Legendary DONK

Hello, my name is Grant Manley and today I will be looking at donking decks. I loved Sabledonk and believed that the art of turn one donking decks should live on. I loved the idea of the Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus deck, but it doesn’t really get the donk that much.

After Sabledonk was rotated I tried Tyrogue donk with 4 Tyrogue as the only Pokémon in it. It was pretty interesting. Here is the list:

Pokémon – 4

4 Tyrogue HS/CL

Trainers – 52

4 Seeker

3 Copycat/N/PONT

 

4 Junk Arm

4 Pokémon Catcher

4 PlusPower

4 Defender

4 Research Record

4 Victory Medal

4 Good Rod

4 Lost Remover

4 Dual Ball

4 Revive

3 Pokégear 3.0

2 Full Heal

Energy – 4

4 Rescue

The obvious strategy with this is to get a first turn donk against your opponent. It has numerous techs to deal with problems that might arise. Let’s look at the cards…

Tyrogue

pokemon-paradijs.comThe only Pokémon in the deck. Most people are quite familiar with this Pokémon and its reputation of donking babies. Anyway, here is a quick rundown of the card. It’s a 30 HP Basic that cannot evolve. It has no Weakness, no Resistance, and no Retreat Cost. These are not quite the statistics you are looking for in a Pokémon, but wait until you hear what it can do.

Its Poké-Body, called Sweet Sleeping Face, makes it invincible from direct attacks while it is asleep. That is fantastic… if you had a way to put yourself to sleep. That brings me to its single attack, Mischievous Punch; it deals 30 damage for zero Energy! And, it puts you to sleep!

On top of all that, the attack’s damage isn’t affected by Weakness or Resistance! So, you can still hit Pokémon like Yanmega Prime and Tornadus EPO for 30! But, you can’t hit things like Zekrom BLW and Magnezone Prime for 60.

Now Tyrogue is starting to look Like a good Pokémon! However, it is still a pretty weak main attacker. So, you’re hitting for 30 on turn 1, you have a 50 percent chance of being invincible, and you have free retreat. That is pretty decent.

Rescue Energy

You may be thinking that because Tyrogue doesn’t need any Energy for its attack, you shouldn’t have any Energy in the deck. I disagree. Rescue Energy is fairly simple. When the Pokémon it is attached to is Knocked Out; you get it back to your hand. This is very useful because you only have 4 Tyrogue and it is possible that one will be in your prizes.

Of course, this card is completely worthless if you get a first or second turn donk. So, you might not want to run 4-of those. Anyway, it is basically a way to recycle Tyrogues.

Seeker

pokemon-paradijs.comThis card is fantastic for donking decks. It makes each player pick up one of their benched Pokémon. So, if you go first and your opponent only has 2 Pokémon to start out with, (which is fairly likely) then you use Seeker and kill their active Pokémon with Mischievous Punch and PlusPowers. But what if your opponent’s active Pokémon is something like the oh so popular Reshiram BLW?

That brings me to my next point. You can use Pokémon Catcher to have your opponent switch it out with something with less HP. Then, you can use the Seeker + knockout combo to win!

Copycat or N

This is the deck’s draw Supporter. You can also use something like Professor Oak’s New Theory (PONT) or Professor Juniper as a draw supporter; I don’t think it makes much of a difference. There’s not much to say about it. It gets you cards when you can’t hit an early Seeker.

PlusPower

You can’t kill much with 30 damage so this is used to boost up your damage output. This is how you will win in the harsh world of Cyndaquils, Yanmas, and Magnemites, so you must run 4. This is also how you will donk the unspeakable… Magikarp with Defender! (Collective gasp) (Or Eviolite but Defender is stackable) + = DOOM! A donk deck is not a donk deck without PlusPower. Period.

Defender

Now let’s look at its blue brother, Defender. As you can see from the picture, Defender is a Trainer card that you attach to one of your Pokémon. It reduces all damage done to the Pokémon it is attached to by 20 until the end of the opponent’s next turn. And they’re stackable! The obvious reason for having these is because Tyrogue has such low HP and can be KO’d in one shot by almost everything.

pokemon-paradijs.comHowever, the downside is that it is impossible to predict if Tyrogue will stay asleep after its attack, so Defender might go to waste. To counter this problem, you might want to run Eviolite instead. While it is not stackable, it acts as a permanent Defender. Or you could use a combination of both.

Full Heal

Full Heal is used in the unlikely event that you get two tails for sleep after Mischievous Punch. It is more useful than it seems, but you have a 25% chance of staying asleep until your next turn and you really want to be attacking every turn. It also can be used against those rare decks that run special condition inflictors as a surprise counter.

Research Record

Research Record lets you look at the top 4 cards of your deck, rearrange them as you like and put as many as you like on the bottom of your deck! This is not only great for controlling your topdecks, but also combos well with Victory Medal, Good (great) Rod, and Pokégear 3.0.

