Deck Discussion

Running with Scizors, and Umbreons.

Pikkdogs March 22, 2011 5 Comments

A big hello to all members of Omar-Nation. This is Pikkdogs here with a deck idea for you. It may not be the best deck ever, but it is actually a pretty good deck that deserves some credit.

A couple weeks ago I wrote an article about walls in the Pokemon TCG, well this is a deck that uses two of those Pokemon. The idea of this deck is to hit for a moderate amount, while not letting your opponent attack you.

The Main Attackers

Scizor Prime has the “Red Armor” Poke-Body which does not let any attack damage him from a Pokemon that has any Special Energy cards attached to it. This means that if your opponent is playing Steelix Prime or Garchomp C Lv. X there is a good chance that those cards will need to adapt just to even scratch you. Since Scizor Prime is a Steel type it can benefit from Special Metal Energies, making it somewhat of a tank.

Umbreon Ud has an attack called “Moonlight Fang” which does 30 damage and does not let any Pokemon with Poke-Powers or Poke-Bodies inflict any effects of an attack on to Umbreon. Since Umbreon is a Dark type, this means he can take advantage of Special Darkness Energies, meaning his attacks do +10 damage for every Special Dark attached. So if you put an Expert Belt on him and 2 Special Darks, Umbreon is doing “Moonlight Fang” for 70 damage! That is not a whole lot, but if its also preventing damage its great. It also can hit Gengar and Gengar Prime for weakness. Umbreon also benefits from the fact that it evolves from Eevee. You can use certain Eeveelutions to make sure that he has free retreat, no weakness, and an extra +20 HP.

The Techs

This deck also has a few special techs in it, that give it better matchups.

Espeon Md– As mentioned before, Umbreon’s HP can be increased by 20 with the help of Espeon MD. Espeon can make sure Umbreon can survive 1 good hit, so you have time to Seeker him back up. With Espeon and an expert belt, Umbreon has 130 HP! Thats not bad.

Espeon Prime– This deck is great against decks that use Special Energies or those that use Pokemon with Poke-Power or Poke-Bodies, but what about Machamp SF? To stand up against Machamp SF you can play an Espeon Prime and be able to “Moonlight Fang” for a 2HKO. This is because Espeon Prime’s Poke-Body “Evolutionary Memories,” let Espeon use the attack of any Eeveelution as its own. Its 140 HP (with Espeon MD and Expert Belt) is also very hard to knock out by Machamp. If your opponent tries to switch to Machamp Prime, you can just use Umbreon to wall. If you include a Lucario GL in your build you can possibly score a OHKO with “Quick Blow.” If you don’t like Espeon Prime, instead you can use Uxie Lv. X, but you might need to include Double Colorless Energy.

Spiritomb– This card serves many purposes. First, if you play against Uxie donk you are basically auto-loss. This card will give you a fighting chance against it. Next, it helps you get a turn 2 Umbreon or Scizor even if you start first. It also provides a little trainer lock to confuse and mess up your opponent.

The List

Pokemon- 23

4- Eevee’s (either MD or RR)
3-Umbreon Prime
1-Espeon MD
1-Espeon Prime
4-Spiritomb Ar
3-Scyther SF
3-Scizor Prime
1-Scizor Md
2-Uxie
1-Unown Q

Energies-12

Special Dark-4
Special Metal-4
Basic Metal-2
Basic Dark-2

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums- 25

2- Conductive Quarry-Excellent for getting back Special Metals
2-Energy Exchanger- This deck is a hybrid of two decks, so you need consistency in energy
4- Pokemon Collector
3-Bebe’s Search
2-Pokemon Communication
2-Warp Point
2-Expert Belt
2-Judge
2-Seeker
3-Professor Oaks New Theory
1- Luxury Ball

So there is the list, it is a basic list that can be tweaked for your own tastes. But this is a decent list that should keep you going even in times of trainerlock.

Matchups

The two sayings I use most are, “Where’d my pants go?” and “A deck is only as good as its matchups”, so lets look at the matchups.

