@@SomeCleverAlias honestly gyrados has carried my water deck so hard. Powering up magikarp while an articuno ex or lapras acts as a hitter has been a very effective strategy to me.
@@MangoBlasters-go5cs even though it's harder to set up, blastoise is just the better version of this strategy and it's what I do, there's actually a huge reward for doing it too
@@gabestorey5270 When you start with so much of your deck already drawn, Red Card means nothing. Most of the game pieces will be vital. I haven't been inconvenienced, never mind screwed over, by Red Card yet.
Man, if you brick, and they Red Card, that's on them for not paying attention. That's a noob move. Like, if you're only Red Carding for the early -1/-2, that's just doing it wrong. I will sometimes bait Red Card by leaving 4 cards in hand so I can potentially get Red Carded into an Oak/Ball or a better basic. Ideally, draw into something with more offense/speed for the early game.
Most people use it incorrectly, for example, if someone has a bunch of cards in their hand and they're not evolving, why would you use a red card at that point? The only time to use it is at the very beginning after someone has just used a professor Oak card or two. It drops their hand of like 7+ cards down to 3.
Pokemon had a problem once over ten years ago because they made one of the most powerful cards in the format at the time (tropical beach) exclusive to people who qualified for worlds and made the game extremely p2w, ever since then cards that are very specific to get always have very underwhelming effects (this year worlds card was basically xspeed that only works on psyduck, for example) Glad to see this trend was kept with pocket.
@@jarde1989 You get it from collecting, it makes sense the reward is for collectors, if it was a card obtained from battling then it would be a lot more understandable to be disappointed it isn’t good in battle.
Yeah when appraising cards it helps to see how they stack up to similar cards. I guess the only thing Raticate has over Dodrio is that it's weak to fighting, which is less prevalent in the current meta than Electric (Dodrio's weakness).
I think Raticate is designed TO BE bad. I mean, it's a very common card, normal type, only one basic energy, and you can splash it everywhere in starter deck. As in the video games, some early pokemon are meant to be bad, to be replaced later by better pkm. Just my opinion :)
@@gaz4553 pretty fitting for poor Raticate tbh. For most kids playing the Kanto games they're usually placeholder early route Pokémon that get boxed after the first gym or two.
@@chubberdunkus6153 my opponent playing red card almost always helps me out or gives me the the exact card I needed back lol. Cards like red card would be good if the deck sizes were bigger than 20.
Red card is at its peak when you hold it until your opponent finally evolves into a stage 1 Pokemon. You clearly were holding that Gardevoir, Charizard, Machamp, etc....and now good luck getting it back. The worst feeling is the completely random red card that hoses you.
Magikarp is one of the main reasons that gyarados is bad. Sometimes you can just start with magikarp and no other basic and you essentially lost the game. All gyarados really is is a worse snorlax that requires an evolution.
Many pokemon in this game seem like misses because I don't think the devs understood the value of energy. All the best cards and decks revolve around from getting ahead on energy or needing little energy. Hopefully we see better consideration of energy costs in the future.
@@aggrospud7698 just the idea that dual energy decks would be used at all shows they did not understand how energy would effect the development of the meta. It is obvious dual energy decks are at a SEVERE disadvantage but the game presents it like the default way to play in the tutorials
@@Alex-vm6efthe CPU decks show that the devs knew EXACTLY , what they were doing. Like pointed out, most of these cards are just filler, and not intended to be played unless you don't care about winning.
Mienshao is underrated. I made a deck called 'Mienkazam' and it does very well. Covers dark type weakness for Alakazam, super effective against the meta-dominant electric, and shreds stallers like weezing and kangaskhan.
Mienshao did carry for me at the start when everyone had a few normal type in their deck and take advantage to the weakness, but since everyone doesnt have any normal pokemon in their decks, it falls off sudenly
I actually had the reverse of this 😂 I tried to tech it into Misty/Articuno for laughs and it felt like even into Pikachu EX or Koga decks it underperformed if I went 1st. 80 HP/40 dmg is just too weak of a statline, I think. Maybe if it were 100/40 like Rapidash or had 0 retreat cost or something?
I think Rattata and Raticate serve the same purpose they do in the video games. They’re there to give you something to vary your early game while being meant to be replaced at the first opportunity.
That's how i use them and yea He's fine as an early game card, bring him back into the bench the second i'm able to but He's helpful especially since you can run him on any team
I had to search it up because I didn’t even know it existed 😂. I am not surprised it isn’t used, the amount of energy it needs is absolutely horrendous.
@@Mkactus12 My TCG Pocket conspiracy theory is that Brock used to work on Rhydon making it's energy problems not nearly as bad. Then for whatever reason, they decided to not make Brock work on Rhydon and just left the card as is.
Pokedex actually can be quite fun, because PokeBall actually shuffles your deck so you can use Pokedex to see your cards and if you don't like those 3 cards you can just use PokeBall to shuffle the cards and can also bait out red card early on but that is a bit too niche.
@@tomasdiethelm6553 And explain to me exactly why you think going -1 in card economy for low-quality knowledge (it is a 20-card deck format) is better than the interruption tool that goes possibly very positive in card economy
Tangela is just waiting for a good Tangrowth (ex maybe) to drop. As a stand alone basic is pretty terrible, but if it had a strong evolution you could make a Tangrowth/Liligant in theory
I actually succesfully use Pokedex with Gengar EX. The amount of times I had Haunter - Gengar as next cards so I hold the pokeball to not shuffle the deck are crazy, or the other way around - I don't need the next three cards so I pokeball and there's a decent chance to get the cards I want sooner. Its currently the most consistent way of looking for evolutions since I already run all the other draw cards. Best way to avoid bricked hands, unlike running 2 Sabrinas 2 Giovannis in every deck
Sabrinas also are not that great late game because by then you probably have a Pokémon you want to sacrifice or that could hit a powerful attack. They are good, but late-game they may not have the good effect you want.
Recently I just got my first Gardevoir from Wonder pick, I had bad luck in my packs.. And so with only 1 Garde I made the Mewtwo deck and filled the spot with Pokedex, which somewhat increase the consistency of finding that only Garde. And so, I even placed one copy in my Blaine deck, since it's very crucial to draw that Blaine, and since that deck it's not energy hungry I'm only running 1 XSpeed. So yeah, I do enjoy Pokedex, it's not the best but it helps thinking in the turns ahead, I think I'll try Blastoise with it too next!
pokedex pre pokeball shuffle is super underrated if you have room for it but I can't justify running more than one copy since it's only truly useful in pretty specific scenarios
The Raticate-line is especially sad, because the Doduo line is just so much better. Their only downside is, that in the current meta a Lightning weakness is pretty devastating
The problem with a lot of these Pokémon (low hp, high energy requirements, etc.) is the mere existence of EX cards. With EX cards being as good as they are, not many other cards get a chance to be viable.
@@ValetinoLovebird That's a bit moot. I feel like people either throw out their EX when they've lost 2 points already (thus losing any pokemon will lose the game), or are in a position to sweep you from getting to something that can challenge it. A water deck that opens with Starmie EX needs something that can oneshot, or stun it. Anything less, and it will retreat for free. By the time you get a pokemon that can do either, they've built an answer, and you've invested a lot to get there. Most of the pokemon that can answer an EX, are another EX.
@@Soumein There are few ways to beat an EX, another EX, Sabrina, Status, Ability that switch out / remove active pokemon or sneakily execute a weak bench pokemon. Those are the methods I can think off, probably there are more methods in the future like energy removal or someting
I feel like Nidoqueen should do +10 damage for each nidoran, then +30-50 for it’s evolutions, so that you get max value out of Nidokings, but it’s not a requirement
though your suggestion is a nice buff, it's too complicated when compared to other cards in the game. A more likely fix would be giving Nidoqueen the ability to evolve a Nidorino into Nidoking for 2 dark energy.
@@TostonDePana You made a good point, I think the best value is +20 for every Nido Family, like Pikachu, instead of x30, it be base 60 +20 for each Nido family
@@TostonDePana My thought is Maybe reworking how Nidoran F works, and making it into Darkness Caterpie, Spending your attack just to get 1 NIdoran M just isn't worth in a 20 card deck with no specific support. Maybe that'd make other Darkness decks too consistent? But I doubt it.
The problem with colorless is that almost every hard "is colorless". Most decks only use one type of energy, and with 20 cards, makes a lot of sense. So they just have a higher cost for nothing.
Colorless can still help offset a deck from having every Pokémon with the exact same weakness. Although they'd be better at it if resistances were also a thing in this game.
@@TheLMBLucas: I don't think it's entirely irrelevant. Especially not early on when a player is still building up their collection and might not have enough cards for a fully mono color deck. I mean, Farfetchid in particular is incredibly splashable.
@@EmeralBookwise When you are brand new to the game (or new account), it throws a couple of dozens of packs at you. At that point it's easy to build like a Blaine deck or Sandlash with something else, which is better than using Swanna. Farfetch'd was good when everyone had shit cards, now it's more like a free prize for the opponent and a troll Pokeball for the player.
@@TheLMBLucas: Maybe, but personally I'd prefer to stick to just the two free daily packs for Genetic Apex, while saving up my pack hourglasses to get a head start on the next set whenever it drops.
I feel like the reason why the effectiveness/usefulness of some cards varies so greatly is that the devs were just throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks and that they are gonna use that information as a reference for the power level of future cards however, regarding the problem with stage 2s, I think they *have to* give us some way of "cheesing out" stage 2s, or else the meta is gonna be run by stage 1s/basics before long
I like the very VERY rare case when I have pokedex, pokeball, and oak in my hand all at once. I use pokedex to look at the top of the deck and see if I want to draw or shuffle draw, shuffle with pokeball, and then draw with oak. Not good enough to use up a valuable slot, but when I have nothing else, it's better than red card
10:20 This happens to me all the time. Opponent plays Red Card and I'm like "Sweet! Burn the trash and give me 3 new chances at what I've been looking for" 90% of the time, I get a better hand than what I started with.
I think he didnt know when to play a red card. I dont know it help me or not, but many times when a pokemon evolves to stage 1 looking for stage 2, i would just play it, hoping he shuffles the stage 2 into the deck
@@Thatguyyoudontknow594 usually they pair with handscope, players playing with 1 pokemon like 2 Articuno EX Deck, would have it, but normal decks with more than 2 pokemons including evolutions does not have enough space to insert another 2 hand scope cards with the decks they are going with
9:54 The only time I could see myself using the Pokédex card is if I needed to decide between using the professors research and another supporter card; seeing which 3 cards are on the top of my deck to determine whether I should use the professors research to get those cards, or using giovanni or Sabrina to do extra damage or swap out the Pokemon. Very situational though
I’ve been running Mienfoo/Mienshao in my Charizard deck. (Switched out the Ponyta/Rapidash I had in there). I put it in playing around for a counter to pikachu, but found it is often incredible as there’s a lot of decks running colourless basics with 60hp. Opening fighting into a colorless has on a few occasions let me KO their only Pokémon on turn 3. It’s also nice with charizard to get one early KO because then u can just charge the Char to 3 or 4 energy to Crimson Storm an EX once for the win. THAT ALL SAID, it’s just fodder against Mewtwo which is everywhere, and while I originally added them to bump up my chances vs electric, because PikachuEX has so much health I feel like they’re only useful half the time against Pika anyway. But there’s something there. They feature in my wins more often than not, just hard to work out if adding them over something else has caused any of my losses. I get a kick out of the odd combo though
Yeah, Mienshao and also Golbat, as someone else mentioned, are pure anti-meta cards. They'll probably fall off fast as soon as the next full set lands, but for now they have a niche.
@@Joyboy_J.R. I've been considering running the Zubat line in my Machamp ex for that very reason. Shame Golbat only has 70 HP and still has one retreat cost.
@@EmeralBookwise I don't think these anti-meta cards will fall off easily. They may fall out of favor if the best decks are something they don't counter but I just don't see Golbat not being good if the most played deck is weak to Dark. The only way that really happens is if they print a card that fills the exact same purpose but does more damage or does the same or slightly less damage but is basic. I start Zubat into Golbat against Mewtwo and they just die.
