New to Pokemon, experienced Magic player. Need assistance with which precons to buy

V

verlorene

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hello, I have been playing Magic on and off since '95. This weekend after getting back from a Vintage (Type 1) tournament I was at my girlfriend's house and her nephew taught me how to play Pokemon. Currently there are only 2 decks at that house, his deck which is the the preconstructed Shaymin deck (grass / fire) along with cards from packs and her brothers deck which is (electric / psychic)...I had fun playing with the pyschic pokemon and ones with low retreat costs. I did a bit of research on popular decktypes and one that really caught my eye were the Dusknoir decks.

Instead of just buying all the singles on ebay for Tier1/2 decks and have a huge advantage, I'd rather buy some precons and packs and make whatever I can with that since it would be more fair. My problem is in deciding which preconstructed decks to start with. My little brother has cards from the 1st series to Fossil but I was told they only use cards from the newer sets because the old ones are unfair.

In Magic I prefer to play Blue/Black control cards (counterspell & discard) / deck manipulation & tutoring / and things that can affect many things at once (whether it be damage or bounce). Generally not speedy (if risky) or guys that are nukers at the expense of being fragile. I also play combo but that dosent appear to translate well into the Pokemon TCG.

This probably wont help at all but I played characters with similar attributes in World of Warcraft: resto druid (heal over time, crowd control), frost mage (slowing, area of effect, protection, crowd control, counterspell), and affliction warlock (damage over time, crowd control).

From what I know about the Pokemon TCG analogies would be:
area of effect = putting damage counters on multiple pokemon (I think this would be most fun)
counterspell = nothing like this
discard = I have seen some cards that discard from hand to discard pile
crowd control = sleep/stun
damage over time = affliction counter that affect pokemon between turns
tutoring = trainer search cards
protection/heal = tanks and pokemon that can remove afflictions / counters

I have 3 main questions:
1.) What types of energy should I focus on building decks around given the types of strats I like to play? I understand things like heal wont go with the other
2.) Given $65-70 which preconstructed decks / packs would you buy to play casually? I was thinking of starting with Stormfront Theme Deck Set - Gyrados Raging Sea + Tyranitar Dark Rampage and then I'm not sure on which other 2 pack I should buy.
3.) Are their any precons / packs that I should get to start making something in the style of the Dusknoir damage speading decks?

Note: I do plan on buying a few singles like multiple multi energies, Rare Candy, and other cards that allow and search for creature chains and instant evolutions ... these are not part of my budget.
 
Well, these decks are good ones for trainers you will need:

Milotic deck (Roseannes)
Electivire deck (Roseannes)
Magmortar deck (Bebes)
Rhyperior deck (bebes)

Those are some good decks as they come with good supporters that as needed in every deck. What color are you looking for in specific? Psychic? A good deck would be Palkia, Milotic, Giratina, as they come with Psychic energy and pokemon. If your looking for Duskenoir, buy Storm front packs, that set comes with 3 duskenoir, one of them being an X.
 
Well I'm not bound to any specific energy type yet. I'd like to get a couple decks started, thats one of the reasons I'd be willing to buy a couple preconstructed decks. I'd be able to build on those once I get the cards. One thing I have been having trouble finding is what attributes are associated with each of the energies. Thats why I listed some of the types of abilities I am looking for. Any help in linking those to energy types would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the suggestion for Stormfront packs, I will buy some of those.

I found the set you suggested for Electivire vs Magmortar: Pokemon Diamond & Pearl III - Secret Wonders Set of 2 Theme Decks (1 Powerhouse & 1 Lavaflow) but what about the other 2, is there a vs for those? if not what are the deck names?
 
Well the Milotic and Arcanine deck(the latter of which i did not list) is from Pokemon Platinum: Supreme Victors. Spread damage wise, you of course need Duskenoir X, and there are cards like Gallade E4X which do alot of spreading. You can get his lower form in the Gallade deck, from Rising Rivals. PM me for any indepth questions, as I cant seem to grasp exactly what your asking.
 
