Hello!
Today I’m going to talk about Vileplume/Gengar/Spiritomb, the new deck eveyone is talking about.
Strategy
The main (and only) strategy is to keep a trainer lock the entire match, from beginning to end. Starting with either Spiritomb or Gastly is perfect because Spiritomb lock trainers with his body, and Gastly with his free energy attack. If you start with Gastly keep using Pitch Dark until you can switch to Spiritomb (using a Unown Q). Also in this deck you don’t play Trainers, just Supporters.
Card Analysis
Gengar SF: One of the main cards of the deck. It has a great Power that can result in a free Knock Out for you. Its first attack, Shadow Room, puts 3 damage counter on any Pokémon with no Power and 6 damage counters to Pokémons with Powers for only 1 P Energy.
pokemon-paradijs.comHis second attack, Poltergeist, does 30 damage for each Supporter, Trainer and Stadium your opponent has in his hand (you have to look your opponent hand which is very useful). So with a permanent trainer-lock (Spiritomb/Vileplume) you are almost always going to hit 120+ for only a Psychic and a C Energy.
Gengar LV.X: Gengar LV.X has a great spreading attack that does 30 damage to each of your opponent’s damaged Pokémons. But this card is mainly played becouse of the HP boost and his amazing Power, Level Down. With Level Down you can really annoy your worst enemy, Dialga G LV.X. Level Down allows you to shuffle away one of your opponent’s LV.X’s each turn.
Spiritomb: Spiritomb is a very good card played in most Stage 2 decks and in all decks that require a wall. His Body locks Trainers, and his first attack lets you search your deck for the evolution of one of your benched Pokémon.
Vileplume: YES!! Dark Vileplume is back! Oh wait, he is not Dark Vileplume… he is his brother, Vileplume UD. He is not the perfect counter to Haymaker anymore, but he is the perfect counter to mainly SP, but it annoys any deck. ;) His Body locks trainers while he is in the bench! That is amazing for this deck because you will be hitting hard with Poltergeist and as you only play Supporters, you won’t have any problems!
Uxie LV.X: Another perfect card for this deck. You will gain an advantage with a free Pokédex everyturn!
Unown Q: This card can help you retreat your Uxie LV.X when you get it, and Spiritomb at the beginning of the game. Also if they Bright Look your Vileplume just attached an Energy and Unown Q and you are already retreating it!
Azelf: Can help get Uxie LV.X or Gengar LV.X out of your prizes. You can also use his attack in certain situations.
Looker’s Investigation: A very disrupting card! Can help you before attacking with Poltergeist and can help shuffle away good cards from your opponent’s hand. You can also use it as draw power.
Copycat: You cand shuffle you hand and draw (most of the times) 10+ because your opponent has tons of trainers in his hand!
Call Energy: In my opinion you have to always play Call if you are also playing Spiritomb. You can search for a Gastly and a Oddish in the first turns and then you can use the energy for retreating your Spiritomb. An amazing card.
Warp Energy: This card is a must! If you already attached the Unown Q and of course you can’t wait 2 turns for retreating your Bright Looked Vileplume (maybe more if can’t draw the energies). Just attach this energy to your Vileplume, and it is in your bench again. ;) Also helpful if you want to retreat Uxie/Uxie LV.X and any techs.
Other Supporters/Stadiums you should play are Bebe’s Search, Pokémon Collector, Cynthia’s Feelings, PONT, Interviewer’s Questions, Broken Time-Space, and Palmer’s Contribution. I recomend you to play 4 copies of mainly Bebe’s, Collector, and BTS.
If you don’t like playing all Supporters, you can play Luxury, Communicators, and Rare Candy in case something goes wrong.
Techs
You are already countering SPs… but if your metagame is pure SP, you may want to try:
Mewtwo LV.X: You are already using P Energies, so playing 1-1 Mewtwo won’t hurt. If you get the situation of your opponent having a high Retreat Cost Pokémon active, and if you are using the 80 HP Mewtwo, you can Hypnoblast for a few turns and then retreat for your fully set up Gengar (without the ability to play trainers, your opponent will have a bad time trying to retreat his active). And if you are playing the 90 HP Mewtwo, go for the KOs. You could also play 2-1 including both basic Mewtwos.
