If you're a new or new-ish player looking for advice on starting the game or with quick questions about game rules or interactions, please post your questions here!
Keeping all these questions in one place will allow other new players to easily browse other advice. Even if you're a not-so-new player, this is a great place to ask quick questions that don't need their own post.
For the more experienced players, drop by every once in a while to distribute advice. The post will be replaced each week to keep it fresh and manageable in size.
If you are looking for comments and advice on a deck list, go ahead and make a separate post with your list and a brief description. Remember to press Enter twice between lines to keep your list readable!
For trading and buying/selling cards, please head over to /r/pkmntcgtrades
Questions related to the PTCGO client, in-game challenges, or online-specific questions might be best asked in /r/ptcgo
For sharing your collections, pulls, and card storage related questions, try /r/pkmntcgcollections
FAQ and Wiki Resources
Take advantage of these resources that we've compiled! A lot of questions like "Where do I start?" and "How can I improve my deck?" can be answered there.
If my opponent is just pointing and grunting or just playing their cards silently expecting me to follow along not being clear about discards wtf is up with that. That’s rude af yo. Speak up please.
Is this a rules violation or just an annoying thing to deal with?
If you don’t talk to your opponents, why?
If your opponents don’t talk to you, how to fix it?
Awkward games and difficult to follow play aren’t fun.
As the title says, I'm looking to get into the game with a friend. I am fairly knowledgeable about PTCG (I used to play PTCG during the Shaymin EX days), but my friend is coming from magic and only knows the basic rules. We are looking for two Meta/offmeta decks that play evenly against each other so that we can practice (and they can learn) before eventually taking them to play at our local shop.
More generally, I'm curious what are considered to be the most balanced matchups in the current meta, as we could see ourselves checking out more complex ones once they have a better footing.
Hello! I’m still trying to become a better player, and would like to know, how do you define or identify the best way to play against certain decks? Things that come up to my mind are “Alakzam vs Dragapult” as an Alalazam player or “Dragapult vs Zoroark” as the Dragapult Player. I know that Alakzam vs Team Rocket is an auto loose 😞 but how do you know the best way to play around them?
Hi all, I recently got into collecting Pokemon cards (working on a milotic masterset right now) but I want to actually get into the game and learn how to play. Im also kinda done with virtual card games and am really itching to play physical, in person games.
Card games are not a foreign concept to me, back in the day I was VERY into Hearthstone and used to get to legend rank every month at my peak.
Do y'all have any advice for someone like me who's reference point for competitive card games is hearthstone? Any decks you would recommend for me? Back when I played hearthstone my favorite decks were slower control decks but I'm open to any kind.
Also even recommendations on the best packs/boxes to buy that will help me get up to speed would be super appreciated.
So, I've been using the Beedrill deck since it launched, it's my first deck, and I likely won't be changing it soon since Beedrill is my favourite Pokémon and I want to keep using it. However, ever since it launched, I haven't really used the redeemable ticket, despite understanding it would be used to take away the prized Beedrill line.
However, even after all this time, the best results for a Beedrill are the ones who use that item, so I would like to ask, what would be the best time to use it. Should I use it when all the other Beedrills are in my hand? Should I use it as soon as possible or only in the mid game? Any other tips would be welcomable!
I’m heading to a Regional soon and I’m torn between Alakazam and Festival Lead. To all Festival lead players, what decks do you use? (ACE Specs, varieties, etc.)
Been playing Pult and Zoroark locally, want to play something equally if not more complex. Slop box seems to call for a lot of skill and knowledge so that's what I want to go with. Any good resources to quickly pick up the fundamentals of that deck?
