Pokemon TCG

[versed jackal]

Gardevoir loves this

[final musk]

This is a funny bug caught on ptcgl

If a Pokémon can attach itself as a tool, it will keep its previous tool from itself attached. So if Shedinja attaches itself to another Shedinja, and then Shedinja #2 attaches itself to something else, the first Shedinja attached will be permanently removed from the gamestate

There’s a gold mine of really dumb bugs this game has had, like Instruct Oranguru being useable from the discard pile… as many times a turn as wanted

[opaque pelican]

Wowzers

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/aerodactyl-and-old-amber-fossil-from-pokemon-card-151

dactyl

The Old Amber's Amber Protection ability seems interesting enough. Hmm

[final musk]

Aero's gonna be waiting a while to be good

Prevent all effects of your opponent’s Pokemon’s Abilities done to this Pokemon.

This would have been good last year with Inteleon running around. It doesn't really protect it from much rn

Preventing effects from attacks matters a lot more rn

Tomorrow's reveal should be the Vileplume line so as always everyone's worried over item lock

(They've been revealing gym pokemon and fossils this week. Onix, Starmie line, Raichu, and all of Erika's pokemon except Vileplume have been revealed)

[versed jackal]

doesnt it just shit on gardevoir ex

[final musk]

It goes even with Gardevoir, but it does very little against anything else

Maybe it shows up as a tech for Lost Box, but I wouldn't bet on it.

[final musk]

There's also Zoroark Box but that deck is not consistent enough rn

[versed jackal]

I mean it one shots gard

Granted you only get one prize

I feel like this should be real solid for zorobox

[final musk]

Wtf why Marowak

[opaque pelican]

The way Marowak just reaches high damage is just the best.

Family power~

Seems like more stuff one can do with Zoroark (EVS)

[final musk]

It borders being a clone of a Bisharp from SwSh

[final musk]

Welp, logged back into my PTCGO account and checked to see if I met the transfer rate for PTCGLive maximum crystals.
I did, and all I had to give up was 2 spare copies of FA Boss's Orders (The mid af Lysandre one. I still have 3 of Giovanni)

[digital crow]

If i had to guess, it's because of the ghost boss at the lavender tower

[opaque pelican]

From the page of Serebii:

Copying in case this is way too small

"During a Champions League stream today, a new batch of ex Starter Decks were revealed for Japan. These decks will feature a variety of Pokémon with each type available being represented, with a focus on Decidueye, Victini, Greninja, Miraidon, Clefable, Koraidon, Houndoom and Melmetal all being the main focus of the decks. Currently no further details have been given but we'll provide more as it comes, with more news said to be revealed tomorrow so be sure to check back"

A deck for each type is pretty cool (Except Dragon-type, but who cares about that one)

[final musk]

these are usually vanillas, hoping they aren't

[final musk]

oh right also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9MgmBV0Ck8

Alex Schemanske proving once again how insane of a player he is

33:00 Round 3: Grant Shen (Gardevoir) vs Simon Narode (Lost Box Kyogre / Dragonite):
1:12:00 Intermission Commentator game (Worlds 2011 format): Kyle Sucevich (Yanmega Magnezone) vs Jeremy Jallen (Reshiphlosion)
2:17:00 Round 4: Regan Retzloff (Single Strike Lugia) vs Kevin Clemente (Lost Box Raikou)
3:39:00 Round 5: Daniel Altavilla (Lost Box Kyogre / Dragonite) vs Brandon Salazar (Rapid Strike Box)
5:09:00 Round 6: Alex Schemanske (Lost Box Kyogre / Moltres) vs Cameron Mortensen (Gardevoir)
6:56:00 Round 7: Benjamin Nackman (Palkia Ice Rider) vs Kasten Welsh (Rapid Strike Box)
8:23:00 Round 8: Cameron Kawasaki (Giratina) vs John Munoz (Mew VMax)

Miraidon is a more popular deck this tournament than the previous one, which is pretty funny considering how it almost completely flopped before.

[final musk]

oh Singapore happened. BO1 until top 16

Top 16:

3 Arc Duraludon (2 with Vulpix VStar)
3 Gardevoir
3 Mew
2 Lost Box
1 Lugia
1 Miraidon
1 Rapid Strike Box
1 Goodra
1 Arc/Giratina

Top 8:
2 Gardevoir
1 Mew
1 Arc Duraludon
1 ArcTina
1 Goodra
1 Miraidon

Top 4 is Gardevoir, ArcTina, Lugia, Goodra

[final musk]

Fucking hell day 1 is supposed to go until Round 9. They canned the stream early due to how late it was getting.
Day 1 is finishing around 10-11 PM and Day 2 starts at 7:30 AM jfc

Day 1 started at noon

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/ex-starter-decks-revealed-featuring-greninja-ex-decidueye-ex-clefable-ex-and-more

Annnd here it is!

Obligatory @hot prawn shoutout, friendo is an ex now

Interesting reveals all around

My thoughts are:

Decidueye ex is neat, being a flippy-flappy retreating bird. Not very potent on an attacking front though, which is unfortunate.

Victini ex is just a fire type beatstick. Really not that different from the past V

Greninja ex just continues the trend of Greninja with rule boxes being super underwhelming. Makes you wonder.

Miraidon ex is interesting. Could be neat to use this in tandem with the Miraidon ex from SVI, since this one does things a little different. But admittedly, it’s a little less than average

Clefable, thankfully for Ren looks pretty sweet. The ability and attack looks like it meshes well with the Clefairy from LOR, while also seemingly having some other utilities with cards like Gardevoir ex that also mess around with Psychic Energy.

Koraidon ex looks like a much better attacker than the one in SVI, which is nice, I guess.

Houndoom ex got that basic mon lockdown thing going on. Pretty nice.

And Melmetal ex is… eh.

A few winners here but also a few that aren’t so great.

There’s a few mons without rule boxes revealed too, but they’re mostly ones you need to attain the evolution into the ex

Although, that Mawile just looks terrifying considering it has 100 HP and Gardevoir ex exists

One thing I also noticed: the products are randomized

You don’t know what deck you will get. Which, is very novel an idea but I can imagine some people will get peeved when they want a certain deck and not get it

There’s also two “secret” decks. What those are haven’t been disclosed yet.

Though I can hazard a guess these would be Colorless and Dragon decks

[hot prawn]

Yeah Clef looks nice for rotating attackers, you can deal some heavy damage then setup another Psychic mon in the back and retreat clef after she soaks some hits up

Although I do miss the fairy typing

[final musk]

Clef's like the only one that's kinda decent

Decidueye was originally an ability seen on a basic, and that basic was really good. It is way too much effort to do that with a stage 2.

Victini suffers the same problem with energy acceleration that Arcanine does. No good fire acceleration to reach 3 energy, only 2.

Greninja already failed previously as Hisuian Samurott VStar. Hisuian Samurott also was a stage 1 and had an ability to put chip damage on the opponent

Koraidon and Miraidon are both weaker than their previously released cards. Miraidon's energy recovery would be good if it did decent damage.

Basic attack locking from Houndoom is pointless since we already have a Ralts that achieves the same goal.

And Melmetal is awful compared to Dialga VStar alone

"But what about Victini as a sleeper Lost Box fire pokemon for if the meta calls for it?"
We already have Entei V. Radiant Charizard also already has a dedicated variant.

TLDR;
Deci would have been good as a basic
Victini, Koraidon, Miraidon, Melmetal, Greninja, and Houndoom are all straight up outclassed by other cards.
Clef is ok in a unique role, but doesn't have a good deck that wants it yet.

[opaque pelican]

I can’t really be too upset about that though, since these are starter deck cards. (Unfortunately) comes with the territory

[gilded heart]

I think Greninja is neat tbh

But I also think H Samurott isn't as bad as people say, so maybe I'm just dumb :p

[opaque pelican]

Aw, whaaaaat

I can't use Professor Oak's New Theory in Expanded if I wanted to.

[final musk]

Functionally online and in competition, probably not.

It is however exactly the same as Cynthia

[opaque pelican]

Ech, I was hoping to use that over Cynthia. But, if I really need to I guess I can.

Mostly because it had nearly the same effect. Not too sure why it couldn't be used, aside from Supporter cards being written a little differently pre-Black/White

[final musk]

it's pretty much just that it is part of an unsupported pool of cards

[opaque pelican]

Ah, alright

[final musk]

They set this precendent mostly because they don't want naming confusion on legal vs illegal cards

Part of why they made Boss's Orders and Professor's Research common names

[opaque pelican]

That is a good change, yeah. Very glad they established that bit

[final musk]

(Even tho they don't do this with the plethora of useless draw 3s, probably because no one cares about them)

[opaque pelican]

Though, it seems the same isn't to apply to the generic Draw 3 Cards supporter of each set, but that's alright.

Would be weird to just call it "Rival", and then just put their actual name in the side, I guess.

[final musk]

Then you get into dumber stuff like how they printed Friends in Sinnoh and Friends in Hisui

[opaque pelican]

I mean, I'm alright with those cards existing, they gotta have some material to put in those entry-level products, plus they aren't in any short supply.

[final musk]

If they went with Rival, it would probably work out fine

[opaque pelican]

Ehhh, yeah

Actually, wait, just remembered

[final musk]

Or Rivalry, since Rival was already a card in gen 4

[opaque pelican]

There actually is a card just called- Yeah

The one with Barry on it

[final musk]

But pretty much all of the draw 3s in gen 5 onward are rivals anyways

(Besides the friends cards which... those were pretty pointless to print)

[opaque pelican]

...Not that you'd ever do so, but if you were to pick like, a Draw 3 card, what one would it be?

Personally would just go with Hau, myself.

[final musk]

Cheren

[opaque pelican]

Ah, cool.

