Have you ever wanted every single common on the planet? Have you ever wanted to get an amazing surplus of fairy energy cards mixed in with fakes? Buy FairField Company cards!
They try to make themselves look good by saying “25 cards + 1 foil ” for only a few cents more than your average pack ( 3.99-4.19), but honestly? Youre better off with picking up other card packs.
Ive bought fairfield products before only to be surprised with 15 carbinks in the same pack, no actual holos, garunteed two figures but only one, etc. The companys just a big scam. Ive contacted them before and they have NEVER responded.
Do NOT buy from Fairfield.
They sell fakes and are very likely to give you the most shit customer service and cards! (They sell MTG and YUGIOH and baseball cards too, so be careful)
Ok so here’s some insider stuff I’m about to throw at you.
Don’t buy off-brand “packs” of Pokemon or any trading card game cards. I can tell you from experience from working for an online card game/collectible company what this is all about. What a company like this is selling is called “bulk”. Bulk consists of commons and uncommons that are rarely sold as singles because they are considered to be “bad” or “worthless” cards. Companies like this can easily buy 1,000 cards for $5, that’s half a cent per card, or $0.01 per 2 cards. Then they will sell lots of 25-100 cards for $4-$5, that’s an 8%-40% profit margin.
Specifically with Pokemon, the company that I worked for sold bulk alarmingly fast because we labeled our product as a “lot of 100 random Pokemon cards with 5 foils” without specifying rarity (the “foils” were almost always [reverse foil] versions of common and uncommon cards). We actually bought bulk in the secondary market for a higher price than $5 per 1k cards because it flipped that quickly, and the company ended up making major profit on this deal. (I know because I was the one that had to put together these packs of bulk). Meanwhile, any cards of actual value that we bought in the secondary market we sold singularly for the price that they fetched (Single digits of $ for cards that weren’t “good” but collectible, and tens and up to hundreds of $ for cards that were “good competitively” or super collectible)
Your money is better spent buying the legit 10 card packs of Pokemon cards because you are guaranteed the following cards: 5 commons; 3 uncommons; 1 rare, super rare, or secret rare; 1 [reverse foil] of common, uncommon, or rare rarity; and 1 code card worth one digital booster pack on PTCGO (will not contain the same cards as the booster it came out of).
Although I don’t really do this myself, whenever a new set comes out—if you’re a collector—you should watch numerous [unboxing videos] of booster boxes to see if buying packs is worth your while; the other option is to buy the cards you want as singles, it may be slightly more expensive but you will be guaranteed the cards you want. By watching unboxing videos you will soon find out approximately how many collectible cards you can expect to pull out of every booster box you come across. If you’re a fan of EXs you can typically find at least 3-4 Regular Art EXs and 2 Full Art cards in a complete Booster Box. (Boxes do vary so it is possible to find no more than 1 Full Art in a box but with my experience buying boxes the average is around 2, and secret rares are even more sparse so don’t bank on finding one in every box you buy), ((also I haven’t personally bought a box of booster packs in a while, these numbers may have changed since last I indulged. I’ve heard that EXs are less rare than they used to be)).
So that’s my insider knowledge, if you have any questions about the distribution of Pokemon cards or about the secondary market, send me an ask! [My ask box is always open]
Sharpedo was definitely interesting, even if it wasn’t all that great. It could actually do decent damage for a while with some added Darkness Energy, though fitting 4 Darkness or Rainbow Energy wasn’t exactly the easiest thing for some Water decks. It also forced anything attacking it to take recoil, which was cool despite not taking many big attacks. It was different, which gave it a chance to succeed.
70 HP was quite low, even on a Stage 1, and left it open to a lot of attacks. At least it could take a hit from Team Magma’s Groudon when undamaged, but using Rainbow Energy on this killed that, so Darkness Energy was preferred if possible. The Lightning Weakness wasn’t too bad, only opening it up to Team Aqua’s Manectric, which had teammates that did enough damage anyway, and Zapdos ex, which admittedly did benefit a bit from this. The Retreat Cost of 1 actually wasn’t bad at all, and gave Sharpedo a chance to get out of danger if it survived long enough. While not common, it was still possible in the right situations.
