>hi kitty
>
>I have a deck that is in need of maintanance! i have been using it at the UK 
>pokeleague for a few weeks, and it started off realy well, but over the last 
>2 weeks, I have been having a lot of trouble beating decks, notably 
>raindance, which seems kinda odd because I have electabuzz in there! I have 
>read your deck building guidelines, and my deck seems to follow them, even 
>if the basic count is a little low, i can cover for that with NGR. Please 
>tell me what you think I could modify to make it more successful. I have a 
>lot of cards, but only from the first 4 sets, as Gym:heroes isn't out in the 
>UK yet, although if it is completely necessary i can get a few. The main 
>types of deck I see at the league are potpourri, stall and raindance, with 
>an increasing number of haymakers too. Dark muk is there a lot as well, but 
>isn't too much of a problem. Hand-disruption is also very
>popular.
>
>Here is my deck
>
>Pokemon;
>3 Scyther
>3 Electabuzz
>3 Ditto
>2 Tauros
>
>Trainers;
>4 Energy Removal
>4 Super Energy Removal (i find this combo of 8 is essential for wins, with 
>so much hand disruption, I need one as often as possible)
>4 Professor Oak
>4 Pluspower
>4 Gust Of wind (try to avoid chan or magmar when i dont need them)
>1 CPU Search
>2 Item Finder
>3 Nightly Garbage Run (NGR)
>
>Energy;
>4 Double Colorless
>4 Full Heal
>6 Grass
>9 Lightning
>
>thanx for reading this
>
>Peter Ross, 15 UK
It looks like you have a fairly solid deck here. What I would consider though is taking a closer look at the Pokemon you've chosen to use. The main concern I have is the overuse of Ditto. Most decks will employ 2 of these guys, but they do have their negative sides. Tauros, I think, you could find better Pokemon that it in your deck as well. Let's drop the Ditto count to 2 and we'll play with 3 Mewtwo from the movie instead. This will give your deck a stronger way of dealing with the stall decks.

Pokemon (11 Basic + NO Evols = 11 Total):
3 Scyther
3 Electabuzz
3 Mewtwo (Movie)
2 Ditto

Additionally, we're going to drop our energy count down to 18, which is more than enough when Nightly Garbage Runs are put to use in decks.

Energy (12 Basic + 6 Special = 18 Total):
6 Lightning
6 Psychic
4 Double Colorless Energy
2 Full Heal Energy

For trainers, you seem to be missing one key element against Blastoise decks... Rocket Sneak Attack. The ability to simply remove that Professor Oak out of their hand that they were relying on using next turn is deadly to the big blue machine. Against stall decks, we just need to make sure that we can get a Mewtwo out and have a Gust of Wind in our hand. One blow from Mewtwo will take out that pesky Alakazam. Against Potpourri, you'll need your Energy Removal. Since most potpourri decks have three types of energy, focus on one of those when playing against them (whatever kind will hurt you more -- usually fire) and hit those energy for removal every chance you get. Taking away one of their three elements is almost always a way to stop these decks dead in their tracks.

Trainers (31 Total):
4 Bill
3 Professor Oak
3 Computer Search
4 Energy Removal
4 Super Energy Removal
3 Gust of Wind
3 Nightly Garbage Run
4 Rocket Sneak Attack
3 Item Finder

On your first turn, try to get a Mewtwo up front, put a Psychic energy on him, then use Professor Oak or Computer Search to get two more energy (at least one of these being Psychic) to your discard pile. Then Energy Absorption on your first turn to setup to do 40 damage or some cheap Super Energy Removal'ing on your second turn. If you can't pull it off, then go with the solid staple of Electabuzz, who is also capable of 40 on the second turn. Good luck!