Expanded Starter Kit | Not a Deck

I'd love it if pokemon made a product like this even if it costed 50 - 60 dollars. The price of everything's going DOWN!!! 😝

Also trainer's mail is crazy good.

Lana rod is only good for tool based decks or Life Dew.

Siegislash I'd love it if they made a product that reprinted these, but put a stamp on them to differentiate and prevent them from invading standard. The Celebrations Tapu Lele GX is the closest we'll get though lol

the first sentence of your deck description... please don't say that, please don't thats not true. I don't want 12 yr old kids thinking they're the best expanded deck builders by taking a standard deck and adding a card to it. 

Your explanations for most of the cards are superb and accurate though nice job.

Some cards that should definitely be here:

- Chaotic Swell, the go-to option for stadiums when you don't need one.

- Welder, yes its only for fire, but that card alone makes fire the easiest basic energy to accelerate (that reminds me imma go make a META Gouging fire deck) 

- Special charge, "shpeshal ehnergish are shooper hard to rehkover" sez the cringe standard lugia vstar player.

- trainers mail like Siegislash said, can't forget it it fits perfectly into literally almost every deck.

- Teammates, at least 1 of in each single prizer deck.

- Acerola, Best prize denial supporter, objectively better than Cheren's care, and I don't mean Guzma over Boss objectively, I mean actually objectively, its more like professor's letter and energy search objectively.

- Bicycle, for similar reasons to trainer's mail.

Also about your response to Siegislash, invading standard is never a problem anymore. They do this thing called regulation sets now and as long as they don't have a letter on them, they cannot be used in standard since they don't even have a regulation set. 

Battle Compressor I can DEFINITELY understand your concern with pompous 12 year olds, but as I see it, there's no issue with people trying out some new deckbuilding ideas in a safer environment (If you wanted competitive decks, you'll be going to Limitless, not this site. However, Expanded material is more difficult to find). It's also funny that some time ago, some friends and I were messing around with a custom format, which is eerily similar to how you described your comment. It was literally just Standard, but you're allowed to use up to one playset of any Expanded card.

Anyways, I used certain card numbers in this to represent how many a deck typically uses/how much you'd want to get, so I can always ditch that and just add the cards you said.

hmm ye ok I can live with that. (also like you said, limitless ironically is actually quite limited in terms of expanded quite like you said, and the even bigger issue is, since expanded isn't crazy competitive, the decks there aren't even optimized)

Wait that format ur talkin about is actually kinda cool. (I can already smell the decks full of battle compressors brewing) I just feel even then its still not super different from standard since most decks can live without a key card that was lost in expanded.

Also ye you might wanna ditch the card number to use number thing, because it differs vastly for different decks. (i.e. Most decks don't run freakin four float stones unless your deck depends on them somehow like Garbodor) I'd just make every card a 1 of and add the rest of the S range cards too.

Oh and the reason I'm so against pompous 12 year olds posting here is that it slowed me down as a deck builder so much in my early years. I browsed through decks just looking for decklists, and thought that oh if this deck has about 1000 views it has to be pretty good right? Oh god of hell I was wrong. Every once in a while an obviously inexperienced toddler brain makes a deck with a stupid clickbait title and deck description and gets deck of the day or week eventually resulting in about 1000 views, another group of new deckbuilders will get fooled. This "safer environment" only benefits the deckbuilder, but what about the viewers? they make up the majority. I don't want someone to fall into the same trap I fell in, and I don't think you do either. Let this be known, DONT POST UNTIL YOU'VE AT LEAST LEARNED HOW TO PLAY THE GAME.

Battle Compressor I'm pretty sure this site has (or used to have) a system where the people in charge could hand pick decks to be identified as "high quality," which would fix the issue you state. Unfortunatley I haven't actually seen that marker here in months, so an overhaul might be needed.

The reason I liked the custom format is because the decks in it are still structured like Standard decks, play like Standard decks, and all around are much more like that format. However, the larger library of cards you have access to makes a ton of new strategies possible, whether some ex gets a broken pre-evolution, or just using a broken Expanded card in general to fluff up a good Standard deck to begin with. Because in the complete Expanded format, the decks are obviously more tailored to be far less linear in playstyle, and fit as many techs/engines/one-of's as you can while keeping the consistency balanced. Obviously it's more complex than that, but it's the gist.

My personal favourite build has to be either Tsareena ex with the Dusknoir that can freely move damage counters, or Chien-Pao Baxcalibur with Archie's Ace in the Hole to adopt more of a turbo playstyle. I'm sure there's a LOT more undiscovered stuff to be had as well, so you may want to give it a try!

Battle Compressor I with all my heart agree with compressor on this one, me personally, I have never seen the "high quality" thing, and that almost sounds too good to be true. (but if it is or was, I'd reeelly want it back 👀)since I, too was one of the unfortunate folk who fell into that "trap" you were describing. It would pain my heart to see more people go down this route. 💔

Also CountyGibbon798 your custom format does sound pretty cool considering how much some expanded decks depend on one or two cards, but I have one issue with it, I think compressor kinda touched on it but it wasn't the full reason. The format is TOO MUCH like standard, its basically like there's standard, and then there's your format, the "cooler" standard. Which doesn't seem like a problem until you see that the real purpose of custom formats is to COMPLETELY change the playstyle of the game. For example GLC is just so different, building consistency has become the main deckbuilding strategy and finding cards that synergize has become much more of a challenge. CHANGE is what makes a valuable format. 

I'm not saying your format is not good in the slightest though, it just seems too much like a competitive format that it erases the purpose of a custom format, that players want an alternate playstyle. I'd definitely try out your format sometime, but I'd probably just stick to expanded just because its so much more flexible. 😔

Siegislash Someone who gets it. Also gibbon if that "high quality" thing existed then my bad, I didn't see it back then and still don't, and I don't think others can either. If it did exist before, I'm glad you were able to experience that.

Ye ur format does sound cool but idk I think there's a reason my description of a bad expanded deck was eerily close to your format. Not to bat you down my guy but the format is just really close to brainless deck builder mentality. "Oo my Shooper kluhnky fier poekemon dheck nieds dis shing called Ehnershi Ekshelerashun? I'm gunna add WHELDER to it becushe shom Reddit guy shed it wash Gud!" ... ... proceeds to make the deck expanded while not adding a single other card other than welder. This does accommodate for those clueless ones which is pretty cool, but will they ever learn how to make an actual expanded deck then? idk not saying its impossible, but it is unlikely. I do see how this format does attract beginner deckbuilders who want to dip their feet in expanded but aren't ready for real expanded yet, though, which is something the format does really well.

Battle Compressor The only reason I remember seeing the "high quality" thing is because some other deck got it, which made me question about it. I really hope I'm not misremembering, but it feels like it really SHOULD be a feature here to allow gems to stick out from the sea of mediocrity. I might actually take this to the website feedback change and request that. I have a whole list of improvements that this place could use, but that's another topic.

Siegislash I'd imagine the format not sticking is exactly because it's too similar to Standard. When compared to other formats like GLC, proper Expanded, or even more exotic ones like PokéPauper, the "twist" for mine is fairly mundane. It's absolutely perfect for a group of friends, though, where I used it.

Yeah ur right it isn't a crazy format so not too much extra thinking is involved, making it perfect for super casual gameplay.

i didn't know starter decks were evil

Iplaylostbox "Evil" in what way?

Most decks heavily rely on abilities