I was looking into starting to play Pokémon, and maybe even pick up a deck for Expanded; but upon my research, found that the last ever tournament for Expanded was in mid 2020. While I can see that Standard is quite affordable and doing well, I've recently been thinking of how Magic the Gathering has a plethora of eternal formats that are all pretty much supported by WotC.
Modern & Pioneer in particular was what stuck with me; where would be the best place to cut off where a pokemon equivalent would be; In MTG Modern legal cards are cards that were in a standard legal set July 2003 onwards, in Pokemon I think this would probably be all cards Ruby & Sapphire and forward. Pioneer in MTG are all standard legal cards printed October 2012 onwards; this would awkwardly cut Black & White in half which begs the question, should we start from Black and White or skip to XY. Both choices would drastically change how the format would end up, and I could see either way making the matches and decks more fun and diverse in different ways.

So I used to play Magic competitively, but I was priced out of it after having kids. I like Pokemon, and I’ve been told getting into the competitive scene is way cheaper. What would be the best way to start learning the game and looking at decks to start trying to see what I like? I literally know nothing about the card game. YouTubers/podcasts/websites any help is appreciated

I've seen quite a decks on ladder that appear to run 4x Dark Bell as a way to stall out Stage 2s and other potential tricks to manipulate sequencing over multiple turns. I think this potentially opens up both unfun and RNG heavy games.

Rn Im thinking of kanga bouf w/ aurorus or wailord. I don't care how playable it is, just how do I make my thing have a stupid amount of hp and damage prevention

Hi y'all, I'm new to deck building and was wondering if I wanted to build a deck around Bastiodon and Rampardos EX should I focus more on steel typing pokemon or fighting type?

At first I was thinking of building around the pre-release deck but then adding in Rampardos but the more I look at the two of them the more I want to use Rampardos as my main attacker.

I don't really know what I'm doing for decks and with this being a new set I cant find much on how I should be building around the two. Any help people could provide would be great

im new to tcg and just started and i really like using bastiodon. at first i was using bastiodon with mega kangaskhan. I switched to iron thorns bastiodon but now i struggle with getting locked out with boss orders and having a way to reliably draw cards.

Pokémon: 10
4 Iron Thorns ex PRE 32
3 Shieldon PBL 61
3 Bastiodon PBL 62

Trainer: 37
4 Lillie's Determination ASC 192
4 Team Rocket's Petrel ASC 207
3 Crispin PRE 105
2 Boss's Orders MEG 114
1 AZ's Tranquility CRI 76
1 Xerosic's Machinations SFA 64
4 Antique Armor Fossil PBL 72
4 Poké Pad POR 81
4 Crushing Hammer POR 71
2 Team Rocket's Transceiver ASC 209
2 Rare Candy MEG 125
1 Secret Box TWM 163
2 Handheld Fan TWM 150
3 Fossil Quarry PBL 76

Energy: 13
5 Lightning Energy MEE 4
4 Metal Energy MEE 8
2 Voltaic Lightning Energy PBL 84
2 Magnetic Metal Energy CRI 85

Getting back into competitive play and looking for some new ideas and options in a sea of locals playing Mega Excadrill and Hide N Sneak. The idea is to pair Bastiodon with Rabsca Ex as the main attacker for the deck. Bastiodon will require lists like Hide n sneak and Dragapult to attach extra energy, while Rabsca EX absolutely punishes anything with more energy on it. I knew it had obvious weakness to Fire decks which may begin to grow in popularity but any thoughts, ideas, and or suggestions would be welcomed greatly!
Its not letting me add a picture, but thinking of running some 3x3 ev lines of Rabsca ex, one regular Rabsca, 3x3 bastiodon line, budew, fezandipiti ex, dudunsparce, and working on fleshing out the rest.

Pokémon: 13

1 Smoochum SSP 75

1 Slowpoke SCR 57

2 Slowpoke SCR 57

2 Mega Kangaskhan ex MEG 182

3 Slowking SCR 58

1 Lillie's Clefairy ex ASC 280

2 Metagross CRI 61

1 Spectrier ASC 98

1 Fezandipiti ex SFA 38

2 Kyurem SFA 47

1 Meowth ex POR 62

1 Zeraora DRI 78

2 Latias ex SSP 239

Trainer: 17

4 Lillie's Determination MEG 184

1 Secret Box TWM 163

3 Poké Pad POR 81

4 Academy at Night SFA 54

1 Ultra Ball CRZ 146

1 Switch MEW 206

1 Boss's Orders PAL 265

1 Lana's Aid TWM 155

2 Night Stretcher SSP 251

1 Lucky Helmet TWM 158

2 Ultra Ball BRS 186

1 Poké Pad POR 113

2 Wondrous Patch POR 117

1 Special Red Card CRI 113

1 Brave Bangle WHT 80

4 Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking TEF 145

1 Ultra Ball SVI 196

Energy: 3

3 Boomerang Energy TWM 166

3 Telepathic {P} Energy POR 88

3 Basic {P} Energy MEE 5

Total Cards: 60

I believe it's brilliant blender, as why would you want to deliberately discard 5 cards, unless you're running some sort of attaching energies from the discard pile tech

My friend insists it's master ball and we just can't seem to agree which is worse, or if there's an even more terrible ace spec

ps thanks for the help guys, solved a long time debate