Discussion Going Second in PTCG

ForeverRanger91

ForeverRanger91

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I know the general consensus in most TCG's is that you want to go first to set up your board. The more PTCG I play, the more I find myself wanting to go second. Maybe it is the ability to gain knowledge on my opponent and being able to react to what they do or being able to attack first.

I can't find any real inherent flaws to going second. If anyone has any, I am all ears.
 
Going second for a deck that involves Evolutions means your Evolutions hit the field T4 at the earliest (using overall turn counts, for the record).

It might help to think of a player going first as actually going second but getting a "Turn Zero" before the game really begins. There are decks that wish to go first, but they are the ones that need to attack first (as in, before the other player gets to attack).
 
Never go second. Going first allows you to set your board up before your opponent even gets a turn. It also allows you the first Energy attachment, which can be important. As Otaku said, if your deck has evolutions in it at all, you will want to go first every time because the longer you have to wait to evolve, the worse off you're going to be, especially if you're playing against a deck like Buzzwole who can and will OHKO whatever little Basic you start with.

Even decks like Wailord can enjoy going first by building up a more robust board, or disrupting right away with cards like Team Rocket's Handiwork or Red Card.

In the early game, setting up your board is far more important than reacting to what your opponent is doing. If you can do something minor to disrupt without affecting your overall strategy (like Enhanced Hammer), then by all means do it, but do not sacrifice board position to do so.

Being able to attack on your first turn is great, but being able to set up first, and to threaten your opponent going into his first turn, is even better. Never go second.
 
Always go first. You get an extra energy attach, draw, supporter play, and get to evolve pokemon first. The only advantage to going second is attacking but the extra turn of set up usually means your attack is more powerful or consistently set up
 
When I was playing my Leafeon/Lurantis deck, going second worked better for me because then I could get Lele for Brigette, play Brigette and Grand Bloom GX first turn. Other than that deck, I almost always go first
 
PMJ said:
Never go second. Going first allows you to set your board up before your opponent even gets a turn. It also allows you the first Energy attachment, which can be important. As Otaku said, if your deck has evolutions in it at all, you will want to go first every time because the longer you have to wait to evolve, the worse off you're going to be, especially if you're playing against a deck like Buzzwole who can and will OHKO whatever little Basic you start with.

Even decks like Wailord can enjoy going first by building up a more robust board, or disrupting right away with cards like Team Rocket's Handiwork or Red Card.

In the early game, setting up your board is far more important than reacting to what your opponent is doing. If you can do something minor to disrupt without affecting your overall strategy (like Enhanced Hammer), then by all means do it, but do not sacrifice board position to do so.

Being able to attack on your first turn is great, but being able to set up first, and to threaten your opponent going into his first turn, is even better. Never go second.
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Buzz Cant ohko my pumpkaboo.... unless they hit diancie + beast energy so i wouldnt say they can OHKO whatever little basic
 
Basic decks that have a one attachment attack like Buzzwole or Volcanion, and Eeveelution decks like Sylveon don't mind second turn, but any deck that depends on evolutions you can't get around the normal evo rules with will want to move first.
 
Never go second. Anything that benefits going second doesn't matter compared to setting up. If you don't set up, what good is knowing anything about your opponent's deck? You'll find out either way, but getting that extra turn to play and find out what you're working with is WAY too important. It's not just trading that opportunity off for information either. You give your opponent that crucial advantage of setting up first.
The one, and ONLY exception to this is Whales. Because of how slow it mills, your opponent drawing that 1 card can be helpful in SOME cases. But you still want to go first, because you can Skyla for beach and not have to do it next turn, or you can Handiwork/ Skull Grunt for a headstart. Going first is always better. Even if you find out some games you could have donked going second, it isn't worth going second in a blind matchup just for that chance of donking 1% of the time. You win most of those matchups in the long run anyway.
 
Articuno_Aria said:
When I was playing my Leafeon/Lurantis deck, going second worked better for me because then I could get Lele for Brigette, play Brigette and Grand Bloom GX first turn. Other than that deck, I almost always go first
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Even with that deck, going first is better I think because on turn 2 you can just manually elvove if you can and directly attack with 2 energies on the board (one on Leafon GX and one on Lurantis GX). You can also use Lurantis GX attack after in the game.
In both cases, your opponent is getting a turn before you play. The only default to go first in this case is if your opponent can attack on first turn but it's not a big deal.
If you go second, you'll only be able to use your attacks after 3rd turn, and that's a bit slow.
If you have a bad hand on start or you don't have the turn one brigette, you can have an extra turn to setup better. And it's really important for a stage 1 deck to have a brigette turn as early as possible in most of the stage 1 builds.
 
