Pokemon TCG

[Isis]

i haven't played in a long time but i ordered a pair of duel decks to play with my roommates tomorrow. I used to play the standard format a little bit with a tier 2 deck.

"Donk" (no bench or active pokemon victory) strategies are not very prevalent in standard because they release lots of basic pokemon that give you a benefit when you bench them, so if you try a donk strategy you generally only succeed in investing lots of resources into generating an awkward moment when the pokemon that is meant for utility is forced into play and that player has to spend 1 energy to retreat it, when you spent like, 3 energy and an evolution card and a bunch of deck design decisions. If the cards you're playing with are strictly limited to old stuff that was out when I was 8 like those pictures though, I remember donk being super strong when I was 8, and there weren't that many utility pokemon when i was 8, so like, I don't see why it's a strategy that would get countered by accident.

[Isis]

i'm also like 60% sure donk was a big deal when i was reading the forums for the game but i decided not to buy cards for it, like, 10 years ago

god i feel old

[Isis]

i haven't played in a long time but i ordered a pair of duel decks to play with my roommates tomorrow.

That's what I did! I got Rayquaza V vs Noivern V, he picked Rayquaza.

i think thats what i have sitting on the kitchen table rn

[Isis]

What on Earth is the deal with G2 Blaine's Charizard?

It has a typo replacing fighting for fire energy, but it wants you discard all the fire energy cards attached to it and deal 20 damage for each. Then, also, since combing Double Colorless energy with pokemon powers that make Double Colorless Energy count as "double fire energy", it has some awkward text in order to instruct you to discard those too and to clarify that they're worth 40 and not 20

[Isis]

also it's a terrible pokemon card

[Isis]

i haven't played in a long time but i ordered a pair of duel decks to play with my roommates tomorrow.

That's what I did! I got Rayquaza V vs Noivern V, he picked Rayquaza.

i think thats what i have sitting on the kitchen table rn

this was wrong i have gardevoir v victini

[Isis]

i haven't played in a long time but i ordered a pair of duel decks to play with my roommates tomorrow.

That's what I did! I got Rayquaza V vs Noivern V, he picked Rayquaza.

i think thats what i have sitting on the kitchen table rn

this was wrong i have gardevoir v victini

it was fun. we each played each deck once and the gardevoir deck won both times. I kind of gamethrew by milling myself out

[Isis]

I think a lot of people flip coins for the rock paper scissors cards simply because there are some officiation issues with the game of rock paper scissors and no such issues with coins.

it's on the cards because kids like to play rock paper scissors

[Isis]

i opened a bunch of packs cause i'm on a kick and i made a deck that uses Magma Basin to get free fire energy from the discard pile every turn. that card looks busted. idk if i should run 4 instead of 3 just to make sure i draw it.
https://pkmncards.com/?s=Magma+Basin

[Isis]

The effect comes up a lot, on marnie, marshadow, and judge too. You'll have trouble ensuring your opponent falls below four cards in hand though so you probably only want one or two as a coup de grace. I think there are pokemon with attacks that mill that would have to be your main way of winning but I can't remember any of them. I think they probably deal damage based on the characteristics of the cards you milled but you wouldn't care about that.

[Isis]

mill decks are more niche in pokemon than in mtg (where they're already niche) im pretty sure. kids dont like watching charizard get discarded off the top so they dont print many ways to do that

[Isis]

Make both players draw cards then spam pokemon dolls?

[Isis]

Mysterious fossil works like that too I believe?

Old cards be busted

[Isis]

does such a weak card sell for 80 bucks wow
them old sets are just crazy

[Isis]

Have you seen Alolan muk

[Isis]

Muk would have diminishing returns each time you use it. It's nice that it's not an attack though. The way most people build decks it's average mills would be about 2.

[Isis]

muk shuffles the unmilled cards in rather than leaving them on top, so generalized mill will not help with the item/nonitem ratio of the attacked deck.

genearalized mill is probably better than the 4th copy of alolan muk because it's not itself a diminishing return, of course, but there's no special interaction there.

[Isis]

that one seems good. a comment on durant mentioned Magmortar which can mill one per fire energy attached to magmortar

[Isis]

Been listening to podcasts trying to learn more about the game.

Apparently decking people out happens in standard but it's mostly playing 0-1 cards that mill and just making it so your opponent can't hurt you ever

[Isis]

It can depend how strong or serious you want your deck to be there was a time when I just wanted to kill people with Raticate because he required no energy and is hilarious

[Isis]

It seems like you should buy the Durants because they are the funneeist

[Isis]

yeah. alolan raticate was funny i played a good 4 matches before i switched to banette and played with -1- energy instead

now what i've been spamming on mtgo attacks with -2- energy i think maybe i dont like high energy attacks haha

[Isis]

i meant ptcgo

>_>
<_<

[Isis]

i just got this on ptcgo, also have a few durants

you can run like 8 double colorless energy per deck in standard right now i think, but 70 hp is still a bit yikes

[Isis]

oh you evolve them and then they start asking for less energy???

[Isis]

i play the theme deck mode some but i tryhard and play soaring skies usually

[Isis]

"is nothing in this format going to stop Grimer from doing this two more times"??

Deck is pretty memy

[Isis]

Sdts dawdle too

[Isis]

I finished building an Arceus deck. It's pretty simple in fun. Well the plan is simple, it has lots of complicated choices and i like that

[Isis]

Google probably led SLEEPYKREW'S FRIEND to limitlessTCG which is what I have been using, and "there's gotta be a better way" is probably super valid because it only pulls results from D2s of grand-prix-like events which could miss some deck concepts. For example, on a budget I once played an MtG GP with a deck that had no or virtually no GP top finishes, but had 5-0'd a MTGO queue, which is a bit of a middle ground between "there's no evidence this isn't a pile of cards" and "no expense was spared here".

Malamar is a very very strong budget deck that's the budget deck of pokemon atm.
If you find any decks you like and the deck is using an Inteleon package, you can probably replace it with a Bibarel or Cincinno package to make a cheaper version of the same deck.



