Pokémon Thread XXVIII: Get. In. The. BAG.

[sonofzeal]

Pokemon TCG Context (tl;dr):

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My 5-year-old nephew is super into Pokemon. He loves playing with Antie's Pokemon Go, his mom buys him all sorts of Pokemon TCG boosters, and I've even set him up with a copy of LeafGreen so he can enjoy Gen 1 the "proper" way (he just got past Mt Moon and is thrilled to bits about catching a Sandshrew).

I used to play a bit of the TCG way back in the days when Gen1 was all they had for it. A lot's changed since then, but I wanted to actually play the game with him, to teach reading, logic, and basic strategy.

I've got the "Pikachu Libre vs Suicune" Trainer set (now heavily modded with my Nephew's own cards), the "Mewtwo Mayhem" and "Pikachu Power" Evolutions theme decks, and the "Roaring Heat" Sun & Moon theme deck. And... is it just me or is the Pikachu Power deck absolute garbage?

Like I get that none of these are remotely tournament-viable or whatever, but the Pikachu Power one has three Caterpies and two Metapods without a single Butterfree, another eight cards devoted to the Weedle chain with lackluster Beedrill payoff, several Doduo that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever, and there's no real sweeper I can see except a mediocre Raichu. The other two decks have much more potent "basic" pokemon (Mewtwo and Hitmonchan, or Torkoal and Makuhita), and much more terrifying payoff for their Stage 2 evolutions with Nidoking and Incineroar both easily able to close out games. I feel we'd have better luck just grabbing random individually-good cards out of his binder than trying to play with the Pikachu Power deck as-is.

Are these decks supposed to be balanced against eachother? Is there something we're missing?

[Fable Wright]

I've got the "Pikachu Libre vs Suicune" Trainer set (now heavily modded with my Nephew's own cards), the "Mewtwo Mayhem" and "Pikachu Power" Evolutions theme decks, and the "Roaring Heat" Sun & Moon theme deck. And... is it just me or is the Pikachu Power deck absolute garbage?

Consensus appears to be, Mewtwo Mayhem and Pikachu Power are both bad. I think that Doduo is there for early aggression; fetch it early, put one energy on it, and you're dealing damage while Mewtwo Mayhem is still building up and you've got the chance to power up your benched pokemon. Metapod was included as something of a tank, it appears; it uses Stun Spore to shut down a pokemon, preferably poisoned. It also has the only Evosoda, which gives it a slight edge.

That said, Haunter's so much better at Metapod's job it's not even funny, Nidoking is a true sweeper and Dugtrio is a strong backup. The only real way that I can see Pikachu Power winning is by spamming the heck out of paralysis attacks, preferably on poisoned pokemon, with Raichu being used to one-shot pretty much anything the other team can muster.

That said, Mewtwo being a basic and having something as powerful as Psychic means that it'll be an uphill battle for Pikachu every game.

They're not MTG style duel decks, that's for sure; maybe they were relatively balanced against other decks at the time?

[OracleofWuffing]

That's kind of a small-world thing going on there. My first decks in TCG were Overgrowth and Zap, which were respectively "Pray for a Lackluster Beedrill payoff even though he's not even on the box" and "hope for chains of paralysis coin flips because the only psychic type that does damage in Base Set is Kadabra and he's already dead." I don't know if it holds up since everything has more hit points today, but it looks like Electabuzz is your sweeper in that deck. He used to be one of the best quick hitters in the game! ... Ages ago. Holy frack am I reading that Torkoal card right?

Keep in mind Evolutions is sort of a throwback set, so while it does have all the errata (and it looks like Beedrill's been completely changed... for the worse, somehow), there's still only so much make up you can put on a pig. The metagame for those sets developed solidly into a few strategies, and a whole lot of cards from that generation were left in the dust if they couldn't cater specifically to those strategies. Like, the only "Grass" types I can remember being popular off the top of my head are Nidoking and Scyther, and Scyther was only popular because he didn't need "Grass" energy. Virtually everything else in that type was a combination of "requires too much energy," "requires too many coin flips," "does too little damage," or "has too little HP." And, I guess, it's not a good throwback if it doesn't reference that age, regardless of how dark it was. But Oracle, Dark energy and dark pokemon didn't exist back then either!