Victory Medal

Victory Medal has you flip 2 coins (don’t groan). If both are tails, the Trainer fails. However, if both are heads, then you get to search your deck for any card you want and put it in your hand. If only one is heads than you draw one card from the top of your deck. That is why it is good to use Research Record before you use this to know and change what you are going to draw if you get one head.

These cards are hard to get, so you may not be able to get four of them. It is great if you get double heads because that you can potentially get the last card you need to pull of a donk!

Good Rod

pokemon-paradijs.comGood (GREAT) Rod is a relatively unused Trainer/Item card. The name of the card is Good Rod, but I think it should be Great Rod because it is… well… great! When you play it, you flip a coin (this is an extremely flippy deck), if heads, you search your discard pile for a Pokémon and put it on the top of your deck (BOO!). If tails, however, you search your discard pile for a Trainer/Item and put it on the top of your deck (YAY!).

When you think about it, this deck is a very interesting one because you want to get tails half the time! You almost always want to get tails with this because you have recycle your Trainers! The reason it is good with Research Record is because if you get a heads and get a Pokémon that you don’t want, then you can just send it to the bottom of the deck.

Pokégear 3.0

Pokégear 3.0 lets you look at the top 7 cards of your deck and take any 1 Supporter you find there. This is great and is obviously mainly used for getting Seeker so you can get the donk. It can also be used for drawing by getting Copycat or N. It is good with Research Record because you can get rid of all non-Supporters in the top 4 cards so you have a better chance of getting a Supporter.

Lost Remover

Lost Remover puts one of your opponent’s Special Energy in the Lost Zone. It’s that simple. It makes your game easier and annoys your opponent; especially when you run 4 (evil grin). Run no less than 4, it works!

Dual Ball

You flip 2 coins (no, it’s not a bad card), and for each heads, you get a Basic Pokémon. This is so you don’t lose by running out of Pokémon.

Revive

pokemon-paradijs.comRevive revives (recycles) (saves from the discard pile) (etc.) a Tyrogue.

Junk Arm

Last but not least, we finally come to the final card. At first glance, I thought this was a bad card; you discard 2 cards from your hand and retrieve a trainer-item from your discard pile. Later, after testing it and seeing everyone play it, I realized that this is a really great Trainer/Item and definitely in the top 5 best. So, this is the glue that holds this deck together for long battles.

After my advertising, this seems like a great deck that can donk any deck! Not so. It can often get the donk, but it has some “holes.” Unfortunately, we have to look at the negatives as well as the positives so here it goes…

The Holes

First off, Trainer Lock decks. It is easy enough to donk Gothitas or Oddishes, if they get their final evolved forms out though, you are done for. This deck has 45 Trainer/Items! The only chance you have is getting all your flips… Yeah… Right.

If your opponent goes first and attaches Eviolite to at least a decently high HP basic (60 or more) than it will be a lot more difficult to donk. Also, your opponent might also run Defender and those are stackable!

Also, if your opponent starts out with 3 or more Basics in his/her starting 7 cards than it will be hard to win because you cannot get the donk. If your opponent goes first with a Pokémon Collector and gets 2 or more Basics than the same thing applies.

pokemon-paradijs.comAnother problem is if your opponent starts with a 120 HP or higher lone Basic (namely Reshiram or Zekrom) than it will be impossible to donk and, if it is Reshiram, Zekrom or Kyurem, you will power up Outrage!

I believe that most (all) decks should have at least 1 Tyrogue in it. And most decks do, unfortunately, that means that if your opponent starts with a Tyrogue, or has a way to get one (Pokémon Collector, Pokémon Communication, etc.), than they can donk you! So, there’s another problem, your only Pokémon is a 10 HP too low Basic.

The last problem is that the deck is too reliant on coin flips and Victini NVI 14/98 (Fliptini) cannot help you! Four major cards in the deck involve flipping! Sadly, that’s the way all donk decks are, flipping their way to victory… or flipping their way to 0-5 records.

Thanks for bearing with me there, that was almost 2,000 words! I hoped you liked this article… because I’m not even halfway done!

The Next Donk Deck

Tyrogue Donk was pretty decent, winning some, losing some (I never actually played it in a tournament), but I eventually moved on to….. (EPIC DRUMROLL)….. MARACTUS DONK. I tried Maractus Donk for a while then switched to Hitmontop Donk. The lists are very similar so here they are:

Pokémon – 6

4 Hitmontop HS/CL or Maractus BLW

2 Victini NVI 14

Trainers – 48

4 Professor Juniper

3 Seeker

1 Pokémon Collector

 

4 Junk Arm

4 PlusPower

4 Lost Remover

4 Victory Medal

4 Dual Ball

4 Defender/Eviolite

4 Pokémon Catcher

3 Pokégear 3.0

3 Revive

3 Good Rod

2 Research Record

1 Switch

Energy – 6

6 F/G

Pokémon

pokemon-paradijs.comHitmontop and Maractus are both unique in their own donking ways, but they also have similar qualities which is why they have practically the same lists. Hitmontop is a 60 HP Basic that cannot evolve and Maractus is a 90 HP Basic that cannot evolve. Hitmontop has a Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, and a 1 Energy Retreat Cost; while Maractus has a Fire Weakness (SCREEEEEECH), Water Resistance, and a 2 Energy Retreat Cost.

