When attacking is wrong: a Pokémon TCG design analysis

 One of the best plays in a game of Pokémon TCG I've ever seen live happened two weeks ago at the North American International Championships (NAIC) in New Orleans. Many of you already know what I'm talking about, since a certain portion of the community has discussed it at length already, but for anyone whose social media timeline has even slightly different obsessions than mine, here's a quick recap.

It's the second semi-finals. On one side of the stream table is Tord Reklev, a five-time International Champion, playing Dragapult ex, a deck with a built-in Pokémon-based draw engine, the kind of deck that Tord favors. His opponent is Riley McKay, a player with a good amount of Regional day 2 finishes in the last few years, but still looking for a breakout performance. It's anyone guess who will come out on top. On the one hand, Riley is playing Gardevoir ex, which has a favorable matchup against Tord's Dragapult. On the other hand, Tord is the best player of all time.⁽¹⁾

The match goes to game 3, and time is called during Riley's turn, with both players having taken one Prize card at this point. If you're unfamiliar with the rules, this means that Riley will play out his turn, then players will get three additional turns: turn 1 is Tord's, turn 2 is Riley's, and turn 3 is Tord's again. At this point, if one player has taken more Prizes than his opponent, he wins the game; otherwise, the game continues until someone takes a Prize.⁽²⁾

Riley takes two Prizes on his initial turn, and Tord retaliates by taking a KO on Riley's only Gardevoir ex on turn 1. (Riley didn't bench an extra Ralts, as it would likely be KO'd by Phantom Dive with the help of Hawlucha's Flying Entry.) It's now turn 2, and players are tied at three Prizes remaining each. With no Energy acceleration left, Riley can't power up a new attacker, but he still has his Active Lillie's Clefairy ex that can KO Tord's Dragapult ex, taking two of his three remaining Prizes. With Bravery Charm, even if Tord gets another Dragapult ex in play, the 200 damage from Phantom Dive won't be enough to take the KO, and if Tord can't take a KO on the next turn (turn 3), Riley wins the game.
So Riley plays Iono to put Tord at three cards in hand. Then... he passes his turn.

The pass that confused a thousand Twitch chatters.

To reiterate: instead of taking a two Prize lead, removing Tord's main attacker, and forcing him to answer with a two-Prize KO of his own, Riley simply passes. It's now turn 3, and if Tor
d can take a KO here, he gets the Prize lead, which wins the game on the spot. Was this the throw of the century?
Of course not. Riley recognized that even if he took a KO this turn, if his Clefairy was KO'd on the next turn, he would lose anyway. Both players would have one Prize remaining but, with no Gardevoir ex to power up a new attacker, and no Counter Catcher to try to take a KO on Drakloak with Munkidori, Riley would simply have no way to take that last Prize, and Tord would win the next turn. On the other hand, if his Clefairy survived just one more turn, both players would still be tied in Prizes after the three extra turns. Then, Riley could simply take a KO with Clefairy, giving him the lead and, by the rules, the win.
While he could have KO'd Dragapult ex to force Tord to find another attacker, that would have had two major downsides. First, Tord could have used Fezandipiti ex's Flip the Script to draw more cards. Second, if Riley took a KO, Tord could now attack with Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex, which would KO Clefairy through Bravery Charm.
"Was this the right choice?" Riley asked Tord as the latter was thinking through his turn. It was. Tord could now win with a simple Boss's Orders, but he had already played one earlier, and discarded two more the previous turn. With only two Recon Directive as draw power, and the only other card that could give him the win (Jamming Tower) on the bottom of his deck due to Riley's Iono, he was unable to find the last Boss's Orders or his single copy of Jamming Tower. On the next turn, Riley took a KO, sealing the game.

What made this play so good? Mostly, the circumstances. If you've never played on stream, you might not realize it, but the white noise that's played in the headset to prevent players from hearing the crowd and casters can be distracting. The pressure of playing in front of an audience of thousands, the fatigue from playing seven rounds before this one on the same day (and nine the day before), and the potential intimidation from playing against the best player in the world also make it harder to find the optimal play.
But also, and I think this is crucial: passing the turn instead of attacking is a cool play, for the same reason that, say, sacrificing a piece in chess is cool: it's counter-intuitive. TCGs are not the most exciting games to watch, but I'm convinced that any spectator, even one who knows nothing beyond the basics of the game, would be intrigued by someone passing their turn at such a crucial turn. You win by taking Prizes, right? So choosing to not take a Prize instead of taking one, when there's only one turn remaining, seems absurd at first glance. So there must be something more going on, so you dig into it, and when you understand the subtleties at play, you come away with a better appreciation for the game. There's no better way to get someone with only passing knowledge of the game to want to learn more about it.
I believe this, because I have only passing knowledge of VGC, but I also find it exciting when a player uses a side attack (when a Pokémon attacks their partner instead of the opponent). It's the exact same logic: it's counter-intuitive, so I want to understand why a player would choose to do so, which usually reveals a chain of thought I didn't consider.

