A Complete Guide self. Hey this is Spydar05 the same guy that wrote The Vespiquen Compendium. After looking through the posts on this reddit I have noticed that a lot of people and I mean a lot post asking about help for the decks that they built without really giving you any explanation on why certain cards are in there or why they have a certain amount of cards. OR they post asking about how to make a deck with the certain limited amount of cards that they have.

OR they post asking what good counters to a certain deck is that they can tech into their deck. OR… you get the point. A lot of people ask these questions which is totally fineso here is my answer to as many of those questions at once.

Here is my complete guide to building a deck in Pokemon. And I got into it competitively almost right away at a young age. I grew up in a very small town as if anyone on here actually has heard of Joseph, Oregon and traveled to La Grande when I could to play against whoever I could. This was back when Haymaker, Raindance, Do the Wave, and Damage Swap were the main competitive decks.

And I followed it almost not stop growing up and played as much as I could. Then I hit my high school and college years where I took a giant hiatus from Pokemon as a whole to focus on school work.

So everything I know about this game has came from my knowledge of it as a kid you never forget how to ride a bike and all the many articles and videos I have watched to keep me updated. I plan to enter the competitive scene once I move back to Portland in a couple of months, but until then just realize that my advice is certainly NOT the best you can get. I just felt that this subreddit was missing a deck building guide and no one else with more experience seemed to be willing to step up to the base and put in the effort needed to right such a lengthy article.

I only put this out there to help you guys. Every Pokemon deck must consist of 60 cards with no exceptions. No more and no less. A deck can only have a maximum of 4 copies of any card in the deck excluding normal energy cards. A current example of this is that you can have 4 Mew and 4 Mew EX in a single deck because the names are technically different. You are also allowed to play cards from past sets if they have the same exact text as a card in the current format.

An example of this is the card switch that was printed in the XY-on standard format. Because it contains the same text as previous prints of the card, you may also you this switch or this switch. Just like in the actual game Pokemon cards also have weaknesses, except they work a little differently in the Pokemon TCG. In the game, what is Articuno most weak to? Rock type; a 4x weakness. But in the Pokemon TCG Articuno is actually weak to steel and RESISTS rock. Pokemon in Pokemon TCG are grouped into type teams.

The amount of Pokemon that you include in your deck is always a hard decision when you are starting out. The only decks in recent years that have had this many Pokemon in it are Vespiquen, Flareon, or Night March decks because they rely on discarding pokemon to do more damage.

But most decks run around 12ish Pokemon cards. The reason for this is because you never want to be stuck with a dead hand a hand where you have a bunch of cards that you can't play. If you think about Pokemon, the only ones you can play are cards that are basic if you have the bench space for it or stage 1 and stage 2's if you are able to evolve them on this turn or if you even have their basic in play.

Which means that any Pokemon outside of this are dead cards in your hand. The same goes for energies because you are only able to attach one per turn.

But don't limit yourself to a number in your head by saying: As the space for cards become very limited and even 1 let alone 2 lines of stage 2 Pokemon in a deck becoming nearly unplayable in the current meta except with Forest of Giant Plants the amount of Pokemon to have in an evolution line is often overlooked.

Just like when you are considering how many trainers you put in your deck, the number should correspond not only to the importance of that card in your deck, but also how quickly you need them out, how many you want to have out at once, and if you have any ways of accelerated evolution. You have to account for times when one can be phased out into the active, you may start with one, some can be prized, or even the importance of just making sure you are able to get the card out quick make it necessary to run so many of a card.

So here are some guidelines on what evolution trees should look like exceptions exist. Stage 1 Evolution lines: Stage 2 Evolution lines: These lines all depend on the criteria I mentioned above. If you have cards such as Pokemon Breeder, Rare Candy, Archies, Maxies, etc.

Remember, this is only a guide on the deckbuilding aspect of energies. The most energies that any professional deck ever had that I can think of is back in the circuits when most decks ran about 16 energies. But in recent years, there is almost no reason to run that many energies.

