Anyone into Pokemon TCG?

-I don't know if a thread like this already exists, is it okay to make a new thread, or should I search and try to find a similar old thread? Just want to make sure I'm following the rules right on here-

Hello, as you can probably tell, I like Pokemon, lol. But I like mostly everything from Pokemon, including the Adventures Manga. But I just want to talk about the trading card game. Share your stories, do you play in tournaments or no, etc.

I bought a Darkness Ablaze booster box today, these were my best pulls:

This might be a better fit in the Christian Teens Forum

Okay, is it okay if I post in there even though I’m 25? Probably too old to be posting in there, lol 😅

I actually have just 1 single card and thats 1st gen Nidoking, i always liked to use it in the actual gameboy games. I
never actually played the tcg game though.

It's been a long time since i have had a look at the new cards, they look nothing like they used to, the whole card is foil? sheesh lol.
you young whipper snappers have all those new and shiny Pokemon,back in my day all we had were those old fashioned pidgey and rattatas.

I never played the tcg but i did battle with friends a long time ago on the gameboy in high school. We used to battle on Pokemon red/blue/yellow then we upgraded to crystal/silver/ gold. Thats about where it ended though. I did play emerald and ruby/sapphire but no more after that.

I don't have many stories about playing the game, but i do remember playing with my friend who had pretty much swept my entire team with an ampharos with thunder who seemed to never miss and always hit critical. 20 years later he still brings it up and laughs about it lol. It was funny to him because i had sent out a tyranitar to counter it thinking it wouldn't hit because i had forgotten that tyranitar is just a rock/ dark type and not a rock/ grould type. So when i sent it out all smug and cocky while saying something along the lines of "Goodluck with that" he just 1 shots it and gets a lucky critical because it had no type advantage. He said the look on my face was priceless lol... But that was like 20 years ago, long long time ago.

So, whats the plan with these cards? gonna put them into a trade binder?

I play competitively with Pokemon TCG, you see where I live, I looked it up for fun “Is there a Pokémon League near me?” and there wasn’t, nearest leagues are about an hour away, so I decided to make my own league, and it got me back into buying cards, lol.

Yeah foils have changed a lot, those foils are “Full-art”, if it is a full-art, but rainbow colored/rainbow color in general then a “Hype rare”. Plus you have regular rare cards, and the ultra Rares, being the “Pokémon V cards” in the newer sets. The TCG is fun, but what it is, is that they rotate sets out, to keep the game “up to date” and for no “game breaking combos to happen”. Pokémon TCG basically has Standard format, Expanded, and Unlimited (But there are no official tournaments, but Pokémon Company does recognize the format in their rulebooks).

I do also play the videogames, it was my first Videogame too. With Pokémon Silver, I know about the competitive scene, but I have no interest in trying to get the best natures and EV training a whole team, lol 😅

I actually also have read a bit of the Pokémon Adventures manga and have seen the anime series here and there, but I never kept up with them as a kid, lol.

Yea sometimes with specific things like that you have to search high and low to join, but its fun when you get a thing going. When i used to play yugioh i remember buying cards too, going through all those booster packs lol.

The Tcg format kindof sounds like the yu-gi-oh format because they have banlists every year or so to keep specific meta cards from being too overpowered. I remember when i played yugioh i always wanted to play the most obnoxious decks i didnt' really care much for the card rarity though. If it was inconvenient, annoying,tedious and hard to play against and made a person squirm i wanted it lol.

Oh you played silver.. I take it you actually spent the time taking your eevee to the salon thing for the haircuts so you could get an umbreon right? lol. I gave up after like day 3 lol, never got it. And it wasn't too competitive with us, we would just goof around with our favorites, but we did have a rule of no mewtwos or gamesharked stuff.

I didn't even know they had a manga, i thought it was just an anime lol.

Yeah the problem with Pokémon is they keep increasing the power level, here’s an example:

Butterfree from Jungle:



Butterfree from Rebel Clash (Our 2nd newest set):



Hit points keep getting higher, and the best part is they added tons of different “gimmick” cards, currently the best cards to play are Tag Team GX:



Pokémon V:



Or VMAX:



If you aren’t playing any of these card types, you have a hard chance at winning, there are good decks without these expensive cards, but they usually consider rogue decks. I actually got into the Pokémon TCG in late 2009, and stopped in 2015 because of my hobbies changing and couldn’t keep up with each rotation. But since I started this league, this has been the most fun I’ve had playing Pokémon TCG in a long time, it’s just something when you teach kids and give them a place to have fun, it just makes me happy. Also, I built a rogue deck, it was “stalling/trolling” and that was honestly a fun deck to play. It was Noctowl/Pidgeot (You can find it here: https://www.justinbasil.com/rotation/teu-on/archetypes-to-consider#salamence)

But they rotated a card recently the deck needs to be able to play successfully, so now I gotta make something else ;-;

So yeah, I get that, Competitive for the gaming I think didn’t exist for awhile, and I usually do casual battle with my brother if I feel like it, he doesn’t live with me.

