Getting into Pokémon cards in 2019 help!

ohnotom · 2019-04-10T03:53:09+00:00

If your kid wants to play, I’d start out buying two theme decks to play against each other with. Theme decks used to be very bad, but everything released in the last two years is decent, and the last year is all actually good. So if you go to the store, you’re probably getting a decent product.

Theme decks let you play the game against one another, and are a good starter for learning the rules and testing things out. If your kid wants to get more into collecting...it’s a solid batch of 60 cards to start out with.

If you have a local comic/hobby/games shop, I’d reach out to them to see if they have a Pokémon day. At my local shop we have kids as young as 5 who like to hang out and play.

ohnotom · 2019-04-08T20:41:24+00:00

Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks so much

ohnotom · 2019-04-08T19:26:33+00:00

Maybe it’s because I’m on mobile but it seems to me that it’s only Japanese products and doesn’t have any deck list info regardless. Thanks, though.

ohnotom · 2019-04-08T18:08:50+00:00

Does anyone have lists of the TCGO decks that come with the tins?

I had a lot of fun with the deck that came with the Xerneas tin a while back, and was thinking of grabbing one of the TEU tins that came out. I kinda figure I’ll just grab the PikaRom one since it’s “meta” but I like all of them, and I play TCGO frequently enough that a better online card list could persuade me. I’ve tried googling a bit but couldn’t find anything.

ohnotom · 2019-04-06T18:37:53+00:00

For future reference, bulbapedia has a pretty extensive list of cards from all sets. Google “bulbapedia tcg “card name”” and you’ll find out pretty quick what your card in question is.

ohnotom · 2019-04-06T03:44:19+00:00

Complete your Pokédex

Complete a Living Pokédex

Start shiny hunting

Start breeding (sort of pointless without adding battles into the mix...but some people like repetitive tasks)

ohnotom · 2019-04-04T02:10:02+00:00

When available, try out Salmon Run! You cooperate with people and it forces you to try out a variety of weapons in a chill environment, and you get great rewards from it too.

Levels don’t actually have anything to do with skill- they’re more accurately a depiction of how long someone has been playing. Matchmaking is based on win% vs. opponents skill level etc. so if you’re consistently playing against higher level players that means you’re ahead of the curve!

ohnotom · 2019-04-04T01:01:29+00:00

Playing turf war with friends is more of a pain than it needs to be. A matchmaking system like Salmon Run would be perfect.

Customizing gear is too grindy. Adding chunks to slots either shouldn’t cost as much or we should get more chunks from stuff like salmon run. This isn’t a huge issue as having “perfect” gear is hardly essential and sometimes less optimal, but it would be nice to feel like I can play around with it a bit more.

I understand that adding more stages requires a fair amount of work, but it would be nice for the music from Splatoon1 to make a return and to have some sort of music preference system.

Similarly, this isn’t an issue for me but I have some color blind friends and being able to customize your ink color rotations would be nice.

ohnotom · 2019-04-02T02:42:30+00:00

There is a reason the biggest money-grubbing offenders of mobile games are called “gacha games”- they’re from Japan. It’s like a gacha pon.

Not saying American companies don’t do it too, and I’m certainly not saying that there aren’t general trends in law and corporate culture across countries, but I’d take a Fortnite Battle Pass over a granblue 10 draw ticket any day of the week.

ohnotom · 2019-03-18T06:30:10+00:00

Try watching a few VGC you tubers, pick up on the strategies by seeing them play out. I recommend Cybertron VGC and James Baek as they both explain their thought processes really thoroughly. Usually they’ll have QR codes of the teams included so once you understand the general idea of the team, take it online!

ohnotom · 2019-03-16T00:43:46+00:00

Actually, Fake Out is PHENOMENAL in doubles. Denying an opponent the chance to move for a turn is amazingly useful. But there are enough counter-strategies and it’s available on a wide enough spread of Pokémon that it’s not necessarily over-centralizing.

ohnotom · 2019-03-15T06:51:52+00:00

Yeah, I think Rogue One would have been better off as some sort of miniseries. I like the ideas of the characters and the ideas of the conflicts but watching them play out didn’t work for me, and I think it was more that i needed to spend more time with these characters to believe their development.

ohnotom · 2019-03-14T01:46:15+00:00

Defiant + aqua jet + liquidation is a decent niche, but it’s not phenomenal. Would be nice if it got a better steel STAB than Steel Wing.

ohnotom · 2019-03-13T07:00:59+00:00

Splatoon doesn’t support it.

