Hello Dux:
I am hoping you can help me with my deck. It has done ok in
the last
couple
of play and trade days but I want to use it in a tournament and I think I
need another pair of eyes to look at it and see what needs changing. Thanks
for your time.
And now,
The Fable of the Raging Muk!
pokemon (23)
4 Growlithe
3 Arcanine (promo) the whole reason I built this deck
4 Magmar (fossil)
4 Clefairy
3 Clefable
3 Grimmer
2 Muk
Trainers (17)
2 Bill
2 Energy Retrieval
2 Item finders
4 Energy removal
3 SER
2 pokecenter
2 scoop up
Energy
18 Fire
2 DCE
The strategy of the deck is to get Arcanine powered and with some damage on
him to really hit the opponent hard. The Clefable line is there to help me
build up the rest of the deck. Muk is only here for his power. Magmar is all
around a great pokemon and I use him most of the time to stall while I build
up the bench. The trainers are geared mostly to help Arcanine. The finders
are used to get the retrievals back. The centers and scoop ups I use because
most of the pokemon will only have 1 energy on them and I will be retreating
them when the damage gets too much, that way I can take a prize away from my
opponent.
The removals and SER's are to keep the opponents bench low on energy since I
don't want to leave the Arcanine out with damage on it for someone else to
get him. So far it works good. Sometimes I find it takes a little longer
than expected to get the game going but when I do it does good. I have not
faced a really tough deck yet so I am not sure how it will do then but I am
looking forward to it. I hope you find the time to help me. Please keep up
the great work. I always check the site to see what is new! I think it is
great!
Thanks again,
Carmen
----------------------
Just the day before you sent this email to me, i had been thinking about
using a the promo arcanines in a deck. Thats the main reason that i wanted to
fix this deck... well aside from the fact that the deck is interesting.
----------------------
The first problem i foresee is that you have too many pokemon, and too many
evolution lines. I'll get the number down to about 17 to 18 total.
Once i take out a few pokemon you'll see a couple oaks and a couple gusts in
the trainer department.
The energy is fine as long as is.
Pokemon:
Growlithe line: I wish there was a better growlithe available, but for now
he'll have to do. The new promo arcanines are very interesting. They're are
smaller than the original's but are much, much, faster. The mobility of the
promo is . The downside is that he has a nice chunk less HP than the older
arcanine. For the moment at least, test out the new arcanine, and if he seems
to not be doing enough damage try out the old one. It's all about the testing.
Magmar: You thought i was really comment on this little bundle of fun?
Clefairy's line: Why throw in yet another evo. line if their are better
basics that you can use instead? Ditto, Chansey, and Kangaskhan are all much
better than this line.
Grimer's line: Ummm what happens if you're stuck with this guy out there and
no support? That's right, you lose two cards and your opponent either wins or
gets another prize. Seriously, you should consider dumping this line or
getting some grass energy in here. In lieu of how much fire energy arcanine
sucks up, the latter may be impossible. I hate to dump the namesake of the
deck, but there wasn't any reasonable way to support this guy.
Trainers:
Your choices are mostly good, aside from pokemon center. Though i'm sure
about that one either. Maybe if used correctly in this deck he can prevent
alot of easy prizes for your opponent. It would be especially nice if you had
chanseys in here to go along with them. That way you can just plop him out
there to get beat up, and then either go with the scoopy action or center
away the damage.
No complaint on the energy.
Here's what the deck looks like with the fixes.
Pokemon
4 Growlithe
3 Arcanine (promo)
4 Magmar
2 Ditto
3 Chansey
Trainers
3 Bill
2 Prof. Oak
3 Energy Retrieval
2 Item Finder
4 Energy Removal
3 SER
3 Gust of Wind
2 Scoop Up
2 Pokemon Center (just be careful with these. i normally don't recommend them
in non-stall decks)
Energy
16 Fire Energy
4 Double colorless
------------------
I'm still not sure about keeping in the Pokemon centers, but until i test out
the deck personally i wont know if i made the right suggestion. Also remember
they are great right after you do an SER or two.
Ditto is very hard to use properly, so you may have to play a few dozen games
before you can get used to him.
Hope that helps,
Justusdux "Dux"