Hey OneHitKO people, it’s me again. I’m sorry for the delay in between articles, but my free time lately hasn’t been all too plentiful due to testing for the tournaments I’m writing about now. I had the privilege to attend two States this year, and I feel like writing about them, so I’m writing about them.
First things first, I had started testing a bunch of decks. I was fairly comfortable with my PlasmaKlang build until I learned that so many people would be teching against it. I also liked my Darkrai/Lasers build, but not enough to warrant playing it. I had built a Blastoise variant to test against, and although the list wasn’t very good it worked quite nicely in testing. After some tweaking I decided to play Blastoise for Week One. This was the list I used:
3 Keldeo EX
This deck is Blasphemy.
4-0-3 Blastoise BCR
1 Black Kyurem EX PLS
1 Moltres NXD
-12
4 Rare Candy
4 Energy Retrieval
4 Pokemon Catcher
3 Ultra Ball
1 Level Ball
1 Heavy Ball
1 Computer Search
4 Professor Juniper
4 Skyla
2 N
1 Colress
1 Bianca
2 Tropical Beach
-32
13 Water Energy
2 Lightning Energy
1 Fire Energy
-16
I felt like Blastoise with a tech against Plasmaklang was the best possible play for Week One, seeing as the meta was almost completely undeveloped barring a few Cities in Europe and some testing at league. I felt like my list was great because it was consistent enough and had the option to use Black Kyurem EX when I needed to.
So the first States I got to go to was Arizona, where I was one of only three NorCal Seniors there. I met up with the other two early on, found some Beach to borrow, and got registered. I got a nice little States die that said Arizona on it, which was pretty cool, and after about a 2 1/2 hour registration period and some hassle with the printer not working it finally
Unfortunately, I was not the King Of Arizona.
started up.
Round One vs. ??? (I don’t know the Arizona people well enough to recall most names) w/Flippy Stuff
I start Keldeo with a terrible hand, my only Supporter being a Bianca and a bunch of energy. I Bianca for two and draw Computer Search and Squirtle, bench the Squirtle and Computer Search for a Beach, and by Turn Three I’m Secret Swording for 110, and steamrolling everything he has.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Mr. Curtis “Kecleon” Swick
That name is legit what it said on the pairing sheet. Anyway, I saw beforehand that he was playing Lugia/Eels with Thundurus EPO, and I’m wondering what my matchup is like. I form a gameplan of trying to steamroll with Black Kyurem EX, but when I start double Squirtle with no Supporters I basically just pray I topdeck something, which I don’t. He gets a T2 Disaster Volt and does so again and I’m benched out on Turn Three.
1-1
Round 3 vs. ??? w/RayEels
All I remember about this game is steamrolling, and his build not being very good.
2-1
Round 4 vs. Logan Goad w/Garchomp/Altaria/LaserBank
I’m forced to play a NorCal player here, and that kind of sucks, but I figure that the matchup is pretty good for me.
Problem is I start Black Kyurem EX, and then I’m forced to discard two Catcher on Turn One with a Professor Juniper. He gets an early two-prize lead and I am unable to win a prize trade with him due to a lack of energy, and we both two-shot each other until I eventually lose.
2-2
At this point I know I need to win out to make cut, and even if I do it’s kinda iffy. I haven’t heard of most of the people there barring a few good Arizona players and a few good SoCal players, so I just have to hope I don’t run into them.
Round 5 vs. ??? w/Hydreigon
Remember what I said in a previous article about Hydreigon having a great Blastoise matchup? That changed when Black Kyurem EX came out, so as soon as I figure out what he’s playing I’m confident in the matchup. I start Moltres to his Registeel and immediately expect him to start looking for Klinks, so when he Ultra Balls for a Deino I’m kind of confused. I start setting up but I’m forced to discard two Blastoise and he starts Night Spearing the third, and I don’t have a way to recover them afterward. But I remember Black Kyurem EX sweeps before he gets the Catcher, and I win.
3-2
Round 6 vs. ??? w/PlasmaKlang
I don’t have a great start and he has a great one, but on T3 I draw into all the resources I need to sweep with Moltres, and I do so.
4-2
I do some quick math and it turns out that there are 9 4-2’s, 3 of which will make Top 8. After a suspenseful wait, standings are posted, and I’m 11th. Top Cut ended up being the following:
Patrick M w/Garbodor
Conner G w/Plasmaklang w/Etherdex
Blastoise
Hydreigon
Asim w/Landorus/Tornadus/Mewtwo/Something or other
Collin C w/Victini/Garbodor/Attackers
Curtis S w/Lugia/Thundurus/Eels
Sebo w/Plasmaklang
Finals was Patrick vs. Curtis, and Curtis won.
Next up is California States, and I make a couple changes to my list, notably a Tool Scrapper, 4th Blastoise, and second C0lress and Bianca for a Water, Skyla, Heavy Ball, and Level Ball. I end up regretting each one but the Tool Scrapper, but nevermind that.
I show up at the Queen Mary, find two Beaches I can borrow, and get registered, and the tournament eventually starts.
Round One vs. ??? w/Blastoise
I had heard previously that Blastoise mirror is incredibly luck based, so I feel like I have a slight advantage because I have a more consistent list (I saw him playing Super Scoop Ups and a couple other techs). I go second (Which I’m actually happy about because he doesn’t get to use my Beach, but nevermind that), and start attacking before he does. We swing for 110 for a while and I eventually have a three energy drop to OHKO his Keldeo, and it’s downhill for him from there.
1-0
Round 2 vs. ??? w/Darkrai/Lasers
I get T2 Black Ballista. I win T4.
2-0
Round 3 vs. Ivan w/Garbodor
Sue me. I’m bored.
This game was the single most hilarious game I’ve played since a Next Destinies Prerelease where I did 160 damage to my opponent’s Mewtwo EX with Hippopotas NXD’s “Sand Jet” attack before he could retreat his active Growlithe and start sweeping with Mewtwo. However, this wasn’t because I came up with an amazing and hilarious ploy to take out an EX before it could do some damage, rather because I misplayed so much and my opponent dead drew so much.
On Turn Two I have a benched Blastoise and an active Black Kyurem EX with a Lightning Energy attached and 60 damage, and his only Pokemon in play is a Mewtwo EX with a Double Colorless Energy attached. I Juniper and draw two Water, which I stupidly decide to attach to Black Kyurem and Slash for 60. He then attaches a Fighting Energy and KO’s my Black Kyurem, and I have no way to get it back.
Fast forward to later in the game, where he’s still dead drawing and I’m still misplaying. I have an active Blastoise with six Energy attached and he has a Terrakion NVI with enough energy to Land Crush, and no benched Pokemon. I decide to Beach instead of attacking and hoping he didn’t draw a benched Pokemon, and he topdecks a Giant Cape which puts me one energy away from winning with Blastoise. If I had attacked his Terrakion instead of Beaching I win that game next turn.
The game ends with me being the energy I had cut from my list short of KOing his Terrakion for my last prize, and I’m forced to try to Catcher his Mewtwo and hit for 110. He has the energy to retreat and KO my active Keldeo for his last two prizes.
2-1
Game Four vs. Troy Olbernote w/Darkrai/Lugia/Lasers
I get another T2 Black Ballista and sweep.
3-1
Game Five vs. ??? w/PlasmaKlang
Neither of us get very good starts, and I try to build up my Moltres on the bench without Blastoise. Little do I know my Fire Energy is prized. He runs out of Catcher and Switch rather quickly, however, and after I Catcher Plasmaklang to try to buy time he benches a Keldeo, Rushes In, and hits for 50. I then promote Black Kyurem EX and Black Ballista him in an attempt to draw the fire. He’s like “That does nothing”. I then explain to him that Keldeo is not a metal type, and therefore is not protected by Plasma Steel, and he facepalms. He gets back into the game rather quickly, however, and eventually takes all his prizes before I can draw my fire.
3-2
Again I’m in the position where I need to win out to make cut, but this time I have better resistance and there won’t be as many bubbles, so I’m more comfortable in this position.
Round 6 vs. Austin Bowen w/WhiteEels
This game starts out with him using Bouffalant and me trying to draw into a Lightning Energy while using Keldeo. Eventually I Computer Search for one and start sweeping with BKEX.
4-2
Round 5 vs. Will Hildebrant w/Ho-oh
I actually debate scooping this game to put Ho-oh into cut, but I decide that I need the points too much. He starts Ho-oh, and I have an amazing starting hand. I get another early Black Ballista and win with BKEX 6-0.
5-2
At this point I’m 99% sure I’m in cut, and I check the Standings to find out that I’m in as the 11 seed… playing against Garbodor.
Top 16 vs. Patrick Martinez w/Garbodor
Game One: After a terrible start I realize I can’t win and scoop to conserve time.
Game Two: See Game One, except I didn’t scoop.
5-3, 13th overall.
Honestly I’m pretty happy about my list, even if there were a few things I would have liked differently. I’m glad to be getting 20 points, putting me at 285. If I do alright at Salt Lake City Regionals I might actually get my invite this year.
Well, thanks for reading. Be sure to leave a comment, and I’ll respond to it as soon as I get the time. Farewell!
Hey OneHitKO, it’s been awhile since I did a deck analysis article, so I decided to write up an article about a deck that I feel is amazing in this format, which is Landorus/Lugia. This article is mostly just me overhyping the deck, but I have tested it and it is amazing. The article may just lead you to believe it is more amazing than it actually is.
Before you start wondering if this is just another big basic deck, well, it pretty much is. However, it has a much different
Who knew Basics could get so complicated?
strategy than many big basics do. With this deck, instead of just attacking with whatever you draw into, your goal is to use Landorus EX’s Hammerhead the first few turns to put 60 damage on two of your opponent’s EX’s. Then, use Lugia to kill both of them for three prizes a piece, and win when you kill both of them.
Now, there’s plenty of things that can go wrong with this plan. Eviolite, Aspertia City Gym, and your opponent not dropping an EX in the first place can mess with your strategy. However, winning by Turn Four is not always necessary, even if it is possible. Your gameplan should just to be to achieve this strategy as fast as you can, and hopefully you can knock out two EX’s before they knock out three.
The thing about other speed decks is that when the setup deck catches up to them, they tend to be forced to rely on how far ahead they were in that current gamestate. However, now there’s a speed deck that can win before the setup deck does set up. Instead of focusing on taking out the engine or the pre-evolutions of the engine of the setup deck, you can instead focus on just winning the standard way before your opponent can take advantage of being fully set up. In some matchups you will want to try to deny your opponent setting up, but in most cases you fare well enough to just take enough of an early lead to the point where your opponent can’t use their main attackers they need to use to knock out your attackers in one hit because Lugia would just come in and take three prizes off them.
The deck is nowhere near as broken as it is in theory, but it’s still amazing, and there’s a great chance that I’m going to be playing it for a States.
A basic skeleton for the deck looks like this:
Pokemon
4 Landorus EX
2 Lugia EX
-6
Items
4 Pokemon Catcher
4 Bicycle
4 Colress Machine
3 PlusPower
3 Switch/Escape Rope mix (I prefer 2 Switch, 1 Escape Rope, because early game Escape Rope is really helpful for hitting for weakness with Landorus as well as getting the Lugia you started with out of the way)
2 Ultra Ball
2 Eviolite
2 Hypnotoxic Laser
1 Tool Scrapper
1 Ace Spec (Anything but the Tools are good in here).
-26
9 Different Supporters (Ideally 3-4 N, 3-4 Juniper, 1-2 Bianca, 0-1 Skyla, 0-1 Colress) If you play Scramble Switch or Gold Potion you should play one more Supporter)
-9
2 Counter Stadiums (Virbank, Frigate, Aspertia, Battle City, and Skyarrow Bridge are all good)
-2
6 Fighting
4 Double
4 Plasma
-14
Total – 57
This gives you a little bit of wiggle room, and you could easily make more if you felt it was necessary. Ideally I would put one more Supporter out in as well as an additional Tool Scrapper and Switch, but you could do whatever with your build.
The four Landorus is to make your odds of starting with it as high as you can. If you get a T1 Hammerhead it will help
Why does Landorus look like he’s pouting about something?
you out so much, and starting with it makes it so much easier to do so. Landorus is going to be your attacker for the earlier part of the game, and generally you will use it more than you use Lugia (Because the idea with Lugia is to attack with it twice, Landorus is more there to set up for Lugia), and you don’t necessarily know how long that will take), so having four is more necessary.
In testing I started out with three Lugia, but I’ve found that over the course of the game you almost never attack with more than one. The second is there in case one is prized, because you generally only take one prize with Landorus. Any more is bad for the deck because it detracts from your chances of starting with Landorus and becomes a dead draw once you have one Lugia in play.
Catcher is pretty self-explanatory, it’s a staple in everything. In here, it has slightly different functions, however. Either you can use it to hit around Resistance or hit for Weakness with Landorus, or chase the benched EX’s with damage on them that set up for a Lugia kill. 4 is necessary in this deck because frequently you find yourself needing three to four over the course of the six or seven turns the game should last if you’re playing a favorable matchup. This is one of those decks that is made so much better by Catcher instead of just being able to use it.
Bicycle is good in any deck that aims to attack on Turn One. It’s also amazing because late game you often find yourself needing a specific resource or two, and Bicycle helps you chase it down by giving you more than one draw card to use during your turn. I play four because it’s just so good in this deck.
In theory you could get away with three Colress Machine, but I like four for consistency purposes. Ideally you want to have your Lugia powered up by Turn Three or Four, which usually means you need to hit at least one Colress Machine to do so. Playing four maximizes your odds of doing so. According to the rules team from PokeGym, you can play a Colress Machine even if four Plasma Energy are in visible areas of play (i.e. Field, Discard, Town Mapped Prizes), so there’s no harm in them being dead draws late game.
I like PlusPower in the deck just because a lot of the time Landorus won’t do quite enough damage (Some instances an Eviolite or Aspertia City Gym might appear, and there are times a Hypnotoxic Laser is used to put 10 + 30 on a newly played EX), so PlusPower is just there to make sure Lugia can get kills. It’s a valuable resource to have and it should be considered as a four-of if you can find the space without cutting consistency.
Switch is there for three scenarios. First, if you start with Lugia you need to be able to get a T1 Hammerhead without using 2 Colress Machine and discarding two Plasma Energy. Switch is mainly there for T1 scenarios where you need to get a Landorus active.
It’s also useful when you’re done with the Landorus phase and need to start attacking with Lugia. It helps a lot if you can get the Switch instead of having to manually attach a Double Colorless to Landorus and manually retreat him (Although if you are forced to do this it isn’t terrible, you just have to manually attach a Fighting to him if you want to Hammerhead again). This also applies to when you’re attacking with Lugia and then need to attack with Landorus again for whatever reason.
Finally, it’s your best defense against Catcher stalling. Frequently your opponent will be forced to Catcher-stall you to
This card looks so pretty,
buy time to set up whatever they need to set up, so having the clutch Switch when you need it is huge. For this reason I would advocate running at least four Switching cards.
I want to talk about the usefulness of Escape Rope in this deck for a bit as well. Escape Rope is great on Turn One to force your opponent to start with their less desirable starter as well as hit for Weakness or get around Resistance without having to use a Catcher. I honestly like a 3/2 Switch/Escape Rope split the best so you have a decent chance of drawing an Escape Rope when you need it while still prioritizing Switch, but some variants may have space concerns that don’t allow that split.
I only play two Ultra Ball because that’s all that I’ve found necessary in testing. I’ve considered going up to four, but I’ve also considered going down to zero. Ultra Ball is mainly there to thin out your hand for Bike and Bianca, but it’s also good for grabbing a Landorus on Turn One and getting a Lugia to Colress Machine to as soon as possible. It’s one of those cards that you don’t need every game, but you’re glad you have it when you do, and two is the perfect number for one of those cards.