@@bmarti7998: That's the thing though, Golbat and Mienshou are only good right now because they are splashable cards which counter two of the strongest meta decks. By contrast just look at Cottonee/Whimsicott, which despite functioning similarly don't see much play
3 energy cost on low/unreliable damage is so, so sad. With costly retreats on top! No added effects? No abilities?? Where's the strategy? Yikes... The fact they made some Pokemon so utterly boring & unusable. Such lost opportunities
It's even worse here than the real TCG. I wish all cards could be playable. If a card just has a weak attack with no text, strategy or even a gimmick, what's the point of the cards existance?
@@ValetinoLovebird Fr I literally destroyed a Charizard player just cause I got 3 head on misty on Gyarados and killed the moltress before it can do major inferno dance
Red Card gas a few problems going for it. The first is you'll never really know if you helped or harmed your opponents hand unless you run Hand Scope, which is a terrible card in it's own right. The second is 20 card decks. With decks being so small the longer the game goes on, and the more cards your opponent plays makes late game Red Cards less effective than early game ones.
Had a recent game against a Dragonite deck. They didn't drop the Dratini with a 5 card hand so I hand scoped first and realized they have 2 Dragonair and 1 Dragonite in their hand, but not Dratini. So I simply waited until they played the Dratini and then red carded. It worked out
3 things: 1) As someone else said, Mew being bad is a good thing, but I do wish it was a colorless energy to use the Psy Report. Kinda sucks it can only really get played in psychic decks. 2) I think there should be a trainer card that combines Hand Scope and Red Card into one. Something like, “View your opponents hand. Choose whether to shuffle it back into their deck and draw 3 cards, or your opponent draws a card.” Something along those lines. Maybe that’s dumb but hey. 3) I’ve been using Mienshao in my Machamp deck and it’s been performing well. The problem is that Dugtrio is the same card with a better effect. The colorless make it feel like it would be better is something like an Aqua deck, or even a Psychic deck as a Dark deterrent, but it’s probably just not worth it as dark decks are so rare and Psychic has so many powerful options.
I gotta say, I've been helped more often than not by an opponent using Red Card on me. Just earlier today it helped me out tremendously. I had an Omanyte and Staryu on my bench, the Red Card gave me an Omastar, Starmie EX and Misty. I was very happy with my new hand!
Always seems like when I use red card, the opponent always draws professor's research and one other good top deck. Glad you talked about it. Can lose games as easily as it wins. I want to like meinshao but to me it seems only suitable for hard tech options like sniping weezing arbok decks before they get started or something
I had a lot of fun just throwing Meinshao and Golbat into every deck for a week when everyone was spamming pikachu and mewtwo ex decks. So often they'd win me games by hitting 60 repeatedly due to weaknesses. Ended up making a dedicated multi-type deck after that but things like whimsicott just never saw any use when nobody ran things weak to grass. Seems to have been a lot more deck variety the past week though so targetting common weaknesses hasn't been too fruitful.
... Let's see. *Gogoat:* 3 energy for only 70 damage and raw stats. Completely outclassed by Exeggutor who needs only 1 energy, and Dubwool, a literal better goat in many senses (Sheeps are a species of goat). *Swanna:* Too weak and not very bulky. Sandslash requires 1 less energy and is bulkier. *Gyarados:* 4 energy just to get a consistent 100 attack, and having to run Magikarp doesn't help either. *Rhydon:* 4 energy for 100 attack with no secondary effect. As a reminder Sandslash hits for 70 using only half the energy, and Rhyhorn is also very slow requiring 3 energies. *Nidoqueen:* Too reliant on a specific name to work, aka vulnerable to Sabrina's antics. *Golbat:* You talked about raticate being bad. Zubat is a worse rattata (Slightly more bulk but half power) and Golbat is a Raticate that dies to a Golduck aqua edge, an electro ball and 60 BP moves with giovanni, which there's a lot of. *Dragonite:* Having multiple energies to attack is asking for failure. The attack is also random and therefore unreliable. 200 damage in nothing to laugh at but you're almost never getting it because is not a valid misty target. *Snorlax:* 4 ENERGY FOR 70?! And is not like it can survive more, because it still dies to Mewtwo EX. *Pokedex:* You're just watching a topdeck, sacrificing better items for knowledge that won't really help you the turn of play. *Mew:* Just too weak to be worth running. Good thing though, it would be P2W otherwise.
That would be WAY too busted. It could just sit on the bench and give you free hand knowledge and make red cards a lot more viable, while the rest of your deck would continue working as intended. It would be just annoying, if one copy was gifted to everyone, but as a reward for completing the Kanto pokedex this card would be very unhealthy for the balance of the game and give P2W players a huge advantage
@@solidzack They could make it where you can only use the ability while it's in the active spot like Weezing, although I have a feeling that you only getting the information at the end of the turn is the intended effect.
As a long time card player I can tell you, hand disruption of any kind is invaluable and no card is in their deck is useless. They may have a 5 card hand but unless you're playing supporter lock, much of that could be evolutions ready to play, Misty's to accelerate, Sabrina to disrupt. You're almost always better off dropping them down to 3 even at a 4 card hand because in the end, it's still 1 less resource they will have. They may get more basics set up earlier, but without the support to get them going, if you're playing aggressively, They will feel the effects of the card denial.
@@thatoneguy4783 Disagree. Firstly, that one card difference is made equal by the fact you had to sacrifice a card in order to hold and play red card at all. Secondly, some cards are just worth significantly more in this game, namely stage 1s & 2s which in many cases are essential to even have a chance at a win. Clearing a whole bunch of relatively weak cards at the risk of giving them the one or two cards they need to secure the win is just too risky imo. You only need to play the game to notice this, as so many people have commented red card is frequently advantageous for the person it is used against. There are niche situations where you have a higher chance of making it work such as immediately after an opponents stage 1 evolution but before a stage 2, but even then it's a dice roll, and is frequently just going to be beaten out by a card with near guaranteed use value.
As you said, no card in the deck is useless. In a _20 card game_ , you usually wind up getting what you need in very few turns or have an easy pivot, and most of the time someone is red carded they just get those cards right back because shuffling 12 cards is barely a shuffle. But keep spreading the word that red card is good, I love when it's wasted on my decks :)
You can't just always use Red Card, when the opponent has 4 cards or more, this isn't Yu-Gi-Oh! You gotta be aware of the situation, and wager the risk. Is it the first turn? Depending on the pokémon played, there's a chance, the opponent bricked and/or played only 1 card on purpose to bait out the red card. Does the opponent have a lot of cards in hand? They either bricked, or keep trainer cards in hand, in which case a red card might cime in handy if you really don't wanna see a Potion, Giovanni or Sabrina on the next turn. Did they just evolve to stage 1? If they have more than 3 cards in hand, you could lower the chances of them evolving again, especially if they already used up their Prof. research. Are they putting energies on a Pokémon that they're about to evolve? That would be a good time to use Red Card as they are very likely to have the evolution in hand.
@@sammoon7897 Some decks will have nothing to put in but Red Card, it's not true that it is a "sacrifice" for all decks. You're also assuming the Red Card is going to unbrick the hand by default. And the reason people will say Red Card is more helpful than not is because most people playing aren't very good. They don't use Red Card at optimal times to disrupt Stage evolutions or right after someone loads up their hand with Oak causing them to lack the draw power to recoup. If the argument is "Red Card isn't valuable enough to reserve a spot in your deck" I'd agree. There's too many factors to make it always useful. To believe it is bad though, you're relying on anecdotal experiences of people benefiting from it, which is also entirely luck based. Just as likely as they were to get Stage 1, Pokeball, and a Oak, they were to get 2 X-Speeds and a Potion.
I haven't had the chance to use it in a real match yet, but Mienshao would be great counter-strategy in a Mewtwo EX/Gardevoir set by providing cheap damage, covering the Dark weakness, and having enough HP to tank at least 1 hit from anything earlygame that requires under 3 Energy (besides Pikachu EX) before going down while giving your Ralts and Mewtwo time to set up. Theoretically this would help against Electric Decks and opposing Mewtwo EX decks running Meowth. Unfortunately I haven't ran into an opposing Mewtwo or Dark deck yet so I haven't use Mienshao.
Its attack can be used with any single energy to provide meta-relevant fighting coverage to any deck. Makes it a really good active mon if you have to move first. Frankly stunned it's on his list.
I think of Mienshao the same way I think of Rapidash; if you're going first, it does decent damage on your first attacking turn because you can evolve it straight away. Rapidash has more HP and a supporter to buff it more, but it's been decent in my Fighting decks when I didn't have a lot of other fighting cards to run.
I think the problem with Gyarados is that by the time you have set it up (barring a lucky Misty) the opponent is setup and the resource denial isn't effective. If it cost 2 energy and did maybe 50 damage, the resource denial would allow you to wither down the opponent's Pokemon. Would pair nicely with Pidgeot in case they try to set up a bench Pokemon. I think one Pokemon that doens't get enough credit is Persian, another fantastic resource denial card that nets you card advantage on the way. Seen as there's no discard pile recursion in this game, a discarded evolution could end the game. There are lots of deck ideas to try but maybe a Psyduck/Aerodactyle line for more of a control deck. Could run red card just to mess with their card advantage and increase the chance of hitting an important card that might be in their hand after it resolves. I don't have the Persians to try this deck but I'd love to see an iteration of the deck
Gyarados would be good if it had at least 160-170 hp because then it could tank a psydrive and then hyperbeam which would then deny a psydrive next turn.
Only 2 energy for a guaranteed removal would be so busted, when Fearow at the same cost requires a coin flip Considering running Gyarados also requires the trash that is Magikarp, however, I'd think it would maybe be fair enough just to reduce the Energy cost from 4 to 3. Then again, in the future we might have better Magikarps which help search out their own evolution and could maybe break that, although we will almost certainly have better Gyarados by then too.
I run mienshao in a deck with starmie ex. It’s sort of like to counter electric decks. Especially good against pikachu decks. 1 energy to start doing dmg and apply pressure (+20 dmg if against electric). Then bring in starmie to deal the finishing blow. Not too bad of a deck!
I feel like a lot of the normal type Pokémon are still balanced around colourless energy cards counting double. If there was the option to take double colourless energy, things like snorlax or chansey or even Swanna would make a lot more sense
I feel like cards like Mawile, Gyarados and Fearow would be really interesting with the energy removal, especially vs. decks that want to have that consistent energy flow like char ex and mewtwo ex, but it's just so hard to get them to that point. I wonder if an EX of any of those would help with that? Give them more HP and more time to do their thing. Having a Mewtwo out and having an entire energy or two removed would be pretty devastating while also dealing a not insignificant amount of damage.
A cool card would be if nidorina was able to call the rest of nidoking family into ur hand. That would make it much easier to have the synergy between the two.
I think Lickitung deserves to be higher on the list, honestly. While I understand it's funny to see a big number when you get a rare streak, its effective damage is capped by the current HP of the defending Pokemon. Against a target with infinite HP, its expected damage with each attack would be exactly 60. (The math on this isn't too bad, as long as you know the sum of the infinite series (1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8...) is equal to 1. You can think of Lickitung's attack as having a 1/2 chance of doing that first 60 damage, a 1/4 chance of adding a second 60 damage, a 1/8 chance of doing a third 60 damage, etc.) That's already not great for three energy. But once you've exceeded the defending Pokemon's current HP, any additional heads do nothing for you. So for example, against an undamaged Mewtwo EX, you have a 50% chance of doing 0 (T__), a 25% chance of doing exactly 60 (HT_), a 12.5% chance of doing exactly 120 damage (HHT), and a 12.5% chance of doing 150 damage (HHH). That gives you an expected damage of (0 * 0.5) + (60 * 0.25) + (120 * 0.125) + (150 * 0.125) = 0 + 15 + 15 + 18.75 = 48.75. For three energy! Maybe not the worst card in the game, but definitely a contender if you ask me.