I would go for the latest Milotic Supreme Victors one and the Rhyperior Rising Rivals one. They've got Roseanne's and Bebe's in them, respectively. Then you can worry about specific Pokemon, Energy, and the rest of your Trainers.

dmaster out.
 
There are a few "stereotypes" that certain types of pokemon have. I'll try my best to generalize some for you as much as I can:

Grass- Most of these pokemon go with the healing strategy and/or status inflicting method. A lot of them require some decent energy to do big attacks, and some have healing attacks or pokebodies that will heal themselves or other pokemon. I can't think of many precon. decks that have decent grass pokemon in them other than the Majestic Dawn one with a torterra and leafeon (I think) and maybe the shaymin deck you've seen.

Water- Water types are pretty versatile, but the ones that come in the decks generally have some sort of sniping or spreading attack (so they hit the bench and/or the active pokemon). You could get the Raging sea deck and get some abomasnow for a spreading attack and gyarados, or I think there are a couple decks out there with empoleon from Diamond and Pearl and/or Majestic Dawn.

Dark- These types tend to have either a disruption attack (discard,status,etc) or a big attack that does decent damage. Tyranitar is a great one to try out (from Stormfront), as you can build on it over time and it will still remain relatively competitive, depending on your additions. Actually I would highly recommend this one, as it is very versatile. Tyranitar SF has and attack called grind that does 20 damage for each energy attached to it, as well as an attack that can spread out 30 damage to all of your opponent's pokemon. This type also has special dark energy, which add on 10 damage to your dark pokemon's attack.

Lightning- Usually electric pokemon are extremely quick to set up and require a small amount of energy to use their attacks, but occasionally have a drawback of having to discard their energy. You could probably find a lot of inexpensive pokemon from this category as singles that would form a fair deck compared to the ones your friends play, and find a precon. deck with the required energy. If you want this route I would do that- search this site for some interesting pokemon and get them as singles, then use the rest to buy a deck or two for energy/trainers/supporters. The electivire deck might be a solid choice for that method, but I'm drawing a blank on any others :S

Metal- Steel types tend to be somewhat tankish, with relatively high HP and/or attacks that "defend" themselves, such as causing your opponent to do -20 damage next turn. The Heatran deck from Legends Awakened has a metagross that's decent and carries a yanmega that spreads damage around (10 to all for 0 energy!) Getting your hands on special metal energy helps with the tank idea even more, as it defends you from damage if attached to a metal pokemon.

Fire- These blazing pokemon are usually high risk, high reward pokemon. VERY many of them do a high damage attack, but then are forced to discard a lot of their energy (sometimes dependent on a coin flip). They tend to have relatively low HP as well, making them kind of risky to play, but very rewarding if you get set up correctly. Magmortar or Infernape decks are probably good enough to base a deck on.

Fighting- A lot of fighting types hit very hard, but have high energy costs (but no discard usually). Most of these are the type that take a long set up, but take out the opposition with big attacks. Can't really think of any fighting decks right now that are preconstructed :/

Psychic- These ones are also pretty versatile, but I think many of the ones from precon. decks are either the status variant (confusion/poison) or the high energy kind (giratina/etc?). A lot of them tend to be of the spreading variety, but most of those I think aren't in any precon. decks.

Colorless- Uhh, regigigas? Haha, I think that's the only one that has a deck based around it, but you could find the collector's tin with his lvX in it for around $15 and play it with a couple of the precon deck regigiggigigas. Or you could take all of the random colorless types that come in all of the decks and make your own random colorless deck. These tend to be splashed into decks to give something else to attack with while you set up a big hitter. Oh wait, you could get the flygon deck from Rising Rivals. This is another great option, since it has VERY good supporters in it and decent pokemon all around. Probably one of the best precon decks out there really.


As for making your deck, one of the best tips I've heard (I think from this forum) is to get 2 of the same deck. A lot of the precon decks only come with 1 or 2 of their good cards, so buying two gets you a workable, playable amount of your main hitter/support and gives you a way of taking out the not as good cards in the deck. So for flygon, you could buy two, have a 4-3-2 line of flygon (basic-stage1-stage2) and whatever else you want in it (rhyperior SP, Hippowdon, etc.) as well as more of the good trainers in the deck (volkner's, bebe's, etc.). This would probably work for tyranitar and the gyarados deck as well, but flygon has the best supporters IMO.