While Water Resistance is making Maractus look better than Hitmontop’s absent Resistance, Fire Weakness is terrible. Fire is taking over the metagame and Psychic isn’t (sorry Mew).

Anyway, Maractus and Hitmontop both have an attack for one Energy of their type. They both say: “Flip 3 coins” (just as flippy as good old Tyrogue). Maractus’ attack does 10 damage for one head, 30 for 2 heads, and 60 for 3 heads! Hitmontop’s does 20 damage for one head, 40 for 2 heads and 60 for 3 heads. It’s plain to see that Hitmontop’s attack (which is called Triple Kick by the way) is better than Maractus’ attack (Constant Rattle).

They both have a second attack too, which is why you would choose Maractus over Hitmontop if you do choose Maractus over Hitmontop. Maractus’ second attack is Giga Drain. For 3 Grass Energy (stick with Constant Rattle) it does 50 damage (ugh) and heals itself for as much damage it dealt. So, usually you’re healing 50, but if the Defending Pokémon has less than 50 HP than you only heal as much as it has left in HP (curse you Magikarp… w/ defenders!).

So if a Magikarp (yeah I know they’re not played) has 2 Defenders on it, then you do 10 damage and heal 10 damage… for 3 Grass Energy! Luckily, that will never (probably) happen. Hitmontop’s 2nd attack is… different… to be nice.

pokemon-paradijs.comHitmontop is more aggressive. Remember Lucario LV.X? Well, Hitmontop’s attack is like his. For a Fighting and 2 C Energy, it does 60 damage with a drawback of your opponent’s next attack doing 20 more damage to it. And he doesn’t even get a cool Poké-Body to go with it.

All in all it is up to personal preference. Fire might fall with the rise of Water and Psychic will probably rise with Mewtwo EX, Gothitelle, and maybe, just maybe, will RDL w/ Typhlosion see play as a Mewtwo EX counter. I guess it doesn’t really matter though if Hitmontop has weakness to RDL (Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND) because it already has a 90 damage overkill! Anyway that’s enough on these Pokémon.

The other Pokémon in the deck is Victini NVI 14/98 (from now on referred to as Fliptini). I’m pretty sure that everyone that knows Noble Victories exists also knows what this does, so I’ll give it to you in brief. It’s a 60 HP Fire Basic that can’t evolve. Water Weakness. No Resistance and 1 Retreat Cost. It has attack that is worthless and an awesome Ability that is called Victory Star. It is actually fairly complicated and technical.

It lets you erase all the effects of coin flips for an attack once during your turn and start over. The obvious reason for this is because both Maractus’ and Hitmontop’s donking attack require 3 flips! Say you get 1 out of 3 heads with Triple Kick/Constant Rattle. Then you can use Victory Star, but you have to re-flip all 3 coins/dice instead of only re-flipping the 2 tails.

Also, Victory Star Abilities are not stackable. You can only use it once per turn and you can’t use it on Sleep, Confusion, Trainers, Supporters, etc.

Trainers

Revive, Good Rod, Seeker, Research Record, PlusPower, Lost Remover, Victory Medal, Dual Ball, Junk Arm, Pokémon Catcher, and Pokégear 3.0 were all in Tyrogue Donk so I won’t go over them again; they all serve the same purpose in this deck.

Switch is only to be used if you start with Fliptini or if it is catchered up. Fairly self-explanatory.

Professor Juniper is what I found to work best as draw power in a donk deck. If you want disruption than you could still run N instead.

Pokémon Collector is a “just in case” card. It’s helped me more often than not. If you can’t get a Dual Ball than you could use this or use Pokégear and Research Record to get it. If you already have the Basics you need and/or get the Collector late-game, than it is perfect Junk Arm trash.

I run 1 Collector and 4 Dual Ball instead of the other way around because you really want to get turn 1 Juniper or Seeker to help you set up but you also need to have Hitmontop/Maractus and Fliptini out on T1. And, it is more convenient because Dual Balls are cheaper than Collectors

Eviolite and/or Defender are both useful in this deck. I personally run 4 Defender, but I think a 2-2 split would also work well. Defenders stackability advantage is not as mandatory as it was with Tyrogue because in this deck your attacker has more HP so it can actually take a hit.

You could try 4 Defender, 4 Eviolite, a 2-2 split, or 3-1 splits. I have only tested with 4 Defender and I don’t know for sure what works best and I am pretty sure that it makes a difference on which you choose to run.

