Salamence LV.X – Worth the hype?

Salamence LV.X Arceus AR 98Another set has rolled around, and this one has only one word in it’s name: Arceus. There were a fair few amount of cards in this set to be hyped, but one of the cards to receive the most generous amount of love was Salamence LV.X. And it’s easy to see why, isn’t it? Taking double prizes is always an incredible feat, especially when you’re already sporting a high damage output from the start to begin with.

But is it really worth all the attention it’s been getting? Will this card turn out like another Raichu LV.X, in that it will be hyped beyond measure, and turn out to be binder candy after all? Well, that’s what we’re here to find out today.

First things first, we are going to look at the base statistics of the Salamence LV.X. Now, I know it seems backward that way, to cover the power up before the base you put it on, but the Salamence are going to be analyzed individually in their own time.

So, we take a gander at Salamence LV.X’s base stats. 160 HP is a very good total, making it fairly tough to one shot unless there are specific techs involved. It’s Colorless (Dragon) typing is both a gift and a curse, as it allows Salamence LV.X to easily one shot Flygon LV.X RR and Garchomp C LV.X SV, but it allows them to retaliate with a one shot of their own due to its own Colorless weakness. I have always been a firm believer in the philosophy that “If it has wings and it flies, it should have free retreat”. Sadly, Salamence LV.X must pay a fairly hefty 2 Energy to retreat. A fighting resistance isn’t one that’s likely to see a lot of use, due to the declining popularity of Machamp, and a lot of Fighting type Pokémon having attacks that are unaffected by resistance, anyway, but it’s better than none.

Salamence Stormfront SF 24As for the power, if you couldn’t read it in the scan, the exact wording is “Once per turn, when you put Salamence LV.X from your hand onto your Active Salamence, you may use this power. For each of your opponent’s Pokémon that is Knocked Out by damage from Salamence’s attacks this turn, take 1 more Prize card.” First thing to note is the obvious, which is that it’s only usable for one turn, so it would be best to make it count. Second, is to see that is has to go from your hand, to your Active Salamence. This means little tricks like Level Max or Porygon Z promo’s Learning attack will not activate the power (Actually, this one wouldn’t matter. Even if the power did activate, you already attacked, so that ends your turn before Salamence gets a chance to attack.). Third, it does not say that the Pokémon being KO’d for 2 Prizes has to be Active, so keep in mind Salamence’s bench hitting potential. It’s attack is one of your generic high cost, high damage, discard an Energy attacks. Nothing to go into explicit detail over, but it’s very good in it’s own right.

Now, as we will start moving down the line of Salamence that can be used. Salamence is one of those Pokémon that seems to be favored by PUI, so there are a decent amount to choose from. They all have the same statistics all around, with 140 HP, +30 weakness to colorless, -20 resistance to Fighting, and the SW and SF Salamences have 3 Retreat, while the AR Salamence only has 2. The +30 weakness is actually a bigger boon than most would think, since there are all the Colorless techs running around for Flygon-countering purposes.

Going in order of sets, we have Salamence SW. It has no Power or Body, unlike the other two, but it has the best attack in my opinion. First it has Direct Hit, which does 50 damage. Always. Regardless of whether they are resistant to you (Gengar), weak against you (Flygon), holding a tool/Energy that messes with the damage done (Buffer Piece/Special Metal), or have some kind of Agility effect going on (Flygon again, along with Dusknoir SF #1 and a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting). In my books, that’s completely worth giving up the shot at Weakness. SW’s second attack, however is even more enticing. “Dragon Finish” lets you discard two basic Fire or Water Energy. If you discard two Fire, you can do 100 to the Active.

Salamence Secret Wonders SW 18However, and this is the good stuff, if you discard two Water Energy, then you can do 100 to any of their Benched Pokémon. You know that Pokémon with the Expert Belt they were trying to hide on their bench to give Nidoqueen RR a chance to heal it? It won’t be healed, unfortunately, and you’ll take not one, not even 2, but 3 Prizes. The thing that sets this one Salamence above the rest attack-wise is that even if you don’t target an Expert Belt wielding Pokémon, you can still take out key support Pokémon like Claydol GE. This is the guy that virtually guarantees you take 2 Prizes for the attack, but it is the hardest to get out. See, Dragon Finish takes 2 Fire and 2 Water to use, so there is no Upper Energy shenanigans, and no Call Energy to be seen. You would have to rely heavily on some form of Energy acceleration to get this out evenly.

Salamence SF, however, comes with a Poké-Body. If there is a Pokémon on your opponent’s side of the field with at least 120 maximum HP, then you get to ignore the C Energy requirements for it’s attacks. Considering all the Stage 2 Pokémon running around, with even Gengar, who normally falls short at 110, receiving a LV.X, it’s fairly easy to set it off. And even if your opponent is running some kind of SP toolbox where the highest HP is Luxray LV.X’s 110, you could tech your own Snowpoint Temple to boost it and get your own attacks quickly. The setback here, though, is that Salamence SF’s power attack, Steam Twister, requires two different types of Energy to be discarded. This makes it very hard to pull off successive hits, due to your draining yourself of all Energy every turn.

Salamence Arceus AR 8The newest gem in the Salamence fan’s collection would be the AR incarnation, with a power that provides literal Energy acceleration. Top Accelerator lets you look at the top card of your deck, and if it is a basic Energy, you can attach it to a Pokémon. Delcatty PL lets you replace the Energy on top of your deck from your discard pile, so you can be sure you always have an Energy on top. Running a build based on this would tend to have some consistency issues, though, since in my testing it seems like I get more bad starts than good ones.

