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The purpose of this article is to give an introduction to the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online (PTCGO) client for beginning competitive players. This may be players who are intending to play entirely on PTCGO but would like to use competitive “meta” decks, or players who also intend to play in real-life tournaments but wish to use PTCGO for practice.

Welcome back PoTown Store readers! Hope all has been well and that everyone is enjoying the new Sword and Shield set! The first tournament Sword and Shield will be legal in is OCIC (aka Oceania International Championships) coming up later this month. This event will be streamed by Pokemon so be sure to check it out if you want to see what all the games top players think are the best decks in this format. When thinking of the new standard format with Sword & Shield, a lot of new things change in the meta because of powerful new Pokemon and Trainer cards that were released in the set. The turn one no supporter rule also comes into effect, which will cause some decks to be built a little differently. Keeping this in mind, there are a lot of new decks making it into the Top 5 decks in the format! Here is my current predicted Top 5 decks to look out for in OCIC!

Hey PoTown readers, Reid back here for another article. As I prepare to go to Collinsville for another expanded regional, I take a look at some of the best and must get cards from the new Sword and Shield set and go over one major rule change for TCG. As the TCG game has upgraded over the years, we now get a look at Pokémon V and VMax for the first time. Similar to old EX days VMax Pokémon evolve from V Pokémon. Like the Gignatamax in the Sword and Shield video game VMax Pokémon gain a massive amount of HP, they are also similar to Tag Team Gx’s as the prize return for knocking out a VMax is 3. The set also comes with a lot of Pokémon that compliment the VMax’s like Frosmoth is the sidekick to Lapras VMax and Cinccino is the accomplice to Snorlax VMax. If you liked to play Zoroark GX in standard or maybe you still enjoy it in expanded, the new Snorlax VMax with Cinccino can be built similar or even different. Stick around for the entire article and get a sneak peak at a Snorlax VMax list in the end (Buy some Sword and Shield TCG codes right here to start getting some awesome new cards). With Sword and Shield going to be legal on February 21st, lets go ahead and look at some of the best cards from the set. 

Hey Potown readers! Its Reid here bringing you my first article on Potown. As I just got back home from the Dallas Texas Regional Championship I take a dive into the new Alolan Sandslash GX box. With today being the release of the new Alolan Sandslash GX we get a closer look at the second Pokemon being brought into the TCG game from the new Sword and Shield set (codes from the box can be bought right here on our website). We will have additional topics about a certain deck list that can drastically change the meta of the Pokemon TCG game and stick around till the end as we will have a recap of from Dallas and talk about the winning List. 

Hello PoTown Store readers and to the new visitors on the site! Welcome back to another article here as we prepare for the Dallas Regional Championships that appear to be coming closer and closer. The first new thing about the expanded format we need to pay attention to is the new Meowth VMAX card that is officially going to be legal for Dallas. Meowth V and Meowth VMAX are the first cards to be released from the Sword and Shield set in the Pokemon TCG in the form of a promo box (you can buy the code for right here on our website). Meowth VMAX is mostly the card we are going to be looking at because Meowth V isn’t particularly exciting, but it is necessary to evolve into the Meowth VMAX. So, let's look at the Meowth VMAX, and see why it could potentially be a good card in both standard, and expanded Pokemon TCG decks.  

The Standard Format

Welcome back PoTown Store readers to another article! Here today, we are going to be talking about all the newest Pokemon TCG cards to come out of the recently leaked, Sword & Shield Base Set. The newest form of powerful Pokemon is Pokemon V. Pokemon V are similar to Pokemon EX from the XY series as they don’t have a GX attack, but they have higher HP and can once again, evolve. Except like Pokemon GX, they don’t evolve from regular Basic Pokemon, they are the Basic Pokemon. The Pokemon V can sometimes evolve into Pokemon VMAX, which is like the Gignatamax evolution in the Sword & Shield video games. Pokemon VMAX are still somewhat a mystery in how they work, but for what we know right now they evolve from Pokemon V, gain massive HP, and are worth three prizes just like Pokemon TAG TEAM GX. The Pokemon VMAX in the set so far include Lapras VMAX, Stonjouner VMAX, Snorlax VMAX, and Morpeko VMAX. All of the VMAX Pokemon get over 300 HP which has only been seen on the Magikarp & Wailord GX TAG TEAM that came out around last year. The set also has quite a lot of good Trainer Cards, and non Pokemon V cards that I think will have a huge impact on the standard format. Be sure to check back here on the Po Town Store after Sword & Shield releases sometime in 2020 to get some Sword & Shield Pokemon TCG codes to get started with the new series! With that being said, I compiled a list of the top 15 new cards from the set that I expect to be great going into next format. 

10. Bellelba & Brycen-Man

9. Silvally GX ...

The fast and aggressive fire box deck in Ability Zard deck made a huge comeback at LAIC, and even ended up winning the event at the hands of one of the top players in the game, Robin Schulz. This deck relies on the popular Welder supporter card engine which is so stranger to the Pokemon TCG to set up its many different fire energy attackers that require quite a lot of energy in order to attack. If you can use Welder consistently, the Ability Zard deck can hit some of the biggest numbers in the game even as fast as turn 2! Once you have your attackers established, this deck also has access to Ninetales which can consistently bring up any Pokemon on your opponent’s bench at the cost of discarding two fire energy. This deck aims to take as many big knockouts as possible will constantly pressuring your opponents board at all points during the match. During the end of the game when you’ve gone through a lot of fire energy, Victini Prism Star can do a lot of damage and reset all of those used fire energies back into the deck to help close out the game. If you like decks that are fast and super aggressive, Ability Zard is the best deck for that and you’ll have a lot of fun playing it too!

Welcome back all and I’m glad to be sharing my article here on the Po Town Store. I’m very excited to be bringing you this article on the new Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX card that was recently released in Cosmic Eclipse. This is one of the best cards in the set  because of the attack effect of Ultimate Ray which is very similar to Pikachu & Zekrom-GX’s “Full Blitz”. Decks that can accelerate energy consistently through attacks on big heavy HP Pokémon will always be a great strategy in the Pokemon TCG. Flooding the board full of energy with 280HP Tag Team GX Pokémon is very hard to beat. While Pikachu & Zekrom-GX was questionably good by some players due to having to draw very well with the deck, Arceus & Dialga & Palkia (otherwise known as ADP) does not struggle with the same combo based issues all these combos ADP needs to pull off are simpler and require less cards to dig through your deck for. You can afford to play slowly and manually set up by attaching once per turn to build up your attack. While you are building up, you have access to the best GX attack in the game, Altered Creation GX. For one metal energy, it allows all your Pokémon to deal +30 damage including Pokémon that aren’t in play. If you have a metal AND a water energy attached, you get the +30 effect but also for every knockout you take for the rest of the game, you take one extra prize.

You may be wondering what exactly this deck is and how it works as a good Pokemon TCG deck considering it doesn’t seem to attack every turn due to it’s one of energy card count, and the 4-0-4 line of Florges from Forbidden Light that has never seen competitive play until now.