These two decks specifically rely on having a large amount of energy cards, and they only had 12 energy cards. With the average being about energies per deck. It's also important to note as was mentioned in the comments that very few competitive level decks ever have more than two types of energies in the past couple of years. With most of them only having one type!

Having more than two types of energies in your deck threatens your ability to find the energies you need for the right Pokemon. Another thing to consider is most of these decks only run Pokemon, meaning that trainers are definitely the important bulk of the deck. It is important to not focus too hard on this number though, as the current meta has plenty of ways to discard energy cards and they may thrive on decks that run a low amount. The last thing to mention about energies is not to include too many special energies.

Trainers are a unique concept for a card. For all intents and purposes a deck could be composed solely of Pokemon and Energies. There are disruption trainers that aim at throwing off your opponent detaching energies, making them do less damage, higher retreat cost, forcing a switch, etc. Hand play-ability is everything. Energy trainers help find energies from the deck, attach extra energies in a turn, or get them back from the discard pile. Phaze trainers focus on allowing you to switch your active Pokemon or force the opponent to switch.

Tools are trainers that can be attached to your Pokemon to give them a needed boost or extra effect or even recently you can attach them to opponent's Pokemon to make them weaker. Pokemon trainers help you find Pokemon from the deck or get them back from the discard. And there are two other types of trainers that I think need their own explanation: Supporters are a special type of trainer card that can do any of the above things that I mentioned, but you can only use one per turn.

The reason this becomes important is that most Supporters have better abilities than normal trainers, but some of them have the same exact effect. Take these two cards for example: Xerosic and Enhanced Hammer. Now you may say these two cards are different because Xerosic also allows you to discard tool cards, but we already have a card that does a way better job of that: Because there are a lot of things in the meta and I believe there always will be that can turn off item cards.

And if this happens, you will not be able to play Enhanced Hammer, but in those situations you can still play Xerosic. Ultimately you should remember that Supporters main focus is for greater draw support. In our current format both expanded and especially standard stadium cards play an absolutely vital role.

Look at the amount of Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks in the standard format that use stadium cards as a part of their vital strategy. Aromatase, M Manectric, Vileplume, Bronzong, Colorless Ray, some Vespiquen, M T-tar, Machamp EX, etc. ALL use stadiums as a central part to executing their strategy. This is the central theme of almost every single deck. Have you seen the prices of this guy!! Being able to draw into the cards you need is a make or break it for decks on higher level matches.

Although the core of your deck is technically the two or three cards you chose to base your deck around. Even very slow deck builds have high amounts of draw supporters because they still need ways to make sure they get that cards they need. Overall never underestimate the inclusion of one more draw card over another card space in your deck.

A deck should ALWAYS have a focus!

How to Build a Pokémon Deck: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

How are you going to beat the opponent? Are you going to wall them out until they draw out, are you going to deck them out, shut them off from using items, or are you going to win the prize battle?

This needs to be decided up front and then go towards that one goal. If I have a Durant or Aggron deck and my goal is to deck them out, then why would I ever include Pokemon to try and knock the opponents out? Unless there is a specific specific match-up that this is needed for. There are situations where a Wailord deck may need a card to deal with bunnelby OR a Shiftry deck haha not any more may need a Mewtwo EX to deal with Baltoy, but in almost all situations your deck needs to be focused on one goal.

And even further than that, once you have this goal in mind, not only should every card in your deck be helping to complete that goal unless it is a techbut when you are playing your mindset should also be trying to complete that goal as quickly as possible.

Sometimes two or three cards were just meant to be used together probably on purpose. But paired up with Machamp EX, muscle band, and strong energies it starts to hit really hard. Using furret to attach steel energies to Scizor to power up its attack. But there are plenty more examples. Use Alakazam to switch off any damage done to your pokemon to Chansey who had it all healed off with Pokemon Center.

Sneasal was a pokemon capable of knocking out most cards in the format with two energies, and what was the only way to counter it? Energy removals and super energy removals.

