City Championships are right around the corner, and everyone is looking for ways to improve their deck with cards from the Triumphant set. I predict the Trainers, Supporters, and Special Energy cards will have the greatest impact on deck construction because they all have game changing effects usable to some capacity in any deck.
However, this article will focus on Celebi Prime and how it can exploit one of the most effective strategies in the TCG: attacking any Pokémon in play. This concept can be refined into a deck capable of sniping for 80 damage for 6 consecutive turns.
Among the advantages are putting your opponent on a 6 turn clock, eliminating potential threats before they evolve or level up, and reducing the chance of losing on time. Arceus/Celebi/Garchomp C has good matchups across a majority of the field and the shear unexpectedness of the deck will cause opponents to make misplays. Here is the list I currently use. It is subject to change over time with testing and personal preference.
|
Pokémon – 20
4-2 Arceus LV.X* |
T/S/S – 26
4 Pokémon Collector |
Energy – 14
6 G |
*AR5 for the basic, any LV.X.
pokemon-paradijs.comGarchomp C + LV.X
The most efficient attacker in the deck. Its inclusion allows utilization of the Cyrus engine. Energy Gain makes Garchomp C incredibly fast and versatile in its attack cost, while 4 Premier Ball guarantee it will constantly return to the field. Warp Energy and Poké Turn allow Celebi Prime to become active and retreat in the same turn, which is fundamental if Garchomp C LV.X survives after attacking, on account of the text restricting consecutive Dragon Rushes.
Crobat G is vital for adding that last 10-20 damage to Knock Out Pokémon like Uxie LV.X, Regice, and Dragonite FB. 3-1 is better than 2-2 because you want at least 2 Garchomp C in play at all times in case one of them gets sniped. Azelf’s exclusion is based on the fact that bench space becomes very limited and there is another basic that has the same attack without even needing to level up!
pokebeach.comColorless Arceus (AR5) + LV.X
Until now it has been relegated to purely Arceus decks, but this underrated card has much higher potential. For the same cost as Garchomp C LV.X, Arceus can snipe any Pokémon for 80 damage at the expense of sending all Energy attached to it to the Lost Zone. The LV.X adds 40 HP and eliminates weakness, possibly allowing Arceus to survive another turn by avoiding a revenge Knock Out. Any Arceus LV.X will work – there are no other Arceus types in the deck and neither Meteor Blast nor Psychic Bolt can be used with the Energy provided.
However, if you decide to put a different Arceus type (Darkness to counter Gengar, for example), the one with the Omniscient Poké-Body is required to use Sky Spear while leveled up from the different type. Because of the attack’s downside, you never want more than 3 Energy attached to Arceus, and preferably save the Double Colorless Energies for it, too.
pokebeach.comCelebi Prime
The Pokémon that allows this deck to attack on consecutive turns. Celebi Prime provides an extra Energy attachment every time it’s active, as long as there is a G Energy in your hand. With 6 G Energy and Cyrus’s Conspiracy to search for them, this should be the case every turn. Furthermore, Forest Breath can be used multiple times if more than one Celebi Prime are in play if a new one becomes active, hence the inclusion of 4 Warp Point and 4 Warp Energy. Unown Q should be attached to it for free retreat, sparing the need to have a Warp Point in your hand every time your active Pokémon is Knocked Out.
Celebi Prime is the ideal starter for the deck, giving you the potential for 2 Energy attachments before your opponent even has any Energy in play. Going second, there is a substantial donk probability, with Arceus hitting for enough damage to Knock Out most basics.
Don’t bother attempting to include P Energy for Time Circle. No self-respecting player would fall victim to this mediocre stalling tactic, as every deck can avoid the effect with Uxie. Forest Breath is where the true power of the card lies.
pokebeach.comTechs
This section will be short because the base list leaves almost no room for options.
While this deck has overall good SP matchups capable of effectively eliminating Garchomp C, Machamp is one of its counters, as it Knocks Out every Pokémon for 1 Energy. To counter it, I recommend changing Uxie to 3-1 and adding Lucario GL. With Premier Ball consistently recovering the LV.X and Celebi Prime reducing reliance on having Double Colorless Energy in your hand, the game can turn from very unfavorable to relatively easy.
Another Pokémon to consider is Darkness Arceus. If you’re behind on prizes and include D Energy in the deck, Prize Count will Knock Out Gengar in one hit. If you choose not to include D Energy, the Omniscient Arceus LV.X can use Sky Spear while leveled up from Darkness Arceus to also get the 1HKO, as mentioned earlier. Vileplume is very destructive to this deck and any opportunity to snipe it while it’s still an Oddish or Gloom should be met with haste. Otherwise, your speed advantage is not only negated but backfires with Poltergeist preying on the deck’s large Trainer count.
