Hello and
welcome back to The Deck Out!
Today’s blog is about my favorite trainer card – Max Potion – and how to make
it playable going rogue. This will be a 2 part article and the second article
will be in my next update. In this blog update I focus on how to build a
working Donphan deck around Max Potion.
Pokémon:
4x Phanpy(CL)
4x Donphan Prime
2x Manaphy
=10
Trainer:
3x Dual Ball
1x Pokegear 3.0.
2x Judge
4x Cheren
4x Sage’s Training
3x Professor Oak’s New Theory
1x Professor Elm’s Training Method
2x Pokémon Communication
3x Max Potion
4x Pokémon Catcher
4x Junk Arm
1x SSU
1x Energy Retrival
1x Lost Remover
1x Crushing Hammer
2x PlusPower
2x Defender
=39
Energy:
9x Fighting
2x Rescue Energy
=11
Strategy
This deck’s
strategy revolves around the combo Donphan/Max Potion. Donphan is a great
partner for Max Potion because it can hit hard with 1 energy and it isn’t
easily OHKOble. The deck idea is to get T2 Donphan every game and start
Catchering easy prizes and disturb your opponent’s set up with Earthquake. This
deck is all about speed so your main priority in every game should be getting
the T2 Donphan.
After getting T2 Donphan begins the tricky part. You have to Catcher just the
right things. I’ll get into match-ups later but let’s just say that you try to
destroy their deck’s main idea. There are trainers like Catcher, Crushing
Hammer, Lost Remover and Judge, which are helping to achieve this goal. While
attacking, you try to use Max Potion every time it seems like your Donphan is
about to get KOed. After you have run out of Max Potions/Junk Arms you can just
start attacking with Donphans because practically you have 6 of them in your
deck (4 Donphans and 2 Rescue Energies.
Card Choices
There is no such
things as “obvious” card choices in this deck. It’s very techable on the
trainer side and very simple on the Pokémon side. I will have to run card by
card this deck so you get the whole idea of what is this deck trying to achieve
and how.
Phanpy-Donphan
The only thing that needs explanation about this evolution line is Phanpy
because it should be obvious that I run 4-4 Donphan because it’s my only
attacker in the deck. The Call of Legends Phanpy fits this deck better because
I want an undamaged Donphan when starting to attack. The Poké-Body of
Phanpy(CL) helps me to get rid of the unnecessary bench damage from Earthquake
and that way I can evolve Phanpys into Donphan unharmed.
Manaphy
First I thought I wouldn’t be running any basic Pokémons but the Phanpys
but noticed soon enough that I would be mulliganing far too many times with
only 4 basics. Manaphy is a great starter because it attack with Colorless and
has a free retreat. I didn’t want to play Cleffa here because the chance of
opening with a lone Cleffa in this deck would be huge and they would be KOed
very soon with Earthquake. Manaphy has 60 HP so it isn’t that easily KOed by
Earthquake damage.
Straght Draw – Cheren – Sage’s Training
This deck needs straight draw because it pretty much wants everything from
the deck – energies, trainers, even Pokémons. Only 2 cards that may be
“meaningless” after the first turn are the 2 Manahpys. Cheren is the best
straight fraw card we have because it has no drawbacks. Draw 3 cards, it works.
I thought about Sage’s very much in this deck. This deck doesn’t want to
discard any cards from the deck but it can
discard cards because of Energy Retrieval and Junk Arm. Some trainers are
even better of in the discard pile than in your hand so after Shuffle &
Draw card you are able to get them with Junk Arms. I also thought of Juniper
first. But the problem with Juniper is that it’s just too hardcore discarding
in the beginning of the game if you have an ok hand but need just 1 card.
Sage’s is good when trying to find the one last needed card.
Shuffle & Draw – Judge – PONT
This deck has no bad cards so hand refresh is always welcome. PONT is there
to give you some Shuffle & Draw and since it’s the best Shuffle & Draw
card in this format it was an obvious choice (Copycat usually gets too few
cards). Judge is simply for disturbing your opponent’s set-up. This deck can
get a huge profit if your opponent draw passes in just one turn. This one turn
can be crucial in winning the game and because of the huge amount of draw cards
in this deck; Judge shouldn’t disturb your game that much.
Other draw cards – Communication – PETM – Dual Ball – Pokegear 3.0.
I have praised Pokegear before and will praise it even more. For this kind
of deck it’s more than perfect. This deck has many supporters so it won’t whiff
a supporter that often. This deck also plays Judge so you can recover with Junk
Arm if you happen to draw a supporterless hand from Judge. There is no reason
not to run at least 1 Pokegear in
this deck.