So yeah, there are actually a ton of different Pokémon manga, and if you like manga, I would definitely check out Pokémon Adventures, it has this slight dark edge to it and is cool cause the characters are their canon names (Red, Blue, Green, etc...you get the idea, lol). Here’s a random panel:



Viz Media currently has the manga rights and they started releasing these collector editions, and they are so nice ^_^

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention my Eevee story, Umbreon was my first strongest Pokémon...cause my Eevee didn’t evolve until in the level 60s range, lol. I didn’t know as a kid, and when I saw my Eevee finally evolve, I liked that it finally evolved. I think I might have wanted Vaporeon, but as a kid I didn’t know how to do it. But Umbreon’s design grew on me, didn’t help me beat the game, but it was cool pokemon, lol.

But Umbreon looks cool, is an amazing tank, and has saved me plenty of times when I played Pokémon Colosseum. That’s why Umbreon is my favorite ^_^

I don't know much about the modern Pokemon but we played Pokemon on gameboys, Nintendo 64, and the original card game growing up in the 1990s.

Wow... Well at least with that first butterfree you could use mega drain and pretend it actually did something i guess... If it survives lol.
And yea i noticed that on the first set of cards you posted. I was wondering why they had so many hitpoints, it seemed a bit off.

I don't know much about those new cards but that one with the sword looks unfair lol... They have come a long ways away from the " tackle" and "tail whip" moves that i was used to.

lol yea i think Vaporeon was most peoples first pick.... You got more options now though

Yep, the game is still fun and makes you think, which is always a good thing. But I will admit Pokemon TCG does have its Cons, like with any TCG.

So I don’t know if you noticed on the Tag Team GX, the GX attack, which is something you can only use once, now imagine that being paired with the Pokémon with the sword, it’s now doing 260 for 3 metal energy, in other words game breaking. I have used Zacian V/ADP on the Pokémon TCG online game, and if I get the right rhythm going, I can easily get a 6 to sometimes 10 win streak. It is a legit broken deck, so much so it can get boring to play. That’s why I enjoyed my Noctowl/Pidgeot deck, because no one knew what it was and when they saw what it could do, they had to play their meta deck differently to win.

I actually tell my league players about competitive TCG and how it is fun, but if they just want to casual play that’s fine with me, I understand cause it’s hard to find fun in competitive play, seeing a lot of the same decks and when you lose a lot, then that’s no good. I would say my favorite competitive deck I ever made, was back in the 2010-2011 season with Typhlosion Prime/Reshiram (Link: https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/TyRam_(TCG) )

I don't play anymore but I still have several cards. I love your picture. Umbreon, Mew and Cubone (Marowak) are my favorite. I'm surprised I still love Pokemon. My mom went through a stage when I was a kid and threw away everything of mine she deemed satanic. (We've come a long way since then with her going to Harry Potter Universal and realizing that God can be found anywhere if you look 😊)

That’s good to hear your mom is okay with Pokémon now, I know the feeling, my Dad didn’t throw away my stuff, but he had a hard time me being into Videogames and nerd stuff, I’m pretty sure if I told him I got into D&D he would not be happy. But we went anime conventions a few times, he doesn’t like how sexualized things can get (Which I don’t blame him), but he was impressed with Cosplayers and the amount of effort they go to make a great costume, cause cosplay can be seen as passionate art, an art that someone put a lot of time into to get it right.

So that’s my general experience, I actually run a Pokémon League out here, and my mom thought it would be a great idea to have a flyer at one of Mom meeting things (It’s to help new moms and whatnot) but it got backlash and some people were saying how my mom raised me wrong. But one of my mom’s friends, she researched it and realized there is nothing satanic about Pokémon. I think a lot of people immediately call anything foreign or they don’t understand as satanic, or at least that’s my opinion, lol.

Yeah I got back into playing cause of running my league, I can’t wait to get back to running it and giving the kids something fun and free to do ^_^

That's so cool you run a league! Kids love that kind of stuff. I love that it's free to do.

I do comicon pretty much every year. I like dressing up and walking around. It's fun. There are a lot of booths though that are over-sexualized. (Some outfits, too) That part is always difficult. It's seen some days, but I paper mache'd a Marowak skull and I've used that for a few years. It's one of my favorite outfits and I tend to be a target of anyone dressed as Team Rocket ha ha ha.