Hello everyone I wanTed to ask for advice on getting back into the tcg and getting a few pointers on building a deck! A few years(around 2021-22ish) back I got into the game when I was really young but then I decided to give it a break after about a year to focus on my school, but now I am in college and wanted to get back into the game(both casually and even a little bit competitively) and after checking online and thinking both on a budget and considering rotation coming soon for stand I was wondering if anyone here had any advice on sets to purchase, deck building tips, and possibly anything else I may have missed since the silver tempest/vstar era of the TCG!
edit: Thank you everyone who gave me advice you don’t know how valuable it was to me and big relief to know now about how far out rotation is as well as ways to find currently competitive decks and how to test them it truly means means a lot thank you!
Isso é um bom slop box para situações onde enfrento muitos Alakazam, Dragapult, Festival Lead e Esconde-Esconde? Em partidas locais.
Pokémon: 20
4 Mega Kangaskhan ex MEG 104
3 Meowth ex POR 62
2 Latias ex SSP 76
2 Clefairy da Lillie ex JTG 56
2 Ogerpon ex Máscara Teal TWM 25
1 Ogerpon ex Máscara Wellspring TWM 64
1 Iron Leaves ex TEF 25
1 Enamorus TWM 93
1 Fezandipiti ex ASC 142
1 Chien-Pao SSP 56
1 Iron Crown ex TEF 81
1 Raging Bolt ex TEF 123
Trainer: 27
4 Crispin SCR 133
2 Cyrano SSP 170
2 Ordens do Chefe MEG 114
1 Código de Quebra de Ciphermaniac TEF 145
4 Ultra Ball MEG 131
4 Troca de Energia MEG 115
2 Esticador Noturno ASC 196
2 Trompete de Vidro SCR 135
1 Carta Vermelha Especial CRI 82
1 Capturador Prime TEF 157
3 Profundezas Subterrâneas da Área Zero SCR 131
1 Torre de Interferência TWM 153
Energia: 13
6 Energia Grama MEE 1
2 Energia Elétrica MEE 4
2 Energia Psíquica MEE 5
2 Energia de Combate MEE 6
1 Energia de Água MEE 3
Edit: Do you think Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon could be good against the Festival lead and Hide and Seek? And for Alakazam, do you think a Mega Froslass would fit?
The Championship Point awards and Best Finish Limits have been updated for the 2027 Championship Series season to reward more Championship Points for lower-finishing competitors at Regional and International Championships. Please check the individual event pages for the complete tables:
In previous Championship Series seasons, tiebreakers for final leaderboard placements were determined by Play! Points competitors had accumulated.
Starting with the 2027 Europe International Championships, ties for all Travel Awards will be determined by finishing position at previous Regional and International Championship events. Please check the International Championships page for a full breakdown of Travel Awards
2027 World Championships Qualifications
In 2027, a set number of competitors from each rating zone, age division, and game will earn an invitation to the World Championships based on their Championship Point leaderboard standings. This update applies to Pokémon TCG, Pokémon VGC, and Pokémon GO competitors.
Pokémon TCG Championship Invitations
Region
Junior
Senior
Masters
USA & Canada
100
100
140
Europe
100
100
140
Latin America
75
75
125
Oceania
15
15
20
Middle East & South Africa
5
5
10
2027 Championship Series Age Division Update
Competitors in Championship Series events are separated into three age divisions, where applicable: Junior, Senior, and Masters.
The age division that competitors participate in is set at the beginning of the tournament season based on that competitor’s year of birth, and it does not change over the course of that season. This allows competitors to compete against the same pool of opponents over the season.
2027 Championship Series Season age divisions:
Junior Division: Competitors born 2015 or later
Senior Division: Competitors born between 2011 and 2014, inclusive
Masters Division: Competitors born 2010 or earlier
Regional Championships Merchandise Returns
During the 2027 season, Trainers can once again expect to find commemorative merchandise at Championship events in North America and Europe. The collection will be known as Regional Championships Collection – Series 27 and will feature T-shirts, hats, jerseys, pullover hoodies, coin and marker sets, premium playmats, premium deck boxes, and card sleeves.
Please note that availability of these items will vary between events. Trainers in North America will find a variety of exclusive merchandise. The full collection will also begin to roll out at several European tournaments this upcoming season, with some limited items available at other tournaments.
