I recently (well, more like a month ago)  entered the STS qualifier in
California and got 3rd place. I lost to a Steelix and Slowking deck, and I
had a fast sneasel/slowking/rocket zappy deck. I knew that Slowkings and
Steelixs were good, but the way that kid played it was phenomenal.   
    He just kept on using mary, bill, eeeek, mary, bill, eeeek...and by turn
8, got four slowkings with a steelix out with three metals on it and a
goldberry. He was only twelve. but believe me, he demolished every single
person there. I asked him how he did it, and he just said "just elms and
topdecking". The deck was very simple: 4 cleffas, 4 onixs, 3 steelixs (I
woulda put 4), 4 slowpokes, and 4 slowkings. I wondered how a slow deck like
that can win against all those aggresive sneasel/wiggly decks. Part of his
strategy was lots of super energy removals, along with gust. But mostly, it
was just luck. I had a fully loaded Sneasel out and he had a lone onix, I
used beat up (5 rolls) along with a pluspower and got only 3 heads out of
them. If I got at least one more, I would have my tickets no the NJ sts
tournament, but instead luck had it in for me.
      So I have to tell you this; the Pokemon TCG is ALL about luck. No
matter what kind of good deck u have, it'll always come down to "what kind of
card will I get next" or "will I get heads?" or "Is it there?". And of
course, KA CHING: he topdecked an oak and snapped out a coupla slowpokes, a
steelix and a double colorless with metal.
      So, even though good cards will definetly help, pray that fate is on
your side, you'll need it. Even the best decks will lose.

Thanks for reading,
Striker
e-mail me at AnonymousPunkMan@aol.com