I miss having an article a day to read so it’s about time maybe I wrote another one again!
I haven’t written one recently as I’ve been in hospital but I’m sure most of you will be glad to hear this will be the last Pre-Rotation article that I will write.
Kingdra has been played in various shapes and forms for a long time. All the way back to the EX series Kingdra has been a popular deck. But what has the latest edition of Kingdra (Kingdra Prime) done for this deck?
This is a deck I came up with (in a rush) as i needed something competitive to play at Nationals. I’ve made a couple of alterations since then but nevertheless, here’s my current list:
Decklist:
|
Pokémon: 26 4 Horsea LA 3 Seadra LA 3 Kingdra Prime 1 Kingdra LA 3 Baltoy GE 1 Duskull DP 1 Floatzel GL 1 Machop SF |
Trainers: Stadiums: 3 3 Broken Time Space Supporters: 8 Trainers: 13 Pokémon Tools: 2 |
Energy: 8 6 W 2 Multi |
This deck is run as a Speed Deck and so some of the lines may seem a little… unusual if you’re are unused to seeing a speed deck layed out.
The Basics
Kingdra
Kingdra is the main attacker of this deck. For just 1 energy he can hit for 60 damage with “Dragon Steam”. You may say although his damage is not great although his real potential comes from his Poké-Power.
“Spray Splash” allows you to place 1 damage counter on any one of your opponents Pokémon during your turn. It is this Power I wanted to make the most of in this deck and so used 3 Primes to be able to use it up to 3 times before attacking. Making it a lot easier to weaken benched Pokémon so you can 1 hit kill them when they become Active. Or even kill them in some cases.
Unfortunely the major downside to Kingdra is that if the opponent has ANY Fire Pokémon in play, Dragon Steam will only hit for 20 damage. So to stop you on your killing spreee all they need to do is place down any random Fire Pokémon on the bench and leave it there.
For this reason I had to include 1 of the regular LA Kingdra. This Kingdra can also hit for 60 Damage only using 1 W Energy and even has the added benefit of hitting one Pokémon on the Bench for 20. However you must discard 2 cards from your hand for this to work. Combine the 2 Kingdra together however and hopefully you can pick off that Fire Pokémon before it becomes too annoying.
Claydol
This Pokémon is an amazing secondary attacker! You can in fact kill with this useing the Multi Energy which can be useful if facing a Lightening deck. However it is mainly for draw power.
Most decks utilise 2 of these; when my friend said he ran 3 i told him he was dumb! However he was right in that the consistency it gives in getting out early Claydols is immense.
Uxie/Azelf
Uxie gives you nice draw with “Setup” and Azelf will grab that prized Pokémon you so dearly need. Not much to say about these little critters apart from they clutter your bench. I’d kill them myself sometimes if i could!
Techs
That leaves you with a bit of space to run any Techs you may wish to add in. In general people love to run techs in decks however in a speed deck they may not be as beneficial as you might want them to be.
A Tech is something you will use to give you the edge over the opponent in a specific situation. However the more techs you run the slower the main part of your deck will run as it will lose some of its consistency for each tech you add in.
I personally run 3 in this. There are many more options, so here are my picks:
Dusknoir
You’ve got your Claydols and Kingdra’s out and your bashing the opponent to oblivion. So once you’re setup with a speed deck; what do you do? As in many cases you’ll find all your Claydols and Kingdras are setup by turn 4 or so at the very latest and there is little else you can do.
Apply pressure to your opponent:
Dusknoir’s “Dark Palm” Poké Power will allow you to shuffle one of your opponent’s Pokémon and all attached cards back into their Deck if they have 4 or more Pokémon on their Bench. This means you can get rid of their Claydols so they don’t have any draw power, or maybe an attacker their building up. Maybe if they only have 1 attacker which is active and will take you a while to kill (for example Tyranittar Prime with its stacks of HP) you can Warp Point it then shuffle it back in.
The idea of this is to put them on the back foot. Get rid of the Pokémon they need to attack or setup with and then keep their bench restricted to 3 so they have to be careful what they play.
Machamp
I hate Pokémon SP. They setup too fast and hit hard. Probably the most horrible thing Kingdra can encounter is a Luxray GL. So solely for this purpose, Machamp is in here with a Multi Energy to “Take Out” and kill Basic Pokémon. It can also be nice if you manage to pull it out in the first couple of turns to rage havoc with your opponents setup as they desperately try to evolve everything.
pokemon-paradijs.comFloatzel GL LV.X
This is a card I only recently added in as a tech. The LV.X may be a bit hard to get into play however it’s Poké-Body is amazing.