Ok actually I was googling around trying to see if I could find a decklist for the Sandaconda deck I lost to in PTCGO randoms one time, and I found this site, which seems good (?):

https://www.justinbasil.com/guide/budget#dragapult

Hm.. this may kind of be 12 different ways to snowflake and not play malamar when you would have won more playing malamar.

This listing doesn't include the bizarre 7 left turns control strategy Sander top 8ed a tournament with, which comes out to 35$ and then like whoa wins, so, maybe there's still a lot to be said about looking through the limitlessTCG regional results and finding offkilter stuff and playing it because it's 35$ or 50$ or adapting it so it's 50$

One thing to keep in mind is that if you buy a deck with an Intelon package you can reuse the Inteleon's in anything, if you buy a midprice pokemon V like Urshifu V + VMax you are not reusing that when you switch to a deck with a different energy type.

I proxied out a Malamar deck and played it with my roommate and quite enjoyed it so I think that seems like a really good route to start out with. It's like 40$ with Inteleon as the draw engine and 25$ with Cincinno as the draw engine (Bibarel can't really be the draw engine because of the text written on Malamar and what you intend to do with it.)

[Isis]

I should not have used he/him in my post, maybe I did so because "asking for a friend " crossed my mind so I let SleepyKrew's pronouns leak

[Isis]

Pokémon - 18

3 Arceus VSTAR BRS 123
4 Arceus V BRS 122
3 Inteleon SSH 58
4 Drizzile SSH 56
4 Sobble CRE 41


Trainer Cards - 31

2 Boss’s Orders (Cyrus) BRS 132
2 Cheren’s Care BRS 134
2 Marnie SSH 169
1 Melony CRE 146
1 Professor’s Research (Professor Rowan) BRS 147
3 Path to the Peak CRE 148
4 Level Ball BST 129
4 Evolution Incense SSH 163
2 Big Charm SSH 158
2 Choice Belt BRS 135
2 Scoop Up Net RCL 165
2 Ultra Ball BRS 150
1 Cynthia's ambition
1 Capacious Bucket RCL 156
1 Pal Pad SSH 172
1 Training Court

Energy - 11

7 Water Energy Energy 3
4 Double Turbo Energy BRS 151

Total Cards - 60

[Isis]

The one card that didn't come in from my orders is the Inteleon with Rapid Shooting, so I tweaked the deck such that it is more capable of attacking with Inteleon SW/SH so that in yielding fewer prizes, to offset missing that bench prize per game. Maybe it can be a viable way to build the archetype, Rapid Strike Inteleon's waterfall attack is so weak, when I play with the card online I always feel like, yo, I evolved this thing three times and I can't even use it for energy-for-turn and feel good??

[Isis]

I made that from copypasying but I actually have Cyrus art for boss's orders and woman art for professor's research

[Isis]

I really should have Quick Ball. It's normal to run like 3 or 4 but I think that's sus if you end up using a sobbles Keep Calling on turn 1. I should be running the first searchable copy for sure though

[Isis]

Man it's harder to find places to play using a search engine than I thought it'd be

[Isis]

I found a place in downtown seattle but it has hellparking and requires a vaccine card and I lost mine T_T

[Isis]

I think the fastest way to do it is to go to a walmart but it has to be in person

[Isis]

bold of you to assume I've had more than one dose

Spoiler:

jk I've pondered whether i can get a fourth if my records turn up missing

[Isis]

Walmart said to use the Walmart pharmacy site to get a digital record. The site has no record of my vaccine

[Isis]

What would you do in this situationnnn

[Isis]

that hasn't been fruitful thus far

[Isis]

I finally got to play my deck a ton it was a 45 minutes drive but got to play tons of games.

I'm surprised how the invested players play multiple decks, this game is cheap but then I guess they buy several decks and are back up to the cost of 1 mtg standard deck.

[Isis]

I'm pretty competitive and stuff but I was surprised that there is apparently a pervasive social convention to use a d6 instead of the cute commemorative coins that come with products
They're weighted and probably like 51-49

Ok yeah but I attach 3 water energy to surfing Pikachu v and attack even though he's electric because the artist drew a surfboard on it

[Isis]

2 different people at the weekly we're playing "Arceus, but weaker, except it beats the palkia deck" but I noticed no one playing the palkia deck itself cause it's a bunch of dollars.
I was playing "Arceus with almost no additional respect for the palkia deck" so I felt like I had a strong edge in those matches.

Just kinda funny. I think probably the people who play palki didn't show up this week or I didn't see them but in equilibrium it probably shouldn't even be parity. The thing is running no search pokemon and two types of energies maybe I underestimate it but it looks designed to brick itself.

[Isis]

I heard about a silly centiscorch mill on a podcast. It's a 4 card combo.. Pokemon go Blastoise lets you attach six energy per turn from your deck to any pokemon if you skip your attack. Pokemon go Charizard doubles fire energy value. Diancie protects basic pokemon on the bench, technically not needed if you get lucky and your opponent doesn't have the threat. And centiscorch just says mill one card per fire energy in this pokemon. So if you skip 2 attacks then attack that's 24 mills

It's a bit interesting in that you could attach all that energy to a "30 damage per energy" kind of thing but you cap out at an one hit knockout, mills affect the scoreboard differently

[Isis]

Cool!

[Isis]

Spoiler:

7 water energy
3 double turbo energy
1 capture energy

2 Acerola's premonition
2 Marnie
1 Boss's orders
1 Cheren's Care
1 Melony
1 Professor's Research
2 Pal Pad

1 Path to the Peak
1 Gapejaw Bog

4 Arceus V
3 Arceus Vstar

4 Sobble
3 Drizzle
1 Inteleon
1 Rapid Strike Inteleon
1 Manaphy
1 Mimikyu V
1 Mimikyu Vmax

4 Quick Ball
1 Ultra Ball
3 Evolution Incense
3 Level Ball

1 Escape Rope
1 Big Charm
1 Old Rod
2 Scoop up Net

58 cards. Hmm

Lots of possibles, big charm, water energy, hyper potion( would need energy with it?), Rare Candy, energy switch, Ziggy the zagoon. Uh. Crushing hammer?

