HOW TO BUILD A WINNING DECK
By PokemonMechanic@yahoo.com

This isn't an article on the specifics on how to build
a deck.  I'm sharing you some insight on my
observation and research.  I have my own ideas on
building decks that utilize basic statistics and
ratios on how to balance your deck. 

Some of you have heard me say (or seen me write).
"Try to use 20 Pokemon or less."
"Trainers win games."
"You NEED Bills and Professor Oaks."
"Have at least 60% of your Pokemon basics! If you have
20 Pokemon that means 12 should be basic."

Where do these ideas come from? I've played and
tested!

I'm not going to justify or explain these ideas to you
today. Maybe on another post.  But just to give you an
idea of what I've found in the past few days, here's
what I've researched.

I researched several magazines where winning decks and
their strategies were shown.  These decks were
published by experts - possibly long time players and
writers for the magazine.  Their insight is one that I
would trust based on the fact that they knew their
strategy and explained the reason why every card was
in the deck. 

There was never a card where the writer said, "This
card is there just in case."  From Pokemon to Trainers
to the Energy count, each card had a reason to be in
the deck.

Then I surfed the web.  I went into Pokemon sites and
reviewed tournament reports that weren't just 8 kids
playing a theme deck, but a large scale, worthy
tournament.  I analyzed winning decks from online
tournaments.  I read deck reviews by other experts
that do deck analysis.  I analyzed over 100 decks.
Some were very similar Haymakers and some were
mono-colored decks.  Some were 3 colored but there
wasn't a lot of these decks.

I built and played decks on Apprentice using these
ideas.  I questioned why a certain Trainer was in the
deck.  If it was to metagame, would it be enough?  I
questioned the lonely ONE pokemon card and questioned
it's worthiness to consistent game play.  Believe me,
there is a reason.  A good deck builder knows why
he/she put a Lass or a Pokemon Flute or 1 Kangaskhan
or 1 Ponyta in the deck.

Here's my calculations for cards in a deck.

I did a random sample of 20 decks out of the bundle I
had.  I omitted stall decks because the basic idea is
different than most decks.
Three-colored/two-colored/and mono-decks were analyzed
up with this:

Average Pokemon = 15
Average Trainer = 20
Average Energy = 25

Average Bills = 3
Average Professor Oaks = 2

This supports my teaching to use 20 or fewer Pokemon.
The balance of Trainers and Pokemon weighs more on the
Trainers side.  This also justifies the fact that
Trainers are more important in deck building than
Pokemon count.  Of course, the kind of Pokemon and
Trainers make a big difference in a winning deck.  But
now, if one of your friends bugs you about the count
of Trainers in your deck, you can say with confidence,
"Trainers win games!"

Next, I took a random sample of 10 evolution decks and
figured out the percentage of Basic Pokemon to the
total Pokemon.

To give you an idea of how this looked, here's a more
detailed list.

Deck 1: Total 19, 16 basic = 84%
Deck 2: Total 17, 14 basic = 82%
Deck 3: Total 18, 12 basic = 67%
Deck 4: Total 19, 12 basic = 63%
Deck 5: Total 15, 13 basic = 87%
Deck 6: Total 19, 12 basic = 63%
Deck 7: Total 14, 11 basic = 79%
Deck 8: Total 20, 12 basic = 60%
Deck 9: Total 17, 15 basic = 88%
Deck 10: Total 20, 13 basic = 65%

TOTAL POKEMON = 178
TOTAL BASIC = 130
AVERAGE = 73%

Again, this supports my teaching that you should have
at least 60% of your Pokemon as basics.  To understand
this more you'll have to know more about ratios,
probability and chance.  But that's a different
article.

So if you went STRICTLY by this analysis, here's how a
winning deck should look.

15 Pokemon (If evolutions then 11 should be basic and
4 can be Stage 1s and 2s.)
20 Trainers (with 3 Bills and 2 Professor Oaks)
25 Energy

I hope this helps you rethink your deck so that now
you can build a WINNING DECK!

Comments or questions are welcome.

Thanks.

PokemonMechanic@yahoo.com


=====

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com