Manaphy & Friends

Hello everyone!


You know what day today is? The release date of Starcaft 2: Heart of the Swarm! Nonetheless, I'll be still writing to my blog regularly, even though I believe I have never been busier in my life than at the moment.

States started last weekend and even though some international Regionals have been played, we don’t really have any clear results from the tournaments. Darkrai EX has been dominating somewhere and surprisingly Klinklang has been doing very well for example in Finland. Garbodor/Landorus EX is still on the run and been doing extremely well. However, since the new set is released, there is also potential for completely new decks! And today I’ll take a look at not probably the most competitive deck variant there is, but very interesting and fun deck – Manaphy & Friends.

I’ll introduce two different variants of the deck and at the moment, I’m thinking of playing one of these variants in my upcoming Regionals. They are fun, consistent and can win any deck in the format – what else you need from a deck in this format? With a little tweaking I can see these decks to exceptionally especially in a very diverse format like the current format we are now playing.

Pokémon:

4x Manaphy
3x Keldeo EX
2x Mewtwo EX
2x Fliptini
=11


Trainer:

4x Professor Juniper
4x N
4x Bianca
2x Random Receiver
4x Ultra Ball
1x Computer Search
4x Pokémon Catcher
2x Escape Rope
4x Hypnotoxic Laser
2x Virbank City Gym
1x Super Rod
1x Energy Retrieval
1x Energy Switch
=34


Energy:

13x Water Energy
2x Double Colorless Energy
=15

This deck is pretty simple. Just get Manaphy to the active spot and start energy accelerating energy to your Keldeo EXs and start attacking by T3. With the help of Rush Ins you can keep your opponent from getting the cheapest KOs and with the help of Hypnotoxic Lasers you are forcing them to retreat all the time unless they want to give you free prizes.


Manaphy – Fliptini

Manahpy is the starter of this deck and with the help of Victini, it can be a huge energy accelerator already in the early turns. If everything goes as planned and you get enough Water energy to discard pile in T1, you usually get 2 energy to your Keldeo EX in the first turn. After that you are already ready to start hitting with Keldeo EX or just continue set upping with Manaphy until Manaphy is KOed and its Ability is activated. Fliptini is a must here and without it, this deck wouldn’t really even be a fun deck, just a crappy flippy deck.


Keldeo EX

Keldeo EX is the main attacker of this deck, but there isn’t that much else to it. You try to get it to Rush in, in T2 and you don’t usually attach more than 3 energy to it, because everything in the format 2HKOed by 3 energy Keldeo EX and as you can’t energy accelerate after set upping, you can’t afford losing all the energy at once or else you lose the game.


Mewtwo EX

Mewtwo EX is of course the BCIF, but it also plays a huge role against decks that would usually just run through this deck. Good example of this kind of deck would be Blastoise/Keldeo EX, which can just load 7 energy to Keldeo EX and OHKO everything. If it wasn’t for the Mewtwo EX, you would autoloss to those and to Eelektrik decks that can energy accelerate their Mewtwo EXs, but as you have a Mewtwo EX of your own, your opponent can’t attach too many energy to his/her Pokémon at once.




Professor Juniper – N - Bianca - Random Receiver

Nothing surprising here. You just want to discard a lot of energy in the early turns and that’s why I prefer Random Receiver over Skyla. Your optimal opening hand has a Juniper and Water energy in it.


Ultra Ball - Computer Search

Discarding, discarding and more discarding. These cards are not only highly important, because they can discard cards, but also, because they add consistency in your early turns and without them, you would be screwed against many decks, because you wouldn’t even be fast enough to beat a Darkrai EX deck.

Pokémon Catcher - Escape Rope

You don’t hit hard, so you must get easy prizes as fast as possible. Catcher and Escape Rope help you with that and of course Escape Rope helps you to Switch your Pokémon in situation where Rush-In is locked by for example Garbodor.


Hypnotoxic Laser - Virbank City Gym

You don’t hit a lot, so you need extra firepower. And that’s what exactly these cards do for you. You don’t really have to worry about your opponent’s Lasers as you have Rush-in all the time, but your opponent will be in trouble when you just Poison them every turn and if they are playing clunky decks like Landorus EX (which is by the way weak to Keldeo EX as well).


Super Rod

Sometimes you need the 3^rd Mewtwo EX or more Water energy and Super Rod is highly essential for that. One other very good option here is Tool Scrapper as well, if you feel like 2 Mewtwo EXs is enough.

