If you’re a fan of the Pokemon games then you’ve probably considered getting into the Pokemon Trading Card Game at least once before, but the chances are if you’re reading this you never quite decided to take the plunge. There’s a wide selection of reasons why you might not of: CCGs and TCGs are notoriously wordy at times, the longer they go on for (and Pokemon TCG must be pushing 25 years by now) the more keywords and layers they get, and there’s a high chance that you can’t be competitive out of the gate. The Mega Evolution – Chaos Rising expansion might just be the perfect time, especially if you’re a fan of the Kalos region.
Because this is exactly where things like the Mega Evolution Chaos Rising set, specifically the Pokemon TCG: Mega Evolution – Chaos Rising Build and Battle and Chaos Rising Elite Trainer Box can come in. These are relatively new formats for TCG and serve as very strong on-ramps for getting into battling and building. If you’ve been playing TCGs for a while then you might remember the old Magic The Gathering Starter Decks; these included entirely premade decks, in an order, with a tutorialised first few rounds. This is as close to that as you can get, especially in the case of the Build & Battle box.
We previously played with the Pokemon TCG Destined Rivals Build & Battle Boxes, in which we discussed some of the format changes from normal play that are introduced in this version. I’ll touch on them briefly below, but that article has a more indepth explanation.
The Pokemon TCG: Mega Evolution – Chaos Rising Build & Battle Box
Build & Battle boxes are built for a shorter format game that works as a great onboarding for the core game. Rather than 60 cards you’ll have forty, with only four victory points required to win rather than six. There are four potential promo cards: Delphox, Ampharos, Crobat and Goodra, which each revolve around this set’s theme.
These four units — well, the one of those that you get — do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to bringing familiar elements from the video games into the forefront. They each have an ability, which is a triggered action, require evolving to bring them into play, and have powerful moves that have consequences (such as having to discard energy or poisoning an opponent). It also introduces basic rules such as energy management and the role of tools and supporters.
In addition to the set cards within you also get four Mega Evolution – Chaos Rising booster packs. Each one of these contains ten cards and one energy, giving you an additional 44 cards to tinker with.
The Pokemon TCG: Mega Evolution – Chaos Rising Elite Trainer Box
If the Build & Battle Box are for getting straight into battling then the Elite Trainer Box (ETB) are for deck construction as required for competitative play. What I mean by that is that there’s no pre-fabricated deck here, instead you’ll have 9 packs (so 99 playable cards), a collector’s edition Fennekin card and forty energy cards. It means that you’ve got more than enough to get a deck built up, with a little bit of jiggery-pokery.
There’s also a very handy guide for the Mega Evolution – Chaos Rising expansion, damage tokens, some dice, two coins, 65 card sleeves and a collector’s box with inserts so that you can orderly store everything.
So, why now?
The Kalos region, especially, are incredibly fresh in the mind and relevant due to the relatively recent release of Pokemon ZA. In addition to that, this expansion is kept to a tight 120 cards, which will give a sampling of both EX, Mega and four-stage evolutions while also meaning that if yourself and a buddy both pick up the Build & Battle format then there’ll be enough similarity in your hands (after popping open your boosters and integrating them) that you can play without having to stop to carefully reread for keywords and obscure moves.
Pokemon Trading Card Game: Mega Evolution – Chaos Rising is available now.
