Cheap Deck Help

Varoble

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hi everyone. I am not that new to the Pokemon TCG, but I am certainly new to competitive play. I have been playing this game semi-competitively(as in, I try to be competitive, but not successful and so I stick to casual) on and off.

Now, I am not a rich guy. In fact, I have a rather limited budget for playing this game. From reading the threads here, it seems that Mewtwo EX has become extremely important. But now, the shop in my area does not have any more Mewtwo ex, since most players had brought copies of this card before it went out of stock. Mewtwo ex being out of stock means that I can only buy them from other players, and it is extremely expensive. I can't afford them. This is also true for most other ex pokemon.

Now, I am looking for competitive decks that are cheap to built. I hope that it is possible to play competitively on a budget.

Thanks.
 
It definitely is. Blastoise/Keldeo can be fairly cheap considering that both are available as set cards. Blastoise in a theme deck (IceShock) and Keldeo in a tin meaning that on the secondary market they're much lower considering their popularity. I've posted this in a few other threads too, but it is definitely the most cost effective deck currently available. There are quite a few cards that would be considered staples for it which WILL run the price up (Catchers, specifically), but if you're playing in between competitive and casual, you should be alright with your own ideas on the Trainers.
 
I feel that Darkrai/Lasers/Virbank is probably the cheapest deck in the format to build. Since Darkrai also came in a tin, it is now very affordable and his buddy sableye is very cheap and 3 copies of it also came in a theme deck (Raiders). Also the Raiders theme deck comes with 12x Darkness energy cards and 2x Dark Claws which obviously will help start your Darkrai/lasers build.
 
Since when is Mewtwo EX an expensive card? Mewtwo EX came in a tin, and since then has been around 7 bucks (don't know what country you live in, but that's how much it is in US dollars. 7 is pretty cheap). If that's too much for you, I wouldn't recommend playing a competitive TCG.

The absolute cheapest deck in the format is Bouffalant/Eelektrik- which usually benefits from having Mewtwo EX. Darkrai/Sableye/Lasers is considered a better deck, though. It can also play Ninetales, if you don't have enough for Pokemon Catcher's. Overall, most decks are pretty cheap, the main hurtle is Pokemon Catcher, which almost all decks play 3 or 4 of, and they cost around 15 bucks each.
 
Thanks guys, I was always thinking of getting Blastoise/Keldeo but the catchers are, as you said, quite expensive. I was thinking of just buying a few Emerging Powers packs instead to see if I could pull one or two, especially as they're a lot cheaper and you get more cards - which could have some more cards needed in decks inside, thanks all for your help.

I'll try to stay updated.
 
The cheapest decks out there are straight Darkrai, Darkrai/Mewtwo, Rayeels, and Mewtwo/Eels variants since their main EXs are in tins and the other pokemon and such are cheap. Rayeels and Darkrai (with a high Sableye count) can hypothetically work with just 3 catchers, should it be insurmountable to get 4.
 
I agree with Machamp. You can find Bouffalants going for less than a dollar on Amazon and Eelektriks...uh...I dunno. I also like the Darkrai-EX/Virbank/HTL idea, because those Trainers are relatively inexpensive, especially for how good they are. Of course, Pokémon Catcher and Computer Search are expensive cards, but you can use Escape Rope as a meh substitute, (if it even is one at all), and Dowsing Machine which goes for less than six bucks for your ACE SPEC. Thankfully, the Supporters don't go for that much either, and you can probably get 'em in a four-card lot on Ebay or something to save a dollar or two. Good luck!
 
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