How to Afford The Pokemon Tcg

Become a good player. I got two thirds of a box for T8 and got pretty much every good NV card save Fliptini. Oh, and prereleases help too. New stuff is hot, Hydreigon was almost 10 dollars and Kyurem was 15.
 
^It takes luck, too. I got two boxes from Regionals, and didn't pull any FA Cobalion, any FA Victini, OR any FA N. But, all the cards were free, so who cares? :) Still, this is just another reason why I only buy singles.
 
SotH said:
Become a girl and let all the guys give you cards. No money spent.
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You encouraging him to cross dress and use a high pitch voice to get free cards?!?! :O Let me know how that works. Then again maybe you can try the opposite? Make yourself look like a Zac Efron or something and bam all the girls end up giving you free cards instead! That'd take a lotta work though... 8 weeks at the gym probably and then a few more weeks getting hair grown and styled in a Disney pretty boy fashion. But even they know it's out of style and have gone spikey now. It's just manlier.

Rock out that look and your six pack like Taylor Lautner and maybe something will happen. Or maybe they'll point and laugh if they hate Twilight or Disney boys. :p

Anyway...

Don't buy a box, even if it's like 70$. Unless there's something you really need or a whole lotta cards you need... don't do it. If you're just buying cards to play competitively it's cheaper to buy singles. Paying for 4x pokemon catchers is cheaper than buying a box and hoping it comes with 4 catchers. (although my box had 3 and two FA Thundurus's) Boxes are usually meant for collectors who want to fill up their set or players who need to build new strategies from the lots of cards they get but again, cheaper to get what you need. If you need energies, it's cheaper to get theme decks and use those. Otherwise it's like 1$ a piece for energies on certain websites...

If you really want to buy packs... get tins or bundles. They usually come with pretty great stuff. (got a reverse catcher from an Emboar tin...) Never spend more than 20$ on a 5 pack tin though, that's a rip off. Target and Best Buy sell em for 20. Comic book stores such as Newbury comics try to rob you by selling it for 26$.

And there's a pattern that the first 8 (side to side counting...) of the box that might have great cards and possibly the last 8 in the back... but the shop owner also might have mixed them around. :p I haven't tried it and it probably won't work all the time.

But anyway there you have it... either borrow someone's awesome cards, win free stuff, sell it, profit, and buy a box and profit off that or...

Just buy singles. Hope to find a store that sells a good deal for them and aren't overcharging them like certain online stores that like to use an amphibian in their name...
 
I suppose it also comes down to what you want to do with the cards and what sort of player you are. Most of PokéBeach consists of Spikes, and what you're hearing is a lot of Spike recommendations. I'm a Johnny. I usually get packs to figure out what sort of deck I want to make, and then once I have a good amount of the cards I want, I buy singles to finish them.

How does Professor-Oak.com compare to Troll & Toads? I haven't bought any singles in a while (as it's been about 2 years since I made a deck), but that was the last place I got them from. Is it still around as a site?
 
It's still around but the only thing it really has over Troll and Toad is free shipping or the 25 for $5 deal for cards that are <$0.50. The prices for almost every card are more expensive though.
 
Personally, I started buying boxes. I recently got into the game and bought a box of CoL. Then I bought EP, BW, and then NV for a total of about $400. From there, I started to trade down from what I had. For example, I traded a high valued card for a few lesser cards that were still worth something, and went on from there. Fast forward 3-4 months- My medium sized Monster binder has approximately $400 worth of high value/sought after/competitive cards. That's NOT including my deck filled with pricey staples, full arts, and reverse holos.

I think to be able to afford the game, you have to be willing to part with the expensive stuff you don't need, to get the things you do need. Like right now, Kyurem is worth 18-20 bucks. I'm sure you can fetch some collectors & Junk Arms for that Kyurem you don't want or need, for staple cards like those. It's about making something out of nothing!


I'll stick to my guns and keep buying boxes of every set :)
Selling your bulk is great too. You can make a decent amount of money back by selling unwanted rares, bulk, and competitive cards.
 