Eviolite is there simply to make Lugia harder to kill. If you lose your Lugia and all of the Plasma Energy it’s usually going to be really hard to get a new Lugia swinging. Eviolite is there to keep it alive for the extra turn you need to win. Two is a good number for it because it allows you to get one when you need one or before while still not filling the deck up too much with dead draws late game.
Hypnotoxic Laser is mostly there for the early game Landorus phase when you’re trying to get damage on EX’s. Hypnotoxic can allow you to get 10 or 20 more which sometimes puts it in Lugia kill range. I was a bit skeptical on it at first but it has proven itself to be amazing in testing.
In my personal build I actually play two Tool Scrapper, as Eviolite really messes this deck up. However, in most scenarios with this deck one Scrapper is enough. You basically need to ensure that you can Tool Scrap Eviolites when it’s absolutely necessary or before, and playing two helps this a lot. I would advise playing two, but if you can only fit one that’s fine. two is also helpful because Garbodor has been on the rise since the end of Regionals.
The Ace spec slot is mostly personal preference. Dowsing Machine can get you a 5th Catcher or 4th PlusPower and provides another out to a Supporter. Scramble Switch is good for powering Lugia up quicker. Gold Potion helps keep Lugia alive for an extra turn, and Computer Search helps with the early game. I would advise testing all four and choosing the one that suits your playstyle or personal preferences the best.
Supporters are necessary in any deck as they provide you with a mediocre but acceptable draw engine. 9 is a good number in a deck with 4 Bikes and an Ace Spec that nets you a Supporter, but if you opt for Scramble Switch or Gold Potion you’d be better off playing a tenth.
Professor Juniper is the best draw Supporter in here because it nets you the most cards, and in a deck like this you want to be going through your deck pretty quickly to get everything you need when you need it. I would advise playing four Juniper, but if you want to play more conservatively three works fine.
N is also really good in here, better than in most decks, because you’re taking prizes in clusters and not in ones and twos. What I like about this deck is you can be going for the game winning Catcher, N, and still have a reasonable chance of drawing it, because often you find yourself with three prizes left and the Catcher away from winning because of how amazing Lugia is. It’s the best shuffle-draw Supporter you can have in this deck and it’s ideal when you don’t want to have to Juniper away a hand of vital Catcher, Switch, PlusPower, Tool Scrapper, Plasma Energy, or whatever resource you find yourself running out of.
The last Supporter slot is probably best suited for Skyla. Skyla is another out to a game winning Catcher, and in a deck with Bicycle you can Skyla and still draw cards. Bianca works fine, but I like Skyla better just because of the consistency of it.
Stadium Wars are becoming a thing again, and having a kickgym for Vitrbank and Tropical Beach can come in quite
Play your own Stadiums to keep Cleveland Browns Stadium out of play.
nicely. My favorite counter Stadium in this deck is Plasma Frigate because it denies Raikou and Zekrom the knockout on your Lugia as well as protecting Landorus from Keldeo on some occasions. Aspertia City Gym is also nice because it keeps Lugia alive longer, so my personal split on that is 1/1, but you could find yourself playing more or different Stadiums if you found that was what was best in your testing.
6 Fighting Energy is the minimum one can play because you really want to get a Turn One Hammerhead, especially if you go second. I have upped my count to seven just because of how crucial the Turn One Hammerhead is in here. A high count is also nice when you feel that Land’s Judgement is your best play.
Four Plasma Energy is necessary just for consistency purposes. There’s the possibility that you will be forced to Plasma Gale a third time for whatever reason, and there’s also a good chance you will be discarding one with Professor Juniper, Ultra Ball, or your Ace Spec, so having four just helps when you’re in these situations.
Double Colorless is there to power up Lugia quicker. Four Double Colorless is not as necessary, but I still feel it’s important for having the Double Colorless when you need it (Which is usually Turn Two and Three). It’s also good for retreating Landorus manually when you don’t have a Switch or Escape Rope. You could go down to three if you felt it necessary to fit something else in, but most of the time it’s better to stick to consistency and play the fourth Double Colorless.
Matchups
So how does this deck play out against the field? Well, I’ve tested a couple matchups, and this is what I’ve learned:
Vs. PlasmaKlang – Bad.
If they’re playing the variant with Klinklang BLW and Darkrai and Keldeo, you at least have a chance at this matchup. Wait until they drop both Darkrai and Keldeo and then start Hammerheading.
If they’re just playing PlasmaKlang and Cobalion, your best bet is to wait until they only have two prizes left, counter their Tropical Beach, Catcher and Hypnotoxic Laser their Plasmaklang, and N them to two. If they draw a Switch or a Supporter before Klinklang dies, you’re screwed, but it’s better than no chance at all. There’s also the possibility of an early game Lugia killing Klinks if you’re lucky.
Vs. Blastoise – 50/50
Believe it or not, this matchup would be highly favorable if it weren’t for Black Kyurem EX PLS. However, in my testing Black Kyurem can often one-shot your Lugia and take all the Plasma Energy with it unless it has both an Eviolite attached and an Aspertia in play. Your best bet is to just play aggressively and try to win as fast as you can. Don’t worry about Landorus’ weakness until a Keldeo starts attacking, and then if you’re forced to you can Plasma Frigate + Plasma Energy. And don’t try to deny them Blastoise unless they only have one Squirtle and no Ditto in play, because it will be inevitable. If you can, try to Eviolite your Lugia and get Aspertia into play before you get into Lugia phase, because you never know when Black Kyurem will come down and bash you for 200 damage.
Vs. Darkrai/Lasers – Favorable.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t tested this that much. However, both of your EX’s having 180 HP and not 170 as well as their reliance on EX’s to attack means this matchup is in your favor. Landorus can hit for weakness if you need it to, and if they start with two Darkrai in play you almost always pull off a win. Just stick to your normal gameplan and you should be fine.
Vs. Darkrai/Hammers – Unfavorable.
Because you lack a form of energy acceleration that can be used more than three times per game reliably plus your reliance on Special Energy, Hammerspamming could give you some trouble. Your best bet is to do the Landorus phase like normal except without powering Lugia up, and then power Lugia up all at once with Colress Machine. Ideally they will only hit one Hammer and you can Plasma Gale another Darkrai for the win, but this strategy is iffy. I don’t think Hammertime will be all too popular, so having a bad matchup to it isn’t a terrible thing.
Vs. RayEels – Favorable
This matchup is probably the only good matchup in which you don’t take your normal gameplan. Instead, what you should do is try to Catcher out Tynamos and Hammerhead them, setting Rayquaza EX up for a Lugia kill while you do so. After you’ve killed two Tynamo and set an EX up for a knockout with Lugia, you can use Lugia to kill that EX. From there, you just need to take one more prize, so you can do that however you see fit.
If they set up a Rayquaza and enough Eels and they’re able to use Dragon Burst a couple times, you’re in trouble. However, you should be able to Catcher-KO their Eels before this happens too much. Your gameplan should be to deny Eels until you can win in about two turns.
Another way to approach the matchup is just to spam Lugia early game and kill Eels, but this is generally only a good strategy if you feel that it can be done easier than the Landorus strategy. If you have the option, go with the Landorus plan.
Vs. Snorlax/Lugia/Plasma Stuff – Even
I haven’t tested this matchup (I honestly don’t even know if the deck is any good), but from what I know about the deck the matchup seems like it would be 50/50. You run Switch, meaning retreating under Snorlax isn’t terribly hard. And Lugia with a PlusPower one-shots Snorlax for two prizes, as well as Landorus with a Hypnotoxic Laser or PlusPower two-shots Snorlax. Overall you should try to approach the matchup as familiarly as you can, but if you’re forced to kill a Snorlax with Landorus that’s fine. Get an Eviolite on your Lugia so Snorlax can’t OHKO it, and, if necessary, Aspertia City Gym as well (Although this would make it harder to take knockouts on your opponent’s Lugia if you chose to do so).
You’re going to need to take a bit longer to win this game, but unless a Snorlax starts wreaking havoc on your field and you are unable to power something up to stop it, you should have a good shot at winning first.
Vs. Garbodor – Favorable
In the little bit of testing I’ve done against Garbodor it’s been favorable for me, but that might just be because I played two Tool Scrapper. Usually Garbodor variants play EX’s to attack, so I usually take advantage of that and Tool Scrapper Garbodor when I’m about to take a prize. I haven’t done quite enough testing to say more than this, sorry.
So what do you guys think about Landorus/Lugia? Do you guys think that it is the ultimate speed deck that Pokemon has never had in a Modified format before, or do you think it is overrated? Discussion is encouraged, so make sure to leave a comment and leave your opinion on Landorus/Lugia.
Hey OneHitKO people, I decided to write another article. Since it was a month between the last two, I decided to actually sit down and write something.
First of all, I’ll give you guys a recap of how my Regionals went. I played Ho-oh with 3 Mewtwo, 2 Tornadus, 2
I guess I’m not Pooka.
Terrakion, and 2 Sigilyph. I won my Round One match pretty easily against Hydreigon, played an amazing game against Blastoise round two and narrowly won, and beat VileBox round 3 (The deck was legit somehow, but the reason I beat it was because it didn’t have energy acceleration and I was able to KO their attackers because I had previously attacked them with Tornadus EX).
From there I then proceeded to lose the remaining four games (Two of them I would’ve won if I had hit a Rebirth flip) to Blastoise, Darkrai/Mewtwo/Bouffalant, Blastoise, and Darkrai/Landorus, and whiff prizes all together. I don’t feel like I misplayed at all in the first three games, my deck just failed me. In the game against Darkrai/Landorus I was tired and upset and decided that it was a good idea to discard two Catcher with Computer Search, then needed a Catcher to win late game and missed it.
So I’m sitting at 265 CP’s right now. My current goal is T8 States, T8 Regionals, and win a Battle Road (Which I believe puts me right at 400), but I doubt I’m going to be able to do that just because of a lack of self-confidence.
Most everything in the set is either good or not good, which is why I chose not to do a set review. However, there are a few debatable things, namely Victini EX. I thought I’d do something to explain my opinion on the matter and possibly give you guys another perspective to look at.
Well, first of all, when you first look at the card you wonder why it would be good in the first place. An EX with 110 HP that doesn’t do much damage shouldn’t be seen as amazing by any means, even when you do attach a Victory Piece. Even with the rise in Metal types, Intensifying Burn will only be good until the Klinklang PLS hits the field, and unless you attach a Victory Piece that will usually be around the time you’re able to attack with it (Or maybe the turn after).
However, Turbo Energize isn’t a half bad attack. Being able to power up another legitimate attacker for next turn is always a good thing, and Victini EX based decks could be able to go off around Turn Two.
Is It Playable?
So, do I think Victini is any good? Well, I definitely think it will be a half-decent archetype. However, I doubt it will ever be Tier One. Keldeo decks destroy any Fire attackers, which is what is easiest to use with Victini, and Keldeo is going to be good for a long time. Even with Plasma Frigate out now, you would have to run Plasma Energy for that, and having all your good attackers be weak to Water can’t cut it in this format. Keldeo will be a threat until either it’s rotated or a grass deck becomes amazing, and I doubt that any decent grass deck will pop up soon.
Also, Victini is two free prizes at pretty much any point in the game. In a format with Catcher, Victini is pretty much just a sitting duck for the entire game. Going down two prizes is never good, and it puts you in a lot of situations where you’re hoping your opponent won’t draw a Catcher. There’s a reason people prefer not to start with Shaymin EX, and having an EX with 110 HP that’s designed for early game uses will always have that issue until Catcher is rotated (And even then, if we go DRX-on Ninetales could pose a threat to it).
There are some problems with having energy acceleration based on attacks, as well. You have an early game boost, but then what? It’s hard to power up another attacker afterwards. Even if you do play the EtherDex engine, you still have a tough time powering something else up unless you’re attacking with Entei EX for a decent chunk of the rest of the game. With decks with energy acceleration that works much better in the early game sometimes you just fizzle out late game (ZPST was a great example of this), and unless you want to do a damageless attack with a 110 HP EX late game you’re going to be stuck manually powering your attackers up.
I don’t actually know if Victini was good in Japan, but even if it was, they have a different tournament structure than us. They need to play early game decks to have a shot at doing well. We, however, can afford to play slow decks because we don’t have to win 3 games against different opponents in a small time period while also waiting in a line for a certain period of time. We can afford to play decks like The Truth and Klinklang because we don’t need to play fast decks in our metagame.
Victini’s got 99 problems.
Another big issue I see with Victini is that you need to play Fire Energy. There are four ways to deal with this: You can run a mix of Fire Energy and the Energy you want to run, which makes the deck clunky. Or you can run Fire attackers, which are x2 weak to Keldeo and usually aren’t very good. Or you can run Prism, which are discarded with Enhanced
Hammer and Cobalion EX, and aren’t searchable with Victini’s attack. Or you could use Colorless attackers, such as Mewtwo EX and Tornadus EX. However, with stuff like that you’d be better off without Victini and instead with EtherDex, Ho-oh, or no acceleration at all.
So that’s my short rant about Victini. Let me know what you guys think about Victini down in the comments, and I’ll try to have a deck analysis article out soon (If you guys have any requests, go ahead and post them in the comments). I should have something out next week or in a couple weeks at the most. Thanks for reading, and so long!
Hey OneHitKO people, it’s been more than a month since this site had an article, so I figure I should get something out before Regionals. I’m sorry for not getting something out sooner, it completely slipped my mind. This article is mostly about what decks you should consider based on playstyle and what types of decks you have the most experience
Don’t be the one saying if only.
playing.
First of all, I want to start by saying that these are pretty much just things to try out, they are by no means official guidelines for you. I’m just throwing ideas out for you if you’re completely unsure of what to play, like I am.
I also want to do a little Cities recap and mention what I think the Tier system looks like right now. These are just my opinions, so you shouldn’t base any big decisions off these, I just wanted to give a bit of a guideline for you so that you have a guideline for your own opinions.
The BDIF
Blastoise/Keldeo. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory, actually, Blastoise is a deck that has both a good early game and a good late-game. Blastoise has the ability to go off on Turn Two and then keep going strong until you take your six prizes. Although for the past three Regionals the deck that I believed was the BDIF hasn’t won any (that being Gothitelle, CMT, and Hydreigon), I don’t think this will be the case for Blastoise as it has a lot more going for it than these decks and there should be a lot more people playing it as it isn’t as debatable as the last and it also isn’t as easily countered. The only big problem with the deck is that it’s hand reliant, so in the late game N is a threat to you, but people are playing Tropical Beach to semi-solve this problem. I feel like Blastoise is going to be the deck dominating Regionals.
Tier One
Landorus/Mewtwo/Tornadus. I am a bit skeptical on this deck as it doesn’t have much of a late-game, but everyone knows how good early-game pressure can be and the threat of donking is nice as well. It’s a solid play if it’s what you’re playstyle likes.
Darkrai/Hydreigon. It’s slow, but it makes up for that by fully healing Darkrais at no cost via Max Potion. I like the deck a lot because it’s got a nice feeling to it, because Darkrai is an amazing attacker and it’s even better when it can power up a supporting attacker this easily. The problem is that it has a bad matchup against anything with Landorus and the Deino you play is basically a statement of who you would rather get donked by.
RayEels. I really like this deck in this metagame because of all the focus around EX’s, however I hate how much you get donked when you play it. It takes advantage of the heavy EX reliance of the format. The Landorus matchup is good when you survive the donk, and it’s definitely a solid play for Regionals (Especially as it basically wins if it sets up and stays set up) if you’re willing to take a loss or two to a donk during the event.
