Wuzzup Pojo, your site is definitely the best pokemon site on the net. If you don't mind, please don't reject this 'cuz i spent lots of time to write this and help players build their own killer decks. Respond to bokchoyboy@hotmail.com Here are some guidelines to deckbuilding that will really help any player 1. Theme The first thing that you should consider is the theme of the deck you are making. Examples are evolution decks, speed decks, energy removal, etc... Decks sometimes revolve around one card such as Blastoise, or Venusaur, others revolve around one strategy. In addition to the theme choose which types you should play, 1 or 2 types is fine, 3 is nice too but can be hard to play if you don't have the right cards. For experts, the most popular decks include: The Haymaker: Uses strong basic pokemon and energy removals to attack with fast attacks that require only 1-2 energy cards while slowing the opponent down. Types: Fighting, Lightning, Grass Important cards: Hitmonchan, Scyther, Farfetchd,Electabuzz, (Super) Energy Removal, Gust of Wind The Invisible Wall: Uses Mr. Mime combined with Alakazam to make the Mr. Mime very difficult to kill. The 10-20 damage done to Mr. Mime is damage swapped to a pokemon with a lot of hit points and healed off with Pokemon Center . Types: Psychic Important cards: Mr. Mime, Alakazam family, Chansey, Pokemon Center, Defender, Rain Dance: Based on Blastoise. Using Trainers it gets out Blastoise as early as possible and dumps lots of energy on the pokemon using Rain Dance. Types: Psychic Impotant Cards: Blastoise family, Gyarados family, Professor Oak, Computer Search, Pokemon Breeder 2. Quantity It is important to balance the amount of each type of card for a deck to work effectively. Group the cards into these categories: Basic Pokemon, Trainers/Evolutions, Energy Treat Evolution cards as trainers and not as pokemon because having 4 hitmonchans aren't like having 2 machops and 2 machokes. There should be a minimum of 10 basic pokemon and maximum of 16, depending on its theme. There should be 15-25 trainers and evolutions. There should be 22-28 energy cards, depending on the pokemon and trainers used in it. For instance, if most of the pokemon in the deck use 1-2 energy, than you shouldn't use a lot of energy. Also, if a deck uses trainers that help get energy cards such as Professor Oak, Bill, and Energy Retrieval, than use less energy (especially Professor Oak). 3.Pokemon If you have a certain pokemon that evolves, try to put all stages of evolution in the deck, for instance if you put machops and machokes in, why not put machamp in too? For pokemon with 2 stages of evolution put 4 basic, 2 stage 1, 1 stage 2. If the evolved form is important in the deck, put 3 stage 1, and 2-3 stage 2. Also, have pokemon that don't evolve as well, they are usually stronger than most other basic pokemon. Cards to consider for each type: Fighting: Hitmonchan, Machamp family Fire: Magmar, Arcanine family, Ninetails family, (Charizard isn't so great) Grass: Scyther, Venusaur family, Vileplume family Lightning: Electabuzz, Zapdos Psychic: Mr. Mime, Alakazam family, Jynx Water: Blastoise family, Poliwrath family, Gyarados family Colorless: Chansey, Farfetch'd, Kangaskhan, Clefairy, Dodrio family 4. Trainers Trainers are very important and shound't be taken lightly. Here are the most powerful trainers and how to use them. Energy Removal: Use on pokemon that pose a threat, to slow them down Energy Retrieval: Use in energy hungry decks. Bill: Use in all decks Gust of Wind: Use to slow down opponent by bringing out pokemon with no energy on them Professor Oak: Use when you have no, few, or useless cards in your hand Pokemon Trader/Computer Search/Pokeball: Use in decks that revolve around 1-2 cards Computer Search/Item Finder: Use to pick up Professor Oak. Pokemon Breeder: Decks with lots of Stage 2 Evolution Cards. 5. Weakness/Resistance It is important to have a wide range of weaknesses among your pokemon. My deck uses hitmonchans (weak to psychic), electabuzzes (fighting), scythers (fire), and Kangaskhan (weak to fighting, resistant to psychic). Use colorless pokemon if necessary. Most are weak to fighting and resistant to psychic but some are weak to electric, and resistant to fighting. 6. Improvements No deck is perfect on its first try. Test it a few times, maybe that gust of wind is more useful than you expected or the pluspower isn't as good as you thought. Sometimes you need more, or less energy. Or you decide to replace some pokemon. In every game, even pokemon, practice makes perfect. Questions? Comments? e-mail me at bokchoyboy@hotmail.com