One of the biggest appeals when designing or piloting a deck in Pokࣼémon TCG Pocket is the urge to outplay our opponents in cool ways. We love to talk about the matches that we won with a timely pivot into our tank, or an X Speed + supporter power play that enables us to grab that last juicy point. After all, we’re playing strategy games to think, right?
While this is appealing, it can easily lead into a Cleverness Trap. Consider the following deck:
The idea of the deck is very Clever™: get energy onto a Starmie EX or Lumineon either naturally or through a Misty, use Vaporeon to transfer said energy around, and pivot endlessly while getting 90 damage potshots to their active or 50 to their bench. When I initially built this after seeing Lumineon get released, I felt very smart doing fancy pivots and getting sneaky kills with Giovanni’d Starmie EX. Then I playtested the deck against an estimated member of the Pokémon Zone Discord playing Mewtwo EX, and a funny thing happened:
See, while I was busy doing the flashy pivots and even when I got an advantage by having my Eevee one-shot his Mewtwo with Continuous Steps, he simply put energy on a Mewtwo EX and evolved a Ralts into a Gardevoir. In short, he Just ____ing Killed Me. This concept is one I’m familiar with, but even I fell into the Cleverness Trap of trying to be “more skillful” and do the cool free retreat pivots instead of the goal of Pokémon TCG Pocket; namely, knocking out his Pokémon and getting points.
Here’s a version of my deck that changes four cards and is significantly better
Gyarados EX is a pretty strong deterrent to his Mewtwo EX plan! I still get to do my pivots with 2x Starmie EX and a Vaporeon, but instead of my reward being 90 damage every turn, my reward can shift to Gyarados EX deleting Mewtwo EX with the aid of Giovanni.
Refocusing Our Goals
Relearning this lesson the hard way is as hilarious as it was humbling at the time. The moral? When building or piloting a deck and you see the opponent doing something weird or unconventional, there’s a reason it’s weird and unconventional. Either:
- A: Your opponent is a turbo wizard who has seen something that every other player who plays TCG Pocket, including content creators who get paid to play it and tournament players whose goal is to push the game to its limits, somehow have completely missed. They are the messiah to the meta and has the Hot New Tech that will bring all opposition to heel.
Or
- B: Your opponent is doing something inefficient that can’t really stand up to a strong, basic strategy.
Here’s a hint: the vast majority of the time, it’s going to be Option B. If I see two players at random, and Player A is spending time on a Sigilyph drawing cards to evolve a Pidgey into a Pidgeot EX while Player B has a Moltres EX juicing up Charmeleon, I’m placing my bets on Player B. Player B is going to Just ____ing Kill Player A while Player A is still looking for Pidgeottos and Poké Flutes. Even if Player A gets his engine rolling, Charizard EX is going to easily revenge kill the Pidgeot EX and clean its teeth with whatever replaces it.
At the end of the day, TCG Pocket is decided by Killing Them, not by Being More Clever Than Them. If you see something that’s not on a tier chart or using a Pokemon you forgot was even in the game, make your first instinct to just do your deck’s plan A. One of two things will happen.
Thing 1: Your opponent dies. Success! Whatever their strategy was is no longer your problem to think about.
Thing 2: Your opponent does not die. Success! You find out if their strategy has legs and you learn something about the game.
Efficiency =/= Boring
Likewise, when you’re building your own brew, make sure you have something that does something simple and strong. Being really innovative and cool is easily of the biggest draws to deckbuilding in TCG Pocket. Just remember that your opponent will sometimes put energy on a Mewtwo EX and try to kill you with it. The only way to stop them is by having something that will either win the game for you or otherwise give you a massive advantage if they just do something linear and powerful.
Let’s consider a high-finesse deck that saw some small success in the Genetic Apex metagame, and the current shift that Mythical Island cards have brought to it: Koga!
This list has a pretty solid plan in theory:
- Weezing is a solid tank that attacks efficiently, even when going first.
- Poisoning an opposing Active Pokémon can do 20 damage a turn cycle, provided it doesn’t evolve or switch out. Of those options, the former is unlikely against the majority of strong threats in the meta i.e. powerful EX Basic mons.
- Arbok forbids the opponent from the latter option while hitting Mewtwo EX with weakness.
All-in-all, our plan is to do fancy Koga ninja tricks to cycle our Weezings and tank damage while our Arbok gets uncontested points by forbidding retreats. Of course, we run into the same problems that we saw earlier. Namely, while Arbok can get a sneaky kill with Corner, its retreat cost of 2 makes it pretty difficult to repeat the trick in conjunction with a frankly pitiful 100HP and equally pitiful 60 damage per swing. That being said, this deck still saw tournament success, so there is something to our plan. Let’s bring some more firepower!
Now that’s more like it! Turns out you don’t have to do the “forbid you from retreating” trick when the opposing Pokémon is forbidden from retreating more permanently! We still get to do cool pivoting tricks with Koga and the newly-released Leaf, but now instead of our process being turn 1 Poison, Koga, Corner, turn 2 hope our Arbok is still alive to swing for 60 again, our process can be turn 1 Poison, Koga, Venoshock for 120-140 plus the 10 poison damage. This flat-out deletes Mewtwo EX, Celebi EX, and in fact the vast majority of threatening EX mons in the metagame. Salandit even gives us a silly-looking but lethal plan B by going off much faster and hitting for 50 minimum in addition to our Weezing’s poison. This deck still requires more finesse to play than, say, Moltres + Zard EX or Mewtwo EX + Gardevoir, but we can now answer powerful linear strategies by, in fact, Just ___ing Killing Them.
Remember: you have one energy, one supporter, and one attack every turn. If you’re not spending those precious resources killing your opponent, you’re one step closer to dying yourself. Knowing how to pivot, how to limit information, and how to sequence are important skills and why we want to play strategy games in the first place. Just remember that there is a singular goal we’re working in service to: get 3 points before your opponent does!
“Just killing them is an amazingly simple concept that eludes us because of all these random fears and assumptions and misjudgments that feels like real genuine knowledge in our brain. Disregard all of those thoughts and just go ___ing kill them.”
-Sean “Day 9” Plott