"Saving our game: shutting up the whiners"

Alright, now I've been reading the articles here for ages, and it seems
that every time ten new supposed "strategies and tips" are posted, at
least two of them are people whining about there being too many
haymakers or wiggly decks in their areas.  Well you know what?  I used
to play Wiggly.  It was good.  It routinely beat everything it went up
against, except for Chan-intensive haymakers, of which there were
several in my metagame.  So you know what I did?  I made an original
deck.

That's right, I actually sat down with some cards, picked out several,
and built a deck around them.  As usual, since I'm a belligerent jerk, I
decided to prove to everyone that Sneasel IS a great card and CAN beat
anything, with a bit of creativity.

Be warned, the following deck does not use Wigglies, Chans, Buzzes,
Scythers, Energy Removals, Super Energy Removals, RSAs, Impostor Oaks,
or Traps.  So if you want to see cheesey, practically-play-themselves
cards in a standard deck, turn back now.  Your my head might just blow
clean off your shoulders when you see some of the amazingly under-used
cards here.

Alright, so I had two points on my agenda.  Firstly, create a winning
deck, the likes of which I personally hadn't seen before.  It had to
beat Wigglies, Raindances, and of course, any bloody haymaker under the
sun.  Secondly, since so far all I had seen about Sneasel was a
collection of posts saying how much it sucked, I had to use it as one of
the main cards to prove a bunch of people wrong.  Again, I have that on
the agenda because I'm a stubborn jerk.  ;)  (And I love that little
pink-eared scamp...)

Now, I had Sneasel.  Obviously I would need dark energy, rainbow energy,
and the usual mix of oaks, bills, and comp searches.  Now, my main
problem would be energy removal.  Sneasel IS weak to Removal, so I would
have to cover his little ebony hide.  I did this in two ways.

Firstly, I used Ecogym.  I figured that not only would this provide me
with relative immunity to SER, if I did get Removaled and had energy
sent back to my hand, it would probably be a good thing anyway due to
Sneasel's low HP.  Better to see it in my hand than in my discard pile.

Secondly, I grabbed an old buddy of mine.  The card with the pokemon
power that was called "excellent, if not for the fact that you have to
kill the pokemon and give your opponent a prize for using it".  That's
right, I used base Electrode.  80 HP with a weakness to fighting, and 50
damage for three lightning energy.  His Power allows him to commit
ritual suicide in order to attach himself to the Poke of your choice,
providing two of any type of basic energy.  So here we have a very nice
damage-provider which will kill a Blastoise in one hit, and an energy
source that is enough to fuel Sneasel's beat up, but that can lay in
wait on my bench without being Removaled.  This was a good thing. 

I also grabbed a hold of a fistful of Exeggutors.  Yup, the uncommon
Stage One from Base 2, he has 80 HP and an attack that gives a coin flip
for each energy attached to him, resulting in twenty damage per heads.
He's basically here as a light staller, and as a place to stuff energy
from Electrode.  Also great to build up on your bench when a Sneasel is
doing his work, but that's the strategy for this deck, and that comes
later.

So I'd need Voltorbs, Exeggcutes, Electrodes, and Exeggutors.  I'd also
need Double Cols for the Eggs, and Electric energy for the Electrodes.
No grass or psychic energy: any attacks using those on the Egg family
are terrible.  If for some reason I really need to use Hypnosis on the
'Cutes, I can use a rainbow energy.

Now I wanted this deck to be fast.  Faster than a Wiggly deck, or a
Hay.  I decided to use four Bills and toss in two Mary as well, using
them both for card-drawing and for stuffing key cards back into my deck
when I had to Oak.  I also had a bit of space left, so I tossed in four
Gust of Winds to handle any bench-building THEY would be doing.

So here's how the deck turned out:

4 Sneasel
4 Voltorb
4 Electrode
4 Exeggcute
4 Exeggutor  (That's right, I use four of all of my Stage Ones.  It's
important to in this deck since the Electrodes are energy sources.)

4 Bill
4 Comp Search
4 Gust of Wind
3 Oak
2 Mary
2 Ecogym

9 Electric Energy
4 Dark Energy
4 Rainbow Energy
4 Double Colourless Energy

Now, I decided to debut this deck at a local tournament which I had
never really participated in, but had a solid core of haymaker decks, as
well as the odd Raindance deck.  Lucky for me, I played nothing but nine
rounds of haymakers.  I crushed every single one, despite the weak link
of Voltorb (first turn kill potential from a Chan...oww).

The main strength of this deck is that once one Sneasel is out, you have
enough time with it as your active before it gets killed to build two
more attackers, due to the low energy requirements of Sneasel and the
energy provided by Electrode.  Each pokemon buys more time increasingly
complex plays, while dealing out several kills itself.  Since you
generally know how long an active is going to last, and can replace
all-important dark energy on a Sneasel with a last-minute Electrode,
being Super Energy Removaled actually HELPS this deck.  Once the deck
gets moving, it is pretty much impossible to stop, hence my dubbing it
"The Momentum Deck".

The deck also has a psychological strength to it too, since the opponent
cannot work solid odds about damage.  Sure, the average damage of a Beat
Up from a Sneasel is 60, but the POSSIBILITY of their being more than
that causes Haymaker players to play a bit more defensively.  It might
sound like BS, but play this deck properly, and you'll see that it's
true. 

I've played this deck against every single type of archetype I know.  It
can beat haymakers, Raindances, and being an ex-wiggly player, I know
for a fact that it can beat the hell out of Wigglies.  So stop whining
about archetypes.  If you're POed about being beaten by hays, do
something about it.  Banning cards, restricting cards, or limiting the
quantity of types of cards (15T-3C) is NOT the answer to saving our
beloved game.  Learning how to USE the cards is. 

Now I can prepare to watch in horror and annoyance as people copy this
deck and make it a new archetype.  Haha!

If you can't get this deck to work, it's probably because you aren't
using it properly.  I personally didn't know what to expect from it
since I was used to playing with SERs, Pluspowers, and many other cards
that are standard.  However, I was pleasantly surprised.  I will warn
you that the quality of the player matters ALOT to this deck's
performance.

If you want to get in touch with me, you can drop me a line at
blitzpx@home.com.  Send me your original decks, I'd love to see them!
Or, if you just want to copy this deck, do so!  Let me know how it works
out for you, along with any modifications you make to it. 

  Thanks for reading!
          Trainer GRB