Hi there, Onehitko readers, my name is Ethan Cooke and I will be writing a weekly deck analysis for this website every Wednesday. Before I begin this week’s analysis, I would like to introduce myself as far as the world of Pokemon is concerned. I’ve been a fan of everything related to Pokemon ever since I can remember, and my first premier TCG event I attended was the State Championships in Texas as a Master during the HS-NXD format with my girlfriend, Samantha.
We had no idea what the format was or even what was legal in the first place, and, consequently, our decks dated back to DP Base set. Luckily, we found a professor that goes by “Master Professor Birch” who was nice enough to give us each theme decks and sign our decklists thus eliminating the need to wait in line. We were so new to the world of Pokemon that we assumed it was played in Single Elimination as opposed to Swiss, and we went home after losing the first round.
Fast forward a bit to the BLW-BCR format, and I know a lot more about playing the TCG than I did at my first event; I got 2nd place at Tyler City Championships with my rogue deck, Registeel EX/Blissey DEX. Fast forward to BLW-PLF, and I took home a 2nd place victory cup with Rayeels. Here are a few other things you may want to know. I’ve never had an official local league so I do a great deal of testing online. I tend to never play the same deck at 2 different premier events, and I recently passed my Professor Exam (the week after my 18th birthday, actually).
And finally on to the analysis!
The deck I have chosen to analyze today is a deck that has been around for quite some time now and that deck is Darkrai EX/Hydreigon. I feel like this deck is potentially one of the funnest decks around and can be more competitive than some would think. The goal of the deck is a simple one: use dark trance to alternate between attackers, heal attackers with the aid of Max Potion and even give all Pokemon free retreat with the aid of Darkrai’s Dark Cloak. It’s pretty easy to see how this deck can succeed in the right metagame but also easy to see how Max Potion can be a dead draw in some matchups including Blastoise, TDK, and even Virizion/ Genesect.
This is what I feel to be a pretty solid list for this deck: Read More
Usually I’m pretty pleased with doing well at a tournament and leaving feeling proud even when I haven’t won anything. In the past, I’ve seen the good in times like when I got 17th at Regionals and was able to drive home at a reasonable hour instead of playing top-16. When I dropped my first States, I still felt good about my performance even though I could have played in the top-8 (though I look back on it and think I probably wouldn’t make the same choice if it happened again, but it’s not a regret). I’m not the type of guy that gets pissed when I lose, but I’m also not the type of guy that jumps up and down when I win. However, I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I’ve done so well in a tournament and then walked away feeling so empty handed as I did this past weekend at Battle Roads. We’ll get to that a bit later.
First, I’ll give you a bit of backstory. When BW-on was announced, I wasn’t sure what I would do. I am now building decks for 3 people from my collection, because my second daughter, Petra, has started playing. When I played in Nationals 2011, I used Emboar. I had played and liked it (kinda), so it was easy for me to build. I also had a Zoroark deck from last format, and it was something that could be easily rebuilt for BW-on. That was 2 decks, so I needed something for another junior. I decided to throw together an autopilot style all EX deck. The idea was to just set stuff up without having to evolve, keep damage off, and keep the opponent down (with energy removal thanks to Kyurem EX and hammers). Part of my choice here was that I didn’t care a ton about my BR results, so I refused to buy any Darkrai EX or Mewtwo EX knowing that they’d come out in tins soon. Read More
I had thought about bringing the Groudon EX tank deck that I wrote up in my last OHKO article, but in testing, it always seemed as though QuadGroudon couldn’t keep up with opponents who played a lot of Tornadus or Mewtwo. Even though the deck was designed to heal away damage with cards like Potion and Moomoo Milk, the amount of damage that could be healed with those cards was just too low. Mewtwo piled on damage too fast, and Tornadus’ resistance to Fighting types was too just difficult to surmount. EX tanking, I thought, would work much better if multiple different EX’s could be used in the same deck to counteract resistance, could be switched at will, and could be healed more quickly and completely than I wrote about just two weeks ago.
1 Klinklang EPO. This deck has real trouble with energy denial. If the opponent plays a couple Lost Remover, well, it might survive that. But if the opponent plays Crushing Hammer as well, and sends some special energy cards to the discard, the deck gets into trouble fast. Klinklang EPO’s first attack, Charge Beam, does 30 damage and rescues an energy card–any energy card–from the discard pile onto Klinklang, back into play. But I only used this guy once in the tournament, and he could easily be replaced with a third Klinklang BLW.
10 Energy: 3 Prism, 4 Rainbow, 3 Special Metal. As I mentioned, Prism and Rainbow count as both Dark and Metal, but only Rainbow can be Shift Geared onto and off of Klinklang. Meanwhile, Special Metal is key to raising the HP of Klinklang above what your opponent can deliver. Zoroark DEX usually hits for 140-150 (with Dark Claw and Special Dark Energy attached), and ZekEels players can easily double-PlusPower a Zekrom’s Bolt Strike for 140. Parking 1-2 Special Metals on Klingklang can foil this strategy.
1 Juniper, 1 Twins. I don’t know. Other than Professor Oak’s New Theory and N, what other Supporters does this deck want to run? I included a copy of Twins because the deck is frequently behind in prizes, but Twins only nets you two cards, so I actually don’t even like it that much when I am behind. And there’s very little in this deck that I like to discard, but Juniper is powerful, so I included one.
