What Goes with Fire Types?

Martin Brown

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I would like to start Pokemon TCG and I like Fire types but what goes with Fire I heard someone say Grass but I'm not sure
 
I would like to start Pokemon TCG and I like Fire types but what goes with Fire I heard someone say Grass but I'm not sure

Hello!

The Pokémon TCG can be a bit confusing if you have never played the video games... but also confusing if you have and expect the TCG to be too much like them. The short answer is that Pokémon that work well together, work well together. Being the same Type can help because it will allow you to build a deck where they can make use of the same resources, but that often is not enough. Usually you want to find cards with strategies that work together. Many Water Pokémon are Grass Weak so it can help a Fire deck to have some Grass Types in there but it is not always required. Here are two examples.

First there is Flareon (BW: Plasma Freeze 12/116), sometimes referred to as Flareon [Plasma].* You can see both a scan of it and text write up of the card here on the official Pokémon website. It is a Fire Type Pokémon with an attack that hits harder if the more Pokémon are in your discard pile. There is another card Vespiquen (XY: Ancient Origins 10/98) you can see here. It is indeed a Grass Type and it works well with Flareon [Plasma], but that is because it also has an attack that hits harder the more Pokémon you have in your discard pile. Both of these Pokémon just need [CC] to use this hard hitting attack, and only rarely will you use the other attack on each card. Even if Flareon [Plasma] was not Water Weak, or if exploiting Grass Weakness wasn't useful, Vespiquen would probably still be in this deck.

The second example is no longer a particularly strong deck, but it did have its 15 minutes of fame. Entei (XY: Ancient Origins 15/98) used to be the star of its own deck. You can see the card here. When it was a popular, strong deck it backed that Entei up with this: Charizard-EX (XY: Flashfire 12/106; XY: Black Star Promos XY121). When it was popular, the main Water Type decks either weren't that strong or else didn't do the right amount of damage. If that sounds odd, remember that a Water Type attacker focused on doing damage is likely to score a OHKO anyway, while one focused on attack effects probably doesn't hit very hard. So while this Entei/Charizard deck was doing well, its Water Weakness didn't matter.

*No, you don't have to write it funny like I do, I just find it easier to put card names in italics and underline card expansions, because the TCG uses a lot of names from the video games and so people familiar with me know which I mean. In fact plenty of people don't like that I do such a thing. ^^'
 
I'm saying it all depends on the specific Pokémon in question. Sometimes you can do well by using all one Type, sometimes you need two different Weaknesses (so that your opponent is less likely to be running both) and sometimes you just need to use whatever works well regardless of Type.

It is both simple and yet not. XD
 
these are the ones i have so far I plan to get more Fire Types
Arcanine
Blaziken
Camerupt
Chandelure
Combusken x2
Cyndaquil
Darmanitan
Darumaka
Eevee
Entei
Fennekin
Flareon
Growlithe
Lampent
Larvesta x2
Litleo x2
Litwick
Magmar
Numel
Pansear
Reshiram 130hp x2
Reshiram Ex 180 hp
Simisear
Tepig
Torchic
Torkoal
Vulpix
 
these are the ones i have so far I plan to get more Fire Types...

What I've been trying to say is that you might not be approaching this correctly.

What matters most to you about playing a TCG?

1) Using my favorite Pokémon or Pokémon Types

2) Coming up with combos and clever plays most others don't know about or use

3) Acquiring the skills and knowledge needed to win, then proceeding to do so.

Whichever of those apply, you'll also need to learn how to help people easily identify your cards as a lot of them are similar. Short version is that there are a lot of cards with the same name or similar traits. For example there have been 11 cards named "Reshiram" released! Eight of them are the same card except the art changed and the Card ID changed to match the set of the release. Out of the four distinct versions, three are Fire Types. Out of the Fire Types, two different versions both have 130 HP.

So the easiest thing is to learn the names and icons for each set (or book mark a website that has them handy). Then you can list stuff as "Card Name, Set Name, Set Number" and others will know just what you are talking about. Sometimes you can just use "Card Name, Set Name" but some sets have more than one version of the same Pokémon.
 
What Otaku is trying to say is that Pokemon TCG is not black-and-white. Fire (for an example) does not necessarily go better with grass (or any other type). Rather, specific cards and their strategies work better with other specific cards with similar strategies. While types cover the weakness problem (if you run grass, water types covers your fire weakness), this is certianly not all there is to the game, nor is it the deciding factor. As Otaku asks above, it depends whether you just want to play for casually with your friends or if you want to play at (and potentially win!) tournaments.

If you are looking at simply playing with friends, then you can honestly mash together pretty much anything you want and it'll do fine. If you want to play a deck with Charizard and Pikachu, go ahead! If you want to play a deck using Fire and Psychic types, that's fine by me! However, when you go about building your 60-card deck, I'd suggest having a look at theme deck as a bit of a structure guide for your deck. A good casual deck is pretty flexible, using around 15-30 Pokemon, 10-25 Trainers and 10-20 Energy to make your 60 card deck. If you can't afford theme decks in real life at the moment, you may like to download the official TCG emulator and use some of the free "theme decks" immediately available on that emulator to learn.

If you're looking at playing competitively, I'd suggest you read this thread, which answers a similar question to yours.

And of course, if you have any other questions, feel free to ask!
 
I would like to start Pokemon TCG and I like Fire types but what goes with Fire I heard someone say Grass but I'm not sure
One of the reasons you may have heard about utilizing Grass Pokémon with you main Fire Pokémon is that Fire Pokémon are generally weak to Water Pokémon attacks. This Weakness can cause your opponent, running strong Water Pokémon, to easily and quickly gain board advantage through his/her 1HKOs inflicted upon your Fire Pokémon. On the other hand, most notable Water Poké going into the next Standard format season are weak to Grass Pokémon attacks. So, the Grass Pokémon could provide some protection against opponents' Water decks.
 
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