[sonofzeal]

What I'm gathering is that both decks are expected to be weak even by the anemic standards of theme decks, due to the age of the cards and the severity of powercreep since then, but that the Pikachu one is at an especially harsh disadvantage. That sounds about right.

What's the best way to bring Pikachu Power up to snuff? We've got some trainers out of my nephew's collection already (Hau, Mallow, a Nest Ball, etc), and a single Butterfree I saw in my local gaming store. Is ordering cards online economical, and if so are there any recommendations to help get it up to normal theme deck standards?

[OracleofWuffing]

I'm still a fossil when it comes to knowing the current state of affairs (har har, fossil), so take things with a suitable amount of salt.

It will really benefit the deck as a whole to decide what you want the deck to do before you upgrade your deck. It is my understanding that at least at one point, they were trying to nail down "niches" for every type, with electric cards specializing in bench damage and recovering energy cards, and grass types were to specialize in status effects. In those terms, a deck with these types wants to disable the opponent's active pokemon, and then chip away benched pokemon that probably aren't fully evolved. So we got two big problems right off the bat: one, you got no solid bench damage options going on; two, the deck's box description says it's about powering up Raichu, but it's only thing assisting with that process is its trainer cards. Minor problems include, "Bench damage is usually too small to build a deck around," and "status ailments not named poison are kinda unreliable," and "You got some cards that wanna damage themselves." So where you're gonna go with improving the deck is going to depend on whether you want to throw Raichus at your opponent with extreme prejudice, or if you want to drop Raichu and hit on some indirect damage. Or if you want to come up with a different strategy, that's cool too!

Looking through the list of Standard Format-Eligible Pikachu cards, Roaring Skies' Pikachu is a common card that won't hurt you to switch over to. Sure, you don't get turn one damage, but it would fit the concept of disabling the opponent's active pokemon, and it's 30 damage attack won't deal damage to itself. Breakthrough could also be usable, if you really want to sacrifice damage for stalling.

Raichu is... Huh. Well, in this context, getting Raichu BREAK is a waste, so that's an easy one, but all the standard-legal cards look... Pretty good. That one's up to taste. XY 43 probably does the best consistent damage, and it's a lot easier to power up a pokemon that charges up on your bench size than on your energy cards. BREAKthrough 49 gives you something to throw at Pokemon-EX, which is probably useful overall, but not a concern if you want to bring it up to "regular prebuilt deck" status. Or you can keep sticking with the same kind you already got- it has the best spike damage, and can control when it needs that spike damage.

Oh wow, Electrode with Buzzap is back... Oh, wow, it's nerfed so what I used it for isn't usable now. Oh well. I don't see enough merit in keeping Voltorb around, and even less for Tangela. Doduo was probably around to be your token colorless pokemon to stick around when you get the short end of the stick for your energy cards and basic pokemon. They probably picked a flying type because electric types are weak to fighting types, and this served double-duty for giving you resistance to your weakness. Rats, Emolga isn't Standard and Rotom is weak to fighting... And Dodrio is a dead-end wall of coin flips. Swell. Farfetch'd should be your flash-in-the-pot quick damage card, but I still don't like the gimmick. Starly does much less damage, but pairs well if you go with XY 43 Raichu. Chatot is... not much better. Ugh. I'm still not satisfied with it, but it comes down to Rufflet and Braviary, or Pikipek and Trumbeak (possibly with Toucannon, but "Don't run more than 1 stage 2 pokemon" is a guideline that probably still applies today) if you want to keep a fighting-resist colorless pokemon. It covers a weakness, but it's not necessarily synergy.

