I think the big issue why people think pocket is a very luck based game is because of how "flashy" the luck based elements of the game in comparison to the decision making moments if you make a lot of great decision early game, the impact of those decision won't be notable until multiple turns later, which means a lot of players won't realize how much weight those decisions had on the outcome of the game. in contrast, you can very easily see the impact of a coin the moment it resolves, this has a lot more impact on the players minds, specially those who don't play the game a lot or don't try to learn from their mistakes. Another issue with how players see coin flips is that you only get to see the current outcome. For example, if i play your starmie lumineon deck and i manage to create a situation where i can win even without energies from misty, but later on the game i pivot to a simpler and safer route because i got extra energies from misty, the average opponent won't see how i had a way to beat them even without the coinflips, they saw how the route i took relied on misty and blame their loss to luck.
I think most players would be happy to have less coin flip cards. There have certainly been some played coin flips in the actual tcg (crushing hammer etc) but the very nature of drawing from a deck is all the randomness I would like in a card game.
@@prcklypear3963 in the normal TCG decks are both larger, adding more variance to your draws, and you randomly prize key cards you need to play the game adding additional variance as well. Pocket is honestly one of the lowest variance card games out there in large part due the small deck sizes. People just have a hard time being objective because the variance that is a part of the game is so explicit with coins.
@@prcklypear3963 I'm not sure if there's a card game where the only randomness you get is deck order. Things like who goes first and playing against bad matchups could be considered randomness as well. and the end of the day, is not what kind of random elements the game has, but how much does the randomness affects who wins the game.
@@HooglandiaPocketI agree that pocket variance is a lot lower than most people give it credit for. However the idea that large deck sizes in the paper TCG lead to high variance isn’t such a big deal when you have supporter cards that draw 7 cards in one turn and item cards/abilities that search for specific Pokémon, item cards, and supporters. It’s very rare that a bad draw in the TCG auto loses the game, where as in pocket I would say 1 out of 10 games that might happen because there are such few draw cards (as of now)
@@HooglandiaPocket From having played the paper pokemon tcg, I found it far more consistent with draw 7 and ultra ball + stuff like level ball, computer search, battle compressor, VS Seeker, item finder, etc. I'm not trying to say there's no skill in this game, but cards like Misty and Celebi EX clearly have a massive amount of individual game variance possible.
Its honestly a different game when you know the opponent's deck list. I enjoyed this video. Starmie ex definitely has mind games for you to play. But i tend to play that the opponent always has geavoni, leaf or sabrina in hand.
Playing like your opponent always has all of the best possible cards is a mistake novice players make very often. While I can know deterministically which ones I'm not playing around with open decklists, a key skill in card games is understanding when you can / should play around something and when you need to "make them have it" because playing around it means you lose to a bunch of other things.
@HooglandiaPocket RUclips may be deleting my comments;-; I did a whole essay saying different rules (or knowledge influence the game). Playing against blind decks requires different decision making. Both gamestyles are good variations. I enjoyed this video and the variation on pocket, just be aware you are making it more orderly by introducing open deck lists, and therefore more/different decision making when playing.
These matches are amazing. This game is so much deeper than people think. I saw people announce they're quitting because "it's boring" or "always the same decks" (baloney) or "the game hates me" (can't handle the fact that there is luck involved in any card game). In reality this game is pretty competitive, especially for something this fast and *seemingly* simple of a concept. The new set is only gonna add to the complexity with Pokémon Tools coming and potentially more mechanics too.
I used this deck for my 5-win streak. I agree that it's not an easy deck to pilot. But what is so good about this is, even on a terrible opening hand, you still have lines of play, and you can get out of the hole.
Incredible set of games to highlight all the small decisions to make in a game influences its outcome, like even 1 decision on energy placement or missing an attack opportunity. Jeff, your videos rock!
Self-evaluation often comes off to people as me being deprecating to myself, but its an honest reflection of good/poor decision making and essential to improving at anything. I appreciate the strong critical mind Jeff approaches the game with. Losing with grace and reflection is more valuable to a long-term growth in skill than winning.
Indeed. Decision making with various factors to be considered like: board, opponents possible hand/draws, your next draw/s, your outs in a situation, setting some assumptions for optimal sequencing of actions, etc.
haven't played much pocket recently but decided to try this deck out on a lark and now I've played 20+ matches in the past few days. Peak TCG joy in this list.
My main problem w pocket is every deck basically 'should' run 2 oaks and 2 balls by default. That means 20% of your deck is spoken for by default. Sure there is skill expression, but I would love to see a chart that showed win rates by how many pokeballs and oaks were drawn in the opening hand. I think there would be a correlation.
There will always be a correlation between winning and drawing your good cards in the right order in every card game. I agree that those 2 cards are ubitquotous though. Hopefully with more sets there will be competetion in those slots.
@@Pokeface42 Yep. Although I guess removing energy cards was supposed to alleviate that somewhat. I agree with the OP that a updside of Pocket is there could be genuinely no auto-inlude cards down the track once more cards are added and there is more balance.
