General Deck Building Help

[nicoga3000]

I recently decided to start getting quasi-serious about Pokemon. I played Magic a lot years back, played the WoW TCG after Cryptozoic took over and fixed it up, and even a few random games in the interim. Pokemon though, just seems...Fun. I don't know what it is, but I'm heavily drawn to the simplicity, but intrigued by how powerful and competitive the game can be.

I have a bit of a problem though...Deck building is significantly more confusing for me in Pokemon than in other card games. In Magic, you fielded 4 fireballs, 4 lightning bolts, 4 Hellspark Elemental's, etc etc. In WoW, it was the same thing. But in Pokemon, I feel like the deck building is a bit more fine than other card games since you can't even USE the big guys unless you draw the little guys (and they need to survive!).

So first, I'm trying to limit myself to B&W and dabble a bit in HGSS cards. The reason being, B&W is readily available and reasonably cheap. Also, new set means starting somewhat fresh - the next set at the end of August means it gives me time to get familiar with everything available. Here's my little list of questions...Hopefully I can get some help and be on my way to building fun/competitive decks!

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1) I see stuff like 3-2-3 or 3-3 all the time. What's that about?

2) How many different Pokemon should you include in a standard deck? You can't do a white weenie deck like in Magic, since if you lose 6, you lose the game, no matter what you've got on the table. I feel like this is more important than I give it credit for.

3) Trainers/items/etc stuff. What's a good balance here? What are some absolute 100% must have cards here that play nice with most decks? I know they exist, I just don't know which ones they are! There are literally hundreds of these things, and so few of them find use for me.

4) Energy. Oh my lord, energy. If you play Magic, you know what mana screwed is. I feel like I get energy screwed a lot. It's tough, and it's annoying - it renders you useless in every sense of the word. Between regular and special energies, how does one go about figuring a good balance?

5) Along with question 2, I feel like some Pokemon are MUCH more viable than others, but my big question is why? What makes a good card? Super vague, I know - but I have tons of cards, but no idea why any given card is better than any other (a stage 3 evo that does 80 for 4 versus a stage 3 that does 130 for 4 lose 2 versus a stage 2 that does 60 for 3...stuff like this). Confused!

6) When we've played with just B&W stuff, I've run into situations where my friend might put out a beefed up Scolipede and proceed to Poison Claw me to death. I have no way to deal with him before I die, and once my big dude is dead, it's a bunch of one shot wrecks. What do you do in situations where the ringer card gets out to wreck face and you have no response? Or better, how do you respond to this things?

7) I also had a friend run 3 Reshi's in his deck. It was completely ridiculous. Outrage alone made it impossible for me to win. What do you do when you run into stuff that's 100% against the odds? This is in line with question 6.

8) EDIT! I'm just wondering, to build my collection more with semi-competitive cards, what packs should I hunt down?

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OK - that's about it for now. I know there's a lot going on above, but I'm hoping with some help, I can really start putting together some fun and playable/competitive decks. Thanks for ANY help you can give!!!

 

[Yougirasu]

I know it's a lot of typing for your questions, but I'm surprised no-one's covered at least some of them yet. So, here's my late-night interpretation of answers for your questions (I'm not exactly sure how my brains coping, so I apologize for any typo's or anything that doesn't make sense now. Also, I've just built a Blastoise deck which is why it gets a few mentions when it probably shouldn't, lol.)

1; The 3-2-3 or 3-3 you see represents the stages below the final evolution card. For example, if you saw '3-2-3 Blastoise' in someone's decklist, this escentially means that there's 3 Squirtle, 2 Wartortle and 3 Blastoise in but it's been shortened. The same can be said of the 3-3's as well, also, having less of the middle stage appears when there are Rare Candies in use since if you can play that card you skip the middle evolution.

2; You're generally best sticking to 2 lines that will be the focus of the attack in the deck, maybe 3 depending on the deck. Other than that, you'll want cards that can help your deck work better either at the start or throughout by drawing cards or searching through your deck (see Cleffa and Ninetails from HeartGold & Soul Silver for the former and Mantine from the same set for the latter)

3; Trainers are generally seen as the life-blood of the deck, without them the deck can't really function as well as it could. Most decks seem to use around 25 Trainers, but some can go higher or lower than that depending on the number of energy or pokemon it needs. Some good staples are;
Trainers: Pokemon Communication and Rare Candy are the most commonly seen ones, but cards like Junk Arm and Dual Ball have their places in a few decks as well. The upcoming Pokemon Catcher is likely to be a popular card as well.
Supporters: Pokemon Collector, Prof. Oak's New Theory, Prof. Juniper, Sages Training, Seeker and Interviewers Questions are all common sights and usually form the bulk of the deck after this recent rotation. I should also mention Twins as well, sometimes it gets overlooked if a deck's fast, but for slower decks it can really set up in the late game.
As for Stadiums, they're generally deck specific (except for Broken Time-Space, but that's been rotated now), so I can't really mention any.