Machamp: 1-1-1 Machamp and a Rainbow/Fighting can help you against SPs and other non SP basics, but again, you don’t really need to tech against SP. :P
Donphan Prime: This is a nice addition because Phan can help you not only against SP, he can help you stall while hitting a hard, doing 60 for only one energy.
Mewtwo seems to be the most useful here, but you can play your favorite/the one you already have. Don’t use any of these if you metagame is more Pluff/Cursegar.
Some bad match up would be Tyranitar Prime/Dark Pokémons, so if you have any in your metagame, you can try:
Azelf LV.X: His very useful power makes your Psychic Pokémons has no weakness! That means bye bye Tyranitar. ;) (If you play Donphan, Tyranitar already loses before you begin.) Also his attack can help you kill basics against high energy attacks decks. For example: Steelix/Scizor Prime.
Random Techs
Mismagius UD: He has a Poltergeist attack too! Also has a very useful sleeping attack.
Nidoqueen: Nidoqueen is a classic in Gengar decks, because it help you abuse of Fainting Spell (your opponent try hard to kill your Gengar and then his own Pokémon dies too… very annoying). Also can help healing your bench if you use Donphan Tech.
Drifblim UD: Can help you against Tanks (Dialga G with 4 metals… Steelix etc). I’ve never tested this card in the deck, so maybe it will just hurt it, as you don’t play DCE so it will take a while to get 3 energies for Take Away. I’m just including this card because everyone seem to like it. :P
Please, please, PLEASE: Don’t abuse with your teching. Play 1 or max 2 techs. The ones I recommend are Nidoqueen, Mewtwo LV.X, and Azelf LV.X.
Hope you liked my 4th article, that’s all for today, bye everyone!
sableye and cyrus initiative looks good with this too… i mean u only ply supporters so i think sableye will be really useful
maybe you didnt play the match up right, becouse i dont see how can you actually lose to this deck.
Its way too slow, and poltergeist is WAY too easy to play around using bebe search to hide trainers.
I admit that the trainer lock is annoying and hurts a lot, but this deck is slow as hell, there are too many ways to lock it, or play arround it.
Still, i will give him credit for being the first article here to realize that warp energy is MUST in this deck, since you cant waste energies and turns attaching to retreat.
even so, im not afraid to cross a viletomb this BRs, i prefer it to playing an SP match.
god ur stupid this deck crushes sp
Anyone saying this deck is too slow, won’t see play, or won’t be viable in this format is completely wrong or is in denial. My brother’s FIRST LIST absolutely destroyed every deck in a 16-person tournament we had Monday night, and we had some very good players there, AND some of those players were trying to tech against this deck. Teching in Dialga G Lv. X helps, but how many times can you really Power Spray Level-Down? Eventually Dialga gets shuffled back in. Bright Look Vileplume and kill it? Congratulations, now he can use trainers on his next turn, and he’s been sitting on Oddish-Rare Candy-Vileplume all game long.
I’m praying everyone starts teching against this deck so incredibly hard that it sort of dies down (a la Machamp in the last format), hence the reason for this post.
Ok, maybe i should rephrase what i said. I did test it, im not talking just because i want to troll.
I have to admit i had tech against it to keep my normal speed, but i havent lost a sigle time, and im not even using dialga G.
And i can assure you, im not an awesome top cut player, just a mediocre one, so it must mean the deck isnt good enough, of course you need to know how to play the match up, and i wont say its easy at all. I repeat, it is a good deck, but not a top tier. And its definitely not the end of SP.
Also, most viletomb decks that were discusses specifically said NO TRAINERS, that means, no rare candy, so forget about the oddish->candy->plume that many people here have commented.
oh goods, another trainer lock.
see what I did there?
Anyways, I’m not sure how well this deck comes up as a counter to Luxchomp when this deck requires two stage twos while luxchomp has two pokemon which can snipe (even more with honchkrow g, but that is rare in luxchomp today)
I’ve been play testing this deck for over a month now, and it really plays well against SP. But Umbreon UD will kill this cold. You have no pokemon which can damage it due to Poke Bodies/Poke Powers, and it is Gengars weakness.
I play Azelf X in my version at the moment. I wasn’t thinking TTar. I was thinking sablelock counter of sorts (honchcrow) and also, knowing weakness is one of the new mechanics Ptcg is trying to make more prominent.
