Is the Basic Electabuzz the best lightning Pokemon?
      To answer this question, we'd truthfully have to look through all of
the lightning Pokemon in existance, and do polls and the like, which I refuse
to trouble myself with.  Instead, we can do a variety of things to narrow the
search of other Pokemon for comparison, like looking for Pokemon that share
weaknesses that Electabuzz has.  Here's a good weakness, doing damage to
yourself.  A lot of Lightning Pokemon do this, mainly the best ones do in
fact, funny.  Another thing is fighting weakness, but since every Lightning
card has that save the Zapdos's, let's disregard it.  
      Doing damage to your own Pokemon, perhaps it's not as bad as it seems.
 Let's look at three popular lightning cards; Basic Raichu, Electabuzz, and
Rockets Zapdos.  Each of these has the potential for doing damage to itself,
and is used somewhat commonly (at least where I am).  Raichu can do a
guarenteed 60 damage to the opponent, with a possible 30 damage to it.  
Rockets Zapdos can do 70 to the opponent, with 30-40 to itself, and last,
Electabuzz does 30-40 damage to the opponent with a possible 10 damage to
itself.  Electabuzz might just seem not so good now, while it will only do up
to 40 damage to the opponent (not usually enough for a one-turn-KO), the
others do much more.  
      Now let's look at the speed factor, this is what makes Buzz.  Raichu
can do his attack as early as the 4th turn (of course providing no other
interactions), Zapdos as early as the 3rd turn, and Buzz as early as the 2nd
turn.  Obviously, Buzz is the winner for speed.  And in the same tradition,
Buzz takes to energy, the rest take 4 (the colorless aspect is the same for
all 3).  Now, Buzz and Zappy only have a difference of 1 turn in their attack
speed, Raichu is off by one more turn, intolerable because we need a quicker
speed.  Raichu must be left out from now on in order to compare Zap and Buzz,
which have thus been proved to be more similar.  
      In worst case Scenarios, Zap will do 40 damage to itself and 70 to the
opponent, giving a difference of 30; in best case scenarios, a difference of
40.  Electabuzz does a difference 20 in the worst case, and 40 in the best
case.  For the sake of Comparison only, let's apply the Worst case scenario
for buzz to Rockets Zapdos; The difference of 20 would mean that Zapdos does
70 damage to the opponent, and 50 to itself.  Ouch.  What we really have
here, is a reversal of damages, Electabuzz might not do any damage to itself,
but doesn't have a set amount of damage to the opponent.  Whereas, Rockets
Zapdos always does a certain amount of damage to itself, and has a set amount
for the opponent.  
      The only thing we have to go on is speed, with a buzz, you can be
doing damage by the second turn, with a Zados, it will take until the third
turn.  While it's obvious Zapdos is best as a Komikaze card, is it worth it
to wait until the third turn and do 70 damage, or on the second turn do 30-40
damage?  Well, with a Zapdos, let's say you do well, and on the third turn do
70, with 30 to youreself, you have 40 HP left.  With a Buzz, doing poorly, by
the third turn, you've done 60 damage, with 20 to yourelf, you have 5o HP
left.  This seems better.  Look at the comparison, Buzz can do 60/70/80 by
the third turn, Zappy will do 70, Buzz does 10/20 to itself, Zappy does
30/40.  Any way you look at it, Buzz is better, 2/3 of the time it does equal
or more damage to the defending Pokemon by the third turn as a Rockets
Zapdos, and around 20 less damage of itself leaving it for a longer duration.
 
      So it seems, Buzz has been proven probably the best of all Lightning
Pokemon.  We took probably the 3 most popular, and compared them, by process
of elimination took out 1, and compared the last two.  This in no way is ment
to diss Rockets Zapdos, but it is probably the most used Lightning card next
to Buzz, so it put itself in the position for an easy comparison.  
Personally, I think Buzz can be used in any deck, or in a deck by itself,
which makes it already great, and Zapdos combos well with it.

Scooter can be reached for all purposes such as (but not limited to) deck
repairs, tips, chats, Flames, and anything else, by E-mailing at
Lordotter@aol.com, or IM at ScooterX7k  Thank you!