One Hit KO

I don’t know where I get these titles. I’m sure you can make a cheaper deck, but this will beat it (unless it’s Fighting type). Also, $35 is just the Troll ‘n’ Toad price divided by 2. I dunno if you can get the cards for that price, but I’m pretty sure you could get close.

I’ve been working on this deck lately, and I think this is the best route to take it. I have now added 4 Rescue Energy. They really help the deck recover, and the deck just has to be doing 120+ damage every turn. If you miss a turn of damage, you’re on track to lose.

To assist with this recovery, I experimented with DCE, but it just doesn’t cut it. The problem is that the deck usually needs a 1st turn Ascension. Ascension requires darkness energy. If you have 4 Rescue and 4 DCE, you’re diluting the dark energy pool too much. Sometimes you can get away without the Ascension, like if you draw into Zoroark right away, but it’s usually key.

After adding the 4 Rescue, I also ended up dropping the Special Dark energy. The deck started life running 4 Special Dark and 4 Plus Power (on top of the Dark Claw). This early build could often do 150+ damage right off the bat. Well, if you can do 120 damage, you can still usually 2shot anything even Eviolited. It is a bit sad that you will now miss the OHKOs on Eviolited 130HP basics, but the deck just has to have a semi-consistent way of getting 2 energy in a turn. I already discussed why I think DCE can’t make the list, so Dark Patch is our alternative. To fuel Dark Patch, you need basic dark, and you have to discard them early to make it work.

How are we discarding basic darks? Well, the deck now has Junk Arm and Ultra Ball to complement Juniper’s discarding. You can usually get some energy discarded pretty easily, and the time when you need Dark Patch the most is when the opponent just KO’d your Zoroark. In this build, that will almost always mean that there’s 1 Dark Energy in there (from the KO’d Zoroark). Hopefully he was rescued, and you can drop Zoroark, an energy, and a Dark Patch to attack again.

So, the deck doesn’t have the ultra raw power of the initial build. That one would often do 150+ starting T2 lasting until the opponent could KO Zoroark. That’s where the trouble started, though. If they could KO him just 2 turns in a row, you were probably done for. The deck now gives up some power for consistency, but I think it makes the deck more playable all around.

If you recall, I initially built the deck for my 5-year-old daughter, Petra. I probably wouldn’t give this build to her. I would probably opt for more speed and less recovery, because I believe that most junior opponents will be more affected by the speed than masters would. I actually think I’m going to get Petra to play this weekend. I think Ava will miss the tourney, so I will probably have Petra play Ava’s deck. I actually think Ava should play this Zoroark deck, but she’s kinda stuck on Donphan. Petra wants to play the Zoroark deck (maybe just because of the sleeves), but I’ve convinced her that Donphan will be a better first deck to play.

As for me, I’m not sure if I’ll play. I want Petra to get a chance now, because her next chance probably won’t be until Fall. Since she’s never played before, I might want to hang out with her and help shuffle and all that. We’ll see.

Category: OneHitKO.com Budget Challenge | Tags: Budget Challenge, OneHitKO.com Budget Engine, Rescue Energy, Zoroark