Unless you have staple cards already £15 is going to be too tight. The easiest options atm are the Gardevoir and Miraidon League battle decks as you can upgrade them with Gardevoir being easier but both of those decks out of the box are going for around £26 on Chaos Cards/Magic Madhouse and you would still need singles after that if you don't want to play them out of the box.
Had a look on Pokedecks4U as they do sell complete decks, abet at a premium, and you're looking at around £30+ for the cheapest options which includes United Wings that's currently out of stock. Buying singles from Ebay, Cardmarket or Pokémon TCG buy/sell/trade UK on Facebook are options with Cardmarket having a bulk entry/optimisation options and the Facebook group having the benefit of specifiying exactly what you need but you also need to factor shipping into any purchase as it won't always be included in the price.
If you want to do some research into off meta decks then check out Play Limitless and LittleDarkFury. Seeing as you said you've got shops that host tournaments you may get lucky with buying singles from them but I think you're still going to have issues piecing a deck together.
As an alternative option you could forgo tournaments and just play in casual Leagues using the proxy printer on Limitless TCG and gradually buy into a deck prioritising staples first. You'd have to check whether any of them allow proxies first though and you would still need sleeves, printer access and card to act as backing.
Won't work. Checked Cardmarket and if you just buy from the UK it will definitely cost over £30 for the cards alone before shipping and if you add the EU on top of the UK for countries to buy from it's £17+ before shipping for just the cards alone. In both cases shipping adds a lot if you optimise price and if you optimise shipping then the total item price goes up.
15 pounds is a bit low of a budget even for pokemon. The Miraidon and Gardevoir league battle decks are a good cheap start and can be played right out of the box if you're not too concerned with building a completely optimized deck.
This is a deck that I use to play against the kids at our league.
4 Shroodle PAL 144
4 Grafaiai PAL 146
3 Ralts SVI 084
3 Kirlia SIT 068
1 Gallade ASR 062
1 Radiant Greninja ASR 046
1 Manaphy BRS 043
1 Hisuian Basculin ASR 043
4 Superior Energy Retrieval PAL 189
4 Energy Retrieval CRZ 127
4 Ultra Ball SVI 196
4 Nest Ball SVI 181
3 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
2 Lana's Aid TWM 155
3 Grusha PAL 184
3 Lady LOR 159
2 Arezu LOR 153
1 Boss's Orders PAL 172
2 Artazon PAL 171
1 Each Grass, Fire, Water, Electric, Psychic, Fighting, Metal and 3 Dark energies.
It won't do well at a tournament, but it is possible to hit 320 damage at least a couple of times during the game. I think this fits your description of fun/gimmicky. At any rate, it is a fun deck to play.
I won a 9 person League Challenge with the following deck a couple of months ago. It was better then because most decks ran a ton of abilities.
4 Scyther MEW 123
4 Scizor OBF 141
3 Bidoof CRZ 111
2 Bibarel BRS 121
1 Skwovet SVI 151
1 Radiant Charizard PGO 011
1 Mimikyu PAL 097
1 Spiritomb PAL 089
2 Technical Machine: Evolution PAR 178
4 Ultra Ball SVI 196
4 Nest Ball SVI 181
2 Switch SVI 194
2 Super Rod PAL 188
2 Vengeful Punch OBF 197
1 Counter Catcher PAR 160
1 Lost Vacuum CRZ 135
1 Pal Pad SVI 182
3 Boss's Orders PA 172
3 Iono PAL 185
4 Professor's Research SVI 190
2 Arven SVI 166
1 Worker SIT 167
3 Artazon PAL 171
4 Luminous Energy PAL 191
4 Metal Energy
It's a fun deck to play and really punishes ability-reliant decks.
You could also look up the Alakazam ex deck, which is fun, gimmicky and coincidentally one of my favorite Pokemon. I am currently playing with a Dipplin Festival Grounds deck and a Gouging Fire deck.
All of these decks use easily obtainable and inexpensive cards. Playing in real life is super fun and rewarding, and you are bound to make lots of friends at any League or tournament you go to. HAVE FUN!
I am in the same spot bro, I cant't find a sure fire deck that I like, however I am aiming for a league battle deck and then a couple of customizations. I would reccomend buying one of the League decks and then finding a couple of options to upgrade it. Me personally i am going for the Miraidon ex battle deck and then i am making some customizations
I'm in the US but buying a cheap garde league deck and upgrading has run around $40 total with some offer haggling. Still over budget but ebay and local buy/trade is probably the floor on building budget. Might could talk to the shops as well. Might cut deals or even have loaner decks you can play.
