[Retro Pokémon: How do I play?] Part 2 - Playing online with TCG One

TCG One is a retro Pokémon simulator compatible with all the major formats from Base-Fossil through at least 2019 standard. (It may have other card games as well, I'm not really sure.) It has all the cards carefully rendered and coded to handle their interactions, including many translated Japanese exclusives, and therefore makes it very quick and easy to play matches. It's also free! You'll just need to make an account. The site has an international audience and a fairly large player base so you can usually find a match in one format or another pretty easily.

There are two ways to use TCG One. "Quickplay" lets you freely assemble decks and play with others. This is the easiest way to get started. "Career" offers a collecting experience, where you begin with a limited collection of cards and earn packs through playing to add more over time. I'll overview how to get started with Quickplay first.

When you first log in, you'll need to click "Play Game" to load the lobby.

In the lobby you'll see a few main sections.

• The topbar has "My Inventory" and "Quickplay Decks" which are how you'll build the decks that you'll play against others on here.
• The left side has the queue. Games waiting for someone to join have an orange button, games in progress have an orange "watch" text, and game results are in grey. The two dropdowns above the queue select the format to play in and the deck which will be played.
• The right top side has Career information. We'll hold off on that for now.
• The right bottom side has an ongoing chat window for online users.

To get started with Quickplay, go to Quickplay decks in the topbar.

This is the Quickplay deck interface. 

• On the left are your saved decks. 
• On the right are other people's decks that have been made available to the public. You can use the dropdown to filter them by name or format. 

Double clicking on a public deck brings up a window where you can see a public decklist in detail. Clicking on the individual cards shows you their picture. You can't make changes to a public decklist, but if you clone it to your Quickplay decks by clicking "clone" at the top, you can alter it and rename it if you like.

Double clicking on one of "My Decks" brings up the deckbuilder. 

• You can select the format for your deck on the top left dropdown, which will show you all the cards available in that format in the table below. 
• After searching or filtering for the cards you want, you can move them over into your active decklist (on the right) by pushing the green arrow (or remove them by using the red arrow). 
• The currently selected card is displayed on the far right. 

After you've built your deck (60 cards, usually maximum 4 copies), you can save it. There are some great starting ideas for decks available on this blog.

To play your match, return to the lobby. If someone is already playing your format, just click "join" and then select which deck you'll use. Otherwise, select your format using the left dropdown (most of the oldest retro formats are all the way at the bottom, so keep scrolling!) and your deck in the right dropdown, then press play and wait for the thrills to begin. If there are multiple formats you'd like to play, you can queue for multiple at the same time. Note that there is no play crossover between Career and Quickplay.

Once you are in the game you'll see a screen like below. This is a screenshot from the middle of a game, so yours will look a little different. 

• On the far left top is a log of actions and a chat window. It’s considered good manners to type “gg” after a game and optionally "glhf" when beginning a game.
• On the bottom left are the control buttons for your active Pokémon (listed attacks and retreat) any relevant, activated Pokémon powers for both the active and benched Pokémon.
• In the main playing field, prizes are on the left, the active Pokémon are the larger face-up cards on the left hand side, and the smaller Pokémon are those placed on the bench.
• You are on the bottom with the opponent on top, and below that your hand is displayed. The numbers and symbols on the Pokémon indicate damage and attached energy, respectively. 
• On the far right are the decks and discard pile, the latter of which can be viewed by clicking. A nice feature of TCG One you don’t have with physical cards is the constant number value for cards in deck and hand. 
• When you play a card from your hand, you'll be prompted to carry out the next action with a context-sensitive menu.
• Playing energy will prompt you to click a Pokémon to attach it to.
• Playing a search card will give you a view of your deck and a card to select.
• Playing a gust of wind will let you select a Pokémon from the opponent's bench.
• In cases where no selection is possible (e.g., energy removal with only 1 energy on the opponent's board) the decision is made automatically.
• There are no undo buttons, so take your time to think.

If you want to see this interface in action, check out ogrehvnds on YouTube, who has a number of great gameplay videos all taking place on TCG One.

If you're interested in Career, it works similarly to Quickplay. Instead of "Quickplay decks," click on "My Inventory." Now you can assemble a deck using the limited quantity of cards you have available, and queue up to face off against other Career players. You'll notice that the cards have values in "ink." This is to simulate trading. As you accumulate extra cards you don't need, you can turn them into ink, which you can then turn into rare cards you do need. 

You can get more cards directly (and extra cards to make ink) by buying packs. You get coins, which are used to purchase packs, from winning Career matches, but you can also get coins by completing quests. If you're bad like me, you'll get a lot of coins from completing quests. 

I recommend starting your pack purchases with just a few series (Base Verdict/Elements, for instance which actually includes Base-Rocket cards) so that you can start to accumulate ink earlier to make the deck of your dreams. If you are really starved for inks, go ahead and dissolve all the EX-era cards automatically added to your Career inventory when you first join. In my view, the EX-era is so expansive that accumulating everything in Career seems like quite the grind (Quickplay being preferable) so the ink is better served building Base-Fossil decks. If you want Promo cards, you'll have to complete achievements, but that's a journey I'll let you figure out on your own.

Before I learned about TCG One, I tried ginning up the cards and counters from 1999 formats in Tabletop Simulator, and I also tried "Twinleaf," but neither really hit the mark for me. TCG One is basically all I could have asked for. It's a great way to have some quick fun and satisfy the digital collection aspect. 

If you want more digital gameplay for retro Pokémon cards, check out the game boy color game. If playing on TCG One inspires you to play with friends (or enemies) using physical cards, you can see my getting started guide. If you'd rather make your deck in a different software before building it in TCG One, or need more inspiration, check out my resources post.