[PA Comic] Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - The Proxy, Part One

Geth

The Proxy, Part One
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/07/18

RMS Oceanic

I'm reminded of a kid in our MTG circle who slipped a couple of each type of land in what was originally a goblin deck to play the five Avatar cards from Prophecy.

peacekeeper

one of my friends son, who is 10, played at the recent m13 prerelease and opened a door to nothingness and his night revolved around him trying to play it

Fandeathis

I like where this is going.

SabreMau

Haven't played Pokemon in a decade, haven't played the card game at all, so what does that particular combination of cards entail? Aside from the obvious implication that it's only slightly more effective than going to Evo maining Hsien-Ko/Phoenix Wright/Shuma-Gorath.

TIFunkalicious

I haven't played the game, but I know trying to play more than 1-3 colors seriously in MTG is insanity (at least it was a few years ago) so it's just too spread out
Because I guess you need different types of energy to summon the different types so you would need way too many of all of those

all of Tychos educated guesses are two-type combos so thats it I'm thinking

Nytik

Exactly right guys, having more than two different types in a deck (except colourless) is just unworkable since even with a decent draw engine you're never going to get the energy you need. (The exceptions are tech cards which you aren't using for attacks but rather their 'Pokemon-powers'.)

Some Pokemon actually have attacks that require NO energy these days, so maybe the kid will manage to get an attack off! It won't be very good though...

Shen

The deck seems like it'd benefit from some double-colourless energy cards, if those are still a thing.

Man, I remember having a good bit of fun playing it online on the official site during the leadup to Black and White but I've forgotten all the rules again.

RMS Oceanic

SabreMau wrote: »

Haven't played Pokemon in a decade, haven't played the card game at all, so what does that particular combination of cards entail? Aside from the obvious implication that it's only slightly more effective than going to Evo maining Hsien-Ko/Phoenix Wright/Shuma-Gorath.

I've played exactly one game of Pokemon and couldn't tell you how today, but I figured it was a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none situation. He's just taking his deck and stuffing it full of cards he thinks are cool, without considering how well (or not) they mesh together.

SabreMau

Also, considering this is based on true events, I wonder how close this deck was to the actual deck played.

Maz-

Oh, this ought to be good.

What I never understood is why they never followed up on the TCG video games after the GB ones. I mean, they release so many shitty / low effort spin-off Pokemon games each year, but not the card game. Why?

PikaPuff

no energy is hilarious

Fiendishrabbit

peacekeeper wrote: »

one of my friends son, who is 10, played at the recent m13 prerelease and opened a door to nothingness and his night revolved around him trying to play it

I've actually played Blue/green combo-control with Door to nothingness as one of my win conditions. The real combo was infinite multicolour mana though, but hey. Sometimes direct damage is risky.

King Riptor

See there's nothing wrong with helping a kid make a deck that functions. I see gabes problem here though. Being afraid that he'll take over and ruin it for his kid.

Neli

Pokemon comic, not for me

I have never done any pokemons before so the jokes will always fall flat

[edit] freudian slip

Darkewolfe

Last magic release event I went to was a sealed event. One of the kids playing took every card he'd opened and a random handful of land and shuffled it all together as a "deck." He even had the tokens shoved in there, assuming he could just drop those straight into play.

KalTorak

King Riptor wrote: »

See there's nothing wrong with helping a kid make a deck that functions. I see gabes problem here though. Being afraid that he'll take over and ruin it for his kid.

Yeah, I can imagine how tough it must be. That Feeling You Get Standing Behind Someone Playing Portal x10

Peewi

SabreMau wrote: »

Haven't played Pokemon in a decade, haven't played the card game at all, so what does that particular combination of cards entail? Aside from the obvious implication that it's only slightly more effective than going to Evo maining Hsien-Ko/Phoenix Wright/Shuma-Gorath.

Pokémon need energy cards attached to attack, so it's a bit like lands in Magic.

DivideByZero

King Riptor wrote: »

See there's nothing wrong with helping a kid make a deck that functions. I see gabes problem here though. Being afraid that he'll take over and ruin it for his kid.

It is quite the dilemma.

Offer advice and risk overriding his kid's autonomy, or do nothing and watch him get destroyed...

...I don't think I'm ever having kids.

Penumbra

I really enjoy the face in the 3rd panel. I cannot wait to see this story develop.

Jam Warrior

Neli wrote: »

Pokemon comic, not for me

I have never done any pokemons before so the jokes will always fall flat

[edit] freudian slip

Less Pokemon comic, more Collectible Card Game/Parenthood comic. Which is still fairly niche I grant you.

twesterm

Psh, I did an energyless deck back in the day it was pretty much unbeatable unless the opponent realized what I was doing and just stalled out (because it generally took the entire round time to beat someone).

It just used Pokemon with massive amount of HP's (Chancy, the rock snake thing, forget what else, all level 1's with a lot of HP), Allakhazam (which evolved by some card that went from 1st to 3rd level), Pokecenters, and imposter Professor Oaks. It just continually moved around damage, healed all of it at once, and eventually ran them out of cards. I would only lose if I ran out of time (the opponent would always win in that case because I couldn't knock out other Pokemon and the opponent would inevitably get two or three of mine) or I just got the worst possible hand.

Henroid

I never had any problem with my nephew who loves video games a lot, or my little brother, in 'correcting' them in tactics or deck building. It's all about approach.

