Deck Growing - Game Codes - http://maxpages.com/pokemontrenzy/Growing_your

Overgrowth. Brushfire. Blackout. Sound like a disaster report? Nope. These - along with Zap! - are the names of the first Pokémon theme decks, due in early 1999 from Nintendo and Wizards of the Coast. Each preconstructed deck has a different theme, strategy, and, of course, lots of different Pokémon for you to catch. Every 60-card deck comes with a Pokémon coin, ten damage counters, and an advanced rulebook.

"Overgrowth" is designed to quickly grow, or evolve, your Pokémon into bigger Pokémon. Then, as designer Robert Gutschera (who worked on adapting Pokémon for the U.S. market) says, you can "put the smack down" on your opponent. The goal of "Brushfire" is to spread the flames quickly by putting out Pokémon after Pokémon, many of which do lots of damage early (thereby overwhelming your opponent at alarming speed). "Blackout" does just that to your opponent, eliminating his or her Energy cards - the source of Pokémon powers - and leaving your opponent's Pokémon helpless and vulnerable. Finally, "Zap!" Paralyzes, Confuses, puts to sleep, or otherwise disables opposing Pokémon, preventing them from hurting you while allowing your own Pokémon to do their worst. Each deck is balanced against the other three, allowing players to test their skills (and not just the decks) against one another.

"Remember, though, that every deck has both a strength and a weakness," warns Gutschera. "For example, 'Overgrowth' is great if you can get out the big Pokémon, but if you have trouble going up your evolution chain because you don't draw the matching evolution cards, you're not going to be happy. Similarly, 'Blackout' won't do as well against a deck that doesn't need a lot of Energy to power its Pokémon."

The preconstructed decks come ready to play but also lend themselves to further development, allowing players to tweak a deck and maximize its benefits. By adding and removing cards, players can make each deck more powerful and challenging. Want to "Zap!" your opponent even harder? Try throwing in a couple Electabuzzes and see what happens. Want that "Overgrowth" deck to grow even faster? A Pokémon Breeder should do the trick. The advanced rulebook that comes with every theme deck contains guidelines for building these better decks.

"If I were going to take one of the theme decks and modify it," Gutschera says, "I'd be most interested in 'Overgrowth' because I'd like to play around more with the evolution theme. We discovered very late in the process just how Pokémon Breeder really works. The current version works much better than we had originally thought!"

Players will get a chance to discover the strategies of "Overgrowth" and the other three theme decks for themselves when the race to catch the Pokémon begins February 1!

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Page Updated Sat Aug 25, 2001 1:25pm EDT