The New Machamp- Does it work?
Pikkdogs A big Hello to all members of Omar-Nation. This is Pikkdogs here. I noticed the website has had a lack of content (Ed must be pulling a Rip Van Winkle or something), so to pick up the slack I will talk to you guys about Machamp Prime and what changes in the format will come about. 
As you know, Machamp Prime came out in the new Triumphant set. It is a decent card, it lets you do 60 damage for FCC and 100+ damage for FFCC, and it has a decent Poke-Power that lets you move energy cards to it. But, Machamp SF is still in the format and has a large history in the format. Machamp SF is known as an excellent card, because it allows you to knock out any basic Pokemon, for just 1 energy.
Together these cards can make a good deck. But, how should we go on about building a deck. Most Machamp decks play like a speed deck, trying to get a Machamp SF out as fast as possible. If you can get Machamp SF up on turn 1, and start taking prize cards right away, you will take a large lead that is hard to give bacl. To get a fast Machamp, most lists use a lot of trainers. Other people have teched their lists out to give the deck an advantage against specific decks. To analyze them, I’ll take a look at specific techs.
1. Donphan Prime. People have talked about Donphan Prime as a great combo with Machamp Prime. This is because Donphan can damage your own bench, and Machamp Prime takes advantage of a bench with damage encounters, with it’s second attack.
The problem with Donphan is that it takes deck space without really doing much. There really isn’t much difference between 130 and 100 damage on a consistent basis, so the damaged bench doesn’t help you that much. And Machamp SF is already a great early attacker, so you don’t really need Donphan to attack. The only advantage he gives you is the fact that he doesn’t need rare candy to evolve, and is not weak to Psychic.
Recommendation: Don’t Tech, Machamp SF is better then Donphan Prime early game, so why put in Donphan? 
2. Dusknoir Sf (Shadow Command). Dusknoir gives you two big advantages, one is that it gives you a draw engine, another is that Dusknoir can hit other Machamp decks for weakness. Props to Scott Faust for showing me this tech, he didn’t really show it to me, but I think it was his idea. Most decks already run 4 rare candies, so adding in a 1-0-1 tech of Dusknoir isn’t going to slow the deck down that much. Also, having a draw engine is very valuable to any deck.
The downside of Dusknoir is that you would also have to run 2 psychic energies, and it can be hard to find those energies when you really need them.
Reccomendation: Tech, if you want to. I don’t think it can be that consistent, but its not a bad play.
Gengar Sf: This is the old GengChamp deck. It can also hit another Machamp for weakness, and has a lot of extra goodies, like Fainting Spell and Shadow Room. It also can attack for just 1 energy, this makes it more flexible then Dusknoir.
The downside of this tech is that it isn’t 2009 anymore. The format has changed since GengChamp ruled the format a year or so ago. The synergy that they once had, is now lost.
Reccomendation: Don’t tech.
There are more techs out there, the limits are endless. Those were just three of the more popular techs.
Now that we got that out of the way, lets take a look at a list that I drew up. Its more of a straight-machamp type deck that relies on speed
Pokemon-20
- 4-Machop
- 3-Machoke
- 2-Machamp Sf
- 2-Machamp Prime
- 3-Unown R
- 1-Unown Q
- 1-Azelf
- 3-Uxie La
Trainers-29
- 4-Rare Candy
- 2-Broken Time Space
- 4-Poke-Drawer +
- 4-Pokedex
- 3- Judge
- 2-Pokemon Communication
- 3-Pokemon Collector
- 3-Bebe’s Search
- 2-Warp Point
- 1-Pokemon Rescue
- 1- Palmers Contribution
Energy: 11
- Fighting-7
- DCE-3
- Warp-1
This deck is pretty basic and vanilla. It has unown Rs and trainers to get Machamps fast, and it has Judge’s to disrupt the opponent. Props to Austino for the basic build of this deck, he listed his straight Machamp deck, and I tweaked it to make it work with Machamp Prime.
So does it work? Well yes and no. The deck does work, it gets a Machamp fast and lets you switch to Machamp Prime when needed. The problem is that it faces some bad matchups with some of the best decks out there. It does well against SP decks, but fails against other decks. The Gyaraodos matchup is iffy, Gyarados just has too much HP and can deal too much damage for Machamp. Machamp just can’t deal consistent enough damage against Gyarados. The Gengar VileTomb matchup is fairly problematic because your deck relies on trainers.
So it has a lot of disadvantages, but it is still a good deck. It can stop SP decks and most other decks. If Trainerlock isn’t huge in your metagame, this deck could be a good play for the upcoming City Championships.
So what are your favorite Machamp builds? Let us know in the comment box.