Consistency in Deck Building

Jareth43

Jareth43

Aspiring Trainer
Member
So this discussion has come up in other Pokemon TCG forums, and I 'd like to hear your opinions about consistency and what makes a deck consistent.

Most of the talk on other forums talks about draw over search and the pro's and cons of each. Personally I prefer searching for every card that I need, however that creates problems when you have an empty hand, and can't get the search cards you need. However over reliance on draw engines can be much worse, as you are depending on the results of the draw to find the *exact* card you need when you need it and that is horribly difficult.

So the question becomes, is one way better than the other? Or is there a way to balance search/draw power? What is the best way to create a consistent deck list?
 
RE: Consistancy in Deck Building

It all depends on the deck you have dude. If you are running Empoleon then you have draw power so you can add more search. If you are running VirGen then you will need more draw as the odds are good that you will not have to search much. I think mmost people stick to 7 or more draw supporters (N, Shauna, Bianca, Colress or Juniper) but that again depends on your deck. This is why play testing is so important and going to league to get other's input as well.
 
RE: Consistancy in Deck Building

A rule of thumb for me is generally to play 9 to 11 Draw Support and around 7-9 Search depending on what I'm playing, but the search varies more. For example, in my Yveltal/Zoroark deck, I play 4 Juniper, 4 N, 2 Colress, 1 Shauna, and even 4 Roller Skates all of which are pretty good Draw Support, while I also play 4 Ultra Ball and 1 Professor's Letter, while in my Shiftry deck, I play 1 Juniper, 4 N, 3 Colress, and 3 Roller Skates with 4 Ultra Ball, 3 Level Ball, and 1 Professor's Letter.

Hope this helps,
LoneWolf2113
 
I tend to prefer heavy draw to search. This one deck I had was about 16 cards devoted to draw (counting Bicycle, Computer Search, Random Receiver, etc.). For me, I feel like you have to go to through your deck fast in order to see all the cards you need to stay in the game another turn. If you miss something that you need, it can really slow you down and allow your opponent to get too far ahead. If I can Skyla for a Laser that will give me the KO, I'll do that before I play Juniper, but often, it's not just one card I need, and the only way for me to hit everything is to draw it from the deck. That's why it's important for me to always have a draw Supporter in my hand. I like Bicycle a lot so that Skyla can sort of count as a draw Supporter in a pinch if I need her to, and it sort of helps against late game N's. Right now, I'm playing 13 Supporters, 2 Bicycle, and 1 Computer Search. Recently, because I was sick of getting dead opening hands (and I mean like every game), I changed up my Supporters a bit including running 3 Colress. I didn't think I would like it due to the possibility of getting it in my opening hand and being useless, but I figured I'd rather have a Colress than nothing, so I tried out three, and it's been amazing. And if I do get it the first turn, and it's the only Supporter in my hand, at least I can feign I don't have a Supporter until they bench enough stuff for me to Colress for an underwhelming amount to get out of that hand.
 
As SRTspeed mentioned, IMHO, it actually does depend upon the deck. For example, in my
  • New Fighting deck (based upon Furious Fists), I've incorporated Korrinas which allows you to search for BOTH a F Poké, as well as an Item. So, I have less dependency upon my "standard" 11-12 card-draw Supporters.
  • Revised Team Plasma deck, Team Plasma (TP) Balls provide "dedicated" search for TP Pokémon, but I also utilize Ultra Balls in order to help discard energy that I plan to Raiden Knuckle onto a benched TP Poké later. Also, since I tend to play with a full bench, I use Colress a bit more in this deck too. Shadow Triad is also another Supporter that allows you to recover any TP card from your discard pile; so, one could retrieve either a TP Poké, Supporter, Stadium, etc.
  • Charizard or Pyroar decks, one can take advantage of the Blacksmith-Fiery Torch combo in order to provide some energy attachment acceleration, as well as Item-supported card draw. Since Blacksmith is a Supporter, I had to re-balance my normal card-draw Supporter mix (to minimize/avoid Supporter "clashes"). I also run 4 Ultra Balls to provide extra Poké search capability, AND provide ample opportunities to discard R energy that will be Blacksmith'd later.
As you can see, 3 different decks that can vary in Supporter-Item mix and Poké search capabilities quite a bit; so, I believe you just need to find the right balance through lots of play-testing till you are satisfied with the results.
 
To me, draw power is going to be slightly more important in the long run, because when you're drawing 5-10 cards, and you're hitting a few search cards off that, plus others things you drew into that you needed, it just allows you to get your strategy rolling extremely fast. But if you just search and don't draw, obviously your hand gets empty and it slows you down later on in the game unless you can start drawing some cards.

But one thing I'm sure most agree on is that you have to have a good balance of both, since doing so increases your deck's consistency exponentially.
 
I'd say the best way to do it is to have a balance, that way you draw the search cards you need with those draw cards along with other cards that may be useful.
 
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