The Love Hate Relationship - Control/Stun Decks

Decks all come in different types. Some are super fast and aggressive, some are slow but super strong, some are gimmicky but fun to play. But there is one type of deck that is made to only cause annoyance, frustration and defeat. Using lots of powerful cards to slow down your opponent and disrupt their game plan, this type of deck being named Control. Let's take a look at why players love and hate control.
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[@kindredzpirit6046]

The thing that makes stall decks not as insufferable on in-person events as much as online is the fact that 1: It is a best of 3, at least here in the west, and 2: Ties. There being ties in this game is actually quite detrimental to stall players especially, because getting a lot of ties in your tournament record isn't good if your plan to get into top cut, so these sorts of excessively passive decks that can't actively try to break the stalemate aren't actually that good, UNLESS the one that plays it is extremely fast at making decisions, and playing everything so fast to make it a 2-0 win for them by decking out their opponent, because 3 game sets against stall are ending in a tie most of the time as there's not enough time and the stall player just can't force end the game, just hope the other player mental booms and concedes, but in case of the possible tie, it is actually better for the other player since their deck is possibly better poised to win even in 3 game situations against other decks.

[@T1redRn]

My opinion on control decks depends on the skill required to play each deck. Excadrill Cinccino control takes tons of skill to pilot to success. Snorlax however I could hand to a chimp and with enough luck they could win a regional

[@venus7795]

Lost box is the one that a chimp can win a worlds with it

[@T1redRn]

@@venus7795 idk it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to play miss fortune sisters and instant charge

[@venus7795]

@@T1redRn yup, lost box means no effort. The chimp can win using lost box due to it working even without interaction with the opponent

[@gabrielcastillo9745]

Lost box is more skill based. You gotta think carefully about what cards you send to the lost Zone. Snorlax stall only requires skill if your opponent plays more than 2 switching cards.

[@venus7795]

@@gabrielcastillo9745 ahora dilo sin llorar

[@imaanlatios6790]

I think attacks like item lock should have some kind of clause like "this Pokémon cannot use __item lock attack__ next turn"

[@BIGBOY1996-pu5wz]

I think one interesting distinction between control decks in the Pokemon tcg and other games like magic the gathering is that in pokemon there's not really a card that acts like a finisher or wincon. As someone who plays magic the gathering, control decks in the pokemon tcg play much more like "stax" than control decks. Control decks in MTG generally have either combos that end the game or strong late game finishers which means the games aren't really being dragged out, and they also don't really play cards that just outright stop you from playing the game or slow the game down to a crawl. On the other hand Stax decks look to slow a game down by using effects for example that stop your opponents from doing things like searching their deck or making their spells cost more. They don't really have a solid and clear cut wincon instead it's much more like "death by a thousand cuts" sort of thing and because of that people really don't like playing against stax decks for the same reason you mentioned about control decks in the Pokemon tcg, they stop you from playing the game. Which isn't very fun. This is why I think people don't really like playing against control decks because the main win condition is to mill the opponent out, which just like stax decks the wincon is very slow and grindy leading to non-interactive gameplay.

[@jmanwild87]

i will say even some stax decks can have combo or efficient wincons to quickly close the game. mono red prison for example plays cards like goblin rabblemaster to quicky close the game and for the ones that don't your opponent will usually just surrender once the lock is set up. However there is a difference between control in mtg and control in pokemon and yugioh is that in a standard control deck in mtg you aren't playing very many if any stax cards and are instead neutralizing your opponent's threats while drawing more cards than them until you can stabilize and stick a threat of some kind.

[@Dinotology]

Another thing about control decks is that they also tend to be cheap. Other than Pidgeot ex, a lot of disruption cards are a dollar or less. Like the entire snorlax deck is $40 bucks and has a winning matchup against Charizard ex at only half the price. There’s kind something cool about succeeding with a deck of bulk cards at regional or tournament.

[@ControlPlayersUnite]

The complaints about control decks are mirrored in aggressive decks, too. For example, for all the complaints about Block-Snorlax, there are as many if not more concerning Charizard ex. Maybe it’s because so few control decks are played compared to aggressive decks, but really, when 3/4 top 4 decks in tournaments are Charizard/Pidgeot, one could argue there is an opposing aggro problem also needing to be addressed. (I often hear “The Pokémon Company can’t let one of its mascots perform poorly, so they make it OP.”) Then again, perhaps all the variety of decks, much like a healthy gene pool, are good for the game because it has the potential to breed the kind of competition players seem to want.

[@gabrielcastillo9745]

Control will always get more haters than aggresive decks, because people don't know how to play against control or stall and they fall to easily for them. When you learn that the best strategy is to play slow and mind your resources, the matchup becomes really easy in most cases because, ironically, most control players don't know what to do if their opponent plays slowly and mindfully instead of just blindly throwing everything at them.

[@wickederebus]

@@gabrielcastillo9745 can confirm. I play Vanquish Soul in yugioh. VS is a advantage glutton of a deck, and my opponent was a Runick Stun/Control player. The Runick deck wins by literally Exile/Banish/Lost Zoning cards from the top of the opponent's deck, usually 4 to 7 in a turn. What I did was sit back and use my draw engine's burn effect to out damage his Life Gain effect to the point of him surrendering when I showed the math on him getting cooked.

[@ControlPlayersUnite]

@@gabrielcastillo9745 Sounds like no one knows what they're doing 😂

[@leopardbunny]

Ah, they finally introduced Stax to Pokemon. Have fun with that.

[@elitemagikarp4822]

wdym "finally"

[@shakoHD]

I think the biggest thing that pokemon does to keep the meta healthy in terms of control nowadays is to establish synergies within archetypes. As TPCI keeps printing cards that obviously synergize with control in the newer sets, It's great to see that tools are also being made to combat them.

[@rasta7655]

yes but you failed to consider that using control is very funny

[@NightSlashTCG]

Only when I'm the one playing it.

[@rasta7655]

@@NightSlashTCG then always play control

[@tattooedfatman]

leave my control decks alone! hahaahahahaha