^Selling bulk is another great way to make money. For example, I was unpacking a box in my garage today, and I uncovered 69 LV. X/ex/Prime cards I had lost a couple years back. I also uncovered about 1000 RH/rare/holo cards, and countless uncommons and commons. I was planning to sell them when I quit the game before, but never got around to it. I've been able to survive without them this long, and I have little use for unlimited cards. Selling all of these in bulk is a great way to afford new, better cards. A few weeks from now, I should be rolling in dough. :)
 
I think my best piece of advice I got when I started back into the game in MD-on Was pick on deck and stick to it.

I made a Blastoise / Feraligatr / Floatzel GLX deck (using uxie, BTS e.t.c)
I just ran that deck and that deck only for months. I won leagues, a BR's e.t.c and I just kept using that deck! I slowly built a collection while playing it and before I know it from winning weekly leagues (we got 3x packs of our choice for winning) and trading these cards I had a nice collection!

To many new players at my league these days are trying to trade cards for 4-5 different decks, then they go out and buy a crap ton of different cards for different decks!

Focus on one deck at a time, you can only play 1 deck at a time.
 
Changing decks is a good thing. Usually the best deck for one tournament is no longer the best deck two weeks later, especially in a format like we have now. Price-wise, it's bad, but if you want to win, changing decks is literally a necessity.
 
Celebi23 said:
69
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Tee hee :p

Anyways, sticking to one deck is not a good idea. Most of the cards I use to play I win for tournaments, etc. This wouldn't happen if I stuck to one deck, because it's so easy to tech against a deck when you know someones going to be playing it. Another tip is Borrow, borrow, borrow. Don't build a deck according to the fact that you don't have a card, build it and borrow cards from people you know, this saves a lot. Finally, if you don't like bling, trade your RH staples for the same card + more to get more out of the cards you have.
 
^They do sell them in some smaller card stores. What's wrong with buying them online, though?
 
How I get the most out of my money on TCG stuff:

1. Always, ALWAYS go to pre-releases and drafts. Eight packs for $20-$25 is great.

2. Rather than single packs, buy in "bulk" by only getting theme boxes and tins. $20 would normally get you 4 packs. Theme boxes have cool figures/promos/jumbo-cards for the same amount of money. Tins have the tin for card storage plus a figure/normally really good promo.

3. I don't do this, as I don't have a deck built yet :)(), but go to League to win free packs.

So that's pretty much how I live off of the TCG, pre-releases, drafts, and tins.
 
Focus on one deck at a time, you can only play 1 deck at a time.
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I play 2 Modified decks, 2 decks from past formats, and I've got 1 Modified one that I am still working on tweaking the list on. Playing 1 deck is all well and good, but you want to allow yourself versatility.

I'd say when starting out that you should stick to 1 deck and just make minor variations here and there (which is what I did), but now I try to keep my options open.
 
I know sometimes its hard but hustle people(i dont do it to little kids or nothing i trade mainly with masters) I went to a battle roads one with honestly about 50$ worth of cards and a mat(hgss one with lugia and ho-oh) and left with 4 donphan 2/3 machamp(cant remember) 2 FA reshiram and zekrom--, no packs(i know its hard not to coz its soo fun)_if anything just get boxes- and sell your bulk cards.--oh and a little trick i like to do is get a bunch of not good ledgends, primes and FA's and trade those and rip yourself off a little for better/tradable stuff(FA's, good primes etc.) trust me on this one i have gotten rid of sooo many terrible ledgends and primes for usable cards--this trick works because the other person feels they are getting the better deal while insted you are.
 
DNA said:
I'd say when starting out that you should stick to 1 deck and just make minor variations here and there (which is what I did), but now I try to keep my options open.
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Yeah this was the point I was trying to make, thanks for understanding that :)

I totally agree, once you have the cards and can make more then 1 deck you should definitly be playing as many as possible. Perhaps I should have stated in my post that this was for people starting out! Once you have the hang of that deck you should have attended some pre-release's or won a league or two or done something to get more cards and then you can expand :)

I have about 3-4 decks built now that I have expanded my collection, but I only started out with just the one!
 
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