It seems like I should have another toolboxy supporter to make the pal pads sing

[Isis]

One water energy one Melony? Of one of her is prized she's toolboxy

[Isis]

One rare candy one Inteleon is an Xplosive thingy to do instead

[Isis]

Nah I need to stop running an irresponsibly low number of supporters

[Isis]

No I'm at 8 and I can find decklists that are also on 8 supporters.
I partly don't want to count premonition as a supporter because it's a haymaker but the extra pal pad is a "supporter"

I think I'll do the rare candy Inteleon thing

[Isis]

Spoiler:

7 water energy
3 double turbo energy
1 capture energy

2 Acerola's premonition
2 Marnie
1 Boss's orders
1 Cheren's Care
1 Melony
1 Professor's Research
2 Pal Pad

1 Path to the Peak
1 Gapejaw Bog

4 Arceus V
3 Arceus Vstar

4 Sobble
3 Drizzle
1 Rare Candy
2 Inteleon
1 Rapid Strike Inteleon
1 Manaphy
1 Mimikyu V
1 Mimikyu Vmax

4 Quick Ball
1 Ultra Ball
3 Evolution Incense
3 Level Ball

1 Escape Rope
1 Big Charm
1 Old Rod
2 Scoop up Net

[Isis]

Apparently someone entered a tournament with three of a basic and four of the thing that evolves from the basic which is fascinating.

Presumably it's to have a high chance of getting the Pokemon by turn 4 or so but to be able to mulligan 4/7 of the related cards early when there's other better turn one pokes

[Isis]

In hindsight I think I should have played another ultra ball

It feels so bad to be a deck that cant leverage battle vip pass that well in this standard format. The card you're playing to make sure you get your linchpin t1 basic is to discard two cards and get your basic. The card the other decks are playing to make sure they get their turn1 linchpin basic is discard 0 cards and get an extra utility basic for funzes.

[Isis]

The silver tempest card I'm most excited by in the spoilers so far is definitely Jynx. 100 HP psychic. Ability: if knocked out by damage from a Pokemon V, yields no prizes. One attack, Psychic: two colorless to use it, deal 10 damage plus one damage for each damage already on defending pokemon. 2 energy retreat.

I think giving her an attack that relies on the support of other pokemon is a clever way to make sure she's not just used in control or not just thrown at people in a spam, but then it's still a powerful enough attack to consider. I hope she's good enough.
I don't usually play six prize decks so I may not get to use her. In the current environment forcing a boss with her would feel like you did the thing, but when Serena in the same set comes out I think lists are going to become like 3-4 Serena 1 Boss. Serena is a boss that only works on pokemon Vs that has an alternate mode to draw a few cards.

So Jynx will be more powerful in decks that can exhaust bosses by pokemon V.
If Serena is worse than I think I'll be delighted to use Jynx as a wedge in between charging up Vs.

I'd bet very little money on my spoiler spec because I'm not as good as pokemon as I was at magic as of right now.

[Isis]

I'm having a very wild Mandela effect moment.

When I was high school or college aged I ordered a Magikarp Gyarados deck online that was a meta netdeck to play. My dad was willing to pay for it as a hobby. The deck focused on getting Magikarp and or Gyarados into the discard pile so Magikarp, for no or low energy, could attack really hard based on the number in discard. Unless it was gyarados. Attacking. I'm not sure on that part. The part I was really sure about was that the most expensive card in the deck was Azelf and Azelf was in all the meta decks and Azelf was a basic pokemon with ability "when you play this from your hand onto your bench, draw until you have 7 cards in hand". And I thought it was pretty broken. The Azelf is the part I am the most sure about, aside from trying to look it up just now and finding it not existent.
All eight azelfs I turn up on search don't draw up on benching. How can that be??? I dreamed this Azelf.

My memory has a remarkable amount of false confidence.
Usually a Mandela effect type memory is related to something real. There are so many "pixie style legendaries" it must have been one of the others? Or maybe the deck had a brutish pokemon that drew up to 7 and then a tiny pixie like pokemon with a different effect and I exchanged them in my mind over the years who knows. I feel like if the card is not all over expanded decklists it probably actually draws up to 5 and I exaggerated in my memory. Probably not 6, because the memory would feel even instead of odd.

Nowadays there is crobat v but it is susceptible to "special pokemon" hate, and gives up 2 prizes, and doesn't draw that 7th card, seven is so much more than six. I was pretty emphatic about it expecting the Azelf to at least have a legendary rule but according to the memory it did not

[Isis]

Ok it turned out to be Uxie by Occam's razor.

WOW IT'S 7

[Isis]

All the expanded decklists I can view are from 2020 and use shaymin ex instead

[Isis]

Shaymin ex ban: "The sheer amount of card drawing provided by Shaymin-EX's Set Up Ability allowed dangerous combo decks to function at an alarmingly consistent rate. With the introduction of Scoop Up Net, it became too easy to use Set Up repeatedly in a single turn. Crobat V and Dedenne-GX provide effects similar to Shaymin-EX, so this type of card isn't gone completely, but their Dark Asset and Dedechange Abilities are limited to one use per turn."

[Isis]

Uxie has no limit.
Either the 80th, 90th, 100th, and 110th points of HP are really important in expanded in a way I don't know about or... What?

[Isis]

Am I misreading the card idk

[Isis]

Thats way more powerful than the Bibarel in standard now.

[Isis]

My hot take for silver tempest is that Coloress' Experiment(yea and by extension its decks except maybe people getting in with a cramorant) and Marnie will become Bad Cards because Serena is a transcendently good auto 4-of wish it was 5 of and both those supporters interact poorly with your own Serena or opponent's Serena.
Ok by Bad Card I mean you can run 4 Marnie with a straight face right now and it will cap out at 2 after. With Experiment saying that your run fewer than four is equivalent to saying you run zero.
This is loosely related to the topic this thread was on because it's gonna be Bibarel for dayz.
Professor's research will stay good.

