Two ways to play Chandelure - the current BDIF

Lampent is the uncredited star in many match-ups

Hello and welcome to The Deck Out!

Today's update is about a deck which I'm very familiar with – Chandelure. I won multiple Cities with the deck and if you haven't checked out my tournament reports yet, please do. In this article, I'll analyze the 2 different Chandelure versions: the attacking version, which I'm very keen on and the also very popular ability version of this deck.

I decided to write about Chandelure because I noticed that my version caused a lot of discussion after my first report. Some people we're especially sceptic if an attacking version can win anything but so were the most people about Chandelure as well.

In order to get the most out of this article I encourage you to read my reports one and two. From there you can learn something about the match-ups and how to play them.

I hope you enjoy the article and learn a thing or 2 about the deck!

Let's start off with a skeleton list.


Pokemon:

4x Litwick(Call for Family)
3x Lampent
3x Chandelure
2x Doduo
2x Dodrio
3x Oddish
1x Gloom
2x Vileplume
1x Cleffa
1x Pichu
=23

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
4x Sage’s Training
4x Twins
2x Tropical Beach
4x Pokémon Communication
4x Rare Candy
=22

Energy:

Xx Psychic Energy
Xx Rescue Energy
=X

As you can see from the skeleton, there isn't too much variation to be done. The only variation can be done to the energy and Pokémon lines – you can concentrate on attacking or you can concentrate on keeping you Chandelures alive.

I'll first start with the attacking version because it's the deck I'm the most familiar with. First, the list.


The attacker version



Pokemon:

4x Litwick(Call for Family)
4x Lampent
4x Chandelure
2x Doduo
2x Dodrio
3x Oddish
2x Vileplume
2x Cleffa
1x Pichu
1x Jirachi(CL)
=25

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
4x Sage’s Training
2x N
1x Professor Oak’s New Theory
4x Twins
2x Tropical Beach
3x Pokémon Communication
3x Rare Candy
=23

Energy:

8x Psychic Energy
4x Rescue Energy
=12

Strategy

I like this deck a lot because it isn't as technical as most trainer lock decks. Trainer lock decks usually use the same formula in every game to win matches. With this, you can adjust your strategy as you wish for the certain match-ups. However, usually you just first set-up the Vileplume. Give 1-2 free prizes to your opponent while set-upping 2 Chandelures and Dodrio with Twins, Sages and Tropical Beach. After either one of your Chandelures has 3 energy attached to it, you can start your game plan.

The optimal field would have 2 Chandelures (one with energy attached to it), Vileplume, Dodrio and 1 Litwick on the Bench. That way you can switch the Chandelures every turn and spread 60 damage to any of your opponent’s Pokémon. You can also attack with the Chandelure that has the energy attached to it but the main strategy is still to switch Chandelures every turn so you can spread 60 damage. Spread is the reason why you're so good. You would like to have a Litwick on your bench just because you want to attach energy to it while the Chandelures are spreading. When your Chandelure gets KOed, you must have a Rescue Energy attached to it and take it back to your hand. That way you will have in 2 turns another Chandelure ready to attack, if you've loaded the Litwick on your bench.

You can let your Chandelures die once in a while but you must make sure that they always have Rescue Energy attached to them when they die. In the late game Jirachi is the card that can take you even 3-4 prizes on one turn.


Card Explanations

Chandelure

4-4-4 Chandelure line is something that all players don't agree at all. However, there are a few reasons why I decided to run it.

1) Prizes.

I just don't stand losing to prizes. I've lost to horrible prizes in Worlds top8 and I can say that I want to avoid the same destiny at any cost. If you run 4-3-3 Chandelure line and you happen to have 2 Chandelures prized, you can pretty much scoop the game. Then you can explain after the game ”well, I had bad luck etc.”. I don't want to do it anymore. If I have an option to avoid losing to prizes, I want to take it.

2) Trainer lock

First, because of the early trainer lock, you don't usually have a chance to Candy evolve Chandelure if you don't have a god hand. That's why you need 4 Lampents – you want to just draw into them because you can easily search for Litwicks with Pichu or Collector. After trainerlocking, your best bet to draw Lampents from your deck is via Twins, Tropical Beach or Sage's. You can't use Communication so running 4 just makes perfect sense. 4-4-4 line is also TOO good in trainer lock mirrors.