If you're not too attached to your Butterfree, Grubbin, Charjabug, and Vikavolt would give you a route in to getting energy support. If you are attached to Butterfree, the other standard card can do the disabling and mess with your opponent's bench. Rowlet and Dartrix could also be your standby Grass pokemon, you don't necessarily need Decidueye, which is kind of a strategy prebuilts like to use.

Oricorio is probably overdoing it, but is worth a mention. As is Zapdos.
Togedemaru can be a damage-heavy upgrade from Electabuzz if you want to be a bit reckless with your energy. Hey, Raichu could just pull it right back.

It's too bad Vikavolt is the only electric bug around. If only they had a Stage 1 electric and bug type, he could fit the deck's typing well. Even better if he had access to bench damage. Still hate you. Note that such a situation relies on a weaker basic pokemon, though.

[cobaltstarfire]

You also want to look into what trainers and items are "must haves" for any kind of deck. In the past those were usually trainers that gave a lot of draw power in some form or another. Though I haven't played in a couple of years now so I have no idea how things have shifted.

[Qwertystop]

I last played a couple of sets ago, just before Sun and Moon came out... for something competitive, you'll want:

- Whichever Professor they've stuck with "discard and replace your hand" (it changes frequently), max copies.
- Vs. Seeker, at least three or possibly four.
- Rare Candy if your deck uses any Stage 2
- If you have Stage 2, keep equal amounts of the Basic and Stage 2, but less or none of the Stage 1
- Something to pull your discard pile back.
- Keep your energy count and energy needs low.
- Have searching and discard-recovery of some kind, for both Energy and Pokemon. Specific cards depend on the content of your deck - if possible, as many of your Pokemon as possible should be compatible with one type of no-cost full-deck-searching Ball (Level Ball, Heavy Ball, etc).
- Double Colorless and/or Double Dragon energy if your deck has use for it.

The biggest difference that comes to mind between Pokemon and other TCGs is that you should probably be completely replacing your hand very frequently (as in, minimum once per turn) in the early game. Even if this means discarding it. Momentum is too important to slow yourself down just to hold onto things that'll be useful later; you can use discard-recovery to get them back.

[geonova]

I last played a couple of sets ago, just before Sun and Moon came out... for something competitive, you'll want:

- Whichever Professor they've stuck with "discard and replace your hand" (it changes frequently), max copies.
- Vs. Seeker, at least three or possibly four.
- Rare Candy if your deck uses any Stage 2
- If you have Stage 2, keep equal amounts of the Basic and Stage 2, but less or none of the Stage 1
- Something to pull your discard pile back.
- Keep your energy count and energy needs low.
- Have searching and discard-recovery of some kind, for both Energy and Pokemon. Specific cards depend on the content of your deck - if possible, as many of your Pokemon as possible should be compatible with one type of no-cost full-deck-searching Ball (Level Ball, Heavy Ball, etc).
- Double Colorless and/or Double Dragon energy if your deck has use for it.

The biggest difference that comes to mind between Pokemon and other TCGs is that you should probably be completely replacing your hand very frequently (as in, minimum once per turn) in the early game. Even if this means discarding it. Momentum is too important to slow yourself down just to hold onto things that'll be useful later; you can use discard-recovery to get them back.

All this. I don't really play much of the TCG, but when my friends and I were brainstorming my Yveltal/Darkrai/Togekiss deck we kept all of these points in mind, though that was for a semi-competitive deck, if you only want decks that are good for getting a feel for the game or just having fun; you can relax these rules a bit.

[sonofzeal]

Togedemaru can be a damage-heavy upgrade from Electabuzz if you want to be a bit reckless with your energy. Hey, Raichu could just pull it right back.

Oh hey, we got one of those from a booster not long ago! And I think there's a BREAKthrough 49 Raichu too.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone!


(edit) ...okay, after a bit more time, I'm planning on upgrading the Pikachu/Raichu line, keeping either the Butterfree or Beedrill lines (nephew's choice), cutting the other and the Magnemite line to make room for a Mareep line we've got pieces of already, four Rare Candies, and some Hard Charms. The result will be a paralysis-heavy defensive deck focused on getting multiple Stage 2 evolutions off consistently, as opposed to the Mewtwo Mayhem deck which is going to specialize more in strong Basics (Mewtwo and Hitmonchan especially) and a heavy offence (Muscle Bands and Professor Kukui). Hopefully, this will result in games where my nephew gets put onto the back foot early but can come back strong as the game progresses.