I played a double lumineon /omanyte deck earlier this month and had a blast. Omanytes attack denial is really fun to play around, just wish we had reliable fossil draw :(
When the beta first released, your gameplay was the reason I started watching. You were obviously more aware, or at least more vocal, of the game dynamics than everyone else.
for me, having come from the crazy early days of 40 cards decks MtG, with the only rules being 4 max copies of each card, you can imagine the craziness of playing 4 copies of black lotus, and 4 copies of the correct color mox in your deck, with no lands in your 40 card deck, then add in library of Alexandria and Demonic Tutor or Greed for good measure. 😅
Great points, I really appreciate your in depth analysis of your own loss. To add to your point, it's also necessary to evaluate your knowledge at each point in the game. Many times I have looked back and thought "damn if only I did that" because I had knowledge of how things would've played out that I didn't have at the time and couldn't predict for. Very often you make the right moves but you lose anyway, like I could've sabrina'd to hit my opponents Dedenne instead of killing a Zebstrika in a game earlier because I wanted to save it for when most of their EX's had low health, how was I to know they were going to hit 5 heads in a row? 🙃
A lot of people also only know the game through random matchmaking so you can only do so much guess work on what your opponent COULD have. That being said I need to do more tournaments this looks like a lot of fun.
There are so many intricate and technical decks that are really interesting to play and play against. Then there's Celebi, where it's basically just go gambling and pray.
After those first two games, I'd be salty to see Game 3 just be a run-over like that, too. That's such a shame, but this set was such a good example of foresight and playing to as many outs as possible.
Still loving this deck. Went 5-0 in my first 5 games in the win streak event with it. I thought I might just give away free wins with Slowpoke for the rest of the event, but I'm still really enjoying playing it in the non-event queue. The decisions it presents are so interesting!
I must say that as this is my first card game of this style, outplaying and seeing the opponent conceded message brings me great joy and almost always makes me laugh, and it also stings to the same extent being on the other side of it though😂 Gamba is so fun
I have 2 thousand wins in this game. Obviously, I play meta decks, but to be honest, my favorite decks are Starmie, Lumineon, Pidgeot, and Aerodactyl. I learned about those decks from your channel
60% skill, 40% Luck 😅 even if youre the most skillful player with an optimized deck if the draws are not ideal and your oppoent is lucky, you lose 😅 think of mirror matches like mewtwo or charizard if you dont draw evolutions fast or lucky with coin flip your opponent can employ their win condition faster than you thats the way it is
Loved the more focused content, and in particular that it was showcasing a tournament match. In my anecdotal experience from watching the livestreams, tournament rounds tend to have a much higher density of interesting decisions being made (which makes sense to me theoretically too since a tournament ought to be more competitive than the open queue). My favorite parts of your content are seeing you navigate the intricate and skill testing decisions that separate the good players from the great, and so for my money tournament content is by far the best.
Scrolled down through a bunch of mixed comments on this video so here's my two cents. Luck will always be a factor in card games. There's no denying that. You can be dealt with a shit hand at any given time despite building a great deck. However, instead of always brushing it off as "there is nothing I can do" in bad scenarios, trying to make the most out of those moments and taking your time to look back at any potential prior mistakes you may have done is a very good habit to have which improves your skill as a player. Yes, it's neither 100% luck or 100% skill, but there is a reason why some people can achieve 20 winstreaks in A20 Slay the Spire whereas most others couldn't. Pokemon TCG Pocket is no different, and likewise to most other card games out there.
Nicely said. In the first 5-win event, I had to go through the torture of battling almost 100 times just to get the completed streak. I had most of the meta decks with missing one or two cards in each of those deck. Clearly it was to my disadvantage. It was also because I was not skilled yet in the game. The second 5-win event, I went in with the most popular Pikachu Ex deck. I got the 5 wins in my first try. Such a huge contrast between the two events for me.
Love the video as always! What would you say is your favourite deck to play atm and what would you say is the best deck atm even if it is by the smallest margin
This deck has been my big joy this season. Free retreat costs just lead to so many interesting play patterns. Best deck this season is some Pikachu variation I'd wager, but not by a wide margin.
That 3rd round was rough on buddy, I felt that without him saying a word. "Game is all luck" Must be new to card games where RNG plays a roll in anything with numbers involved + skill
wouldnt a big part of how well u navigated this game is knowng every card in their deck with this open tournament format it doesnt completely take away of the skill invovled but its still quite relevant
It's incredibly strange to me how many people think open deck lists reduces the skill in games like this. I've played a lot of competitive card games and open decklists allows the better player to win more often. Leveraging information is a skill many lack
Its interesting a concept like this happened in duel masters. The protagonist had to face a den full of other players. At first like usual the mc blitzs the fodder.....until they start dissecting his decklist and he starts to lose because of it. He had to adapt with the fact that his opponents were now reading all his lines like a book.
@@HooglandiaPocket It doesn’t reduce skill but definitely allows you to completely understand conditions and eliminates the guesswork entirely. Knowing what the opponent has as a concrete fact vs knowing but not KNOWING is two different things.
@@FullArtPocket there are lots of examples on this channel of me playing random queue games and talking about how to play around cards. The skills translate all the same
Hey guys I have one question. Should I use the pack points I have to buy the card missing from my collection or should I wait? Im not sure if points will still be there after new expansion comes out.
