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  CURRENTLY IN OPEN BETA!Pokemon Trading Card Game Online is a downloadable MMO TCG based on the Pokemon trading card game! The history of the game goes back to a few years ago, when it was some dumb Flash game that essentially taught new players how to play the card game without having to buy cards or interact with creepy 30-year-olds at the local comic book shops. Now it is a free-to-play game in which you can still choose not to buy cards, but you may have to interact with creepy 30-year-olds through the power of the internet. SO IS THIS FREE-TO-PLAY? This game is 100% free to play! You don't have to buy anything if you don't want to. You'll start the game with some basic decks (that you'll need to unlock by playing the single-player component) and earn in-game currency to purchase more booster packs and theme decks to expand your collection! All free cards you get in the game are untradeable. The "pay" portion of the game comes from buying physical Pokémon TCG products, such as booster packs and theme decks. Each of these real-life products comes with a redeemable code that you use in the game to give yourself digital copies of those products. Cards acquired from redeemable codes found in official Pokémon TCG products, such as theme decks and booster packs, are tradable! While you can play the game for free, you will fall under the mercy of the random number generator gods in hopes that your free booster pack will give you some good stuff. If you want to speed up the process and get awesome cards and the ability to trade for awesome cards, you'll have to buy real-life Pokémon TCG cards. THE GAME IS FREE TO PLAY, AND THE "PAY" PORTION IS BUYING REAL-LIFE POKEMON CARDS! THAT IS THIS GAME'S HOOK!  DOES THIS MEAN I CAN'T GET THE BEST CARDS IF I DON'T PAY? You can get any card that actually appears in a theme deck or booster pack in this game. In fact, you are guaranteed one rare card in any free five-card booster pack you buy. Any and all cards available in their physical counterparts are obtainable in this game for free, with the only catch being that you are stuck with whatever you get and can't trade them for other cards. You also cannot get "parallel holofoil" cards from free packs, which are super shiny but otherwise exactly the same as their non-holofoil counterparts so nobody cares unless you have money to burn I guess. HOW DO I PLAY THIS DUMB GAME? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZrnEtq-tqA The official website has a tutorial of the basic game mechanics! There is also a single-player component in the game called "TRAINER CHALLENGE" that serves as sort of a tutorial on how to play the card game, as well as familiarize yourself with the nuances of the game's interface. It is highly recommended that you play through this portion of the game in order to earn tokens and booster packs, as well as not eventually whine about how you don't know how to click cards to do things. HOW DO I REGISTER? Do you have a Pokémon Trainer Club account? If you play the DS games and use the Pokémon Global Link feature, then you do! It's the same account, just sign in with that! Otherwise: REGISTRATION PAGE (WARNING! Don't look directly into the eyes of the characters contained within!) WHAT DO I CLICK ON THE SPLASH SCREEN? It really doesn't matter. Once you get past the splash screen, you end up on the main menu and then you can worry about what all those icons do. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NEW PLAYERS  GET THE RALLYING CRY THEME DECK New players start with three theme decks: a basic Water, basic Grass, and basic Fire deck. After the first day, you will get a basic Fighting deck. There is one more free theme deck that contains Colorless and Water Pokemon called the RALLYING CRY theme deck! Go to the SHOP menu, click on the REDEEM CODE tab, and then enter one or all of these redemption codes: - boundariescrossed - plasmastorm - plasmafreeze - plasmablast Like every other free deck, these cards are not eligible for trading. You can redeem ALL FOUR DECKS, which will give you a SHITLOAD OF CARDS FOR DECK-BUILDING! WOW! NOTE: IF YOU REDEEMED THESE CODES WHEN THEY ORIGINALLY GAVE THE POWER RELAY DECK, YOU CAN RE-REDEEM ALL FOUR OF THEM TO GET FOUR COPIES OF RALLYING CRY! SAVE YOUR TOKENS UP FOR A THEME DECK OR TWO Booster packs cost 95 tokens and give you 5 non-tradable cards, with one guaranteed rare card. Theme decks, on the other hand, cost 500 tokens and give you a bunch of cards, specifically the always useful Trainer cards, that can then be utilized towards deck-building. For your first purchase or two, you should buy a theme deck to allow you more options for decks. These theme decks are based on their real-life counterparts, so if you know what cards are in their real-life versions, they'll be the same here. WHEN YOU BUY A THEME DECK FROM THE SHOP, CLEAR THE TRAINER CHALLENGE WITH IT! In addition to the "four star" progression bar for beating an AI opponent over and over again, you'll notice that theme decks have a "WINS UNTIL BOOSTER: 0/12" counter on them. Beat 12 different AI opponent with the deck to earn yourself a free booster pack! BASIC ORANGE AND