New Player - Practicing, Choosing a Deck and Building a Collection

LifeSword3

LifeSword3

The great time shifter
Member
Hello everyone,

As my first post on these forums, I thought it may be a good idea to seek out your experiences and ask you for any advice on how should I start my Pokemon TCG collection and deckbuilding adventure. I have been a long time magic : the gathering casual player but the game got too expensive for me to follow and I started to loose interest. I started recently (two weeks ago) the online version of Pokemon TCG and I already have a pretty good understanding of the basics of deckbuilding and the basic rules, yet I still need to practice. I have no card collection and my budget is roughly around 25$ to 50$ a month. I really can't travel overseas as much as I want from where I live but I do wish to go semi-competitive since the only objective I have in playing any card game is to win and for that I already have some of the reflexes of an average cardgame player. My favorites types of deck are control and combo, sometime heavy-aggro, my favorites elements are water, psy and darkness as well as fire and dragon.

Thank you very much for your help and I wish you a excellent day,

Sincerly.
 
Hello and welcome to Pokémon TCG.

A few thoughts (not in any particular order):
  • As one who starting collecting entire sets from day 1 (18 years ago), I would suggest making this activity your last priority just due to cost and other "higher" priority activities like actually building decks.
  • Definitely build and test decks online (either ptcgo.com or tcgone.net) before actually investing in the actual cards. For live play, consider making and using card proxies.
  • Join and participate at your local league(s). Hopefully, you eventually have some Poké pals who'll share ideas and tactics with you.
  • Utilize PokéBeach's TCG Player Help & Advice Forum for general deck building guidelines, strategy and tactics. There are also some great threads in this Forum regarding "what deck to play" and "what should I buy":
  • Utilize PokéBeach's Deck Garage Forum to peruse different players' decks. You may find some deck lists there that suit you. These could be great starting points before you start to tweak your deck. When you're ready, post your deck list for feedback and comments.
Lastly, you'll find the player community here (in most cases) will be helpful. So, feel free to post questions, ideas, etc.

Again, welcome to Pokémon TCG and PokéBeach.
 
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Hi Tuxedo,

First of all, thank you very much for your help, I appreciate it. Then, if I may ask, how expensive do you think Pokémon TCG is in competitive compared to other games like say... MtG ? The average cost of a competitive deck here is roughly around 500$ to 800$ depending on the format and the sets and you have to include nearly 600$ more if you play competitive for booster draft and sealed formats, plus travel expenses, etc...

I've been checking the prices on TCGplayer.com and it seems rather affordable (3,50$ for an Altaria EX, must be around 4 euros), I just don't want to have the same kind of random price speculation like in MtG (spoilers at launch have their values set around 10$ to 20$ and depending on the popularity and its tournaments results at Grand Prix and ProTours, it can gain easily 20$ up to 50$ in two month or few weeks !), in other words I can't really spend a fortune just for a playset of ards I absolutely need in my deck.

By the way, the links don't work but it's okay I'll take a look in the subforums. Thanks !
 
The price difference between MtG and PTCG is significantly different, thankfully. Most decks cost around $100, some even less. The card that makes most decks very expensive is Shaymin-EX, which has skyrocketed to around $50 per copy. Nothing else is anywhere near that high, though.

You should know that there is two competitive formats, which tend to use different decks - Expanded and Standard. Expanded is BW-on, and in the 2017 rotation, Standard will be PRC-on. (As such, the Expanded format uses Standard cards plus quite a few more.)
 
Sorry about the links. I need to recheck some notes for the correct syntax.

Definitely checkout other discussion threads in this Forum regarding deck price range. I actually have not priced any of my decks, but there are a few cards like Shaymin EX which seem to a staple in 99.9%+ of decks. This Pokémon provides supplemental card-draw support and can be quite useful. BUT, it is also one of the most expensive cards in the game right now costing about $45-$50. And some decks even run 4. However, I will go out on a limb and venture that a good, competitive deck would cost under $200.

I would also suggest testing your deck a lot online before investing in any cards, especially the expensive ones. Secondly, you may also be able to save some money by borrowing needed cards for tournaments too. There are lots of sources from which you could trade and/or buy cards too, ranging from local card shops to online stores.
 
Alright, as for Shaymin EX I'll wait until I get all the cards I need before investing in expensive staples but a 200$ price-range for a competitive deck seems extremely reasonable compared to what I was used to while playing MtG. I do intend to playtest a lot online, but it's more difficult to get the EX Pokémons and other staples since the cards you get from the boosters you buy with in game currency are locked and can't be traded, wich is kinda sad.

I'm still not familiar with the ban lists and the way rotation works in format like standard, is it similar to MtG or way different ? Do you have any ressources on wich I can follow the status of the banlist ? Also, is there any online glossary that resume all of the abreviations and other technical vocabulary that are used for Pokémon ?

