How many basics do you have in your deck?

How many basics do you have in your deck?

  • Less than 5

    Votes: 3 10.0%

  • 5

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 6

    Votes: 1 3.3%

  • 7

    Votes: 4 13.3%

  • 8

    Votes: 6 20.0%

  • 9

    Votes: 2 6.7%

  • 10

    Votes: 5 16.7%

  • 11

    Votes: 5 16.7%

  • 12

    Votes: 3 10.0%

  • More than 12

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Total voters
    30
uchihasasuke

uchihasasuke

Uchiha Sasuke
Member
I always wonder whats the average and median number of basic Pokemon people play in their decks. I remember back in those days when Pokemon TCG was new everyone had about 12 basics or at least 10. Nowadays its common to see decks with 6 basics, sometimes even less though I would never play a deck with less than 6 basics.

For those who are curious with the actual statistics, I have done some calculations(using permuations and combinations) with the number of basics and the chances of now even drawing 1 in your opening hand. (correct to two decimal places)
5 basics - 52.54%
6 basics - 45.59%
8 basics - 34.64%
10 basics - 25.86%
12 basics - 19.06%

I always perceived the chance of not getting a basic in the first turn was 45% which was pretty close. I thought the chances of that for 8 basics was 30%, slightly lower than it really is. I played 10 basics for most of my Pokemon TCG career and I'm surprised when I calculated that I wouldn't get a basic 25% of the time, that only happened about 20% of the time by memory. Comparing the increase of basics to the chances of drawing 1 in your first turn, the more you have the rate of increase for the chances of getting one decreases, in other words the second derivative is negative. So its not really worth to have too many basics just for the sake of drawing one on your first turn.

I don't think many people will have more than 12 basics in their decks today but I included the 12+ option for some people who might play an all basics deck especially since Snowpoint Temple was printed.
 
Hooray for statistics! Thanks for that. Oh, and, er, the deck I'm playing for BR's has 13 basics. Two of them are Old Amber, which are technically trainers, but if you get Old Amber in your starting hand, you can start with it.

Though Mulliganing doesn't matter too much- The penalty was reduced from 2 cards to 1 cards a while ago.

Sort-of-off-topic: Years ago, Jason Klaczynski did an article on what the chances were of starting with a particular card- http://www.pojo.com/CardofTheDay/2005/12-06-06.shtml
 
I'm use 10 basic,half of them just tech like claydol and azelf. Mulligan's not that bad, at least kricketune survived in previous set and there's card like team galactic wager too.Less number of pokemon just make your supporter/trainer more useful too.
 
I haven't read Ness's article before, this is the first time I read it. Its interesting to see how many people now see the value of having techs in their decks even if its just 2 extra cards. However I usually prefer trainers/supporters to draw-power tech pokemon.
 
Actually, alot of decks back in the day ran 8ish basics (depending on the deck). Nowadays its common to see anywhere from 8 to 20 basics (I've ran both extreemes). Since these are not that common, we'll use them as the medians (and get a result of 14).
 
I tend to run around 11/12 basics. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. 10 tends to be the starting point for a lot of decks, it seems (4 Starters, 2 Baltoy, 4 main basics). Obvious exceptions are T2 decks, who go as low as 4.
My main decks tho...lessee for the ones I got ready right now.
Deck 1: 11
Deck 2: 12
Deck 3: 8
Deck 4: 11

Hmmyeah, thats what I run.
 
In my current deck, I run 11 Basics. 6 are Basic Forms of main attackers, 3 are staples, and the other two are techs.

I think 8-13 Basics is probably average.
 
i'm thinking that the average amount of basics in a good deck (not pyramid lines) would be about 10-12
 
My current deck has 12 Basics. 4 starters, three techs (two different tech lines), 2 Baltoy, 1 Azelf, and 2 of my main attacker (it works better than you'd think).
 
Darth Caedus said:
4, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13.
(I have a lot of decks)
Click to expand...

Hmmm, 2 decks with only 4 basics. This is interesting, you should have quite a lot of trouble pulling out a basic on your first turn. Do you win often by playing 4 basics?
 
This topic is starting to go from good discussion about good counts for basics to "this is the exact amount of Basic Pokemon in my deck."
 
8-12 basics average. You have your attacker, (4 or 3), your techs, (2 or 1) back-up attacker or another tech (2 or 3), and even a starter like Pachi. (4 or 3). So it gets around my area.
 
Now that there are a lot of T2 decks out there, not many people play a lot of basics as they used to.
 
I only play T2 and T3 decks now. I haven't found any decks that can be effective while being useless in turns 2 and 3. With the speed of the current metagame, taking too long to set-up will guarantee defeat against competitive players so I'm not surprised people play less basics nowadays. Besides, having 12 basics is really not much different from having 10, the chances to getting a basic on turn 1 doesn't change much. Now the number of basics people play are based on different strategies and more and more basics are now techs rather than the deck's main attacker. I've seen many decks with 4 basics for the main attacker and more than 6 basics for different techs + good starter basics.
 
Despite having 13 basics, I get T2/T3 Empoleon most of the time. I don't think more basics correlates to a slower deck necessarily.
 
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