There have been some minor card tournements (BTW i got 2nd out of 15) going 
down at my local card shop. Over there i have seen many people clueless 
people on how they should handle their deck, i consistent problem is that 
they don't balance their "Family cards" (eg. the Charmander, Charmeleon, 
Charizard, etc.). Once I seen a kid who rushed his deck with 4 Blastoise, 2 
wartortle (all he had) and 5 squirtle (yep, he was disqualified). I thought i 
should give him some basic advice on deck building, and I would like to share 
that with you people. I told him that I usually had 4 of the same basics if i 
plan to evolve them, and the amount of next stage cards should be 1 less. ex: 
4 Weedles, 3 Kakunas, 2 Beedrils (sounds reasonable, right?) this is may not 
apply to some cards, or you could place the same number of cards everystage, 
but what if one gets knocked out?, you'll be left without a card space that 
could'hv been used better. I always follow this rule wiht my decks (then 
again I never got first place) but it's basic and should help you out. Also, 
you can have only 1 of the final stage, ex: 4 Balbulsars, 3 Ivysaurs, and 1 
Venusar. This can be useful if you only have one of that stage, or having too 
many of that same card would be too costly to use (chairizard).