If I were you I would pick something that doesn't hit for weakness to your friend's decks, but also isn't hit for weakness, if possible. Or you could combine two types to give a back up plan if that doesn't work out. Doing this provides a more even playing field and more fun games, really. You can't imagine how long I waited to make a lightning deck while my girlfriend was playing a water deck :/

Don't feel confined to precon decks, though. You can make fairly decent decks for 50-65 bucks that won't smoke your girlfriend's nephew and get you away from the confines of those things. A select few are worth the purchase, but even more are barely playable in the long run (which you might want to consider if you stick around)

Good luck! Hope this helps, and welcome to pokemon!
 
Thanks all for the replies. The breakdown of the stereotypes was very helpful, that should be on a website! Also, good idea with purchasing multiple of the same precon, I hadnt thought of that. The Stormfront Theme Deck Set with Gyrados Raging Sea and Tyranitar Dark Rampage is at the top of my list now for buying 2 sets. Does anyone have suggestion on which packs to buy to compliment that? What is the name of the precon that has the Flygon line and volkner's / bebe's supporters? Also, which packs would compliment this?

By the way, a reason I am trying to allocate $70ish is dollars is, I found a site that had a 4 pack of 2008 championship decks for $35 and I figured they would be fun to play with for someone that wouldnt have an opportunity to play with multiple copies of many of those cards. With $100 on the total order, they provide free shipping...much better than $5-7 per 2 deck set as I am seeing on many of the sites I have gone to =D Of course we would only play these decks against others from the 2008 set. Do yall think the 2008 set is worth it?

Edit: one last thing, what are the staple cards that appear in most decks?
 
I recommend waiting for the 2009 World Championship decks to come out as they are more similar to the format you will be playing in, since all the cards in those decks will be still legal in the coming year. Deck construction will be easier to understand if you study those in contrast to the 2008 ones. If you don't want to wait, I think most of the winner's decklists have been posted either here or at the 'Gym. Just search around and you'll find them. Use Beach's index of cards to figure out which ones specifically were in them.

As for staples...I would say the supporters/trainers that just about every deck needs. Supporters such as Roseanne's Research & Bebe's Search while trainers like Night Maintenance and Warp Point will come in handy.

I am also an experienced Magic player that started Pokemon. Honestly, the deck construction in the pre-cons are worse in Pokemon than they are in Magic. Use the pre-cons for nothing but to get those staple cards and/or some of the pokemon you might want to build a deck around.
 
Don't buy Championship decks as you can't use them in tournaments. You need to buy yourself from ebay preferably. Claydol x2 and Uxie x2. This will set you back about $80 but you need them. These cards are used to make a deck fast and consistent with all the draw power.

Then you need to buy yourself 4 roseannes and 4 Bebes. You can then get 2 RR decks which contain beedrill RR and the darkrai deck which contains 2 Bedrill GE. This will make you a tier 1 deck. You may need a little more on supporters but thats your basic structure.
 
^ urm like I suggested get 2 Decks thus giving you 2 bedrill. Anyway Beedrill is a good and cheap deck to make. So yh Its good for him.
 
kashmaster said:
^ urm like I suggested get 2 Decks thus giving you 2 bedrill. Anyway Beedrill is a good and cheap deck to make. So yh Its good for him.
Click to expand...
Actually you said get 2 RR decks, but you didn't say to get 2 Darkrai decks. Just trying to help, so no offense, you are a magnificent British person!
 
RE: New to Pokemon, experienced Magic player. Need assistance with which precons to b

verlorene said:
Well I'm not bound to any specific energy type yet. I'd like to get a couple decks started, thats one of the reasons I'd be willing to buy a couple preconstructed decks. I'd be able to build on those once I get the cards. One thing I have been having trouble finding is what attributes are associated with each of the energies. Thats why I listed some of the types of abilities I am looking for. Any help in linking those to energy types would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the suggestion for Stormfront packs, I will buy some of those.