Other techs people might want to consider… mesprit LA, crobat G, CurseGar
This deck actually kills luxchomp. I played luxchomp at my league saturday and someone was playing this and I couldnt do anything. It shuts down SP radar, poketurn, e-gain,ad powerspray so there’s no consitancy. Gengar is just to strong when it comes to poltergeist and dont forget that gengar can snipe too. And getting vileplume and gengar out isnt hard with the help of bts and darkness grace.
But since you cant use poketurns crobat g will just do 10 and then waste bench space. And same with mesprit. You lock their powers for 1 turn but then you cant SSU it.
Im testing this deck for battle roads. Im playing Drifblim UD in it to counter Dialga G and I added 2 DCE for drifblim and because im running Uxie lv x
I am new at posting things here, but when writing an article about a deck and its strengths and weakness, shouldn’t there be a deck list?
You are straight up wrong. This deck is plenty fast enough to outspeed SP. I had the same mindset as you until I actually saw it in action. It is completely devastating.
Maybe you played someone who isn’t very good.
Look down a few articles for a deck list. This article is just evaluating the strategy, not necessarily an actual list. He offered a lot of techs and other options that could go into a list without actually providing one.
Also this is a pretty new deck, so there isn’t really one universally accepted list for it yet.
True about bench space, but crobat also gives you a poke with free retreat for next turn switch without wasting warp energy or energy discard and that 10 damage can make pixies OHKO fodder. Mesprit can stop a bright look or healing breath or set-up if played at the right time.
I’m not saying they are a must. I am saying they could be teched depending on what the meta is.
Ya i guess you could flash bite a pixie and then shadow room it. But the only way i can think of getting th crobat back is to let it get KOed, which isnt worth just doing 10 extra damage, and then using palmers or flower shop lady
But while you’re doing that, Umbreon UD is doing 70 (30 + exp.belt + 2 sp drk en) before you even add weakness (+30 or x2). Which means Gengar is a sitting duck while you try to go around Umbreon. The only Fighting Pokemon I could see that is easy and viable for x2 damage is Lucario from Unleashed. 1 colorless for 30, plus 30 more next attack (BULK UP). Other than that, Gengar is toast. I love this deck, but I’ve play tested Umbreon vs. Gengar on redshark (Can’t get apprentice to work, sorry), and once Umbreon is set up, it’s lights out. So if SP is looking for another counter, perhaps here it is……..
Unown Q. add Q to vileplume, one energy retreat. Add Q to Tomb, free retreat. I keep two in my deck, works beautifully well.
understood. Thank You
True, this deck normally crushes SP. And with Tomb and the right supporters in the deck, it sets up quick, usually I can be set up T2 on Gengar and Plume.
Will you’d be surprised this deck isn’t as slow as you think. If you wanna use 1 or 2 rare candies you could get a T1 vilplume if you dont start with a spiritomb. Iv been testing it and it’s a lot faster than people are giving it credit for. And if you start with spiritomb collector gets you oddish, unown q and gastley. Darkness grace to for quicker evolutions. Try playing it before judging it. Know what I mean? SP relies a lot on its trainer support and with out it it suffers dramatically
Lol, have you even test this? If you tech mewtwo Luxchomp has no chane of winning.
Also this is not a slow deck, with spiritomb you have everything you want before a luxchomp (2-3 energies for garchomp plus you dont have SP radar, luxury or comunicato)
No… You have to start the trainer lock in the first turn starting with Spiritomb/gastly.
seriously man no disrespect but don’t diss gengar viletomb until you have played the matchup. I thought the same way and then I tested it, wow.
exactly
why not just play exploud sv? it’s not an x, so it doesn’t need to be active. if you play both uxie and azelf, tech in mesprit.
