Supercell startup sound
Do dodo dododo
In March 2016, the popular mobile game company Supercell released a game called Clash Royale, a spin-off game of their blockbuster 2012 game, Clash of Clans. By some miracle for the unemployed, both games still haven’t died… oh, who am I kidding, I got to play Clash Royale in its prime and used to play the first game also. I’m part of the problem to some extent.
Real talk, though, have you noticed that the way Clash Royale is set up these days is basically exactly like competitive Pokémon? I didn’t realize this until just before making this. If you’re lucky enough to have never played this garbage, Clash Royale wants to be an arena battle game turned tower defense, or maybe the other way around, I can’t really tell, where both players have a deck of eight rotating cards that can do all kinds of things from summon generic troops to sending spells at your opponent. It sounds like a nice idea in theory but here’s the problem.
This game is ridiculously pay-to-win. Supercell’s always been a company with a notoriety for ripping their player base off with bad micro-transaction deals- and that’s assuming you even support micro-transactions- but Clash Royale’s taken this to borderline unplayable status in recent years. But then it hit me. Pokémon’s thankfully not using micro-transactions (yet) for the sake of their official VGC formats, but the differences really do end there and I want to see how many other games are doing this kind of “monetizing power creep” approach.
Let’s look at these one at time. You can have a certain number of Pokémon on your team and you can have a certain number of cards in a Clash Royale deck. Simple enough. In both games it is also very important to have at least one designated “win condition” and preferably a strong core built around that win condition and its matchups. Also simple. Both of these games have 1v1 (Singles) and 2v2 (Doubles and Multi) formats as well. Additionally, in more recent years Clash Royale added card evolutions, of which you can use up to two of in your deck at a time, and Champions, which you can only have one of in your deck entirely. If this reminds you of Mega Evolutions and restricted Legendaries respectively, congratulations! You have a working brain.
Unfortunately those same kinds of additions are where the problems start. Pokémon and Clash Royale both operate on a rotating schedule these days, provided 3-4 years is a lot more than… one month, and each time frame has some kind of theme to it. Both schedules see new content released each time, and both games specifically make the new content stronger relative to the rest of the game so as to try and incentivize players to spend money. But because they also want to keep their game “balanced”, watch out! All that money you just spent is for naught as the upcoming balance changes and new content nerfs the stuff you just spent real money on. Rinse and repeat every single season.
I bet Nintendo looked at Zamazenta in Sword & Shield VGC and said “wow, we made the first ever Fighting-Type box art Legendary weaker than we hoped.” Boom! Just like that we get Koraidon the immediate next generation. Looking at the VGC 2025 Worlds results, it’s safe to say they knew exactly what they were doing. Almost every team that placed used at least one of them, and the ones that didn’t were all Calyrex or Lunala teams. I know there are other games that pull this same stunt instead of properly trying to balance already in the game, so what other games can we bash on?
Do dodo dododo
In March 2016, the popular mobile game company Supercell released a game called Clash Royale, a spin-off game of their blockbuster 2012 game, Clash of Clans. By some miracle for the unemployed, both games still haven’t died… oh, who am I kidding, I got to play Clash Royale in its prime and used to play the first game also. I’m part of the problem to some extent.
Real talk, though, have you noticed that the way Clash Royale is set up these days is basically exactly like competitive Pokémon? I didn’t realize this until just before making this. If you’re lucky enough to have never played this garbage, Clash Royale wants to be an arena battle game turned tower defense, or maybe the other way around, I can’t really tell, where both players have a deck of eight rotating cards that can do all kinds of things from summon generic troops to sending spells at your opponent. It sounds like a nice idea in theory but here’s the problem.
This game is ridiculously pay-to-win. Supercell’s always been a company with a notoriety for ripping their player base off with bad micro-transaction deals- and that’s assuming you even support micro-transactions- but Clash Royale’s taken this to borderline unplayable status in recent years. But then it hit me. Pokémon’s thankfully not using micro-transactions (yet) for the sake of their official VGC formats, but the differences really do end there and I want to see how many other games are doing this kind of “monetizing power creep” approach.
Let’s look at these one at time. You can have a certain number of Pokémon on your team and you can have a certain number of cards in a Clash Royale deck. Simple enough. In both games it is also very important to have at least one designated “win condition” and preferably a strong core built around that win condition and its matchups. Also simple. Both of these games have 1v1 (Singles) and 2v2 (Doubles and Multi) formats as well. Additionally, in more recent years Clash Royale added card evolutions, of which you can use up to two of in your deck at a time, and Champions, which you can only have one of in your deck entirely. If this reminds you of Mega Evolutions and restricted Legendaries respectively, congratulations! You have a working brain.
Unfortunately those same kinds of additions are where the problems start. Pokémon and Clash Royale both operate on a rotating schedule these days, provided 3-4 years is a lot more than… one month, and each time frame has some kind of theme to it. Both schedules see new content released each time, and both games specifically make the new content stronger relative to the rest of the game so as to try and incentivize players to spend money. But because they also want to keep their game “balanced”, watch out! All that money you just spent is for naught as the upcoming balance changes and new content nerfs the stuff you just spent real money on. Rinse and repeat every single season.
I bet Nintendo looked at Zamazenta in Sword & Shield VGC and said “wow, we made the first ever Fighting-Type box art Legendary weaker than we hoped.” Boom! Just like that we get Koraidon the immediate next generation. Looking at the VGC 2025 Worlds results, it’s safe to say they knew exactly what they were doing. Almost every team that placed used at least one of them, and the ones that didn’t were all Calyrex or Lunala teams. I know there are other games that pull this same stunt instead of properly trying to balance already in the game, so what other games can we bash on?