Other cards for consideration, whether they help matchups or increase consistency are Energy Exchanger, Junk Arm, SP Radar, Power Spray, and Dialga G LV.X.
With 8 Special Energy, having Energy Exchanger to search for the one most needed can be quite beneficial. Junk Arm allows a decrease in some individual Trainer counts, or gives you the option of having more than 4-of some particular Trainers in any game. SP Radar and Power Spray complete the spectrum of SP Trainers available to SP decks and hybrid decks like this one.
Dialga G LV.X is a counter to Vileplume, as well as several other threatening Poké-Bodies like Red Armor, Catastrophe, and Lost Link. With so many switching cards, the Retreat Cost isn’t a problem. However, searching for the LV.X is. Be sure to include 1 to 2 Bebe’s Search if including this tech specifically against Vileplume. Don’t make the mistake of leaving it on the bench against Gengar/Vileplume to get Leveled Down. Play all your Trainers while it’s active, then Poké Turn it.
Celebi Prime has been an overlooked card and I hope this article has brought a new perspective on its true potential.
Pretty cool deck idea! A few suggestions:
Grass energy- I think you are going to need 2-3 more grass energy in your deck to truly exploit Celebi’s power. If you don’t have any in your hand, then you can’t use the power!
Warp points/energy. I really don’t think you need quite so many, especially since you can poketurn when needed.
Arceus- I’m not sold on using Arceus and would recommend running pure Garchomp C for sniping ability. The other option would be to toss in Honchkrow G to give you some sniping options without the discard problems or run Drifloom FB to snipe for weakness since almost everyone wil be running Uxie.
If you go with pure Garchomp C, then you could get some really nice energy acceleration with Celebi. I’d also toss in some Seekers and a Smeargle UD to help with draw power and resetting Garchomp when needed.
And, of course, you’re assuming no one will be running Mewtwo X or that you can snipe before it gets set up. I’d probably take the risk too, but it’s a risk nonetheless.
Cool idea!
mmm interesting concept.
As tony said, maybe its a better idea to run pure garchomp C, and add driflimb and lucario, that will really help against anything with psychic weakness (like machamp, for example) and will give you a few cheap prizes off your opponent´s pixies.
I would recommend against running sprays in this list, since you barely have 3 sp to make them useful, but sp radar, on the other hand, is too good to pass on it.
Take out 2 premier balls, and add 2 sp radars (specially if you do run lucario, driflimb or honchkrow)
The warp points could be diminished a bit, and i dont think the consistency would suffer, so i would take out 2, to add 1 more aarons, 1 bebe search. Lookers may be good for disruption, but if thats the way you wanna go, judge does the job better, and if its hand refreshment, then oak/copycat do it better.
Nice idea, im really interested to test this out.
why does every body think oak is better then lookers,
I mean with lookers you get to look at your opponents hand and predict
what your opponent is going to do. If they have a good hand
you can shuffle it a way for disruption. or you
can refresh your own. The only thing oak gets you is one more card.
The problem with looker´s is that it realyl doesnt help predict anything, since if you opponent has a bad hand, you will be forced to shuffle yours, or give him 5 new cards, and if he doesnt, you will shuffle his hand, and then you dont know what he has drawn, meaning that most times, you actually dont have any use to the information on whats on his hand. Also, the fact that it gives your opponent 5 new cards, is really bad, in 5 new cards you opponent can hit a lot of useful things, which is a problem.
Thats why, to refresh yourself, oaks/copycat are better, and to disrupt, judge is better, lookers seems to me like a jack of all trades, but master of none.
Yeah, I don’t like the Arceus idea either. To imply you will have a DCE AND Grass energy every time you need it is a bit ridiculous. And, if you don’t, then Garchomp won’t snipe every turn and neither will Arceus, especially since Arceus doesn’t have Energy Gain. Energy Exchanger might not be a bad idea. Why 1 looker?
Very cool idea, but I think we are about to start seeing high HP, high damage Pokemon very common and the need to discard energy every turn is a bit steep.
Nice deck Idea. I applaud your originality.
Im not sure if it really works though, I would have to play against it to make sure. The deck does need a lot to set up and keep going.
I agree, the originality is SUPER AWESOME! But the playability is a little too low. Look around on Pokebeach for scans of average cards that might work.
Your idea sounds great! You might want to try Feraligatr Prime’s Rain Dance and Energy Link or (dare I say it) Lucian’s Assignment to move those energies around.
