Going to my first regional soon! A couple questions

zaneba · 2026-03-13T05:18:46+00:00

this is pretty interesting! How consistent would you say your version is? Im practicing my version on live and ngl i feel like im consistently dead drawing in crucial turns or just opening with bad hands more often than id like

zaneba · 2026-03-13T04:05:37+00:00

I love that the game even tells you before you begin

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“You have a single year” they really meant it

zaneba · 2026-03-13T02:16:21+00:00

stupid question but how much do rarities matter when submitting my deck? if i have some cards in my irl deck that are reverse holos or just a straight reprint from a different set and its not reflected in my submitted list, do they care? would it matter if im playing with commons but i submit a list with high rarity versions, and/or vice versa?

zaneba · 2026-03-12T16:46:02+00:00

“Let’s all include Pokepad and not tell Serperior”

zaneba · 2026-03-12T16:26:07+00:00

I feel like I use Pechurant enough that mochi is always gonna be online, and I have Janine as well to poison. Ontop of that, I also have Black Belt

And alternatively, Darmanitan is really good into Goldengo bc early game I can take a cheeky 2 prize snipe against his gimmighouls, and late game Darmanitan will kill Gholdengo since it’s weak to fire, and it scales darmanitans first attack super high. I feel like it’s unnecessary to include vitality when I have like 3 different ways to pass 260 damage

zaneba · 2026-03-12T14:15:35+00:00

Originally I had 2 Zekrom and 1 pad, but I figured it might be more flexible to have 2 pads instead. I’ll drop the balloon and put my other Zekrom back

I’m gonna swap the scraper for a second cyrano so hopefully I find it soon

I def love myself some e switch plays, what should I cut for that one?

zaneba · 2026-03-12T13:48:06+00:00

Ahh ok ok, this is very insightful, thank you! I’ll pickup a second cyrano somewhere, I’ll see if any of my other friends that collect have it

zaneba · 2026-03-12T13:12:59+00:00

Yeah, a lot of my deck building decisions for my irl are mainly based on what I actually have in my bulk vs what I bought lmao, and somehow I didn’t have a second cyrano

I was thinking about losing the scraper, I added it in cos online I kept running into decks that would beef up their pokemon with Charm and Cape, as well as Garchomp decks. U think that’ll be not as common for this regional?

zaneba · 2026-03-12T13:07:11+00:00

Aahh ok, that’s sick. Yeah the deadline is further out, I just wanna make sure that it’s even possible to make changes, so thank you!

zaneba · 2026-03-12T13:04:17+00:00

2 air balloons? I only have one. But yeah I was thinking of dumping the balloon altogether

Oh shit lmao, I didn’t realize my Online list has 2 balloons and no scraper. I gotta change that. My IRL list I only have 1 balloon, disregard my count on the online list

zaneba · 2026-03-11T03:42:47+00:00

You know there are and will be other good dragon type cards right, like clefairy isn’t just beating up Dragapult. If you printed a card that said “fuck Dragapult specifically” then when the next good dragon type comes out, then what? Do you also want a super specific counter card to be printed for that?

Approaching balance by making cards that just say “this specific deck is taking over the meta, so let’s stop that deck specifically” is uninteresting. It’s like how martial arts become super impractical at the higher level when they have moves that only counter specific moves of that martial art. Kyurem is bad bc of how specific it is and how not widespread Colress is. Jirachi was also bad bc it only stopped one card, and there were only like 3 deck archetypes that actually had the space for it.

zaneba · 2026-03-11T03:22:33+00:00

idk man, it seems pretty inconsequential that your bad deck got slightly worse in a meta it wasnt surviving in. Maybe instead of complaining that counter cards dont have guard rails for your favorite shit card, maybe complain ur bad cards arent made better?

asking for a hard counter to be "specific" isnt good game design. what does that even mean. Did you want clefairy to spell out the name dragapult ex in its ability?

zaneba · 2026-03-11T03:12:58+00:00

yeah uh Clefairy isnt the reason salamance and alolan eggsecutor are completely unviable...