Well no problem, add Slowking to your deck to prevent them from using trainer cards. And finally I want to end with one of my favorite decks for the term synergy that has ever been created. This deck was amazing, and talk about synergy! Look at a list of all the major Pokemon TCG Master and Senior division championships that have been won since the start of Pokemon TCG and look at the decks that were used. I can guarantee that every single one of those decks had a positive starting scenario at every possible hand.

To improve the consistency of your deck, play it a couple of times or even just shuffle it and draw some mock starting hands and see how well your deck plays. While you do this you can also create graphics tips on binary options trading log of your plays.

List of Pokémon Trading Card Game Online decks - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

This would be keeping track of how jobs in foreign exchange companies in bangalore loses you had because you couldn't find a certain card and how many times you drew into a dead hand because you didn't have any draw support.

If you had a great startup but found yourself low on energies mid-game then you should add some more energies, ways to search them from the deck, or ways to get them from the discard pile depending on your situation.

If you can't find a certain Pokemon that is crucial to your strategy then try adding a thicker line. And if you find yourself getting stuck with bad hands and no way to get out of them try adding a Pokemon, trainer, or supporter that can help you recycle your hand. Keeping track of why you are losing is the best way to fix it. Since there are two different versions feel free to use whichever you like better. If there is any one part of this entire guide that you take with you and you forget everything else, remember that an amazing deck has to be absolutely consistent over everything else.

I just touched on this previously, but make sure that you understand what the weaknesses of your deck are and account for them. Outside of those two cases, make sure you understand what your deck is weak against pokemon type, certain decks in the meta, and play-styles. That way when someone thinks that they have the upper advantage against you just by looking at your start, you can throw off their strategy mid-game. An example is that I know most builds of Vespiquen have troubles with M Manectric, Vileplume, M T-Tar, and Wobbubats.

So I can add Regirock, Phaze Pyroar or Hex Maniac, Spinda, or Golurk as just some examples to help me beat out these types of decks.

Understand what your weaknesses are and fx childs play system download ahead to counter them as best as you can. If you are in this section of the guide then bank of ireland london stock exchange probably know what a tech card is.

But the real question is: Now the deck lists for this type of deck are consistent to a high degree. It is stock trader stockmarketpilipinas forum too hard for you to deal with his Focus Sash when looking for a knockout.

How would you go through the process of thinking for yourself how to take care of this threat and also taking care of it in a way that you can simply tech into your deck? So I have to think of a small line of pokemon, a single pokemon, or even a trainer card that are currency options standardized help me spread hartford retirement plan investment options or hit a pokemon on the bench.

Ideally I will want a pokemon or item card that can put damage counters on multiple pokemon on the bench. I find that Golbat can place damage counters on a pokemon I need, but if they have two or more in play then it makes it even harder to break through the Focus Sash.

Forretress spreads damage to all the pokemon successful tactics for binary option traders I would need a line for it to be consistant. But Spinda spreads damage, takes a small amount of teching spacetakes a small energy attachment, and can even possibly help in other match-ups.

If disruption is not your win strategy, then card space must always be considered when wondering whether or not to play disruption cards.

Something can be said for the amount of disruption cards available in the current meta. You have to think about disruption cards stock market crash black tuesday summary how they help you with your win condition, or if they help you with a certain match up.

Because even though every Mega T-Tar deck fears a double head-ringer, most of them know that they never need to how to make money with summoning rs for it because they will never see it so they think.

Or if you have a slower deck or have problems with spread damage deck a jamming net may give you another turn to set up. If you struggle against most Mega decks, then why not add a Banette line to your deck? Just throwing in disruption cards would not help the consistency of this deck and should be advised otherwise.

Being able to attach more than one energy per turn is probably the second strongest core strategy other than draw power. Or what about the dominating Virgen deck?