But then, I’ve said that about some of my tournament winning decklists, too, so even I don’t trust my own words there. Attack-wise, Salamence AR is the only one of the 3 Salamence that lets you attack two Pokémon at the same time, thus opening the possibility for 4 Prizes in a single attack. That attack takes 3 Energy, though, which is more than any of the others require to attack (SW needing 2 and SF needing 1 if the Body is activated and 2 if not). Dragon Claw isn’t worth it. Just forget it exists, and 999 out of 1000 games you’ll never realize it was even there.

So, in conclusion to this brief(-ish) article, Salamence is a card that’s got more going on under the surface than one would think just glancing at it. I, for one, wasn’t very impressed when I first saw the translations for it, but as I got to thinking about it, it grew on me somewhat. The way I see it, this card can either destroy your opponent very easily, or epically fail in the way that people will be talking about you behind your back for weeks. I guess only time and a lot of serious play testing will tell.

Reader Interactions

115 replies

  1. Matthew Riddle

    Reminds me of a LBS-like deck, with the building of multiple stage 2s along with a stage 1 (delcatty) to get off some massive damage and take some easy prizes.

    Too bad, I feel, LBS would fail horribly in the current format (especially without Pidgeot). Speed has been the main ingredient in decks since the release of Platinum, and possibly even Stormfront with Machamp/Gengar. I think decks are too fast to let something like this get built. Spiritomb helps, true, but I don’t think Spiritomb has enough ability to bring back setup decks in a format dominated by speed.

    Salamence has some very interesting cards. I feel like Salamence could be a great deck if you took all the good things from the 3 cards and put them on one card. But as it stands now, each of the cards have a great mechanic, but fail in other areas. The ‘Top Accelerator’ Poke-Power would go great with ‘Steam Twister’ on the SF card, or ‘Dragon Finish’ on the SW card, but it kind of loses purpose with the AR card’s attacks. The ‘Battle Rush’ Poke-Body on the SF card would go great with the ‘Dragon Claw’ attack on the AR card. Interesting attacks and mechanics, just transposed on different cards. To get the most out of them, you’ll have to build 3 stage 2s, which I don’t feel the format will let you do peacefully.

  2. Joshua Hall

    Good analysis, you covered all the bases and came to the right conclusion that…this probably won’t work. The new Salamence is nice in its energy acceleration, but the fact that you might need a supporter like Delcatty makes the deck much more clunky. Any Salamence deck would probably rely on the double prize tactic to work, and would thus lose to SP’s that would gladly power spray it. Maybe throw in an expert belt of your own to do some more damage, but that adds the risk factor even more.

  3. bendingspoons1

    i definitely feel that any card that can take all six prizes aka knock out 2 expert belt Pokemon with shoot through has to be good. This should have an edge against the many different flygon variants that are being played.

  4. bendingspoons1

    i definitely feel that any card that can take all six prizes aka knock out 2 expert belt Pokemon with shoot through has to be good. This should have an edge against the many different flygon variants that are being played.

  5. Adam Yusuf

    It’s got sooooo much potential… you did forget one key alternative to Delcatty which is Unown A with it’s Analyze: Once during your turn (before your attack), if Unown A is on your bench, you may look at the top 2 cards of your deck and put them back on top of your deck in any order. Although to be honest Felecity’s Drawing/Delcatty Combo is a safer bet, I’ve seen the Unown A version work as well. I’ve tried using Spiritomb AR as a starter, but as much as it hurts your opponent, you slow down a bit as well unfortunately.

  6. Power Swing

    The deck reminds me to much of rayquaza c, everyone looks at it’s attack and you see it hits hard, you see it can take easy prizes ONCE SET UP but you miss the fact thatnit takes way to long to get set up, and when you do grtvit set up its only going to last you a couple turns before you have to re-set up. So no, I don’t think it will to great, but it will deffinently be played.

  7. Power Swing

    The deck reminds me to much of rayquaza c, everyone looks at it’s attack and you see it hits hard, you see it can take easy prizes ONCE SET UP but you miss the fact thatnit takes way to long to get set up, and when you do grtvit set up its only going to last you a couple turns before you have to re-set up. So no, I don’t think it will to great, but it will deffinently be played.

  8. Dave Hueglin

    You are really going to need to watch out when you level him up because his ability to be knocked out by a Colourless Pokemon increases dramatically. When he is unlevelled it takes 110 damage to KO him (140hp but only +30 damage due to weakness). When he levels up it only takes an attack that does 80 damage (160hp but x2 damage due to weakness)(and that’s assuming there is no previous damage).

  9. Dave Hueglin

    You are really going to need to watch out when you level him up because his ability to be knocked out by a Colourless Pokemon increases dramatically. When he is unlevelled it takes 110 damage to KO him (140hp but only +30 damage due to weakness). When he levels up it only takes an attack that does 80 damage (160hp but x2 damage due to weakness)(and that’s assuming there is no previous damage).

  10. Graham Poteet

    This card is definitely worth the hype. But it definitely can be countered by multiple things. I really think we’ll have to wait to cities to see what this has in store for the most part.

  11. Graham Poteet

    This card is definitely worth the hype. But it definitely can be countered by multiple things. I really think we’ll have to wait to cities to see what this has in store for the most part.

  12. Christopher

    I have tested this deck and it has not done too well, but I think if it is played the right way, it will definitely be worth trying out.

  13. Christopher

    I have tested this deck and it has not done too well, but I think if it is played the right way, it will definitely be worth trying out.

  14. Adam Capriola

    I question how often you will actually get a chance to knock out a Pokemon with Expert Belt attached. I feel like your opponent will play around that, but getting 2 prizes is still really good. My main issue is that it takes quite an energy investment, you may be behind in energy drop all game.

    I’ll still probably try it out sometime tho and see how it does.