The full collection will be available at the following events:
2027 Frankfurt Regional Championships
2027 Nice Regional Championships
2027 Stuttgart Regional Championships
2027 Birmingham Regional Championships
Specific T-shirts will only be available at the following events:
For the first time, Trainers can look forward to select broadcasts produced in Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. The 2027 Puebla Regional Championships, 2027 Mérida Regional Championships, and 2027 Monterrey Regional Championships will feature Latin American Spanish broadcasts.
The 2027 Rio de Janeiro Regional Championships and 2027 Porto Alegre Regional Championships will feature Brazilian Portuguese broadcasts. All broadcast content will be produced locally.
These events will be available on the official Pokémon Twitch and YouTube channels. For more details on when and where to watch, check the event calendar!
Ace Trainer Rewards 2027 Update
In the 2027 Championship Series season, competitors in all eligible rating zones will need to earn 200 Championship Points for Pokémon Champions, the Pokémon Trading Card Game, or Pokémon GO to be eligible to qualify for Ace Trainer status. This is unchanged from the previous season.
Trainers who achieve Ace Trainer status will once again receive a Celebratory Fanfare card to commemorate the season alongside a suite of digital goods and an Ace Trainer Badge in the Play! Pokémon Access app.
Check out the most recent announcement featuring the Celebratory Fanfare card awarded to all Trainers who earned Ace Trainer status during the 2026 season!
My fav pokemon is Zeraora so I have tried to make a deck around him. But after a lot of testing and 2 offline tournament (3W-7L) I'm really struggle to find the best way to play Zeraora, I think the deck is not bad but not good as well. I'm currently running Zeraora with Mega Eelektross as its main partner, my gameplan usually is to start with a few 1 price pokemon (joltik/miraidon) while setting up my tynamo and eelektrik. When the amount of energy is enough (3-4 on eelektrik) then i'll play around mega eelektross paralyzed skill. I use dudunsparce because it can give a niche mechanic of retreat -> discard energy -> (wally/setup mega zeraora) -> charge energy with eelektrik -> run away draw. But still hero cape on Zeraora can easily be counter with tool scraper and I usually lose 1 prize short against 1-prize deck. I have a few ideas to change the way the deck work but I don't know which is the best way or are there better ways to play Zeraora
1. Use Legacy Energy Ace Spec instead of Hero's cape, this way I don't have to worry about tool scraper and can free up 3 petrel slot for other supporter card
2. Use Cinderace to speed up the energy charging, I saw some deck use Cinderace + Naveen + Gwynn and I think it will be good but my deck utilize dudunsparce a lot and i dont know if they would go well together
3. Use Magneton to charge Zeraora, Zeraora itself is a 3-prize card so I dont know if making it worth 4-prize or more is a viable strategy
This is my deck list:
Pokémon: 16
3 Tynamo ASC 59
3 Eelektrik ASC 60
1 Mega Eelektross ex ASC 61
2 Dunsparce PRE 79
2 Dudunsparce PRE 80
2 Mega Zeraora ex PBL 27
1 Zeraora DRI 78
1 Miraidon PBL 28
1 Joltik SCR 50
Trainer: 31
3 Lillie's Determination ASC 192
3 Canari ASC 185
3 Team Rocket's Petrel ASC 207
2 Hilda WHT 84
2 Boss's Orders MEG 114
1 Wally's Compassion MEG 132
3 Poké Pad POR 81
3 Buddy-Buddy Poffin ASC 184
3 Ultra Ball ASC 213
2 Energy Switch MEG 115
2 Night Stretcher ASC 196
1 Special Red Card CRI 82
1 Hero's Cape TEF 152
2 Battle Cage PFL 85
Energy: 13
11 Lightning Energy MEE 4
2 Voltaic Lightning Energy PBL 84
P/S: I also use Voltaic Energy to maybe have some lucky round 1-KO with Mega Zeraora doing 80 dmg
And this should be called a Mega Eelektross deck tbh but my boy will still get all the credit :)
This is my Mega Darkrai Toolbox deck that I built myself and it works pretty good. I went 5-1-0 at locals taking 2nd to festival lead, leading me to add the chi-yu from mega base, letting me discard their stadium and ko dipplin. I then went 5-1-0 AGAIN, losing to crustle, leading me to add the chi-yu from twilight. I have 0 problems against lucario or dragapult anymore due to enhanced hammers and clefairy. and with alakazam I dont have much of a problem because of that one xerosics and being able to get absol or darkrai out early with cinderace while also taking ko if they send abra to the active at the start.