Energy

pokemon-paradijs.comThe most obvious card(s) in the deck. Obviously, this card is used to fuel your main attacker and I found that 6-7 Energy is ideal. This list has 6 Energy because that is what I have been testing with and is what I like. In Hitmontop Donk, you could use Double Colorless Energy (DCE) and take out 1 Fliptini for one DCE, but then you would have to rely on Revive + Junk Arm to keep up a steady flow of Fliptini. I don’t think it’s worth it, but deserves a try.

I think the only problems of this deck that wasn’t covered or corrected from Tyrogue Donk is the weaknesses and the low damage output. Like I said, I can’t predict the metagame of the future; right now it is up to personal preference of whether playing Hitmontop or Maractus. I personally play Hitmontop right now, but I’m not sure which is better.

I cannot say if my lists are perfect for these decks, but they are good and viable. If you have an evolution heavy area with not many dragons or Cobalion NVI then I would definitely encourage you to perfect and play this deck. It can almost always pull off T1 60 damage. However, I think all at least semi-competitive areas have dragons and my area especially plays heavy dragons so I have not used these donk decks in a tournament… yet.

Alright, here is my grand finale…

Ho-Oh Legend Donk!

This is also called Legendary Donk; hence the name of the article. This is the only deck out of the three that I unfortunately have not tested yet so I don’t know if it will break the game. Either way, I believe it has amazing potential waiting to be unleashed once it has been perfected and polished until it can be no more. This is just a sample list to give you the idea so don’t take it too seriously.

Pokémon – 5

2-2 Ho-Oh Legend

1 Cleffa HS/CL

Trainers – 16

4 Professor Juniper

 

4 Junk Arm

4 Research Record

4 Legend Box

Energy – 39

35 R

4 Rescue

Just kidding. That is a list that I thought of as I was writing this article. It might actually be a decent idea though! ROFL! Anyway, all kidding aside, here is the real sample list:

Pokémon – 15

2-2 Ho-Oh LEGEND

3 Pachirisu CL

3 Shaymin UL

2 Zekrom BLW

1 Tyrogue HS/CL

1 Cleffa HS/CL

1 Rotom UD

Trainers – 31

4 Professor Oak’s New Theory

3 Sage’s Training/Professor Juniper

 

4 Legend Box

4 Research Record

4 Junk Arm

4 Dual Ball

3 Pokémon Communication

3 PlusPower

2 Energy Retrieval

Energy – 14

10 L

4 Double Colorless

I will only go over the unusual cards and/or the cards that were not in the other decks mentioned earlier.

Pokémon

Ho-Oh Legend is the main attacker of this spin-off version of ZPST. It is a 140 HP Legend with a Water Weakness, a Fighting Resistance, and a Retreat Cost of 2. The HP is great considering your opponent doesn’t get 2 Prizes from Knocking it Out like the other Legends. Water Weakness may or may not be all that bad depending on how popular Feraligatr Prime variants will become with Pokémon like Carracosta NVI, Kyurem NVI, Jellicent NVI, Suicune & Entei LEGEND, etc. Also, Vanilluxe might see some play with all the hype it got with the VVV deck.

Fighting Resistance is great against Donphan Prime, the fallen from glory Machamp Prime, and the occasionally seen Marowak TM and Conkledurr NVI 64. Donphan Prime four shots Ho-Oh with Earthquake and 2 shots it with Heavy Impact. A full powered Champ Buster 2KOs it.

An effect boosted Bone Impact 3 shots it and Conkledurr (Ability) also 3 shots it! This is great even though Fighting Pokémon aren’t played much. 2 Retreat Cost is horrible but there isn’t much to get around it so we’ll have to deal with it like ZPS did.

Its Poké-Body is great and is a major part in what makes the deck work (if it does work). The Poké-Body is called “Sacred Rainbow” and it makes all Energy attached to it turn to Fire so it can use its attack easier. Just like Hydreigon NVI’s “Dark Aura” except with Fires! This makes it extremely viable and can even turn DCE into 2 Fires! Its attack abuses this Poké-Body to no end.

Its attack is called “Bright Wing” and requires 4 Fire Energy; if it didn’t have Sacred Rainbow this attack would be horrible. Anyway, it does 100 damage with a very small drawback of having to discard an Energy attached to it. Unfortunately, you have to settle with 2-shotting dragons and it’s risky against Kyurem because Kyurem can Outrage for 1HKO. All in all, Ho-Oh Legend is a great card that may be a little hard to get out.

Babies are so you have a smaller chance of starting with Pachirisu or Shaymin.

Pachirisu and Shaymin are for speed; the same as ZPST. The Self-Generation + Celebration Wind combo is boss. It can be used to power up Bolt Strike, retreat a starting Pachirisu or Shaymin, or help power up Bright Wing if you didn’t get a Legend Box.

