r/pkmntcg

I've been playing Grim and I've been having a blast watching both my brain and my opponents brain melt with all the math and reminding ourselves to add dmg from Freezing Shroud, but that fun end as soon as I see a Drilbur on the other side of the table and I need help to find some kind of tech for it

I know ideally it should be somewhat ok, if I set up like 2 Froslass I can force them to evolve the Metangs and stop them from feeding energy to the mole but it never is that simple.

Every game goes about the same way, i can set up my board, spread some dmg to the Metangs and Genesect and set up a 2HKO, but I always loose Grim in the return and then Ice Cream 1 and Petrel for Ice Cream 2 and completely undo my turn (happened more than once during my last locals), and if my opponent is running Cape instead of Trolley, it's just worse.

I've seen some people running Dark Bell, and I see why but idk if I like relying on a coin flip to survive. I've also seen Punk Helmet but idk how much difference 4 dmg counters make.

I've actually wondered if a one of Tremendous Bomb could help. Excadrill will always hit for 240+ dmg so it will always trigger and then putting 120 dmg back would help recover some of the damage healed with ice cream or if they don't heal you have 300 damage already plus any you might've prepared before with munkidori. I haven't tested this option much tbh and the fact I haven't seen people much better than me do it, makes me think it might not be as good as I imagine

Any suggestion or tips how to play this boring matchup?

Hey everyone! I’m fairly new to playing Pokémon TCG and have been practicing this Mega Lucario ex/Hariyama deck on TCG Live. I’m planning to build it physically for locals and wanted some feedback before buying everything.
Pokémon – 16
3x Mega Lucario ex
3x Riolu
3x Solrock
2x Lunatone
2x Makuhita
2x Hariyama
1x Meowth ex
Trainers – 33
4x Fighting Gong
4x Premium Power Pro
4x Lillie’s Determination
3x Ultra Ball
3x Poké Pad
2x Judge
2x Boss’s Orders
2x Switch
2x Gravity Mountain
1x Mega Signal
1x Night Stretcher
1x Air Balloon
1x Secret Box (ACE SPEC)
1x Black Belt’s Training
1x Wally’s Compassion
1x Team Rocket’s Petrel
Energy – 11
9x Basic Fighting Energy
2x Rocky Fighting Energy
60 cards total.
What do you guys think? Anything you would add, remove, or change the counts on? I’m especially interested in making it as competitive and consistent as possible. Thanks!

Sorry if this is a bit off topic. I have a deck using some Black/White sleeves from 2011 and I’ve been using them for my cards at local tournaments. Given their age, they’ve started peeling at corners so I’ve replaced them since. I don’t want to throw them away, how can I use them instead?

And why would one not just play the Pitch Black version for 70hp?

Hey y'all, I've been playing with this deck as my first deck on pokemon live, with plans to transition it to paper to play in local league events. I'm pretty new to pokemon, but played MtG for a while. Without further ado, here's the list:

Pokemon: 21

3x Okidogi Ex

2x Pecharunt Ex

1x Latias ex

2x Mega Sharpedo Ex

2x Carvanha

3x Toxel

2x Toxtricity

2x Dunsparce

2x Dudunsparce

2x Monkidori

Trainers: 25

2x Brock's training

2x Lillie's Determination

3x Team Rocket's Petral

1x Judge

2x Bosses Orders

2x Janiene's Secret Arts

3x Binding Mochi

2x Ultra Ball

3x Night Stretcher

2x Energy recycler

1x Precious Trolly

2x Gravity Mountain

Energy: 14

14x Dark Energy

When the deck works, it works really well. Toxel let's me pull out the pecharunt and okidogi, with Toxtricity and Janiene's, I can get three energy in a turn and consistently hit for 300 with mochi. Sharpedo is an alt attacker for fighting decks and hits for 310 under the same circumstances, but requires an evolution which is on par with the charging attack on Okidogi in terms of efficiency. Brock's helps me find pieces to complete the board state. I'm struggling a little with consistent draws and dead hands. It's not always a problem, but given my goal is to be blowing stuff up before my opponent is ready, I fall off if I'm not calling the pace. What are weak spots you can identify or possible redundant pieces? I'm not a huge fan of the Dudunsparce line, but it can be clutch, and I didn't want to cut more draw, given that seeing more cards helps me.

Happy to provide additional information as to how it plays, and if anyone has deck building principles I may be lacking on to share, I'd be grateful. Thanks for your time and feedback :)

Just wondering how this works. Mega Loppunnys attack damage isn't affected by any EFFECTS on ACTIVE pokemon right. Such as stuff like discard an energy after an attack, basically anything under a pokemons said attack.

Bastidons ABILITY is as long as he's on BENCH he prevents all DAMAGE done to EACH of my pokemon by opponents pokemon that have 2 or less energy ATTACHED.

Since mega Loppunnys attack is 2 energy do I negate that damage or will she still penetrate even though bastidon isn't in active AND it's not an "effect" of an attack it is an ability that negates said damage.

Who overrulea who?

When using metal maker metang, which strategy gives the highest chance of hitting energy cards?

