How to Build a Pokemon TCG Deck; A 2024 Beginner's Guide

so maybe you or someone you know your kids your cousins friends whatever has binders of Pokemon cards Che boxes tins full of cards they've collected but they've got no idea what to do with them or maybe you've watched a recent stream of a competitive Tournament of the Pokemon TCG or maybe you just got your first battle deck for Christmas and you're trying to look in on how to improve that deck you're in the right place here's the problem I've seen though there are hundreds of brilliant people reviewing breaking down or play testing Decks that are either winning tournaments or are close to Decks that are winning tournaments or they're playing Fun gimmicky Decks that maybe aren't competitive but are a blast to play but there's nobody out there teaching people how to build Decks that are effective with the cards that they have available to them there's also not a lot of information that explains to beginners on what to consider when you're building a deck for the first time or you're modifying a deck that someone else has built maybe you're trying to copy the list or modify that and let's face it there is an overwhelming amount of information on the internet and it's really difficult to know where to start when it comes to buying cards online copying deck lists that you see in the internet and knowing how to play those decks it's hard to know exactly where to buy these cards you can go to a store or you can go online to a reputable website and you can buy 60 cards and there's your deck buying those cards and setting yourself up with a tournament winning deck is like putting a toddler in a tank so my goal here today is to highlight the important components of a deck that make it work consistently from Battle to battle and against different matchups and we're actually going to create our own deck in real time using this scarlet and violet Elite Trainer Box but before that a quick introduction I'm Brett as a '90s kid Pokemon has always been a part of my life for as long as I can remember I collected the cards played the video games I had all the toys clothes and collectibles that came with them but fast forward to 2024 my wife and I teach kids and their parents how to play the game at our local library we've hosted tournaments we've had trade days and we've started to bring our community together for kids and families that really don't know where to start when it comes to playing the Pokémon TCG in this time I've paid close attention to competitive play the best decks in the format and kind of just expanding my knowledge and I've done my best to make that information more digestible for beginners now that you know who I am and why I'm here here's what we're going to talk about today one we're going to go over the basic rules of building a 60 card deck two we're going to talk about the key components of a deck and things to consider when building any deck and three we're going to go over two basic strategies to help build decks so starting off with the rules of any Pokemon TCG deck the first one and the major one is that all decks must be 60 cards not 59 not 61 60 in those 60 cards you must have at least one Basic Pokemon and you can have no more than four of any Pokémon or trainer card or special energy the only exception to that rule being that you may have as many basic energies as you desire however different variations of the same Pokémon exist for example you could have four Pikachu four Pikachu V four Pikachu Vmax four Raichu and four alolan Raichu all in the same deck even though at that point you'd have 12 Pikachus and eight Raichu the thing to note is that Regional variants Pokemon V Vmax varar ex or Regional variant of Pokémon differ from the original Pokémon themselves allowing you to possibly have up to 12 or 16 of the same Pokémon just in different versions in one deck the last rule to keep in mind when building a deck is standard formatting if you want your deck to be standard format legal all cards must be in the rotation f g or H moving on to the second part of deck building we're looking at focusing on deck components and considerations when building a deck the first key component to building a deck is consistency or whether or not you can execute your play strategy regularly against different opponents in different game situations consistent decks rely on builtin search and draw support as well as having multiple cards that your strategy revolves around because you're more likely to find a card if you have three or four of them as opposed to only one the second component of a deck is the acceleration or your ability to attach multiple energies per turn evolve your Pokemon as soon as possible and execute your strategy before your opponent can execute theirs and finally there's disruption which is stopping your opponent from executing their strategy altogether or slowing them down disruption typically includes discarding cards from your opponent's hand shuffling your opponent's hand removing Energies or switching out inactive Pokemon that's not ready to battle yet next there are many things to be brought into consideration when building a deck such as Chan pal EX for example you have to discard energies from your Pokemon in order to do more damage so naturally your thought should be how to preserve energies instead of just having to load 20 into a deck when you can use eight and continue to recycle them with things like super rod Superior Energy retrieval and so on ultimately as broad of a term as consideration can be when you're looking at the Pokémon in your deck you should be considering what their weaknesses