Introduction
Winning tournaments is harder than ever before: attendance numbers are greater, good deck lists are widespread, and our metagame is relatively limited in contrast to previous seasons of organized play. With all of these softer factors gone, what is left?
Playing the game – that’s what. At the end of the day, there is an actual battle of wits tied up with all the deck-building and metagaming, and it is the one truly essential element to success in the Pokemon Trading Card Game. However, where does one start in actually getting better at playing the game?
Today, we will be discussing in-game skill in its entirety, with most of our focus dedicated to the following areas: tactics and strategies, “tense”/time skills, probability, and judgment. This is going to be a fairly meta-analytical piece, but I am sure that this will help shed a new light on all of the intricacies that go into playing this game at a high level.
Although I intend to make this as definitive of an article on the subject as I can, it is actually a secondary goal of mine to see more substantive discussion of in-game skill than ever before, so be sure to share your unique perspectives on the forums!
Preface on “Primer”
Primer, not Grimer...
As previously mentioned, any guide to advanced playing needs to consider the foundations of in-game skill before anything else. These are all of the various elements that lead us to make the decisions we do, which can range from the best long-term plans to the worst momentary mishaps. While there is a limit to an individual’s potential in each category, simply being aware of what constitutes a good player can, in fact, lead to personal improvement, and working hard on your shortcomings can be even more useful.
Some of these topics may seem elementary at first, but I intend to go pretty far in-depth as we progress: we have a wide range of players reading this article, so a similarly wide range of subjects is needed. But despite that attitude, don’t think for a second that I am excluding myself from this: aside from helping you all become better in-game players, my secondary purpose in writing today’s article is to improve myself, and to increase my chances of winning more big titles and achievements.
Therefore, it should be clear that I am not in the business of patting myself on the back: for all intents and purposes, I am simply a player who has observed countless others, and now has a clear, distinct idea of what must be done to get better at Pokemon.
So what do we need to make ourselves better? Think about the below elements, and I’m sure the process will be much more natural.
Tactics and Strategies
In any decent game involving mental skill, tactics and strategies are not just a luxury – they’re essential. From here on out, we will define tactics as, “individual actions that achieve a strategy,” and strategy as, “the overarching plan a player uses to attain victory in a game.” In other words, tactics are the building blocks of your strategy, and the strategy is the main point of any given game, and your ultimate path to winning. No wonder they’re so important!
Since good tactics bolster a good strategy, it is pivotal to be playing right from the very start. Many players who have been in this game for a long time know that the first few turns tend to set the tone for the whole game, so it should seem natural that misplays – ill-conceived tactics – tend to hurt the most at this stage.
So even if you are not necessarily the strongest player in your area, or are just starting out, it is most important to be well-versed in all facets of your deck’s early setup. This includes knowing:
- Which Pokemon to attach Energy to
- What cards to search for
- What cards to discard
- What attacks to use
- Contingencies in the event that your early game is going horribly wrong
And so forth. Individual tactics begin to drop off in importance by some degree as the game goes on, but your tactics at the start will make or break you, so aim for as good a try as possible.
Now this all may sound easy, but think about it: playing a 100% perfect early game is actually very challenging for 90%+ of the playing community, and many go weeks – perhaps months – without realizing some of the mistakes they make in the first few turns. This is especially relevant for new, inexperienced, and/or younger players who receive decks for the first time: they are often taught the one default strategy, and tend to dogmatically follow that strategy no matter what situation comes up.
This is good to keep in mind in the event that you want to bring one of these people into the game, because if a player learns to flexibly adjust default strategies with tactics from the start, then they’ll likely improve much faster than if their initial training was founded in rigidity.
Speaking of which, we must shake off one mammoth misconception about strategies: almost every deck has more than one of them! This may sound surprising, since usually archetype articles have a “strategy” section where they tell you to rely on one default course of action, but it is a fact that this strategy is not the extent of most decks.
Furthermore, you could have a completely different strategy than your default when it comes to matchups, oftentimes subverting your full setup if it means getting around challenging aspects, such as when an all-evolution deck is up against Celebi Prime’s Time Circle.
