This question is for the Poke-Guru's!

S

SSILVER89

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Question for the Guru’s of the game…..

I’ve never played a single sit down game yet, but me and my daughter are going to join a local league next month. She’s into it because her friends are, and I’m actually looking forward to learning it too. I purchased a ton of cards, recent and old decks. And I have about 4,000 cards now. So you can tell I plan on following things through.

1) How would a starter deck purchased…. Let’s take the Power Keepers “Dark Blast” set fare in a tournament or against one of your guys modified decks? And could you tell me why?

2) If certain cards/systems are just that much more powerful, why doesn’t everyone at these tournaments just use the same cards? The coin flips and luck of the draw would probably decide the winners.

3) I’ve spent the last couple of days examining the decks people created that were posted on this website. And then I’ve enjoyed watching the experts give them advice and telling them why they should do a certain thing or exchange a different card. My question is this – Why do most of these decks focus on one or maybe one main poke-type and a small amount of a different types? Why doesn’t a deck of several different poke-types (grass, metal, dark, lightning, etc.) seem to be favored? I’ve read the 20-20-20 in a lot of places. And if you use a line of 4 Charmander – 3 Charmelon – 3 Charizard, Plus a couple other Fire type cards. You really don’t have much room for variety.

Is Variety a good thing?

4) I’m trying to help my daughter create a deck or two and help her understand it. Is there a specific Poke-type that is better than others? Dark and Metal seem rare, Water and Grass seem plentiful. Can anyone rank the order of poke-types you think are better?
 
Why couldn't this be on your old thread?

1) Most starter decks are bad. Their trainer lines are small and slow. There energies are a ridiculous levels. Their lines waste basics that can be used. They have random cards in places. And they have too many of them. They can be used as framework, but that's about it.

2) Well, if everyone played the same deck, someone will continue to analyze it and break down the strategy. THerefore, that one deck could win the game. And no one likes decks that are played over and over.

3) DEcks requiring many types are somewhat difficult to charge up. One of my decks requires 4 different types of energy, but there is only one card for each type of energy.

Unumbered question: Yes, it generally is. Actually, I don't have a clue.

4) The only thing that descirbes a type is the cards in it. At the base set time, all cards of one type have particular traits. Grass for special conditions. Fire for heavy-hitting and discarding. Electric has paralyzsis and bench-blasting. Psychic is very volitile and can change from your opponent's cards. Now, you may say Phychic is the best type from Sceptile EX, Flygon EX, Mew EX. But then, Electrics have powerful cards like Ray EX, Gatr δ , Dragonite δ and Metagross δ. So it really depends on what cards you want to use.
 
Thanks for your reply. And sorry for posting a new thread here. I figured the other thread was for gameplay questions and this was for more general discussions. If I have any more, I'll post them over there.
 
IMHO most beginners should stick to one or two types of energy, but have at least two types of attackrs. For instance one of my sons ran a deck with Blazaken (fire) & Slacking (normal) with only fire energy.

The starter decks are exactly that, decks to get you STARTED. They aren't even close to what most finished competition decks are like. Starter decks give you a lot of pokemon lines so that you can try them out and see what they do ... and so that you can take one or more lines out as you buy booster packs or individual cards and fill out the stage 1 & 2 lines a bit more.

You generally play with 3-4 of your main attacker for consistancy. If you add an energy to the basic of your main attacker you can be pretty sure that you will get the stage 1 / rare candy & then the stage 2 later on ... whereas it's common in the starter decks to put energy on one guy only to get a very different basic and then his stage 1 in the next turn or two ... that energy you attached to the first guy ends up being pretty much wasted.

Overall SYNERGY in your attackers is better than multiple types. Differing Resistance is more important than having different attack types. Differeing attack types is important but less so than the others.

Another factor might be aiming to get cards that don't require coin flips or shuffling ... these are things that give new kids the hardest time IMHO. For instance TV Reporter is easier for a young child to use than Bill's Matenence where you have to shuffle a card in. Lickitung is an easier stater to use than Sindra who needs lots of flips. Etc....
 
