Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Simple Decks

S

ShuckleLVX

Active Member
Can anyone throw out some pokemon lines they feel are good for simple decks, designed to teach new players the details of the game, while not making it too complicated/expensive. Im hopping to avoid an overly large number of rarer cards.
 
Making decks for new players is always hard, atleast without seeing what cards they have.
Some pokemon/combos that I have used in decks for new players:
Huntail/gorebyss/ any pokemon that uses (P) (like muk or arbok), (D) (like cacturn) or (W) (like seaking or quagsire) Slowbro line is also good here becuase of water and psychic usage.

Poison decks like: Muk, Arbok, Parasect

If they dont have very many of one type of energy use colorless guys like: Granbull, ambipom, Spinda and dodrio.

Some of these pokemon can be found in precon decks. POP packs(especially 7 since it has spinda and Gallade/Ampharos/Lati@s.) are good too

Hope this helps and good luck to your new players!
 
I tend to let them start out with non-complicated decks with 1 color, with some white mixed in. They often have a lot of POP7 Spinda at my joint, so thats a starter. I then just let them pick lines they have in 3-3-3, 4-3-3, stuff like that, and work from there.

Last 4 kids here now have decks with:
TorterraDPMD-VespiquenDP-StantlerSW
CharizardSWPK-NinetalesPKMT-SpindaP7
NidoqueenDF-NinetalesDF-ZangoosePK
EmpoleonMDDP-FloatzelGE-SpindaP7

It works for them. I teach them the basic tricks they can pull (Such as Ninetales Volunteer in the Nidoqueen deck), and they go from there.

Stage 1 White cards tend to be the best filler cards by the by.
 
The best one I can think of is Beedril. Its a very good deck, fun to use, and easy for anyone to pick up and win with.
 
A friend of mine taught some local kids how to play using an Electrode SW-Ampharos deck. It taught about powers, energy attachment, prize management, and control style playing. They picked up on the basics quite quickly using the deck, and any deck that involves exploding tends to keep peoples attention long enough.
 
I think any of the theme decks are good to start with. They are pretty cheap, and you can easily replace some of the random basics with more of the main cards. I've made my niece a Leafeon/Torterra deck using cards from 2 of the Forest Force theme decks.

Good luck,
Jeff
 
I think that indeed, the theme decks are the best way to start, because the way the Trainer engines are set up, and having 1 of the "main" Pokemon, it is just screaming to get 2 of the same theme deck. Yes, you'll have 8 of some of the commons, but I think it's a better way than just using random cards.

For non-theme decks, I think it's important to make it simple enough for a new person to play, but not so weak that it can't win at all against even the theme decks. A balanced amount of Pokemon/Energy/Trainers can help, and the newer sets seem to do a better job of having common/uncommon cards that are viable for play. Not like in the EX series when most commons and uncommons were really bad, and even some rares/holos were horrible.
 
Well, it kind of depends on how intelligent you think these new players are. If they're stupid and/or really young, have them start out with a starter deck or something for the first few days. If they're smart, you can probably have a crummy but somewhat advanced deck for them to play with within a few games.
 
I would start them out with simply the best deck you can build with the cards available at hand. I'm building decks for my two kids based on extensive research on forums like this. Just shelling out money for singles like Lefeon X, G&G, etc. But that's if you have considerable money to spend. My point is, just because they are new to the game (or as above put it, "stupid" - kind of harsh) I think they are better off starting out with the best deck possible. Why dummy it down on purpose? Let them lose until they learn how to play the deck or better yet, teach them how to play the deck! Then if they get serious about competing they'll know how to play the more complex decks/cards a lot better/sooner. Plus if they are playing decent decks it is more likely they'll play someone with some of the same cards and will learn from them how to play them well.
 
ShuckleLVX said:
Can anyone throw out some pokemon lines they feel are good for simple decks, designed to teach new players the details of the game, while not making it too complicated/expensive. Im hopping to avoid an overly large number of rarer cards.
Click to expand...

thats wat pre-releases are for in my experience dude

get one of the more advanced players to help the n00by to build the deck, and talk him through it

the way i learnt was by havin one of the best players at my league teach me the fundermentals of a deck with cards i already had (2 red/green starter decks and 3 RG boosters worth)
thats how i learnt 'the way'
 
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