Donking for Dummies Part 1: Radu’s Obnoxious Uxie Deck

by TheRadu ~ January 14th, 2011.

This is guide to playing the universally hated Uxie Donk deck. The deck goes by some other names as well. The more common ones are Uxie Quadro, Solitaire, Donk Deck etc. I affectionately refer to is as Obnoxious, due to the fact that pretty much everything about the deck is incredibly obnoxious. If you don’t know why this deck is obnoxious then you simply have never heard of it before. The deck aims to FTK/OTK (First Turn Kill/One Turn Kill) the opponent even if they start four basics. This is my favorite deck to play this format.  That being said, I have never used it in a premier event due to my fear of Vilegar. Uxie Donk is also the deck I find to be, by far, the most intriguing this format.

As a card player, OTK and FTK decks always interested me.  They are somewhat common in Yugioh, but in modified Pokemon this is a true first. The engines that decks like this use are always incredibly intricate and fast. There are many people who have asserted that this deck and decks like it take no skill to play, or that it is only played by skill-less players. Those people are dead wrong. This deck does take a good amount of skill to play right, with the intention of winning tournaments. People simply don’t understand how much I cringe when I let people use this deck and they misplay horribly with it. It’s not a hard deck to learn, but if you fail to adhere to the simple academic rules which I will lay out here, you will not win as much as you should. To be fair, if an average player playing this deck has a 60% win rate, a very skilled player will only have 70 or 75% win rate, but when you are talking about winning in a larger field and going X-0 or X-1, those 10 or 15% make a huge difference.

This article will be broken into two parts. First, I will explain the strategy behind playing the deck and what it aims to do. Then, I will explain how one would go about playing this deck in a tournament, including a very large section on time management. A lot of what I say may seem obvious. I have learned over the several years I’ve been playing that nothing is too obvious for your average player to ignore, so I’m saying pretty much everything. Before all that, I will introduce myself for those that do not know who I am.

My name is Radu. I have been a player in the very, very cold state of Minnesota since the 2007-2008 season. Over these 3 ½ seasons I have had some fairly good success. I have won eight Battle Roads and eight Cities. Out of the six States I have played in, I have one win, two 2nd places, two 3rd places, and one top-8. Out of two Regionals, I have one 2nd place finish. I don’t even want to talk about how terribly I do at Nationals, but I guess full disclosure is best. At both of the Nationals I have played in, I switched my deck choice at the last minute with something conceptually sound but untested.  This led me to finish with an awful record. I skipped Nationals in 2009 to lock in my worlds invite. I’m not about to go on here and say I’m amazing, but I’m definitely in the top 5% of players. Thus, I feel qualified to write an article like this.

General Strategy

I’ll start by saying this there are three game states you could be playing with Uxie Donk. First, game state one, these are the games where you know you will win on turn one. These games, depending on the situation, are fairly straight-forward.  You do what you do, namely go through your deck and win. I’ll go a bit more in-depth on this in a moment.

The second, game state two is the most interesting.  These are the games where you are not trainer locked, your opponent has basics whose combined hit points make it so you cannot donk, and you can “go off.” I’ll also go more in depth about this.

The last, game state three, there are games where you automatically lose. These are the games against a Dialga starting turn one Deafen or Vilegar locking you turn one. These games are the least interesting for you. Honestly, if you are playing in swiss, you might as well scoop.  You have no chance to win, and it wastes both your and your opponent’s time for you to sit there. I will NOT go into this anymore.

Now, I’ll provide a list and explain how to play each of the cards.

10 Pokemon 48 Trainers 2 Energy
4 Uxie
3 Crobat G
2 Unown R
1 Unown Q
4 Poke Drawer+
4 Pokedex Handy
4 Victory Medal
4 Super Scoop Up
4 Poketurn
4 Poke Blower+
4 Plus Power
4 Dual Ball
4 Junk Arm
3 Quick Ball
2 Luxury Ball
2 Pokemon Rescue
2 Expert Belt
2 Seeker
1 Alph Lithograph FOUR
2 Cyclone


Now this list may not be perfectly refined, but in all my testing I have never not been able to go off and go though my whole deck. It happened once to my friend where he started an unplayable hand using this list, but that’s it. It’s safe to assume this deck goes off about 95% of the time. There are a few things one can change about this deck but this works well for me. They guy who essentially invented this deck said he only ran one of each Seeker and Cyclone. Also, you don’t have to run two Luxury Balls or two Expert Belts. I can understand this mentality, but, for fear of prizing bad, I chose to run two of each.  Ultimately the extra stuff should get discarded by Junk Arm anyway. It’s really up to each person to do what they feel is best and play around with the list.