Dual Ball’s meaning is self-explanatory – it’s there to search for some
Phanpys. This deck doesn’t want to use Supporter for searching Basic Pokémon
because it needs to be fast. That’s why Dual Ball is the only real choice for
this deck.
Pokémon Communication seems weird here. Why I’m not running 4 of them as usual?
The reason for this is the low amount of Pokémon in this deck. If you ran 4
Communications in this deck, you would end up having Pokémon Communications in
your hand, without a Pokémon many times
during a game. This deck plays the Pokémons to the bench as soon as they hit
the hand so you won’t have time for Communicating Pokémons around. There are 2
Communications, however, because it’s such a good card. If you happen to have
it in your opening hand, you’re guaranteed to have T2 Donphan.
PETM is the last “draw card”. It seems weird to run PETMs in a deck running
only 1 stage1 but, in fact it’s very wise. PETM is like a Pokémon Communication
for this deck with the exception that you can use PETM if you don’t have
Pokémon in your hand. PETMs are needed for this deck to get 4-6 Donphans to the
play – you can’t rely on shuffle&draw and straight draw cards for that. Of
course PETM has its downsides because it’s a supporter but still it’s the best
you can do in this deck.
MAX POTION
The heart and soul of this deck and the whole article. Max Potion is one of
my favorite cards because it gives metagame some versatility and it gave me
some new ideas as soon as I saw it. The only problem with Max Potion is that,
it’s easily countered. Any trainer locking thing (Gothitelle and Vileplume)
destroys the deck’s whole idea but I decided not to care about it. In this
format is so much versatility that you must to live with bad match-ups. It’s
impossible to build a perfect deck.
Max Potion works well with cards that have huge HP and can hit with 1 energy.
As I said before, Donphan Prime is a perfect of a card like that.The best thing
about Donphan, however, is that its weakness is almost non-existent in the
present format. That and Donphan’s resistance makes it almost impossible to
OHKO at the moment.
This deck doesn’t play 4 Max Potions because you can’t be using Max Potion ALL
the time. You can give your opponent 5 prizes so you don’t have to use 1
Donphan all the time. Max Potions just help you to cope some more turns. You
also want an energy attachment to Phanpy so when you play down Phanpy and are
hitting with Earthquake, you can’t use Max Potion that turn. Since you have Max
Potion you must also be careful while playing Rescue Energies – don’t Max
Potion them away!
Junk Arm – Pokémon Catcher
Catcher is as important as Max Potion in this deck. In fact, the list has 4
of them so you may think, they’re even more vital for the strategy than the Max
Potions. I would say Max Potion and Catcher have an equal importance in this
deck. Your goal is to Catcher from T2 to T6, EVERY TURN if your opponent doesn’t bring a good to kill Pokémon as
an active and saves you from Catchering.
If we think about Catcher and Max Potion, this deck looks like a lot of
Luxchomp. Its goal is to take cheap prizes early game and somehow manage the
late game while doing bench damage to itself and healing in the between. I
didn’t notice it before but it’s true – I just don’t know if it’s a good thing…
Junk Arm is a natural add to this deck. This deck lives and dies with
Trainers so you want to use trainer as much as possible every turn. Junk Arm is
a perfect card for this. With that you can use Catcher, Max Potion and Pokegear
whenever you need. It gives you more versatility for tech trainers as we will
now see.
Tech Trainers
The reason I wanted to build this deck was because of this section. This
deck has so much space in the trainer section that I could fit my every
favorite disturbing trainer easily in the deck list.
Lost Remover and Crushing Hammer are in the deck list for the same reason – to
slow down your opponent. Lost Zoning this like DCE or discarding energies from
Magnezone can dramatically slow them down. This deck needs so much everything
that I decided to go with 1-1 of both because you can use them with Junk Arm if
you really need them. They both are great teches and might come in handy in
situations that are unimaginable.
Super Scoop Up is in the deck because it’s a 4th Max Potion + Switch
at the same time. Of course it requires heads but it’s only a small set back
since its effect would be great in a Donphan deck. Super Scoop Up is also the
unexpected card in your deck because if your opponent starts counting your Junk
Arms and Max Potions from discard pile, you can mess his counting by playing
SSU. This deck doesn’t play Switch (even though it maybe should) so SSU is a
must card here.
Energy Retrieval is a must and obvious tech card. You discard energies with Max
Potion and get them back with Energy Retrieval. I thought first that I would
like to play Energy Returner in this deck but decided for Energy Retrieval
because it was Junk Armable and could be used in many situations.
