Best Decks for Beginners?

josie0001

josie0001

The Daddiest Dad Ever
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I have a couple buddies I'm trying to lure into the TCG, as well as a whole host of younger players at my League with TERRIBLE (and I mean truly AWFUL) decks, so I want to build 3 or 4 demo decks for them to see what a real deal competitive deck looks like and how it operates.

I know one of them will be Night March (ugh...) because it's easy to run and super consistent. Besides that, though, I'm a little stumped (I've only been playing for 9 months, so my knowledge base is a little limited in this regard).

I want the decks to have a super specific strategy, but besides that, I'm open to suggestions. Oh and I should mention that budget isn't really an issue - I'll just use proxies to cover the cards that are too expensive. Thanks in advance!
 
When you say terrible decks, do you mean a bunch of random cards thrown together, or a very weak version of a good deck? I'm asking this because if the younger players at your league are playing mismatched cards, chances are that full blown strategies may take a while to get used to even if it's something fairly simple like NM.

If they're playing with random cards, rather than starting them off with something like M Ray, why not start them off with something on the same level as a battle arena deck? When me and my brother started, we first played mismatched decks with hardly any trace of a strategy. However as we got better, we started playing slightly better decks. Not anything like YZG, but rogue or simpler decks like Medicam AT, Beautifly/Miltank and this really weak version of Manectric/Toad with 1 Toad and 2 Manectrics. We didn't win a lot off the bat, but it gradually brought us into the game, and I found that it helped to get a really good understanding of what works and what doesn't. Now we've been able to build successful versions of decks like Garchomp, M Mewtwo, Rainbow Road and even Entei/Charizard! All I'm trying to say here, is that rather than dropping even a simple effective strategy on them, you should take it slow. Maybe play some battle arena decks.

However, if they're already playing with decent decks, you could show them DarkTina and M Mewtwo. M Mewtwo's pretty straight forward, all you really do is attach Energy to it, get up Garb, maybe 2 if you need them and damage change when needed. The only complicated thing I can think of for the deck is when and what to Damage Change with as well as when to play Shrine of Memories. DarkTina's a little more complicated, but still fairly simple. It's mainly just a matter of what to attach Energy to and what to use to attack. You can either hit for big damage with Darkrai, or lock with Giratina. What's better is that you can also run it with Garb if you feel the need.

Hope this helps! :)
 
Depends how competitive you want them to be. I would go down to tier 2 decks:

Greninja Break - V easy to run, gets up and running quick when it sets up
M Ray - Simple concept, fill up your bench and hammer away, v fast deck to play

or
Rogue:
Typhlosion, extremely fast, cheap, win or lose deck. Main strategies revolve around opening hands and selecting ways to evolve.
Zygarde, get our regirock and zygarde/carbink, power up and destroy
Houndoom mill - teaches you the basics of milling someone out, v handy when in a corner.
 
@double o squirtle by terrible decks I mean exactly what you said - lots of Pokemon of the same type, too much energy, not enough Trainers, etc.

I think you both and @cymonguk hit the nail on the head with MRay, or possibly even Sky Field decks in general like Raichu - fill up your bench, hit for lots of damage - as it's emphasizing concept and strategy over "hey look at all the metal EXs I have!"

Typhlosion could be neat to, since it satisfies the condition of as having one defined win-or-lose strategy. Because there are really no disruptive decks at league, I'm also thinking any kind of mill or item lock would be good, because if anyone wants to get even a little bit competitive, they're gonna have to start dealing with that kind of shenanigans.

This brings me to another point: what do you think the best draw engine is that doesn't involve Shaymin/octillery/Unown? Is it better to up counts draw supporters and consistency cards or add more disruption to slow down your opponent? After some testing, this may be the most important hurdle to overcome before showing them decks with 2-3 proxied Shays.
 
josie0001 said:
This brings me to another point: what do you think the best draw engine is that doesn't involve Shaymin/octillery/Unown? Is it better to up counts draw supporters and consistency cards or add more disruption to slow down your opponent? After some testing, this may be the most important hurdle to overcome before showing them decks with 2-3 proxied Shays.
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For beginner play, I recommend bumping up the counts of supporters. Things like Birch, Shauna, N and Sycamore are good things to add. You could even try adding Tierno or Giovanni's Scheme. This is just so they get used to obtaining cards through means other than simply drawing a card at the beginning of the turn.

I dislike the idea of starting beginners off with disruption. Often the games at this level of experience are already slow, so there's no need to slow it down more. Also, no one likes it when their Energy gets discarded right before the turn where they can attack and if you want to get them interested in competitive play, it might be wise not to get them annoyed with beginner matches and discourage them from playing.
josie0001 said:
Typhlosion could be neat to, since it satisfies the condition of as having one defined win-or-lose strategy. Because there are really no disruptive decks at league, I'm also thinking any kind of mill or item lock would be good, because if anyone wants to get even a little bit competitive, they're gonna have to start dealing with that kind of shenanigans.
Click to expand...
I think Typhlosion would be a good deck to transition from terrible to decent to competitive. The deck's higher energy count should be pretty good for transitioning. Houndoom/Bunnelby is one of the decks my brother started off with, so imo that's a pretty good one to start with if you want a mill deck. Though I am a little biased. Now, when you say you want Item Lock, again, I have to remind you that you don't want to discourage newer players from staying in the game. So I wouldn't recommend big disruption decks like Trev and Toad until after they figure out how to play things like M Ray or M Mewtwo. Once they get a hang of those though, I think it'd definitely be a good idea to show them Toad or Trev.
 
Great points again! I really hate playing/building super-disruptive lock decks actually so yeah, that's a relief. :)

So far RayEels and Night March have proved successful, but I will build typhlosion and Raichu as well and check back. I will experiment with more budget builds too and see what works best. :) Thanks again!!
 
my recommendation is that they learn to walk before they run.
start off players with a relative straight forward ex deck (like maybe Mega Mewtwo).
where they just attach energy. They don't have to worry about mechanics such as
battle compressor (initially, its not intuitive to discard cards),
this way, they can see the benefits of supporters, trainers, even proxy Shaymin.
then they can move their way up to more "complex" decks.
Trevenant Break disruption deck. Energy acceleration decks. etc..
 
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