Pokemon TCG Online Deck Builder Guide

Pokemon Trading Card Game Online Deck Builder Guide by Prof_Magus

I. Getting Started

First, let us take a look at the basic Overview of the Deck builder, as it has many buttons and drop down menus that make the Deck creation process much easier.
Once you click on the Deck Builder Icon under the Trading Card Game Online Home Page, you will see this on your screen.

Now while it may seem overwhelming at first, all these tools are here to help you! Let’s start on the left hand side with the sidebar.

These various drop down menus will make creating your Deck a much smoother process, as it allows you to filter out cards that you do or do not want to see. By using the plethora of tabs, finding cards in the Deck Builder is a breeze!
Here is the basic breakdown of the filters panel:

The “Hide Filters” tab is the quickest way to find a specific card you are looking for. By typing in the search bar the name of the card you are looking for, it automatically filters out anything that does not match with what is in the bar, making it extremely easy to identify a specific card.

Clicking the “Show All” Button will revail all the Pokémon Cards and it will display the ones you have in your collection. You can use this to browse through the countless pages to view cards you would like to find for your collection.

And finally the Reset button, clicking the Reset button will take off any filters that you have applied to your collection and bring you back to the default screen for your deck.

Pokémon Filter

Now the “Pokémon” Filter is extremely helpful when you are trying to look at either specific typing of cards (fire, water, grass, etc) or attempting to look at the cards you have in specific catagories(Basic, Stage 1, Stage 2, Legendary).

All these filters stack with eachother, so lets say you are trying to build a fire deck, but you also want some electric Pokémon as well, by clicking the Fire and electric Pokémon Symbols, it will filter all other typings out, except fire and electric. Same goes for the red Stage Buttons.

By selecting only the Basic tab, you will only be able to see the Basic Pokémon in your collection. But If you wanted to see both Basic and Stage 1, simply select both and you can now browse through those sets of Pokémon.

Trainer Filter

The Trainer Filter is pretty straight forward. The Item, Supporter and Stadium Buttons can all be clicked to filter out which Trainer Cards you are looking for. Like the Pokémon Filter, these buttons stack too.

Energy Filter

The Energy Filter is a quick way to access both your Basic and Special Energy cards. Clicking the Basic or Special Button will Filter only those results.

Collector Filter

For all those collectors out there, the Deck Builder also includes an easy way to keep track of all your rare and foil cards! Each symbol represents a grouping of cards (Circle: Common, Diamond: Uncommon, Star: Rare, Gold Star: Holo Rare) There is also a tab for Foils, allowing for you to toggle this filter on at any time to view your Foil cards in each category.

Set Filter

An easy way to view the cards from a specific Booster Pack that you have purchased is through the Sets Tab.

HeartGold
Unleashed
Undaunted
Triumphant
Call of Legends
Black & White
Tags Filter

The Tags filter is another way to make smaller collections inside your collection in the Deck Builder. Let’s say you have a core 12 cards that you always want to have in your deck, well you can tag them all and put them in a group, so when it comes time to build your new Deck, a simple click of a button allows you to have them all at your disposal. Clicking the Edit button will bring up a menu, allowing you to delete or change the name of the tag selected.

Trading Filter

And finally the Trading Filter. This filter allows you to view the cards that you either have up for trade or a currently seeking for Trade. There is also a button for “Their Wanted” which allows you to show the cards in your collection if you have an active trade open.

Now that we have an understanding of the Sidebar, let’s take a look at some other features the Deck Builder has to offer.

II. Collection and Decks

A. My Collection
On the Deck Builder page, you will see the screen is split into two:

**Please note that you can adjust the size of each portion of the screen using the two arrows in the middle of the screen.**

Line Lower:

Line Higher

Once you have the screen adjusted to your liking, you can start creating your own deck. But before we do that, let’s run down the rest of the User Interface to get a better grasp what all the various buttons and drop downs do.

Let us first start with the Top half, the Collection Section. Here you will find all your Cards, Packs and Items that you have at your disposal along with various options to help you sort your cards to your liking.

This is the cards tab. The tab you will spend most of your time more than likely. In this tab contains all the cards you currently own. Starting from the left, we will review the buttons that are associated with this tab.

This Button Groups and Ungroups similar cards based on appearance.

For example, I have Four Bellsprout cards total. Three of which are normal Bellsprout and One is a Foil Card. When I have the button toggeled OFF:

It displays my One Foil Card and my Three Normals seperately.

If I have it toggeled ON:

It groups all my Bellsprounts together.