Luxchomp– Its always tough to play versatile deck. Luxchomp players seem to be able to adapt to anything. You better get your thinking caps on because this will be a very cerebral battle. To be able to win you need to get 3-4 Special Metal energy cards on Scizor Prime and then you can tank through the field. But a good SP player will be able to get rid of Scizor before it gets that many energies. This is a winnable matchup for you as long as you don’t get matched up against a great player. 40-60.

Machamp– Machamp has recently re- gained more popularity, and you need to be ready for it. You don’t run basic Pokemon who attack, so your okay there. This forces them to either attack with “Hurricane Punch”, or attack with Machamp Prime. Use Espeon Prime and Espeon to make it tough for them. The toughest part of this matchup is getting an umbreon and espeon on the bench, and an Espeon Prime active. Once you do this, just 2 knockouts should seal the game for you. A very winnable matchup, 70-30.

Gyarados– Easy matchup to talk about. Unless your opponent is stupid and puts a Special Energy on Gyarados then you are auto-loss. 10-90.

Trainerlock– This is an interesting matchup. You have their weakness, and it is very hard for them to attack you. But, with Gengar Prime little actual attacking needs to be done. Your opponent will try to put things in the Lost Zone. Use Special Darkness Energies to try to OHKO a Gengar Prime, if you can do it about 2-3 times you should be able to win. 90-10

Uxiedonk– If you get an early double spiritomb you win, if you get behind on prizes or donked early, you lose. 30-70

It isn’t a great deck, but is really fun. As you can see it has some good matchups. It can run through trainerlock and Machamp, but SP matchup is tough and Gyarados is Autoloss. It might not be worthy of regionals, but it still is something you should build to test against. One of the problems of this deck is that consistency suffers. Since it is a mix of Scizor and Umbreon you sometimes want to setup Umbreon but only have stuff for Scizor. People will always run Umbreon and Scizor because they are both popular Pokemon, so you better be ready for them.

Deck Discussion Uncategorized

The Many Faces of Gengar Prime

Pikkdogs February 23, 2011 1 Comment

Are you guys getting tired of hearing about Gengar Prime? Well I am getting tired or writing about it. But I haven’t shared any kind of lists or anything like that, so I thought I would write this one last article.

I hate to repeat myself, but I probably should explain Lostgar a little. It is a deck that uses Gengar Prime and Lost World to win the game by getting 6 of your opponent’s Pokemon in the Lost Zone. This is mostly done by using Gengar Prime’s “Hurl Into Darkness” attack, which lets you put as many Pokemon that your opponent has in his/her hand to his/her Lost Zone up to the amount of energy on Gengar Prime.

Gengar Prime is a card that can be played in many ways. One way is to play it as a speed deck, another is to play an Anti-Trainerlock Straight Gengar version, a third way to play it is with Cursegar, and a fourth way is to play it with Trainerlock. Each version of this deck has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Speedlostgar is the fastest version and has the best chance at being a dominant deck. It works to get a T1 Gengar Prime. There is no getting around the fact that this build is fast and consistent, but unfortunately it is auto-loss to Trainerlock. If you want to play Lostgar and still beat Trainerlock, one way is to play a build I call Straightlostgar.

This version runs a lot of supporters instead of trainers and tries to win a slower game but without sacrificing consistency. This version could still get a T1 Gengar Prime, and depending on the list could be using Mew Prime to “Hurl Into Darkness” by Turn 2. Mew Prime is an easy way to use “Hurl Into Darkness” without having to get out the slow Stage 2 Pokemon. This build can also run a 1-1 Palkia G Lv. X tech. This tech can put more Pokemon into the Lost Zone thanks to the “Lost Cyclone” Poke-body. Another way to play this deck is to use last years Cursegar deck as a blueprint.