It definitely is important to remember that, going first and not attacking on your first turn or going second and attacking on your first turn both result in your opponent still having one turn of play before you may attack.

...

Yeah, that is really obvious, but I think it might explain some of the confusion. ^^'
 
I actually often wondered if TPCi will ever try nerf "going first" because with the way things are now, going first in PTCG is just too OP. (And I know that it has already been nerfed once compared to WOTC-era PTCG.) And I don't mean all these crap meme-tier cards they've been giving us recently with this "this Pokemon can evolve on your first turn if you go second" BS, but actual rule adjustments. From the top of my I head I couldn't think of any ideas how to balance this out and I'm not even sure if it's possible at all due to the way most cards, and the game at its core, functions.
 
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Wechselbalg said:
I actually often wondered if TPCi will ever try nerf "going first" because with the way things are now, going first in PTCG is just too OP. (And I know that it has already been nerfed once compared to WOTC-era PTCG.) And I don't mean all these crap meme-tier cards they've been giving us recently with this "this Pokemon can evolve on your turn if you go second" BS, but actual rule adjustments. From the top of my I head I couldn't think of any ideas how to balance this out and I'm not even sure if it's possible at all due to the way most cards, and the game at its core, functions.
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The question isn't whether or not the powers-that-be will every try to nerf going first, the question is whether or not they'll ever successful balance the choices between going first and second. Which I think is what you're saying, but if not, go ahead and correct me. ;) I did want to elaborate that the first turn rules have been changed multiple times over the years. I'm ignoring that a player isn't allowed to manually Evolve anything on his or her first turn, as that is a constant. I'm also not going just by memory Both my memory and sources are sketchy, so again if I've got something wrong, let me know. I honestly can't remember all the changes that happened throughout the years. XD
  • 1999 - 2003: No Special T1 rules (WotC era)
  • 2003 - 2007: No Supporter, no card drawn T1
  • 2007 - 2010: No Trainers T1 (Modern definition of "Trainer")
  • 2011 - 2013: No Special T1 rules
  • 2013 - Present: Not attacking T1 (barring cards that specifically state they can attack T1)
Of course, this is an intentionally simplified look, as sometimes changes happened with the start of a new "era" while other times they went into effect immediately after a set rotation. You also have things like how pre-game set up resolves changing, Special Conditions, card errata, etc. For my thoughts on how I'd like to see things handled, see the Spoiler box.
Personally, I'd like to see a need for no Special T1 rules because of card design and refined general rules. That won't be happening anytime soon, as all cards from Black & White to present would require errata and/or banning. XP In lieu of that, here's what I got. Yes, some of these will still require card errata, bans, and/or making certain cards less useful (maybe even pointless) in the current card pool... but the current system doesn't actually work. The question is how much has to be sacrificed to fix things, and then determining if those are worthwhile. I'm operating under the idea that what I propose is worth it, but folks can debate that with me... though maybe via PM. Unless this is on topic, in which case fire away!

Suggested T1 Rule Changes
  1. A Pokémon may manually Evolve once during your turn, so long as it was in play during your opponent's previous turn. This tweak means the player going first cannot manually Evolve anything but the player going second may Evolve anything s/he had in play from opening setup or somehow managed to put into play during her/his opponent's previous turn. Not to be used without the next rule.
  2. Attacks do no damage during a player's first turn. This applies to both players. Basic attackers focused on damage still get a turn to attach Energy without getting damaged, and it might need further tweaking if cards with strong control/disruption effects, mill effects, damage counter placement effects, etc. create a toxic play environment. Players can easily use attacks for their set up, and that is a beautiful thing.
Player 1 gets first crack at damaging attacks but Player 2 gets first crack at Evolving. Technically, however, there are no rules that only apply to one player during his or her first turn. Player 1 cannot Evolve because none of his or her Pokémon were in play during his or her opponent's previous turn (as said opponent hasn't had any turns!).
 
