Okay, so to sum it up, my normal playgroup has decided to do a pokemon draft. I don't play pokemon, but I like drafting. Our T.O. usually gets a great price on drafts, so I figured I'd give it a shot.
I can handle learning the rules to pokemon on my own, but I am wondering if the same drafting tips and tricks that work in magic apply. If there are different guidelines to drafting, I'd like to know that too.
How many elements is it safe to draft?
Should a person just draft creatures, or look for a variety of spells?
If I see an evolved guy, do I grab it and hope a baby form tables?
Is there an "aggro" strategy in a pokemon draft? Control? Beatdown?
How do I tell a swingy deck from a consistant one?
Is there a way to curve out?
Etc etc.
Now, I really value the opinions of people on MTGS way more than random people on a pokemon forum. I've been checking out some pokemon TCG forums and faqs, even ones specific for drafting, and most of them seem kind of terrible.
I guess the pokemon meta is mostly concerned with collecting, and not with winning the draft. The drafting guides devote more text to raredrafting and picking up trade fodder than anything else.
That would be fine if I collected pokemon, but I'm mostly interested in just building a good draft and playing well. I already "caught em all" in the videogames, I don't need a second serious TCG. I'd much rather just win the draft, or try to.
So does anyone here play pokemon, or have the slightest idea how to draft a good deck? Should I just rare-draft like everyone else?
I'm pretty sure out T.O. is getting a box of gen 1, fossil or forest, so there are no level Xs or super duper rares or anything like that.
Feel free to post draft advice, any you can.
If you hate pokemon, or something, just... mosey on...
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
I'm pretty sure out T.O. is getting a box of gen 1, fossil or forest, so there are no level Xs or super duper rares or anything like that.
Do you mean the original Base Set, Jungle, and Fossil? Damn, those are so old (the first three sets ever), I didn't know they still print them. I stopped playing the game after the 4th set came out (Team Rocket), so if it really is those sets, then I've got a wealth of advice I can offer you. If it's anything newer, I can't offer much beyond some very basic general knowledge, since I don't know what kind of wacky mechanics they've introduced since. So if you know for sure which sets you're be drafting, let me know and I might be able to help.
"Vanguard, Planechase, Archenemy, Duel Decks, Duels of the Planeswalkers, MTG Tactics, From The Vault, and Premium Deck Series did not meet our financial obligations."
"But those aren't Magic expansions."
"SCHWEIGEN!"
"._."
If its the first 3 sets just go rare draft. The secondary market for those cards must be ridiculous.
Unless they're still in print, which if this guy can still find boxes of them for sale I'm assuming they are. In that case they're probably still fairly easy to find, and not overly valuable.
(yeah, those were all the rough Magic equivalents)
The only real advice I can remember for now is to feast on Bill and Professor Oak and you'll be drowning your opponent in card advantage. Bill is a common and the Prof is just an uncommon lol.
Focus on getting basic pokemon since it will be a lot harder to try and successfully get the evolutions for certain pokemon to evolve them.
If you're drafting and it's the original three, either:
1. Go rare, grab holofoils, make some freaking cash fool.
OR, if you actually want to play the game:
2. Look up the decks for Haymaker, its variant InSaNiTy, and Cleaner. Cleaner involves no rares. Haymaker involves things that can be substituted (Machop for Hitmonchan, for instance), and Farfetch'd is uncommon, if you get a Wiggly = BONUS, and Chansey will also work for the coup de grace if you even need that much damage at all.
Honestly, a draft of Pokemon sounds absurd because all evolutions are automatically at a disadvantage anyway, and Pokemon involves six cards from your deck being prizes, which means in order to reliably make no important card a prize, you need two of them.
In essence, I fail to see how any deck other than a sort of Haymaker-lite and Cleaner could possibly survive. Rain Dance, Moltres Stall, and Damage Swap were the other A-tier decks, but they all require high amounts of rares and specific cards to function.
Basically, if you ever see the following:
Bill
Professor Oak
Computer Search
Gust of Wind
Electabuzz
Wigglytuff
Hitmonchan
Scyther
FarfetchD
Get them immediately.
