Food for Thought: Musings, Techs, and Decklists Post “Call of Legends”

By now I’m sure most; if not all of you readers will have seen scans from the upcoming Call of Legends expansion. It would be safe to say the set is incredibly underwhelming, which bring almost nothing to the table with regard to new and exciting cards.

In this article, I’m going to go through the few cards in the set that show promise and how they impact on the format.

Secondly I’ll be discussing what techs are underused in various metagame environments and how they could be utilized in order to tackle various matchups.

Finally, I’ll throw in some decklists that I’ve been experimenting with in testing, including the Machamp/Magnezone Prime build I used at my final City Championship of the season to go 5-0 and win the event. I hope it makes for an interesting read. Enjoy!

Musings on the Current Format and Upcoming Decks

LostGar – believe the hype?

pokegym.netNow that Lost World is going to be introduced into our format, Gengar Prime is certainly more of a force to be reckoned with.

As J-wittz outlined in his article on Sablock, I am of the same opinion we will see a lot of poor quality LostGar builds in the first week of State Championships that don’t address certain problems such as the speedy SP threat, which is prevalent in the format at the moment.

This is not to say that Gengar Prime should not be accounted for in tournament play, as a Lost World victory can creep up on you sooner than you think.

If you’re in the same boat as me, owning zero Gengar Primes and not willing / able to afford to buy them now for $30+ a piece, don’t worry. I’ll be speculating as to which techs & strategies to use so that you may be in an even better standing against the LostGar player later on in the article.

Lucario CoL / Palkia G LV.X

One card that I really do like from Call of Legends is Lucario. For two C Energy, he does 30 damage plus 20 more damage for each of your Pokémon in the Lost Zone. It combination with Palkia G LV.X’s “Lost Cyclone” Poké-Power, you can potentially have a limitless damage cap while maintaining a strong power lock on your opponent with Mespirit LA’s Poké-Power “Psychic Bind” as well as Power Spray from the Cyrus Engine.

While presenting a relatively fresh deck to the format, the deck suffers from a kick in the teeth with regard to the release of Lost World. This severely limits your ability to use Lucario effectively in certain matchups, as putting 6 or more of your Pokémon in the Lost Zone will simply allow players using Lost World in their decks to win the game.

The deck has potential if built correctly to just roll opponents due to their lack of setup as Lucario swings hard and relatively quickly, possibly by turn 2, however popularity of the deck will entirely depend on how much LostGar sees play.

Rise of the Rogue

pokemon-paradijs.comWith the increase in popularity in Gengar Prime, overlooked decks in the past such as Tyranitar and Steelix Prime become increasingly viable candidates for tournament play. Both classified as tanks, once powered up they prove to be incredibly difficult to take down.

Steelix has the innate self-powering up ability of “Energy Steam”, which attaches energy from the discard in order to power himself up more quickly. I see Steelix at the moment being incredibly tough to take down due to few “powerhouse” Pokémon being played.

My prediction is that SP players that used to run Blaziken LV.X or Drifblim UD will opt to alter their tech line to better cope with the influx of Darkness weak Gengar Prime (e.g. Absol G LV.X & Honchkrow SV). This leaves the door wide open for Steelix to burst through, as in my experience with the deck, once he gets going, little gets in its way.

Once Steelix starts swinging for 100-120 damage (with an Expert Belt), in combination with Skuntank G + Stadiums / Crobat G’s Flash Bite, takes down any Gengar Prime and discards their Lost World Stadium if in play.

On the other hand, Tyranitar has even more potential now with all the Darkness weak Ghost Pokémon in the format. For a Special Dark and a DCE, he one shots Gengar Prime with “Power Claw”. If LostGar proves to be popular, a well teched out Tyranitar deck to deal with SP could be the play!

Predictions

Here are my predications for which of the main decks will become more playable with the release of Call of Legends, not just due to the released cards in the set, but how the release of new CoL cards increase the effectiveness of older cards that were not as effective before this latest set release.