Interesting first game, but you would have lost much quicker if you hit Growlithe immediately. You were able to knock out Charmeleon thanks to Lumineon, He was able to evolve in to Charizard the very next turn! If you put an energy to Farfetch you would have faced Charizard with at least 5 energies. Correct me if I am wrong.
What are your thoughts on running this deck with a mew replacing one of the farfetched? I love this deck but found it’s mewtwo match up isn’t the best and mew has really helped make it feel like a better match up. I found that it doesn’t hurt the early game too much and also works as a tank for early game if your struggling to find your evolutions but I’d like to hear your thoughts on it.
Two Fetch is really important in the Pikachu and Celebi match ups. Mewtwo often comes down to the first energy advantage in my experience and I don't think I need a hedge for it in this deck.
I consider Pokemon pocket a casual game until it adds ranked mode. 2/3 games with deck or card banning i think would make the comp experience much better
This guy is one of the best card game players I've witnessed. You get a lot of hate, which is sometimes understandable, but i truly believe that if someone wants to get better at card games, watching your gameplay along with that comes with it is immeasurable.
@ how could he not see that x speed play at the beginning then. Got saved by misty, mid. Mid means medium, which perfectly reflects the rng nature of misty: a coin flip.
@@HooglandiaPocketand thats how i got my 5th win at the emblem event bc i thought gio worked on bench and my opponent thought the same so they conceded first 🤣 i would have lost the game otherwise
can't agree more with everyone above about fighting deck, im having a blast playing Hitmonlee+Farfetch'd+Marsh lately, after getting bored out of my mind from using Mewtwo+Gardevoir
Sup Jeff, love the pocket content. Im coming from Vodnation to agree with basically everything youve said about the game so far. This game has a "in your face" luck factor that people miss the finer intracacies of it. Every decision is crucial and could make or break a game. Yes your opponent can high roll a misty every now and again but not every game is like that. Yoi can definitely autopilot your game and just tap cards but if you PAY attention and THINK youll raise your win rate y 20 to 30 percent lol.
While I understand you attribute the loss in game 1 to not attacking immediately, was there anything at the time which would have encouraged that decision to be made?
Nothing they can do punishes making that play and I'm using the xspeed the next turn anyways, so it was completely free to do it a turn sooner to get damage in
Funny that the opponent was salty about Misty in game three, when the only reason there was a game three is because you made a mistake on turn 2 of game 1. 😆
I'm not sure I understand the timestamp reference... He's explaining exactly why you can still win with a bad early hand if you make the right decisions. Very much the opposite of zero chance of coming back.
I'm a bit confused as to why you're saying you made a mistake in game 1. Not only your lumineon wouldn't be able to hit when it did (this would allow the charizard to come in on the chameleon you KOed), but also it was very unlikely that they'd roll 3 heads on the growlithe. I think in probability terms your play was correct, also given that there's 2 zards and 1 arcanine presumably.
@@mynameyeah9162 you're missing weakness. I could have put the energy on Fin, swapped it in with X Speed, attacked for 40, and then evolved the Lumi and played the rest of the game the same from there.
He would have been able to hit with the lumineon. The misplay wasn't giving energy to farfetched to attack, it was not using x speed on the finneon to hit for 40 (due to type advantage fire vs water) after which he could have hit with lumineon to finish it.
@HooglandiaPocket ah of course, you're right. In any case, even with 20 damage you'd still have the KO on growlithe. But that would've allowed for a zard with potentially 6 energy (and 130 hp) to come out, right?
Hi Jeff! Sorry if you've covered this already, I've been running this deck with 1-1 split of Farfetched - Tauros. I've been running hot on going first, and so I'm not sure I've really felt the absence of the second Farfetch as an early attacker. Is there a better argument in the current meta for the duck's early 40 damages over a Tauros finisher against some of the top EX decks? Thanks!
Second Farfetch helps the Mewtwo match up a lot in my experience. The bigger thing though is any game you lead on Tauros without another basic you are typically so far behind you just lose.
@@HooglandiaPocket I have been fortunate enough not to have faced the lead Tauros issue yet, but that is a great point. Barring some great Misty RNG, I can see how game-ending the tempo loss of retreating the bull can be. I'll make the switch and see how my games go. Thank you!
I do believe that the skill ceiling in this game is quite high and takes quite a bit skill to get good at pro level, but MAN do I hate winstreak emblem events because that is actually just pure coinflips
@ 13:27 Perhaps, but it’s difficult to predict a person isn’t using any copies of a popular card and therefore you don’t have to consider it in your plays. 🤷🏾♂️
It's actually incredibly rare for Charizard Arcanine decks to have room for many utility cards. They need lots of slots for Pokemon and xspeed/leaf are most important for their few trainer slots. Again these are just things you know from following popular archetypes even when lists are closed.
Misplay at 15:00? Taking the KO with Finneon still loses to Gio, but you have one point down so you don't have to deal with this nonsense end game because you threaten with Sabrina
How did you watch these games and come up with a black and white Auto win Auto lose? The shows you how much responsibility both players have when playing to their outs.
There will always be a variation of luck in a card game. The very fact that you draw randomly suggests that you might get the cards you want or not depending on luck. However, what you do within your turn is entirely your skill outside of the coin flips.