Further useful cards include:
Jynx
Energy Removal
Double Colorless Energy (I might even go so far as to put this up top)
Maybe Mr. Mime
Machop
Ponyta
Fossil Magmar
Sad thing is my local shop still had original packs of 1st edition jungle until about a year or so ago (wish I'd gotten more of them, they were only a buck). I still have a sizable collection of Pokemon cards, though they only really are useful to me as tokens.
1st Edition Base packs go for 50-70 bucks apiece, and sealed boxes are pretty close to 2500. They occasionally come up on eBay, but it's pretty hard to see them move.
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Pokemon is one of the worst ccgs for drafting ever because of the way the evolution system works.
To me this sounds like the pokemon equivalent of some dnd/wargame player getting his friends together to get rid of those old unlimited, arabian nights, and legends booster boxes he has had in his basement since 1995.
edit-Ah moltres stall! I had forgotten that deck.
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"But then are we most in order when we are most out of order."-Jack Cade
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
Ah, okay, I'll be sure to double check with my T.O. and see if he's actually getting jungle and fossil. I'll see him tomorrow and confirm. He just told me that he's "watching several boxes on ebay." I'm pretty sure they were Base 1 set.
I don't really want to raredraft, although I think I might take the rare out of each pack I open, and start "seriously" drafting pick 2, since it sounds like everyone will be raredrafting. I'll snipe at the cards like Bill you mentioned.
Grabbing big pokemon that don't need to evolve like Onix and Farfetch'd seem like a solid plan. I'll get back to you guys about what set it actually is for sure.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
Are you talking about the Moltres that lets you dump energy cards for milling out your opponent's deck?
That was pretty fun despite it being pretty underwhelming.
I don't remember, I just know that one of the earlier successful control decks in pokemon was based around using some version of moltres and generally trying to lock your opponent out of the game.
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"But then are we most in order when we are most out of order."-Jack Cade
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
Ah, okay, I'll be sure to double check with my T.O. and see if he's actually getting jungle and fossil. I'll see him tomorrow and confirm. He just told me that he's "watching several boxes on ebay." I'm pretty sure they were Base 1 set.
See, I can't imagine they wouldn't be base set 2.
However, if they are Base Set 1, rare draft and under no circumstances pass up any holofoil of any kind.
Grabbing big pokemon that don't need to evolve like Onix and Farfetch'd seem like a solid plan. I'll get back to you guys about what set it actually is for sure.
Except Onix isn't good. Farfetch'D, on the other hand, is awesome.
Once again, I'd look at Haymaker and Cleaner decks online. I would actually recommend examining Cleaner, as Cleaner:
1. Involves no rares
2. Can/has often beat Haymaker
3. Involves pokemon your opponent most likely will not draft, such as Koffing and Arcanine.
However, if they are Base Set 1, rare draft and under no circumstances pass up any holofoil of any kind.
Except Onix isn't good. Farfetch'D, on the other hand, is awesome.
Once again, I'd look at Haymaker and Cleaner decks online. I would actually recommend examining Cleaner, as Cleaner:
1. Involves no rares
2. Can/has often beat Haymaker
3. Involves pokemon your opponent most likely will not draft, such as Koffing and Arcanine.
Ah alright. I got the onix advice from a friend who played a little pokemon... but I think she values high health too much. It's someone I beat drafting magic, so I guess I shouldn't be taking their pokemon drafting advice.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
Ah alright. I got the onix advice from a friend who played a little pokemon... but I think she values high health too much. It's someone I beat drafting magic, so I guess I shouldn't be taking their pokemon drafting advice.
Well, that particular Onix is useful in the sense that he has 90 HP and therefore can evolve into Steelix reliably without dying. However, that's totally irrelevant when Steelix isn't one of the cards you're working with, and that Onix has no use otherwise.
Basically, for Haymaker, you're looking for Electabuzz if you can find him, and in fact you probably want to just grab Electabuzz whenever you want because he's probably the best Pokemon in the game. Hitmonchan, Farfetch'D, Jynx, and Scyther are good, Fossil Magmar is pretty good, Mr. Mime's always fun. Machop makes a decent replacement for Hitmonchan under the circumstances. Since you're dealing with limited card selection, Tauros might be worth looking into, as well as Pikachu.