Black_Heart

I too fear that if I have children, my urge as a gamer to step into their recreation and say "No, you're doing it wrong." will be too strong.

I used to sneer at my best friend's Materia slotting in FF7 or Junctioning in FF8 telling him "wtf is that? Let me fix those for you."

Henroid

That's one of my joys of keeping up with Lets Plays as they're in progress, when the person playing isn't super-expert pro but is doing just fine on their own. Seeing the backseat gamer comments viewers are providing is amusing as shit. It's a hard urge to fight against though.

God forbid someone play old PC adventure games with me. "GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY, FUCK, YOU USE THE RUBBER CHICKEN WITH A PULLEY ON THE WIRE!" Meanwhile, the PC speaker zipline noise's humor will be lost on me, because I'll be too busy feeling like shit.

Franko

When I played Pokemon as a kid I was amazing
I invented the Haymaker deck myself without having any knowledge of it before hand and I fucking wrecked face at the Toys R Us tournaments

Opty

By creating an energyless deck his goals are probably to just throw out as many pokemon (probably all of his favorites) as possible and evolve them as high as he can rather than actually playing the game. That said though, as already mentioned some pokemon can attack without energy and there's probably some final evolutions with a pokemon power that lets them attack without energy, so if the kid is some sort of Pokemon TCG savant and figured out such a deck then he might destroy everyone.

King Riptor

Gabes kid is like five. I doubt he's a savant he's just well five.
He doesn't understand the rules just that he can run all of his favorite Pokemon in a deck.

It happens in yugioh a lot too. Kids to young to understand the rules enter a tournament and get utterly crushed.

I'm firmly on the side of helping them in all cases as its good for the game to have that kind of mentality in the player base.

inatspong

Honestly, assuming he's playing the current HeartGold SoulSilver - on format and not the upcoming Black & White on format, a deck of that description might actually work.
For grass, he could either be running Vileplume, which shuts down anyone from using trainers. However, because his Pokemon line is so thick, he probably needs more trainers, so the most likely answer is Yanmega Prime, which can attack for free if each player's hand size matches.
Psychic is obviously Chandelure, which has an ability that allows the user to place 3 damage counters around their opponent's feild in any way they like, provided that its active. That doesn't even count as an attack. Fire could be his pre-evolved forms.
Dark is most likely Absol prime, whose power allows you to put 2 damage counters on your opponent's pokemon as they're being benched. He also has to be active for this to work, though.
The deck requires a lot of setup, so Pichu could be used to get everything out with its free attack. That covers lightning
Maybe a thin Kingdra Prime line is used for water. Its power is a free damage counter anywhere on your opponent's board
Most powers/bodies and abilities on fighting Pokemon require energy, so he's probably got Tyrogue, which can do 30 for free.
That leaves me with metal. The only thing I could come up with there is Bronzong from Next Destinies, which prevents your opponents from healing.

Of course, he's 5, so he probably didn't know any of this, or even have the cards to build it. Its still pretty clunky, but its the best I could do with that description.

EDIT: no psychic in the deck. That rules out Chandy and my entire strategy.

King Riptor

inatspong wrote: »

Honestly, assuming he's playing the current HeartGold SoulSilver - on format and not the upcoming Black & White on format, a deck of that description might actually work.
For grass, he could either be running Vileplume, which shuts down anyone from using trainers. However, because his Pokemon line is so thick, he probably needs more trainers, so the most likely answer is Yanmega Prime, which can attack for free if each player's hand size matches.
Psychic is obviously Chandelure, which has an ability that allows the user to place 3 damage counters around their opponent's feild in any way they like, provided that its active. That doesn't even count as an attack. Fire could be his pre-evolved forms.
Dark is most likely Absol prime, whose power allows you to put 2 damage counters on your opponent's pokemon as they're being benched. He also has to be active for this to work, though.
The deck requires a lot of setup, so Pichu could be used to get everything out with its free attack. That covers lightning
Maybe a thin Kingdra Prime line is used for water. Its power is a free damage counter anywhere on your opponent's board
Most powers/bodies and abilities on fighting Pokemon require energy, so he's probably got Tyrogue, which can do 30 for free.
That leaves me with metal. The only thing I could come up with there is Bronzong from Next Destinies, which prevents your opponents from healing.

Of course, he's 5, so he probably didn't know any of this, or even have the cards to build it. Its still pretty clunky, but its the best I could do with that description.

EDIT: no psychic in the deck. That rules out Chandy and my entire strategy.

I love this post.

I don't know why.

Ladai

I feel like it's going to be really surreal for little Gabe when he gets older and decides to start reading through the archives.

King Riptor

DAD! I DIDN"T EAT A PIGEON!

Maz-

Mike on Twitter wrote:

Gabe did great at his first Pokemon league event. He lost all his games but his deck just didn't compare to what the other kids had

YOU HAVE FAILED ME, SON

SabreMau

Are Legendary cards commonplace nowadays? Or just among Serious Tournament Kids' decks?

peacekeeper

mike just posted another pic he did, is he still doing videos?

hailrobonia

Reminds me of the pinewood derby in boy scouts. I think I was the only kid who did his own car; everyone else seemed to have an overabundance of parental assistance.

Cururu

hailrobonia wrote: »

Reminds me of the pinewood derby in boy scouts. I think I was the only kid who did his own car; everyone else seemed to have an overabundance of parental assistance.

And yet, the block of wood with wheels, straight out of the box, still always seems to win.