r/pkmntcg

Hey folks.

Formerly competitive tcg player here (formerly as i'm old and have kids). My eldest is 9 now and starting to play tcgs and wants to start going to pokemon league events. We bought the LucarioEx deck which seems like a decent starting point for one deck but as i'll have to go to events with him, i may as well play. He's had fun crushing the starter decks i've played but will need to get him playing against real decks before we start going to events.

Any advice on what deck to buy? I know a new set has come out but not quite sure on the rotation in the game. It does seem incredibly cheap to buy into from a competitive standpoint but don't want to buy a deck that will rotate shortly.

The one last thing is that given he's only 9 and will prob want to play both decks would be good if any suggestion was for a cool pokemon (for a 9 year old). I saw a gholdengo deck and I think if i bought that he'd be disgusted with me!

Any help would be really appreciated folks.

My local pre-release event is next week, but I know that there have been a lot of those yesterday already. I'm curious to hear from people who already had theirs for how it went. Of course it's also luck dependent on what you get from the boosters and stuff, but I'd like to hear your experience and what the best decks for that specific event seemed to be.

What is a good deck to learn for someone who is completely new to tcgs as a whole, something simple but still somewhat strong?

As the title suggests I am new to the scene amd wanted to give it go outside of just collecting. Ive been using TCG live to learn a bit but can't build the deck I want.

I am looking to build a deck around Arcanine. While possibly being able to have Entei, Vulpix and Ninetales in the deck with him. But have absolutely no idea how to begin.

How do I start?

This is my current deck

Pokémon: 13
1 N's Reshiram JTG 116
1 N's Zoroark ex JTG 175
1 N's Darmanitan PR-SV 181
1 Tatsugiri TWM 131
1 Pecharunt ex SFA 39
4 N's Zorua PR-SV 189
1 N's Zoroark ex JTG 98
1 Munkidori SFA 72
1 N's Zoroark ex JTG 189
1 Fezandipiti ex SFA 92
1 N's Zoroark ex JTG 185
2 N's Zekrom ASC 155
1 N's Darumaka ASC 32

Trainer: 17
4 Transformation Tome CRI 83
3 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119
1 Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking TEF 145
2 Poké Pad POR 81
1 Janine's Secret Art SFA 59
3 Boss's Orders MEG 114
1 Energy Switch MEG 115
1 Special Red Card CRI 82
2 Cyrano SSP 170
2 Night Stretcher SFA 61
3 Ultra Ball MEG 131
2 N's Castle JTG 152
3 N's PP Up JTG 153
1 Secret Box TWM 163
1 Team Rocket's Watchtower ASC 210
2 Binding Mochi SFA 55

Energy: 1
7 Basic {D} Energy Energy 15

Total Cards: 60

In a post pitch black world what do I add I quite like the mega darkrai ex , the new dark energy as well as new dark bell or do I just go in with hammers. Or do I make a new deck as I really like the theival stage 1 from pitch black and make a one prize deck around it.

Hi

I have a mega lucario zygarde deck that i've seen some success but once i start playing in the higher levels of pokemon tcg live i can't seem to win. Any suggestions on how to improve the deck?

Pokémon: 10

2 Solrock MEG 75

2 Makuhita MEG 72

1 Mega Lucario ex MEG 179

1 Mega Lucario ex MEG 160

2 Lunatone MEG 74

1 Mega Zygarde ex POR 124

3 Riolu MEG 76

1 Fezandipiti ex SFA 38

1 Mega Lucario ex MEG 188

2 Hariyama MEG 73

Trainer: 16

1 Battle Cage PFL 116

2 Black Belt's Training JTG 143

4 Lillie's Determination MEG 119

2 Air Balloon BLK 79

2 Boss's Orders MEG 114

4 Fighting Gong MEG 116

2 Night Stretcher SFA 61

2 Switch MEG 130

2 Ultra Ball MEG 131

1 Judge POR 76

2 Special Red Card CRI 113

1 Scoop Up Cyclone TWM 162

2 Tarragon POR 85

1 Nighttime Mine ASC 197

2 Hilda WHT 84

4 Premium Power Pro MEG 124

Energy: 1

10 Basic {F} Energy MEE 6

What are some good decks for froslass and dragalge? I saw one for dragalge that has froslass, mega starmie and dragalge but idk if thats too complicated or if i should just wait for dragalge to maybe get better and just use solo mega froslass with chandelure instead

