Quite some time back, when I was working on my undergraduate degree down in
Tennessee, I would take a long weekend or some such off from the rigors of
composing to go over to the Smoky Mountains to get back into nature and
otherwise recharge my batteries. Now, to get to the national park there,
one often drives through a couple of tourist towns. One of these is known
as Pigeon Forge.

Now, Pigeon Forge goes into these weird cycles where _everyone_ running a
shop or some other business on the tourist 'drag' has to do the same
idea...often to extremes. And this one year, the 'theme' was breakfast. But
not just any breakfast, no...in this case, every place seemed to be in a
mad rush to outdo each other with a demonstration of how many different
'types of breakfast' they could offer. So as you drove down the strip, you
would be assaulted with these signs, often somewhat makeshift in nature,
proclaiming "72 Different Types of Breakfast!!!", "95 Different Types of
Breakfast!!!", "112 Different Types of Breakfast!!!". And so on. For
several miles.

Now, breakfast is breakfast. Greasy, starchy stuff, mainly. To me, that's
the _one_ type of breakfast...aside of cereal, which also serves as good
snack food, therefore it's disqualified. But how you get 146 different
types of grease, starch, and cholesterol was a bit beyond me. And the
repetition of this idea...over and over and over and over again...was both
disingenious and off-putting. So I ignored _all_ of these different 'types
of breakfast' and found someplace that'd serve me a cheeseburger instead.
Anyway, it seems like I wasn't alone in this, either, as the next year
about half or more of these 'different types of breakfast' shuck-joints had
folded. Familiarity breeds contempt...and after five miles of that sort of
screed, one tended to get awfully contemptuous.

You see a lot of this sort of behavior. One movie studio puts out a film
with computer-animated bugs...and some other studio has to, too. One
skweeky-cleen boy-band isn't enough; nah, let's have 576 of them! Comes
down to PoJo's fave subject, too. One large set of monsters to play with
wasn't enough, so various Japanese concerns also kicked out Digimon,
Yu-gi-oh, Monster Rancher, etc etc etc. And after a while, it's annoying,
because what this does is to flood the market with mindless repetition of
the same concept. Just like those 'different types of breakfast' places.
And, just like them, a lot of the parrot-work won't be around for long.
Unfortunately, when that goes down, it might take the original with it,
too. Remember: "familiarity breeds contempt".

So what the H-E-double hockey sticks does this have to do with the Pokemon
TCG, you ask? Simple, compadres...

Let's look at the current state of philosophies in deck construction. Now,
this is the core from which play strategy comes. When you build up a deck,
you're setting up a set of potentialities in which the deck is designed for
specific defensive and offensive capabilities. This affects how matches
play out, plain and simple. And right now, there seems to be this idea that
a certain handful of ideas, in their basic and straightforward forms, are
THE way to win. And also right now, peoples' results do seem to bear this
out to some extent. But here's that phrase again: "familiarity breeds
contempt". How many times do you really want to play against that same
Haymaker formula? Or yet another pure Rain Dance deck? Or one of the other
stock-type deck concepts that're being used so much? Yes...they do work.
And those breakfast places did get customers...for a while.

There's a danger beyond the mere monotony, as well. Let's assume that
you've been playing, like so many others in your area, in tournaments
against decks built up using the same concepts as everyone else, week after
week. Everyone gets used to the same offense, and the same defenses against
it. And into your area drops someone playing some type that hits hard, and
that people aren't quite familiar with...or possibly, some type that hasn't
even been touted as being one of the 'sure-fires'. It might not even be
that potent a deck...but everyone's used to the same ol' groove. What
happens? Well, without saying that the 'stranger' would win for 100%
certain, it _is_ possible to postulate that their odds of beating you and
your friends like a drum are considerably higher than you'd expect. Or that
you'd even want to think about.

It's easy to assume that "Rain Dance solves everything", or "Haymakers
solve everything", or so on. Fact is, they don't. Pure concepts, repeated
over and over, only lead to a false sense of security, as well as a
stagnation that can be a real risk to ones' win-column. For one thing, if
you're feeling ultra-safe with one of these stock ideas, you're not
exploring other options. And someone else out there who's not taken in by
the stock philosophies possibly is. And they're waiting for you with a
stack of 60 cards that might clobber you. The Pokemon TCG contains enough
potential combinations that _aren't_ being explored as well as they should
that those using the same repetitive ideas need to tread carefully.
Especially with the English Team Rocket expansion coming up, which will
toss a whole new bushel of variable into the card-pool, some of which may
render some of the 'sure-fire' deck types utterly useless. Or even within
the current parameters, there's some possibilities that can really hurt if
you come up against them unprepared. Scott Gerhardt, for example, has been
touting the merits of potpourri decks as of late...and I'd have to concur
with him that these can be a real smackdown-fest, mainly because a lot of
players who're used to the 'stock concepts' get caught off-guard by these
sorts of non-concept-centric decks.

Solution? Well, I'd suggest looking throught the card pool _without_
playing. Grab a copy of the "PoJo's Encyclopedia"...or just drag out those
cards you think might be 'useless', and engage in a little conceptual free
association as far as strategy goes. Some ideas will be stupid, yes. And
some might only _seem_ stupid, but have the potential to be really, really
nasty. F'rinstance...Magnemite. Useless card, right? Now, consider pairing
some with a couple of Gengar. We've been tinkering with this combo (among
others), and I can tell you from first-hand experience that playing against
a deck revolving around this combo involving a seemingly-underperforming
card hurts like a million paper-cuts. Sure, there's 'Curse' decks out
there...but the use of that Magnemite (or the evolved stage, Magneton) line
in it, which conventional wisdom says is probably a mistake, is actually
the roots of a deck that I can say that works perhaps a bit _too_ well in
the right (wrong?) hands. No 100% explanations here, though...just try and
see.

Anyway, that's what I'm talking about here. Toss off those pigeon-hole
ideas and try something a little different. A little weird. Even a little
ill-advised. Who knows what you might find. Sure, most of the time you'll
get a deck that's pure garbage. But every once in a while, you may run
across something that really gives you a new 'trick' around which to build
a deck that can mess with your opponents' minds. Especially if they've been
playing some stock-idea deck. It'll fold 'em up faster than you can say
"237 Different Types of Breakfast"! And, of course, it'll certainly make
things interesting...

Now, if you'll excuse me, all this talk about breakfast has made me
hungry...where's those choco-frosted sugar marshmallow bomb flakes? I know
there's a box of 'em around here somewhere...


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