Yeah the problem with Pokémon is they keep increasing the power level, here’s an example:
Butterfree from Jungle:
View attachment 221391
Butterfree from Rebel Clash (Our 2nd newest set):
View attachment 221392
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:
View attachment 221393
Pokémon V:
View attachment 221394
Or VMAX:
View attachment 221395
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:
View attachment 221396
Viz Media currently has the manga rights and they started releasing these collector editions, and they are so nice ^_^