Very nice deck concept, I’d more than happy to try it out for a fun league deck once I have 4 Celebi Primes in. :)
Ok, let’s address some of your comments…
@Tony: Cyrus’s Conspiracy allows for a consistent supply of Grass Energy, so I’m not worried about running dry. The Warp Point count can be dropped, especially if you choose to make the deck more Garchomp C centric, but Warp Energy is too perfect for this deck to not play 4. The problem with making this deck pure Garchomp C is relying on essentially 3 basics that half the metagame is entirely devoted to countering. With Arceus, if your Garchomp C supply runs out or some happen to be prized, it fulfills the same role for very few resources. This list is tailored for consistency and the “6 prizes in 6 turns” strategy, and is largely influenced by my SP-heavy metagame. You are welcome to try any of the techs you mentioned.
@chrataxe: I’m not sure I understand your logic. Since Garchomp C can attack for 2 basic energy cards + Energy Gain, you can save the Double Colorless Energies for Arceus. With Celebi Prime giving you an extra energy attachment (or 2) either one can be powered up in one turn. If you have Double Colorless Energy, use Arceus, otherwise use Garchomp C. Looker’s Investigation is just a multipurpose card to disrupt or refresh your hand. High HP Pokemon would be problematic for any SP deck in general, but tournament results prove otherwise because KOing basics, stage 1’s, and support Pokemon is usually enough to win.
@Martin Garcia: I agree that Power Spray would be too situational to use in this deck. Exchanging 2 Premier Ball for 2 SP Radar probably isn’t a good idea because Premier Ball gets a LV. X from the discard pile as well, and the other techs you suggested can just be searched out with Pokemon Collector. It does have the advantage of being search-able with Cyrus’s Conspiracy, so maybe 1. I addressed your other comments above.
@REDELKID: The choice is usually personal preferance, but a common trend I’ve been seeing is more people playing Smeargle, so having a Looker’s Investigation in your hand can be a liability. Nonetheless, I chose it for its flexibility.
@pikkdogs and coolestman22: It doesn’t need much more, in terms of resources, to function than most SP decks. A Cyrus chain can keep the deck sniping for multiple turns in a row and the recovery is superb, given the main attackers are basics.
@vennythekid: Feraligatr Prime might be too much hassle to get out in a deck like this. Although, if you wanted to try it with a sniping Pokemon, Palkia G LV. X could work well.
Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I’ll keep responding to any comments you may have. Keep in mind, this article and list are simply to introduce the deck idea, and not tech for your specific metagame.
Hey dude, props on the deck idea. From my experience of running this build I would drop the Arceus line entirely because this deck needs recovery options and placing all energy in the Lost Zone is far too costly.
I run pure Garchomp C Lv.X and in the six spaces created I would add a Fisherman and an Aarons Collection for recovery, 2 Grass Energy to maximise the potential of Forest Breath and perhaps 2 Seeker given your efficient ability to retreat/warp out. I too would replace 2 Premier Ball with 2 SP Radar
Lastly I would switch up the Garchomp C Lv.X line to 2-2 since without Azelf, if the X is prized the **** has hit the fan.
Lastly I wouldnt underestimate what Drifblim SF could do for this deck. And before you ask, no I dont mean the UD one or the FB version.
Granted the UD version would work well to counter Machamp, Steelix Prime etc. as well, but the SF one compliments the deck perfectly too
Delivery for no energy allows you to reuse DCE that are otherwise unrecoverable, or any other card from your discard pile for that matter.
Lifting aids with set up and also improves energy acceleration.
And finally Ominous Wind will be an answer to Machamp dealing 70 damage and possibly Confusing and locking it.
Respectfully,
Jack
Also you could include Bronzong (SF) for a guaranteed 2 Grass Energies every turn, and despite your dislike for the idea I recommend adding in a Psychic Energy for Crobat G’s Toxic Fang more then Celebi Prime’s attack, it can be particularly useful against Gigas, Donphan Prime or the like.And as you mentioned 1-2 Bebe’s is essential because under trainer lock you have no way to search out Garchomp C Lv.X
Do you just scoop T1 against Vilegar because not only do they lock your trainers but Gengar one shots benched Celebi Prime for easy prizes
very original idea, i really like it :D
IMO, if you decide to go with the machamp counter list, you could change the warp points to switches as to avoid machamps getting out of your opponents active position if you know your gonna
ko it.
very original idea, i really like it :D
IMO, if you decide to go with the machamp counter list, you could change the warp points to switches as to avoid machamps getting out of your opponents active position if you know your gonna
ko it.
“With so many switching cards, the Retreat Cost isn’t a problem. However, searching for the Lv.X is. ” Did you forget you have all the Premier Balls? This would only be an issue vs Plume Not a bad idea sir. not at all
Thanks. I was referring to Vileplume in particular.
MEWTWO LV. X LOL
MEWTWO LV. X LOL