As for Red Card, the only time I feel safe using it is if the opponent has been waiting for a while for the Stage 1 evolution for something they're trying to build up to Stage 2. If the opponent plays Ralts immediately and then doesn't play Kirlia for a while, they'll probably have a sizeable hand by that point, which means they're likely to have the Gardevoir. At that point, Red Card seems like a reasonable play. I've seen a lot of opponents throw it out on turn 1 against me, and it's like... sure, you put me down a card, but you also went down a card yourself. That's not card advantage.
I tried Mienshao in a Dragonite deck because it requires a single colorless energy and that's what I was looking for to apply early/mid-game pressure while I tried to get Dragonite online. I figured it was a bonus that a fighting type in that deck would throw off my opponents. It works... ok. The problem is Weezing exists. If you run Weezing ability only (no dark energy in the deck) it does apply less pressure than the 40 damage Mienshao, but it requires 0 energy. So it comes online faster, it takes 0 resources from Dragonite, and it's bulkier. Given that Weezing works even without any energy I just have a hard time imagining any color deck where Weezing doesn't work better than Mienshao... unless maybe you really need something that hits with fighting damage, I guess...?
the thing with gyarados is that I think its powerful in the case of centiskorch, charizard and mewtwo where they discard down due to their powerful attacks and then you stop a consecutive turn use of their ulimate that way. That being said, probably better just to focus on murder murder
Yeah gyarados has two issues. One, magikarp dies to almost everything so just that is a hurdle. Two, it doesn't work unless you pull off a great Misty. Even a one energy Misty doesn't really help gyarados with 4 energy attack only, like imagine if it had a 3 energy attack it could maybe do something. I just hope they make a gyarados EX that is actually playable, though I'm sad because 1* gyarados art is great.
The other thing is that even if you get a really good Misty, you might not have Gyarados. So now you have a lot of energy on the easiest card to KO in the game. Super risky.
i’m sure we will get the next main set after the erika shop items disappear, looking at how things are going we started with mew premium items( cards sleeves, coin, etc.)and pikachu promo card. starting this month we now have a mewtwo promo card and pikachu premium items. now matching that up with our missing promo and erika items that will be going away it’s safe to assume they are saving the best for last before moving to something new. what’s everyone’s fan favorite? Charizard , it’s makes sense with him being the only one from the trio missing. with the 3rd premium month ending and erika items ending at the same time it’s safe to assume FEBRUARY 1ST will be the release of a new main set with genetic apex staying but starting to faze out .
Red Card is one of the best cards in the game. You just have to know how to use it. An example is I play a Dragonite deck. Dragonite has 160 hp. Mewtwo ex does 150 damage. A good Mewtwo player who sees I’m playing Dragonite is going to hold onto Giovanni, so they can one shot Dragonite the turn I bring it out. So, everytime I bring out Dragonite when playing against a Mewtwo deck, I play Red Card to get rid of their Giovanni. You can make similar plays to stop Sabrina. Most decks run 2 Sabrinas. So if your opponent hasn’t played Sabrina yet and a situation comes up where Sabrina would really mess up your day, there’s a good chance your opponent has been holding onto a Sabrina waiting for such a situation to come up. So you can play Red Card to prevent them from playing Sabrina. It’s also a good counter to Stage 2 cards. If your opponent has had Charmander on their bench for 3 turns and then suddenly evolves it to Charmeleon, there’s a good chance they’ve had Charizard in their hand for a while and were just waiting to draw a Charmeleon. So you can get rid of the Charizard that’s coming next turn by playing Red Card. Or Stage 1 cards. Did your opponent just attack with Mankey and do 10 damage to themselves? They probably have a Primeape in their hand that’s going to hit you for 100 damage next turn. Get rid of it with Red Card. Even if you’re not someone who’s good at making reads like that, Red Card can still be good by just playing the odds. If your opponent has 5 cards in their hand, and you get rid of them and give them 3, you’ve lowered the chances of them having the card they need, because they’re less likely to have it in a hand of 3 cards than they are in a hand of 5.
There are certainly very specific situations where it can be handy, but by the time you have a fully loaded dragonite they're down to 5 cards in their deck, so "shuffling" that deck usually accomplishes squat. Not to mention there are plenty of people who evolve or attack just to... well, evolve or attack. So trying to "read" those moves is going to fail you half the time. It's just not that effective in a game with 20-card decks. Especially when damn near every deck runs 2 pokeballs and 2 professor oaks. IF you're very familiar with the meta decks, can identify them early, and put the work in to card count discard piles and what-not, it _can_ be effective, but at this point in the game I've found it more effective to save those slots in my deck for more consistently useful cards.
@ I’ve gotten Dragonite out and fully powered by turn 4. If you’re not getting him out until your deck is almost out of cards, chances are you’ve already lost the game. Reads are a thing in virtually every competitive game and are a necessary skill if you want to be a good player. You have to make reads in Pokémon even if you don’t use Red Card.
Would Rhydon also fall under the same category as Gyrados then? 4 energy stage 2 pokemon with a 100 damage hit (but Rhydon has even less hp at 120). When I got it I thought it would be so strong since I'm still working on building up my Fighting Deck but it definitely did not feel good 😅
12:11 It may not be great, but I’ve been using Mienshao in a NOEX Blastoise deck. T3 evolve and attack for 1 energy, whereas the Blastoise line prefers going second. It’s Fighting, as you mentioned, so it counters the Lightning which your Blastoise is weak to
@@xxWicKedWayZxx idk, if it get EX, it would be different art, no? (I really like this one) Maybe more support card. like more reliable energy ramp than Misty?
I like gyarados. Yea it takes a tone of energy, but I think the losing one energy thing can be more impactful than you think sometimes. Hitting tanky mon trying to get to that 4 energy. He can force someone to keep committing energy to their active mon instead of the bench. I do wish they would change the wording on the card that you got to pick which pokemon lost the energy
I know! It can be extremely disruptive against Mewtwo EX decks because the whole strategy is to be able to use its psydrive consistently via Gardevoir. Even losing one energy can give you the time to take it out and win the game. Honestly, I am surprised someone haven’t found a way to make this card work to counter Mewtwo, Charizard decks.
Golem is also Bad Pokemon Card In my Opinion... First u need to Make it Stage 2 then u need to gave 4 energy for the attack and even after attack he gave 50 damage to himself thats a Waste i guess
For most of the common cards that don't offer value, they are considered draft chaff. They are intentionally underpowered - there to pad the list of cards for beginners and low power CPU.
"Tang-ella" At this point I wonder if people even play the pokemon games or watched any of the media because it's wild to make such borderline intentionally-bad mispronunciations of Pokemon names that have been around for 30 years
I mean didn't everyone watch this when the anime came out? th-cam.com/video/y3j7DATYZD4/w-d-xo.html He did the pronunciation research so we wouldn't have to!
@Jesse-lv2yo ah right the pokerap lyrics specifically done to fit the rhythm of the song. An amazing source for how to pronounce the Pokemon's names as opposed to literally any episode or game that featured Tengela lol
Pokedex well played is extremely good, you can beforehand know which next 3 cards will be and even better, if you also play Pokeball the deck the Basic Pokemon is RANDOM, not the next one coming, but also after using it the deck gets shuffled so I most of the time use Pokedex and check, if I don't like the next 3 I play Pokeball to shuffle it, if I want those cards and still have Pokeball wait after I get what I want from those 3 to play it.
12:05 Mienshao + Golbat + Whimsiscott all in 1 deck is a sleeper budget deck. They’re all colorless 1 energy, allowing the player to use any energy, while providing type-counters (fighting, dark, grass)
No need to be a jerk. He's making free content for us. One of the small bonuses to supporting him is getting to see stuff early. Its not a huge deal but a nice lil incentive.
Man, the poke flute would be an amazing idea! An item card thats so specific but unlocks the absolute potential of a support card. On top of it, imagine we get a cool snorlax EX at some point? It would be super fun, strong or balanced, and the problem with Snorlax is how it can 100% kill guarantee your death in the end if you only have 2 pokemon and you get sabrina forced into it. But i really love Snorlax and and i always try to make it work. I think with a good number of basics you maybe can work around that and you need to be extremely careful. Also never play it with EX cards, you really need the 3 prize points to work with it.
yea I really tried to run snorlax as a tank but I would lose because I just couldn't switch him out, so I ended up running articuno instead (similar health less retreat and more consistent damage
Mienshao, I used in a misty water deck when I started out as a counter to lightning type pokemon. Later, when I got more water options, it came out. It did some decent work while I used it.
Honestly, Misty needs a complete rework. Its low roll makes it feel so awful, but the fact that it can accelerate more than 2 energy with one card is just too good for the game right now. It really ought to just put 1 water energy on 1 of your benched water Pokemon and that's it. It would basically be a better version of Brock, which should be fine since right now it's an insanely broken version of Brock.
I used Mienshao a lot before getting other fighting pokemon and it's great for early damage and chip while you build something else. In my case I used it with Marowak and Grapploct. Only needs 1 energy to both attack and retire and 40 damage early game while other Pokémon need more energy to land an attack is great for early advantage. You can change it at anytime when your other Pokémon are ready and people don't want to waste Sabrina on a weak Pokémon
there was a nidoqueen similar to this one in the tcg, but it had following 4 points going for iy: - 3 colorless attack doing similat effect - it did extra damage foe every stage 2 pokemon (not just kings) - it had a pokepower that allowed you to search an evolution pokemon each turn - the tcg has a lot of searches to get this online fast. Red card is funny. There were so many games where I placed 2 basics on the field, drew 2 cards (got NOTHING), passed and opponent red cards my 4+ cards into my evolutions. I've played around with Mienfu early on before I realized how bad 1 cost 40 damage is if you don't back it up with something else (like Rapidash + Blaine). I had some success using Golbat, that is basically the same as this one, but Mewtwo decks were 2 out of 3 back then, and that was basically 60 damage for 1 colorless energy.
หลายเดือนก่อน +1
I've been playing a NidoQueen deck and the issue is not the energy or the evolution, but the fact that you have to choose the support. The deck works, but you have to run or Meowth to speed up or kanghaskan to put pressure on the early game. However, with only 6 slots on your deck and being forced to run two oak and two pokeballs, you have only 2 other options. You need speed x to remove the nidoran bad positioned, but you also get a lot of value from sabrina. You also can use red card to slow down your opponent. Also there is no way you make a 3x0 because you need to have your colorless pokemon killed to get your nidoking or nidoqueen on position. I think something would help the deck a lot is if nidoking did 10 more damage. Nidoking always feels that he is 10 short on life or 10 short on damage when you are forced to play it. Poison is not that big of threat to Venusaur X or Lapras X and Charizard X can punish you before dying to poison. Nidoking is really great against no ex decks that rarely have a huge pokemon and also really hurts mewtwo decks. But a great ball like card ( choose monsters from deck) or a dark energy misty like card can change everything for the deck.
Yep, Mienshao is great to spash fighting for type advantage against normals, dark, and electric types. It’s cheap and fast and use it with Weezing or weezing and Zapdos for 3 color deck. Didn’t even know this mon that well before playing this, but it has def grown on me since using it.
@@lucarudloff687 while I don’t think it’s one of the top 10 worst cards, it’s definitely something that can be super hard to set up. Definitely don’t think it’s horrible tho
Nidoqueen requires way too much setup to be good, and getting even a single Nidoking can be a pain. It might work in very stall heavy decks that can let you setup on the bench, but I am not surprised we don’t see these decks in today’s meta. Very inefficient.
Yeah. Maybe it'd be a bit better if Nidoran F searched for all Darkness Pokemon and not exclusively Nidoran M? It's hard to justify ever using Nidoran F's attack when PokeBall and Oak are 2 ofs in nearly every deck.
