One Hit KO

Hey, it’s coolestman22 again. I’ve been meaning to write another article for a while, but no good ideas for an article had really came to me in a while. I finally had an idea, so here is an article on how to tech for your matchups and what cards to tech in to your deck to make your matchup against X deck better.

First of all, by using any of these techs against one deck, I want people to understand that it might make other matchups worse for them. If you devote three spots of your deck to play against X deck, you’ll have less room for techs against Y deck, or less room for more consistency cards to help seal the matchup against Z deck.

Let’s start with the deck that’s won 30 Battle Roads in Masters alone already, Darkrai variants, and why not put the deck that shares a weakness with it alongside.

Darkrai/Zekeels

First off, Darkrai and most cards in Zekeels has a fighting weakness, so we can group them together into one category, and it’s also something we can exploit with a handful of cards, such as:

Terrakion NVI

Terrakion NVI is the most popular Fighting-type counter Pokemon, and is probably the best for two reasons. First of all, it can OHKO any Fighting-weak pokemon in the game right now, not regarding Eviolites or Defenders. This is a good reason to play it, as an OHKO is better than just getting damage on stuff.

Second of all, it does it for the lowest possible energy cost, and only uses one Fighting Energy. If you use two Fighting energy and don’t have Fighting-compatible energy acceleration (which isn’t currently in format) you can’t pull off an attack that needs two Fighting such as Gaia Hammer on Landorus NVI or Giant Claw on Groudon EX.

Terrakion is probably the most powerful option that gets the job done the best and quickest there is to choose from here, the only drawback being that you have to run Fighting Energy. But what doesn’t need Fighting Energy?

Stunfisk NVI 68

Stunfisk may not hit as hard as Terrakion, but if you play Zekeels it is arguably better. You don’t have to play any tech energy, so it takes up one or two spots instead of 3 to 6. This is good because, like most decks, Zekeels is pretty tight on space and you can’t afford to play random tech pokemon that take up that much space without hurting your consistency.

The problem with Stunfisk is that he isn’t all that hard hitting. You can only do 100 to a Fighting-type instead of the 180 Terrakion does. Stunfisk two-shots what Terrakion one-shots. The other attack has the possibility to do 60 (120 to a Fighting-weak Pokemon), which is 60 short of killing Darkrai EX or Raikou EX, meaning that if you have the space for Terrakion you should play it.

The last upside you get to playing Stunfisk over Terrakion is that Stunfisk has the ability to paralyze the Pokemon you attack. If your opponent has a Switch, then it doesn’t matter, but sometimes that 50% chance of paralysis can be a great thing to have. If you can buy yourself a turn against a Darkrai, you can KO it next turn for two prizes. It’s still much better to just play Terrakion in Zeels if you have the space, but if you don’t it can be nice to have something.

So, is there any other tech for Darkrai? Well, no good ones. Stunfisk and Terrakion are really the only half decent ones because everything else has nothing over Terrakion. Stunfisk probably isn’t your second best option in Zekeels, but it takes up less space than Terrakion and everything else (Groudon, Landorus mostly), it would just be better to play Terrakion. Stunfisk is the only card with an advantage over Terrakion at all.

CMT

CMT mainly consists of cards either weak to Lightning, or Mewtwo. Generally we can just play Mewtwo to counter the Mewtwos, which most decks do already. There’s also Regigigas that could pop up, so it’s hard to play a card to specifically counter all of CMT. But there are a few mentions I would want to give out.

Zekrom BW

Zekrom BW has two attacks, one which costs LLC, putting it out of the question for all decks other than Zeels already.

Outrage, however, can work to counter Tornadus EX and Tornadus (If you need to counter Tornadus EP anyway). What you do is send it out without energy, and leave it out for a turn. Then, hopefully it takes a hit, and you attach DCE, possibly Catcher a Tornadus EX, and knock out the Tornadus.

Zekrom probably isn’t a great tech, but it’s the best one there is against Tornadus-EX.

Weezing HS

Weezing HS is a card that was discussed as a good Mewtwo counter before Mewtwo came out, being able to OHKO Mewtwo for only two energy, without giving up two prizes (necessarily). However, it was tested, and it didn’t end up working out.

The answer to the Weezing problem is to play a line of AT LEAST 3-2 AND play at least 2 Defender. That’s 7 deck spots for a so-so Mewtwo counter. Is that something you would really want?

If you did opt to go the Weezing way, however, you would have to play 2 Koffing down at the same time, and then evolve one to Weezing and blow up in Mewtwo’s face, KOing the Mewtwo and yourself if you didn’t attach a Defender, and if you didn’t attach a Defender you’d give your opponent a free shot at whatever you brought up, so it’d be much better just to play Mewtwo if you had the money. It also spooks the opponent if they know what Weezing does.

Quad Fighting

Quad Fighting is an interesting deck, and there are few great ways to counter it. A lot of pokemon in this format have Fighting resistance, and you really should all know about how Tornadus EX counters it by now, so I won’t bore you with what you already know. There are other options that are not as good at doing so and take up a bit more space in your deck, but have different options against Fighting.

Shaymin EX

Shaymin EX with Prism Energy is a good counter to Fighting because a Shaymin will take two hits to KO (3 with Eviolite against anything but Groudon), and you also hit Terrakion for weakness, an OHKO after your opponent takes 2 prizes (or 1 with a PlusPower).

The problem with Shaymin is that it’s a terrible starter and isn’t all that good without N in any other matchups, he’ll probably just be OHKOed by whatever your opponent brings up next, and even with N he really isn’t that good.

I think that unless you were cash-strapped it would be much better to play Tornadus-EX, but Shaymin does bring an interesting option to the table, even if he isn’t the best option. He can swing for 180 late game, something not many other cards can do, and Shaymin is a decent option, but there are just too many downsides to it for it to work well enough to be worth 3 spots of your deck.

Conclusion

So that’s it for my article, I should be back with another one pretty soon though. I hope this gave you some insight about what techs to put in against what matchup, and feel free to leave a comment below. If you think I forgot something, just let me know.

Category: Strategy | Tags: counter, Darkrai, Fighting, Terrakion