[final musk]

DP's rival card was pretty sad too

It's essentially Riley from SwSh era, which was considered a worse draw 3

[opaque pelican]

Oh, yuck, that's a bad spot to be in

Never leave anything up to your opponent

[final musk]

Swordwal and Shielbert was also a pretty pointless draw 3

[opaque pelican]

I love how the card makes mention that you "ask" your opponent to use it's effect

[final musk]

Pick are card in your discard, your opponent either adds that back to your hand, or they choose you to draw 3

It's exactly like the characters in game

They waste time for no reason

[opaque pelican]

They're posh dumbarses, but they're alright otherwise.

Also funny just how terrible they are at coordinating in a double battle, as evident from the Galar Star Tournament.

[final musk]

Gen 8 alone had 24 different cards that were draw 3 or "Draw 2/4 on condition"

And 4 turned out to be good from that 24

Bird Keeper, Avery, Melony, and Colress's Experiment (which was excavate 5, add 3, banish 2)

Worst one from gen 8 was easily Riley

Gen 7 had 18 more, and only 4 of those were good as well

One of those four was not even good because it drew, but only because it stalled.

Looker
Welder
Hapu
And Cynthia/Caitlin Tag Team (which was only good from creating stall loops)

The worst one of gen 7 was either:
Evelyn (could only be played if the opponent's active was a stage 1)
Blaine's Quiz Show (often led to your opponent drawing 4 instead)

[opaque pelican]

Oh yeah, those ones

That's a lot of drawing!

[final musk]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmSN1RdGATM

Day 2 Portland

Round 13: Anthony Perez (Miraidon Flaafy) vs Trevore Read (Single Strike Lugia)
Round 14: Landen Kaetler (ArcTina) vs Azulgg (Lost Box Kyogre)
Emergency Livecaster Battle (GLC): Adam Watson (Fighting) vs Juancho Saldana (Colorless)
Round 15: Le Bui (Arceus Toolbox) vs Regan Retzloff (Single Strike Lugia)

[final musk]

Bruh if there was gonna be that high of a chance of an ID, why are we streamin

[final musk]

gdi Miraidon made top 8 again

Why does this high roller keep showing up

Gardevoir didn't make top 8 but Miraidon did

Which yeah Gardevoir was the deck people were strongly preparing for, but ugh

only 2 Miraidon made day 2 and 1 of them is top 8

Top 8:
1 Miraidon
1 Lost Box (Moltres / Kyogre)
12 players still playing for top cut (1 Mew, 2 Lugia, 5 Lost Zone Box, 2 ArcTina, 2 ArcDura)

[gilded heart]

I'm so excited to see that Miraidon list ngl

I've been playing a lot of Miraidon myself

[final musk]

Top 8 ended up being:
1 Miraidon
1 Lugia SS
1 Mew
1 ArcTina
1 ArcDura
3 Lost Box (2 Turbo, 1 Kyogre/Moltres)

[final musk]

Rip Alex.

[final musk]

Dude this event was already called one of the worst managed regionals in recent history for pokemon tcg and their top 8 graphic makes it worse lol

1. Ultra Ball as a feature card
2. Skwovet instead of Giratina
3. Duraludon is spelt incorrectly
4. Cramorant instead of Kyogre
5. That's the wrong Flaafy

[final musk]

Meanwhile some of these games have been nuts. Landen Kaetler just anime topdecked

End of day 1 also ended with a 6-prize turn in overtime

[versed jackal]

How Tf you take 6 prizes

[final musk]

RS Medicham take 2 into a turn where RS Urshifu took 4.

Did this in time ruled Turn 2 and Turn 3, took turns back to back from Yoga Loop

[versed jackal]

Oh shit

Nuts

[final musk]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9MgmBV0Ck8&t=28113s

timestamped to roughly when it happens

Nackman is taking turn 1 of overtime

[final musk]

Finals started rn, Lugia vs ArcTina

[final musk]

They also screwed up their statistics chart at the end too

[opaque pelican]

Youch

[versed jackal]

@final musk you're knowledgable about the Japanese side of Ptcg, has triple beat released yet and if so has anyone recorded a list with skeledirge ex?

[final musk]

Has Triplet Beat been released yet
Yes

and if so has anyone recorded a list with skeledirge ex
Exactly 1 to my knowledge from post- Clay Burst/Snow hazard

4-4 Skeledirge
1 Entei V
1 Squakabilly ex
2-2 Bibarel line
Radiant Greninja
Lumineon
4 Nest Ball
4 Ultra Ball
2 Switch
1 Choice Belt
1 Forest Seal Stone
1 Cleansing Gloves (+30 against psychic pokemon)
4 Rare Candy
1 Pal Pad
2 Energy Switch
1 Energy Search (Arven can search energy via this inclusion)
2 Colress's Experiment
1 Research
2 Iono
2 Boss
1 Cheryl
1 Agatha
3 Magma Basin
9 Fire Energy

For those wondering Cleansing Gloves, allows Skeledirge to KO Gardevoir ex

[opaque pelican]

Max Potion just would be too perfect, but alas, no available reprint

Pretty bad how Hyper Potion has rotated out as well, so there's really not much in the ways of healing, save for the regular potion (Which is just, lol), and Cheryl (Which has an incredible effect as far as healing goes, but is a supporter)

[opaque pelican]

I had a really stupid idea

Make a deck around Gardevoir ex... and Clefairy (LOR)

Just sounds like a stupid way to win games, loading everything with Psychic energy and slamming stuff, but I like it enough to try it.

10 Psychic Energy distributed among the cards I have would mean Clefairy's Wonder Storm attack would deal 200 damage. It's ability would get the energy out from my deck to the field, and on the oft chance something suffers a KO, Gardevoir ex can just slap it right back on some other Clefairy

[versed jackal]

Sweet thanks

[versed jackal]

Is it just me or is Entei V kinda mid, he can only hit 120 max?

Before weakness etc

[final musk]

Counts all benched pokes

he can hit up to 220

[versed jackal]

Oh I see

Does Suicune do the same thing?

I assume they're all like that then

[final musk]

And Raikou

ye

[versed jackal]

That's neat tbh

[opaque pelican]

A Beast for every type!

[opaque pelican]

I got new cards!

Since Iono was arriving soon, I went and got 2 copies of N, so I can get ready.

Also got a few other stuff that I could make use of in GLC (And possibly the standard format if they ever get reprinted), such as Max Potion, Revive, Sacred Ash and Welder.

[digital crow]

Man

I miss N

Such a cool card

[opaque pelican]

Been on another artwork dive

https://pkmncards.com/card/blaines-vulpix-gym-heroes-g1-65/

You definitely notice these original pieces that Ken Sugimori does

[final musk]

So Japan's biggest tournament for potential Paldea Evolved concluded and had a breakdown of what did well

https://twitter.com/pokeca_book/status/1656264594468507650

ポケカブック (@pokeca_book)

チャンピオンズリーグ2023新潟

【1枚目】
DAY2デッキ分布

【2枚目】
DAY1デッキ分布

【3枚目】
デッキ分布比較

Likes

194

Twitter · May 10, 2023, 11:47 AM

TLDR;
Gardevoir, Lugia, and Lost Zone decks still make up the core meta in Japan. Lugia gained a new colorless variant from support in Triplet Beat

Giratina continues to perform much better in BO1 formats than it does in western's BO3.

Chien Pao was the only new archetype out of Paldea Evolved material to make any substantial spot in day 2, and was one of the most popular decks in tournament, but performed like complete ass compared to other decks

Mew was an unpopular pick going into the tournament, but Japan just didn't bother to use Spiritomb in favor of planning for other relevant matchups and Mew ended up doing very well compared to how many people entered with it. Fusion Mew was by and far more popular this tournament due to how deterred people were from auto-losing to Spiritomb if they weren't running Fusion Strike Energy

Out of the top 16, only two people ran dedicated mew counters, and only one of those ran Spiritomb. People were much more worried about bigger fish.

The big controversy around Japan's results is whether or not the prize card Champion's festival is optimal in Gardevoir with Drifloon. A bunch of lower tournaments had it showed up, this big tournament didn't at all, and western regions are bickering over whether it is worth it or not and the philosophy around a championship prize card being tournament relevant.

The cards from Paldea Evolved that have made the biggest reps in Japan are:
Artazon (Generic basic searching stadium)
Jet Energy (Switch card for Lugia and Lost Zone Variants)
Reversal Energy (Limited Scramble Energy that Lugia and Gardevoir have picked up)
Luxray (Lugia counter in place of or alongside Raikou V)
And Iono (New staple supporter)

[opaque pelican]

Alright, making sure I’m not making a mistake here:

I can use N in place of Iono, right? Seems like what I can and can’t use concerning reprints just flip-flops

[final musk]

No

N shuffles the hand back into the deck, draw new hand.

Iono shuffles the hand to the bottom of the deck, draw new hand

[opaque pelican]

…shit, alright

Guess I just threw out like a bit of cash for this

Sigh

Well, HOPEFULLY I can get those copies, cause I know it’s gonna be painful to get even a standard printing

At the very least having a copy for GLC is alright

[final musk]

The regular print will be fine if not maybe a few bucks each

The full art and alt art will be the expensive stuff

Irida at its peak when Palkia was the best deck was still 4-5 bucks a copy max

[opaque pelican]

Also picked up some stuff I know aren’t usable in the standard format but I think I could get use out of

Like, Welder, Sacred Ash and Max Potion

Maybe with some luck one of these could get a reprinting

Especially Max Potion, that would just be too perfect a combination with Skeledirge ex.

Dunno if Sacred Ash was ever used, but it seems in a format like GLC, throwing mons from the discard pile back to the deck will be handy concerning that you can only use 1 copy of each card

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/jynx-ex-nidoqueen-nidoking-hypno-and-more-from-pokemon-card-151

Smooch

So from initiatal observation, Nidoqueen and Nidoking still have the whole pairing thing going on for them, except it's Nidoking that ends up benefitting. Venom Inpact costing no energy looks helpful, but honestly it doesn't look too worthwhile to evolve two mons to this length.

Seems Hypno has an ability that leaves things asleep. Eh.