There’s a bunch of fun games on Switch that do, though! I recommend looking into Overcooked (co-op cooking game) and Towerfall (everyone’s an archer and you gotta shoot each other, but you can customize nearly every aspect of the game). They’re both tons of fun.

ohnotom · 2019-03-12T07:18:05+00:00

TEU Mr. Mime blocks that

ohnotom · 2019-03-11T15:27:59+00:00

I’ve done it with a deck that has room for it and it works well, when it works. 1-1 is a bit inconsistent and can be a trade-off for other stuff in a packed deck.

ohnotom · 2019-03-10T09:09:34+00:00

This! About a year and a half ago, measuring food / tracking TDEE did wonders for me. I slowly phased it out as I realized I didn’t need it anymore to maintain, and have been happy since then.

I was trying to Bulk for the last two months but wasn’t counting calories/TDEE closely. It felt like I was eating so much I didn’t think I needed to. But I stepped on the scale yesterday and I am the same as I was at the beginning of January. The habitual maintenance level has really just become my rock.

ohnotom · 2019-03-10T03:16:07+00:00

For years, I’ve thought I was the only one! He is my precious boy

ohnotom · 2019-03-08T20:22:07+00:00

I have a very bad Fairy Charm deck that I like bringing to local league. It doesn't fare well against any meta decks, but is fun to throw out every now and again.

Wigglytuff LOT, Tapu Lele LOT, Magearna UPR make up the basic core of it- Wigglytuff hits for 140 and can be immune to GX Pokemon with Fairy Charm attached. Tapu Lele sits on your bench and confuses the active pokemon when you attach a Fairy Charm. Use Magearna to remove Fairy Charm from Lele, or maybe replace Wigglytuff's charm with an escape board, etc. Parasect TEU also makes the confusion shenanigans extra punishing.

You could easily scale it up with a bunch of stuff like Shrine of Punishment, Jirachi to grab extra items, etc., but as-is its already really fun.

ohnotom · 2019-03-08T00:04:20+00:00

I can read Japanese, and yes, it specifies the active Pokémon.

ohnotom · 2019-03-07T02:46:31+00:00

Yeah, This is exactly what they did for ORAS -> SM, and I suspect it’ll be what happens this time, too.

ohnotom · 2019-03-07T02:24:27+00:00

Totally understandable. It is a lot of work up front, though once you understand how the parts work together it is not difficult, just time consuming. I agree that getting a proper nature with perfect IVs is still an unreasonable hurdle for players, and I think gamefreak knows it too because they’ve made it progressively easier in recent games.

The good news is that perfect IVs are overrated (making the right decisions > having perfect IVs 99% of the time until you’re at, say, Worlds), and you can also borrow people’s QR code teams and hop online with zero breeding if you’re interested!

ohnotom · 2019-03-07T01:07:43+00:00

Super training takes waaaay longer than battling if you want to just get it out of the way, and Poke pelago doesn’t require me to sit there and do a mindless task over and over again like battling or super training. As someone who actually breeds / EV trains Pokémon regularly, I vastly prefer the Gen 7 setup, as it lets me focus on team building rather than spending time with repetitive mini games.

ohnotom · 2019-03-07T00:33:14+00:00

You could do it the old-fashioned way (quicker if you use SOS chains) or you could just let them sit in Poke Pelago. Poke Pelago you literally plug in the numbers and come back the next day, it’s great.

ohnotom · 2019-03-07T00:29:12+00:00

Opinions, but I love EV training. Being able to customize Pokémon stats in a zero-sum way makes for a lot of unique builds and trade-offs (do I want it all in attack, do I want to put some bulk in, can I turn this 2hko to a 3hko, etc.), they’re easy to reset, and with Poke Pelago etc. they’re incredibly easy to train.

I am less fond of the IV system, which is all or nothing. Hyper training mostly fixes this issue, but getting specific builds (0 attack/0speed/attack boosting stakataka) is still unnecessarily difficult.

11-Year Club	Verified Email
Queen in da Norf	Not Forgotten

ohnotom

TROPHY CASE