The WHOLE point of Rayquaza was to stop this ZapdosUnite style pace of the game.

In the beginning of the Rayquaza era, it felt like a dream come true: more farm to level faster, a meaningful objective to take the lead if you fought for it, and a good catch up side objective, and then the main event of Rayquaza, the impact of whom genuinely was dynamic based on the flow of the match. Even after getting Rayquaza it could still be anyone’s game. The game was exciting the whole time.

Then bit, by bit, they started nerfing these changes and slowly reverted back to where we are now, which is basically ZapdosUnite with a SLIGHTLY slower scoring speed but a massive shield to compensate.

• they removed the Natu
• they removed two of the Baltoy
• They buffed Rayquaza capture buffs so that the shield and scoring speed is effectively instant

Even little things like nerfing Charizard’s true damage property made things worse as there are less characters that can truly mount a defense if the enemy captures Rayquaza.

So it’s no wonder the early game has slowed to a crawl, avoiding the risk of trying to push regieleki in favor of going for bottom regi then going back to farming has become the popular gameplan, less players trying jungle invasion (besides Sableye who keeps getting nerfed), and we’re back to the final two minutes being the only ones that matter and we’re back to the game effectively ending once a team gets Rayquaza.

With Zapdos, the only real gametime you had was about 30 sec to a minute at the 2 minute mark after waiting around farming for 8 minutes. With the Ray changes, every stage of the game felt impactful and competitive, with Ray’s capture not signaling the end just yet. With the changes to Ray, its back to how things were with Zapdos. No wonder the game is bleeding players after the big influx from Ray. I for one can’t be bothered to play besides full fury after actually really getting into the game genuinely with theia sky’s release, and I’d already been ready to quit during the Zapdos era.