Deck Lists, Promos, and Contents Revealed for “Zeraora / Deoxys V Battle Decks”

[Water Pokémon Master]

The deck lists have now been revealed for the V Battle Decks featuring Deoxys V and Zeroara V!

The bundled version will come with eight more Trainers, including two holo Professor’s Research (Professor Rowan).

Here are the other contents of the bundled version:

Playmat

Deck Boxes...

Continue reading...

 

[dineinunes]

I wonder if the Luxray line in Zeraora's deck will be the Start Deck 100 alternate artwork we have yet to get, this would clear some space in SWSH12.5 considering the Luxray line from Paradigm Trigger should already be in it.

 

[dmein89]

So the best part is the mat....

 

[ZestyGan]

Was it worth it? Was it worth it to give up Theme Decks for these uninspired, useless, garbage casg grabs? I wonder where these will be in 5 years...

 

[machamps_fifth_hand]

Need that deoxys coin

 

[DMYSYS]

Was it worth it? Was it worth it to give up Theme Decks for these uninspired, useless, garbage casg grabs? I wonder where these will be in 5 years...

I hadn't bought a theme deck in over 10 years when they retired them. I think they got a bit better than I remember them being, but they were always these weird products that overall seemed to offer inferior value to boosters.

 

[ZestyGan]

I hadn't bought a theme deck in over 10 years when they retired them. I think they got a bit better than I remember them being, but they were always these weird products that overall seemed to offer inferior value to boosters.

You are not the audience for them. I don't know how many times this needs to be said, this TCG isn't new...

 

[Rex15]

Was it worth it? Was it worth it to give up Theme Decks for these uninspired, useless, garbage casg grabs? I wonder where these will be in 5 years...

These are still effectively theme decks though, are they not?

 

[N's Rhyperior]

They seem to use cards from the latest set they're available because this product was made months in adv before Silver Tempest.

The Luxray was the one with "Energy Crush"

The Gardevoir was the one with "Shining Arcana"

The Cresselia was the one from Lost Origin (Not sure because CHR Thundurus accels energy, we might see a pattern here. The Cresselia might be the CHR one.)

Etc. You get my point here

 

[N's Rhyperior]

Here's the cards that I've been referring to.

 

[DMYSYS]

Etc. You get my point here

I don't get the point.

 

[PartTimeTCGCollector]

Here's the cards that I've been referring to.

That's the Gardevoir they are offering? Ok, I will consider getting one if that is the case.

 

[PartTimeTCGCollector]

I was a fan of theme deck; I was guaranteed cards that I wanted.

 

[ZestyGan]

These are still effectively theme decks though, are they not?

No. Not really. They LOOK the same, but they cannot be used in Theme, cannot be bought in PTCGO, are more expensive and always sacrifice deck quality for the sake of the deck having Vs in it. So, if anything, they couldn't be further from theme decks outside of 2 things.

 

[bbb888]

No. Not really. They LOOK the same, but they cannot be used in Theme, cannot be bought in PTCGO, are more expensive and always sacrifice deck quality for the sake of the deck having Vs in it. So, if anything, they couldn't be further from theme decks outside of 2 things.

Also, theme decks are associated with each set, and at least 90% of the cards come from that particular set. On the other hand, V Battle decks use cards from many sets, so it's harder to complete a specific set.
Theme decks often have exclusive non-holos and ice shard holo cards. The decks from HGSS era also included a bonus booster pack!

 

[DMYSYS]

Also, theme decks are associated with each set, and at least 90% of the cards come from that particular set. On the other hand, V Battle decks use cards from many sets, so it's harder to complete a specific set.
Theme decks often have exclusive non-holos and ice shard holo cards. The decks from HGSS era also included a bonus booster pack!

I don't know how the HGSS pricing broke down, but in terms of "set completion" theme decks were never a good way of going about it. The main thing I'm quizzing here is this pretense of Battle Decks as some unscrupulous cash grab where Theme Decks were somehow manna from heaven and along those lines I want to ask – if all you're after are the exclusive non-holos/ice shard holos, aren't you being cajoled into buying a whole deck you might not want, just for 1-2 cards?

These new decks are doing something similar, but it's why I see this as an apples-to-apples, and I don't really see what's been lost here. In both cases they're lousy – whereas Japanese decks used it as an opportunity to spread unique cards out of their respective main sets and help reduce the size of main set, EN theme decks only ever offered variants at best. What exactly are we waxing nostalgic for, here?

 

[bbb888]

I don't know how the HGSS pricing broke down, but in terms of "set completion" theme decks were never a good way of going about it. The main thing I'm quizzing here is this pretense of Battle Decks as some unscrupulous cash grab where Theme Decks were somehow manna from heaven and along those lines I want to ask – if all you're after are the exclusive non-holos/ice shard holos, aren't you being cajoled into buying a whole deck you might not want, just for 1-2 cards?

These new decks are doing something similar, but it's why I see this as an apples-to-apples, and I don't really see what's been lost here. In both cases they're lousy – whereas Japanese decks used it as an opportunity to spread unique cards out of their respective main sets and help reduce the size of main set, EN theme decks only ever offered variants at best. What exactly are we waxing nostalgic for, here?

I'm not trying to be for or against theme decks or V Battle decks. I just wanted to add a few points that @ZestyGan missed.

Also, @Water Pokémon Master wrote an article about why theme decks were discontinued in favor of V Battles.
Whether you call this change cash grab or not, is really just personal perspective. But know that every business needs to be profitable.

 

[DMYSYS]

I'm not trying to be for or against theme decks or V Battle decks. I just wanted to add a few points that @ZestyGan missed.

Honestly, between the two of them – neither am I! I can see how it might come across that way, but I am genuinely curious on why someone would miss theme decks, and figured I'd lay flat out what parts it is I'm not understanding.

[1] I dont understand the premise that Theme Decks were good value for money – I don't see how!
[2] I don't understand the V Battle Decks are worse. I could be persuaded either way, but even prior to this conversation WPM's article regarding the rationale made perfect sense to me and I was left with the impression Theme Decks were retired for coherent reasons.

 

[sonicjms]

Theme decks and V battle decks serve the same purpose, they're preconstructed decks which you can buy two different ones (usually for kids) and have them play against each other while being a little more advanced than something like the Battle Academy, it also gives kids a rule book to learn the game. TCG Online has the theme deck format but that's sunsetting at some point in favor of Live just handing out meta decks for people to play and realistically theme deck format was something to play while you grinded to build a proper deck.

 

[TheRainmaker]

At least League Battle decks (and Trainer Toolkits) are a thing, and we've been getting quite a few of them. These V Battle decks are clearly catered for kids who have never really played before, and the only loss I can think of to everyone else is the lack of new viable Theme Decks to battle with in PTCGO. This one is also a huge step up from the previous ones, as it actually includes evolutions for the main rulebox Pokemon instead of only including only the mediocre base evolving V... I imagine with the upcoming ex era that they'll only include 1 copy of the ex and maybe 1-2 copies of the non-rulebox counterpart of it (e.g. 1 Lucario ex and 1-2 Lucario).