Does anyone know anything about the current Pokemon card game?

Vhind

So I have many, many nerdy friends who hide their nerdiness extremely well. However, lately, they have been showing it quite a bit and, honestly, it has been influencing me...
I have some friends who play the Star Wars Minis game, or whatever it's called, and I got the chance to watch it in action Sunday night. I have to admit...it was kinda cool. >.<
And last night I was dragged to the library by another group of friends only to find out that one of them was going to participate in a ritual congregation of local Pokemon TCG players. The event definitely sparked old memories of my childhood.

Today, I was talking with my best friend about the two encounters and we reminisced for a while. I remember back in sixth grade (six years ago), when him and I met, I was just getting out of Pokemon while he was getting into the Yu-Gi-Oh phase...back when it had just started....
Anyway, him and I agreed to jump into a current collectible/trading game together: we chose the Pokemon Trading Card Game.

Now is the moment when I need Smogoners' help.
Later on this week, him and I plan on going to a local comic shop called Heroplex to pick up some cards; however, we certainly do not know which cards to buy.

Smogon, which cards should we buy?
And do the old school cards (Base set, Jungle, Fossil, etc.) still work in the current card game?
 
nardd

nardd

If you want to platy in official tournaments/etc you need to buy new cards, unfortunately :/ I'm going to assume you remember how to play, but there are a couple changes that are explained in the rule book. You might as well get one of the new decks that just came out (the one with flygon is very good) If you are getting just boosters/bulk get either legends awakened, platinum, stormfront, or rising rivals. Those sets will last you a long time and have some good cards as well.

If you are getting singles, then go to some other sites that focus more on the card game (i.e. not smogon) to get ideas of good attacking pokemon. Depending on how much you want to spend, it would be good to get some uxies from legends awakened and claydols from great encounters, but those are expensive due to how useful they are. Get as many Bebe's search and Roseanne's Research as you can as well. Online single card shopping is good too.

If you have specific questions feel free to PM me. I've gotten quite into the TCG recently with my girlfriend and have spent way too much money and read up a lot on the new cards, so I would call myself a good source. Good luck!

oh and the old cards still WORK, but they aren't legal to play with in official tourneys. The leagues might not like them either.
 

chaosmage

Generally it seems like the most popular and successful deck are SP decks(Dialga G, Palkia G, Luxray GL, Infernape E4, Gallade E4) Machamp SF, Beedrill, and Kingdra LA. I'm not completely update with the metagame, so there may be things I'm forgetting. Also Claydol GE, and Uxie LA are in most decks due to their fantastic drawing powers.

As for some of the trainers you'll want to get:

Rare Candy(If you're running stage 2's)
Broken Time-Space
Volkner's Philosophy
Cynhtia's Feelings
Bebe's Search
Roseanne's Research
Looker's Investigation
 

Vhind

Thank you, both of you.

That sucks that the old cards aren't legal anymore. I spent sooo much money on them. :[

Unfortunately I don't have any idea what any of those cards do...so I'm gonna have to slowly descend into the game, again.
What does Uxie and Claydol do for the deck?
And what is the name of the deck with the Flygon on it? I'll probably look into buy a deck or two to get started.

EDIT: Oh, and from which sets did the cut-off begin for illegal cards?
 

chaosmage

Vhind said:
Thank you, both of you.

That sucks that the old cards aren't legal anymore. I spent sooo much money on them. :[

Unfortunately I don't have any idea what any of those cards do...so I'm gonna have to slowly descend into the game, again.
What does Uxie and Claydol do for the deck?
And what is the name of the deck with the Flygon on it? I'll probably look into buy a deck or two to get started.

EDIT: Oh, and from which sets did the cut-off begin for illegal cards?
Click to expand...
It changes every year but the current sets allowed are Diamond and Pearl and any sets afterward.

And here's the pokepowers for Claydol and Uxie:

Claydol: Once during your turn (before you attack) you may choose up to 2 cards from your hand and put them on the bottom of your deck. If you do, draw cards until you have 6 cards in your hand. This power can't be used if Claydol is affected by special conditions.

Uxie: Once during your turn, when you play Uxie from your hand onto your bench, you may draw until you have 7 cards in hand.


