Help The "What Should I Buy?" Thread

Getting into PTCG, which booster box to buy?

Hi all,

I recently discovered this website and it's been a great help to me and my kids so far. Up to now, we've been having fun with PTCG using Flashfire Theme decks (Mystic Typhoon and Brilliant Thunder) and a handful of Flashfire boosters.
We're looking to get into the game some more and develop our deck building skills and expend our games. Probably straight forward decks for the time being - simpler strategies.

With that in mind how should we go about developing our enjoyment of the game? A few more theme decks? Or a few tins or booster boxes to grow our collection?
I'd prefer any investment was made into something reasonably recent so it'll last longer, so I'm thinking XY and onwards for now - unless the advice is otherwise.

Finally, from those products you recommend, can you suggest some simple strategy decks to build? Are there some that spring to mind that I can research?

Many thanks for the replies.
 
RE: Getting into PTCG, which booster box to buy?

With Booster Boxes you aren't guarnateed to get what you want, but you could get a lot of staples that are rather pricey when they add up. Flashfire has a lot of good trainers, and some of the EX will get you a good penny if you want to sell them. I am going to go on a very couragous leap here and say XY-on or Legendary Tresure-on will be the next format, so you will get to play these cards for two years. XY also has a lot of cards that are in 90% of decks like all the energies, Muscle band, DCE, and Sycamore. Also Xerneas EX and Aromatisse are both in there, and they are pretty good together along with a couple of other fairy types. Trevenant is also in there which is in a couple weird rouge decks.

Trevenant/Donphan is a deck that has seen some play. Trevenant locks them out of trainers. You use a float stone to retreat him so Donphan can attack and his attack allows him to retreat to the beach where you put Trevenant up.

Fairy Decks get more and more support each set.

Greninja is in here which is used in one of the most fun decks this up coming season which is Miltank/Greninja.
 
RE: Getting into PTCG, which booster box to buy?

There's a lot of ways to get into the game, but if you're looking to get somewhere competitively, a booster box is not the way to go.

I'm not going to recommend any particular decks, both because it's hard to know what you will like, and also because the upcoming rotation (in August, which will be Boundaries Crossed-On). What I will recommend is looking in the Deck Garage forum. From there, you'll want to just look at the various archetypes and strategies and see what sounds interesting to you.

Once you've selected some decklist or overall strategy that sounds fun or interesting, you can test it on an online simulator such as PTCGO (the official simulator which requires you to acquire the cards yourself, either by trading purchased codes and cards, or by opening packs yourself), PlayTCG (a free simulator with a manual interface that lets you use whatever cards you like; my personal favorite), or TCGOne (another free simulator with automatic play, but is slightly incomplete in terms of cards available). You can use these to play against random online opponents, or to play between each other.

If you're just going to be playing with your children, which is fine (fun should always come first in games), you don't need to stress out about finding something competitive or really strong. Just something with a cool strategy to it that will be more entertaining to play than a theme deck.

After doing some initial playtesting to gauge a deck, you can either choose another or start to build the deck in real life (or you could print out the deck and put the cut paper into sleeves with random cards; this is called a proxy deck and is perfectly legal for casual play at leagues so long as you inform your opponent). Beware that many competitive decks can cost upwards of $150 USD to build from scratch. That doesn't mean you need to spend so much. Unless you're going to enter a tournament, don't be afraid to substitute expensive cards for cheaper alternatives, or different cards altogether (experiment!).

Good luck!
 
Thanks to all for the advice.
If I was to get a booster box, out of Flashfire or Furious Fists - which should I get? Which has the better pulls? From reading the forum, it seems that Flashfire is slightly more consistent, is that still the case? Or have the rares and EXs dried up now that Furious is launched?

Edit: Just to add, I'm considering boosters as it's a fun way for us to build our collection and trade between ourselves as we grow our game. Besides, it's always a good incentive to offer a booster as a treat or reward for doing the chores :)
 
NobleSX said:
Thanks to all for the advice.
If I was to get a booster box, out of Flashfire or Furious Fists - which should I get? Which has the better pulls? From reading the forum, it seems that Flashfire is slightly more consistent, is that still the case? Or have the rares and EXs dried up now that Furious is launched?
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Again, booster boxes aren't great for getting specific cards, but if you're going to buy one anyways, I would say that Flashfire would be the better box. This is mostly because the general selection of cards besides EXs is a good bit better, including some staple trainers.

That said, Furious Fists has generally better EX's, and might be better for play on it's own. The main downsides are the volatile pull rate (there's a good possibility of getting a dud box with just 3 ultra rares, even though you could luck out and get 6), and the fact that any decks you build out of it are going to have to be fighting type to really compete with each other, which reduces actual variety. For that reason, I see Flashfire as better.
 
I think all EX Booster Boxes have the same ratio of normally 6 EX per box. Furius Fists has a lot of really playable EX cards that have a pretty high asking price. Also if you can get a Full Art Trainer they go pretty high.
 
A few of my friends have decided to get back into collecting and playing the tcg. None of us have had any cards since the original sets and we at least know that those are outdated. All of us are into buying booster packs, and possibly starter decks to get us playing right away. We aren't really into getting the best cards right away and are more into the thrill of opening a pack and trading cards with each other to build decks. Is it best to buy only the sets of cards included in the XY boosters and decks or are the older booster sets from BW series just as competitive? If they are still competitive how far back in the series are you still able to buy cards and still keep all the cards on a good even playing field.
 
