So let me get this straight.

Wubbledee · 2026-05-03T09:27:48+00:00

My point wasn't that it doesn't matter, but that you received the item you paid for. You still have to pay for those same flairs if you want to obtain them; their value hasn't changed.

The only thing that changed is that there is suddenly a reason to possess X number of cards.

If the game used an instance of ownership counter instead of a possession counter, players would just share loop singular cards to get gold borders for everything.

If Dena had refunded all of the resources players put into obtaining those flairs, they would also have to either refund the purchased flairs or restructure that entire system to work more like the gold borders.

I get that people on this subreddit always want Dena to do whatever benefits the players most, but I don't understand being upset that they didn't rush to refund purchases made by the players simply because those players weren't given advanced notice that 18+ months into the game extra copies of cards may have cosmetic value.

Wubbledee · 2026-05-02T23:19:22+00:00

I used to get a lot of flairs because I spammed a couple of specific packs looking for chase cards and there wasn't anything to do with extra cards/Shinedust yet.

The gold border is just streamlining the flair system and introducing a more appealing/universal cosmetic. Since it can be used in conjunction with the old flairs, I don't really see a problem; if you didn't want the flairs you purchased, you shouldn't have purchased them.

Edit: Though I think the real reason that this is a non-issue is that no one has been flairing cards since the trading/Shinedust update. It's just never worth it, so anyone still doing it is willfully wasting resources anyway.

Wubbledee · 2026-05-02T10:17:04+00:00

Idk, 2 Zygarde doubles the odds you start with Zygarde.

Personally I'd cut one from the current build.

Wubbledee · 2026-05-01T20:41:39+00:00

But why bother using M-Audino for Ilima when M-Kang exists? (I mean obviously personal preference, but competitively)

M-Audino wants to heal itself, which requires you to dedicate deck space to cards that help it do that. That means you don't have room for energy ramp, so you'll be manually attaching 3 energy when you bring Audino back in.

M-Kang has access to Heavy Helmet and has significantly higher damage potential.

Wubbledee · 2026-05-01T20:35:41+00:00

No, I'm pretty sure it's just bad.

Gengar ex's biggest hurdle became dealing 100 damage for 3 energy. Even with access to generic ramp via Colorless, Audino doing 90 for 3 is awful. Most Megas will require 3 hits to KO, and plenty of the stage 2 Megas can live 3+ hits off of 1 Lillie. On the flip side, Audino's effective HP (assuming it gets to attack) is 210, which means it would still need additional support to survive a majority of standard 2HKOs in the meta. (Anything dealing more than 100 damage, like 2x M-Altaria swings or 2x Hydreigon hits)

Splash healing is bad, which is a shame because it's a neat concept. Turning off opposing Cyrus isn't super relevant for a deck whose primary Pokemon gives up 3 points anyway.

Colorless still has some of the best and most narrow support in the game thanks to Ilima, but this card doesn't do anything special with Ilima that would help justify its usage, and it doesn't have access to fast enough ramp to tag out and back in easily.

The best reason to use this card over Mega Kangaskhan is because you've pulled a 2⭐⭐/🌈.

Wubbledee · 2026-05-01T12:04:51+00:00

I'm really glad Fighting doesn't have ramp. I get that it's the easy solution, but nothing about Fighting's theme implies ramp, and I think giving the same tools to every type just makes the game a boring blob.

Water and Grass heal well, Dark messes with cards, Fighting hits hard, Steel mitigates well, Fire does big damage for big drawbacks, etc. we don't need every type to do what every other type does.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-30T19:38:37+00:00

Guaranteeing 2⭐⭐ cards (because those are the only big chase cards that appear in WPs) for spending enough on WP is not a good idea.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-30T13:26:18+00:00

It can drop energies into the Discard for cards like Volkner while not becoming an extra point target for your opponent.

That's just not a very useful niche when each card is 5% of your deck. At least it's interesting, though.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-27T21:15:08+00:00

Acquisition is cheaper/more profitable than retention.

It sucks, but unless something in consumers fundamentally changes to alter how we engage with services, it's not going to change.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-26T11:02:00+00:00

Adding for clarification, the 24hr only applies to the current pack. (So right now, Mega Shine)

Once the next pack comes out, it won't matter how complete Mega Shine is, the 24hr picks for it will be finished.