ALL OTHER THEME DECKS DON'T NEED TO BE UNLOCKED Only the three starter theme decks need to be unlocked via the Trainer Challenge. It is recommended that you unlock all three of the basic decks to give yourself more cards for deck-building, some of which are very good to have (such as Professor Juniper and Double Colorless Energy). Also, when you beat an AI opponent, a progress bar fills up based on how many points you earn after the match is over (win or lose). Progression earns you tokens, and maxing it out gets you a free booster packs! LINKS OF INTEREST Pokemon TCG Online Official Website - Contains information on how to play the game, the download for the application, and more! SixPrizes - Deck-building tips, gameplay strategies, and so on! Bulbapedia page for the game - Bulbapedia is pretty spergy and contains a ton of detailed info on the game! Pokemon Megathread - The other Pokemon thread on these forums! Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 18:32 on May 27, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2013 03:12
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ---------  How can I get tokens faster? Log in daily to get 15 tokens (except for days where you get booster packs which are better sometimes)! Play a random PvP game against somebody at least once a day (the game must last at least 4 minutes for it to count) to earn 10 more tokens! I recommend playing under the Theme Deck rules on Expert if you don't want to be steamrolled by assholes running a dozen EX Pokémon in the Novice brackets. Playing under expert difficulty with theme decks is not different gameplay-wise, but it does net you at least one extra token, two if your opponent is marked as having the "advantage" beforehand! Here is a good post on how to get even more: Arkangelus posted:I haven't seen this mentioned but I've seen a lot of people asking about how to get more tokens. It's very important that when you're doing the trainer challenges that you switch the difficulty to expert as soon as you have unlocked decks to do them with. Going from 0 to 15,000 points scored against a trainer netted me 15 tokens per trainer in Platinum League and I think 17 in City League when I did them a few days ago. That's roughly 3 matches on expert difficulty, or one win for each of the basic decks. It still will probably take you 9-12 hours (at 5-10 minutes per match) so there is definitely some grind but better than nothing. -------- How many Trainer/Energy cards should I run in a deck? Youremother posted:Here is a very good article on what some of the more desirable supporter cards you'd want and some of the noob traps to avoid. Here is also another good article on basic deckbuilding that has a list of more general good trainer cards. Sixprizes is a great resource for people just starting out in the Pokemon TCG and I would highly recommend these articles as they were the ones that helped me tune my starter decks into something workable. The Leper Colon V posted:Here, I just threw something together, might be useful for you folks. Cernunnos posted:I think I found a few Supporters that might be worth carrying in some decks. All of them are HeartGold & SoulSilver sets though so you'd have to trade/buy redemption codes/booster hunt to get them. --------- --------- GOONS --------- SA Username - PTCGO Username Mercury Crusader - MercuryCrusader SolidSnakesBandana - ssnakesbandana Elblanco - ZeroxMd Pyroi - Dr_Brinner doyle-san - bunsenburger Junpei Hyde - JunpeiHyde setafd - setafd Keiya - keiyakins Youremother - fnord55555 Tired Moritz - LazyRittz Cerony - Antmedin Sharkopath - lilsharko Catsworth - Catsworth Forer - saforer Endymion FRS MK1 - endymion_frs poop in its butt - notokn Serperoth - Serperoth Kooriken - Kooriken2 Bat Ham - Bat_Ham razorrozar - razorrozar0811 Cernunnos - Cernunn0s Sudoku - Chakadon NyaoMyao - NyaoMyao Pumpkinreaper - IAMCRAIG dude789 - DukeSilver8 TheMadMilkman - themadmilkman Tatum Girlparts - Glitterball Astro Nut - JTheBrit Drone - SA_Drone MykonosFan - MykonosFan The Leper Colon V - JackOfSparks Someone Awful! - SomeoneAwful Ledgem - Megdel Inverse - Prinnies WontGetFooledAgain - BulkPunchfist Toraen - Toraen Mr.Electric Ocean - MachineForTepig Raitzeno - Raitzeno Locke Dunnegan - LockeDunnegan Julias - Julias01 Network42 - Network42 Urdnot Fire - Firebert Plasbad - Plasbad64 Volty - Voltowl MagusProject - MagusBlag SpeedRazor - Nester NeuroticLich - NeuroticLich Rapdawg - Slowman_Capoke BougieBitch - Neglect PhantomBowie - PhantomBowie technolizard - AlmightyLiz QPZIL - qpzil1 Thorias - Thorias Nostratic - Lenient_Process Rhygezenguro - rhygezenguro Agoat - Agoat944 Waldorf Sixpence - WaldorfSixpence Color Printer - Color-Printer Whalley - sarsparillo Dead Pikachu - mutaki Portable Staplefrog - staplefrog SereneCrimson - SereneCrimson Cipher Pol 9 - CipherPol9 Newfork - WyattSalazar djfooboo - djfooboo Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 03:16
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Livingtrope posted:Sneasel motherfuckers DrManiac posted:Do tell Bulbapedia has you covered. Long story short, Sneasel in Neo Genesis was way too good and could potentially do up to 140 points of damage by turn two.