That would be even worse. If it was a passive ability, it would be easily splashable in other decks and create a huge gap between F2P and P2W players. For now, it's good as it is. You could technically use it, and it's not the worst card in the game, but it's not powerful enough for anyone to complain about it
@solidzack It is a pretty bad card, seeing your opponents hand isnt that useful, and its hp and damage are the same as a first stage evo. I would upgrade its damage to 40, and make its current ability passive. Its hp isnt massive so you could take it out like a Farfetch. Also, as a F2P player myself that has spent no money on the game, I am 10 cards away from the Mew
The perk of Gyarados is that if you can get it up there and loaded with the energy it needs via Misty or a few turns of stalling; no one is prepared for it. All of the times I’ve played Gyarados, my opponents kind of panic and will often concede/waste all their energy switching in and out around it
When we get ranked it will probably be best of 3 so I'd expect a 3-5 card sideboard. Mienshao is probably going to be a huge counter to Pika, it can one shot all the basics in the deck that aren't zapdos and Pika ex has to have a full bench to kill it. Right now the game is the wild west it's still so early to really judge how some of these cards pan out.
I ran Mienshao in a Gengar/Alakazam deck early on (before the meta really settled, mainly due to not having 2x Clefable yet) and while it was not great, it had some positives. It hard countered the Dark decks that would beat psychic. If you start with Mienfoo on T2 then Mienshao on T4, it kills Arbok & Weezing (With Giovanni). I think it looks worse than it is, because Psychic is so strong in the meta right now. Golbat is seeing play in decks and its a straight downgrade from Mienshao, so if the meta shifted I could see it being better. One card I think you missed would be Rhydon. Melmetal is Niche at best, and has more HP, a really good active, higher damage, and a lower retreat cost, plus its stage 1 can cheat the energy to maybe cheese the opponent. I don't think there's any deck that could make Rhydon even sort of manageable. I honestly think they would have to buff Rhyhorn/don's hp by like 50% to even start considering the card which is wild
Rattata and Raticate are really funny to me because it's literally the statline of Rattata and Raticate from the original run of those cards from the TCG. They're really bad in the context of PTCGP, but when they first released way back when, they were not terrible early mons, though they did get outclassed pretty quickly.
Rattata actually lost of it's most important boons in TCGP, Base Set Rattata had free retreat, and having something like Super Fang on Raticate would give it a niche. In TCG Pocket though They're just worse Doduo and Dodrio, especially when Dodrio does get that coveted free retreat.
@starmangalaxy2001 Ah, true, I had forgotten about the free Retreat. And Super Fang. I used them all the time in the TCG, surprised I had forgotten, tbh.
There’s an interesting strat with Pokédex where when you aren’t running a deck where you need poke balls to pull all your pokemon you can run pokeball and Pokédex, use pokedex to see your next pulls and then pokeball if they are bad draws, comboing this with profs research also goes kinda crazy. It’s good for decks with fossils or something like machamp.
Just some random ideas on how to use the worst cards mentioned in the deck. Forgive me if there any similar cards that can do these ideas better. Tangela - I assume you would use this with a Butterfree deck to get more extra health to stall an extra turn or two to stack energies. Ditto - Would probably work as a fun gimmick in a Dragonite/Dual type deck. Basically to hold any energies that are no use to any of your Pokemon on the field. Probably the most useful as an EX Pokemon counter. Mew - Defiantly an early game only Pokemon while you set up your team similar to Meowth. Basically to see what Stage 1 & 2 Pokemon your opponent has and playing Red Card when you know their about to set up evolution. Gyardos - With Misty that 4 energy investment doesn't seem to bad. The 150 HP should withstand most powerful attacks giving you 200 damage if you attack twice. The energy removal is super useful for stopping bench Pokemon from gaining energies while the opponent needs to invest energies into their active Pokemon to attack. Meaning if you defeat the active Pokemon while the bench has no energy investment, the rest of the battle would be super easy. The only downside I think is Magikrap because you do risk it being your only Pokemon at the start of the match, or dragged into play by Sabrina.
Tangela is probably also designed for a future Tangrowth drop, since most Evolving pokemon are more disappointing than their non evolving equivalents. Especially since it has the same effective HP as Tauros until you use Absorb for a 3rd time, Tangela does less damage than Tauros too, which means Tangela is only really worth it with Erica or searching for it with Caterpie
the meinshao is good in Mewtwo decks as it's an answer to some dark type decks. Since there isn't any strong dark types that can be made in basic or stage 1, meinshao can kill them before they evolve. and since it's a two stage and requires one energy it's a small amount of space in your 20 card deck. That's about it is it the best no, but it's like a B-Low A Tier for me and works quite well.
I never use red card, but I live in fear of it. It can affect how I play, e.g. it can discourage me from using Professor's Research on turn 1. I hope that my opponents live in fear of red card too. It means I can get its actual benefit (fear) without even having it in my deck!
if the effect of Mew's attack was just a once-per-turn ability, Mew would be so much better. it would still be a low HP mon that's an easy victory point for your opponent if you pass with it in the active slot, but at least in theory you could protect it by retreat it after you use the ability.
Red Card can be effective if you can wait to play it after your opponent has both used their Oaks and/or Pokeballs AND has more than three cards in their hand. You can negate the card advantage that they had gained. Tough to time this though, and Red Card becomes dead weight if that situation never arises
funny thing about skiddo is that your opponent will think its safe to tank it tho Hold off evolving it until third energy, then surprise the defending pokemon with the 70! Gogoat is pretty tanky itself too, with 120 HP.
I ran gyarados along with blastoise ex for the pvp event and it got me to the 50 wins. Misty is the saving grace for it. Yes it's a gamble but it's worth it. And losing the energy is relevant. I've had a lot of games against mewtwo ex where it prevented the psydrive. Or i've sabrina'd out the dragonite and managed to discard the energy they only have one of and aren't getting back next turn. If they're setting up on their bench I'm usually just killing the active, meaning they need to keep things around to switch in that aren't their setup to prevent them from losing that energy, and i'm just getting points. The math with most attacks means well timed potions keep it alive after 2 hits from most things. In my experience at least it's been a bit of a terror.
I actually slot meinshao and golbat with a starmie EX deck, and it does very well into meta decks like pikachu and mewtwo. Meinshao early game puts great pressure into pikachu decks early and sets you up for one shots for your starmie EX. The fact that it requires only 1 colorless energy makes it pretty flexible in which deck you can slot them in.
Mienshao was a good fighting deck filler for me while I was still working to get all the cards I needed to build the deck I wanted. And I think that’s kind of the mindset with a few of the cards on your list like Rattata and Chansey and even Tangela: they’re to help beginners get started until they get enough bigger and better cards.
Red card can be compared to something like Dark World Dealings in Yugioh. The ability to make both players draw 1 and discard 1 is VERY powerful, but just that draw 1 can put your opponent's full combo online or give them interruption that will hurt you more than the 1 draw helped you.
It's so funny to see Tangela in this video after I beat an Articuno ex that got 4 energy with misty LMAO (Hypno and Venomoth carried Tangela so much) It's a pretty bad card tho I feel like if it has more HP like 100 - 120 HP and heals 20 while doing those 40 damage it could be pretty good as a basic. I'm using it just because I like it along with scyther the other 2 mentioned earlier and 1 Pinsir. The thing that I like about this game being so much based around luck is that you can win with like any card, sure probably will often won 2 or 3 of 10 matches if it's a bad card but you can win if you just make it work with other cards and that's awesome in comparison with normal TCG.
Am running a one energy cost deck in the old TCG on gameboy it's pretty okay. But wow they debuff pokedex was it always like that? In the old school game pokedex let's you see 5 cards&rearrange them but to just look at 3 cards in your small 20 size deck seems like a waste.
I honestly don't agree with your gyarados pick, I have a deck built with him being the main focus. I build him up, while having greninja on the side for extra dmg.
It’s funny because I don’t even know how I said Tangela wrong but I’m seeing so many comments about it I must have butchered it 😂😂
@@spragelsPocket you said it better than Purplecliffe does
It's more like tangle-a not tangel-a
Tangéla… very fancy! tang-a-la
@@spragelsPocket and then you butchered Mienshao too 😅
"The wires on my ear buds are tangled up." Tangled... Tangle... Tangle-a... Tangela.
>pull a full art gyarados
>consider making a gyarados deck
>see thumbnail
@@SomeCleverAlias honestly gyrados has carried my water deck so hard. Powering up magikarp while an articuno ex or lapras acts as a hitter has been a very effective strategy to me.
@@MangoBlasters-go5cs same, for me I just use misty and it works out rlly well, I was a bit shocked to see it in bad cards
@@MangoBlasters-go5cs even though it's harder to set up, blastoise is just the better version of this strategy and it's what I do, there's actually a huge reward for doing it too
pretty strong if you know how to use it actually
if you manage a hit before they have enough energy, your opponent basically dead
Slap some Misty on it and you are good to good, dude
Red card has become my best friend lately. I’ve probably won my last 20 matches by drawing a brick hand and getting red carded.
It always helps me and I always red card my opponent into a god hand
@@gabestorey5270 When you start with so much of your deck already drawn, Red Card means nothing. Most of the game pieces will be vital. I haven't been inconvenienced, never mind screwed over, by Red Card yet.
Man, if you brick, and they Red Card, that's on them for not paying attention. That's a noob move.
Like, if you're only Red Carding for the early -1/-2, that's just doing it wrong. I will sometimes bait Red Card by leaving 4 cards in hand so I can potentially get Red Carded into an Oak/Ball or a better basic. Ideally, draw into something with more offense/speed for the early game.
Exactly if they made a reverse red card it would be so gas
Most people use it incorrectly, for example, if someone has a bunch of cards in their hand and they're not evolving, why would you use a red card at that point? The only time to use it is at the very beginning after someone has just used a professor Oak card or two. It drops their hand of like 7+ cards down to 3.
Mew should be bad and i'm very happy it is bad purely based on the way you obtain it, Mew being good would actually make the game pay2win
Pokemon had a problem once over ten years ago because they made one of the most powerful cards in the format at the time (tropical beach) exclusive to people who qualified for worlds and made the game extremely p2w, ever since then cards that are very specific to get always have very underwhelming effects (this year worlds card was basically xspeed that only works on psyduck, for example)
Glad to see this trend was kept with pocket.
It doesn’t have to be OP… but it shouldn’t suck this bad either
Doesn’t even feel like a reward
That’s a good point
@@jarde1989 You get it from collecting, it makes sense the reward is for collectors, if it was a card obtained from battling then it would be a lot more understandable to be disappointed it isn’t good in battle.
@@Timikyu oh! A great observation actually
The problem with raticate is not its attack or Hp, is that Dodrio has the same stats (different weakness) but with zero retreat
Yeah when appraising cards it helps to see how they stack up to similar cards.
I guess the only thing Raticate has over Dodrio is that it's weak to fighting, which is less prevalent in the current meta than Electric (Dodrio's weakness).
I also find it really confusing why Raticate of all pokemon doesn't have zero retreat cost, considering his Run Away ability in Pokemon games
The rat can really carry in the first couple days of deck building. Not great sure but they hold up well enough till you can pull something better.
I think Raticate is designed TO BE bad. I mean, it's a very common card, normal type, only one basic energy, and you can splash it everywhere in starter deck. As in the video games, some early pokemon are meant to be bad, to be replaced later by better pkm.
Just my opinion :)
@@gaz4553 pretty fitting for poor Raticate tbh. For most kids playing the Kanto games they're usually placeholder early route Pokémon that get boxed after the first gym or two.
Love when my opponent red cards me t1 and fixes my hand 🤗
@@chubberdunkus6153 my opponent playing red card almost always helps me out or gives me the the exact card I needed back lol. Cards like red card would be good if the deck sizes were bigger than 20.
Red card is at its peak when you hold it until your opponent finally evolves into a stage 1 Pokemon. You clearly were holding that Gardevoir, Charizard, Machamp, etc....and now good luck getting it back. The worst feeling is the completely random red card that hoses you.
@@chubberdunkus6153 I lost a lot of games because of red card
Same here!
@@jolteon345 Haha well that's why this game is all RNG. It's literally just Coin Flip Pocket.
I guess you're right that Gyarados doesn't do enough to justify the investment. I'll take them out and just run the two Magikarp.