It's harder to say which pokemon will be strong there's so many in contender range

[Isis]

Standard meta is now like

Goodra hardcounters palkia, evenish with giratina, hardcounters regis, scoops to blissey, scoops to Kyurem

Regis beats giratina, beats both Kyurem and palkia, probably has a soft struggle against blissey, loses to goodra

Palkia beats Kyurem (I assume this because otherwise idk why people aren't all playing Kyurem), should beat blissey but not for free, should beat giratina but not for free, loses to Regis, loses to goodra. Kyurem does all those same things except for winning against goodra instead.

Giratina runs close with goodra, palkia, and Kyurem, but surely struggles against Regis and wrecks blissey in exchange.

Mew is weird because it depends whether people play drapion since it says drapion says "win against mew" on it. Palkia doesn't even need to play hate and Regis definitely doesn't need to play hate so I'm not sure it feels good to play mew atm.
I think lost dialga isn't a deck because you have a bad version of giratina's spread. I think lost box isn't a deck because you have a bad version of Regis spread and lose head to head. I love flying Pikachu Arceus and want it to be a deck but I don't think it's a deck because it has a bad version of goodra's matchup spread (last regionals top 8, goodra and flying Pikachu squashed all the regi decks and then goodra took gold from flying Pikachu).

Blissey hasn't top8ed but I think it has become part of the equilibrium strategies after goodra's establishment since that's its prey.

[Isis]

Oh blissey top8ed lille. Even though Kyurem showed up more

Deck is good

[Isis]

You can win on turn 2 with mill with the new Lairon card Ythan

[Isis]

Isis Silver Tempest set review

Jynx and Serena previously rambled. Very bad cards not rambled.

Spoiler: Ariados

#004 Ariados – Grass – HP90
Stage 1 – Evolves from Spinarak

Ability: String of Shade
As long as this Pokemon is in play, the attacks of your opponent’s Pokemon VSTAR cost [C] more. You can’t apply more than 1 String of Shade Ability at a time.

[G][C] Pierce: 50 damage.

This effect feels like what you expect to get "paid" for putting a bench-ability stage 1 in play, but only when no special case is nullifying it. The two special cases I mainly see is: the enemy deck doesn't use v stars and: you're going second. Its text isn't blanked if you're going second, but if you're going second your opponent's deck is designed to precisely power up the Vstar for its first attack, so it will then have an extra attach per turn for its second attack after this comes down.

Control still might use it. Control is usually playing Peonia ( exchange some cards in your hand with your prizes) so they can play one Ariados one Spinarak. Everyone else is getting more frustrated running dupes to not prize part of the line but then being forbidden from making 2.

Spoiler: Serperior Vstar

#008 Serperior VSTAR – Grass – HP270
VSTAR – Evolves from Serperior V

[G][C][C] Royal Tornado: 190 damage. Move any amount of Energy from your Pokemon to your other Pokemon in any way you like.

[G] Coiling Star (VSTAR Power): 60x damage. This attack 60 damage for each Energy attached to this Pokemon. Switch this Pokemon with 1 of your Benched Pokemon. (You can’t use more than 1 VSTAR Power in a game.)

When your Pokemon V is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

Weakness: Fire (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 0

It's like a bad Arceus Vstar except it has free retreat and sometimes free retreat is neato.
4x Gardenia's vigor decks haven't shown up yet, since retreat is a major issue with that card this could be the trick, possibly. Maybe.

Spoiler: Chesnaught V

015 Chesnaught V – Grass – HP230
Basic Pokemon

Ability: Spiky Striker
As long as this Pokemon is in play, whenever your Active Chesnaught V is damaged by an attack from your opponent’s Pokemon, put 3 damage counters on the Attacking Pokemon.

[G][G][C] Touchdown: 130 damage. Heal 30 damage from this Pokemon.

Weakness: Fire (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat: 4

Don't do it your opponent will play Path to the Peak and you will cry.

Spoiler: Radiant Tsareena

016 Radiant Tsareena – Grass – HP140
Basic Pokemon

You can’t have more than 1 Radiant Pokemon in your deck.

Ability: Elegant Treatment
Once during your turn, you may heal 20 damage from each of your Pokemon.

[G][C][C] Perfume Shot: 90 damage. Remove all Special Conditions from this Pokemon.

Weakness: Fire (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

Damage prevention pokemon is better. The only reason it's not better in the case of stadiums because stadiums are bumpable so they're more use or lose.

Spoiler: Rapidash

#022 Rapidash – Fire – HP100
Stage 1 – Evolves from Ponyta

Ability: Heat Boost
Once during your turn, you may discard an [R] Energy from your hand. If you do, until the end of your turn, attacks of your [R] Pokemon do 30 more damage to your opponent’s Active Pokemon.

[R][C] Fire Mane: 60 damage.

Weakness: Water (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat: 1

People wanna use this with Radiant Charizard because 280 is a magic number.
With training court it's more card efficient than choice belt after you knockout the third Vstar.
Friends, when Charizard knocks out the second Vstar the game has ended. Play choice belt

Spoiler: Delphox

027 Delphox – Fire – HP150
Stage 2 – Evolves from Braixen

[C] Flare Parade: 60x damage. This attack does 60 damage for each Serena you have in your discard pile.

[C][C] Energy Crush: 50x damage. This attack does 50 damage for each Energy your opponent has in play.

Weakness: Water (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

The middle evolution can Flare Parade for two energy.
If Serena was immune to being prized somehow I feel like this could be a thing. Maybe it's still a thing. Putting fewer energy in your deck can be pretty damn nice, especially if it's all special colorless energy with bonus effects. This feels close but no, not there. You can one for one most other water pokemon but a couple like Greninja exploit the weakness.

Spoiler: Alolan Vulpix Vstar

034 Alolan Vulpix VSTAR – Water – HP240
VSTAR Pokemon – Evolves from Alolan Vulpix V

[W][C][C] Snow Mirage: 160 damage. This attack’s damage isn’t affected by effects on your opponent’s Active Pokemon. During your opponent’s next turn, prevent all damage done to this Pokemon from Pokemon with Abilities.

