Help Possible Returning Player

[shadoworganoid]

Cheers everyone.
Yesterday was my first time back to this site since 2009. It has been a long time since I last played the card game. Still, I've been slowly collecting the cards of some of my favorite pokemon.
Basically, I'm feeling tempted to try playing the game again. But after spending a little time looking stuff up, it's very clear that a LOT has changed since my last tournament.
It's interesting to see that cards now have rotation letters stamped on them rather than the original block rotation. Or it's at least stream lined now which is neat.

Aside from a rules refresher, are there any note worthy things I should be made aware of before deciding to play again?

As for a deck, I'm trying to avoid just picking up a starter deck. I understand those are great beginner tools, and perhaps they are better than that even. Forgive my assumption leaning phrasing there. That said, I AM out of touch with deck building for this game now of course. I want to build something around Tinkaton cause she's adorable. But some guidance for that would be much appreciated.

Thank you very much everyone.

 

[bitface]

I’d recommend picking up either a couple of League Battle Decks or a couple of World Championship Decks from 2022 (or wait until 1st of March for the 2023 ones). These are readily available but by no means “entry-level” and will give you a better feeling of how the game plays nowadays. I quit in 2003 and was surprised by how much the flow of the game had changed. It’s much more of a numbers game, much quicker in some ways, and much more “techy” in the sense that modern decks include way more counters to other meta-decks. Although I don’t play competitively, I think this will help you pick effective cards for your deck