may be and what cards you can use to make sure that you're able to attack with them effectively and often now that you've got an idea of what to look out for when building a Pokémon dcg deck it's time to talk about strategies for building them the first strategy is the 202020 strategy which consists of a deck built with 20 Pokémon 20 trainers and 20 energy and it's what I think is best for beginners having a deck with equal parts Pokemon trainers and energy can make the deck a little more stable and less reliant on the effects and abilities of a very few specific cards current ancient and future box Decks that are in the format work well with this strategy because they allow the deck to attack with several different attackers depending on your opponent's strategy and you're less reliant on getting one specific Pokemon on your bench where you could have three four five options at any given time more effective future and ancient decks are more of a 15 30 15 split more relying on trainers to execute better consistency and acceleration but the concept Remains the Same the second strategy to building a Pokemon TCG deck is what I call reverse engineering where you're taking one or two specific Pokémon that you're looking to battle with and you're building an entire 60 card deck around just that combination or pair utilizing its attack effects or abilities to the fullest to execute a strategy when reverse engineering a deck around a few specific Pokemon the other 50 whatever cards you have in your deck are really just reliant on making that Pokemon stable covering its weaknesses and making sure it can hit just about any Pokemon and any other given deck without a hitch now that we know the rules for building a deck things to consider and the components necessary for building an effective deck and strategies on putting one together it's time to open that Elite Trainer Box and see if we can use just the cards inside to make a deck that'll work at any beginner level all right so now we're set up to open up our packs in our ear trainer box and then from there build a deck with just what we've got available in these nine booster packs as well as a chunk of energy for any of you that haven't done much collecting here's why I recommend an Elite Trainer Box starting out because you get a pack of sleeves for your deck right off the bat you get damage counters and battle dice so if you buy one Elite Trainer Box you've got everything you need to like go to a friend's house whatever play against Mom Dad friends and you know you can get new a game with your deck you get your booster packs that we're going to open and you get this great Ryon promo card which honestly unless we end up getting no good electric type Pokemon this will probably end up in the deck you also get four dividers for organizing your cards and you get a brick of like 45 energies which allows you to effectively build a deck out of the nine packs you're given so for anyone interested you can scan the QR code to get the Elite Trainer Box stuff online but without any further Ado let's open some Pokemon [Music] cards I'm going to try to keep everything neat and organize as I go and possibly highlight just any good cards that I come across that will probably end up in the deck regardless of what I end up with so we've got watch roll cocar rock Mankey squawk abilly that could be a good one teamstar grunt two teamstar grunt a zangus g life toad scroll and Anil ape as well as an energy card was there no code card in that booster pack I'm lost already don't know what's going on zoomed in a little bit for your see an energy switch that could come in handy we've got Vero claer sko Stone Jer Penny which could be absolutely useful just about any deck a Meacham a clawitzer a Marie and oh we actually got the miam full art so miam can be pretty useful um but not unanimously but it'll still probably end up in the [Music] deck the challenge that we have here with just nine booster packs isn't going to be energy we should be able to get enough Pokemon of similar typings into a 60 card deck the biggest restriction we have when only opening nine booster packs of Pokemon cards is the amount of trainers that we're going to get because most likely we're going to get like 12 to 15 and it's not even going to set us up for a 2020 20 split anyway we've got quax Ley sovit this is a super good card as far as if you have a hand a bad hand in your dead drawing you can at least Shuffle it back in and get one card if you have other draw supporters in the deck this is a good one to have so that'll probably go in got Sharad Chun quack swell psych Bazar toad scroll a rock chest plate which could be good if we get some good fighting type Pokemon chansy and slow bro none of these packs have have code cards none of them I I'm so confused this one does [Music] okay we got R time chancy rare candy if we end up with a stage 2 Pokémon this will be perfect tat giri Jack is a great supporter for beginners lets me search out Evolution Pokémon flato flamigo we got the Wiglet art rare which is cute I don't see it being much use though and we got the Banette ex which could end up being our you know our heavy hitter in the deck cool okay now we're getting code cards here we've got Starly chachula watchel I know that's not the first one we've seen cocar Rock we got mouse hole we have the Vitality band which again good in any deck really toxtricity flab a Pokeball which isn't awesome but could go in the deck armor Rouge this is great card if you're playing fire type decks because it lets you move energies freely but I don't think we have any Fighters worth bringing into the deck