One Hit KO

Hey, it’s Pikkdogs again, and I’m back this time with a Donphan deck article and a mini tournament report. Recently Omar, Ed, and I were throwing around deck ideas.  Ed and Omar began talking about Adam’s SixPrizes article discussing Mr. Mime and Dunsparce tech.  The idea was to use a Donkphan (or speed Donphan Prime) list and add Mr. Mime MT and Dunsprace GS to it.  These tech cards would both allow the player to stall and to improve Donphan’s otherwise bad matchups against decks like Gyarados, Kingdra, and Jumpluff.

Ed, Omar, and I came up with some good ideas of what should be in the deck. Then I went home and used the input to build my own version of the deck.  Here’s what I came up with:

Pokemon: 17
4- Phanpy HGSS (SW is an option, too)
4- Donphan Prime
3- Uxie LA
1- Azelf LA
2- Mr. Mime MT
2- Unown Q LA
1- Dunsparce HGSS

Energy: 6
6- Fighting

Trainers: 34
3- Roseanne’s Research
2- Pokemon Collector
2- Professor Oak’s New Theory
1- Copy Cat                    
1- Night Maintenance
2- Warp Point
4- Pokemon Communication
4- Poke Drawer +
3- Handy 910s Pokedex
4- Plus Power
3- Expert Belt
4- Pokemon Reversal
1- Luxury Ball

Stadiums: 3
3- Broken Time-Space

If you are going to Nationals in a week or so and don’t know what to play, consider this.  It’s a deck that you can learn to play fairly quickly, it’s fast, and Mime/Dunsparce help even out its otherwise bad matchups.

The purpose of this deck is to use Donphan to get an early knock out and hopefully a donk.  The deck is made so that if you start 2nd, you can use your trainers to get evolve your active Phanpy with a Broken Time-Space, attach a fighting energy, drop an expert belt and any needed Plus Powers, and use Donphan’s first attack “Earthquake” for about 80 damage on your first turn.

If that doesn’t win the game, just keep building Donphans and use “Earthquake” and “Heavy Impact” to build damage on your opponent. The benched Donphans won’t take any damage from Earthquake, because the Exoskeleton PokeBody will negate it.

One major drawback of Donphan is its x2 water weakness, so most Donphan builds are an autoloss to speed water decks like Gyarados and Kingdra (assuming Donphan doesn’t Donk them).  This deck has an answer to decks like that in Dunsparce and Mr.Mime.

Let’s assume you went 2nd and tried for the Donk. Your opponent’s bench prevented the donk, and your first-turn KO didn’t disrupt their setup.  Suddenly, you’re staring down your worst nightmare, Gyarados.  Now the game is far from over. Use your Pokemon Collectors and Uxies to get in your hand two Mr. Mimes, 2 Unown Qs, a Dunsprace, an expert belt, and as many plus powers as you can. Hold up, you say. You’re over-simplifying. That’s way too much to do in a turn. Yeah, kinda, but you don’t need to do it all in one turn. Just get a couple Mimes and an Uxie off the Collector. See what Uxie gets you. Hopefully it’s another Collector or an Unown Q. Then you’re ready for the next turn. Also note that you don’t NEED 2 Mimes and 2 Qs for this to work. You can get by with 1 of each, but your opponent can then use Regice, Warp Point, etc. If you feel comfortable, your collector could be for Mime, Q, and Dunsparce. Then get the 2nd Mime ASAP.

Once you have what you need, You first use a warp point on Donphan. Though, there’s a good chance he’ll just get KO’d.  Then you play Dunsparce and at least 1 Mr. Mime.  Attach an energy, an Expert Belt, and as many Plus Powers as you have in your hand to Dunsparce and use his “Fade Out” attack for around 60 damage. This returns Dunsparce and all the attachments to your hand, so you can promote Mr. Mime.