4; With energy, you're usually looking to have somewhere between 12 and 15 within a basic deck, with those numbers going up or down depending on how they're used and how much your attacks cost. With Special Energies, you can only have 4 in the deck so they're usually there to complement the regular energies that you have.

5; Generally, the best Pokemon are ones that can hit hard and fast and have the support to help them do this. Pokemon such as Donphan Prime, Yanmega Prime or Cinccino are noted for their low energy but powerful attacks, Yanmega is sticking out at the minute due to doing 70 damage for no energy if you can manage your hand. The higher attackers such as Reshiram, Zekrom, Machamp and even Blastoise are ones that can hit hard for more energy but rely on some support and it's the support that makes them viable. Reshiram and Blastoise rely on another pokemon (Emboar and Floatzel, respectively) to get the energy onto them to power their attacks each turn whilst Zekrom relies on a combination of Pachirisu and Shaymin to get it's energy out and clean up at the start. Finally, Machamp makes use of the Pokemon who're out before him by using his body to take their energy and switch himself out in their place to deal greater damage. It's the sort of synergy that you see in these sort of combos that make a pokemon viable, although some do it alone like Ursaring Prime who gets +60 to his attacks just by taking damage.

6; Usually if this appears, hope you have either something set up on the bench, something with a decent resistance or plenty of trainers in your hand to build something fast. In tournaments, if someone was to be in a situation like you describe, they'd probably just end the match there to save time. But if you're not one to do that or you're playing a simple friendly, you would usually aim to send out the bulkier 'fodder' for it to kill whilst you play your hand as best you can to get something on your bench. Sometimes, your opponent will just get ahead of you and you won't be able to catch up, it happens.

7; Stuff like Reshiram are horrible to go up against, especially when their Outrage attack can one-shot you. With this, you can either scoop if you know you're not going to win (scoop being pick up and give up) or send out Pokemon with cheap attacks and keep hitting at it until it dies (preferably using pokemon that it's weak to).

8; Generally, you'll want to aim to get trainers to stay competitive since they can power any deck. A good number of the ones I mentioned above can be found in either HeartGold & SoulSilver, Call of Legends or Black & White. However, cards like Seeker and Junk Arm aren't found in these and you'd either need to buy the specific packs to try to get them or trade/hit ebay to find them. As for Pokemon, Reshiboar is mostly made from Black & Whtie Cards, HeartGold & SoulSilver are also good to buy since they contain Donphan Prime and Ninetails (one of the best draw engines we have and it's a part of Reshiboar). Triumphant are also good packs to get since they contain Yanmega Prime as well as Magnezone Prime (the other draw engine we have available. Also, it gets Twins and Seeker)

Hope I helped somewhat.

 

[donavannj]

To add to what the previous poster said, the current format seems to be cyclical, based on what was expected to do good at US Nationals and Canadian Nationals, which was MagneBoar, (which is Magnezone Prime from HS Triumphant and the Ability Emboar from Black and White), versus what did, which were decks running Yanmega Prime from the HS Triumphant set, since it's a quick attacker, and what is seeing success against Yanmega Prime now that will be picking up steam (Tyranitar Prime from HS Unleashed and Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin).

I also did not see the above poster mention that Magnezone Prime can be used as a draw engine for later in the game, as well.

And I'd like to add to their answer to question 2, as well, by saying that you want 1-3 core Pokemon lines and then 1-3 other Pokemon lines that have support roles in your deck, such as the aforementioned Cleffa.

And one thing I recommend is to find a mainstream deck that suits you (be it a consensus Tier 1 deck or a consensus Tier 2 deck) or to assemble your own combinations and experiment. There's quite a few options for combinations that may catch players by surprise if they aren't prepared for them, especially since you cannot modify your deck in the middle of a tournament. The important thing is to have fun while you're playing the deck.

Simple decks like Donphan or DonChamp that don't rely too heavily on combos are probably best if you're still re-learning how to play since they provide far less opportunities for you to make a game-losing mistake.

 

[nicoga3000]

Yougirasu, thanks for the phenomenal response! That definitely helps me get started at building. I guess it's just easy to get overwhelmed at first (as it is with any card game), and taking it slow but understanding the process is the way to go. Thanks!

I'll be looking to order a box of the new B&W set, and between there, pick up some "deals" on packs and such of HGSS stuff and beyond.