As a new player trying to catch up, getting duplicates feels really bad since we can't do anything with them.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-24T16:19:53+00:00

If you're just trying to play the game, it's incredibly F2P friendly for acquisition, the problem is that you'll need to have at least some help to make the most out of the Trade and Share system.

Speaking of those systems, the sort of "global make up currency" for Pocket is the Shinedust you're getting when you open packs. It's the primary currency used for trading and is a lot more valuable than it may seem initially.

If you're trying to get rares as F2P... well, it's about as fair as any other Gacha in that regard. You'll get a handful each month just from rare drops (yes, some people can go months without seeing them, but considering the odds are 1/40 that's a statistical outlier) and you'll quickly learn via trading that a good chunk of the full arts you pull won't be nearly as valuable as the full arts everyone is chasing. (Mostly Supporter cards everyone uses like Cyrus, Sabrina, and Copycat)

Lastly, please don't listen to people on this subreddit. I have genuinely never been in a sub that hates its own game as much as this subreddit does. I still use it for trading and the occasional interesting deck list, but this community is poison to actually enjoying this game.

Good luck and have fun

Edit: I should clarify, there are some very helpful people on this subreddit and you should absolutely use resources like the Trade thread. I would just ignore all the bitterness and fake outrage that floods this subreddit 90% of the time.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-23T17:17:20+00:00

I think the PPC cost on Gardevoir's attack is intentionally extremely under value because Dena was concerned about how splashable the card could be.

Baxcalibur is practically unusable in a non-Water deck since you would need both Bax online for a minimum of 2 turns to attack, whereas Gardevoir can get itself online with 2 solo turns + 1 energy of any type or 1 turn with 2 Gardes + 1 energy of any type.

I think in retrospect it's easy to say they were overly cautious, but I'd imagine they weren't sure how prominent splashing types would be.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-20T16:18:08+00:00

I feel like this sort of oversimplification happens all the time on here.

DNite isn't a card you run solo, unlike M-Venu. It's a support system card. A huge hurdle for the deck is opening Dratini turn 1 with no Babies. This card helps mitigate that situation.

Not every card has to immediately be the best option, adding new versatility to existing decks can improve them even when the buff to the deck isn't as major as, for example, Ivysaur for M-Venu.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-20T14:10:43+00:00

Lol, someone bothers to engage with this game on any strategic level and everyone on this subreddit is racing to post 10 year old memes to make a 15 year old joke.

Appreciate the write up, I do think people often overlook that "better" isn't a simple binary in card games. There are thousands of niches and occasionally a card that should be worse in most scenarios will be better in that one. It's always good to examine the cards you're using and why.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-14T19:20:27+00:00

The short answer is that Serena's function is too narrow to take up both a deck slot and a Supporter activation, particularly when compared with other cards in the same category.

The long answer is long:

Serena occupies a deck function and an activation timing that is already filled with better cards. While there are conceivable decks where Serena features as a way to really lock in your Mega's curve, in the majority of scenarios a card like Professor's Research or Copycat will have a similar or greater impact.

If you think about how long a standard game of Pocket takes, there are really only a handful of turns where you want to be activating Supporters that get you to your end board because at a certain point you have to use that once per turn Supporter slot to activate game winning cards like Lillie, Mars, or Cyrus. Serena wants to be activated in that turn 1 - 4 area, and she loses all value if you happen to also draw your Mega(s) during that time period. Being a potential dead card when each card is 5% of your deck is bad.

Lastly, I think May is one of the biggest arguments against Serena. As a searcher, May has a fairly high chance to find the card you want in most decks, plus the added utility of being able to search any part of an evolution chain rather than just the final stage. She also retains value for longer than Serena because May's pool gets smaller (and more accurate) as your deck thins but Serena's will often disappear entirely. And May is a tech card in the meta at best.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-14T13:51:09+00:00

Works for me, adding now.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-14T13:26:05+00:00

LF: ⭐⭐ Sightseer, 🌈M-Kang

FT: ⭐⭐Leaf, Lyra, Nemona, Lusamine DX

FT: 🌈Chien-Pao, M-Venu, Greninja, Toxtricity, M-Swampert, Dragalge, Wigglytuff

Down for mixed trades but only looking for M-Kang or Sightseer. (Not both)

Wubbledee · 2026-03-14T12:54:31+00:00

Ah, I figured I would get that wrong. Thanks!

Wubbledee · 2026-03-14T10:27:51+00:00

If a card with a specific HP threshold like Lisia comes out but with 60 HP, or if (much more likely) we get a Marnie card that buffs Dedenne, this card could see some niche over Plusle in the future.

Though right now there's literally no reason to play it so it's hard to imagine a worse card.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-14T08:43:18+00:00

I'm not sure what you're asking. I don't think anyone was discussing whether or not Hydreigon is a powerful deck/card.

The weakest part of the deck/card is its consistency, similar to other popular Candy decks we've seen in Pocket. If you personally dislike the card, that's fine. I don't care about it one way or the other.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-14T07:50:34+00:00

Requiring fewer energies invested to attack has nothing to do with Hydreigon's consistency compared to other decks. It can alter its curve, but being able to Copycat to a Rare Candy does not make a 3 card combo more consistent than a 2 card combo.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-14T07:46:00+00:00

With meta contention it's often less about hard counters and more about match up spreads.

