Hello, this is the newbie writer, Hybrid. This is my first article, and
is to inform people on how well your deck has to be to function well in the
pokemon leaugue environment, and how to win tournaments with these decks. 
This is my first time writing an article on pojo, and I will try to make it
as helpful as possible to many of you pokemon trainers out there. 
    Well, enough with boring you on my newbie file, I will now go along with
the article.  At my school, one of the Jefferson County Public Schools, we
have an open response analysis chart.  This asks you questions to make your
open response better.  I am going to use these questions to make the more
inexperienced players out there to help make their decks better.  However, if
you are an experienced player, you still might want to read this article to
make yourself better.
    The first question is What do I have to do?  Well, the first thing you
have to do is make a deck.  Now you can come about this in many different
ways.  You could go with the flow, and create and archetype deck like many
other people do, and I do myself.  Yet, I find this uncreative and I think
that really you should try to make your own deck every once in a while, just
to kee the game fun, and your mind working.  Some of the major archetypes now
are, Wiggly, raindance, trapper, and the most popular of all, Haymaker.  Now
I am not dissing anyone if they play a different archetype, but it would just
take too long to list all of them.  Now, I think that a deck, even an
evolution deck, should have no more than 17 pokemon in it, sometimes you need
more.  In a haymaker variant, keep the pokemon below 12 or 10.  Also, you
should try to include some big bad basic pokemon in all decks, such as
hitmonchan, or Movie Promo Mewtwo.
     Now trainers is where the deck gets its effieciency, and can function
with ease.  You should have over 25 trainers in the deck according to the
number of pokemon and energy you have.  I will cover the energy part in a
minute.  Some disruption trainers like energy removal, Rocket Sneak Attack,
and Lass, are always a must.  Also the most important trainers in a deck IMO
are the card drawing trainers, like Professor Oak, Bill, and Computer Search.
 Gust of wind and switch might also be helpful to use to get control of the
board.  There are tons of trainers out there that will help out in the game,
and you may find your self tweaking your decks to put in trainers that fit it
well.
    The next question the chart asks you is, What do I have to know?  Now,
everybody knows the obvious answer to this question, Know How To Play!  Now,
that you have learned how to play the game, you will also need to know the
metagame in your area.  Look at the decks that the majority of the people are
playing.  If they are playing a raindance deck, use an electric deck.  If you
think they are going to use an electric deck, build a fighting deck. 
    Also, you have to know that some pokemon and trainers don't work well
together, like No Removal Gym, and Energy Removal do not work well together. 
You don't want a narrow gym in a wigglytuff deck, because that's just
hampering yourself from doing what you want to do.  Also, know your own deck.
 Know what's in it and be able to tell what cards might be in your deck and
prizes by looking through your discrad pile.
    The third question is, How well do I have to do it?  Well, you have to do
it well enough to fit the levle of play around your area.  If everyone is
playing Pikachu-Weedle decks, fine, make a Machop-Charmander deck to beat it.
 However if the majority of people in your area is playing Wiggly's and
Raindance, then you really want to get a higher and more powerful deck.  You
also have to make it good enough where it will keep the game fun for you.  We
don't want you to build a really bad deck, lose, cry, and say how much you
hate pokemon.  That's the last thing we need is more "Pokemon is evil"
Protestors.  You need to keep it at a levle not to complicated for you, but
strategic.  I also suggest switching decks at least once every two weeks. 
This is mainly because playing the same deck over and over again gets BORING!
  I know, I trashed my Wigglytuff deck, the best deck I had, because it was
getting boring.
    Now the last question is How can I make it better?  Well, I pretty much
said this when I was describing the metagame in your area, but playtest your
deck.  You WILL find yourself saying if only I had this... or if only I had
that....This leads to new deck makeovers, and the deck mechanics on this site
can help you with that.  You could also check over all the cards yourself,
just to see if everything fits well with eachother.
    Well this concludes my first report.  In the future I will try to find
more fun, and interesting ways to provide you with pokemon info.  Hey, my
name is hybrid, how about I cross my DNA with pokemon DNA for a while.  Tell
me what you think about that!  Please email me with hate mail or thanks mail.

Hybrid150 signing off.
Email me at Hybrid150@aol.com