Some other options for this deck include running four of each Unown R and Pokemon Rescue.  Also, one can run Good Rod to try and get a bit more damage. Another card which I haven’t tested is Night Teleporter, but it seems definitely worse than anything else. One thing you should never ever do is trying to tech a donk list. The only thing it will do is hurt consistency. I briefly considered running one TM-TS2 Devoluter. That card, also will more that likely be useless.

Card Explanations

Uxie: This is the most important card in the deck.  You will be playing this card every time you have no other cards to play. Here’s the mistake people often make when playing this card.  Except for potentially the first Uxie you play where you have unusable Poketurns or SSU’s in hand, if you are Setting Up for less than six cards, something is wrong. You always play everything you can before you Uxie, with the exception of Cyclone and Seeker (which you ideally would be discarding with Junk Arm if you draw in them early in the game or if you already played one). Normally, your bench before you attack should be three Uxie and two Bats (with an Uxie active, of course). Unless there is some reason why you couldn’t play four Uxie (prized, or need ten from a bat to win), you play them all. Normally, this card is played five or six times a turn, three or four of them from your hand after drawing into them, one or two from SSU, and potentially one from Seeker.

Crobat G: It’s your source of damage before you attack.  Just play it and declare Flash Bite as soon as you do, so you don’t risk getting lost in the game state and forgetting what going on and missing the timing for the power. It’s your second best start. Normally you will be playing this card between nine and eleven times over the course of a game. One or two will be dropped from your hand after you search or draw into them, seven or so from Poke Turn, then one or two from Seeker and Cyclone.

Unown R:  This is your best start seeing as it lets you play an extra Crobat or Uxie per game.  Just attach Q to get it out of the active spot. If you get terribly unlucky and your Q is prized you have to either try to SSU it back to your hand or lithograph then knock out a guy and take Q as your prize. This, however, is not ideal as you generally have another “better” card to take as a prize. So you may as well try and Scoop it when you get the chance, unless there is a very pressing reason to Scoop something else. You Retire only when you need the bench space, have a Pokemon Rescue in your hand to burn, or need to draw to Junk Arm and the other cards in your hand are all important. You end up laying this card four times in a game twice from a search, start or draw and twice after using Pokemon Rescue.

Unown Q:  It’s here to retreat Unown R if you start with it nothing else, really. However, if you do not start with Unown R, you have two options, and ultimately they both would end up doing the same thing. First, you can discard it with Junk Arm to get something back. Second, you can attach it to a CROBAT on your bench to get it out of your hand. Ideally, you turn the Bat and discard the Q for Junk Arm at a later point in the game. You use this card once or not at all.

Poke Drawer+: Ok here’s the thing I see people mess up the most with this deck. For whatever reason, they want to hold this card in their hand when they Uxie hoping they get a second one. YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS! You will go though your whole deck anyway. Before you play Uxie, play it, no matter what.  In the worst case, you thinned your deck by one.  The best case is that you thin your deck by one card and ditch the card you draw thus letting you draw more with Uxie. This deck plays 3 draw trainers: this, Pokedex, and Victory Medal. If you have more than one, I would play them in this order: (1) Pokedex Handy (2) Victory Medal (3) Pokedrawer+.  We could theorymon about this all day, but I play drawer last, just incase you get another. In an average game, I find myself playing single Drawers twice and double Drawers once.

Pokedex Handy: Play it when you get it, early game don’t make the mistake of getting Seeker or Cyclone if given the option, unless it would be ideal to play at that moment. You don’t normally play them early game, so skip them.

