New to TCG, help with adjusting theme deck?

[Juvinator]

Me and my brother have just gotten into the TCG after being Pokemon fans for years and bought two theme decks yesterday. I bought 1 Fast Daze and 1 Raiders, and really don't like the whole Cofagrigus as a main damage dealer. Any tips for a good main card for the deck to center around? I know I am a total noob to this and am aware that theme decks aren't that good, I just love grass and dark pokemon, but would just like some tips on how to fix these two decks, and I am willing to put a good effort into buying a good amount of singles online. So any help for adjusting Fast Daze and Raiders would be much appreciated, and if you do recommend me some other Pokemon, it would be awesome if you could tell me how they fit into the strat:)
Thanks in advance!

[Griftiest]

At first, just take out the filler pokemon and add a whatever extra trainers and supporters you have. As far as replacing cofagrigus, if you wait until the EX tins come out, toss in some darkrai and mewtwo and you will dominate your friends/brother/whoever at casual pokemon. Pretty much any EX or basic legendary that has the correct energy type will do better than whatever is in the theme decks. Any basic that attacks for colorless energy and does good damage will do well too, like audino nvi, scyther dex, chansey dex, etc.

[cherok]

fun game huh? if you haven't already, check out the following thread: http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=146331 might give you some good ideas

[MegaVelocibot]

It's nice to see my thread recommended to help new players. Makes all the hours I put into it feel more worthwhile.

For minimal money/effort spent, by just buying a second copy of the theme deck (as in the I Double Theme Decks link posted), taking out some cards, and adding in more of the better cards, you can make the new deck more than the sum of its parts. That said, there are some recommendations I would make for Fast Daze:

If you are eager to evolve your Pokemon even faster, and plan on keeping in the Leavanny line, Leavanny (Emerging Powers 7) is capable of evolving your Pokemon with an attack. However, you probably would prefer searching out the Pokemon and using an attack to do damage. In that case, Level Ball is helpful for further accelerating your Accelgor, as is keeping a Shelmet to search out and put on the Bench. (Note that Shelmet is a target for Pokemon Catcher, and would not be able to easily retreat, in addition to being a bad starting Active Pokemon.) Accelgor from Dark Explorers may interest you with its Deck and Cover attack, in conjunction with Double Colorless Energy.

Hm... other fun things for the future... Darkrai-EX will be available in tins. If you use Blend GFPD (from Dragons Exalted) in conjunction with Darkrai-EX, any of your Pokemon with it attached could retreat for no Energy discarded.

Raiders... Raiders, I'm not too fond of. A couple of the Pokemon are super useful, as are many of the Trainers. Hanging onto the Darkrai-EX idea, a nasty deck can be made using Cofagrigus (Noble Victories 46) and Darkrai-EX. Attack with one Darkrai, retreat it to the bench, then "heal" it by using the Damagriiigus attack. Oftentimes, you can get a KO and a refreshed Darkrai-EX at the cost of losing Cofagrigus, and if the Coffin Pokemon survives, you can easily pull off the trick again, after sending Darkrai-EX out to attack further. Pokemon Catcher, Rescue Scarf, and Sableye are also useful assets to that deck.