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Sep 30, 2013 03:42
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XboxPants posted:That game was awesome. Does the "Trainer Challenge" mode from this game hold a candle to that? Not at all. You basically just get thrown against an opponent that has a deck with one, maybe two, energy types total, and that's about it.
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Sep 30, 2013 05:16
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setafd posted:I redeemed the four decks in the OP, but looking at my collection and my deck manager, I don't see any of them? I just have the Basic Orange. Have I done something weird? They're treated as "packs" for some reason. Go into your collection tab, then the packs tab, and you'll have four of the decks sitting there. Open them up one after another.
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Sep 30, 2013 05:27
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setafd posted:Oh! Well, I got four dealies of the lightning deck. Am I supposed to have theme decks with fire, grass, and water Pokemon to begin with as well? Yes. You'll have to go through the Trainer Challenge to unlock the bulk of them.
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Sep 30, 2013 05:36
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Just remember, if you don't like the grind, and want to have a bunch of tradable cards at your disposal, all you gotta do is buy real life Pokémon TCG stuff, as every real-life booster pack and theme deck you buy contains redemption codes for digital copies! That's how they get you. This is their F2P model. I added a disclaimer about the free-to-play gimmick of the game in the OP. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 06:46
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Keiya posted:Better than MTGO. Ten bucks for an account, then you have to pay for online boosters completely separately from real-world ones, plus tournament entry fees... Oh, I agree. I played MTG back in the late '90s/early '00s. Then I tried MTGO and found that they have a completely separate ecosystem compared to the physical game. With this game, if you happen to enjoy the actual card game enough to buy physical cards, you get cards for your digital collection. And yet you can actually progress in this game without spending any real money, unlike MTG where you either play the physical game, the digital game, or both if you have way too much money to burn. Youremother posted:Also FYI they haven't implemented this but they will be a real-money currency in game in the form of Gems. If you want to pay-to-win anyway just go out and buy those real life boosters and hey, maybe you'll pull an actually valuable card and can recoup your losses on ebay! Bulbapedia mentions that Canada has this system in place already for the beta, but hell if I know. Any Canadians out there wanna give it a go? I wonder how much the gems will cost. If it turns out they aren't much cheaper than physical product, then it'd be better to just buy physical product, and I guess if you don't want the real cards, you can always recoup them on the market like you said. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 06:56
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Cerony posted:Also this is probably a stupid question but should I just open all the untradeable packs that I have? I mean there's no other use for them other than to open them right? Yes, just open them. That's something to keep in mind as well: if you redeem booster pack or theme deck codes, you can actually trade them instead of opening them. Some people online do this if they want some of the more rarer cards, so keep that in mind if you ever check out the public trades. Keiya posted:Oh, you should mention in the OP that if you have a Pokemon Trainer Club account already - and if you play the video games you probably do, it's the same one used for PGL - you just sign in with that. Added it under the registration section.
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Sep 30, 2013 07:13
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Catsworth posted:Well I'm Catsworth. Figured I'd try at least one PVP battle for the daily play token thing. Set to Beginner. Opponent goes first and puts out a Thunderous EX. Welp. Yeah, I would avoid Unlimited matches if you are a beginner for a while, even on Novice. It'll just be an unbalanced mess at the moment with no checks and balances, since guys often go there to try and pubstomp. Modified is much better balanced. Theme Deck will probably be the best to play for a long while, since they seem to be the most balanced against each other. ZeroCount posted:Now this brings back childhood memories! Are the theme decks decent by themselves or is some deckbuilding and mixing required to just get a playable deck? If you just want to use the theme decks as they are, play under the Theme Deck ruleset for match searches. The starter decks you get in the beginning of the game are still pretty good against the purchased theme decks (I have a Lightning/Darkness theme deck I purchased with tokens as my first buy, and I lose to the starter Fighting deck all the time). Modified, you'll want to start editing the deck. And Unlimited, forget it.
