Pokemon TCG

[Arn Ironjaw]

After a cracking win streak of six, I got totally annihilated this evening by a guy playing so many Mega Evolutions & GX cards.

 

Which was frustrating as the game before I was against a Waillord & Magikarp Team-Up card and managed to pull through. 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

[Rev]

On 02/08/2019 at 16:39, The Eagle Lord said:

 

I'd google, but the deck i mostly come across right now is "Relentless Flame" which i quite like if i'm honest. 

 

You could wait for them to add "unified minds" to the store the deck i played against you with "soaring storm" has some great synergy and combos if you get the card draws right.  

 

I did go with that one, convoluted logic that I was unlikely to buy it in real life. Only had a few goes, but so far I am *rubbish* with it. 

 

I like Pidgeotto though. So that’s something. I’ll get there.

 

 

Where is the best physical store to go and look at them in? Game? Forbidden Planet? I’ll probably buy online anyway, but y’know. 

 

It’ll be in Nottingham, so I’ll tag you @strawdonkey

 

 

[Arn Ironjaw]

48 minutes ago, Rev said:

 

I did go with that one, convoluted logic that I was unlikely to buy it in real life. Only had a few goes, but so far I am *rubbish* with it. 

 

I like Pidgeotto though. So that’s something. I’ll get there.

 

 

Where is the best physical store to go and look at them in? Game? Forbidden Planet? I’ll probably buy online anyway, but y’know. 

 

It’ll be in Nottingham, so I’ll tag you @strawdonkey

 

 

 

Page 45 still in Nottingham?

 

If so they will have everything i should imagine they were wonderful when I've been there before. 

 

 

[Rev]

26 minutes ago, The Eagle Lord said:

 

Page 45 still in Nottingham?

 

If so they will have everything i should imagine they were wonderful when I've been there before. 

 

 

 

 

I don’t think they sell anything except comics, do they? I have only used it for that, mind, so I might have been blind.

[strawdonkey]

If you can get to Beeston, Chimera are second to none - brilliant store.

 

If it's central only you should probably look at The Dice Cup.

 

As for PTCGO, I'm "strawdonkey".

[Rev]

13 hours ago, strawdonkey said:

If you can get to Beeston, Chimera are second to none - brilliant store.

 

If it's central only you should probably look at The Dice Cup.

 

As for PTCGO, I'm "strawdonkey".

 

I’ve been to Chimera before, but just me and 6 year old on public transport from Eastwood is a no. It’d be fine, but also no.

 

The Dice Cup is right next to the bus station, isn’t it? That is Much Better.

 

I don’t know why really, but I just don’t like the Forbidden Planet in Nottingham. It just feels embarrassing, somehow. The one in Sheffield is tiny but fine, the big one in London is fine. Shrug.

 

 

[Arn Ironjaw]

How's everyone finding "Unified Minds" or the game in general?

 

I've been playing online every day since Unified Minds was released, and i am down to the last two items in the online VS rankings which i have two days left to finish. 

 

I'm starting to understand how to building decks and use abilities a bit better now.

 

And imagine my surprise that another new set "hidden fates" is releasing a week today!

 

No wonder it's so hard to work out what's going on with all these things. 

[Rev]

On 16/08/2019 at 15:57, The Eagle Lord said:

How's everyone finding "Unified Minds" or the game in general?

 

I've been playing online every day since Unified Minds was released, and i am down to the last two items in the online VS rankings which i have two days left to finish. 

 

I'm starting to understand how to building decks and use abilities a bit better now.

 

And imagine my surprise that another new set "hidden fates" is releasing a week today!

 

No wonder it's so hard to work out what's going on with all these things. 

 

I’ve quite fallen into playing it online. I ploughed through many of the trainer challenges, then went to theme versus. I’m still not really sure how fair those are, they feel very luck-based. Which is weird as an introduction to the game.

 

But I’ve graduated to making my own deck, and it’s much more enjoyable. When I was playing other new players I was waltzing through and I then hit a complete brick wall. I went back to the drawing board, which helped, and that led to finding a few more things to change and my most recent attempt managed to go 11 games unbeaten last night. So that’s good. 

 

With eBay scouring I’ve managed to amass a pretty good pile to play in real life, too. Probably the most impressive purchase was 4 complete theme decks for £2.50. But I got a big pile for £50 that gives enough bulk to do deck building in real life. Going to sell a few bits off to make it a bit cheaper, but it was already quite a bargain. Recommend to anyone selling Pokémon cards to include the word “Pokemon” somewhere in the title. People are idiots, bless them. 

 

I also bought a booster, and got Gengar and Mimikyu GX in it, so I can never buy another booster because I can only ruin my average from there.

 

So all broadly positive, really.

 

EDIT: And finished the rewards on 1172 Lightning, so missed out on the top 3 rewards. But that’s not bad at all. It’s got me upto 35 event tokens, so after a bit more of a polish I can try those out properly. 