This build uses the Gengar from Arceus that has the “Curse” Poke-Power. It’s “Shadow Skip” attack does 60 damage for PPC, and you can switch Gengar with one of your benched Pokemon. This build relies getting a The last way to play this deck is to merge Lostgar with Trainerlock (the Vilegar version). If you are able to get a knockout with “Shadow Skip” you can switch Gengar with Gengar Prime and thanks to his “Catastrophe” Poke-Body the Pokemon you just knocked out will go straight to the Lost Zone. You can do this as well as “Hurl Into Darkness” to get the six Pokemon in the Lost Zone that you need.

In Trainerlock you are already running a Gengar line, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to add in a Gengar Prime and a Lost World. This version relies on locking trainers to disrupt the opponent and either attack with Gengar Prime or Gengar SF to defeat the particular deck you are facing. You can either win on prizes or win by using Lost World. This build is nice because you will be able to disrupt your opponent significantly.

I mentioned talking about lists. I haven’t tested a lot of these lists, but I will give you a skeleton Lostgar list and then give you a list of other cards to fill in the deck for each type of Lostgar build.

Skeleton Build

Pokemon-15

4-Gastly Sf- Nice because of the “Pitch Dark Attack” that can stop speed decks by locking trainers for one turn
3-Haunter TM- free retreat is nice, but you can use other Haunters if you like.
2- Gengar Prime
2-Uxie
1-Spiritomb Tm- This card has a “Spooky Whirlpool” Poke-Power that will make your opponent shuffle his/her hand in to his/her deck and draw 6 cards. It’s like a Poke-Power version of Imposter Professor Oak, but with 6 cards instead of 7. This is used because if your opponent is trying to keep the Pokemon in their deck they will most likely draw 1 out of 6.
1-Mr. Mime Cl- For it’s “Expose” Poke-Power. If your opponent doesn’t have a Pokemon in hand you can attack with “Cursed Droplets instead.

T/S/S-19

1-Palmers Contribution
4-Pokemon Collector
2-Bebe’s Search
3-Twins (you get to grab any 2 cards you want with this card, and since you most likely won’t be taking many prizes you can use this card a lot)
4-Seeker (a surefire way for you to hit a Pokemon with “Hurl Into Darkness.)
3- Professor Oak’s New Theory.
2-Lost World

Energy-7

7- Psychic

Additional Cards

Well that’s 41 cards. So you still got 19 left to work with. Here is how each build might use those 19 Spots. The numbers listed below are in addition to the ones in the list.

SpeedLostGar

2-Gengar Prime
2- Broken Time Space
3-Pokedex Handy 910’s
4-Pokedrawer +
2-Rare Candies
1-Pokemon Communication
1-Luxury Ball

StraightLostgar

2-Gengar Prime
1 Palkia G
1 Palkia G Lv.X
4- Mew Prime
1-Luxury Ball
2-Pokemon Communication
2-Warp Energy
3-Psychic Energies
1- Lost World
2-Rare Candies

CurseLostgar

2- Curse Gengar Ar
1-Twins
2-Pokemon Communication
3-Rare Candies
3-Broken Time Space
4- Psychic Energies
3- Spiritomb Ar
1-Luxury Ball

Trainerlock LostGar

3-Spiritomb Ar
1- Gengar Sf
1-Gengar Prime
2- Unown Q
1- Uxie Lv.X
2-2-2-Vileplume Ud
2- Bebe’s Search
3-Psychic Energies

So there are some basic lists that you can start testing. A lot of these lists I haven’t tested yet, so don’t just copy this list and head off to States, its just a jumping off point. Also, depending on the list you choose you will have to adjust the skeleton build a little. For example, you will proabably want to adjust the skeleton list to fit in 3 BTS if you are running the Speed build. Or, perhaps you only want to run 1 Prime in the trainerlock build and you want the Level X instead. You also might be able to drop a Collector or a Seeker here and there, for a card like V.S. Seeker or other cards that will help your build with consistency.

Deck Discussion

Cyrus’s Lost World- Absol G and Palkia G.

Pikkdogs February 6, 2011 4 Comments

Hey all members of Omar-Nation, this is Pikkdogs here with a deck analysis. This article is about a lost world deck. Not to be confused about one of my favorite novels,”The Lost World”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it. Its about Dinosaurs, poisoned arrows, and Hot Air Balloons, what could be better than that? But anyway, this article is about the card, not the novel.