Rotom was a never used card. Was… as in the age before the abominable ant. Anyway, you really don’t want a half of Ho-Oh Legend prized. Plasma Arrow is also a help against some heavy energy decks like Gothitelle and Mewtwo EX when it comes out. In fact, Rotom will probably help immensely against Mewtwo EX so you might want to run more when it comes out.

Zekrom is for water matchups and is just better in some situations and also provides a good starter as it can donk dragons.

Trainers

Legend Box is unique and is a very key card in this deck. Without this, the deck would be Ho-Oh Legend, not Ho-Oh Legend Donk. When you play it, you reveal the top ten cards of your deck and if there is a complete set of a Legend there then you can put it onto your bench. As an added bonus, you can (well, you have to) attach all Energy cards you find there to the Legend that you find there. This is how Ho-Oh Legend can donk.

Research Record helps immensely with Legend Box. As I mentioned before, you can look at the top four cards of your deck and put as many as you like on the bottom of your deck. So when you use this you want to put all non-energy and non-Legend cards on the bottom so you have a better chance of a T1 Ho-Oh.

Pokémon Communication is there if you somehow can’t get a Legend with Legend Box or can’t get a Legend Box in the first place.

PlusPower is so you can 1-shot dragons without Eviolite with Zekrom. Energy Retrieval is obviously in here because Ho-Oh Legend’s attack discards energy. You may only want to run one because you run four Junk Arm. You could lower the Energy Retrieval, Pokémon Communication and PlusPower counts by one so you can run three Catcher. I’m really not sure how else to fit Catcher in.

Energy

14 Energy may seem like a lot but it is needed for Legend Box. There is no Fire Energy because of Sacred Rainbow.

Matchups

pokemon-paradijs.comI have not tested this deck so I don’t have a clear idea of how good or bad the matchups are with this deck so will go based of educated guessing. I didn’t do matchups with the other donk decks because they were sort of jokes.

Gothitelle may not be played much, but it is still a force. You only get 1-3 turns of Items so you need to make them count and get out 2 fully charged Ho-Oh Legends. Gothitelle needs 6 Energy to 1-shot Ho-Oh Legend and you should be KOing Gothitelles before they can get that much.

Reuniclus BLW really provides auto-win for Gothitelle so a Bellsprout TM tech would be great because Ho-Oh can 1-shot Reuniclus. Without Bellsprout than you shouldn’t win and with Bellsprout you should win.

The Truth is in the same boat as Gothitelle with the Trainer Lock and Reuniclus. Unfortunately, Vileplume is not weak to Fire like every well-behaved non-meta Grass type so it might be more difficult to get out of the way than Reuniclus. Suicune & Entei LEGEND is weak to Lightning, but super-effective against Ho-Oh Legend. Donphan Prime should be easy to handle with Ho-Oh Legend and the dragons are nothing without Reuniclus.

Durant should be a good matchup, but you need to be ready for the Lost Removers and Catchers. It would be good to avoid benching anything besides Ho-Oh and babies if you can help it. Once you get out 1 Ho-Oh Legend you should not burn any more PONTs or Legend Boxes trying to get more. Avoid Junipers and Sage’s at all costs.

PONT would be good if you have a larger than seven card hand when you start having fewer cards in your deck. Research Record helps control what they Devour so that is sweet.

Chandelure might be difficult, so an Absol Prime might be good if you are worried about this matchup. I’m in Seniors and no one plays Chandelure in Seniors so I don’t need to worry. Cursed Shadow can easily kill Rotom, babies, Pachirisu and Shaymin and it’s hard to make the deck work without having those. Absol would be good to use to Lost Zone the aforementioned Pokémon.

pokemon-paradijs.comYou can 2-shot Chandelure with Ho-Oh Legend, but you need to be prepared to switch between Ho-Ohs because of Eerie Glow. If they run Vileplume than you’re in trouble and if they run Kingdra than you can Catcher it up and kill it with Zekrom. Hopefully you can just burn through the Chandelures with Absol. I’d say you really don’t have much of a chance anyway.

CoKE shouldn’t be too hard because Ho-Oh Legend is speedier and can 1-shot Cobalion. Kyurem might be a bit of a problem with Eviolite, but nothing Zekrom can’t handle. If you can kill Voltorbs before they evolve than that would be a huge advantage no matter what deck you’re playing.

ZPST is sort of a mirror match. I’d say that whoever goes first wins because I can’t think of a reason why one deck should beat the other.

Reshiphlosion (I really don’t like Tyram) would be difficult. The same for ZPST, I don’t see why one deck is better. Ho-Oh 2-shots Reshiram and Reshiram 2-shots Ho-Oh. Catcher and Zekrom would be good to pick off the Kingdra(s) because those would be a problem. Since you can’t really 1HKO anything with Ho-Oh it would be better to try and pick off the Cyndaquils.