Not all decks need both, but pretty much all the good ones use at least one of the two. Unfortunately, the popularity of the the two has driven up their price. Claydol can run between $20-25, ad Uxie can be between $10-15. Still, pokemon is very cheap compared to yugioh. On an unrelated note, pokebeach has a program called redshark that basically the YVD of Pokemon, so you can use that to test out ideas.
 
Darkartisan

Darkartisan

I just recently quit. If you're looking to play competitively (which it seems that you want to) then I suggest searching for a pokemon league close to your home via go-pokemon.com.

The top decks are currently~

Machamp(utilizes a quick machamp and swarms the field, using a cheap move that requires on energy and automatically kills any "basic" pokemon)

"Mother" Gengar- Utilizes the tech Nidoqueen to heal 1 damage counter from every pokemon each turn, keeping Gengar alive, and once Gengar is knocked out, his pokepower- fainting spell, lets you flip a coin. If heads, you kill the pokemon that kills you (sort of like destiny bond)

"Speedril"- Get up to 3 Beedril on your bench by the third turn and deal 90 damage per turn.

Deafen lock- Uses Dialga's cheap and efficient move Deafen, to deal 10 dmaage and stop the opponent from using any trainers or stadium cards, a very good deck but boring to play, takes a bit of skill to play.

LuxRape- Luxray GL and Infernape GL hit decks hard with quick pokepowers and powerful, cheap, energy efficient attacks. A very good deck.

Flygon- Uses a Flygon "tank" that gets free retreat, discards the opponents top card from the deck each turn, and hits for over 100 each turn pretty easily.
 

Vhind

Wow. Pokemon cards has gotten intense over the years.

My friend and I went out today to get the cards. He bought the Dark Rampage deck with the incredibly cheap Tyranitar in it and I bought the Forest Force deck and some booster packs. We played about four matches with the new cards, up until he had to go to work.
I must say, the cards are a blast to play! We each won two games, but it was never the same.
I am quite impressed with the new system. :]

Unfortunately, I won't be able to spend too much money on cards because next semester I ship off to a university, but for the time being, I will enjoy this. I just can't purchase individual cards. Besides, doesn't that take away from the original nature of a trading card game?


I looked up some of the details on those strategies, darkartisan, and they seem quite good. But I don't think I'll be able to pull those off with my given situation.
I will, however, attend the meetings at the library with my friend, which is apparently a 'league'. I don't know. Go-Pokemon.com didn't have any results for my area but the library does offer what appears to be a league. That is, if a league is considered a meeting place of kids/adults who battle and the wins are tracked on a score sheet until certain markers when one gets a free mini (three card) booster pack? lol.

Once again, though, thank you for all the help. :D
 

DJ Forte

I'm also about to start play the TCG again. I started getting the Burger King cars(2 for every toy). I recommend buying one of the sky high tins(2 diamond and pearl boosters, 2 plat boosters, and either a dialga lv X, shaymin lv x, or giritina lv x. and the three card booster packs are POP cards that you can only get from there.
 

Vhind

What are POP cards?

I currently have a nice grass-oriented deck. I kept switching out psychic types until I had none left. :[
They all cycled out but I don't mind. It's pretty BA right now.
 

DJ Forte

POP stands for Pokemon Organized Play. they're just exclusive cards. i plan on running a psychic, water, metal deck, with a magnezone add-on to keep the metal energy running. I hate how most of my old cards are banned from official tourneys. I had a fortress that would explode and cause 100 then pass on its energy to other pokes.
 

Vhind

Whoa, dang. Sweet Forretress.
Yeah, I have so many awesome cards way back when they first came out, but now they are all obsolete. Oh well, the difference between now and then is that then was all about collecting and now I'm about actually playing. Oh so much more fun!
^.^
 
nardd

nardd

well league is just a place to go and play pokemon, whether it be unlimited format (anything goes) or limited (only tourney-legal cards allowed), so you can use them if you want. Might be hard to win though, since all of the new cards have a lot more hp and do much more damage for less.
 

Vhind

Yeah, that's true. I've noticed that with these new cards.
And plus on the old, old cards, their weakness is just an element without the x2 or +1(2,3)...
I don't remember how much damage (or resistance) was back then.
 

