How to Not Suck; Pokémon TCG
Congratulations! You now know how to play the Pokémon TCG. But wait! Although you may not be denied from any tournament with your starter decks, you would definitely get completely steamrolled by any deck you would face at one. Fear not, beginner, for I shall help you take the step up into the Pokémon Trading Card Game’s metagame. If you follow these steps, you should be able to compete in tournaments.
First and foremost, you must make certain all of the cards you play are legal. Every couple years, old cards are rotated ‘out of the format’ to keep the game fresh, and to help balance the game. Checking what is legal is not very hard to do. The cards are rotated by set, or booster pack name. The current format is the ‘Black and White on’ format, which includes everything from the Black and White set onward to every new set currently released. Some old cards are still playable though. Rotated trainer cards and energy cards with the same name as current trading cards or energy cards are playable; however, you must use the most recent effect. For example, you can use any plus power, or switch cards you wish to play. You can also play any super rod cards, but you must use the new effect rather than the old one.
Now, let’s look at your starter deck and see why it will not be winning much of any real competitive match any time soon. Most English starter decks contain incomplete evolutionary lines. Incomplete lines without a purpose are virtually useless. They are therefore wasted space in your deck, which you definitely do not want. Starter decks also all follow pyramid evolutionary lines. Pyramid evolutionary lines are ones that start with three to four of the basic Pokémon, two to three of the stage 1 Pokémon, and one to two (if you are lucky) of the stage 2 Pokémon. These are horribly inefficient. The logic behind them is if a basic is prized or knocked out, you can still get it. This would be great, but if you do successfully get the stage 2 Pokémon out, all the lower stages are dead or useless cards in the deck. Instead of a pyramid line, an hourglass line is much more effective. A 4 (basic) – 2 (stage 1) – 4 (stage 2) line is much more efficient. With it, all of your basics can evolve all the way into the stage two. You may ask why only have 2 of the stage 1 Pokémon. The answer is the Rare Candy card. Similar cards have always been around in the trading card game. What it does is it allows you to bypass the stage 1 Pokémon and evolve directly into the stage 2 Pokémon. This will greatly accelerate your deck.
Starter decks also contain way too much energy. They usually contain around 20+ energy cards, which is more than the most you would ever need in a deck. They tend to clog up your deck and waste a lot of space. Energies should be limited to the range of 8-15, depending on the deck. Most competitive decks play around 12.
Starter decks usually also have two types of Pokémon in the deck. This will also seem great: the more types you have, the more weaknesses you can cover. However, playing multiple types means you must play more different kinds of energy, and therefore your deck will play less consistently. It is always best to try to focus on using the same universal energy for everything, whatever it may be.
Supporters are the life of the deck. Supporters allow you to do large amounts of things in a single turn. Useful supporters that belong in most decks are Professor Juniper and N. Bianca and Cheren also help a lot. All of these allow you to draw more cards, and therefore give you more options and allow you to do more on your turn. These are staples for all decks. They are the supporter core or engine that all current competitive decks play.
Now let’s move on to items trainers. Trainer items allow you to pull off much stronger turns by gaining what you need from the deck, or manipulating the field to be advantageous to yourself. Common staples here include switch, Pokémon catcher, level ball, random receiver, ultra ball, and max potion. These, despite being staples, do not necessarily belong in every deck, but they aid most of the current top decks.
Now how you play your deck is quite important. You must watch what you put down on your bench. If it has low HP (Hit Points), it can get hit by Darkrai EX (EXtra)’s night spear attack and get knocked out. If it has a high retreat cost, then it can get Pokémon Catcher-ed out to stall you from attacking for a few turns, or to force you to discard energy retreating. Always think of if you can wait a turn to place down what you have in your hand before playing it.
Techs can also aid your deck. A tech is a card you put in your deck to help yourself against bad matchups. Terrakion is a common tech, because it can revenge KO most things in both the Eelektric and Darkrai-Hydregion Decks, which are two of the top decks. Mewtwo EX makes a great tech as well, because it runs on any energy type, and it sweeps most people’s decks, barring another Mewtwo EX For the revenge K.O. It also does not require any energy you already play. Techs are really useful for anti-top decks, but they do remove consistency from your deck, and consistency is very important. It allows your deck to not just flop and drop some matches. The usage of techs comes down to preference and play style. If you find that your deck does not flow with certain tech cards, it’s naturally best to remove them, even if they really help you in certain matchups.
Just a reminder, to be able to compete, you must use a format-legal deck. You must know what you need in a deck to succeed. Furthermore, you now know the utilities of a deck that are important: such as supporters and items. Finally you know of techs and consistency to be able to take on as many decks as you can. With this knowledge, you should be able to compete with any decent player of the top decks.
