One Hit KO

Some call it the Secret Florida Deck. Others call it Sablelock (Sablock), Sabledonk, Sableye Honchkrow, or Sableye Garchomp. Does it win by donking? Does it win by locking your opponent? Does it win by starving them of resources? Does it win by controlling their hand? Let’s just say that it wins by making the opponent lose!

I’ve not seen the deck around here, but I can say that it is causing a bit of a stir on the interwebs. There are a bunch of people discussing this deck in various places. Let’s go through the list. No, not the decklist, yet. Here’s the list of who’s talking about the deck:

1) People begging for info about the deck that took 2 of the top 4 spots in Florida and was seen topping at other states.
2) People like Curry/Silvestro that obviously played the deck, but don’t want its secrets made public.
3) People that have played against the deck and either got donked or annoyed to death.
4) Trolls

Now we can add “5) Team Omar” to that list.  I’m not going to pretend that I know the deck.  I just want to fan the flames a…

I don’t even know how to properly set this article up. You see, it’s not my deck, and I’m not the one that wants help with it. The problem is that I can’t seem to teach Abdi how to log into these internets. I’ve been waiting for almost a week for him to post this article asking for help with his Tyranitar deck. Last time I saw him play it, he was whining about how it wasn’t working well enough and fast enough, and he wanted suggestions. I figured “Who would be better to help him than you guys?,” so I told him to post his plea for help here. Well, since then, that Noctowl article has sat there waiting to be bumped from top spot, and I feel like we need something new for people to read. I guess that means that I have to post Abdi’s help request for him, and maybe if I disparage him enough in the process, he’ll finally log in to defend himself. It seems like a long-shot.

The problem, though, is that I don’t know Abdi’s current decklist. Omar might, though, so hopefully we’ll get a reply from him. For now,…

So, This is the other side of the spectrum, AKA donphan’s greatest weakness. Water. The point in this deck is to abuse feraligatr and use blastoise and smash people with aqua press, or hit 2 bench for 60, whichever gets the prize card. Nothice the last few words in the last sentance, prize card. Yeah, its a prize race type of deck. Get 6 first and win. People might say stuff like, well all decks are prize card races. My response to you is, no. There are decks built for prize cards, like gyrados, kindra,SP etc. and decks built to manuever and win usind strageties like flychamp, GG etc. This is one of those where you need to get 6 prizes as fast yet correct as possible. Im not sure how to speed it up. I have some ideas, but lets see what people have to say. Criticism please.

Pokemon:23
4 Blastoise PL
2 Wartortle
4 Squirtle
2 Feraligatr Prime HGSS
1 Croconaw
2 Totodile
2 Claydol
2 Baltoy
1 Flotazel G Lv. X
1 Flotazel G
1 Uxie
1 Unown G
Suppoerters/Trainers:24
3 BTS
3…

Alright, after my long absence, i am back and cookin. Even though i am not a phan of playing against the Donphan prime, I am a phan of using it. Here is my decklist for it. Criticism please.

Pokemon: 24
3 Trapinch SW
2 Vibrava RR
3 Flygon RR
1 Flygon X
3 Phanphy HGSS
3 Donphan Prime HGSS
2 Baltoy
2 Claydol
1 Nidoran RR
1 NidoQueen RR
1 Uxie
1 Azelf
1 Unown G
Supporters/Trainers: 23
4 Rare Candy
3 Roseanne’s
3 Poke Communicate
2 Collector
2 Bebe’s
2 Expert Belt
2 Memory Berry
2 Warp Point
1 Palmer’s
1 NM
1 Luxury Ball
Energy: 13
4 Call
2 DCE
6 Fighting
1 Psychic

For those who dont know how this is run, its pretty self explanitory. Like Flychamp, you truck the pokemon upfront early with donphan. The reason he is a better replacement is his stage 1 and 120 health, and his pokebody. He also does at lease 60, mabye 80 for 1 energy. So, all in…

Ava has been playing Shuppet, and, while she knows the cards and how to play them rather well, I think she’s a bit timid about playing when it comes to battling an opponent she doesn’t know well. This is not good when playing a deck that will, ideally, take most of its play time in its first trainer turn. On top of this, it’s not a “fun” deck (especially to play against).

What I think she needs now is a deck that she play for fun that is able to compete with the good decks out there. Ava went 0-4 at her first tournament, so let’s work on building her a deck that can help her improve on that score. I still think she could do it with Shuppet, but let’s leave that on the back burner for now. Let’s give her a second option to train with (and hopefully more fun to play against).

My current thought is to build a deck based around Scizor from StormFront. SixPrizes has a good article on this strategy. Check out “Deck Spotlight: Scizor/Cherrim Beatdown!” I would build it a bit different both to account for HGSS cards and Ava’s playstyle.…

Im going to just open with this as our first HGSS deck workshop. In this deck, i want to use his Pokepower to speed up energy, and use Charizard AR To do the tank/damage, and to make this work, i think ninetales HGSS will fit perfectly.