Looo lol ololol
Magikarp is one of the main reasons that gyarados is bad. Sometimes you can just start with magikarp and no other basic and you essentially lost the game. All gyarados really is is a worse snorlax that requires an evolution.
@@jprec5174except Gyarados can benefit from Misty coinflips!
Waiting for Magikarp Ex to drop
@@jprec5174 Ok but Gyarados' fullart is literally the coolest artwork in the game right now so idc
Many pokemon in this game seem like misses because I don't think the devs understood the value of energy. All the best cards and decks revolve around from getting ahead on energy or needing little energy. Hopefully we see better consideration of energy costs in the future.
@@aggrospud7698 just the idea that dual energy decks would be used at all shows they did not understand how energy would effect the development of the meta. It is obvious dual energy decks are at a SEVERE disadvantage but the game presents it like the default way to play in the tutorials
TCG all have bad, unplayable cards. They’re filler.
@@Pokeface42 the problem is any high energy card that doesn’t have a synergy to supply it is useless
@@Alex-vm6efthe CPU decks show that the devs knew EXACTLY , what they were doing. Like pointed out, most of these cards are just filler, and not intended to be played unless you don't care about winning.
@@Alex-vm6ef Does it? All the pre built decks you can rent are mono so I don't think you can make that assertion
Mienshao is underrated.
I made a deck called 'Mienkazam' and it does very well. Covers dark type weakness for Alakazam, super effective against the meta-dominant electric, and shreds stallers like weezing and kangaskhan.
@@andrewofaiur I lost earlier to a mewtwo EX deck that had a Mienshao. My Weezing was not prepared
@@andrewofaiur Is your deck 2 lines of Meinshao + 2 lines of alakazam with tech cards?
@@nathansenpai9538 yessir, it's been the winning strat for me so far.
Mienshao did carry for me at the start when everyone had a few normal type in their deck and take advantage to the weakness, but since everyone doesnt have any normal pokemon in their decks, it falls off sudenly
I actually had the reverse of this 😂 I tried to tech it into Misty/Articuno for laughs and it felt like even into Pikachu EX or Koga decks it underperformed if I went 1st. 80 HP/40 dmg is just too weak of a statline, I think. Maybe if it were 100/40 like Rapidash or had 0 retreat cost or something?
I think Rattata and Raticate serve the same purpose they do in the video games. They’re there to give you something to vary your early game while being meant to be replaced at the first opportunity.
That's how i use them and yea He's fine as an early game card, bring him back into the bench the second i'm able to but He's helpful especially since you can run him on any team
Exactly. I used it first, then replaced it with Dodrio, then Mienshao and then ditched them completely
@@bonczus3058 I think they meant replacing in decks not in battle
Rhydon is by far the worst card in the game rn. Nothing comes close to how bad it is. Sadly
I'm surprised it wasn't on here. I'm not expert in this game at all but when I look at it I knew it was trash
I had to search it up because I didn’t even know it existed 😂. I am not surprised it isn’t used, the amount of energy it needs is absolutely horrendous.
@@Mkactus12 My TCG Pocket conspiracy theory is that Brock used to work on Rhydon making it's energy problems not nearly as bad. Then for whatever reason, they decided to not make Brock work on Rhydon and just left the card as is.
Nope. There are worse cards.
@@Mkactus12 are as centiskorch.
Pokedex actually can be quite fun, because PokeBall actually shuffles your deck so you can use Pokedex to see your cards and if you don't like those 3 cards you can just use PokeBall to shuffle the cards and can also bait out red card early on but that is a bit too niche.
That’s a fun thought, thanks for sharing!
That’s what I’ve been doing with my machamp deck, I get machamp pretty often since I can somewhat manipulate what cards I draw thanks to the pokedex
i keep seeing people talk about this use case for pokédex and it’s NOT GOOD 😭😭😭
This just isn't something ever worth a deck slot
@@SmugsfromSplitstill better than putting Red Card
@@tomasdiethelm6553 And explain to me exactly why you think going -1 in card economy for low-quality knowledge (it is a 20-card deck format) is better than the interruption tool that goes possibly very positive in card economy
Jake: I'm sorry for saying Pokemons
Also Jake 0.1 secs later: Pokemons
Tangela is just waiting for a good Tangrowth (ex maybe) to drop. As a stand alone basic is pretty terrible, but if it had a strong evolution you could make a Tangrowth/Liligant in theory
I actually succesfully use Pokedex with Gengar EX. The amount of times I had Haunter - Gengar as next cards so I hold the pokeball to not shuffle the deck are crazy, or the other way around - I don't need the next three cards so I pokeball and there's a decent chance to get the cards I want sooner.
Its currently the most consistent way of looking for evolutions since I already run all the other draw cards. Best way to avoid bricked hands, unlike running 2 Sabrinas 2 Giovannis in every deck
this.
Bro is finally hearing about brainstorm fetch tech
Sabrinas also are not that great late game because by then you probably have a Pokémon you want to sacrifice or that could hit a powerful attack. They are good, but late-game they may not have the good effect you want.
Recently I just got my first Gardevoir from Wonder pick, I had bad luck in my packs..
And so with only 1 Garde I made the Mewtwo deck and filled the spot with Pokedex, which somewhat increase the consistency of finding that only Garde.
And so, I even placed one copy in my Blaine deck, since it's very crucial to draw that Blaine, and since that deck it's not energy hungry I'm only running 1 XSpeed.
So yeah, I do enjoy Pokedex, it's not the best but it helps thinking in the turns ahead, I think I'll try Blastoise with it too next!
pokedex pre pokeball shuffle is super underrated if you have room for it but I can't justify running more than one copy since it's only truly useful in pretty specific scenarios
The Raticate-line is especially sad, because the Doduo line is just so much better. Their only downside is, that in the current meta a Lightning weakness is pretty devastating
The problem with a lot of these Pokémon (low hp, high energy requirements, etc.) is the mere existence of EX cards. With EX cards being as good as they are, not many other cards get a chance to be viable.
Private game password: NOEX
Thats why they balance it by being 2 points if you knock out an ex pokemon
@@ValetinoLovebird That's a bit moot. I feel like people either throw out their EX when they've lost 2 points already (thus losing any pokemon will lose the game), or are in a position to sweep you from getting to something that can challenge it.
A water deck that opens with Starmie EX needs something that can oneshot, or stun it. Anything less, and it will retreat for free. By the time you get a pokemon that can do either, they've built an answer, and you've invested a lot to get there. Most of the pokemon that can answer an EX, are another EX.
Arbok and weezing will consistently beat any deck in the game
@@Soumein There are few ways to beat an EX, another EX, Sabrina, Status, Ability that switch out / remove active pokemon or sneakily execute a weak bench pokemon. Those are the methods I can think off, probably there are more methods in the future like energy removal or someting
I feel like Nidoqueen should do +10 damage for each nidoran, then +30-50 for it’s evolutions, so that you get max value out of Nidokings, but it’s not a requirement
though your suggestion is a nice buff, it's too complicated when compared to other cards in the game.
A more likely fix would be giving Nidoqueen the ability to evolve a Nidorino into Nidoking for 2 dark energy.
@@TostonDePana You made a good point, I think the best value is +20 for every Nido Family, like Pikachu, instead of x30, it be base 60 +20 for each Nido family
@@TostonDePana My thought is Maybe reworking how Nidoran F works, and making it into Darkness Caterpie, Spending your attack just to get 1 NIdoran M just isn't worth in a 20 card deck with no specific support. Maybe that'd make other Darkness decks too consistent? But I doubt it.
The problem with colorless is that almost every hard "is colorless". Most decks only use one type of energy, and with 20 cards, makes a lot of sense. So they just have a higher cost for nothing.
Colorless can still help offset a deck from having every Pokémon with the exact same weakness. Although they'd be better at it if resistances were also a thing in this game.
@@EmeralBookwise Yes, but with no resistances and only 20 cards, where less than half of them will be the final pokemon, it's still irrelevant
@@TheLMBLucas: I don't think it's entirely irrelevant. Especially not early on when a player is still building up their collection and might not have enough cards for a fully mono color deck.
I mean, Farfetchid in particular is incredibly splashable.
@@EmeralBookwise When you are brand new to the game (or new account), it throws a couple of dozens of packs at you. At that point it's easy to build like a Blaine deck or Sandlash with something else, which is better than using Swanna.
Farfetch'd was good when everyone had shit cards, now it's more like a free prize for the opponent and a troll Pokeball for the player.
@@TheLMBLucas: Maybe, but personally I'd prefer to stick to just the two free daily packs for Genetic Apex, while saving up my pack hourglasses to get a head start on the next set whenever it drops.
I feel like the reason why the effectiveness/usefulness of some cards varies so greatly is that the devs were just throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks and that they are gonna use that information as a reference for the power level of future cards
however, regarding the problem with stage 2s, I think they *have to* give us some way of "cheesing out" stage 2s, or else the meta is gonna be run by stage 1s/basics before long
I like the very VERY rare case when I have pokedex, pokeball, and oak in my hand all at once. I use pokedex to look at the top of the deck and see if I want to draw or shuffle draw, shuffle with pokeball, and then draw with oak. Not good enough to use up a valuable slot, but when I have nothing else, it's better than red card
Yeah great combo there
10:20 This happens to me all the time. Opponent plays Red Card and I'm like "Sweet! Burn the trash and give me 3 new chances at what I've been looking for" 90% of the time, I get a better hand than what I started with.
I think he didnt know when to play a red card. I dont know it help me or not, but many times when a pokemon evolves to stage 1 looking for stage 2, i would just play it, hoping he shuffles the stage 2 into the deck
Nobody uses it right either and its already bad 😭 some people red card my 3 without me even cluing to what i have
@@Thatguyyoudontknow594 usually they pair with handscope, players playing with 1 pokemon like 2 Articuno EX Deck, would have it, but normal decks with more than 2 pokemons including evolutions does not have enough space to insert another 2 hand scope cards with the decks they are going with
9:54 The only time I could see myself using the Pokédex card is if I needed to decide between using the professors research and another supporter card; seeing which 3 cards are on the top of my deck to determine whether I should use the professors research to get those cards, or using giovanni or Sabrina to do extra damage or swap out the Pokemon. Very situational though
I’ve been running Mienfoo/Mienshao in my Charizard deck. (Switched out the Ponyta/Rapidash I had in there). I put it in playing around for a counter to pikachu, but found it is often incredible as there’s a lot of decks running colourless basics with 60hp. Opening fighting into a colorless has on a few occasions let me KO their only Pokémon on turn 3. It’s also nice with charizard to get one early KO because then u can just charge the Char to 3 or 4 energy to Crimson Storm an EX once for the win. THAT ALL SAID, it’s just fodder against Mewtwo which is everywhere, and while I originally added them to bump up my chances vs electric, because PikachuEX has so much health I feel like they’re only useful half the time against Pika anyway. But there’s something there. They feature in my wins more often than not, just hard to work out if adding them over something else has caused any of my losses. I get a kick out of the odd combo though
I would consider running golbat as well, to deal with the mewtwo matchup
Yeah, Mienshao and also Golbat, as someone else mentioned, are pure anti-meta cards. They'll probably fall off fast as soon as the next full set lands, but for now they have a niche.
@@Joyboy_J.R. I've been considering running the Zubat line in my Machamp ex for that very reason. Shame Golbat only has 70 HP and still has one retreat cost.
@@EmeralBookwise I don't think these anti-meta cards will fall off easily. They may fall out of favor if the best decks are something they don't counter but I just don't see Golbat not being good if the most played deck is weak to Dark. The only way that really happens is if they print a card that fills the exact same purpose but does more damage or does the same or slightly less damage but is basic. I start Zubat into Golbat against Mewtwo and they just die.
@@bmarti7998: That's the thing though, Golbat and Mienshou are only good right now because they are splashable cards which counter two of the strongest meta decks. By contrast just look at Cottonee/Whimsicott, which despite functioning similarly don't see much play
Snorlax is actually a pretty nice wall to gain time for building strategies; 150 HP for a base pokémon are insane
Sabrina:
Pokédex should really let you put the cards back in any order. It still wouldn't be a very strong card, but a lot better.