I found the set you suggested for Electivire vs Magmortar: Pokemon Diamond & Pearl III - Secret Wonders Set of 2 Theme Decks (1 Powerhouse & 1 Lavaflow) but what about the other 2, is there a vs for those? if not what are the deck names?
Click to expand...


Well I know Fire likes to burn, Electric likes to paralyze, grass is heavy on causing statuses. Electric also tends to do a lot of energy searching, I've noticed, given the abilities attached to certain attacks. other than that, most everything else seems fairly evenly spread out amonst the different pokemon types.
 
RE: New to Pokemon, experienced Magic player. Need assistance with which precons to b

Thanks everyone for the feedback/suggestions. Based on the suggestions I just placed an order for:


2x @ $17.99/each Stormfront Theme Deck Set (Dark Rampage & Raging Sea)

2x @ $18.99/each Rising Rivals Theme Deck Set (Cutting Edge & Drill Point)

2x @ $10.99/each Supreme Victors - Overflow Theme Deck (the 4x total Roseanne's Research make it almost the same price as buying them as singles from ebay)

2x @ $11.99/each Secret Wonders - Powerhouse Theme Deck (same reasoning as above here)

I also ordered some assorted singles from ebay, couldnt find Buy It Now auctions for Uxie LA and Claydol GE =( I hate doing the auctions where you have to wait but it looks like I might have to.

I am also considering getting the set of 2008 World Championship deck now and the 2009 World Championship decks when they come out. I know these are not tournament legal but I expect to mostly be playing casually and these fully tweaked / tested decks would be a nice change from "work in progress" decks. Are thier any game mechanic difference between the 2008 WC decks and the updated rules (I dont know when these came into effect)?
 
The modified format. You'd see the good trainers, what they do, and what cards are good. If you're playing an evolution deck,
4x Rare Candy(Lets you SKIP stage 1, and bypass evolution rules)
2x Broken Time Space(Infinite uses, and still bypasses evolution.)
 
What deck(s) are you planning on building with one of each good card in those decks? I would have gotten two of one of the SF or RR decks, but idk. What's your plan?
 
I'm fairly experienced with MtG, too. The thing with Pokemon, though, is that most good decks don't focus around a core concept like Magic does, but rather around a couple of cards, and the rest is all helping you get it out. Therefore, you can't really focus on elemental types as you do with colors in Magic, but rather on a single main attacker and other helping Pokemon (called techs) to assist you. It could thus be said that all metagame decks are combo decks based around a main attacker.

There are a few exceptions to this, of course. There are sleep decks out there that cause your opponent's Actives to constantly stay Asleep, and then you pile on massive damage that takes advantage of Asleep to cause other effects. Unfortunately, Nintendo doesn't seem to like to create combos for us like Wizards does, so we're usually forced to work with what we're given.

Finally, as nardd said, the Psychic type is pretty versatile, but it usually revolves around manipulating Energy and damage counters. For example, a few Psychics have the Recover attack, which usually causes them to discard an Energy in order to heal themselves. Gardevoir is a Pokemon who can usually move Energy around the board and her attacks often take advantage of Energy. Alakazam is usually affiliated with moving damage counters.

Water types are usually snipers if they were Water-types in the games and they are usually spreaders if they were Ice-types in the games. They also provide some disruption.
 
The Reaver said:
Water types are usually snipers if they were Water-types in the games and they are usually spreaders if they were Ice-types in the games. They also provide some disruption.
Click to expand...

Huh. Good observation there man, never picked up on that subtlety, but true for a lot of waters.

Empoleon (water) snipes
Glaceon (ice) spreads with lvX, small snipe
Froslass (ice) spreads
Abomasnow (ice) spreads
Palkia G lvX (water) snipes [also spreads though]
Starmie LA (water) snipes

cool :] obviously not for everything (gyarados is just pure destruction no matter which one you choose) but still interesting.

I think they do this sort of thing with grass types too? And psychic? Bugs tend to status, grass tend to heal/do big damage. Ghost tend to disrupt, psychic tend to be manipulative (alakazam/gardevoir/etc) and poisons tend to, well, poison lol. Or in nidoqueen's case, megaheal.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top