Now show the set where he bricked, and his opponent bricked 3 times in a row lol. But in all seriousness, there's real depth to the game. The 10-1 fighting Pidgeot deck got my brain all wrinkly.
People under value picking decks that let them leverage skill in games like this. They'll complain it's all variance while playing hyper linear decks like Gyarados and Mewtwo
@@HooglandiaPocket Challenging your brain with strategic moves is what makes games like this so fun. I hate losing, but I hate mindlessly grinding for unearned wins even more. It kinda blows my mind how many people play these games to run a meta treadmill for hours, days, weeks, months just to show off a rank or emblem that doesn't accurately reflect their skill level.
Love your stuff and the game is very fun. But I still think it's very luck based. Something like I misplayed turn 2 and now I lose feels like the game doesn't have enough to it. I played a very braindead OTK Yu-Gi-Oh deck in duel links, and that had way more decision making and skill. 30 card decks is the way, idk if they'd be able to change it, but that's the way.
The presence of luck is not the absence of skill. Card games have variance by design which is part of their appeal. There is skill in making good choices to mitigate bad variance.
If you put a energy on duck, you wouldnt of been able to kill charmeleon as fast because you rolled tails on misty, sure you get the hit on growlithe but he woulda powered up charmeleon more but since you got lum out 1 turn ahead you kill his charm instead of growlithe which was smart play. You cant tap growlithe and get early hit on charmeleon, yoh can only choose one and you chose to kill charizaed line first. You keep saying missed attack earlier but its not, you slowed down his charizard line which is better he had to swap arcanine line. You are never getting the first hit on growlithr with duck you had x speed rdy
At no point did I suggest putting an energy on the Duck. It's the exact same line, only swapping in Fineon one turn sooner to attack before evolving it.
Honestly the only reason why I lose games is because my opponent wins.
No lie detected.
Absolutely outstanding logic
😂
I haven't watched but have you considered that you are wrong because I lost games
😂
ragebait spotted
Skill issue
@@ydgmdlurng issue. Theri absolutely more rng involved in this game than skill. A chimp could beat most players
@@ChipCrisper That's the kind of opinion a chimp who doesn't understand game theory would have.
I think the big issue why people think pocket is a very luck based game is because of how "flashy" the luck based elements of the game in comparison to the decision making moments
if you make a lot of great decision early game, the impact of those decision won't be notable until multiple turns later, which means a lot of players won't realize how much weight those decisions had on the outcome of the game.
in contrast, you can very easily see the impact of a coin the moment it resolves, this has a lot more impact on the players minds, specially those who don't play the game a lot or don't try to learn from their mistakes.
Another issue with how players see coin flips is that you only get to see the current outcome. For example, if i play your starmie lumineon deck and i manage to create a situation where i can win even without energies from misty, but later on the game i pivot to a simpler and safer route because i got extra energies from misty, the average opponent won't see how i had a way to beat them even without the coinflips, they saw how the route i took relied on misty and blame their loss to luck.
I think most players would be happy to have less coin flip cards. There have certainly been some played coin flips in the actual tcg (crushing hammer etc) but the very nature of drawing from a deck is all the randomness I would like in a card game.
@@prcklypear3963 in the normal TCG decks are both larger, adding more variance to your draws, and you randomly prize key cards you need to play the game adding additional variance as well.
Pocket is honestly one of the lowest variance card games out there in large part due the small deck sizes. People just have a hard time being objective because the variance that is a part of the game is so explicit with coins.
@@prcklypear3963 I'm not sure if there's a card game where the only randomness you get is deck order. Things like who goes first and playing against bad matchups could be considered randomness as well.
and the end of the day, is not what kind of random elements the game has, but how much does the randomness affects who wins the game.
@@HooglandiaPocketI agree that pocket variance is a lot lower than most people give it credit for. However the idea that large deck sizes in the paper TCG lead to high variance isn’t such a big deal when you have supporter cards that draw 7 cards in one turn and item cards/abilities that search for specific Pokémon, item cards, and supporters. It’s very rare that a bad draw in the TCG auto loses the game, where as in pocket I would say 1 out of 10 games that might happen because there are such few draw cards (as of now)
@@HooglandiaPocket From having played the paper pokemon tcg, I found it far more consistent with draw 7 and ultra ball + stuff like level ball, computer search, battle compressor, VS Seeker, item finder, etc. I'm not trying to say there's no skill in this game, but cards like Misty and Celebi EX clearly have a massive amount of individual game variance possible.
I don't think there is anyone on RUclips who explains their thought process in Pocket as well as Jeff does!
This game competitive scene and community is one of the best I’ve been a part of, specially for card games
Its honestly a different game when you know the opponent's deck list.
I enjoyed this video. Starmie ex definitely has mind games for you to play. But i tend to play that the opponent always has geavoni, leaf or sabrina in hand.
Playing like your opponent always has all of the best possible cards is a mistake novice players make very often. While I can know deterministically which ones I'm not playing around with open decklists, a key skill in card games is understanding when you can / should play around something and when you need to "make them have it" because playing around it means you lose to a bunch of other things.
@HooglandiaPocket RUclips may be deleting my comments;-;
I did a whole essay saying different rules (or knowledge influence the game). Playing against blind decks requires different decision making. Both gamestyles are good variations. I enjoyed this video and the variation on pocket, just be aware you are making it more orderly by introducing open deck lists, and therefore more/different decision making when playing.