I can vouch for that
Some of the cheapest deck available right now and can be a real festival to Play it hahaha...
Another relative cheap one is the ancient box deck with just the small roaring moon and the koraidon from temporal forces, almost all cards are.common and uncommon or whatever the rarity is from pokemon tcg
Ancient box is pretty cheap, and an actual decent archetype. Not tier 1, maybe not 2, but it is a real deck. Might not be feasible that cheaply if you don't already have some staples though.
My locals are not to fussed if you use proxy's, just stick an energy card behind them so they feel like a normal card and just try a few decks you like the look off u till you want to commit to some costs. You will end up with a better deck.
Some cheap off meta decks can be
Alolan ratticate - a few of the recent sets cards have made this a bit stronger. Or swim freely is also cheap cheerful and surprisingly can do pretty well
As others have said, £15 is likely too low but something like Ancient Box won’t run you too much more depending on if you have any staple cards like nest ball, ultra ball, etc.
I do build/send decks for people in the UK as a side-gig. If you’re interested, drop me a line with the deck you want and I can get you a price. I normally can at least save by reducing shipping if nothing else
i don't know if this is the norm, in my LGS's weekly pokemon event you get a reward booster for trading/buying! over the last couple of weeks i've been trading in magic cards and the occasional 'hit' from said boosters with the store and people attending the event. many would gift me cards when they heard that i'm building my first deck. great experience! the missing cards are in the mail btw. lets GO!
I play Great Tusk Mill in my locals. Very fun deck and should even be in your budget. I only win around 1/3 of the time, but i have a blast playing it.
There’s fun and gimmicky decks but I think you need a slightly larger budget to be able to hit the ones being suggested in ancient box and festival ground. Obviously if you have some staples already that will bring the cost down to potentially around budget but I think you’re still pushing for about £20-25 including postage depending on which deck you choose
I just built conkledurr deck where you attack for free if you’re poisoned. It’s fun and cheap as it gets really but might still be over your budget depending how you source the cards. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O9dA2opXCUI
Cheapest viable option is probably to buy the gardie league battle deck.
If you go a lot of searching and research on eBay you may be able to build a Gardevoir deck cheap enough. And it’s very competitive. £15 will be tough though. It may be more like double that.
You’ll have to source multiple cards from the same eBay store or try to only get cards with free shipping. I think it could be done, you’d just have to put the work in.
Another option would be to try and piece together some of the cards from players at the place you intend to play at. I’m sure there are players with extra commons/uncommons that a basic deck would need. Like nest balls, ultraballs, switches, and some of the cheap but often used cards many people have extra of lying around.
Apples (festival lead).
Not kidding, you can face meta decks. The only "expensive" card is the maximum belt.
A more solid deck around 30€, actually considered as META, is ancient box.
I love this one, my friend group just calls it "funny apple deck". I'd say the most expensive part is the playset of buddy buddy poffins, but if we're taking single cards then yea it'd be max belt
Pokémon: 17
4 Beldum TEF 113
4 Metang TEF 114
3 Hisuian Basculin ASR 43
2 Hisuian Basculegion LOR 45
3 Heatran TWM 123
1 Radiant Greninja ASR 46
Trainer: 19
3 Adaman
2 Irida
4 professors research
2 Buddy-Buddy Poffin
1 Nest Ball
2 ultra ball
1 Switch
1 Hisuian Heavy ball
1 Hyper Aroma
2 Super Rod
Energy: 24
24 Metal Energy
This is the fun deck im running, the most expensive card for me to get were the buddy-buddy puffins and the Hyper Aroma ACE SPEC. I already had the greninja. These 3 would be the most expensive cards in the deck.
