Hi everyone!
As you may have noticed that I changed my blog's layout a little. Now I can have more updates in a one page. I also hope that the page runs faster for some people now because I've been told that the blog runs slow in some browsers. I also hope that you find this layout easier to navigate. Feel free to comment if this modification made this blog faster for your browser.
My next update will be about the longed Cobalion/Electrode/Kyurem deck!
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Battle Road results analysis and Regionals metagame
 |
| Which one shall rise victorious? |
Hello and welcome to The Deck Out!
Battle Roads season has ended in most countries and it’s a good time to look at the results from the U.S. Battle Roads. What was the most popular deck in the top4 and why? Was any deck dominating like no other or were there only little difference between some decks. That’s what I’m here to find out and analyze. First, let’s take a look at the results from the Battle Roads.
Let’s take a quick look first at the Results (directly from the Pokegym.net)
Battle Roads season has ended in most countries and it’s a good time to look at the results from the U.S. Battle Roads. What was the most popular deck in the top4 and why? Was any deck dominating like no other or were there only little difference between some decks. That’s what I’m here to find out and analyze. First, let’s take a look at the results from the Battle Roads.
Let’s take a quick look first at the Results (directly from the Pokegym.net)
Friday, October 21, 2011
ReshiBoar - doing better than expected
Hello all The Deck Out followers!Today, after the every extraordinary Eye on Japan article, it’s time for something very ordinary – metagame deck analysis! You may wonder are there any decks I haven’t yet analyzed but there sure is. Today I’ll open up ReshiBoar – the deck that has won both Battle Roads here in Finland. The player winning these 2 tournaments were kind enough to let me publish his decklist in my blog so thanks for the decklist goes to Bloodbane – thanks a lot!
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
The Deck Out now on Facebook and Twitter!
Hello all
The Deck Out followers!
And this time I really mean followers. Thanks to Adam from the SixPrizes I decided to expand The Deck Out to Facebook. I hope you like the page if you like my blog! You can find The Deck Out facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Deck-Out/224210994308067
I also made a Twitter account. I’m new with Twitter (in fact I haven’t ever visited the site before) so I’m excited what possibilities it gives me. I don’t yet have a smart-phone so I can’t tweet through my phone. You can find my twitter page here: http://twitter.com/#!/TheDeckOut
From now on, I won’t probably update every Tuesday and Friday at the same time as before because I’m busy with things but I’ll still update 1-2 times every week. I’ll Facebook and I’ll try to remember Tweet every time when I release a new article so be sure to follow either one of those (or even both) and check daily my blog to know when my blog has new entries!
Thanks for liking and following my blog!
And this time I really mean followers. Thanks to Adam from the SixPrizes I decided to expand The Deck Out to Facebook. I hope you like the page if you like my blog! You can find The Deck Out facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Deck-Out/224210994308067
I also made a Twitter account. I’m new with Twitter (in fact I haven’t ever visited the site before) so I’m excited what possibilities it gives me. I don’t yet have a smart-phone so I can’t tweet through my phone. You can find my twitter page here: http://twitter.com/#!/TheDeckOut
From now on, I won’t probably update every Tuesday and Friday at the same time as before because I’m busy with things but I’ll still update 1-2 times every week. I’ll Facebook and I’ll try to remember Tweet every time when I release a new article so be sure to follow either one of those (or even both) and check daily my blog to know when my blog has new entries!
Thanks for liking and following my blog!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Eye on Japan - Part 1
Hi everyone!
This is the first part of my probably the most awaited – feature – Eye on Japan. Those of you who have no idea what Eye on Japan is about, I’ll explain briefly. In the Eye on Japan series I’ll reveal how the always so mysterious Japan tournament system works. How is the game in Japan in general and of course the most interesting part – what’s their metagame like.
This is the first part of my probably the most awaited – feature – Eye on Japan. Those of you who have no idea what Eye on Japan is about, I’ll explain briefly. In the Eye on Japan series I’ll reveal how the always so mysterious Japan tournament system works. How is the game in Japan in general and of course the most interesting part – what’s their metagame like.
Eye on Japan is just around the corner!
Hello all The Deck Out followers!