These matches are amazing. This game is so much deeper than people think. I saw people announce they're quitting because "it's boring" or "always the same decks" (baloney) or "the game hates me" (can't handle the fact that there is luck involved in any card game). In reality this game is pretty competitive, especially for something this fast and *seemingly* simple of a concept. The new set is only gonna add to the complexity with Pokémon Tools coming and potentially more mechanics too.
I used this deck for my 5-win streak. I agree that it's not an easy deck to pilot. But what is so good about this is, even on a terrible opening hand, you still have lines of play, and you can get out of the hole.
Dying to know what the salty opponent was saying in chat at the end lol
Incredible set of games to highlight all the small decisions to make in a game influences its outcome, like even 1 decision on energy placement or missing an attack opportunity. Jeff, your videos rock!
I've been enjoying this game more after I started watching your content! Great video as always!
Great set. I’m excited to see what cards we get this week beyond those in the trailer. More mechanics, more choices, more fun
Self-evaluation often comes off to people as me being deprecating to myself, but its an honest reflection of good/poor decision making and essential to improving at anything. I appreciate the strong critical mind Jeff approaches the game with. Losing with grace and reflection is more valuable to a long-term growth in skill than winning.
Another one that was amazing to watch live! Basically I’m saying if you love high level card game content watch this man’s live streams
I got so many fun wins out of the muk and salandit. Thanks for showing the gameplay on that.
Indeed.
Decision making with various factors to be considered like: board, opponents possible hand/draws, your next draw/s, your outs in a situation, setting some assumptions for optimal sequencing of actions, etc.
love seeing more of this deck, as well as your thoughts when piloting!
Hahaa couldn’t control your DELIGHT at 20:50 😂 Great vid as always
haven't played much pocket recently but decided to try this deck out on a lark and now I've played 20+ matches in the past few days. Peak TCG joy in this list.
Love hearing the thought process behind moves. Hope you do tournament commentary for this game somewhere down the line.
I'll be hosting a tournament with Spragels on Feb 1st. We'll be doing commentary together for it :)
@@HooglandiaPocket Sweet! Will that be on your YT/Twitch or somewhere else?
@@cantrip7 my Twitch and Spragels RUclips
This deck is so much fun! So many decisions!
That last noise you made spunded like a toddler who knew he did something bad❤
Seeing that staryu retreat play was something else!
I like these focused videos; seeing the mistakes and reasons for wins/losses helps me understand the game better. Thank you!
My main problem w pocket is every deck basically 'should' run 2 oaks and 2 balls by default. That means 20% of your deck is spoken for by default. Sure there is skill expression, but I would love to see a chart that showed win rates by how many pokeballs and oaks were drawn in the opening hand. I think there would be a correlation.
There will always be a correlation between winning and drawing your good cards in the right order in every card game. I agree that those 2 cards are ubitquotous though. Hopefully with more sets there will be competetion in those slots.
Same for drawing lands in MTG, no? Or energy in paper TCG?
@@Pokeface42 Yep. Although I guess removing energy cards was supposed to alleviate that somewhat. I agree with the OP that a updside of Pocket is there could be genuinely no auto-inlude cards down the track once more cards are added and there is more balance.
You're saying there's a correlation that cards that draw cards could lead to better win rate...........welcome to card games
I played a double lumineon /omanyte deck earlier this month and had a blast. Omanytes attack denial is really fun to play around, just wish we had reliable fossil draw :(
Chatot is there but it aint reliable so yeah
When the beta first released, your gameplay was the reason I started watching. You were obviously more aware, or at least more vocal, of the game dynamics than everyone else.
for me, having come from the crazy early days of 40 cards decks MtG, with the only rules being 4 max copies of each card, you can imagine the craziness of playing 4 copies of black lotus, and 4 copies of the correct color mox in your deck, with no lands in your 40 card deck, then add in library of Alexandria and Demonic Tutor or Greed for good measure. 😅
Watched this live and it was amazing content
I figured this deck and decided to build this deck on my own when getting the emblem, oh boy it gave me 10 win streak😊
Great points, I really appreciate your in depth analysis of your own loss. To add to your point, it's also necessary to evaluate your knowledge at each point in the game. Many times I have looked back and thought "damn if only I did that" because I had knowledge of how things would've played out that I didn't have at the time and couldn't predict for.
Very often you make the right moves but you lose anyway, like I could've sabrina'd to hit my opponents Dedenne instead of killing a Zebstrika in a game earlier because I wanted to save it for when most of their EX's had low health, how was I to know they were going to hit 5 heads in a row? 🙃
"Down here, salt is a way of life."
Won me 7 in a row in event on first try, great deck🔥
A lot of people also only know the game through random matchmaking so you can only do so much guess work on what your opponent COULD have. That being said I need to do more tournaments this looks like a lot of fun.
Moltres is just a coin flip simulator deck
There are so many intricate and technical decks that are really interesting to play and play against.
Then there's Celebi, where it's basically just go gambling and pray.
After those first two games, I'd be salty to see Game 3 just be a run-over like that, too. That's such a shame, but this set was such a good example of foresight and playing to as many outs as possible.