My Battle Roads Report
As it turns out, there was some drama to the Dreamers tournament before it even started. On Sunday only, the MN Department of Transportation closed down Interstate 94–the major east-west freeway through the Twin Cities–but didn’t post a lot of information or detour signs about the closure. I-94 is one of very few access routes to St. Louis Park, mainly because of a chain of lakes to its east that cut off most surface streets. That meant that folks coming to the tournament from the east were dumped into downtown Minneapolis, with no labeled detour, along with thousands of other commuters in the same boat. Paul and I had left very early, and I knew how to detour the closure, so we made it to the tournament just at the end of registration. But ~10 others, including players driving from Wisconsin (such as NA top-50 players Mike Lesky and Andy Reynolds) were stuck longer, arrived to the tournament after the beginning of round 1, and received first-round losses. This meant that there were really only 21 Masters competing for top 4.
Round 1: Jason Crawford (Kyurem/Kyurem EX/Kyogre EX/Feraligatr Prime)
Vileplume prevents Klinklang EX from using Max Potion or Rare Candy, and I was pretty concerned about that. I became even more concerned when I did my first Heavy Ball search, and discovered that my single Stage 1 Klang was prized. Luckily, I managed to squeeze in a Rare Candy to Klinklang BLW before Mike established the lock. In testing, Klinklang EX had done terribly against status condition lock decks like Vileplume/Lilligant and Vileplume/Accelgor, because there was no way to retreat a damaged EX or heal it. I had considered including a Steelix line to deal with this (because Steelix Prime is immune to status conditions), but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to search for Steelix under lock, and Steelix falls pretty readily to Mewtwo, so I abandoned the idea. Fortunately, against Mike’s Donphan as the only threat, I simply cycled though active EX’s, retreating damaged ones to sit on the bench, while I KO’d his attackers. 3-0
Round 4: Ed Mandy (QuadTerrakion)
I had e-mailed Ed my list for advice a couple of days before the tournament, and I knew that Ed was running a very similar list to the one he had used at MN States, because he was once again borrowing many of the cards from me. So I think we both knew exactly how bad this match was going to go for me. Ed’s deck ran 3 copies of Lost Remover and 4 Junk Arm, meaning that he was going to be able to send 7 of my 10 special energy cards to the Lost Zone over the course of the game. My only chance was to start fast, getting energy on the board before he could remove it. But Ed was able to play a Lost Remover turn 1, and then Junk Arm for it multiple times over subsequent turns. By turn 6, I had just 2 energy cards on the board, and had managed to KO one Terrakion, while he had taken 2 prizes and was about to take a third. At that moment, Ed’s daughter Ava came over to say that she had finished in Juniors. Ed looked over at his other 5-year-old daughter Petra–who wasn’t playing, and had behaved so patiently throughout the tournament, but was clearly getting bored. Ed debated out loud, and then decided, that he would scoop and drop. Believe it or not, depending on whether Ed had any Junk Arms or Lost Removers prized, I still think I had a tiny shot at winning, but things were awfully grim for me. Ed’s drop gave me a win that the deck and I probably didn’t deserve. 4-0
This was a pretty quick loss for me, mainly because I didn’t pay attention to Zoroark DEX’s second attack, Dark Rush, that does 20 damage for each damage counter on Zoroark. That meant that Shift Gearing all of my board’s energy onto my only Klinklang, putting it active, and then Gear Grinding for 80, was probably not my smartest move. After Soari announced his 160-damage KO on Klinklang, I scooped. Soari set up great, so I’m not sure I could have won this one anyway, but my dramatic misplay really didn’t give me much of a chance. 4-1
Mike had clearly thought a lot about how to approach our Top 2 matchup, and had decided on early-game Catcher-KO’s with Tornadus EX, followed by a late game sweep with Mewtwo. In my pre-tourney testing, this was exactly the right strategy for CMT against Klinklang EX. But I had included Mewtwo in my deck to counter precisely this scenario, and after Mike’s deck setup stalled through an early energy drought, I figured I had a chance. My setup was also a bit slow, but soon enough we were both rolling, taking prizes, and waiting for the moment that Mike would load up and unleash Mewtwo. He took out my Darkrai, denying me free retreat because my other one was prized. And then he used Shaymin to Celebration Wind 7 energy to Mewtwo with 3 prizes to go, to KO an Eviolited Groudon with 3 energy attached. This put him in the lead 1-2. In my next turn, my best route to winning the game was to KO his active Mewtwo.
And I could have. I had Mewtwo in my hand. But I didn’t. If you watch the video, you’ll notice that I missed many energy drops throughout the game, mostly with energy in hand. I just wasn’t paying close enough attention, and misplayed repeatedly. And so, when Michael KO’d my Groudon, I calculated that I didn’t have enough energy on the board to both pay a retreat cost and attack with Mewtwo. But as judge Mark Janssen pointed out to me at the end of the match, I actually did have enough energy on the board; Kyurem’s retreat cost is normally 3, but I failed to calculate in the effect of Mike’s Skyarrow Bridge. That one extra energy, plus a Gear-able one on the bench, would have been enough to fuel Mewtwo’s X-Ball and win me the game. But I didn’t see it. And so Mike–definitely the more skilled player in this match–took a 40-minute Game 1.
At this point, I was hungry, and tired, and I think it was affecting my play. Even worse, I looked over at my son Paul, who hadn’t really eaten anything for many hours, and he looked practically comatose. Paul won (6-0) in Juniors, but that had finished hours before, and the excitement of being at Dreamers had worn off for him. Knowing that I wouldn’t have a great chance at winning a Sudden Death match even if I took Game 2, I decided to scoop. I think Mike would have won anyway. And I’m glad Paul and I were able to get some dinner and get home in time for bed.
Final Words
Alex Solomonson at Battle Roads. Not really related to the article, but fashionable nonetheless!