Thanks both for your help.
 
LifeSword3 said:
Alright, as for Shaymin EX I'll wait until I get all the cards I need before investing in expensive staples but a 200$ price-range for a competitive deck seems extremely reasonable compared to what I was used to while playing MtG. I do intend to playtest a lot online, but it's more difficult to get the EX Pokémons and other staples since the cards you get from the boosters you buy with in game currency are locked and can't be traded, wich is kinda sad.
Click to expand...
You could potentially search around for a free fan-made simulator that allows you to use any card, or print proxies.

I'm still not familiar with the ban lists and the way rotation works in format like standard, is it similar to MtG or way different ? Do you have any ressources on wich I can follow the status of the banlist ? Also, is there any online glossary that resume all of the abreviations and other technical vocabulary that are used for Pokémon ?
Click to expand...

I'm not too sure how MtG rotations work, so I can't really compare. In PTCG, each year a select number of older expansions will rotate out of format, meaning those cards cannot be used in that format for next rotation. This keeps the formats fresh. Do note, however, that if a card of the same name (and attacks/etc for the Pokemon) from an older expansion was printed in an expansion still in format, that older card can still be used. These are "reprints". In regards to banned cards, cards are rarely banned in PTCG, with the only relevant cards banned from Expanded and Standard being Shiftry NXD and Lysandre's Trump Card. PB has an older glossary that you can find here, which covers many of the technical vocabulary used today.
 
LifeSword3 said:
...I do intend to playtest a lot online, but it's more difficult to get the EX Pokémons and other staples since the cards you get from the boosters you buy with in game currency are locked and can't be traded, wich is kinda sad..
Click to expand...
Checkout the website tcgone.net where you can build and test decks ("Quickplay") in either Expanded or Standard formats completely free.
 
@bbninjas : The rotation in the standard format for MtG works every two year when a new block of two or three sets appears, you get to play with two blocks of 4-6 sets (editions) and when a new one comes, the last one rotates out. But does that means for Pokémon there's a possibility that the rotated sets may come back in the following seasons or they rotate for good ? Thank you for sharing the link to the glossary, I'll take surely a look.

@TuxedoBlack : Thanks again, I don't really have the time nor the will to farm for boosters and hope to get the EXs on the official PTCGO.
 
There is a possibility that a card could be reprinted in future (i.e. N got reprinted after nearly a year of being out of Standard), but I wouldn't ever bank on it.
 
LifeSword3 said:
But does that means for Pokémon there's a possibility that the rotated sets may come back in the following seasons or they rotate for good ?
Click to expand...
No. Once a set has rotated, it will never come back to Standard (though 5-10 cards may get reprinted)
 
Hey Otaku,

Yes I was talking about the official online Pokémon TCG, I already got a nice collection and I'm starting to get used to deckbuilding thanks to it.
 
LifeSword3 said:
Hey Otaku,

Yes I was talking about the official online Pokémon TCG, I already got a nice collection and I'm starting to get used to deckbuilding thanks to it.
Click to expand...

Some quick questions to get an idea of how you're doing on the PTCGO:

1) Have you learned the basic rule of thumb "Never open an unlocked booster pack."? This stems from unopened booster packs basically being the common "currency" for PTCGO trades. You can't pay Tokens or Gems to other players, so people pay in unopened booster packs because while there are still varying rates of exchange, it is just easier to learn the current booster pack rates than try to have the particular cards someone needs. Plus pulling good cards from booster packs is a lot like real life; you so rarely get what you need it is just easier to trade for it.

2) Are you aware of the official forums for the PTCGO: http://forums.pokemontcg.com/ ? They contain a subforum called the In-Game Item Exchange. You have to be logged in to read that one (some areas can be read without logging in), but it is quite important for players because various trading groups post their rates for cards and booster packs; there usually isn't much difference between trading group rates, so people use these like a price guide. As trading groups usually have at least one member online most (or all) of the time it makes them a bit like shopping retail; if you're bad at haggling you use them. If you're at least decent at trading, you just work making public or private offers to people.

If this seems off topic... this is how I you get an idea for someone's understanding of the PTCGO. I could add a few more, but I believe these will suffice.
 
Otaku said:
Some quick questions to get an idea of how you're doing on the PTCGO:

1) Have you learned the basic rule of thumb "Never open an unlocked booster pack."? This stems from unopened booster packs basically being the common "currency" for PTCGO trades. You can't pay Tokens or Gems to other players, so people pay in unopened booster packs because while there are still varying rates of exchange, it is just easier to learn the current booster pack rates than try to have the particular cards someone needs. Plus pulling good cards from booster packs is a lot like real life; you so rarely get what you need it is just easier to trade for it.

