Misconceptions about Making Your Own Rogue Deck – Part 1

Written by | May 15, 2010 | 17 comments | 3,092 views | Rating: +5

I often run some weird stuff. People ask me all the time, how did you come up with Cradily/Zapdos ex? Medicham/Lanturn/Banette? NIDOQUEEN!? Why did you think to play them? My answer is usually, “Wynaut??” To be honest I hated those last two decks that Adam/Pablo/Jeremy made, and didn’t really help much in building them. But in general, there is a really systematic way to make great deck ideas out of nothing that I certainly use, and I notice my friends use in creating their awesome deck ideas.

It might seem common-sense to many people, but I found that most people that struggle to make their own ideas often don’t follow this pattern. I hope to write a series of articles to explain how to build your own rogue deck, complete with my thought process.

Before I get started, though, I’d like to point out some of the common misconceptions of building rogue decks:

First, as much as Jimmy Ballard likes to think so, it is not spelled “rouge.” That is a color.

Second, building a rogue deck is not about getting off on being more creative and bashing other people for copying their list from SixPrizes.com. I just started getting into the game again a little while ago. What was the first thing I did? Asked Adam for his decklists so I could copy them and run it on Apprentice (by the way, I found they are posted verbatim on SixPrizes.com. So much for being a secret team).

But then, why go through the trouble? I think everyone should look to come up with their own deck! If you play a metagame deck, you are theoretically 50/50 at best with mirror (which will be common), the match decided from a combination of luck and player skill. The surprise factor is killer, and if you do well with it at a tournament, maybe you can make a website about Pokemon and list your deck idea in your accomplishments. But that’s for another time. The bottom line is, if your rogue deck sucks, DON’T PLAY IT!

Third, building a rogue deck is not about finding a “killer combo” that no one else saw. People always tell me, “Jason, help me find some good combos.” But take Adam/Pablo/Jeremy’s Worlds-winning deck, “Queendom.” Was there a combo in that? No, unless you count swarming a bunch of Nidoqueens a combo. Is Luxray/Garchomp, one of the strongest decks right now, a combo? No, someone just decided to mash the two most overpowered SP Pokemon in the same deck. Gyarados SF is kind of a combo, with Regis and Sableye and stuff like that. Was the French dude that invented it more brilliant and saw this great combo?

I’m not expert in Frenchies but he probably wanted to play Gyarados, and tried a bunch of discarding cards to try to make it work out. Very few playable decks are combos, and most of the good ones are really obvious (because they were made to be used together). But if you aren’t looking for combos, Jason, what are you doing?! I will explain next time!

Fourth, rogue decks are not made alone. I think it is obvious but some people don’t follow this. They stay locked up in their room or the comic shop, poring over cards and putting together 60 cards that combo so nicely together in theory. Then they show up to Regionals with Eeveelutions.dec (based on a true story). The bottom line is you need people to help you test, and give you feedback and ideas. If you don’t have a lot of close friends who play, post your idea on SixPrizes! We are all friends here!

Finally, Redshark is NOT better than Apprentice. Apprentice is a smaller program, does not take 5 minutes to load on my netbook, does not ask me if I want to evolve my Gyarados into a Regice every time I use Pokemon Collector, and has more accurate patches made by a World Champion. Furthermore you can use proxies in Apprentice, and do not have to play a rigged game of Rock/Paper/Scissors. Imagine I just played Team Galactic’s Wager.

Rock – Paper – Scissors. Choose one. NOW.

If you are a male (90% of Pokemon players) you chose Rock. I chose Paper. You lost. (I win about 80% of RPS on Redshark; if you play more than one Wager you are really screwed then).

I hope you learned some stuff from my article. I’ll tell you how I make seemingly random rogue decks sometime later.

Image Credits: PokeBeach, Pokegym, and Pokemon Paradijs

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  • JPN-Gallade

    Great article Jason! You really did explain a lot of stuff on building rogue decks, so this article surely helps. I might even consider getting that Apprentice Program now because of how you recommended it in a good way through Team Galactic's Wager.

    Yep, nice article all right. This article will surely help players understand rogue decks more.