As promised, I made this update ot inform that my Eye on Japan article is scheduled for SixPrizes and it will be released: 2011-10-17/ 16:00:12 /UTC -4
I'll also release here on The Deck Out as my Tuesday update so be sure to check it out and comment on it so I can develop it!
Thank you for the interest.
As promised, I made this update ot inform that my Eye on Japan article is scheduled for SixPrizes and it will be released: 2011-10-17/ 16:00:12 /UTC -4
I'll also release here on The Deck Out as my Tuesday update so be sure to check it out and comment on it so I can develop it!
Thank you for the interest.
Friday, October 14, 2011
The Decklist Out revealed!
Hello for all the followers!
Today I won’t have an analysis of anything but I will introduce a new feature to my blog. You may have probably noticed The Decklist Out. You want to know what it is? I’m here to reveal it.
My blog has started more popular than I first thought was even possible and that’s all thanks to you! Since the blog updates have been piling up I noticed that the few articles are already lost in to my blog’s massive update pile. That’s why I decided to make a new site “The Decklist Out”, where I will gather all the decklists of the metagame and Rogue decks I have written into this blog and I will write in to this blog in the future.
I will update the lists of the metagame decks regularly so they’re up to date and of course I will add new cards every time new sets will be published. I hope that in the future The Decklist Out can become a common library for all the metagame decks, where anyone can check out lists of well-built metagame decks with just one click. I hope that this can become a common place for new players to check out competitive decks out. I also hope that this will become popular among more experienced players who don’t have time to make a well-built list of every deck for testing. From The Decklist Out anyone can find everything with just one click.
Check out The Decklist Out and let me know what you think about this new feature in the poll on the right. You can also add comments to the comment field. Thanks for following my blog!
P.S. I’m almost done editing my Eye on Japan article. My next update will be the start of the Eye on Japan feature and you are able to find it on the Six Prizes as well after it’s released. I can’t tell you the exact date yet but I’ll make an update about it once the release date is settled.
Today I won’t have an analysis of anything but I will introduce a new feature to my blog. You may have probably noticed The Decklist Out. You want to know what it is? I’m here to reveal it.
My blog has started more popular than I first thought was even possible and that’s all thanks to you! Since the blog updates have been piling up I noticed that the few articles are already lost in to my blog’s massive update pile. That’s why I decided to make a new site “The Decklist Out”, where I will gather all the decklists of the metagame and Rogue decks I have written into this blog and I will write in to this blog in the future.
I will update the lists of the metagame decks regularly so they’re up to date and of course I will add new cards every time new sets will be published. I hope that in the future The Decklist Out can become a common library for all the metagame decks, where anyone can check out lists of well-built metagame decks with just one click. I hope that this can become a common place for new players to check out competitive decks out. I also hope that this will become popular among more experienced players who don’t have time to make a well-built list of every deck for testing. From The Decklist Out anyone can find everything with just one click.
Check out The Decklist Out and let me know what you think about this new feature in the poll on the right. You can also add comments to the comment field. Thanks for following my blog!
P.S. I’m almost done editing my Eye on Japan article. My next update will be the start of the Eye on Japan feature and you are able to find it on the Six Prizes as well after it’s released. I can’t tell you the exact date yet but I’ll make an update about it once the release date is settled.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Max Potion - Part 2
Hello and welcome to The Deck Out!
Today is the time for Max Potion part 2! In my last update, I reviewed what Max Potion could do with Donphan Prime but today I have a whole new Pokémon. I think you all are familiar with Tyranitar Prime.
Today is the time for Max Potion part 2! In my last update, I reviewed what Max Potion could do with Donphan Prime but today I have a whole new Pokémon. I think you all are familiar with Tyranitar Prime.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Max Potion - Part 1
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!
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!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Vote! Results
Hello
for all the readers!
The results vote results are final and in my opinion there were a few surprises.
The most wanted feature was – not-so-surprisingly – Eye on Japan(64%). I have made good progress with it and I’m probably going to publish the first part of the Eye on Japan next week. To gather more attention on it, I may release on SixPrizes as well but I’ll be releasing and informing about it in my blog as well so stay tuned!
The second placing vote was a surprise for me personally. It was "more metagame decklists"(54%). I’ve always loved to experiment with new deck ideas so it may have been a small disappointment for me but thankfully this format has a lot of metagame decks to write about so this won’t be a difficult task for me.
