Hi! Im New To The Game!

[Rai]

hello.. sorry if bringing a old topic back is bad lol.

well im still new and i want to learn. i see that a new season is starting and i want to play?

what format is it and how long will the format last for? What are some of the decks to beat and top tier?

ive looked around and seems to me that kindra is?

is this true?

what kind of deck should i run if i want to play competieve?

Guess you could have made a new topic, but whatever. Anyways...

The format right now is about the easiest to understand it has been in a long time. Only cards released in Diamond and Pearl or later are usable (identifiable with their weakness: it will have a + x0 or X 2 next to the symbol rather then nothing). Formats last from September for a whole year (meaning it won't change again until the end of August next year).

As for what decks to defeat, this will change with the release of every set. I suppose Kingdra, AMU (Azelf Mespirit Uxie), and Torterra are well established decks in several areas and thus worthwhile targets. With Stormfront, you can probably add Gengar, Dusknoir, Magnezone, and Raichu based decks to the list of highly popular decks, however we have yet to see the effectiveness of any of those.

If you want to play competitive, you should run a deck that can meet the following criteria:
1) Be capable of playing its main focus within 5 turns guaranteed (any longer then that, and you'll have problems to Kingdra, AMU, and Gengar)
2) Be capable of recovering after losing that main attacker (see Gengar for why)
3) Have 90+ HP (see Kingdra, Magnezone, Dusknoir)
4) Have a sturdy enough engine to not completely lose steam when Claydol is knocked out or trainers/powers are locked (See Raichu, Dusknoir, Kabutops, Glaceon, and Gardevoir).
5) Two hit KO or less 130 HP Pokemon (see Kingdra). This should not involve more then one pluspower at a time.

...Hm... Basic, but that ought to do. 5 criteria. Try to meet as many of those as possible, and you'll have a deck that should give interesting results. The trick is finding out how to meet those. Perhaps your answer to #1 is to use a basic only deck, as opposed to a stage 2 deck which needs 3 pokemon out to function? Perhaps #1 is best answered by adding in two Uxie LA to help you draw cards as quickly as possible? Perhaps your answer to #2 is to use a deck where most pokemon attack for 1 or 0 energy? Perhaps #2 is best answered by running powers that recover energy (Typholosion MT, Magnezone SF)? Maybe your answer to #4 is using two Claydol so losing one isn't crippling? Maybe you find #4 is best answered by supplementing Claydol with a lot of Pokedraw + and the like. I don't know. That's the main trick in pokemon, finding the answers that work for you.