I am here to talk about one of the most powerful decks, a Raindance.
This deck centers around Blastoise and his ability to power up his water
friends quickly.  I'm going to talk about how to play one and what cards
to put in it.

First of all, we're going to talk about the Blastoise line.  of course,
you need 4 Squirtles and at least 3 Blastoise, if you don't play Dark
Blastoise.  If you want, you can play Wartortles, but only do this if
you want a deck for casual play.  Breeders work much better in
tournaments, and I would play 4 of these.
A new strategy that came with the release of TR is the Dark Blastoise
deck.  It uses Light Blastoise to power everything up, as usual, but
Dark Blastoise is the main hitter here.  I love this deck, and play one
myself.  4 Squirtles, 2 Dark Blastoise, and 2 Light Blastoise are
standard fare for this deck.

Of course, Blastoise can't win by himself, even with Dark Blastoise to
help.  The main side-hitters are Lapras and Articuno.  Both are equally
good, but Articuno has a bit more firepower packed in.  These guys will
stall if you need it, and can hit hard while you get that Dark Blastoise
to finish 'em.  3-4 of these are good in a Raindance deck, regardless of
Dark Blastoise inclusion.

On to the trainers.  Bill and Oak are required here.  When you use
these guys, you're almost guaranteed to get more water energy, which you
can immediately dump onto your bench.  Most people play with 4 Bill and
3-4 Oak, but I play 3-2 'cuz I don't wanna deck-and you will if you
abuse these cards.
Pluspowers also have a great place here.  With Light Blastoise, you can
add a Pluspower to knock out a Hay poke in one turn.  4 is the only
acceptable number here.
CPU search is a great card.  Get anything you want for 2 cards-be it
Blastoise, oak, or Pluspower, this is great.  And, of course we need 4
Pokemon Breeders.  Item Finders are popular, but I don't play any.
Now, we have the oddballs-cards that make a great addition, but aren't
neccessary.  First up is Goop Gas.  I play 2 of these because lots of
people around here play psy decks with Fossil Haunter and Mime.  Sure,
it shuts off Blastoise for a turn, but at least I'll get rid of that
Mime that's been shutting me down(note-this is another thing to watch
out for.  Mime can bring a Raindance to it's knees).  Another card is
Nightly Garbage Collection.  You can get those Breeders, oaks,
pluspowers, or anything else back for free.  It can also keep you from
decking.  Some people play energy removals, but I don't think that
they're too great in this deck.  We are already squeezed for room.  A
card that I do recommend is Challenge.  I recently switched 2 Bills for
this card.  If you need it to works as a Bill, make it a hard challenge,
like "go climb Mt. Everest."  If you need to fill your bench with
Squirtle, Articuno, and Lapras, make it easy, like "stand up."  Thats
about it for trainers.

For energy, it's as simple as always.  I play 24 energy right now, but
I'm switching down to about 20-22 soon.  This deck needs a lot of energy
to plop onto your bench, but you can go as low as 18.

For a good Raindance, the proportions should be about 15-25-20 as far
as pokemon-trainers-energy.

I would like to give you guys my deck list to look at, but I'm afraid
people would copy it, and one of the things that makes a deck click with
it's user is if it is unique.  I know Raindance is copied like heck, but
I still love my deck.  I will, however, give you a very generic
Raindance deck.

4 Squirtle
3 Articuno
3 Lapras
3 Blastoise

4 Breeder
3 CPU search
4 Pluspower
3 G.o.W.
3 Bill
3 Oak

27 Water energy

This deck is high on energy and low on trainers, so it won't perform
well.

Happy Dancing!

rogue712@home.com               SilverCube