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Sep 30, 2013 07:24
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Livingtrope posted:Weird, you misspelled Haymaker there. Haymaker as you remember it is pretty much dead. Not just because of how Trainer cards function now (because seriously you can probably just use your old cards as-is and chain Computer Searches and Professor Oaks like the old days) but Pokemon cards nowadays skew to higher HPs. Remember how most basic Pokemon, such as Squirtle or Charmander, would have 40 HP or so? They'll tend to be at 60 to 70 HP now, and evolutions go higher now. I used to play Raindance and Blastoise had 100 HP in those days and could do a maximum of 60 damage. The most recent version of Blastoise has the same Raindance ability as the original (under a different name) but now has 140 HP and no real limit on how much damage it can do (in fact 60 is the bare minimum amount of damage he can do, but realistically it'll be more like 100). Changes to how Trainers work, specifically the Supporter subset, also slowed down the game to where you can't just explode into victory on your second turn. While I can sort of build the Raindance of old, with newer Trainers I can't just load up Blastoise with a dozen energy cards on the second turn. Serperoth posted:Also, I might be reading stuff wrong, but I can't play with the Power Relay deck in the City Challenge (or any of the other two of those). The only ones I can use are the Basic Blue/Green/Red ones. Oddly enough, of the five starter theme decks, Power Relay and Basic Orange are not usable in Trainer Challenge, and you don't need to unlock any cards to use them in deck-building. It's weird because you pretty much have to do it for all three standard starter theme decks and for any theme decks you buy with tokens. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 15:21
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Serperoth posted:Good to hear that about the deck. Guess I'll just get some more boosters or tokens. Are tokens farmable? Haven't tried much. As far as I know, you can repeatedly face the same opponent in Trainer Challenge at get at least one token each time you win. I have no idea if there is a hard limit on that or not, as it gets really boring doing that after a while, but I think in theory you could just grind that all day. It's much more sane to log in at least once a day and then find a random human opponent in a Theme Deck match to get your daily 10 tokens for a PvP match. I will say that, after the initial unlocking of the deck, any other trainer you haven't beat in the Trainer Challenge with a theme deck will get you 3 tokens in addition to the one. As for the newer-ish Raindance, I'm not saying it isn't possible to make it work, just more that you can't setup the combo immediately on your second turn, then burn through the majority of your deck to load up every Pokemon with energies on that same turn. It's cool that the concept of the deck still exists in a less overpowering form, though, rather than just being completely dead. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 15:49
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W.T. Fits posted:I still have my old Haymaker deck around here somewhere. Best drat deck I ever built. I actually still have my original Raindance deck, featuring cards from the first four sets only (Base Set to Team Rocket, so first generation only) and my brother still has his old Haymaker (same stipulation). The only Pokemon he ran in his deck were three Hitmonchan, three Electabuzz, and three Scyther. Everything else was just a gauntlet of card advantage, and he had no qualms with having to mulligan. When you have four Professor Oaks, four Computer Searches, and four Item Finders, you tend to get the cards you want right away. The rest of his Haymaker deck consisted of Gust of Winds and PlusPowers so he can pick and choose what to kill, and Rocket's Sneak Attacks so he can keep the opponent from using their Oaks or Computer Searches. In Magic: The Gathering terms, it was like watching an unholy fusion of Sligh's straight beatdown potential with Necropotence's card advantage and hand disruption.
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Sep 30, 2013 17:11
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I bought a lot of the Team Rocket set, so much in fact that I have more from that set than any other (Base Set is a close second, Jungle and Fossil are tied for third). Oddly enough, I could never get a holofoil Dark Charizard. I still have my old card binder, and it is the only missing part of the entire set. I really should just order one and call it done. Or maybe four, I think I have enough cards to finish four complete sets of Team Rocket. Anybody remember the promo card Team Rocket's Meowth from back in 2000? It wasn't that good, and nobody I knew wanted them. Not even the guy running the comic book shop that I used to frequent that would only occasionally do Pokemon-related stuff (they mostly did Magic: The Gathering tournaments, which I also used to play a lot). Rather than throw them out, I bought his stock of them for $5.  All 75 of them. They're still worthless. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 22:18
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Nahxela posted:Please build a super cool gimmick deck with those. At one point, I had a deck that involved those, along with Dark Weezing and the previously mentioned Sneasel in a really dumb "fill the bench and suicide out all the damage" deck. I would often use Challenge to try and fill the bench as fast as possible, but people got wise to that tactic and would always turn it down, so I would have to just Oak them out as quickly as possible.
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Oct 1, 2013 01:39
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Keiya posted:I think the AI follows the principle that playing cards is good. For instance, it seems to have no problem with playing tools then using tool wrecker to break them The AI seems to be programmed to just play every single Trainer card it can possibly play on its turn. This is most noticeable if you play against them at Expert difficulty, where they will have no qualms using Crushing Hammer on themselves if you happen to have no energy cards in play, using a Bianca to draw one card, using Pokemon Communicator and shuffling a Pokemon back in their deck to search for the exact same Pokemon, or as was mentioned above, using Super Scoop Up to return their last Pokemon. They will literally empty their entire hand whenever possible, regardless of how much it makes sense. NyaoMyao posted:I tried a novice PVP game and got put up against a dude who put out a Mewtwo EX card on his first turn. I think I'll play against the computer a little bit longer before I do that again. Yeah, until you start getting a theme deck or two, and maybe a few boosters, I'd avoid random games, especially Unlimited (and Modified to an extent). The train of thought for most players seems to be "stack a lot of EX Pokemon with no semblance of actual strategy," which works against most Theme Decks and otherwise poorly constructed decks, but are poo poo against any deck with some kind of plan. I'm not running a lot of super great Pokemon in my current Unlimited deck (the rarest card in the deck is one Computer Search, and the rest are lower-tier rare Pokemon) but I've had a lot of success with it against people who play by that philosophy. EX Pokemon are tough as poo poo, but take a while to build up, have high retreat costs, and costs the user two prizes when they lose it. I'll figure out a way to post up my current Unlimited deck for a future post, but it's really dumb and works, so it should give you an idea of what can beat those kind of super-rare-stacked decks. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Oct 1, 2013 |
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Oct 1, 2013 06:53
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setafd posted:What should I do with all these packs I have in my collection? Open them up. Specifically, go to the Packs tab, click the pack, and one of the buttons below it should let you open them. If they have the red lock number on it, they're untradeable, so they only thing you can really do with them is either open them up for cards or I guess just let them sit there and do nothing.