[Rev]

I seemed to end up with a deck that was competing with the best ones, which was irritating because neither me nor my deck was good enough to really compete, but was like one that could. But after a brief dalliance with a grass deck that was a bit rubbish I’ve now got a Mew and Mewtwo/Pikachu and Zekrom, basically electric, deck. It’s not perfect, but I’m also not too sure where to improve it. 

 

Fun, though. And looking through other decks I do seem to be somewhat original, which is always nice.

[timdp]

Taking the seven year old to a Cosmic Eclipse prerelease tomorrow.

 

 His first was Unified Minds where he cane seventh out of ten and was the only child.

[Arn Ironjaw]

10 hours ago, timdp said:

Taking the seven year old to a Cosmic Eclipse prerelease tomorrow.

 

 His first was Unified Minds where he cane seventh out of ten and was the only child.

 

Ah best of luck then, have to admit this does look like a cracking set. 

[timdp]

So the boy won two lost three. I won five out of five and came first. Whoops. 

[timdp]

Sword and Shield prerelease events around the 25th Jan. Taking the boy obv. 

[Arn Ironjaw]

13 hours ago, timdp said:

Sword and Shield prerelease events around the 25th Jan. Taking the boy obv. 

 

I think i've found somewhere nearby where i can take part in this!

 

Is £25 the going rate for this?

 

 

[timdp]

Yes, £23-25 seems standard. You’ll get a “build and battle” box to keep containing 23 cards from a closed set (slight variance but mostly there are 4 different versions each with a different promo card) and 4 booster packs. People say the pull rates are better in the build and battle boxes. 
 

Then it’s boosters as prizes, different places allocate these in different ways. 
 

 

[Arn Ironjaw]

1 hour ago, timdp said:

Yes, £23-25 seems standard. You’ll get a “build and battle” box to keep containing 23 cards from a closed set (slight variance but mostly there are 4 different versions each with a different promo card) and 4 booster packs. People say the pull rates are better in the build and battle boxes. 
 

Then it’s boosters as prizes, different places allocate these in different ways. 
 

 

 

Can you give me a run down on how this all works please?

 

Will a near forty-year old man showing up without a child be accepted? 

[timdp]

It's totally fine to be forty as long as you have a grasp of how to play the game.

 

The format is as follows:

1) registration, check in, pay, give your Play Pokemon number (you can usually register on the day)

2) deck building, open your 23 card set and 4 booster packs, spend time building a 2/3 (40 card) deck with the cards you've received. The organisers will provide energy cards, but everything else has to come from the cards in your build and battle kit

3) tournament against others with the deck you just built. As it's 2/3 of a full deck you play 4 prize cards

4) prize giving

 

I would recommend taking with you:

- 7 dice - used instead of coin flip evens head odds tails and to count damage taken

- card sleeves as you'll be building the deck on the day, you'll end up playing the "expensive" cards you pull. I like Dragon Shield.

 

At the last one we went to (Southampton) all prizes were given in advance and equally, so three extra boosters per player - I think this is because there are a lot of kids. Then there were enough players to need 5 best of 3 rounds to find the winner (me!).  We arrived about 11:00 and were done by 17:00.  Good value for money I think.

 

 

[Bushtopher]

I taught my 6 year old how to play this over the weekend using the Lycanroc / Raichu trainer kit he got for Christmas. Massive success!

 

Whats the best next step in terms of moving to a proper 60 card deck? I’ve had a quick look on amazon and am a bit overwhelmed with the variety of sets etc. 
 

We’re in London.... any recommendations for a good shop to take him to for picking up some more cards, maybe watching a few games?

[Rev]

On 12/01/2020 at 20:06, Bushtopher said:

I taught my 6 year old how to play this over the weekend using the Lycanroc / Raichu trainer kit he got for Christmas. Massive success!

 

Whats the best next step in terms of moving to a proper 60 card deck? I’ve had a quick look on amazon and am a bit overwhelmed with the variety of sets etc. 
 

We’re in London.... any recommendations for a good shop to take him to for picking up some more cards, maybe watching a few games?

 

Have a whizz back through the thread, because I asked the same question last year. But, basically, there are two flavours of playing Pokemon. Theme decks, where you get 60 cards and basically don't alter them at all, and just boosters to then construct a deck from scratch. My gf's daughter has been playing for almost a year now and when she's not being a tired grump she's basically nailed the theme deck side of it. She's got quite a lot of them now, too. As a rule they're seemingly getting more powerful with each release, so very recent ones against older ones is a not-bad quite-invisible handicap if you want to play against them without having to fiddle it. 

 

Compared to a well-made deck, every theme deck is crap. So obviously that is a very different kettle of fish, but I've not tried moving onto that stage with her yet, because I'm not sure she's really got the luck/controlling luck aspect of the game yet. Variance isn't exactly an easy concept for grown-ups, otherwise deck-building games wouldn't be much fun. But theme decks are fun, and she gets a few boosters every now and again. So we're building towards that stage.