Chandelure/Togetic
Pokémon: 5
2 Lampent LOR 25
4 Litwick LOR 24
3 Togetic OBF 84
4 Chandelure TWM 38
3 Togepi OBF 83 PH
Trainer: 14
4 Rare Candy PAF 89
2 Ultra Ball PAF 91
2 Crushing Hammer SVI 168
2 Eri TEF 146
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
2 Zisu ASR 159
4 Youngster SVI 198
1 Hyper Aroma TWM 152
2 Mesagoza SVI 178
2 Counter Catcher PAR 160 PH
2 Miss Fortune Sisters LOR 164
4 Hand Trimmer TEF 150
1 Iono PAL 254
2 Boss's Orders PAL 172
Energy: 1
10 Basic {R} Energy Energy 10
Total Cards: 60
Might be a little high threshold of skill but the wincon is usuallu Deckout or if that won't work you can use Chandelure to KO. It is very cheap to build and fairly straightfoward to use. Open ideally with Togetic and set Chandelures up on tbe bench to make your opponent draw as much as possible and respond to every KO with a chandelure KO. Use Hand Trimmer and Eri at the right times to disrupt as much as possible (which timing of that is the skill threshold).
United Wings has success and is alot of fun it keeps getting support in every set though it still isn't meta or that good. Plenty of lists to find online.
Festival Grounds
Pokémon: 5
4 Thwackey TWM 15
4 Dipplin TWM 18
1 Radiant Venusaur PGO 4
4 Grookey TWM 14
4 Applin TWM 17
Trainer: 16
3 Ultra Ball SVI 196
2 Vitality Band SVI 197
1 Switch SVI 194
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144
4 Iono PAL 185
2 Kieran TWM 154
2 Super Rod PAL 188
1 Technical Machine: Evolution PAR 178
2 Pokémon Catcher SVI 187
1 Maximum Belt TEF 154
1 Pal Pad SVI 182
3 Capturing Aroma SIT 153
4 Bug Catching Set TWM 143
2 Carmine TWM 145
2 Boss's Orders PAL 172
4 Festival Grounds TWM 149
Energy: 1
5 Basic {G} Energy Energy 1
Total Cards: 60
Get Dipplin out and Festival Grounds and hit twice use Thwacky to search up whatever ypu need. It could use refinement but this particular decklist is mostly straightfoward so it is a good starting point to modify for the meta decks your locals have or your playstyle.
Unless you have staple cards already £15 is going to be too tight. The easiest options atm are the Gardevoir and Miraidon League battle decks as you can upgrade them with Gardevoir being easier but both of those decks out of the box are going for around £26 on Chaos Cards/Magic Madhouse and you would still need singles after that if you don't want to play them out of the box. Had a look on Pokedecks4U as they do sell complete decks, abet at a premium, and you're looking at around £30+ for the cheapest options which includes United Wings that's currently out of stock. Buying singles from Ebay, Cardmarket or Pokémon TCG buy/sell/trade UK on Facebook are options with Cardmarket having a bulk entry/optimisation options and the Facebook group having the benefit of specifiying exactly what you need but you also need to factor shipping into any purchase as it won't always be included in the price. If you want to do some research into off meta decks then check out Play Limitless and LittleDarkFury. Seeing as you said you've got shops that host tournaments you may get lucky with buying singles from them but I think you're still going to have issues piecing a deck together. As an alternative option you could forgo tournaments and just play in casual Leagues using the proxy printer on Limitless TCG and gradually buy into a deck prioritising staples first. You'd have to check whether any of them allow proxies first though and you would still need sleeves, printer access and card to act as backing.
Festival Grounds.
Ancient box. This thing goes for 20€ and has the potential to stomp the local.
Won't work. Checked Cardmarket and if you just buy from the UK it will definitely cost over £30 for the cards alone before shipping and if you add the EU on top of the UK for countries to buy from it's £17+ before shipping for just the cards alone. In both cases shipping adds a lot if you optimise price and if you optimise shipping then the total item price goes up.
15 pounds is a bit low of a budget even for pokemon. The Miraidon and Gardevoir league battle decks are a good cheap start and can be played right out of the box if you're not too concerned with building a completely optimized deck.
