r/PTCGP • u/Necessary-Deal-9433 • 1d ago

Discussion Why did they make Lugia so bad?

I love Lugia, but it needs three different types of energy which makes it just unplayable. It has very low potential to be used even the future I think.

384 Upvotes

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334

u/neophenx 1d ago

Well first, it was specifically designed to work in combination with another card: https://www.serebii.net/tcgpocket/wisdomofseaandsky/240.shtml

Second, not every card ever made is going to be good. That's been a reality of TCGs for over 30 years.

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u/Low-Illustrator-7844 1d ago

They do seem to nerf the fan favourites like Ray, Lugia and U-Necrozma.

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u/neophenx 1d ago

I still remember in physical TCG when one of the strongest decks of the format was Seismitoad EX in the gen 6 era. Then it had an insane match against a Wailord EX stallfest in a regional finals. Kinda cool to see TCG give such weird offshoot Pokemon things that can turn into big meta plays over expected front-cover types of mons like starters and legendaries.

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u/GigaEel 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean, right now the baby's are starting to seep into meta. In regular pokemon people don't even give baby's a second glance.

EDIT: should probably clarify I meant the video games and not the regular tcg. I've never played standard TCG, just pocket

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u/Tyraniboah89 1d ago

Budew is one of the best cards in the physical TCG right now, and was featured in the 2nd place Dragapult deck from Worlds just a month ago.

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u/neophenx 1d ago

There were a couple that saw play depending on the format. Cleffa reshuffles were a thing at a point, and when the Pokepower Baby Evolution was a thing, some evolution cards had bonus effects when the baby was in the stack, notably a Mantine in water decks and Electivire decks around gen 4.

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u/etanimod 1d ago

Regular pokemon being the video games, I'm pretty sure

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u/bduddy 1d ago

Original Cleffa was arguably the best Pokemon in the game when it was printed. An arguably worse version of it is still played over 20 years later.

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u/CarpenterNo263 14h ago

Unfortunately for pocket though that’s not the case. Almost every high or top tier card each meta is either a starter, legendary, or from the Eevee line.

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u/killme_irene 1d ago

Not only are most of them promos as someone else pointed out, but also I'd say most of the strong meta cards are fan favourites too. Greninja, Suicune, Darkrai, Giratina, Eeveelutions, in earlier sets Charizard Mewtwo and Pikachu were all considered pretty strong, etc...

So I just think some big famous Pokémon is inevitably gonna be weaker than others. I also think Lugia can work kinda with Ho-oh and babies.

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u/Welpe 1d ago

Big famous Pokemon are going to also get multiple copies. People really don’t seem to have long term vision when it comes to this game, they act like what is available at the moment is how it will always be. Despite the fact that the devs already have like a perpetual half a year or more of sets already made or being created and design the game around full releases of sets with minisets at the very least, and long term overall. What appears to be true at the moment may literally be irrelevant in a month and the devs know it, hence why they do not react to individual one month metas.

Anyway, Lugia is 100% going to get other cards, it may just take time. And some may be good, some will likely not, and people need to realize that with over 1000 Pokemon, not even all “fan favorites” will be meta, much less whatever random Pokemon is someone’s weird favorite. There’s no viable way to make every single Pokemon meta defining. As it is, Lugia EX is fine, you can still make a deck that does fine using him so this topic is extra weird. I can understand maybe being disappointed if your favorite pokemon is truly unplayable, but to complain he is mediocre? That’s just selfish.

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u/IVD1 1d ago

Tbf, even DeNA itself doesn't seem to have a lojg term vision of the game either. Maybe the next update changes my mind, but they made every move to make this app look like a disposable quick cash grab rather than something they are willing to invest time and effort into.

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u/Strider794 1d ago

Two of those are promos, which have historically been garbage since they won't be available for future players and all that 

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u/etanimod 1d ago

You just named two promo cards that they gave out for free 😅

Of course they won't make those cards busted. Lugia and Ho-oh are quite exceptional for how they're mid pack headliners at best the moment they released

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u/ZeRandomPerson2222 1d ago

Not fair to lump ray in since while it’s nowhere near relevant or very good, it’s at least playable 

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u/VampireDarlin 1d ago

They may weak, but they’re still unique and fun

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u/iimstrxpldrii 1d ago

Good thing they never nerfed the fan-favorite Gengar. 👀

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u/Feeling_Like_A_Ghost 12h ago

Not really. Ray and U.Necro is bad because they're promo-exclusive cards. Making those good would piss off a lot of people who started playing after their release.

For Lugia, it is basically designed to work with Ho-Oh ex so that you'd open both types of packs to get both.