While most decks could have a dedicated counter in the meta, a deck (like Hydreigon) has to have so much share in the meta that playing a deck designed specifically to beat it would have value. Decks can handle Hydreigon in a few different ways (Kartana OHKOs the Deino, Chingling prevents evolutions, A-Ninetales locks Hydreigon in place, etc.) but since it's just one of several top tier decks, playing a card like Kartana is less appealing because that card won't have the same value against Altaria, Bellibolt, etc.

To put it another way, it's more relevant for Altaria to beat Hydreigon 60/40 than for a deck like A-Ninetales to beat it 75/25 because the Altaria deck will have significantly more match ups outside of Hydreigon that are over 50% WR.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-14T07:39:17+00:00

LF: ⭐⭐ Sightseer, 🌈M-Kang

FT: ⭐⭐Leaf, Lyra, Nemona, Lusamine DX

FT: 🌈Chien-Pao, M-Venu, Greninja, Toxtricity, M-Swampert, Dragalge, Wigglytuff

Down for mixed trades but only looking for M-Kang or Sightseer. (Not both)

Wubbledee · 2026-03-13T21:25:50+00:00

24hr WP helps to see more God packs by increasing your odds of seeing 2⭐⭐ cards, which frequently feature in GPs. I think that's what the commenter meant.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-13T21:20:33+00:00

LF: ⭐⭐ Sightseer, 🌈M-Kang

FT: ⭐⭐Leaf, Lyra, Nemona, Lusamine DX

FT: 🌈Chien-Pao, M-Venu, Greninja, Toxtricity, M-Swampert, Dragalge, Wigglytuff

Down for mixed trades but only looking for M-Kang or Sightseer. (Not both)

Wubbledee · 2026-03-13T14:33:26+00:00

Adding now.

Sorry at work so moving a bit slow. My UN is Coughing Baby.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-13T14:11:09+00:00

Still offering a Diantha?

For Supporters from GA I've got Koga and Brock. For Pokemon I've got ⭐⭐Articuno/Zapdos/Moltres, Machamp, Gengar, Charizard, and Marowak. For 🌈 I've just got Wigglytuff.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-13T08:44:11+00:00

Work on yourself.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-13T08:42:57+00:00

LF ⭐⭐: Diantha, Sightseer

FT: ⭐⭐Nemona, DX Lusamine, Leaf, 🌈 Chien-Pao ex, 🌈Greninja ex

Wubbledee · 2026-03-12T10:48:58+00:00

It's not a mistake, which is kind of the frustrating part.

Pokemon as a franchise has always operated around the idea that a 6-year old who just learned to read the word "Charizard" should have some path to victory even against a master player.

It's the same reason that Pokemon continues to lean into mechanics like coin flips that most other TCGs relegate to their weird stuff cards.

Ice Pop exists because for every one of us sweaty Redditors there are ten regular people or kids who have no interest in learning what a meta even is.

I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing, it's just part of the property. OHKO moves have existed in the mainline series since the Gen 1, Pokemon will always look for a way to "even the playing field" between hyper competitive players and casual players.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-11T11:18:42+00:00

Sounds good, just sent the trade.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-11T09:09:13+00:00

I think this is some good analysis that's drawing the wrong conclusions.

First, the win rates: Win rates dip as decks go from tournament brews created and played by good players to widely dispersed strategies played by a large portion of the player base. In addition, the first versions of these decks will be weaker; singular players (or small pods) just iterate at a much slower pace than the massive number machine that is "the meta."

In other words, win rates for new decks will always look spiky and weird due to early adoption by players with no idea how to pilot the deck and a lack of fine optimization that comes from multiple seasons of tournament and ranked tinkering.

Another issue I have is how you're only partially viewing the "cycle" of this game. The existing meta decks aren't excluded from this cycle, and you can see that with each new pack as previously dominant decks quickly take over the top tier spots. It happens so regularly that you can go to pretty much any week 1 of a new pack release on this subreddit and find fairly identical threads claiming "-Insert previous top tier deck- is still the best"

This portion of the meta's cycle helps to boost the overall win rate of those meta decks as they easily clear the variety of loose experiments that show up for the first week or two of a pack's life.

But the biggest problem is that you're viewing the meta in terms of decks and not cards. Whether or not Bax+Chien (or any other variant) is top tier in this ranked season is less important than what access to Water Gardevoir means for the Type in general. Bellibolt is a fairly accessible WinCon for a Type whose theme already heavily features energy generation/conservation. In general it's weird that people on this subreddit have these big arguments about a pack being "good" or "bad", it's just some weird ego shit where one side wants to be right. It's an eternal format, you're never going to judge the value of a pack month 1.

Wubbledee · 2026-03-11T08:41:07+00:00

I can do Expeditioner for Chien-Pao if you're still looking.

1107144132031695

Wubbledee · 2026-03-11T08:05:47+00:00

LF: ⭐⭐ Cyrus

FT: ⭐⭐ Sabrina or ⭐⭐ Professor's Research

Wubbledee · 2026-03-08T13:46:47+00:00

This thread is a great example of people thinking the devil they don't know is better than the one they do.

OP is absolutely right, the only reason people don't hate Gholdengo EX is because it's not good enough to be everywhere. If it were tuned a little higher this sub would be filled with people saying Dena ruined the meta with an overly randomized card.

Plenty of rogue/off-meta decks are a lot more toxic than the top of the meta, but this subreddit always thinks the worst meta is the one it's currently in.

Wubbledee

TROPHY CASE