3 energy cost on low/unreliable damage is so, so sad. With costly retreats on top!
No added effects?
No abilities??
Where's the strategy? Yikes...
The fact they made some Pokemon so utterly boring & unusable.
Such lost opportunities
@@bubuxviv there are loads of examples- Parasect, Gogoat, Swanna, Dubwool to name a few :/
@bubuxviv I said "to name a few"
@@rewind_kitsunetrue. Some cards are just worse versions of others. I get the need for filler but it’s a little sad.
It's even worse here than the real TCG. I wish all cards could be playable. If a card just has a weak attack with no text, strategy or even a gimmick, what's the point of the cards existance?
4:04 *proceeds to say pokémons again*
I had a double take and I’m still not sure, but I choose to believe it was intentionnal 😂
Jake is a masterful troll/comedian. Don't even get me started on Jake 2. Still got the B-tier.
On purpose
What about the tangela pronunciation?
Tang-ella instead of Tang-uh-luh
I like it, I like it a lot
Spragels: "Gyarados isn't doing that much"
Me here having a blast playing double garyados with starmie which destroys opponents
Gyrados + Misty is a sick combination
@@ValetinoLovebird Fr I literally destroyed a Charizard player just cause I got 3 head on misty on Gyarados and killed the moltress before it can do major inferno dance
@@srijoybhowmick3098that's just misty getting heads being broken, not gyarados. Also starmie carrying.
@@arsia. Well that is true but still fun destroying enemies
@@ValetinoLovebirdmisty is either you hit and you win or you flop and you lose
Red Card gas a few problems going for it. The first is you'll never really know if you helped or harmed your opponents hand unless you run Hand Scope, which is a terrible card in it's own right.
The second is 20 card decks. With decks being so small the longer the game goes on, and the more cards your opponent plays makes late game Red Cards less effective than early game ones.
Had a recent game against a Dragonite deck. They didn't drop the Dratini with a 5 card hand so I hand scoped first and realized they have 2 Dragonair and 1 Dragonite in their hand, but not Dratini. So I simply waited until they played the Dratini and then red carded. It worked out
3 things:
1) As someone else said, Mew being bad is a good thing, but I do wish it was a colorless energy to use the Psy Report. Kinda sucks it can only really get played in psychic decks.
2) I think there should be a trainer card that combines Hand Scope and Red Card into one. Something like, “View your opponents hand. Choose whether to shuffle it back into their deck and draw 3 cards, or your opponent draws a card.” Something along those lines. Maybe that’s dumb but hey.
3) I’ve been using Mienshao in my Machamp deck and it’s been performing well. The problem is that Dugtrio is the same card with a better effect. The colorless make it feel like it would be better is something like an Aqua deck, or even a Psychic deck as a Dark deterrent, but it’s probably just not worth it as dark decks are so rare and Psychic has so many powerful options.
I gotta say, I've been helped more often than not by an opponent using Red Card on me. Just earlier today it helped me out tremendously. I had an Omanyte and Staryu on my bench, the Red Card gave me an Omastar, Starmie EX and Misty. I was very happy with my new hand!
Always seems like when I use red card, the opponent always draws professor's research and one other good top deck. Glad you talked about it. Can lose games as easily as it wins.
I want to like meinshao but to me it seems only suitable for hard tech options like sniping weezing arbok decks before they get started or something
Ditto is genuinely a failure of design. You could remove it’s attack and it’s 90% the same card, it’s beyond bad it’s literally dysfunctional
I had a lot of fun just throwing Meinshao and Golbat into every deck for a week when everyone was spamming pikachu and mewtwo ex decks. So often they'd win me games by hitting 60 repeatedly due to weaknesses. Ended up making a dedicated multi-type deck after that but things like whimsicott just never saw any use when nobody ran things weak to grass.
Seems to have been a lot more deck variety the past week though so targetting common weaknesses hasn't been too fruitful.
... Let's see.
*Gogoat:* 3 energy for only 70 damage and raw stats. Completely outclassed by Exeggutor who needs only 1 energy, and Dubwool, a literal better goat in many senses (Sheeps are a species of goat).
*Swanna:* Too weak and not very bulky. Sandslash requires 1 less energy and is bulkier.
*Gyarados:* 4 energy just to get a consistent 100 attack, and having to run Magikarp doesn't help either.
*Rhydon:* 4 energy for 100 attack with no secondary effect. As a reminder Sandslash hits for 70 using only half the energy, and Rhyhorn is also very slow requiring 3 energies.
*Nidoqueen:* Too reliant on a specific name to work, aka vulnerable to Sabrina's antics.
*Golbat:* You talked about raticate being bad. Zubat is a worse rattata (Slightly more bulk but half power) and Golbat is a Raticate that dies to a Golduck aqua edge, an electro ball and 60 BP moves with giovanni, which there's a lot of.
*Dragonite:* Having multiple energies to attack is asking for failure. The attack is also random and therefore unreliable. 200 damage in nothing to laugh at but you're almost never getting it because is not a valid misty target.
*Snorlax:* 4 ENERGY FOR 70?! And is not like it can survive more, because it still dies to Mewtwo EX.
*Pokedex:* You're just watching a topdeck, sacrificing better items for knowledge that won't really help you the turn of play.
*Mew:* Just too weak to be worth running. Good thing though, it would be P2W otherwise.
Imagine if Psy Report was Mew's ability instead.
@HahnKirby I get the idea but for a stage 1 that's way to op
That would be WAY too busted. It could just sit on the bench and give you free hand knowledge and make red cards a lot more viable, while the rest of your deck would continue working as intended. It would be just annoying, if one copy was gifted to everyone, but as a reward for completing the Kanto pokedex this card would be very unhealthy for the balance of the game and give P2W players a huge advantage
@@solidzack They could make it where you can only use the ability while it's in the active spot like Weezing, although I have a feeling that you only getting the information at the end of the turn is the intended effect.
As a long time card player I can tell you, hand disruption of any kind is invaluable and no card is in their deck is useless. They may have a 5 card hand but unless you're playing supporter lock, much of that could be evolutions ready to play, Misty's to accelerate, Sabrina to disrupt. You're almost always better off dropping them down to 3 even at a 4 card hand because in the end, it's still 1 less resource they will have. They may get more basics set up earlier, but without the support to get them going, if you're playing aggressively, They will feel the effects of the card denial.
@@thatoneguy4783 Disagree. Firstly, that one card difference is made equal by the fact you had to sacrifice a card in order to hold and play red card at all. Secondly, some cards are just worth significantly more in this game, namely stage 1s & 2s which in many cases are essential to even have a chance at a win. Clearing a whole bunch of relatively weak cards at the risk of giving them the one or two cards they need to secure the win is just too risky imo. You only need to play the game to notice this, as so many people have commented red card is frequently advantageous for the person it is used against. There are niche situations where you have a higher chance of making it work such as immediately after an opponents stage 1 evolution but before a stage 2, but even then it's a dice roll, and is frequently just going to be beaten out by a card with near guaranteed use value.
As you said, no card in the deck is useless. In a _20 card game_ , you usually wind up getting what you need in very few turns or have an easy pivot, and most of the time someone is red carded they just get those cards right back because shuffling 12 cards is barely a shuffle.
But keep spreading the word that red card is good, I love when it's wasted on my decks :)
You can't just always use Red Card, when the opponent has 4 cards or more, this isn't Yu-Gi-Oh! You gotta be aware of the situation, and wager the risk.
Is it the first turn? Depending on the pokémon played, there's a chance, the opponent bricked and/or played only 1 card on purpose to bait out the red card.
Does the opponent have a lot of cards in hand? They either bricked, or keep trainer cards in hand, in which case a red card might cime in handy if you really don't wanna see a Potion, Giovanni or Sabrina on the next turn.
Did they just evolve to stage 1? If they have more than 3 cards in hand, you could lower the chances of them evolving again, especially if they already used up their Prof. research.
Are they putting energies on a Pokémon that they're about to evolve? That would be a good time to use Red Card as they are very likely to have the evolution in hand.
@@sammoon7897 Some decks will have nothing to put in but Red Card, it's not true that it is a "sacrifice" for all decks. You're also assuming the Red Card is going to unbrick the hand by default. And the reason people will say Red Card is more helpful than not is because most people playing aren't very good. They don't use Red Card at optimal times to disrupt Stage evolutions or right after someone loads up their hand with Oak causing them to lack the draw power to recoup.
If the argument is "Red Card isn't valuable enough to reserve a spot in your deck" I'd agree. There's too many factors to make it always useful. To believe it is bad though, you're relying on anecdotal experiences of people benefiting from it, which is also entirely luck based. Just as likely as they were to get Stage 1, Pokeball, and a Oak, they were to get 2 X-Speeds and a Potion.
I haven't had the chance to use it in a real match yet, but Mienshao would be great counter-strategy in a Mewtwo EX/Gardevoir set by providing cheap damage, covering the Dark weakness, and having enough HP to tank at least 1 hit from anything earlygame that requires under 3 Energy (besides Pikachu EX) before going down while giving your Ralts and Mewtwo time to set up. Theoretically this would help against Electric Decks and opposing Mewtwo EX decks running Meowth.
Unfortunately I haven't ran into an opposing Mewtwo or Dark deck yet so I haven't use Mienshao.
10:40 just today I had a bad 1-card hand. my opponent used Red Card and they have me a Pokeball, Professor's Research and some other 3rd card.
Dumb opponent
Mienshao was one of my staples when I first started playing. The Mien line is extremely helpful to early game players who don’t have a lot of cards
Its attack can be used with any single energy to provide meta-relevant fighting coverage to any deck. Makes it a really good active mon if you have to move first. Frankly stunned it's on his list.
@@WelshPolitoProject yeah that being on the list tells me a lot lol. bro doesnt cook like i thought sadly
Absolutely, it being on this list is INSANE. It's pretty good.
I like using Psyduck and Red Card combo. Making them hold onto their support cards only to have them get reshuffled is so chaotic to me
I think of Mienshao the same way I think of Rapidash; if you're going first, it does decent damage on your first attacking turn because you can evolve it straight away. Rapidash has more HP and a supporter to buff it more, but it's been decent in my Fighting decks when I didn't have a lot of other fighting cards to run.
I think the problem with Gyarados is that by the time you have set it up (barring a lucky Misty) the opponent is setup and the resource denial isn't effective. If it cost 2 energy and did maybe 50 damage, the resource denial would allow you to wither down the opponent's Pokemon. Would pair nicely with Pidgeot in case they try to set up a bench Pokemon. I think one Pokemon that doens't get enough credit is Persian, another fantastic resource denial card that nets you card advantage on the way. Seen as there's no discard pile recursion in this game, a discarded evolution could end the game. There are lots of deck ideas to try but maybe a Psyduck/Aerodactyle line for more of a control deck. Could run red card just to mess with their card advantage and increase the chance of hitting an important card that might be in their hand after it resolves. I don't have the Persians to try this deck but I'd love to see an iteration of the deck
Gyarados would be good if it had at least 160-170 hp because then it could tank a psydrive and then hyperbeam which would then deny a psydrive next turn.
Wow such a nice Idea!
I have all the pieces lol
You’d be better off running Fearow at that point. While it doesn’t have as much HP it only takes two energy, deals 50 damage, AND it’s colorless.
Only 2 energy for a guaranteed removal would be so busted, when Fearow at the same cost requires a coin flip
Considering running Gyarados also requires the trash that is Magikarp, however, I'd think it would maybe be fair enough just to reduce the Energy cost from 4 to 3. Then again, in the future we might have better Magikarps which help search out their own evolution and could maybe break that, although we will almost certainly have better Gyarados by then too.
Mawile is similar and a low cost basic. Just gotta flip well.
I run mienshao in a deck with starmie ex. It’s sort of like to counter electric decks. Especially good against pikachu decks. 1 energy to start doing dmg and apply pressure (+20 dmg if against electric). Then bring in starmie to deal the finishing blow. Not too bad of a deck!
I like it!