Ho-oh. This is basically a version of Landorus/Mewtwo with a lategame instead of a whole lot of earlygame, and it also has easier access to Sigilyph. It’s also a lot of fun to play because of the colorfulness of the deck. It also has a better Blastoise matchup than people seem to think, because you play Sigilyph and you don’t especially rely on Ho-oh, you only need it in a couple situations. It also uses Terrakion better than any deck in the format right now because it can accelerate Fighting Energy. The problem with the deck is that because of the colorfulness, you don’t always have the exact Energy you need, but most Ho-oh variants I’ve seen only need two types (Fighting and Psychic) and those types are easily accessed via Rebirth.
Tier Two
Darkrai Variants including Darkrai/Fighting, Darkrai/Aspertia, and Darkrai/Mewtwo. Darkrai is still a strong play for Regionals regardless of how the meta develops, and I love using it as Energy acceleration for other attackers as well (Via Dark Patch/Energy Switch). The problem with Darkrai is that it doesn’t do too well against Landorus, but if you play the right supporting attackers this shouldn’t matter too much. They also aren’t great against Keldeo, but the matchup is winnable so long as you don’t play too many Landorus.
Klinklang – I really like Klinklang, but I haven’t tested it. I know that it is an interesting option and I really like the idea of a deck that hits for weakness everywhere, and I like how it has a nice little box of attackers that you can shift between at your disposal that do different things. I also really like the use of Max Potion with the deck because this format has a lot of cards that focus on 2HKOing, which is amazing for Klinklang. Of course, the less-than-ideal matchup against Hammertime and RayEels isn’t the best, so if you’re willing to take a couple autolosses Klinklang is a good play, and without these autolosses I have no doubt Klinklang would be a Tier One deck.
Hammertime – Hammertime probably has the most interesting concept of any deck in the format, and I really like the idea of Hammer spamming to lock the opponent out of Energy. Hammer Control single-handedly wins games, and being able to just sweep with Darkrai without the threat of being attacked back is amazing. This deck pretty much wins to a deck that doesn’t have energy acceleration, but it unfortunately has a bad matchup against Blastoise, probably the deck that will see the most play at Autumn Regionals. Still, Hammer Control is a really cool idea and Esa Juntunen is a genius to have come up with it.
Aspertia Eels – This is probably one of the most underrated decks right now. Bouffalant is one of the best attackers in the game right now in my opinion, and when you give it an Eviolite, an Aspertia, and a reliable engine like Eelektrik, it’s amazing against any EX in the game. Tornadus EX and Mewtwo EX are also great right now because of their sheer usefulness in the early game, and Aspertia is just amazing, and having access to Raikou is also great. The thing I like about Aspertia Eels the most, however, is that even though it uses an Eel engine, taking out the Eels won’t actually do much for you because you can manually power up all of your attackers in two turns, it just helps you in the early game. However, I’m not too convinced that there will be enough people who are playing this for it to succeed. I feel like if enough people played it it could easily be Tier One, but not enough people are convinced yet.
Matchups
A big part of every metagame is matchups. You can’t play something if it doesn’t beat the popular decks, even if it is amazing against everything else (I learned this the hard way), so knowing matchups are a big part of deciding on a deck.
While I’ll be talking about matchups for the entire article, I wanted to have a section devoted to it just to give you a basic guideline of what beats the decks that you need to be able to beat.
The decks you should be looking to beat right now are Blastoise, Landorus/Mewtwo/Tornadus, and Darkrai variants. If you can beat those, that’s huge, if not, you might want to play a tech.
I really want to put a chart here, but we don’t have tables, so I’ll just write what I can here:
The decks I feel have the best matchups against those are Ho-oh, Blastoise with Pokemon Center, and anything with Bouffalant/Aspertia/Eviolite. As I’ve said before, Bouffalant is amazing because it 2HKOes every EX we have and gets 2HKOed back by a good amount of them if you have the Aspertia/Eviolite. This is a favorable prize exchange for you because Bouffalant isn’t an EX. However, it’s too situational to be that good.
So yeah, if you’re playing Bouffalant or Keldeo you should be alright. I’m sorry I can’t say more, I really wanted to do a table, but that isn’t supported on this program.
So What Exactly Should I Play?
Well, that depends on the kind of deck you want to play. As I’ve said before, playstyle is key in choosing your deck. This serves as a guide to decks for what you want to play.
If you want to play a defensive deck, your best bet is probably Klinklang. I like Hydreigon, but it falls too much to Landorus and it just doesn’t have the same feel to it. Hydreigon isn’t a terrible call, and if you’d rather play Hydreigon go ahead, but I honestly am a bigger advocate of Klinklang now not only because of the not-autoloss to Landorus but also because of the toolboxy feeling to the deck, but if Hammertime is more prominent in your area I would say go with Hydreigon.
If you want to play a fast, aggressive deck that focuses on denying setup and attacking early, my recommendation to you is Ho-oh. Ho-oh is great because it applies early-game pressure and also has a late-game, unlike Landorus/Tornadus/Mewtwo which is all early-game and no late-game. It’s also great for Mewtwo wars, not only because Mewtwo is one of your main attackers, or that you play PlusPower, or you can take an early-game lead and then start one that will end up in your favor, but because you can actually pull off a Psydrive against a Mewtwo with no Energy attached. Ho-oh also has access to Terrakion, Sigilyph, and Bouffalant for the whole 7-prize thing, and you can tech pretty much anything into your list.
If you want to play a deck that aims for an early attack but then keeps going until the game is over, your best bet is probably Blastoise. With all due respect to Darkrai, the T1 Night Spear just isn’t common enough to justify playing Darkrai over Blastoise. Unless you’re really worried about N or you’ve been testing Darkrai longer, I would definitely rather play Blastoise. The T2 Secret Sword is just about as common as the T2 Night Spear, and Blastoise is a lot better in the late game seeing as you have the option of powering up a Keldeo to OHKO everything. Not to mention that a lot of people are teching Terrakion, which is amazing against Darkrai and insanely mediocre against Keldeo.
If you want to play a deck that focuses on limiting your opponent’s options, play Hammertime. With all due respect to Garbodor, Garbodor is just too inconsistent to work right in this metagame. Hammer Control is amazing, and unless you play against Blastoise all day long you should have alright matchups. Theoretically you could play Hammertime with Garbodor, but that’s probably too inconsistent unless you build it exactly right. And plus, limiting attacks is much better than limiting Abilities.
If you want to play a deck that focuses on killing whatever your opponent throws at you, you actually have a really interesting decision to make. Your two options are either RayEels or a Blastoise variant that focuses on loading up a Keldeo to kill everything instead of speed. Honestly this decision is based on how much you want to get donked. If you are fine with being donked once or twice, RayEels is much better when set up than Blastoise, even a variant that focuses on dishing out large amounts with Keldeo. However, if you want to play it safe, a Blastoise variant like that is almost as good, just a bit more hand-reliant.
If you have no idea what such Blastoise variant would look like, all I can say is that it plays 1-2 Cilan, 4 Energy Retrieval, and 15 Energy (I’ve even seen a version that plays 1-1 Musharna NXD) instead of techs like Super Scoop Up, Mini-Keldeo, or Eviolite. Honestly I was skeptical when I heard about this, but it works. I have no idea how it works or if it actually works or if the people I saw playing it were just lucksacking, so try it for yourself.
Overall I would say that the best possible play for Regionals in any age division is probably Blastoise/Keldeo with 1 Pokemon Center. Without Pokemon Center the matchup against Darkrai/Hydreigon is iffy, but with it it becomes 65/35 in your favor because they can no longer OHKO you with Hydreigon after hitting you with Night Spear bench damage. If you can access 3 Keldeo and 1 Beach, Blastoise is a great play because it is arguably the best Energy acceleration in the format and it is fast but can still maintain itself later on.
Here is a sample Blastoise list for those of you who have nothing to go off:
4-1-3 Blastoise
3 Keldeo EX
-11
4 Pokemon Catcher
4 Rare Candy
3 Ultra Ball
3 Energy Retrieval
1 Level/Heavy Ball
1 Super Rod
1 Computer Search
-17
4 Professor Juniper
4 Bianca
3 Skyla
2 N
-13
1 Tropical Beach
-1
13 Water Energy
-13
Total – 55
This list gives a bit of room for techs, which include Mewtwo EX, Keldeo BCR 47, Super Scoop Up, Pokemon Center, and I’ve even experimented with Kyogre EX for a bit. You could also opt for more consistency, as a T2 Blastoise is always important and great when you can get it.
To play the hard-hitting variant, add a Cilan, Energy Retrieval, and 2 Water Energy and you should have yourself a variant that focuses on killing things in one hit.
Another good play is Ho-oh because it has no real autolosses and a favorable Blastoise matchup if you know how to play it. Speed is huge in this format because you can take out your opponent’s strategy completely if you have a good enough early-game, and Ho-oh is a great deck to play to get that speed.
Again, if you’ve never played Ho-oh, I can give you an example list to get you started, because Ho-oh is one of those decks that everyone should get to play.
3 Ho-oh EX
3 Mewtwo EX
2 Tornadus EX
2 Terrakion NVI
1 Sigilyph DRX
-11
4 Ultra Ball
4 Pokemon Catcher
4 Energy Switch
3 PlusPower
3 Random Reciever
3 Switch
1 Computer Search
-22
4 Professor Juniper
4 N
2 Bianca
-10
1 Skyarrow Bridge
-1
4 Double Colorless
3 Fighting
2 Psychic
1 Lightning
1 Water
1 Fire (Got that Elemental Blast)
-12
Total – 56
Some possible techs include Landorus EX, Bouffalant DRX, Shaymin EX, and Registeel EX.
I think I’ve already explained this, but the reason I like Ho-oh in this metagame so much is because it has a good early game and a good late game. It’s amazing how many things this deck can do, and I like how playing a Water-weak EX hasn’t held it back. I don’t think this deck would be as popular if it weren’t for Pooka, but I’m glad that he has popularized this deck for us because I believe that it truly has the potential to be the BDIF. I bet it would be like Aspertia Eels if it weren’t for him: Good, but underrated.
I guess with Ho-oh you sometimes have to deal with poor flips, but this was never a problem for Pooka. You shouldn’t rely too much on Rebirth, and by the time you might need to you should have 2-3 Ho-oh already in the discard pile. It’s still a risk, but it’s probably a risk worth taking as Ho-oh is just amazing when it runs right, and it almost always runs right.
And finally, I’d like to touch on the deck I feel is the most underrated of any deck right now: Aspertia Eels. As you could probably guess from the deck’s name, it revolves around using Eelektrik to power up Colorless attackers, which you give an HP boost with Aspertia City Gym.
Here is a basic skeleton list to get you started, although to be honest I have no idea what a list should look like:
4-3 Eelektrik NVI
White Eel.
3 Bouffalant DRX
2 Tornadus EX
1 Mewtwo EX
1 Raikou EX
1 Emolga DRX
-15
4 Pokemon Catcher
4 Ultra Ball
3 Switch
3 Eviolite
3 Random Reciever
1 Super Rod
1 Computer Search
-19
4 Juniper
4 N
3 Bianca
-11
2 Aspertia City Gym
-2
7 Lightning Energy
4 Double Colorless
-11
Total – 58
As you can see, the list is a bit tight, but there’s a little wiggle room for techs. These include Zekrom BW, Regigigas EX, or my personal favorite, Zapdos NXD.
Let me advocate for Zapdos a bit: Let’s say you get a Random Spark on Turn Two. That 50 can set a Keldeo EX up for an OHKO from Bouffalant, or it can knock out a Tynamo your opponent has, or you can hit a Deino for 50 to then have Raikou come in and knock it out later. It’s completely untested, but I feel like Zapdos should get a bit of credit because it’s an interesting option for the deck.
So there you have it: The (In my opinion) most underrated deck in the format. I can see why people wouldn’t want to play it, but that’s a great deck and it’s definitely a great option if you want to play something good that people probably haven’t tested against. I love Bouffalant in this format, especially with Aspertia and Eviolite, and I want to see him used more often because he is amazing. I could even see an Aspertia Blastoise deck working (Although to be honest Eels are a much better engine). Tornadus EX is also amazing for early game pressure against decks like Blastoise, Hydreigon, and Klinklang that need to set Stage Twos up to win.
So that’s it! If you have any questions about the article or the decklists or comments about the metagame then feel free to let me know, we have a wonderful comment section below. I respond to everything, so go ahead and post. Good luck at Regionals if you’re going, and if I helped you choose a deck with this article that’s great, because this article was mostly for people who are unsure of what to play. I should have a Regionals report up if I do alright either here or on the SixPrizes forums, so check for that, and I should have something about Plasma out after Regionals. I bid you farewell until I decide to write again!
Hey OneHitKO people, it’s getting to be time where you guys need to see another article, so I thought I may as well do a tournament report like Pikkdogs used to do (Except these will be somewhat successful reports) even though I usually don’t write reports (Although the purpose of the reports are more to show you more about playing the deck), and then so you have something interesting to read about I’ll do a deck analysis of the deck I believe is the BDIF of this format, Hydreigon/Darkrai. Anyway, I feel like getting this started, so here are the reports:
Saturday, November 17th: Cameron Park, CA
I wake up early, make my decklist, and wait for the people who I promised a ride to to show up. Once they both get here, we start the two hour drive to Cameron Park.
When we get there we are greeted by cabd from the SixPrizes forums, and I play some fun games with the people I came with. It turns out that 15 Seniors show up, 1 short of a Top 4. I wait a bit for pairings and I am already paired against someone I’d rather not play early.
Round 1 vs. Emily w/Blastoise
I start Sableye to her Kyurem and she goes first. I have a dead hand, and when she plays a Juniper my hopes sink, but then she plays her Tropical Beach and I’m happy. I play a few cards and Beach, drawing into a Supporter and a Dieno. The next turn I opt to Confuse Ray as I still don’t have Items that would be worth Junk Hunting for, and I get a heads. A Confusion Tails and a Candy to Hydreigon later I Night Spear to KO her Kyurem. I then proceed to take out her Blastoise, and although she manages to get a new one out I still steamroll.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Griffin w/Hydreigon
I start Ditto to his Dark Deino, and I see relief in his eyes when I Transform into a Sableye. I bench a couple Deino and a Darkrai and Junk Hunt for stuff that would net me a Hydreigon next turn. He Ns me, but I still manage to get the Candy-Hydreigon. When he manages to get his Hydreigon out I Dragonblast it. He makes a crucial misplay late game by Max Potioning his Darkrai before retreating, meaning that he no longer can KO my Hydreigon because he has a Darkrai stuck active, and I manage to win from there.
2-0
At this point everyone I had come with was 2-0, while five of the other good Seniors had taken a loss already (including Griffin and Emily). The only other 2-0 at this point is playing a Tornadus Donk deck and we all feel confident. We joke about how height is an advantage in Pokemon (The shortest of us is 5’10), and eat lunch. Lunch then proceeds to end and I get my Round 3 pairing.
Round 3 vs. Blake w/Hydreigon
Blake is the other guy I came with, and I’m 3-1 against him at Premier Events, so I know that at least I’m not facing a donk deck. However, I’m not confident here because I know that he’d been playing Hydreigon a lot longer than me, but I had also been playing it long enough that the Hydreigon mirror is usually determined by who set 2 Hydreigon up and who didn’t. Knowing that, I kind of felt afraid because I had been having some consistency issues recently, but I had cut my 1-0-1 Serperior tech recently as well, hoping that it would help.
However, I start Deino to his Sableye and he gets a T2 Night Spear to kill my only Dieno in play. I make a game out of it for a bit, but when time is called I have no way to take prizes without giving some up.
2-1.
At this point I know I need extremely good resistance to cut, but I feel like I should try to get points out of this at least.
