Standard Fire/Water Toolbox (Infernape/Talonflame/Slowbro/Slowking)

[Dallen1218]

Recently started playing PTCG and for one reason or another I started making a red blue deck out of the cards I bought. The deck seems decent against the people I play against at my FLGS but I feel it could be improved.

3 chimchar
2 monferno
2 infernape
1 volcanion
1 volcanion EX
1 druddigon
2 Lapras
1 palKia EX
2 slow poke
1 slowbro
1 slowing
3 fletchling
2 fletchinder
2 talon flame
1 talon flame BREAK
1 ninja boy
1 energy pouch
4 professor sycamore
1 psychics third eye
3 great ball
1 Tierno
1 super rod

8 water energy
2 special water energy from break point
14 fire energy

I mainly have break point and steam seige cards. Any help with this deck would be appreciated aswell as any tips for a new deck Builder such as myself.

 

[Dallen1218]

Did I post this in the wrong thread or is this not a friendly form to post this stuff.

 

[Master Golurk]

no you did the right thing. You play MTG, didn't you?

 

[NinjaPenguin]

Here are some quick thoughts on this deck. 24 energies is way too much. You need to cut down to less than 15 to accommodate for trainers. 25 Pokemon are also way too much. You need to cut some lines (I suggest Druddigon, Laura's (whatever that is), slowpoke, and one of the Stage 2 lines). You can use this space to add a couple more "Big Basics." For the new trainers, you should replace great balls with ultra ball, cut Tierno, add N, add Lysandre, add Hex Maniac, add VS seeker, and add more consistency cards like Tranier's Mail. I suggest you look online at a results page to see what typical deck lists look like and try to emulate them in your own list.

 

[Dallen1218]

Yes I did play MTG. And thanks ninja I keep looking and see what I can come up with.

 

[Dallen1218]

Sorry I meant lapras. I was at gen con and someone recommended this site to me so I posted from my phone and it auto corrected to Laura's

 

[PineDog]

Some recommendations to help your deck, you need a central idea for your deck, you have way too many Pokemon lines in your deck. From the looks of it, your trying to build either a Infernape deck, or a Talonflame BREAK deck. As such, you want to build a deck around one of those and not the others. Try to add more trainers in your deck to make it more consistent (Ex. Professor Sycamore, N, Trainers' Mail, Battle Compressor, VS Seeker, etc.) look around at other people deck's lists and see what trainer cards are frequently used. If you can't get some of the expensive cards, you could try other, less expensive cards like Shauna, Acro Bike, and a few others. I would completely remove all the water Pokemon and Energy from your decks, it's too cramped. Here's an example of what I would change:

Remove:
-1 Druddigon
-1 Lapras
-1 Palkia-EX
-2 Slowpoke
-1 Slowbro
-1 Slowking
-3 Fletchling
-2 Fletchinder
-2 Talonflame
-1 Talonflame BREAK
-3 Great Ball
-1 Tierno
-8 Water Energy
-2 Splash Energy

Add:
+1 Monferno
+1 Infernape
+2 Volcanion
+2 Shaymin-EX
+2 N
+1 Lysandre
+4 VS Seeker
+4 Trainers' Mail
+4 Battle Compressor
+4 Rare Candy
+2 Muscle Band

Some other cards to include would be Puzzle of Tine, Ninja Boy, and Pokemon Ranger, but add the other cards in first before these.

Hope this helps!

 

[NinjaPenguin]

@PineDog As this is his first deck, I'm fine with imperfections (and a lack of fire water synergy) in his list. My first list was a mess, but it helped me get better at them.
@Dallen1218 Pokemon list ratios are confusing. Theme decks are 20-20-20, but they are very misleading. A normal decklist will be something like 10-40-10. Since this is your first deck, and you want a lot of Pokemon in the deck, we can start at 15-30-15.

 

[Dallen1218]

Thanks to everyone for the help and suggestions. The community is making me feel better about dropping magic and picking up PTCG as so far everyone has been kind and helpful.
I just wanted to post my updated deck based off my Google finds and the help/suggestions I received from this site.

If I do not have a full play-set of a certain card it is probably because I did not have 2 or more of that card. If there is a card I MUST have multiples of please let me know which card it is and a brief description why, because I am going to order some cards online so and would like to make sure I get the most used cards in standard.

Edit: I played 3 matches against someone at my FLGS and won 2 out of the 3. I lost the first match due to having to mulligan and then only getting 1 basic Pokemon on my re-draw and could not get another basic on the bench before my opponent killed my active Pokemon wining him the game. Other than that the deck seemed OK-ish on a beginner level.

So I took all of your suggestions and modified the deck as follows.

Pokemon - 14
3 Volcanion EX STS
2 Volcanion STS
3 Chimchar
3 Monferno
3 Infernape

Trainers - 32
1 Energy Pouch
1 Acro Bike
2 Pokemon Ranger
4 Professor Sycamore
2 Psychic Third Eye
1 Super Rod
1 Trainers Mail
2 Puzzle of Time
3 Great Ball
2 Shauna
4 Ninja Boy
2 Trainers Letter
3 Max Elixir
1 Fisherman
1 Ultra Ball
2 Fighting Fury Belt

Energy - 14
13 Fire
1 Buring

 

[NinjaPenguin]

This is honestly an amazing improvement from the beginning! I can tell you have worked very hard on this. Some quick notes:
VS Seeker must be bought as 4-of, N as at least 1-of, and Ultra Ball as at least 4-of. I would say Shaymin EX is needed, but it is so expensive you should wait to see how much you like the game before you buy it.
Great Ball, Psychic's Third Eye, Shauna, and Puzzle of Time are not needed, and should be replaced with more items (Be sure to include Rare Candy). I'd assume you want Volcanion as a starter. If so. increase the count to 4.
P.S. You don't need to fully abandon the fire water concept (though you would probably need to scrap the idea of evolutions in it). If you feel like it could work, try it. Having fun is the most important thing.