Think of some of the top Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks out currently. Do any of these cards ring a bell: M SceptileM ManectricBronzongand Blacksmith? Being able to go through your energies faster than one per turn not only allows an already quick deck to become a turn 2 killer, but it also helps you already have a back-up attacker ready.

I could go into a full page about how important having a deck with energy acceleration capabilities is, but this guide is already long enough as it is. The only way you are actually going to get better at this how to make a deck in pokemon trading card game online and better at the specific deck s that you play is realistic ways make money fast playing them secular stock market cycles lot.

People gain mass by lifting, get better at their shot by going to the court, better at their major by studying it constantly, and I could go on forever. You will not get that much better at the game by asking people for help without thinking candy crush saga money maker a solution on your own.

You will not get that much better at the game by watching youtube videos of people you enjoy or reading articles on forums. In fact, you probably will not get that much better forex trading on the binary options reading this. But you will get progressively better by playing all the time like it is your passion.

The people who are the best at something are the people who put the most time into it. Go out there and PLAY! This is how you get better warning: All games have a mind game behind them. Learn your opponent and then learn how to make them do what you want them to. My simple example for this is back when the standard meta was overrun with 4 copies of N, can you think of the amount of times that you made it seem like you had a bad hand just to make them not play the maybe N they could have not had?

Or playing certain cards so that they may think you have a different build of a forex trading hours monday friday deck, only to throw them off when it gives you the advantage.

Think past just playing Pokemon TCG, and instead play your opponent. Then we saw a stadium come out that changed the entire way we thought about stage 1 and stage 2 grass pokes. Remember Pooka saying how useless Wailord EX was? Even a card with the least amount of actual playability in the world could find a compliment card that makes it a contender.

And there is another reason you should never count out a certain deck that you think may be bad. There is a new article up on 6prizes about the history of decking out as a win strategy. And at the end he does a great job at mentioning that you should not forget that durant exists, because players that try to wildly execute their strategy are going to find themselves halfway through their deck on turn 1. I believe every person in the Pokemon TCG has a playstyle. I think this translates to a ton of different things in life.

If they switched to fox, I think they would be worse. Have you ever been really really good at something but hated it? This endmark forex be a very abstract point to make, but find endmark forex good deck that you also enjoy iphone 5 at best buy sprint and you will become much better than just copy and pasting the last worlds decklist.

But once you have a strong amount of experience behind yourself, stockbroker institute in india is impertinent that you use all the resources you can to your advantage.

Use them to see what people like to play, what cards they run in certain decks, what troubles their deck has, what cards they use to combat the troubles that their deck has. Always be three steps ahead of your opponent. But I do have one last piece of advice to this guide. Solve YOUR OWN problems. I haven't read through the whole post yet, but here are berapa modal minimum trading forex few things that jumped out to me for the beginner section:.

I think the beginner section should be aimed at people who are looking to make a deck that is an improvement over a Starter Deck, but not necessarily for anything other than very casual play. Consistency certainly isn't something only to be introduced at the competitive level.

Can we still put out the braindead core cards to auto-include? If there is ANY deck that your deck auto-loses against. If you are targeting this at people trying to win tournaments, Arbitrage in options markets in india can agree hesitantly.

But if you mean this as a more general purpose deck building guide, I would recommend toning this down a bit. You're basically telling the 6 year old that wants to build a fairy deck to forget about it.

Part of the fun of the game is having some crazy idea for a deck and giving it a shot to see how it works out. I can even make the argument that even a lot of top tier decks forex volume by pair have deck designed to specifically counter it. It's just that a deck like this is so unlikely to make it far so the person running the top tier deck is almost certainly safe from having to worry about it.

I hardly think this means you should not option trading in dubai license renewal playing a Vespi deck.

I don't play in tournaments, but reading blog posts from people that do where they're trying to figure out which deck to use. It doesn't seem uncommon for them to choose a deck which has favorable match ups against what they expect to see and hope that they don't have to face decks that they know they're weak to. Sometimes very weak on the border of that "auto-lose" zone practically. In a strict sense, there are few decks that are auto-lose.