Victory Medal: Play it; hope for heads.

Super Scoop Up: It’s normally the last card you play before you Uxie, depending on how much damage you need and how many Uxie and Pokemon search cards are left in the deck, you scoop Uxie or Bat.  It’s pretty obvious. The one thing I will say is, if you are in a situation where you Set Up and either draw no way to get another Uxie or have a full bench, you play this first as to better allow you to plan your turn. You may end up using Junk Arm on this to try to get another Uxie drop when you have not options left.

Poketurn: Play them as you get them.  Keep track of how many you play and how many are in the deck. This is your number one target with junk arm.

Pokeblower+: Generally I would say play them as you get them.  However, in gamestate two where it’s likely you won’t donk, I would save 2 if possible, I’ll go into that in a bit.

Plus Power: Play them on Uxie when you can.  If you get them early before a Uxie is in play, put them on a Bat, so you can turn it later. This seems obvious, yet I see people mess this up all the time.

Junk Arm: Unless you need to get a way to grab an Uxie, or pick up an Uxie, you use this exclusively to get Poketurns and pump out more damage.

Dual Ball: Play them if there’s something worth getting.  Feel free to Junk Arm them away when there isn’t. If that’s not an option, play it to look through your deck without taking anything.

Quick Ball: Out of the three search cards you play, use this first if you have others. You’ll get something here, so you’ll know what to take with the others.  Obvious.

Luxury Ball: Play it when you get it. If you get double Drawers or two heads on a Victory Medal and want to get a Uxie, get this instead (if you haven’t already played one). It thins the deck and gives you options with Junk Arm later.

Pokemon Rescue: Basically play it to get back an R or something you had discarded with Junk Arm.

Expert Belt: See Plus Power.  If you get the second, junk it or attach it to Bat.

Seeker: It’s probably the second most important card that’s needed for this deck to work as well as it does (behind Uxie). Ideally, you play it to send back you opponents highest HP basic. Normally it’s one of the last cards you play

Alph Lithograph: Play it when you draw it.  There’s nothing more to say.  If you know there is nothing really useful prized (unlikely), you can junk it, I guess.

Cyclone Energy: Basically, you play this either right before or after you Seeker, whichever is lets you Seeker the bigger Pokemon.

Game State One

Normally you can expect to place about 120 damage on the board before you attack, then attack for 80. This means that, if your opponent starts three basics, the hit points of the lowest two (you seeker the third) has to average out to 100 or less.  That being said, it’s easy to donk ANY three or less basic start. On four basic starts, the average of the lowest three has to be about 70.

So let’s say your opponent starts Dialga, double Garchomp, and Ambipom. That’s a start where you are unlikely to donk, and you should not attempt it. Now, if over the course of the game, you end up hitting a lot of SSU and Blower heads a game state two game can become a game state one game very easily. The converse is also true, so be ready to adjust your play accordingly.

One of the first things you should do when you start is go though your deck to figure out if anything important is prized. I’ll list them in order of priority since you probably won’t be able to look for all of them at once. Your opponent likely already hates you by now, since your playing a Donk deck.  Don’t give them an excuse to call a judge or to feel a very pressing need to reach across the table and punch you (see pic), by taking five minutes to look though your deck. During every subsequent search (after this initial longer search), look for the next card on the list. The first four are the ones you look for at the beginning of every game.

  1. Uxie
  2. Crobat
  3. Seeker
  4. Cyclone
  5. Unown Q (only if you start with an R)
  6. SSU
  7. Plus Power
  8. Turn
  9. Junk Arm
  10. Belt

Here’s what you want to do if you are going for the one, two, or three basic donk. Start by placing damage on the active, unless one of the benched Pokémon has 40 HP or less. This is just to give you some insurance in case you get into a position where you have to Seeker early and don’t want to lose the damage you place. Otherwise, just go though the motions playing cards as described above. Make sure you use some common sense, but overall it’s stupidly easy to donk three basics or less. It really doesn’t take too much skill.