With Mr. Mime out, Gyarados and Kingdra are going to have to wait at least 2 turns to attach 2 more energies to their active.  This is because Mr. Mime has a Poke-Body that negates all damage done to him by Pokemon that don’t have at least 3 energy cards attached to them.  If you don’t know Mr. Mime, read it closely. It has to be 3 energy CARDS, so if your opponent drops a double-colorless and thinks that counts, just relax, because the judge will back you up on this one. Next turn play your Unown Q and use it’s Poke-Body “Quick” to give Mr. Mime free retreat, retreat Mime, and play and promote Dunsparce with the belt and the Plus-Powers. This can happen turn after turn.

By the time Gyarados and Kingdra have enough energies to attack Mr. Mime, you should have had enough time to knock out their active with Dunsparce.  And since most Gyardos, Jumpluff, or Kingdra decks don’t run a lot of energies, they may only have the energies to power up one Pokemon, once you knock that Pokemon out you can just keep going with Dunsparce and Mime or switch back to Donphan if you’re confident. If they’re slick enough to bench their Gyarados to try to build up the energy, try to use your Pokemon Reversals to bring him back active.

Things to Watch Out For: Even though the deck is teched for Gyarados and the others, still be aware that it will take some good playing by you to win it.  Be afraid of the Cursegar matchup, trainer lock isn’t good for any speed deck.

So thats what the deck is supposed to do in theory.  Last Sunday, I took this deck to a Battle Roads in Coon Rapids, Mn, and this is how it did in reality.

I got there a little early and had to wait outside for the cardshop to open.  When I got inside, I handed in my decklist and bought a new deckbox.  This BR was important because Omar won the first 3 BRs, and we wanted Team Omar to go for a sweep of all four MN Battle Roads.  Omar and everyone else was at graduating, so the burden to attempt this feat fell on Ed and myself.

First Match: versus Lady Gaga
Not against Lady Gaga the person, but Lady Gaga the deck with Luxray GL, DialGa G, and Garchomp C.  In this match I made a fatal misplay before the game ever started.  The night before I had organized my deck so it was easy to make a decklist.  But I forgot to shuffle the deck before I got to the table.  So in the last minute I pulled off a six pile shuffle and a couple regular shuffles.  When that happens there’s a good chance that you could have randomized the deck too much, or not at all. And unfortunately, that’s what happened. Let this be a lesson to you, always shuffle in a tournament the way you do in practice.

Anyway, back to the match.  I turned over an Azelf and an Unown Q, he turned over a Dialga G.  I looked at my hand and I had 3 energies, a warp point, and a Broken Time Space (oops).  I proceeded to draw a Mr. Mime, and a Plus Power.  A lot of good those did me.  As my opponent started attaching energies to Dialga G I attached an energy to Azelf and retreated, and promoted Mr. Mime.  Within three turns he had three energies and I had nothing in my hand.

0-1 – So my hope at completing the sweep seemed over, but Ed still had a chance.

Ed’s note: I played against Ryan. I started Sableye, he started lone Baltoy. I topdecked special dark.
1-0

Round 2: Bye
Well that sucks.
1-1

I watched Ed lose a card and then go crazy for a while trying to find it, then walked over to the nearby McDonalds for a quick lunch.

Ed’s note: Yeah, I don’t know what happened. I pile shuffled before my first match. Then before match 2, I did it again. This time, I noticed only 59 cards. Did I just lose one somewhere? Who knows. I resleeved and found that BTS was missing. I had an extra in my binder, so the ruling was that I could replace it since it would restore me to my decklist. I did all this and we got a time extension. I really have to thank my opponent. He was very gracious. I know this must have been quite frustrating to sit across from. Not to mention that the whole thing just frazzled me for the rest of the day. I made some really stupid plays in my match, but he was rather understanding even when I tried to take prizes without KOing anyone. In the end, I won out against his DialgaChomp.
2-0

Round 3:  versus Donphan
I’m not sure what build my opponent was running, but he started with a SW Phanpy and he went first, attached, then passed.  I started with a Phanpy and a fighting energy.  I attached and used my Uxie to refresh my hand.  I drew into both Broken Time Space and Donphan, and the Fat Lady sang.

2-1, wow a 2 turn game, that was fun.

