Hi so me and my girlfriend have just started Pokemon again after years out from the TCG. To start us off I have just purchased Brillant Thunder and Resilient Life decks. It would be great to hear some improvements from you all. Thanks for looking.
Improve My Theme Decks
- Thread starter BlessingOfChaos
- Start date
GadgetJax
Traveling Storyteller and Card Faker
Resilient Life contains Xerneas and Aromatisse, both of which are really good cards. I personally don't know what AAA Pokemon there are in Brilliant Thunder, but I'm sure you could probably make use of that Deck's Heliolisk to search out Rainbow Energy, which can then be moved around by Fairy Transfer. It's not a fantastic Combo, but I think it's pretty solid for a starting choice.
As far as attackers for the deck, Xerneas and Pidgeot are probably your best bet for what comes with the 2 decks. If you can shell out the extra cash, I feel that Xerneas-EX is probably the best Fairy Type attacker right now. Other good attackers that run on [C] Energy include M. Kangaskhan-EX, Mewtwo-EX, among others.
The trainer cards that come with the Brilliant Thunder deck are good, but I don't think they mesh well with Aromatisse. If you choose to go the Fire Type route, then Torkoal is a pretty okay attacker that speeds up with the help of Blacksmith. Other good Fire Type attackers that don't cost that much money include Blaziken from Furious Fists, Flareon from Plasma Freeze(Which uses Colorless Energy), and Reshiram from Legendary Treasures.
The Psychic Types in resilient Life are pretty awful, and the Pokemon they evolve into are either expensive(Trevenant, Gourgeist), or overall bad(Arbok, Grumpig). Stay away from Psychic Type for now.
The Lightning Types are pretty solid as well. Luxio is probably the best one in Brilliant Thunder, and comboes well with Milotic from Flashfire and Cofagrigus from Plasma Freeze(The one with Slap Of Misfortune). Though, when you can get enough money on hand, I would say Lucario from Plasma Storm(The Holofoil One) is the best Revenge Attacker out right now, as it's damage output is much higher than Luxio and he has more HP.
As far as attackers for the deck, Xerneas and Pidgeot are probably your best bet for what comes with the 2 decks. If you can shell out the extra cash, I feel that Xerneas-EX is probably the best Fairy Type attacker right now. Other good attackers that run on [C] Energy include M. Kangaskhan-EX, Mewtwo-EX, among others.
The trainer cards that come with the Brilliant Thunder deck are good, but I don't think they mesh well with Aromatisse. If you choose to go the Fire Type route, then Torkoal is a pretty okay attacker that speeds up with the help of Blacksmith. Other good Fire Type attackers that don't cost that much money include Blaziken from Furious Fists, Flareon from Plasma Freeze(Which uses Colorless Energy), and Reshiram from Legendary Treasures.
The Psychic Types in resilient Life are pretty awful, and the Pokemon they evolve into are either expensive(Trevenant, Gourgeist), or overall bad(Arbok, Grumpig). Stay away from Psychic Type for now.
The Lightning Types are pretty solid as well. Luxio is probably the best one in Brilliant Thunder, and comboes well with Milotic from Flashfire and Cofagrigus from Plasma Freeze(The one with Slap Of Misfortune). Though, when you can get enough money on hand, I would say Lucario from Plasma Storm(The Holofoil One) is the best Revenge Attacker out right now, as it's damage output is much higher than Luxio and he has more HP.
Theme decks are more or less designed to be played against other theme decks as a means of teaching the game to new players by removing some of the more complex elements. That said, they tend to not have a coherent strategy, and focus on two (sometimes more types) that quite often have no synergy. I'll use the Resilient Life deck as an example. It comes with two Xerneas and one Aromatisse. These are both key cards in Fairy-based decks, but the deck doesn't include a solid attacker that can take advantage of the Fairy engine, such as Xerneas-EX or M-Kangaskhan-EX. To make matters worse, there's also Psychic Pokemon, some with hefty energy requirements that can't be helped by Aromatisse at all. Lastly, like all theme decks, it's severely lacking in Trainers to be efficient.
I'm getting the feeling that you and your girlfriend aren't interested in playing competitively, and there's nothing wrong with that. As a competitive player, I personally like decks that win a lot, but even when building "for fun" decks, you can apply the same sort of wisdom to help plan your strategy and get things rolling in the game. In other words, you don't want to just keep drawing a card every turn and hope you're lucky enough to get the one card you need. You're better off building decks from scratch rather than trying to improve a theme deck. I'd suggest you and your girflreidn look over your cards and each pick a Pokemon you'd like to be your main attacker, and build decks around them. Your local game store is also a good place to try, if they have a Pokemon League. That's a great place to meet other Pokemon players and trade in a casual setting (you'll meet competitive people too, but since it's not a tournament setting most will be happy to help you guys). I hope you and your girfriend have fun playing, and I wish you both the best of luck!
I'm getting the feeling that you and your girlfriend aren't interested in playing competitively, and there's nothing wrong with that. As a competitive player, I personally like decks that win a lot, but even when building "for fun" decks, you can apply the same sort of wisdom to help plan your strategy and get things rolling in the game. In other words, you don't want to just keep drawing a card every turn and hope you're lucky enough to get the one card you need. You're better off building decks from scratch rather than trying to improve a theme deck. I'd suggest you and your girflreidn look over your cards and each pick a Pokemon you'd like to be your main attacker, and build decks around them. Your local game store is also a good place to try, if they have a Pokemon League. That's a great place to meet other Pokemon players and trade in a casual setting (you'll meet competitive people too, but since it's not a tournament setting most will be happy to help you guys). I hope you and your girfriend have fun playing, and I wish you both the best of luck!
Thank you both for the responses, I will have a look into it a bit and see what I can make up, as you say it's not really competitive level I am after, I might start going to local Tournaments in a month or two but that can wait for now until I know more about the game, I have just come from years of YuGiOh so I'm not shy on tcg's but I am still new to this because I have not played pokemon in so long. Thanks again!