...Which leads up to Jynx ex. An instant knock-out if the defender is asleep with it's Ba-Dum-Kiss. It may not be too practical, but wow, that's a way to pull off an instant knock-out. Icy Wind's there too, just in case.

Big Balloon is just a way more impractical Air Balloon.

...And wow, Bill's Transfer is pretty cool. Looking at the top 8 cards of your deck, and adding any Pokémon you find there to your hand is sick. Granted, there's a chance just like with the Great Ball that you'll end up not finding anything, but it's cool all the same.

[opaque pelican]

Alright, doing some drafting for GLC kinds of decks

Had the idea to make a deck around Machamp, from LOR

Considering how it’s ability makes it have stonkingly high HP if I’m behind, it’s tempting

[opaque pelican]

Right now I’m really wanting to know what kind of evolutions of Eevee are included in 151

The Eevee from ASR exists, and I feel like if they’re great enough I might try some stuff with that

Though, that would require a lot of energy juggling

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/articuno-zapdos-ex-moltres-and-chansey-from-pokemon-card-151

Birds and eggs

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/vileplume-from-pokemon-card-151

@final musk You finally got your wish

[final musk]

and... it kinda sucks lol

lets see if this is just a one-off or if they'll actually continue with the other gyms this week

ngl most of the cards from this weekend are pretty unimpressive

Nido family is a cool gimmick for a deckstyle that isn't well feasible
Jynx sucks in standard but is a notable gimmick deck in expanded where hypnotoxic laser exists
Zapdos might show up in Miraidon, but it would be second fiddle to other attackers in the flaafy build at most
Ditto either ends up being really unreliable or contribuing to the most toxic part of the current gamestate (Turn 1 conditional cards)
Mewtwo is eh with how a lot of decks have varying attack damage

Pretty much everything else is filler as it is

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/vaporeon-from-pokemon-card-151

Vaporeon got revealed too, at last.

It's alright, I guess.

ex are gonna be pretty popular soon enough, so this'll have some niche use.

Also it's a Stage 1 that requires 3 energy to use it's attack, giving Reversal Energy some more milleage... for what that's worth

That being said, the attack is stupid, not cause it's subpar, but it once again could have just said 'rule box' and not "ex or V"

Much as I'd like to make an Eevee-centric deck, it's just a lot of pain mapping it out cause I got plenty of these evolutions to work with, but not enough Eevee since I still can only have 4 in a deck

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/clefairy-clefable-hitmonchan-from-pokemon-card-151

Clef & Haymaker.dek

Of course you know I’m gonna ping @hot prawn once more

[hot prawn]

Ouch that clef is not good

[opaque pelican]

Unfortunately aside from the Clefairy being nice for swarming, Clefable isn’t great

[hot prawn]

also I dont really follow ptcg anymore

[opaque pelican]

Ah, sorry

Just, saw Clef and yeah

The Hitmonchan really takes after it’s roots though, being a lot of damage dealing for a basic 1 prizer

Might be cool for GLC

[final musk]

If clef’s attack were on a basic psychic it would be worthwhile at some point

Right now the only way you are using that clef is in a Zoroark Reversal Box deck

And it might not be worth the option

[opaque pelican]

Well I just learned something else different from this and Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Apparently I don't have to shuffle my deck every single time I resolve some card that lets me pick stuff from the deck to go someplace else.

But that's like, if I end up doing a whole bunch of search-y stuff.

[final musk]

There’s a new potential leak going around, treat with a massive grain of salt

Lines up image-wise with what we’ve seen from set preview

For 3CE, do 90, + 90 if you played a supporter that turn

Ability: if it has special energy attached, gains 100 max hp

350 HP has been reached

Considering how this hp is fucking massive, could honestly see some offhand play in Lugia. I don’t think its Lugia’s best path forward from consistency, but a 1-1 line for Wigglytuff may take 3 turns for certain lost box decks to KO a 2-prizer, I could see it showing up if Lost Box felt that important a matchup.

Like even Sableye + Zamazenta comes up short 2 shotting this

[opaque pelican]

Ayyyy Wigglytuff

Yeah, this card can be pretty friggin' scary

Especially given this is an evolution card, so you can use Cheryl to restore its massive HP count

[versed jackal]

Also cherens care

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/meowth-from-pokemon-card-151

Kitty

So here's something I'm debating

Apparently in some decks that use Stage 2 evolutions, they use Rare Candy to skip over Stage 1, and it usually looks like 4-2-4 a ratio of the evolution line

Only thing is I'm debating if this is a good idea as far as Ralts, Kirlia and Gardevoir goes.

Kirlia (SIT)'s ability is like, super good.

[wanton mantle]

For being one of the big three I am surprised how little expies this game has

Magic gets expies left and right, even it’s Japanese counterpart has its own expies

[final musk]

It’s already been done competitively that the general take is 4 Kirlia + 1 or 2 rare candy

Most stage 2 Pokémon run rare 4 candies + 4-1-4 or 4-2-4 because their stage 1 Pokémon are pack filler

It’s one of the dumbest things about Pokémon how many cards they print that are vanilla garbage

[opaque pelican]

Ah, gotcha

I’m alright with pack filler personally, but yeah, it feels off when the other stages feels middling compared to the end result

Just, Ralts and Kirlia are as far as evolution lines go, every card is helpful in some way

[opaque pelican]

Alright, I revised my deck again

Just, gonna ask here for some advice

3x Ralts (ASR)
1x Ralts (SIT)
4x Kirlia (SIT)
2x Gardevoir (CRE)
1x Gallade (ASR)
2x Drifloon (SVI)
1x Sigilyph (SIT)
2x Gardevoir ex (SVI)
1x Zacian V (CEL)
1x Radiant Greninja (ASR)

4x Ultra Ball
3x Level Ball
4x Fog Crystal
2x Battle VIP Pass
2x Switch
2x Rare Candy

1x Defiance Band

2x Roxanne
2x Professor's Research (Professor Juniper)
3x Miriam
2x Boss's Orders (Lysandre)
1x Judge

2x Temple of Sinnoh

12x Basic Psychic Energy```

Compare to this: #1020932971106140221 message

Alright, so with this I need some advice on what to remove and what to hopefully add.

I don't got much to work with, but this is what I got so far

[opaque pelican]

While I'm here:

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/beedrill-from-pokemon-card-151-revealed-in-corocoro

YET ANOTHER Beedrill that thinks they are an Infernity

[final musk]

This is a lot of extra work for Paralysis compared to H-Arcanine

It even does less damage with DTE that actually makes certain 2-hit KOs impossible

that's way too much extra work for Paralysis

[opaque pelican]

And now, the actually overrated mon returns

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/raging-surf-to-feature-water-type-garchomp-ex

Though, having it be a water type would make sense. Seems with it's stint as a dragon-type, it used both water and fighting energy for its attacks

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/dragonite-hitmonlee-and-dodrio-from-pokemon-card-151

MORE 151 stuff.

[versed jackal]

Dragonite seems really solid

Wonder if regi will play it

[final musk]

Regidrago would not play that Dragonite lol

There’s already a Dragonite that does the same damage and attaches 3 basic energy, and even that doesn’t see much play

If you set up this Dragonite to mill more dragons, you were better off setting up those other dragons in the first place

Wouldn’t be shocked if the Hitmonlee showed up as a tech in Ting Lu but Ting Lu has plummeted in results

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/raticate-tauros-from-pokemon-card-151

Running out of things to say

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/pinsir-from-pokemon-card-151

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/electabuzz-magmar-from-pokemon-card-151

Your favorite tag team players return

[final musk]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/obsidian-flames-officially-revealed-first-products-from-the-set

Mmmmmm regidrago fodder

(Dragon Tera Dragonite ex incoming)

6 Tera is unexpected since it’s generally been 3 a pack. At least 2 are delta species style with a different type

They confirmed that prevos are the original type, which honestly makes Dark Tera Charizard worse

Electric TTar is also awkward af

Eiscue and Vespiquen are also confirmed type-modded

We won’t see much other news on the pack until mid June

Half of the 15 regular ex Pokémon are the super starter ex’s, which were mostly garbage

[opaque pelican]

Good on them for having the promo card be Charmander

Charmander really wants to go outside

[nocturne wadi]

No idea if these still work

[versed jackal]

Man I really wanna build max rarity skeledirge ex

[final musk]

Alt Art might be up there but it will be eclipsed by other alt arts

For reference, the only alt arts over 20 USD each from base SV rn are Gardevoir, Miraidon, and Miriam

[versed jackal]

Yeah I doubt it'll be too much

It's just the energies and the old secrets like ultra ball

Which kill me

[opaque pelican]

Honestly the Illustration Rare Fuecoco is the best so I’m all for it

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/koffing-weezing-from-pokemon-card-151

Self-Destruct intensifies

[final musk]

All the exs from the set leaked

||https://twitter.com/brayshgaming/status/1663872983566368771/photo/2||

Sadly, we already saw the best of the exs

||Arbok|| and ||Khanga|| in particular are awful

So far the best cards in the set are the -30 tool, cycling road, Erika, Blastoise, Mew, and Wigglytuff

Zapdos is also usable in Miraidon-Flaafy and Alakazam is at least interesting

People will cope Charizard but it is worse Skeledirge

Hell I’d argue ||Golem|| is better than Charizard

It hits a better type

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/05/ninetales-ex-from-pokemon-card-151

I love this artwork but I really 100% just am not a fan of how it actually works

[versed jackal]

This AA is sick

Also pull rates from 5184 packs

[digital crow]

[versed jackal]

Keep in mind this is still a relatively small sample size

We would need like another 3/4k packs to get a very clear picture

[gilded heart]

I hope the Tyranitar doesn't end up expensive just because no one pulls it

[final musk]

Decided to attend prerelease

Pulled pretty well, bricked hard game 1 of tournament but it’s prerelease so whatevs

I’ll post pulls after round 3

[opaque pelican]

Ah, cool!