  15. Power Swing

    Ok guys I just got done testing this deck out.
    It does ok on taking prizes but it takes way to long to set it up and like Adam said, you easily get behind in your energy drops. I tested against 2 decks, Flychamp and a Luxbox. Against luxbox, it is way to quick for this deck to play against and it quickly pulls up your delcatty and claydol to were you can’t even do anything. But if it it gets set up, you can take 4 to5 easy prizes but then you lose salemence and then have to rebuild. Against flychamp, flygon just crushes your salemence befornit can even get set up and if you don’t get your energy out of the discard pile quick then they can memery berry energy typhoon pretty hard after a while. It also kept pulling my delcatty up which makes me lose energy drops because it’s tough to get your salemence set up while protecting your pokemon with unown g.
    Ultamitly it’s ok I mean it can draw prizes extremely well, but it’s to slow to setup and then resetup. So tell me what you guys think.

  16. Power Swing

    Ok guys I just got done testing this deck out.
    It does ok on taking prizes but it takes way to long to set it up and like Adam said, you easily get behind in your energy drops. I tested against 2 decks, Flychamp and a Luxbox. Against luxbox, it is way to quick for this deck to play against and it quickly pulls up your delcatty and claydol to were you can’t even do anything. But if it it gets set up, you can take 4 to5 easy prizes but then you lose salemence and then have to rebuild. Against flychamp, flygon just crushes your salemence befornit can even get set up and if you don’t get your energy out of the discard pile quick then they can memery berry energy typhoon pretty hard after a while. It also kept pulling my delcatty up which makes me lose energy drops because it’s tough to get your salemence set up while protecting your pokemon with unown g.
    Ultamitly it’s ok I mean it can draw prizes extremely well, but it’s to slow to setup and then resetup. So tell me what you guys think.

  17. Matthew Riddle

    Reminds me of a LBS-like deck, with the building of multiple stage 2s along with a stage 1 (delcatty) to get off some massive damage and take some easy prizes.

    Too bad, I feel, LBS would fail horribly in the current format (especially without Pidgeot). Speed has been the main ingredient in decks since the release of Platinum, and possibly even Stormfront with Machamp/Gengar. I think decks are too fast to let something like this get built. Spiritomb helps, true, but I don’t think Spiritomb has enough ability to bring back setup decks in a format dominated by speed.

    Salamence has some very interesting cards. I feel like Salamence could be a great deck if you took all the good things from the 3 cards and put them on one card. But as it stands now, each of the cards have a great mechanic, but fail in other areas. The ‘Top Accelerator’ Poke-Power would go great with ‘Steam Twister’ on the SF card, or ‘Dragon Finish’ on the SW card, but it kind of loses purpose with the AR card’s attacks. The ‘Battle Rush’ Poke-Body on the SF card would go great with the ‘Dragon Claw’ attack on the AR card. Interesting attacks and mechanics, just transposed on different cards. To get the most out of them, you’ll have to build 3 stage 2s, which I don’t feel the format will let you do peacefully.

  18. Joshua Hall

    Good analysis, you covered all the bases and came to the right conclusion that…this probably won’t work. The new Salamence is nice in its energy acceleration, but the fact that you might need a supporter like Delcatty makes the deck much more clunky. Any Salamence deck would probably rely on the double prize tactic to work, and would thus lose to SP’s that would gladly power spray it. Maybe throw in an expert belt of your own to do some more damage, but that adds the risk factor even more.

  19. Adam Yusuf

    It’s got sooooo much potential… you did forget one key alternative to Delcatty which is Unown A with it’s Analyze: Once during your turn (before your attack), if Unown A is on your bench, you may look at the top 2 cards of your deck and put them back on top of your deck in any order. Although to be honest Felecity’s Drawing/Delcatty Combo is a safer bet, I’ve seen the Unown A version work as well. I’ve tried using Spiritomb AR as a starter, but as much as it hurts your opponent, you slow down a bit as well unfortunately.

  20. SMGausch

    I’ve been playing Sf Salamence for a while now pre-level x and have placed well and won some tournaments with it. The level x just makes it that much easier to win. The real key to this deck is to use the battle rush poke body when you can, but if you can’t just attach to energies and hit for 50 as many times as you can or attach a memory berry and use the sw bagon’s rage attack to one hit just about anything when you are getting low on hp. Sure flygon can one hit the level x, but almost never the stage 2. And if you have the level x you would have just taken two prizes to the one they are about to take. Advantage you. In 50 plus games against flygon I have lost a total of one and that was a azelf start with two claydol’s and a uxie prized. Between the battle rush body allowing you to one hit any flygon for two energies and taking double prizes it should be an auto win against flygon. With a few premier balls night maint or rescues you have to take three prizes before they take six(double take). you can also tech so many things in. Nidoqueen heals, Nidoking puts everything into one hit range and can also help you escape fainting spell if a gengar with 100 damage is forced to attack, exploud removes your weakness to colorless if garchomp or flygon really do seem to be a problem. The honest truth is sp’s are a bit tough with lower than 120 hp and power spray, but lookers can help you out with power spray and the only sp that is not done in by a constant 50 and rage is luxray because it can stop your set up with a claydol bright eyes. The key to that matchup is speed and luck. In my extensive play testing a turn two sally is often a reality and can help you buy some time to set up. I just see the level x as a great card to make a decent rogue deck better. Will this become an archetype? Probably not, but a well put together list can get you wins and when people aren’t expecting it tournaments championships as well.

  21. Adam Capriola

    I question how often you will actually get a chance to knock out a Pokemon with Expert Belt attached. I feel like your opponent will play around that, but getting 2 prizes is still really good. My main issue is that it takes quite an energy investment, you may be behind in energy drop all game.

    I’ll still probably try it out sometime tho and see how it does.