Round 4 vs. Conner w/Mewtwo/Rayquaza/Eels
I start Sableye to his Rayquaza EX and he Celestial Roars, and I’m surprised when he flips over a Double Colorless Energy. I read the text on Celestial Roar and I laugh a bit when it says that you have to attach the energy, meaning the Rayquaza would have a useless energy attached until it was knocked out. He gets a couple Eels set up, but I Catcher-kill them and he has none left. He can’t power anything up, and I kill a Ray with Dragonblast and a Mewtwo with Cresselia for game.
3-1.
I think it’s the middle of that game when I hear chatter from the next game over about the Fliptini someone teched into their Hydreigon deck for Deino paralysis. Griffin says “Victini is strange. Like a three-legged donkey”. Honestly I don’t know what that has to do with the article, but I thought it was a funny thing for someone to say.
Blake lost against the other guy I came with, Paulo, but I find out that my tough games in the first two rounds paid off as both were 3-1. My tiebreakers consist of 3 3-1s and a 2-2, and Blake’s consist of a 4-0, 3-1, and 2 2-2s, meaning we’re both at 11-5, but because he doesn’t have the 4-0 in his Opponent’s Opponents I sneak into cut. This would have been so much simpler if another Senior had shown up.
Top 2 vs. Paulo w/Klinklang
Game One: We both start with dead hands, but my Sableye start plus Skyla topdeck nets me a Computer Search that I Junk Hunted for about 5 times to get a slow but certain setup. He is finally forced to Juniper 2 Rare Candy and 2 Klinklang away and he draws crap off of it. From there I put Eviolites on board and steamroll.
Game Two: He is unable to evolve his Klinks early game and I kill 3 in two turns. Afterwards I kill his EX’s with Night Spear, and when he Max Potions his active Darkrai when I have two prizes left I Catcher-Dragonblast the other for game.
So I end the day with a win, and while the only good thing I pull is a Ditto, I still get a cool-looking trophy and 50 points (or so I think). Turns out I made a mistake on my POP ID meaning that I don’t get the points from it. Oh well.
In the end, the results looked like this:
1st: Theo S w/Hydreigon
2nd: Paulo A w/Klinklang
3rd: Blake U w/Hydreigon
4th: Emily C w/Blastoise
Friday, November 23rd: Modesto, CA
After my win in Cameron Park I decide I like Hydreigon enough to play it again. I make no changes to my list except that I cut a Catcher for a Golden Catcher I had traded for at league two days before. I meet up with Benjamin, the Junior who I’m giving the ride to today, and we start the hour-and-a-half drive to Modesto.
I meet up with some of the guys from the Sacramento area including Griffin, Connor, and Zachary, and we see that once again only 15 Seniors had shown up. We complain about that until pairings are posted, and I’m paired against Griffin for the second Cities in a row.
Round 1 vs. Griffin w/Hydreigon
This game is fairly uneventful. I get a T2 Night Spear and his Deinos don’t survive very long. When he drops his Mewtwo I have Catcher-Cresselia for my final two prizes.
1-0.
Round 2 vs. Will w/Blastoise
This was one of the most nerve-wrecking games I’d ever played. I get a quick start but he manages to load up a Keldeo with enough energy to one-shot an Eviolited Darkrai. Thankfully I Juniper into the Blend I need to score a KO on the Keldeo as it had been hit with the 30 Night Spear damage, and after that I N him to one to lock his energy and Junk Hunt for the Catcher I need to win. He whiffs both the N and the Energies he needs and I Catcher out his Mewtwo and use Cresselia. It’s safe to say that if I don’t draw that Blend he takes the win.
2-0
Round 3 vs. I don’t remember w/Hydreigon
I get my second T2 Night Spear of the day and kill all his Deinos, and he scoops.
3-0
Round 4 vs. Zachary w/Darkrai/Landorus/Terrakion
I remember actually having an early lead (possibly thanks to another T2 Night Spear maybe), but when he uses Terrakion to take four prizes he’s down to one left to my three. However, I take a prize somewhere (I think on a Sableye), and then time is called. He attacks with Landorus during his turn, and his field consists of the following: A damaged Darkrai with two energy attached, a Keldeo with a Darkness, and an active Landorus with a Fighting. I N him to one and Junk Hunt for the Catcher he needs for the win, and he whiffs the Energy or Energy Switch.
I actually feel bad for him because he whiffs cut on resistance, but I guess it’s what you have to do to guarantee safety. Yay!
Top 2 vs. Will w/Blastoise
I’m surprised to see my Round 2 opponent, but I guess his deck worked against other decks. Anyway, we talk a bit, and then things start.
Game One: I get a quick Hydreigon and I start hitting Keldeos for 90 and 30, after hitting a clutch Tool Scrapper to get rid of both his Eviolites, and his early game pressure doesn’t work as well as 3 EX kills in four turns.
Game Two: This game goes pretty much the same as Game One except that I kill his Blastoise. Sorry man, but that’s the way things work out sometimes.
Hydreigon Deck Analysis
Remember in my Regionals article where I said I had tried and tried to get Hydreigon to work, but I never had? Well, I have. It’s won me two Cities so far, and it’s probably going to be my play for the next few.
4 Pokemon Catcher
4 Max Potion
3 Dark Patch
3 Rare Candy
2 Ultra Ball
2 Random Receiver
2 Eviolite
2 Tool Scrapper
1 Heavy Ball
1 Computer Search
-24
4 N
4 Professor Juniper
2 Skyla
1 Bianca
-11
7 Darkness Energy
3 Blend GRPD
-10
Some of the odd things about this list is the fourth Catcher, fourth Max Potion, and fourth Sableyeas well as the Heavy Ball instead of a third Ultra Ball and the second Tool Scrapper.
The four-of Catcher and Max Potion are mostly so that you have four to use over the course of the game. Getting the game-winning Catcher in a crucial spot where you’ve used 3 already is clutch, and Catchers are great against Eel decks and they are also necessary against Blastoise decks so that you can KO the damaged EX with Hydreigon. Catchers are also your most valuable tool in the mirror (I’ll explain below).
The fourth Sableye is there because Sableye is my ideal starter, and I want to increase the chance of that happening. With the fourth Sableye you have it in your opening hand 40% of the time and if you include mulligans you start Sableye a good amount (I’m bad at math, so I’m not even going to try). I like having it there because starting Sableye is the key to a quick Hydreigon and it also allows you to get back the clutch Catchers and Max Potions you discard with Ultra Ball and Juniper early game assuming you have extra space for Junk Hunting.
The Heavy Ball is so that I can pretty much Skyla for a Hydreigon as well as thinning my deck a bit. I’d prefer to do this without Ultra Ball as most of the time I don’t want to discard anything (I’ll get to this later in the article).
The second Tool Scrapper is there for the mirror. It forces your opponent to retreat their active Darkrai for a new one, and if you’re the player with Hydreigons remaining at the end of the game this can be really clutch. Even if you don’t, you’re a Catcher away from two prizes without having to Dragonblast, an action that can be risky in the mirror.
Matchups
The Mirror – 50/50
When I first started playing Hydreigon (Right after Regionals), I asked my friend who had been playing the deck for three months now “How do you play the mirror?”.
His response was simple: “You win the Hydreigon war”.
After that, I had to ask “What’s the Hydreigon war?”.
His response was “It’s like the Mewtwo war, but a lot more fun”.
Anyway, back to what makes sense: This matchup will come down to one of two things: Either who gets the first Night Spear or who gets the most Hydreigon out. If you can get an early Night Spear plus a clutch Catcher on the Deino or Zweilous your opponent is waiting to evolve, or if both players have Hydreigons out then it results in yes, a Hydreigon war (Which is, if you ask, more fun than a mindless Mewtwo war).
The Hydreigon war is, unlike the Mewtwo war, commonly won by the player who starts it. Why is this? Because the player who starts the Hydreigon war will have the first kill on a Hydreigon, and if both players get the same number of Hydreigon out either before or during the Hydreigon war the player who starts it will commonly win.
Another clutch factor during the Hydreigon war is energy. For each Hydreigon that goes down you lose 4 energy (with the exception of the first Hydreigon that dies, that one will commonly have none), so you need to have some extra energy on the field at your disposal or have enough Dark Patches to get another Dragonblast off next turn.
One thing I would advise during the Hydreigon war is taking a turn without using a Hydreigon to attack. While this can be a risky play, getting a Night Spear off while you get extra energy into play or Junk Hunting for two Dark Patches to get more energy in play (This will usually net you 1-2 energy unless you get N’d). Unless your opponent has a Catcher you will probably be able to buy a turn (Although it is important not to put ANY energy on your remaining Hydreigon, not necessarily just then but any time you aren’t attacking with it). Doing this buys you a turn to get extra energy on the field. Of course, if you have enough energy to Dragonblast already this is not necessary.
Another thing to note about the mirror is that it is about 70% luck. There is no skill involved in getting a T2 Night Spear and there is little in getting multiple Hydreigons out. The little skill in this matchup is probably the Night Spear damage, knowing whether to Max Potion Hydreigon or Darkrai (Almost always Hydreigon unless you have multiple out) and knowing when to Junk Hunt (Which is fine mid-game in my opinion).
I haven’t played a Hydreigon mirror in a while where both players had Hydreigons out at the end of the game, and I haven’t played in a Hydreigon mirror ever where a player won without Hydreigons (Not that it isn’t possible). The one thing I don’t like about Hydreigon is the luck-based and common mirrors.
Some cards you should include if Hydreigon is popular in your area are:
Zweilous DRX 95
I usually end with the weird techs, but I don’t feel like it today. Zweilous is good in the mirror because it can OHKO an opposing Hydreigon with its second attack for only three Energy and it’s also possible to discard important Blend Energies with a Crunch flip. While it isn’t the best tech, if Hydreigon is common in your area you might consider dropping the Draw In or NVI Zweilous for this.
A Fourth Dark Patch
Dark Patches are really good in the Hydreigon mirror because A: You’ll be discarding energy with Hydreigon’s attack that is incredibly important in the mirror, and because if you’re the player that loses your Hydreigons you still have a separate engine, although you’re still definitely not in a good position.
Blastoise – 75/25 in your favor (If no healing) or 50/50 (If healing)
Keldeo ain’t got nuthin on me.
Unlike the mirror, playing against Blastoise is more about leading Darkrai and finishing Hydreigon than leading Hydreigon and finishing Darkrai. Your best bet is to put Night Spear damage on Keldeos, Tool Scrap Eviolites, and knock out their Blastoise. I believe that in the report I discussed how early game pressure is no match for knockouts on EX’s.
If they manage to load up a Keldeo with enough energy to OHKO anything on your field, do two things: First, knock that Keldeo out as soon as possible, and N them to a low hand. Unless they hit a draw Supporter or a Cilan they will likely energy drought until they topdeck something useful. And since their energy acceleration is from hand and not from field or discard like Hydreigon or Eelektrik, they will likely not have enough energy to attack for the rest of the game, and you can continue to KO three EX’s to win the game.
If they play Super Scoop Up or Max Potions, things could get interesting, however. If they can heal the damage done by Night Spear to any of their Pokemon, you can no longer take three EX kills in four turns. However, most lists I’ve seen that use healing only play 3 Super Scoop Ups or 3 Max Potions, so your goal in the early game should be to do what you can to make them use up the healing. Your win will only be delayed a couple turns barring them hitting heads or Energy Retrievals a lot more frequently than you’d like. If they take a few early prizes, Ning them could be great.
Some players will try to go early game Kyurem against you. Have none of it, Dragonblast that Kyurem right away. If there’s an Eviolite attached, Tool Scrapper is your friend. Max Potion the Darkrais that got hit and then Junk Hunt the Max Potions back. While this does use up a turn and give up a prize, unless you somehow go down four prizes before you start your “3 EX kills in four turns” strategy you usually win from that alone.
Unlike some people, I see no need to tech for this matchup unless your area has a whole lot of it. Seeing as how in 10 matches I played against it 3 times (1 of which was the same player), and how I’ve won all four games I played against it, I see no need to tech a card that, in fun games with my friend, makes him instantly scoop when I start it (about 1 in 10 games, imagine starting Shaymin Round One), and it’s only really been the difference in the game (meaning he won because of it) a couple times. I see no need to tech for a matchup that is 60/40 in your favor at the worst.
I will admit Shaymin has other uses, but I really just don’t like it. If your area is 75% or more Blastoise (The only time I’d tech for it), I’d play Virizion EPO instead. It goes through Eviolite and doesn’t require the opponent to take prizes before you. This is just my opinion, I know some people love Shaymin, but I honestly don’t like it.
RayEels – 60/40 in your favor
RayEels is the BDIF from Cities results so far (although I still say Hydreigon is), so a decent matchup is in order. RayEels is usually based on whether you hit clutch Catchers and whether you set 2 Hydreigon up. Their strategy will to be to use the Shiny Ray to kill Hydreigons and go through Eviolite on Darkrai. Your best bet is to try to hit the Ray with Night Spear damage early game and Catcher-KO their Eels to prevent them from using Rayquaza EX to run through you.
If they drop a Ray EX, use Hydreigon to knock it out. Even if they do kill your Hydreigon, you will have taken two prizes to their one off of that, and you will be able to take more prizes with Darkrai in a turn or two. If you have enough of a prize lead from killing the Eels you should be able to win at the end if they drop a Ray. If you use 3+ Catcher killing Eels you should try to get a Junk Hunt off to get them back, as you will need a game winning Catcher in a lot of games with this deck.
If RayEels is popular enough in your area you could tech Giratina and Giant Cape (Although I wouldn’t recommend it). Giratina OHKOes any Dragon-weak Pokemon and the Giant Cape will prevent mini-Ray from OHKOing it right back.
I honestly don’t know much else about this matchup as RayEels isn’t too popular in my area. There are probably other articles that describe this matchup in more detail, so check those out if you have extra time.
Landorus Decks – 50/50
Dragon Deino is mainly there for the Landorus matchup. It could also be useful in combination with the three legged donkey (If you don’t get that go back and read the article), but I don’t think I would play that. Landorus applies a lot of early game pressure to you, although two Night Spears and a Dragonblast result in two Landorus kills for you if you manage to get a Hydreigon out. One thing to watch for is them using Land’s Judgement, but if you get enough energy in play this shouldn’t matter, and if they can for sure next turn you can always use Cresselia (Sure, you might lose a Darkrai, but you won’t lose the Energy).
If they use Garchomp as a secondary attacker, be sure not to keep Blends on your active as Mach Cut will be bad for you and your ability to Dragonblast.
There aren’t any techs against Landorus that I can think of, but playing more Dark Patch can certainly help because they will probably get a Land’s Judgement off on your Darkrai once or twice a game (Although if it’s twice you’re in trouble), and you need to keep your energy in play.
A Couple Tips and Tricks
A couple things I’ve found while playing Hydreigon are that if you start with Sableye and another Pokemon, it’s often best not to start that Pokemon on your bench. If you go second and your opponent has a Catcher, you will be less likely to have a T1 Junk Hunt, and it’s definitely better to T1 Junk Hunt for sure than a possibility that the Darkrai or Deino you’re holding will be your active Pokemon. Even if they do N, you will be likely to get a Deino playing 2 Ultra Ball, 1 Computer Search, 2 Skyla, 3 Deino, and 11 outs to Supporters that aren’t previously listed.
Another thing is that you don’t want to discard too much energy for Dark Patch early game. Remember that you only have 3 Dark Patch (if you go off of my list), and some of those you’ll want to use to recover from discarding energy because you used Dragonblast. You want to rely more on manual energy drops and less on Dark Patch with Hydreigon because Dark Patch isn’t all that critical to your strategy.
Sometimes leaving Energy on your active so that you can then Max Potion and discard the Darkness so that you can Dark Patch it back is good so that you can play a Dark Patch and make yourself less vulnerable to a late-game N or so that you can draw an extra card with Bianca. This is a pretty rare scenario, but it can be a good play at times. If you don’t have a Dark Patch, however, definitely don’t do that because it’s better to have the energy in play for sure.