Ive just started playing Ethan's Typhlosion and have seen that every deck on limitless plays drakloak, is there a reason why this is so heavily preferred over dudunsparce? I understand that drakloak isn't completely disrupted by watchtower like dudunsparce, but then why wouldn't other decks prioritise drakloak for the same reason?

Thanks in advance!

I’m used to playing BO3 but since moving overseas, I’m forced to play BO1 in my locals. There’s a tournament in 2 weeks and I was just wondering what are some of the best BO1 decks to look out for?

I currently have straight pult, hydrapple, slowking and okidogi decks. Slowking’s my main deck but I’m not sure if its consistent enough. Any ideas?

Thanks!

So I've just recently gotten into playing, and I'm having a lot of fun! I'm not all that interested in playing beyond my friend group, and while i have a deck in the works that I'm excited to play, I really want to build a silly deck to use every now and then just to wind friends up.

So I'm looking for card/combo suggestions that would basically drive my friends mad while playing. Doesn't need to be very strong, just annoying to deal with. Bonus if it's based around grass types, purely because I think having a bunch of cute little guys doing the trolling would make it even funnier.

Also, if anyone knows any good resources for building not so serious decks, I'd really appreciate it!

*I want to add, my friends are the types to find stuff like this hilarious, hence wanting to do it. I'm not doing this just to p*** them off 👍

​

I was using the energy one for -1 prize cause with Hilda you could get it

But sometimes it doesn't matter like against a Dragapult deck

I heard about the belt to do 50 more dmg to ex, but Idk if its worth over the grab 5 cards and opponent 2

My son has been looking to step up his gameplay and was after a dark deck, so I'm putting together a N's Zoroark deck for him. I'm nearly there with the core, but I'm after recommendations of the final piece.

I've been looking at alternatives that people are using but I'm after a recommendation of what's the "easiest" strategy for him to pick up, without over phasing him with lots of routes to take in one deck. E.g. I'm seeing people use Froslass, some not and using Reshiram or Budew.

We'll probably flex out different supporters/items but if people have any recommendations of what's been successful for them that would be great.

Hi all! I was playing this game a few months ago, having bad luck with a Lake Trio deck but great results with a Steven's Metagross deck... Now that Arven and Iono have rotated out, though, both of those decks have lost a lot of their luster, so I'm hoping to move on with something else.

I've always really loved Beedrill, so I was excited to see the new ex for it! And I feel like I enjoy Erika's Vileplume (or at least am glad to see her repped again), so I put together the following list:

4 Weedle

4 Kakuna

4 Beedrill ex

4 Erika's Oddish

3 Erika's Gloom

2 Erika's Vileplume ex

1 Fezandipiti ex

8 Grass Energy

1 Enriching Energy

4 Bug Catching Set

4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin

3 Ultra Ball

2 Switch

1 Night Stretcher

3 Forest of Vitality

4 Lillie's Determination

4 Dawn

2 Hilda

2 Boss's Orders

What do you think? It might be a bit too pure but I'm not sure what the hot new item and supporter cards are yet!

Ive gone to a quite a couple local tournaments but because they’re so small (10-20 players) there’s always just 4-5 rounds of Swiss and then the tournament is over. I want to start playing in a couple bigger tournaments but I don’t want to go straight to regionals (also because I’ll have to take the plane for those). But the tournament format is getting kind of old and I want something new and more exciting. So I was wondering, for the people who play local events which are a bit bigger then mine do they just add more Swiss rounds or is there also a top cut. Top cuts feel so exciting because it means you’ve truly gotten to the important/intense section of the event. I know this is a really weird question but it would really help if some people could maybe say how big their events are and the format they use.