The next button is actually a group of buttons, but is extremely simple to understand.

This button represents the page count of your cards. Currently I have 10 pages of Cards in my Collection.

*Note: The page count will increase or decrease based on the size of the cards you are viewing. The bigger the cards, the more pages you will have. The smaller the cards, the less pages you have. Also, by grouping cards together, you will naturally have less cards because they are all grouped as one*

By clicking the numbers, it will flip through your pages, showing you more cards that you have in your Collection.

This next menu is extremely helpful when looking to organize your Cards in a manner that is personalized to you!

By clicking the little white arrow in the corner, you can drop down the menu to change the filter settings.

You can sort your cards by:
Energy Type
Name
Evolution Chain
Set, Card Number
Rarity
Number Owned
HP
Weakness
Resistance
Foil
Height
Weight
Height/Weight

As you can see, there are plenty of options for all types of Trainers to sort their cards however they like. You can always change the filters at any time to optimize your Collection viewing.

On to the next section. The “View” button has one of the most useful tools in the Deck Builder, the Table and Preview View.

The View Menu lets you change the size of your cards for viewing quickly, but the real gem under this menu comes through the Table View. In this view, Trainers can look at all their cards stats nicely laid out, instead of having to check each individual card.

*Note: The Table stacks with the “Sort by” Function as well.

The Preview View is the same as the Table, but will display an image of the card. Click on any cell tied to the card and the large image of the card will pop up.

That is it for the Cards Tab, now we will head on over to the Packs Tab.

Inside the Packs Tab, you will find all the Packs you currently have. Whether if be Starter Decks or Booster Packs you redeemed through the store, all your Packs will appear here.

Selecting a pack will bring up a window, detailing what is inside the selected pack. In this case, I selected the Basic Yellow Deck to open.

Select “Open Pack” to reveal what is inside!

You may now scroll through your Deck and look at what cards you have obtained. There are filters to sort the Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Foils cards similar to the Filters tab as we discussed before. If you want to save this Preconstruced Deck to your usable Decks, select “Save to Deckbox” and name your new Deck. Otherwise, Click ok to continue.

You will now be back in the Packs Tab with your remaining (if you have any left) Decks/Boosters. You may contiune to open your Packs or head over to your Collection and start building!

The last Tab we will cover in the Collections section is the Items Tab.

The Items tab will display all your non card related Items, such as Trainer Coins, Sleeves and Playmats.

The Items Tab has the same Filter Bar on the Left hand side as the Cards Tab. These Filters will make browsing through your items quick and easy.

Lets break down each section individually to get a closer look at what each Filter does
First we have the Text Filter. If you are looking for that particular Coin or Sleeve and you want to locate it quickly, type in the name or part of the name into the text field and it will filter out all other results that do not match what you have typed in. The Reset Button functions the same, allowing you to reset your collection to its default state.

Up next we have the Type Filter. This Filter allows Trainers to view all their collected items and sort them by type.

Say you want to check out all the Coins you have collected, simply click the Coins Tab and everything else will disappear!

But hey, you are also looking for your Sleeves, click the Sleeves Button as well and it will show both catagories!

For all the collectors out there, we have the Worth Filter. Using this Filter will allow you to easily see the rarity and value of your various items. (Circle: Gray Free Items, Diamond: Green Low Value Items, Star: Blue Medium Value Items, Golden Star: Purple High Value Items)

And the Trading Tab, again, will allow you to sort what Items you have up for Trade and the Items that you desperately seek!

These two menus on the top bar are simple tools to sort your items by type and how large or small you want the items to appear in your collection.

And finally, the Statistics and Help buttons.

The Statistics Button is another way to get a general overview of your Card Collection.
Clicking the Statisctics Button will launch a window that displays completion and other data about your Card collection.

While the Help button will direct you to another window to help you if you have forgotten some of the features of the Deck Builder!

B. Deck Builder
The Deck Builder section is where players will spend most their time creating and tweaking their Decks until they are perfected!

Going from left to right on the tool bar, we will discuss each icon and its function.

First and foremost is the Wizard Button. By clicking the Wizard button, it will toggle on and off the wizard tool.

Placing a card into the Wizard Tool will populate your Deck Builder based on the card you have placed.

*Note: Trainer Cards will not create a Deck via the Deck Wizard

The following buttons all deal with your current deck that you have on the table.

Start a New Deck:

This button allows you to clear your Deck Table and start again from scratch if you are unhappy with your current Deck.

