If you want to make competitive decks on the Pokemon TCG Online game (PTCGO), here’s what you need to do as a beginner.
Don’t open your digital booster packs
You have a ton of code cards and you’ve imported them all into your PTCGO account. Great!
Now don’t be tempted to open them all in hopes of getting all the cards you need. Based on my own personal experience, I’ve tried to open 100 Unbroken Bonds digital packs to get one Dedenne-GX in the past, but I didn’t even get a single copy. Or you might get 3 – it’s all about luck but it’s not usually favourable.
Instead, what you want to do is use the digital codes you’ve uploaded as “currency”.
Use PTCGO trades to get what you need
Click the icon with three cards, click “Trade”, then head over to the “Public Offers” section in PTCGO. You should see many players offering their cards for trade. As you search for the card you need, you will find that most want to trade the card for booster packs.
How this works, is that the booster pack is considered the “currency” for trading cards on PTCGO, with the latest “main series” booster pack holding the most value. Older digital booster packs will usually decrease in value, with some exceptions (e.g. Black & White Plasma Freeze).
The current “main series” booster pack is “Battle Styles“
Let’s try to search Crobat V for example:
For this example, the “main series” booster pack at the time was Vivid Voltage.
As you can see, you need about 30 Vivid Voltage codes to trade for one Crobat V online. The value will fluctuate based on playability and how easy it will be to get the card online. For example, older players needed plenty of codes to trade for Dedenne-GX when it was first released, but it’s easy to get two copies now through the Trainer’s Toolkit.
Other tips
If you have the time and patience, instead of trading the codes outright you can try to offer other sellers instead to save on some digital booster packs.
My suggestion is to examine how much the card is valued based on codes. For example, let’s look at a key card for Lightning-type decks, Boltund V.
Based on the above, it’s roughly 19 Vivid Voltage codes for one Boltund V. In that case, you may find sellers who may accept your offer of 17 or 18 Vivid Voltage codes for Boltund V.
First you need to enable your packs for trade:
Cards Icon > Collection > Packs > Click the two arrows on the pack image for the pack you want to offer for trade.
To initiate a trade:
Cards Icon > Trade > Create Trade (top right) > Public Trade > Fill in the “I am Getting” and “I am Giving” as needed. I recommend setting the trade for 24 hours but you can do whichever you prefer.
Take your time to look through the cards for sale and post offers, and you should be prepared with a top meta deck to challenge Standard format matches or join global Limitless online tournaments!
The Southern Islands 