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Oct 1, 2013 07:35
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One of the starter decks comes with Double Colorless Energy. For the early decks you build, you should probably run at least two of these dudes and 3 to 4 Double Colorless. Doing 120 turn two against a guy who is stacking EX Pokémon will probably make them concede defeat when he finds out you aren't as dumb as he is. DrManiac posted:[e] Is there any way to load theme decks in your theme tab? I should have the B&W decks and the elec promo but the only theme decks that show up are the regular basics. You may have forgotten to open them. Theme decks count as packs, so go into your collection and the theme decks will be there. Open them up like a booster pack. It's in the OP, but keep in mind that Power Relay and Basic Orange are not usable in the Trainer Challenge. As such, they are the only two decks you don't need to unlock cards for. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Oct 1, 2013 |
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Oct 1, 2013 16:58
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Cernunnos posted:I have it fully unlocked and it only gave me 1 for my Collection. Yeah, I should mention this. Apparently, completely unlocking any of the three starter decks just leaves you with those cards and that's about it. However, theme decks you buy from tokens, after you completely unlock them, gives you a duplicate of that deck, so you essentially have double of that theme. I bought the Voltage Vortex theme deck, and after unlocking it, I now have two Weaviles, four Zekroms (two are holofoil and two are not), two Luxray, and two Scrafty. This also means I have eight Shinx and eight Seedots but whatever! Kelp Plankton posted:What determines if a deck is one of the different deck types, and how do I make a custom deck that I'm allowed to use in the main singleplayer progression stuff? To add to what Serperoth said, when you build a deck in this game, it'll ask if you want it to be Modified or Unlimited. If you choose Modified, it SHOULD only list your cards that are legal in Modified, whereas if you choose Unlimited it'll list all of your cards. If you build an Unlimited deck, and it turns out that all of the included cards are legal for Modified, the game will automatically greenlight it for use in Modified. Cerony posted:There's gonna be some changes to the rules come XY: Haha, Pokémon Catcher gets nerfed. RIP Gust of Wind Part II. I mean, I can understand why it got an errata. Gust of Wind back in the Base Set days was a pretty big deal, since it let you selectively kill whatever Pokémon you want. Good to see they're nipping that Professor card issue in the bud, because I would literally play eight of those cards in every deck if I could. The attack-on-first-turn rule change is interesting. I figured they would've done what Magic: The Gathering does, where if you go first, you don't draw a card. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Oct 1, 2013 |
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Oct 1, 2013 21:00
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Keiya posted:Power Relay shows up in mine? The old Basic Yellow doesn't though, even though I got to keep access to the HGSS Basic RGB decks. Really? Power Relay and Basic Orange don't show up on the Trainer Challenge for me, just the three basic starter theme decks and the Voltage Vortex deck I bought a while back. Maybe it's different for each account? Also, I don't have a Basic Yellow deck. You did mention earlier about playing this as far back as when it was the Flash game, which I have played, but in-between that early stage and where the game is now, I don't know what they did. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Oct 1, 2013 |
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Oct 1, 2013 22:09
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Raitzeno posted:Is the player avatar in the actual game modifiable in any way? Is it randomly generated or did I make the bastard when I was out of my mind at some point? Third icon from the left on the tool bar, the shirt one.
