Yesterday was the third tournament of the Pokemon
League (a group of pokemon players that I organized).
 There was a pretty good turnout considering it was
the first day of spring break here.  We had 7 people
show up.  There were me, Forrest (my brother),
Robert, Alex, Eric, and 2 others whos name's are
being withheld on request.  They will be refered to
by their favorite pokemon, "Seadra" and "Mr. Mime." 
We drew names to see who would face who.  It turned
out to be:

Robert vs. Alex
Daniel (me) vs. Eric
Forrest vs. Seadra
and Mr. Mime showed up late so he wasn't in it yet
(I'll explain later).

In the first match, Robert used a new fire/grass deck
and Alex used his fighting/colorless.  First pokemon
were weedle and machop.  Weedle barely stayed alive
by using potions, until he was evolved into kakuna. 
Machop died and farfetch'd took its place.  Kakuna
evolved into beedrill and killed farfetch'd to end
the match.  

The next battle was between me and Eric.  I used a
new fire/psychic deck (I'll put the deck info at the
end of this article), and Eric, being new to the game
and not having many cards, used a combination of
electric, fighting, and fire with some colorless. 
The first pokemon were growlithe (mine) and dratini. 
Growlithe killed dratini in 3 turns and Eric's
benched growlithe became the active pokemon.  The 2
growlithes exchanged blows, but mine prevailed by
using a potion to stay alive.  Meanwhile, on my
bench, I had evolved abra all the way to alakazam,
and was waiting for 1 more psychic energy to use
confuse ray.  One of Eric's voltorb came out and
finished off my growlithe.  Alakazam became active,
but I still needed a third energy.  Alakazam used his
pokemon power (I had a full bench by now) to stay at
full health for a few turns and finally I drew an
energy card.  After that, it was all over.  Alakazam
took out voltorb and charmander to win the match for
me.

*Just as I beat Erc, Mr. Mime rang the doorbell.  We
did not know what to do to make the tournament fair
and even.  We decided to wait until the next match
was over to figure this out.

Next up, were Forrest and Seadra.  Forrest used a
psychic/grass deck while Seadra used water and grass.
 The starting pokemon were tangela and magikarp. 
Magikarp hit tangela whaile he was building up
energy, but in a few turns, magikarp died of poison. 
A weedle was brought off of Seadra's bench to battle
the tangela.  It wasn't much of a battle although
tangela became poisoned.  Dratini had been evolved to
dragonair on Seadra's bench, an he was sent out to
fight.  He was poisoned by tangela before tangela
hiself was knocked out by weedles poison.  Forrest
brought a Mewtwo off of his bench even though
dragonair is resistant to psychic.  The three
energies on dragonair allowed Mewtwo to do 10 damage
oer turn after resistance was figured in.  The coin
flips were bad on Seadra's part and Dragonair
eventually succumbed to tangela's poisons.  Having no
more pokemon on the bench, Forrest was victorious.

*Here's how we figured in Mr. Mime.  We gave Robert a
by in the next round because he beat his opponent by
six prizes while Forrest and I won by five each. 
Forrest and I were to fight, then Mime would battle
the winner of that. Then THAT winner would go on to
fight Robert for the championship.  (Robert got a win
on his record for the by, but Mr. Mime did not
because he just showed up late)

Back to the pokemon.  Forrest and I were using the
same decks as before.  I started with Magmar, he put
down a nidoran.  It took me two turns to be able to
use fire punch, but Forrest apparently had no energy
cards in his hand yet, because nidoran could not
attack me either. Nidoran died and Forrest got
koffing off of his bench.  Koffing was hit by
flamethrower and died instantly.  Another koffing
came against magmar.  This one had been building up
energies on the bench.  Magmar got poisoned, but
another flamethrower killed the koffing.  That was
Forrest's last pokemon, so I would face Mr. Mime to
see who would go to the final round.

I used my same old deck (of course) and Mr. Mime used
his fire/fighting deck (hehe firefighting, thats a
cool deck name :) ).  Anyway, my first pokemon was
Magmar (it was my only pokemon too, so I was knida
scared) and his was hitmonchan *gulp*.  I put energy
on magmar, and hitmonchan jabbed.  I drew a potion
and used it, then I removed the energy on hitmonchan,
then I put another energy on magmar and used fire
punch.  Hitmonchan jabbed again.  Then I used
flamethrower to end the match.  (It was a very good
day for having ONE basic pokemon in your starting
hand ;) )

Now, it was me gainst Robert in the final round.  I
drew my hand and *ack* a charmander and six energies!!!
I put charmander down, and Robert but out bulbasaur. 
I scratched bulbasaur twice for the tournament win! 
It turns out that all Robert had was a bulbasaur
(weakness to fire), venusaur, and five energies in
his hand!!!  I was very lucky.  I guess thats the way
it is though.

So far here are the records for the members of teh
pokemon league.  
          WINS:LOSSES
Daniel:      6:1             2 tournament wins
Michael:     3:1             1 tournament win
Robert:      5:3
Forrest:     1:1        *you won't know some of these
my dad:      1:1         people because they played in 
Eric:        0:1         the last 2 tournaments
Seadra:      0:1
Mr. Mime:    0:1
Lou:         0:2


AND THE WINNER IS:  FLAMING PSI BEAM (stupid name,
but i couldn't think of anything else)

I have tried many combinations of energy types and
this is definitely my favorite.  It has won 1
tournament and has had a perfect field testing
record, in fact,  I have never been beaten with this
deck.  The strategy for this deck is to use some
unevolved fire guys to go out and get killed while
your other guys get heavily evolved.  The name of the
game is sacrifices.  This deck got thrown together
out of my spare cards, so there are a million ways to
improve it.  GO NUTS ;)
I think that this deck might have a weakness to water
decks, but I haven't played against anyone that uses
water, so try it out.

Energy:
17 fire
11 psychic
2 double colorless

Pokemon:
3 Magmar  THE BEST CARD, NEVER OVERLOOK MAGMAR
3 Charmander
2 Charmeleon
1 Charizard
2 Growlithe 
1 Arcanine

2 Abra
2 Kadabra
3 Alakazam
1 Jynx
1 Mewtwo

Trainers:
1 pokemon trader
2 bill
1 prof. oak
2 potion
1 super potion
1 pokedex
1 energy removal

This deck is pretty simple to use.  There's no real
trick to it. Just let something die for the good of
the match.