Need some major help beating my husband...

[zenurse]

My husband and I just started playing the TCG on a lark, mostly because we both have a competitive mental illness and we've always loved the Pokemon franchise. We've played three times now and he's beaten me every time and I can't take it any more. Obviously we're both complete noobs -- I'm just using a mashup of random pokemon that I got in variety packs and on ebay auctions, and he's using mostly Eeveelutions.

His deck is stacked with Evee, and he uses its "search your deck for eeveelutions" perk to get Umbreon, who he just keeps on his bench because it eliminates the weaknesses from all the Eeveelutions and lets them retreat at no energy cost. Then he brings out a couple Leafeons and Espeons and just destroys (decimates my bench with Shadow Ball and prevents me from stacking on energy with Energy Crush). He also has a couple of the trainer cards that let you go into your discard pile and revive a Pokemon. Pretty much his only other Pokemon is Bulbasaur, and he has all the evolutions so it's basically Venosaur, and I really don't have a problem with him as I've got several fire guys, but it takes forever to get him out because of the 140hp.

Again, I'm a total noob but I could really use some basic help on building my deck to counter my husband's above eeveelutions. Thanks for reading!

 

[Emperor]

What is your current deck list?

As for general advice, you should focus your deck around pokemon that don't take a great deal of time to set up (Basics and Stage 1) If you are playing stage 2 pokemon then you need to be playing cards that help you draw more cards a turn so you can draw into all the pieces of the evolution. Speed is key; if you can set up your pokemon faster than your opponent, then you're off to a good start. Preferably, you'd want to find trainers that allow your to draw cards (Bill, Professor Oak, Bianca .etc) pokemon are okay as well, but ideally you want them to be able to draw cards through a Poképower or an Ability (Claydol from Great Encounters. Uxie from Legend Awakened .etc).

Play lots of copies (if you can) of your main attacker. This gives you a better chance of drawing into it, plus it will allows you to set up more than one as it will eventually get KO'd.

 

[zenurse]

What is your current deck list?

As for general advice, you should focus your deck around pokemon that don't take a great deal of time to set up (Basics and Stage 1) If you are playing stage 2 pokemon then you need to be playing cards that help you draw more cards a turn so you can draw into all the pieces of the evolution. Speed is key; if you can set up your pokemon faster than your opponent, then you're off to a good start. Preferably, you'd want to find trainers that allow your to draw cards (Bill, Professor Oak, Bianca .etc) pokemon are okay as well, but ideally you want them to be able to draw cards through a Poképower or an Ability (Claydol from Great Encounters. Uxie from Legend Awakened .etc).

Play lots of copies (if you can) of your main attacker. This gives you a better chance of drawing into it, plus it will allows you to set up more than one as it will eventually get KO'd.

My strategy thus far has been to play the strongest basic pokemon I have, with a couple stage 1 and 2 (right now, my only full evolution is shinx/luxio/luxray). I don't have many duplicate pokemon, so my deck is pretty varied, but I'm trying to keep it in just a couple different energy types. I thought I would try and find a few basics that are effective, and then buy duplicates of them once I knew they'd get the job done. I think one of my main problems is thinking of the Pokemon in terms of how they are in the video game, not the TCG.

Is there a list of some awesome basic/stage 1s? Or which basics would you recommend that could outlast his eeveelutions? I have a $20 budget to improve my deck, so hopefully with that and your help I'll be able to destroy him. I am so sick of his smack talk!

Thanks for your help!

 

[Camoclone]

What is your current deck list?

As for general advice, you should focus your deck around pokemon that don't take a great deal of time to set up (Basics and Stage 1) If you are playing stage 2 pokemon then you need to be playing cards that help you draw more cards a turn so you can draw into all the pieces of the evolution. Speed is key; if you can set up your pokemon faster than your opponent, then you're off to a good start. Preferably, you'd want to find trainers that allow your to draw cards (Bill, Professor Oak, Bianca .etc) pokemon are okay as well, but ideally you want them to be able to draw cards through a Poképower or an Ability (Claydol from Great Encounters. Uxie from Legend Awakened .etc).

Play lots of copies (if you can) of your main attacker. This gives you a better chance of drawing into it, plus it will allows you to set up more than one as it will eventually get KO'd.

My strategy thus far has been to play the strongest basic pokemon I have, with a couple stage 1 and 2 (right now, my only full evolution is shinx/luxio/luxray). I don't have many duplicate pokemon, so my deck is pretty varied, but I'm trying to keep it in just a couple different energy types. I thought I would try and find a few basics that are effective, and then buy duplicates of them once I knew they'd get the job done. I think one of my main problems is thinking of the Pokemon in terms of how they are in the video game, not the TCG.

Is there a list of some awesome basic/stage 1s? Or which basics would you recommend that could outlast his eeveelutions? I have a $20 budget to improve my deck, so hopefully with that and your help I'll be able to destroy him. I am so sick of his smack talk!

Thanks for your help!

Look up Garchomp Altaria.

 

[Serperior]

Hahaha, the title of your thread had me frightened for a second there. Emperor hit the nail on the head. You probably need to boost consistency and speed first. Those Trainers and Supporter cards like Professor Juniper and Bianca can really dig through your deck to find you cards you need, and they should help you out a ton.

It would also help to post what cards you have so we can work with those.

 

[Zarco]

What you're doing is ok for a casual player, but what you really want to try to aim for is some central goal for your deck. Either setting up a single main attacker, using energy acceleration to power your Pokemon up, or using synergetic cards to, for example, lock your opponent or heal the damage off of your Pokemon before they get knocked out are all good strategies that are used in current decks.

Once you have some sort of strategy, you can make your deck all about consistently and quickly getting it off. Lots of supporters, search cards like Ultra Ball, and thick lines of important cards will make sure your strategy goes off as smoothly as possible. It hardly matters what you play at that point, as long as you have some sort of consistent strategy you should be able to beat a deck with things like Venusaur and random Eeveelutions.

 

[corabed]

Assuming you want to use Luxray as your main attacker, first off try boosting your lines to a 4-1-4 or similar and adding 3 or 4 Rare Candy. Secondly make sure you have a lot of draw support, N and Juniper are the most popular of these. 4 of each will help hold up your deck.
Also Zekrom, either EX or normal, is a very powerful basic which can be used as a secondary attacker.