I’m very thankful that rogue decks placed 3th(49%) in this vote because, as I said, I love building rogue decks. In Finland we have a fine culture of building rogue decks and for me building new decks is the thing why I love this game so much. I want to cover first and foremost all the metagame decks but I’ll be releasing rogue deck ideas more during the upcoming seasons as well once the season has started properly and more sets are released.
4th in the vote placed the interviews(33%). Once I’ve established my place in the Pokémon TCG community worldwide, I’ll start contacting people all over the World for this one. So, the more you tell your friends about this site, the more versatile content I’m able to give you!
One thing in particular I was surprised about. The amount of people who wanted featured writers was less than I expected(only 17%). I hope it’s because you like my writing. But I think I’ll add quality featured writers once I have good volunteers for it.
I’ll try to keep the quality of my posts in the future as good as they are now and be sure to spread the word about my blog! I’m very pleased about all the positive feedback and constructive criticism you have been giving me so keep it up.
Thanks a lot for reading my blog now and in the future!
- Esa Juntunen
The results vote results are final and in my opinion there were a few surprises.
The most wanted feature was – not-so-surprisingly – Eye on Japan(64%). I have made good progress with it and I’m probably going to publish the first part of the Eye on Japan next week. To gather more attention on it, I may release on SixPrizes as well but I’ll be releasing and informing about it in my blog as well so stay tuned!
The second placing vote was a surprise for me personally. It was "more metagame decklists"(54%). I’ve always loved to experiment with new deck ideas so it may have been a small disappointment for me but thankfully this format has a lot of metagame decks to write about so this won’t be a difficult task for me.
I’m very thankful that rogue decks placed 3th(49%) in this vote because, as I said, I love building rogue decks. In Finland we have a fine culture of building rogue decks and for me building new decks is the thing why I love this game so much. I want to cover first and foremost all the metagame decks but I’ll be releasing rogue deck ideas more during the upcoming seasons as well once the season has started properly and more sets are released.
4th in the vote placed the interviews(33%). Once I’ve established my place in the Pokémon TCG community worldwide, I’ll start contacting people all over the World for this one. So, the more you tell your friends about this site, the more versatile content I’m able to give you!
One thing in particular I was surprised about. The amount of people who wanted featured writers was less than I expected(only 17%). I hope it’s because you like my writing. But I think I’ll add quality featured writers once I have good volunteers for it.
I’ll try to keep the quality of my posts in the future as good as they are now and be sure to spread the word about my blog! I’m very pleased about all the positive feedback and constructive criticism you have been giving me so keep it up.
Thanks a lot for reading my blog now and in the future!
- Esa Juntunen
Magneboar - the overthrown Champion
 |
| MagneBoar is as horrible as my painting skills. |
Hello and welcome back to The Deck Out – one of the best Pokémon TCG blogs on the Internet.
Today’s subject is the World’s winning deck – Magneboar. I already buried Magneboar alive in one of my previous blog update so now I’ll look into if there is anything to do about it in this format.
First, into the skeleton of this deck.
Pokémon:
2x Cleffa
3x Tepig
1x Pignite
2x Emboar(Inferno Fandango)
3x Magnemite
2x Magneton
3x Magnezone Prime
=16
Trainer:
3x Twins
3x PONT
4x Rare Candy
4x Pokémon Communication
1x Professor Elm’s Training Method
4x Pokémon Collector
3x Junk Arm
=22
Energy:
5x Lighting
10x Fire
=15
As you can see, I took the build from David Cohen’s list. And why not – it won Worlds. Magneboar needs Twins because it doesn’t even try to get T2 Magnezone every game. Twins help you with this. As long as you use T1 Eeeeeek, you’re almost guaranteed to use Twins T2 or T3 so you can get Magnezone up fast. Magnezone is the most important card while set-upping this deck because with it you can draw the rest. It sounds nonsense to play to huge retreat having stage2 Pokémon in this format and while Catchers are all over it’s even more nonsense.
Even though Magneboar just won Worlds just one set ago, it struggles with many decks. Against which decks it struggles and most importantly why? I’ll guess we’ll have to find out.