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Oct 2, 2013 15:51
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Locke Dunnegan posted:I just started playing, and have unlocked all three of my first decks, and figured I could try some PvP. I went Expert because it sounded like Novice wasn't useful, and I immediately got destroyed in my first three Modified rounds. Everyone has Mewtwo EX, Genesect EX, and other retarded 170+ HP two-energy 50+ damage basic pokemon seemingly making up their entire deck. I thought Modified was supposed to keep dumbass power creep in check, what the hell? Mewtwo EX has a two-energy attack that is 20x number of attached energy on BOTH pokemon, meaning it will reasonably be 80 damage or more. Modified keeps power keep in control better than Unlimited, but it still exists. Until you get a decent amount of cards built up and can figure out a good counter to that kind of bullshit, your best bet will be to play Theme Deck games for a while. My deck doesn't have problems with most of those EX Pokémon, mostly because I built mine around lower evolution Pokémon with cheap attacks and guaranteed status effects, and spread typings around enough that I can cover a good number of the more commonly-used power Pokémon. To give an idea of what kind of Pokémon I'm using in my current Water/Psychic Unlimited deck: * Toxicroak (x2) - With Double Colorless Energy, I can get 70+ damage out by turn two, more when poison kicks in during the long run. If I have him on the bench and one of my guys gets knocked out, I'm guaranteed a 90 damage attack for 1 energy. Toxicroak is pretty efficient at what he does, and can stand up to a Mewtwo EX pretty well. * Simisear (x2) - Both it and Pansear are extremely splashable thanks to having colorless energy requirements. Simisear's first attack is just 30 damage for two energy, but having a water energy on him guarantees a sleep effect. I play two fire energy in the deck on the rare occasion I use Flamethrower, but for the most part I use it for the 30 damage sleep and to exploit fire weaknesses without having to invest heavily in fire. * Seismitoad (x1) - Easy to fit into a multi-energy deck and hits really hard, it's pretty much my only powerhouse Pokémon. Even if I can't get him out, Palpitoad (which I play three of) is good on its own right, with a guaranteed confuse effect and a solid 50 damage as early as turn two with Double Colorless. * Yanmega (x1) - It and Yanma give me a grass weakness exploitation and fighting resistance without having to use grass energy at all. Yanma itself is pretty good at throwing Pokémon around and giving the opponent some trouble if they're trying to set up early game, and Yanmega is a hard hitter with two good attacks that can use any energy at all and no retreat cost. Seriously, Yanma and Yanmega are really good, and if you have room in your deck for them, I'd give them a go. Most of my Pokémon were chosen with the intent that I would try to take control in the early-to-mid game. I also chose them based on usable disruption tactics, ease of type coverage, and their ability to use Double Colorless Energy. I use a lot of card advantage trainers to get what I want as quickly as possible, so this means 4 Professor Juniper, a few Level Balls since only two Pokémon in my deck can't be fetched with them, and I managed to trade some dumb Ace Spec card that only works if you have a Genesect-EX for a different Ace Spce card: Computer Search. The deck is also pretty light on energy costs, all part of the setting up early concept of the deck. It's biggest flaw is in the late game, if somebody were to actually set up a strong (usually stage 2 evolution) Pokémon. This is just an example of how I play. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Oct 2, 2013 |
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Oct 2, 2013 18:42
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Yoya posted:If anyone was wondering how the store place is for Canadians it's mad expensive. It's about 25 bucks for 500 coins which holy crap it's just virtual cards cut your customers a break. I only have hearthstone to compare it to because I haven't played other games but it seems 3 or 4 times as expensive for a 5 card pack. So basically, it's cheaper to buy physical cards for the redemption codes. Good to know.
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Oct 2, 2013 19:08
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soscannonballs posted:Is there a list of the good trainer cards I should be going for and which expansions/theme decks they come in? Professor Juniper - It shows up in the Basic Red deck, the Power Relay deck, and in various other decks. Drawing a new hand on-demand is always a good thing. If you don't have anything useful in your hand, why bother keeping it when you can give yourself a second chance with a new, full hand? I always play four, but three is a good number to play, while two just doesn't seem to be enough. Pokemon Catcher - Gives you the ability to force an opponent's benched Pokémon out as an active, which essentially means you can pick-and-choose who to knock out before you attack. I'd run at least two in a deck. Note that the card is getting changed when the X/Y set comes out to require a coin flip, and when that happens, it'll no longer be as useful. Computer Search - This was a rare card in Base Set and had no real limitations, but it was reprinted pretty recently as an "Ace Spec" card. Ace Spec cards are a subset of Trainer cards that have one limitation: you can only play one Ace Spec card in your deck total. So you can't play Computer Search and, say, Dowsing Machine in the same deck. Out of all the Ace Spec cards, Computer Search has the most utility, letting you grab whatever you want from your deck (probably a Professor Juniper or a stage 2 evolution or special energy or whatever). Unfortunately, it's a rare card. Unless you can trade for one, they show up in the Boundaries Crossed expansion, so you can try your luck on those booster packs. Thankfully, Boundaries Crossed has quite a lot of good cards in general.
