1) What is your name? (need not be your real name,
just whatever you
want me to call you)
Jesse

2) What is your e-mail address?
jessec@pdq.net

3) What is your skill level? (Please choose from the
following:)

-Beginner
-Novice
-Intermediate
-Advanced
-Expert

Intermediate

4) What is the name of your deck? (Please choose
something I can print
on the Pojo... and yes, this is a problem with some
people!)

Brock

5) What is your deck all about? If your deck has a
strategy, tell me
about it in detail. If your deck is a theme deck,
describe
the theme to me. In essence, tell me what was running
through your mind
when you slapped together this pile of cards.

Stall with Brock's Onix, until you build up Brock's
Golem. Use Brock's
Vulpix against grass Pokemon, and Brock's Zubat to
fetch any cards
along
with 3 Bills and 2 Professor Oaks in the Deck.

6) Which of the following would you prefer?

-That the deck be tuned to win as consistently and as
often as possible
-That the theme of the deck (if any) be adhered to, at
the expense of
strategy if need be
-A balance between the two, tuning the deck to win but
maintaining
theme
where possible

A balance between the two

7) Is there any card in the deck that you DO NOT want
taken out under
ANY circumstances? If you do not specify this, I'll
assume that anything is fair game. For example, if
your favorite
Pokemon
is Onix, you need to tell me, because I will quite
possibly target any Onixes as early candidates for
removal. *grin*

Brock's Rhydon Family and Brock's Golem Family. Come
to think of it,
you
can suggest versions of Pokemon, but you shouldn't
take out any of his,
nor put in any that isn't his.

It is a theme deck with a strategy!

8) List the cards in your deck for me, dividing them
into Pokemon,
Trainers, and Energy. Divide Pokemon by color, and
list
components of evolution chains together. Give a count
of the number of
cards in each category (for example, 18 Pokemon, 22
Trainers, 20 Energy). If the count does not add up to
60, your deck
will
find itself in the circular file with astonishing
speed.

Brock Deck

Pokémon - 21
Fighting Pokémon - 16
2 Brock's Geodude - Level 13  - 40 HP
2 Brock's Geodude - Level 15  - 50 HP
2 Brock's Graveller - Level 30  - 70 HP 
1 Brock's Golem - Level 41  - 90 HP
4 Brock's Onix - Level 41  - 100 HP
3 Brock's Rhyhorn - Level 26  - 60 HP 
2 Brock's Rhydon - Level 38  - 80 HP 

Fire Pokémon - 03
2 Brock's Vulpix - Level 10  - 40 HP 
1 Brock's Vulpix - Level 16  - 50 HP 

Grass Pokémon - 02
2 Brock's Zubat - Level 05  - 30 HP

16 Basic Pokémon
04 Stage 1 Pokémon
01 Stage 2 Pokémon

Trainer Cards  - 12
1 Brock  (Gym Heroes)
1 Pewter City Gym - Stadium Card  (Gym Heroes)
1 Brock's Training Method  (Gym Heroes)
3 Bills  (Base Set)
1 Professor Oak  (Base Set)
2 Computer Searches  (Base Set)
2 Gust of Winds  (Base Set)
1 Switch  (Base Set)

Energy Cards  - 27
17 Fighting Energies
07 Fire Energies
02 Rainbow Energies
01 Energy


9) The following cards are cards I believe should be
present in just
about every deck:

-Professor Oak
-Computer Search
-Item Finder
-Gust of Wind
-Nightly Garbage Run

If any of the above mentioned cards are NOT in your
deck, explain their
absence here, and do a darned good job.

Nightly Garbage Run is absent because I am being
milked for space, and
you know about the struggles between Ash, Misty, and
Brock against Team
Rocket, right? Another magazine says that Item Finder
should only be
used once in a deck, for the discard rate of two.
Anyway, I was milked
for space here, so I just don't have it.

10) If any of the card choices in your deck require
special explanation
to prevent me from taking one look at them, screaming,
and lapsing into a coma, please provide such
explanation here. Examples
of such cards would be Here Comes Team Rocket!,
Pokeflute, and Tickle Machine (to name a few). "It
came in my theme
deck" or "I got it in a booster and it looked cool"
are
NOT good explanations.

