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Pokemon Trading Card Game (Online) (We idle in #mtgoon on synirc) Pokemon TCG is a trading card game that came out in like 1996, inspired by the gameboy games. Then Wizards of the Coast brought it to the US. Then TPCi directly took control of the game in 2003. PTCGO is an online client for the Pokemon Trading Card Game, similar to what Magic The Gathering Online is for Magic The Gathering. That's where the similarities end though. In every way in which Magic Online is terrible, PTCGO is good. quote:
Pokemon - these are basically creatures. When you KO one you get a prize or two. You win when your opponent has no more in play or you get all of your prizes. You have one active and 5 bench slots (changeable with some cards, of course). Basics: You play these out as long as you have room on the bench. EX's are also basics but they yield two prizes when KO'd. EX's are considered to have different names from non-EX's, and you can have up to four of any pokemon name regardless of text in your deck.     Evolutions: Evolutions are played onto basics, but only if that pokemon was in play already this turn or wasn't evolved once already this turn. Mega's are the same except they end your turn unless the pokemon that's being mega evolved has a corresponding spirit link    BREAK:Introduced in BREAKthrough, BREAKs are evolutions that are placed sideways on a card, replacing its name and max hp, but adding an attack or power to the card on which it was overlaid, looking something like this:  Trainer There are four kinds of trainers: Items: Items are the basic kind of trainer. You can play them whenever on your turn and there is no restriction aside from targetting and additional costs on the card.   Supporters: Supporters are a more powerful version of items. Only one supporter can be played per turn.   Stadiums: Stadiums are persistent effects. Only one stadium can be in play. If you play one while one is already in play the old one is discarded and then the board is adjusted (through discards) to meet whatever the new board state needs to be if bench sizes change. You cannot play the same stadium when one is already in play.   Tools (and Tool-F's): Equipment/Auras for pokemon.    Ace Specs: Only in expanded and older, you can only have one ace spec in your deck because of how powerful they are.  Energy: Energy come in basic and nonbasic types. They are basically like lands in magic except they are attached to pokemon.    Ok enough of that why is PTCG any fun? Pokemon looks like vintage in deck composition, basically. The average deck is like ~15 pokemon, 10 or fewer energies, and 30-40 trainers. That means you play a lot per turn. What makes this fair though is that you can only attack with a pokemon once per turn so you're kind of limited on how fast you can win. All right so what's up with PTCGO? (probably emphasis here because I don't play this game in paper) PTCGO is basically a f2p Pokemon TCG client that has a lot of good f2p mechanics and very cheap buy-in with real money. Another upside is you don't have to play it in person and be seen as that guy in your 20s or 30s playing pokemon. This is what a competitive deck looks like (minus one shaymin that i now have). It cost me about $20-30 in codes to put together. In paper the deck is about $250 or so to put together.  How do I get some cards to play with? 1. Do the tutorial. The tutorial awards you with a Basic Yellow deck. This will be nice later if you ever want to play theme. 2. Trainer Challenge - there's a vs AI mode called player challenge that lets you play against a mildly stupid AI to earn points vs that AI player. For beating every player in one of the leagues you get some booster packs. At thresholds there you earn tokens and then a booster. You also earn cards in your three basic theme decks. You get also a booster for getting every theme deck to a certain threshold of unique wins. 3. Challenges - basically hearthstone style daily quests. Early on these can be done in player challenge modes but later on they are versus only:  Ok now you have some untradeable boosters and tokens and maybe chests. Open up your untradeables you're never doing anything with those. With your tokens you can go into the store to buy some theme decks. Each of these can be cycled back into player challenge for the one booster for 12 unique wins, but they also come with some pretty good cards. Just don't buy the XY starter ones they're garbage. The store also sometimes has promotional "blisters" for limited times. These are basically a good token outlet if they have a good constructed card. Trading - there is a trade ui that's pretty intuitive, you can look at open trade requests here:  if you choose one it goes into this  If you want to post a trade you can hit create trade and it looks like  -> then I hit done, post with some tokens (which are returned to me when the trade expires or is completed)  and then now that's listed under my trades  I got some cards now I want to battle real people online Ok now you can start playing against real players for cards. When you go into versus mode you can see a meter at the bottom that gives you rewards for earning versus points (10-15 on a win depending on relative hidden rating to your opponent).  