Strategy

8/16/99

Some trainers think that Scyther is one of the best Pokemon in the whole game. Scyther is a Basic Grass Pokemon with 70 Hit Points. It has two attacks that wotk very well together. Swords Dance doubles the damage Scyther will do on your next turn. Slash does 30 damage. Used together, these two attacks can ambush many unsuspecting Pokemon. Just use a well-timed Gust of Wind to move a Pokemon from your opponent's bench into Scyther's line of fire.

7/3/99

6/15/99

This is one of those cards that is not talked about, neither praised or ragged on. In my opinion Venusaur has the most useful Pokémon Power in the whole set! Energy Trans is very handy. With this, you can move your green energies around at will! Waiting to charge up a Charizard? Energy Trans will let you do that in one turn, if you have enough. As well, you can use his 60 damage attack the first time you get him down. Only taking 4 green, you can transfer 3 to him and play 1, or transfer all 4. And don't think that Blastoise is the same thing. Blastoise lets you play as many blue from your hand on any blue Pokémon. Energy Trans lets you move any Green energy already attached to one of your Pokémon(an' it don't gotta be a green Pokémon, either) to another, as often ya' want! Wanna charge up a Chansey real fast. Move energy around to him. Got a Pokémon loaded up with green an' he's gonna be dead next time around? Don't lose those green energys! Move 'em off of him! Use a Venusar+Charizard combo and you can charge him up 1 one turn rather than 2! I've got a Venusaur in my deck ready to work energies for me, do you?

5/24/99

Energy cards:

There should be about 27 or 28 energy cards in a deck with two types of pokemon. The division of the amount of energy cards to each type is decided by the amount of pokemon of that type you have, for example if there are 16 pokemon of a certain type and 8 of the other, you should obviously put about 18 cards of the first type mentioned and 10 of the other (this is approximate, you can change it around depending on the amount of energy cards needed). For a deck of 1 type of pokemon you can put less, around 25 or 26. A deck of more than two types is not very good, since you have to distribute the energy cards so much it is less likely to get the ones or amount you need. Also, if you are on a budget with cards, substitute an energy card or two with double colorless energy, but no more than four of them are allowed in a deck.

Pokemon:

You should have anywhere from 23 to 26 pokemon in your deck in a two type of 1 type, which I usually prefer a two type deck, for strategy reasons. If you pick one type you should pick a second type that would back up the weakness of your first type. The first type should usually have more pokemon then your second type, since your first type should have stronger pokemon.

Trainer Cards:

The rest of the space that is left in your new deck should go to trainer cards. The strategy of your deck should tell you the types of trainer cards there should be, for example if your deck has low hp put potions and super potions in there, if your deck needs a lot of energy card put energy retrieval and super energy retrievals in it, or if your deck has rare strong pokemon put pokemon traders in there.

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5/15/99

The first thing I want to mention is how easy it is to take out a Zapdos. It would be good to have a Gust of Wind or a Ninetales. If you had an active Pokemon out and ready to fight, and your opponent had a Zapdos on his bench, than use a gust of wind to switch your opponents Zapdos with his active Pokemon. If it is fairly early in the game, than hardly any energy is attached to it. If you had an okay Pokemon, than use it to take out your opponents Zapdos. Energy removal would be good to make the Zapdos useless.

If you had a Ninetales, than you wouldn't need a Gust of Wind. A Ninetales could take out a helpless Zapdos in two turns. Just make sure the Zapdos has no energy so it can't do anything. Another card that would be great to take out big Pokemon would be a Poliwrath or even Poliwhirl. The Poliwrath would keep an enemy card useless by destroying it's energy, while also doing damage. The Poliwhirl would be good for a Charizard, Blastoise, Venusar, or anything else that has one move. Poliwhirl's Amnesia attack prevents them from using any of their attacks, although it doesn't do any damage.

The bottom line is that by using a few carefully planned cards and destroying your opponents energy will win you the game.