Hopefully none. Brock's Golem can be powerful, and the
50HP Brock's
Geodude in Gym Heroes can attack the bench with Lucky
Shot. Golem hits
the bench or attacks for 50.

11) Is there anything else you think I should know?
(If so, what?)
I want to know how much energies I should have, what
versions of what
should be inside, and other things about this deck

***

Hmm. Back when Heroes came out, I wanted to make a
Brock's Onix deck. Why? Simply because an Onix that
was actually good would be too much to resist. And
make no mistake, Brock's Onix is good... well...
except for one little thing. That one little thing is
called Scyther. Scyther kind of wrecks a deck based
around grass-weak fighting Pokemon. And since like
everybody is playing him, you can expect to get
wrecked a lot.

So what do you do?

Just about the only thing you can do if you've got
your heart set on a Brock deck is to splash a lot of
Fire and hope to burn any Scythers to a crisp before
they can Slash you to death.

Now, let's analyze the parts of your deck one by
one...

As far as Pokemon go, the Rhydon family *needs* to be
dropped. (Notice I didn't say it will be dropped.)
Except using one of the Rhyhorns for splashing, this
family has no redeeming value in any deck I have ever
seen. The attack sucks, the power is almost completely
worthless... etc etc. But you tell me to keep it in,
and the customer is always right. At the very least,
use the *good* Rhyhorn (the 60 HP one.)

Since I can't add anything that isn't Brock's, and I
can't take out the stuff I want to take out, I'll just
tell you what versions of what you could use, and then
shut up about the Pokemon.

Geodude: Use the 50 HP one.

Graveler: Use the one that doesn't explode. I think
this is the one you already have, but I'm just
reminding you.

Onix: You've already got the right one.

Vulpix: Better not let Vulpix know you're using him as
a mere weakness hoser in a primarily-Fighting deck.
He'll have a fit. Um, since you're only splashing Fire
to take out grass, use the 40 HP one for its
single-energy first attack and colorless second
attack. Oh yeah, and pray you don't run into any
psychic weakness.

Zubat: Should be dropped. The card drawing is not
worth giving your opponent a free prize, which is
basically all this guy is good for.

Now we move on to trainers. To be honest, here it's
going to be almost totally impossible to stick to a
Brock theme as far Trainers go. The only Brock trainer
I can think of that would be worth running is Brock's
Training Method, which is actually not that bad. Other
than that, which you can probably slide in instead of
PlusPowers or something, you should go with pretty
much the standard Trainer array.

Couple notes:

1) You need Nightly Garbage Run. This deck his heavily
evolution-based, right? Well, early in the game you
probably have to Oak, which probably means you pitch
evolutions that you don't have the basics for
immediately. You also might end up feeding them to
Computer Search or something. Therefore, you need
Nightly Garbage Run.

2) The magazine that told you Item Finder was bad is,
um, incorrect. Generally speaking, I've found the
Pokemon articles in gaming magazines other than Pojo's
to be highly questionable. If you want people who
actually know what they're talking about, save
Topdeck, Scrye and whatever for other games.

You need energy. I'd recommend 4 DCE (to accelerate
quickly to Golem's and Rhydon's attacks and to load
Vulpix up quickly) 2 Rainbow (seems to be all you
have) 4 Fire (should be all that's needed with the
Rainbow) and the rest fighting. 18-20 total energy
should be around what you want.

***

15 Pokemon:

3 Brock's Geodude
2 Brock's Graveler
2 Brock's Golem
3 Brock's Rhyhorn
2 Brock's Rhydon
3 Brock's Vulpix

20 Trainers:

3 Professor Oak
3 Bill
2 Computer Search
2 Item Finder
2 GOW
2 Pewter City Gym
2 Brock's Training Method
4 Nightly Garbage Run

20 Energy

4 DCE
2 Rainbow Energy
4 Fire Energy
10 Fighting Energy

***

Well, that's what I have to say. Should be an
interesting theme deck. Too bad it pretty much
auto-loses to anything with Scyther in it. But what
can I say? You told me what you wanted, and I hope I
gave it to you. 'Bye for now.


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products.
http://shopping.yahoo.com/