Open Existing Deck:

This button allows you to open any of your previously saved Decks for tweaking or alterations.

Save This Deck:

This button will allow you to save your current Deck that you are working on.

View a Printable copy of This Deck:

Selecting this button allows you to view the deck in the official Play! Pokémon Registration Sheet. You may print this out for reference of your Deck.

The last group of buttons is used exclusively for the Deck you are currently working with.

The Energy Button when pressed, with a deck being built, will adjust and add up to 20 energy cards to fit your Decks attack cost.

The Finish button does exactly that, it finishes your deck for you! Let’s say you have 52 cards and you are unsure what you should add to your deck. Click the Finish button and it will populate your deck with 8 more cards as it sees fit.

The Check button actively checks your Deck and provides various stats and information regarding the cards you have. Upon Selecting the Check Button, a menu will pop up and look like this:

The Summary Tab: This tab is a general overview of your Deck. It is a vertical slice on what makes up the Deck you are building.

Pokémon Tab: This tab breaks down your deck in regards to amount of cards, typing, weaknesses and resistances. This Tab is especially helpful when trying to see your Deck broken down at its core.

The Energy Tab: Similar to the Pokémon Tab, the Energy Tab breaks down all the energy typings and cost for your current Deck.

The Trainer Tab: The Trainer Tab is a quick reference to show how many non Pokémon
and non energy cards you have in your Deck.

The final tool of the Deck Builder section is a great way to build a deck from a techincal level.

The View: Table option lets you view your cards information, allowing you to see what each one is used for. This table is a great tool to utilize when creating a deck from scratch or with the Deck Wizard, as it allows Trainers to actively see the strengths and weakness of their cards making it easier to optimize their Decks.

III. Creating a Deck with the Deck Wizard

The Deck Wizard is an extremely helpful tool if you are new at creating Pokémon Decks. While it is the simplest way to start battling with a Deck of your own, it may not always be exactly what you want. Feel free to tweak and adjust the Decks to make a Deck that is truly yours!

Start by dragging a card from the top of your collection onto the Deck Wizard Section.

For this example, I grabbed a Psyduck from My Collection. Upon dragging it to the Deck Wizard, it created a Deck for me to use based on the cards I have in my collection!

As you can see, it populated my deck with 28 Pokémon Cards, 5 Trainer Cards and 27 Energy Cards. Now I can go in a tweak to my Deck as I see it fit, if I so desire. 27 Energy is too much energy for my liking. By hitting the + or – buttons next to the Energy Cards in the Deck Builder, you can quickly add and subtract the amount of energy you would like in your deck.

I’ve reduced my energy count by 7, I now only have 53 Cards, giving me more room to add in more Pokémon Cards. Because the Wizard populated the Deck with Water and Normal Cards, I’ll continue to choose both of those Cards to best suit my Deck Type.

Adding Cards to your Deck is the same as adding them to the deck builder. Click and drag on a card from your collection and drag it into the wooded area, where it will then be placed in your deck.

Dratini now appears in my Deck with the rest of my cards! To remove cards, it is the same motion only reversed. Grab any card that you don’t want in your Deck and drag it up to your Collection to remove it from your Deck.

*Note: Another way to remove cards from your Deck. Click on any card in your Deck. I clicked on my Luvdiscs. Once selected, they will look something like this:

Click on the Card again to bring up a separate menu. In this menu you can add or remove this type of card quickly by selecting the + to add more to your Deck and the – to subtract them from your Deck.

I’m going to add a few more cards and finish this Deck. Once finished, you can now double check that you have the right card count. If you are over or under the card count, the card number will be in red.

Once you have exactly 60 cards, you will be in the green.

At a glance I can see that I have 35 Pokémon, 5 Trainers and 20 energy in this particular Deck.

But let’s say I wanted a more in depth look at what I really have in my Deck. By clicking the “Check” button, I can examine various stats and trends about my Deck.

Once clicked, a box will appear with four Tabs.

The Summary Tab:

The Pokémon Tab:

The Energy Tab:

The Trainer Tab:

Each Tab breaks down your Deck to help you better understand what you exactly have in your Deck and allow you to maximize the effectiveness of it in battle!

After reviewing your Deck, make sure to save it for use in the Trading Card Game Online Beta!

Once you click on the Save Deck Button, another window will open. Please select “New Deckbox” and save

Another window will open, asking you to name your Deck. I kept the default name “Watercolorless4.”

Hit Ok on more time and your new Deck is saved. Now go test it out in the Trainer Challenge Online!