One more thing I want to say is that a mid-game Junk Hunt is not always a bad thing. Of course if you need to kill something that turn it’s not the best play, but giving up a turn and a prize for two Trainers you need late game isn’t always the worst possible play. In the late game I oftenly find myself looking for that last Catcher to win the game, so I see no reason not to turn your 1-2 outs to a Catcher into 2-4. In the mirror this is a bit less viable because it gives your opponent another turn to look for the Max Potion, but if you time it right there won’t be damage for your opponent to remove.
What do you guys think about Hydreigon for Cities? I like it right now because it has access to Sableye and you have to OHKO to take prizes most of the time. I also like the favorable Blastoise matchup and favorable Eels matchup. If you guys have questions or comments, feel free to comment below, and I’ll try to get an article out about a deck I played against recently that I found to be fairly interesting. Thanks for reading, and I bid you farewell.
Hey OneHitKO people, it’s me, coolestman22 again, here with another article to try to help keep the site going. I said in my last article that I would try to write about the techs Ditto brings to the table, and I decided to do just that.
Anyway, Esa wrote a neat article about how good Ditto is on his blog (Which I recommend reading if you haven’t), but
Techs.
he didn’t go over the usefulness of the techs you could set up via Ditto. He mentioned a few, and he did a bit of reviewing them, but he didn’t go that much in detail.
So without further ado, I guess I should start the article. Please do note that these are not ranked, they’re just there in the order they came to my head in.
Dusknoir BoC
Dusknoir is probably going to be the most popular Ditto tech. The Ability is just so powerful that if you manage to get a Dusknoir out, it will probably lead to a few prizes by itself. You could also use it to take out your opponent’s all-important Stage Two Energy accelerator, or use the damage from the EX they retreated to kill their active EX with energy.
However, without Ditto, the second a Duskull hits the field, it is very likely to be Catcher-killed, even without Junk Arm in format. That is why you need Ditto to play a Dusknoir tech. If you can get a Dusknoir out, it is a very powerful thing to have on the field.
Zoroark BW
Zoroark is an interesting tech (I wonder how many times I’m gonna say that this article), but it’s not one I’m big on this format. Last Cities I played a 1-1 in my Audino Box deck (That was my crazy stupid rogue that I would have played if I had gone to one more Cities) to hit Chandelure, Magnezone, Cobalion, and other things for “I win”. It was extremely good, but I had to cut it because of space concerns.
I don’t think I like Zoroark all too much now, however, because nowadays it just doesn’t have anything to hit for either weakness, OHKOes, or an effect. The main meta things now are Rayquaza, Landorus, Darkrai, and Keldeo, and Zoroark just isn’t good against any of those.
Maybe in another format, Zoroark will be really good, but I doubt that will happen any time soon. It does have a secret rare in NXD, so if the rotation is NXD-on maybe Ditto will allow for it to be good.
Ninetales DRX
Ninetales serves as a 5th Catcher. If your opponent sees four Catcher in your discard pile, they will probably play differently until you Junk Hunt them back (if you do). However, if you play a Ninetales you’ll be able to use a Catcher
The Other 5th Catcher
that they likely won’t see coming, and therefore it will probably be much more devastating.
Also, who wouldn’t want an extra Catcher? If you have space for a 1-1 Ninetales tech and you don’t play Rare Candy, Ninetales might just be the best possible tech you can play with Ditto. I really like the surprise factor it has, and having a 5th Catcher can win games.
The reason that Ninetales wasn’t played in BW-DRX is, of course, there was no surprise factor, and the Vulpix is likely to be Catcher-KOed. With Ditto, you get the surprise factor as well as a higher HP basic to sit there instead of a Vulpix (Which matters in the case of Mewtwo or Darkrai), and if they put enough damage on the Ditto you can Transform it into something else.
Serperior BW
Serperior is an interesting tech indeed, and it’s one I have experimented with in my Hydreigon deck with success. It brings me back to the days where 1-0-1 Nidoqueen RR techs were a thing because of the old Rare Candy rules. Serperior is just a stackable version of that, and in Darkrai mirrors it can be devastating (It’s practically an Eviolite that can’t be Tool Scrapped and reduces more damage the longer it goes unattacked). I have found that with Serperior you can switch Darkrais around via Dark Trance, and then slowly heal all of them when they get damaged.
It’s also really good against the Night Spear damage that Darkrai does to the bench. Suddenly, that 30 becomes 10 before your opponent can do anything. So with Serperior in play that 90-30 becomes a 70-10, and if you retreat to a fresh Darkrai it will become a 50-0 or 50-20 depending on whether they Night Spear the same Pokemon.
Against other decks it isn’t too shabby either if you’re using Darkrai. If you Eviolite your Darkrai the Keldeo is only doing 90 (Assuming 3 waters) or 110 (Assuming four waters), and then you make that 70 or 90. If you retreat to a fresh Darkrai that turns into 50 and 70.
I’m not going to keep talking about Serperior, but I have found it’s great in any Darkrai deck, especially Darkrai/Hydreigon. With Ditto, you can disguise your Serperior tech as something more prominent and then go Transform-Rare Candy-Serperior.
Krookodile DEX
This tech probably isn’t as legitimate as the others, but I feel like giving it a shout-out. What it does is that it has an attack called Bombast that does 40 damage for each prize card you’ve taken. What this does is that if you’ve already taken five prizes, it will OHKO anything barring Wailord with Giant Cape and Regigigas EX/Tornadus EX with Asperita City Gym and either Eviolite or Giant Cape.
This pretty much cancels the need for a game-winning Catcher because you have a card that can OHKO everything meta regardless. However, the attack costs four energy (Two Darks included) and in any Darkrai deck you’re likely to have extra Night Spear damage somewhere that can be moved around with the most likely better Dusknoir tech. So unless you’re playing some weird Zoroark variant, Dusknoir is likely the better call if you have the Darks to make playing Krookodile somewhat reasonable.
However, it does have a cool shiny version from Dragons Exalted, so for league play if you want to use your shiny Krookodile you can.
Bronzong NXD
This would be the anti-Max Potion tech that the format needs so much. It has existed, but it’s always been Catcher bait. However, with Ditto a 1-1 Bronzong NXD tech could turn your Hydreigon match in the right direction seeing as they need to attack with Hydreigon to OHKO unless they have a Dark Claw, and if you can hit the Hydreigon somehow first they will have to either retreat and not OHKO Bronzong and instead try to Night Spear it to death, and even then you can either power up a Raikou or other sniper or Catcher it out. If they only have one Hydreigon in play this could win you the game.
Leavanny NVI
Leavanny is probably not the best tech you can play, but it certainly has its ups.
Imagine you’re playing Hydreigon/Darkrai and your opponent is playing Terrakion EX/Terrakion with at least 2 Tool Scrapper. You’re not going to be able to keep your Eviolites when you need them, so what do you do? Get your Leavanny out. Leavanny will single-handedly win you the matchup against any deck with Terrakion if you manage to get it out, and it also makes benching Cresselia/Mewtwo/etc. a less risky decision. However, it isn’t something I’d recommend unless your meta is full of Terrakion.
Reuniclus BW
Reuniclus is an interesting tech, and I can see a couple of uses for it. Imagine you’re playing Blastoise/Keldeo, and you need to heal your Keldeos. Reuniclus can give you a turn or two of invincibility before it gets Catcher-killed, and you can put the damage pretty much anywhere you want, meaning that the damage you have in play can be spread out to 10 or 20 everywhere and likely not making any difference. Since Reuniclus is going to get Catcher-killed anyway, you won’t get your field flooded.
Another play is that if your opponent uses all four Catcher, you can Transform-Rare Candy-Reuniclus and gain invincibility until they either use a Ninetales, Junk Hunt, or your field floods.
You should probably put 80 damage on Reuniclus itself unless you’re playing against Darkrai, Chandelure, or Flygon, because the Reuniclus is going to get knocked out, so you may as well heal 80 (Even if your opponent has used all of their Catcher, it’s still the safe play).
Reuniclus is certainly an interesting tech, but it will likely take a back seat to Dusknoir and Ninetales, and other preferred Ditto techs. It’s something to experiment with in any deck that plays the Ditto and Rare Candy already, and it may end up being the tech you like the most.
Empoleon DEX
Empoleon is basically a draw engine if you get it out. If you run Waters or Blends for Attack Command it’s useful too, but Empoleon is mostly just a way to discard useless cards and get out of N lock.
However, this is a lot more useful than that paragraph makes it out to be. N lock can be the difference between a clutch win and a devastating loss. Hand-reliant decks that play Ditto and Rare Candy such as Blastoise and GothGor should definitely consider Empoleon as a tech to not only provide a draw engine to get out of N lock but to also to use Attack Command in clutch spots.
Salamence DV
Salamence was probably the only hyped Pokemon from Dragon Vault unless you count Rayquaza, but it probably isn’t going to live up to the hype. However, it does make for an interesting 1-0-1 tech for its Ability. While you don’t have Hooligan’s or other things to reduce it more, forcing your opponent to discard until they have four is really good, especially if you force them to draw cards somehow. However, there are much better techs to use, and Salamence is probably best used as a fun thing for league.
Milotic DRX
Milotic is an interesting tech because it’s not for the late game, but instead more of an early game set-up assister. Having a triple Computer Search can be great for slow decks and it’s something I would consider in any slow deck.
However, starting with a 30 HP Feebas isn’t something I would look forward to.
Shiftry NXD
Giant Fan.
Oh, god. This would be hilarious if someone pulled this off. However, Shiftry’s flippyness makes it unviable for anything other than league play.
But it would be hilarious if someone pulled off a Giant Fan. I think I’ll play a 1-0-1 line at league just for the lolz (However, I don’t think I’ll ever top my Carnivine DEX tech in Hydreigon)
Toxicroak BoC
Toxicroak is like a Psychic-type Terrakion, except it uses any energy. This is great against Mewtwo if you manage to surprise your opponent with it, because it will OHKO any non-Eviolited Mewtwo and with a PlusPower or Tool Scrapper you can get around that.
Toxicroak is an interesting tech in any deck that has a hard time against Mewtwo, and the surprise factor works really well with it. I think I’m gonna test Toxicroak a bit in some decks, and you certainly should too.
Chandelure NVI
Chandelure is another interesting tech that would see zero play without Ditto. I felt it was worth a mention, but as I described it I thought of more and more uses for it and now I think I’m gonna try it out.
Remember back in the day when Kingdra Prime was considered a tech? Well, this is like a triple Kingdra Prime when you can somehow get it active, whether it’s via knockout, or whatever. A Chandelure tech combined with Night Spear can get the OHKO on more things and it can also get knockouts on the bench, and it’s also useful for knocking out EX’s with either Dragon Blast alone or extra Night Spear damage, and it can serve as the single or triple PlusPower you need for the knockout when your active gets killed. And because Hydreigon can give anything free retreat, it’s no big deal to get it out of the way.
It’s also useful in Blastoise because whenever you need extra damage you can either retreat or use a Switch if you play it, and go to Chandelure, get extra damage on the board, and Step In. I could see someone playing either Hydreigon or Blastoise variants with a 1-0-1 or 2-0-2 Chandelure line just because of the lack of need to worry about retreating Chandelure.
Vanilluxe NXD
Vanilluxe is probably going to be another rarely-played one, but I can see people liking a Warp Point a turn. Not only is Vanilluxe a free Switch whenever you need it, meaning that it’s not only whatever you want active when you want it and an out of special conditions, but it also puts pressure on the opponent. For instance, let’s say you’re playing against Darkrai/Hydreigon and they just whiffed the Max Potion and only have two Darkrais out. They are forced to either promote the damaged Darkrai, give you a free hit at their Hydreigon (Remember that they whiffed the Max Potion last turn, which means they only have one hand to get it if any unless they Skyla for it),or give you a free prize on a Sableye or something else with low HP, and you can always Catcher something else up if you don’t like what they gave you.
Drifblim DRX
Drifblim is an interesting tech that I would consider in any metagame with a bunch of Special Energy, because it can hit really hard once some hit the discard pile. It is a good tech in either Hammertime or Garchomp decks because they both run cards that discard Special Energy. When you get 3 Special Energy in the discard pile suddenly Drifblim is swinging for 150, and with Enhanced Hammer and Mach Cut you can usually discard your opponent’s specials. Now with Ditto it’s more of a surprise tech and you can get away with a 1-1 line if you can hide it.
Well, that wraps up this article. You guys know I like when you leave comments, so any discussion is welcome. I’ll try to get another article out sometime this week. So ta-ta for now, and I’ll try to get something out soon.
Hey OneHitKO, it’s me, coolestman22, trying to get another article out for the site because I have some free time and an idea. I figured I may as well write about my predictions for the format created by the new set, and we’ll see how many of them end up being legit.
I had to sit down and think for a bit about these before I actually wrote anything, but there might be a couple that slipped my mind. If I remember anything, I’ll edit it into the article.
Prediction 1: Darkrai/Hydreigon is BDIF
Of the decks we had in BW-DRX, Hydreigon is probably the one that benefits the most from new cards. Skyla is great for searching out Rare Candies or Ultra Balls that get you the Hydreigon right away, and Computer Search benefits Hydreigon more than anything else because you can Junk Hunt for it and create a chain of Computer Search.
It also has easy access to Sableye DEX (Which most decks don’t because they don’t run Darkness Energy), probably the best starter in the game right now, which can turn bad hands into T2 set-ups and bait N’s that get you a brand new, better hand. It allows you to reuse your Catchers and Max Potions late game, and it can get back Dark Patches for extra energy acceleration.
It’s also good for taking out your opponent’s energy acceleration. You have Darkrai, which can take out 3 Eels with 2 Catchers over the course of 3 turns and leave your opponent with nothing to power up attackers with, or you can use Dragonblast on your opponent’s Hydreigons or Blastoises. Decks generally need an engine in play to function right, and if you take those out it can often be the difference between winning and losing.
I also like how you can’t really Catcher-stall against it when it sets up a Hydreigon because you can Dark Trance the energy to your active and free retreat with Dark Cloak. Against Eel decks, most decks can Catcher up Eels, and if the Eel player doesn’t have a Switch (Or Double Colorless Energy) they can’t attack that turn. With Hydreigon, that isn’t the case, and that’s another reason I think it’s the BDIF.
Hydreigon also has Blends to play techs like Shaymin EX, Virizion EPO, Cresselia EX, and some other cards that either do something or counter something. In my opinion Cresselia is the best Mewtwo counter there is right now if you can manage to set it up, and Hydreigon can providing it has the right energy on the field (Which it does most of the time). Cresselia isn’t vulnerable to another Cresselia and is less vulnerable to a Mewtwo as well because it loses its Psychic Weakness when it attacks.
Perhaps the thing I like best about Hydreigon decks, however, is that the deck is both offensive and defensive. Most decks usually either focus on doing a bunch of damage or tanking, but the thing I like about Hydreigon decks is that it can do either, or both. You can be aggressive with Darkrai and deny your opponent prizes because of Max Potion. You also have a heavy hitter in Hydreigon that, combined with the 30 damage to the bench from Night Spear, can knock out Keldeos and other 170 HP EX’s in one hit.
Prediction 2: Landorus decks will be Top Tier
Let me say this: Landorus is a great card if you find a deck that works with it. The problem is that because Ether was cut, Landorus won’t see as much play because Ether could fuel other attackers faster.
I can see three Landorus decks working: Landorus/Garchomp, Landorus/Empoleon, and Landorus/Terrakion EX/Terrakion NVI (With or without Garbodor). These three decks will be at a huge advantage just because they get donks and apply early game pressure so easily. The best of the three in my opinion is Landorus/Empoleon simply because in the late game it has the best damage output of the three, however if Hydreigon and Eel decks are Tier 1 the Fighting-based variant may end up being preferred.
