Once again, the Merc is forced to fight back against the evils of rants, anti-bannings, and other things under the sun.

The first thing that got to me was Choccobo's article "Banning Archetypes," who stated, and I quote (with little censorships here and there):

"I would just like to say some things to all the people who have been complaining, copmlaining, complaining, saying that banning or restricting cards is the only way. This is STUPID! If you ban a card, another card will
just take its place. Eg: Hitmonchan will be replaced with Base or Rocket Machop, Scyther by Jungle Weepinbell, Electabuzz by Dark Electrode, etc. Sure, I know all the replacements are ----, but SO IS BANNING! If cards are banned, they will be replaced. Then the replacements will be banned, and pretty soon, people will just stop going to organized tournaments because there is nothing left to play with."

Now I know you are all sick of my "in Magic" this and that talk, but I am gonna do it again anyway.  And do you know why?  Cause I am sick of people who do this kind of recessive and repetitive journalizing.  Banning a card usually means a replacement or a dead archetype.  That fact has been known "in Magic" for a while.  But note that the replacement will never be as broken as the banned card.  Base Set Machop ain't Hitmonchan.  Dark Electrode ain't Electabuzz.  Scyther DEFINATELY ain't Jungle Weepinbell..

Since the replacement ain't as broken as the original, it will not get banned.  Wizards has never "chain-banned" cards ever!  That is to say, ever ban one card, ban it's replacement the following month, then banning the replacement's replacement the following month, etc.

Now I know I shouldn't say such things.  After all, a lot of you guys are kiddies.  You don't play Magic because of it's "demonic" or "complicated" demeanor.  In Magic, broken decks are a lot more complicated than the broken decks in Pokemon.

"Haymaker" reminds me of Magic's "Sligh" deck; deck that utilized cheap but big creatures backed up by a lot of burn, or cards made to kill opponent's creatures and hurt opponent faster, kind of like an instant Pokemon extermination tactic.  But unlike Pokemon's Haymaker, Magic's Sligh is not broken.  Sligh is made to kill the opponent by turn five or less.  In Pokemon, that might seem fast, but in Magic, it is usually two turns too slow to compete against the real broken decks.

Pokemon's biggest flaw is the high amount of beatdown decks and the low amount of control decks.  I know there are a few decks like the Dark Vileplume decks and Trappers, but Dark Vileplume ended up to be too slow to go against conventional Haymaker/Trapper combo variants by one turn.  And let's face it.  In Magic, there are a lot of great card drawing spells, but most go to blue, and most don't work as efficiently and don't go into every deck such as Trainers like Oak.

Propositions as Constructed tournament formats?  Not very good.  First off, Magic doesn't have "propositions."  We have our tournaments by cycling cards.  Example:  If there were to be a Type I (Classic) in Pokemon, every set would be legal.  I would think a few cards would be banned.  Type II (Standard) would be Base Set 2 (which is completely messed up), Gym Heros, Team Rocket, and Fossil.  As the next expansion comes in, Fossil will be gone.  Afterwards, Team Rocket.  If a new Base Set came in, it would replace the former.  Don't expect this to happen any time soon.  Block format?  Can't be done.

That's my two cents.  That is it.  Next time, I will write a stragety.

Mercury Crusader (A.K.A. The Self Proclaimed "Greatest Water Pokemon Trainer," Team Rocket supporter, and now "SUPER CONSERVATIVE!!!")

themerc@angelfire.com

"Stylin' and profilin' only the way a Horseman could..."