3) The deck's main idea

This isn't a Blissey deck. This isn't a Ross.dec. This deck attacks with Chandelures and it lets its Chandelure to get KOed. You are able to do this because of your thick line of Chandelures and thanks to your 4 Rescue Energy. With 4-3-3 line you really can't afford suiciding any of your Chandelures without a Rescue Energy on them.

Chandelure is the main attacker in this deck and I see no reason not to run 4-4-4 of it. Practically you want to have a Chandelure as your active Pokémon every time your turn ends.

Dodrio

Dodrio is pretty much just like Vileplume in this deck. It just sits on the bench and lets it ability to do its job. Dodrio gives a free retreat to every single Pokémon of this deck and that's what makes it so good in this deck. If someone plays Bellsprout to counter Vileplume decks, Dodrio negates this effect. Dodrio makes this deck almost impossible to disrupt at all and that's why running 2-2 line is the only option. You need it to win games but thankfully with this version it's isn't a matter of life and death like in the other variant I'm going to review.

Vileplume

The only thing that can be asked here is – why no Gloom? Since you need it max 2 times during a tournament. I've played this in 2 tournaments in row and I can say that you don't really need Gloom at all. Once you're one prize behind, you just search for Candy and Plume for Twins and skip the Gloom part. I understand why certain people want to run Gloom because it's needed sometimes. However, I don't see it being a must card in this deck. It’s completely a personal decision.

Cleffa

Baby Pokémons are perfect set-uppers for trainer locking decks because you want to get behind prizes and get your Twins activated. Cleffa helps with just that. I used Cleffa in almost every game of my tournaments and I think 2 is a perfect amount for this deck. Cleffa is a great starter and you don't want to run just one of them because it can easily get to prizes. If you have your only Cleffa in prizes, you may have just lost the game to that.

Pichu

Pichu is something I think this deck needs but for some reason it doesn't fit my playing style. The other reason may be that I always have the Collector in my hand. This deck also has Call for Family Litwick, which search for Basics as well. I'm not a fan of this card in this certain deck but I know that if I took it off the deck, I would regret it. It may be needed only in 1 game of the tournament but it will win you that exact game you need it.

Jirachi

Jirachi is the finisher in this deck. It's flippy -yes- but only 1 one heads is enough in this deck because it runs so many energy. You can load the Jirachi manually after you've gotten one energy on it. That's why the flipping isn't really a problem. Jirachi devolves your opponent Pokémons, which you want to devolve and with Chandelure you must put just the right amount of damage on your opponent's Pokémon in order to win the game. It may sound funny, but the more your opponent is able to Rare Candy their Pokémons, the better. You need only 6 damage counters on Typhlosion when you want to kill it with Jirachi. You can get 6 damage counters on Typhlosion in just one turn. It also works great against Eelektrik because Tynamos have only 30 or 40 HP. Jirachi is a beast finisher.

Pokémon Collector

You want to set-up. Collector is your set-up card number one. Nuff' said.


Sage’s Training – N – Twins -Tropical Beach

This is a draw engine you'll see in all of the Trainer lock decks. Sage's discards the unwanted cards (usually trainers that aer left). N helps you in drawing and disrupts your opponent at the same time because you're usually behind prizes. Twins is just too good because you're behind in prizes as well.

Tropical Beach is something that must be analyzed apart from the usual draw cards in this deck. Even though this deck is an attacking form of Chandelure it doesn't attack every turn with Chandelure. That's why Tropical Beach is so good. Chandelure does its damage with the ability so you can ust use the Abilites and the draw with Tropical Beach. It's a very sad fact that without Tropical Beach, Chandelure wouldn't be that good. I used Tropical Beach countless times in the tournament. Tropical is a perfect and a must draw card for this deck. If you don't happen to own 2 or 1 of them, try to get them from your friends if you want to run Chandelure in a tournament.

Professor Oak’s New Theory

This was just an optional card in this deck. You can put in a 3^rd N or anything you like depending on your metagame. I'll also mention a few teches that can be put in the place of this card. It's just a filler to add some consistency.

Pokémon Communication

Many of you are used to see 4 Communications in every deck. However, I soon found out that this deck doesn't really need the 4^th Communication. You'll always have a so early Vileplume that you just don't have time to use them. This deck is also a very consistent one so you don't really ever miss Communications. 3 is a weird number but once you test, you will get to like it.