Sharpedo’s Poke-Body was simple, yet effective. Whenever Sharpedo was Active and took damage from an opponent’s attack, the attacking Pokemon took 20 damage. That could put all kinds of things into KO range for another attacker, sometimes another Sharpedo if the opponent had 90 HP. Pairing this with Desert Ruins helped against some EX Pokemon as well, as the extra damage could add up quickly. The Poke-Body even worked if Sharpedo was Knocked Out, which was quite nice.
Dark Slash was weak at its most basic, doing 40 damage for 3 Energy, one of which had to be Water. However, if Sharpedo discarded a Darkness Energy, it added 30 more damage to suddenly reach a strong 70. While Darkness Energy didn’t add any extra damage on top of that 30, since Sharpedo was a Water-type, and the card was limited in availability, it still made for a strong attack that could be done a few times with the right set-up. It took a bit more work than most attackers, but at least it could do serious damage and hit Fire-types for Weakness. This paired with Desert Ruins took out a Blaziken ex, which was absolutely amazing.
Sharpedo wasn’t feared much, but could definitely make an impact. Its biggest issue was needing more work to get serious damage in, but it could still go up against some really good opponents. While other Water-types would certainly get the first look, Sharpedo was good early in the E-On format when the type lacked options, and still usable for a lot longer than that as a breath of fresh air. Don’t let the looks fool you: This was a good enough card to try.
Here it is! The Wailord-EX deck that’s taken US Nationals by storm! Well…kinda. I wasn’t able to find a satisfactory list anywhere, so I built what I figured it might look like. A few things before going into this, there’s supposed to be a total of 4 Wailord-EX and there’s supposed to be +1 Max Potion and +1 Trick Shovel. I just don’t have the playsets on PTCGO apparently.
This isn’t exactly a “mill” deck in the traditional sense. A mill deck is usually one that actively discards cards off the opponent’s deck. Yeah, there’s 4 Trick Shovel, but that’s not getting your opponent’s deck down to zero cards. Instead this is a tank deck that aims to wait out the entire battle until you win by deck-out. If you’re sitting there thinking “wait a minute, there’s no way that can work” then you must not have heard that [Lysandre’s Trump Card was banned].
So the list I made isn’t at all definitive, I’m sure there are lots of ways to play Stallord (name of my own invention, I like it). Indeed, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what I wanted to put in this deck since you have 56 trainer card slots to fill. I’d love to test this deck but I wouldn’t dare play this deck on PTCGO. If you did, most of your wins would be by concession rather than deck-out, people on PTCGO have no patience. So without any testing, this build is more of an idea builder than a finished deck, it has a little bit of everything and you could probably choose to put a focus on one thing over another. So here’s the breakdown. [Click on the names for links]
Wailord-EX; not much to say, it’s a 250hp basic. KEEP THEM ALIVE AT ALL COSTS Crushing Hammer/Enhanced Hammer; just used as security for keeping the Wailords alive Max Potion; keep the Wailords alive Repeat Ball; probably not necessary, I didn’t like the idea of starting with a single Wailord and no outs towards finding another, can be replaced with Dive Ball if desired Scoop Up Cyclone; There really isn’t any definitive Ace Spec you could play, Scoop Up Cyclone means you could guarantee a heal on a Wailord and use a supporter on the same turn, but I can see an argument made for Computer Search or even Gold Potion Super Potion; maybe not necessary with a playset of Max Potion and Rough Seas, but keep the Wailords alive Super Scoop Up;keep the Wailords alive Switch; very useful alongside Rough Seas, switch out a damaged Wailord for a fresh one and use the next 3-4 turns Rough Seas-ing all the damage away Trick Shovel; 4 free one-card “mills” on your opponent’s deck! AZ/Cassius; honestly these are interchangable, I wouldn’t run 4-4, that’s kind of overkill, and I’ll admit there’s an argument to be made for running a heavier Cassius line over AZ, to keep your deck full of cards, but I don’t think the difference is too overwhelming Hugh; tricky, tricky, I like it; for the purposes of this deck there’s no downside in using it, either you’re discarding cards from your opponent’s hand, or your forcing them to draw more cards Lysandre; one Wailord build I saw didn’t run Lysandre, I don’t really know why. I like it because if you Lysandre