Trading card games (TCGs) have been a big part of my free time for a long time. Pokémon TCG, however, has been a blind spot on my experience. The new Pokémon TCG Pocket (what a mouthful) is free-to-play and seemed like a good opportunity to learn. After the tutorials that taught me the basics of the game, my competitive nature took over and I went searching for winning strategies. Funnily enough, the gameplay is boring and extremely repetitive. The developers approach to solving this issue and infusing some novelty is to introduce ever more powerful cards. The current metagame is ruled by a few cards and these are my impressions of them.
The best cards
These are the most powerful and auto include in every deck:
What an absurd card. A whole deck has 20 cards. For zero cost this bad boy draws you two. Research is by far the most banable card in this list. Except it underpins the whole system. The game would go from repetitive and consistent to repetitive and inconsistent restricting deckbuilding even more.
2. Poke Ball
Searching for a guaranteed playable card is incredibly powerful. Poke ball and the game start rules1, are the biggest contributors to the small number of actual Pokémon included in competitive lists.
This card is only below Professor’s Research because you *can* build a deck with only one copy of Poke Ball. The deckbuilding cost of that is huge and abuses the initial basic Pokémon rule.
meta defining
These cards may not be the most powerful or the most oppressive but force deckbuilding concessions for everyone. Ignore them at your own peril.
3. Charizard EX brothers
This one is quite simple. How hard can you get hit? The first Charizard EX has the most powerful attack in the game – no Pokémon has enough health to survive Crimson Storm. The downside is that it is supposed hard to get to a two evolution and Crimson Storm is very expensive. The reality is that because EX Pokémon are the linchpin of most strategies, you usually only need to activate it once or twice. Every game is a race to 4 fire energy. The Charizard EX deck with or without Moltres EX is a great beginner deck.
Enter Shinning Revelry Charizard EX2. This angy boi does not need no Moltres EX to get to his second ability. Steam Artillery only deals 150 which is a huge drop in power. Except that there are only 37 cards with more than 150 health and 5 of them have weaknesses that make them susceptible to SR Charizard EX.
The second Charizard is more consistent and single minded than the first. It effectively dictates how big your engines have to be. If SR Charizard EX can kill your main dude, you have to add Giant Cape or Leaf Cape to make sure they survive.
THERE ARE FOUR DIFFERENT CARDS NAMED ORICORIO!!!!3 The only one that matters is the Pom-pom version, so called because it has pompoms in the art.4 The important part is that it has the Ability Safeguard: Prevent all damage done to this Pokémon by attacks from your opponent’s Pokémon ex.
Before it was released almost every deck had only EX Pokémon in their lists. The very existence of Pom-pom Oricorio5 prices deck builders to add an alternative win condition to the deck6. The release of this card is, IMO, very good for the game. It made decks less consistent and repetitive, expanded the universe of cards and strategies playable.
4. Darkrai EX with a light assist of Giratina EX
Take everything I said about Oricorio benefiting the game and throw it away. Darkrai EX does not care. It’s ability kills the bird passively. Add a powerful finisher, with high HP and an ability that lets you not miss any energy progression while bombarding the opponent with Darkrai EX ability.
The deck that combines the two cards was the best thing out before the latest release and still is. The best way to climb the ranks is to just play these two. Having a clear best deck is not a problem per se. How oppressive the gameplay is what to look for. In theory, these two are slow and you can kill them if you are faster. That’s what the Charizard EXs are for.
Speaking of speed:
RARE CANDY
5. Rare Candy
There is not much to say about Rare Candy. It undercuts the weakness of two evolution Pokémon, jumping their basic form to their most powerful one. It turbo charges multiple strategies and makes decks with Solgaleo EX possible. Most decks that use it, cut out the middle evolution completely, making the decks even more consistent.
It is on its own category because no other card pushes numerous decks without warping of the metagame or having a clear counter.
metagame calls
All these cards come in to solve a problem for your deck7. I already explained Giant Cape, size matters. The healing cards buy you time. Rocky Helmet (and its Pokémon relative Druddigon) helps cut smaller attackers down to size. Red is pretty simple: see EX Pokémon, kill EX Pokémon. Guzma is the counter to all the equipments, it comes in handy for Charizard EX and similar strategies.
hyperspecific cards
A big way to power up alternative strategies to big and powerful is to create narrow and insanely powerful cards. This way, the other decks catchup in power level without contributing to the already dominant strategies. These cards are either upgraded Poke Balls (Kiawe, Gladion), upgraded healing (Lillie, Erika), energy accelerants (Lusamine, Celesteela), upgraded specific equipment (Leaf Cape, Poison Barb) or arguably upgraded pump spells (Beastite, Beast Wall). If you need one of these, you will know. In many cases, their existence is the reason way you are building a lesser deck to begin with.
Filler/Annoying cards
Now that you have added your win conditions, the support card you need for them, the metagame calls, you still need to get to 20 cards. Usually you will see these as one-ofs. These can address some important issue. However, if you have space at the end just add an annoying bullshitty card that affects your opponents draws.
Leaf lets you play a bigger body to protect your win condition without wasting energy on it.
Giovanni is a very generic pump ability. If you need power, he can give it to you.
Pokemon Communication lets you correct the order the Pokémon you drew are in.
Cyrus, Sabrina and Repel let you switch target to higher priority ones in the opponents bench.
Iono and Mars affects your opponents hands which can be good situationally.
As a last ditch effort if you cannot think of anything else, add Pokedex.
HEad scratchers
These cards are either bad (Team Rocket Grunt), too situational (Ilima) or too cute for me (Shaymin8).
conclusion
The way to win (or build a deck capable of winning) in Pokemon TCG Pocket is:
First, pick a win condition. Usually an EX pokemon9, but you also go with Pom-pom Oricorio or Silvally.
Second, add the required cards. Research, Poke Ball, Rare Candy and pre evolutions (if needed), metagame calls (non EX mons count here!)
Third, a smattering of random cards to get to 20.
After that you have to play the games which I am not really into, sigh.
If nothing else, collecting all the cards, can give you the hits you need to keep going.
- Each player is guaranteed a BASIC pokemon to start the game. ↩︎
- God, it is so stupid to have two cards with the exact same name. ↩︎
- They all came out in the same SET. ↩︎
- I wish I was making this up. ↩︎
- The actual deck is not that good, unless the opponent can’t kill the bird and you win by default. ↩︎
- Of the top of my head, the most common options are: Nihilego, Blacephalon, Silvally, Rampardos, Pheromosa, and Shiinotic. Any mon with high HP and a good move or ability can be used (Paldean Tauros and Druddigon, Incineroar EX for example) ↩︎
- Any non EX Pokémon counts here too. ↩︎
- Of course there are two of these fuckers. ↩︎
- Currently the best are Darkrai EX, Giratina EX, SR Charizard EX, Solgaleo EX, Buzzwole EX, Guzzlord EX, and maybe Decidueye EX. ↩︎
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