Energy Retrieval - Energy Switch

Your every single attacker attacks the more they have energy attached to them, so it’s only natural for you to have lots of Trainers that help you to manipulate the energy on your Pokémon. If it wasn’t for Computer Search being broken, the deck would run Scramble Switch as well, but at the moment, I feel like Computer Search is the better play here, because you need to get T2 Keldeo EX consistently.

Energy

This deck wants to have as much energy as possible. Sometimes the 13 Water energy seems that too few, but in the end, you need to keep the deck consistent, so you can’t have 20 energy in your deck even if you wanted to. DCEs are just too good for Mewtwo EX and you can’t cut from then unless you are running a different variant of this deck…







Pokémon:

4x Manaphy
3x Keldeo EX
2x Fliptini
1x Mewtwo EX
1x Lunatone
=11


Trainer:

4x Professor Juniper
4x N
4x Random Receiver
2x Bianca
4x Ultra Ball
1x Level Ball
1x Computer Search
4x Pokémon Catcher
4x Ether
2x Escape Rope
1x Revive
1x Energy Retrieval
1x Energy Switch
=33


Energy:

16x Water Energy
=16

This deck is just pure speed, speed and speed. You just try to run through your opponent and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.


What’s different

Supporters

You NEED the cards to discard pile as soon as possible. That’s why I have maxed out the chances to get a Juniper in T1. Also, worth noting are the Water energy amounts of this deck – 16! That’s a lot. In every single opening hand you often have at least 2 Water Energy.

Lunatone – Ether

Here’s the thing, which makes the whole deck work- Lunatone is so good, because it can arrange the top2 cards of your deck and you don’t have to worry about its huge retreat cost, because you have Rush-In. With the help of Lunatone and high Water energy count, you are almost certain to hit 3 out of 4 Ethers to Water Energy. And when you can keep energy accelerating even in the mid and late game, your opponent will have tough time dealing with your speed.

Also, worth noting is that the deck doesn’t run DCEs anymore, because all the focus is on the Ether and Water Energy. This also changes the focus more towards Keldeo EX than Mewtwo EX and that’s why the deck also only plays 1 Mewtwo EX. You only need it when in a pinch.

Revive

Revive is mostly used on Lunatone, if your opponent is wise enough to KO it, but of course it can be used for Mewtwo EX or Keldeo EX as well when needed. Super Rod is another option, but at the moment, I’ve found Revive better in this variant.

Level Ball

You can get Lunatone, Manaphy AND Victini with Level Ball. It’s too good to be left out from this deck.


Speed = inconsistency?

It’s always interesting to discuss if speed decks are more inconsistent than the decks that doesn’t rely fully on speed. Simply put, speed decks ARE more inconsistent than set upping decks. The reason for this is that speed decks’ “set-up” has to happen in 1-2 turns. If you miss this window of the early turns, you lose the game. This is highlighted  in the current format where all the decks are extremely fast. Even a stage2 deck like Blastoise/Keldeo EX can get Keldeo EX hitting a lot in the T2. This increases the importance of consistency for the decks that rely solely on speed.

And the consistency problem is this deck’s biggest issue. Is it really worth not to play Blastoise and play Manaphy instead for the early game energy attachments? I dare to say that – no it isn’t. And in the end, that’s not what this deck is even about. I see this deck in the tier2 with decks like Hydreigon/Darkrai EX, Plasma Klinklang etc. It has some very good match-ups (like Garbodor based decks), because it doesn’t rely on Abilities like most decks in the current format, but sometimes these variants are just purely overpowered by the tier1 decks. Tier1 decks are from time to time even faster than this deck and whenever they set up, their firepower and mid-game consistency is on a whole another level.

Conclusion

Even though this deck isn’t maybe the most competitive it surely is lots of fun to play and in the end, it can beat the top tier decks with its consistency (and typing). I could boldly say that the probably most dominant deck of the moment Landorus EX/Garbodor is indeed a good match-up for this deck and that’s pretty cool even if I say so myself.


Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the article and I’m so sorry by the lateness of these articles, because I’ve had a super busy last week (literally worked my butt off). I also wrote a UG article, which will be released this Thursday and TODAY the Starcraft2: Heart of the Swarm was released, so I’ll be playing it a lot the past few weeks. I’ll try to come up with States analysis this week and I’ll also be attending our Regionals this weekend, so I’m pretty pumped up. Can I get my first tournament win of the season or will I bomb once again? It remains to been seen…


Thanks for reading!