Mesprit really shuts things down, it’s an amazing tech in this deck
True. Here you should set up an Azelf Lv X and start putting damage counters with Shadow Room to the bench Pokemons and then spread with Gengar Lv X or finish them with more Shadow Rooms.
if you are already teching against Dialg G you may want to play only Mismagius UD instead of Gengar, you start attacking 1 turn before. (Although Gengar has more lifew, awesome power, and sniping attack) Pick your favourite
I have been toying with this deck for a while now, since UD pre-release. The only problem I seem to be having is the amount of Pokemon actually needed in this deck. It is so easy to tech an SP deck since they are all basic and don’t need lines. I wanted to get a flygon line in here so I could retreat everything by dropping a rainbow energy on it, in case I get stuck with Tomb or Plume active. Its just so many pokemon though.
u cant attach a rainbow NRG to make everything retreat it has to be a basic NRG, for the Flygon
Umbreon Shouldn’s set up.. That is the idea of the deck. If you saw your opponent searching an Umbreon, play Judge/Lookers etc. Also he is not going to get 2 Special Dark quickly if he cant play trainers. You really dont have to tech against this, just try to kill it with haunter or something :p
Mmm. You decrese the chances of starting with Gastly/Spirit… After you play it for just one turn of no powers, its a dead card. You can play 1 but no more
When I first built the deck i was using Mismagius UD because i dont have any gengar SF. Its advantages are mismagius is only astage 1 so faster set up. Disadvantages are it has too low of an HP. 1 dragon rush takes it out.
You’re ignoring a HUGE aspect of the deck… Poltergeist. If you can’t get a OHKO every turn, you’re dead. Most Pokemon SP have 110 HP in their Leveled-Up form. This means you only need to have 4 trainers or supporters in your hand for them to get the OHKO every single turn. Even if you try to limit your hand or dump a bunch of trainers after killing a Vileplume, every prize you draw and every card you pull at the beginning of your turn is potentially another 30 damage.
Secondly, running 2 Dialga doesn’t help. You have to search them out every time you get leveled down (and also the first time you search for it). BUT, SP Radar, Pokemon Communication, etc. will do you no good, so you must play a Bebe’s every turn, which means no Cyrus-ing for energy. Not only that, but let’s say you kill the active Gengar… now you’re 50/50 to have your Dialga KO’ed with Fainting Spell.
I’m a bit forgiving of your post because you admit you haven’t played against it. Everything you’re saying sounds exactly like what I was saying prior to playing against it.
Thats very true. One thing iv noticed on here is when they say that a deck is “too slow” they always compare it to SP. But they never compare it to Non SP decks. I was going to run luxchomp in battle roads and just dragon rush or bright look and oddish that is put down but after actually playing against the deck its so fast that vileplume is out before you can set up. If you want to do 80 to vilplume with dragon rush and have to wait to do it again then gengar can easily take out garchomp C. I honestly wont be surprised if this deck because most winning this format.
Newsflash: I wasn’t giving my opinion on how they can bring back Vileplume 1 turn later. I was telling you how I saw it played… I made that pretty clear. My brother runs Candy and BTS to ensure that he can get Vileplume out immediately after he’s killed.
This is a top tier deck. Maybe you’re not playing against a top tier list. Why are so many people in denial over this deck? I will never, ever play this deck (not my style), but I’m totally sold on it being Tier 1. If you’re not, come to our tourney next Monday with your SP deck and watch Energy Gains and Poketurns pile up in your hand ’til you’re getting Poltergeisted for 240 every turn.
Don’t forget that Umbreon only needs 1 dark energy and Gengar is +30 weak to dark, Gengar lv. x is 2x weak. So an Umbreon with 1 special dark is hitting for 70 or 80 each turn.
I hope you’re right. EEveelutions set up fast as they are only stage 1, and if I have my BTS out to set up my two stage 2’s, Umbreon can set up even faster. I don’t know how often I’ll see umbreon in Masters, but my daughter is sure to see it a lot in Juniors.
That was exactly my point. God forbid an expert belt snuck through and was attached to Umbreon also….LIGHTS OUT
Thanks, I didn’t know that. There goes that idea. I guess it would be easier to tech in a Dodrio. I know unown q is used a lot but I dont like it since you still need another energy which you need to discard and you may need it for Gengar.
attaching an expert belt wil be difficult due to trainer lock. Not only that but playing expert belts against Gengar is just stupid. All they have to do is flip a coin and take two prizes.
So, everyone here commenting is leading me to believe that SP has NO chance against this…because, Garchomp can’t use another energy instead of a Gain…or b/c this deck sets up faster than an SP EVERY TIME, despite power spray and a Dialga trainer lock?