Koffing is quite brutal for just being a simple common. His attack either causes confusion or poison; probably the two worst status effects in the game. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Machop is amazing for pure beatdown.
Highroller definately seems to know his stuff, so I'm just going off of memory from what I remembered was so effective back in the days when I played as a kid lol.
Go online and look at the energy ratios for the decks. Pokemon will operate on a different energy ratio than lands in Magic decks because Magic works on the concept of a mana pool, whereas Pokemon (unless you use Base Set Venusaur) requires you to attach energy.
If you're playing with Magic players who have never played Pokemon, then you're likely going to have an edge over them because they won't be sure how much energy to run.
What the...? 1st ed base set cards are worth that much? lol I thought they were worthless and never bothered selling them. I have binders full of stuff from when I played so I guess I am actually much richer than I thought I was, like several thousand $ richer.
Another helpful hint: In a general sense, Grass, Fire, Water, and Colorless are the best types to draft. The reason: back in the days, there were only three resistances that cropped up: Lightning, Psychic, and Fighting. Nothing was resistant to the other types. In later sets they expanded the variety of weaknesses. But if you are drafting from the earlier sets, and you go with Grass, Fire, and/or Water, you'll never have to worry about being at a type disadvantage (at least as far as resistances go, they may still have your weakness), and of course Colorless is a good neutral choice with some solid Pokemon.
What the...? 1st ed base set cards are worth that much? lol I thought they were worthless and never bothered selling them. I have binders full of stuff from when I played so I guess I am actually much richer than I thought I was, like several thousand $ richer.
No, unopened boxes are valueable, as well as a select few mint-condition holo 1st Edition rares. I did a search on one site, the most valuable Pokemon card from the old days is a 1st Ed Holofoil Charizard at $80. Other than that, most were only in the $4-$12 range (if that), again assuming mint-condition 1st Ed. If you're one of the people who actually played with your cards, don't expect to get any money out of them. Sorry.
Another helpful hint: In a general sense, Grass, Fire, Water, and Colorless are the best types to draft. The reason: back in the days, there were only three resistances that cropped up: Lightning, Psychic, and Fighting. Nothing was resistant to the other types. In later sets they expanded the variety of weaknesses. But if you are drafting from the earlier sets, and you go with Grass, Fire, and/or Water, you'll never have to worry about being at a type disadvantage (at least as far as resistances go, they may still have your weakness), and of course Colorless is a good neutral choice with some solid Pokemon.
Completely disagree.
1. Who had resistance to lightning that was any good? Answer: no one.
2. You can't just consider type, you have to consider Pokemon. Hitmonchan has many people resistant to it. However, to say that Hitmonchan is not worlds better than almost all pokemon is an incorrect statement.
Drafting just based on type is a very bad way to go unless you're considering what you're working with. Water may not have anyone resistant to it, but Water also has the wonders of Cloyster that tell you that you REALLY need to consider the pokemon, not just the type. Water without a Blastoise in the time of Fossil was a gimmick at best.
3. That's the whole point of running multiple types, to cover weaknesses. You say everyone was resistant to Electric, Fighting, and Psychic. You miss the fact that everyone who was resistant to psychic was weak to fighting, everyone who was resistant to fighting was weak to electric, and everyone who was resistant to electric was never used.
I can handle learning the rules to pokemon on my own, but I am wondering if the same drafting tips and tricks that work in magic apply. If there are different guidelines to drafting, I'd like to know that too.
How many elements is it safe to draft?
Should a person just draft creatures, or look for a variety of spells?
If I see an evolved guy, do I grab it and hope a baby form tables?
Is there an "aggro" strategy in a pokemon draft? Control? Beatdown?
How do I tell a swingy deck from a consistant one?
Is there a way to curve out?
Etc etc.
Now, I really value the opinions of people on MTGS way more than random people on a pokemon forum. I've been checking out some pokemon TCG forums and faqs, even ones specific for drafting, and most of them seem kind of terrible.