  22. Mark Stroup

    This guy is a beast.
    In my decklist, I run a little engine called 4x Energy Pickup (LA) and believe me, the space it takes up in the deck is definitely worth it.
    Sure, 50-50 coin flip thing yeahyeahyeah, but you’ll soon be finding out that it will do nothing but keep you at basically the same energy drops as your opponent.
    All my other lists without Energy Pickup’s fail and do horribly, but Energy Pickup and even a Lucian’s Assignment to switch out some hefty energies does the trick when you can anticipate a colorless-counter being built, e.g. Garchomp C LvX, Ditto (if that’s still ran anymore), etc.
    PUI is just trying to fool everyone into playing Gengar LvX with his colorless resistance and nonsense spread, SALAMENCE SON!!! =D

  23. Ariadosguy

    I definitely think this deck needs Spiritomb AoA to help set-up. Rather than Delcatty to put energy on the top of the deck I would go with Solrock SV and Lunatone instead.

  24. Ariadosguy

    I definitely think this deck needs Spiritomb AoA to help set-up. Rather than Delcatty to put energy on the top of the deck I would go with Solrock SV and Lunatone instead.

  25. SMGausch

    I’ve been playing Sf Salamence for a while now pre-level x and have placed well and won some tournaments with it. The level x just makes it that much easier to win. The real key to this deck is to use the battle rush poke body when you can, but if you can’t just attach to energies and hit for 50 as many times as you can or attach a memory berry and use the sw bagon’s rage attack to one hit just about anything when you are getting low on hp. Sure flygon can one hit the level x, but almost never the stage 2. And if you have the level x you would have just taken two prizes to the one they are about to take. Advantage you. In 50 plus games against flygon I have lost a total of one and that was a azelf start with two claydol’s and a uxie prized. Between the battle rush body allowing you to one hit any flygon for two energies and taking double prizes it should be an auto win against flygon. With a few premier balls night maint or rescues you have to take three prizes before they take six(double take). you can also tech so many things in. Nidoqueen heals, Nidoking puts everything into one hit range and can also help you escape fainting spell if a gengar with 100 damage is forced to attack, exploud removes your weakness to colorless if garchomp or flygon really do seem to be a problem. The honest truth is sp’s are a bit tough with lower than 120 hp and power spray, but lookers can help you out with power spray and the only sp that is not done in by a constant 50 and rage is luxray because it can stop your set up with a claydol bright eyes. The key to that matchup is speed and luck. In my extensive play testing a turn two sally is often a reality and can help you buy some time to set up. I just see the level x as a great card to make a decent rogue deck better. Will this become an archetype? Probably not, but a well put together list can get you wins and when people aren’t expecting it tournaments championships as well.

  26. benjamin c

    hello,

    i will also try salamence (no pre yet-.-) but here are some of my thoughts:

    1. 2 AOA Salamence in a deck: You can use a lot of techs to get 2(without the x) or 4 with the x easier. First would try gengar sf. A fast gengar sf can shadow room a claydol-> you only need 20 dmg to ko it. With Salamence´s X power and AOA Salamence you can get 4 prizes.
      Another techs are Metagross SV, which helps because of its body, exploud sv against flygon. But in my opinion the setup is the worst thing in AOA Salamence Deck
    2. 2 SF Salamence in deck: It can attack faster because many decks run 120hp pokemon or you play snowpoint against sp, which won´t be so much played because of rapidash and spritomb. But its body is useless against gengar. Gengar won´t play its lv.x if it sees bagon. Thats very problematic.Besides you can´t use techs like metagross and you can only take 2 prizes with its x.
    3. Salamence SW: I wouldn´t play it because it es very slow. The 100 snipe is very good but too slow.
  27. Mark Stroup

    This guy is a beast.
    In my decklist, I run a little engine called 4x Energy Pickup (LA) and believe me, the space it takes up in the deck is definitely worth it.
    Sure, 50-50 coin flip thing yeahyeahyeah, but you’ll soon be finding out that it will do nothing but keep you at basically the same energy drops as your opponent.
    All my other lists without Energy Pickup’s fail and do horribly, but Energy Pickup and even a Lucian’s Assignment to switch out some hefty energies does the trick when you can anticipate a colorless-counter being built, e.g. Garchomp C LvX, Ditto (if that’s still ran anymore), etc.
    PUI is just trying to fool everyone into playing Gengar LvX with his colorless resistance and nonsense spread, SALAMENCE SON!!! =D

  28. benjamin c

    hello,

    i will also try salamence (no pre yet-.-) but here are some of my thoughts:

    1. 2 AOA Salamence in a deck: You can use a lot of techs to get 2(without the x) or 4 with the x easier. First would try gengar sf. A fast gengar sf can shadow room a claydol-> you only need 20 dmg to ko it. With Salamence´s X power and AOA Salamence you can get 4 prizes.
      Another techs are Metagross SV, which helps because of its body, exploud sv against flygon. But in my opinion the setup is the worst thing in AOA Salamence Deck
    2. 2 SF Salamence in deck: It can attack faster because many decks run 120hp pokemon or you play snowpoint against sp, which won´t be so much played because of rapidash and spritomb. But its body is useless against gengar. Gengar won´t play its lv.x if it sees bagon. Thats very problematic.Besides you can´t use techs like metagross and you can only take 2 prizes with its x.
    3. Salamence SW: I wouldn´t play it because it es very slow. The 100 snipe is very good but too slow.
  29. Mach

    I’m glad to have some discussion going on about this, so here’s some feedback on the interesting comments.