I feel like a lot of the normal type Pokémon are still balanced around colourless energy cards counting double. If there was the option to take double colourless energy, things like snorlax or chansey or even Swanna would make a lot more sense
7/10 times red card actually HELPS me lol
I feel like cards like Mawile, Gyarados and Fearow would be really interesting with the energy removal, especially vs. decks that want to have that consistent energy flow like char ex and mewtwo ex, but it's just so hard to get them to that point. I wonder if an EX of any of those would help with that? Give them more HP and more time to do their thing. Having a Mewtwo out and having an entire energy or two removed would be pretty devastating while also dealing a not insignificant amount of damage.
A cool card would be if nidorina was able to call the rest of nidoking family into ur hand. That would make it much easier to have the synergy between the two.
It's so weird that Nidoran F can only search for Nidoran and not any pokemon of the type like Caterpie.
I think Lickitung deserves to be higher on the list, honestly. While I understand it's funny to see a big number when you get a rare streak, its effective damage is capped by the current HP of the defending Pokemon.
Against a target with infinite HP, its expected damage with each attack would be exactly 60. (The math on this isn't too bad, as long as you know the sum of the infinite series (1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8...) is equal to 1. You can think of Lickitung's attack as having a 1/2 chance of doing that first 60 damage, a 1/4 chance of adding a second 60 damage, a 1/8 chance of doing a third 60 damage, etc.) That's already not great for three energy. But once you've exceeded the defending Pokemon's current HP, any additional heads do nothing for you.
So for example, against an undamaged Mewtwo EX, you have a 50% chance of doing 0 (T__), a 25% chance of doing exactly 60 (HT_), a 12.5% chance of doing exactly 120 damage (HHT), and a 12.5% chance of doing 150 damage (HHH). That gives you an expected damage of (0 * 0.5) + (60 * 0.25) + (120 * 0.125) + (150 * 0.125) = 0 + 15 + 15 + 18.75 = 48.75. For three energy! Maybe not the worst card in the game, but definitely a contender if you ask me.
As for Red Card, the only time I feel safe using it is if the opponent has been waiting for a while for the Stage 1 evolution for something they're trying to build up to Stage 2. If the opponent plays Ralts immediately and then doesn't play Kirlia for a while, they'll probably have a sizeable hand by that point, which means they're likely to have the Gardevoir. At that point, Red Card seems like a reasonable play.
I've seen a lot of opponents throw it out on turn 1 against me, and it's like... sure, you put me down a card, but you also went down a card yourself. That's not card advantage.
at least tangela has tangrowth potential. i hope they dont do my viney boy dirty. theres some lovely paper tangrowths
I tried Mienshao in a Dragonite deck because it requires a single colorless energy and that's what I was looking for to apply early/mid-game pressure while I tried to get Dragonite online. I figured it was a bonus that a fighting type in that deck would throw off my opponents.
It works... ok. The problem is Weezing exists. If you run Weezing ability only (no dark energy in the deck) it does apply less pressure than the 40 damage Mienshao, but it requires 0 energy. So it comes online faster, it takes 0 resources from Dragonite, and it's bulkier.
Given that Weezing works even without any energy I just have a hard time imagining any color deck where Weezing doesn't work better than Mienshao... unless maybe you really need something that hits with fighting damage, I guess...?
the thing with gyarados is that I think its powerful in the case of centiskorch, charizard and mewtwo where they discard down due to their powerful attacks and then you stop a consecutive turn use of their ulimate that way. That being said, probably better just to focus on murder murder
Yeah gyarados has two issues. One, magikarp dies to almost everything so just that is a hurdle. Two, it doesn't work unless you pull off a great Misty. Even a one energy Misty doesn't really help gyarados with 4 energy attack only, like imagine if it had a 3 energy attack it could maybe do something.
I just hope they make a gyarados EX that is actually playable, though I'm sad because 1* gyarados art is great.
The other thing is that even if you get a really good Misty, you might not have Gyarados. So now you have a lot of energy on the easiest card to KO in the game. Super risky.
i’m sure we will get the next main set after the erika shop items disappear, looking at how things are going we started with mew premium items( cards sleeves, coin, etc.)and pikachu promo card. starting this month we now have a mewtwo promo card and pikachu premium items. now matching that up with our missing promo and erika items that will be going away it’s safe to assume they are saving the best for last before moving to something new. what’s everyone’s fan favorite? Charizard , it’s makes sense with him being the only one from the trio missing. with the 3rd premium month ending and erika items ending at the same time it’s safe to assume FEBRUARY 1ST will be the release of a new main set with genetic apex staying but starting to faze out .
Red Card is one of the best cards in the game. You just have to know how to use it.
An example is I play a Dragonite deck. Dragonite has 160 hp. Mewtwo ex does 150 damage. A good Mewtwo player who sees I’m playing Dragonite is going to hold onto Giovanni, so they can one shot Dragonite the turn I bring it out. So, everytime I bring out Dragonite when playing against a Mewtwo deck, I play Red Card to get rid of their Giovanni.
You can make similar plays to stop Sabrina. Most decks run 2 Sabrinas. So if your opponent hasn’t played Sabrina yet and a situation comes up where Sabrina would really mess up your day, there’s a good chance your opponent has been holding onto a Sabrina waiting for such a situation to come up. So you can play Red Card to prevent them from playing Sabrina.
It’s also a good counter to Stage 2 cards. If your opponent has had Charmander on their bench for 3 turns and then suddenly evolves it to Charmeleon, there’s a good chance they’ve had Charizard in their hand for a while and were just waiting to draw a Charmeleon. So you can get rid of the Charizard that’s coming next turn by playing Red Card.
Or Stage 1 cards. Did your opponent just attack with Mankey and do 10 damage to themselves? They probably have a Primeape in their hand that’s going to hit you for 100 damage next turn. Get rid of it with Red Card.
Even if you’re not someone who’s good at making reads like that, Red Card can still be good by just playing the odds. If your opponent has 5 cards in their hand, and you get rid of them and give them 3, you’ve lowered the chances of them having the card they need, because they’re less likely to have it in a hand of 3 cards than they are in a hand of 5.
There are certainly very specific situations where it can be handy, but by the time you have a fully loaded dragonite they're down to 5 cards in their deck, so "shuffling" that deck usually accomplishes squat. Not to mention there are plenty of people who evolve or attack just to... well, evolve or attack. So trying to "read" those moves is going to fail you half the time. It's just not that effective in a game with 20-card decks. Especially when damn near every deck runs 2 pokeballs and 2 professor oaks.
IF you're very familiar with the meta decks, can identify them early, and put the work in to card count discard piles and what-not, it _can_ be effective, but at this point in the game I've found it more effective to save those slots in my deck for more consistently useful cards.
@ I’ve gotten Dragonite out and fully powered by turn 4. If you’re not getting him out until your deck is almost out of cards, chances are you’ve already lost the game.
Reads are a thing in virtually every competitive game and are a necessary skill if you want to be a good player. You have to make reads in Pokémon even if you don’t use Red Card.
Would Rhydon also fall under the same category as Gyrados then? 4 energy stage 2 pokemon with a 100 damage hit (but Rhydon has even less hp at 120). When I got it I thought it would be so strong since I'm still working on building up my Fighting Deck but it definitely did not feel good 😅
I saw an interesting Mienshao + Starmie deck. I don’t know that I super love it, but it does have really good early tempo.
I'll check it out!
12:11
It may not be great, but I’ve been using Mienshao in a NOEX Blastoise deck. T3 evolve and attack for 1 energy, whereas the Blastoise line prefers going second. It’s Fighting, as you mentioned, so it counters the Lightning which your Blastoise is weak to
Gyarados full art is so cool. I want it to work so bad.
Same. My favorite mon and one of my favorite cards…but it’s sooo bad. We’ll eventually get an EX version just don’t know when
@@xxWicKedWayZxx idk, if it get EX, it would be different art, no? (I really like this one) Maybe more support card. like more reliable energy ramp than Misty?
I like gyarados. Yea it takes a tone of energy, but I think the losing one energy thing can be more impactful than you think sometimes. Hitting tanky mon trying to get to that 4 energy. He can force someone to keep committing energy to their active mon instead of the bench. I do wish they would change the wording on the card that you got to pick which pokemon lost the energy
I know! It can be extremely disruptive against Mewtwo EX decks because the whole strategy is to be able to use its psydrive consistently via Gardevoir. Even losing one energy can give you the time to take it out and win the game. Honestly, I am surprised someone haven’t found a way to make this card work to counter Mewtwo, Charizard decks.
Golem is also Bad Pokemon Card In my Opinion... First u need to Make it Stage 2 then u need to gave 4 energy for the attack and even after attack he gave 50 damage to himself thats a Waste i guess
For most of the common cards that don't offer value, they are considered draft chaff. They are intentionally underpowered - there to pad the list of cards for beginners and low power CPU.
Unfortunately, this game has no draft mode and no plans for one either, so they are literally just pack filler trash
6:19 What's even worse is that it's literally an inferior version of Dodrio, who has more hp in its base form AND no retreat cost.
@@mercury2118 it is just one of those card that they give you at the beggining that are weak that are meant to learn the basic and move on
@EricGoingCrazy I agree with you there. While effective for getting the grasp of evolution, it doesn't serve much use later on.
"Tang-ella"
At this point I wonder if people even play the pokemon games or watched any of the media because it's wild to make such borderline intentionally-bad mispronunciations of Pokemon names that have been around for 30 years
I mean didn't everyone watch this when the anime came out? th-cam.com/video/y3j7DATYZD4/w-d-xo.html He did the pronunciation research so we wouldn't have to!
@Jesse-lv2yo ah right the pokerap lyrics specifically done to fit the rhythm of the song. An amazing source for how to pronounce the Pokemon's names as opposed to literally any episode or game that featured Tengela lol
I slotted Mienshao line into my Blaine deck for the Venusaur event. Gets past Kangaskhan faster. Not a good card but I got sick of T1 Kangas lol
Pokedex well played is extremely good, you can beforehand know which next 3 cards will be and even better, if you also play Pokeball the deck the Basic Pokemon is RANDOM, not the next one coming, but also after using it the deck gets shuffled so I most of the time use Pokedex and check, if I don't like the next 3 I play Pokeball to shuffle it, if I want those cards and still have Pokeball wait after I get what I want from those 3 to play it.
12:05 Mienshao + Golbat + Whimsiscott all in 1 deck is a sleeper budget deck.
They’re all colorless 1 energy, allowing the player to use any energy, while providing type-counters (fighting, dark, grass)
Members saw it first! Yeehaw
Yeah but we saw it anyways so who th cares. Yeah I’m gonna spend money to see a video before someone else 😱😱😱!!!
@@GyozaDevourerOh boy I love being able to watch videos by my favourite youtuber spragelsPocket early by being a member. YIPPEE!!!
No need to be a jerk. He's making free content for us. One of the small bonuses to supporting him is getting to see stuff early. Its not a huge deal but a nice lil incentive.
Man, the poke flute would be an amazing idea! An item card thats so specific but unlocks the absolute potential of a support card. On top of it, imagine we get a cool snorlax EX at some point? It would be super fun, strong or balanced, and the problem with Snorlax is how it can 100% kill guarantee your death in the end if you only have 2 pokemon and you get sabrina forced into it.
But i really love Snorlax and and i always try to make it work. I think with a good number of basics you maybe can work around that and you need to be extremely careful. Also never play it with EX cards, you really need the 3 prize points to work with it.
If they made a Great Ball supporter card that pulls stage 1s I would be overjoyed, even if it had a one-per-deck or coin flip requirement
yea I really tried to run snorlax as a tank but I would lose because I just couldn't switch him out, so I ended up running articuno instead (similar health less retreat and more consistent damage
He knows that multiple Pokémon are "Pokémon" and not "Pokémons". First sentence after he uses word "Pokémons" again... 3:50 👏😂
Mienshao, I used in a misty water deck when I started out as a counter to lightning type pokemon. Later, when I got more water options, it came out. It did some decent work while I used it.
