I've never actually played the Pokemon TCG before this, so I have no clue about deckbuilding balance except like, general transferrable knowledge from other games like OBVIOUSLY you don't want more evolved cards than basic ones and you'll want effects that thin the deck for you
(managed to overdo it in an experiment involving a Meowth the AI opponent took too long to take out and was pleasantly surprised decking out didn't end the game)
anyway I'm very casual about logging on and playing, like I might just grab a booster and log back out some days. But this seems like a chill app that doesn't mind if you do that so
like if you're running a 3 stage line with another 3 stage line with a 2 stage line then that means you're going to be playing from behind tempowise unless you can get that 2 stage evolved fast to hold the line
sabrina is Highly Recommended in most if not all decks for maintaining tempo bc retreat costs are a thing and you can either force out x speeds or screw up their energy gain curve
and also it can like. for example you are a point away from the victory, and you just attacked and weakened a mon that you can ko next turn. they retreat it on their turn and put out something else in front to stall
I will save up my pack points for her then! I got lucky and pulled a Giovanni earlier, he's sitting in most of my decks now just because he sounded useful
nods! the tutorial gives you a copy of red card, potion, and x speed iirc, potions and x speeds are generally useful (not run at max all the time but if you need deck filler then they're never bad) and red card can be... situationally useful (sometimes it's just a free mulligan for the opponent)
but yeah giovanni useful! fire specifically has a stronger giovanni in blaine though if you're running rapidash/ninetales/magmar, and i mention it mainly because of the outbreak event going on rn in wonder pick
(got to copy a Rollout off a benched Snorlax before it got KOed though. Given my opponent put the Snorlax down after my failure they were giving me that one...)
if you want to try to duck some of the meta decks in battling if you use the password "noex" people are gentleman's agreementing not to use ex cards in those matches
you still get some tryhards running Mewtwo ex and stuff but overall there's a significant amount more people who appear to be experimenting with their decks than in the event mode
pikachu has a lot of trouble with weezing so I'm thinking of replacing one of my x speed cards with a red card since my cards generally have low retreat cost anyway
screwing around with poison and sleep in vileplume/venomoth: oh they haven't flipped a single head this entire game. holy shit they drew exeggutor ex on turn like 8. and now they still can't flip heads. they've been asleep for 3 turns. i kind of feel bad here,
Poison is fun. I unlocked the Nidoqueen/Nidoking rental and found myself putting Nidoking up front for the poison more than Nidoqueen for the extra damage
oh, pulled Sabrina this morning before work! ....also Pidgeotto, which bridges the gap and lets me also run Pidgeot for the same effect, if I really wanted to double up on being annoying
interesting opponent: their strategy hinged on winning every sleep coin flip while Greninja chucked water shurikens from their bench. Unfortunately they never got it going.
I was lucky enough to get the entire Pidgey line in my opening hand+first two draws. They opened with Snom, never drew Frosmoth, put Drowzee out without enough energy once Pidgeotto took it out, didn't draw Butterfree and Metapod couldn't stand up against Pidgeot, who had too much HP for Greninja to save its frontliners.
they spend like four-five rounds building up Celebi ex on the bench. they can see I'm giving my Tauros (Mythical Island) enough energy to attack in prep on mine
it's not like Jigglypuff was an effective stall, either, if they'd actually put any of their energy on their active they could have gotten rid of it. They were flipping heads on every sleep check
setup was hilarious though because they had two Celebi and got both in their opening hand, so they put them both into their opening field like "look! "
(i imagine you could pull koga or leaf shenanigans to smooth the switch from one weezing to the other but yeah it's definitely more clumsy than two of the same, I think,)
On that note, I appreciate the turn timer. It’s at a perfect length. I’ve had to stop to read an opponent’s card before and never felt rushed, but when people ditch like this it doesn’t feel like I’m waiting too long
the thing that makes me think ragequit is Kanghaskhan got a double heads against the Wartortle they had out front and KOed it. Maybe they ALSO had a Blastoise ex back there in the hand?
trying to stall for Dragonite: opponent always flips heads
ah, a sea of celebihaven't seen that beforethe deck: entirely coinflips Kanghaskan, Lickitung, MI Eevee into Jolteon...