What sets are legal and where can I find top decks?

A

Amnorgane

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hey guys, well I saw my brother and his friend playing the pokemon tcg(They don't play by the rules, just make it up as they go) and I got hooked again.

I haven't played the game since the basic boosters and am looking at getting back into it competitively in a sense, not so much going to the masters or anything like that, but build a deck that could do such thing if I please.

Now when I went to the store I saw many different types of cards. Heart Gold/Soul Silver, Black and White, EX(?). Can you use all types of cards to form one deck? Or must you use the same type of expansion?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot,

amnorgane
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

welcome back to the game.

if you,re looking for a competitive deck to build, the current legal cards are from HGSS-on. which means.

Heart gold Soul Silver (HGSS)
Unleashed (UL)
Undaunted (UD)
Triumphant (TM)
Call of legends (COL)
Black and white (BW)

are the legal sets. if your looking to play in a tournament ONLY cards from those sets, and any sets released in the future, will be legal.

personally, i suggest you pick up a lot of HGSS, BW, and TM. perhaps a booster box of each, as those sets contain the best cards. on the other end avoid COL, as that set contains almost no good cards, with exceptions of one. (pachirisu). good luck!
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

fantasy_freak08 said:
welcome back to the game.

if you,re looking for a competitive deck to build, the current legal cards are from HGSS-on. which means.

Heart gold Soul Silver (HGSS)
Unleashed (UL)
Undaunted (UD)
Triumphant (TM)
Call of legends (COL)
Black and white (BW)

are the legal sets. if your looking to play in a tournament ONLY cards from those sets, and any sets released in the future, will be legal.

personally, i suggest you pick up a lot of HGSS, BW, and TM. perhaps a booster box of each, as those sets contain the best cards. on the other end avoid COL, as that set contains almost no good cards, with exceptions of one. (pachirisu). good luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot! I've got all the B/W cards, bought a booster box.
I will be picking up the Heart Gold Soul Silver next most likely.

thanks a lot for your input!

Anywhere I can fight competent decks? Perhaps on this website?

Thanks again!
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

As a beginner I recommend you try this deck as it works well but is simple to play:

24 Pokemon
4-4 Cinccino (which means 4 minccino and 4 cinccino, you swarm this pokemon to do a 100 dmg)
2-2 Zoroark (to help against fighting decks and helps recover if your cinccino is ko'd)
3-2-3 Kingdra prime (you only have 2 seadras because you will often use rare candy to skip stage 1. You use this to attack and use spray splash which puts a damage counter every turn on any of their pokemon)
4 Stantler (helps you set up all your pokemon really quickly, this is your preferred start pokemon)

25 T/S/S
3 Pokemon collector (to get your basic pokemon out)
2 Dual ball (an alternative trainer way to get your basics out)
4 Pokemon communication (great searcher)
4 Pokemon reversals (to bring up their weak benched pokemon)
2 Proffesor Elms training method (to get out your evolutions)
2 Switch (to get a damaged pokemon out of the active)
4 Proffesor Oaks new theory (so when you have a bad hand you can get a new one)
2 Copycat (Some more hand refreshment)
2 Junk arm (to reuse trainers)

11 Energy
4 Double colourless energy (powers up Cinccino and Zoroark quickly)
5 Water energy
2 Rescue energy

You may wish to add the other kingdra from unleashed if you want to. Hope I helped.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

This is a good place to start. keep in mind this doesn't completely represent state of the game and guarantee which decks will win the most, but its a good place for newer players to determine which deck to play and can be competitive at the same time. Don't be afraid to ask if you need anything else :D
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

Actually, Call of Legends is a great set. The only reason people disregard it is because most of its good cards are reprints. But to someone who never bought cards from the previous 4 expansions in the first place, it's got a lot of goodies.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

OP, what may help in deckbuilding is buying or trading for "staples" (cards that are present in many decks) individually. The ones I can think of off the top of my head are:
-Pokémon Communication HGSS
-Professor Oak's New Theory HGSS/CoL
-Judge UL
-Pokémon Collector HGSS
-Rare Candy UL
-Dual Ball UL/CoL
-Flower Shop Lady UD
-Seeker TR
-Junk Arm TR
-Bouffalant BW (#91, not #90!!!)
-Cleffa HGSS/CoL

If anyone can think of any else, just mention it.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

Meaty said:
Actually, Call of Legends is a great set. The only reason people disregard it is because most of its good cards are reprints. But to someone who never bought cards from the previous 4 expansions in the first place, it's got a lot of goodies.
Click to expand...

There are some good things, but the problem with the set is that bad things like Hitmontop have been reprinted, so while I did get to stock up on Smeargles, the chance of getting the card you want from a booster packs is low because of all the extra holos and rares.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

^Don't diss Hitmontop. He can donk with some unbelievable luck. :p Run Volbeat/Illumise. Cheap, fast, good.

