From

Hey Pojo and fellow Pokémaniacs! I just got back from a "Play and Trade Day" (Like the Pokémon league only less people) at my favorite store, the Action Figure Cantina in Wexford, PA. There were about 25 ppl there. Even though it wasn't an organized tournament, I still had a blast beating guys even with 4 Charizards (Yes, FOUR) in their decks. They didn't realize the POWER of Mr. Mime and Gengar....mwahahahaha.... Anyhow, here's my deck, "Shadows in Motion"!

Before we battled, he told me he had 4 Zapdos's, 4 Raichu's and 2 Charizards. Unfortunately, he never got to use them. Here's how it started- I drew a god hand. 1 Mr. Mime, 1 Gastly, 1 Haunter, 1 Gengar and 3 energies. I decided to send out Mr. Mime and bench Gastly. I flip and call heads, it lands on heads. He uncovered his lone Pokémon, Pikachu. I tried to hold back from laughing. I draw and get a psychic energy, attach it to Mr. Mime. His turn, he attaches a fire energy to pikachu and uses gnaw. My turn, I attach again to Mr. Mime, and evolve Gastly into Haunter. I draw my card, Bill, which I immediately played and I got my Chansey and a DCE. I bench Chansey and use Meditate, 10 damage. His turn, he draws and benches Electabuzz, attaches an electric energy to pikachu and uses Thunder Jolt. He says, "I knocked Mr. Mime out!" I calmly reminded him of invisible wall and he started crying. "B-b-but that's not fair!" He seemed to calm down and it was my turn. I drew my card, benched Mewtwo, evolved haunter into Gengar, and used meditate again, 20 damage. His turn, he attaches an electric energy to electabuzz, uses gnaw. My turn, I draw a Pokémon Center and use Meditate, KO (My prize was an Alakazam). His turn, get this, he Oaks 4 TIMES IN A ROW!!!! I just couldn't hold back my laughter, then he asked what's so funny. I told him nothing, he attached an electric energy to buzz and uses thundershock, no paralysis. My turn, I draw SER, use it on his buzz and discard a psychic energy on mime. I attach another psy energy to mime and use meditate. I don't want to keep rambling on, so to summarize it, he kept drawing useless cards and I used meditate and KO'ed his buzz, I won.

Kris is an 8-year old from my neighborhood who is friends with my sister (also 8). He's a just a wee little bit on the stupid side, though. Once, I traded him a non-holo 2nd edition Moltres for his Charizard!! Hahaha, what a moron. Anywho, this match was REAL quick. We drew our hands, and I got a mewtwo, 3 abras and 3 energies. I decided to send out Mewtwo and he sent out only one Pokémon, a guy Nidoran! I flipped and called tails, it was heads. He attaches a grass energy to his Nidoran and uses Horn Hazard, 30 damage. I attached a psy energy to Mewtwo, drew an Impostor Prof. Oak, and it was his turn. He uses Horn Hazard again, it fails. My turn, I attach another psy energy to Mewtwo and use psychic, Game Over. He looked crushed, poor kid. I gave him a little "present", a japanese base set Rattatta and he actually THANKED me! He told me that he had a Nidoking in his hand and that his deck revolved around Solarbeam, Toxic, and Boyfriends. Next victim...er...challenger, puhleeze!

Most people don't know how much I hate Haymakers. I wish I could just have a Snorlax sit on them all and crush them. >:-( I thought I was gonna die...he had the typical Fossil Haymaker, it revolved around Hitmonchans, Hitmonlees, Aerodactyls and Scythers. Now THIS was a close match, one of my faves. For my hand, I drew both my mewtwos, 2 bills, 2 haunters and a computer search. I sent out Mewtwo (DUH!) and he sent out a scyther and benched 3 hitmonlees and a hitmonchan. We flipped and he went first. It seemed that he had no energy. Well. my turn. I play both my bills and get 3 psychic energies and a SER. I attach a psy energy to mewtwo, his turn. He slaps a psy energy on scyther and calls swords dance. I attach another psy energy to my active mewtwo and use psychic, 20 damage. His turn, he attaches another grass energy and calls swords dance again. I attach yet another psy energy to mewtwo, use SER and take care 'o those two menacing energies on Scyther. I use psychic again, 20 damage again. 2 more turns and scyther's history. His turn, he attaches a fighting energy to hitmonchan and uses jab. I use psychic, 40 damage. His turn, attaches another fighting energy and jabs again. I draw a bill, play it and draw a Mr. Mime and a kadabra. Psychic again, KO. After that he still didn't get any energies. He got a few ERs occasionally, but that didn't stop me from KOing his Hitmonlees. This kid had WAY too many trainer cards (around 30).

