Cards, Cards EVERYWHERE

Upon a boring night, when there isn't too much else to do, I pull out some cards. But it's no ordinary deck that most are familiar with, that with aces, kings, queens, jacks, and the numbers one through ten. No, it is -gulp- Pokemon cards.

The Pokemon TCG is the card game version of the Pokemon video games, however, with several differences. It follows the same, "Defeat your opponents Pokemon" but with cards in lieu of the pixellized creatures that people such as myself are familiarized with. The game is played with 60 cards, one deck per person. You lay down six cards, dubbed "Prize cards" which are obtained whenever you "Knock Out" the other persons card. It doesn't seem too complicated now, but it gets more confusing. In addition to the Pokemon, there are "Trainer" and "Supporter" along with the occasional "Stadium" which are added to the mix. Trainers can be played multiple times in your turn, while Supporters can be played once a turn, and only one Stadium can be played at a given time. These cards may either help look for cards, deal damage, et cetera...

Confusing yet? To be honest, I got a little lost at first. But I figured it out at one point.

In addition, some Pokemon may have PokePowers or PokeBodies which can do various things during the game. Some can be very useful, such as Rain Dance (Feraligatr HGSS) which can allow placement of Water Energies on a card more than the usual once per turn. Energy cards are the staple of a deck. Without them, you generally cannot attack or with some, retreat.

So let's recap:
There are:
Pokemon
Trainers
Supporters
Stadiums
Energies
PokePowers
PokeBodies

Okay, this is getting to be a bit much. But it gets even worse.

Some are nearly unusable.

In the TCG, there is massive overcentralization in the types of decks used. Upon writing, "LostGar", featuring the Lost World stadium, is one of the biggest decks in the current format next to the long running "LuxChomp". There are of course some rogue builds floating about, but they have to be able to handle the mass majority AND the possibility of your opponent running a deck that rolls all over you.

tl;dr TCG is crazy.