What to get, and what is best?

[Nightfiend]

So, my friends brother had a birthday recently and he is really into the TCG. We played a bunch of games while I was over at his party (he is 16 now) and since he plays often, I found that his decks actually have strategy unlike what it was like when I first played back at the beginning. I tell you this to bring a little bit of context into my next questions.

I still need to give him a birthday present, I know he wants cards and mentioned tins, but I have no idea which is best or worth it to him, he buys trades and sells cards if that helps.

I thought it may be fun to buy some cards and make my own deck, just to have in case we play games again. So should I buy a theme pre-made deck? or just get a bunch of boosters? I have played magic,WoWtcg, and yugioh besides pokemon, so I know how the games work, can anyone help me figure out what to buy?

 

[Fairy Tale~]

Buy a deck and boosters and costomize your deck with the cards you get from the boosters. and if you need help with anything ask me!

 

[Nightfiend]

sweet, ok well here goes

1. I think team plasma is the current set, should I just buy those cards? or should I try to buy cards from different sets?

example.

1xtheme deck
2xtins - darkrai + ???
1x anything else I find maybe another tin? or a different theme deck?

cant think of anything else I would need and I know most of the rules for the card game from the games we played but, from what he tells me there are specific sets, or cards I really need to get because their worth the money or something?

 

[donavannj]

You'll want to find a theme deck that has the Basic Energy cards you want to use in your deck. Unfortunately, the theme decks aren't as decent in quality when compared to theme decks from other CCGs, so buying them for Basic Energy is their most useful purpose.

Legendary Treasures is probably your best bet for a useful set to buy since it has quite a large number of cards useful for competitive play that were reprinted in it.

 

[Nightfiend]

so buy a theme deck or 2 for energy cards, sounds the same as magic so far...

set wise, just get legendary treasure, i assume its printed on the tins which set it is?

is it better to just get those, or should I mix sets?
to get the plasma set and the legendary set?

I know I am probably botching a lot of this, but I have honestly not played since 2000 :/

 

[donavannj]

Tins have a mixture of booster packs from different sets in them. Boosters will say what set they are from on the packaging. No tin currently contains Legendary Treasures cards in them.

I do recommend Darkrai EX tins simply because it's easier than hoping to pull one from booster packs. Also once you get familiar with the game look at ordering singles of cards online (most hobby/card/comic shops don't sell Pokemon singles, and those that do don't often deal in the current sets).

 

[Nightfiend]

ok, so I think I know what I will try to do.

2x theme decks...whichever look good
2x darkrai tins
4-6x legendary treasure packs
would that be a good start? or should I get more boosters?

 

[Fairy Tale~]

sounds good to me and try to find decks with darkness energy to use your darkrai in.

 

[Profen]

I would actually suggest just buying singles to make your first deck. Granted it will probably be more than you want to spend, though you can make a cheap deck. By cheap i mean much cheaper than buying theme decks and a bunch of tins and booster packs, only to end up with not having stuff to make a cohesive deck. You will end up spending tons of money on boosters and stuff to make a good deck in the long run.

The only thing boosters have going for them is the fun of opening them. Cause lets look at this in a price perspective.

Supporters that are needed
4 Junipers $1ish each
4 Ns $3ish each
4 Other supporters that range $1-4 each

Trainers can be cheap or expensive based on what they do and are the hardest to come by since they come from tons of different sets. The more commonly used ones are.
Switch 50cents ish
Ultra Ball $1ish
Rare Candy $1ish
Super Rod $3ish
Tool Scrapper 50 cents ish
Silver Bangle 75 cents ish
There are tons of others but as you can see they are cheap, but it will take a lot of effort and money buying different sets to get the playsets of the cards you need.

Pokemon can range from like 25 cents to as much as like $8ish for regular non ex pokemon.

The only thing you dont really want to buy is the Ex cards since they can be really expensive, though with the release of Legendary Treasures, there are tons of cheap common ones now. Though certain decks perform pretty well without Exs, even better and faster than some of the ones that do.

Unless you have a specific deck in mind, try looking up decks that work without exs. My suggestions would be.
-Empoleon
-Tool Drop
-Garchomp
-Beedrill

These all work pretty decently, beedrill is currently my favorite deck that can whoop ex filled decks no problem. Tool Drop has gotten like 4th in regionals someplace. Empoleon has taken 2 Regionals in europe. Garchomp is one of the strongest and most consistent non exs decks imo. Any of these decks are really cheap to make and the cards that will cost you the most are the Trainer cards, but thats fine since they can be used in tons of decks. Unlike pokemon, which generally are good in only a few decks.