    MatthewR: You’ve pretty much summed up my thoughts on the matter. While I was playing around with my rough list, it seemed like I always wanted one Salamence’s effect with another one’s attacks.

    bendingspoons: I don’t see anyone leaving one of their Expert Belt’d Pokemon benched with only 20HP left very often. It happens, but I think it’s too rare to bank on it. Once, I saw a situation like that at league, and the person decided to kill it with Mismagius SF by discarding the Expert Belt rather than let me take the two extra prizes with Salamence.

    Pokey: I never thought about Unown A, but don’t you worry about the Gengar snipe?

    Dave Hueglin: That’s probably what I’m most worried about as of right now. Even if you get an awesome setup, after you take the two prizes, they can still knock you out T4-5 with a well timed tech attack. Then you’ll suddenly find yourself Energy-less, and that’s never a good situation.

    Adam: You will be behind, trust me. The taking an extra prize deal will help you catch up, but you’ll be behind more often than not anyway. And Upper won’t work with this guy, either, which is another blow.

    Power Swing: What did you test?

    benjamin: Gengar/Salamence seems like a good thought at first glance, but aren’t there too many Energy types flying around to be good for consistency? Gengar won’t play it’s LV.X, but it does use Nidoqueen which has 120 on it’s own, though.

    To all, though, do you think that Salamence can be teched to handle enough bad matchups (Gengar, SP) to win a significant amount of Cities?

  30. Mach

    I’m glad to have some discussion going on about this, so here’s some feedback on the interesting comments.

    MatthewR: You’ve pretty much summed up my thoughts on the matter. While I was playing around with my rough list, it seemed like I always wanted one Salamence’s effect with another one’s attacks.

    bendingspoons: I don’t see anyone leaving one of their Expert Belt’d Pokemon benched with only 20HP left very often. It happens, but I think it’s too rare to bank on it. Once, I saw a situation like that at league, and the person decided to kill it with Mismagius SF by discarding the Expert Belt rather than let me take the two extra prizes with Salamence.

    Pokey: I never thought about Unown A, but don’t you worry about the Gengar snipe?

    Dave Hueglin: That’s probably what I’m most worried about as of right now. Even if you get an awesome setup, after you take the two prizes, they can still knock you out T4-5 with a well timed tech attack. Then you’ll suddenly find yourself Energy-less, and that’s never a good situation.

    Adam: You will be behind, trust me. The taking an extra prize deal will help you catch up, but you’ll be behind more often than not anyway. And Upper won’t work with this guy, either, which is another blow.

    Power Swing: What did you test?

    benjamin: Gengar/Salamence seems like a good thought at first glance, but aren’t there too many Energy types flying around to be good for consistency? Gengar won’t play it’s LV.X, but it does use Nidoqueen which has 120 on it’s own, though.

    To all, though, do you think that Salamence can be teched to handle enough bad matchups (Gengar, SP) to win a significant amount of Cities?

  31. benjamin c

    Well, i think Gengar doesnt need a queen if it plays against salamence because it is very slow and gengar has resistance. Some gengar runs metagross which means that salamence´s body won´t work-.-. Against Gengar Arceus Dark might be helpful because your opponent will have less prizes than you, but the problem is that you need a darkness energy-.-

    If you play salamence with gengar(first of all i didn´t play test that yet), you dont need that many energies. I think 4 call 4 fire 4 water 2 psychic are enough and you can get them via roseanne´s. I think a starter like sableye sf helps a lot.

  32. benjamin c

    Well, i think Gengar doesnt need a queen if it plays against salamence because it is very slow and gengar has resistance. Some gengar runs metagross which means that salamence´s body won´t work-.-. Against Gengar Arceus Dark might be helpful because your opponent will have less prizes than you, but the problem is that you need a darkness energy-.-

    If you play salamence with gengar(first of all i didn´t play test that yet), you dont need that many energies. I think 4 call 4 fire 4 water 2 psychic are enough and you can get them via roseanne´s. I think a starter like sableye sf helps a lot.

  33. Dave Hueglin

    Mach – I think you will need 3-4 Lucian’s Assignment to help keep the Energy on the table instead of in the discard pile. You can do an Energy drop every turn, even if it’s not on Salamence, then transfer over as needed.

    I also think you’ll need a couple of Pokemon rescue to get back the Level X after it has been KO’d.

    It seems to me that this will be a capable deck in the hands of a player who really knows the ins and outs of how to play it optimally. Definitely not an auto-pilot deck!

    • Mach  → Dave

      I’m still not entirely sold on it just yet. Maybe if there were some decent way to re-attach from the discard pile, it’d be much better IMO.

  34. Dave Hueglin

    Mach – I think you will need 3-4 Lucian’s Assignment to help keep the Energy on the table instead of in the discard pile. You can do an Energy drop every turn, even if it’s not on Salamence, then transfer over as needed.

    I also think you’ll need a couple of Pokemon rescue to get back the Level X after it has been KO’d.

    It seems to me that this will be a capable deck in the hands of a player who really knows the ins and outs of how to play it optimally. Definitely not an auto-pilot deck!

    • Mach  → Dave

      I’m still not entirely sold on it just yet. Maybe if there were some decent way to re-attach from the discard pile, it’d be much better IMO.

  35. Rokman

    I’ve never been a fan of Salamence mostly because his moves are always very cost inefficient.

  36. Rokman

    I’ve never been a fan of Salamence mostly because his moves are always very cost inefficient.

  37. Ace

    I think one thing you guys are forgetting is that the level x says that for each pokemon knocked draw a prize card. Combo Salamence AoA with Empoleon MD or another spreader, and you have the possibility to draw four prize cards in one turn! Who cares if you have a Spiritomb, Sableye, and/or your Empoleon knocked out, a 4 prize swing should put you ahead in the game and its “shoot through” attack only costs 3 energies.

    • Eelis Peltola  → Ace

      Salamence’s power says that it works only for itself. ;) If it could work for spread, it would be so beast. I’d be making a Salamence-Ttar deck right now.