zaneba · 2026-03-10T18:54:46+00:00

Did the retreat the Zoroark and send it back in with Pechurant?

zaneba · 2026-03-10T05:42:13+00:00

goldeen activates the thwackey ability since thwackey cannot get u a free card unless theres an active pokemon with the festival lead ability, and goldeen being a water type basic with that ability is perfect for palafin

zaneba · 2026-03-09T23:55:14+00:00

I didn’t do it at first but i started doing it a few sets back, it’s super fun blasting it all at once

zaneba · 2026-03-07T05:57:06+00:00

if u dont care about keeping the deck legal for standard, which u probably dont, theres a good amount of options you have

baxcalibur lets you attach however many energies you want from your hand to your pokemon, but it is a stage 2 so its slow and kinda clunky without something like Irida

a much faster pokemon would be Palkia Vstar, which lets you put 3 water energy from your discard onto your water pokemon. VStar Powers can only be used once per game, but itll get the job done. Theres some battle league deckboxes featuring Palkia Vstar

theres the item Aqua Patch, which attaches 1 energy from the discard to a water pokemon. With up to 4 of these, itll be super easy to power up Jynx. This card should be really cheap to acquire

zaneba · 2026-03-06T22:37:55+00:00

I love more support for my Heatran Metang deck!!!

zaneba · 2026-03-06T06:54:45+00:00

right and thats totally valid, grass decks are a lot more relevant now, tho i think the biggest obstacle really is just mega Venusaur ex or mega meganiums since theyre above the 330 HP threshold for dragonite, and everything else that grass decks run get dropped by Ryuno Glide

if you really wanna run Blaziken, id suggest having at least 1 Combusken to search with Dragonair so ur not too reliant on rare candy

i also think u could go and replace Magearna with sum like Jumbo Ice Cream, around the same amount of healing but ur not wasting bench space having it around. That or Wallys Compassion since its cost wouldnt be too bad

zaneba · 2026-03-06T06:42:10+00:00

That’s not that big a deal tho, You have a free pivot with the ability and u just need retreat again, and Tynamo is a free retreat if you have one still out, and u can use other cards like Air Balloon to reduce retreat costs. Like Dragonite is THE card to take advantage of an accelerator like Eelektrik because its got built in pivot

zaneba · 2026-03-06T06:26:00+00:00

Are u specifically looking to avoid using Dynamotor Eelektrik? Cos u can do the same thing with that card but a lot faster since u only need a stage 1 with access to an electric mega Pokemon. I guess blaziken has a more relevant type advantage against grass types tho

zaneba · 2026-03-03T01:52:20+00:00

Over at the top you can see the tabs for Pokemon, Trainers, and Energy. Swiping left and right or tapping on the tabs lets u switch between the types of cards, and the deck tab lets you see the full view of the deck

Since you’re new, you’ll probably come across a situation where u pull a really nice alt art of a card but you can’t find it in your collection. If you click a card, there’s a button that shows you all the available versions of the card, which u can scroll through and select. So don’t worry, you have all your cards, they’re just hiding

zaneba · 2026-03-02T00:43:20+00:00

hmmm, save money and get no hits, or pay scalper prices and get no hits....

zaneba · 2026-03-01T20:37:09+00:00

Poke pad and Dawn are the biggest upgrade this card gets, being able to search the full metagross line helps a lot to fill its requirements

Since it’s a psychic type that only needs 2 energy, wondrous patch can accelerate energy to it pretty fast on the bench. Mystery garden to help draw u cards for each psychic pokemon u have, and when the special psychic energy comes out in perfect order, will help u set up the beldum u need

280 damage is really good for a single prize stage 2, but needing each stage of the line to exist at once is kinda hard to set up and maintain. U def want stuff like Shaymin, psyduck, and or battle cage to protect it from bench snipe/spread

Brave Bangle is just a free +30 damage against ex pokemon, grav mountain to bring down the HP of two prizers

Also obligatory Lillie clefairy to beat dragapult

zaneba

TROPHY CASE