Back from a "Break" - What did I miss?

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    • Age 32
    • USA
    • Seen May 15, 2025
    I haven't played the Pokemon TCG since...I'd say the Card Reader series thing. I remember how to play, sure, but I know from my experience with uber-competitive Yugioh that all it takes is a little bit of time for the way a card game is played to change drastically.

    I bought a theme deck (Nightfall) and for learning I got Ms. Furusawa's Power Cottonweed. I did some test draws and found that Pokemon is a very fast game (similar to YGO). I also noticed some very useful cards, cards that, due to my background in card games, seem very "broken!" This posed a few questions for me, that I'd really appreciate if you experienced players could help me out with! m(_ _)m

    How fast is Pokemon, generally? What cards are considered staples nowadays? Which sorts of decks tend to do better ("Swarm," "Beatdown," etc)?

    Also, I've been looking around but I can't seem to find the answer to this one (so I apologize for how ignorant I may sound!): Is there a sort of "ban list" in Pokemon? (Any limits on certain cards and how many can be used in a deck?)

    I'd really appreciate any help! :D
     
    Pokemon has "rotation." Cards older than a certain set are not legal unless they were reprinted. Right now, cards from Great Encounters and earlier are banned.

    Pokemon also has two main types of decks: metagame, and anti-metagame. Metagame are the things you prepare for. Anti-meta are decks the meta-decks prepare for, as well as keeping it safe enough to play against other anti-meta decks. SP Pokemon, for example, are basic Pokemon that take 6 prizes from wherever they want in play. Machamp [Stormfront] is more anti-meta because of its only good aggression being against basic Pokemon. They all have different strategies, so no deck really wins more than the other. Meta decks with anti-meta components usually do the best at tournaments.
     
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