Still loving this deck. Went 5-0 in my first 5 games in the win streak event with it. I thought I might just give away free wins with Slowpoke for the rest of the event, but I'm still really enjoying playing it in the non-event queue. The decisions it presents are so interesting!
I must say that as this is my first card game of this style, outplaying and seeing the opponent conceded message brings me great joy and almost always makes me laugh, and it also stings to the same extent being on the other side of it though😂 Gamba is so fun
This was a good video
Loved this format
This is the deck I used for the win streak event. Can confirm it’s insanely fun and aggressive.
Thanks brother, I used this deck to get the 5 wins.
Another fantastic video
thanks brotha this helped alot im new to card games and i use to just try and ko everything fast and not really think about set ups or ahead.
love this type of video
Peak gameplay ❤
i agree. the skills required to tilt the luck even slightly in your winning favour is very high. just like poker. 🙂
I have 2 thousand wins in this game. Obviously, I play meta decks, but to be honest, my favorite decks are Starmie, Lumineon, Pidgeot, and Aerodactyl. I learned about those decks from your channel
Solid video! 💪🏿🫡
that's a really solid deck. I gave it a spin and scored 5 wins in a row :D
8:02; misplay on both side, he would have won if he hit Growlithe turn 1 while other side would have won a bit earlier if he didn't put 1 energy on K9
60% skill, 40% Luck 😅 even if youre the most skillful player with an optimized deck if the draws are not ideal and your oppoent is lucky, you lose 😅 think of mirror matches like mewtwo or charizard if you dont draw evolutions fast or lucky with coin flip your opponent can employ their win condition faster than you thats the way it is
welcome to a 20-card card game
Love hitting the bench. Love it
At 7:06 does Giovanni not work on moves like Aqua liner where the damage is in the description of the move?
Doesn't work on bench hitting.
Loved the more focused content, and in particular that it was showcasing a tournament match.
In my anecdotal experience from watching the livestreams, tournament rounds tend to have a much higher density of interesting decisions being made (which makes sense to me theoretically too since a tournament ought to be more competitive than the open queue).
My favorite parts of your content are seeing you navigate the intricate and skill testing decisions that separate the good players from the great, and so for my money tournament content is by far the best.
The happy dance when all laid plans come together.😂
Im still watching the video, but those with full commentaries on competitive showcases are my favourites
Scrolled down through a bunch of mixed comments on this video so here's my two cents.
Luck will always be a factor in card games. There's no denying that. You can be dealt with a shit hand at any given time despite building a great deck. However, instead of always brushing it off as "there is nothing I can do" in bad scenarios, trying to make the most out of those moments and taking your time to look back at any potential prior mistakes you may have done is a very good habit to have which improves your skill as a player.
Yes, it's neither 100% luck or 100% skill, but there is a reason why some people can achieve 20 winstreaks in A20 Slay the Spire whereas most others couldn't. Pokemon TCG Pocket is no different, and likewise to most other card games out there.
Nicely said. In the first 5-win event, I had to go through the torture of battling almost 100 times just to get the completed streak. I had most of the meta decks with missing one or two cards in each of those deck. Clearly it was to my disadvantage. It was also because I was not skilled yet in the game. The second 5-win event, I went in with the most popular Pikachu Ex deck. I got the 5 wins in my first try. Such a huge contrast between the two events for me.
this deck gave me the biggest brick, neither charizard bricked so much when I've played with it ahhah
Been playing this deck for weeks now. The only decks that i struggled to beat are pikachu and celebi. Any tips or gameplay for that?
@ yeah, I also think its best chance is to draw starmie very early. If not, it will be hard to beat those decks with this
Love the video as always! What would you say is your favourite deck to play atm and what would you say is the best deck atm even if it is by the smallest margin
This deck has been my big joy this season. Free retreat costs just lead to so many interesting play patterns.
Best deck this season is some Pikachu variation I'd wager, but not by a wide margin.
15:00 am i tripping? Isnt this just switch to a basic to kill charmander then starmie + giovanni kills any ex he puts up to kill said basic?
What a set!!
That 3rd round was rough on buddy, I felt that without him saying a word. "Game is all luck" Must be new to card games where RNG plays a roll in anything with numbers involved + skill
wouldnt a big part of how well u navigated this game is knowng every card in their deck with this open tournament format
it doesnt completely take away of the skill invovled but its still quite relevant
THIS
It's incredibly strange to me how many people think open deck lists reduces the skill in games like this. I've played a lot of competitive card games and open decklists allows the better player to win more often.
Leveraging information is a skill many lack
Its interesting a concept like this happened in duel masters. The protagonist had to face a den full of other players. At first like usual the mc blitzs the fodder.....until they start dissecting his decklist and he starts to lose because of it. He had to adapt with the fact that his opponents were now reading all his lines like a book.
@@HooglandiaPocket It doesn’t reduce skill but definitely allows you to completely understand conditions and eliminates the guesswork entirely. Knowing what the opponent has as a concrete fact vs knowing but not KNOWING is two different things.
@@FullArtPocket there are lots of examples on this channel of me playing random queue games and talking about how to play around cards. The skills translate all the same
I love this deck, first saw in your videos.
Do you think it would be good to have a taurus for the pikashu matchup?