When any of your Water Pokémon in play gets killed by damage from an opponent’s attack you may use “Water Rescue” to take that Pokémon and ALL CARDS ATTACHED to it from your discard pile back into your hand.
This means when you lose your Kingdra Prime you may simply pick it up again from the discard pile; and while Broken Time Space is in play can put back onto your bench the Horsea, Seadra, Kingdra, W Energy (and Expert Belt if you wish to lose another 2 Prize cards); free retreat your Floatzel GL LV.X and send your Kingdra straight back in again! Keeping your opponent under constant pressure.
This is good against other Speed Decks such as Jumpluff which setup new Jumpluffs quickly as when your Kingdra dies you can simply send the same one straight back in again, making it pretty much unkillable. Just beware of being “Bright Look”ed by those pesky Luxrays.
A Word on Supporters
Speed decks are designed to get setup and start attacking as fast as possible. With that in mind you want to play as few Supporters and as many Trainers that you can, so you can simply keep on drawing and drawing more cards.
With this in mind I managed to keep my Supporter line to 8. Playing Collectors to get that 3rd Basic Pokémon, while still retaining the Roseanne’s Research to allow me to get a W Energy when I may need one. As there are so few Energy Cards being able to search for them is a must.
I don’t know why I play a Judge. The only benefit is that it annoys the opponent no end *Thumbs Up* and you can draw more cards with “Cosmic Power”.
A Quick Overview of Trainers
These are the strongest part of Speed Decks as you can play as many as you like! With cards such as your Claydol and Uxie the Draw Power will allow you to keep drawing them and using more of them, so your next Cosmic, or Setup is even more effective. Using this method you can carry on Cosmiccing through half your deck easily on your first turn if you draw nice things.
Pokémon Communication is probably the most powerful card in this deck. Favored over Bebe’s as Supporters aren’t favored it will allow you to search your deck for that vital Pokémon. Using these in combination with Pokémon Collector can mean you can get out an entire evolution line of Pokémon and with the help of BTS put them all down to reduce your hand size to draw yet more cards with Cosmic/Setup.
Warp Points can get out the Floatzel LV.X, bench your active Claydol, send your opponent’s attacker to the bench to Dark Palm it, or just get out of an awkward situation.
4 Rare Candys are a must as Machamp, Dusknoir and also your 4th Kingdra rely on them.
Expert Belts will boost your damage when you really need it, and hopefully make you survive a bit longer.
Conclusion
Hopefully this has not only given you an insight into the wonderful world of Kingdra, but also into how some Speed Decks work if you’re not familiar with them. I’ll see if I can find some alternative draw power for Post-Rotation.
Other Possibilities:
Regice
Regice allows you to force the opponent to switch their active Basic Pokémon by discarding 2 cards from your hand. This gan be useful for getting rid of Spiritombs, Mr. Mimes, or any annoying Basic/SP. However, I removed this to make room Floatzel as Machamp does a pretty good job at that.
pokemon-paradijs.comDitto
Ditto with Ditto DNA can use any of your opponent’s active Pokémon’s attacks. Ditto can be useful when fighting against another Kingdra or Jumpluff or something similar. Put it active with a Multi Energy and you’ve got your very own Kingdra or Jumpluff! I’d love to use this but lack the space (maybe you can throw out the Judge).
Mankey SV
With the main problem being Luxray GL, if you’d prefer to not have to bother Rare Candying a Machamp, you can simply use a Mankey with a Multi Energy you can “Extra Punch” the Luxray LV.X in the head for for 60 damage x2 for the one hit kill. However, it’s a sitting duck afterward and doesn’t provide as many uses as Machamp.
Use Some Stage 1’s!
You could use a Dusclops and Machoke so that instead of relying on getting a Rare Candy you can simply use BTS to evolve the Dusknoir/Machamp. This will probably help the consistency of getting the cards out as most of the time you’ll find you have the Basic and Stage 2 but no Rare Candy.
So… if you want something different to play with in the final 3 weeks or so before rotation; try a Speed Deck!
I have been playing almost this exact deck for a few months now, and am planning to play it in the Grinder this Friday. But once Claydol and Roseanne’s rotate, it is a dead deck imo.
I like it, having tested against the actual deck itself I find it sets up well, and fast, the list seems pretty solid and I can’t find any faults in it at all, love the article, keep them coming ^^.
Interesting read! I like Kingdra Prime a lot, whether used as a main attacker or as a tech. I enjoyed this article. Good job man.
I like the techs you chose for this deck. It must be hard to get them out though! Guess you’ll just use what you need when you need it, in the run of a game.
“Dead” might be an overstatement but it won’t be competitive. It will lose much of its speed which is its greatest asset.
