Deck Building By Aaron

The first step to building a deck is deciding what types
you want to use. You should choose types based on
what you want your deck to do, for example if you want
to make a poison deck then you should use grass types,
if you wanted to make an evolution deck then use types
with strong evolving pokemon like fire and water.
As you've probably heard before you should try to pick two
types that work well together. For example, water and fighting
would be a good combination because water is weak
to electric but electric is weak to fighting. Plus, fighting types
like Hitmonchan, can attack fast while you build up your
water types on the bench. You could only use one type
in your deck but if you run into your weakness you would
be in trouble. If you do decide to use only one color
be sure to put in plenty of colorless Pokemon, but never play
an all colorless deck because you will get creamed. Also,
playing a three color deck doesn't work well because you will
have trouble getting the right energy cards, and decks with
every color will be torn apart by a haymaker or any other strong
deck with a good strategy

The next step in building a killer deck is choosing the pokemon
that will do what you want to do. The first thing to remember
is that what makes a good deck is the strategy behind it not
the number of rare cards it contains. Just because a deck
has 4 Charizards does not mean that it is a good deck.
Remember to leave room for energy and trainers. Depending
on what kind of deck you are making you should have between
15 and 24 Pokemon with at least 10 basics. And if you use
evaluations always use a good ratio, if you want to get a stage 2
out then you should use a 3 basics, 2 stage 1 and the stage 2
or you could use 4,3,2 or 4,4,3 but don't use 1,1,1 you'll
never get the stage 2 out!. And if it's a stage 1 then you could
use 4,3 or 3,2 or 2,1 or whatever you want, just not 1,1.

Energy is obviously an important part your deck but figuring
out how much energy to put in can be difficult. Most decks
need between 20 and 30 energy cards but it depends on
what type your using and how many Pokemon you are using.
If you are using fire types you will need more energy because
they often have to discard energy for more powerful attacks,
but other types can attack for less energy without discarding.
One fairly effective way of determining how much energy you
need is to get all the basic and evolution cards you are using
(not counting the cards that evolve) and add up the number
of energy cards necessary for those cards to attack, then
if then number you get is less then 20 then you should add
a few more basic cards and then see how much energy you
need. If the number you get is more then 30 then you should
use less pokemon and have about 29 energy cards in your
deck. or you could have 26 energy and a couple energy
retrievals. If the number you got was between 20 and 30 then
put that many energy cards in.

Trainers win games, it's as simple as that and if you disagree
with me then look at the deck list of any tourney winning deck
I guarantee it'll have at least 12 trainers and if it doesn't there
were probably only 5 people there. Every deck should have
between 12 and 22 trainers and you should pick trainers cards
that work well with each other and the other cards you are using,
for example if you are making an evolution deck then put in trainer
cards like computer search and pokemon trader to help you get
the cards you need. And remember every deck needs 4 Bills!
it doesn't matter what kind of deck you have, you always should
have 4 Bills. Energy Removal is another good trainer card, almost
every tourney winning deck has 4 energy removals. Potions, Super
Potions and Professor Oak are other good trainer cards for any deck.

Just remember the most important part of a deck is its strategy,
and try to make an original deck, I know that haymakers are very
good decks but instead of copying them try to make them better
or make a deck to beat haymakers. If you still need help e-mail