This is part 3 in a series that starts here.
Today we will be looking over the last 50 pokémon from Kanto, so that we can finally move on to see what the Meta of the Kanto region is.
Exeggcute is the natural combo card together with Grass-type theme of buffing up cards in your hand. Landing a single +1/+1 on it before it is played, it turns into a 3-cost 6-attack 6-health. And, remember, using Bellsprout to put any of three eggs back in hand will allow you to play it again for another tripling. However, the great potential is balanced out by its mediocre base stats. 3 cost 3/3 over three bodies is terrible when compared to a card like Caterpie, a 1 cost 2/2 over two bodies.
Exeggutor also plays off the Grass-type theme, but it focuses on big pokémon rather than doubling small pokémon. Its cost is quite high, making it difficult to play it the same turn as the card you want to copy, unless you reduce the cost of Exeggutor, or, of course, buff up a cheap card, like a Bellsprout, for instance. But to balance out the difficulty of its combo, it has quite acceptable stats on its own, too.
These cards are interesting and unique, but in general, I will try to stay more brief from here on out.
The Cubone family is pretty strong if your opponent cannot remove them immediately. The effect tries to mimick the idea of the bonemerang. Apart from blocking damage when attacking, you can also attack the enemy Idol to keep the shield during the enemy turn.
Kangaskhan is a play on the idea that Kangaskhan's joey is a Cubone in the making. It has very high stats - 5-cost 5 attack 8 health - but at that point in the game, it is easy for the opponent to remove the Cubone before it gets use its effect.
Knowing that one day in the future, I would have to try to stay brief, I made a couple of text-less cards.
Text heaviness is an important factor in making a card game, though. If each and every card is unique and has extensive text, the player becomes overwhelmed and loses interest. But it is a kind of paradox, because the interesting part of a card is in its uniqueness. I do not think I really solved this problem. But these cards are an attempt at it.
Should be mentioned, these cards are very well-balanced, at 49% and 51% win-rate. Try to guess which is stronger!
Today we will be looking over the last 50 pokémon from Kanto, so that we can finally move on to see what the Meta of the Kanto region is.
Exeggutor also plays off the Grass-type theme, but it focuses on big pokémon rather than doubling small pokémon. Its cost is quite high, making it difficult to play it the same turn as the card you want to copy, unless you reduce the cost of Exeggutor, or, of course, buff up a cheap card, like a Bellsprout, for instance. But to balance out the difficulty of its combo, it has quite acceptable stats on its own, too.
These cards are interesting and unique, but in general, I will try to stay more brief from here on out.
The Cubone family is pretty strong if your opponent cannot remove them immediately. The effect tries to mimick the idea of the bonemerang. Apart from blocking damage when attacking, you can also attack the enemy Idol to keep the shield during the enemy turn.
Kangaskhan is a play on the idea that Kangaskhan's joey is a Cubone in the making. It has very high stats - 5-cost 5 attack 8 health - but at that point in the game, it is easy for the opponent to remove the Cubone before it gets use its effect.
Knowing that one day in the future, I would have to try to stay brief, I made a couple of text-less cards.
Text heaviness is an important factor in making a card game, though. If each and every card is unique and has extensive text, the player becomes overwhelmed and loses interest. But it is a kind of paradox, because the interesting part of a card is in its uniqueness. I do not think I really solved this problem. But these cards are an attempt at it.
Should be mentioned, these cards are very well-balanced, at 49% and 51% win-rate. Try to guess which is stronger!
As stated above.
Also, in my defense, apparently Generation 1 Lickitung did not learn Lick. This makes it an incredibly underwhelming pokémon, and thus, here we have an incredibly underwhelming card. I counteracted this in PokeDota, where Lickitung is really unique.
Here we have the Sandshrew-line of Poison-type pokémon. Pretty basic, all around. I just want to repeat that poisoning a pokémon is a guaranteed "deal 1 damage", with a tiny conditional downside and a pretty big conditional upside. Thus, Koffing is quite a bit weaker than Sandshrew.
A new effect: Self-buffing cards. Every turn these are let alive, they become stronger and stronger. Rhyhorn can potentially become infinetely big, but it will take so long, it is hardly worth mentioning.
Rhydon, on the other hand, grows at a pace where you can almost use it as a self-healing pokémon for several turns in a row until it becomes strong enough to win the game. But both of these cards are only really good when you are already ahead in the game. Therefore, they both sit at 49% win-rate.