Generally, the "strength" of cards in general has been roughly consistent over the Black and White series, through the XY series so far, with a slight increase over time. The most notable jump was Next Destinies, which was the first set to include Pokemon-EX. So you could probably collect any set from Next Destinies-On and still be able to create strong, relatively even decks.

That said, if you're looking to get into official tournament play (though I would guess that you aren't), the sets that will be legal for the next year (starting in September) will be all sets from Boundaries Crossed-On.
 
Thanks that pretty much answers it perfectly. We are just a bunch of mid twenties guys who are changing poker night to pokemon night instead. We just wanted to keep it even between each other and not have someone using old cards and constantly losing.
 
Ok, so I'm making this question for a friend:

He's looking to buy a Booster Box. He's debating if he should buy either a Boundaries Crossed one or a Furious Fists one, looking for some playable cards.

-What do you guys think would be best?
-Is another set worth getting over those other 2?
 
Furious Fists has lots of valuable cards at the moment, but we don't really know yet if any of those cards will retain their value, since the set is so new.

Boundaries Crossed is a lot more stable, and has some super valuable cards in it as well (Read: Landorus-EX), but there's certainly not as many overall. Additionally, BCR will rotate out long before FUF does, so it might drop in value sooner as well.

Just in terms of playable cards, though, unless your friend really wants to pull his Computer search and Landorus-EX's out of packs, Furious Fists is probably a better set. If he's literally just beginning, and doesn't know what deck to play, I might propose Plasma Blast or XY just for the staples, but that's up to him.
 
Auride said:
Furious Fists has lots of valuable cards at the moment, but we don't really know yet if any of those cards will retain their value, since the set is so new.

Boundaries Crossed is a lot more stable, and has some super valuable cards in it as well (Read: Landorus-EX), but there's certainly not as many overall. Additionally, BCR will rotate out long before FUF does, so it might drop in value sooner as well.

Just in terms of playable cards, though, unless your friend really wants to pull his Computer search and Landorus-EX's out of packs, Furious Fists is probably a better set. If he's literally just beginning, and doesn't know what deck to play, I might propose Plasma Blast or XY just for the staples, but that's up to him.
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Thanks, Auride, helpful as always. ;)
 
I've got a budget of ~$85, I'm going to my local card shop on tuesday and I'd like to get some stuff to start me off with. Should I look at one or two of the elite trainer boxes? They seem like a solid deal to me but again I am just starting out and I don't know if I should just buy singles or get packs or decks and whatnot. Thank you for any replies!
 
kobeland said:
I've got a budget of ~$85, I'm going to my local card shop on tuesday and I'd like to get some stuff to start me off with. Should I look at one or two of the elite trainer boxes? They seem like a solid deal to me but again I am just starting out and I don't know if I should just buy singles or get packs or decks and whatnot. Thank you for any replies!
Click to expand...

It would help, if we knew your interests. Playing, collecting or both?

I will point out for about $10 more, you can get a sealed box on-line.
 
Hey guys! :D I recently got back into the Pokemon TCG after my cousins started picking it up. So, for my 18th birthday, I wanted to get a booster box and share some of the cards with them. The thing is, I also want to try and get a Keldeo EX card too. :p So my question is, I have $85 to spend. Should I go for Boundaries Crossed (I know it'll rotate out but FULL ART KELDEO) or Legendary Treasures? (Regular Keldeo but lots of shinies for the kids. :p)
 
Legendary Treasures has 10 Regular EXs
Boundaries Crossed has 6 Regular EXs.

I think both boxes have a 4 Ultrarare per box. Also if you get that Landy EX in Boundaries Crossed you could trade it off for a couple Keldeo EX. Also Keldeo EX was a tin promo.
 
omahanime said:
kobeland said:
I've got a budget of ~$85, I'm going to my local card shop on tuesday and I'd like to get some stuff to start me off with. Should I look at one or two of the elite trainer boxes? They seem like a solid deal to me but again I am just starting out and I don't know if I should just buy singles or get packs or decks and whatnot. Thank you for any replies!
Click to expand...

It would help, if we knew your interests. Playing, collecting or both?

I will point out for about $10 more, you can get a sealed box on-line.
Click to expand...

I'm looking to start playing the game, would it be worthwhile to buy a box to build a deck?
 
If you are planning on playing then you will get more bang for your buck if you just buy singles online or at your card shop. Most of the stapple cards that are in every deck are like 4 for 3 dollars or around that price. Some EX cards were reprinted as promo cards that end up being cheaper.
 
Mr.Muffin said:
Legendary Treasures has 10 Regular EXs
Boundaries Crossed has 6 Regular EXs.

I think both boxes have a 4 Ultrarare per box. Also if you get that Landy EX in Boundaries Crossed you could trade it off for a couple Keldeo EX. Also Keldeo EX was a tin promo.
Click to expand...

Okie dokie if you reccommend Boundaries Crossed I'll get a box then. :p Thanks for the opinion! ^-^
 
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