Yanmega/Magnezone
The archenemy #1 of Magneboar. Yanmega/Magnezone pretty much ruins everything Magneboar is trying to accomplish. They can OHKO Emboar easily from Magneboar’s bench and they can successfully kill anything on the field with Catcher and Yanmega. They can even KO the Magnezone Prime and Judge right before it. Without Magnezone, there is no coming back for the Magneboar with a 4 card hand.If Magneboar is facing a Kingdra and Jirachi version of this deck they can pretty surely just scoop the game. Devolving and spreading are something that a deck full of thin stage2 lines can’t handle.
Stage1
Before Catcher Magneboar already autolost to Stage1 decks so after Catcher… Well you know – there won’t be a game. Catcher + Pluspowered Donphan OHKOs Magnezone Prime with 1 energy. There is no need for stage1 deck to even bother killing Emboar because it can get early prize leads and counter OHKOs against whatever Magneboar is bringing as an active Pokémon. I don’t think there is anything for Magneboar to do in this match-up if the Stage1 player has any clue what to do.
ReshiPlosion
I hate to admit the fact that the deck Magneboar once had an autowin is nowadays a pretty difficult match-up for Magneboar. Once again the reason for this is the same as earlier – Pokémon Catcher. Catcher makes it impossible to keep different 2 stage2 Pokémon in play alive for over 2 turns without trainer lock. ReshiPlosion can now easily target on Emboars and kill them off so Mageneboar has to attach energies manually. That won’t obviously work so ReshiPlosion has an edge in this match-up.
Zekrom/Tornadus
Zekrom/Tornadus was analyzed in the last blog update and if you read through it, you understand that Zekrom/Tornadus outspeeds Magneboar easily. T1 Tornadus is too much, unless Magneboar has T2 everything. Reshirams are very important in this match-up but if Zekrom is able to kill off all the Magnemites/Tepgis with Catchers before they can evolve, the game is over. Zekrom is just too powerful and quick against Magneboar. The only thing that can save Magneboar is a god start.
So where’s the problem?
Well, if you paid any attention to the previous part you have noticed that Catcher plays a huge role in destroying Magneboar. But why? Couldn’t Magneboar play Catcher to gain back the edge? This question is excellent Theorymon and gives some food for thought when thinking of what kind of decks benefit from Catcher the most.
The weakest link in Magneboar is Emboar. Magneboar usually only plays 2 of them. Even though it plays only 2 of them, it still needs Emboar every game all the time. It has a horrible retreat of 4 and it isn’t capable of KOing anything because its max (and only damage) is 80. Thankfully it has 150 HP which makes it almost impossible to OHKO. If you have solved the retreating problem with 2 or more Switches in your deck, you need to think only about how to get KOed Emboars back to the game every turn. Magneboar is a slow deck in the beginning of the game so it can’t give free prizes in the mid game. If you can’t use Inferno Fandango one turn because your Emboar was just KOed, it probably means you can’t attack that turn either and you have lost the game.
So, we need Emboar every turn once set-upped. Well, is it manageable in a prudent fashion? I’m pretty sure it isn’t. But if I try as hard as I can the first thing to do is thicken the deck’s Emboar line from 3-1-2 or 2-1-2 to something like 4-2-3 or 4-1-3. Since format has Catcher we need to max out Tepigs to prevent the negative effect of an early Tepig KO. We need to put the thick Emboar line in to the Magneboar skeleton. Let’s look how the deck’s Pokémon skeleton looks like.
Pokémon:
2x Cleffa
4x Tepig
2x Pignite
3x Emboar(Inferno Fandango)
3x Magnemite
1x Magneton
3x Magnezone Prime
=18
As you can see, I took 1 Magneton off to get some room. In fact, it doesn’t look that bad – but remember – this is only a skeleton.
