Newbie questions on starting out.

Cuthbert

Cuthbert

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hello,

A few weeks ago my stepson got my wife and I obsessed with playing pokemon cards. So, I'm hoping some of you can give us the best advice for starting out. I was thinking of getting a box of HGSS primarily for staple cards as well as some options for pokemon. My stepson has most of what he needs sans some trainers while my wife and I don't really know what direction to go for decks. I figure all three of us are going to need a full set of Pokemon Collectors and the DCE would be good as well.

So, I know it's pretty much random, but about how many collectors are likely to come in a box? DCE? other useful stuff? It becomes a bit overwhelming looking at all of the possibilities while having practically no cards to start off with.

Is it even worth getting the box in the first place? I guess I'm just asking in general how to get started with all of this. I like a lot of different deck ideas so just buying singles doesn't seem very appealing to me or my wife and clearly with three people who play getting singles can become expensive quickly it seems especially for several types of decks. However I understand it is of completely possible to get a box and still not have nearly enough multiples of a card to make it deck worthy.

Any advice would be appreciated, I'm sure questions like this have been asked a million times so if this thread needs to get moved or dumped a link to a similar thread would be cool too.

Thanks in advance. (first post, yay. I'm kind of new to computers as well)
 
I would buy a Triumphant box. HGSS doesn't really have anything THAT good aside from Donphan and staples. If you get a TM box, you will definitely pull some desirable primes, and you can easily trade those for all the staples you need.
 
I have to disagree with that statement noobmuffin, if you don't pull a Yanmega or Magnezone Prime out of the box you just wasted 100 or more dollars. Yanmega and Magnezone are only worth 30-40$ right now anyways, and they might drop even lower after the release of Emerging Power. If you buy HGSS, you are definitely going to get Pokemon Collector, Pokemon Reversal, Professor Oak's New Theory and Pokemon Communication, which are all needed in every deck that you want to make in the slightest way competitive, and the release of a new set is not going to make these cards less playable. You also have the chance to pull Donphan Prime, which is going to be BDIF, in my opinion. If you are feeling risky, go with a box of Triumphant, but they are more expensive, and there is a good chance that you will have just thrown away your money, trust me I've been there before, it isn't fun.
 
Vulpix Yolk said:
I have to disagree with that statement noobmuffin, if you don't pull a Yanmega or Magnezone Prime out of the box you just wasted 100 or more dollars. Yanmega and Magnezone are only worth 30-40$ right now anyways, and they might drop even lower after the release of Emerging Power. If you buy HGSS, you are definitely going to get Pokemon Collector, Pokemon Reversal, Professor Oak's New Theory and Pokemon Communication, which are all needed in every deck that you want to make in the slightest way competitive, and the release of a new set is not going to make these cards less playable. You also have the chance to pull Donphan Prime, which is going to be BDIF, in my opinion. If you are feeling risky, go with a box of Triumphant, but they are more expensive, and there is a good chance that you will have just thrown away your money, trust me I've been there before, it isn't fun.
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And typhlo and fera primes to pair with the dragons. Even tho you can get em as promo aswell. but i like those non-promo arts more myself. ;)
 
Vulpix Yolk said:
I have to disagree with that statement noobmuffin, if you don't pull a Yanmega or Magnezone Prime out of the box you just wasted 100 or more dollars. Yanmega and Magnezone are only worth 30-40$ right now anyways, and they might drop even lower after the release of Emerging Power. If you buy HGSS, you are definitely going to get Pokemon Collector, Pokemon Reversal, Professor Oak's New Theory and Pokemon Communication, which are all needed in every deck that you want to make in the slightest way competitive, and the release of a new set is not going to make these cards less playable. You also have the chance to pull Donphan Prime, which is going to be BDIF, in my opinion. If you are feeling risky, go with a box of Triumphant, but they are more expensive, and there is a good chance that you will have just thrown away your money, trust me I've been there before, it isn't fun.
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I opened 3 boxes of TR at nationals, .::n00bmuffin::. opened one, mr. 619 opened one, and GHjamesGH opened one.. Out of all 6 boxes, we got at least a yanmega or magnezone in each box, and I can't speak for them, but I made $$ off of all 3 boxes. You Can not make $$ off of HGSS easily at all. You would be better off to buy the staples individually. I would be happy to put a list of what you need toghter for you if you want.
 
I agree. Get a TR box, but you should trade the primes away before Emerging Powers.

HGSS is OK, but most people have the stuff out of there.
 
123wert50 said:
I agree. Get a TR box, but you should trade the primes away before Emerging Powers.

HGSS is OK, but most people have the stuff out of there.
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At this point, I would not recommend buying a box at all. The only reason I got them at nationals was due to getting them all for under $100, and the Hype. Singles really are the best way to go to just get the T/S/S you need
 
you could easily spend like 80-100 bucks and get all the staples you need.

I bought a tr box and got One of Every prime in the set (I know that's more lucky than normal), which was like over 150-200 worth overall. If you know what kind of deck you want, buy a box of that set. Like if you want Reshiboar, just buy a black and white box.
 
mlouden03 said:
you could easily spend like 80-100 bucks and get all the staples you need.

