New Competitive Player Help

[alstoneman83]

Hello! I've recently made the decision to return to playing the Pokemon TCG, and I'm intrigued by all of the new cards to explore! After watching all of the finals matches of last year's worlds, I took a major liking towards the Darkrai/Sableye deck that won the Juniors and Masters divisions. I really didn't have a specific thing I liked about it, but I just thought, 'I want to play that deck!" Anyway, I did a little bit of research, and discovered the Virizion/Genesect Deck somewhere online. Same situation here, really liked it for no apparent reason! I really wanted to build those two decks when I find a league to play in!

That brings me to my next point. I'm a middle school student, so I obviously have a very, very small budget. I went out and asked my parents for a Plasma Blast Elite Trainer Kit because it seemed like a great deal. (It was!) I got 8 packs, tournament-legal flip and counter dice, acrylic poison and burn markers, and a pack of 65 Genesect sleeves! Definitely a great buy for everyone, but that's besides the point! All 8 of the packs were Plasma Blast, and my pulls were very creepy and awesome at the same time. I got a Virizion EX and Genesect EX! Yeah, I know right!

Anyway, I have one of the at least 3 I'll need for my deck, but I'm really lacking the staple trainers/supporters and energy. (forgot to mention you get 5 of each energy in the box) The million dollar question is how will I get the staples of all decks? Furthermore, how can I expand my collection of other cards for either trades or other decks?

I have many ideas for the answers, so I would like to know if any of these are good ideas, and I would love any other suggestions you may have! For the staple & energy issue, I am eyeing a Red Genesect Collection Box. (maybe 2 actually) It contains lots of grass energy for my Virizion/Genesect deck, and contains almost all of the major supporters and some of the major trainers in the current format. Off the top of my head, I remember it includes: Juniper, N, Skyla (I think), catcher, scrapper, mirror, bangle, ultra ball, and switch. All of those cards besides mirror, bangle, and scrapper come with 2 copies too! For $15 I think it is a crazy good deal for people in my situation. Your guys' thoughts?

I truly don't have many ideas to solve the overall collection problem! Booster boxes are somewhat out of my price range, and I've heard many places that that is the best value out there. Unless you're an idiot, you know individual booster packs aren't the answer, but tins are intriguing to me. Since Deoxys EX is so versatile, it wouldn't be a problem to buy a tin with it as a promo, and at my local stores packs are $5 and tins are $17 tops. Yeah, they really need to work on their prices. None of the less, if anyone knows what packs are in the most recent tins, that would be a major help to me! If anyone else has ideas for this dilemma, please let me know!

Alright, that's it! In conclusion, I am looking for ideas for getting deck building staples and overall collection building. This is pretty much my first post ever, so if I was unclear about anything, feel free to ask. If anyone has any suggestion at all, please let me know in a reply! Thanks

 

[Kecleon-X]

Firstly, welcome to Pokebeach and welcome to the competitive metagame! Here's to a hopefully fulfilling stay in the Pokemon community! I hope you aren't allergic, 'cause we're all nuts here!

Ahem.

Yeah, about the Red Genesect box, I think that, if you're looking to build a Genesect/Virizion deck, I suppose you could buy one or two if need be, if not simply for the energy and Trainers. It's what I might do, and if I needed any more, I would go to an online store or a league and trade for the other cards I need. Trust me, Leagues and Tournaments are a honeypot of Pokemon Cards up for grabs. All you gotta do is have something that they're willing to trade for (even money)! One thing you should keep in mind, however: When you're building a deck, I might proxy it first. Just look up Pokemon card proxies on the internet and you should probably come across a couple of sites that do it. Basically the advantage to proxying -- and I do it many, many times to the point of having several decks entirely made of proxies -- is the fact that you can both test it out without spending an ungodly amount of money on a deck, only to find out that you either hate playing it or that it isn't all that the hype was built up to be. Before you build this deck, I would personally proxy it first and see how I like it before I'd make an investment.

Also note: Proxies aren't legal in tournaments, unlike games like Warhammer where the price is so high people can't not proxy.

But about the tins versus packs problem: I personally like the tins because you get a potentially valuable and competitively viable EX -- like Deoxys, Thundurus and Lugia -- to either trade, or to use in a deck. Deoxys in itself sees play outside of T(hundurus)D(eoxys)K(yurem) to support other decks with different main attackers, leading it to still have a higher price considering the fact that it is so versatile, as you put it. Plus, it usually comes with four packs inside it, though off the top of my head I do not know which exactly, but there are ways to check on-site. Now, each tin series is inevitably different, some going as far as having rotated packs inside them while having a Pokemon on the front that isn't, while others are of the newest, most top-notch sets. Now, what I would do is check the backs of the tins. Usually, you can tell which series are which from looking at the tins themselves. Usually, there will be several different Pokemon on the sides of the tin, which are the featured EXs for that series, meaning whatever packs and details you see on the back (aside from the EX card itself) will be the same for the entire wave of tins. The most recent tins, if I recall correctly, are the Thundurus EX, Deoxys EX and Lugia EX, who all feature packs from Plasma Storm, Freeze and Blast if I'm not mistaken.

Hope I helped!

 

[alstoneman83]

Thanks so much for the reply! I found your introduction absolutely hilarious because I actually am allergic to peanut butter and nuts!

Firstly, welcome to Pokebeach and welcome to the competitive metagame! Here's to a hopefully fulfilling stay in the Pokemon community! I hope you aren't allergic, 'cause we're all nuts here!

Okay, now to the useful stuff. I actually just found out about proxies and I was thinking if leagues would allow them to be used, I would definitely use those! I figured that they were illegal in tournaments, but do you know if they're legal in Play Pokemon Leagues? I'm currently in contact with a league that I will be joining, so whoop whoop to me! Anyway, if leagues don't allow proxies then I'll probably bite the bullet and buy one Genesect thing a majig.

I've also been spending a little bit of time on PlayTCG and testing out my potential deck, and I must say I like it! I'm pretty sure that's a good sign.

Now to the pack/tin issue. Thanks for the input on that! What I'm planning on doing is buying a tin, opening the packs, and then trading the Promo EX (I truly don't have one that fits in with my deck) for staples. What tin would you recommend if my intentions are as above? I'm thinking Deoxys, as you said, due to its versatility, but if someone's building a TDK (Yes, I know what that was, but it was very nice for you to explain ) deck, any of the three (Deoxys, Thundrus, or Lugia) would fit in. I'm almost sure that there was a TDK deck with Lugia EX in it in the Worlds Finals last year! None of the less, which tin would you recommend if I were to trade the promo?

Finally, thanks very much for replying! It made my day when I saw the League Manager responded to my email and you replied to this! I'll keep you updated with what decisions I end up making!