that are fire type yet but that could change we still got four packs left the den pineco flittle F Coco Exp share another great Pokemon tool Stone Jer another Penny Pomo ciper and dond dozo so not a whole lot there got Mankey again another squa ailly good support Aloma cocor Muk Floris another team star grunt a Sandile and a Meara so there's our stage two I actually think we already have the first two Evolutions in this line so if we end up with some grass type attackers and some support could could go in the [Music] deck if you hear the banging in the background there's no code card in this one either if you hear the banging in the background my wife is trying to scare off Birds yeah we got a drifloon spatio see there's our you know our Evolution line flittle another Sur Viper flaffy Blissey pretty sure we saw a chansy earlier another Tatu giri a slow bro a room professor's research awesome card to have pretty much one in any deck you could ever build um you know if you're dead drawing if you have two cards in your hand that aren't much use professor's research could save you [Music] over down to our last pack here we've only got that one ex to work with and honestly I don't even know if I've seen a Shuppet to evolve the Banette so we may be trying to build a 60 card deck with no real main attacker which is okay again that kind of delivers the point of the video but we've got a Houndoom a pho Scatterbug another drifloon another cyar another Vitality band which is okay toxtricity Hound hour and we got the Houndoom could help us we got Riolu oh look at that all right we got gardav War ex we actually got the full art so if we have a shet somewhere which I don't think we do we could pair it pretty well with gardivoir as long as we have a Ralts and a cillia we've also got that rare candy so that could help oh and there's your last code card all right so here's the Deck Profile that I put together yes I'm wearing a hat in between Clips I did trash and recycling started raining hair's all wet deal with it anyways before we start this Deck Profile I snuck a Scarlet Violet base shupp it into this deck because there was just no lead as far as what Pokemon to lead with in this deck without being able to use the shove it betet line I also considered throwing in Ralts to have a one1 Ralts curia Gore line that would have changed the whole complexion of the deck I would have allowed me to use like cycle drifloon in and out and just have like high hitting Basic Pokemon that are close to the meta and I think that's adding RS would have been too much for this so I've got Shuppet and Banette banet EX for one energy allows you to block your opponent from using items the following turn for two energy does 60 damage for each en for each item card in their hand at the time of the attack so could hit for a lot of damage could whiff depending on how your opponent's hand looks I have a 101 FL to FIS line with that rare candy reliant on getting FIS F just can sit on my bench with its Blooming Garden ability um making it so my Pokemon in play have no weakness which helps when I'm cycling through four different types of Pokemon in this deck I've got one simple flittle it's got zero Retreat cost so it's a free pivot my idea was that any Pokemon if I get knocked out and I'm not sure what to send in the active yet or I'm relying on my next turn to get something in the active ready to fight flittle is a free pivot that I can put into the active with no regrets I have a 111 spatio florado Meara line the trick Cape attack on Meara allows me to put an an energy attached to my opponent's active back into their hand which kind of slows down their energy cycling the one one toads cool toads cruel does a similar effect with the Eerie tentacles attack for 30 damage and one energy I can switch an energy from my opponent's active to benched Pokemon so again slowing down their attacks I figure between benette disrupting and meow Scara and Toad scr removing energies I may be able to slow my my opponent down fast enough to attack with things like Houndoom Blissey zangus Etc moving on I've got a one one Hound hour Houndoom line um houndoom's fire blast can do a lot of damage for just a stage one um discarding and energy each time I use it the one one sharket armor Rouge with the fire off ability kind of prevents me from losing those energies if I'm able to cycle them from my bench the two chancy one Blissey line with the body Busy Body nurse ability allows me to heal conditions for my active Pokémon and happy Cyclone for 150 damage actually moves all my energy on Blissey to a bench Pokemon again hopefully activating Armor's ability in the next turn to move those energies back up to Blissey if possible I've got two squawk abilly which for one energy I can call for family which allows me to search my deck for two basic Pokemon and bench them very helpful um for the last four cards just random at this point I didn't know what else to add to the deck I've got a flamigo with one energy 30 attack and three energy for 110 also doing 20 damage to Flamingo L Chun I put in there with a one energy draw for an attack zangus for two energy will allow me to switch my opponent's active and bench Pokemon while dealing 30 damage and S while mentioning it in the opening the nest Dash ability allows me to shuffle my hand back into my deck and draw one card this card would have been excellent had I gotten any more draw support with the deck so I'm going to move on to trainers and energy now and then we'll go over the game plan for this deck and get some play testing in so for trainers again as mentioned in the opening this is where you're kind