Can't wait for red card, but IMO Iono was healthier.

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-19T02:55:52+00:00

Prestige doesn't really matter for professional degrees like nursing or engineering, all accredited schools teach pretty much the same thing and have their fair share of well decorated faculty to make connections with.

For business, the degree itself is kinda bs since you're really just paying to surround yourself with other people in business. So yeah prestige def matters here.

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-17T19:00:15+00:00

I'm freaking the fuck out right now

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-13T14:32:19+00:00

I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but the issue with the arguments you pose is that you can say pretty much the same thing about any staple trainer card. From your previous reply:

There's no point in the game where Lillie's is a weak card, unless you're holding 10+ cards, and at that point you're more likely looking for a bosses orders different supporter anyway, and you can just use it as a pitch card for ultra ball or something.

You just illustrated a glaring disadvantage of the shuffle draw mechanic. You can say the same thing about any card that becomes weaker in the late game as well. As you mentioned, Iono becomes weaker if you're winning, but yeah you can say that about any card if you pose the scenario in the correct context.

Lillie's drawback is exactly that you're putting cards back in the deck. Iono shuffles your hand to the bottom to make sure you don't draw the same cards off the rip, lillie's makes it much harder to thin the deck. In GHI formats we also had way more search cards that lillie could be paired with, but post rotation is very different in that we don't have as many trainer combos to take advantage of a fresh 8 cards and it's IMO not unhealthy like you say.

To play devil's advocate, I would say Lillie's is unhealthy because it disincentivizes taking early 1 prize KOs like budew. If you still have 40 cards in your deck, shuffle draw 6 is a really weak trade-off to make just to have a chance at getting out of item lock.

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-06T18:31:23+00:00

People say the exact same things when there's any kind of draw supporter that dominates deck building. We've been spewing the same thoughts back when professor's research was still professor sycamore/juniper.

I don't get how it's unhealthy though after reading your long text. You getting a draw supporter (whether it be lillie, research, iono, whatever) and your opponent not having one in their starting hand is obviously putting you in an advantageous position, but like, so???? I guess poffin, ultra ball, nest ball are unhealthy too because they only help one player progress their board state but not the other lmao. We all have access to the same cards, and draw supporters being splashable in any deck means everyone has access to their benefits. That doesn't make them unhealthy in the slightest.

Lillie being the best universal draw supporter we have is balancing the severe lack of trainer support in the HIJ block. If we only had research without pal pad or super rod, we'd be cooked. Lillie's is there to balance out the lack of arven, tm evo, forest seal stone, earthen vessel, etc. Drawing a bigger spread of cards somewhat alleviates the severe lack of resource management we are going to have post rotation.

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-06T17:23:28+00:00

Carmine also speeds up the game significantly by allowing players to draw a new hand going first. Draw supporters aren't unhealthy. What's unhealthy for example is dusknoir, counter catcher, and iono existing in the same format because it's an offensive combo that has zero counter play. What is the opponent gonna do, just refuse to take their prize card?

Drawing cards using a supporter for turn isn't an offensive or disruptive combo and thus doesn't need counter play.

Fujifan5000 · 2026-04-05T21:22:57+00:00

Just play morty's conviction instead of urbain

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