Negative. Prefer Ducks
Hey guys I have one question. Should I use the pack points I have to buy the card missing from my collection or should I wait? Im not sure if points will still be there after new expansion comes out.
Pack points aren't going anywhere
Interesting first game, but you would have lost much quicker if you hit Growlithe immediately. You were able to knock out Charmeleon thanks to Lumineon, He was able to evolve in to Charizard the very next turn! If you put an energy to Farfetch you would have faced Charizard with at least 5 energies.
Correct me if I am wrong.
You are wrong. The line I missed was switch the Fineon one turn sooner and attacking with that. Rest plays out the same for awhile after.
@@HooglandiaPocket oh I misunderstood, thanks for the clarification, good games 👍
If you in doubt, red card
People on the pocket subreddit just can't admit there's skill involved in this game, that it is 100% luck, no other options.
If they admit there is skill, it acknowledges they hold some accountability for their losses.
I've seen loads of people post about how the bot matchups are rigged lol
What are your thoughts on running this deck with a mew replacing one of the farfetched? I love this deck but found it’s mewtwo match up isn’t the best and mew has really helped make it feel like a better match up. I found that it doesn’t hurt the early game too much and also works as a tank for early game if your struggling to find your evolutions but I’d like to hear your thoughts on it.
Two Fetch is really important in the Pikachu and Celebi match ups. Mewtwo often comes down to the first energy advantage in my experience and I don't think I need a hedge for it in this deck.
The thumbnail lolol
I consider Pokemon pocket a casual game until it adds ranked mode. 2/3 games with deck or card banning i think would make the comp experience much better
Ranked modes aren't competitive. They are hamster wheels that encourage you to play more
This guy is one of the best card game players I've witnessed. You get a lot of hate, which is sometimes understandable, but i truly believe that if someone wants to get better at card games, watching your gameplay along with that comes with it is immeasurable.
Bro he’s mid at best
@loopolucho2064 okay
@ how could he not see that x speed play at the beginning then. Got saved by misty, mid. Mid means medium, which perfectly reflects the rng nature of misty: a coin flip.
7:08 sorry maybe this is a dumb question but why couldn’t you Giovanni then hit the arcanine?
Gio doesn't work on bench attacks.
@ thank you for clearing that up
@@HooglandiaPocketand thats how i got my 5th win at the emblem event bc i thought gio worked on bench and my opponent thought the same so they conceded first 🤣 i would have lost the game otherwise
Are there any other competitive high decision decks like this one? I’ve loved this deck, but want to play more like it!
Definitely the fighting decks with hitmonlee and marshadow can be just as dynamic and skill testing
Hitmonlee + Marsh or Marsh + Drudd + Hitmonlee
Second the fighting deck recommendations. Yesterday's highlight is my favorite of those
can't agree more with everyone above about fighting deck, im having a blast playing Hitmonlee+Farfetch'd+Marsh lately, after getting bored out of my mind from using Mewtwo+Gardevoir
Sup Jeff, love the pocket content.
Im coming from Vodnation to agree with basically everything youve said about the game so far. This game has a "in your face" luck factor that people miss the finer intracacies of it. Every decision is crucial and could make or break a game. Yes your opponent can high roll a misty every now and again but not every game is like that. Yoi can definitely autopilot your game and just tap cards but if you PAY attention and THINK youll raise your win rate y 20 to 30 percent lol.
19:40 FINALLY!! Hearing Jeff say this makes my feelings so validated!! 🤘🏽😭💦
“[Moltres] not being weak to Water is a travesty”
While I understand you attribute the loss in game 1 to not attacking immediately, was there anything at the time which would have encouraged that decision to be made?
Nothing they can do punishes making that play and I'm using the xspeed the next turn anyways, so it was completely free to do it a turn sooner to get damage in
Funny that the opponent was salty about Misty in game three, when the only reason there was a game three is because you made a mistake on turn 2 of game 1. 😆
I think this game has a lot of depth but I think I think more in Marvel Snap. Also I'm tired of misty lol
I'm pretty burned out on getting blown out on turn six by tech cards 3 years later.
@@HooglandiaPocket Yah, especially cause its you're job to play that is probably more draining and you are at highest level so more prevalent
5:53 This is 100% why ive grown to hate this game. You get 1 bad hand early on and you're just screwed with zero chance of coming back.
I'm not sure I understand the timestamp reference... He's explaining exactly why you can still win with a bad early hand if you make the right decisions. Very much the opposite of zero chance of coming back.
I'm a bit confused as to why you're saying you made a mistake in game 1. Not only your lumineon wouldn't be able to hit when it did (this would allow the charizard to come in on the chameleon you KOed), but also it was very unlikely that they'd roll 3 heads on the growlithe. I think in probability terms your play was correct, also given that there's 2 zards and 1 arcanine presumably.
I missed 40 damage on the Arcanine the turn I attached my first energy by waiting to x speed
@HooglandiaPocket yeah I get that, but then your lumineon wouldn't be able to attack next turn, right? Or maybe you mean you missed 20 damage?
@@mynameyeah9162 you're missing weakness. I could have put the energy on Fin, swapped it in with X Speed, attacked for 40, and then evolved the Lumi and played the rest of the game the same from there.
