For those of you with limited resources, I am going to try to reconfigure an Overgrowth precon deck into a more competive deck. This deck will be most successful against other players with similar resource restrictions - primarily the "under 14" crowd. But these modifications alone will not guarantee you a win, you must also be a master of the PokeMon TCG rules and a student of strategy. Any deck has the chance to lose when played by a sloppy or dumb player. Now on with the deck reconfiguration. An Overgrowth precon consists of Grass and Water Pokemon. This is what you get: 16 Grass Energy 4 Weedle 2 Kakuna 1 Beedrill 4 Bulbasaur 2 Ivysaur 12 Water Energy 4 Staryu 3 Starmie 2 Magikarp 1 Gyarados 2 Super Potion 2 Switch 2 Gust of Wind 2 Bill 1 Potion In my opinion, about all these decks are good for is provide the purchaser with a wealth of energy and 1 foil rare and 1 non-foil rare (Gyarados and Beedrill in this case). These decks are geared for those players who play very energy sloppy (like putting energy on a Pokemon that will get KO'd next turn). But in my observation of youngsters engaged in play is they refuse to discard energy to retreat, use Super Potion, or use Super Energy Removal - so I'd have to question the usefulness of Super Potion in this deck. Also, one of the major shortcomings of this deck is that it only has 1 Gyarados and 1 Beedrill. What happens if one or both cards get stuck in your draw pile or at the bottom of your deck? I'll tell you what happens - you lose! This is because that lowly 30 HP Magikarp gets stuck out there waiting for the Gyarados that never shows up. So I'd definately recommend that you acquire another Gyarados and Beedrill - and the guaranteed easiest way to do this is to by another Overgrowth deck. My initial recommendations for modifying this deck follow along with the recommendations listed in the booklet that comes with Overgrowth: drop 4 Staryu drop 3 Starmie add 2 Magikarp add 1 Gyardos add 1 Ivysaur They recommend adding Venusaur, but that addition might break the bank unless you have some decent holograms from booster packs to trade for Venusaur (possibly having to trade 2 or 3 holograms for Venusaur). But two Level 2 evolutions in this deck would make it just too slow getting up to speed and in a heavy Energy Removal environment it will rarely get to attack - so I'd say no to adding Venusaur to this deck. They also recommend Pokemon Breeder, primarily to speed up the evolution of either Weedle to Beedrill or Bulbasaur to Venusaur. But the problem is that the card is rare and can still be highly valued by those players playing Level 2 evolutions. In addition to those recommendations: drop 2 Super Potion add 1 Switch add 1 Gust of Wind add 2 Bill add 1 Potion add 1 Kakuna add 1 Beedrill If you did buy two Overgrowth boxes, this part has been easy so far. Now comes the hard part - trading for 2 more cards. Luckily, you have some extra Super Potions. See if you can get anyone to trade you a Professor Oak for a Super Potion - because this deck need 2 Professor Oaks. add 2 Professor Oak drop 2 Water Energy drop 2 Grass Energy The final deck looks like this: 14 Grass Energy 4 Weedle 3 Kakuna 2 Beedrill 4 Bulbasaur 3 Ivysaur 10 Water Energy 4 Magikarp 2 Gyarados 3 Switch 3 Gust of Wind 4 Bill 2 Potion 2 Professor Oak This deck might be prone to mulligan (no Basic PokeMon in your opening hand) due to the fact that we only have 12 Basic Pokemon - but if you shuffle good and keep from clumping all your Energy together, as well as keep from clumping all your Pokemon together, you should get the right mix of Pokemon, Trainers, and Energy to start attacking by Turn 2 (at the very latest). The energy ratio is a little tighter, so don't go putting 3 Energy on Magikarp until you have Gyarados in your hand and you are ready to evolve. Once you get Gyarados and Beedrill out, you have Pokemon that are resistant to Fighting Pokemon. Beedrill also has the ability to retreat for free, so you will always be able to get Beedrill out of trouble once he gets too much damage on him to safely leave him as your active Pokemon. Ivysaur and Beedrill also have Poison attacks that will cause your opponent to scramble to remove the poison. If they didn't put any Full Heal cards in their deck, or if the Pokemon can't evolve - they'll have to retreat to the bench to remove the poison. Now you're ready to enjoy your new, more powerful deck against your friends. Gordon Kane gordon_kane@rocketmail.com _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com