It's Me, It's Me the one the only J…S…C…

My name is Jsctoyboy2. Those of you that don't know me, Well let me introduce
myself, I am 15 years old, live in New Jersey and a Pokemon Tcg player. I am
also in the top 5 of the Pojo Apprentice League, with a record of 468 wins
and 183 losses. I play against the toughest people around the world!
Including pokemon tcg masters such as Scott Gerhardt (Placed 14th in the
STS!), ClefairyDoll, Jediman (Chad Mills placed 16th in the STS!), Weykool
(currently ranked #1 in pojo standings and also placed 18th in the STS!)

Now I am writing this article to help anyone in the need of tips, since the
East Coast STS is around the corner I thought it would be a good time to
share a couple of tips of the pokemon tcg. I started playing pokemon in
November of 1999. So I think I know a little about the pokemon Tcg =) . In
this article I will show some tips of how u can become a better tcg player.
No one starts as good as I am now =D, But when I 1st came into pokemon
tournaments I lost 3 matches and won 1 match! I had a base mewtwo, sandrew,
and gastly family line deck…what was I thinking…=\

Then like many of you I started reading the "Killer deck" section of the
pojo/pokemon website I found a deck I liked and contacted the owner of the
deck. His name is "Voltrob." He helped me out and told me what cards to get
and strategies to get started with! It happen to be a Wiggly deck in it's
base form.(back then it wasn't an archtype) I couldn't get all the cards I
needed like scythers, magmars, and  electabuzzs.

So I used cards that I had that were similar and almost had the same type of
attacks instead of using scyther I used a farfetch'd. I mainly play tested my
deck until I found it comfortable for me to use. The 1st thing that I did to
improve my skills as a pokemon tcg player was to join the Pojo Apprentice
League. For the people that don't know what the Pojo apprentice league is,
it's an online community of pokemon tcg players that chat and battle all day
long.

I got tons of practice with people around the world; this also helped me in
play testing all my decks that I needed practice with. After that I went to
the wizards of coast website and searched for a local league. I found one in
Northfeild; NJ (Jesters Playhouse) and it also improve my skills as a player.
Great place for league play and tourneys once a month.

Once I found a place to play in a league, and tournaments I decided to see
what kind of decks other people were using mainly Haymakers and Wiggly/Hay.
So I suggest if u go to a place where you battle check out what the other
people are playing with and to make sure that your deck can counter the other
pokemons type.

Now it doesn't matter if u play a non-arch type deck or an arch-type deck.
When I started playing I used a wiggly since it was a simple deck of filling
up your bench and stalling until turn 2 or 3 to power up your wiggly and
started doing the wave for 60. At the time, this was a new idea and only a
few used it until *cough* Scott made a deck called viragra then this type of
deck exploded and everyone started to use it. Now I don't use a wiggly deck,
I now try to use original decks to beat my opponents that used a little more
thinking.

But in the East Coast STS I am pretty sure that it will be populated with
wiggly, haymakers, sponge and other not mostly used arch-types. With this
type of environment you must consider the types of pokemon that will be in
these types of decks. Such as Hitmonchan, Scyther, Electabuzz, Promo Mewtwo,
Wigglytuff, Erica's Dratini, Dittos, and Chansey. Now some of these pokemon
counter themselves and if the New set of pokemon is included in the STS
tourney then "Gym Challenge" pokemon would be also considered as a threat.
Such as, Tr.'s Zapdos, Tr.'s Mewtwo, Koga's Ditto, Blaine's Ninetails, and
Misty's Gyarados! As I promised I will describe in detail which of these
pokemon would be useful in what kind of decks, and how they can help counter
haymakers and wiggly.

Erica's Dratini- Great right now because of the environment of haymaker
pokemon this pokemon can take about 4 shots from a haymaker pokemon b4 it
goes down because of his pokemon power, this card would be good in a wigg
deck or a colorless deck where you can use potion energies and full heal
energies. And its pokemon power allows you to stall for 4 turns b4 you could
get a high powered poke to KO wiggly, or start doing the wave.

Team Rockets Zapdos- New haymker pokemon 70hp 1 energy for 20 damage. Also
it's good because it's a lighting type pokemon with a resistance of fighting
and still has the same retreat as buzz or chan. It's plasma attack can also
power up your zapdos with out attaching an energy every turn. Mostly every
pokemon doesn't block lighting only diglett and dugtrio…..I don't know many
people who use them so it would be a good choice to use this guy against a
hitmonchan and a wiggly.

Team Rockets Mewtwo- very powerful, and it's the only pokemon that has 3
moves instead of 2! 1st move is also like a stall move by taking all damage
from mewtwo to your opponents pokemon 2nd move is also a stall move with the
effect of sleep, if you flip heads, but hits your opponent for 20! And 3rd it
has a very powerful move of 60 damage for 1 colorless energy and 3 psychic
energies! And beware since this type of mewtwo can be added with promo movie
mewtwos in the same deck! Total 8 mewtwos if the other player wanted to. So
the point is if you want to KO mewtwo, hitmonchan, ditto, etc in one shot
pick promo mewtwo, if you want a stall type mewtwo but that can still give a
hard blast of 60 damage pick this mewtwo.

Koga's Ditto- 40hp would scare some of you not to use it but with a flip of
the coin it could become 80hp and then could slap you for 30 damage for 1
colorless energy! This card would be good with a scoop up/potion energy/super
potion. This card could be considered as bait for your opponent but then you
have a pokemon ready after dittos KO.

Blaine's Ninetails- self-healing power, and 2 fire energies for 50 damage!
And for each fire energy you attach to ninetails you may take 1 damage
counter off ninetails very strong card. If used properly this card can be a
menace to be reckoning with. Since in the pojo apprentice league I haven't
seen much raindance used and no one has resistance to fire yet…. Then this is
a good card because of the abundance of scythers used today.

Misty's Gyarados- This card I will predict will be in every raindance deck
since this monster can change it's resistance to any type and has a power of
scooping up also when it is in trouble. Also 4 energies is a mere price to
pay for a move that can destroy any haymaker pokemon with 1 hit! 70 damage
with this dragons move! It's weakness is grass and it could have resistance
to it's own type or lighting this card will be very helpful to the raindance
fans out there!

As you can see there is a lot to choose from and different strategies that
can be put into each pokemon mentioned above. But the one more used would be
wiggly. Therefore, people will use fighting to counter a wiggly deck, then to
counter that the other person would have to use a psychic type, to block the
psychic type there would be a colorless type. So a good pkmn that would
counter most used decks in the STS would consist of:

WigglyTuff- for the psychic types
JigglyPuff- for the psychic types
Scyther- for the fighting types
Hitmonchan- for the colorless
Promo Movie Mewtwo- to knock out the fighting types in one blow
Ditto- could be also used since it can power up faster then Mewtwo

But that's my opinion, you just have to practice and play test your decks
with the pokemon you have and can get for your deck. It all depends on the
ruling for the sts tourney. I hope this article has helped you in some way,
shape, or form. Through my experiences playing in the Pojo apprentice League
is the best way to practice your "Killer Decks" and if you do join say hi to
me in the Mirc chat room of #pojo. I will be more then happy to battle you. =D

Well that's my Article from: Jsctoyboy2 (Jerry Carcache)
You can email me your comments at Workerofpc@aol.com
If you need some more deck tips or deck ideas I got plenty! So feel free to
email me because that's the way I started, and look how I have become as a
pokemon tcg player. Bye!