I’m not going to sit here and say “It SO slow” but come one, its a stage 2 deck needing as stage 2 tech. How many people are really going to sit there and say this DECK sets up faster than T1-T2 SP DECKS? So, just because Vileplume gets set up T1 or T2 doesn’t mean Gengar is up. Remember, SP doesn’t NEED trainers to set up. To run, yes, to set up, no. I can honestly say I haven’t tested this deck, but I can also honestly say there everyone on here that says it out speeds SP…well…I won’t say anything about that…its not worth the hate mail.
Common Dialga techs are Blaziken and Toxitank…vileplume doesn’t seem to cause that many problems for Dialga, especially since it shuts off its body and is OHKO’ed after a luring flame. The real question isn’t “how many times can you power spray Level Down,” the real question is, how many can you bring Vileplume back after being Ko’ed.
Also, lets not forget the EASIEST counter EVER….just run 2 Dialga G Lv X.
the deck that gives this one the most trouble is probably a sablelock. sableye can cause a lot of damage when you use spiritomb to evolve he gets OHKO you bring up a gastly OHKO, oddish OHKO, you know they are going to drop bats even under trainer lock so even if you manage to bring out a gloom or haunter they are going to drop bats and attach expert belts when they are not under lock from the easy prize spiritomb. The hand disruption is key for sablelock making it almost imposable to set up a gengar or vileplume if played right.
the tech i like the most for this that some one else has recommended here in the comment section a while back is Mightyena LA, you got a single darkness attack that does 30 and locks a basic poke down so he can’t retreat/attack/pokepower. His second attack for 2 colorless does 60 with a full bench really not a bad back up attacker. when you see a sableye you know who to turn too. Mewtwo works great to but his weakness makes him a weaker tech in my eyes because so many decks run psychic types (and their evolved or lv.x).
not only that but in a mirror match up having a dark type really helps with its psychic resistance and gengar’s dark weakness.
Dialga G lv.x helps but you are going to see a lot of SP decks underestimate just how easy it is to shuffle one back into your deck. They honestly need to run 2 but you will see a majority of them only run one, because if they run two they lose to all the other meta game match ups.
SP decks are too slow under trainer lock, people keep saying they out speed this deck but i have yet to see it happen more than 2 out of 10 games, but other than that you are getting trainer locked and copycat/poltergeist for huge draw power and OHKO with only 4 T/S in your hand it really is an SP counter that will cause a lot of people to quit playing those decks.
when ever we get all those lost zone cards is when you will see people stop hyping viletomb. till then have fun trying to out speed a trainer lock that a majority of the time starts from turn one till its GG.
How can you power spray Level Down if you are trainer locked?
You can easily get both Vileplume and Gengar, also, if you are afraid of Dialga you can tech Drifblim UD or any other fire tech.
Mismagius UD shouldn’t be played in place of Gengar SF. If you’re playing the deck right they will take the SAME amount of turns to set up.
Mismagius deck:
T1: attach energy to Misdreavus, and possible darkness grace for Mismagius
T2: possibly evolve to Mismagius, and/or attach energy to Mismagius
Gengar deck:
T1: Attach energy to Gastly, darkness grace to Haunter
T2: Evolve to Gengar and attach energy.
Fantastic article! I thought you had a very thorough analysis of the core deck build and also gave a few good tech ideas. I like the idea of Azelf X as I do expect to see some techs against Gengar.
Just wanted to toss in a few ideas. I’ve been playing a 3-1 spiritomb/sableye instead of 4 spiritomb, and it’s been working really well. It just seems like there are a few matchups,i.e., sablelock, or those for those really bad starts that getting sableye in play can really help with. The only problem is that it slightly lowers your probability of trainer locking sooner, but I like the balance it gives to the deck as a whole.
Also, I kind of like the idea of a few other techs- zangoose, chatot MD, or ditto LA. Zangoose can manipulate the bench which is incredibly powerful with the trainer lock on, and chatot can also use its chatter attack to lock a spiritomb if needed. Ditto LA is fantastic for a mirror match and can also be a good starter to copy attacks like darkness grace or impersonate.
I like your advice in the article though to keep the # of techs down. That is crucial for this deck.