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Oct 3, 2013 02:06
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soscannonballs posted:Thanks. I played a lot when I was a kid pretty much from the time the first set came out all the way until Neo 3-4, so I am familiar with how good cards like Professor Oak/Bill/Comp Search are. I figured I would go for cards like that first since they pretty much go into any deck I decide to make. The only problem now is that most of those card advantage trainers are under the Supporter subset (namely Professor Juniper, Cheren, Bianca, any trainer card based on a person) and you can only play one of those per turn. On the one hand, I miss chaining Professor Oaks one after another in a mad dash to get all my combo pieces in place by turn two, but on the other hand, the game feels more balanced now than it was before. Cityinthesea posted:gently caress those people who put 4 Darkrei EX's in their decks When you kill one with your lovely Toxicroak or Palpitoad thanks to poison and/or confusion respectively, it feels good man. I should make a list of Pokémon that are good against EX Pokémon in general. Bouffalant was mentioned earlier, since he's both easy to fit in any deck and can use his attack by turn two thanks to Double Colorless Energy. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Oct 3, 2013 |
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Oct 3, 2013 03:47
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Youremother posted:Here is a very good article on what some of the more desirable supporter cards you'd want and some of the noob traps to avoid. Here is also another good article on basic deckbuilding that has a list of more general good trainer cards. Sixprizes is a great resource for people just starting out in the Pokemon TCG and I would highly recommend these articles as they were the ones that helped me tune my starter decks into something workable. Added that site to OP under links. My MTG background revolved around either playing very few creatures or none at all, and carrying that philosophy over to Pokémon didn't work so well outside of trainer cards to use. I could always use more info.
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Oct 3, 2013 06:03
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Not having to unlock the decks you bought via tokens is great. Not getting a duplicate deck is not so great. Guess you just take the good with the bad. I'll update the OP about this turn of events. Also, gotta redeem that new deck! EDIT: Looks like my Voltage Vortex deck can still be used in the Trainer Challenge for some reason. Though I did unlock everything already so whatever!
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Oct 4, 2013 01:20
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I don't know if it's just me, but after adding all those new Rallying Cry decks, I noticed that the cards are tradable. Anybody else got that?Youremother posted:Quick tip: If you log in with your account on pokemon.com, you can play the flash games there to earn 15 extra trainer tokens a week. It's not much, but it's helpful for saving up for the expensive decks or when you need a quick token boost to buy a booster. Haha, I actually remember doing this back when it was new and tokens were completely worthless! Guess I should start playing these dumb games again! Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Oct 4, 2013 |
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Oct 4, 2013 02:30
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Emalde posted:I don't see it in the new OP, but one of the changes to the client allows you to now use any redeemed deck against the Gold League. If you clear all 12 trainers, you get a booster. You can do this with Basic Orange, Power Relay, and Rallying Cry as well (so anybody just starting out has another way to earn between 2 and 3 free boosters currently) Huh. It still won't let me use Basic Orange or Power Relay. Or Rallying Cry, for that matter. I wonder if it's just for brand new players or something on my end is broken. Sudoku posted:I still can't figure out how to add people on my friends list. The friends icon on the top bar is greyed out. I checked my profile poo poo and I should be totally open for friend invites and such. You should have a search bar slide down when you click the friends icon. Input the username manually and hit enter. As far as I know, the thing doesn't actually "search" for anybody.
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Oct 4, 2013 03:47
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W.T. Fits posted:Worked for me, too. Coins are chosen during the deck-building processes. As are card sleeves. On the one hand, having them linked per deck is kinda dumb, but on the other hand, if you happen to care about what coins and sleeves you use per deck it's kinda fun?
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Oct 4, 2013 16:10
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Level Seven posted:I play the card game in real life and have no plans of getting into the online game anytime in the foreseeable future. I have a couple of unused code cards lying around from tins and some theme decks. Didn't see anything relating to this in the rules but is there no problem with me posting codes for more interested goons to use? I guess you could post them, but then some scammer non-goon lurking this thread is gonna take them and that's not fun. Maybe PM the codes to somebody. Preferably one of the newer players.
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Oct 5, 2013 03:23
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Arkangelus posted:I haven't seen this mentioned but I've seen a lot of people asking about how to get more tokens. It's very important that when you're doing the trainer challenges that you switch the difficulty to expert as soon as you have unlocked decks to do them with. Going from 0 to 15,000 points scored against a trainer netted me 15 tokens per trainer in Platinum League and I think 17 in City League when I did them a few days ago. That's roughly 3 matches on expert difficulty, or one win for each of the basic decks. It still will probably take you 9-12 hours (at 5-10 minutes per match) so there is definitely some grind but better than nothing. Added this good post to the OP. Also added a blurb about getting 12 wins with a token-purchased theme deck and one of the free promo decks netting you another booster pack. KoldPT posted:4 starring everyone is the best tactic. It gives you a ton of tokens and a free booster pack per trainer. In addition to this, when I 4-starred everybody in Gold League, it gave me three or four booster packs. I'm sure one of them was for clearing the opponent proper, and the other couple were from league clearing.