of bottlenecked as far as an effective deck because in nine packs I think I got lucky with 16 trainers never mind 20 253 options are limited anyways for supporter line I've got Miriam who allows me to bring five Pokémon from my discard back into my deck Jack who allows me to search for two evolution Pokemon Jack is the only search I have in this deck I have call for family to get Basic Pokemon and I have one Jack hidden in this deck for evolution search that is the only search I have in this deck I have professor's research which allowed me to dump my hand anytime I was dead drawing I had seven energies in my hand and like a stage two Pokemon and no Basics no trainers nothing so professor's research was great two pennies which allow me to just pick up my active Pokemon if it's taking a lot of damage or pick up a bench Pokemon if I haven't gotten the evolution out it was also handy in a couple quick pivots which I was allowed to retreat a Pokemon with a two energy cost if I had no energy in hand three teamstar grunt the teamstar grunt I thought could pair well with my grass type Pokemon in energy disruption move in energy from my opponent's active Pokemon to the top of their deck it just proved to not work um items I got one Pokeball which rarely worked out cuz it relies on a coin flip the rare candy which was for mainly for flbe into FIS because I did not have flette and one energy switch which could save me in a time where I need to Pivot or I need that one extra energy to land an attack tools I got two Vitality bands which are great cuz they do 10 extra damage regardless of what my Pokemon's got or your Pokemon and an exp share which allows me to retra retain some energy from an active Pokemon when it gets knocked out energies I had nine psychic energy seven fire energy and seven grass type energy normally I would not want that much energy in a deck but again with how few trainers I got and with how few Pokemon I wanted to include in the deck I figured throwing as much energy in there as possible would make it hard to lack energy especially with zero energy search in the [Music] deck and so along with the Deck Profile I had the opportunity to test out this deck in three games against my son he plays gutina VAR it's not a perfectly you know meta type deck it's got one gutina one gutina varar some other Tech Pokemon that are less than useful some trainers that aren't really optimal for the deck but that being said it can still get up and running in a few turns and in that gutina be with a 280 hit points is hard to take care of when I'm hitting for 30 with most of my Pokemon so two of the three games I lost without even taking a prize card I was not able to establish enough P Pokemon on my bench with enough energy to even resist succeeding attacks and I eventually lost because I didn't have any Pokemon to put into the active the second of our three games however my son had a difficult time um accelerating energies onto his Pokemon and having a difficult time moving the Pokemon he wants to battle with into the active I was one prize card away from winning when gutina varar came into the active and I just had no answer for it the way I envisioned this deck working was to if possible get either professor's orders or one of my two squawk abilities into play that would allow me to get Basic Pokemon on my bench fast the pokeballs in there which could have allowed for a little bit of search for an evolution Pokemon as well as Jack with that with any luck a few turns in I could have Blissey and Houndoom and armor Rouge cycling energies from my bench to my discard back into my active swinging for 150 damage on three energies hopefully not taking too many knockouts in that meantime the benette ex in addition to my grass type Pokemon my meow Scara and my toad scroll was kind of a plan B to that method in that I could slow down my opponent with those Pokemon if they became available to me sooner where I could slowly build up my Blissey my Houndoom and my armor Rouge while trying to just hold off my opponent with anything like meow Scara or toad scroll or benette it did not work that way in looking at this deck it's clear to me that nine booster packs is enough to build the deck to battle with it is not enough to build an effective deck out of my my guess is that you would probably need two Elite Trainer boxes or 18 booster packs to be able to put a deck together that's got a little bit of synergy that you can build some consistency with and that you have enough search power to get an effective game style going I hope you're able to go off and build an effective Ive consistent Deck with the cards you have sitting around in your binders and I hope you've been able to take some of the information I presented to you today to help with that last question before I call it would you have done anything different with this deck there were a couple other Pokemon that I wasn't sure about that I thought maybe I could switch into the deck after having played it a couple times but I want to know what you guys think also I am doing a giveaway once I reach my first 100 sub subsribers on the channel so if you'd like to come along with the journey join me thanks I'll see you soon

Channel: Bad Luck Brett

Views: 2,517

Keywords: Pokemon, pokemontcg, pokemon cards, scarlet and violet, deck building, tcg, collection, collector, how to, guide, tutorial, informational, trading cards, cards, trading card game, deck, competitive play, for you, for you page, fyp, hobby, educational, full art, illustration rare

Id: RNaakHe11MQ

Length: 26min 35sec (1595 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 14 2024