Again, well done article!
alot of people underestimate this deck. i ran it today at my league and it does very well against all the top tier decks. we tested it against garydos donphan luxchomp(with a dialga tech) and jumpluff. its a very good matchup to all of them and i beat all of them(and lost to them because i dont have the best techs in there). the only trouble this deck gets is the dialga lv.x but even though it stalls out your vileplumes for a couple of turns (if gengar lv.x isnt in play) its not hard to take him out. with out every deck running claydol now its actually just as fast all of the other decks. i built the deck on tuesday and i was still in the testing process and i dont have any of the good techs in there. and i dont have any spiritombs(which is one of the biggest part of this deck). so i had to rely on getting vileplume out. but over all this deck is beastly. i competes with all of the top tier decks and i think it will get ALOT of play.
How about you keep the argument insult-free? Its becaouse of comments like this that Adam had to think about shutting down comments.
If you are so confident in your deck, lets see how well it does at BRs.
Would love to see that, it would concede the match if you managed to actually hit with gengar. Unfortunately im not a north american player, so i dont think that will be possible.
In any case, no matter how much we discuss this, it wont get settled until BRs.
i run this deck and people at my league stopped running luxchomp and started running dialgachomp cus it was so amzing, i run raRE CANDIES IN MY VERSION AND ONE LUXURY BALL FOR LATE GAME WHEN VILEPLUMES ARE knocked out
That is why i recomend Azelf Lv X. And you can kill the Umbreon with your basic mewtwos.
Hi I’m new to this pokemon game. I’m researching decks to play but I’m not sure wat. This deck sounds pretty concrete tho, but does anyone else recommend it? Or does anyone recommend another deck i could play while getting used to the game and meta
Well, since I didn’t make that last paragraph clear, I won’t award you with the “DUMBEST POST EVAAAAAAAAAAR!?!?!?!” award. But, I did begin the post with “Common Dialga techs…” followed by “vileplume doesn’t seem to cause that many problems for Dialga” and since Dialga has the only body that really affects this deck, I thought it was obvious I was talking about Dialga specifically. If Dialga G X is in play, I can power spray. It was a presumption that the counter argument was going to be “We’ll, I’d just level you down.”
I’m not ignoring Poltergeist. Lets look at facts. You have a 50/50 chance of going first. There is a 40% chance of starting with power spray in my hand if I run 4. That means there is only a 40% chance of a Spiritomb start. So, 60% of the time, Gengar doesn’t start Spiritomb, which means 30% of the time (given a 50/50 chance of going first), you are guaranteed no Spiritomb T1….which means there is no way to stop power spray. The overwhelming ability of Spiritomb NOT stopping power spray T1 is against the deck. The conditions for which SP can power spray are that the spray has to be in hand and there has to be 3 SP in play. Now, calculating that probability gets really tricky as the math is much more difficult that the SPiritomb scenario. But, lets look at quick facts. If I go first, I have to play 24 Pokemon to consistently get 3 Pokemon starts. Combined with Call energy, this probability falls off a bit. Combined with that, I have to actually start with a Power spray. So, the odds of a 3 Pokemon start are pretty easy for SP running 20 Pokemon and 4 call. So, the overwhelming factor that determines whether or not I get to Power Spray T1 is the probability of starting with one…so, lets say about 40% (actually a bit lower, but thats a pain to calculate and not too different). If SP goes 2nd, the probability of getting a Power Spray goes way up. It gets difficult to calculate, but when you factor the probability that I draw 1, the probability I draw Cyrus to search for 1, and the probability of drawing into one with Uxie…the probability plays out fairly favorable for SP. So, the probability of SP to power spray T1 vs the probability of a Spiritomb start favors SP. So, SP power sprays an Uxie set up…what does the Gengar deck do? Lets assume SP goes first and gets to attach energy. I am going to assume, for the sake of consistency and randomness (and to continue the arguement I already laid out) and using the Pokemon listed in the article, you start Uxie X, Oddish, and Ghastly….the odds of a ghastly start is the same as a Spiritomb start, but to prove my point (that it doesn’t get a CONSISTENT lock early, I’ll go with an alternate to a spiritomb start). You bebe for Uxie, set up, srayed. Now what? That 60% chance that you don’t start spiritomb means you can’t Darkness Grace…you Pitch Dark and end. Lets say I started Crobat, called for Luxray and Garchomp and attached to Garchomp. T2, I attach DCE and have free picking at either Uxie, Ghastly, or oddish…chances are, Uxie X is your main draw power and Uxie is the easy, obvious choice, I snipe Uxie. Now what?