EelZone is in a similar boat as Reshiphlosion and ZPST. I’d say you have a better matchup against this than ZPST and Reshiphlosion. The reason being is that the deck relies on Eelektrik and you can 1-shot those with Ho-Oh Legend and the help of Catcher. You can also 1-shot Thundurus EPO with Zekrom or Ho-Oh and a PlusPower.

Possible Cards to go in Legendary DONK

Eviolite To help against the dragons matchup and to reduce Bolt Strike recoil.

Bellsprout TM Already mentioned to help against Trainer Lock.

Absol Prime Already mentioned to help against Chandelure NVI.

Cobalion NVI Used with Rainbow Energy to help against Kyurem NVI.

Rainbow Energy Used with Absol Prime or Cobalion NVI.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. All questions, comments and constructive criticism will be appreciated.

MAY THE DONK LIVE ON!

Reader Interactions

60 replies

  1. Anonymous

    Did you actually test any of those matchups? At all? Because if you didn’t, I will. And you won’t like the results, because they’ll be published for all to watch.

    • Eheth  → Anonymous

      Why would you need to publish it? Based on the context you’ve written it in, it’s as if you’re attempting to dash someone else’s creativity and knock their confidants. Generally speaking, I don’t think a “Cabd” method is necessary. You can write a legitimate article with ideas to expand on without having to play test. Sheesh!

      • Anonymous  → Eheth

        Seriously? It’s not like these are published articles intended for people to read or anything. If you don’t want to test your matchups, don’t list fake ones. The cabd method, or, heck, any testing method you want, is ideal over theorymoned crap. Which some of these are. I’m in the process of testing them, and WILL be posting the results.

        • Anonymous  → Anonymous

          Ho-oh results: part 1

          Vs. Gothitelle
          8L/2W
          (both wins were tyrogue donks on lone solosis)
          The average “time to ho-oh out” clock was eight turns. Not exactly the definition of speedy.

          Not even bellsprout can help the fact that you get steamrolled with a lack of damage-dealing ability.

        • Anonymous  → Micah

          I was quite serious. I detest people who post theorymoned matchups; so I took it upon myself to see the real results.

        • Lynx Meche  → Willy

          At least a couple people need to do research when they write articles, or the front page would be ridiculous =T Do you think the higher-quality articles and better-known writers just throw d10 and that’s the percentage? If you’re not going to research for an essay, you teacher will criticize you, so why not apply the philosophy everywhere in life? What else is school for?

          On the other hand, it’s hilarious that someone on a Pokemon website accuses another person of having nothing better to do with their time. Our choices are pretty much: play familiar decks, play unfamiliar decks, or play with cats.

        • Willy Goebel  → Lynx

          Of course someone needs to do the research. I just would have expected that someone to be interested in using Legend Donk competitively, because the research would obviously be directly beneficial only to such individuals. However, cabd’s condemnation of Legend Donk, even prior to his testing, shows that he is clearly not contemplating using it himself. The only reason that cabd has for testing Legend Donk is to make sure that this poor kid (he’s in seniors, so he’s between 12-15 years old) can’t be proud of the article on which he spent so much time. Really, who has the kind of time (and arrogance) to name a method of Pokemon deck testing after himself and bully small children into using it? Don’t you have something better to do? This is my first time being bored enough to come to this website in probably around a month because I’ve been busy with college, friends, sports, parties, and my job. You know, things that normal people do. I find it hard to believe that playing hours of Pokemon with a deck you don’t even like in order to intimidate a middle school kid is really the best use of your time.

        • Lynx Meche  → Willy

          “Really, who has the kind of time (and arrogance) to name a method of Pokemon deck testing after himself”

          No, I already got on him about pushing that so roughly, because that was a bad move. He tried to say, “Here’s an available option if they don’t have anything else.” What he said was…not that, and I jumped on the fact that he sounded like a complete moron.

          About the article, the way I’m seeing it is that he posted something he wrote on the internet for all to see. This means he’s now trying to break into writing. I’ve been doing that for years now, and I’m the last person to coddle somebody because they’re new or young. You’re old enough to use the internet to post something, so you’re old enough to have people tell you what you did wrong and accept it. This isn’t fanfiction.net or deviantART; we’re not going to belt out “dis is SOOOOO GUD PLZ RITE MOAR” on every article. We want to make sure that we can get quality Pokemon, so if a flood of people arrive and say, “Hey, you need to test it because it’s not worth looking at otherwise,” it belts it in that it is needed.

          “I’ve been busy with college, friends, sports, parties, and my job. You know, things that normal people do.”