There are four different formats: Theme: Theme is probably your best bet because theme decks are very easy to get. You can only battle with preconstructed theme decks in theme. In my experience the best decks in this format are: 1. Basic Yellow 2. Basic Blue 3. Dark Hammer They kind of have a rock paper scissors relationship where basic yellow dunks on basic blue, basic blue beats dark hammer (and just about every other deck except maybe iron tide), and dark hammer beats just about everything but basic blue but is close against basic yellow. Standard and Expanded: This will basically explain it way better than I can: http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/pokemon-tcg-format-rotation-for-2016/  this is basically what casual standard looks like  Also dont worry the cards are readable if moused over Unlimited: Basically pokemon legacy/vintage. I don't touch this because it's broken as gently caress thanks to nonsense like Shiftry. There are also tournaments. These are 3 round Bo1 fights that are afaik not seeded in any way. They list entry fee and prize on the in-client page. Token tournaments give tickets and ticket tournaments give packs. What are some deck lists? Honestly TPCi has posted some good lists here and here How do I know if a card is good? High damage for low energy cost is good. 170 - 180 is a good break point because thats how much you need to KO any EX instantly. Incidentally this also means cards that are good against EX's (regi's, hawlucha) and good against basics (pyroar) can be pretty good too Zubat/Golbat/Crobat are powerful for their ability to do damage without attacking. Shaymin-EX is hilariously broken. Everything else is generally about getting through your deck as fast as possible. Because of the sheer number of draw 7's there are in this game discarding cards isn't a huge cost. More resources: Charizard Lounge- these guys kind of meme a lot but they do compile tournament results and write about some t1-t1.5 decks so that's pretty cool There's also 60cards.net and propokemon.com but they all have that dumb scg premium format for their content so I don't read them a lot. Good lists are a bit annoying to find but don't vary too much from a consistent core, basically. (If anyone knows good resources please tell me) Zoness fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Aug 11, 2016 |
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Jan 30, 2016 00:42
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Standard is rotating soon - everything between XY is going to be out of standard
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 04:18 |
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I got on at 2 am midnight and i think it was just serious grinders in the versus queues at that point  .Couldn't play Lucario/Bats properly to save my life, also can't wait to get my hands on some of those new belts  EDIT: any thoughts on 4x puzzle in night march? does that let you take out milotic or should you still leave 2 slots for milotic
Zoness fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 4, 2016 23:21
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Dr. Stab posted:Is the new theme deck worth getting? I spent my coins on the umbreon blister but I'll take a look when I get back up to 500. I have my doubts though, basic blue and basic yellow are kind of absurd. Oh yeah hold off on getting the water/grass theme deck for now since kricketune and lilligant are bugged. I looked over the lists and without having played them yet, Electric Eye seems to have some potentially strong plays but the big problem with both of the decks imo is they seem pretty weak in terms of card draw (Misty's Determination  ). At least Electric Eye comes with 1 Max Elixir and 1 Fighting Fury Belt Elblanco posted:A ton has changed. You can use theme decks in verses to get coins and packs and cards. Some standard decks are pretty cheap to make. I built night March fairly easily(though a ton of people freak out on me when I do play it). I have been playing nothing but night march mirrors and I feel like the puzzle variant (basically cutting the milotic package for 4 puzzles) is probably absurd but still vulnerable to all the hate cards added in BREAKpoint. Gonna try cutting down to one target whistle/pokemon catcher to mise with puzzles. Opening with two puzzles and a battle compressor is just the best feeling. Gonna be trying puzzles in some Korrina lists. Zoness fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 16:46
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Serperoth posted:Is there a support chat or something that I can contact? There might be a dev for this game in #mtgoon (on synirc) 
Zoness fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 20:01
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M-scizor EX can tank night march pretty well, especially if it has a fighting fury belt attached (220 hp with a relevant resistance and no relevant weakness is tough) but it seems really bad vs fire dogs. I imagine there's a Zoroark/Bronzong/M Scizor-EX control deck with mega turbos and max potions. In fact if I had the scizors I'd probably try it out because the entei matchup is probably not that bad. Zoness fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 23:57
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All right so I did the 50 win thing because I figured why not and here's what was in my box:  On the bright side I'm sure my night march variant is pretty nuts, I'm considering testing one feebas/milotic but I love the puzzle + battle compressor interaction and I'm not sure what to cut for milotic (probably acro bike I kind of hate that card)
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Feb 9, 2016 07:00
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Oh hey Generations was added at some point and was street released yesterday. I just looked at the spoiler and the M-Charizard and Jolteon look pretty dope but I really want some of those imakunis.