The reason Landorus is such a great card is that not only does it apply early-game pressure to your opponent, get you a potential donk, and hit two Pokemon at once, the cost is extremely easy to pay. One Fighting Energy is a lot easier to have in hand on Turn One than a Double Colorless Energy that Mewtwo EX or Tornadus EX would require, and the attack is a lot better on Turn One as well under non-donk circumstances.
Land’s Judgement is also a good attack to draw that last prize (Or two prizes), and combined with the 30 from Hammerhead has the potential to KO any non-Eviolited, non-Cresselia EX in at most two hits.
The discarding of the energy isn’t as big a deal as people say because if you just attach one more Fighting you’re attacking again, but it’s still not great. It also hinders your ability to retreat, but you should be running a decent Switch count anyway.
Prediction 3: Dusknoir will be a good tech in anything with Ditto and Rare Candy, and other 1-1 or 1-0-1 techs will be popular as well.
I’ve been doing some testing with Dusknoir, and I’d rank it as one of the three most powerful Pokemon to have in play
Get used to seeing a lot more 1’s and 0’s in decklists again.
(Reuniclus and Serperior would be on that list, too), plus it’s likely to stick around for a couple turns if not for the rest of the game.
Moving your opponent’s damage around is just so powerful in any format. In an older format with un-nerfed Rare Candy and Broken Time-Space Dusknoir would be amazing. Even now, Ditto is amazing for 1-0-1 techs. I will expect to see some tournament winning decks play Ditto and surprise techs like Dusknoir (Ninetales and Reuniclus are some other ideas), and then they become more and more popular as Cities goes on. (I really wish Ditto had been out sooner, 1-0-1 Kingdra Prime anyone?)
Just the other day I was playing a game at league where I was up 2 prizes to 5, and my opponent managed to get a Dusknoir in play and won by moving my damage around and drawing a bunch of prizes in one turn. If you’re playing Ditto and Rare Candy, Dusknoir will be something to consider, just because it’s surprise factor is worth the two spaces.
Prediction 4: Ho-oh’s popularity will slightly decrease, but will still be just as good.
I’ve been hearing a lot of “Ho-oh EX is weak to water, so Keldeo will destroy it” lately.
However, that isn’t the only thing to consider. Kyogre EX was written off because of the Lightning Weakness, and it was in the deck that won Nationals. Darkrai EX is amazing even with all the Terrakion running around.
Ho-oh also has an amazing ability to tech for any matchup because it runs all types of energy and accelerates. Ho-oh is a very versatile deck, and one bad matchup won’t really set it back too much. All I would expect is that people will play more Virizion EPO or NVI and Shaymin EX to make the matchup a bit better.
Blastoise probably isn’t even the BDIF! There’s a possibility that it is, but people don’t need to be scared of one bad matchup out of three Tier One decks, especially when the others are fairly decent. Chandelure was a Tier One deck even though it had a terrible matchup against Durant. I don’t see why Ho-oh is any different.
The other thing is that I’m not hearing that much about how Landorus is unplayable because of Blastoise. All I’m hearing on the forums is “Landorus donks Dark Deino. Switching to Dragon Deino” or “Better not play Eels or I’ll get my Tynamos donked”. Especially when Shiny Rayquaza already donks Tynamos and donks Dragon Deinos and isn’t an EX x2 weak to a Tier One deck! Ho-oh is also a donk threat, so why is it that Landorus is all the hype when they have the exact same weakness?
What I mean by the popularity will slightly decrease is that people will still be afraid to play it because it has a bad matchup to a legitimate deck. John Roberts saw past that and played Kyogre, and he won Nationals with it. People need to see that a weakness to a major type doesn’t make a card unplayable, it is merely a setback to it.
Alright guys, that’s gonna wrap up this article. I know it’s been fairly short, but I ran out of predictions. I’ll try to get
another article out soon, but last minute Cities testing is probably gonna get in the way. Maybe I’ll write an article about the different techs that go with Ditto.
As always, feel free to leave a comment, and I’ll try to respond to it. I’m open to discussion, and if there’s something about the upcoming format that you want to hear my opinion on, feel free to ask and I’ll tell you!
Hey OHKO people, I decided it was time to get a new article out, and since I haven’t tested quite that much of Boundaries Crossed, I thought the category Pikkdogs oftenly used, “Stupid Deck Idea” would suit this better than “Deck Analysis”. Stoutland is probably going to be Tier 2-3, but I felt that a deck review for a deck that I am liking would be a good thing to do.
I have only played a couple games with Stoutland, so the deck might not be perfect, but I’m just going to post a deck I have been testing so you guys can get an overview of the deck and an option for something to play at a Cities if you opt
Like Gothitelle, but for Supporters.
to.
Stoutland revolves around locking your opponent’s Supporters via Stoutland’s Ability, Watchdog, which, well, shuts off Supporters so long as Stoutland is active. On top of that, it attacks your opponent with “Wild Tackle” (Not sure about the English name of this attack, so for my proxies I just put in cool sounding names, such as “The All-Mighty Stoutland Attack”), which does 90 and has a possibility of hitting Stoutland for 20.
The problem with this strategy is that Pokemon Catcher can manipulate what you have active, and if something other than Stoutland is your lock is down. To counter this, I have found that if you set 3 Stoutland up by Turn Four and don’t bench anything else, your opponent can’t get out of this situation. If you can get an active Stoutland up early, they will need to burn a Catcher as well to play a Supporter, and without a Supporter they might not have a Catcher to use. This also helps when you’re forced to put down extra Lilipup because your opponent is attacking you and you are about to run out of Stoutland.
The first thing I have to say is that Stoutland basically scoops once your opponent sets up. Since the main idea of playing a Supporter is to get the things you need in your hand, if you already have everything you need on the field you don’t rely on Supporters as much. They’re a nice benefit, but you don’t absolutely have to play a Supporter most of the time when you’re fully set up. Stoutland’s attack also isn’t quite enough to keep up with most of the decks in the new format.
Here is a basic skeleton list I have to provide for Stoutland decks:
3-4 Rare Candy
3-4 Pokemon Catcher
3-4 Level Ball
2-3 Heavy Ball
3 Switch
3 Rescue Scarf
3 Hammer Mix (Can be mini-Hammertimed with Lilipup’s attack)
2 Super Rod
1 Computer Search
-23-27
0-1 Asperita City Gym
-0-1
6-7 Basic Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy
-10-11
Total – 53-62
Lillipup
This is the best Lillipup in my own opinion. Being able to do half of a Junk Hunt gives you some access to some good plays where you Heavy Ball for one Stoutland and then get it back with Pickup, and then Heavy Ball again and Rare Candy to two Stoutland. It’s definitely not as good as Junk Hunt, but it gets a bunch of points for being part of the Stoutland family, and it allows you to use extra Hammers and Catchers. I feel like there’s a bit of an argument to be made for the Collect one, but in the end getting an Item back is definitely better than just drawing a card.
Herdier
This Herdier is the best Herdier because it can use Collect for a DCE to draw 3. It’s not a great attack and you wouldn’t want to play it in any deck where you can’t evolve it, but for a deck where Herdier is your Stage One to your Stage Two main attacker, this is the best Herdier available.
I could explain Stoutland, but that would just be explaining the deck’s strategy once again, which I already did above.
4 Juniper, 4 N
I feel like this is the best draw Supporter split a deck can have in this metagame. Because you have Skyla, you can use Skyla to search for the Supporter, and this deck runs mainly off of a Skyla engine. I feel like 8 Supporters is enough if you’re playing the 4 Skyla and 1 Computer Search, because that’s 13 outs, and 14 if you also play the Hugh.
Skyla
Skyla is the card that makes Stage Twos a lot better in this format. You can use it to search for the piece of your Stage Two/Rare Candy by getting an Ultra Ball (Or in this deck, a Heavy Ball), or the Rare Candy itself. I know a lot of people aren’t convinced that Skyla is a 4-of in everything yet, but I feel like it is in decks like this which rely on getting multiple Stage Twos out.
Hugh
Hugh is a tech that I play in my list just because your opponent’s hand is likely to be so built up from lack of Supporters, not just because they have cards they can’t play but because they have cards like Catcher that they’re holding on to, and cards like Switch that they don’t need to use, and cards like Rare Candy that they can’t use but need to hold onto for when they draw something specific . It could force your opponent to discard that Catcher they so desperately need to break the lock once you need to bench a Lilipup (Although if they do discard a Catcher they probably have another, N away), and at the same time it provides you with a nifty draw Supporter.
Rare Candy
I don’t feel a need to do that much explaining for Rare Candy in this deck. It is needed to get a Stage Two out on Turn Two, and it allows you to have extra Stage Ones in a sense. It is a staple in any deck that runs a Stage Two (Except maybe Vileplume decks in MD-on), and this deck is no exception.
Pokemon Catcher
Same with Rare Candy, I don’t feel like there’s much explaining to do as to why I run Catcher. This isn’t a Trainerlock deck and Catcher is an amazing card.
In this deck you can also use Catcher to take out the few Eelektriks that your opponent managed to set up, meaning that the little setup that your opponent needs to win is gone.
Level Ball/Heavy Ball over Ultra Ball
In this deck I think I would prefer Level Ball and Heavy Ball over Ultra Ball simply because you don’t have to discard cards with them and you can Skyla for the one you need. Heavy Ball gets Stoutlands out and Level Ball gets Herdiers and Lillipups out. The only downside is that it takes up more space, but with Ultra Ball you’ll end up discarding cards that you might want later.
Switch
Stoutland has a 3 retreat cost, and people might Catcher other Stoutlands without energy in order to stall for a bit. Having a couple Switch means you can Skyla for one if this scenario ever pops up.
Rescue Scarf
Right now I like this card in any deck that attacks with a Stage Two just because it helps you evolve the Basics/Stage Ones of it you already have down. In this deck it isn’t as important since you shouldn’t have Lillipups sitting too much, but normally when a Stoutland is KO’d you might want to put down another Lillipup. Rescue Scarf gives you that Lillipup even if your opponent does N, and it also gets you a Stoutland back.
Hammers
The third picture in a row that starts with S.
In decks like Stoutland which revolve around your opponent not setting up before you get a lock established, Hammers are great for buying you that extra turn before your opponent Night Spears you to death.
Super Rod
Sometimes your Rescue Scarves will get Tool Scrapped, which can force you to get a new Lillipup or Stoutland on the field. Super Rod not only increases your odds of doing so, but it allows you to later in the game as well.
Computer Search
Stoutland is one of those decks where you could use any consistency boost you can get, and Computer Search is great for that. It also allows you to Skyla for your Double Colorless.
Asperita City Gym
Yes, this is the Gym that gives all Colorless Pokemon 20 more HP. This is great for avoiding several magic numbers, such as Dragonblast or Night Spear + Wild Tackle damage + Bench Night Spear damage, and forces Keldeo to have one more energy (Which sounds easy, but under Supporter lock it’s harder than it sounds, especially if they haven’t set up a Blastoise). It also gives you a counter to other Stadiums if your opponent plays any (RayEels and Flygon decks both do).
Double Colorless Energy
Your main attacker’s attack requires CCC, which is perfect for Double Colorless Energy. There’s no reason not to play it.
Normally this would be the part where I would talk about techs, but with this deck I feel like you need to steer clear of techs (At least Pokemon techs). Why? Because with Stoutland, you need to have all Stoutland on the field at the same time to maintain a guaranteed Supporter lock. If you were to play a Pokemon down of any sort, even if you’re not planning on attacking with it, it’s still something that your opponent can Catcher up and break the Supporter lock with.
The Trainer techs, such as Hugh and Asperita are ones I’ve already talked about. If you have another idea, feel free to comment and let me know.
Normally this would be the part I talk about matchups (Hate to do this again), but I honestly haven’t tested them much. I have tested enough to know that if any deck sets up against you, it pretty much just wins. If you can establish a lock first, however, you win unless your opponent can break the lock or set up under the lock. If I test matchups I’ll edit this, but for now I can say something like this:
Hydreigon: Unfavorable. Because they have Junk Hunt, they can get the Candy-Hydreigon pieces they need to set up,
It’s not this one-sided, though.
even under Supporter lock. If you can hit clutch N’s early game and attack early on, the matchup is in your favor. Otherwise, you kind of just bash them with your wimpy attack and hope for the best.
Eels: Slightly Favorable. Because they rely on Professor Juniper to discard energy, if you can get an early Stoutland out and your opponent doesn’t hit a Catcher, you can sometimes lock them out of Dynamotors. Then, once you start attacking you can Catcher-KO the Eels until they all disappear.
Blastoise: Even/Slightly Unfavorable. Because they rely on the hand for energy attachments, being locked out of Supporters means no Cilan, and no Juniper or N to draw into Energy. However, if they do manage to load up a Keldeo with enough energy to OHKO Stoutlands, you aren’t in a good position. If you run an Asperita, you might want to spend extra effort trying to get it.
Alright, that’s it for my Stupid Deck Idea. If any of you guys has questions or comments, Disqus has a nifty feature below that I encourage you guys to use. Thanks for visiting OneHitKO and bothering to read the articles, and I’ll try to put something new out soon.
Hey OneHitKO, it’s me, coolestman22 again. After a fairly good Regionals run (I posted a report on the SixPrizes forums, if you want to check that out), I felt like I needed to write another article. Since I wanted to test the Boundaries Crossed metagame before I write an article about any of those decks, I may as well do an article similar to my first ever OneHitKO article, but for Boundaries Crossed.
One thing I want to say before I start this article is that I am very, very disappointed in TPCi for cutting Bike, Ether, and
Why, TPCi?
Escape Rope from Boundaries Crossed. Virbank isn’t so important to me, as the only decks that would play it would be Tier 3 stuff like Scolipede/Celebi EX and Amoongus NXD decks. Escape Rope I wasn’t expecting to see too much play either, mostly because a lot of decks liked to Catcher-stall and it would force you to play your Escape Rope before your Catcher for plays to KO a bench-sitter. There would be some decks that played it, but most of the time it would take a back seat to Catcher. I was only testing it in one deck, and that deck was one I wanted to run more than 4 Switch in.
Bicycle I am disappointed with, but I can live without Bicycle for 3 months. It would have been nice to play Skyla and draw in the same turn, but I feel that Bike isn’t the worst of our wounds.
Ether is the card that I am furious with TPCi for cutting. Ether was going to be great for our format. It would open up a lot of possibilities for Quad decks, and it is amazing for a lot of decks. I was testing a Quad Kyurem NVI deck that relied on EtherDex and Exp. Share, and it was incredibly fun to play. In my first 5 games, I got a T2 Glaciate in 4 of them. I almost never got a T1, so a donk was unlikely (although not out of the possibility). Ether would allow Quad Terrakion to be good once again and keep Darkrai and Eels in check. Ether would allow for a bunch of fun Tier 2 options, such as Quad Keldeo, and it makes Landorus EX a lot more viable. Ether makes the meta way better instead of a stale Blastoise/Hydreigon/Eelektrik meta we’re probably going to have.
Don’t get me wrong, Boundaries Crossed is still a great set. We have a lot of cool Tier 2-3 attackers coming out, such as Charizard and Flygon, as well as a couple good new archetypes, such as Blastoise, Stoutland, and Vileplume. I am happy with PCL for potentially giving us such a great metagame, and I am unhappy with TPCi for taking away 50% of it.
So with that, let’s get this set review underway.
Vileplume
I really like the idea of a Vileplume Box deck. What it does is it forces your opponent to get OHKOes starting really quickly and not drop an EX, or else it will go down in one hit.
The issue I’m seeing with this deck is the reliance on Special Energy. If your opponent has metal, water, or lightning weakness your best attacker uses a DCE. After four KO’s you will have run out of energy. The answer to this would be Recycle, but that is a flippy card that makes the deck significantly more clunky.