          Brb loling forever. I love that argument. “I have a social life, so I just don’t have time to do things like this because it’s NORMAL and therefore SUPERIOR.” And if you claim that isn’t what you intended to say, then what is the point of telling me that in detail that doesn’t matter otherwise? Instead of dealing with spectator sports or large groups of strangers, I’d rather avoid a bunch of drunk teenagers/young adults, if my sister’s partying track record shows anything. And given that she plays what she calls “party music” at home, and I’m hearing such gem lyrics as “swag sausage,” or “That’s why I toot it and boot it and made her feel stupid,” or “pockets on Shrek,” or that sheer nuclear bombing of Hammertime…no, I’ll play Pokemon.

          This means my free time is more cleared up than if I were uncomfortable in a crowd of “normal” people. (Then there’s the sociological repercussions with you claiming normalcy when claiming to be a nerd has also become “cool and normal,” and then the fact that this is still a Pokemon site….) And until the tax office schedules me, since there was some error in my PTIN that’s delaying it, the lack of work freed up my schedule that much more.

          But seriously. I can’t believe I found the “I’m too busy being normal” excuse on this site.

        • Lynx Meche  → Willy

          Wondering when I got angry. The most upset I got there was trying to recall garbage song lyrics totally unrelated to you.

        • Emil lumen  → Willy

          You still trollin brah? I’ve been away for a while and come back and your still the same lol.

        • Jak Stewart-Armstead  → Lynx

          I was going to Like this post until I saw the link to a fanfiction site.

          Auto linking has its bad points.

        • Lynx Meche  → Jak

          It linked? Blah, not my intention, that site needs an actual name other than, “The site full of preteens where it’s nearly impossible to find good writing.”

      • Lynx Meche  → Eheth

        He mentioned it as that method becoming standard because it’s the only method to have been offered so far, other than “Just test it.” If somebody else comes up with a concrete way to show results, that’s great.

        I have no idea why you would say you can have an entire deck like this without having been tested. Especially for a donk deck, where it NEEDS to be streamlined to win. And you can probably add another “especially” for any deck that relies on a LEGEND for victory.

        If you want something to read that’s nothing but people throwing ideas at each other, the Workshop forum has that. Difference is, one is a public forum, this is a published article.

    • Dakota Streck  → Anonymous

      I think in some, very rare cases, you can post an idea that’s all theory. Like, if you write an article talking about 10 different deck ideas, all of which you have tested out and decide to throw in one idea that’s gone through little to no testing, that’s fine by me.

      The only thing that I’m not fond of is when an entire article (or close to it) hasn’t been tested. At that point, it kind of becomes “why does anyone really want to read the article?” Anyone could post a Zekrom/Magnezone/Reshiram/Emboar/Typhlosion/Kingdra deck that they think is great, but haven’t tested out.

      I do agree with you 100%, I love the Cabd method :P I’m planning to use it in most of my future articles as well (assuming you haven’t copyrighted it XD ).

      That being said, even if this wasn’t the most factual article I’ve read, it’s about a fun concept and was written in an interesting and humerus way, so it wasn’t all bad. I would have liked to see more evidence/testing results, though.

  2. Vinay Patel

    I like the Hitmontop/Maractus deck. Looks pretty fun and could actually be ‘semi-okay’, I guess. As for the Ho-Oh donk deck…well, it’s better than Ratty Ratty Bug.

  3. Nicholas Sinard

    Is this supposed to be a comical article like” Galvantua is for losers?”

  4. Nicholas Sinard

    I am serious, is it suposed to be like that one?

  5. Vinay Patel

    Hold up. You don’t want to play ZPST because it doesn’t get the donk often enough. So instead, you’re suggesting that people play a clunkier Zekrom/Pachi/Shaymin that relies on an unreliable Trainer card and needs 3 three energy (one of which is completely specific i.e. DCE) in order to attack?

    • Grant Manley  → Vinay

      I never said I dont want to play ZPST and that people should play this but I think
      it is a neat idea. Hitmontop is actually a decent deck though and I’ve tested that.

  6. Ross Gilbert

    Not good enough (in terms of testing and giving legitimate strategies) to be serious, not funny enough to be silly.

    I’m confused as to what this article is.

    There was a similar article published a while ago where someone actually gave a decent list full of donkers (Tyrogue, Hitmontop etc) where the plan was to hit for weakness and donk anything. That was a good article.

    Sorry but i rated it down so i thought it important to say why.

  7. Adam Capriola

    I gave it a like because the author put a lot of effort into the article and he chose a fresh topic. Whether or not the decks are good is another question, but I appreciate the effort (especially for his first article). I thought it was fairly well written too.

  8. Lynx Meche

    I like that this is thoroughly explained and decently written, and he just found the only only deck that should ever use Full Heal over Switch. Alternate decks are also a good thing to have, even if it is donks (because Sabledonk apparently wasn’t bad enough). And I’m glad the formatting got fixed.

    The effectiveness of the decks, however…yeah I vouched for the detail and that’s about it.

    “I have not tested this deck so I don’t have a clear idea of how good or bad the matchups are with this deck so will go based of educated guessing. I didn’t do matchups with the other donk decks because they were sort of jokes.”