Wish I had spots to go to for a prerelease

[final musk]

OK so

Prerelease ended, I went 2-1

mental going into prerelease was what it should have been: It's prerelease and doing well at prerelease is lol

2-1, got 11/29

The deck parts I got dealt were Murkrow and Tinkaton, which was a fairly solid combination

Wow that lighting sucks

Pulls were:
Luxray
Full Art Ting Lu
Alt Art Wo Chien
Full Art Boss's Orders

Deck Build for the event. 6 Flamigo, which was the only reason I considered Murkrow so heavily

3-2-2 Tinkaton
3 Murkrow
6 Flamigo. This is legal only at prerelease
2 Bombirdier
1 Cetoddle
1 Delibird
1 Luxray (Forgot to picture it)

2 Great Ball
1 Ultra Ball
1 Super Rod
1 Artazon
1 Youngster
1 Nemona
1 Clavell
1 Professor's Research
1 Boss

3 Luminous Energy
6 Dark Energy

In hindsight, ran too many tech pokemon and should have ran another 2 or so Dark Energy. Game 1 (which I lost), I bricked hard and not drawing more than 1 energy early on. I would have dropped 1 Bombirdier and Luxray. Luxray only came up in game 1, Bombirdier never came up.

Learning experience nonetheless, and it's a prerelease so who cares at the end of the day

Also first foot in the door for locals and its community, so that's always a solid plus

[versed jackal]

Wow that list is cute from sealed

Sick pulls

[final musk]

It's Joever

[final musk]

I've been messing around with PTCGLive for about 15 minutes and it is needlessly awkward before even playing a game

The deck construction menus in particular suck compared to PTCGO

1. To view your collection, you have to edit a deck
2. If you sort by unowned cards, it will populate with all the different copies of the unowned cards... but then bunch up all the different copies of cards together under 1 selection, making it impossible to see what prints of cards you don't own without going into 2 additional menus per card

3. You cannot purchase individual cards using credits from the shop, you have to do that from the deck editor

[versed jackal]

Yeah tcg live sucks

Rip Ptcgo

[final musk]

Yeah there is shit in here I didn't even know about despite reading up on it

Yeah so after a half hour of messing around the only positive is how much free shit they throw at you

And the way crystals work means that the most productive thing I can do is log in the beginning of every format

Sooooooo that's what I am doing for the time being. I got locals I can go to now if I want to play

They fucking hide the quit button but put the log out button in bigass text

And if you log out it doesn't exit the game either

lol

The options literally also just have a giant button for deleting your entire Pokemon account too

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/06/obsidian-flames-prerelease-promos-revealed

Hoooly crap they just reprinted (more or less) the Neo Genesis Cleffa

[final musk]

it'll still be useful for pre-release and probably GLC, but without that immunity it is pretty bad in standard

[opaque pelican]

Really surprised that not much has been done with them after all this time. I was thinking they'd get a similar treatment like those with ancient traits that lets you slap down the mon they evolve into.

So it feels really awkward.

Also: Why "Grasping Draw" and not "Eeeeeeeek"?

[little falcon]

Stuff I picked up today

Nothing crazy but meh.

[versed jackal]

Beedrill is gorgeous

Too bad it sucks

[little falcon]

Yeah sadly lol. Nobody had a Blues Tactics so I’ll probably have to find one online smh

[final musk]

https://twitter.com/TrustYourPilot1/status/1666861858727559168

TrustYourPilot (#1 PTCGL Creator of 2022) (@TrustYourPilot1)

You can't craft V-Union cards in Pokemon TCG Live, and mobile players are reporting issues activating them from the discard pile with the latest update.

Twitter · Jun 8, 2023, 5:36 PM

Lol

So the official release update didn’t just not update anything, one of their only minor updates broke VUNIONs twice

[final musk]

While waiting for Pokemon Card 151 to go up tonight, I was lookin at Japanese local lists to see if anything else popped out from Regidrago decks

And instead, I found someone using a deck I've wanted to invest a bit of time into

Mustard Box

Their method honestly feels a bit clunky, albeit it makes sense

Their idea is to:

1. Altaria in active, Stack Mustard on top of deck
2. Skwovet stacks current hand to bottom of deck, draw Mustard
3. Play Mustard, put up Cinderace and draw 5
4. Retreat Altaria into Weavile, Weavile's ability boss's an opponent's basic
5. Magma Basin attaches a fire energy to Cinderace
6. Jet Energy attach to Cinderace, Cinderace moves to active, attack whatever you boss'd to the opponent's active

[gilded heart]

How did they place?

I know someone that was theorying this exact deck and I tried to help a little

[final musk]

It's Japanese locals so it doesn't matter. 1st at locals

[gilded heart]

Jet energy makes a lot of sense

Ah

It's still not too bad

[final musk]

What I don't like about this build is that it chooses not to do anything with the other really good Single Strike box option

Beedrill

[gilded heart]

I get it tbh

Adding Grass Energy makes the whole build a little more inconsistent. I guess if you don't play Grass and go for Impact instead it could be better, but then you can potentially miss out on Magma Basin early

[final musk]

Impact Energy

Single Strike's rainbow energy

[gilded heart]

Yeah I mentioned that

I guess it's something that can be explored

[final musk]

Yeah no, it should be explored considering that Beedril dumps on Lugia

[gilded heart]

The guy I was talking about liked Beedrill in his testing, but I didn't that much, but maybe our builds weren't great 🤔

This was also pre-Jet

[final musk]

Lugia's colorless variant, and even sometimes the single strike variant, would try to negate Cinderace's early attacks entirely with Cheren or Volo

[gilded heart]

True

[final musk]

Beedrill also theoretically gives the deck a better time against Arceus decks by eliminating the 1st VStar very early

[opaque pelican]

Oh, that

That looks really cool

So basically, just literally Infernity

I legit might try this deckstyle myself

[final musk]

It also makes sure that Cinderace with Jet Energy doesn't get meme'd on by Duraludon VMax

[gilded heart]

I guess Beedrill is worth it yeah

Seems necessary even

[final musk]

You're still gonna have problems with Lost Box, but there's no good Single Strike box option that can cover that

Even with Reversal Energy, your options aren't very useful outside of Cinderace and Beedrill

[gilded heart]

Yeah sadly

[final musk]

Hariyama's funny, but not reliable

Grimmsnarl can destroy mew, but so can Beedrill

[gilded heart]

Emboar is also kinda funny, not as an attacker, but just to boost damage :p

[final musk]

Copperajah and Melmetal require too much energy (4)

[opaque pelican]

Honestly, it seems like each set just introduces a new way to make Mew VMAX a little more hard to play

We had stuff like Mightyena in ASR, now it seems very soon we'll be seeing a Mawile that when played to the bench will discard a special energy

[final musk]

Mawile is not good against Mew

Yveltal + Spiritomb would be the best play

If Scoop Up Net were around, Mawile would be nuts against Mew

Giacomo + Spiritomb is also really good

[opaque pelican]

Can't exactly disregard how the ability it has hinders a lot of decks reliant on Special Energy, either.

Like... it's not considerable yet, I guess?

[final musk]

Yveltal and Giacomo discard way more

[opaque pelican]

It's something that does a nice thing but without anything else to really back it up on that front

[final musk]

Yveltal discards 3 and Giacomo discards 1 from every pokemon

[gilded heart]

It's time https://i.imgur.com/qlXj7B1.png

Any thoughts on Tyranitar :p

I think it has a lot of potential tbh

[opaque pelican]

It's a typical Tyranitar

Big damage but you throw cards out of the top deck to do the thing.

[final musk]

more maintainable than Single Strike Grimmsnarl, but no support like Mustard

[gilded heart]

Yeah 🤔

[opaque pelican]

I'd just leave it for stuff like GLC, if it comes to that.

[final musk]

For Reference: Grimmsnarl has the same attack cost, and hits 240 if you control 3 or fewer pokemon

[opaque pelican]

Artwork is nice for sure though

[gilded heart]

I'ma try it in standard tbh

I'm debating what route to go, probably play Bibarel and Greninja with PokeStop to grab Rare Candy and Super Rod

Also, there's no dark pupitar/larvitar so Tyranitar can't be used easily in GLC, thinking about it

[final musk]

The rest of Pokemon 151 is up.

That set... is not good

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/06/pokemon-card-151

Probably the single weakest set from a competitive or casual play standpoint we've had since XY Evolutions

[opaque pelican]

Eh

Honestly, being a subpar subset as far as playing goes is… fine. Not the first time this happened

[final musk]

A lot of these cards are either really really impractical attack costs or straight up vanilla

[opaque pelican]

P sure sets like Shining Fates, Champion’s Path and Celebrations didn’t have much going on either

[final musk]

Champion's Path had one of Shadow Rider's best pairings and Celebrations has one of the strongest attackers in the game rn

[opaque pelican]

We’ll just have to wait and see what could pair off well

[final musk]

Not much honestly. This set is banking on Wigglytuff ex somehow popping off

[opaque pelican]

Some of the trainer cards are pretty alright

[final musk]

?

Cycling Road and Rigid Band are good but that's about it

[opaque pelican]

I remember that Retractable Arm(?) being rather unique

Also yeah, those two are nice

[final musk]

Retractable arm sucks

Giovanni's like the only other one with a purpose but all that does is meme on Arceus

[opaque pelican]

good

[final musk]

It's like

shit vs pretty much anything else close to competitive

Saftey Goggles is pointless
Big Balloon requires stage 2s
Leftovers is only useful for Electrode and I think that is a worse version of a deck from 3 years ago
Erika's Invitation is not worth the spot unless you try it in a stall deck
Bill's Teleport is bad

[opaque pelican]

Honestly Big Ballon is the only one I can wholeheartedly say is pretty bad

Air Balloon was a thing

It wasn’t bad

Why introduce this and have this kinda restriction?

[final musk]

Competitively, I think Blastoise ex is the closest thing to a new deck worth discussing, and I don't think it is very good because of how clunky it is.