The other way to increase the chance to get Emboar back to the game ASAP is a card called Rescue Energy. Since you can attach fire energies with Inferno Fandango, you can attach Rescue energy as you turn energy. If you attach Rescue to Tepig, it’s a waste of energy so you must be sure to attach the Rescue to a fully evolved Emboar. Tepig is a lot easier to get to play than Emboar. If you play with Rescue energies, you must be sure to have a Tepig on your bench all the time. It’s a bad thing because that way your opponent can take an easy prize every turn with Catcher from Tepig and he/she doesn’t even need to concentrate bringing out the Emboar because he/she will be in the prize lead. But if your Emboar is brought as an active Pokémon and your opponent isn’t able to OHKO it and you can’t switch it, you can predict the KO and play Tepig on your bench the turn before your opponent is able to KO the Emboar. Rescue energies are a bit inconsistent way to get Emboar every time back but it may work if your opponent doesn’t know what you are up to. Let’ see what the skeleton’s Pokemons and energies could look like after these changes.
Pokémon:
2x Cleffa
3x Tepig
2x Pignite
3x Emboar(Inferno Fandango)
3x Magnemite
1x Magneton
3x Magnezone Prime
=17
Energy:
3x Rescue Energy
4x Lighting
9x Fire
=16
The third option against Catcher is the most obvious one – Vileplume. It sounds awful to run Vileplume in a deck that already has 2 different stage2 Pokemons in it but because of Magnezone’s Magnetic Draw it could work. I’ll no longer show you the skeleton of this version because it would be pointless. The whole deck changes so much because of Vileplume that I have to do the whole list so you can understand what my goal is.
Pokémon:
1x Cleffa
3x Tepig
2x Pignite
2x Emboar(Inferno Fandango)
4x Magnemite
3x Magneton
3x Magnezone Prime
3x Oddish
1x Gloom
2x Vileplume
1x Pichu
2x Reshiram
=25
Trainer:
4x Twins
3x Rare Candy
2x Professor Elm’s Training Method
3x Pokémon Communication
4x Pokémon Collector
2x Fisherman
1x Sage’s Training
=19
Energy:
2x Rescue Energy
4x Lighting
10x Fire
=16
This list is untested and it’s only theorymon so forgive me if it lacks anything. But from this you get the main idea. I would like to fit Rayquaza&Deoxys Legend there because Twins+ it+ Vileplume= pwnage. But there is no room. Another note: I don’t like Rescue energy in Magneboar but with Trainer lock it’s a must. Killing Reshiplosion’s with Reshiram is just too good and because of Vileplume Reshiram takes always 2 prizes.
Against faster decks it’s probably safer to begin with Cleffa/Pichu and give a 2 prize lead to them with Baby and Reshiram. After that you can mount comeback with Trainerlock, Magnezone and Emboar. As you also can see, I have maxed out pretty much every good Supporter for this deck. 2 PETM seems bad but it’s the only way to search evolved Pokémon in late game so drawing it from Magnetic Draw is surprisingly good in this deck. Fisherman is the only way to get back discarded energies and it works through trainer lock so it’s great. There are many questionable decisions in this list but I encourage trying this out if you feel like playing with Magneboar. Playing with Magneboar is fun but it lacks something because of Catcher. Maybe it’s Vileplume, it was missing?
Conclusion
Well, I did my best. If these 3 options don’t work, I can say that Magneboar should be forgotten as a competitive deck. It needs help from the upper powers (come on PCL, help Magneboar out!) or it will die trying in the beginning of the season. If I went to a tournament with Magneboar, I would play the Vileplume version. In theory it makes few match-ups favorable for it but its only problem would be its slowness. In my opinion Magneboar is a fun deck but it’s too difficult to build in this format.
That’s it for today. Thankfully, I managed to make a bit shorter update this time so hopefully everyone was able to make through it! See you next time!
// Be back to The Deck Out this week because there will be more info of the upcoming Eye on Japan series!! I will also check the poll results and develop the blog the way you want.
Today’s subject is the World’s winning deck – Magneboar. I already buried Magneboar alive in one of my previous blog update so now I’ll look into if there is anything to do about it in this format.
First, into the skeleton of this deck.