[.] Silver Snow Star (VSTAR Power): 70x damage. This attack does 70 damage times the number of your opponent’s Pokemon V. (Don’t apply Weakness and Resistance.) (You can’t use more than 1 VSTAR Power in a game.)

When your Pokemon V is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

One of the exciting set headliners! You can get cheeky against plenty of Lost Origin format decks with Snow Mirage: Palkia, Blissey, Goodra. The Vstar attack can ohko mew Vmax so the line can even be considered you mew hate quota. A Vulpix deck needs a different strategy in the deck too for matchups where snow mirage does little, though, like Lost giratina and Regis. Losing to the new Regidrago may be bad.

Spoiler: Wailord

038 Wailord – Water – HP200
Stage 1 – Evolves from Wailmer

Ability: Oversized
This Pokemon takes 30 less damage from attacks from your opponent’s Pokémon (after applying Weakness and Resistance).

[W][W][W][C] Special Waves: 120+ damage. If this Pokemon has any Special Energy attached, this attack does 120 more damage.

Weakness: Lightning (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 4

Ahh this pokemon! 230 HP against OHKOs before adding effects. Mew needs half their deck's power tablets to get just one prize! Choice belt doesn't work! 240 damage for one more energy than fringe playable Zarude V but we're talking about a one prize pokemon.
The special energy is easy to meet because special water energy counts as water energy for Frosmoth and the colorless energy can be a special energy too. 240 damage is enough to hit the magic 280 with Choice belt plus Zigzagoon which is something leafeon Vmax has done in tier 1.5.

EDIT: I think a content creator misled me, "read the flipping card" implies that Wash Energy can't cooperate with any effect that pulls it from deck or discard on the basis of it being a water energy because it only provides water energy "as long as it's attached to a Pokemon."
This has a an impact on Wailord's playability and I have to be more bearish now. It's an eyebrow raiser though.

Spoiler: Glalie

042 Glalie – Water – HP90
Stage 1 – Evolves from Snorunt

[W][C][C] Bite: 60 damage.

[C][C][C][C] Big Mouth: 130+ damage. If you played Candice from your hand during this turn, this attack does 130 more damage.

Weakness: Metal (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat: 1

Candice is a supporter card that says to look at the top 7 and put all water pokemon and water energy into your hand then shuffle the other stuff away. She's not good, you'll usually draw two cards. There's some deckbuilding stuff you could do to make it feel like three
260 is a lot of damage for a one prize pokemon though. Twin Energy is in the format.
I'm intrigued but it's much less promising than Wailord. Playing snorunt and attaching a twin energy to it and having your opponent spend all their resources to gust it into the active and kill it then saying "ok, now I play lumineon and search for [good supporter that isn't Candice]" sounds kind of in line with the strategy of a persistent 1 prize deck or hybrid 1 prize deck.

Spoiler: Regileki Vmax

#058 Regieleki VMAX – Electric – HP310
VMAX (Dynamax) – Evolves from Regieleki V

Ability: Transistor
The attacks of your Basic [L] Pokemon do 30 more damage to your opponent’s Active Pokemon.

Max Thunderstrike: 220 damage. During your next turn, this Pokemon can’t attack.

When your Pokemon VMAX is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 3 Prize cards.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 0

This is like a really large Rapidash that doesn't have to discard energy and can't improve evolution pokemon. Vikavolt V is a tier 2 (2.5?) deck with straggly regional performances. Raikou V has done even worse, which is a shame because that card is actually trying to do damage and Vikavolt is trying to handlock. There's a Zeroaora I can't link because I can't spell it that hits for 160 but nothing interesting happens between 160 and 190. This card just seems lost.

Spoiler: Radiant Alakazam

059 Radiant Alakazam – Psychic – HP130
Basic Pokemon

You can’t have more than 1 Radiant Pokemon in your deck.

Ability: Spoonful of Pain
Once during your turn, you may move up to 2 damage counters from 1 of your opponent’s Pokemon to another 1 of their Pokemon.

[P][C] Mind Ruler: 20x damage. This attack does 20 damage for each card in your opponent’s hand.

There's decks where this attack goes hard. The ability is definitely either going to have a math situation where it is getting kills frequently off of common damage amounts, or it isn't. Right now I can't think of a deck that is leaving stuff at 20 HP after damaging something else a lot.

Spoiler: Hypno

061 Hypno – Psychic – HP110
Stage 1 – Evolves from Drowzee

[P] Psychedelic Call: Search your deck for up to 2 Stage 1 Pokemon and put them onto your Bench. Then, shuffle your deck.

[P][P][C] Zen Headbutt: 90 damage.

Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-30)
Retreat: 2

One aspect of ptcg design is that stage 1 pokemon frequently have effects that will hose a specific deck really well. The design logic seems to be hey, if you committed 4 slots to this pokemon, you deserve a specific matchup to really get flipped hard .
It's been a long while since standard has presented a tier strength version of it, but zorark decks break the spirit of the design rule to include lots of 1-of matchupspecific pokemon without the baby pokemon. If hypno is good enough for that kind of strategy I could see him tagging along with zoroark, zoroark 5-6-7-8.

A lot of the issue with the deck has been fighting decks that don't have a stage one Achilles heel in the card pool.

Spoiler: Kirlia

068 Kirlia – Psychic – HP80
Stage 1 – Evolves from Ralts

Ability: Refine
Once during your turn you may discard 1 card from your hand, then draw 2 cards.

[P][C] Slap: 30 damage.

Weakness: Metal (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

Spoiler: Gardevoir

069 Gardevoir – Psychic – HP150
Stage 2 – Evolves from Kirlia

Ability: Refine
Once during your turn you may discard 1 card from your hand, then draw 2 cards.

[P][C] Magical Shot: 120 damage.

Weakness: Metal (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

Several cards with this ability have been playable stage 1s.
I need a judge to tell me whether you can go refine, evolve it, refine. That seems strong. Inteleon and drizzle have also shown how pokemon with high utility and a medium attack can be useful.