I’ve heard people say “thinning is winning,” which means using genesect ex and playing search cards so there are less cards in your deck. My theory however, is that waiting to search the deck is better. This is especially true if you used metal maker during your last turn because in that case you have up to 4 cards PER metang at the bottom of your deck that are NOT energy cards and you are more likely to draw into them from the top.

I’ve thought about this a lot and eventually realized this is a probability/statistics question that I am not smart enough to answer. Has anyone else thought about this?

Hi!

I’ve been playing other games for ages and have been collecting pokemon for a bit but I want to get into playing it too! I was curious if there are decks in a more controlling archetype, and if so, what budget options would exist! I’d also be curious about more midrange kinda decks, voltron style decks, or combo decks, but control would be my first choice!

Cross posted on r/pokemonTCG

Hello everyone!

I'm a high school teacher who loves playing the game and I just started up a TCG club at my school. We'll be using expanded format and I want to know everyone's favourite decks so I can make some pre-made decks for my students to use.

I currently have:

- Team Rocket's Mewtwo (league battle deck)

- Dragapult ex (league battle deck)

- Delphox/Emboar

- Ampharos/Kilowattrel

- Serperior/Chesnaught/Rosa's Encouragement

- Relicanth/Fossils

I'm moving out to college at the end of August and my current situation is an absolute mess. I have an opportunity with moving to give my entire setup a do-over so I'm looking for ideas. If anyone could share what they do to keep their cards aligned, what do you do? Thanks so much for any replies

My LGS is having their Worlds celebration on Saturday morning, and I'm currently digging between Alakazam, Cynthia's Garchomp, and Raging Bolt. The local meta here is pretty much ran by N's Zoro, Slowking, Festival Lead and Mega Excadrill (with some people running between Ogerpon/Hydrapple and Dhelmise and ofc the couple of Dragapults).

I've been leaning towards Raging Bolt, but any arguments for or against one of those three in particular?

I'm a newer player and i'm amazed by how strong dragapult is, but from what i can understand we used to have much stronger stuff around.

At this point i wonder: what is the best deck of all time? I don't mean the one that outperformed everything else in its own rotations, but like, if you played every card ever printed all together, what deck would be the absolute best and why? How does that deck work in short?

I can't find a lot of info on the expanded format, but if it literally is "you can play every card ever printed" then i guess my question is really "what is the best deck in expanded as of now".

Bonus question 1: how would something like current dragapult or similarly strong deck compare to the power level of the best deck of all time? Not talking about direct matchup, just power level in general.

Bonus question 2: what about the single best card of all time? I realize this is a very broad question so feel free to give your own spin to it :)

hiya, kiddo is wanting to get into the tcg, but i’m not sure on what deck i should recommend? ideally something simple for him, but (as most little kids go) would probably also want something with ‘cool’ cards w/ high attack. big fan of lucario & the like, but i know that’s… not always how deck building goes. any ideas for an accessible/adaptable deck would be lovely <3

edit to add: you’re all absolute stars <3 thanks so much.

I’m having trouble playing people where, in most cases, I have automatically assumed are better and smarter than me at the game and thus have also drawn into a way better hand than me and can counter anything that I do. regardless of deck, regardless of tech, regardless of board state, I never feel confident in a game (even if I’m ahead!) because of it and I know it’s the hugest barrier to my development as a player.

I’m trying to be battle tested in time for Vegas in December and I don’t think I’m progressing in any way.

3 - applin
1 - applin
4 - dipplin
1 - petilil
1 - lilligant
3- grookey
3 - thwackey
1 - rillaboom
1- rellor
1 - rabsca
4 - Lillie’s determination
2 - kieren
1 - Lana’s aid
1 - dawn
1- Drayton
2 - boss orders
4 - poke pad
4 - buddy buddy poffin
4 - bug catching set
2 - night stretcher
1 - air balloon
3 - festival grounds
5 - grass energy

MISSING

Psyduck Goldeen Seaking shaymin secret box survival brace2

I'm trying to decide on what deck to build out to try and get somewhat competitive. I'm leaning towards Slowking and looking through deck lists on LimitlessTCG and play.LimitlessTCG. I'm not seeing Regigigas PRE 086 in any lists, but this card can OHKO Dragapult, along with most other Tera mons out there.

For the Slowking players out there, why isn't this a common card for this deck?

Attack details:

Jewel Breaker: 100 [cost is 4 colorless]

If your opponent's Active Pokémon is a Tera Pokémon, this attack does 230 more damage.

Hey hey! Long time magic player here, just got into the tcg today with my 8 year old. We bought the battle academy box that came with the cinder ace, Pikachu, and eevee deck. We played it for around 2 hours tonight after supper and he had such a fun time. He’s got a ton of cards that he’s been collecting (nothing really valuable, just a bunch of bulk and a binder with some neat looking cards).

Where would I find decks that are cheap but fun and cohesive? I’m not looking for a tier 1 meta deck or anything, just something more competent than the box premade decks that are easy enough to understand for an 8 year old and myself and my wife (who also plays magic)

Hi everyone, I’m newish to the game and Im wondering how you all figure out in which matchups you want first vs second? What do you look out for to evaluate this?

Im playing pult/blaziken.