      Personally I don’t think that Salamence is worth the hype… Just too slow. Why would I make a deck that focuses on taking 2 prizes at the same time on T4-5, when I could just make a deck that takes a prize at T2-3 and a prize at T3-4?

      • Ace  → Eelis

        It says: “For each of your opponent’s Pokemon that is Knocked out by damage from Salamence’s attacks this turn, take 1 more Prize card.”

        This means that if you do 50 and 20 to a pokemon on the bench with shoot though, if you are able to knock out two pokemon with that attack, the turn you level up Salamence, you get 4 prizes. Meaning if you can spread or snipe, then bring out Salamence once your opponent has a pokemon on the bench with 20 HP left and an active with 50 HP, you will be in prize city.

        • Joshua Hall  → Ace

          This idea was mentioned, hence Gengar/Salamence and other ideas above. Sure it seems awesome, but I doubt it’s very easy to pull off, if at all.

  38. Ace

    I think one thing you guys are forgetting is that the level x says that for each pokemon knocked draw a prize card. Combo Salamence AoA with Empoleon MD or another spreader, and you have the possibility to draw four prize cards in one turn! Who cares if you have a Spiritomb, Sableye, and/or your Empoleon knocked out, a 4 prize swing should put you ahead in the game and its “shoot through” attack only costs 3 energies.

    • Eelis Peltola  → Ace

      Salamence’s power says that it works only for itself. ;) If it could work for spread, it would be so beast. I’d be making a Salamence-Ttar deck right now.

      Personally I don’t think that Salamence is worth the hype… Just too slow. Why would I make a deck that focuses on taking 2 prizes at the same time on T4-5, when I could just make a deck that takes a prize at T2-3 and a prize at T3-4?

      • Ace  → Eelis

        It says: “For each of your opponent’s Pokemon that is Knocked out by damage from Salamence’s attacks this turn, take 1 more Prize card.”

        This means that if you do 50 and 20 to a pokemon on the bench with shoot though, if you are able to knock out two pokemon with that attack, the turn you level up Salamence, you get 4 prizes. Meaning if you can spread or snipe, then bring out Salamence once your opponent has a pokemon on the bench with 20 HP left and an active with 50 HP, you will be in prize city.

        • Joshua Hall  → Ace

          This idea was mentioned, hence Gengar/Salamence and other ideas above. Sure it seems awesome, but I doubt it’s very easy to pull off, if at all.

  39. jesus69

    Why is this the card evryone is hypeing.
    Personaly i think there is so much more potential in this set.
    tangrowth looks amazing, if it doesnt get otk it should never die. And a straight sceptile deck< that could be amazing.
    Not to mention if anybody is worried about Salaemence in the metta your crazy. Decks like kingdra and all those little decks that could never get enough damage to donk will be more played than ever.
    be ready to see some of the craziest Uxie and shuppet rush decks.

  40. Ariadosguy

    I really like the idea of Salamence. I have a few ideas:

    1) Spiritomb starter. The deck needs to set-up PA Salamence and Salamence attacker, Delcatty if you run it, and Claydol and against SP decks you need to slow them down and set-up otherwise they’ll kill your Claydol early and you won’t be able to draw fards.

    2) Expert Belt/PlusPower/Crobat G. In order to one-shot 130-HP pokemon with Salamence SW or 110 HP SP pokemon with Snowpoint in play with SF Salamence, you’ll need 10 extra damage.

    3) Solrock SV with Lunatone (any) instead of Delcatty. Having both of these in play makes it work like Unown A except you get to look at the top THREE cards, not two.

    I really like the idea of Salamence and will have to try it out.

  41. Ariadosguy

    I really like the idea of Salamence. I have a few ideas:

    1) Spiritomb starter. The deck needs to set-up PA Salamence and Salamence attacker, Delcatty if you run it, and Claydol and against SP decks you need to slow them down and set-up otherwise they’ll kill your Claydol early and you won’t be able to draw fards.

    2) Expert Belt/PlusPower/Crobat G. In order to one-shot 130-HP pokemon with Salamence SW or 110 HP SP pokemon with Snowpoint in play with SF Salamence, you’ll need 10 extra damage.

    3) Solrock SV with Lunatone (any) instead of Delcatty. Having both of these in play makes it work like Unown A except you get to look at the top THREE cards, not two.

    I really like the idea of Salamence and will have to try it out.

  42. jesus69

    Why is this the card evryone is hypeing.
    Personaly i think there is so much more potential in this set.
    tangrowth looks amazing, if it doesnt get otk it should never die. And a straight sceptile deck< that could be amazing.
    Not to mention if anybody is worried about Salaemence in the metta your crazy. Decks like kingdra and all those little decks that could never get enough damage to donk will be more played than ever.
    be ready to see some of the craziest Uxie and shuppet rush decks.

  43. Simon Peter

    I think that the SF Salamence is essential. If its Body does go off– and it will against a number of decks, including SP if you drop Snowpoint Temple– you can do huge damage very easily, even if it is not constant. With Double Fall, you don’t need to be getting OHKOs every single turn; with Premier Ball and/or SSU, it can be used again, potentially allowing you to end a game with only 3 KOs.

    Battle Rush also works amazingly well with Bagon AND Shelgon from SW and Memory Berry. Bagon has Rage, which is a great attack to have on a 160 HP Pokemon, and with the Body in effect, it is completely free. Shelgon’s attack is also costless, doing 30 and reducing 30; this can be used to finish things off that have already been hit for 100/120 and it can also buy you time to get further set up (-30 while doing 30 FOR FREE is good).

    • Mach  → Simon

      Interesting…

      We’ve even got Department Girl out now, so the Memory Berries are searchable, too. I’m really liking that idea.