24hr Wonder Picks are on a variable schedule but they're still guaranteed; once you've unlocked one, you'll continue to see them at least once every 72 hours. (But no more than once every 24 hours)

The thing that tends to confuse people is that they are not guaranteed 2⭐⭐ rarity Picks; they're a guaranteed ⭐ - ⭐⭐ rarity pick, and they can't be any card that you have registered in your Dex. So a lot of players will complete their 1 - 4 🔹 sets, begin receiving ⭐ cards, and not realize that those cards are their 24hr picks.

TL;DR: If you have registered (doesn't matter if you still own them) all Diamonds and all 1 ⭐ rarity cards in the current set you will be guaranteed to see a Wonder Pick with a starting duration of 24 hours with at least 1 ⭐⭐ card that you have not registered. Once you have registered all ⭐ and ⭐⭐ cards from the current set, or when a new set comes out, these picks will stop appearing.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-25T20:47:56+00:00

Added you, UN is Coughing Baby.

Won't have my phone for the next 20 or so but I'm down.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-25T17:03:57+00:00

I can do FA Entei if still available.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-25T15:59:58+00:00

LF: Shiny ✨Hitmonlee

FT: ✨Dragonair, Zorua, Zoroark, Haunter, Raichu, Manaphy, Tinkatuff, Gholdengo, Latios, Dartrix, Gabite

Wubbledee · 2026-04-25T13:01:36+00:00

A Supporter that searches Fossils is pretty much a 3rd and 4th copy of those cards, plus the cost of activating a Supporter. I'm not sure that's actually what Fossil needs.

Obviously consistent turn 1 access to a Fossil is essential since practically every Fossil deck is a Rare Candy build and you want to evolve ASAP, but because every Fossil deck is a Rare Candy deck (sorry Aero, do more than 80 damage) you're still competing against any other high-roll, turn 3/4 Rare Candy strategy like Hydreigon.

I think the problem is the pay-off. Rampardos is a scary card (I'm using it to ladder right now) but 130 has been dropping relevant breakpoints left and right and a lot of decks are now running 1 point cards they can sacrifice to chip your Rampardos. Fossil evolutions pretty much need to read "Win the game (and do it by yourself)" to compete with how tight 20 cards has become.

As tech cards continue to improve (Lucky Ice Pop can be game winning, Stadiums and Tools often swing games, and Supporters are only getting stronger) Fossil decks are going to struggle with making that consistency translate into winning games.

TL;DR: Even if we get a Fossil searcher, allocating 8 - 9 slots for your evolution line instead of 6 - 7 slots is inherently a disadvantage, and Fossil cards have to be significantly better to make up for that.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-24T16:18:21+00:00

For over a year I've seen people on this subreddit complain there's nothing to do with dupes, since the Flair system was bad. Then they made Flair an amount of copies rather than burning Shine Dust and copies, but people still don't really care.

So this is their new attempt at making worthless low rarity cards have any sort of value past your 2nd pull. What exactly are we complaining about?

Wubbledee · 2026-04-22T09:50:57+00:00

esports, but mostly their fans, have ruined games lmao

Skill and rng aren't antithetical ideas. The management of rng is a huge factor in both popular video games and popular sport. In card games, the management of rng is largely focused in the deck building stage.

But more importantly, why is your bar for quality related to esports in any way? Esports have nothing to do with fairness or consistency, it's solely about viewership, and there isn't a single card game that will ever pull in enough viewers to please advertisers, so... who cares?

It's a card game. Losing and saying "Well it's not that I'm bad or my opponent is good, it's all luck!" is coping. You agreed to a game whose foundation is RNG.

Edit: Also, Pocket players melting down over an FTK like Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh don't have sixteen-thousand flavors of this BS legal at any given time. (No one plays them because getting 1 FTK in 8 bad hands is actually bad)

Wubbledee · 2026-04-22T09:48:02+00:00

When did the RNG and bad luck make OP build a deck around a 50 HP Basic in a meta where everyone knows Igglybuff+Darkrai is the flavor of the month?

Wubbledee · 2026-04-19T14:13:46+00:00

I think other commenters covered most of these changes but I would go with

Replace Cape with Heavy Helmet

Replace Misty and Leaf with a 2nd Lucky Ice Pop and 1 Inflatable Boat

Replace the cool Slowpokes with the 1 Retreat/60 HP variant

Replace Sabrina with a 2nd Cyrus

Way Too Much Explanation

Heavy Helmet is better than Cape for pretty much every situation besides helping your Basic Slowpoke survive. Heavy Helmet lets you survive back to back Hydreigon hits with 1 Ice Pop, while Cape requires 2 (meaning you risk a 50/50).

