>Dear Spikey,
>
>Here is my deck
>
>Fertile rain deck
>
>Pokemon:
>
>Grass:
>3-weedles
>2-kakunas
>2-beedrills
>
>3-bulbasaurs
>2-ivysaurs
>1-venusaur
>
>Water:
>3-magikarp
>2-gyarados
>
>3-squirtle
>2-wortortle
>1-blastoise
>
>Trainers:
>
>2-gust of winds
>3-bills
>2-prof. oak
>2-energy retrieval
>1-comp. search
>1-poke. trader
>1-breeder
>
>Energy:
>
>11-water
>12-grass
>
>Well, I dont really have a strategy but lately when I
have been using this deck I try and get Blastoise and
Gyarados out >and pump them both up, so that I can
dragon rage and hydro pump to victory.
>
>I believe the problem with my deck is the lack of
stallers, any suggestions would be appreciated. In my
grass and >water cards spares I also have:
3-Nidoran(m) 2-Nidorinos 1-Nidoking and 3-Poliwag
2-Poliwhirl 1-Poliwrath. I also >have a few other rare
colourless cards, but jungle cards are rather
difficult to get my hands on because over here in >NZ,
Jungle aren't available for purchase yet.
>
>Other suggestions would also be appreciated.
>
>ALSO do you have any good suggestions for a
fighting/electric/psychic deck.
>
>Thanks

***

New Zealand, huh? Nice place. Haven't ever been there,
but I hope to visit someday. Anyway, let's take a look
at this deck. Looks like a fairly standard water/grass
deck. In my experience, that's been one of the more
stable color combinations. But this deck,
unfortunately, has too many evolutions for its own
good.

By the way, if the Gyarados/Blastoise strategy works
best for you, you might want to go with a mono-water
rain dance. I'm just going to fix it as a grass/water
deck, and tell you what might work best.

1) Like I said, we're going to need to trim some
evolutions. The lack of Jungle availibility is going
to make things very hard. If you don't have Jungle,
then presumably you don't have Fossil either. That
means no Scyther or Lapras, two cards that would give
this deck a real boost. Tell you what...I'm going to
go ahead and recommend a few cards from Jungle if I
need to. Then I'll tell you some substitutes you can
use until then, okay? First of all, pick an evolution
family from each color. If you can help it, try to go
with Gyarados for water--he doesn't need quite as much
water energy as Blastoise to do his thing, and he also
chews up less space than a Stage 2. As for grass, I
probably wouldn't go with Venusaur, seeing how Energy
Trans isn't that great in this deck. I would recommend
Nidoking; Beedrill is also nice. Whichever you choose,
you need a 4-3-2 evolution for Stage 2's, so keep that
in mind. Lastly, we need some good basics--either good
attackers or good stallers--and this is gonna be a
problem, since most of the obvious choices (Scyther,
Lickitung, Kangaskhan) call Jungle their home. Lapras
would also be good, but presumably Fossil is even
worse for you. Okay, here's the deal...I'm gonna
recommend Scy, Kanga, etc...and until you get Jungle,
use Farfetch'd or Tangela or something. In short, make
do with what you have. It should be OK, as long as you
follow the basic rules of deckbuilding. And if you
don't know what those are, read some of the other
articles in my garage; you should get some ideas.

2) Trainers will be easier, since most of the trainers
to come out after Basic have been either crap or less
generally useful than the ones in Basic. You've
already got a fair amount of Bills and Oaks, so we'll
leave those alone. What you need to do is replace the
Trader with another Computer Search (or, if you really
want the Trader, just put the Search in alongside it.)
Try and put in some Switches. Finally, put in some
energy removal. You should have quite a bit of space
from all the Pokemon you took out.

3) You didn't mention any problems with energy, so I'm
going to leave it the way it is. I presume that you're
smart enough to add in a few energy somewhere if you
need them, or find better ways to draw the energy.

***

19 Pokemon:

4 Nidoran Male
3 Nidorino
2 Nidoking
3 Magikarp
2 Gyarados
3 Scyther*
2 Kangaskhan*

16 Trainers:GOW
3 Bill
2 Oak
2 Energy Retrieval
2 Computer Search
1 Pokemon Breeder
4 Energy Removal

25 Energy:

11 Water Energy
12 Grass Energy
2 DCE (if you have a Pokemon that can use them)

*Jungle

***

Sorry I had to recommend Scyther and Kangaskhan.
They're just such good Pokemon (Scyther especially in
this deck) that I figured it was better to go ahead.
The listing above represents my version of your deck
under ideal circumstances. Until you're able to get
Jungle (hope it won't be too long--geez, and I thought
it sucked having to wait for Gym!) you can replace
Scyther with Farfetch'd. Not as good by a long shot,
but better than nothing. Kangaskhan will be a bigger
problem. You might as well go ahead and replace it
with whatever seems good to you. Chansey works okay as
a pure staller, but Kangaskhan is unique as a
card-drawing engine. It also functions well as a
hitter in a pinch and as a psychic hoser. I'm
rambling, I know, so I'll stop now. Hope this helps.
It's hard for me to work with limits like this when so
much of my thinking is determined by Jungle and
Fossil, so sorry if I didn't do very well. Try these
changes out as best you can, and keep in mind my
comments about Gyarados and Blastoise at the very
beginning.

As for a fighting/electric/psychic deck, well, that
sounds like a modified Haymaker or Potpourri to me. If
you're running three colors, you definitely want the
emphasis on strong basics with cheap attacks. That's
'bout all I can say. Take care...


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