On a four basic start, you’ll want to make sure you come up with a game plan in your head before you start doing damage.  Normally your first targets should be the lowest HP basics, then the active if there’s a tie. Again, though, it depends on the situation; honestly it’s not too hard if you just think it though. Here are some rules to follow that should make sure you don’t mess up. You have two priorities (1) Cycle though your whole deck using as many Uxie drops as needed and (2) Deal damage with blowers and bats. You fulfill them in that order, so don’t SSU a Bat unless you have another Uxie in hand to drop.  Just follow these steps in this order until you reach the bottom then repeat as needed. If you can’t fulfill one of the step move on to the next one.

Step 1: Play any Pokemon search cards you may have, but only if there is something worth getting. If there is nothing worth getting, don’t play the card.

Step 2: Play any draw cards you may have (in the order described above).

Step 3: Play any Junk Arm (only if you have stuff to discard) and SSU you may have in your hand.

Step 4: Play any Blowers and Turns you may have.

Step 5: Play, Seeker and Cyclone if you absolutely have to (or if it wins you the game).

Step 6: Attack, if it wins you the game.

Step 7: Dump as many cards from your hand as you can.

Step 8: Set Up for as much as possible.

Game State Two

Game state one is a situation where you pretty much always win, everyone knows that. However, what most people are not aware of is that game state two is almost an auto win situation as well. Here’s why, if you play this deck right there is pretty much no way you will not win on time. No, there is no need to stall or slow play. Heck you don’t even need to have time anywhere in your head when you play. If you just make your plays right, time will fly by. Taking into consideration shuffling and set up at the beginning of the game as well as any turn which occur before I can play trainers, by the time my first trainer turn is done, between 28-32 minutes have gone by. So, unless my opponent has an extremely fast turn after I finish my turn, that means they have two turns to take two prizes without letting me take one. I say that they have two turns to take two prizes because in game state two the whole point of this deck is (1) To go through your whole deck allowing you to cycle Uxie next turn. Ideally enough, this process takes up a lot of time. (2) To knock out two Pokemon. Generally this doesn’t change too much about how the game is played, however, there are a few changes. First, since knocking out two Pokemon with this deck is fairly trivial, focus is emphasized more on making sure you can go though your whole deck as opposed to dealing damage. Basically meaning that Super Scoops (Junk Arms too) can me used more liberally on Uxie. It also means that you can Seeker earlier, at a time where it would not be ideal in game state one. In addition, it’s normally very useful to save two Pokeblowers for your next turn. You do this just in case, for whatever reason, your opponent manages to get into a situation where they can take two prizes in the two turns you allow them. In order to set up two Pokémon with more than 80 HP (so that cyclone won’t ensure a KO) out, they almost certainly will need to drop an Uxie. Otherwise they will have something left over from the turn before, so blowers (more often than not) will be a free prize.

Other than what was mentioned above game state two is played using the same strategy and steps as game state one.

Match Ups

VileGar: 10-90
It’s auto loss. If you play, hope they start terrible or scoop.

LuxChomp: 85-15
This is nearly auto win. Their only chance to beat you is to donk you, or for you to start bad. You just do what you do. There are two things you should do slightly differently than normal in this game. First, if they start 3 or more SP Pokemon until you have some reason to believe otherwise play as if your opponent has a spray. Second, be wary of ERL. The best way to counter ERL is to use blowers to kill your opponent’s energy. On the first turn in game state two situations you should focus on getting the Pokémon with energy of the board, followed by Luxray, and Garchomp.

DialgaChomp: 65-35
Same as Luxchomp except they have a chance to start T1 deafen. Otherwise it’s fine, because it doesn’t make a difference if they try to lock you in a game state two situation.

Gyarados: 85-15
I would say it would be slightly worse than Luxchomp due to the Mesprit factor, but for the fact that a lone Sableye more or less wins you the game.

Kingdra/Machamp/Jumpluff: 65-35
If you go first, they have a fair chance of going off turn one.  If you go second, you win.

If you are still with me, please continue on to part two of Donking for Dummies titled “RaduÂ’s Guide To Cultivating Hatred“. It further discusses Radu’s Obnoxious Uxie Deck in regards to tournament play with an extensive analysis of time management.

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