One Hit KO

Hello All and welcome to my first Article! 

Biography

Allow me to briefly introduce myself, My name is Mark McDonald. I am a native of Detroit, Mi. I am a member of the Michigan based Team Warp Point, and friend of the well known Pikkdogs. I’m relatively new to the card game. Nationals 2010 was my first tournament ever. I hadn’t even seen a battle roads, and there i was in the largest tournament of pokemon history. I ended 6-3 with dialgachomp (that i learned how to play a week prior) missing top cut in 75th place of my flight. In 2011, nationals saw me  ending with a  5-4 record with zekrom. But that’s enough about me. Today’s topic is lilligant!

The Idea:

On the horizon of the 2012 tournament seasons start we all have been in search of the deck that will handle the various threats the current format pose. The obvious presence of Pokemon catcher is definitely not being overlooked and the hype of gothitelle is spreading like wildfire. The release of Emerging Powers brought some interesting cards into the format with the potential to stir up our competitive meta game and question deck choices for events. Lilligant is an interesting card to say the least.

In a format with such huge early game damage output and massive HP basics, Lilligant brings a high degree of potential disruption. First lets ‘go over Lilligant. With a not so impressive 90 hp for a stage 1 Lilligant is pretty frail, however, it makes up for it with  low energy attacks that can be devastating for the opponent. For 1 grass energy Bemusing Aroma does 20 damage to the defending pokemon with the chance to poison AND paralyze the defending Pokemon with a heads on a  coin flip. With a result of tails the defending pokemon becomes confused. Lilligant has a good retreat cost of only 1, a x2 fire weakness, and decent water resistance (for beartic). At first glance this seems decent and not really ground breaking due to the heavy play of free retreat pokemon such as mew and yanmega. But that’s where Vilplume comes into play. With a benched Vileplume in play you are able to not only eliminate trainers but ensure that the active pokemon cant be switched by any means other than paying retreat cost. When matched up with popular decks such as donphan, magnezone, zekrom, reshiram, beartic, gothitelle or anything with a 2 or more retreat cost, Lilligant can render them useless for several turns if not the entire game. Yanmega Prime also serves as a secondary attacker, given its ability to snipe around stuck active pokemon for easy ko’s or simply deal good damage in general for no energy.

Paralysis and Poison Or Confusion:

With only 20 damage output, Lilligant is far from 1 shotting a Pokemon but it’s the residual damage that makes it such a scary card. By paralyzing the opponent it ensures that during the following turn, that particular Pokemon cant attack or retreat. Since trainer lock is present, it means that there is absolutely nothing the opponent can do. Since the defending Pokemon is also poisoned the attack technically does 30 damage because of the 1 damage poison adds. with a guaranteed damage after the opponents turn that equals a total of 40 damage and without the opponent being able to respond. In the case that confusion occurs, it presents the chance that the opponent can inflict 30 damage to itself by attempting to attack which in a way increases the initial damage output to 50, the downside is in this case the defending Pokemon can retreat. Confusion isn’t really the ideal result. but is relatively disruptive due to the current structure of decks relying on benched supporting Pokemon that rarely, if ever, attack. Lilligants second attack, “Cut”, does 60 damage for 1 grass and a DCE, and isn’t really worth using but it has potential to finish off a  crippled Pokemon after the status effects have taken its toll. Overall the point is to get vileplume up as early as possible preventing the opponents accelerated setup and catchers while getting early K.O.’s with Yanmega Prime and stalling out Pokemon that need to set up to attack with Lilligant.

Other cards that make this deck a force to be reckoned with:

A few techs that i have been trying out include Smoochum from HGSS, for it’s the ability to additionally disrupt the opponent by moving energy from any Pokemon on they’re field to any other Pokemon. By doing this you can target their main attackers early while you set up and render valuable energy drops useless as you stall them in return. Another benefit of moving an energy to another [Pokemon is, if you plan to snipe that Pokemon with Yanmega or especially if the Pokemon can’t utilize the type of energy moved.

Sunflora from HGSS is another option for this deck, for it s ability to search out grass Pokemon with it’s Poke Power “Sunshine Grace”.  You can use the power to search things  such as Vileplume, Yanmega or Lilligant. With no Pokemon Communication in the deck, this method of search is great for helping you set up.

Spinarak is an amazing tech to completely lock the opponent from retreating a Pokemon that can’t attack, which buys you more time to set up. Since the deck is all grass, it will be easy to find the correct energy for Spinorak to attack with.

The last tech I will talk about is Bellsprout from Triumphant. Bellsprout has an extremely useful Pokemon Catcher like attack built into it that can provide disruption and set up the defending pokemon for Lilligant on your following turn. For 1 colorless energy Bellsprout’s ‘Inviting Scent” simply allows you to switch the defending Pokemon with a Pokemon of your choice on the opponent’s bench. This works great with Yanmega and Lilligant.

My list for you to reference:

Lilligant can be partnered with other Pokemon for different variants of this deck but i feel this version with Vileplume and Yanmega is the most consistent. Here’s the list I’ve been trying.

27 Pokemon	23 Trainers/Supporters	10 Energy
3-4 Yanma 3 Yanmega Prime 3 Petilil 3 Lilligant Emerging Powers 3 Oddish 2 Gloom 2 Vileplume 2 Sunkern 2 Sunflora 1 Cleffa 1 Smoochum 1 Bellsprout 1 Spinarak	4 Pokemon Collector 4 Twins 3 Copycat 3 PONT 2 Sages Training 2 Juniper 2 Judge 3 Rare Candy	7 grass 3 Rescue

In conclusion:

By no means am i trying to convince anyone this deck is the BDIF but i believe it could be a lot of fun to play. It has the potential to lock the opponent in multiple ways, It can hit hard or snipe the bench and lock trainers also. Again the biggest weakness is its frailty and sort of luck reliance on coin flips.

 Definitely consider trying it out, and please comment below and give any advice that you think would help this deck. I hope i did okay for my first article and I plan on getting better to provide my perspective on different ideas. Thanks for reading!

Category: Card Discussion, Deck Discussion, Deck Workshop, Opinion | Tags: 2012, lilligant, pokemon, Trainer Lock, Vileplume, Yanmega