I guess the pokemon meta is mostly concerned with collecting, and not with winning the draft. The drafting guides devote more text to raredrafting and picking up trade fodder than anything else.
That would be fine if I collected pokemon, but I'm mostly interested in just building a good draft and playing well. I already "caught em all" in the videogames, I don't need a second serious TCG. I'd much rather just win the draft, or try to.
So does anyone here play pokemon, or have the slightest idea how to draft a good deck? Should I just rare-draft like everyone else?
I'm pretty sure out T.O. is getting a box of gen 1, fossil or forest, so there are no level Xs or super duper rares or anything like that.
Feel free to post draft advice, any you can.
If you hate pokemon, or something, just... mosey on...
T2
WUBInglorious Bastards (Ally card advantage)BUW
Unless they're still in print, which if this guy can still find boxes of them for sale I'm assuming they are. In that case they're probably still fairly easy to find, and not overly valuable.
(yeah, those were all the rough Magic equivalents)
The only real advice I can remember for now is to feast on Bill and Professor Oak and you'll be drowning your opponent in card advantage. Bill is a common and the Prof is just an uncommon lol.
Focus on getting basic pokemon since it will be a lot harder to try and successfully get the evolutions for certain pokemon to evolve them.
1. Go rare, grab holofoils, make some freaking cash fool.
OR, if you actually want to play the game:
2. Look up the decks for Haymaker, its variant InSaNiTy, and Cleaner. Cleaner involves no rares. Haymaker involves things that can be substituted (Machop for Hitmonchan, for instance), and Farfetch'd is uncommon, if you get a Wiggly = BONUS, and Chansey will also work for the coup de grace if you even need that much damage at all.
Honestly, a draft of Pokemon sounds absurd because all evolutions are automatically at a disadvantage anyway, and Pokemon involves six cards from your deck being prizes, which means in order to reliably make no important card a prize, you need two of them.
In essence, I fail to see how any deck other than a sort of Haymaker-lite and Cleaner could possibly survive. Rain Dance, Moltres Stall, and Damage Swap were the other A-tier decks, but they all require high amounts of rares and specific cards to function.
Basically, if you ever see the following:
Bill
Professor Oak
Computer Search
Gust of Wind
Electabuzz
Wigglytuff
Hitmonchan
Scyther
FarfetchD
Get them immediately.
Further useful cards include:
Jynx
Energy Removal
Double Colorless Energy (I might even go so far as to put this up top)
Maybe Mr. Mime
Machop
Ponyta
Fossil Magmar
For those who are curious:
Haymaker = Big Basic Pokemon (almost always Electabuzz, Hitmonchan, Scyther/Farfetch'D), Trainers
Wigglymaker = The above except with Wigglytuff. You may wish to substitute Chansey, although I'm not sure how necessary Chansey will be.
InSaNiTy = Like Haymaker, except that it was just 4 Electabuzz, 4 Hitmonchan, and an absurd amount of trainers.
Cleaner = Koffing, Grimer, Tangela, Grass Disable, Arcanine for the finisher. This deck is amazing.
WTF YOU MISSED CHARIZARD!!!!! If you are able to draft 1st Ed. somehow and you see a Charizard ACT IMMIDIATELY!!!
According to this study I should be deaf by now.
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It shouldn't be "dies"
It shouldn't be "is put into the graveyard from the battlefield"
It should be "is put into the graveyard from play"
Thanks to a_passer_bye for an incredible signature banner!
Trade with me!
Oh, I'm talking about if he's even remotely concerned with strategy.
As I said, the intelligent thing is to just grab every single holofoil you get and sell it.
Pokemon is one of the worst ccgs for drafting ever because of the way the evolution system works.
To me this sounds like the pokemon equivalent of some dnd/wargame player getting his friends together to get rid of those old unlimited, arabian nights, and legends booster boxes he has had in his basement since 1995.
edit-Ah moltres stall! I had forgotten that deck.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
Are you talking about the Moltres that lets you dump energy cards for milling out your opponent's deck?
That was pretty fun despite it being pretty underwhelming.