With this dichotomy in mind, are there any defensive Trainer cards of note? Pokemon Center Lady, Hard Charm... anything else?

[Velaryon]

It's funny, but I came to post exactly that.

Since I never got any sort of response, I'm going to ask again: would there be any interest in a giantitp tournament?

Not for me. I'm far too lazy to do all the extra work that comes with trying to get the right IV's and stuff. The fact that one Pikachu (or whoever) at level 50 can have wildly different stats than another of the same Pokemon at the same level is one of my biggest pet peeves about the series. I'd rather see the strategy focused purely on move sets and team composition, and so I've never bothered with any sort of competitive play.

Also, there's the aforementioned thing where I skipped the earlier generations and therefore can't get a significant number of the Pokemon without trading anyway.

Between those two things, there's really very little left for me to do with the game once I've completed a playthrough and caught everything that can be caught in the current generation.

[OracleofWuffing]

With this dichotomy in mind, are there any defensive Trainer cards of note? Pokemon Center Lady, Hard Charm... anything else?

Sadly, Trainer cards are a blind spot for me. Yes, they're paramount to any deck that does not contain 59 psychic energy cards, but my method of looking those up was mostly "Okay, which pokemon are electric types? Go there, click on TCG, and look for something on the list with a gray background." I don't know of an easy way to pull up all the "legal" trainer cards to sift through. I'd be willing to try sifting through a list if someone could find one.

[Qwertystop]

Apart from the aforementioned significant number of deck-searchers... Usually, if there's a Stadium with effects specific to your type, you want it. Water, Grass, and Lightning (official TCG has it as Lightning-type, not Electric, dunno why) are the best for that - Water and Lightning share a heal-30-damage-every-turn, Grass lets you not need to wait turns between evolutions so you can get a turn 1 Stage 2.

After that... Potion or Fresh Water Set. Higher levels of Potion can be good if your deck can tolerate (or work with) the Energy discards. Hard Charm, Heavy Boots if you have high-HP stuff. Retreating is useful both defensively and offensively - Escape Rope, Float Stone.

[Spore]

Pokemon TCG Context (tl;dr):
and I've even set him up with a copy of LeafGreen so he can enjoy Gen 1 the "proper" way (he just got past Mt Moon and is thrilled to bits about catching a Sandshrew).

I love the fact that he is so thrilled about this. But how do you do this without him being able to read? Pokemon was fun for me as a 5th grader but not being able to read any instructions surely hampered my enjoyment. I got stuck in DuckTales as a 4 y/o for two years until I understood what the controls did.

[Hunter Noventa]

Short and sweet Pokemon direct today.

Pokken Tournament DX for the Switch (meh)

Pokemon UltraSun/UltraMoon for 3DS?! I'm pleasantly surprised, I didn't want to have to buy a Switch for more pokemon games!

Getting Gold and Silver compatible with the Bank is just a bonus.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Nintendo/Gamefreak has once again bucked the trend with how they do revised versions: a remake in the same generation the orginals came out!

(Battle Frontier please and more post-game story please. Also more cosmetics)

Also I'll totally get Pokken on the Switch. But DX? Really?

[Vaz]

Are Gold/Silver (or more importantly, Crystal) coming to the store? No longer have my Cartridge for it, which is extremely annoying.

[Hunter Noventa]

Are Gold/Silver (or more importantly, Crystal) coming to the store? No longer have my Cartridge for it, which is extremely annoying.

They didn't say anything about Crystal, but Gold/Silver are going to be on the virtual console, just like RBY. With full wireless battle, trading, and pokemon bank support.

[Vaz]

Shame about Crystal. Might pick up Silver this time.