Me too, I thought we were going to get something that was format forward! Sence its over in about a week…..ha ha Lol
i dont get frustrated!!! just enjoyed the weird deck list…..copied much!!!!
its old news!!! mr PIKEY
saw Claydol…stopped reading.
Replace Claydol with Dodrio. Fixed ;D
…either that, or replace it with 3 Spiritomb, 1 Unown Q and 2 Lucky Eggs
Or you can stop being disgruntled and read the article for everything else in it and just change the speed techs to something you prefer :P
Or I could not read a long article about a DEAD strategy. If you posted an article about a base set deck I would do the same thing. The strategy for this deck is gone, there is no more DP Dusknoir and no more Claydol, therefor I couldn’t care less about this article.
And if it’s so easy to replace the rotated cards with the one’s you are mentioning…WHY DIDN’T YOU DO IT IN THE ARTICLE??
Because I don’t play it with post rotation cards.
Well what are the “new strategies” based on. Well most of them are based on old strategies just modified to fit into the cards currently available.
The entire deck is playable post rotation, you’ve just got to fix a couple of things. There is nothing dead about the strategy of the actual deck at all.
I wouldn’t by far, call it a “dead deck” or a “dead strategy” just take out a couple of cards, Rosey, Claydol, Dusky etc and replace them with other cards, it’s not like this deck is going to run out of techs any time soon.
claydol
Is a Pokemon!
Congratulations on your amazing discovery!
Although it depends what you add in as replacement as to the degree of speed that you lose.
I had to take 1 more opportunity to frustrate you =D
What’s wrong with my beautiful D-List? =O
Would you rather no update? :) Everyone bitches when there’re no new articles, ’cause we’ve pretty much done everything now. But if we put up an article for you, then you complain. There’s really no pleasing you, hmm? Why don’t you submit an article yourself then?
Bah. You shouldn’t help him this much if he’s just going to complain about how the decks don’t suit him or whatever. Just don’t say anything, let him net deck, and he’ll have a deck he’s not used to playing, he’ll lose games and go down in the ranks while we go up in the ranks, we’ll beat him, and we won’t have to deal with him. One day, he might learn how to use these properly. ‘Till then, if we all just learn to ignore his bitching, he’ll be causing a lot more trouble to himself than to us. :P
Mewuk often reminds of me a demotivational I saw… It says :
Furries. How you react to them says a lot more about you than it does about them.
Well give me something you’d like to hear about and I’ll write about it ^^
Aww there’s an awesome one with some weird little thing clinging onto a tree. It’s amazing lol
i dont think so, there are many ways to speed up a trainer-bvased deck , such as drawer or pokedex. If caydol is gone, add a 3rd uxie to ensure the draw power, and an uxie lv X, 4 drawers and 4 dex, fox example.
There are many cards that have been overlooked due to caydol being the best drawer, but that doesnt mean they are useless, they were just ifnerior to caydol, now that he is gone, those cards will start seeing some play.
I dont particularly like kingdra, becouse i dont like donk/speed decks, but dont you dont you shouldnt depend so much in the kingdra prime? i mean, a fire pokemon COMPLETELY screws your strategy. Its true that there arent many fire decks popular right now, with only blaziken fb, infernape 4 and charizard as decent fire pokemon, but still, i would play 2 kingdra LA and 2 prime, just to be on the safe side.
I absolutely hate Donk decks too and to be honest while I was creating this for Nats I was aiming at more of a speed deck, I had no intention for it to turn into a donk deck although it does both well.
All the people I talked to about Kingdra before playing it said run 2-2 as well just because of the disadvantage with fire Pokemon however I wanted the deck to play more around the Poke-Power.
With Floatzel Lv.X in play you only need 1 LA in play which can attack the active as well as add the extra 20 damage to any fire pokemon on the bench. Combined with multiple Spray Splashes will knock out most Fire Pokemon on the bench in 2-3 turns.
As for playing against a Charizard deck or similar All-Fire type deck I haven’t had that opportunity to test.
Big Double Thumbs Up to this Man!
An awesome demotivational with a weird thing clinging to a tree? Or a weird furry with a weird little thing clinging to a tree? o-o either way, it seems odd. Explain? Or link me? Either here or on msn tonight? :P
An awesome demotivational with a weird thing clinging to a tree
I’ll show you on msn later if you catch me ;D
haha sure! ^^ I should be on in maybe….. an hour and a half? I’m guessing? Maybe an hour…. and fifteen minutes? Remember that I’m guessing and this is the time it’ll take me to get home after I leave in 10 minutes then go straight to my computer. I might not go straight online. But sure. =]
I’ll still be up ^^
You’re supposed to be working!
is anyone going to worlds if so this could be a deck to use im going im going to run pluff
Obsolete in 5 days.