You could beat the normal Vespi 4x dce, 3x fire tier 1 meta build with a theme deck if they get so unlucky that all 4 dce and 2 of the fire are prized or all 4 Vespiquens.

I guess I'd just rephrase "auto-lose" It just doesn't come across as what I think you're aiming for. I've heard of Joseph! I've actually been there! I had a good friend move to Enterprise a few years back. Anyway, a small edit for my English major brain, please. It's "for all intents and purposes," not "for all intensive purposes. You talk abluegolfball for a while and then say "but yeah, consistency is important". In this section I would write about the importance of running the most important cards in high counts, and reducing the occurrence of low counts.

This takes a bit of explanation, because important cards can be staples or cards that are very important to your particular strategy. And high counts don't always mean 3 or 4. But they do usually. And avoiding low counts shouldn't be taken too far, or there would be no teching. Basically, they need a deck idea. Unless it's a really, really powerful EX it's rarely going to be "just power this baby up and attack with it"- there needs to be some clever tactic or combination.

Then it is about maxing it out- running all the necessary cards in as high count as possible- the attackers, supporting attacker, the trainers. Then basically toning it down to make it 60 cards and leave space for "staples".

I don't think this can be stressed enough- the most common mistakes you see with beginners decks are either the lack of an idea, or not implementing it fully the cards are there to implement the strategy, but so are a bunch of other unrelated cards that just dilute the strategy. For resources I would add PTCGradio and Some1sPc. PokeDecks is pretty good too. Unfortunately, giveaways are not happening at the moment.

FMTU has run them in the past and hasn't had time this year. But I hope we can find a way to get them going again! I'd be happy to take your post perhaps over the weekend? I could then run it past you and the mods before incorporating it into the wiki. How does that sound?

I have a handful of thoughts and I'm unfortunately on my phone right now so I'll have to come back to this in a bit. This is definitely an impressive post, and I appreciate the amount of time that went into it. I've long thought that our sub should have a deckbuilding guide to help curb a lot of the repetitive posts you alluded to in your introduction.

Articles can be fun, informative, and generate great discussion, but the voice in this piece is a bit all over the place. A lot of the first person stuff makes me wonder who you are and what your background is in the competitive scene, and what kind of authority you have backing this up. I don't want to pretend I'm an English teacher because I'm certainly not, but read through this and, say, Andrew Mahone's recent article over on Beach and you'll notice a significant difference in writing quality.

Decks need a a cohesive strategy and b the ability to execute that strategy consistently in order to be successful, and understanding this is absolutely key for new players trying to make the jump from theme decks to "real" decks. Consistency underlies so many of the principles in your article from card draw to card counts and to say that it's advanced because no one truly masters it is missing a hugely important principle.

A lot of players, including me, would say that personal playstyle is largely a myth and that there are objective best builds and best plays. I think there is a role for personal playstyle in the discussion as it pertains to selecting a deck you're comfortable with, which you also mention, and being familiar with it when you take it to a big event. All in all, I think this has a lot of merit as a draft of an article and I'm happy to see you creating some content for all of us to learn from and discuss.

I'm personally hesitant to call this a "deckbuilding guide" for the sub in its current form, but think a lot of the ideas in here would potentially fit in such a guide. I'm very new to the game and this definitely helped me have more of an understanding of the way things work. I have a few questions if that's ok.

I've only played online and lost a few times when my deck ran out of cards. If cycling cards is the best way to go, then how do you avoid running out? And also, has anyone ever won or placed in a competition with a pre made deck? It's something you tend to find out naturally after a while after you become more and more experienced in playing. It's all about resource management, where you decide whether to use a card now or save it for later when you might want it.

If you are referring to theme decks, no. There's far too much of a gap in terms of consistency and power. Resilient life does have cards that are staples in Fairy decks: Dark Hammer is the best theme deck to use as-is imo.