I don't really want to raredraft, although I think I might take the rare out of each pack I open, and start "seriously" drafting pick 2, since it sounds like everyone will be raredrafting. I'll snipe at the cards like Bill you mentioned.
Grabbing big pokemon that don't need to evolve like Onix and Farfetch'd seem like a solid plan. I'll get back to you guys about what set it actually is for sure.
I don't remember, I just know that one of the earlier successful control decks in pokemon was based around using some version of moltres and generally trying to lock your opponent out of the game.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
See, I can't imagine they wouldn't be base set 2.
However, if they are Base Set 1, rare draft and under no circumstances pass up any holofoil of any kind.
Except Onix isn't good. Farfetch'D, on the other hand, is awesome.
Once again, I'd look at Haymaker and Cleaner decks online. I would actually recommend examining Cleaner, as Cleaner:
1. Involves no rares
2. Can/has often beat Haymaker
3. Involves pokemon your opponent most likely will not draft, such as Koffing and Arcanine.
Ah alright. I got the onix advice from a friend who played a little pokemon... but I think she values high health too much. It's someone I beat drafting magic, so I guess I shouldn't be taking their pokemon drafting advice.
Well, that particular Onix is useful in the sense that he has 90 HP and therefore can evolve into Steelix reliably without dying. However, that's totally irrelevant when Steelix isn't one of the cards you're working with, and that Onix has no use otherwise.
Basically, for Haymaker, you're looking for Electabuzz if you can find him, and in fact you probably want to just grab Electabuzz whenever you want because he's probably the best Pokemon in the game. Hitmonchan, Farfetch'D, Jynx, and Scyther are good, Fossil Magmar is pretty good, Mr. Mime's always fun. Machop makes a decent replacement for Hitmonchan under the circumstances. Since you're dealing with limited card selection, Tauros might be worth looking into, as well as Pikachu.
For Cleaner, you'll want to look for: Koffing, Tangela, Fossil Magmar, Growlithe/Arcanine, and Ditto if you can get it with possible Grimer, Oddish, and Lickitung. Basically, Cleaner uses mass status effects to whittle your opponent down, then once you've taken out three pokemon, send in Arcanine to unleash mass 80 damage carnage. http://www.pojo.com/TCGStrategies/999tips/91899The%20True%20Power%20of%20Status%20Effects%20and%20The%20Cleaner%20by%20Michael%20B.txt
Oh, and I forgot: Ditto is another Pokemon that would be worth drafting at any time.
Machop is amazing for pure beatdown.
Highroller definately seems to know his stuff, so I'm just going off of memory from what I remembered was so effective back in the days when I played as a kid lol.
Go online and look at the energy ratios for the decks. Pokemon will operate on a different energy ratio than lands in Magic decks because Magic works on the concept of a mana pool, whereas Pokemon (unless you use Base Set Venusaur) requires you to attach energy.
If you're playing with Magic players who have never played Pokemon, then you're likely going to have an edge over them because they won't be sure how much energy to run.
No, unopened boxes are valueable, as well as a select few mint-condition holo 1st Edition rares. I did a search on one site, the most valuable Pokemon card from the old days is a 1st Ed Holofoil Charizard at $80. Other than that, most were only in the $4-$12 range (if that), again assuming mint-condition 1st Ed. If you're one of the people who actually played with your cards, don't expect to get any money out of them. Sorry.
Completely disagree.
1. Who had resistance to lightning that was any good? Answer: no one.
2. You can't just consider type, you have to consider Pokemon. Hitmonchan has many people resistant to it. However, to say that Hitmonchan is not worlds better than almost all pokemon is an incorrect statement.
Drafting just based on type is a very bad way to go unless you're considering what you're working with. Water may not have anyone resistant to it, but Water also has the wonders of Cloyster that tell you that you REALLY need to consider the pokemon, not just the type. Water without a Blastoise in the time of Fossil was a gimmick at best.
3. That's the whole point of running multiple types, to cover weaknesses. You say everyone was resistant to Electric, Fighting, and Psychic. You miss the fact that everyone who was resistant to psychic was weak to fighting, everyone who was resistant to fighting was weak to electric, and everyone who was resistant to electric was never used.