Remove: Roseies, 3 Baltoy GE, 3 Claydol GE, 1 Duskull DP, 1 Dusknoir DP (Dark Palm), 1 Floatzel GL, 1 Floatzel GL Lv.X, 2 NM, 2 Multi, 1 Seadra, 1 Communication = 19 cards
Add: 2 Collectors, 1 Palmers, 1 SP Radar, 4x Cyrus’ conspiracy, 4 turns, 1 crobat G’s, 4 SSU, 2 Fighting energy = 19 cards
No Longer obsolete!
here.. let me make this md on for you:
3-3 Claydol
1 Uxie, 1 Uxie LV. X (for those of you who can’t afford one, Slowking Prime. It’s almost the exact same card, except your opponent gets to choose and requires 1 psy energy to be able to do it again next turn)
and 4 SSU
1-1 Dusknoir
-2 Night Maintenance
+2 Water Energy
There are many different options as to what you can do to alter it to keep it for MD-On. I am yet to decide on anything and haven’t tested any options yet and so have left it to you guy’s imagination as to what you can do to it if you wish to make it MD-On.
I’d run a 2-2 line of Uxie and not bother with SSU (hate flippy things) I’d put in 2 Unown Q aaand something else :D
It’s actually obsolete in 20 days :D
I’m not a fan of SPs, Crobat G is not something i actually thought of. I’m not quite sure how it will keep up the speed of the deck but go for it XD It may work.
No!! I put that I like your statement. your always trying to attack what I say good or bad. If any one has a problem with me or what I say can contact me. (mewuk85@yahoo.com) We’ll yeah I enjoy most articles if you see my 1st response then, see what other people say and go off that. Isn’t that what a blog is?
Stop attacking me its just pokemon COME ON SKY!!! Stop adding stresses to your life, pokemon should be a way out of life’s stress. :)
Sorry I’m not meaning to give you a hard time. I just thought we were titled to our own opinion’s here in America.
But yeah I would like to see something usable, like eevelutions or something. I’ll try to leave out poor comments for now on just want to be a productive member of this site, because I enjoy the talks and everyone’s own opinion.
we cool now?
I enjoy all your articles. I was merely referring to another recent article of kingdra close to the same, deck list.
oh yeah of coarse, we all need to test the new cards out.
its all good bro where I’m coming from is my own point of view I know people are working hard and trying to figure out strategy like we all are. and we’ll just squash this move on and I’ll try and be more strategic in my comments instead of critical. Lol not all my comments were like that just the last few. maybe 20 out of 190 Lol.
but yes I will submit my next battle roads article with my charizard deck. cool beenz.
great talk though.
Wasn’t meant to be attacking your post lol I was genuine if there’s something you wanna see written about it I’ll write it.
As for the new set though I won’t be writing about it until it’s released and I’ve had a chance to play around with a few of the cards so I’ve just been filling in time really ^^
I though that’s probably what you were referring to XD
Can you show me a link to it?
I haven’t actually looked at any other Kingdra lists. Apart from the other ones I saw at Nats but of course I only really noticed what techs they used :/
Glad you liked my comment =] And hope you enjoy my sense of humour. :P
Actually, I never meant to attack you per se. = I simply meant to remark that a lot of what I -notice- you post is complaining about how you’re only reading stuff you don’t wanna see. I haven’t seen any articles of yours, yet you complain that you’re getting stuff you don’t like. Sure, I haven’t submitted anything, but I don’t go ahead and go out of my way to post a comment on how it’s not something I wanted to read so I’m being grumpy and not reading it. :P
Furthermore, to be honest… you’re not really adding any stress to my life. :P I’m the type who doesn’t get phased by much from other people, and I’m able to accept stuff and move on with my life while making the best of whatever problem arises. =]
anywho, point is, I never meant to attack you, I just find you complain a bit too much. But maybe that’s just our general thoughts and personalities clashing. Never meant you any harm man. =] Have a nice day, too. :P ^^
You must talk me through Charizard!
This was one of the first post-rotate decks I tried, and I looked into a lot of things about it and tested out a lot of variations with it and came out with a rubbish deck that didnt work :D
your in for a treat!! JJ the state champ of cali is in my league all of us put our minds togeather and came up with it oh oh oh ha ha ha ha its awesome. you have an email and ill rite to you. we went to prerelease and its format forward. prerelese is the hint.
Really now? I’ll be sure to look this up. Thanks! =] :P That does sound interesting. =]
greatlordhugo@hotmail.co.uk
Hehe let me know :D
Yeah we just had our Pre-Release. To be honest… the set didn’t impress me apart from the trainers :/
Keep up the good work.
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