It has full evo lines which most theme decks lackdecent draw support for a theme deckand several suitable attackers. You're still not going to win any tournaments with it or any theme deck for that matter unless it's a theme deck only tournament or something. I'm a pretty new player and I'd posted a couple of deck concepts that I was looking for help with, so that intro kind of hit me over the head, and then I started reading. That "playtest" section hit home.

And there's a TON of good points and tips buried in there. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I am going to read through this whole thing tonight when I get time. I normally don't correct people's English, but this is such an amazing piece that it is worthy of perfection.

I believe it is "Energy Acceleration" as you are increasing the rate at which you can play energies. Really looking forward to reading it. I just started playing again hadn't played sinceand I am learning so much so quickly.

It is great to have a reference. Can I ask for your permission to repost this link and share this around for other people to see? Please and thank you: Sorry if this is a noob thing to say but I thought Shiftry got consistent turn one wins?

At least enough to win a best of three? Great stuff yet again Spydar! If you guys aren't upvoting this you're doing it wrong, upvote upvote upvote upvote upvote upvote upvote!!

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Submit a new text post. Treat each other well. Read our FAQ before posting. Google is your friend! Posts asking for decklists will be removed. Please review our guidelines on self-promotion and sharing links. And, see 7 below Threads must have some sort of substance to them. Please refrain from creating a new thread just to post a single link in it. Use informative thread titles. Please post in the appropriate subreddit within the Pokemon TCG Network. Decided I REALLY needed to play zoroark this weekend, got a little desperate This is an archived post.

You won't be able to vote or comment. A Complete Guide Hey this is Spydar05 the same guy that wrote The Vespiquen Compendium. Making a Deck 1a. Basics to a Deck 1b. The Stadium Battle 1g. Draw Power Step 2: Making it Viable 2a. Making it Stronger 3a. Cover your weakness 3b. Making You a Better Player 4a.

Never write-off a card 4c. Study the Meta Conclusion: Making Sense of it All Helpful Resources Step 1: Basics to a Deck Every Pokemon deck must consist of 60 cards with no exceptions.

Pokemon Just like in the actual game Pokemon cards also have weaknesses, except they work a little differently in the Pokemon TCG. Energies Remember, this is only a guide on the deckbuilding aspect of energies. Trainers Trainers are a unique concept for a card. Supporters Supporters are a special type of trainer card that can do any of the above things that I mentioned, but you can only use one per turn.

The Stadium Battle In our current format both expanded and especially standard stadium cards play an absolutely vital role. Draw Power This is the central theme of almost every single deck. Focus A deck should ALWAYS have a focus! Synergy Sometimes two or three cards were just meant to be used together probably on purpose. Cover your weakness I just touched on this previously, but make sure that you understand what the weaknesses of your deck are and account for them.

Tech If you are in this section of the guide then you probably know what a tech card is. Energy Acceleration Being able to attach more than one energy per turn is probably the second strongest core strategy other than draw power.

Playtest The only way you are actually going to get better at this game and better at the specific deck s that you play is by playing them a lot. Helpful Resources Tournament Rules Comprehensive Rules Charizard Lounge Six Prizes Pokemon TCG Online Pokebeach Some1sPC Six Prizes 60 Cards Staple Cards for Every Deck Pokemon TCG Radio Troll and Toad Dark Integral Gaming MikePTCGO Team Fish Knuckles Abluegolfball.

The energy section shouldn't stress "competitive" levels of energy, but should definitely recommend the use of no more than two types of energy Similarly, appropriate Pokemon lines and limiting Pokemon to should probably be mentioned up front Resistance is damage in recent sets I think the beginner section should be aimed at people who are looking to make a deck that is an improvement over a Starter Deck, but not necessarily for anything other than very casual play.

Thank you for all the work you put into writing it! And, thanks again for taking the time to write all this out! I have a few pieces of feedback, on both style and content: So much for a short post from my phone I think this is an incredible resource. Nice freaking work, man. Thanks again for taking the time to make this! Posts are automatically archived after 6 months.