-Preventing your opponents' pokés from evolving or inflicting serious damage on your pokés

 

-Eliminating the most irritable of trainer cards, such as Prof. Oak, Gust of Wind, etc. to shut down Rain Dance's poké-breeders and to shut down Gaymaker by eliminating Pluspower, GOW, and all the other countless number of uninspired trainers they use. 

 

-Stop the use of trainer cards and evolution cards but still get rid of damage easily.

 

-Get all the basics you need with "Challenge!".

 

-Confuse an opponent's acitve pokémon without attacking

 

-Eliminate the trainer lock by using Full Heal Energy.

 

If you can't already guess the star pokés in my archetype, they're Base Set Alakazam, Aerodactyl, Dark Vileplume, Dark Gloom, and Tentacool.  With all that's in this archetype, Dark Muk is completely not needed, in case you're wondering.  Well, I haven't used this deck archetype in a tourny yet, and it's still in preliminary stages, so please don't send any rude comments to me.  Anyhow, here's a preliminary example of the archetype:

 

Pokemon

 

Chansey x 4 (Yep, the chubby chansey is still needed for additional support)

Mew x 2 (De-ev beam can really stun an opponent combined with aero)

Movie Promo Mewtwo x 2 (Extra power is always needed, even here.  Energy Absorption helps, too)

Mr. Mime x 3 (Mr. Mime made it from the psychic stall deck, too.  You know why he's here, right?)

Base Set Alakazam x 3 (Damage Swap.  DUH!)

Base Set Kadabra x 3 (His super psy may be useful in a tight squeeze)

TR Abra x 3 (It's got 10 more HP than base set abra, it can make you shuffle it into your deck with one of its attacks, and YES, the Abra in TR is not called "Dark Abra", so it can evolve into a base-set kadabra)

Tentacool x 2 (I took bater's advice when I read his post, thanks bater!)

Dark Vileplume x 2 (It's poké-power, hay fever, prevents the use of trainers.  VERY useful against gaymakers and rain dance alike)

Dark Gloom x 2 (Gloom looks so dopey that it probably doesn't even know it's evil :)  Anyhow, gloom's poké-power has a 50/50 chance of confusing your opponent's active poké or your active poké.  Risky, but worth it)

TR Oddish x 3 (Everything's gotta start somewhere)

Mysterious Fossil x 2 (See above)

Aerodactyl x 2 (Hating fossil muk?  Don't let it get in play with this bad boy!  His attack's decent, too)

 

Trainers

 

Challenge! x 2 (Gaymaker players can't resist this temptation. . .combined with alakazam and tentacool, it can be fatal. . .)

Pokémon Center x 2 (Gotta get rid of that chansey damage)

 

Energy

 

Psychic Energy x 20

Full Heal Energy x 3 (Power-up, healer and anti-trainer lock all in one!)

 

 

Now, let's look at some basic strategies (hypotheses, mind you) to use against different archetypes.  I'll be using archetypes from Dr. Crash's list (I hope you don't mind, Dr. C).  Let's have a look, shall we?

 

Common Archetype #1: Raindance

 

You've seen them all over.  They're going to get more annoying with each additional set.  They're also the easiest to beat, since they have weak basics.  I think Dark Vile and Aero alone could shut a Raindance down.

 

Common Archetype #2: Gaymaker

 

Watch a Gaymaker player's mouth water when you play Challenge!.  Alakazam, Dark Vile, Tentacool, case closed there.  Gaymakers are awfully fond of trainer cards, so Dark Vileplume is a major handicap. . .but then again, since even a house plant is smart enough to play a Gaymaker there's so little strategy.

 

Common Archetype #3: Psychic Stall

 

I used to be a devoted stall deck player. . .but now that I found out this new archetype, I think it'll replace the traditional stall deck.  Don't look for much of these.  They should be pretty easy to take out because you'll have the tentakewl advantage.

 

Uncommon Archetype #1: Potpourri

 

Surprisingly enough, relatively few players play potpourri (at least where I live).  When you're taking one of them on, however, i'd say that pretty much anything goes here.

 

Uncommon Archetype #2: Wigglytuff

 

When I posted my psychic decks on the killer deck reports, I got e-mails constantly saying, "My wigglytuff can take out your psychic pokemon! Haw haw!".  That's a major reason I tried to make another deck and came up with this new archetype (?).  With the tentacool/alakazam combo and a chansey active, you should be fine, however.  One more thing. . .Challenge! should only be used as your very last resort, as it gives these trainers an edge.

 

Uncommon Archetype #3: AeroMew

 

Pretty much like psychic stall, I've seen very few of these around.  My new deck archetype could be described as a combination of Gaymaker, Psychic Stall and AeroMew.  If you do run into these, Challenge! can be quite useful.

 

Uncommon Archetype #4: Bench Destruction

 

Dark Raichu is gonna appear in lots of these, that's for sure. . .be sure to take out the pokés in this deck ASAP or get aero out before they can get a powerful bench destroying poké.  Guard your tentacools.  Dark gloom's poké-power can be useful here, too.

 

Uncommon Archetype #5: Denial

 

Golduck, Poliwrath, Dragonair, they're all components of this deck type.  The downside?  Hyper beam can't even kill a tentacool.  Dark Vileplume can be a major handicap to denial decks here.

 

Rare Archetype #1: Speedrill

 

Not much of an immediate problem here. . .they'll just oak, bill and comp search themselves to death.

 

Rare Archetype #2: Agility

 

Agility only does 20 damage (except with Rapidash), and these players usually oak themselves to death.  Leave it to all those dopey card magazines (Excluding pojo's, of course :)) to encourage card drawing.  It's magikarp fodder.

 

Rare Archetype #3: Energy Transit

 

I've never played this deck type, but I imagine that, like Dr. Crash said, fossil muk and aerodactyl ruined it.

 

Default Archetype: The Ash Ketchum

 

This is just a bunch of overrated cutsie little cards like pikachu, bulbasaur, etc.  About 98% have no trainers, doubles, or abundant energy.  Like you need strategy to defeat this type. . .

 

 

 

Well, there's my new archetype.  Let me know what you think of it at gen1551@usaor.net.

Later,

Justin