2) Are you aware of the official forums for the PTCGO: http://forums.pokemontcg.com/ ? They contain a subforum called the In-Game Item Exchange. You have to be logged in to read that one (some areas can be read without logging in), but it is quite important for players because various trading groups post their rates for cards and booster packs; there usually isn't much difference between trading group rates, so people use these like a price guide. As trading groups usually have at least one member online most (or all) of the time it makes them a bit like shopping retail; if you're bad at haggling you use them. If you're at least decent at trading, you just work making public or private offers to people.

If this seems off topic... this is how I you get an idea for someone's understanding of the PTCGO. I could add a few more, but I believe these will suffice.
Click to expand...

1) Yes kinda, I just don't win enough tournaments on a regular basis to have enough booster packs for trade but when I do get one unlocked I just go check the available public trades to see if there's anything that looks interesting to me. However, I can save to buy display cases every two month (obviously I won't buy one that often but I could) and use the in-game packs for trade. Besides, considering this fact I still don't want to fall directly into the trap of "I want a deck full of EXs" when I don't have a decent trade collectio and I don't know their values.

2) Absolutely not, thank you for sharing this, it will avoid many mistakes in trades wich may happen :p
 
LifeSword3 said:
1) Yes kinda, I just don't win enough tournaments on a regular basis to have enough booster packs for trade but when I do get one unlocked I just go check the available public trades to see if there's anything that looks interesting to me. However, I can save to buy display cases every two month (obviously I won't buy one that often but I could) and use the in-game packs for trade. Besides, considering this fact I still don't want to fall directly into the trap of "I want a deck full of EXs" when I don't have a decent trade collectio and I don't know their values.

2) Absolutely not, thank you for sharing this, it will avoid many mistakes in trades wich may happen :p
Click to expand...

Glad the second bit helps, but now for the first; are you focusing on Theme Decks until you get a good competitive deck? Thanks to Shaymin-EX (ROS) I can think of only one truly competitive deck that runs with no Pokémon-EX, but once you clear that hurdle you can build some "decent enough for the PTCGO" decks that lack them, or any other Pokémon-EX. A common misconception is that Pokémon-EX are the be-all-end-all of the TCG, but it is really overly powerful cards in general; it may not sound like it, but yes it is better that the "broken" Basic (EX or otherwise), Stage 1, Stage 2, BREAK and Mega Evolutions are the competitive card pool and not just Pokémon-EX in general. ;)

Anyway, if you can't build a competitive enough deck, you should be using Dark Hammer, XY Basic Blue, or XY Basic Green to compete in Theme Deck events, where you can save up more than a few booster packs at a time. Just 89 Tokens for a shot at winning some Tickets, plus the game throws a lot of Ticket Rewards your way as is. Not quite as easy as it was when Tournaments had a 4 Ticket Entry fee instead of an 8 Ticket one, but you can still grind this way.
 
Well, I did focused on basic theme decks for a while until I got a decent collection, right I still play with these decks but I try to start building some decks with what I've got but if there's two kinds that I'm really considering building for competitive purposes are a Dragon-type (Fire/Water/?) and a deck focused on Pyroar Break. I've already tried to build one around Delphox break but compared to Pyroar it's just too slow and the Flashfire pyroar can protect itself from base pokémons attack wich sounds efficient and the break pyroar can 1HKO EX pokémons unlike Delphox for 180 damages. I still think that Octillery is a good alternative to that Shaymin EX you're talking about and it's much cheaper, wich is appreciated in my case. But yeah, don't worry about that because I've understood it rather quickly (Leviator, Break cards, etc...). I just won my second tournament with the Drattak-themed deck from Roaring Skies, it's slow but hitting for 170 is really enjoyable and I traded the boosters for a Mewtwo EX Full Art wich I'll keep for a Volcanion EX secret or something in that range.
 
LifeSword3 said:
I still think that Octillery is a good alternative to that Shaymin EX you're talking about...
Click to expand...

Poke around this message board (and most others) and read up on that. I've tried both and Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies 77/108, 106/108) is far, far better than Octillery (XY: BREAKthrough 33/162). We can discuss it further there, but unless we get word of a Shaymin-EX reprint coming out or a Shaymin-EX hard counter proves worthwhile (either a new one or something already released), it really ought to be one of your chief priorities.

Hey it could be worse; I'm still trying to save up for Tropical Beach in the PTCGO. I dunno about the French language version for the physical TCG or the PTCGO, but the English language one are hard to come by; thankfully it is no longer a deck staple and only was for a short time. Still some decks in the Legacy Format and the Expanded Format can really use it. Oh... and the mixed blessing of Shaymin-EX being in almost all decks at a two count is that means you'll get your money/booster-pack's worth out of it pretty quick. ;)
 
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