As far as new pokemon that can do things standalone, I back:

• Wigglytuff ex as a Lugia tech
• Zapdos ex as a Miraidon tech
• Mew ex will probably see generic play at some point, but I don't think any deck will play it now.
• Mr. Mime will get tried as a stall card, to very volatile results
• Rigid Band in some eventual stage 1 ex deck
• Cycling Road as a generic stadium

As far as other interesting casual stuff goes:

• Nidoking/Nidoqueen as a stage 2 free attack deck
• Venomoth item stun. Banette kinda proved it isn't set for comp
• Alakazam ex attacking from the bench is entirely new
• Golem ex as a new Metagross VMax. I think Metagross is absolutely better and Golem won't get talked about until Metagross rotates next year.
• Cubone power-up. Marowak sucks, so maybe a future one
• Weezing RNGing KOs
• Kabutops setting x4 weakness effect

Electrode fills the same deck concept that Whimsicott filled nearly 3 years ago, but Electrode needs to dedicate 2 spots of its bench to Snorlax and that honestly creates way too much of a bench problem.

Ditto is a weird case because it is bad, but I also genuinely think that if decks can die-hard set up ditto turn 1, it is toxic for the game much like Battle VIP Pass.

Also shoutout to Kangaskhan for taking the trophy for worst gen 9 ex card

[opaque pelican]

Oh yeah, Alakazam ex is super cool

[versed jackal]

Alakazam ex with tuff ex to tank sounds funny

[opaque pelican]

I’m gonna think on what I can do with it.

[versed jackal]

Since you could also cherens care

[opaque pelican]

Likely poking things while using a defensive mon at the front

[versed jackal]

Right?

[opaque pelican]

Like yeah, Wigglytuff ex, but also Spiritomb (PAL)

[versed jackal]

Could be surprisingly difficult to deal with

[versed jackal]

OMG skeledirge ex is so cheap

SIR only $15

Ok actually everything in this set is dirt cheap

Minus lono

[opaque pelican]

Y’know, I would love reprints of the EX set’s own ex in the Scarlet/Violet series

Maybe stuff like this

https://pkmncards.com/card/typhlosion-ex-unseen-forces-uf-110/

This kind of “Ability” would still admittedly be pretty relevant today. Of course such an attack would need to be changed up to be much more powerful, but other than that, it looks spot on

Lot of stuff to tap into, like say, Blaziken ex, Electrode ex, etc…

[final musk]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/06/ruler-of-the-black-flame-officially-announced-for-japan

Charizard is well workable if not even just solid Fire acceleration for something else early on

TTar is awkward since fighting type doesn’t have a good method of accel rn

Eiscue sucks, at least until a metal deck becomes relevant

Charizard’s problem is needing more basics to work with. Best I see is Delphox V rn, which is workable. Pairing both Charizard together is clunky, but at least you wouldn’t need the cruddy pogo Charizard anymore.

Radiant Charizard is of course good here too as an attacker

[final musk]

The more I read up other fire attackers, the more I say “man, Radiant Charizard is such a good card that outclasses a lot of these”

[final musk]

Japan had a locals win with it, it's something

[gilded heart]

Pog

[final musk]

Shining Arcana Gardevoir + TTar

[gilded heart]

Yeah I was testing TTar Turbo and it actually didn't seem that bad

I like Echoing Horn in it a lot

I didn't do much testing though, I got a little bored of Pokemon stuff and haven't quite gotten back my mojo yet

[opaque pelican]

Lot of people talking about Squawkabilly ex

Guessing it’s popularity is similar to what Battle VIP Pass was doing so far?

[final musk]

Yes. It’s harder to fit in, but basically makes VIP win even harder

[opaque pelican]

Ech

[final musk]

This was also their attempt to balance 2-prize support pokemon, and I am not particularly a fan of the direction this takes

[opaque pelican]

Well, at the least it’s not as easy to utilize

Given the risk, anyways

[final musk]

Like Dedenne GX and Crobat V together was ridiculous, but I feel the best way would have been a Dedenne GX that drew less cards

[opaque pelican]

Hmm yeah

[final musk]

Not a Dedenne GX that is only usable turn 1

[opaque pelican]

What I really want to see so far though is some reimaginings of the past ex from the EX series.

There’s gotta be something that would be a cool callback but also be something that people would play, give or take a few tweaks

I remember some GX being based on other ex, like Mr. Mime GX, Electrode GX, and a few others

Electrode was actually pretty great too if memory serves

[final musk]

We basically have that in Forretress ex rn

[opaque pelican]

Ahh, yeah

[final musk]

Forretress is basically the most interesting ex so far

By a mile

[opaque pelican]

…Admittedly it isn’t so great since it only gets you basic grass energy and not whatever kind of energy

But it is very interesting

Most of the ex I remember that ended up with a lot of popularity was Blaziken ex (which if I remember was really more of a Plan B for the Blaziken (RS))

Typhlosion ex has an absurd Poke-Power, as well as a cool attack

[final musk]

That was the first big competitive ex

[opaque pelican]

…And I guess Mew ex was a precursor to other rule box Mew

[final musk]

Which got btfo by Team Magma

[opaque pelican]

Youch

Yeah, that was a real upset

The deck to win, and lost it to something nobody expected to take it

[final musk]

Western had a meta of Blaziken ex and Swampert ex. Japan had a meta of Team Magma. Western didn’t know of Japan’s metagame due to lack of international communication

[opaque pelican]

Ahhh

[final musk]

Come worlds, Japan almost completely dominated

[opaque pelican]

Oh wow

Blaziken ex taking runner up wasn’t so bad though

[final musk]

It was essentially that if Team Magma hit its core gameplay loop by turn 2, very few exs could outpace it

Magma’s Zangoose was an amazing setup piece for its time

[opaque pelican]

Yeah, no fooling

Seems that Vileplume ex was popular, likely due to it’s Poke-Body putting down a debilitating sort of lock on your opponent

Gardevoir ex (The one featured in Dragon Frontier) had actual counters in it, with you placing an Imprison counter to suppress a card’s Powers or Bodies

That one probably isn’t gonna surface in part due to there already being a Gardevoir ex available in SVI, and popular enough that it might not get much else

[opaque pelican]

I’m still salty that I can’t use this Professor Oak’s New Theory in a GLC deck

[opaque pelican]

On the subject of GLC, I had the idea recently to try out a colorless deck featuring Slaking (PAL), and Snorlax (GO)

Given Therepeutic energy is a thing, as is Wind-Up Arm, I could make some good workarounds to those flaws behind their powerful attacks

[digital peak]

woah thats cool

[opaque pelican]

Yeah, it’s very unique

[opaque pelican]

Alright, gonna ask a question

I noticed some holofoil cards I get have some kind of star-like pattern over the cards

Thing is, not all of the cards like it have it, in comparison

Does this mean anything unusual? I’d hate to figure out that I’ve been swindled

[final musk]

That really needs a picture on account that reverse foils are a thing in ptcg

[opaque pelican]

Yeah, I’ll see on fishing one up

[opaque pelican]

Alright, nevermind on the whole verification: Apparently Double Rare happen to have this sorta starlight foil patterning

And it was just hard for me to see it sometimes

[wanton mantle]

wonder if pokemon tcg live is a good way to get into the game

[opaque pelican]

For the most part, yeah. Though, given the tune many others are taking with it, the client can be way better.

Right, so, I was halfway tempted to make a deck for someone

Problem is, they are very uncaring about their property, so I got no doubt if I make like, a deck of cards, they'll just go and treat it super roughly, to the point it'll be a mess of shredded cardboard.

And it was very tempting to make a deck, since they keep using the loaner deck I got for the Battle Academy set and they just keep insisting that their Eevee deck is the best.

And they still get a little bitter when I "Clap" (their words) him with my Gardevoir ex Deck

I dunno if they are actually assured of their victory and just think that "Oh, if I slap down Eevee V and keep playing supporter cards I will win", or if they can't be bothered to make a deck of their own even when I mentioned how inexpensive it can be.

[final musk]

It's... eh

[opaque pelican]

exactly

It works

I guess

It could work better

[final musk]

It works

It's somehow a worse version of a client that was ten years old

by a fair margin

[opaque pelican]

It does look a lot nicer, but the backend is lacking.

[final musk]

Annnnnd unlike PTCGO, there's no tutorial play

They hand you a few decks and let you do whatever

But whatever is just ranked ladder and unranked

They also made friend requests a pain

Annnnd you cannot turn off timers in any matches, even private

So it is worse for teaching players than PTCGO too

[opaque pelican]

Makes me wonder if it could be possible to actually do like, remote duels, but for PTCG

Would cut out the need for Online for a little bit if it's just simple matches

...Admittedly that would be a silly question, since all I think one needs is a camera-thing and enough space for your play area.

[versed jackal]

Ofc you can

[opaque pelican]

So here's what happened

I made them a deck filled with grass-type cards, since that's the one type of card I have the most of in my collection that I don't mind too much going away

I made sure to pack it with some cards that will remain helpful (Great Ball, Gardenia's Vigor, etc), not too loaded but not too inconsistent either

We play

...The deck lost

To my Pikachu pre-made deck from Battle Academy

what

I was expecting to lose there, not because I knew I was choosing to use a pre-made deck without any real consistency or power cards, but to give them a chance to actually use a properly made(?) deck, and they lost at like, 2 prize cards remaining

To be fair they also made very sub-optimal plays like say

Adding like 2 copies of Hop to their hand... off of Peony.

So maybe the issue isn't that I screwed up making the deck, but they aren't too sure of what the best plays are just yet.

Either way they told me to just stuff the deck inside the Battle Academy box with the rest of the premade decks, so maybe I might do some adjustments to it, since it's clear they don't actually want it.

[fluid spear]

What do you guys think of ting Lu inteleon?