That
That looks awesome! ...yeah for me I’ve been to Anime Matsuri, Ikkicon, Oni-con, Akon, San Japan, Delta H Con, Retropalooza (The one in Houston), and that’s basically it, a few of these I’ve been to more than once. I decided to stop/go less to anime conventions cause not only can they have porn (Hentai shows being sold, it’s all hidden but there is no denying it’s there), they freely have gay stuff everywhere, so I decided I didn’t want my money going to that stuff anymore. Sure there’s a part of me that wants to do MechaCon and Anime North, but once I do those I’ll be done. Though I do have Retropalooza, it’s a smaller videogame convention, it’s fun and I don’t remember seeing anything too offensive, maybe besides Action Figure Jesus, LOL XD

But yeah, I made the league because all closest leagues are about 1 hour away (I live in the middle of nowhere, lol), so I decided to make the league, and I just got it official this year in February...it sucks with the virus stuff we can’t meetup just as I got official, being official meant I could give the kids actual league promos.

The comicon I go to isn't that bad yet. If people have questionable stuff they do make sure the viewer knows and they keep it away from kids. They're good about that. The anime booths not as much. They have questionable pillows, boxes, products, but those tend to be in the back corners where it's not as easy for kids to see. That is my biggest issue with it, but I know they try.

It always makes me laugh when I see something like Action Figure Jesus or like Obi-wan Jesus. Plus, there are a couple religious booths and I think that's pretty neat as well. People can ask questions and they'll help people.

I feel like a lot of things were in the works until this Corona stuff hit. I am so ready to work past this instead of continuing to argue about it. Or as my college classes I'm paying for love to do, obsess on it. I'm here to learn, not listen to your fears 24/7.

I'm sorry to hear you have college classes like that, I luckily finished my associate degree from a Community College just in time, graduated May 2019. I hear stories of teachers forcing their politics, which I believe is wrong, and sometimes teachers get offended if they hear something they don't agree with...well that's what I hear/have seen in YouTube videos.

I went to get a degree in Game design, to be an artist, most of my teachers luckily for me were focused on teaching us creative stuff, I know I had the same teacher a few times, and he was strict with this rule: "Please do not bring up politics or religions" which I think helped a lot, thinking back on it. I actually remember this one girl, talking to her friends arguing how the bible supports gay marriage, I had to leave the room. If someone wants to, I would be glad to talk about religion/politics, but there are appropriate and inappropriate times to talk about it, a classroom setting DEFINETLY is not a place to bring it up. Man, I remember when Trump got elected into office, everyone got an email from the college offering guidance/consolers to console people that trump won. We are just a nation that can't accept different opinions anymore, which I find sad.

Yeah, I'll have to try to post the picture later, but the Jesus figure was funny, he came with bread loaves and it claimed it could feed the thousands like Jesus did, LOL XD, from what I've seen, at anime conventions, there aren't many religious booths (Probably to avoid hurting feelings, LOL), I think the most religion is that someone was selling artwork of "Jesus's last supper" (You know, the one where everyone is sitting around Jesus) and they had different nerd arts, like a Star Wars version, one with anime characters, etc. That stuff doesn't annoy me too much, but I can see how it would annoy someone, but it comes NOWHERE near close to the worst Jesus art I have heard of, it was art made by extreme minded feminists and I'm leaving it at that, I don't even want to mention what it was.

Oh, God. I literally have an Avengers last supper. I loved it so much. Its hanging on my wall. But I can only imagine how um, interesting, things can get. I know it would probably annoy some people, but reading about Jesus and how he interacted with people, I just don't see some of the harsh critique as something he would do. There's definitely a line.

Game design sounds awesome! I considered that. I'll have my bachelors in film and production in May. I do have technically an associates in Animation though. What made you decide on game design? Where do you want to go with that?

Uni for me has hit or miss classes. Its very into gender politics. They tend to encourage he/she/they/him/bee/boop as a way to sign off on emails. I did do a week class in LA last year where I found out the industry isn't necessarily as into that as they say they are. That made things super interesting.

I found the photos I was looking for:





But yeah, some of the art can be questionable, but I do believe in balance/line as you said.

Yeah I got into Game Design because of Cave Story, the guy made the one game all by himself in 5 years, which just impressed me. Also, in high school they were like: “Do a job in something you like”, so I thought since I like videogames, might as well, lol, but I wished I was more “practical” in high school, videogames do make money, but with the way the industry is nowadays, it’s too toxic. I have stories for games and ideas, but most aren’t “Christian” and a lot involve demons, so until I can fix my ideas, I just a simple full time job. Might do art ideas/animations on the side, until a programmer who likes my ideas comes along, lol.

That sounds stressful, with all that pronoun needing to be correct and whatnot. Would love to visit California, but I would not live there. That is interesting that the film industry doesn’t care for “proper pronouns” as much as the media claims it does. Makes you think, maybe it’s exaggerated for videogames, but when I played a Hat in Time, and found out there’s a Transgender flag Easter egg, then I wonder how bad it could be at other studios, I just don’t think I would be comfortable working on the same team that allowed that Easter Egg, might ask for my name to be removed from the Credits.