Just thinking, it'll be the first time I've ever played a 'blue' version of the game (Red, Gold, Ruby, (missed FR/LG), Pearl, White, White 2, Y, and Sun). Never really been an intentional thing, just that I either liked the box art more as a kid, or later the version exclusives.

Sun nearly lost out on Moon though, I just liked Lunala much more initially - although not going to lie, Solgaleo is by far my favourite of the two. Lycanroc-Midday changed it for me and is still easily one of my top 6.

In a way, kind of glad that there isn't a 3rd game, Necrozma just was a bit...meh. Big story for Nebby, and the UB's, and the Island Guardians. and then Necrozma is just... there

[Hiro Protagonest]

Pearl, White, White 2, Y,

Those are Blues.

[sonofzeal]

I love the fact that he is so thrilled about this. But how do you do this without him being able to read? Pokemon was fun for me as a 5th grader but not being able to read any instructions surely hampered my enjoyment. I got stuck in DuckTales as a 4 y/o for two years until I understood what the controls did.

He mostly ignores the NPCs, but can navigate the menus to throw pokeballs and switch pokemon after I show him a few times, so he can run around battling enemy trainers and catching new pokemon just fine, and he learns the attacks by trial and error. The one thing he still needs me for is to interact with Bill's PC to change his team.

Right now he's in Vermillion City. He never battled Misty, but given how strong she is that might be for the best. I'll guide him back up there soon. Current team is a Nidorino, Charmeleon, Geodude, Beedrill, Pikachu, and Meowth, all around level 18.

[Vaz]

Those are Blues.

Hmmm. White, maybe. But Pearl, White 2 and Y definitely are Red.

[TheSummoner]

Hmmm. White, maybe. But Pearl, White 2 and Y definitely are Red.

Those are all "blues"

Red and Blue
Gold and Silver
Ruby and Sapphire
Diamond and Pearl
Black and White (2)
X and Y
Sun and Moon

If it's the first in the set, it's a "red" and if it's the second it's a "blue." (All of mine are "blue" versions)

[Svata]

Except for X, every pokemon game I've ever owned was a "blue"

[Vaz]

Spoiler

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See, the thing is, Red is a Colour, and Blue is a colour. The colour Red relates to the colour red, and the colour blue relates to the colour blue. Not the order of words.

Gold has Red hints = Red, Silver has Blue hints = Blue. Ruby/Red, Sapphire/Blue. Diamond/Blue, Pearl/Red (or Pink, but gonna say that it's nearer Red than Blue). White (blue tints on Zekrom), Black (Red tints on Reshiram), White 2/Big red flames, Black 2/Big Blue Lightning. X is a literally blue pokemon. Y is a literally Red Pokemon. Sun is Orange, and Moon is Purple, or Red/Blue.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Pearl is definitely a Blue. I got Pearl just because Palkia looked more likely to be dragon-type. I utterly regret it. Dialga is way more badass, and steel-type.

Dialga is the pointier, scarier-looking one. It's pretty Red.

Sun is Orange, and Moon is Purple, or Red/Blue.

Purple is both red and blue.

Checkmate.

[Vaz]

Given the tone of purple, there is a higher quantity of blue in the mix.

Bro you need your eyes checking.

[TheSummoner]

See, the thing is, Red is a Colour, and Blue is a colour.

Not in the context of pokemon games. Red and blue are versions (also pokemon trainers/league champions). A "red version" is the first in any pair of like games and a "blue version" is the second. For gens 1-4 where there was a third game, that one would be a "yellow version"

The actual colors on the box art/game cartridge are irrelevant.

[Vaz]

So irrelevant they keep a continuous theme.

K.

[Hiro Protagonest]

And now we've reached the point where someone resorts to condescension.

[cobaltstarfire]

I'm not sure how I feel about Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon...need more information. The new solgaleo/lunala lookingmonsters revealed remind me of Type:Null/Silvally, like they're wearing a weird control armor or something. Which is intriguing, but I don't feel especially optimistic about this one.


Getting one of the gen 2 games on virtual console is extremely tempting though.