But while Riley's pass was a great move and a highlight of this tournament, it's also a direct result of the way the game has been designed ever since the start of the Scarlet & Violet era. The designers at Creatures have, slowly but surely, and (in my opinion) very deliberately, engineered a format in which these kinds of plays can happen, and they deserve credit for it.

⁽¹⁾ Part of the community disagrees and still ranks Jason Klaczynski above him, I know, but this is my blog, so I can write my own opinion.

⁽²⁾ It's technically a bit more complicated, but for the purpose of this game, it's all that matters.

How to make a game good

For long portions of the game's history, especially since Black & White, there were few downsides to taking Prizes. This meant most games were races. At first glance, this is fine. After all, if the goal of the game is to take six Prize cards, then it's only logical that taking Prize cards should be a good thing. That makes it simple for new players, which is usually better.
And yet, if you make a game too simple, then it becomes boring. A good TCG must give players ways to outplay each other, so that the better player (usually) wins. And in order for players to outplay each other, there must be decisions that the players have to make. Some of these decisions are made during the deckbuilding process (from "what deck should I play" to "should I play the fourth copy of card X for more consistency, or include card Y to tech against deck Z"), others happen during gameplay ("what should I search with my Ultra Ball", "where should I attach this Energy card", "do I KO my opponent's Active Pokémon or play a Boss's Orders"). It stands to reason that when games last more turns, players have more decisions to make, and therefore good players are more likely to win by making better plays than their opponents. I think there's a plateau to this: clearly, we don't want games taking ages either, and the equation is more complicated than "more turns = better games". Nevertheless, it's important that games don't end too fast.

Older players may remember the Mewtwo-EX wars of 2012, in which players would usually use Mewtwo-EX to KO their opponent's Mewtwo-EX, which would then use another Mewtwo-EX to KO it back, and so on. This era of the game gained a particularly bad reputation because simply using a two-Prizer to OHKO the opponent's two-Prizer, rince and repeat until one players has taken all their Prizes, gets stale very fast. 

Conversely, when Pokémon don't OHKO each other (or at least not easily), there are more decisions to make. You get to decide whether to keep your damaged Pokémon Active, or retreat to protect it, or play something like Professor Turo's Scenario to heal it. Or, on the other side of the board, you get to choose whether you should finish off a damaged Pokémon or attack something else. Games also last longer since players don't draw Prize cards every turn, so in general, there are more decisions, and the game is more fun.
Riley passing his turn, rather than attacking, at a critical moment in a critical game, is an extension of this idea. The decision becomes not only which Pokémon to attack with, or which opposing Pokémon to attack with (both questions that any Gardevoir player must regularly ponder), but also whether or not to attack at all; a meta-decision, if you will. This kind of decision is becoming more common in the Scarlet & Violet era, and I strongly believe that this is an excellent thing for the game. It pushes the skill ceiling higher, which means that players have more to learn, so we want to play more to become better. And, as we've seen, it leads to iconic plays that enrich the game.

Game design in the Scarlet & Violet era

When the first cards for Scarlet & Violet got announced at Worlds 2022, there was an explanation that the block would focus on comeback mechanics. I didn't think much of it at the time: sure, this was great in theory, but they also talked about "evolution" being an important part of the Sword & Shield block in 2019, and that didn't amount to anything. However, over the past two years, we've seen many cards be released that do help the losing player make a comeback. Cards like Defiance Band and Reversal Energy, which only do something if you are behind in the Prize race, are an obvious way to make this happen, of course, but a card can be designed to do something and still not have a noticeable impact on the game. It wasn't until I stopped and thought about Riley's pass that I realized how much the game rewards players for thinking twice before taking a Prize card, and how deliberate this was on the game designers' part.