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Otaku said:
Suggested T1 Rule Changes
  1. A Pokémon may manually Evolve once during your turn, so long as it was in play during your opponent's previous turn. This tweak means the player going first cannot manually Evolve anything but the player going second may Evolve anything s/he had in play from opening setup or somehow managed to put into play during her/his opponent's previous turn. Not to be used without the next rule.
  2. Attacks do no damage during a player's first turn. This applies to both players. Basic attackers focused on damage still get a turn to attach Energy without getting damaged, and it might need further tweaking if cards with strong control/disruption effects, mill effects, damage counter placement effects, etc. create a toxic play environment. Players can easily use attacks for their set up, and that is a beautiful thing.
Player 1 gets first crack at damaging attacks but Player 2 gets first crack at Evolving. Technically, however, there are no rules that only apply to one player during his or her first turn. Player 1 cannot Evolve because none of his or her Pokémon were in play during his or her opponent's previous turn (as said opponent hasn't had any turns!).[/spoiler]
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Those are actually not bad ideas to try and balance out the "going first vs going second" problem, but it reminds me of the fact that PTCG as a whole needs a complete overhaul to balance the whole game out. Which will probably never happen, as TPCi knows that they'd lose a lot of fans if they suddenly changed too much about the game all at once. Instead we get cards like Toad, Forest Curse, Trump Card (which of course needed to be banned because it turned out to be ridicolous) Karen, Garbotoxin, Trashalanche, Oricorio etc. as a sort of temporary solution for problems with the actual metagame(s). Then we get cards that counter those cards or make some of those cards obsolete in some way. And the cycle continues...
 
Wechselbalg said:
Those are actually not bad ideas to try and balance out the "going first vs going second" problem, but it reminds me of the fact that PTCG as a whole needs a complete overhaul to balance the whole game out. Which will probably never happen, as TPCi knows that they'd lose a lot of fans if they suddenly changed too much about the game all at once. Instead we get cards like Toad, Forest Curse, Trump Card (which of course needed to be banned because it turned out to be ridicolous) Karen, Garbotoxin, Trashalanche, Oricorio etc. as a sort of temporary solution for problems with the actual metagame(s). Then we get cards that counter those cards or make some of those cards obsolete in some way. And the cycle continues...
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You're preaching to the quite, Wechselbalg. I'm the cantankerous one among the long-time players, here because I can't bring myself to quit the game and stay gone. XP I love writing about the game more than I love playing, but I need to play at least a little if I'm going to write. ;) I'm not asking (let alone telling) you to comb through my old comments, but I've taken issue with numerous design (and sometimes even distribution) methods for the game over the years. I don't even play the video games anymore because I really feel the games haven't evolved like they ought to; so many design choices that weren't really choices but due to hardware limitations on the original GameBoy have become enshrined as core elements of the TCG...

...but this isn't the place and I already indulged in a tangent. Feel free to PM me if you'd care to here more. It is usually easier to share my ideas one-on-one anyway. ;)
 
I see one reason for going second: When playing any variant of Buzzwole, you have Guzma in hand, bring up a baby pokemon and punch it netting a prize and getting rid of at least one pokemon on the board from setting up. This is very possible now that you have easy access to Diancie Prism Star / Regirock-EX thanks to not only Ultra Ball, but Brooklet Hill as well for however you want to modify your damage. Other attacks that set up another energy attachment like XY Base Yveltal and SHL Raikou or lock and / or stun like Seismitoad-EX's Quaking Punch I believe are good reasons to want to go second. Past that, 99% of the time you want to go first.

Let's set an example as to why it's important. Let's say a Necrozma / Malamar ditto was going on. The 1st Necrozma player sets up Brigette and gets thier Inkays out (which I'll add is really easy to do with Mysterious Treasure only adding more consistency to the deck), and then it's the 2nd Necrozma player's turn and he does the same thing: Setting up Inkays with Brigette. Sure he can attack on the first turn, but only for something like Inkay's Hypnosis to try and stall, if they even want to put a defenseless Inkay in the active to quite possibly get knocked out, but that's besides the point. It's now the first Necrozma player's second turn, and he gets to not only evolve any Inkays he can into Malamars, but he can quite possibly do a devastating attack, esspecially if the defending active pokémon is an EX or GX, which means Ultra Necrozma can blow it up if charged enough and get 2 prizes.

A lot of what this game has to do is winning the prize trade. I wouldn't care if you took any one of my Pokemon, attacker or energy engine, that would bring you from 3 prize cards to 1 prize card and you can finish me off next turn, so long as I have Guzma in hand or any way to finish off one of your pokémon and pick up my remaining prizes, nothing matters anymore. Going first means you can set up first and take a key K.O. that would put you in the lead for taking prizes (which is obviously the goal of the game).

Other than an attack that is key for your deck to function (which are rare), always go first.
 
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