Bacon and Eggs: A Just-For-Fun Emboar Experiment [with Decklist]

gabby-girlHey guys, today I’ll be talking about a deck that I made up off the cuff at last Sunday’s Battle Road Tournament. One of the organizers was trying to make a just-for-fun deck that had all of the elements of a balanced breakfast, but didn’t quite have the eggy bit down yet.

So, I suggested running Emboar from B&W with Exeggutor from HGSS. The idea is pretty simple: pump up Exeggutor with Emboar to smash faces with his Big Eggsplosion attack, which reads, “Flip a coin for each Energy attached to Exeggutor. This attack does 40 damage times the number of heads.”

Combine this with Emboar’s “Inferno Fandango” and you can throw an essentially unlimited number of energy on Exeggutor and, if you can get some lucky flips, do a ton of damage. One might ask why not just use Tangrowth, who can do 20 times the amount of energy attached to him without having to flip and who also has 110 HP?

First, Tangrowth is Grass type, meaning he won’t often hit for weakness, although he will often get hit by Fire types for weakness. Additionally, Exeggutor’s retreat cost is two less, although I doubt you’ll be able to retreat in the first place.

pokebeach.com

In any case, Exeggutor has the ability to do more for fewer energy and hit for weakness on Machamp, although it does take a little bit of luck, and while flipping coins is usually out of the question for most competitive players in most circumstances, the risk can be really exciting for those who like surprise outcomes or uncertain situations, and the deck is really better for a less intense league environment just for kicks.

However, for those who like the element of surprise in the competitive arena, the added bonus of having a rogue deck is that your opponent takes a little longer trying to decipher what deck you are running and what the nature of your strategy is. Many will probably have forgotten about Exeggutor or what his attacks even do.

Additionally, Exeggutor can start attacking as soon as he’s evolved, and does not rely completely on Inferno Fandango to get an attack off, meaning that if you don’t have an Emboar out turn 2, you can still try for damage since his attack only costs one Psychic.

Alternatively, Exeggutor can Energy Absorption for two discarded energy for the cost of one Colorless, meaning if you use Junk Arm or Professor Juniper turn one or two you can grab any discarded energy, a move which can really help accelerate the pace of the game if you are having problems getting Emboar out.

Honestly, I think the best thing about this is Exeggutor’s type, which is relatively safe from the Electric/Fire/Water/Fighting Type War. Here’s a Sample Decklist to get us started:

Now this is just a starter, and pretty much everything is simplified for consistency. Couple of things:

Reshiram: Reshiram is in here as a backup attacker who can deal quick and devastating damage to those weak against Fire or when flipping coins just isn’t going to do it. Hard really to keep him out of any Emboar deck completely.

Dual Ball: I personally feel as though Dual Ball is a better option than Pokémon Collector in decks that don’t need a full bench ASAP. It’s spammable each turn and reusable with Junk Arm, which can also allow you to discard energy for Exeggutor’s Energy Absorption as an alternative energy acceleration method. This also saves you a supporter for draw (Juniper/Oak).

Energy Retrieval: This is to get back energies lost by a KO’ed Exeggutor. If you are going to be piling energies on him, each KO is going to be a disaster and will require some way to recover energy, particularly the Psychic ones.

Rare Candy: Notice I use three, way more than needed. This is to make sure I can get it out sooner (same reason I have 3 Cleffa). Later on when I don’t need it, Rare Candy becomes good Junk Arm fodder.

Ninetales vs PONT/Juniper: I don’t use Ninetales, opting instead to use the Pokémon space for Reshiram and extra Cleffa, and putting my draw stock into heavy PONT and Juniper counts. So far it’s worked for my other Emboar decks, and I much prefer it to adding a 2-2 line that takes up space on the bench.

Energy: I run a slightly higher energy count and this is due to the fact that Exeggutor simply needs more energy if you want to be relatively safe on your damage odds. I don’t think 16 is unreasonable, though some may disagree.

PlusPower: I don’t run PlusPower, as it is only useful if you know before hand how much damage you will do with your attack.

Flower Shop Girl: I’m not sure how I feel about this card yet. I originally had it in here for recovery but I figured 4 Exeggutor and 2 Reshiram ought to be fine as attackers, and you should be fine recovering energy with 4 Energy Retrieval. Otherwise, take out an Energy Retrieval for one FSG.

Whether you actually take this seriously or only use it for fun, I hope you really like it. It will probably surprise a couple of people at your local league too!