[final musk]

Inteleon is really, really lackluster now without Shady Dealings

Too long to set up, just use stuff like Gapejaw Bog, Radiant pokemon, and Hawlucha for damage coverage

[fluid spear]

What about adding Medicham v to ring Lu?

Seems like it could be good

[opaque pelican]

Ok wow, people are really ripping into each other over Iono lately.

what

I don't care about the debate but I'm still very bitter that due to some specific wording I can't substitute it with N

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/06/new-deluxe-battle-decks-featuring-meowscarda-ex-and-quaquaval-ex

Oh, nice.

Well, Quaquaval ex Battle Deck already comes with Radiant Greninja, so of course it's gonna sell super well.

[final musk]

If you can figure out the damag routing the deck needs to do to make that work, sure

damage*

The main problem with Medicham is knowing when to put it into play, because it becomes a 2-prize liability and doesn't do anything as powerful once put into play as something like Squawkabilly ex

You need to go through what you'd face and figure out if 20 damage off is something that common and advantageous for you

[opaque pelican]

Nice to have Hawlucha (SVI) printed once the tried and true Galariand Zigzagoon (SSH) got rotated out.

[versed jackal]

No net tho

[final musk]

Yeah no net is a huge difference and part of why Radiant Alakazam is being seen more often

[opaque pelican]

So glad I pulled one awhile back

Though, that isn't gonna matter too much when it gets a printing in the new Deluxe Battle Deck

Seems like Radiant Mons are getting to be like, a dime a dozen, with the only ones still remaining very sought-after being Radiant Charizard (Cause of course it is), and Radiant Greninja (Super helpful in most any deck)

[final musk]

I mean Greninja was never that high

it topped out at 8 USD and is currently half that, and it is also getting printed in the Deluxe Battle Decks too

Radiant Charizard was high, but plumetted with Crown Zenith.

After Crown Zenith it's 5 bucks

[opaque pelican]

Eh, yeah

It had a very high point on introduction, but pettered out

Still, a few of them are useful

Though, quality is subjective. Radiant Sneasler is... eh, but it does something productive if your gameplan is relying on Poison. Radiant Steelix is just so absurdly overkill that it's hillarious, but it's just not too helpful.

And Radiant Hawlucha is... bleh.

[final musk]

The useful ones rn are:

Charizard
Greninja
Tsareena
Gardevoir (which is getting worse every set)
And Jirachi, in a few decks

[opaque pelican]

Radiant Heatran was what I thought attacking Radiant mons would go up for, but given how you don't have to put Radiant Charizard in this much danger to get off high damage, it seems impractical.

[final musk]

Sneasler isn't even useful in the most popular poison deck rn

Because that's Alolan Raticate

[opaque pelican]

You can crack like, over 500 damage with it. Which is just way too unnecessary under any circumstance.

[final musk]

Heatran is really bad compared to Charizard, and basically died out when Charizard arrived

[opaque pelican]

Though I will say Radiant Eternatus is easily my favorite, given how you just use it's ability to slam down so many VMAX on the board. A cool tie-in with it's lore too.

[final musk]

Heatran is outclassed by Charizard
Hawlucha no longer covers that many important matchups due to Lost Box being prominent and ex working its way in
Venusaur is used in exactly 1 deck, Hisuian Arcanine
Blastoise is awful compared to Greninja
Sneasler is only used in meme poison decks and poison is still really lackluster with it.
Steelix needs his own deck to be even usable
Charjabug would be useful if Ting Lu didn't desperately need Greninja or Alakazam
Eternatus was usable and then became a massive victim to rotation
Eevee is horrible

[opaque pelican]

Oh right, Radiant Eevee existed

[final musk]

The main problem with Eternatus is that pretty much any deck that would want Eternatus no longer wants to play him on account that he can no longer be added back to hand easily

His reward wasn't that strong to begin with, and it no longer outweighs the risk

Lack of Quick Ball also contributed to that

Eternatus was usable for like 3 months before rotation and base SV happened.

[opaque pelican]

Yeah that's uh... yeah.

Rather unfortunate

Thankfully it's got time to have some use in it, given it's regulation mark F, so it won't rotate out for awhile.

No getting around your turn just ending the moment you use it's ability though, which is unfortunate.

[final musk]

oh also, reading up on Paldea Evolved bugs

Apparently if you use PAL Spiritomb's attack, it will prevent the opponent from playing any cards for their next turn

And prevent them from passing turn

Meaning, the opponent will automatically lose to timeout

So, if you do play PTCGL for any bit more than completing dailies, don't play until this gets resolved

[opaque pelican]

Apparently there's a lot of theory stuff going on for Ting-Lu ex

Which is nice cause I just recently pulled one when I decided I might as well get a booster pack for funsies.

Getting off it's ability shouldn't be too hard given how Hawlucha (SVI) is available for use, as is stuff like Old Cemetary, Gapejaw Bog and the like

Only real issue I can see is given ex are new, it's own ability will just be harder to justify pulling off as more ex are introduced.

[final musk]

So it wasn't just Spiritomb

Spiritomb was if you attack with it, your opponent's game froze

with Penny, if you bounce any card with an ability that has a floodgate, that will also freeze the opponent's game

This also probably occurs with Scoop-up net in Expanded

but Expanded's so broken and unfinished rn that it probably isn't even a concern

They never fixed Oranguru

(Bug for Instruct Oranguru was discovered the beginning of this year. You could use its ability from the discard pile as many times as you want)

Next bug that people are tracking down is if a similar thing happens iwht Temple of Sinnoh and new special energy cards

[final musk]

Called it

https://twitter.com/TrustYourPilot1/status/1669723254091816967

TrustYourPilot (#1 PTCGL Creator of 2022) (@TrustYourPilot1)

Don't worry, you can still use the auto-win exploit in Expanded on PTCGL.

Just put Ting-Lu ex in the active, use Scoop Up Net (or Super Scoop Up or Acerola), and congratulations, you win!

▶ Play video

Twitter · Jun 16, 2023, 3:07 PM

So yeah Expanded is literally unplayable

[final musk]

Also still probably true

[final musk]

holy shit

They unbanned Penny and banned 5 more cards in place

NAIC is next week and there has been no official tournament for PAL format

[opaque pelican]

Jeeeee

Seriously

[final musk]

What also amazes me is that if there were a meta card that bounced stadinums, they would've had to ban 3 more cards from standard

That probably isn't even the full list of pokemon they need to ban

[digital crow]

[versed jackal]

Is anyone else tilted that the SIR zard from 151 has no neck?

[versed jackal]

@final musk you wouldn't happen to have a united wings list would you?

[final musk]

Not on me but I'll type up one with my opinion of what to play

I'll try to also find one from the Japan locals site

[final musk]

I threw together a list

The biggest choice the deck has in deckbuilding is whether or not it wants to run a Radiant Charizard line of play, which would involve fitting in:

1 Radiant Charizard
1 Fire Energy
At least 1 Luminous Energy
At least 1 Klara

Collapsed Stadium vs Beach Court is also a choice. One gets you a reliable way to ditch Squawk or a benched Wings pokemon, the other gets you a good retreat pivot.

Bravery Charm is literally just for Lost Box not going 2-for-3 on ya. Lost Box matchup will always suck

@versed jackal

Lumineon V also makes Ultra Ball more effective early on, but I certainly wouldn't want to get stuck benching 2 2-prizers in this deck.

[versed jackal]

Thank you. I think I'll try and fit zard as lost box has fallen off hard here

[digital crow]

Is united wings the night march of the format?

[versed jackal]

Yes

Though mad party is the more recent example

[graceful summit]

Deck is not great, but is fun. Needed something new while Klefki is banned cause its what helps Gardevoir keep up with other decks

[opaque pelican]

Copperajah ex is a work in progress

It’s got stonkingly high HP for a Stage 1 ex, damage reduction for its ability and a stupid hard hitting attack

Just, difficult to get running given Metal type isn’t in a good spot right now

[final musk]

Yeah with Metal you either have to make it a Magnezone deck or a Lost Zone Stage 1 deck (like Goodra VStar)

[versed jackal]

It's nice that 151 Is made to order

But the set seems kinda ass

I just want zard and the Alakazam I think

[final musk]

Took a look at what Japan's been up to with 151 competitively

Not much, mostly just Alakazam and Blastoise

And those 2 barely make a dent in results

Blastoise mainly shows promise from the fact that water type is in a fantastic spot rn

But it still, as figured, pales to Chien Pao

Blastoise is being broken off into 2 variants, Palkia VStar and Gardevoir engine
While Alakazam just sees play with the common active stall cards Mimikyu and Klefki

With Mew ex, there is a new take on running Regidrago focusing on Gardenia and using mew to keep hand populated and as a retreat pivot, but it honestly sounds awkward af and less reliable for setup compared to Forretress

[opaque pelican]

Bit of a question assuming I ever go through with it: In your opinion, what would be the better of the BREAK to pick up?

I've got eyes on Zoroark BREAK, considering how each Zoroark released so far is pretty great, as is Raticate BREAK.

...Just, right shame that BREAK just never took off.

[versed jackal]

I wonder what the Alakazam lists look like. He's such an interesting attacker

[opaque pelican]

Likely would involve copies of Rare Candy to skip ahead to Abra, as well as a few mons intended to stay in to shield you from attacks

Like Spiritomb (PAL), Snorlax (GO).

Just my guess, there may be better

[final musk]

Collectively, Zoroark Break
For Expanded play, Raticate Break and Zoroark Break are both pretty unecessary. Raticate Break is outclassed by the Alolan Raticate with the same attack, and Zoroark Break's main advantage is pretty pointless in expanded where everything is a conditional attack.

[opaque pelican]

Ahh, righto

[versed jackal]

Spiritomb just chills on the bench

[opaque pelican]

Oh, I might be thinking of Mimikyu

Wasn't sure which one didn't take any damage from V or ex

[versed jackal]

You're thinking of Mimikyu lol

[final musk]

Here's one of the few examples that won a Japanese locals

[opaque pelican]

Only issue so far is that Alakazam's attack, while unique doesn't do much damage. I'd wager looking for ways to bolster that damage would be a good choosing

[final musk]

Yeah it's kinda the same problem as Ting Lu: Way too slow on damage.