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Feb 23, 2016 23:28
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X_ThePerfect posted:As someone who messes around with the theme deck format, but is still pretty clueless in general, what are some good core cards to pick up if I was looking at constructed but didn't know what to play? The staples in this game are more often trainers/supporters than pokemon themselves, so I'll go by those - I think this is a good supporter/trainer core for any kind of generic deck, numbers are targets but the 4-ofs are best in 4's: 2-4 Professor Sycamore 0-2 Professor Birch's Observations 1 Lysandre 1 Hex Maniac 1 Xerosic 1 AZ 4 Ultra Ball 4 Trainer's Mail 4 Acro Bike 4 VS Seeker 4 Max Elixir (if your deck is playing like, 12+ basic energies) 2-4 Fighting Fury Belt 0-4 Battle Compressor Filler Tier: Judge Crushing Hammer Enhanced Hammer Red Card
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Feb 24, 2016 00:19
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GlitchThief posted:How long does it usually take, after a new set gets printed, for that set to appear in the online version? You can get generations packs (through paper codes) online already But it's not in the in-game store because generations is a gimmicky rear end release in paper
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Feb 24, 2016 00:29
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Toshimo posted:Despite what the OP says, the average deck does not have less than 10 energy. Most fair decks (ones that rely on drawing and playing cards normally) probably start with 18-20 energy. It's not until you get into hyper-specialized decks with a bunch of combos, crazy amounts of card draw, and discard pile recursion, that you see those sorts of <10 energy decks. idk what you're doing if you're not playing 30-40 trainers . 4 sycamores is very easy to get and sycamore incentivizes you to play marginal trainers (hence fillers like hammers and poo poo) just to dump as many cards as possible. When I played my sceptile EX deck with no shaymins i played like 10 grass energies tops because you can play letters to tutor for them if you really need them12 is approximately the number you need to reliably hit with max elixir and it's more important to not whiff with trainer's mail because that's like, all your consistency. Waldorf Sixpence posted:I figured as much. I've seen some really impressive decks running with a ridiculously low energy count by running very tight strategies relying on one card actually using any energy and every other Pokémon sitting on the bench for abilities, but I'm glad to hear that's not the only valid deck configuration! there aren't really significant downsides to single type decks - most competitive decks are single type or DCE only and it mostly depends on being able to cheat your energy costs (dimension valley, dark patch, blacksmith, etc) Elblanco posted:Yea, they added generations when they added breakpoint. I can't remember though, is generations where the awesome umbreon ex is or is that fates collide? probably fates collide cuz the only good eevee in this one is the jolteon Zoness fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Feb 24, 2016 |
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Feb 24, 2016 04:34
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That deck depends on noivern and gengar it's designed to be a stall deck but sometimes you can just clear early boards with noivern. You will want to set up a gengar if possible since some matchups are unwinnable without it. Most of your basics are fodder. Ursaring helps with stalling sometimes but it's really slow to get off the board. While you're setting up put energies on a ghastly (but don't overinvest because there's 1-2 theme decks with lysander, basic green for starters) but hold haunter until you're ready to set up a gengar turn because haunter's on-play effect is pretty useful. Sometimes you'll want to retreat a gengar or noivern to set up - as in retreat it and then do some damage to your opponent's active with whatever else you send in so you can send in noivern or gengar back in to KO it. Cresselia and Zoroark are reasonable damage but also are good switching tools (cresselia switches out for free with a stadium in play and is somewhat tanky, zoroark switches in for free and can do a lot of damage). They combo well with haunter because ideally you want to switch out whatever you confused with haunter. The main problem with the deck is that your draws are rather inconsistent because your plays are combo-ey and it is very energy hungry. Also the deck doesn't have its own stadiums to enable cresselia which kind of sucks.
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Mar 21, 2016 18:40
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I think the blisters were the best value, and some precons can have very good constructed cards (having 4 sycamores is probably a good place to start, for example)
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Jul 23, 2016 02:24
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dear tpci please stop putting tierno in preconstructed decks, shauna at least sees some play  seriously just give people professor sycamores so they can learn what good supporters do at least you get an evosoda and ultra ball but an ultra ball with no hand refill is pretty mad awkward. Zoness fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jul 26, 2016 |
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Jul 26, 2016 21:59
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 battle compressorit's me, i'm the unrepentant night march playing scum Zoness fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 18:14
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yeah it's like $4 for a stack of 30 codes or something except roaring skies codes. a couple of brick and mortar PTCG stores sell the codes online when they open boosters for inventory on set releases, afaik.
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Aug 3, 2016 20:50
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this new title is a bit of a prediction but thanks standard rotation for getting rid of xerosic and the megaphone, i hope people like getting garbodor locked especially xerosic since you had all sorts of redundancy in lines to tutor him out, such as with battle compressor, which also rotated out
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Aug 4, 2016 07:48
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I assume you're referring to M-Mewtwo Y Ex (the one with psychic infinity) since MMXex can hit through resistance blizzard (but is a worse card). You can run non-ex attackers or spam hammers so that regice can't use its EX block attack. but regice is often played with an energy retrieval engine like mega manectric or bronzong, so you might also need to lysander the support mons out to kill them comedy option - RoS Jirachi, force the regice to retreat with doom desire, then lysander the regice back in and kill it. You'll lose the jirachi but hey that's a pretty good trade considering relative setup time. Zoness fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Aug 4, 2016 |
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Aug 4, 2016 18:55
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Asehujiko posted:Does this game let you get older cards or is it the most recent x years only? I want to run a deck of nothing but the OG hitmonchans, scythers and electabuzzes like I'm 10 again. I've been told it's cards released from HGSS and later.
