Not a beginner, but still have questions

Abominate Scourge

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hi. :)

Here's the thing. I'm an oldie, so to speak, and a big fan since first gameboy game, but I stopped playing quite some time ago. I'm from Croatia, Europe, and when the hype faded, they simply cut us for cards. But few years back in time, we got paypal and ebay, so I finally started to collect again. Because of faculty and work, I was cut off again, but now again am returning to the game.

However, I got lost. The cards now are way more powerful then before and, apparently, the combos are super fast. What I did notice is the fact that the deck-building mechanics changed. Few pokemon, a lot smaller amount of energy cards and mass of trainers that in general repeat.

My very special enjoyment is deck-building in a sense that I like to have 10, 20, 30 decks prepared and ready for play. When I organize fun tournaments, my "crew" randomly selects decks and we play among each-other. We also play, always, the open format.

So in this case, it's all about fun. If I want to make a deck based on delta Charizard and delta Gyarados, even if that's the worst possible choice, I'll make it and have fun with it. No attempt to make uberdecks that soon everybody is either using or try to counter it.

What I'd like to do, however, is get into the current standard to realize how the game improved, and so that I can continue building decks for playing.

This is where I need your help.

I'm mostly interested in what is the general philosophy today, specially in open format with all these new cards.

For example:
At what number should energy cards rotate in a deck? 10-15-20? What about decks such as fire decks that use discarding and energy rotation? Or need a lot of energy?

How to pokemon play today? 2 lines? 3 lines? 20 of them? 15? What is a good amount of basic pokemon? 7? 10? How well do 2 lines of 3 stages go together today? How do lines form? 2-2-2? 3-3-3? 3-2-2? Why one less than the basic? Et cetera

And trainers? 20? 30? What do you think are mandatory trainers? The thing is, apart from some trainers that help the poke-strategy, I'd like so realize which trainers all come the same in most decks in order to level-out decks and bring the poke-strategy out rather than trainer-combo. [Mental note: We use a rule that there can be only 2 Super Energy Removals, Energy Removals, Potions, Super Potions, Switch, Gust of Wind and Stadium Cards of the same name in play].

Stuff like that. Gosh I feel like a grandpa. :(
 
Why did you post this in casual deck garage? And play about 20 Pokemon, 30 trainers, and 10 NRG's
 
It really depends on what kind of deck you are making. 2 main Pokemon lines is common such as Luxchomp and Blazeray. It's better than 1 line typically because you have a back-up attacker. Speed decks may be different and run just one main line such as Machamp. If its a stage 2 line, normally Rare Candy would be a trainer you would use and your line would be 3-2-3 or 4-3-4. After your main lines you will need to figure out what weaknesses your deck has and try to throw in a couple tech cards to try and handle those situations.

The number of trainer cards will vary, but typically I run 20 in an average deck, but it really does depend on the deck type. Speed decks will be trainer heavy as will SP decks. Pokemon Collector is a supporter that should be in almost every deck. You don't want to lose a game from not getting any Basic Pokemon. Decks that use Stage 2 Pokemon will normally run Broken Time-Space. Palmer's Contribution is useful for most decks because it allows you to reuse cards. Each deck should run 1 Luxury Ball since it gets you any 1 Pokemon that isn't a LV.X. Most decks should also run around 3 Bebe's Search.

Energy I would really not go more than 13 unless you are playing a Leafeon LV.X deck. A couple Call Energy do help so you can get more basics.~Mark
 
I apologize for the wrong subforum, I realized later that I probably clicked the wrong link before making a thread. -__-

Thanks for the input. So what actually speeds up the energy use? Because I always felt that 10-13 (or less @.@) energies does not seem to get me going. SPECIALLY when in formats that allow energy and super energy removal. Quite frankly, when opponent uses that, it takes down up to 6 energies, so it's halved. Is it more or less a mandatory to have a supporting pokemon such as Uxie or Claydol or Delcatty that have the card drawing/card searching abilities?

As for private tours, I was thinking on making a house rule that no deck can have energy removals. But I am not sure does that help the pokemon combo to shine, or it actually cuts down the tension. Or both.
 
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