[opaque pelican]

My stupid self had the idea to like

Use Unown VSTAR to change all your opponent's mons' weaknesses to Psychic

But that's a terrible idea

Please don't use me as a deckbuilding guide

It'll only lead to tears

[final musk]

Choice Belt is hilariously necessary for Alakazam because without it, Alakazam 3-hit KOs VStars

[versed jackal]

Seems very standard yeah

[final musk]

So it turns out Tera Dragonite and Tera Greedent were… not part of Ruler of the Black Flame and were instead a pair of hidden Japanese starter decks

So… they both suck

We currently know all but 3 regular ex and 1 Tera ex coming to Obsidian Flame and 8 of the ex and 2 of the Tera ex we do know are vanilla

So yeah I’m fuckin disappointed with Dragonite being another flip coin attacker

[gritty prawn]

Got this for 40 bucks

[gilded heart]

Damn, stonks

I just looked up how much that costs usually

https://i.imgur.com/NhI2oKo.png

[gritty prawn]

I never had actual pokemon cards

I dont know if i should play with them

[gilded heart]

Well, you can't really play with base set stuff generally

If you're not going to sell them though, you can do whatever you like with them

[opaque pelican]

Can't exactly fault the ex for being subpar

At least Greedent ex has a pretty interesting attack while staying true to it's gimmick of drawing cards

Eh, that's just what being a card for a premade deck does to you

Also: Love that Lilipup by Yuka Morii

[final musk]

What really sucks is that western's integration of this stuff is stuffing it all into Obsidian Flame

There are 21 ex cards in Obsidian flame and 10 of them are the starter decks

[opaque pelican]

I can imagine there's gonna be a lot of individual ex up for grabs considering everyone's gonna want to try getting Charizard ex.

[final musk]

3 of them are also the promotional material from May since Toedscruel is confirmed in Obsidian Flame too

Couple that with what we know about Ruler of the Black Flame, and 15 of the 21 exs are already confirmed in the set

And only 2-3 of them are useful

[opaque pelican]

Though it does make you wonder why these couldn't be a part of like, pin or oversized card sets

Clef is, thankfully.

Always bet on clef

[final musk]

Clef is not, no

[opaque pelican]

Aw

...Wait, are we talking about the ex decks, or Obsidian flames in general?>

[final musk]

Obsidian Flame

[opaque pelican]

Cause I remember Clefable being one of the cards that could be called 'alright'

[final musk]

The useful exs are Toedscruel and Charizard. Eiscue becomes useful if there is ever a fire-weak metagame.

Clef is free retreat, which for a starter set is better than most

[opaque pelican]

Ah, that's why

[final musk]

In actual practice of a booster pack, its filler

All the starter ex's are basically filler

Victini might get by knowing we have Charizard, but Entei V is almost straight up better

[opaque pelican]

I get they had to be put somewhere, but if that's the case, they could have been better off as promo cards.

[final musk]

This pack is unhealthily dedicated to filler on purpose because they know that collectors and competitors will be chasing after the same 1 card

A competitively viable Charizard card

Vivid Voltage could have done the same thing if Pikachu VMax was anywhere near decent

[digital crow]

Did trevenant BREAK get powercrept?

For expanded, i mean

[final musk]

Wally got banned for a while, and then by the time Wally got back the deck had been powercrept in Expanded by Vikavolt

Vikavolt is better a start since you don't have to use your supporter as part of setup, you have Miraidon for easy access, you have better supporting attack options, and whereas Trevenant is capped on damage generally, Vikavolt and support can hit a really wide variety of damage using Electropower and Regieleki VMax

From what I can tell the current main meta for Expanded is:

Palkia VStar
Lugia VStar
Regidrago VStar
Shadow Rider VMax
Electric Variants (Miraidon, Regieleki, possibly with Vikavolt V)
Fusion Strike Meloetta (Which is now much easier to counter with Spiritomb)
ADP Dragonite

[digital crow]

I see

And people say that set rotation is the solution to powercreep

[final musk]

Yeah it's really weird because the decks are much more checked in standard by card pools

Lugia becomes hyper consistent due to Battle Compressor
Fusion Strike Meloetta was a viable deck without mew because Special Charge and Dimension Valley exist for sifting through Fusion Strike Energy more effectively
Palkia's capped damage in standard is opened up significantly due to Sky Field
Electric cards from Silver Tempest / SV are viable in expanded due to Lost Thunder's amazing electric support cards
And Regidrago VStar, which has never been standar viable more than rogue, is a top dog in Expanded due to Double Dragon Energy and a better attacker pool

The only deck that powercrept upwards in Expanded was ADP, where Dragonite V hits harder than Zacian V and needs easier energy cost. Deck was already Expanded viable going into its release because of Double Dragon Energy being nuts with ADP.

Shadow Rider basically just uses available consistency cards and Alolan Muk compared to itself in standard. Shadow Rider + Mimikyu/Gengar GX was already broken and the deck has needed no new tricks to keep up.

If anything needed to be changed about Expanded imo, it's the fact that there are 2 viable cards that can turn-skip. Mimigar and Dialga GX

However, with Pokemon TCG Live so messed up in handling Expanded, almost all online activity of Expanded format has ceased.

[graceful summit]

Also Dragon Necrozma Garbodor was p.good in Expanded last I checked too since you shut out abilities and had Ranger to clear ADP prize trading efficiency

God I love Double Dragon Energy.

Shoutout to all the Dragons they made in SM era where they were clearly designed with DDE in mind but they never reprinted it

[opaque pelican]

Them Lee Bros. made good energy

[versed jackal]

i might try slowking ex from PAL as a fun casual ladder deck

[graceful summit]

Thank you Live for throwing on my behalf mmmyup 🙃

God I wish Live worked

[opaque pelican]

Oooh nice

I’m still working on my deck for Gardevoir ex, but I still need some ideas

Is it ok if we can share lists? I dunno if my deck is as well made, but maybe you could try something I got in store

[runic kiln]

Fuck it

I wanna give the game a second shot

I feel like I was a bit unfair to it last time

[runic kiln]

I'd hope that PTCG Live isn't as F2P unfriendly as others can be

[final musk]

It depends, are you starting from scratch or have a ptcgo account that you can move over?

If you start from scratch, it gives you way more to start with but progress towards another deck is more difficult.

Starts you with 10 decks, an unlock ladder with another 1, but you have limited ways of working outside those 11

And a few of the decks do have competitive stuff, like Gardevoir, Palkia/Chien Pao, Lost Zone engine…

And as cheeses I think it is to be called competitive, Miraidon too

[runic kiln]

I've heard that Chien-pao and Palkia Origin are good places to start

[final musk]

Chien Pao or Miraidon generally. Gardevoir also isn’t too bad to start, but I think the deck is missing some pieces

Palkia is now often tossed into Chien Pao decks

[runic kiln]

If I'm getting this right

Rare Candy into Baxcalibur

Shit out all your energy

Put 4 on Wailord if you can

And kill

[final musk]

Wailord casually, but yeah

[runic kiln]

Ahhh

[final musk]

Competitively, it’s Chien Pao, Radiant Greninja, Palkia, and possibly a Kyorge, Wishiwashi, or even Lumieon V attacking

[runic kiln]

Wait what

Why stack into Lumineon V

[final musk]

Because it can bounce itself

[runic kiln]

OK from what I've learned

Professors good

Boss' Orders good

[final musk]

Search Irida, not it is a risk on bench, you so stack onto it in certain matchups to get it off the board

[runic kiln]

Nest Ball + Ultra Ball good

[final musk]

Irida is the main supporter for Chien Pao

[runic kiln]

Lumi V and Radiant Greninja in decks that can play it

[runic kiln]

Sounds right

Candice?

[final musk]

Chien Pao tends to max Irida, play a few boss, and then 1-off rest

[final musk]

Ignoring the nuts joke, no Candice sucks

[runic kiln]

Rats

[final musk]

Irida
Boss
Research
Iono
Maybe another tech supporter

[runic kiln]

I'm talking professors and co as like

General staples

[final musk]

Yes Professor, Iono, boss are the closest to staple

https://play.limitlesstcg.com/tournaments/?game=PTCG

Here’s a resource for online unofficial tournaments, recent ones include Chien Pao

[runic kiln]

Heard about Limitless

Looks good

Pokemon types have to have their own sorts of staples, right?

Lumineon V

Radiant greninja

[final musk]

Or a direct one for Chien Pao lists: https://play.limitlesstcg.com/decks/chien-pao-baxcalibur?format=standard&rotation=2023&set=PAL

[runic kiln]

Chien Pao looks like a deck you almost always wanna max out on Candy for, no?

[final musk]

Builds running fewer Boss are opting to play a turbo build around Cross Switcher

[final musk]

It’s mostly been 3 or 2 depending on the build, so experiment

Irida searches Candy, which is why a lower number is possible

[runic kiln]

True

PTCG looks like its unlike most card games in which

You almost never max out on a card

Because they're all so searchable

I feel like

Give a pokemon player 2 turns

And they can have access to their entire deck

At a very consistent rate

[final musk]

With the one exception of the prize system

Hisuian Heavy Ball only searching basics from there is kinda wack, but what can you do

Decks that need cards out of the prizes are stuck with Peonia, and that can lead to 50/50s

[runic kiln]

How many times does a deck get cucked by their pieces being locked in the prize zone

[final musk]

Depends on the pieces needed

[runic kiln]

OK lets say that

Your deck needs your 2 of stage 2 to work

And both get put into prizing

Say

Baxcalibur

[final musk]

1/100 chance for that to happen

Statistically I think it was that

Oh wait a minute: BOTH are needed to work

Yeah don’t let that happen that you need multiple to work lol

Baxcal is run at 2-3 and usually needs 1 to work, and 1 if the first one gets boss KOd

If you need multiple of the same stage 2 to function, that deck is already in a bad spot

[runic kiln]

Boss KO'd?