As I described earlier, the best play for Riley was passing his turn, because he was playing around Fezandipiti ex and Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex. Fezandipiti ex wasn't always seen as a card that would encourage comebacks. In fact, it's often played in aggressive decks like Raging Bolt ex or (before rotation) Regidrago VSTAR, because it helps the player who's ahead keep their advantage by making them more resilient against Iono. However, many slower decks, like Gardevoir ex, Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex and Dragapult ex can actually play around Fezandipiti ex by not taking direct KOs, but setting up for a multi-Prize turn using Munkidori⁽³⁾ or Phantom Dive. In an aggro vs stage 2 matchup, the stage 2 deck's Fezandipiti ex will draw cards and help them stabilize, while the aggro deck's Fezandipiti ex will be much less useful because the stage 2 decks will not be trading KOs the same way. So, all in all, Fezandipiti ex ends up favoring the slower player, facilitating comebacks.

Some spectators have suggested that Tord could have won that game against Riley if, on his first extra turn, he had taken the KO, not on Riley's Gardevoir ex, but on his Munkidori (also putting six damage counters on Tord's Gardevoir ex, putting it range of Phantom Dive on the next turn). He would have taken one fewer Prize on that turn, but that would actually have been a benefit. This is because he would have been able to play Counter Catcher on the third extra turn. So even if Riley had taken two more Prizes afterwards, putting a one-Prize Pokémon Active, Tord would have more easily been able to get a four-Prize turn afterwards, taking back the lead and giving him the win. It's not the same as passing, but taking fewer Prizes and staying behind on Prizes, in this scenario, would be an advantage. Ever since Counter Catcher's release, similar situations have occurred. In the Gardevoir mirror match, for example, there's always been this strange notion that you want to be slightly behind for most of the game, so that you can use Counter Catcher, but not your opponent. Having to find the right equilibrium of where to be relative to your opponent, and when to take back the lead, is so much more interesting than simply trying to take more Prizes, faster, all the time.

I could mention other cards that make players think twice before taking Prizes. Charizard ex is an excellent example, emblematic of the Scarlet & Violet era: its attack becomes stronger the more the opponent has taken Prizes, so an excellent way to limit its effectiveness is to not take Prizes, or at least, not too fast. Back when Charizard ex was first released, one of the best decks around was Giratina VSTAR, and that deck would deliberately choose to 2HKO Charizard ex rather than OHKO it in the early game, saving Giratina's VSTAR Power, Star Requiem, for the late game, when Charizard was a bigger threat.
But making a good metagame isn't achieved simply by printing cards that are better the more remaining Prize cards you have (or the fewer the opponent has). Many other cards were necessary to reach this goal, including a unique, iconic Pokémon. Generational, as the kids say.⁽⁴⁾

 ⁽³⁾ Munkidori is a fascinating card. It seems that every couple of months, players discover it's even better than previously thought. It's a card that helps to not take Prizes and to play from behind, but outside of a Gardevoir deck, it's only used to help against other Munkidori decks. I'm sure someone could write a whole essay about Munkidori's role in the metagame, but not me, or at least, not today.

⁽⁴⁾ I had the pleasure of playing against Ray Chen at NAIC who, at some point, said something was "generational, as the kids say". I asked if the kids really say that. They said yes. Since then, I've started to notice this adjective being used a lot more than I thought. The moral of the story is that I'm old and out of touch (and also French).

Praise for Budew

2021 may have been one of the worst years ever for the Pokémon TCG. The formats, especially after rotation, when every deck was a VMAX deck trying to 2HKO other Pokémon VMAX and OHKO non-VMAX Pokémon, were boring, and I'm almost thankful that we were still in lockdown, so I didn't have to travel to play this bad of a format in a competitive environment. Online tournaments on Play Limitless were the community's lifeblood at the time, and carried the game for two years. Still, the format was so boring to me that for months, I almost completely stopped playing in online Standard tournaments. Instead, I focused on Expanded. While Standard was simply huge Pokémon trading blows all the time, Expanded had more variety, and more cool plays. I've written at length about how playing this format, at that time, saved my enjoyment of the TCG, because the games I was playing were simply more skillful. One strong aspect of this was how important non-offensive attacks were. I would often play Shadow Rider VMAX against Regidrago VSTAR, and this matchup couldn't be won by just hitting hard. Instead, the path to victory required using utility attacks like Shadow Rider Calyrex V's Shadow Mist and Girafarig's Get Lost. Using a non-damaging attack in the middle of the game (and not just for setting up), to me, is a close relative to passing the turn instead of attacking. It might not be as shocking, but the game is still so much richer when there are plays to consider, at any point in the game, beyond simply dealing as much damage as possible.

In the current format, the main utility attack is Budew's Itchy Pollen. Some people have complained about this card ever since it was announced, comparing it to Seismitoad-EX's Quaking Punch. I think that betrays a misunderstanding of the two cards's different roles. Seismitoad-EX, backed by the plethora of strong Item cards of the XY era, could maintain its Item lock throughout the game, while preventing the opponent from attacking, by discarding their Energy and putting their Pokémon to sleep. Budew has 30 HP and the damage it deals is negligible: it only matters in the context of Budew vs Budew wars, and it's even often a downside, as its damage can be bounced back to it by an opponent's Munkidori. One does not play Budew to maintain Item lock throughout the game, but to buy time. Preventing the opponent from using Rare Candy on turn 2 is very strong and can let a slower deck survive while it sets up; on the other hand, that comes at the cost of an easy Prize, especially against Munkidori decks that will be able to take a KO without wasting an attack on it.
Using Budew might look easy, but it's more subtle than you'd expect. You're using a very vulnerable Pokémon to buy time, or in other words, sacrificing a Prize card for an advantage that might not be as simple to describe: it might be "making sure that my opponent can't Rare Candy into Dusknoir next turn", or "increasing the odds that my Benched Drakloak survives the next turn". And that trade is not always worth it, as evidenced by the fact that, ever since Prismatic Evolutions' release, Gardevoir players have been divided on whether or not to include Budew in their list.
Earlier this year, at EUIC, I misplayed on stream against Natalie Millar. Her set up was weak, so I tried to take advantage of it by attacking quickly with Gardevoir ex. This led to me having damage counters on my board that she managed to take advantage of. If I had waited one more turn to set up, using Budew to buy one more turn, I would have healed the damage that remained on my board because of Gardevoir's Psychic Embrace, and resisted Natalie's subsequent attacks better. That was back when Budew had just been released; I think that nowadays, most players are familiar with this kind of situation. If you break the lock too early, even if it's to take a KO, you might expose yourself to comeback cards, such as Fezandipiti ex and Unfair Stamp. In Dragapult mirror matches, when two players are using Budew to set up, it's usually incorrect to take the first KO, unless you can play Boss's Orders to KO a Drakloak or some other important target. This might seem obvious now, but the Pokémon TCG hasn't always favored this kind of thinking: in many metagames, players would have been right to take a KO as soon as they can.

Budew is emblematic of how the game is now designed to make games longer and require more decisions from players, including the decision of whether or not to attack. Yes, Budew vs Budew situations are boring to watch, but they're always temporary (I believe that the designers made Budew deal damage, in addition to its Item lock effect, for precisely this reason). They're the calm before the storm, and I think it's cool that (in many matchups) players get a few turns to set up and prepare for the Prize trade before it happens. I can't overstate how much I think that Budew helps the format. If I had to pick a single card to represent the Scarlet & Violet design philosophy, I'd probably pick it! But there's one last comparison I'd like to make to hammer my point home.

A Tale of two Zoroark

Zoroark-GX is one of the most important cards in the history of the Pokémon TCG. The perfect example of the "universal attack + consistency Ability" combination that can make a Pokémon so dominant (think Arceus VSTAR), Zoroark-GX dominated the game from the moment it was released. The card wasn't so broken that nothing else was playable; in fact, Zoroark-GX couldn't OHKO any important target in the format, and many other decks tried to take advantage of this weakness by using Pokémon with stronger attacks, that would get favorable Prize trades. Nevertheless, good players gravitated towards Zoroark, because thanks to Trade, they could draw plenty of cards, allowing them to achieve their game plan. And Zoroark-GX could beat anything if it got to achieve its game plan. Counters existed, but even when a Basic Pokémon appeared that could OHKO Zoroark-GX for one Basic Energy while being out of range of Riotous Beating damage⁽⁵⁾, Zoroark still found ways to triumph over it. It's notable that Zoroark-GX was not alone: throughout its run in Standard, it was played with a variety of partners (Golisopod-GX, Lycanroc-GX, Garbodor, Lucario-GX, Weavile, Decidueye-GX...) which could shore up its bad matchups. Riotous Beating only required a Double Colorless Energy, so the deck could run other types of Energy for Zoroark's partners. While there were players that complained about Zoroark-GX, I think the player base, in general, recognises it as a benefit to the game, a symbol of a time when pure damage was not as important as drawing cards so you could play utility Supporters like Acerola.

When N's Zoroark ex got announced at the closing ceremony of Worlds 2024, the player base was overhyped. A Zoroark with Trade? The parallels were obvious. N's Zoroark ex might not have Riotous Beating for a Double Colorless Energy, but it could copy attacks from any of N's Pokémon! At the time, we didn't know what these Pokémon would do (besides N's Reshiram), but the possibilities were endless. Of course, it turned out that most of N's Pokémon are not very good. Joltik is too situational, Sigilyph even more so, Purrloin is interesting in theory but its disruption is not strong enough, and Klinklang is a joke. Only Darmanitan has found success, but now that Shaymin has been released, that success is threatened. All in all, if N's Zoroark ex was supposed to be a toolbox deck, it failed.

However, and I'm ashamed to say that it's taken me months to understand this, I don't think that N's Zoroark ex was supposed to be a toolbox deck. The only partner that Zoroark needs is the first one that was revealed, Reshiram. With a N's Reshiram in play, N's Zoroark ex is a bulky Pokémon that can copy Virtuous Flame to 2HKO (almost) everything in the format. This is exactly the same as Zoroark-GX using Righteous Beating to 2HKO (almost) everything in the Sun & Moon era, just with the numbers adjusted for power creep. Darmanitan is an expansion pack that doesn't suit the meta anymore. In fact, all other N's Pokémon (except Klinklang, which is terrible) are techs, which could be included if you want to cover a specific situation, but which you probably shouldn't. The only partner that Zoroark *needs* is Reshiram, the one that turns it into Zoroark-GX.

And so I can't help but compare these two very similar cards from a design perspective. Zoroark-GX was easier to use alongside other Pokémon, because its attack required only a Double Colorless Energy, which would leave space for other Energy cards. The secondary attackers it would partner with, such as Lycanroc-GX, could be used to patch Zoroark-ex's weakness, notably by being able to OHKO key opponents.
N's Zoroark ex can also be powered up in one turn, thanks to N's PP Up, but that's not as easy: you need to find an Item card, in addition to an Energy. Also, it requires Dark Energy, so its partners are more limited. N's Zoroark ex is commonly seen with Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex, which has a higher damage cap and can KO targets that Zoroark can't, but it does so only in the late game, when the opponent has taken four or five Prize cards. What Zoroark does have, on the other hand, is Reshiram's other attack, Powerful Rage. Since N's Reshiram is always in play, Zoroark always has access to this attack.

Because of Powerful Rage and Ursaluna, N's Zoroark ex, on the other hand is more defensively minded than its predecessor. It's less aggressive by itself, but it has stronger tools in theory, that the opponent must play around. When facing N's Zoroark ex, you might realise that sometimes, it's better not to attack, because if you were to deal damage, you would get punished by Powerful Rage (and/or Munkidori). This might lead you to take a longer route to victory, to consider carefully your Prize map, maybe looking to first use Boss's Orders to get KOs on other targets. This, to me, is what makes a card's design truly great: when it forces the opponent to think twice about doing what they want to be doing, promoting thoughtful play from both players.
Zoroark-GX and N's Zoroark ex have similar designs, and Trade is a skill-testing Ability that rewards players for thinking ahead (to succeed with Zoroark, you need to think about your long-term plan, or you might a discard a card then realise three turns later that you can't win without it). But N's Zoroark ex forces not only its own player to think ahead, but also the opponent. The card designers took a legendary card that made the Sun & Moon era great, and adapted it for the current format by making it even more skill-testing. And they did so in a way that perfectly fits the "Owner's Pokémon" mechanic from Journey Together. Reshiram's Powerful Rage is even evocative of the Outrage attack that already featured on the Pokémon's two most iconic cards (the original Reshiram from Black & White, and the format-defining Reshiram & Charizard-GX)!

This, to me, is a shining example of the good design choices of the Scarlet & Violet era. It's why I think it will be remembered as a golden age of the Pokémon TCG.

⁽⁵⁾ Buzzwole FLI, for anyone wondering.

A balanced game

You might be afraid that with all of this complexity at play, the game would be more interesting at the highest level of play, but too complicated for newcomers. But that's not the case! I didn't mention them because that's not my focus, but aggressive decks are still around. Raging Bolt ex is one of the best decks in the game, and it's an aggressive deck that OHKOs its opponents and takes the Prize lead in most situations. It's not easy to master, but it's easy enough to play that a kid can pick it up and win games with it, without having to commit to the complicated mind games of, say, a Gardevoir vs Dragapult matchup.

That's perhaps the ultimate success of this era of the TCG: creating a game simple enough that anyone can play, but that also, more than ever, rewards dedicated players that take time to learn every strategy, to understand when to play from behind and when to push an advantage, and sometimes, when to not attack, and simply pass.

I would be lying if I claimed that the return of three-Prize Pokémon in a couple of months doesn't worry me. However, the game's designers have earned my trust with most of their work in the Scarlet & Violet era, so for now, I remain optimistic. As long as they keep being guided by the same principles, I think the Pokémon TCG is in good hands.