Rare Candy

Well, here we see once again the notorious number 3. Once again the explanation is the same as with Communications. You can't use 4 Candies during the game because of the Trainer lock and usually you use only 1 of them during the game. If you don't have the one in your hand when you need it, you'll always have Sage's or Twins in your hand which you can get it with. I've also seen lists that run only 2 Candies. That's quite risky for my taste but I guess you can get decent results with that kind of play as well.

Energy

The energy lines are as high as they can get in Chandelure decks. That's because this is the attacking version. You need a lot of Psychic Energy to attack with Chandelures. Usually you attack with 3 different Chandelures because 1-2 energy goes to Jirachi or to retreating. Rescue Energy should always be the 3^rd energy on a attacking Chandelure. 12 energy is a lot but it's a perfect amount at the same time.




That's it for the attacking form. I'll next analyze the Ability version of this deck and after that I'll get to teches and deeper strategy and situations with this deck.









The ability version


Pokemon:

4x Litwick(Call for Family)
3x Lampent
3x Chandelure
3x Oddish
1x Gloom
2x Vileplume
2x Doduo
2x Dodrio
2x Chansey
2x Blissey Prime
1x Jirachi
2x Cleffa
1x Pichu
=28

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
4x Sage's Training
4x Twins
3x N
4x Pokémon Communication
4x Rare Candy
2x Tropical Beach
1x Seeker
=26

Energy:

2x Rescue Energy
4x Psychic Energy
=6


Strategy

This deck's strategy differs a bit from the first deck. It still uses Chandelure as the main ”damage inflicter”. Chandelure doesn't work necessarily as an attacker in this deck because you only use its ability to win games. This deck retreats Chandelures back and forth and keeps healing them with Blissey Prime.

As you can see, the list is affected by the optional build-style. It's mainly the same but now I want to explain the little differences it has compared to first list.


Differences in Ability version

Chandelure line

Here is the lot talked about 4-3-3 line. It's reasonable because you don't let your Chandelures to die thanks to Blisseys. Once you have 2 Chandelures in play, you just lay down Blisseys once they are about get KOed and start spreading once again with the Abilities. You're still very vulnerable if you have 2 Chandelures prized but you can make it with 1 Chandelure until you draw enough prizes with it to get the 2^nd Chandelure.

Gloom

I talked about this earlier. In fact, my japanese friend suggested this because that way you always have Vileplume in play T3. Notice that this list also runs 4 Communications so you're searching for Gloom in almost every game. Thanks to less energy this deck had also room for 4^th

Candy which means that Vileplume can be evolved through Gloom and in the meanwhile you can also evolve Chandelures with Rare Candy.

After 4 tournaments of Chandelure without Gloom I can say that you don't need it but there may be tournaments where you miss it. I missed it the most in my 3^rd tournament with Chandelure. I would've gotten the trainer lock faster with Gloom in my deck but I still won every game so it didn't matter. Just something I wanted to point out from a personal experience.

Blissey Prime

Blissey is the one Pokémon that makes this version work. Blissey heals damage from all your Pokémon and discards all the energy. Well, it's obviously great in this deck because Chandelure doesn't need to attack that much to win games. It does most of the damage with its ability and doesn't require any energy.

The deck has 2-2 Blissey because this version isn't as capable to attack that much and needs Blissey to win games. I think you really can't afford running 1-1 Blissey if you don't want to lose to prizes once again. Chansey is a bad opener but this deck has so enough ways not to hurt itself too much because of a Chansey start. Thanks to 2-2 line you don't even have to Seeker every time to recycle Blissey. In the most toughest times you can even sacrifice Blissey to by some time because it's a big tank of 130 HP.

Trainers

The only ”big” change is Seeker. With Seeker you can recycle Blissey and play it again. This deck can use Blissey 3 times per game which usually means healing about 1000 damage per game. It's a big number as you can see. Seeker is a big part of this deck and you can even run 2 of them if you find space for it.

Energy

The energy amount is very low but this deck has still resources to attack with 2 different Chandelure. I don't like the idea of running a very few energy in a trainer lock deck even if I'm able to retreat for free thanks to Dodrio. This deck wants to retreat from time to time and it needs energy for it. I wouldn't run less than 6-7 energy in this deck.




