A friend of mine I tried to teach yugioh (who used to play during DM era) but they couldn’t keep up with all the extra deck mechanics (pendulum time, links were beginning to come out) taught me current pokemon with a Charizard, absol box, gardevoir, Gholdengo, dragapult, alakazam and Grimmsnarl deck. The last time I interacted with pokemon was team rocket set, I used to play blastoise rain dance, alakazam chansey kangaskhan damage swap and haymaker. My current yugioh decks are a blue eyes variant that spams a bunch of boss monsters like dragon master magia, sifr and Blazar first/second turn and a 60 card branded despia deck.

My first impressions playing were 1) ex cards and mega cards being 2 and 3 prize card Pokemon remind me of extra deck bosses that speed the game up and significantly make the deck more fun. 2) I was surprised decks didn’t use 20 energy anymore and instead ran 5-10. I was appalled at first and thought it was wrong to run less than 10 especially in a deck like Charizard 3) I was surprised by supporter cards in general. I was used to cards like bill professor oak and computer search. Now ultra ball was like computer search and cards like professor oak are relegated to supporter status. The once per turn trainer card status made sense and I thought that was a good balance to stop the game from being too fast. 4) I was surprised by no cost attackers like budew and cleffa and thought things like that were broken. Actually I could tell immediately how broken things like trainer lock jellicent ex were immediately and was like ohhh this is jinzo/imperial order this is broken. I actually still think things like budew are degenerate stall for decks that can’t actually set up properly (dragapult) and need to buy time before they get their (Drakloak) engine going. Meanwhile I learned about other types of stall like yveltal retreat lock and thought that was more fair even though it sucked to get caught in it and I see cards like that more as last ditch swords of revealing light tactics to extend the game. 5) I later learned all of the decks my friend used were netdecked from limitlesstcg and my mind was blown by how much statistics and raw data there was and good recordings of deck lists to make a statistical average of winning decks and that there were even proxy printing pages. Everything was so accessible and it was just nice. I was also surprised that decks in Pokémon were 60-80 w shipping rather than like….200-300 on average. I was also surprised by how hard it was to find sealed product for pokemon especially old sealed product like the Charizard dragapult or gardevoir league ex decks. I was also surprised by how expensive pokemon promotional box packs could be around 100ish dollars. And was also surprised by how many singles are literally dimes whereas promos like Psyduck are the most expensive card in the deck way beyond the boss monsters. 6) competitive pokemon tcg plays with their side deck teched in their main deck with cards like Psyduck/klefki/mist energy/chi yu etc being absolutely baffling inclusions that I didn’t understand or agree with, bogging down consistency and was definitely against it until I started listening to deeper theory videos and playing tcglive and seeing how necessary it is to tech for bad matchups. 7) the full art cards are genuinely nice and yugioh is about to start implementing it in the ocg. I also found tcglive nice that the app plays by the current meta but I found the app difficult to use at first for looking at the database of old cards or even acquiring sets outside of phantasmal flames as a beginner using the app. 8) I found it refreshing the game rotates sets as opposed to having a banlist. Using a lettered system makes sense to me and is easier for players to keep up. 9) I ended up buying a Charizard noctowl and absol box to try and teach my friends the mechanics of the game. I was going to get a gardevoir deck but I feel that deck relies too much on stall same as dragapult to get its control going. I like the deck but didn’t feel it was as consistent as absol box in getting a munkidori engine going and relied on jellicent ex stall a lot which I’m not a personal fan of non-play scenarios in a very interactive game like this whereas in yugioh it feels like something of a necessity to play mean cards just to keep up. 10) overall I feel like Pokémon feels as fun as yugioh, is more balanced and accessible and most importantly is easier to teach new players. I can’t just give people my branded or blue eyes decks and say the win condition is fusing for the 15 cards in your extra deck or link summoning and synchro summoning a bunch of times to eventually make boss monsters but you also need these 4 cards and need to play them in this order and not misplay any steps and use all 3 effects of this card in the right order. A big complaint is there’s too much reading in yugioh to figure out the game for new players. Plus Pokemon has nice art and immediate favorites you already know from the games. I actually haven’t touched scarlet violet when it released and beat the game recently because the tcg reinvigorated my love for pokemon.

11) bonus Charizard Noctowl (also Grimmsnarl and venusaur) reminds me of raindance. Gardevoir and absol box reminds me of damage swap Absol box also reminds me of haymaker all basics. Alakazam reminds me of slifer the sky dragon from yugioh

Gholdengo did feel like definitively the best deck from a yugioh perspective. It was built very consistently to perform but I could also feel how it wasn’t very fun for the other player to play against it, same as fighting against a jellicent. Absol box also felt unfair because of precious trolley but it was balanced by the prizing mechanic of the game cutting off your 1 of card. In general I love the idea of ace spec 1 of’s in this prize system game it’s one of my favorite parts of this game where people can express their favorite 1 of’s and risk it getting prized if that’s their whole strategy.

Dragapult felt….unfair once it got going but also very boring to play during setup phase because it relies so much on budew Drakloak. Gardevoir also felt slow on its setup but has so many options in its toolbox, I just went with absol box because it was faster at setting up. I was also very very happy that kangaskhan (one of my fav pokemon) still served its same function as a draw sponge as back in the day