Now, it sounds like I just gave SP the overwhelming advantage, but in all reality, I that is a more common scenario (due to draw probabilities) than a Spiritomb start. Now, if there is a Spiritomb start, it IS different, I don’t disagree. But, to sit there and say this owns SP is overkill. Gives problems? Yes. Hard match up? Yes. But, I didn’t even assume Dialga was being played in my scenario, which looks like it is about to start running rampant due to it being in the worlds winning deck and the Viletomb threat.
About running 2 Dialga: this, of course, assumes I’m playing Dialgachomp. If I have DGX in play, I can power spray Level down. I don’t have to spray it forever, just long enough to KO Gengar. If Dialga is in playe, Poltergeist on Dialgachomp is a bit of a joke. Sure, you can take cheap prizes off my bench, but you won’t take down Dialga. Once gengar X is gone, even if I lose a fainting spell, I still get free reign of no level down threat. Plus, the point of having 2 Dialga X’s is that if one goes down, the other is already read to go. In order for this to happen, all I have to do is call for 2 Dialga’s (or just get one somehow), SP radar with Dialga X in play to get the second one in hand. I don’t even have to level up yet. If I lose a fainting spell and both Dialga and Gengar go down, I promote Dialga basic and level up next turn….much easier than getting that second stage 2 Gengar out that still doesn’t have that X to level down because its in the discard. But, this all assumes I have Dialga active. I’ll talk about some basic techs…not some more advanced ones (can’t give away all of my secrets!). Ambipom is a great Pokemon to wreck havoc on this deck with Dialga on the bench. Garchomp takes easy prizes and can stack damage on before being scooped. I’ve already mentioned Blaziken and Toxitank. Houndoom 4 hits Gengar for weakness and burns and sets up in 1 turn. Weavile G is an awesome starter and a great Gengar counter as well…OHKO’s Gengar pretty easy. Darkrai G hits Gengar for weakness and puts it to sleep, which means it takes 1 extra damage counter if he stays asleep. So, Flashbite, attack with Darkrai for 110 total, potentially 130 with no return attack, easily KO’ed by a flashbite next turn. There are tons of Gengar counters that SP isn’t play right now because they haven’t been needed. I’m sure Gengar will do great at BR, everyone will tech against it from then on, and it will still be Tier 2 behind SP again.
Chill out dude… test the matchup out before you comment on this anymore. It’s pointless to go on about theoretical scenarios if you have no actual results.
I’m not angry. And, you’re right, I need to test it, but I’m not going on about hypothetical situations. Probability of starts are not hypothetical. Granted, some of the stuff afterwards was.
Your argument about the Spiritomb vs Power spray is a little off. You’re forgetting that sp only has ONE way of SEARCHING for the Spray (4 Cyrus), while Gengar has plenty of options to get spiritomb out. (most decks max bebes to 4 and Pokemon collector to 4)
Shadow Room around the Umbreon until you get the KO on Umbreon from Fainting Spell.
Your math sucks..So, you have 40% chance of starting wit Spiritomb if you play 4?
If it is the only Pokemon you play you still have 40%? And You play 4 Spiritombs and 4 Gastly, starting first or second with either you will stop your opponent to play Power Spray.
Also your SP techs sucks, and you have Azelf Lv X for the weaknes.
Also you always say “Lets say i start with..” Ok, perfect, so now lets say i started with spiritomb gaslty and odish, play BTS and get a gloom, bebe for hoçaunter, darkness grace for Vileplume. Next turn i play an uxie and get the second energy and Gengar….
Go get some theme deck…
Although the deck does have a decent luxchomp matchup, it has hard ones with dialgachomp and sablock. That is reason enough to not consider this deck tier 1.
Although the deck does have a decent luxchomp matchup, it has hard ones with dialgachomp and sablock. That is reason enough to not consider this deck tier 1.
If you have a Nidoqueen RR in play Donphans Earthquake won’t do damage to the bench. Nice Article!
Damn! Wasn’t reading. You can’t take comments away can you?
Great card overview. Can somebody give me a basic Vilegar deck list,Thank You.