Pokémon:
2x Cleffa
3x Tepig
1x Pignite
2x Emboar(Inferno Fandango)
3x Magnemite
2x Magneton
3x Magnezone Prime
=16
Trainer:
3x Twins
3x PONT
4x Rare Candy
4x Pokémon Communication
1x Professor Elm’s Training Method
4x Pokémon Collector
3x Junk Arm
=22
Energy:
5x Lighting
10x Fire
=15
As you can see, I took the build from David Cohen’s list. And why not – it won Worlds. Magneboar needs Twins because it doesn’t even try to get T2 Magnezone every game. Twins help you with this. As long as you use T1 Eeeeeek, you’re almost guaranteed to use Twins T2 or T3 so you can get Magnezone up fast. Magnezone is the most important card while set-upping this deck because with it you can draw the rest. It sounds nonsense to play to huge retreat having stage2 Pokémon in this format and while Catchers are all over it’s even more nonsense.
Even though Magneboar just won Worlds just one set ago, it struggles with many decks. Against which decks it struggles and most importantly why? I’ll guess we’ll have to find out.
Yanmega/Magnezone
The archenemy #1 of Magneboar. Yanmega/Magnezone pretty much ruins everything Magneboar is trying to accomplish. They can OHKO Emboar easily from Magneboar’s bench and they can successfully kill anything on the field with Catcher and Yanmega. They can even KO the Magnezone Prime and Judge right before it. Without Magnezone, there is no coming back for the Magneboar with a 4 card hand.If Magneboar is facing a Kingdra and Jirachi version of this deck they can pretty surely just scoop the game. Devolving and spreading are something that a deck full of thin stage2 lines can’t handle.
Stage1
Before Catcher Magneboar already autolost to Stage1 decks so after Catcher… Well you know – there won’t be a game. Catcher + Pluspowered Donphan OHKOs Magnezone Prime with 1 energy. There is no need for stage1 deck to even bother killing Emboar because it can get early prize leads and counter OHKOs against whatever Magneboar is bringing as an active Pokémon. I don’t think there is anything for Magneboar to do in this match-up if the Stage1 player has any clue what to do.
ReshiPlosion
I hate to admit the fact that the deck Magneboar once had an autowin is nowadays a pretty difficult match-up for Magneboar. Once again the reason for this is the same as earlier – Pokémon Catcher. Catcher makes it impossible to keep different 2 stage2 Pokémon in play alive for over 2 turns without trainer lock. ReshiPlosion can now easily target on Emboars and kill them off so Mageneboar has to attach energies manually. That won’t obviously work so ReshiPlosion has an edge in this match-up.
Zekrom/Tornadus
Zekrom/Tornadus was analyzed in the last blog update and if you read through it, you understand that Zekrom/Tornadus outspeeds Magneboar easily. T1 Tornadus is too much, unless Magneboar has T2 everything. Reshirams are very important in this match-up but if Zekrom is able to kill off all the Magnemites/Tepgis with Catchers before they can evolve, the game is over. Zekrom is just too powerful and quick against Magneboar. The only thing that can save Magneboar is a god start.
So where’s the problem?
Well, if you paid any attention to the previous part you have noticed that Catcher plays a huge role in destroying Magneboar. But why? Couldn’t Magneboar play Catcher to gain back the edge? This question is excellent Theorymon and gives some food for thought when thinking of what kind of decks benefit from Catcher the most.
The weakest link in Magneboar is Emboar. Magneboar usually only plays 2 of them. Even though it plays only 2 of them, it still needs Emboar every game all the time. It has a horrible retreat of 4 and it isn’t capable of KOing anything because its max (and only damage) is 80. Thankfully it has 150 HP which makes it almost impossible to OHKO. If you have solved the retreating problem with 2 or more Switches in your deck, you need to think only about how to get KOed Emboars back to the game every turn. Magneboar is a slow deck in the beginning of the game so it can’t give free prizes in the mid game. If you can’t use Inferno Fandango one turn because your Emboar was just KOed, it probably means you can’t attack that turn either and you have lost the game.
So, we need Emboar every turn once set-upped. Well, is it manageable in a prudent fashion? I’m pretty sure it isn’t. But if I try as hard as I can the first thing to do is thicken the deck’s Emboar line from 3-1-2 or 2-1-2 to something like 4-2-3 or 4-1-3. Since format has Catcher we need to max out Tepigs to prevent the negative effect of an early Tepig KO. We need to put the thick Emboar line in to the Magneboar skeleton. Let’s look how the deck’s Pokémon skeleton looks like.