Like most people out there, I had long been interested by Lost World, and was thinking of ways to use the card. Most people were thinking of using Gengar Prime, but without Claydol, Gengar decks aren’t as consistent as they should be. Since they are also slower, it is very easy to play around Gengar. So I looked for other ways to play Lost World.

I remembered a match that I played at 2009 Fall Battle Roads against a person from Ohio. He was using a speed version of the Cyrus Engine, and Absol G to place a lot of cards in the lost zone. I ended up winning that game, but I always remembered that unique deck. So when I saw Lost World, I thought it was the right time to copy that guys idea and make a deck out of it.

So thats how I came up with Cyrus’s Lost World. The purpose of this deck is to get 6 Pokemon in the lost zone as fast as possible. This is achieved by using Palkia G and Absol G. Palkia will mostly be around to limit the opponent’s bench and clear room on your own, though it can help to put their opponent in the Lost Zone. Of course, Palkia G has a “Lost Cyclone” Poke-Power that lets each player choose three benched Pokemon, and the rest go to the Lost Zone. Absol G will be the main Pokemon that puts others in the Lost Zone. He has a Poke-Power “Darkness Send”, that lets you send up to the top 3 cards of your opponent’s deck into the lost zone, based on coin flips.
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Deck Discussion

Donking for Dummies Part 2: Radu’s Guide To Cultivating Hatred

TheRadu January 18, 2011 17 Comments

This is the second part of a 2-part series. You can find part one here.
“Donking for Dummies Part 1: Radu’s Obnoxious Uxie Deck”

Time Management
I mentioned in the previous article that you will take extremely long turns. I said you will do it without stalling or slow play. I will explain how one goes about achieving this in this section. If I were to play a “fun” game against this deck the Uxie Donk players turn would probably be about 10-12 minutes, if I were to play against it in a tournament the average players turn would be somewhere between the 15-18 minute range. This is not ideal, not because you want to win on time, but because you are likely not taking all the time to think and plan that’s would be best. People just play this deck too fast. You have right to shuffle for more than two seconds, you have right to take a little bit of time to think between plays. What you will be doing may seem unreasonable given that you are denying your opponent a turn. It, however, is not. Honestly, you will be taking less time in between plays than a Luxchomp player would, your searches will be faster. You will check the discard pile three or four times during a game. That’s in 30 minutes of playing time. Most decks check the discard that many times in just 15 minutes of play. But your opponent will not like this regardless of any logic that is used. But keeping your opponent happy isn’t your job. Now, let’s look at some of the factors which lead to people not using enough of their time and losing game they should have won on time.
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Deck Discussion

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

TheRadu January 14, 2011 19 Comments

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

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

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

Uxie Donk Decklist: Win Against Anyone Playing Any Deck

Ed January 10, 2011 13 Comments

You go second, you win. You go first, they don’t have Pokemon Collector, you win. They go first with one Pokemon and use Call Energy to get 2 basics on their bench, you still win. Heck, they could even start with an active Dialga G (resistance to your attacker), and you can win.

If they start Spiritomb, you lose!

I don’t care who your opponent is or what deck they’re running, these are all valid scenarios when playing Uxie Donk. Yeah, they’re not absolutes as I have presented them, but it’s kinda true. If your opponent isn’t starting with Spiritomb, you have a chance to win any match on your first trainer turn.

Great players won’t usually play Uxie Donk based on it’s ability to just flat-out lose (against Spiritomb or just a bad draw). On the other hand, players have taken it to tourneys and got X-0 wins. It all depends on the luck of the draw (your first 7 cards, your opponent’s deck, and who goes first).
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City Championships Deck Discussion

SPread, an attempt at going rogue

Cheffords January 1, 2011 11 Comments

Now that my City Championships are done I thought it would be good to share my experience and my deck. First, a little background to set the stage; I played a Shuppet deck all season last year. When the Rotation came I set aside Shuppet because it lost too much to stay viable (not to mention the increase in trainer locking decks.) Having done so left me without a deck of choice, or even a deck I was familiar with. Ed had been sharing the TOSSED deck list with me and since I was at least familiar with half of the deck I went with it for Battle Roads. I modified it to have a Blaziken FB Lv.X tech line and called it HOT TOSSED. After 3 tournaments and losing about 2/3 of my matches I decided TOSSED just wasn’t for me.

