V-Union Pokémon - Failed Cards & Mechanics
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- Every few sets, new card mechanics are introduced into the Pokemon TCG to add some new variety in the game. Usually, cards using new rules are the most desirable and powerful cards out of the sets they appear in. What they rarely do is tie the brand new mechanic to exclusively promo cards. The Pokemon V-Union were a series of Promo cards released in 2021. Five complete V-Unions were released across different box sets. Due to how the V-Union cards worked, these Promos saw niche to no play in the Standard format. Today, we’re going to look at each of the Pokemon V-Union, explain why they didn’t meet the power level needed to see play, and how players tried to build around them.
Script by ThePigThatCriedRii
Edited by Kevin
#pokemon #pokemontcg
To this day, i don't understand why the guys in the creative department thought that carrying 4 hard bricks in your deck is a good idea.
I guess they wanted to try something a bit more experimental to see if it would get played and how good it would be. There's also somewhat of a precedent for it in that they previously tried a similar mechanic in the past with Legend cards, but those were far easier to play due to only needing half the total pieces and they also didn't require you to get them in your discard pile first (if I recall correctly)
hey lugia used to be good you know /s
@@bad_atgamesIt's also back if the early Japanese results are to be believed.
Night March Lampents: "Allow us to introduce ourselves"
You mean like Battle VIP Pass? 😊
The main issue is they all are treated as boss monsters yet, no more types beyond what was released for the "rest" if the elements.
Another issue that stems from not all element types is that if Fire V-UNION was added there might too much synergy there, so many fire discard and energy stacking cards existed before V-UNIONs even existed back in Mega Charizard EX & Charizard GX days...
Fun fact: gardevoir mewtwo v Union got top 16 at Melbourne regionals which happened this weekend that just passed
I really loved V-Union as a mechanic, and I thought it was super weird they only made 5 of them.
I think the biggest thing holding them back more than anything is just that they arent really self-sufficient enough to justify being worth 3 Prize Cards. They'd probably be perfect if they either had a faster intrinsic way to set up energies, or were worth 1.
If they were worth 1 Gren Vu would go crazy. 100 damage spread on a one prizer goes hard. Admittedly they’d be balanced differently if that were the case, but I think 2 would at least make then slightly more worth considering
I don't think it was much of a "fail" as it was underutilized. Probably intentionally so.
Most likely
12, it wasn't used that it failed.
Ironically, V-Unions would have been much easier to set-up if they were played form the hand instead of the discard pile. You could use Adventurer's Discovery to put 3 of them straight in the hand and then something like an ultra-ball to get the fourth. Or maybe if Union Gain was not an attack but an ability once they are put into play.
Alternatively, they could have just let you mix and match from both your hand and your discard pile, which would basically function like the current system except minus the garnet problem.
V-Union teaches us one thing.
Fusion mechanics are a lot easier and fun to use if said fusions are contained within separate dedicated decks. One way to fix it is to just make a card that adds all four of them right away.
Also, hope to see a video about Kadabra soon.
Ehh mewtwo v-union won a regional, I wouldn’t consider that a failure.
1 deck list getting top 16 doesn't make it good lol.
It's so weird that the card game that most tried to make Exodia happen wasn't even Yu-Gi-Oh.
Funnily enough YugiOh has something similar for Rush, but it's just 3 pieces and they haven't done Exodia like that yet.
Battle Compressor is a nice throwback for me. I started to get into the competitive side of the game around the release of XY Phantom Forces, when the format reached peak discard and reshuffle insanity. With Lysandre decking out was practically an impossibility (he was rightfully banned very early on) and battle compressor just gave insane consistency to any deck and even allowed a budget deck (night march) to see pretty major viability for the first time in a long while after seeing incredibly expensive and powerful cards like Mew EX dominate the format.
i also started around that time. battle compressor is a revolutionary card and to me is the card that defines the expanded format.
I also started at this time and suffered through Seismitoad Hell
I wish this card mechanic was better handled. Standard Pokemon V's, not to mention later-era second-gen EX's and especially TT-EX's, were just way too easy to play as a Basic Beatstick.
In my personal opinion, a Non-Evolution Boss Monster in the Pokemon TCG needs to either be inherently more conditional to be summoned to the field than your run-of-the-mill Basic Mon, or needs to be as heavily investment-reliant as the most powerful 2-stagers. Overwhelming Basic Pokemon causes the TCG metagame to stagnate, as Mewtwo EX and ADP-TTEX clearly demonstrated; the latter probably would have irreparably tarnished the competitive credibility of the Pokemon TCG had the pandemic not ceased in-person events until ADP's set was rotated out of Standard.
V-Unions are the definition of a very cool idea, but the way the game is played makes them more or less unviable.
The only reason Mewtwo V-Union was good was because it was a psychic type and there were psychic cards that can greatly help Mewtwo V-Union.
Hey, I really like these kinds of videos! Wish you did more of them :).
