>Hey Spike,
>
>I was feeling adventurous one day, so I bought a Team Rocket Theme
>Deck. 
>I'm not sure which it was called, but it was the one with Dark Weezing
>in
>it.  I looked at all of the cards and thought, wow, WOTC sure knows how
>to
>make decks suck.  Then I came upon one card, Dark Vaporeon!  Being a
>former
>Poliwrath player, I knew the advantages of having an attack that does
>damage
>while removing energy at the same time.  Unfortunately, I retired my
>Poliwraths because stage 2 was just too hard to deal with.  I found
>Dark
>Vaporeon to be better than Golduck, due to its colorless first attack. 
>So I
>decided to make a deck using this card.  Here is what I came up with:
>
>Pokemon: (20)
>4 TR Eevee
>3 Dark Vaporeon
>
>4 Seel
>3 Dewgong
>
>2 Lapras
>
>2 Kangaskhan
>
>1 Chansey
>
>1 Lickitung
>
>Trainers: (16)
>
>4 ER
>2 SER
>3 Bill
>2 Oak
>3 Scoop Up
>2 Switch
>
>Energy: (24)
>
>20 Water
>4 DCE
>
>Strategy:
>Put out one of the stallers first turn if you can.  Hopefully a switch
>or a
>Scoop will come along before the pokemon is overpowered.  The Kangas
>fetch
>for cards, and can be powered up for an occasional comet punch.  The
>Lapras
>are for a staller that are not colorless, and confusion is pretty cool. 
>The
>other two are just good stallers.  After a long time of thinking, I ame
>to
>the conclusion that TR Eevee was better than Jungle due to Sand Attack,
>and
>I wasn't going to put down an Eevee anyway unless I would evolve it
>next
>turn.  I put in my favorite base set water evolution, Dewgong.  In my
>opinion, he is better than Gyrados, due to the use of DCE and Seel. The
>trainers are fairly self explanatory, Oaks and Bills, Switches for
>those 3
>retreat Pokemon, Scoops for stallers, and ER for the Dark Vaporeon. 
>The DCE
>fits with all of the colorless, and the Dewgongs.
>
>Problems:
>Weakness is a big problem.  Two biggies, Hitmonchan and Electabuzz, 
>just
>want to rip my deck apart.  How can I help with this problem?
>
>Thanks for the help,
>-SaintBob
>
>PS: Hi Vulpix!

***

1) Well, first, I just want to make a little disclaimer--I personally would use Golduck instead. Dark Vaporeon's only real advantage is the ability to do 30, which isn't that big of a deal with Dewgong also in the deck. When you consider the HP and having a better basic, there's not that much reason to use Vaporeon... unless you are just a fan of the guy or like the artwork. But then again, he's not horrible either. So I'll see what I can come up with.

First thing I can see you might want to do is drop Dewgong to 3-2. He's not quite as critical as others, and you'll be able to search for him by the time we're done. Now you can yank the Lapras (they're okay, but no need to make a weakness worse) and fill the open slots with 4 Scythers. These stop your fighting weakness cold and can help chew up Electabuzz if they need to. Now we come to the big stallin' colorless types. You're sort of scattered around here... see what I mean? Chansey... Licki... Kanga... I think you should pick one and stick with it, and in this case I think you want Kangaskhan. The only exception would be if retreat becomes a factor, in which case Chansey may be a better option.

2) Personally, I'd run 3 ER and 3 SER instead of going 4-2. Just personal preference. Actually, running 4 of each would be neat, but we'll see what space we have. Bill good, Oak good (but add in a 3rd if we have room later.) I don't think you really want to be running 3 Scoops; the space could probably be put to better use. Ditto for the Switch; retreat is less of a problem in this version of the deck than it used to be. I'd put in PlusPower since your attacks are low for the most part, and to boost you over the dreaded 70 HP barrier. Two Computer Searches are always a must. I think I would take out a couple of energy and replace them with Energy Retrievals--more efficient overall. There's going to be a couple of things I would like to add that I won't be able to (Gust and Item Finder come to mind) but I wouldn't have wanted to leave out any of this stuff. It's your call--you may want to try swapping out the PlusPowers for GOW at some point, just to see how it works.

3) With the retrievals, our energy comes to 18 water, 4 DCE. That should be good.

***

18 Pokemon:

4 Eevee
3 Dark Vaporeon
3 Seel
2 Dewgong
4 Scyther
2 Kangaskhan

20 Trainers:

3 Energy Removal
3 SER
3 Bill
3 Oak
2 Computer Search
3 PlusPower
1 Item Finder
2 Energy Retrieval

22 Energy:

18 Water Energy
4 DCE

***

Okay, you'll notice I changed something since making my recommendations up above. (My stream-of-consciousness fixing style occasionally causes discontinuities, but it's easier for me.) I decided I REALLY wanted an Item Finder in this deck, because that card can totally make or break the game at certain points. You'll be glad you have it, trust me.

And there's the deck. It's been tightened up a bit and the weakness has hopefully been made better. Good luck.


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