Oh I meant

[final musk]

Boss to bring it to active to ko it

[runic kiln]

Your stage 2 that you play at 2

[final musk]

If you need 1 stage 2 to function, and you run 2, 1/100 chance you prize both

[runic kiln]

Oh is that a common term

Like

You could say one of a deck's weaknesses is that it's weak to Boss

[final musk]

More or less yes, but a lot of decks are like that to some degree

[runic kiln]

Some more than others

I'd assume

[final musk]

Palkia is run to partially make up for that

[runic kiln]

Because its like

Bulky?

4am brain rn

[runic kiln]

So Boss is sort of a universal blowout?

[final musk]

It is a universal blowout/reversal card, but it actively has the downside of that being your supporter for the turn

Which may not hold up well depending on your situation

[graceful summit]

Honestly my list is a hodge podge of topping lists from Limitless and i crammed in Mewtwo V Union to handle Lost Box/Single prize decks

This was the Pre Paldea Evolved list that I based this off of. Also ofc Klef Lives meta is heavily altered by the fact Klefki and other mons are not working

[opaque pelican]

Aw jeez, Mewtwo V-Union. One card set I don’t got. Eh, getting those pieces will be painful to get together but I’ll keep looking

Lemme post my list!

Just keep in mind I’m working with what Igot, so I might have sub-par choices

[graceful summit]

Mewtwo V Union is very niche and not the standard

And there are times where Cresselia would be fine if not better

[opaque pelican]

Deck Name: Psychic Devotion (Yes, I give names to my decks)

2x Gardevoir ex (SVI)
2x Ralts (SIT)
2x Ralts (ASR)
4x Kirlia (SIT)
2x Gardevoir (CRE)
1x Gallade (ASR)
1x Spiritomb (PAL)
2x Drifloon (SVI)
1x Radiant Greninja (ASR)
2x Zacian V (CEL)

4x Ultra Ball
2x Switch
2x Battle VIP Pass
3x Level Ball
4x Fog Crystal
2x Rare Candy
1x Defiance Band
3x Miriam
1x Iono
2x Roxanne
2x Boss’s Orders (Lysandre)
2x Professor’s Research (Professor Juniper)
2x Temple of Sinnoh

11x Basic Psychic Energy

[graceful summit]

So dont put a ton of effort looking/wanting it

[opaque pelican]

So yeah, as you can see, I’m not good at deckbuilding at all

Though I try to make an honest attempt with what I got

[graceful summit]

Theres a solid base here though

And especially from a Yugioh background, adjusting to pokemon deck building cane be weird

[opaque pelican]

I imagine I could replace 1 Fog Crystal with a Level Ball, that seems like a good start

And yeah, it’s weird going from on card game to another

Only hard to find stuff I would need left for a base is either a Forest or Sky seal stone, and likely Klefki or Mimikyu from the recent sets

[graceful summit]

My suggestions

For Pokemon:
Take out 2 Drifloon
Add 1 Mew (Celebration)

For item line up:
Take out Defiance Band, maybe 1 Ultra Ball

Add Level Ball, 2 Battle VIP Pass, Choice Belt

For Supporters:
Take out 2 Miriam, 1 Roxanne

Add 1 more Iono, 1 Worker

I think thats equal card in/out but those are my suggestions. Again otherwise you've got a good base

[opaque pelican]

Good suggestions, I’ll see if I got these in stock

Thanks!

[graceful summit]

Np! Oh and ya def would recommend Forest/Sky Stone especially with 2 Zacian V!

[opaque pelican]

Yeaaaa, those tool card are super helpful

Only one I know I got is the Earth Seal Stone, which is… eh.

[graceful summit]

Oof

[opaque pelican]

Yeah, definitely gonna have to do some looking for the other seal stones

[graceful summit]

Well atleast the Vrown Zenith set is still being actively opened which is nice so they shouldnt be to awful to trade/buy/pull

[opaque pelican]

Righto, I may have some luck yet!

[runic kiln]

Why am I having fun

I'm angry

[opaque pelican]

Welcome to the Pokemon TCG

Where you can slap most any cards together and still generally have fun and be able to make some good-ish plays

(Maybe)

[runic kiln]

I guess I haven't experienced playing from the end of

You basically already lost

But your opponent still has 5 prizes left to go

[runic kiln]

Is it me or

Does PTCGL like to

Spaz out

[opaque pelican]

It does that yeah

It’s pretty flimsily made, all in all. It works, but it can work much better

[final musk]

Draft in progress on a Regidrago Deck post on reddit

about 2700 words in. I still have to type up a summary on general gameplay, but I at least covered what I tried and what I think matchups are like

TLDR; it's probably about Miraidon level at best, and that's Miraidon like if Miraidon were topping about how it should do... which is less than what it has done already.

Trade out Miraidon's terrible Gardevoir matchup for a terrible SS Lugia matchup, but at least Regidrago has a possible plan to beat SS Lugia.

[runic kiln]

Mr. Based used Skwovet without bibarel

[runic kiln]

And now the game is frozen

[final musk]

that's because it is clearly with Altaria

Stacks supporter, often used with Single Strike Mustard

[runic kiln]

This is not what happened

[final musk]

Idk, I see the swablu clearing there

That's kinda what he was doing

[runic kiln]

Also I accidentally sent the same image twice

The game froze at a different game

There was no Altaria on bench when he used Skwovet

[final musk]

Noi duh

You do understand what I am talking about when you said "Without Bibarel" right?

[runic kiln]

Oh

Im 4 years old

Nvm

[final musk]

Sorry, I’m cranky today, that was much on my part

[runic kiln]

Uh

Worker vs Lost Vacuum

I need Path hate

[final musk]

What deck

ie if it Chien Pao, you go Vacuum since Irida can search it

I go with Pumpkaboo in Regidrago since I cannot search Vacuum and need my supporters early too much to afford worker

[final musk]

PTCGL finally fixes the softlock bug after 2 weeks

Spiritomb and Klefki now do not apply their abilities at all

Welp Spiritomb might be playable a month after release

[versed jackal]

Bruh lmfao

How do they keep fucking it up

[runic kiln]

Small indie company

[opaque pelican]

https://www.pokebeach.com/2023/06/all-139-cards-from-ex-start-decks-revealed

This probably nothing, but aaaaaaaa that Smoliv artwork

AAAAA THAT CLEFAIRY

Yuka Morii just makes the best artwork

[runic kiln]

My opponent's victory quote is "Good players play a poor hand well"

And I'm like

mf

You opened double VIP Pass Nest Ball for Quadruple Genesect

Into Path

And vacuum for the Path next turn

And Boss alongside that

[final musk]

The real Mew Experience

[runic kiln]

Are you able to style on bots

Is that something you can comfortably do

[runic kiln]

Day 4 of playing PTCG

Hit Great League

Feeling pretty good about myself

[final musk]

NAIC today

https://www.twitch.tv/pokemontcg

Round 1 Pedro Pertusi (The number 1 player from Brazil) vs Tord Reklev (One of the greatest players from the past 5 years)

Like usual I'll keep a running list:

Round 1 Pedro Pertusi (Gardevoir) vs Tord Reklev (Gardevoir)
Round 2 Gustavo Wada (Gardevoir) vs Blake Wray (Turbo Lost Box)
Round 3: Cobi Kawaski (Turbo Chien Pao with Mew) vs Aiden Khus (Turbo Lost Box with Teched Aerodactyl V line)
Round 4: Alex Schemanske (Wings of Unity?!) vs Sky DelaCruz (Single Strike Lugia)
Round 5: Tyler Mathews (Chien Pao with Medicham V tech) vs Guy Bennet (Miraidon)
Round 6: Nate Doyle (Fusion Mew VMax) vs Loc Nguyen (Arceus Regidrago)
Round 7: Ross Cawthon (Darkrai VStar) vs Kyle Sbelhaus (Lost Zone Giratina)
Round 8: Natalie Millar (Turbo Gardevoir) vs Unknown (Arc Tina)
Round 9: Jose Marrero (Ting Lu) vs Owen Rhoads (Turbo Chien Pao with Arceus)

[runic kiln]

I have now realised that

Even the best of players are hardstuck Great

[final musk]

Great is way too big of a ladder to climb late in a month

And when the ladder resets, if you are in great, you get pushed back to Poke

[runic kiln]

Well

The Poke climb isn't bad

[final musk]

Yes but in order to escape Great Ball, you have to finish both Great Ball and Ultra Ball

Poke is easy but it is an unecessary buffer

[runic kiln]

So basically

From Great

I gotta win 36 games to get to Ultra

And every game I lose is 1 more game added on

Capped at 36

Because you lose as much ELO as you gain

For some reason

[final musk]

Quick Ball: Win 20 games. Losses are no penalty
Poke Ball: Win 20 games. Every 2 losses means 1 more win needed
Great Ball: Win 36 games. Every loss means 1 more win needed
Ultra Ball: Win 35 games. Every loss means 1 more win needed
Master Ball: Win 32 games. Every loss means 1 more win needed

If you finish ladder in Great Ball, you are sent back to the start of Poke Ball

So in order to escape the loop of Great Ball, you need to clear Poke Ball, Great Ball, and Ultra Ball.

[runic kiln]

So you can be in Charizard

And get sent to Pikachu

[final musk]

I believe so

[runic kiln]

And obviously

Great players are way better than Poke players

[final musk]

Yeah you are mostly combating competitive decks and with a mix of skill on them by mid great ball

[runic kiln]

Thats true

Good decks with a hint of good players

[final musk]

Thankfully the rewards are so underwhelming that grinding to Master Ball / Arceus isn't a big deal if you can't

[runic kiln]

But leaf shirts

[final musk]

If you want leaf shirt, you can go for leaf shirt lol

It's more important just to get the battle passes done