K, this was a REAL easy match. This kid had a Blackout deck and thought that he'd "Whoop my deck so bad I'd be crying". Actually, he was the one embarresed. As we all know, Precon decks REALLY suck. Apparently this 6-year old didn't beleive that when I told him. When we drew our hands, he got...3 BASE SET GASTLYS (HAHAHA) for his pokemon!! ROFL!! Heh...I went first and sent out an Abra and benched a fossil gastly. Apparently he had put all the energies at the bottom of his deck and unfortunately for him, he had no energy searches. I KOed his 3 gastlys and his Hitmonchan for an EZ win. Next Loser!

Now THIS was a really good challenge. It started with me sending out a lone gastly for all my pokemon, and he sent out a Kanghaskhan and benched a squrirtle and a magikarp. What did I get? I lousy gastly and abra! After turn two, he kept attacking me with comet punch again and again until he was about to kill off my abra when I drew...MEWTWO!! The most powerful weapon against raindance decks! He breedered his squirtle into blastoise and evolved magikarp into Gyarados. He retreated Kanghaskhan and sent out Gyarados, which he raindanced 4 energies onto. I was thinking this would be easy and he'd just use dragon rage, but he used bubblebeam and paralyzed me! I drew a bill, played it and got a mewtwo and a mr. mime (thank god) I had 3 psy energies in my hand and I had to decide which to power up. He could use ER or SER on either my benched mewtwo or Mr. Mime, but I decided to beef up Mr. Mime. I SERed on Gyarados, but he attached another energy and dragon raged Mr. Mime, no damage. I was invincible against this unoriginal retard! After that, bad news. He pulled a squirtle from his deck, retreated Gyarados and sent out squirtle. He bubbled, paralyzing me 2 times but the 3rd time he didn't. By that time, I'd powered up mewtwo by then, so I retreated Mr. Mime and sent out mewtwo, KO'ed his squirtle (but mewtwo got 30 damage on it). His turn, dragon rages Mewtwo, but my turn I retreat and send out Mr. Mime. I meditate for 3 turns and KO Gyarados. He sent out a fully pumped blastoise and then used a gust of wind to send out mewtwo. I drew an abra and benched it, and let him KO my mewtwo. I sent out Mr. Mime and it seemed he didn't have any more gust of winds, plus he didn't draw any other basic pokémon. I KO'ed blastoise and I won!

As we all know, psychic are weak against psychic. This time, though, the match was very interesting. Daria and I pulled out chanseys for our only starting Pokémon. She went first, attached a psy energy. I went, attached a DCE to chansey and used scrunch, it worked. Next turn, she Oaks and benches 2 abras, a base set gastly and a fossil gastly. She attaches another psy energy to chansey and scrunches, it fails. Next 3 turns, she keeps scrunching (not working) and after 3 turns I had benched Abra, evolved it into Kadabra, and evolved Kadabra into Alakazam (each turn attaching an energy to abra/kadabra/alakazam). I retreated Chansey and sent out Alakazam. I used Confuse Ray and confused her Chansey into knocking itself out, I drew my prize which was Impostor Prof. Oak. She sent out one of her abras, evolved it into kadabra and attached a psy energy to it. I bench Mr. Mime. I retreated Alakazam and sent out Mr. Mime, attached an energy to it. Eventually, Mr. Mime got so powerful, it KOed all the Pokémon on her bench except for one she benched earlier. (Big dramatic sounding music) JIGGLYPUFF! ARGHH!!! That Jigglypuff she sent out kept using pound and it nearly cost me the game! I was lucky enough to be able to send out alakazam and confuse Jiggly into knocking itself out. Phew! My perfect record was almost tarnished!

