Which Theme Deck/s can be Easily Made Competitive?

H

Harryburke14

Aspiring Trainer
Member
so after not collecting/playing pokemon cards since I was a very young man, I've recently got the buzz to take up tcg again after seeing a whole load of tcg packs and tins and boxes at the Nintendo store near the Rockefeller centre while over in the states.

Needless anecdote aside I'm looking At how I can get a decent deck together to win a few matches at the local league (who I've already got in touch with). They recommended getting either a theme deck or a battle arena box to get a bunch of energies and trainers right off the bat but upon further inspection these aren't that competitive.

So I turn to the wise people of the Internet for the advice I seek. Is there a theme deck out there or battle arena deck that with a few additions (preferably cheap ones) would give me a good start to the whole tcg experience? And what these alterations might be?
 
The Battle Arena deck Mewtwo-EX vs Darkrai-EX is definitely a good buy for a new player. It contains many staple cards (that is, cards used in virtually all decks) in its two-deck pack along with the worthy Mewtwo-EX and Darkrai-EX. It should be noted that this deck contains many cards (including Mewtwo-EX and Darkrai-EX) that can only be used in the Expanded format, which is one of the two formats that TCG is played competitively in. Expanded is the BW-on format, and Standard is the XY-on format (which means Standard contains less expansions than Expanded). Otherwise, the Greninja theme deck could be a good buy, as with just a few copies of Greninja BREAK and some trading for staples, you can build yourself a nice competitive deck.

Competitive decks are quite a bit different to theme decks and even battle arena decks. Competitive decks generally will have much less Pokemon - some decks with only two types of Pokemon, with 4 copies each, and all Pokemon will be used to execute a defined strategy. Competitive decks also contain much less Energy then theme decks, with about 8 Energy. These removed cards are then replaced with solid lines of Trainers that help draw through your deck so you can get the cards you need to execute your strategy. It may be worthwhile to check out the Metagame Discussion and even winning decks of the 2016 TCG Championship series (Standard, Expanded) for example competitive decks, and then once you've made a planned decklist, you could post it in the Deck Garage for further feedback.

Otherwise, a solid skeleton for you to aim for in your Trainer lines would be:

4 Professor Sycamore
3 or 4 VS Seeker
2 Shauna/Birch/N (N is the superior of the three)
4 Ultra Ball
2 Lysandre

Most of these are pretty inexpensive and most leagues will have players completely happy to trade you some of these.

Anyways, if you have any other questions, feel free to ask! Hope I helped. ^.^
 
Ok cheers pal, will get to ordering the mewtwo vs darkrai battle arena box. I've been told that darkrai ex and Yveltal ex make quite the combo, so I think a few Yveltals will be the first Pokemon I look to add. Anyone know the best UK place to buy singles? Just curious.

Also heard good things about Malamar and Darkrai, but would love to get Mewtwo into a deck being a fan of the original 151 from when I was young.
 
Harryburke14 said:
Ok cheers pal, will get to ordering the mewtwo vs darkrai battle arena box. I've been told that darkrai ex and Yveltal ex make quite the combo, so I think a few Yveltals will be the first Pokemon I look to add. Anyone know the best UK place to buy singles? Just curious.

Also heard good things about Malamar and Darkrai, but would love to get Mewtwo into a deck being a fan of the original 151 from when I was young.
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A good Yveltal-EX/Darkrai-EX skeleton for Expanded can be found here. You may find things like the Hypnotoxic Lasers, Computer Search, Seismitoad-EX, Shaymin-EX and Virbank City Gym to be difficult to find, but they aren't vital, just much appreciated. (You could swap the Seismitoad-EX with Mewtwo-EX instead).
To get the non-EX Yveltal, you've got a couple of options. There's trading, of course, but there is also another Battle Arena kit with Xerneas and Yveltal, including two copies of that non-EX Yveltal that you'd be looking for, and more staple cards (especially for Standard). The Theme Deck Destruction Rush also has two copies of that Yveltal. Yveltal-EX is a bit more difficult to find. It did come in one of the XY EX Power Tins as a promo, so you may be able to find those cheap.

Of course, you could just buy singles. I'm not too sure about the best place to buy these, to be honest, but I know TCG Player is a good site, and I think it ships to the UK. Otherwise, you could check out the PokeBeach Marketplace for some UK sellers that may be around.
 
Picked up the box from the post depot today and am already looking forward to playing some matches in the near future. So excited a went to the newsagents on the way home and bought 1 of each booster pack I could find. Surprise surprise, hardly got anything.

Looking to turn the darkrai deck into a Darkrai/Yveltal or Yveltal/Zoroark deck or Hydreigon deck or something similar that will possibly end up a mashup of a few of these. I'm also constantly checking guides and walkthroughs on tips for building Pokemon decks. Thanks bbninjas for your help :p
 
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