>    Hey Spike, i live in Austin,TX but i'm gettin a ride up to Plano to
>go to
>Rama Llama Comics and play in a real tourney.  There are a few around
>my
>house, pokeleague at toys r us and a real-entry-fee-one at the mall. 
>anyway
>when i go to this tourney i have several decks to bring.  My raindance
>(which
>i fear will fall to all the sponges or haymakers from electabuzzes), my
>sponge (almost exactly like scotts-the thing is not only will every1
>else
>have one but they will probably play it better), and the deck i have
>decided
>to play with "Somebody got a Band-Aid"? Ok sorry i chewed your ear off,
>heres
>the deck
>
>Pokemon-15
>
>3 Growlethe-Arcanine
>2 Arcanice-KO any sponge/hay pokemon in one hit
>4 Chansey-Chanseys aren't usually used to fight, but same as above.
>3 Magmar-good poke, its a fire deck
>3 Ditto-my protection against raindances along with maybe chanseys
>
>Trainers-22
>4 Bill
>3 Oak
>4 Defender (Really key in this deck)
>4 Scoop ups
>2 Comp Search
>3 Gust Of Winds
>2 Energy Retrieval
>
>Energy-23
>19 Fire Energy
>4 Double Colorless
>
>Ok of course the point of this deck is to be able to knock out pokemon
>left
>and right using 80 damage attacks.  Chansey usually isn't used to fight
>but
>it can also stall from MP Mewtwo, and when i do use her to fight it
>will be
>giving me 2 prizes to their one (assuming i get 2 double edges off and
>with
>defenders is a possibility).  One of the biggest problems is energy
>removals-although chansey and arcanine can both use double colorlesses
>(arcanine only one) it will only be worse to have a double colorless
>removed.
> My best hope is to build up an arcanine on my bench with a chansey
>stalling,
>retreat the chansey and build it up while the arcanine is fighting.
>  Thank you SOOOOO much for your time

***

This deck isn't going to get as detailed a fix as most of the others. That's because it really doesn't need one. It's already very good, and I'm not sure how much more I could do to make it better.

Pokemon-wise, everything you have is solid and in there for a valid, well-defined reason. I'm assuming the Magmars are Fossil--you didn't say, but it's pretty much a given nowadays. Ditto, whom I normally am leery of, has been included in sufficient numbers to be okay (plus, he's nice if you're wandering into an environment full of Mewtwo. =)

Trainers... well, the thing that jumps right out is Defender. I normally don't recommend this trainer at ALL, because it's very defensive and as such not the way most decks want to be playing. I almost always run PlusPower instead. But this is a special case, and I have to admit it makes sense. The one change I would make is to drop a Bill and a Scoop Up for two Item Finders. In a deck like this, being able to reuse trainers might become critical. If you like, you can only run 1 Finder, but do run at least 1. Two would be preferable, in my opinion.

Energy is okay because of the large use of DCE. And you're right that you are a target for Energy Removal, but there's not that much you can do in this kind of deck. You could try and make some room for Lass in order to foil energy removal, but that leaves you without Defenders. It could be workable still, but would have to be timed just right. I'm not sure what you'd drop for Lass... possibly try them instead of the aforementioned Item Finders, although I would be very careful about this. If you have time, I'd urge you to playtest it both ways and see what works best for you.

Have fun at Rama Llama!


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