I bought a tr box and got One of Every prime in the set (I know that's more lucky than normal), which was like over 150-200 worth overall. If you know what kind of deck you want, buy a box of that set. Like if you want Reshiboar, just buy a black and white box.
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I built a reshiboar deck on trollandtoad for around $100 It isn't great, but it is a good list for a starter

http://screencast.com/t/HEQn5uckhDTX
 
The question is, how much are you willing to spend? You will need things like Collector, DCE, Rescue, Elm's, Copycat, Judge, PONT, Juniper, Communication, SSU, Reversal/Catcher. But getting boxes gives you opertunities to buy primes. I would personally buy 1 box of Triumphant, 1 box of HGSS and then figure out what decks you want to play. I would then figure out the cheapest, yet also competitive decklist and buy singles from there. I would recommend going to a Legue and participating in a Emerging Powers Prerelease. After you have a good ammount of cards and a deck, don't forget to buy a deckbox, sleeves, a binder, etc. It will get costly, probably around $500 for the 3 of you to get to that point, but from there, you can participate at League and Tourneys and it all becomes a little easier. Besides, League is free and you learn a TON there. Hope this helped.
 
Thanks everyone for your input. The problem with buying singles of staples is that just for the three of us to have 4 collectors each at about 5-6 bucks a pop I'm looking at at least $55 and that's just for one staple card. Not to mention things like DCE and judge etc that are also fairly necessary times three people. I could end up spending hundreds on just trainers and still have no pokemon really to speak of.

Cardkeeper said:
The question is, how much are you willing to spend? You will need things like Collector, DCE, Rescue, Elm's, Copycat, Judge, PONT, Juniper, Communication, SSU, Reversal/Catcher. But getting boxes gives you opertunities to buy primes. I would personally buy 1 box of Triumphant, 1 box of HGSS and then figure out what decks you want to play. I would then figure out the cheapest, yet also competitive decklist and buy singles from there. I would recommend going to a Legue and participating in a Emerging Powers Prerelease. After you have a good ammount of cards and a deck, don't forget to buy a deckbox, sleeves, a binder, etc. It will get costly, probably around $500 for the 3 of you to get to that point, but from there, you can participate at League and Tourneys and it all becomes a little easier. Besides, League is free and you learn a TON there. Hope this helped.
Click to expand...

This is kind of what I had in mind of doing. About how many Collectors and DCE would I likely be getting in a box (estimation of course)? Triumphant looks like a promising set and I'll probably get a box of that later on.

Also, is there any way to find out where leagues and clubs are in my area? The closest I've heard of is in Fresno about an hour away and they meet while I'm at work of course. If there is a database for leagues or clubs or whatever that would be helpful.

The idea brought up of trading or selling cards right now isn't really that appealing to me since I don't really have many to begin with getting rid of any good pulls from a box seems counter productive since I don't have anything good to fall back on as far as pokemon go. If I got some decent primes or whatnot from a Triumph box why not build around those?

I genuinely don't know though and thank you all for your help so far.
 
There are a lot of decks that do not need the quantities of judge and DCE you're talking in.

The cheapest decks i can think of right now are volbeat/illumise, Pidgeot TR, and Cincinno/Zoroark.
Volbeat/Illumise is cheapest.
 
blargh257 said:
There are a lot of decks that do not need the quantities of judge and DCE you're talking in.

The cheapest decks i can think of right now are volbeat/illumise, Pidgeot TR, and Cincinno/Zoroark.
Volbeat/Illumise is cheapest.
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True, but I'm looking more at getting together foundation/staple cards so that we can experiment with lots of different decks rather than building only one. Right now I have a few cards of a Cin/Zoro deck but clearly collectors and DCE are essential in that set.
 
I saw someone open a box of HS once and they pulled 8 collector and 5 DCE, though that was just complete luck. The number varies.
 
You can find Leagues/Tournaments on the Pokemon official website.

dmaster out.
 
Cardkeeper said:
The question is, how much are you willing to spend? You will need things like Collector, DCE, Rescue, Elm's, Copycat, Judge, PONT, Juniper, Communication, SSU, Reversal/Catcher. But getting boxes gives you opertunities to buy primes. I would personally buy 1 box of Triumphant, 1 box of HGSS and then figure out what decks you want to play. I would then figure out the cheapest, yet also competitive decklist and buy singles from there. I would recommend going to a Legue and participating in a Emerging Powers Prerelease. After you have a good ammount of cards and a deck, don't forget to buy a deckbox, sleeves, a binder, etc. It will get costly, probably around $500 for the 3 of you to get to that point, but from there, you can participate at League and Tourneys and it all becomes a little easier. Besides, League is free and you learn a TON there. Hope this helped.
Click to expand...

This was a big help for me as well. I was debating on what exactly to buy for my daughter and myself to be remotely competitive in the local groups as unless she plays only with the younger kids, she gets completely crushed.

Is it worth while to wait until emerging powers and get a box or is a box of Triumphant a must?
 
I would say do the HS box. This will bulk up your staple collection. Then trade what you don't need at a league or here. Once taht is all said and done just trade/buy the cards you need or pull them out of packs. I would suggest packs because well...

1 it's fun to be surprised by what you get.

2 if you don't get something that you need...trade bait it becomes :D

Just some ideas :D
 
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