Here are the attackers that a Vileplume box deck would probably run:
Grass – Maractus BW 12
Fire – Larvesta NVI 20
Water – Lapras NXD 25 (Plus you get a Call for Family attack for a WLFM or Prism with this)
Lightning – Emolga EPO
Psychic – Mewtwo EX/Mew EX
Fighting – Landorus EX
Dark – There really isn’t a good dark attacker for Vileplume box. Hopefully you won’t play against Chandelure NVI decks or Cofagrigus DEX tool chuck decks (And if you do you can always go aggro Durant NVI deckout)
Metal – Durant NVI (Yes, you do get to use Vice Grip for something other than donks. Take that, Kyurem EX).
Dragon – SR Rayquaza
And I don’t believe there is a single card in BW-DRX with Colorless weakness. The only legit card last format that did was RDL, but before that we would need something to take care of Garchomp C Lv. X. Ah, the good old days where Ambipom G was good.
Most of these are only hitting for 160 max, meaning we need something to boost the damage output a bit, such as PlusPower or Aerodactyl DEX. If I end up liking VileBox, I’ll write an article about it.
I think Vileplume is going to be a Tier 2 deck that people will test against, but it won’t necessarily do too well at Cities. If it wins a Winter Regionals in Masters, tell me and I’ll eat my hat.
Celebi EX
I’m honestly not too big a fan of a bench-sitting EX with 110 HP. Even with an Eviolite attached, Hydreigon and Keldeo EX still easily OHKO it. Without an Eviolite, you can add Zekrom BW and Darkrai EX with a Dark Claw attached to that list.
The Ability is really nice, however. It’s the first card that lets us use our prevo’s attacks since Platinum (Memory Berry). It is necessary for Scolipede to ever work competitively, however. I don’t think Scolipede will ever be a good deck, but if it is then you can say I told you so.
Charizard
I really like Charizard, although I don’t see it ever being good enough, especially with a Water weakness. Although I
It’s CCHHAARRIIZZAARRDD!!
don’t like it as a partner with Celebi or Emboar (shudder), I do feel that its first attack deserves a mention.
With Split Bomb you can hit two EX’s, Tynamos, or other things. If you hit EX’s, you are two Flamethrowers away from taking four prizes. After that, if you can keep Charizard alive long enough, you can take a couple more prizes via Flamethrower or Split Bomb. The deck is extremely fragile and I don’t think it would work at all, but I feel like taking prizes that fast deserves a mention. Charizard will probably never enter a Tier One deck, however.
Blastoise
Blastoise is in my opinion the best evolved Pokemon in Boundaries Crossed. Getting Rain Dance back into the game is huge in my opinion, especially because it has a legitimate partner, unlike all of the previous Rain Dancers we’ve had (That includes you, Emboar), with the exception of possibly the Base Set one. I feel that Blastoise will have the largest impact on the format of any of the Pokemon, and possibly any of the cards in Boundaries Crossed.
With Cilan and Energy Retrieval in the format, and a respectable partner in Keldeo, it is probably going to be the first Tier One Rain Dance since Base Set.
Keldeo EX
I honestly don’t think I can write anything here that I wouldn’t have said in the Blastoise section except for how amazing I believe Step In is. Step In makes it so that it is nearly impossible to Catcher stall against a Blastoise deck. Even if you have a different main attacker, Keldeo is just amazing and it should be played in any Blastoise variant.
Step In also allows you to run Musharna NXD as extra draw support. One of the main problems for Rain Dance is that if you don’t have any energy in hand, you don’t have acceleration. If you get N’d late in the game down to 1 or 2 cards, Musharna can give you the extra draw support that can change the outcome of the game.
Step In also increases the viability of a Klinklang BW deck. If they try to Catcher-stall, you can Step In, move a Prism to Keldeo, and free retreat via Dark Cloak. Keldeo is also a decent attacker in Klinklang because Water and Metal are together on the same Blend.
Psyduck
No, I’m not kidding. Psyduck seriously trolls Rayquaza/Eels decks. For one water energy, it discards a fire energy attached to the defending Pokemon. This means that if they were attacking with Rayquaza EX and they just discarded all their Lightnings and they only had one fire attached, they have a couple turns to replace it or else they are stuck not attacking every other turn.
If you could pull off an Extinguish, that means that they would likely have a benched Ray that still had a fire energy, and that could come in and OHKO Psyduck. Whoop-de-doo. They would have two turns to get a fire back or else they would be forced to attack with something else.
Against Rayquaza Dragon Vault, it gets better. If they used Shred last turn, they have 3 energy attached, one of which was a fire. If you could discard their fire, they would be forced to either get a new fire or retreat, burning both their energy and forcing them to waste Dynamotors later just to get them back instead of using them to power up something more worthwhile.
I don’t think Psyduck will be a serious option, but it is an interesting card and if you could pull of enough Extinguishes you could seriously limit your opponent’s attacking options.
Jellicent
The last water-type I want to cover is one that hasn’t been getting much hype, but I feel like it might have some sort of impact on competitive play in the future. Jellicent is a Stage One that increases the retreat cost of all of your opponent’s Pokemon by one.
Some people may remember Ariados MT and how this is pretty much exactly this, and Ariados did see some play in Flygon Lv. X mill decks. The problem with Jellicent in this format is that we have Darkrai EX and Keldeo EX that pretty much just nullify Jellicent. I do believe that if mill becomes good once again, Jellicent might see some play in mill decks (Durant/Jellicent?), but right now the metagame is just not in Jellicent’s favor.
There is a Bellossom from this set that does 10 damage plus 20 more for each energy in the defending Pokemon’s retreat cost, so if your meta is shifted towards Blastoise decks instead of Hydreigon ones Bellicent might be a decent call for a Cities or two. Bellossom can OHKO a Keldeo if there are two Jellicents in play, and always OHKOes Blastoise. The problem is that against Darkrai decks, anything with a Dark Energy attached automatically has 0 retreat, meaning Bellossom only does 10 damage.
Electivire
Electivire has an attack for LCC that does 30 to each of your opponent’s benched Pokemon. This probably isn’t going to ever be competitive, but this combined with Eelektrik NVI for an engine could make a decent Tier 3 spread deck. Spread is nice to have, and in a format with big EX’s you are six spreads away from an OHKO on them. I think I might test this for a bit.
Dusknoir
Dusknoir has an Ability that is basically Darkrai and Cresselia LEGEND’s Moon Invite attack, just in the form of an Ability. This is amazing if you can ever get it out because if your opponent has an engine of some sort that you want to make disappear, you can KO it and then attack later on. It also works pretty good against Hydreigon decks because if they retreat to another Darkrai instead of Max Potioning, you can move all the damage to the new Darkrai (Or enough for an OHKO) and then take two prizes and three energy off your opponent’s side of the field.
With the Trainers in Boundaries Crossed, I could see 1-0-1 or 1-1-1 techs becoming a thing again, although I don’t expect every deck to play them. Although I would much rather play a Serperior BW, that might just be because I like defensive decks.
People are also suggesting playing Dusknoir alongside stuff with spreading-like attacks such as Groudon EX, Kyurem NVI, or Flygon (Which I will cover later). The only one of these I see potential in is the Flygon one because it doesn’t rely on a nonexistent EtherDex engine.
Swoobat
Swoobat is a card from Boundaries Crossed with an interesting attack that mills one for each Psychic Energy it has attached. People are talking about pairing this with Gardevoir NXD, but honestly I’m not seeing it. I would much rather play Durant if I were to play a mill deck because it can attack from T1 and has a much more powerful mill.
Cresselia EX
Cresselia EX is probably my favorite of all the EX’s from Boundaries Crossed. It OHKOes Mewtwo, tanks, and has no weakness when you attack with it. If you could get it going early enough it could be devastating, especially with an Eviolite.
Just think about this: Darkrai does 90. With an Eviolite, that’s immediately reduced down to 70. Then, with the Ability that goes down to 50. Factor in one Potion and all of a sudden Night Spear only did 20 damage to you.
Start playing a thick line of Serperior BW, and you got yourself one big tank. Even if your opponent attacked with a heavier hitter, like say Hydreigon, that does 140. Eviolite and it’s down to 120. After a single Royal Heal and Sparkling Particles (Yes, that is the name of the Ability), it’s 80. Add 1 Potion, you’re back down to 50. Set up 2 Serperior, that’s 30. Another Potion, it’s all gone.
CressTank is going to be pretty good, but I feel like it’s missing something big. Oh yeah, Ether.
Munna
Munna is a basic Pokemon with an Ability that flips a coin. If heads, your opponent’s active is asleep, but if it’s tails your active is asleep.
Right now I don’t think a card that has a 25% chance of working for you, a 25% chance of doing nothing, and a 50% chance of making it so that you need a Switch to attack this turn isn’t very good. However, there may be a use for it later on.
Scolipede
Scolipede is a Stage Two from this set that has an Ability, Poison Point, which Poisons the defending Pokemon when Scolipede is attacked.
Whirlipede EPO has an attack for one energy that does 10, and then 60 more if the defending Pokemon is Poisoned. Meaning that hits for 70, and 20 more from Poison damage, if Scolipede was attacked last turn. That’s 90 damage for one energy. If Virbank City Gym were in the set, that’s 130 right there, so maybe they had a good reason to cut it. (Of course you would need to have Celebi EX out for this to work right).
Landorus EX
Landorus EX is really good in the early game. It donks Tynamos and Dark Deinos, and hits for 30 on a benched
The DCIF.
Pokemon. If you do this twice early on, you’ve got yourself 120 damage on the board, which is amazing if you set up a Dusknoir later on, or you can hit EX’s and take 2 easy prizes via something later. You also can OHKO a Hydreigon or Blastoise with the second attack if you end up using it.
If they hadn’t cut Ether, Landorus would be a lot more prominent because Quad Fighting would be a lot better. Right now, though, Landorus might not be as good in everything. Anything running Fighting, Prism, or the appropriate Blend should at least consider Landorus, though, as it gets a bunch of donks and opens the door for big plays later on.
Skarmory
No, once again I’m not kidding. Skarmory OHKOes Kyurem NVI for 3 of any energy, meaning that if you’re playing Eels or Hydreigon and are having trouble with Kyurem techs in Blastoise decks, you’ve found your guy. Kyurem shouldn’t be that prominent, though, but PCL needed a way to keep it in check.
Flygon
Flygon is one of my favorite cards from the new set. The Ability I like, and the fact that it needs no energy I like. I feel that if TPCi had given it 20 more HP it would be able to compete more in this format. As it is,.though, it’s a Stage Two that spreads and can abuse Max Potion and Tropical Beach.
I have been testing Flygon/Dusknoir for about a week now, and it doesn’t have the best matchups, but it gets set up faster than you would expect. Your opponent is forced to be careful playing benched Pokemon, and you can take out crucial support Pokemon. You can almost always get a Switch if they Catcher-stall.
The problem? You can only run 4 Rare Candy, which is huge. To get a T2 Flygon and T2 Dusknoir, you’ve already used 2 of your Rare Candy, meaning that you only have two more to set up a backup Dusknoir and extra Flygons. This usually leads to running out of Rare Candy and not being able to set up any more Flygon.
I am still trying to work with Flygon, however. I don’t feel like I should give up quite yet, because if it ends up working I have myself a deck with a built-in draw engine that can abuse Max Potion that most people won’t test against. I hope I can get it to work, but right now I’m pretty doubtful about it.
Black Kyurem EX
I’m not big on the idea of this. Even with your 300 HP, you’re still down your Ace Spec and a Tool Scrapper away from being a normal EX again. If Gothitelle/Reuniclus were to suddenly become viable again, I might consider this with my Ace Spec being devoted to this just for the sake of being able to Max Potion 290 off, but otherwise it just looks pretty and is screwed over by a staple Trainer.
White Kyurem EX
Pretty much the same as above, except that there is a little bit of hope in being able to do 200. Still not convinced, though. Steer clear, people.
Raticate
I remember back when this card was revealed, everyone was hyping it to death. It was going to be paired with Rocky Helmet, Amoonguss, all that stuff. The hype has significantly died down as people realize that a Stage One with 60 HP just might not cut it.
The best part is that it has synergy with Shedinja DRX, another Stage One with 60 HP. Honestly I’d rather use Raticate with Eels and Rocky Helmet, and then with Poison Hypnotic Beam once it comes out. Raticate will be Tier 3, but until PHB is out I don’t see Raticate being that good.
Ditto
Ditto is a pretty good card, in my opinion. It increases your odds of starting with what you want, and the ruling is that if you wait a turn and then Transform you can go directly to the Stage One (I’m not sure about this with Rare Candy and Stage Twos, or going Ditto-wait a turn-Basic-Stage One-Stage Two), so you could use Ditto with Milotic DRX to skip the 30 HP Feebas phase.
However, I’m not sure that many decks will have the space for Ditto. It’s a great card and all, but most of the time I’d rather have that fourth Catcher or Skyla.
I’m assuming the ruling is that you can’t Transform into a Restored Pokemon, but if you can, please tell me so that I can troll you with Archeops.
Exploud
Exploud is a Stage Two that just happens to evolve from my favorite Pokemon. It also has the Round attack, which is pretty good. Its Round does 50 per Round, so that means that you’re OHKOing an EX with a couple Wigglytuffs. I doubt that Round will get much better because of this, however.
The attack I’m more interested in is actually the first attack, Roar of Destruction, which discards all the Items in your opponent’s hand. This could be really good if you manage to set this up as it completely wrecks Sableye and screws over anyone hoping to get a Rare Candy to a Stage Two next turn. You can argue that Sableye will just get them back, but then Exploud will wreck them again. Sure, they could Catcher-stall you, but the Catcher gets wrecked first. I am actually really interested in this attack, and I want to have some fun trolling my league with it. Especially since it evolves from my favorite Pokemon.
Stoutland
I remember looking through the Freeze Bolt and Cold Flare scans, and I saw a Stoutland. I thought to myself “Maybe we’ll finally get a good one”.
I looked at it, said “That’s pretty interesting, but Catcher screws it over”.
Then about two weeks later I was at league, and then I just randomly realized how good that Ability actually is. It completely shuts off your opponent’s draw power. Sure, they can Catcher, but getting a Catcher involves drawing Catcher. Drawing cards becomes significantly harder without a Supporter. You could just sit there bashing with Stoutland all day, and your opponent would dead draw all game.
Well, now that Bike and Escape Rope aren’t in the set, two cards that pose threats to Stoutland are just gone. Meaning that Stoutland might actually be good.
Stoutland also has something really rare in this format: Options for prevos. The ones I’ve determined as the best are Lillipup BW 80, which PUTS AN ITEM CARD FROM YOUR DISCARD PILE INTO YOUR HAND, and Herdier BW 82, which draws 3 for a DCE. These two are just, well, amazing. They make a Stoutland deck a lot less stupid of an idea, in my opinion. Skyla and Computer Search help a good deal, too.
I haven’t started testing Stoutland yet, but I have a feeling I’m gonna like it a great deal.
Audino
As we wrap up the Pokemon in the set, we get to one I’m not particularly fond of, which is Audino. Audino has an Ability where you discard it from your hand and heal 10 damage and a Special Condition from your Active Pokemon. The only use for this I’m seeing right away is as another way to heal in CressTank. If the meta gets too full of paralysis, Espeon DEX is a much better answer. If there is ever a format where Espeon is rotated and paralysis is legit, Audino may be our answer, but until then I think I’m going with Espeon.
Town Map
Town Map is an interesting card that lets you flip your prizes over. Honestly I think this won’t see too much play, but in Dusknoir and Chandelure decks where you can take prizes mid-turn it’s huge. Take a prize to get the Max Potion or Juniper or whatever for a fact, I’ll take that.