He would have been able to hit with the lumineon. The misplay wasn't giving energy to farfetched to attack, it was not using x speed on the finneon to hit for 40 (due to type advantage fire vs water) after which he could have hit with lumineon to finish it.
@HooglandiaPocket ah of course, you're right. In any case, even with 20 damage you'd still have the KO on growlithe. But that would've allowed for a zard with potentially 6 energy (and 130 hp) to come out, right?
Hi Jeff! Sorry if you've covered this already, I've been running this deck with 1-1 split of Farfetched - Tauros. I've been running hot on going first, and so I'm not sure I've really felt the absence of the second Farfetch as an early attacker. Is there a better argument in the current meta for the duck's early 40 damages over a Tauros finisher against some of the top EX decks? Thanks!
Second Farfetch helps the Mewtwo match up a lot in my experience.
The bigger thing though is any game you lead on Tauros without another basic you are typically so far behind you just lose.
@@HooglandiaPocket I have been fortunate enough not to have faced the lead Tauros issue yet, but that is a great point. Barring some great Misty RNG, I can see how game-ending the tempo loss of retreating the bull can be. I'll make the switch and see how my games go. Thank you!
I do believe that the skill ceiling in this game is quite high and takes quite a bit skill to get good at pro level, but MAN do I hate winstreak emblem events because that is actually just pure coinflips
I prefer videos which do the analyzing but without the gameplay footage. Just show gameplay footage relevant to what you want to analyse.
best website for PTCGP decks?
I do a weekly meta report for top tournament decks here on the channel.
How do you know what’s in their deck?
Competitive tournaments are open deck list because that is more skill testing.
Wouldn't of he had won game 1 if he gio into 50 to that arcanine? Since he had a point already and he's a gx?
Gio only increases dmg by 10 to the opponents active pokemon
Just wondering how do you know what the opponent deck is before the game starts and during a live game?
Most competitive Pocket tournaments are open deck list.
I don’t disagree, but so many of the decision making here is colored by knowing the opponents deck list.
You can predict most cards people are playing in top meta decks even without open deck lists.
@ 13:27 Perhaps, but it’s difficult to predict a person isn’t using any copies of a popular card and therefore you don’t have to consider it in your plays. 🤷🏾♂️
It's actually incredibly rare for Charizard Arcanine decks to have room for many utility cards. They need lots of slots for Pokemon and xspeed/leaf are most important for their few trainer slots.
Again these are just things you know from following popular archetypes even when lists are closed.
Misplay at 15:00? Taking the KO with Finneon still loses to Gio, but you have one point down so you don't have to deal with this nonsense end game because you threaten with Sabrina
Nm. You run two Gio, I go for two Sabrina in this deck. Still like killing the Charmander though, saves you the fear of Charizard
Where do you find thise tournaments?
limitless
Limitless TCG
1:02 isnt this a situation where using proffesor first is better
No. I need a basic and a stage 1.
This game is also very LUCK heavy since you either brick your cards or your opponent brick theirs, you either auto win or lose
How did you watch these games and come up with a black and white Auto win Auto lose? The shows you how much responsibility both players have when playing to their outs.
There will always be a variation of luck in a card game. The very fact that you draw randomly suggests that you might get the cards you want or not depending on luck. However, what you do within your turn is entirely your skill outside of the coin flips.
Now show the set where he bricked, and his opponent bricked 3 times in a row lol. But in all seriousness, there's real depth to the game. The 10-1 fighting Pidgeot deck got my brain all wrinkly.
People under value picking decks that let them leverage skill in games like this. They'll complain it's all variance while playing hyper linear decks like Gyarados and Mewtwo
@@HooglandiaPocket Challenging your brain with strategic moves is what makes games like this so fun. I hate losing, but I hate mindlessly grinding for unearned wins even more. It kinda blows my mind how many people play these games to run a meta treadmill for hours, days, weeks, months just to show off a rank or emblem that doesn't accurately reflect their skill level.
Love your stuff and the game is very fun. But I still think it's very luck based. Something like I misplayed turn 2 and now I lose feels like the game doesn't have enough to it. I played a very braindead OTK Yu-Gi-Oh deck in duel links, and that had way more decision making and skill. 30 card decks is the way, idk if they'd be able to change it, but that's the way.
The presence of luck is not the absence of skill. Card games have variance by design which is part of their appeal. There is skill in making good choices to mitigate bad variance.
11:13 blatant cheating caught on stream.
The brainrot in the gaming sphere is crazy. Variance mitigation is awesome.
If you put a energy on duck, you wouldnt of been able to kill charmeleon as fast because you rolled tails on misty, sure you get the hit on growlithe but he woulda powered up charmeleon more but since you got lum out 1 turn ahead you kill his charm instead of growlithe which was smart play. You cant tap growlithe and get early hit on charmeleon, yoh can only choose one and you chose to kill charizaed line first. You keep saying missed attack earlier but its not, you slowed down his charizard line which is better he had to swap arcanine line. You are never getting the first hit on growlithr with duck you had x speed rdy
At no point did I suggest putting an energy on the Duck. It's the exact same line, only swapping in Fineon one turn sooner to attack before evolving it.
@@HooglandiaPocketoh i see im dumb makes sense thank you for explaining, true thats 40 from weakness im dumb