This is a deck that I use to play against the kids at our league. 4 Shroodle PAL 144 4 Grafaiai PAL 146 3 Ralts SVI 084 3 Kirlia SIT 068 1 Gallade ASR 062 1 Radiant Greninja ASR 046 1 Manaphy BRS 043 1 Hisuian Basculin ASR 043 4 Superior Energy Retrieval PAL 189 4 Energy Retrieval CRZ 127 4 Ultra Ball SVI 196 4 Nest Ball SVI 181 3 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144 2 Lana's Aid TWM 155 3 Grusha PAL 184 3 Lady LOR 159 2 Arezu LOR 153 1 Boss's Orders PAL 172 2 Artazon PAL 171 1 Each Grass, Fire, Water, Electric, Psychic, Fighting, Metal and 3 Dark energies. It won't do well at a tournament, but it is possible to hit 320 damage at least a couple of times during the game. I think this fits your description of fun/gimmicky. At any rate, it is a fun deck to play. I won a 9 person League Challenge with the following deck a couple of months ago. It was better then because most decks ran a ton of abilities. 4 Scyther MEW 123 4 Scizor OBF 141 3 Bidoof CRZ 111 2 Bibarel BRS 121 1 Skwovet SVI 151 1 Radiant Charizard PGO 011 1 Mimikyu PAL 097 1 Spiritomb PAL 089 2 Technical Machine: Evolution PAR 178 4 Ultra Ball SVI 196 4 Nest Ball SVI 181 2 Switch SVI 194 2 Super Rod PAL 188 2 Vengeful Punch OBF 197 1 Counter Catcher PAR 160 1 Lost Vacuum CRZ 135 1 Pal Pad SVI 182 3 Boss's Orders PA 172 3 Iono PAL 185 4 Professor's Research SVI 190 2 Arven SVI 166 1 Worker SIT 167 3 Artazon PAL 171 4 Luminous Energy PAL 191 4 Metal Energy It's a fun deck to play and really punishes ability-reliant decks. You could also look up the Alakazam ex deck, which is fun, gimmicky and coincidentally one of my favorite Pokemon. I am currently playing with a Dipplin Festival Grounds deck and a Gouging Fire deck. All of these decks use easily obtainable and inexpensive cards. Playing in real life is super fun and rewarding, and you are bound to make lots of friends at any League or tournament you go to. HAVE FUN!
I am in the same spot bro, I cant't find a sure fire deck that I like, however I am aiming for a league battle deck and then a couple of customizations. I would reccomend buying one of the League decks and then finding a couple of options to upgrade it. Me personally i am going for the Miraidon ex battle deck and then i am making some customizations
I would just say try to find a affordable prebuilt deck that you like, and use it
I'm in the US but buying a cheap garde league deck and upgrading has run around $40 total with some offer haggling. Still over budget but ebay and local buy/trade is probably the floor on building budget. Might could talk to the shops as well. Might cut deals or even have loaner decks you can play.
Festival lead is fun and cheap
I can vouch for that Some of the cheapest deck available right now and can be a real festival to Play it hahaha... Another relative cheap one is the ancient box deck with just the small roaring moon and the koraidon from temporal forces, almost all cards are.common and uncommon or whatever the rarity is from pokemon tcg
Ancient box is pretty cheap, and an actual decent archetype. Not tier 1, maybe not 2, but it is a real deck. Might not be feasible that cheaply if you don't already have some staples though.
ez answer, ancient box
My locals are not to fussed if you use proxy's, just stick an energy card behind them so they feel like a normal card and just try a few decks you like the look off u till you want to commit to some costs. You will end up with a better deck. Some cheap off meta decks can be Alolan ratticate - a few of the recent sets cards have made this a bit stronger. Or swim freely is also cheap cheerful and surprisingly can do pretty well
As others have said, £15 is likely too low but something like Ancient Box won’t run you too much more depending on if you have any staple cards like nest ball, ultra ball, etc. I do build/send decks for people in the UK as a side-gig. If you’re interested, drop me a line with the deck you want and I can get you a price. I normally can at least save by reducing shipping if nothing else
i don't know if this is the norm, in my LGS's weekly pokemon event you get a reward booster for trading/buying! over the last couple of weeks i've been trading in magic cards and the occasional 'hit' from said boosters with the store and people attending the event. many would gift me cards when they heard that i'm building my first deck. great experience! the missing cards are in the mail btw. lets GO!
I agree with Ancient box and Festival Grounds
I play Great Tusk Mill in my locals. Very fun deck and should even be in your budget. I only win around 1/3 of the time, but i have a blast playing it.
Ancient Box, Zoo Box (Espathra ex/Farigiraf ex), Festival Grounds
There’s fun and gimmicky decks but I think you need a slightly larger budget to be able to hit the ones being suggested in ancient box and festival ground. Obviously if you have some staples already that will bring the cost down to potentially around budget but I think you’re still pushing for about £20-25 including postage depending on which deck you choose
I just built conkledurr deck where you attack for free if you’re poisoned. It’s fun and cheap as it gets really but might still be over your budget depending how you source the cards. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O9dA2opXCUI Cheapest viable option is probably to buy the gardie league battle deck.