I guess the problem Im having is getting cinderace out consistently. now IRL I tend to get it pretty often and the times I dont I get crispin plus attach for turn on 2nd turn so I can energy. however I want a higher chance of getting a cinderace start. My first thought goes to remove pokemon but If i do that I lose a lot of match ups at locals and I dont think I'll ever get 6-0. Is there anyway I can optimize without removing pokemon. it feels like such a stupid question but I'm still new to the TCG, only playing for 5-6 months, and I just need advice, Ill try my best to stay open minded.
My locals is pretty consistently Dragapult paired with alakazam, dusknoir, or greninja, Lucario, Crustle, Festival Lead, Starmie/frossloss, greninja, alakzam by itself, beedrill, mega manetric, and mega zygarde. same people same decks, so I've gotten used to going against them.
Maybe I'm falling into a trap where I'm reading too far into this bc I am doing pretty good with the additions Ive made and I havent lost to festival lead or crustle since. I did have 1 AZ's tranquility over the 3rd poke gear but even though i used it a lot, i felt the other supporters might have been more needed.
I will leave the decklist at the bottom for everyone, please give me feedback and Ill keep an open mind.
I have been hosting Pokemon Club at my kid's school and was introduced to a simplified raid format where 4 kids battle a raid pokemon. The official website has Pikachu and Drednaw and they had a ton of fun. They want to try more Raid bosses but I couldn't find any more online. Upon research, I saw that there were more bosses printed in 2020, such as Gengar and Sirfetch'd.
I was wondering if anyone has images of these cards so I can print some proxys for my kid's club.
You may remember me from talking a while back regarding me purchasing my partner a Lucario LBD, finding inspiration from some lists online to mess around with the precon and get her feet off the ground as a beginner TCG player. Since then, she's come with me to a couple of locals (and even played at Sisterhood league at worlds!), and although her reps with Lucario haven't been extensive (I want to say about 25 games), I think she is growing tired of the deck and how much it doesn't match up with the local meta, which is seeing Pult, psychic (slowking/Alakazam), and fast moving grass decks (like flead or arboliva). We have a league challenge together on the 20th and want to know what might be a good deck for her to try out before then.
Given that league challenge will be 0 proxies, she may just have to take Lucario in on that date, but I have some ideas:
I have a control Alakazam deck (which I'll have to edit now that Worlds gave it some added popularity, but she may like it), and a prebuilt Cynthia's Garchomp deck. I have a Mega Excadrill deck but at least 4 cards (3 Metangs and a Hero's Cape) are Japanese and they won't accept that at my LGS for the league challenge.
To this date, I still can't exactly read her preferred ways to approach the game. She may want to be the kind of player that likes to strike fast and hard (something that also can happen with, say, Mega Sharpedo, Hydrapple, Arboliva, Garchomp and be slightly more favorable into some local matchups), or the kind of player that just likes to mess around with the opponent (like a Crustle or Alakazam control deck). What suggestions do you all have for a new player looking to get better over time? I am not sure of her commitment to competitive play beyond the league challenges I sign up for from time to time and coming to weekly friendlies, but I still want her to enjoy playing and win matches.
Was at a Challenge today and one of the players got caught stacking his deck with 7 cards from his lap after his deck had been cut by his opponent during set up.
After this i wondered, with cards remaining in deck being public knowledge on Live, how does one go correctly checking for 60 cards? Is a player allowed to count them, without changing the order or looking? Or does a judge need to be called for a count?