Hi all, for the last month or so I've been playing some variation of Raging Bolt, and locally we've had quite a few Beedrill players pop up - it's a rough matchup for me in general, but one of the most frustrating things personally is that initially it feels like a matchup where you don't have much agency over what happens throughout the game. In other words, if they get to establish multiple Beedrill, you don't really have much you can do about that. However much like any other matchup there has to be useful counterplay, so I wanted to get some advice over what's important in that matchup. In particular a few things come to mind...

• Early game retreat lock can be impactful if they bench a liability [most commonly fezandipiti or fan rotom], but this doesn't feel like a particularly reliable gameplan since beedrill often only really uses fan rotom as a bailout plan if the start is otherwise slow.
• I run bolt slop with hero's cape, so Hero's Cape on Kangaskhan early on could be really impactful since that would require 4 Beedrill online to KO it, at which point Red Card really disrupts them because they don't have the bench space for too much draw. Alternatively Hero's Cape on Bolt slightly later can set up situations where they need to find gust, but setting up Bolt inherently requires you to bring out a bunch of 2 prize liabilities which are far easier to KO.
• I suppose Koraidon ex could be useful as well? It's not one shotting a Beedrill, but 230HP means that they need 3 Beedrill on board to one shot it, so Orichalcum fang can set up some lines to bring in another attacker, or maybe even look for Wellspring lines to force situations where my opponent can't safely bench more dunsparces later on.

Hello, iv been lurking in the sub for some time, i played pokemon as kid, got my cards stolen, lost the last deck i had on movings and stoped playing for years.

Right now some friends are thinking in coming back to the game, we are very casual, and we set rules so no one build something to strong, we have to use the League Battle decks lvl3 to play.

That been said, i wanted to build a deck using pokemons i like, i tried reading the guides the sub have, but honestly im completly lost.

Can you guys help me build a deck on the same lvl as the League Battle decks using sandshrew/sandslash(gen 1 if possible). They dont have to be the central pieces, but be in there.

I also like aron and his family.

If anything, they help the most to make otherwise less consistent decks more consistent, so I don’t love the idea of the playable field becoming even more narrow.

Salutes in a mega lucario ex, when match starts, if you get Riolu and Solrock, whhich to place on active?

Solrock and switch when mega lucario, or not switching until Solrock is defeated?

So my son has got me and my family playing tcg at home and I've built a deck from the packs we've opened and his spare cards that everyone at home struggles to sell. Because of this he's asked me to take him to a local game store so he can play and has begged me to play. I'm happy to do it, but don't want to get slapped in front of my son (I'd at least like to put up a fight). Is it likely all the decks at the store will be some kind of meta and if I don't build a meta deck I'll get annihilated or is tcg balanced enough that even a completely noob made deck might stand a chance?

I guess what I'm asking is: is making a deck from packs (because we enjoy the opening process) viable or is that just asking for players picking decks by buying individual cards to smash us?

I had asked this question before but I put in a link so the post was taken down… I have a deck that I want to Play however I need some more Insight on how to increase my chances of at least not getting instantly demolished.

The deck currently consists of:

2 Mega Lucario ex- MEG

3 Rioli- MEG

2 Lunatone- MEG

2 Solrock- MEG

2 Binacle- POR

2 Barbaracle- POR

1 Mega Zygarde ex- POR

4 Lillies Determination- MEG

2 Boss’ Orders- MEG

2 Judge- MEG

4 Premium Power Pro- MEG

2 Poke Pad- MEG

4 Ultra Ball- PAR

4 Fighting Gong- MEG

(I’m attempting to get 2 Air Balloons, idk what set)

1 Night Stretcher- MEG

1 Prime Catcher (Ace Spec)- PRE

13 Energies