One thing I came to like during the Battle Roads was the concept of an SP toolbox style deck. I also had a distinct desire to avoid any and all of the current tier 1 decks; I felt like they had all been around for so long that they offered little new in regards to tactics and strategy. I was still looking for a deck of my own to play.

I had always liked Gallade 4 Lv.X but never could get it to work very well as the main attacker of a deck. It occurred to me that it might do better as a tech instead and so I looked for a partner that could benefit from its spreading power to be the basis of my new deck.

Here is what I eventually came to, this is the exact list I played at my third City Championship in Rochester Hills, MI. It is an evolved version of what I started with 3 weeks prior. I played this deck at all 3 City Championships this year.
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Deck Discussion

Fun with Magnets: A Magnezone Deck.

Pikkdogs December 27, 2010 1 Comment

A big hello to all members of Omar-Nation. This is Pikkdogs here with a deck analysis of a Magnezone deck that I made up.

Before I get into the article, I have a couple of announcements to make. First, Ed and I at teamomar.com would like to wish you and yours a great Christmas, even though it is a couple days late. I hope you guys could meet with family and friends and have a good time. Second, our first ever contest is currently running. So far the entries have been scant, so if you enter the contest before the deadline, you should have a decent chance at getting a prize. Okay announcements are over, time to get to the article.

I must issue a disclaimer first, this deck isn’t very good and won’t win a tournament but can be comeptitive against almost any deck. If you don’t care if you win a tournament or not and just want to win a couple games, this deck could be for you.

I got this idea the day before the first City Championship that I went to this year. I had been struggling all week to perfect my Gyarados deck, and wasn’t having any success. So I decided I should either fix the deck quick, or think of something else to play. After doing some thinking, I took a jog. On that jog I thought of ways to play a shuppet donk deck, and how to put together a Magnezone deck. When I came back from the run I was sure that I came back with a consistent Magnezone list, all I had to do was put it together.
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Card Discussion Deck Discussion Deck Workshop Pokemon Education Practice

MRDIF: Gyarados

Bittyboy72 November 29, 2010 18 Comments

What is MRDIF?

I am sure you all have heard of the new popular acronym (at least new to me) BDIF, witch stands for Best Deck In Format. Well I decided instead of writing an article about the Best Deck in Format I would write an article about the Most Ridiculous Deck in Format, or MRDIF. For this article I chose to write about Gyarados as the MRDIF because I feel it really is!

How Do You Play Gyarados?

I realize that a lot of people already know how to play Gyarados but for those of you who don’t I’ll go over it briefly for you. Basically the goal of Gyarados is to discard Magikarp using cards like Regice and Junk Arm. You may ask “why would I want to get rid of your basics?” Well that’s because Gyarados’s “Tail Revenge” attack does 30 damage times the number of Magikarp in your discard pile for no energy. There are some cases where you do need to use cards like Pokemon Rescue to recover a Magikarp because Gyarados got KOed but you mostly rely on Rescue Energy now to recover Gyarados.

Ways to Play Gyarados!

In all of my experimenting with Gyarados I have found a couple of effect ways to play Gyarados and it is actually quiet versatile now. I have found that the best ways to play it are with Warp Energy and Seeker, just plain Gyarados with Sableye (similar to the original), playing it with heavy Warp Point and Cyclone Energy lines, and also with Giratina and Mesprit.

