Effectively, they were slower to get going, but once they did get going, they were much more difficult to stop. In the past, this was an acceptable trade-off for Stage-2 decks, as they could lose out on some of that speed, in exchange for higher damage output and more HP. This means that non-Stage-2 decks automatically have a structural advantage over Stage-2 decks when it comes to those factors, which likewise means that they have an advantage in terms of deck strength against a varied field. Since the Tag Team Pokemon-GX (or Stage-1) deck doesn’t have to devote spots to Rare Candy (or finding it), they can instead add in cards for greater consistency, more speed, or add in more techs for the meta.
This does make sense – after all, why invest the extra resources into getting out a Stage-2, when you could instead get the same amount (or more) of HP and damage output from a Basic Pokemon? The only advantage that any Stage-2 has over Tag Team Pokemon-GX is typically that they give up less Prizes, but that advantage can be washed away by the slower speed of the Stage-2 deck. The release of Tag Team Pokemon-GX marked a steep drop in the competitive viability of Stage-2 Pokemon, and Stage-2 Pokemon as the main attacker in particular. What’s more, most of those events haven’t had a Stage-2 deck come close to winning, hence the concerns about the viability of those decks. Since the release of Team Up, however, a Stage Two deck has not won a single Regional Championship or higher event. As recently as 2017, Stage-2 decks were performing excellently, as Pokemon such as Decidueye-GX, Metagross-GX, Vikavolt, Gardevoir-GX, and Greninja all were good options at some point or another. Even in previous eras of heavy Basic play – the SP era, for example – there were still strong Stage-2 options floating around and performing well. In fact, for most of the Pokemon TCG’s history, Stage-2s have been the most dominant kind of deck to play. After all, Stage-2 Pokemon haven’t always been awful. The Stage-2 Collapseīefore we can solve the struggles of the Stage-2 deck, we first need to figure out why exactly it is that Stage-2 decks struggle. So, in this article, I’m going to do what I can to examine this trend, and in doing so, provide a roadmap to how Stage-2s can return to viability – and how they can be competitive even today.
For creative deck brewers and off-meta deck fans, this is awful as a player who quite enjoys building and playing off-meta decks, I certainly count myself among those who lament the demise of the competitive Stage-2 deck. It’s become almost trivially easy to dismiss the potential of a Stage-2 simply because it is a Stage-2, regardless of how otherwise impactful that card might be. Those that do end up doing well tend to be more niche anti-meta decks, or else use the Stage-2 solely for support. The tournament results have made it clear: Stage-2 decks perform poorly when compared with Stage-1 Pokemon and Basic Pokemon-focused decks.
#EVOLVE STAGE 2 BOXES HOW TO#
There have been discussions on how to make Stage-2 Pokemon more competitive, with suggestions ranging from erratas of cards such as Rare Candy, to printing stronger Stage-2 Pokemon in the future. While the format-warping effect of Arceus and Dialga and Palkia-GX has been well documented to this point, there is a more specific complaint about the format that I think is worth examining, and that is the comparatively weak strength of Stage-2 Pokemon.
The constraints on the format that have been placed by the strength of Arceus and Dialga and Palkia-GX / Zacian V are onerous to say the least, and those limitations have only been exacerbated by the speed of the new format and the strength of the new Pokemon VMAX. When it comes to the new Standard format, there are unfortunately a large number of complaints that have come from players, most of which are at least somewhat justified.
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