~SS
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

Scizorliscious said:
OP, what may help in deckbuilding is buying or trading for "staples" (cards that are present in many decks) individually. The ones I can think of off the top of my head are:
-Pokémon Communication HGSS
-Professor Oak's New Theory HGSS/CoL
-Judge UL
-Pokémon Collector HGSS
-Rare Candy UL
-Dual Ball UL/CoL
-Flower Shop Lady UD
-Seeker TR
-Junk Arm TR
-Bouffalant BW (#91, not #90!!!)
-Cleffa HGSS/CoL

If anyone can think of any else, just mention it.
Click to expand...
I'd argue that if consistency is what you're after, Dual Ball is a no-no. I hate things that rely on coin flips.
You could argue that both Shaymin techs and Twins may be considered staples, considering their versatality.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

Thank you all for the advice! I picked up some undaunted boosters today and seemed to get some good pulls, but it may just be because I love those pokemon xD

Picking up booster box of HG/SS Tomorrow when I get paid! Really excited to be back in this!!
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

Scizorliscious said:
OP, what may help in deckbuilding is buying or trading for "staples" (cards that are present in many decks) individually. The ones I can think of off the top of my head are:
-Pokémon Communication HGSS
-Professor Oak's New Theory HGSS/CoL
-Judge UL
-Pokémon Collector HGSS
-Rare Candy UL
-Dual Ball UL/CoL
-Flower Shop Lady UD
-Seeker TR
-Junk Arm TR
-Bouffalant BW (#91, not #90!!!)
-Cleffa HGSS/CoL

If anyone can think of any else, just mention it.
Click to expand...

I would drop judge, dual ball, seeker and bouffalant as "staples" in the format. they all good cards but i dont think every deck out there has a use for all of them

i would also add Juniper BW, Tyrouge HGSS/COL to the list. Sages Training UD/COL is another card you should keep some of. Again, not a staple, but a great card for some stage 2 decks.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

^Around half of all the decklists I've seen for HGSS-on have included Judge. Maybe less for Dual Ball, but a lot of decks do use Seeker. Bouffalant is a bit iffy, but it's still a popular card nonetheless.
Juniper and Tyrogue are good additions.
I feel like Seeker, Judge, and Dual Ball are more sought-after than Sage's training, though. If you have Sage's on the list of "staples," I would include those cards as well.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

-So to be competitive you really need to follow a set deck, huh? Not many people vary in their decks? I really wanted to try and build one around scizor or gengar, but it seems everyone plays very similarly on the higher levels.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

Yeah. Unless you know that a rogue (dark horse) deck can do successfully, stick with the Louise stuff.
That's basically:
-Magnezone prime + Feraligatr prime
-Magnezone prime + Emboar ability
-Magnezone prime + Yanmega prime
-Blastoise + Feraligatr prime
-Blastoise + Floatzel
-Magnezone prime + Floatzel
-Gengar prime (+ Mew prime)
-Jumpluff (+ Cinccino)

I think this highlights the main metagame decks and their combos. Rogue decks/card techs include Marowak, Zoroark and Reuniclus.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

^rogue will be the greatest thing this format. sure you could run reshiboar like everyone else but trying out different things and seeing what works will be better. try volmise when victini comes out. it surely will be a good deck. and its not very much used ;D well built variants win torneys :p
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

Woe is me. I forgot Donphan prime + Machamp prime, Zekrom - Pachirisu - Shaymin and Reshiram + Emboar ability.
And yes, rogue will be big. But it gets to a stage, like Sableye, where it turns from rogue to meta.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

So is rogue a deck not used very much or what? What's the definition of rogue?
Also, im not really looking to buy cards individually, because it seems like a pain, can one pull the cards neede in boosters or is that pretty difficult? Haga

Thanks!
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

A rogue deck is a deck that's not too commonly played, basically. If it's total poop and can't win against anything, most people just call it a bad deck and not rogue, but if it has a chance against some meta decks (decks that are tried and true, that are both played and win a lot) but isn't a commonly known or played deck, then it's rogue. USUALLY rogue won't do as well as meta (after all, meta is meta for a reason), but they'll surprise you.

I like rogue. It can be fun to play when it does well, because
a) it surprises opponents. They don't know what to do strategy-wise against your deck.
b) other decks haven't tested against yours for hours like they would against meta decks. Their list isn't optimized to play against yours, and that can be a big advantage.
c) you have nothing to lose by playing it, really. If you win a game against a meta deck, wow, you just beat a meta deck with rogue- but if you lose, hey, your opponent was playing meta, you were trying out some unknown deck. No one expected you to win.
d) they're fun to play. A lot of time, rogue decks take more skill to play than meta decks (just because you have more options in the form of techs, etc. to beat the meta).

Now, the problem with going rogue is that you'll be hard-pressed to find different opinions on the same decks. Sure, some people play the same decks (even within the rogue category), but most of the building is up to you, unlike with meta decks, where you can look online for ideas as you please. For players new to the game, I'd recommend starting out with something metagame, just since it's easier to build and then you can really get into the game more quickly than with a rogue decks.

As for not buying cards individually, I think you'll have a hard time finding exactly the cards you need in boosters. If you buy a box of each set, you'd probably be okay on commons/most uncommons, but with rares, rare holos, and super rares, you wouldn't fill up too much of the set. I'd recommend either buying cards off of eBay (you can get them pretty cheap, and buy them all from the same person), TrollandToad (they've had some good prices when I've gone to buy there), etc. Another option would be finding a Pokémon League near you and trading there, or you could trade on Pokébeach at the Trading Corner.
 
RE: Hello guys! Newby Questions!

pretty much...rogue is a deck that isnt well known or HECK is only known by you. just look around for weird combos (ive got a bunch...gyarados HS and feraligatr prime to discard energy and make them not able to attack)

and pulling cards wise...uh i dont buy singles either but i also trade. so buy some boxes or what ever and then start a trade thread here or as scizor said...go to your local league and trade for what you need there :p
 
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