  44. John Kettler

    Considering how big Flygon will remain, I don’t think I’d ever play this deck without a tech Exploud line thrown in.

    Perhaps I’m way off, but this seems more like a hype deck than a substantive archetype. Double Fall is virtually useless against a good SP player/list, and versus the rest of the field, your ability to draw multiple prizes in one turn is hindered by your energy inefficiency/relative slowness to other decks.

    The type of Salamence build most likely to win tournaments is not the typical “zomg rush Sally nao!” lists we’re seeing, but instead something much less common. I have yet to test this deck much, but in my opinion, Salamence buuilds are best designed with conservative mid-game domination in mind, and not anything akin to early game rush.

  45. Simon Peter

    I think that the SF Salamence is essential. If its Body does go off– and it will against a number of decks, including SP if you drop Snowpoint Temple– you can do huge damage very easily, even if it is not constant. With Double Fall, you don’t need to be getting OHKOs every single turn; with Premier Ball and/or SSU, it can be used again, potentially allowing you to end a game with only 3 KOs.

    Battle Rush also works amazingly well with Bagon AND Shelgon from SW and Memory Berry. Bagon has Rage, which is a great attack to have on a 160 HP Pokemon, and with the Body in effect, it is completely free. Shelgon’s attack is also costless, doing 30 and reducing 30; this can be used to finish things off that have already been hit for 100/120 and it can also buy you time to get further set up (-30 while doing 30 FOR FREE is good).

    • Mach  → Simon

      Interesting…

      We’ve even got Department Girl out now, so the Memory Berries are searchable, too. I’m really liking that idea.

  46. John Kettler

    Considering how big Flygon will remain, I don’t think I’d ever play this deck without a tech Exploud line thrown in.

    Perhaps I’m way off, but this seems more like a hype deck than a substantive archetype. Double Fall is virtually useless against a good SP player/list, and versus the rest of the field, your ability to draw multiple prizes in one turn is hindered by your energy inefficiency/relative slowness to other decks.

    The type of Salamence build most likely to win tournaments is not the typical “zomg rush Sally nao!” lists we’re seeing, but instead something much less common. I have yet to test this deck much, but in my opinion, Salamence buuilds are best designed with conservative mid-game domination in mind, and not anything akin to early game rush.

  47. Brandon

    I plan to try a salamence LV.X deck but you have to have a good combination and you almost have to have 4 rare candies and at least 2 broken time-space butr about the expert belt i dont think that card will be very popular because of the fact that you opponet gets an extra prize when they knock out if people have then they should be very carful where and when they play them because of the salamence fear that means that salamence could end a game in one turn if 2 expert belts where in play even though this is very unlikely but even if theres one in play 5 prizes in 1 turn still isn’t bad and neathers is 4 you just need a pokemon to back up salamence when it gets K.O.ed i also plan to make a salamence x counter just in case a lot of people use him a Flygon LV.X 300 damage should be a sure knocout!

  48. Brandon

    I plan to try a salamence LV.X deck but you have to have a good combination and you almost have to have 4 rare candies and at least 2 broken time-space butr about the expert belt i dont think that card will be very popular because of the fact that you opponet gets an extra prize when they knock out if people have then they should be very carful where and when they play them because of the salamence fear that means that salamence could end a game in one turn if 2 expert belts where in play even though this is very unlikely but even if theres one in play 5 prizes in 1 turn still isn’t bad and neathers is 4 you just need a pokemon to back up salamence when it gets K.O.ed i also plan to make a salamence x counter just in case a lot of people use him a Flygon LV.X 300 damage should be a sure knocout!

  49. Robin Gimbel

    One problem with the snoow point idee: when you give e.g. Luxray X the +20 boost it have 130 hp, out from ko range. sure you can play pp or crobat, but its more work to do.

  50. Robin Gimbel

    One problem with the snoow point idee: when you give e.g. Luxray X the +20 boost it have 130 hp, out from ko range. sure you can play pp or crobat, but its more work to do.

  51. SMGausch

    Brandon

    Flygon is not really a great counter because salamence out speeds you, takes two prizes, then potentially wants to be knocked out so they can rescue the level x and take two prizes again. Garchomp sv may be a better counter, it still exploits weakness and after a sally burns energies its very vulnerable to a big hit, throw in an exploud sv tech and you are not weak to him. Also weavile or crobat and some poke turns in that deck also allow it to do a number on gengar and possibly avoid fainting spell, or just play it with cyclone enrgies, luxray, infernape 4, etc. to play around your opponents big threat, add in dark palm dusknoir to get rid of it? Just some ideas, i just know from extensive play testing flygon is not the answer to salamence unless you play it very well.

  52. Mach

    Power Swing: I meant what exactly did you test? Did you test Salamence AR with Delcatty, or Salamence SF rush, or what?

  53. Mach

    Power Swing: I meant what exactly did you test? Did you test Salamence AR with Delcatty, or Salamence SF rush, or what?

  54. SMGausch

    Brandon

    Flygon is not really a great counter because salamence out speeds you, takes two prizes, then potentially wants to be knocked out so they can rescue the level x and take two prizes again. Garchomp sv may be a better counter, it still exploits weakness and after a sally burns energies its very vulnerable to a big hit, throw in an exploud sv tech and you are not weak to him. Also weavile or crobat and some poke turns in that deck also allow it to do a number on gengar and possibly avoid fainting spell, or just play it with cyclone enrgies, luxray, infernape 4, etc. to play around your opponents big threat, add in dark palm dusknoir to get rid of it? Just some ideas, i just know from extensive play testing flygon is not the answer to salamence unless you play it very well.