Hugh
Hugh is a Supporter that makes both players either draw or discard cards from their hand until they have five left. I’m honestly not too big on this card, and if it gets big enough I’ll start anticipating it and minimizing my hand size. It will see a bit of play early on and then take a back seat to cards like Bianca and Skyla.
Skyla
Skyla is one of my favorite cards from Boundaries Crossed. Searching for the game winning Catcher, that Rare Candy or Ultra Ball to get your Stage Two engine out, or grabbing a game-changing N for next turn is just so good. (Sure, they could N, but you could bet they wouldn’t be drawing many cards if the N you would play is game changing). People who aren’t playing it as a 4-of should consider starting.
Asperita City Gym
I’m not really big on this card right now, seeing as there aren’t any dominant Colorless Pokemon in the format right now. It will make a fun Tier 3 deck with Regigigas EX and will be a 1-2 of in Stoutland. Other than that, it will just be something that sits in your binder.
Computer Search
Computer Search is my preferred Ace Spec. Discarding cards is big in 2 of the 3 Tier One decks, and it can lead to some big plays in the third. Getting cards is always nice, especially when you’re trying to set up your Stage Two engine. This will be the Ace Spec most decks play, so expect to see a bunch of this.
Gold Potion
I really like Gold Potion. I really do.
I just think that Computer Search is just so much better in anything not involving all basics or discarding cards.
This card basically says “You didn’t attack last turn”.
The problem is that Computer Search helps consistency, which is the #1 thing in most decks.
If you play Roserade DRX 15, I would have to say Gold Potion is the way to go.
Well that’s about it for this article, thanks for visiting OneHitKO and taking the time to read this article, and feel free to leave a comment. As always, I’m open for some discussion, because I know everyone has their opinion. I think Cities are going to have a great format for the third year in a row (At least), and I am really looking forward to it. I’ll try to get some deck analysis articles out soon so that you can read about how awesome the decks for this format are. Good luck at Cities, and thanks for reading!
Hey OHKO people, it’s me, coolestman22 again. I wanted to get something out before Regionals, so I thought I’d do something like the Battle Roads preview I did back in May or something like that. I think what I’ll do is review the dominant decks from Autumn Battle Roads and then give you guys lists or something like that, so, without further ado, let’s get started.
Before I review any decks, I’ll post some results of Battle Roads. The results of the Battle Roads that The Top Cut has followed are the following (To save time I’m only doing the decks I’m covering):
Eels: 25 wins, 21 2nd, 45 3rd-4th.
Hydreigon: 24 wins, 26 2nd, 34 3rd-4th.
Ho-oh: 7 wins, 6 2nd, 4 3rd-4th.
Hydreigon
In my opinion, Hydreigon has proven itself to be the BDIF of this format. Why I never got the deck to work is beyond me, Darkrai must just not like me. Even though the numbers show Eels as the top deck, Eels also has two different variants, and Hydreigon has only one.
The basic strategy of the deck is to use Darkrai EX to attack and use Hydreigon DRX 97 to move energy from one Darkrai to another, or to do 140 with Hydreigon’s attack. With Dark Trance, not only can you free retreat everything for no cost, you can also abuse max Potion and attack with anything without having to attach an energy. You can use Dark Patch to get energy flowing around, and you can use techs so long as they comply with Blend Energy GRPD, such as Siglyph or Shaymin EX.
In short, the deck functions a lot like the Klinklang BW deck that won U.S. Nationals. I always liked that deck, and I was happy when I heard it had won. I’m glad Hydreigon has proven to be good even though I didn’t get it to work.
Here is a skeleton list for Hydreigon decks:
Pokemon – 12
2 Hydreigon DRX 97
1 Zwelious (Either NVI or DRX 96)
3 Deino NVI
3 Darkrai EX
3 Sableye DEXT/S/S – 32
4 Professor Juniper
4 N
3 Bianca/Cheren
3 Random Receiver
4 Max Potion
3 Dark Patch
3 Rare Candy
3 Pokemon Catcher
3 Ultra Ball
2 Eviolite
1 Super Rod
1 Tool ScrapperEnergy – 11
7 Darkness Energy
4 Blend Energy GRPDTotal Cards – 57
Open Space – 3
Techs
Shaymin EX
To be honest, I’m not a big fan of Shaymin EX. My reasoning behind this is that for every game Shaymin is a big help and you wouldn’t have won without it, you’ll start with it. You’ll probably start with it a bit less, which means that yes, it would win you games to have the Shaymin.
However, it might win you more games to not have the Shaymin and to play another tech or Supporter or Dark Patch instead. If you opt to play a Supporter over the Shaymin and you just happen to have that Supporter and no other Supporter, then having that Supporter might be the difference between winning and losing.
However, I did say that I haven’t tested the deck, and I know people who do play it and say they like Shaymin a lot. If you want to play the deck I would suggest trying Shaymin out and seeing if it’s worth the deck spot and occasional lone Shaymin start.
Siglyph DRX
Of all the techs I’m going to mention, Siglyph is probably the one I like the most. It’s the only tech I play in the build I have online that I use to test against (Which honestly isn’t that good). Without Siglyph, a Mewtwo with a lot of energy will run you over, and you need a response to that. the only time I beat a Hydreigon deck with an Eels build all BR’s long was the time I played against a build without Siglyph, that I knew beforehand had no Siglyph.
However, earlier in the tournament that player played against a Hydreigon build that used two Siglyph, and won. It may be that he got lucky, or, more likely, the two consistency spots he had that his opponent had devoted to Siglyph, which was a relatively useless card in the matchup to my knowledge, might have been the difference between a win and a loss.
I think it definitely is worth playing Siglyph in a Hydreigon build if you don’t have a different response to Mewtwo, but if your area has more Hydreigon than Eels it might be wise not to play it, and instead play a Mewtwo counter that helps in the Hydreigon matchup more, such as, I don’t know. You’ll have to think this up yourself.
Giratina EX
Giratina EX is an interesting tech option in a Hydreigon deck. The place where I bvelieve it would help the most is against a Terrakion deck or any deck involving Terrakion, but honestly I don’t know what it’s for. All I know is that there are people who play Giratina EX in their Hydreigon build.
Reshiram EX
Reshiram is another one of those techs that doesn’t make sense to me. I know it would be helpful in the Hydreigon mirror match, and honestly that’s all I know. What you could do is, out of nowhere, drop your Reshiram, Dark Trance to it, move it up because all of your Pokemon have free retreat with the combination of Dark Trance and Dark Cloak, Catcher your opponent’s Hydreigon, and take a prize. However, if you don’t manage to get an Eviolite on your Reshiram and flip tails for the self damage, you could get one-shot right back and lose 2 prizes, 2 Blend, and 2 Dark if your opponent was able to either get another Hydreigon out or use a Giratina or Shaymin EX to get a knockout. Honestly though I don’t think it’s too likely you’ll be OHKOed unless you whiff on the Catcher and attack anyway.
Hydreigon NVI
The last tech I want to review is the Hydreigon from Noble Victories. While it isn’t too likely you’ll set it up, it is a good card and when you do set it up its attack is pretty good, but it’s also fairly situational.
I remember reading somewhere about the combination between Night Spear and Dragon Blast (Or whatever Hydreigon’s attack is called). Basically what you can do is if your opponent drops an EX with 160 or 170 HP, you can Night Spear and put the bonus damage on that. Then, you can Catcher that EX up and hit it for 140 and the knockout, and essentially draw two prizes with one attack (Especially if you drew a prize with the 90 from Night Spear). Well, with the NVI Hydreigon you can essentially use the same combination on any non-Eviolited EX. You can also snipe something else, either that has low HP, 130 and you want it to be within Night Spear range, or another EX to Dragonblast later.
If you can get an early Hydreigon NVI, that also helps big, because you can snipe two Swablu or Tynamo or other low HP basics of support Pokemon. If you don’t draw a prize with it off the basic, it puts pressure on them to evolve it next turn or have it knocked out. This might force them to play a Juniper over an N, discarding some key resources and thinning out the deck. If they don’t hit it, they will have wasted the resources and they won’t be able to get their support Pokemon out.
Eel decks are decks that I am much more comfortable with. I played Eels for all four of my Battle Roads and I escaped with 25 Championship Points, so I can definitely provide more insight on Eels than any other deck.
Right now, there are three different ways to play an Eel deck: Zekeels with Mewtwo, which is the box version, Rayquaza/Eels, and TerraEels. I have played all three variations and the one I like the best right now is the Terrakion version. Here is a basic list you can use, and then you can build on to it which variation you like the best:
This is what a Shiny Eel would look like.
Pokemon – 13
4 Eelektrik NVI
4 Tynamo Split (NVI 38, NVI 39, DEX 45)
2 Zekrom BW
1 Raikou EX
2 Emolga DRXT/S/S – 31
4 Professor Juniper
4 N
3 Cheren/Bianca
3 Random Receiver
4 Ultra Ball
3 Switch
3 Pokemon Catcher
2 Tools (Eviolite, Rocky Helmet, etc.)
2 Tool Scrapper
2 Level Ball
1 Super RodEnergy – 12
8 Lightning Energy
4 Tech Energy (Depending on your variant)Total – 56
Open Space – 4
To make it a straight Zekeels variant, you would add 2 Mewtwo EX and then either more consistency cards or a few techs, and make the tech Energy Double Colorless. To make it RayEels you would add two Rayquaza EX and 2 Shiny Rayquaza. For the Terrakion variant, you would add 2 Terrakion, a single Mewtwo, and something else.
Techs
Thundurus EPO
Thundurus was considered necessary in an Eel deck during the HS-NXD format, but I played without it to success. In this format it is a good idea, though, because of the format’s dependence on basics that turn into Stage Ones and Stage Twos. if you get a T1 Charge off and hit both of your manual energy attachments you can, on Turn Two, Catcher-KO a Deino, Tynamo, Swablu, Shelmet, Gible, Piplup, or whatever. It allows you to take an early lead, as well, which could help you out a lot in the prize race later on. It also discards energy for Dynamotor later on.
The problem with Thundurus is that it doesn’t have quite high enough of a damage output to be good in the late game. Unless your opponent is playing Quad Tornadus Thundurus just doesn’t get the OHKOes you need to win games later on. So to play Thundurus effectively, I have found you need to run enough to consistently start with it. You also need to use Call For Family on Turn One a lot, meaning that a T1 Charge can be, well, a bad idea sometimes.
Zapdos NXD
Zapdos is another one of those early-game cards, but there are a few things that separate Zapdos from Thundurus.
The first is that Zapdos requires a Double Colorless Energy to attack on Turn Two without support from Eels, whereas Thundurus doesn’t. This means that your energy attachments aren’t going to be as easy as they are on Thundurus.
The second is that Zapdos doesn’t require a Pokemon Catcher to attack what you want to attack (Unless you want to hit for Weakness or get around Resistance). In a format without Junk Arm this is a big deal, because you only get to use 4 a game. Not using them in the early game will not only mean that you have them later, but you also have a larger number of them later, meaning you are more likely to draw the Catcher to get the Shaymin EX or Eelektrik active to KO it and win the game. Conserving resources is important in this format, especially in a deck like this without access to Sableye DEX.
The third is that Thundurus puts your energy in the discard pile, while Zapdos doesn’t. While this does seem like a positive at first (And it mostly is), keep in mind that also means you’ll need to hit your manual energy attachment next turn and use it on Thundurus. This is mostly good, though, as discarding energy in this format is extremely hard without Junk Arm.
The fourth is that Thundurus has a higher damage output than Zapdos does. The 30 more means that Thundurus OHKOes the Deinos, Gibles, Shelmets, Archens, etc. that Zapdos doesn’t without some sort of damage support such as PlusPower.
Tornadus EX
Tornadus EX is mainly used in Eel decks as a counter to Fighting. if your meta has a lot of Terrakion EX decks or Terrakion decks, Tornadus EX is a good option. Otherwise, it’s bad in the mirror and you should steer clear.
Zekrom EX
Zekrom EX is another tech I don’t like. I was big on it last format, but this one it just isn’t as useful. The only Stage Two deck you’re likely to have troubles with is Hydreigon, and they will usually Catcher-kill your Eels and make it so that you can’t use Zekrom EX effectively, and Rocky Helmet (I played this last season in Eels) will just get Tool Scrapped, making it no longer very good against Mewtwo for these sort of situations.. If your meta is full of Garchomp, though, it’s a decent idea.
Energy Switch
Energy Switch isn’t a card I’ve experimented with yet, but it could be good in some situations. It’s good for getting the energy attached to your Emolga somewhere more useful. You can also pull some good plays with Mewtwo with it, and move the third energy from Zekrom BW after retreating it.
To learn more about Eel decks with a more in-depth article, I found a pretty good Eel deck article here. This article definitely isn’t as good as the Hydreigon one, but it provides you with wwhat you need to know. I do think 4-4 Eels is necessary in BW-on, however, and that’s the one part of the article I disagree with. (Do note that the article was written before Dragons Exalted came out, however).
Ho-oh EX
Ho-oh EX is a really cool deck. It has built-in energy acceleration, can hit for 180 with some effort, and is fast with the right list.
I haven’t been able to get the deck to work properly, but I am able to provide some sort of list:
Phoenix? More like Scottsdale.
Pokemon – 10-11
3 Ho-oh EX
3 Sableye DEX
4-5 Tech AttackersT/S/S – 32
4 Professor Juniper
4 N
3 Bianca
3 Random Receiver
4 Ultra Ball
4 Pokemon Catcher
4 Energy Switch
3 Switch
2 Tool Scrapper
1 Super RodEnergy – 17
4 Double Colorless Energy
3 Darkness Energy
10 other Basic Energy (At least one of each)Total – 59-60
Free Space – 0-1
Techs
Mewtwo EX
Mewtwo EX is probably the best tech to put in here. It can get a T1 donk, and it helps a lot against Mewtwo coming in and OHKOing Ho-oh. Mewtwo is Mewtwo, and it’s pretty necessary in a deck like this.
Tornadus EX
Tornadus EX is a tech that a lot of people like, but I don’t see a reason for. Ho-oh already has a Fighting Resistance, and it just gets zapped by Eel decks for 2 prizes. It is good with Stadiums for a T1 60, but unless you choose to run SAB you don’t run any Stadiums.
Darkrai EX
Since you’re already running all those darks for Sableye, why not give all your Pokemon free retreat? It seems logical enough. If you have space for a Darkrai, I’d suggest playing one.
Sigilyph DRX
Sigilyph would serve two purposes in the deck: countering EX’s, and countering Sigilyph. If you play a Sigilyph you can stall for a bit, especially against Eel variants that are a bit teched out. They would be forced to use Eelektrik’s attack, which is a 2HKO on Sigilyph, and in the process possibly lose an Eel.
Terrakion NVI
Ah, Fighting, the meta’s weakness, and Terrakion does the best job of capitalizing on that of anything in the modified format. With a Tool Scrapper it can OHKO any Fighting-weak EX with an Eviolite attached, and it does so for only two energy assuming your opponent got an OHKO the following turn. If they don’t KO it back, you can attach another Fighting and OHKO another EX (With the help of a Tool Scrapper or Catcher in most scenarios). If that happens, which is pretty likely, you will have taken four prizes while only giving up one. Terrakion is just that good.
There are so many techs I could talk about, but since I need to get this article published before Regionals, I’m just going to link you to another article that talks about them. There weren’t many Ho-oh articles to choose from, but I feel the Skittles part of this 6P article did a good job:
I would love to cover some more decks, but I started this article way too late and I need to get it published now, so I’m going to hold off on them. Those are the three main decks of the format and if I wanted to win a tournament I would play one of those three, so I feel like that’s enough.
Anyway, as always, leave a comment below if you have a comment, I’m open to any feedback, discussion, or whatever else. And, of course, good luck at Regionals!
coolestman22 
standings are posted, and I’m 11th. Top Cut ended up being the following:
