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Hi there. I'm coming over from being a long time MtG player, and I'm building my first deck for Standard play. Here's what I came up with -- Basically, get the Miltanks out, fast evolve a caterpie, and start swinging. I saw a somewhat similar deck on Youtube that worked, but I tweaked it a little.
I have about $20-30 to upgrade this deck. Would like to maybe add one or two awesome EX pokemon maybe, other than Shaymin? Or upgrade my trainers to be a little better? Any ideas?
Pokémon:
4 Butterfree
4 Caterpie
4 Metapod
4 Miltank
1 Venusaur EX
Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums:
4 Muscle Band
3 Shauna
4 Professor Sycamore
3 Lysandre
3 Pokemon Fan Club
2 Ultra Ball
2 Professor's Letter
3 Trainer's Mail
2 Level Ball
2 VS Seeker
2 Bianca
Energy:
9 Grass Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy
Strategy:
Also, please note, this is my first deck so if I've broken any rules or Standard stuff, let me know! Thanks in advance!
You have a solid start here. The main change I am going to suggest is changing your secondary Pokemon. Miltank/Butterfree was tried out before Forest of Giant Plants existed, but now with that card available, you can use a more useful grass-type stage-2 alongside Miltank. That said, here are some things to consider:
1) Two grass-type stage-2s to consider are Vileplume (Ancient Origins) or Beautifly (Roaring Skies). Vileplume isn't any use as a second attacker, needs something else to attack with and is kind of a different deck, so I'll say Beautifly. It also has a really nice Ability. Additionally, playing your own stadium means you won't be stuck letting your opponent play with whatever Stadium they want all the time.
2) I think you have too many Supporters. With 15, you run the risk of having a lot of cards in hand of which you can only use 1 on the current turn. Instead of playing 15 Supporters, I'd thin out your Supporter line and then max out VS. Seeker. I don't think Bianca is legal in Standard anymore (unless I missed a promo reprint of it). 4 Sycamore is good, almost required nowadays and definitely required with no Shaymin, but you can lower the counts of some of your others. In a deck without Pokemon-EX, Brigette is better than Pokemon Fan Club. Another thing you may want to consider is playing Teammates. Your Pokemon are relatively fragile so you'll have plenty of chances to use it and it's very good.
3) A good place to cut your Supporter line would be playing less Pokemon Fan Club (or Brigette) and instead using more Ultra Balls and Level Balls. This way you can play multiples on the same turn and use your Supporter for something better. I normally always would say 4 Ultra Ball, but in this case you could search almost anything out with a Level Ball anyway and you don't have Shaymin to restore your hand size.
4) With Miltank being your main attacker and only needing one energy to attack, you don't need so many energy. You probably won't attack with all 4 Beautifly. You can easily free up 3 spots by playing either 7/3 or 6/4 grass/DCE. 1-2 Super Rod to recycle KO'd Miltanks and basic energy could come in handy just in case.
5) Instead of trying to fit a bulkier, heavy-hitting Pokemon-EX in here, you might be better off just making your opponent take 6 prizes the long way, and instead focusing on getting Beautifly out as soon as possible and doing your 100 for 1 energy with Miltank.
All that said, I would do something like this
-1 Venusaur-EX
-3 Pokemon Fan Club
-2 Bianca
-1 Shauna
-1 Lysandre
-4-4-4 Butterfree line
-3 Grass Energy
+4-4-4 Beautifly line
+1 Teammates or Brigette
+1 Super Rod
+2 VS Seeker
+2 Level Ball
+1 Trainers' Mail
+4 Giant Plant Forest
4-4-4 Beautifly
4 Miltank
6 Grass Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy
4 Sycamore
2 Lysandre
2 Shauna
1 Teammates or Brigette
4 Muscle Band
4 Level Ball
4 Trainers' Mail
4 VS Seeker
2 Ultra Ball
2 Professor's Letter
1 Super Rod
Quick question, if a Trainer was printed not in standard, and then reprinted in Standard but apparently only as a Foil/Holo, can I play the non-Foil/Holo in standard?
For instance, I need a few Level Balls... The XY-Ancient Origins on TCGPlayer is $1.50, but the non-holo from Next Destinies is less -- Can I use the Next Destinies version?
Secondly, is there a more "budget" replacement you would recommend for the VS Seeker? Running a higher Qty of something else? Or substituting in something else?
Yep, you can use older versions of cards. There are rules around using older cards if the wording has changed on them and sometimes you can't use them - I don't know the exact rules - but with something like Level Ball (or any other card where the wording would be the same anyway) you'll definitely be ok using the older versions.
VS Seeker is so flexible that it's hard to really replace with anything, it can turn into any supporter you need it to - but if you have to use something else, maybe play the 3rd Shauna to help with the draw power and then 1 Pal Pad? Pal Pad shuffles 2 supporters back into your deck so it allows some reuse of them like VS Seeker, you just have to draw into them first instead of putting it right in your hand.
