(I guess this might be the right board but I'm not really sure, so move this wherever if its not in the right place. )

The game had a bit of a resurgence in my circle over the summer. As someone who never played the game proper as a kid (I only collected), the game seems to be a lot of fun. Its a lot easier to get into than most TCGs I played, the rules are incredibly simple, and there seems to be enough random elements in most decks to guarantee you always have a minimal chance to win even if the odds are stacked against you. Not to mention, the nostalgia factor for anyone who collected the cards as a kid. It has me playing Pokémon TCG GB again, the only exposure I had to ever really "playing" the game.

I'm running a modified Typhlosion EX deck (red/yellow) and seem to be doing well enough against what anything else can throw at me. Still, doing any research its pretty clear there are huge holes in the game. It seems to be the majourity of people are playing the same decks or counters to those decks, but I guess thats true for any game.

The marketing of the game is terrible for anyone who plays competitively. There are 8 non-colourless types and you can seemingly run a two or three type deck, max. With 9 cards in a booster, the chances you'll get anything useful to you are slim to none, especially when you consider that you need 2-4 copies of a card to draw it with any predictability. Energy cards can't be found in boosters (I think; my friends and I have probably bought ~40 or more and only get the special darkness, special steel and one holo-fighting), which is a real shame because although I have all the makings of a great fire/darkness deck, without any basic darkness energy I can't play it. I guess anyone worth their salt buys singles, anyway, though.

Any players out there?

Also, anyone know a place to get singles at decent prices?

I just played with a friend for the first time in like 5 years or so. Now I'm trying to get some cheap cards from ebay.

ebay definitely.

but, i heard for basic darkness, people just buy decks.

hah. i have a whole box of JPN 1st Edition Dp5 still mint on my shelves haha

edit: carp gardylade and magmortar decks

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I'd do likewise but I'm without paypal, unfortunately.
Its such a shame the older cards have been rendered so useless, I have so many. Though, some of the trainers are incredible when compared to the newer ones. Take bill from baseset versus Mom's Kindness from Majestic Dawn. "Draw 2 cards", or "Draw 2 cards and you can't play another supporter this turn." Super energy removal and Energy Retrieval are pretty great too, especially the first in combination with Typhlosions Evaporate and fire starter abilities. Take 3 energy away from your opponents water pokémon while maintaining your own cost to attack again next turn!

but, i heard for basic darkness, people just buy decks.

Which decks contain those? I couldn't find any.

not sure on which decks, sorry.

i think the trainers and supporters are a definite upgrade to the older cards. of course this is not without sacrifice, but these newer cards definitely speed up gameplay (Gardevoir Lvl X on early turns argh, first stage or second stage already setup etc).

I used Crawdaunt EX on redshark and it was perfect. it's power allowed me to send one of your pokemon of my choice right to your hand if you had 3 or 4 pokemon on your bench.

of course i'm sure that's out of format now

also people purposefully discard energies from their hand to use Banettes to finish you on turn 2.

night maintenance, using one of the delcatty's abilities to gain back energy, etc are great.

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I'd never even heard of that program (redshark) before, it looks pretty cool. Shame I'm running a mac here. When I get my new macbook up I guess I'll see if it runs on an emulator. :-3

How do you mean, "out of format"?

I've read about the Banette thing, too, the strategy I was talking about is deck specific of course: we're all amateurs, heh.

Night maintenance is good but I like to have cards in my hand, which is why I liked Energy Retrieval. Though I guess it might help with decking out (not that that seems to be a problem for competitive play, it being so seemingly offense oriented).

redshark runs on windows, which you can use parallels for (that's what i did)

out of format basically means you can't play it anymore because it's too old/the set that is out of format has been replaced with a newer one (i think holon phantoms will be out of format soon.. no more crawdaunt ex for me).

i only use night maintenance for energy retrieval for things to boost magneton (30x the amount of energy attached to it. or maybe it was all pokemon exluding your opponents? it's been too long lmfao).

i use search engines like roseanne's research etc to find basics to setup faster more however.

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I started collecting these when they first came out and continued playing/collecting off and on until last year. It's just one of those things I don't have time for anymore. It is a great game though.

I have SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many cards though, it's crazy. It makes me wonder how much I'd be able to sell them all for (not that I am planning to). Maybe I'll make up a list later. Hahaha, years ago I traded some guy a Blue-Eyes White Dragon for the ENTIRE Neo Revelation set. Still have the whole thing, minus Ho-Oh because I was retarded and traded it.

The last deck I seriously tried to make was this from way back in 2005 (this was posted on Pojo):

Energys:27
(14)Psychic
(13)Fire

Pokemon:21
(3)Ralts(2 from RubyandSap,1 from Sandstorm)
(2)Kirlia(1 from Sandstorm,1 from RubyandSap)
(1)Gardevoir(RubyandSap,looking for GardevoirEX from Sandstorm)
(2)Wynaut
(1)Wobbuffet
(1)Beldum
(1)Metang
(1)Chimecho[#24 Promo]
(1)Magmar EX
(2)Cyndaquil(1 from HL,1 from Sandstorm)
(2)Quilava
(1)Typhlosion EX
(2)Vulpix
(1)Ninetales

Trainers:12
(3)Potion
(1)Life Herb
(1)Moo-Moo Milk
(1)Poke Ball
(1)Wally's Training
(1)Dual Ball
(1)PokeNav
(2)Steven's Advice
(1)Professor Birch

Never got to try it against many people, but it did well.

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I used to play this a lot, I stopped around when Neo came out. I was running Haymaker ... I gave all of my cards away.

I used to play, but without energy cards, which looking back at it now, HTF did I play that game?

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Project Rising Beetle→
I Miss Bionix→

I just found my old cards a few days ago. I have not touched them since 2000. I still had my Charizard holo from October '98 (which I pulled out of my first pack.) The memories just come flooding back.

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Thanks to Kai-V for the avatar and signature!

uhh would anyone want to buy my cards
i have like thousands
i have the complete first set in mint condition if its worth anything

when i was five i traded a gengiskahn (or whatever the carp was called) for that one magnet thing


carp

I just found the game again and bought very few cards in the last few weeks. Fun game!

when i was five i traded a gengiskahn (or whatever the carp was called) for that one magnet thing


carp

when I was nine I traded a holographic wigglytuff for a japanese omanyte card that was not only uncommon but would be released in english literally a month later

the kid's dad also worked at a comic book shop and got an advance shipping, so he sold them to kids in the neighborhood with a $2 markup

i hate him

once i traded a holo blastoise for a holo clefairy
i stood there for like 30 minutes thinking about it before saying yes
i regret that trade to this day

lol and a kid at my old old school got stabbed with a piece of wood over pokemon cards

Just played recently.

I built a Burn Liability deck on a whim a couple years back. I still need stuff for it to run at full speed, but it still runs nicely. I never got around to finishing it.

The only trade I remember was this one time my cousin who was four years older traded his charmeleon for my Raichu, but then had the genius idea that since Charmeleon was so rare and powerful (Which I would believe, of course, since it was my favourite), I should include the four (three?) charmanders from that two-player-starter set everyone seemed to have.

He played the game proper, and only recently have I realized what a carp he was being. He didn't run a fire deck, so he had no purpose for keeping those extra charmanders, but to remove any chance of me becoming any competition to him, he took the only viable way to PLAY the card he gave me away from him since I had no more charmanders.

One day I was in Shoppers Drug Mart with a friend and we each bought a booster pack of the original Team Rocket set. Then for fun, I asked if I could trade packs with him. We did and HE GOT DARK RAICHU. Worst decision ever.

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