List of Staple Cards?

[DarkMatterGaming]

Sorry to be a bother, but I need to ask something really stupid simple. I got my friend into Pokemon Trading Card Game via the online client, but I don't know how to explain what the 'staple' cards are or how hard they are to find. So if you guys could help me out and list off some staple cards so I can link him to this post, I'd really appreciate that!

The only ones I could think of were Lysandre and Float Stone, so...

 

[Ironman131]

Proffesor Juniper/sycamore, N, Ultra Ball, muscle bands, Colress, Skyla, korrina, switch are a few staple cards.

 

[My Little Keldeo]

This thread should be a good starting point. From there you should look toward the specifics of the deck your friend is trying to build. The tricky thing with online is that you can't just buy cards with money. Online packs (obtained from codes in physical packs) are used as currency, and it's rather confusing to someone who's not on there regularly. You can purchese codes online from ebay and other websites / sellers, but there's no way to get them officially from Pokemon without buying physical packs, unless you live in Canada. Canadian players are (unless it was discontinued) able to purchase "gems" for real money which can be redeemed in TCGO for goodies.

 

[Toro Rosso]

Remember that you need to be a little future-proof as your friend will most likely be playing with the new rotation in mind.

For this, I'd recommend sourcing Professor Sycamore, Muscle Band, Hard Charm, Shauna, Ultra Ball, Korina and Switch. Most of the older players will be intrigued why no N's, Skylas or Colress here. I do think that most of the older sets, particularly Boundaries Crossed and Plasma Storm is out of print, leaving perhaps Plasma Blast onwards still in print. No A-SPECs either as they will be rotated out.

Sure, you'd be disadvantaged in the short term but in the long term, you'd be a lot more experienced in dealing without the staples we have today.

 

[DarkMatterGaming]

Remember that you need to be a little future-proof as your friend will most likely be playing with the new rotation in mind.

For this, I'd recommend sourcing Professor Sycamore, Muscle Band, Hard Charm, Shauna, Ultra Ball, Korina and Switch. Most of the older players will be intrigued why no N's, Skylas or Colress here. I do think that most of the older sets, particularly Boundaries Crossed and Plasma Storm is out of print, leaving perhaps Plasma Blast onwards still in print. No A-SPECs either as they will be rotated out.

Sure, you'd be disadvantaged in the short term but in the long term, you'd be a lot more experienced in dealing without the staples we have today.

...Which is a fair point to make. Keeping in mind that PTCGO isn't that kind, however... I don't know. I'm planning on helping him build a Night March deck to start off - that's what I did before I got my hands on Pseudo Donphan and eventually regular Donphan - but I want him to get a general idea of what good staple cards are, you know?

 

[Talkingcat]

Remember that you need to be a little future-proof as your friend will most likely be playing with the new rotation in mind.

For this, I'd recommend sourcing Professor Sycamore, Muscle Band, Hard Charm, Shauna, Ultra Ball, Korina and Switch. Most of the older players will be intrigued why no N's, Skylas or Colress here. I do think that most of the older sets, particularly Boundaries Crossed and Plasma Storm is out of print, leaving perhaps Plasma Blast onwards still in print. No A-SPECs either as they will be rotated out.

Sure, you'd be disadvantaged in the short term but in the long term, you'd be a lot more experienced in dealing without the staples we have today.

I don't think that experience of playing without N, Colress and Skyla would be *that* useful. Useful, yes, but I would imagine that good players will be fully used to it in a few days or weeks. And winning is also a useful experience, and without staples like N a new player will be getting a lot less of that.

The main argument for future - proofing is cost. But N costs, what, $4 or $5? TCGs are pretty expensive. I am not sure anyone should be planning to compete at all if they can't afford to pay $16 for a full playset of one of the most important staples in the format for 9 months. If rotation was a few months off, and not nine or so, it might be different.

 

[Toro Rosso]

Remember that you need to be a little future-proof as your friend will most likely be playing with the new rotation in mind.

For this, I'd recommend sourcing Professor Sycamore, Muscle Band, Hard Charm, Shauna, Ultra Ball, Korina and Switch. Most of the older players will be intrigued why no N's, Skylas or Colress here. I do think that most of the older sets, particularly Boundaries Crossed and Plasma Storm is out of print, leaving perhaps Plasma Blast onwards still in print. No A-SPECs either as they will be rotated out.

Sure, you'd be disadvantaged in the short term but in the long term, you'd be a lot more experienced in dealing without the staples we have today.

...Which is a fair point to make. Keeping in mind that PTCGO isn't that kind, however... I don't know. I'm planning on helping him build a Night March deck to start off - that's what I did before I got my hands on Pseudo Donphan and eventually regular Donphan - but I want him to get a general idea of what good staple cards are, you know?

Any card game is not kind to a player, plain simple. If you want to be competitive, then be prepared to pay a lot, in either money or time. That's the hard truth.

The problem is that he/she is a new player which complicates things as they are smack bang in the middle of a transition period unlike me who entered just at the right time when EXs started appearing. Talkingcat is somewhat right here but this is a new player. He/she will be playing for a few months in this format then suddenly, all those cards for those months (N, Colress, Skyla, A-SPECs) are useless.

Plus, winning is not a simple experience to gain. It's the damn hard work of learning where you've gone wrong that gets you somewhere, not winning.