In the past week and a half my daughter and I have picked up a pretty bad Pokemon habit. It started with one deck and now we can build 3 full decks and have a large stack of extras. We even have our main decks in sleeves. This last weekend we attended the League at The Source in St Paul MN. We also attended a Tournament out in Coon Rapids MN at Outpost 2000. I was surprised on how helpful everyone at the events was we got a lot of great tips on how to build better decks.
Some things that are not so clear are the rules. The rule book that you get with the starter decks does not cover every thing or it is not very clear about some of the rules. Another thing that would be very helpful would be an evolution chart. I found lots of card lists but nothing that shows all the stages.
Here are some simple things that we have learned.
Be sure to buy a Diamond and Pearl starter pack. The cards given seem to be stronger than the older packs.
If you can find it buy one of the tins that contain 4 booster packs and an Lv.X card that matches one of the cards you have in your deck. The Lv.X cards are very powerful evolutions and most people you battle will have at least one in their deck.
Add more support and trainer cards. The starter packs are heavy on basic Pokémon and light on support and trainers. The best cards to add would be ones that would allow you to search your deck for basics or evolution cards. This way you will not miss the basics you take out and with them you get to choose the cards you want.
Sleeves have also made things better; my daughter has an easier time shuffling her deck with them.
Learn to play with dice. Many people use dice as damage counters and for coin tosses. Dice are easy for kids to use and much more random then the plastic coins that are given in starter packs.