Misty should be there
Are you joking? It's arguably the most broken card in the game. It needs to be changed
Honestly, Misty needs a complete rework. Its low roll makes it feel so awful, but the fact that it can accelerate more than 2 energy with one card is just too good for the game right now. It really ought to just put 1 water energy on 1 of your benched water Pokemon and that's it. It would basically be a better version of Brock, which should be fine since right now it's an insanely broken version of Brock.
@@SoulDeSol 100% agree. It is the definition of terrible game design and I really hope they decide to change it.
Tbh, did not really like the coin flip system at all
I used Mienshao a lot before getting other fighting pokemon and it's great for early damage and chip while you build something else. In my case I used it with Marowak and Grapploct. Only needs 1 energy to both attack and retire and 40 damage early game while other Pokémon need more energy to land an attack is great for early advantage. You can change it at anytime when your other Pokémon are ready and people don't want to waste Sabrina on a weak Pokémon
there was a nidoqueen similar to this one in the tcg, but it had following 4 points going for iy:
- 3 colorless attack doing similat effect
- it did extra damage foe every stage 2 pokemon (not just kings)
- it had a pokepower that allowed you to search an evolution pokemon each turn
- the tcg has a lot of searches to get this online fast.
Red card is funny. There were so many games where I placed 2 basics on the field, drew 2 cards (got NOTHING), passed and opponent red cards my 4+ cards into my evolutions.
I've played around with Mienfu early on before I realized how bad 1 cost 40 damage is if you don't back it up with something else (like Rapidash + Blaine). I had some success using Golbat, that is basically the same as this one, but Mewtwo decks were 2 out of 3 back then, and that was basically 60 damage for 1 colorless energy.
I've been playing a NidoQueen deck and the issue is not the energy or the evolution, but the fact that you have to choose the support. The deck works, but you have to run or Meowth to speed up or kanghaskan to put pressure on the early game.
However, with only 6 slots on your deck and being forced to run two oak and two pokeballs, you have only 2 other options.
You need speed x to remove the nidoran bad positioned, but you also get a lot of value from sabrina. You also can use red card to slow down your opponent.
Also there is no way you make a 3x0 because you need to have your colorless pokemon killed to get your nidoking or nidoqueen on position.
I think something would help the deck a lot is if nidoking did 10 more damage. Nidoking always feels that he is 10 short on life or 10 short on damage when you are forced to play it. Poison is not that big of threat to Venusaur X or Lapras X and Charizard X can punish you before dying to poison.
Nidoking is really great against no ex decks that rarely have a huge pokemon and also really hurts mewtwo decks.
But a great ball like card ( choose monsters from deck) or a dark energy misty like card can change everything for the deck.
Have you tried runnin one less Nidoquen line? 12 investment into only 2 lines feel like too much.
Yep, Mienshao is great to spash fighting for type advantage against normals, dark, and electric types. It’s cheap and fast and use it with Weezing or weezing and Zapdos for 3 color deck. Didn’t even know this mon that well before playing this, but it has def grown on me since using it.
How is Nidoqueen bad?? I have been swept SO many times by this deck. The amount of damage it can do with one attack is insane.
@@lucarudloff687 while I don’t think it’s one of the top 10 worst cards, it’s definitely something that can be super hard to set up. Definitely don’t think it’s horrible tho
I ran into a Nido Deck and I guess the other had really good luck, as they had the King and the Queen out in no time and wrecked me. Was a fun match.
Nidoqueen requires way too much setup to be good, and getting even a single Nidoking can be a pain. It might work in very stall heavy decks that can let you setup on the bench, but I am not surprised we don’t see these decks in today’s meta. Very inefficient.
Yeah. Maybe it'd be a bit better if Nidoran F searched for all Darkness Pokemon and not exclusively Nidoran M? It's hard to justify ever using Nidoran F's attack when PokeBall and Oak are 2 ofs in nearly every deck.
I get that Mew was never ment to be a powerful pokemon, but for the amount of effort it takes, they should atleast give it a useful ability.
That would be even worse. If it was a passive ability, it would be easily splashable in other decks and create a huge gap between F2P and P2W players. For now, it's good as it is. You could technically use it, and it's not the worst card in the game, but it's not powerful enough for anyone to complain about it
@solidzack It is a pretty bad card, seeing your opponents hand isnt that useful, and its hp and damage are the same as a first stage evo. I would upgrade its damage to 40, and make its current ability passive. Its hp isnt massive so you could take it out like a Farfetch. Also, as a F2P player myself that has spent no money on the game, I am 10 cards away from the Mew
The perk of Gyarados is that if you can get it up there and loaded with the energy it needs via Misty or a few turns of stalling; no one is prepared for it. All of the times I’ve played Gyarados, my opponents kind of panic and will often concede/waste all their energy switching in and out around it
When we get ranked it will probably be best of 3 so I'd expect a 3-5 card sideboard. Mienshao is probably going to be a huge counter to Pika, it can one shot all the basics in the deck that aren't zapdos and Pika ex has to have a full bench to kill it. Right now the game is the wild west it's still so early to really judge how some of these cards pan out.
I ran Mienshao in a Gengar/Alakazam deck early on (before the meta really settled, mainly due to not having 2x Clefable yet) and while it was not great, it had some positives. It hard countered the Dark decks that would beat psychic. If you start with Mienfoo on T2 then Mienshao on T4, it kills Arbok & Weezing (With Giovanni). I think it looks worse than it is, because Psychic is so strong in the meta right now. Golbat is seeing play in decks and its a straight downgrade from Mienshao, so if the meta shifted I could see it being better.
One card I think you missed would be Rhydon. Melmetal is Niche at best, and has more HP, a really good active, higher damage, and a lower retreat cost, plus its stage 1 can cheat the energy to maybe cheese the opponent. I don't think there's any deck that could make Rhydon even sort of manageable. I honestly think they would have to buff Rhyhorn/don's hp by like 50% to even start considering the card which is wild
Rattata and Raticate are really funny to me because it's literally the statline of Rattata and Raticate from the original run of those cards from the TCG. They're really bad in the context of PTCGP, but when they first released way back when, they were not terrible early mons, though they did get outclassed pretty quickly.
Rattata actually lost of it's most important boons in TCGP, Base Set Rattata had free retreat, and having something like Super Fang on Raticate would give it a niche. In TCG Pocket though They're just worse Doduo and Dodrio, especially when Dodrio does get that coveted free retreat.
@starmangalaxy2001 Ah, true, I had forgotten about the free Retreat. And Super Fang. I used them all the time in the TCG, surprised I had forgotten, tbh.
There’s an interesting strat with Pokédex where when you aren’t running a deck where you need poke balls to pull all your pokemon you can run pokeball and Pokédex, use pokedex to see your next pulls and then pokeball if they are bad draws, comboing this with profs research also goes kinda crazy. It’s good for decks with fossils or something like machamp.
Just some random ideas on how to use the worst cards mentioned in the deck. Forgive me if there any similar cards that can do these ideas better.
Tangela - I assume you would use this with a Butterfree deck to get more extra health to stall an extra turn or two to stack energies.
Ditto - Would probably work as a fun gimmick in a Dragonite/Dual type deck. Basically to hold any energies that are no use to any of your Pokemon on the field. Probably the most useful as an EX Pokemon counter.
Mew - Defiantly an early game only Pokemon while you set up your team similar to Meowth. Basically to see what Stage 1 & 2 Pokemon your opponent has and playing Red Card when you know their about to set up evolution.
Gyardos - With Misty that 4 energy investment doesn't seem to bad. The 150 HP should withstand most powerful attacks giving you 200 damage if you attack twice. The energy removal is super useful for stopping bench Pokemon from gaining energies while the opponent needs to invest energies into their active Pokemon to attack. Meaning if you defeat the active Pokemon while the bench has no energy investment, the rest of the battle would be super easy. The only downside I think is Magikrap because you do risk it being your only Pokemon at the start of the match, or dragged into play by Sabrina.
Tangela is probably also designed for a future Tangrowth drop, since most Evolving pokemon are more disappointing than their non evolving equivalents. Especially since it has the same effective HP as Tauros until you use Absorb for a 3rd time, Tangela does less damage than Tauros too, which means Tangela is only really worth it with Erica or searching for it with Caterpie
the meinshao is good in Mewtwo decks as it's an answer to some dark type decks. Since there isn't any strong dark types that can be made in basic or stage 1, meinshao can kill them before they evolve. and since it's a two stage and requires one energy it's a small amount of space in your 20 card deck. That's about it is it the best no, but it's like a B-Low A Tier for me and works quite well.
I never use red card, but I live in fear of it. It can affect how I play, e.g. it can discourage me from using Professor's Research on turn 1. I hope that my opponents live in fear of red card too. It means I can get its actual benefit (fear) without even having it in my deck!
Great point
if the effect of Mew's attack was just a once-per-turn ability, Mew would be so much better. it would still be a low HP mon that's an easy victory point for your opponent if you pass with it in the active slot, but at least in theory you could protect it by retreat it after you use the ability.
Red Card can be effective if you can wait to play it after your opponent has both used their Oaks and/or Pokeballs AND has more than three cards in their hand. You can negate the card advantage that they had gained. Tough to time this though, and Red Card becomes dead weight if that situation never arises
funny thing about skiddo is that your opponent will think its safe to tank it tho
Hold off evolving it until third energy, then surprise the defending pokemon with the 70!
Gogoat is pretty tanky itself too, with 120 HP.
Yeah, but why run Gogoat over Parasect, which just does an extra 10 damage.
Meinshao has worked well for me in my Polywrath deck for psychic coverage. :O
I ran gyarados along with blastoise ex for the pvp event and it got me to the 50 wins. Misty is the saving grace for it. Yes it's a gamble but it's worth it. And losing the energy is relevant. I've had a lot of games against mewtwo ex where it prevented the psydrive. Or i've sabrina'd out the dragonite and managed to discard the energy they only have one of and aren't getting back next turn. If they're setting up on their bench I'm usually just killing the active, meaning they need to keep things around to switch in that aren't their setup to prevent them from losing that energy, and i'm just getting points. The math with most attacks means well timed potions keep it alive after 2 hits from most things. In my experience at least it's been a bit of a terror.
I actually slot meinshao and golbat with a starmie EX deck, and it does very well into meta decks like pikachu and mewtwo. Meinshao early game puts great pressure into pikachu decks early and sets you up for one shots for your starmie EX. The fact that it requires only 1 colorless energy makes it pretty flexible in which deck you can slot them in.
Ngl I loved how you corrected yourself on plural "pokemons" still being just "pokemon" and then preceded to say "pokemons" anyway lol
Mienshao was a good fighting deck filler for me while I was still working to get all the cards I needed to build the deck I wanted. And I think that’s kind of the mindset with a few of the cards on your list like Rattata and Chansey and even Tangela: they’re to help beginners get started until they get enough bigger and better cards.
I love seeing a lot of these cards you'll just never see in game and how they can be improved to be more viable
Red card can be compared to something like Dark World Dealings in Yugioh. The ability to make both players draw 1 and discard 1 is VERY powerful, but just that draw 1 can put your opponent's full combo online or give them interruption that will hurt you more than the 1 draw helped you.
It's so funny to see Tangela in this video after I beat an Articuno ex that got 4 energy with misty LMAO (Hypno and Venomoth carried Tangela so much)
It's a pretty bad card tho I feel like if it has more HP like 100 - 120 HP and heals 20 while doing those 40 damage it could be pretty good as a basic.
I'm using it just because I like it along with scyther the other 2 mentioned earlier and 1 Pinsir.
The thing that I like about this game being so much based around luck is that you can win with like any card, sure probably will often won 2 or 3 of 10 matches if it's a bad card but you can win if you just make it work with other cards and that's awesome in comparison with normal TCG.
Am running a one energy cost deck in the old TCG on gameboy it's pretty okay. But wow they debuff pokedex was it always like that? In the old school game pokedex let's you see 5 cards&rearrange them but to just look at 3 cards in your small 20 size deck seems like a waste.
I honestly don't agree with your gyarados pick, I have a deck built with him being the main focus. I build him up, while having greninja on the side for extra dmg.