Warp Energy With Seeker:

I have tested Warp Energy and Seeker the most and I love it! Even though I love it so much it lacks something! I played it at a local City’s and I didn’t do so well (mostly because I played 3 Vilegars) but I still love the deck. Just in case you don’t know how Warp-Seeker Works I’ll explain it a bit it’s pretty self explanatory. The idea is to tank with Gyarados and then heal it instead of recovering Gyarados like usual. You heal by attaching a Warp Energy to Gyarados to force it to the bench then you bring up something with free retreat. After you get a damaged Gyarados to the bench you use Seeker and pick Gyarados back up and lay it back down if you have Broken-Time Space (witch you should) and then retreat your active and continue to attack with Gyarados. This version usually runs less Rescue Energy because of the healing factor but a couple Rescue Energy isn’t a bad idea.

Original:

I have found a lot of people just run Gyarados like it was originally. By “run it originally” I mean like how the original Gyarados ran where you used Sableye to do a bit of discarding. As you probably know there is no more Felicity’s Drawing so in place of it they use Volker’s Philosophy to discard one then draw cards till there 6 in their hand. Although I don’t really like this method and think that the other ways are more effective, this is still a good way to play the deck. Besides most of the Gyarados lists I looked at played 2 Volker’s Philosophy anyway. This version usually plays a couple Warp Points and has plenty more room for techs if you would rather have a more teched out list.

Heavy Warp Point and Cyclone Energy Lines:

Another version I like a lot is Gyarados with heavy lines of Warp Point and Cyclone Energy. This is a very effective deck and a great way to play Gyarados. The idea of this is that Gyarados is to take a prize a turn. If there is a tank in your way you Warp Point of Cyclone for something you can easily kill to take a prize. Most of the time this deck runs extremely heavy Crobat G lines and Poke Turns to ensure a KO (or possibly a KOs turn 1) or even a quick DONK. This version of Gyarados tends to do very well and you should definitely watch out for it.

Mesprit and Giratina:

Last but not least we have Gyarados with Mesprit (LA) and Giratina(PL). I really have no idea how to recommend lines for this because a guy at one of our City’s won with this deck and I have no idea what his lines are. If I had to guess I would say 1 Giratina and 2 Mesprits. Please remember that is just my guess but I haven’t got to do any testing with it but I plan to. Sorry about not being able to explain this version but at least you get an idea! Another more common version of Gyarados is Gyarados with just Mesprit (as in no Giratina) and I believe these list tend to do pretty well in tournaments and I believe there was one of these Gyarados at worlds last year.

Deck Staples:

Gyarados has a lot of staples as well. In case you don’t know what a staple is, it is a card that is essential to a deck. Here is a list of some staples:

-4 Magicarp (SF)

-3 Gyarados (SF)

-2-4 Sableye (SF I say 2 depending if you run another starter or not)

-1 Unown Q (MD)

-1 Regice (LA)

-2 Uxie (LA)

-1 Azelf (LA)

– 3 Pokemon Collector (HS)

-1 Bebe’s Search (RR)

-2 Pokemon Rescue (PL)

-2 Rescue Energy (Triumphant)

-3 Broken-Time Space (PL)

-1 Combee (SF)

*NOTE: Please remember that this is a list of what every Gyarados list should run, however the number of each card you play may change depending on what version of Gyarados you choose to play.

Possible Techs:

As I said before Gyarados is a very versatile deck now and can be played many different ways. I went over each version and a couple of the techs above so I may repeat a few below more in deaf.

Seeker:

Seeker is a great tech for Gyarados weather you run Warp Energy or not (although I would highly recommend you do) because it improves your matchup against decks that trainer lock because you can reuse cards like Uxie. Seeker is also a great card now because Gyarados has a huge DONK potential and Seeker could help ensure your DONK by making them pick up their last bench and being stuck with a lone active. Seeker is definitely a tech you should consider!