Talking of self-healing pokémon, Chansey heals others instead. Maybe you can use it to keep your Rhydon alive for longer? Chances are, the best target is your own Idol, though, which is alright, but not quite as strong as the value of healing a friend. Chansey, then, is conditionally strong, and generally quite alright.
Tangela is a strange pokémon. Usuaully pokémon without evolutions are pretty strong on their own, but no. In the game, though Tangela is incredibly normal. It is a slow, value oriented card, making your next turn quite a bit better. It might be insane in combination with Exeggcute though.
Horsea and Seadra might look like seahorses, but they are actually just watery dragons. Their effect reflects this heritage. The Dragon-type has a lot of expensive cards, but counteracts this with a hand-wide cost reduction. If you build your deck right, you might be able to play a 7-cost dragon on turn 5 instead.
Though you only need three other cards in hand for Horsea to technically speaking be a 0-cost card, it is not great. It is one of the weakest cards seen so far, at 46% win-rate.
Goldeen and Seaking continue on the theme of Water to spread damage randomly to enemies. When you spread more than two damage, you start to be almost certain of some results, which mean that their stats are weak to compensate.
While Staryu is a continution of the above theme, Starmie instead takes on one of the themes of psychic, that is, drawing cards. So, in combination, their effects mirror the themes of their dual-typing.
Generally, I have put together cards in series based on their evolution lines. Here, however, we have a series of similar, evolution-less pokémon, reflecting different elemental types, all being bipedal. I am certain that these were thought of as a series when designed.
Mr. Mime is psychic and fairy, and thus its effect mirrors the theme these two types have in common - drawing cards. Specifically, Mr. Mime is a mime, so it mimes a copy of one of your pokémon abck to your hand. This also fits in well with the combo-centric strategies of psychic.
Scyther uses the main theme of its type, that of swarming with Caterpies. I only later changed it to be part steel-type to follow its Sinnoh evolution.
Jynx is primarily an Ice-type pokémon, at least in my heart. Therefore it gives you a nice Icy Kiss, you can then use later on with your freeze synergy. Though Icy Kiss is a 1-cost card, its effect is strong enough that Jynx still has weak stats.
Electabuzz does what Electric types do. Magmar does what Fire types do. I should mention that I have had to nerf Magmar several times - originally it dealt 5 damage - and had to buff Electabuzz several times.
Originally, all five of these cards were 4 cost 3/4s. But having to create a balanced game ruined that part of the theme.
Maybe Pinsir is also part of that series? I have never been certain. It just seems wrong to have two Bug-types in the series.
Casting cards automatically is actually an effect that I implemented somewhere around Sinnoh, so Pinsir has had quite a few different effects throughout the times. It became too similar to Paras, as far as I remember, and Paras had a more interesting design, so I changed Pinsir instead.
When a card is cast automatically, you do not pay its cost, and its cry activates like usual, though you cannot choose the target. Potentially, a Pinsir might add a Pinsir to your hand, adding another Pinsir, and so on, but that never happens.
Apart from being highly random, the effect fits with the swarming theme of Bug, offering a rare high-cost, high-value card.
Tauros always seemed like a really strong, but otherwise bland, pokémon. So here we are.
Magikarp, however, has no text for completely opposite reasons. It is neither strong or bland. On its own, its stats are not as bad as they seem. If you find a way to buff it, it becomes quite acceptable. The rest of the time, it splashes uselessly.
But its main use has to do with Gyarados. Playing one Gyarados turn all Magikarp into more Gyarados. This combo would be insane if you somehow could have more than two Magikarp, but as it stands, for it to be really good, you need to have drawn quite a few cards.
Oh. Now I understand why Arcanine is not overpowered, since it has a chance to give you a Magikarp, the most useless dragon.
Lapras never seemed as interesting to me as it seems to others. Here, it is simply a slightly bigger Cloyster. However, the change actually is bigger than you would think - while Cloyster has a 46% win-rate, Lapras is much more balanced at 50%.
Ditto is one of those cards which just have to be a certain way. There could be no question that Ditto transforms into an enemy. The only question was how expensive it should be. At 3-cost, it finds a good 49% win-rate. This is probably related to the amount of cards which are made strong through their cries, the effects of which of course are not copied by Ditto.
A tidbit I enjoy is that while everything else changes, abilities, stats, typing, the sprite, it keeps its name so that everyone knows it is a Ditto.
The Eevee line! Eevee is basically a text-less card, and it is not even particularly strong in evolution-oriented decks. Its stats, however, at 3 cost 3 attack 4 health is quite close to the most optimal stat-line in the game
The Eeveelutions all are designed with a cry that gives you another Eevee, and an end-of-turn ability that mimicks their elemental type. On top of this, Jolteon also has Quick, mostly because Electric's effect is much more conditional than the others.
Porygon is our second infinite card. Opposite to Abra, you can actually get infinite copies of the card into your hand, but each of them is weaker and will not retain any buffs. I really like Porygon, mostly because of the idea that you can put it in an aggressive deck to have a guaranteed late-game. It just never is as strong as you would think.
Also, another type-change. Porygon is a cursed computer program or a glitch or otherwise a manifestation; this combined with there being only four ghost types in the first two generations, Porygon was an obvious inclusion as a Ghost-type.
These are the first Fossils, and they all have the same effect when played: Adding another Fossil to your deck. The Fossils added is at random picked to be either an Omanyte, Omastar, Kabuto, Kabutops, Aerodactyl or a Broken Fossil.
A Broken Fossil is a mostly useless card, that also breaks the chain of getting Fossils that add new Fossils to your deck. So while the strength of using Fossil pokémon is that you can go a lot longer before emptying your deck, the weakness is both the Broken Fossils that will inevitably end up in your deck, as well as the generally weak cards that the Fossils are.
Aerodactyl is probably the strongest fossil, but when you consider decks that use fossils probably are not particularly aggressive, it all balances out.
Our favourite sleeping guy. When up against an opponent that wants to deal damage to your idol directly, the Sleeping status does not make a big difference, meaning that its glorious 7 attack 7 health get to shine. In general, however, Snorlax is a bit too lazy to be of much use.
Maybe I should make it a 4-cost 7/7 instead.
The legendary birds are based around their respective elemental themes, turned up to the max. Freezing all pokémon but the Articuno you play can set you up to be able to swing the game in your favour with an area of effect power. In some strange way, you can also consider it a really slow version of Quick, since it gets to attack before the opponent does.
Zapdos generally obliterates everything alive. 15 damage is absurd, and it is not only limited to pokémon. It really is a game-changer. If only you could be certain that it would not kill your own Idol, as might likely happen against an aggressive deck.
Moltres, however, happens to be the strongest of its family, therefore being banished to the shadowy 8-cost realm. If that was not enough, the original incarnation set the health to 10 instead. Needless to say, Fire-type decks were preeetty good back then.
These days, Moltres is still strong, but confusingly much more useful with its Flying type than Fire type. If by turn eight in a Fire deck, your opponent is still above 12 health, you have done something wrong. For instance, in the Kanto meta report, Moltres turns up in several of the Grass/Flying decks.
Now, finally, the native dragons:
These follow along well with the Horsea-line, enabling you to dump a full hand of big, cheap pokémon. The only question is how you are going to survive for long enough to pull that combo off. Maybe you will use Charmanders to make the opponent worry about restoring their health? Maybe utilise Magikarps and Gyaradoses?
All types have a duo, and Dragon goes together with Ice. Luckily, Ice offers a lot of ways to literally freeze the opponent's progress, giving you a few more turns. Still, playing a Dragon/Ice deck should not be thought of as easy.
And now for the last two pokémon of the Kanto region:
Before we look at the cards, you might notice that they are also part Dragon-type. Again, this is done to have a more consistent Dragon deck with lots of options. Besides, it is a bit strange to name a type after the animals it resembles. Could you imagine Flying-type being called Bird-type? I have gone back and forth a lot of times, thinking of changing the name of the type to "Mythical" or "Ancient" or some-such. Since I have not made a decision, I guess they are still named Dragon type for now.
Mewtwo is a really strong card, from its stats to its effect - both the upside and downside is really strong! It is obviously inspired by Deathwing from Hearthstone, but its stats make it a slightly more subdued version. It is of course used as a last resort all-in when too far behind to catch up.
I should mention how difficult it was to code, and the amount of bugs it led to, since technically, the effect takes place before the card is removed from your hand. I keep getting bugs telling me that Mewtwo discarded itself, but I am pretty sure there is a functioning work-around 100% of the time, not just 99% or something. But who knows.
Mew is also strong, but opposite to Mewtwo, it is strong as a support card instead of on its own. Also, the two cards play with completely diametrical strategies. On top of that, it works perfectly with the psychic-type focus on comboing cards together as well as the Dragon-type cost-reduction theme. Thus, I am quite happy with its design altogether.
Opposite to Mewtwo, it took quite a long time to balance, though.
Finally, we have gone through the first 151 cards! Now we can ask ourselves some interesting questions, like, which cards are good and which are bad? What cards work best together?
We can also answer them in the finale, Meta Report Kanto!