Thats what i will leave it with for now. Ideas GO!

Pokemon: 22
3 Charmander AR
2 Charmeleon
3 Charizard AR
2 Cyndaquil HGSS
1 Quilava HGSS
2 Typhlosion Prime HGSS
3 Vulpix
3 Ninetales
2 Unown G
1 Uxie
Trainers/Supporters: 25
3 Rosie
2 Collector
2 Bebes
3 Pokemon Communicator
4 Candy
4 Poke healer +
2 NM
1 Palmers
2 Warp Point
2 Copycat
Energy: 13
3 Call
10 Fire

Here’s a deck that I think will fare quite well when the HGSS set comes out. Omar has run a similar “Lady Gaga” Deck, but I can’t condone such behavior (because of the name). Let’s just focus on the Dialga Garchomp Deck for now. We will start with the following deck that Omar has built and tested, which he posted about before.

Pokemon: 19
3 Luxray GL
1 Luxray GL Lv. X
2 Garchomp C
1 Garchomp C Lv. X
2 Bronzong G
1 Dialga G
1 Dialga G Lv. X
2 Uxie
1 Uxie Lv. X
1 Toxicroak G (Promo)
1 Lucario G
1 Crobat G
1 Unown G
1 Azelf

Trainers/Supporters: 29
4 Cyrus’s Conspiracy
4 Roseanne’s Research
4 Energy Gain
4 Poke Turn
4 Power Spray
3 SP Radar
2 Night Maintenance
1 Aaron’s Collection
1 Bebe’s Search
1 Luxury Ball
1 Expert Belt

Energy: 13
4 Call Energy
4 Electric
2 Psychic
2 Warp Energy
1 Metal

…

I just got done laying out a plan for our Pokemon Deck Workshop. If you are confused by how this article looks, go back and read that.

Now, let’s get to building me a winning LuxApe deck. Here’s the deal. I recently got myself an Infernape 4 Lv. X and an Uxie Lv. X. Now, I want to use them for fun and profit (where profit may be league stamps, premier rating points, etc.). What deck should I build? I think the obvious choice is Luxray GL with Infernape 4. Let’s start there. What else do I need? Other people run all kinds of crazy stuff that should be considered, but that’s not part of the article, that’s part of the discussion. I’ll wait to add my thoughts to the discussion until after I get at least one comment, and we’ll build the decklist together.

Here are my guidelines for this deck:
1) It needs to include Uxie Lv. X and Infernape E4 Lv. X.
2) I want it to be fast, because that’s how I roll.
3) I want it to abuse some game mechanic(s) that most decks don’t use, plan for, have a hard…

I really like how this website is shaping up. We’re getting a good amount of interesting Pokemon TCG articles here. We’re even getting more and more traffic from people searching for information about different decks and cards. In fact, our top search is for info about a dialga garchomp deck, so Omar will need to write an article titled “Dialga Garchomp Deck” in the near future. [winks and points finger at Omar]

So, the site is becoming a good repository of information, but I feel like we’re missing out on it being a good resource/medium for discussing things as a team and working together to create something or come to a decision as a whole. A tournament report really ought to be one guy’s take on what happened, and the comments are probably just going to be like “good job” or whatever. Reporting about how a deck worked while play-testing or in an actual tournament/league situation (like what I did with The Problem With Porygon) could generate some interesting discussion if others show up and have questions/comments, but it really is just another report. These things are in the past, and therefore they can be somewhat standalone and…

Well, these are my 2 posts on this. decklist ideas. Go ahead and put in some input on things i could change.

Palkia Lock

Pokemon: 22

2 Azelf (1 LA 1 MD)

3 Palkia G
1 Palkia G Lv. X
2 Luxray G
1 Luxray G Lv. X
4 Mesprit
3 Uxie
1 Uxie Lv. X
1 Bronzong G
1 unownG
1 Toxicroak G
1 Lucario G
1 Crobat G

Trainers/supporters: 26
4 Cyrus
4 Rosie’s
4 E-Gain
4 P-turn
3 P-Spray
2 NM
2 SP Radar
1 Bebe’s
1 Aarons Collection
1 Luxury Ball

Energy: 12
3 Call
5 Water
1 Warp
1 Psychic
2 Electric

And now for the Lady Gaga Decklist

Pokemon: 19
3 Luxray G
1 Luxray G lv. X
2 Garchomp C
1 Garchomp C Lv. X
2 Bronzong G
1 Dialga G
1 Dialga G Lv. X
2 Uxie
1 Uxie Lv. X
1 Toxicroak G
1 Lucario G
1 Crobat G
1 UnownG
…