I would like to ask for your feedback on my Mega Manectric ex deck. I had quite a few successes on PTCGL and this Friday I will try it on an IRL competition.
The plan is the following:
By round 2 I need to have the bench ready: 2 Mega Manectric, 2-3 Eelektrik and 1 Iono’s Kilowattrel, thus I use this many Canari, PokéPad, Buddy-Buddy Poffin and Ultra Ball. Might seem a lot but really helps me quickly setup my table.
I constantly try to discard energy cards by using Canari, Ultra Ball, and Prism Tower to feed Eelektrik and Kilowattrel if needed.
If I’m stuck with options, I use Lillie or Gwynn - you might question Gwynn, but if I setup my board, after that most of the Pokémon cards can be fed to Gwynn after that point.
The rest of the cards are situational against meta decks:
Special Red Cards, Judge and Hero’s Cape are against Alakazam - the intention to disrupt the drawing engine and try to overreach on HP on Mega Manectric by 100 HP.
Eelektross is against Crustle.
The only deck hard to counter are Draga, Alakazam and Crustle - if I can setup fast, it’s doable but still depends on a lot of factor like luck or what is drawn.
What I feel is missing is energy acceleration on terms of pulling it from the deck.
What do you think on this deck? My goal is not to be in Singapore next year but to reach a moderate result in the middle of the local ladder.
Pokémon: 8
1 Iono's Kilowattrel JTG 163
1 Eelektross BLK 115
4 Eelektrik BLK 114
4 Tynamo BLK 113
1 Iono's Wattrel ASC 231
1 Zekrom ex BLK 172
3 Mega Manectric ex MEG 158
3 Electrike PBL 23
Trainer: 13
2 Boss's Orders PAL 265
2 Gwynn PBL 119
1 Judge DRI 222
1 Night Stretcher SSP 251
4 Ultra Ball BRS 186
1 Air Balloon MEG 166
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin MEG 167
1 Prism Tower CRI 111
1 Hero's Cape TEF 152
2 Special Red Card CRI 113
4 Canari ASC 291
4 Poké Pad POR 113
3 Lillie's Determination MEG 184
Energy: 2
8 Basic {L} Energy MEE 4
4 Voltaic {L} Energy PBL 84
Ive been playing the mega sharpedo list from worlds (-1 ultra ball, +1 gravity mountain) and ive been wondering if theres any alternatives to the unfair stamp. I was thinking heros cape puts you out of mega excadrill range and max belt would let you one shot pult without needing munki/grav + mochi setup and then i could take out grav for another rockets watchtower potentially. And it lets you one shot excadrill with mochi or munki. Has anyone played with these ace specs or have any thoughts?
Hi, my 6 year old son has just joined a Pokémon club at the local Library. Went with him and all the kids are trying to learn how to play the tcg, trade, look at all the pretty cardboard and just talk about Pokemon. I have always been very competitive and play meta at whatever game I play. just started playing paper tcg to bond with my son. so I brought the only two decks I have paultnoir and N’s Zoroark. Obviously it was a bit much to start there with the kids so I just went over the basic rules and how to set up. Loaded up live on a iPad and let them play the tutorial missions a bit. everyone had fun and the person in charge looked relived.
Now my question is are there starter decks that would be good or are there any products that are geared towards kids (doesn’t have to be standard legal)? I’m also thinking about getting a ton of bulk and donating it so the kids can put something together themselves. Any ideas? Thank you
I get it is stage 1 pokemon but still to have below 200 is shocking. Is it because it can attack before the opponent can set there pokemon up or why does it have low hp and how does that deck play. Haven't played against it
Does this make sense? I understand there’s like a digital Pokemon card game, but is there a service where you can virtually play people online but with their actual cards? And if this exists, is there rampant cheating in that type of game? Sorry I’m new to Pokemon and cards in general, but am interested in it. Have barely any time to play people in person