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Oct 6, 2013 19:34
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I used to play Magic the Gathering competitively back from around '98 to '02, and I honestly have a hard time trying to play MTG casually (asides from Commander/EDH). On the other hand, I can play Pokémon casually, and from everything I've seen, the barrier to enter competitive play isn't as rough as it is with MTG. There are some deck-building philosophies that carry over between the two games, but there are a lot of nuances in Pokémon that I can't seem to understand at a casual glance like I can with MTG.Raitzeno posted:I still make casual MTG decks all the time when a compelling new card or three are revealed. I never had much of a problem with it, though they won't be winning me any tournaments. Maybe you were playing with the wrong crowd? The comic shop that I used to frequent (along with my brother and best friend) was hyper-competitive to a fault. It was fun and all, but we got caught up in that highly competitive environment to the point where I just can't look at MTG cards without being extremely critical about them and analyzing their viability, from mana cost to straight compare-and-contrast to similar cards. Even EDH has me kind of going over cards with a fine-tooth comb even though I really just want to make a dumb Goblin deck or whatever. I think you have a point about the crowd I was with, and how it affected my opinion on the game as a whole. I still like MTG, but I have a really hard time playing any sort of constructed format, so I mostly play limited, if at all. Also, a lot of my knowledge on MTG constructed play is based on how things worked in the '90s, so I don't know if they really apply these days. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Oct 7, 2013 |
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Oct 7, 2013 03:17
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I've been unlocking those Training Challenge boosters, and so far it has given me two Black Kyurems and a Black Kyurem EX. I think the game is trying to tell me something, but it somehow knows how I feel about such concepts as Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Oct 7, 2013 |
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Oct 7, 2013 07:40
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Jibo posted:I've been playing this for about a day now and I finally just figured out what I'm missing in this game. There's no limited format in Pokemon TCG is there? Like draft or sealed in Magic? I figure it's probably drat near impossible to do with the way evolving pokemon works but that is the big appeal in MTGO to me and while this game is a blast, it just feels like it's missing something. I want to say that there may have been at one time, back when Wizards of the Coast handled the game in the US, but I'm not sure. If it did, it must not have been popular.
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Oct 8, 2013 05:17
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Jibo posted:So this game is going to make me start doing drafts on MTGO and buying physical Pokemon cards again. I feel like I'm regressing as a human being. My brother is working on building a second Legacy format deck for MTG (he already has a Goblin deck, so now he wants to build a Charbelcher deck), but until then, we've been playing our old school Gen1-era Raindance vs. Haymaker match-ups. Plus, we've been thinking about potentially buying some theme decks for when the next Pokémon set comes out. It's a downward spiral, cards the whole way down. I just got a Computer Search from one of the free booster packs, which means I now have an extra that I can just trade, since you're only allowed one in a deck anyway due to it being an Ace Spec card now. I also got a bunch of other Ace Spec Trainers that are decent, so now I gotta figure out what I want for it. Maybe I can get one of those full art Trainer cards for it or something. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Oct 8, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 07:03
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Cernunnos posted:Maybe we should put some Added to the OP. I should also put sirens around the "report bugs" statement about the Help icon. I do it sometimes!
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Oct 9, 2013 00:14
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vulturesrow posted:I know it's in beta and I did actually submit a ticket. Its just a little annoying and seems like sort of a basic bug for an MMO, especially a beta version where people can already spend real money for stuff in game. Just a little light bitching is all. I give it a bit of a pass on the whole "real money" thing since the only real paywall, outside of the occasional Nintendo/Pokémon promotion and people selling their redemption codes on eBay or wherever, is buying sealed Pokémon cards themselves (and I guess Canada's goofy pay system, whatever that is). Otherwise, my biggest complaint at the moment is when the game stalls for about thirty seconds to a minute after selecting an action, even if it's against an AI opponent. Just gotta keep submitting them bug reports I guess, and hope for a better end product! Jibo posted:Does anyone know how to actually change your coin? I've gotten three coins now and I can't for the life of me figure out how to change it. I see there's a coin spot when you look at a deck in the deck manager but it doesn't do anything when you click it. It was mentioned already, but not only coins, but card sleeves are chosen after you construct a deck, on the same screen where you name them. I'll add that to the OP since the coin thing keeps being brought up. Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Oct 9, 2013 |
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Oct 9, 2013 02:06
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There are too many factors to take into consideration as to when retreating is a good idea. Ideally, you'll want to do it if it will deny your opponent a prize card, allow you to stay on the offensive, and if your new Pokémon can handle the opponent's. Realistically, you're going to have to make judgment calls based on what you can see (both active Pokémon, all bench Pokémon, energy/tool/stadium cards in play, cards in hand) and what you can't (your opponent's hand, what you know/believe is left in your deck and whether you could draw it).
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Oct 9, 2013 21:37
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The Leper Colon V posted:mill is garbage. I wish there was a deck that won via milling the opponent to death. In MTG, I was playing (Turbo)Stasis variants for the longest time, until it (along with Force of Will and pretty much every fun card ever) finally got cycled out of the (now defunct) Extended format back in the day. It used to piss off the judge we had at the local comic shop, because every game would be easy to figure out the math for (2-0 or 2-1) whereas, if my games weren't 0-2, they were 1-0-1. This is because a round would have a 50 minute time limit, and my deck would take about 40 minutes to win.
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Oct 10, 2013 02:11
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