Spoiler: Mawile Vstar

#071 Mawile VSTAR – Psychic – HP260
VSTAR – Evolves from Mawile V

[C][C] Sudden Eater: 90+ damage. If this Pokemon moved from your Bench to the Active Spot this turn, this attack does 90 more damage.

Ability: Star Rondo (VSTAR Power)
During your turn, if this Pokemon is on your bench, you may use this Ability. Switch this Pokemon with your Active Pokemon. Then, switch 1 of your opponent’s Benched Pokemon with their Active Pokemon. (You can’t use more than 1 VSTAR Power in a game.)

When your Pokemon VSTAR is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

Weakness: Metal (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat: 1

.
Mawile is my favorite pokemon I'm so biased.
260-180 are poor numbers for a Vstar, but her upsides are low color commitment and low energy commitment. Those could be especially relevant upsides for decks that are like "hey I have a Vstar marker I'm allowed to use once per game but my strategy doesn't naturally want to mobilize this resource".

180 is a magic number when paired with 110 or 100, Cramorant is the card most commonly bringing up that number, and in a deck that already retreats a lot.

This card is worth watching but could very well just turn out to be too weak on numbers.

Spoiler: Meowstic

082 Meowstic – Psychic – HP90
Stage 1 – Evolves from Espurr

Ability: Beckoning Ears
When you play this Pokemon from your hand to evolve 1 of your Pokemon during your turn, you may search your deck for up to 2 Supporter cards and put them into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck.

[P][C][C] Super Psy: 80 damage.

You will play one supporter and then your opponent will use hand disruption on the other one.

UNLESS you're playing Delphox Serena and discard Serena to Serena, plus a Serena you drew the hard way. That's the spice.

Spoiler: Crobat

#105 Crobat – Darkness – HP130
Stage 2 – Evolves from Golbat

[D] Poison Fang: 50 damage. Your opponent’s Active Pokemon is now Poisoned.

[C][C][C] Critical Bite: This attack does 30 damage to 1 of your opponent’s Pokemon. If any of your oppoment’s Pokemon was Knocked Out by damage from this attack, take 2 more prize cards.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 0

I think there's just too much Manaphy. This card is intriguing if and only if you don't have to play that obscure three card combo of item cards that lets you go around Manaphy. Because people do that occasionally but they do that because they had resources that aren't the 5-6 cards used to assemble this bat.

Spoiler: Radiant Jirachi

120 Radiant Jirachi – Metal – HP90
Basic Pokemon

You can’t have more than 1 Radiant Pokemon in your deck.

Ability: Pass a Wish
If this Pokemon is Knocked Out by damage from an opponent’s attack, search your deck for up to 3 cards and put them into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck.

[C][C] Stellar Doom: Flip 2 coins. If both are heads, your opponent’s Active Pokemon is Knocked Out.

Don't do this. Your opponent will play a path and you will cry.
Path seems far from irrelevance or rotation but this is such an interesting card if Path wasn't a problem here. Especially for control.

Spoiler: KlingKlang

125 Klinklang – Metal – HP160
Stage 2 – Evolves from Klang

Ability: Triple Gear
When you play this Pokemon from your hand to evolve 1 of your Pokemon during your turn, you may search your deck for up to 3 basic Energy cards and attach them to your Pokemon in any way you like. Then, shuffle your deck.

[M][C][C] Power Beam: 130 damage.

Weakness: Fire (x2)
Resistance: Grass (-30)
Retreat: 3

Like a deal of 4 large pizzas for 11$ each for a solo diner, this seems like a fair rate, but more of the resource than you actually need. 2 accelerations is the most you can use. Arceus Vstar gets 3 energy too yes. It's also overbulk but it's asking less it's 4 pizzas for 6$ each okay

Spoiler: Dragonite

#131 Dragonite – Dragon – HP160
Stage 2 – Evolves from Dragonair

[C][C][C] Dragon Claw: 80 damage.

[W][L][C][C] Energy Hurricane: 180 damage. Search your deck for up to 3 Basic Energy cards and attach them to your Pokemon in any way you like. Then, shuffle your deck.

the only use is to put this in your discard for Regidrago Vstar which is the next card.

Spoiler: Regidrago Vstar

#136 Regidrago VSTAR – Dragon – HP280
VSTAR – Evolves from Regidrago V

[G][G][R] Dragon Dream: Choose the attack from a Dragon-type Pokemon in your discard pile and use it as this attack

Ability: Legacy Star (VSTAR Power)
Once during your turn, you may discard 7 cards from the top of your deck. Then, you may choose up to 2 cards from your discard pile, reveal them, and put them in your hand. (You can’t use more than 1 VSTAR Power in a game.)

This is my pick for best card in the set and I'm even worried it will be so overbearingly strong that it feels bad, so I hope I'm wrong. I plan to try out the deck for this card early to potentially play at regionals.
The Vstar power obviously synergizes with the attack, but in earnestly not that much, the attack sources will be 1-ofs. But you don't have to put other vstars in your deck to get value from your Vstar marker so that's great.
The best 4 attacks in the card pool are goodra Vstar (200 plus an 80 damage shield), Dragonite above, Duraladon (220 and ignore effects, so solve the miltank problem with one card slot repeatedly), and Giratina Vstar (280 damage, banish 2 energy from any of your pokemon). Outside of those there's a couple bench snipers that might be too annoyed by Manaphy to feel worth playing.
What makes this deck seem like impending dominance is that Goodra Vstar and Giratina Vstar both headline decks already at 280ish HP, and they each have a weakness in their attack that can be complemented by these other attacks. Goodra Vstar can't deal with Miltank or ohko a 280. Giratina can't keep attacking at repeated -2 energy sometimes, but Goodra provides -0 and Dragonite offers +3.
Dragon types have no weakness and pokemon doesn't let you remove cards from your opponent's discard pile.

The big question people are curious about is the best support package. I like leafeon V for energy although it's a little scrunkly. I think drawing only 2 cards and hoping one of them is switch is also a little scrunkly if you adopt the popular angle of Gardenia's vigor. None of the popular draw engines have synergy or antisynergy with Regidrago so that's an interesting pick to see what floats to the top.
Energy control could be the best counter to Regidrago, maybe. It also might brick itself?
EDIT: Leafeon Vmax can exploit its retreat cost box rather than its weakness box, but I want to include Leafeon Vmax in my flavor of the deck hopefully so it's mirrory.

