Volbeat and Illumise (Triumphant TM 64 & 82) – Cards of the Day

Illumise TMpokebeach.comHi there, Celebi’ here! Today I’d like to present a Card of the Day double feature – Volbeat and Illumise! These two cards, playing off of the whole Volbeat x Illumise theme, work well together, and I decided to review them both!

Volbeat and Illumise have similar stats: they’re both Grass types (yuck!), they both have 70 HP (decent for a basic), and they both have an average one Retreat Cost. Being Basics means you can swarm them early in the game.

That’s the strategy of any Volbeat/Illumise deck: use a turbo engine to create…well, a firefly swarm.

How exactly do they gain strength in numbers? Well let’s look at Illumise’s attacks. The first is just bad. It lets you heal three damage counters from one of your Pokémon. This will never be useful – both of your main Pokémon have 70 HP and will get 1HKO’d anyway. The second attack is where Illumise shines (another shiny pun? Man, I’m unoriginal).

Vulcan beat is the attack you’ll want to be using. It costs just one Grass energy and lets you flip a coin for each Volbeat in play. You can then do thirty damage times the number of heads. If you’re very lucky, you can hit for 120 damage – just on turn one! Even taking into account its flippiness, Vulcan beat averages 60 damage, which is great for one energy on your first turn.

You’ll obviously want to have a full bench of Volbeats, then. And since you’ll run four of them in a deck, there’s always the chance of being in a sticky situation where you’ll have to attack with him.

pokebeach.comVolbeat’s first attack is the one that you would want to use. It’s called Illumisile, and for one Grass energy you get to snipe the bench for 30, as long as you have Illumise in play.

While 30 damage isn’t much, especially since you’re not allowed to attack the Active, it does have the possibility of KOing babies or low HP Pokémon like Solosis. Illumisile should only be used when you can’t do anything else, but I thought I’d still bring it up. It’s better than the awful Firefly Light – that’s one attack you’ll never use.

So, let’s say you really like fireflies and you want a fun deck to play around with. Volbeat/Illumise may be right for you! I’m not going to get into specifics about the decklist, but I will say that you need to have the absolute speediest engine possible. You should definitely include:

Another tech that may work (I haven’t tested this yet, but wanted to throw it out there) is “Fliptini” from Noble Victories. It’s one more basic you have to get out, and it means that you won’t be able to set up a new Illumise until the other one is KO’d (your bench would consist of a Victini and four Volbeats). But it increases the odds of Vulcan Beat being effective, and it may be worth a try.

Volbeat and Illumise together provide a fairly reliable donk, but they have a hard time scoring KOs later in the game. Their 70 HP means that your opponent will get a KO each turn, and when you’re averaging just 60 damage, you won’t be able to keep up in the Prize trade. This is the main thing that keeps them from becoming a competitive deck.

However, Volbeat/Illumise can still be a fun and fairly easy to play league deck. Here’s a great video 6P member Vysekun made of a first turn played out with the deck.

Pokémon TCG: Illumise/Volbeat Turn 1 Play-through (HGSS+)

I’d rate Illumise at 6/10 and Volbeat at 5/10. I may have rated them a little low because they are so dependent on each other, but I think it’s pretty fair. Illumise also got an extra point because she has a higher damage output, whereas Volbeat is just there to support.

Have any of you tested out a Volbeat/Illumise deck? What do you think of the cards? Thanks for reading, and thanks to baby_mario for suggesting the last image! :D

Reader Interactions

14 replies

  1. theo Seeds

    3 Illumise
    4 Volbeat
    2 Fliptini
    1 Cleffa
    10Total

    3 Revive
    1 Super Rod
    4 Pokemon Communication
    3 Dual Ball (I=Not a big fan because I whiffed on 4 flips with these and then got donked so I try to stick to Collector but you can run 4)
    3 Victory Medal (Still legal)
    3 Pokemon Collector
    3 Professor Juniper
    3 PONT
    2 N
    3 Eviolite (They help vs. Yanmega)
    2 Cheren (I personally like Bianca but this list is for you not me)
    4 Junk Arm
    4 Pokeball (Or Victory Cup if you’re a show-off)
    2 Recycle
    40 Total

    8 Grass
    2 Rescue
    10 Total

    60 Total

    Tweak to your preferences as this is a list for you and not me.

    • barryfken  → theo

      My thoughts exactly, except for Recycle and Pokeball. If you have 3 Collector, 4 Communication, Revive, Juniper, etc. and you’re not getting out Pokemon, then you’re gonna lose, lol. I’d put in 6 more pokemon to replace the Pokeballs and Recycles – That way, you can utilize Pokemon Communication to full potential. 2 Zorua and 2 Zoroark, and 2 Absol Prime should do the trick.

      I know it’s not for you, but for any readers, lol.

  2. barryfken

    You can put Volbeat and Illumise in a Vileplume/Sunflora deck for fun, you don’t need to make a deck based off Volbeat/Illumise.

    Edit: There are other Grass Decks you can fit them into too.

    I’ve been waiting for this review!

    That last image was on DeviantArt, wasn’t it? Lol.

  3. Patrick den Boer

    4 Volbeat
    4 Illumise
    1 Cleffa
    1 Tyrogue
    10 Total

    4 Collector
    4 Dual ball
    4 PONT
    4 Juniper
    4 Cheren
    4 Junk Arm
    4 Victory Medal
    3 Plus power
    3 Catcher
    2 Revive
    2 Switch
    2 Evolite
    40 total

    8 Grass energy
    2 Rescue
    10 total

    This is my personal list. Hope u enjoy !

    • Dakota Streck  → Patrick

      You want an Illumise active and attacking for sure. I would use the bench for 3 Volbeat, 1 Victini and another Illumise (you need to have your next attacker ready to bring up).

      I’d think that this way, you can flip 3 coins two times, which gives you a more consistent damage out put than 4 Volbeat. A near-guarunteed 60+ is IMO better than an average of 60 per turn.

      • theo Seeds  → Dakota

        Actually, My plan was 4 Volbeat and Victini on the bench, and hopefully Rescue on the Illumnse that just died so you can put it back down, retreat Volbeat or snipe with it, and then you attack with Illumnise next turn. But this guy doesn’t have Victini in his list. So IDK what he’s thinking.

        • Dakota Streck  → theo

          It costs 1 Energy to Retreat and another to power up the rescued Illumise, which requires you to be attaching two Energy per turn (or 1 Energy and a Switch every turn).

  4. Anthony Smith

    Thanks for the link Celebi, but my video is horrible! :P

  5. Lynx Meche

    Volbeat is the better card in my opinion, for the attack name alone. “Illumisile” sounds like a Digimon/Pokemon crossover joke. Vulcan Beat is…confusing, unless Spock suddenly has antennae.

    Firefly Light COULD be a good attack on a mediocre Pokemon (much like Pike on the theme deck Samurott), but GCC? I love a Burn/Confuse combo against most opponents, but I’ll stick with Houndoom Prime for that kthnx.

    • Anonymous  → Lynx

      I once got killed by a Foul Play-ed Firefly Light. It can be effective when the cost is bypassed.

      • Lynx Meche  → Anonymous

        I was considering how Zoroark would do against it. I haven’t actually seen a Volbeat/Illumise deck, and even if I did see one, I’d probably use Reshiram or Typhlosion and leave Zoroark in the deck. Volbeat only has 70 HP, and Firefly Light does 30, so only one tails and two attacks, Volbeat is dead.

        New BDIF, Leafeon/Volbeat. If they tried to promote Muk/Lilligant > Roserade, why not Volbeat? =)

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