Teches and deeper into the deck

There are few things I would like to discuss about considering the both deck in general. First, let's take a look at a few tech cards.

Cobalion

This is by far the most discussed and used tech worldwide. It's function is pretty simple – to counter the most difficult match-up – Kyurem. It's a perfect tech against Kyurem because it can OHKO it easily. However, there is one difficulty. If you aren't able to activate your Twins you aren't able to draw the metal energy from your deck even if you run more than 1 of them. Cobalion has been proved to be a very effective tech and it has gained some hype. I lost to a Kyurem in the finals of the 4^th tournament but I know that even if I had run the Cobalion, it wouldn't have saved me. The Cobalion would have only been a one easy prize more for my opponent.

Switch

Switch is good in 2 situations:

1) When playing against a trainer lock deck

It's pretty ironics that Switch is good against a trainer lokc deck but it's true. Trainer lock decks don't usually have time to lock themselves. Switch is very good because thanks to it, you can use 3 Chandelures per turn in crucial situations, which can pretty much win you the game in a mirror or against Reuniclus (90HP) based decks.

2) If you're facing a Spinarak tech.

About that next.

Spinarak

Yeah, Spinarak. This is mostly for mirror. If you feel like your mirror match-up is bad you can consider playing Spinarak. If they happen to set-up too long with their Baby, you can just lock them and stall until the time ends. Take the first prize and GG. Remember, this works only if no one hasn't taken advice from this article and isn't playing Switch in their Chandelures/other trainer lock decks.



After the teches it's time to look a bit deeper into the strategy. I'll list all the main points of the most important match-ups. Deck popularity looked directly from pokegym.net.

Match-ups

Magnezone/Eelektrik

This match-up is pretty interesting because Magnezone is one of the rare Pokémons that are able to OHKO Chandelure easily. However, this deck is built around Stage2 and stage1 Pokémon. That means they're extra slow in a trainer lock. So, a quick trainer lock is deadly against them. Other thing that will win you games sometimes even too easily, is Lampents Luring Light. Eelektriks retreat cost is 2, which is huge and Magnezones is 3. If you're able to buy even 2-3 turns with Eelektrik stading in the front, you have the game.

Zekrom/Tornadus/Pachirisu/Shaymin

If you don't get donked, you win the game. It's simple as that. I'm pretty surprised this deck has kept it's popularity. In my opinion, if you have even a ok beginning, it's an autowin for you. Twins/Tropical Beach/Trainer lock is so deadly against Zekrom.

Ross.dec

If you've read my report, you know what to do. Luring Light is once again magic here. Luring Lighting Reuniclus wins you the game. You can also kill Reuniclus that's evolved with Candy with a Cursed Shadow + Jirachi combo. Just remember to get rid off their Reunicluses and don't even try to set-up the trainer lock and you're up to a very easy win.

ReshiPlosion

As long as they don't have a god start, you have pretty good match-up. Just concentrate all your abilities on Typhlosions and kill Cyndaquils/Quilavas when possible. After you've killed their energy accelerators, you have the game. You must use Jirachi to KO Typhlosions because you don't have time spreading 140 damage on each Typhlosion. Attacking Reshirams at time to time is effective as well because they're in trainer lock. If they try to attack through confusion, you can get some pretty easy extra-damage on them.

Mirror

This is all about the starts. The one who goes first has a huge advantage. The one who gets the first Chandelure up has also a great place to start. There are 2 approaches to this match-up. Kill off their Chandelure evolving lines or kill off their Dodrio. I'm not sure which one is the better way to go and I guess it depends on the opponent's strategy and his start. Remember, no need to set-up Plume here either.



Conclusion

That's for Chandelure this time. I hope that reading of my both tournament reports and this article has taught you a lot of things about Chandelure and to look at it from different point of views. I think that if you build Chandelure correctly against your metagame, you won't have any too bad match-ups. Chandelure is in my opinion the BDIF and I think it's proved by the results from Cities. Once people realized how good Chandelure is, it has been taking City Championships after City Championships.

My story with Chandelure will be probably over after this article because I'm pretty fed-up playing with it. I enjoyed analyzing the deck and write the things I know and have experienced with this deck to this article but I won't probably be playing Chandelure or writing about it in the near future.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment or ask anything!