Spoiler: Lugia and archeops

139 Lugia VSTAR – Colorless – HP280
VSTAR – Evolves from Lugia V

[C][C][C][C] Storm Dive: 220 damage. You may discard the Stadium in play.

Ability: Assemble Star (VSTAR Power)
You may use this during your turn. Choose up to 2 [C] Pokemon from your discard pile, except for Pokémon with a Rule Box, and put them on your Bench. (Pokemon V, Pokemon-GX, etc. have Rule Boxes). (You can’t use more than 1 VSTAR Power in a game.)

When your Pokemon V is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

Weakness: Lightning (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-30)
Retreat: 2

147 Archeops – Colorless – HP150
Stage 2 – Evolves from Archen

Ability: Primal Turbo
Once during your turn, you may search your deck for up to 2 Special Energy cards and attach them to 1 of your Pokemon. Then, shuffle your deck.

[C][C][C] Speed Wing: 120 damage.

This is an obvious combo they put in the set. Along with Lance, a supporter to search for three normal pokemon.

I feel like it's scrunkly and not tier 1. You either do double archeops or archeops Bibarel because there's very poor backup options.
And the archeops will like, get all your energy and then you can't shuffle it back because only special energy can normally be recycled. Palkia Vstar deck gets 3 energy, which in a streamlined pokemon deck is "basically all of it" but Palkia is allowed to recycle it and Palkia's attack is better.
Special energies have cool effects. There's some new ones this set. I think if the colored special energies can do a cool thing that I'm not thinking of, that is the answer more so than the more obvious Lugia deck.

Spoiler: Capture Aroma

#153 Capture Aroma – Trainer
Item

Flip a coin. If heads, search your deck for an Evolution Pokemon, reveal it, and put it into your hand. If tails, search your deck for a Basic Pokémon, reveal it, and put it into your hand. If you searched your deck in this way, shuffle your deck.

You may play any number of Item cards during your turn.

Flips are bad. However if you pair this with a pokemon search that gets either kind then it sort of isn't a flip if you need one of each, which is how it usually is. This could be a power increase for decks with an evolving draw engine line. If it's your attacker that's trying to evolve I think it's a greater liability.

Spoiler: Forest Seal

156 Forest Seal Stone – Trainer
Item

Pokemon Tool: Attach a Pokemon Tool to 1 of your Pokemon that doesn’t already have a Pokemon Tool attached.

The Pokemon V this card is attached to can use this VSTAR Power.

Ability: Star Alchemy (VSTAR Power)
During you turn, you may search your deck for any 1 card and put it into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck. (You can’t use more than 1 VSTAR Power in a game.)

Appropriately considered one of the best cards in the set. Strict upgrade to Mew Vmax deck because that deck cannot use other Vstar Powers. Any deck struggling to benefit from its Vstar power enjoys this. As a rules oddity this card evades Path to the Peak, but decks that search for this card could have just searched for a stadium if they were upset that Path was blocking their Plan A Vstar power. What is nice is that a deck like Blissey Miltank can play this card and deploy their own Paths! Blissey Miltank is gonna get schwrecked by Regidrago lol that was just an example.
Nice card.

Spoiler: Leafy Camp

#160 Leafy Camo Poncho – Trainer
Item – Pokemon Tool

Attach a Pokemon Tool to 1 of your Pokémon that doesn’t already have a Pokemon Tool attached.

If the Pokemon this card is attached to is a Pokemon VSTAR or Pokemon VMAX, whenever your opponent plays a Supporter card from their hand, prevent all effects of that card done to that Pokemon.

You may play any number of Item cards during your turn.

So boss's orders is the main supporter that hits pokemon. Unfortunately there is a widely played item card called cross switcher with the same effect. So the pokemon that does this effect is seeing little use, though it does see a little bit of play. An item is better, this could see a bit more use.

Spoiler: Worker

167 Worker – Trainer
Supporter

Draw 3 cards. Discard a Stadium in play.

You may play only 1 Supporter card during your turn.

Currently pumpkaboo is the best searchable way to remove Path. Now it will be Lumineon-->Worker. Pumpkaboo is a BABY with BABY hp. .
Stadiums also remove stadiums but they aren't easily searchable without Drizzile.

Spoiler: Shield energy

#169 V Guard Energy – Energy
Special Energy

As long as this card is attached to a Pokemon, it provides [C] Energy.

The Pokemon this card is attached to takes 30 less damage from the attacks of your opponent’s Pokemon V. You can’t apply this effect of V Guard Energy more than once on a Pokemon.

This is pretty strong to combo with Hisuian Goodra Vstar but since Hisuian Goodra Vstar is wrecked by Miltank so much more than Regidrago does she still probably gets usurped. Various Arceus decks could try to use it to reclaim the strategy of Big Charm plus Cheren's Care that worked so well in spring. Any deck can use it but other energies may be more useful oftentimes.

[Isis]

i was very wrong about lugia it's so strong

this meta is way worse than the previous one and i'm sad

i'll play regis or lugia at regionals i guess

also my previous post had an awful flub you can't use lumineon/worker to remove path

[Isis]

Blissey Miltank's stock is way down with the introduction of Lost Tempest because Serena can pull Blissey out early at lower versatility cost than Boss's Orders and Lugia Vstar can OHKO the Blissey even with cape.

Miltank is now competing with Jynx because she has a similar, but different, effect, of not yielding a prize when she dies to a V, and she has a situationally better situationally worse attack. Because Miltank is an effect the prevents damage and Duraladon, Giratina, and Mew explicitly nullify damage prevention effects, they aren't blocked by Miltank but are robbed by Jynx.

It doesn't seem hopeless that a context for Miltank will emerge, though. Miltank can KO Meloetta, Jynx can't, and Meloetta's partner Mew has to have either an additional Mew or two psychic to ignore Miltank's ability so the difference in immunities might not matter in the early game. Similarly, Miltank starting in the active against Lugia can strike for setup damage, and Jynx can't, so Miltank could prove a good card for early plays punishing Lugia decks that play no switching cards at all.

