Alt. Format Electric Mouse New Player Deck (Plusle/Minun/Raichu GX)

[Merovingian]

Okay. I’m trying to construct a fun, but effective deck for super new/relatively new players to use and learn the game during Pokémon Leagues. I’m not a fan of starter decks. The trainers kits are a step up, but I think it could be better.

Basically, I want to put as much ‘fan service’ in this deck as possible while still making it effective. Any idea on how or what I should add that’s expanded legal?

POKÉMON: 16
- 4 - Pikachu (SHL Promo)
- 3 - Raichu GX
- 2 - Team Rocket's Meowth
- 2 - Pichu Bros.
- 2 - Mimikyu GRI
- 2 - Mew (EVO)
- 1 - Happy Birthday Pikachu

TRAINERS: 31
- 4 - Lillie
- 4 - Volkner
- 1 - Guzma
- 1 - Here Comes Team Rocket!

- 3 - Healing Field

- 4 - Great Ball
- 4 - Trick Coin
- 4- Gym Badge
- 2 - Red Card
- 2 - Random Receiver
- 1 - Pokédex
- 1 - Master Ball (Ace Spec)

ENERGY: 13
- 9 - Lightning Energy
- 4 - Unit Energy (LPS)

I wanted to incorporate as many different card types in the deck just to give a wide variety. Chaos Tower sucks, but I use a deck that dishes out status effects (Imakuni? theme deck).

I’m using the Furious Fists Minun as the SHL version, I felt, was too powerful (against my deck). I want to keep the damage straightforward and not have the game end TOO EARLY.

I would like to keep the deck Expanded legal. That said, I am trying to work a Happy Birthday Pikachu in the deck because...you never know. Some new player might have a birthday!
Mightb

 

[Merovingian]

REVISIONS MADE:

- 4 Pikachu (EVO)
+ 4 Pikachu (SHL Promo)

10 more HP on the promo Pikachu means it is able to survive first turn Fighting attacks from Buzzwole and Rockruff. Plus, the Promo Pikachu's first attack can cause paralysis and give you some breathing room

- 2 Mewtwo (EVO)
+ 2 Mew (EVO)

The Mewtwo wasn't doing much, and I wanted to add something that had an Ability

- 4 Plusle (SHL)
- 2 Minun (SHL)
- 1 Mimikyu (GRI)

+ 2 Team Rocket's Meowth
+ 2 Pichu Bros.
+ 1 Happy Birthday Pikachu

Despite Plusle being able to do a bunch of damage early on, its still a soft target. That and players using it didn't immediately notice the synergy between it and Plusle. I veered towards more fan service and less towards integrated synergy that one wouldn't know unless they knew what they were looking for.

- 3 Professor Sycamore
- 2 Lysandre

+ 4 Lillie
+ 1 Volkner
+ 1 Guzma

Sycamore was a little ambitious in me thinking that it'll force new players to not be afraid of discarding, replaced it with Lillie because there's no drawback to it, and even better if they have it on their first turn. Added a 4th Volkner because I felt that the 3 wasn't enoygh and it really helps move things along. Replaced Lysandre with Guzma because Guzma is a more recent character players would be familiar with and they have almost the same effect.

- 4 Aether Paradise Conservation Area
+ 3 Healing Field

Wanted to include a stadium that the opponent will actively get to use every turn instead of a stadium with a passive effect that can be easily forgotten.

- 3 Escape Board
+ 4 Trick Coin

Escape Board was more reactionary. Trying to shoot for something thats a bit more proactive, especially with the decent ammount of coin toss effects in the build.

- 2 Evosoda
+ 3 Gym Badge

fanservice-based draw power

A lot of changes made!

 

[gumball51321]

You might want to add maybe 1 Mewtwo EX from Next Destinies, to both have a Strong basic attacker that is simple to power up(and make potential use of Unit Energy) and to have an EX of a legendary Pokemon that every kid knows is strong. I would actually suggest to put 1 Sycamore back in, so new players figure out what risk and reward is. I do like that you have EVO New, since It's a weak card with an active ability and an attack with an effect. This concept is actually really well thought out. Although, I would think it would be best to make a standard deck(even though the resources are non-existent compared to unlimited) to teach people what a format is.

 

[PokemonTCGLover]

By the way Pokemon Leagues are mostly in the Standard format

 

[Merovingian]

You might want to add maybe 1 Mewtwo EX from Next Destinies, to both have a Strong basic attacker that is simple to power up(and make potential use of Unit Energy) and to have an EX of a legendary Pokemon that every kid knows is strong. I would actually suggest to put 1 Sycamore back in, so new players figure out what risk and reward is. I do like that you have EVO New, since It's a weak card with an active ability and an attack with an effect. This concept is actually really well thought out. Although, I would think it would be best to make a standard deck(even though the resources are non-existent compared to unlimited) to teach people what a format is.

I like the idea! I had a couple of EVO Mewtwo in there because, yeah, who doesn't want Mewtwo. My biggest efar about adding other EX and GX Pokemon is that I initially modeled the whole thing off of the $12 Theme Decks. It seems like, and I could be wrong on this, the deck tries to squirrel the player into using the big evolution in the deck to do a lot of the heavy lifting. At least, that what the aim was with Raichu GX.

Not being privy with theme decks, do they tend to have players use the evolutions to beat face?

If that is not the case, I'll probably cut a Mimikyu for a Mewtwo GX.

As for the Sycamore....should I cut a Volkner or a Lillie?

By the way Pokemon Leagues are mostly in the Standard format

The only problem with keeping it standard is that you have to constantly update the build. The places I'm a Professor at; one of them does nothing but Expanded events and the other just got started and isn't doing tournaments any time soon.

For all intents and purposes, I'm more concerned about a player learning basic mechanics and making a memorable experience. Which you can also do with a theme deck and the Battle Arena stuff. I just felt like that the concept of the Battle Arena deck could be expanded on a bit better...as well as given a huge helping of fan-service. The thing I had to be really careful up to this point was not to have Pokemon with Poke Powers, Poke Bodies, cards with harder to understand/elongated effects (Chaos Gym).

The first build, except for Happy Birthday Pikachu, was Expanded legal. But the stadium pool from there was a bit wonky (the deck I use against them uses Lucy Stadium, which is exactly the same as Battle City. So I needed something different that could actually help them out and not really help me). That and after watching it get played about 10 times. It just needed some heavy revamping. And here we are!

 

[Shfinx]

maybe take out teh ghere Comes Team Rocket! for a Town map, since that would make it just an item, and only for the person playing it?

If you want to try and teach people to not be afraid of diuscarding cards, you could maybe make the 4 Great bal a 2-2 split of Great Ball and ultra ball, or you could even add in Sophocles. Sophocles might actually really work, since new players often think being able to draw more cards is incredibly powerful (not saying it isn't, but we all know how fond new people are of Tierno/Cheren/hau).