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Aug 4, 2016 22:46
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Webbeh posted:Well I found out this game keeps on crashing for me - it fails to load if you have >1 monitor. I don't think monitor count is the reason, doesn't the game tell you about a crash thing to send to a developer?
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Aug 11, 2016 00:45
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Elblanco posted:IF you're planning on playing standard, don't pick up any packs from before primal clash, as rotation happens later this month i believe. I will add this to the OP
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Aug 11, 2016 16:59
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I admittedly haven't looked over the newer ones but basic blue or basic yellow is still probably the best
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Aug 11, 2016 18:25
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Night Striker is pretty easy to pilot but it's kind of inconsistent. I ran it a bunch and when you get an early Noivern that's nice but there's a lot of draws that just don't get there and noivern's draw7 can cost you a critical turn. I am almost certain that it is behind basic blue and basic yellow on average, because those decks are more consistent. Note that basic blue basically almost always manages to open with articuno because of how much card draw and search it has between dive ball and its supporters, and then it gets to set up a gyarados with a hand full of energies.
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Aug 11, 2016 18:36
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yeah basic blue's strength comes mostly from consistency. there's other decks that can outpower it but you are at like a 75% chance to open with articuno which means you will not miss energy drops for the rest of the game while pulling energies out of your deck so you can draw more gas off the top. articuno also has a very low retreat cost so if in case you don't draw another searcher or another ace to pump up (usually gyarados), you can just retreat it and build it up as a sweeper while sacrificing pokemon to whatever is threatening your board.
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Aug 12, 2016 17:21
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Sixfools posted:I've been trying to figure out the best way to do that since I don't know anything about energy curves in this game. Dumping your hand is basically the same as shuffling back (often better, honestly), except in two cases that I will mention below. Considering your hand was probably full of dregs to need to play a supporter to draw so many cards in the first place, shauna is just going to shuffle those bad cards back into your deck and give you fewer chances to find relevant cards. For locking you out of your supporter for the turn you better be maximizing your chances of finding what you need. The main point for shauna type effects is if you're playing a lot of one-ofs that are hard to get back, such as double colorless energies, or a deck with a lot of search effects but that is likely to draw out its search targets. In the former case if you have the most important cards in your deck you are very likely to not need to draw a lot anyway and shuffling those cards back in similarly makes them hard to find. In the latter case you are also not guaranteed to find cards that let you keep digging through your deck in your top 5. However, in general, the discard pile is a resource in ways that your deck isn't, such as for cards like VS Seeker or Bronzong, so discarding is, most of the time, better than shuffling back. Basically don't consider cards in your deck as cards you really have available to you, and you should be running thick evolution lines or at least 3 of if not the full 4 of any important card so that discarding one or two copies to sycamore isn't a significant loss.
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Aug 16, 2016 01:03
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I would probably play 15 energy at most but it depends on the deck, as for which types to use count the energies you need for whichever attacks you will actually use and then base it on that. If your deck uses DCE's run 4 of them always.
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Aug 16, 2016 04:56
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Also I'm not sure what's good in standard any more post rotation, since I was all about following the latest developments in night march lists. I assume greninja and audino survive the rotation so I'll look there and try to update the OP about what core cards to get to try to build into more competitive decks. I'll probably do something drastic if playing shaymin-ex is somehow bad though.
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Aug 30, 2016 20:17
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professor sycamore drawing 3 water energies is 150 damage  talonflame-greninja looks like my kind of deck post rotation, in that it has a good draw engine and plays out of the discard pile i think it remains intact for the most part even if it loses the battle compressor + vs seeker engine that you can tutor for on talonflame's first attack.
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Aug 30, 2016 20:36
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Poison Mushroom posted:Pokemon is a real motherfucker of a change from Magic because card draw is so much more prevalent. The Pokemon version of Ancestral Recall is actually underpowered. well it's "ancestral recall then you can only play garbage for the rest of the turn" still pretty crazy cuz in magic "skip your next turn draw 4 cards" is a good card in the right deck anyway lysandre's trump card kinda broke one of the fundamental design rules of pokemon in standard, which is that it should be hard to recur items (not supporters) or nonbasic energies.
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Sep 30, 2016 18:04
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are you going for online cards or paper cards do you just want cool looking cards or do you want a pretty good deck
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Sep 30, 2016 19:02
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 04:18 |
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oh then like, yeah ebay is probably a reasonable source. a lot of cool looking cards aren't very valuable because they don't see tournament play, while a lot of the value in decks is coalesced into a few key cards such as the esteemed Shaymin EX (Roaring Skies)
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Sep 30, 2016 19:08
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