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Pokemon the video game, not the TCG. The video game requires no money aside from the cartridge, and the strategy is surprisingly deep: https://www.smogon.com/fo

Pokemon the video game, not the TCG. The video game requires no money aside from the cartridge, and the strategy is surprisingly deep: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-ou-metagame-discussion-thread-v7-usage-stats-in-post-3539.3672210/ https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-ou-metagame-discuss... Magic is the superior TCG in my opinion, thou Pokemon TCG is fun. In any case, don't play the 'pay to win' formats. Instead, play draft or sealed, which are much more fair.

jpe90 4y ago
It can be a good way to spark interest in programming as well! :) https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/569688211158511616?lang=en https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/569688211158511616?... (definitely stealing this technique, we'll see if it pays off in... nine years or so?)
mattnewton 4y ago
Or use proxies. Cockatrice is a good client for MTG as well, it doesn't enforce the rules but provides everything you need to play online with friends.
xmprt 4y ago
And if you want to play Showdown, you don't even need to pay for cartridges either. Plus there's no grinding for EVs, IVs, moves, and items.
vjerancrnjak 4y ago
Hmm, interesting, I went through the guides and I have no idea what this game is about. Is it just regular Pokemon game but somehow you play against others online?
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Yes
- dragontamer 4y ago
  You choose a team of 6 Pokemon out of 898, each Pokemon chooses 4 moved out of thousands. Each Pokemon has 2 or 3 abilities to choose from depending on how you breed them. Both players take turns simultaneously choosing attacks until they KO all opponent pokemon
oneoff786 4y ago
Pokémon gameplay can be deep but it’s pretty impenetrable for a kid just playing the game on his own. Most kids will just use the biggest attack moves, and that’s absolutely fine for the difficulty of the single player story made last I checked. I wouldn’t really want kids getting deep into an online community meta personally.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  Even if the kids are just using the highest-attack moves and switching pokemon, that's still a deep game. That's the basics of "Pivoting" and "damage sponging". Many pokemon have self-recovery moves (slack off, recover, etc. etc.). Even when I was 10, I knew that if my sponge took a hit, and recovered the damage faster than my opponent could deal damage, I'd force them to switch. Set-up sweepers, hazards, status effects and ability combos get complicated for sure. Taunt vs Substitute, Prankster vs Dark, there's too much to memorize here. But kids don't need to reach that level to still have the importance of bluffing, reading, and predicting.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    Seems like a pretty low bar tbh

jpe90 4y ago

It can be a good way to spark interest in programming as well! :) https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/569688211158511616?lang=en https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/569688211158511616?... (definitely stealing this technique, we'll see if it pays off in... nine years or so?)

mattnewton 4y ago

Or use proxies. Cockatrice is a good client for MTG as well, it doesn't enforce the rules but provides everything you need to play online with friends.

xmprt 4y ago

And if you want to play Showdown, you don't even need to pay for cartridges either. Plus there's no grinding for EVs, IVs, moves, and items.

vjerancrnjak 4y ago

Hmm, interesting, I went through the guides and I have no idea what this game is about. Is it just regular Pokemon game but somehow you play against others online?

oneoff786 4y ago
Yes
dragontamer 4y ago
You choose a team of 6 Pokemon out of 898, each Pokemon chooses 4 moved out of thousands. Each Pokemon has 2 or 3 abilities to choose from depending on how you breed them. Both players take turns simultaneously choosing attacks until they KO all opponent pokemon

oneoff786 4y ago

Pokémon gameplay can be deep but it’s pretty impenetrable for a kid just playing the game on his own. Most kids will just use the biggest attack moves, and that’s absolutely fine for the difficulty of the single player story made last I checked. I wouldn’t really want kids getting deep into an online community meta personally.

dragontamer 4y ago
Even if the kids are just using the highest-attack moves and switching pokemon, that's still a deep game. That's the basics of "Pivoting" and "damage sponging". Many pokemon have self-recovery moves (slack off, recover, etc. etc.). Even when I was 10, I knew that if my sponge took a hit, and recovered the damage faster than my opponent could deal damage, I'd force them to switch. Set-up sweepers, hazards, status effects and ability combos get complicated for sure. Taunt vs Substitute, Prankster vs Dark, there's too much to memorize here. But kids don't need to reach that level to still have the importance of bluffing, reading, and predicting.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Seems like a pretty low bar tbh