I wasn't going to voice an opinion about Prop 15, 2T or 3T, neither my
son or I play in many
tournaments. But with Wizards promising "new game mechanics" for next
season of Pokemon
League and my opinion that adding 3T  to Prop 15 is really going
overboard in trying to keep
people from playing Wiggly decks, I thought I'd describe some of my
thoughts on the game.

My son starting playing about a year ago. Not knowing any better, we
tried building decks that
followed the Wizards formula of 22 Pokemon, 10 Trainers and 28 Energy.
My son played like this
for awhile. But he wasn't real excited about the game, he just liked the
free promos. The game
was too much like a Pokemon version of Candyland or the card game War.

But then we came across the Pojo site and started learning about
trainers. After experimenting
awhile, his decks tended to have 20 Pokemon, 16 Trainers, and 24 Energy.
I started playing about
that time and as a playing PokeDad, was often asked to help build decks.
I found the best ratio
to start people with was 20 Pokemon, 16 Trainers and 24 Energy. That in
my mind is where you
start getting a good balance of skill and luck. Inexperienced players
tended to have trouble with
more trainers and less energy. But as they got more experienced, they
tended to remove some
energy and Pokemon and add trainers. I read another report  where the
author stated that they
made fun interesting decks with equal numbers of Pokemon, Trainers and
Energy. I agree. I have made decks with 16 Pokemon, 24 trainers and 20
energy that are fun. But more trainers than that
and it's hard to escape going to all big basic Pokemon or one really
strong evolution(like Wigglytuff)
and big basic Pokemon to back it up.  That's my experience. A game that
allows 16-20 Pokemon,
16-24 Trainers and 16-24 energy is the most fun. I read some of the
initial Prop 15 decks on
Pojo. They added 3 potion energy and 3 full heal energy. Which just
seems to me is further evidence
that 20 or so trainers is about right.

I don't understand 3T, except as admitting even 15 trainers keeps a
Wigglytuff deck viable. I thought
2T was OK. There are limits of one energy card per turn, not evolving a
Pokemon, you just played, no
evolving the first turn. The only thing without some limit like this is
trainers. I think if the game is
changed to rely too much on luck, it will be boring and people will
quit. But I know people are also
frustrated by the Oak Oak Oak 4 PluPowers I win! The game is ineresting
when kids can plan a
stategy and see it develop.

What I'd like to see comes from my experience playing with the kids.
I never played a deck with
more than four rare cards. It levelled the playing field. Everyone likes
to win. My son has a Turbo
Wiggly deck, but he has learned not to play it all the time. Now he
plays it mostly against people
who brag too much or adults. Otherwise he puts together all sorts of
creative decks (with 16-24
trainers). Because it's fun to try these decks and other people like a
chance to win.

So I thought about what the real difference was between the "killer"
decks and most of the decks
I've seen. I decided to rank the decks. Since this is Pokemon, I used a
very simple scheme:

4 points   A Holo, Rare or Promo card
2 points   An uncommon card
1 point     A common card

Sure, some holos are awful and some uncommons are darn good, but
I wanted something simple.

Here are the first four Wizards theme decks.

Pokemon    29   39    30    33
Trainers     17   11    16     13
Energy       28   28    28     28

Total           74   78    74    74

Now compare this to the winning decks from the West Coast STS

Pokemon   56     44    48
Trainers     75     76    76
Energy       20     19    21

Total        151    139  145

Any surprise that these decks beat theme decks hands down?

OK, so finally I looked at some  theme deck fixes from Pojo magazine and
a few decks my son and I
have played (mine had no rares, but lots of uncommons).

Pokemon    32    36   38   39
Trainers     45    40   38   39
Energy       22    28   25   28

Total          99   104 108  96

The last four decks have between 16 and 21 trainers. But I don't think
anyone has an obvious
advantage over the others. None are archetypes. Why not have several
levels of competition?
It seems there is the entry level  70-80 point deck. The experienced
100-110 point deck and the
"no-holds barred" deck of 130+ points. Personally, I find accounts of
trying to tweak the last
ounce out of a "no-holds barred" deck interesting reading and someone
ought to do it to see how
broken some of the cards are. But I'd rather play at the 100-110 point
level. I won't argue these
are the best divisions. But I like the concept. And it requires no basic
rule changes.

My son is 9 and most of his friends that come to Pokemon are 7-11. Quite
a few have dropped
out. Here are the reasons I think this is happening.

1. It is hard to find a place to play. We started at Walden Books, they
stopped doing it. We switched
to On Cue just before they closed to new members. I've heard the local
Toys'R'Us has a six week
waiting list. The card shops seem to go the route League > Tournaments
>no more Pokemon.

2. They get overwhelmed. Someone that plays in tournaments and wins 8
packs a week is going to
have so many more rare cards that someone (like my son) who gets a pack
a week just cannot
compete and can get very discouraged. You get behind the power curve and
can't catch up.

One thing I can say for a Haymaker or any trainer-heavy deck is that
they are relatively cheap.
My son really wanted a Raindance deck. But he just didn't get packs with
Blastoise, noone would
trade and at $20 a piece he wasn't about to buy them. So after a year of
collecting and trading he
finally has a Turbo Wiggly deck and can meet people on even terms.
Hitmonchan is the only holo
in it. People where we are trade rares much more willingly than holos.
And collectors don't have
a need for a lot of trainers.

A number of kids quit when Gym Heroes came out. Jungle 64 cards, five
months later Fossil with
64 more cards, then five months and Rocket. I thought that was too fast.
It was what four months
and then Gym Heroes with 126 cards and then two months and Gym Challenge
with another 126?
That put "collect 'em all" out of reach of a lot them. Who likes having
holo cards waved in your face
when you can't afford them? If my son had wanted to quit  at that point,
that would have been fine
with me.

I am a little worried Pokemon is going to end up the exclusive club of
the hard-core tournament
players and kids who parents have very deep pockets. I think setting
some levels of play would
go more to fixing that than any drastic rule changes.

Jon Swanson
jswanson@mail.win.org