out a Pokemon your opponent hasn’t powered up or needs, you can force them to expend resources getting their attacker back into the Active position Pokemon Center Lady; a counter to poison, not truly necessary, because of the switches and potions, but just an extra out. Also heals keep the Wailords alive (KTWA) Shauna; we don’t use Professor Sycamore in this deck, we don’t ever want have less cards in our deck than the opponent, this will keep our deck nice and plump VS Seeker; necessary, also how fun would it be to VS Seeker a Hugh for the win? Rough Seas; KEEP THE WAILORDS ALIVE Float Stone/Hard Charm/Jamming Net; Float Stone might not be entirely necessary it’s just another way to help you utilize Rough Seas, but I can see it being replaced entirely with a Hard Charm (Hard Charm, btw: KTWA) One build I saw ran 4 Jamming Net. I don’t agree with this, a lot of decks now are using non-EX attackers, you might end up with a bunch of dead cards in your deck
Another idea I saw was to add Suicune into this deck. Again, there are a lot of non-EX attackers in the format, you don’t want to be in a position where you lead with a lone Suicune, whiff on finding another Pokemon, and then getting donked on your opponent’s next turn. Maybe a one-of would do nicely and you can pop it down if you’re playing against a particularly EX-heavy deck.
So that’s this ridiculous deck. Hope this entertained you as much as it entertained me. How would you run this deck? Send me an ask or leave a reply; would you focus on healing over scoop up effects? Is there a card I missed completely you would add? (Click Keep Reading to see a clearer version of this list)
While it didn’t get the attention that Blaziken and Gardevoir did, Swampert was another very good choice for some Energy acceleration. As would be expected of the Water-type starter, it helped out other Water-type Pokemon, a very good thing in a format with so many Fire-types running around. It only managed to shine during the E-On format, losing a lot of its luster in the RS-On format that came after, but Swampert was what made a very dangerous deck work for about a year.
Swampert’s stats were mostly good. 110 HP was a really nice number on a Stage 2, and managed to prevent Blaziken ex from sniping it off the Bench when at full health. The Lightning Weakness wasn’t too bad, especially in E-On, where the only common Lightning-type was Team Aqua’s Manectric. Considering that the card rarely attacked in the first place, it wasn’t a big deal. In RS-On, Zapdos ex was a thing, so that Weakness actually mattered in some games. The Retreat Cost was a bit high at 3, though at least Swampert was rarely Active barring being hit by Pokemon Reversal. Something to get Swampert out of a bad spot was nice, but there wasn’t much need to stack 4 Warp Point in a deck just because Swampert was in it.
Swampert’s Poke-Power, Water Call, was the reason this card was used. Once during your turn, you could attach a Water Energy card from your hand to your Active Pokemon. This didn’t count at the Energy attachment for the turn, so Water decks could basically get two Energy down in one turn a lot of the time. Luckily, Swampert had options to pair with. The most notable of these were Suicune ex and Swampert ex, both from the Team Magma vs Team Aqua set. Those were easily the best attackers to use with Water Energy in the E-On format, though before they came out, decks using attackers such as Politoed did exist. Swampert’s peak was for a few months after the Magma vs Aqua set was released, and ended when the FireRed and LeafGreen set came out.
Swampert’s attack didn’t see much use, but could work in a pinch. It was expensive, but did 50 damage for 4 Energy. The attack also put the defending Pokemon to Sleep, which was helpful in desperate situations with some good luck with coin flips. It was not something to rely on much, but could work in rare spots.
Swampert’s downfall in the RS-On format was due to two major issues. First, Blaziken was nowhere near as popular, though it was still good, and the increase in the new Magcargo from EX Deoxys wasn’t really enough to make up for that. The more important thing was the release of Blastoise ex, which did the Water acceleration thing way better than Swampert did. Swampert was still playable, but it was really hard to justify its use when Blastoise ex existed.
Swampert may have had a relatively short peak for such a good card, but when it was in its prime, it was one of the best choices to base a deck around. This is definitely something to try out if looking back at the E-On format from 2004, and handles those pesky Blaziken decks quite nicely.