I'm glad you enjoyed it
@@iTunsiscool26 are you pretending to be this guy??
@@Solaceon What?
You should do a series on successful card mechanics
this was something I really hoped would work
Hey dex, love your videos. You possess a soft and gentile voice that help me fall asleep after a long day.
I enjoyed playing Pikachu V-Union. I will miss them after they rotate :(
Professor Burnet was key to my No Energy Castform deck. I miss that deck.
They really were like: Ya know why Legends failed? They needed too few cards!
Say whatever you want, my 6 year old LOVES his Morpeko v-union. I love combiners, it's cool how they revived the Legends concept.
I kind of dropped out of the game when V-Unions were released, not because of them, but I never bothered to learn anything about them. So this video is useful for me
The Steel V-UNION was really hard to setup, I had most in TCG Online... I still have no idea what the easy strat was for playing it and Energizing it. Pikachu and "other" electric mouse V-UNION in "Unlimited" were super easy with some help from a certain electric Hawiian deity(?), Prism Star, and that old mass discard card Battle Compressor. Mewtwo is even easier since in "Unlimited" you can cheat with Mew EX's (copy) attack ability... basically two V-Unions for the price of 1.
im a returning player (from way before sword and shield) and im just learning about all these new cards and their rules. im building a mad party deck right now because i just really like to embrace the necromancer feeling. but man?? should i even elaborate?? i have to collect several weak little guys from everywhere and into the discard and yall complain for four cards that together are ridiculously overpowered?? i wouldnt underestimate that little (ironically) menaces potential with a dedicated deck
also thanks for the vid im enjoying a lot and taking notes for my custom deck ehhe
I have some v union decks but I would always treat the v union cards as a "potential" 2nd pokemon to use, if I couldn't get it on field fast enough I'd just stick to using whatever V pokemon I had as backup
God, I'm gonna my Greninja V-Union when rotation hits 😭 was working on it since D Block was legal xD (rip Shady Dealings)
I don't know much about the Pokémon TCG, but I do know that needing to have 4 very specific cards in one specific spot in any TCG tends to make it a bit rough. Exodia in Yugioh needs 5 cards in hand, not very usable. I am aware that Pokémon has a lot more draw power than Yugioh, so if they could be sent from the hand it might be some help, or if they had a rule that said you could send one V-union card from your hand to where it needed to go per turn, it might be better.
But it's otherwise looks like a somewhat slow, high risk strategy that doesn't necessarily guarantee a win if it's out. And by basically needing to focus your entire deck around it, it makes it even less viable. In every TCG I've seen, focusing on one specific card is rarely a good strategy unless the card really is just that good, because if it's properly outed somehow you're screwed.
I was just thinking about your channel making a video about this yesterday.
How do you even fit this on a play mat?
Of all the cards, Pikachu and Mewtwo are the most useful V-union in the format. Heck, the latter won in the regionals by Piper since its hiatus.
Its not "failure" as the word here, the proper term is impractical.
9:44 - Wrong, no requirement for "only" item cards. For example, the "Professor [Insert Name Here]" cards "can" put them in the discard pile during their hand discard while drawing 7 cards afterwards, just not selectively.
Really? It is difficult to get them in the search the pieces and put them in the Discard Pile? Your arguements for why the mechanic is bad is quite solid except for the fact that drawing and discarding cards is insanely easy to do in the Pokémon TCG.
very cool and very informative
The energy charge starts when the four pieces are togheter?
Top 10 competitive promo cards
zacian Vunion works really well with metagross gx
I have never heard of V unions lol
They are lightning energy not electric 😭😭
I never saw V Unions in play, only as Binder Covers and Binder Page Separators
Basically, glorified Paper Weight used as Decors
Mentioning great ball and not ultra ball? Why?
Wasted opportunity on the artwork for V Pikachu. They could have put in the OG art aka 'fat Pikachu'. Instead its just various renditions of the slim/modern which is pretty boring.
I love my greninja vunion deck idc
Literally Maximum Summon from Yugioh Rush Duel but bad.
Only like 1 was "good" and the rest are just eh
Failed? I would hardly call mewthree a failed card
Maybe so, but it's also the only relevant V Union in the standard format currently, and the mechanic to get them into play is clunky to put it mildly. Given that most have been relatively niche at best, I don't think it's entirely unfair to label the mechanic as a failed one; more than anything else, Mewtwo V Union is an exception to the rule
More than half of the video was focused on Expanded, you should avoid that.
Nobody cares about Expanded, and the ones that do have no idea how broken it is. Or simply have weird tastes. Expanded is a hollow thing from the past that used to be decent with a couple gens stacked, but 5 gens of mechanics put together? Yikes.
Absolutely nobody wants that. Expanded = Joke, non-existant.
Idk man i had a 90% winrate with a lugia and v-union mewtwo and v-union pikachu
Your definition of “failed” is? Click-bait?