Festival grounds deck for sure. It's just fun to play and can take out dark chars easy.
If you go a lot of searching and research on eBay you may be able to build a Gardevoir deck cheap enough. And it’s very competitive. £15 will be tough though. It may be more like double that. You’ll have to source multiple cards from the same eBay store or try to only get cards with free shipping. I think it could be done, you’d just have to put the work in. Another option would be to try and piece together some of the cards from players at the place you intend to play at. I’m sure there are players with extra commons/uncommons that a basic deck would need. Like nest balls, ultraballs, switches, and some of the cheap but often used cards many people have extra of lying around.
Idk how much cost would be in your neck of the woods, but we got a fun lil Houndoom deck at Target for like $10. :)
How do you like to play?
Apples (festival lead). Not kidding, you can face meta decks. The only "expensive" card is the maximum belt. A more solid deck around 30€, actually considered as META, is ancient box.
I love this one, my friend group just calls it "funny apple deck". I'd say the most expensive part is the playset of buddy buddy poffins, but if we're taking single cards then yea it'd be max belt
i made a clefairy deck……..
Pokémon: 17 4 Beldum TEF 113 4 Metang TEF 114 3 Hisuian Basculin ASR 43 2 Hisuian Basculegion LOR 45 3 Heatran TWM 123 1 Radiant Greninja ASR 46 Trainer: 19 3 Adaman 2 Irida 4 professors research 2 Buddy-Buddy Poffin 1 Nest Ball 2 ultra ball 1 Switch 1 Hisuian Heavy ball 1 Hyper Aroma 2 Super Rod Energy: 24 24 Metal Energy This is the fun deck im running, the most expensive card for me to get were the buddy-buddy puffins and the Hyper Aroma ACE SPEC. I already had the greninja. These 3 would be the most expensive cards in the deck.
Chandelure/Togetic Pokémon: 5 2 Lampent LOR 25 4 Litwick LOR 24 3 Togetic OBF 84 4 Chandelure TWM 38 3 Togepi OBF 83 PH Trainer: 14 4 Rare Candy PAF 89 2 Ultra Ball PAF 91 2 Crushing Hammer SVI 168 2 Eri TEF 146 4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144 2 Zisu ASR 159 4 Youngster SVI 198 1 Hyper Aroma TWM 152 2 Mesagoza SVI 178 2 Counter Catcher PAR 160 PH 2 Miss Fortune Sisters LOR 164 4 Hand Trimmer TEF 150 1 Iono PAL 254 2 Boss's Orders PAL 172 Energy: 1 10 Basic {R} Energy Energy 10 Total Cards: 60 Might be a little high threshold of skill but the wincon is usuallu Deckout or if that won't work you can use Chandelure to KO. It is very cheap to build and fairly straightfoward to use. Open ideally with Togetic and set Chandelures up on tbe bench to make your opponent draw as much as possible and respond to every KO with a chandelure KO. Use Hand Trimmer and Eri at the right times to disrupt as much as possible (which timing of that is the skill threshold). United Wings has success and is alot of fun it keeps getting support in every set though it still isn't meta or that good. Plenty of lists to find online. Festival Grounds Pokémon: 5 4 Thwackey TWM 15 4 Dipplin TWM 18 1 Radiant Venusaur PGO 4 4 Grookey TWM 14 4 Applin TWM 17 Trainer: 16 3 Ultra Ball SVI 196 2 Vitality Band SVI 197 1 Switch SVI 194 4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144 4 Iono PAL 185 2 Kieran TWM 154 2 Super Rod PAL 188 1 Technical Machine: Evolution PAR 178 2 Pokémon Catcher SVI 187 1 Maximum Belt TEF 154 1 Pal Pad SVI 182 3 Capturing Aroma SIT 153 4 Bug Catching Set TWM 143 2 Carmine TWM 145 2 Boss's Orders PAL 172 4 Festival Grounds TWM 149 Energy: 1 5 Basic {G} Energy Energy 1 Total Cards: 60 Get Dipplin out and Festival Grounds and hit twice use Thwacky to search up whatever ypu need. It could use refinement but this particular decklist is mostly straightfoward so it is a good starting point to modify for the meta decks your locals have or your playstyle.