GOD, I hate this guy. He's my age and goes to my school, he thinks he's such hot stuff just because he has a few japanese holos including Mew. This came down to the bitter end, here's how I achieved my only loss for the day: We started out nice, I drew a fossil gastly and an abra for my starting pokémon. He drew a pidgey, a scyther, a jungle pikachu and a regular pikachu. It was a pretty even fight until I played my 4 bills. He didn't use Bills (The Retard) and I ended up decking myself, but it was SO close I could taste victory. When it came down to the end, I had on my bench 2 mr. mimes, 2 gengars and an alakazam. Mewtwo was my active Pokémon. They were almost all to fainting point, but luckily the gengars and alakazam had no energies attached! I swapped all the damage to alakazam and my 2 gengars and used Pokémon center. He had 2 pikachus, 2 pidgeys and a jiggly on his bench, wiggly with 2 DCE as active. He tried to use do the wave, but...DA DA DA DA! Mr. Mime to the rescue! I SERed his 2 DCE. . .it was hilarious, his whole face turned dark red! I started laughing out loud, but eventually he kept using lullaby and my Pokémon didn't wake up in time, so I lost. But I had never come close to beating this Egotistical Insomniac SOB loser who was ruining my reputation as a good player. Oh, and BTW after the match was over, the manager's mother (She's really nice) came over to us both and told her she was getting 3 promo mews sometime soon and that Adam and I would get one (for free) and she would sell the other one. Adam tried to tell her, "Don't give one to Justin!" But of course she didn't do what he said. He's so insanely jealous of MY collection he wants to have everything and for me to have nothing. Anyhow, onto the last match.

This kid looked to be about 11 or so years old. The goal of his deck was to raindance on Charizard to power it up to fire spin capabilities. OMG was this kid spoiled. He HAD 4 FREAKIN' CHARIZARDS!! I saw them all, none of them were fake! He told me his parents came in and bought the charizards (Sold for $40 each) for him! Now THAT's a spoiled brat. His Poké-Mom was one of those over-protective ones, you know, the ones that give you the leer like a Rhyhorn and question about Mr. Mime. I'll keep this short and sweet. I started with 4 Mr. Mimes. He started with 2 squirtles and a charmander. Charmander was his active. We flipped and I went first (for once). I attached a psy energy to Mr. Mime. His turn, he attaches a water energy to charmander and scratches for 10. My turn, I attach another psy and use meditate, 10 damage. His turn, he breeders both his squirtles into blastoises and scratches for 10. I meditate for 2 turns and I knock out charmander, fossil gastly as my prize. He benches a charmander and then sends it out (He didn't know how to play for crap, I decided to go easy on him). I use meditate for 2 turns then he breeders to charizard, raindances 4 water energies (he played bills to get them) onto charizard and uses Fire Spin. I tell him, "Sorry, it does nothing." He replied,

This guy had been taunting me all day. Boy did I fix his wagon! His deck revolved around Nidoqueen's Boyfriends attack, which was VERY hard to power up. He had 1 nidoqueen and 4 nidokings in his deck as his star cards. For our starting pokémon, I drew Mr. Mime and he drew a girl Nidoran. He went first. He attached an energy to nidoran and used fury swipes, 30 damage. My turn, I attach an energy to Mr. Mime. Same turn, 30 damage from fury swipes again. My turn, I meditate and do damage, next turn I kill him. After I whooped him and he got off my back about his deck, I realized I'd spent about 3 hours playing and trading! Between battles, I'd traded a lot and I bought a Ninetales and a Hitmonchan from the store. I walked home and started typing this when I was finished.

Rain Dance Decks: Always stick with Mewtwo and Mr. Mime. Haunter could help too, if the coin flips are lucky. Try to get an Alakazam and swap any damage that comes your way to Chansey and if you're really in a rut, Gengar and Alakazam itself. Most of the time though, I quote Brian Brokaw when I say, "Kadabra can take out pretty much any weenie opponent who threatens Mr. Mime". These decks should be easy to handle.

Psychic Stall Decks: With a Psychic Stall deck, try and use Gastly to lick and paralyze until you get out haunter or Alakazam, whichever comes sooner. Get Alakazam to confuse enemy Pokémon into hurting themselves. Don't hesitate to use Impostor Prof. Oak either if your opponent is only holding one or two cards in his hand. That will fit the stall part of this deck nicely.

Energy Denial Decks: Try SERing to send your opponent crying into energy denial for some nice fun. If that's not possible, try using chansey to double-edge any hostile opponents who threaten your energy cache. It worked for me when I tried this deck on my best friend's deck, his deck basically uses Dragonairs, Golducks and Poliwraths to get off energy.