 

I never looked for Pokemon TCG stuff while I was in London, but I think Leisure Games is probably a decent shot, although they don't seem to have any events. The big Forbidden Planet on Shaftsbury Avenue must sell them too. You can look for authorised events on the Pokemon website:

 

https://www.pokemon.com/uk/play-pokemon/pokemon-events/find-an-event/?country=175&postal_code=&city=london&event_name=&location_name=&address=&state_other=&distance_within=6.2137&start_date=&end_date=&event_type=premier&product_type=tcg&sort_order=distance&results_pp=25

 

Non-obvious stuff I've picked up:

 

- Get something that they can lean their cards against. If you're getting a pile of cards in your hand and you have very small hands, it's easy to drop them. 

 

- You can get great deals from people who sort of started getting into it and then stopped on eBay. BUT the number of fake cards is ridiculous. A very notable percentage, including common ones. If it was just the rarest and most powerful ones it wouldn't be too bad, but it's literally everything. 

 

- The app version on tablets/PC is great. You can scan in the code cards you get with boosters, but you can also buy codes on ebay to feed in. Older sets are less valuable so you can get a ton of cards that way, or newer sets are basically the currency for trading for specific cards. Amazingly/wonderfully there is no in-app purchasing apart from the currency you build up by playing the game. So it's completely safe on that front. It encourages you to join a forum and there is a chat bit in there, but both are very easy to avoid.

 

- They literally never realise that you're making them read really complicated words and do maths. It's genius.

 

- Also genuinely good fun. 

 

 

 

[timdp]

Prerelease report: I came 3rd in the masters nodding out to two players who both pulled Zacian V. My son cane second in the juniors by 4%, he forfeited a game as he forgot to put his prize cards out. 

@Bushtopher - theme deck definitely the next step. Boosters are just a waste of cash. Laser Focus from unified minds and Thunderous Wave from Cosmic Eclipse would be my picks. 
 

Laser Focus can be expanded in the future to make a Malamar based deck. 
 

Also, find your nearest Pokemon league (search Play Pokemon) and get in touch asking when would be best to go along. They’re usually super helpful. 

 

[Rev]

On 28/01/2020 at 23:06, timdp said:

Prerelease report: I came 3rd in the masters nodding out to two players who both pulled Zacian V. My son cane second in the juniors by 4%, he forfeited a game as he forgot to put his prize cards out. 

@Bushtopher - theme deck definitely the next step. Boosters are just a waste of cash. Laser Focus from unified minds and Thunderous Wave from Cosmic Eclipse would be my picks. 
 

Laser Focus can be expanded in the future to make a Malamar based deck. 
 

Also, find your nearest Pokemon league (search Play Pokemon) and get in touch asking when would be best to go along. They’re usually super helpful. 

 

 

Boosters are not *necessarily* a waste of cash, but they're definitely not the best way to build a deck. They are a fun thing to open and a good way to come up with deck ideas. I think she's learning to give the cards value from them in a way that a job lot from eBay probably would miss. 

 

But yeah, if you're actually looking to get value they're shite. It's about £20 to get one rare these days.

[timdp]

We buy singles from card market after we try out ideas using proxies printed from limitlesstcg.

[Elseb]

My most recent video, really happy with the cards I got! For anybody still collecting, Tesco have all of their tins on sale at the moment, think you get about a fiver off.

 

Did anybody get lucky with a Shining Charizard in the Hidden Fates set?

 

[Elseb]

Rebel Clash is out in a few days! Anybody going to be collecting the set? I haven't been particularly fussed with the base Sword and Shield set, some decent cards but nothing great. I'm thinking about getting into the online game so if anybody wants a few battles or whatever, give me a shout. I'm trying to resurrect the thread

 

My most recent openng, some of my best tbh. Absolutely love Generations!!!

 

 

[strawdonkey]

I've not played for ages so I'm pretty sure my entire collection will have rotated out of Standard, but am up for shaking the rust off and having a few games. Will look into it tonight

[Elseb]

Cool, let me know mate! I've literally never played the online game before so I'm going to binge watch some tutorials and hopefully I'll get up to scratch quickly!

[strawdonkey]

 OK, I'm in - took a while due to some weird quirks with the app but we got there. All of my decks are out of date and/or contain banned cards so need to figure all that stuff out.

 

Not going anywhere at the moment so hit me up if you want some games once you're up to speed!

[timdp]

Lockdown purchases: 2 x trainer’s toolkit and the Pikachu / Zekrom league battle deck. 
 

 

[Stoppy2000]

My son wants some Pokémon cards for Christmas - we only play Vs each other but he loves it. Are the elite boxes worth buying? Seem to be one or two around about the £40 mark...

[Rob G]

Hi all,

 

I'm sorry if I'm asking a question that has already been answered (I did scan a few pages) but I wonder if you can offer some advice please?

 

My 2 sons are very keen on Pokemon (movies / cartons) and enjoy traditional card games so I'm wondering if introducing them to the Pokemon TCG is a good idea?  I saw the trainers toolkit available for £23 - would one of these for each son be a good starting point?

 

https://www.chaoscards.co.uk/prod/collection-boxes-pokemon/pokemon-trainers-toolkit

 

I imagine they will only be playing against each other for now and I don't want to make a huge investment on something they may not take to (let's say £50 total is an approximate ceiling to get them both up and running).  What should I go for?

 

Thanks

Rob