Defender and PlusPower are counterparts of each other and they both work well
in this deck. Defender adds some more durability for Donphan so it’s impossible
to OHKO. Pluspowers adds the magic 10 damage, which will help you OHKO things
with Earthquake. This way, you can OHKO undamaged things like Magnezone Prime,
Tepig, Zekrom etc. with only one earthquake. PlusPower is a great in any “low”
damage decks (60 is considered low in this format) so it’s a perfect fit for
this deck.
Energy
9 fighting energies, because you need them all the time, but only 1 at a
time. The Rescue energies are – as already stated – getting back Donphan when
KOed. The tricky part is to play Rescue energy to a Donphan that will be KOed.
This is tricky because your opponent can use Catcher and try to KO something
else. The problem with Rescue energy also comes when you get the Donphan line
back to hand. If your opponent has any idea how to play, he will Catcher your
Phanpy as soon as you play it again on the bench and get an easy prize. You
have to figure out preventing this.
Problem officer?
Yes. As mentioned this deck has problems with trainer locks. But there must be
some other problems too right? I’ll get into the problems of this deck.
Trainer lock
As I said before, the whole deck will stop once the trainer lock is played.
Vileplume variants can be won if they don’t run Reuniclus but
Gothitelle/Reuncilus is an autoloss. That is unless you’re able to just outdamage then. The only way to
outdamage Gothitelle is to start very aggressive by destroying their Gothitas
or Zekrom/Reshiram. Don’t even try to hit Solosis unless they have only 1 in
play. The great thing about killing Digimons or Gothorita is that it will be
harder for them to move damage. Zekrom kill could be VERY big in the early
game.
Against trainer lock, you must focus on your set-up. Use all your trainers all
the time, when you still have the chance. After Gothitelle is in play, you
won’t be able to use trainers in the rest of the game. With Rescues and decent
set-up you’re able to attack with 6 Donphans so you must be sure to divide your
energies wisely. You only have 9 of them so play them wisely!
Big hitters
By heavy-hitting I mean cards that can OHKO Donphan. If they can OHKO you,
you have no chance in winning them because your deck relies on Max Potion. There
aren’t many of OHKOers in the format but if you face them, you’re probably
screwed. Donphan’s worst nemesis is Samurott(BW) which can OHKO Donphan with
DCE and any energy because of the weakness. Samurott isn’ t that popular but there is always the
possibility. The other card is Rayquaza&Deoxys LEGEND. It can easily OHKO
your Donphans and get 2 prizes! And you won’t be able to OHKO them back. If
you’re facing a deck playing RDL, you must destroy their set-up (they’re
probably running Emboar) and not concentrate on RDL. Once their energy
acceleration and draw engines are gone, you can start attacking RDL.
Catcher
It’s funny. In fact, this deck has problems with Catcher in the late game. That’s because you don’t
want to give away easy prizes and if your opponent is able to Catcher late game
Phanpy from your bench, he/she gets an easy prize. You don’t want that to
happen so you must prepare for the Catcher, by Catchering a Pokémon that is
unable to hit during your opponent’s next turn. Remember not to KO the Pokémon
you Catchered!
Slow Set-up
This deck is not the forgiving type. You either go T2 (or in the emergency
situations T3) and unless you go T2 or T3, you will automatically lose the game
(unless your opponent has a horrid start). If this list doesn’t work for you,
try to fix it first so that it gets a T2 every game. After you have managed T2
Donphan in 98% of the games, you can start putting in teches. The set-up is everything with this deck so If you
don’t manage to set-up, you don’t manage to win.
Match-ups
Favorable
Slightly Favorable
Stage1 variants
Magneboar
Zekrom/Tornadus
Even
Magnezone/Yanmega
Mew/Vileplume
Slighly Unfavorable
Reshiram/Typhlosion
Unfavorable
Trainer lock/Reuniclus
As for good
match-ups, Zekrom can’t OHKO you and you get easy prizes from everywhere. It’s
very difficult for them so this might be a very good choice in the current
metagame. Stage1 is slightly favorable because you out-Donphan them. If they
play fighting weak things like Cinccino and Zoroark you can get easy OHKOs with
Catcher. Magneboar is probably slightly
favorable because you can OHKO them Magnezones and stop drawing and OHKOing.
You must be aware of RDL threat in this match-up.
As for unfavorable, Reshiplosion can Outdamage you with Reshiram or outrun your
energies with Typhlosion if they play smart. Trainer lock/Damage moving decks
are beyond your chances. The only way you can win these decks, is for them to
get a totally horrifying start.
Conclusion
Hope you enjoyed
the read and try this deck out. It’s different from the mainstream decks what I
have seen and I think it has great potential in a certain metagame that isn’t
prepared for it. Please leave comments and feedback! Thanks for reading.
// Be back to The
Deck Out next Tuesday for Max
Potion part 2!