1) Starter decks are not good enough for tournaments. Dodgy trainer and Pokemon lines, along with too many energies make them only good for framework for a deck you may want to build, but will nedd improved lines, trianers and less energies.
2) If everyone used the same deck, eventually, at least one person would find a way of beating the deck, so would probably mean other people make this new deck so it wins all of the time until someone finds a way of beating this new deck.
3) With just one or two types, you are more likely to get the energy you need for a particular attack, but then, they is also less variety, so could be easily countered by one or two different types. A deck with three or four different types will be able to counter more types with the variety, but you will have less chance of getting the energy you will need. Variety is good, so long as there is synergy between the cards.
4) No types are better than others. Just try and find Pokemon with synergy that work well together. Also, as vanderbilt_grad said, new kids find it hard flipping coins or shuffling their deck, so you may want to avoid those sort of cards for the moment.
Hope this has helped!
 
As far as the question of variety goes, there's so many cards to count as several different types of energy anymore, and with delta pokemon and other pokemon having more than a single type, it's easy to fit multiple types into the same line. Metagross, for example, has a Psychic card of itself, a Lightning/Metal dual type, and an EX version as Metal also. Decks featuring Eevee use several different types for variety to score every Pokemon's weakness, and like I said there's many different cards to provide every energy. It's possible to fit every type into a deck and still be consistent.
 
If you are a new player a stater deck is the best thing to play it is basically the only way to learn how to play the game in an efficient way. However Losing is going to happen often. I believe dark is resistant to psychic and there is a lot of psychic play
 
The starter decks that can be purchased are not built for competive Modified tournaments, they are meant to teach new players the general concepts of the game.  Typically they are purchased by newer players to get a couple specific cards contained in the deck and basic energy if someone else doesn't just give you some.  The main reason why these decks are inferior to constructed decks is the large energy count, the lack of multiples of the main attacking card in the deck, and the very limited (not to mention poorly chosen) Trainer cards.

For a simple deck fix of one of the theme decks, remove 8 energy and about half of the Trainer cards that are supplied (commonly 2 Potion and 2 Energy Search are in each deck) and replace those with Trainers that draw cards (ie. TV Reporter) or search for other cards in your deck (ie. Celio's Network).  There is usually a Pokemon line in each theme deck that has the Stage 2 evolution for that line missing, remove all of these cards (typically 4 common basics and 2 uncommon Stage 1's) and replace them with 3 more of the main attacker for that deck then add in 3 Rare Candy (assuming the deck involved is a Stage 2 deck).

When going to a tournament any given deck will have it's strenghts and weaknesses versus other decks.  Trying to figure out what deck will do the best in a competetive setting by taking into account what the best commonly played decks are is something called the Metagame.  Some Pokemon are better than others, but each has it's relative strengths and weakness to other Pokemon as well.  While not everyone would play the same exact decks, many people will play the same Trainers or slight variations on those Trainers.  Typically, the Trainers used will be based on what Pokemon and deck strategy being used.  Other Trainers that constantly appear in decks are because they are the only cards that does a specific task (ie. Rare Candy) or counter several other cards (ie. Windstorm).

While variety sounds nice it usually comes at the expense of a competetive decks most important feature, consistancy.  By limiting a maximum of four of a kind of card in any deck (except basic energy) there is still a chance that something in your deck might not show up in any given game you play.  By playing the maximum allowed of certain cards, you increase your chances of drawing the right cards you will need when you need them.  While your opponent not knowing what you might be doing is an advantge during a game, controlling what your deck may do during a game as much as possible helps a little bit more.  Also, because most of the cards have to interact with other cards to function correctly (a Stage 2 Pokemon needs the Basic and Stage 1 to be played, not to mention the right amount and type of energy needed to attack), you want to limit what it is you might draw turn to turn.

Each pokemon type have their strengths and weaknesses along with common abilities (Grass types commonly have poison or sleep, Fire types have burn or slightly more powerful attacks with a drawback, etc).  There should be no type more powerful than another, but some sets seem to have obvious combinations that will cause certain types to be more powerful than others (in Powerkeepers, Magneton and Delcatty form a powerful comination to help draw lots of cards, so Lighting is a more useful type than some of the others)
 
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