Pokeric

Ya if you wanna learn about the cards fast and excel at it quickly, try Pokebeach.com and Pokegym.com. They have pretty much the same stuff but Pokebeach consists of more people from the West Coast and Pokegym is more people from the East Coast. As far as the old scholl sets go they are not allowed =/ the only sets that are allowed to be used in Modified Format next year are Diamond & Pearl through the most recent sets (which is Rising Rivals as of now). If you wanna see the sets in betweeen they are on the Pokebeach home page. For the cards you want to stock up on, try these:

Bebe's Search
Roseanne's Research

^Try to get as many of these as possible since most very deck runs 4 copies of each

Rare Candy

^A lot of decks run 3-4 of these but with the relsease of Broken Time-Space and SP decks not every deck needs they but you still want at least 4 of them on hand

Broken Time-Space

^ A greadt counter Stadium. You can work 1-2 of these in pretty much every deck that uses Stage 2's

Cyrus' Conspiracy (4+)
Energy Gain (4+)
Power Spray (4+)
Poke Turn (4+)
SP Radar (4+)
Pokemon Contest Hall (1-2)
Galactic HQ (2-4)
Aaron's Collection (1-2)
Premier Ball (1-2)

^If you're going to be running SP decks (which will become VERY popular next year with the release of the new sets) you want to stock up on these. They are what make up the SP Engine and pretty much everyone wants to get their hands on them. I put in ( ) about how many of each you should try to get. While you can only run 4 copies of a card in your deck you still want as many of the 4+'s as possible since they have high trade value.

Luxury Ball

^Run 1 in every deck. Period.

Night Maintenance
Warp Point

^Cheap and very usefull. You should run 1-2 of each in most every deck.

Time-Space Distortion

^Costly but if you can get a hold of 1 (that's really all you need) it can be more usefull than Night Maintenance in some decks (such as Blissey). Not really a NEED though.

2-2 Claydol (MD) line
1-2 Uxie (LA)

^These have gotten pricey but it's where you're gonna wanna make your first investment in cards. They keep your deck running smoothly and help get the cards you need fast and consistantly. For SP decks usually 1-1 Claydol and 2 Uxies are used and for non-SP decks, 2-2 Claydol and 1-2 Uxies are used.

I think that's it. Hope I've helped. And oh ya, if you sign up on Pokebeach / Pokegym look for me if you need any help. My names Pokeric on both. I haven't been on much since VGC started but starting next season I'm gonna be active a lot again.
 

Vhind

Oh wow. Thank you so much. I have a couple Bebe's Search and Night Maintenance in my current deck but I haven't even heard of most of the ones that you mention. O.o

My friend has proven the worth of a Luxury Ball though, which I have yet to get! >:[
Damn Tyrannitar. lol.

Starting out, I don't want to invest too much money in this game. But I'll keep my eyes peeled for these cards. I'm finally comfortable with playing my deck, but I'll be continually adding improvements!
 

Vhind

I know this is definitely not the place for this kind of thing, but would you guys mind 'rating' or at least reviewing my current physical deck?
 

Vhind

Heh. Sorry, I just didn't want to get ahead of myself...

Total: 22
3 Turtwig [Majestic Dawn] (with Rollout and Razor Leaf)
2 Grotle [MD]
1 Torterra [MD]
3 Trapinch [Rising Rivals]
2 Vibrava [RR]
1 Flygon [RR]
1 Flygon X [RR]
2 Eevee [MD] (with Call for Family)
2 Eevee [RR]
2 Leafeon [RR]
1 Budew [Stormfront]
1 Aerodactyl GL [RR]
1 Weedle [RR]

Total: 20
4 Energy Search
3 Potion
2 Mom's Kindness
2 Bebe's Search
2 Quick Ball
1 Dusk Ball
1 Cynthia's Feelings
1 Night Maintenance
1 Poke Drawer +
1 Lucian's Assignment
1 Aaron's Collection
1 Underground Expedition

Total: 18
18 Grass Energy


So, it looks like a lot of miscellaneous cards thrown together because it IS a lot of miscellaneous cards thrown together, but so far it plays out nicely.

The basic strategy is usually to get out Leafeon by utilizing the Eevee's Call for Family and Signs of Evolution, which is charged up quickly. Simultaneously, I will build up to Flygon and/or Torterra as late-game sweepers through the use of assorted Trainer cards.

Keep in mind, I compiled this deck by spending around thirty bucks and only having my friend to trade with.
 

Vhind

Budew is wonderful if I draw it at the beginning of the game because its move, which requires no energy, allows me to search for any Pokemon.
 
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