Pokémon:
2x Cleffa
4x Tepig
2x Pignite
3x Emboar(Inferno Fandango)
3x Magnemite
1x Magneton
3x Magnezone Prime
=18
As you can see, I took 1 Magneton off to get some room. In fact, it doesn’t look that bad – but remember – this is only a skeleton.
The other way to increase the chance to get Emboar back to the game ASAP is a card called Rescue Energy. Since you can attach fire energies with Inferno Fandango, you can attach Rescue energy as you turn energy. If you attach Rescue to Tepig, it’s a waste of energy so you must be sure to attach the Rescue to a fully evolved Emboar. Tepig is a lot easier to get to play than Emboar. If you play with Rescue energies, you must be sure to have a Tepig on your bench all the time. It’s a bad thing because that way your opponent can take an easy prize every turn with Catcher from Tepig and he/she doesn’t even need to concentrate bringing out the Emboar because he/she will be in the prize lead. But if your Emboar is brought as an active Pokémon and your opponent isn’t able to OHKO it and you can’t switch it, you can predict the KO and play Tepig on your bench the turn before your opponent is able to KO the Emboar. Rescue energies are a bit inconsistent way to get Emboar every time back but it may work if your opponent doesn’t know what you are up to. Let’ see what the skeleton’s Pokemons and energies could look like after these changes.
Pokémon:
2x Cleffa
3x Tepig
2x Pignite
3x Emboar(Inferno Fandango)
3x Magnemite
1x Magneton
3x Magnezone Prime
=17
Energy:
3x Rescue Energy
4x Lighting
9x Fire
=16
The third option against Catcher is the most obvious one – Vileplume. It sounds awful to run Vileplume in a deck that already has 2 different stage2 Pokemons in it but because of Magnezone’s Magnetic Draw it could work. I’ll no longer show you the skeleton of this version because it would be pointless. The whole deck changes so much because of Vileplume that I have to do the whole list so you can understand what my goal is.
Pokémon:
1x Cleffa
3x Tepig
2x Pignite
2x Emboar(Inferno Fandango)
4x Magnemite
3x Magneton
3x Magnezone Prime
3x Oddish
1x Gloom
2x Vileplume
1x Pichu
2x Reshiram
=25
Trainer:
4x Twins
3x Rare Candy
2x Professor Elm’s Training Method
3x Pokémon Communication
4x Pokémon Collector
2x Fisherman
1x Sage’s Training
=19
Energy:
2x Rescue Energy
4x Lighting
10x Fire
=16
This list is untested and it’s only theorymon so forgive me if it lacks anything. But from this you get the main idea. I would like to fit Rayquaza&Deoxys Legend there because Twins+ it+ Vileplume= pwnage. But there is no room. Another note: I don’t like Rescue energy in Magneboar but with Trainer lock it’s a must. Killing Reshiplosion’s with Reshiram is just too good and because of Vileplume Reshiram takes always 2 prizes.
Against faster decks it’s probably safer to begin with Cleffa/Pichu and give a 2 prize lead to them with Baby and Reshiram. After that you can mount comeback with Trainerlock, Magnezone and Emboar. As you also can see, I have maxed out pretty much every good Supporter for this deck. 2 PETM seems bad but it’s the only way to search evolved Pokémon in late game so drawing it from Magnetic Draw is surprisingly good in this deck. Fisherman is the only way to get back discarded energies and it works through trainer lock so it’s great. There are many questionable decisions in this list but I encourage trying this out if you feel like playing with Magneboar. Playing with Magneboar is fun but it lacks something because of Catcher. Maybe it’s Vileplume, it was missing?
Conclusion
Well, I did my best. If these 3 options don’t work, I can say that Magneboar should be forgotten as a competitive deck. It needs help from the upper powers (come on PCL, help Magneboar out!) or it will die trying in the beginning of the season. If I went to a tournament with Magneboar, I would play the Vileplume version. In theory it makes few match-ups favorable for it but its only problem would be its slowness. In my opinion Magneboar is a fun deck but it’s too difficult to build in this format.
That’s it for today. Thankfully, I managed to make a bit shorter update this time so hopefully everyone was able to make through it! See you next time!
// Be back to The Deck Out this week because there will be more info of the upcoming Eye on Japan series!! I will also check the poll results and develop the blog the way you want.
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