  55. PokeChamp

    In my opinion, Salamence is a bit too slow for this format. There are ways of speeding it up, but overall the deck just doesn’t perform. If you can get set up properly, you can do pretty well. It’s really setting up that is the problem. Flygon is still around as well, and it is much faster than Salamence.
    Despite that, I feel that you, Mach, gave an excellent analysis on a very interesting card. I enjoyed this little read very much.
    As for ways of speeding up Salamence, you could try Delcatty + Felicity’s Drawing/Volkner’s Philosophy, but overall that doesn’t quite work that well. Unown A is just luck-based. The Lunasol engine works pretty well in this, however.
    Salamence is definitely on my testing list. Despite my expectations, I have a feeling it could do much better in reality.

  56. In my opinion, Salamence is a bit too slow for this format. There are ways of speeding it up, but overall the deck just doesn’t perform. If you can get set up properly, you can do pretty well. It’s really setting up that is the problem. Flygon is still around as well, and it is much faster than Salamence.

    Despite that, I feel that you, Mach, gave an excellent analysis on a very interesting card. I enjoyed this little read very much.

    As for ways of speeding up Salamence, you could try Delcatty + Felicity’s Drawing/Volkner’s Philosophy, but overall that doesn’t quite work that well. Unown A is just luck-based. The Lunasol engine works pretty well in this, however.

    Salamence is definitely on my testing list. Despite my expectations, I have a feeling it could do much better in reality.

  57. RUXD

    I’ve been testing using the SF Salamence and I have found it to be quite good. One of the hardest matchups for SF Salamence build is the Gengar matchup because unless they play their LV.X the highest HP pokemon they use is Gengar which is 110 so the “Battle Rush” PokeBody doesn’t activate. That and Gengar’s annoying +20 resistance to colourless. Oh and Expert Belt is amazing, especially when the PokeBody is activated. 120 damage with LV.X (Steam Blast) for 1 energy discard or 140 damage (Steam Twister) with the costs reduced is very powerful.

  58. RUXD

    I’ve been testing using the SF Salamence and I have found it to be quite good. One of the hardest matchups for SF Salamence build is the Gengar matchup because unless they play their LV.X the highest HP pokemon they use is Gengar which is 110 so the “Battle Rush” PokeBody doesn’t activate. That and Gengar’s annoying +20 resistance to colourless. Oh and Expert Belt is amazing, especially when the PokeBody is activated. 120 damage with LV.X (Steam Blast) for 1 energy discard or 140 damage (Steam Twister) with the costs reduced is very powerful.

  59. PokePockets

    This is the first thing I tried to use as soon as Arceus came out. It’s hard to say how to build it right, and all the testing I’ve done has not given it a good name. I tried it with 2 SF and 1 AR and it wasn’t too bad. My brother said optimal build is 2 AR, 1 SF with a 1-1 Delcatty to insure energy acceleration.

    I dunno how I feel about Salamence, but I think it could work

  60. PokePockets

    This is the first thing I tried to use as soon as Arceus came out. It’s hard to say how to build it right, and all the testing I’ve done has not given it a good name. I tried it with 2 SF and 1 AR and it wasn’t too bad. My brother said optimal build is 2 AR, 1 SF with a 1-1 Delcatty to insure energy acceleration.

    I dunno how I feel about Salamence, but I think it could work

  61. Soul

    I think Salamence is a great card. I tried it with Spiritomb and Luxray GL Lv.X, along with 3 SF Salamence and it does pretty well. Next I’m trying it with Palkia Lv.X GE because it can’t be powersprayed along with 2 SF and 1 AA Salamence, maybe Delcatty, too, since it’s still a pretty nice Flygon counter and can be a decent backup attacker. But Salamence is pretty slow if you take a look at other decks like SPs, Speedill/Gar and Flygon. But if you get the setup running..what can stop a 160-180HP beast that draws extra prized and hits for 100-140 damage or even more of you play Memory Berry along with the Rage Bagon. All in all Salamence is a nice card, you just have to find a good build for it. Nice read, too.

  62. Soul

    I think Salamence is a great card. I tried it with Spiritomb and Luxray GL Lv.X, along with 3 SF Salamence and it does pretty well. Next I’m trying it with Palkia Lv.X GE because it can’t be powersprayed along with 2 SF and 1 AA Salamence, maybe Delcatty, too, since it’s still a pretty nice Flygon counter and can be a decent backup attacker. But Salamence is pretty slow if you take a look at other decks like SPs, Speedill/Gar and Flygon. But if you get the setup running..what can stop a 160-180HP beast that draws extra prized and hits for 100-140 damage or even more of you play Memory Berry along with the Rage Bagon. All in all Salamence is a nice card, you just have to find a good build for it. Nice read, too.

  63. Powkaymon

    Try fisherman from HGSS
    supporter. U get 4 energies from discard to your hand.
    I run it with typhlosion prime and starmie. Starmie takes 1 water energy from discard per turn. Its called recycling boy.

  64. Mikko Aarnos

    I've been playing salamence for about two months now, and i think it's a jolly great deck. Sure, it's slow, but it has some awesome power. I've played several times against flygon, and i usually win, because flygon can't KO salamence SF with Power swing without full bench. So, you take about three prizes, due to double fall, against one or two they takel. I even scored a 3-2 in one of the regionals. But even so, this is not the deck that could win any tournament without luck, due to its slowness.

  65. Mikko Aarnos

    I've been playing salamence for about two months now, and i think it's a jolly great deck. Sure, it's slow, but it has some awesome power. I've played several times against flygon, and i usually win, because flygon can't KO salamence SF with Power swing without full bench. So, you take about three prizes, due to double fall, against one or two they takel. I even scored a 3-2 in one of the regionals. But even so, this is not the deck that could win any tournament without luck, due to its slowness.

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