  • Versilaryan

    I'm sorry, but after reading this article, I felt this had to be said. You go off on far too many tangents. You bring up a lot of good points, but then you dilute the awesomeness with random branching off and then you end up with a very unfocused article. If you find that you have to keep dragging yourself back to the point with “The bottom line is…”, then somewhere in that paragraph, you started deviating from the subject at hand and started typing about something entirely unrelated to the rest of the article. I'm looking mostly at the bit about Eeveelutions.dec and the paragraph about Redshark. You can write an article about Redshark vs. Apprentice later — this is an article about rogue decks.

    Going off on that, the very last sentence makes you seem like you didn't actually say anything. Which entirely untrue. “I'll get to the point later”, you say, after you make several good points that makes readers rethink their deckbuilding strategies. The fact that the point you made just before saying that is an off-topic point doesn't help it in the slightest.

    On what you said in the article and not on the thing itself, you raise a lot of good points. No real prominent “combo” decks out there (Aside from Sableye/Garchomp/Honchkrow, but that's the exception that proves the rule). Teamwork and throwing ideas around with other people is a must.

    So it wasn't the most eloquently written article I've read. Doesn't stop me from looking forward to the next installments — just keep what I said in mind when writing it.

  • http://www.jiabdesign.weebly.com/ JordanBaker

    excellent critique!

  • jahikoi

    I agree with Versilaryan.

    The one thing with rogue decks, is why would I run this over Gyarados/Garchomp/Jumpluff etc?

    If you run a deck because you like the pokemon, or want to be original, then don't really expect to win.

    But then again, Gyarados was a rogue deck… then became one of the most played the next year.

    In short: Don't run a rogue deck because you can. Don't run a rogue deck because 'wow that card has a cool move'. Do try out rogue decks if you find a way to beat the common decks.

    Also, there are some people who run rogue decks with specific techs for specific decks, for example, people running Sunyshore Gym to beat Donphan, people playing Mankey to beat Luxray… Those may be techs, but if you run a rogue deck with techs that win the game for you, you may as well have played a different deck.

  • jahikoi

    Also, going on; don't forget that most decks were rogue decks at some point. After Platinum came out, you didn't just suddenly see luxchomp everywhere.

    Discouraging rogue decks is discouraging originality… which although using the same deck as everyone else means you have a strong deck, it is also what ruins the game (last in-store tournament I went to, we got to 16v16 and everyone there was running either Luxchomp, Gyarados, Jumpluff or Cursetomb)… this was a while ago.

  • Vanderbilt_Grad

    To anyone who is used to Apprentace it's sure to have it's charm. However for anyone who is familiar with Pokemon but not electronic apps to test with Redshark is clearly easier to learn and test on. If things annoy you about it contact the author. He spends a ton of his own time making the program better.

  • sgtdarryl

    It's very refreshing to here someone “call it what it is”,rougue (not rouge ) . Well I'm glad someone use rouge decks .and as far as the whole archtype we need more ORGINAL decks vs this netdecking . If World Champion use 1 unown A and 59 psychic energy and says it will win Will everyone build this????? Really ? wow

    Great article
    later

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/pgmcsskater pgmcsskater

    todd?! And Redshark is alot easier to learn because it has everything laid out for you. There are 5 bench spaces and a active. 6 spaces for prizes. Its built for pokemon. Apprentice wasnt built for pokemon, but had to be patched for it to play pokemon. I dont know if im making sense but Im trying to. LOL

  • sgtdarryl

    It's very refreshing to here someone “call it what it is”,rougue (not rouge ) . Well I'm glad someone use rouge decks .and as far as the whole archtype we need more ORGINAL decks vs this netdecking . If World Champion use 1 unown A and 59 psychic energy and says it will win Will everyone build this????? Really ? wow

    Great article
    later

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/pgmcsskater pgmcsskater

    todd?! And Redshark is alot easier to learn because it has everything laid out for you. There are 5 bench spaces and a active. 6 spaces for prizes. Its built for pokemon. Apprentice wasnt built for pokemon, but had to be patched for it to play pokemon. I dont know if im making sense but Im trying to. LOL

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