Friday night the Lost Box player who won the swiss portion of the tournament was playing with the deck's Miltank removed and Jynx included instead, for Lost Box this seems incontrovertibly correct because Cramorant is an earlygame attacker competing for attention in that deck, so the pokemon are vying for midgame and lategame roles.

I think it's often the case that right after a new set comes out Miltank usage drops until people decide what pokemon it is they'd like to protect.

[Isis]

I played a Miltank on Friday and won or drew every game I played it in

[Isis]

I have to correct myself a lot and don't always manage

[Isis]

Imma post tonight's decklist mostly to test my own memorization

[Isis]

Spoiler:

4 Arceus V
3 Arceus VStar
4 Sobble
3 Drizzile
2 Inteleon(shady dealings)
1 Crobat V
2 Beedrill(single strike)

2 Marnie
1 Avery
1 Serena
1 Boss's Orders
1 Professor's Research
2 Single Strike Style Mustard
1 Cheren's Care

4 Ultra Ball
4 Quick Ball
2 Level Ball
1 Evolution Incense
2 Scoop-Up Net
1 Energy Switch
1 Pal Pad
1 Air Balloon
1 Tool Jammer
1 Big Charm
1 Path to the Peak
1 Training Court

5 Grass Energy
2 Water Energy
3 Double Turbo Energy
1 Capture Energy
1 VGuard Energy

Does it add up to sixty does it .

[Isis]

Addition is hard the first time I got 61 the second time I got 58 lol

[Isis]

In testing I feel like it is pretty likely the capture energy becomes a VGuard energy? I'm not sure. Capture energy is powerful when you draw DTE naturally and then you Starbirth into the Capture Energy to find the second Arceus, then you solve both the trinity nova recipient and the attach per turn problem in a single card and have 1 other card good stuff. If the "good stuff" is -always- grabbing a big charm because capture energy doesn't block enough damage that's kind of a wash.
How much do the decks that aren't Lugia matter and how food is VGuard against them, I'm not sureerere

[Isis]

Ok I looked at an online Lugia deck which is dealing with similar tradeoffs and it was 2 capture 1 VGuard and they also had 8 basic searches. So the capture is probably worth.
I'm not used to have 8 basic searches because usually I trim 2 or even 3 Ultra ball. But you want ultra ball to help the mustard. Then crobat gets excited this is an ultra ball deck and jumps in.

[Isis]

I'm playing Lugia Wednesday.
Someone won an online tournament with Lost box with Raikou V the hosts declared it a healthy format. I'm not sure having to add a 2 prize pokemon to a 1 prize deck to deal with Lugia is a beacon of format health though

That's some maindeck leylines of the void in burn kinda feeling to me

[Isis]

6 of the same deck in top 8 of an internationals we magic now

[Isis]

Miltank top 8ed as part of Sander yveltal control so officially Miltank Good

[Isis]

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

There's an interesting pokemon card rules edge case/argument some people at my store were talking about on Wednesday. Apparently the ruling has not come up in a tournament and people online are just disagreeing about how they would expect it to be ruled. PTCG rules have weaker comprehensive rules than MTG because they're usually not needed, but then when they are etc. It's important to note cards are originally written in Japanese and sometimes slight differences are relevant to the rules.

It's a high stakes question because the best deck, Lugia, is a deck that summons Archeops cheaply and becomes good at deploying energy and bad at drawing other nonenergy cards. Status condition effects can be pretty powerful but are usually so countered by item cards and supporter cards that they are not useful enough. Because Lugia is not very good at drawing items and supporter cards, paralysis is very powerful to beat the Lugia deck, toppling Goliath.

Lugia does not play nice with rapid strike pokemon and grass type Pokemon which are the two that get paralysis healing energies. But some Lugia players want to argue that they should be allowed to use a "healing kiss" effect from Spiral Energy to recover from paralysis. The argument is that "this card can only be attached to a rapid strike pokemon" actually means that "the play effect of playing an energy from your hand is to attach it to one of your pokemon. This says right at the top that that play effect is modified such that you must select a rapid strike pokemon from which of the things you'd like to attach to. This line of text is not operative if you are not doing 'attach and play' from hand.". I hope or maybe even assume this argument is supported by the Japanese translation or precedent on other cards. It's obviously a very painful argument if you're literal, since archeops says "attach" and rapid strike energy does not say "play". And there are other cards that say "you can't play an energy from your hand", and those are bypassed by attach from deck, so it seems like "pokemon knew how to word it like that if that was the intention".
There's an argument about superfluity : "if you truly cannot attach the energy in any manner, why do you need a clause that discards the energy, contemplating that it has been attached anyway?" Thorton's existence resolves the superfluity argument on its own though, so that's not a problem. Thorton exchanges two objects and doesn't really provide a moment when an unattached card becomes attached. If only the top rule existed, you might play a Thorton and wonder how you honor "can't outweighs can" in card games. Do I not exchange the pokemon? Do I remove the energy from the game simultaneous with the pokemon switching in? Do I leave the energy in an "In play state" but revoke it's "attached" status? The second line chooses one of several plausible resolutions for you.
There's a second step to resolve. Even if Lugia loses the first step, It's possible Lugia could lose the second step: does Spiral Energy "kissing" a Pokemon allow it to cure paralysis? One could argue that effects that maintain the "kosherness" of the game state should be resolved on a first pass before other effects. One could argue both things are simultaneously happening and both should occur because they don't contradict eachother.

It is kinda interesting.
I'm playing Lugia in regionals on Saturday. I did not decide to attempt a 25% chance judges at regionals will let me use spiral energy to heal Lugia paralysis. My deck doesn't use paralysis so I'm glad I don't have to wonder how it will go down, won't affect my games.

[Isis]

Thanks SleepyKrew!

[Isis]

Meme decks!

[Isis]

Flea did you know there's a tea party deck in standard, Mad Party, I lost to it on friday