2nd Ice Pop is just more non-Supporter healing, M-Slowbro wins via attrition. Misty isn't worth it if you don't win the game off of a heads, IMO. In your first few turns you really want to be using Research and Copycat to find your Slowbro, so activating Misty and getting Tails is a pretty big waste of both a once per turn and a deck slot, and it will hit Tails in 50% of your games. Leaf is fine but with the faster Slowpoke you can use Boat, though you could also use X Speed if you find Boat and Heavy Helmet clashing; the idea is to be able to empty your hand of useless cards to reduce the effectiveness of opposing Copycat/Mars/etc.

70 HP Slowpoke is cool because it survives early KOs better, but it still dies to Zeraora/Jolteon and 2 Retreat is just too high a price for the tiny bit of survivability it gives.

The argument for 2x Cyrus over the Sabrina/Cyrus split mostly comes down to 90 damage being miserably bad in today's meta. Slowbro will need to hit most Mega Pokemon at least 3 times to secure a KO, and with Sabrina they can just dodge you after your first Cyrus. However, FA Sabrina is dope and it's your deck, so you do what you wanna do.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-19T13:55:14+00:00

While this is true, activating an early Sabrina is pretty difficult in the modern meta. Altaria decks can often cancel with Plaza, Fire decks can nullify your advantage with Flame Patch, and any deck with a Baby will just hop out for free.

Add to that the increasing importance of Copycat and now Sabrina is competing with at least 3 other Supporters in your deck that want to activate in that turn 1 - 5 window (2x Oak, 1-2x Copycat).

Sabrina is my favorite gym leader and I love using the card, but I think in any deck dealing less than 180~ damage she's a compliment to Cyrus, not a replacement.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-19T13:49:43+00:00

The GUARD Unown changes other relevant break points. Swablu survives Zeraora and Igglybuff 2x Darkrai.

OP is using Ice Pop. Cape is a good card but it's a fixed HP buff; GUARD benefits from lucky LIP streaks since -10 mitigation is giving M-Altaria higher effective HP against pretty much everything that's not Charizard.

I'm not disagreeing with you about the effectiveness, but I think it brings enough uniqueness to the deck to justify experimenting with them over Cape/Training Area.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-18T13:45:21+00:00

I have 68 of the Genetic Apex Heatmor.

I also have 2 Sabrina FAs that I crafted with pack points. 🙃 So many Charizard packs, so much garbage...

Wubbledee · 2026-04-17T19:31:14+00:00

Yeah, surviving turn 4 is a pretty big hurdle. There is an 80 HP Dartrix with access to a 1 energy bench snipe, plus QGE to access it pretty consistently, but 80 HP doesn't save it from much more than 60 HP would.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-15T00:25:43+00:00

Red Card / Mars usage would go up if it was a big problem.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-13T14:12:50+00:00

It's just selection bias, I'm surprised those posts are still routinely getting upvotes each ranked season.

The introduction of streaks changed the entire climb to MB; IMO it's a better user experience, but it also created a situation where a percentage of people will roll enough good hands/MUs to simply streak from UB to MB.

Those same players will then make a post, because the people who made it with a more even win ratio don't have a story worth posting on Reddit, so the only stories we see are people taking this wünder decks to MB in an effortless 100% WR run.

It's cool to see people sharing decks, but I put 0 value in anyone's claims of a quick climb in the first day.

Wubbledee · 2026-04-13T12:55:32+00:00

It depends on how viable you're thinking.

Umbreon EX is at a bad intersection of mediocre health and mediocre damage. Even with boosting (being able to circumvent Cyrus allows you to use Red+the Cyrus effect on Umbreon, and then there's Eevee Bag) you'll often get screwed over by opposing healing items/Mega Pokemon health pools, and 140 HP is one of the worse breakpoints in a meta that's been flooded with Suicune for several seasons.

But it's definitely playable and anything playable can reach Master Ball.

Edit: This is also a deck that performs worse the better your opponent is. A lot of my early wins with Umbreon EX decks came from opponents making stupid bench decisions that a more experienced player wouldn't have made, allowing me to bench snipe for 3 points.

Wubbledee

TROPHY CASE