Pokemon, ochón ochón.

[TordelBack]

Well, it finally arrived, that day every father dreads.  My son has started hanging around with those kids - you know the ones, furtive, pallid, odd rectangular shapes concealed in their trackie pockets.  I mean, the soft version is one thing, the odd lost weekend spent alone in his bedroom, one ball after another, always wanting more.  But now the virtual isn't enough: he wants the hard gear.  And that means money.

So, does anyone here know about Pokemon cards?  He picked up a themed Pangoro (fight/dark) deck going cheap in the toy shop, and we've split that deck 30/30 for a few learning games, but obviously that doesn't really work when we're both playing half a theme.  So tomorrow, weather permitting, we're going looking for enough cards to have a real game.  What should we go for, assuming we want to play each other at home out of the one pool, and then he wants to play his mates at school?  Are there any particular starter sets, should we buy another themed deck, or just a handful of random boosters?  Are there any incompatibilities?

And one last question: why me?

[Frank]

"Ho-Oh is rainbow colored, which is prominently used by Homosexuals. This Pokemon is encouraging children to be Gay. It is also an extremely powerful and rare Pokémon, so children may think that by becoming homosexuals that they will also become powerful and special as well"

http://church-of-illumination.com/pokemon-satanic-top8

[TordelBack]

Good grief! 

[JamesC]

By looking at that picture they may also think they'll become powerful and special by learning to play the spoons.

[Banners]

That site's great! Apparently Star Wars is satanic because...

Luke has his arm chopped off by Darth Vader and has it replaced by a robot arm. Many obsessed Star Wars fans also cut off their own arms to be just like Luke. Hospitals were probably packed full of severely wounded Star Wars fans after the Empire Striking Back movie was released.

[NapalmKev]

Bagpuss is Evil because he's Pink, and hangs around with a wooden Owl that's clearly meant to represent a Native American Totem Pole. And the Mice are symbolic of human slaves dancing to the tune of 'The Great Pink Fat-One'.

It's really easy making up Bollocks! Believing Bollocks is another matter entirely!

Cheers

[TordelBack]

And the Mice are symbolic of human slaves dancing to the tune of 'The Great Pink Fat-One'.

It's the mice's exposé of the zero-sum game of western pseudo-capitalism that I find most disturbing. 

Fun fact: My then-GF gave me a small Bagpuss toy (I love Bagpuss, tying with The Clangers as my absolute favourite programme when I was very small) as a good luck present when I bought my first car (from her, as it happens), and I've carried it in every vehicle I've driven since.

Still no wiser about Pokemon, though.  Call yourselves nerds.

[TordelBack]

Do you see what you've reduced me to?  Do you see?

[Bolt-01]

Hey Tords. Been through this myself so I share the pain.

For pokemon cards I've no idea what the new ones are like but myself and Mini-bolt used the first few series to play and I know Mini has picked up quite a few sets over the years off of ebay.

For a play deck of 60 cards I always used 30 energy, 20 pokemon and ten trainers. I think that is pretty much the ration of cards in the pre-built sets anyway.

For the 'mon cards- try to only use two energy specific types (water, fire etc) and then try to round out the deck with a couple of 'mon that weren't energy type specific.

For the record- it took us about two weeks to actually get to the point where we could play an actual round with constantly referring to the rules.

I have some very fond memories of playing these, and I still have a bad pokemon game habit. Though I do have a full 718 on my pokedex...

[JamesC]

It'll be Yu Gi Oh next.

[Frank]

I do have a full 718 on my pokedex...

Reported to Moderator.

[Grugz]

my nephew had loads, he got conned out of his rare ones by two girls who lived round the corner.     


I'm also now thinking of changing my name to "black downs syndrome star wars pokemon" just to piss the "church" of illumination off.

[TordelBack]

...got conned out of his rare ones by two girls who lived round the corner.     

That's one more than did for me.

Thanks Bolt, good to know there's a support group.  I confess to an unnatural love for Pokemon on the Gameboy (and later, the DS), but these card-things are a whole other world... one made of money, apparently.  Could be worse, I suppose - at least I've managed to keep him from Warhammer for a bit longer.

After some internetting decided another cheap Furious Fists (!) themed deck from the toy shop was the way to go (working out at about 20 cent a card, and guaranteed compatible) rather than plunging non-existant money into it, and then we threw in a random booster for fun, which yielded a Lucario EX card, which looks horribly unbalanced to my untrained eye - but very shiny! - and which apparently can be eBayed for more than we paid for the whole lot... The first hit, as they say, is always free.

From our experimental matches and online guides, the whole game seems very well designed - particularly in comparison to other recent collectible stuff I've played (Star Wars Pocketmodels, Monsuno etc), all of which suffer from pretty glaring loopholes or simplistic strategies ("Never mind manoeuvres, just go straight at 'em!", as Lucky Jack might say). Looking forward to an afternoon of  having my arse handed to me by an 8-year old.