Dialga G LV.X:

Dialga G LV.X is a card that I don’t tech in a lot but everybody tells me it’s great in Gyarados so I thought I should still say something about it. Basically the idea of Dialga is to break yourself out of sticky situations like a Vilegar match where you are trainer locked because Dialgs’s”Time Crystal” Poke-body blocks Spiritomb’s “Keystone Seal” Poke-body as well as Vileplume’s “Allergy Flower” Poke-body, witch both prevent you from playing trainer cards. Please note that Dialga doesn’t really work well without Warp Energy in the deck as well. You could get away with playing Warp Point in this case though because you are blocking their Poke-body that prevents you from playing trainers. Overall Dialga is a decent tech I just thinks it’s more of a personal thing.

Mesprit:

Mesprit is a very good card to play in Gyarados because of it’s “Psychic Bind” Poke-Power witch prevents your opponent from using any Poke-powers during their next turn. I did talk about Mesprit above because it is a good card but I would be extremely worried about if you have the bench room to actually play Mesprit on the bench. If you run Mesprit I would definitely run Seeker to help keep your bench from clogging. This is a really great tech for Gyarados though, and in many other decks as well!

Warp Energy:

Warp energy is an extremely good card in Gyarados. This can be used in a lot of situations such as a quick retreat or getting rid of a Regice you starting with. It is also great for if Regice or a high retreat Pokemon gets drug active. Like I said a couple times now if you play Seeker you should probably run 2 or 3 Warp Energy and if you run Warp Energy you should run Seeker as well!

Smeargle:

This is a tech that a lot of people find odd in Gyarados. There are 3 main uses for Smeargle in Gyarados mainly because he is a great starter. Another reason Smeargle is good is it gives you some recover late game. You bring Smeargle active and use 2 Supporters a turn to hopefully recover Gyarados. The last reason Smeargle is good is because if you play Warp Energy you can attach a Warp Energy to Gyarados and bring Smeargle active the play Seeker heal and possible use another Supporter or if your opponent uses Seeker in there deck you could use Smeargles “Portrait” Poke-power to use their Seeker. Also if you choose to run Smeargle you should consider playing a second Unown Q.

There are a lot more techs I could go on about but these are the main techs you should consider. On this short list I tried to name ones that would fit into all of the different versions but things like Mesprit won’t fit into every version of Gyarados. Don’t be afraid to try out your own tech ideas either, or tech ideas I haven’t listed.

Conclusion:

Gyarados is definitely the Most Ridiculous Deck in Format (MRDIF) by a long shot! I believe Gyarados is mainly so ridiculous because it can be played in so many different ways, shapes, and forms and is definitely a competitive deck. I have also found that Gyarados has very few bad matchups, even Luxchomp is a decent matchup depending on what version of Gyarados you run. Well I hope everyone enjoyed ready my long article about Gyarados and I would love to read any comments and answer any questions you have so be sure to leave a comment bellow!

-Bitty-

Deck Discussion

“Steeling” the Show with Steelix Prime

Pikkdogs November 22, 2010 17 Comments

Hi Everyone, this is Pikkdogs here. I hope your preparations for Cities are going well. I hope today you might learn something about possibly a deck to play, or a deck that you might play against. City tournaments start in just a few days, so get ready for your final preparations.

Another housekeeping issue is that we at Team Omar wish you guys a Happy Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving, it has a lot of turkey, stuffing, gravy, and pie; so what could be wrong with that? So I hope you guys are able to go home and meet with your family to have a great Thanksgiving.

A final housekeeping issue is that next month will mark our first anniversary. Ed and I are tossing ideas around to celebrate this mark. We are trying to think of a good contest idea, but are having a little trouble. If anyone has an idea of how to best celebrate our first year of operation, please leave the idea in the comment box.

Okay, now onto the article. At the end of the battle road season I wrote an article that reported my tournament results. I played two decks for the BR season, Trainerlock and Steelix. I posted my Trainerlock decklist, and wrote that I would post my Steelix decklist soon. Well, I forgot to do that. So now that Cities are coming up, now seems to be the perfect time to write the article. It should help people prepare to face the deck, and it should help people who are still looking for a deck to play.
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SPread, an attempt at going rogue

Fun with Magnets: A Magnezone Deck.

MRDIF: Gyarados

“Steeling” the Show with Steelix Prime

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