So now I’m 2-1 and have to wait another hour for everyone else to finish.  So I walked over to a bar next door and watched a little of the Twins game and drank my favorite adult beverage (Disclaimer: Teamomar.com does not encourage or endorse the consumption of alcohol for person’s under the age of 21, unless of course you were born on a leap day in which case Teamomar.com does not encourage or endorse the consumption of alcohol for person’s under the age of 5 and 1/4.)  After I watched the Twins get their brains beaten in by the Braves, I walked over to see the last of Ed’s game. He managed to win, and after this round he was 3-0.

Ed’s note: I played against Michael (yeah, you know, the short one). IIRC, this came down to a mid-game Fainting Spell flip. It went in my favor, and the game ended up with me having 1 prize left and Michael having 3. Even Fainting Spell on my Expert Belted Gyarados couldn’t save Michael from that.
3-0

Round 4: versus Crobat Prime, Ursaring Prime, and Nidoqueen.
Yeah I know this is quite the weird deck.  But just because its a rogue deck doesn’t mean its a bad deck.  He starts Nidoran and Azelf, while I start Phanpy.  I go 2nd and have a decent hand, but am not able to find the BTS required to pull off the Donk.  So we both setup and I take a couple of early prizes.  This is an interesting matchup because Ursaring can hit hard, but it has a fighting weakness, while Crobat Prime can’t hit hard but can poison and has a resistance to Donphan.  I exhaust my warp points switching out Donphans for a while, then I use Uxie to attack and then promote Mr. Mime (Mime is a lot easier to retreat than Donphan).  I get a reversal to call up a fully powered Ursaring, and he responds by sniping one of my Uxies.  I am dominating the game, but thanks to Crobats resistance I can’t quite seal the deal.  Time is called while I’m leading by two prizes.

3-1.  Unfortunately only the top 2 advance out of Swiss and into the top-2 part of the tournament.  I end up having enough wins to make it to the finals, but, thanks to a bye, not the tie breaker.  I take third place and claim my 2 pack prize.  I end up pulling a Lanturn Prime from my second pack.

Ed’s note: I played against Andy. It was a bit tough, but I pulled it off.
4-0

I then turn my attention to Ed, who has gone 4-0 and is ready to play the person he has just beaten in the finals.  Andy wrote his own report, but here’s what I saw.  The first game both decks start out well (Ed is playing a Gyarados deck against Andy’s Jumpluff) and the game goes on for a long time.  Jumpluff is just a little faster and is able to squeak out a win.  In the 2nd game Jumpluff gets a better start, then I start trading cards with some people (end up getting an awesome deal for some Ninetails HGSS), then time is called and I look over and Ed has somehow came back to take the 2nd game.  The third match is sudden death.  Ed starts Uxie and Andy starts with a lonely Hoppip.  Ed goes first a can’t do a thing, his opponent plays a collector and Uxie but can’t find the BTS he needs to evolve into a Jumpluff to win.  So he attaches an Expert Belt and passes.  Ed draws, attaches his own expert belt and drops a Crobat. At this point he has everything he needs for a win, we are all just waiting for him to attach an energy and claim TO’s fourth victory metal.  He looks at his hand, and…………passes.  He doesn’t have the energy and his opponent eventually gets a Jumpluff and knocks him out.

Ed’s note: What can I say? I go virtually undefeated in Swiss on all 4 BRs, but I can’t win a single top-cut match. I’d like to thank Omar, Michael, and Andy for cutting my dreams short, especially Omar for not showing up to help sweep. In 4 years or so, Omar, maybe you’ll realize that you should have prioritized the team, because I obviously couldn’t handle the task. When college graduation rolls around, let me know if you’d rather play Pokemon or attend commencement. If you choose commencement, it’s like groundhog’s day. You’ll have to go back to school for another couple years before you get the choice again.
4-1: Second Place

So I didn’t get a great test out of my deck, but it worked fairly well. I just shuffled wrong early.  TO didn’t sweep the Spring Battle Roads, but all in all we had a great showing.  Ed finished 2nd and I finished 3rd.  Even Ed’s daughter finished 4th in her division.

But, the Donphan deck is really good and is something to be aware of.

Category: Deck Discussion, Tourney Report | Tags: Donkphan, Donphan, Donphan Prime, Dunsprace, Mr. Mime, speed Donphan