    No, really, this is a TERRIBLE thing. Never submit an article with a deck that you aren’t an expert on or you’ll end up with the comments below(above?) me.

    “ZPST is sort of a mirror match. I’d say that whoever goes first wins because I can’t think of a reason why one deck should beat the other.”

    ZPST is definitely faster than this because everything it needs can be gotten out with Collector, Dual Ball, and it even uses Energy Search and/or Unown DARK so it can do 120 on turn one, plus whatever PlusPower it uses. You know what else? Ho-oh does 100 damage for four Energy and then discards one (or two if you put two DCE on it), and Zekrom has 130 HP. Actually, a lot of Basics have more than 100 HP right now. Yes you have PlusPower, but I don’t think the rest of the deck is going to last. Even if you start with Zekrom, they’ll knock it out before you can touch theirs, maybe Outrage for 20 if you’re lucky and win the coin flip.

    • Grant Manley  → Lynx

      You have a decent point but even though this deck is supposed to donk
      doesn’t mean it will T1 kill anything it wants. Same with ZPST, If it could T1 kill anything it wanted every
      game than it would win every tourney. From now on whenever I get a deck idea I will be sure to test
      it before I put it on here.

      • Lynx Meche  → Grant

        I just want to point out that I don’t hate the article, I really don’t. I wish we had more that explained everything thoroughly instead of glancing over everything. Alternate ideas are great, especially during the slow article season, but if it’s not a proven alternate idea, it’s just something most people glance over.

        But the problem with this is that it just seems confused about whether it’s a Legend Box deck or a donk deck. I tried a couple games with it, and no matter what I did, took forever to get Ho-oh and by that point the opponent was set up and was sweeping me. (I ended up relying on Zekrom far more than Ho-oh for this reason and hoped to topdeck the Supporters to get an early win.) Meta speed/donk like ZPST have ways to counter them, but that just means you need to streamline it so you can work faster. It doesn’t usually throw in Rainbows and slower attackers on the off chance there’s too much Kyurem in the meta.

        I wouldn’t outright object to seeing anything else by you just from seeing this, if you do test them before posting. Helps a bunch and prevents the backlash in the comments, haha. But it really is something that people care enough about that if the matchups in a published article are pure theory, instant comment rage.

  9. Pooka Pookerson

    Wow, really SixPrizes? This is an incredibly inaccurate, poorly thought-out article. I don’t mean to be unpleasant, and I’m glad that the author is passionate about the elements of the Pokémon TCG that he enjoys, but I tend to expect a little more from this site.

    On Victini: “I’ll give it to you in brief.” (Two paragraphs later…) and no mention of the fact that Victini is complete catcher-bait in a deck like this.

    “I believe that most (all) decks should have at least 1 Tyrogue in it. And most decks do” What? Jesus, what is your meta like? That’s insane!

    “your opponent doesn’t get 2 prizes from knocking it out like the other Legends.” You forget Lugia LEGEND.

    “In fact, Rotom will probably help immensely against Mewtwo EX so you might want to run more when it comes out.” Because everyone wants that 3HKO? Am I missing something?

    Hopefully this is just a case of a poorly conceived first article, and in the future we’ll see some interesting stuff from Grant.

      • Pooka Pookerson  → Grant

        Hey, we all make inaccurate statements! And to be honest, there’s not really a meta per se in my location, so perhaps Tyrogue is a regular play elsewhere. I’ve only encountered that tech once, personally. I think play is moving away from babies somewhat, so maybe that’s also a reason why.

        Was this article written over a long period of time?

        • Grant Manley  → Pooka

          Criticism is fine and I’m always looking for ways to improve in Pokemon and writing
          And it was written over a somewhat long period of time.
          Also, keep in mind I’m in seniors

      • Pooka Pookerson  → Grant

        I don’t think what I posted was insulting the site. Constructive criticism and an honest response, is all.

  10. Dave Enzo

    I like this article … its different..not saying im gunna run any of these decks but it is a nice change of pace

    I mean c’mon not every article has to be about the BDIF it gets pretty boring to hear about magnezone and stuff in every article .. i see this as a breath of fresh air myself

  11. Mekkah

    The saddest thing is that articles like these will definitely make it to the TopWhatever in the writer of the month poll, just like the Joltik article…

  12. Andrew

    I think part of the problem is if someone reading this article takes it seriously, they will be setup to fail miserably in competitive play, and I think that’s what Six Prizes is supposed to be about, helping players get more competitive at the game.

    I think you really need to play test decks to really figure out what they do, but I think some theorymon is fine, but the theory in this article is really weak. I think the author needs more experience playing the game in general to see how supporters/trainers interact in the game. I mean you don’t need to play test a deck to know that a deck based around a legend pokemon, with 7 supporters isn’t going to be good.

    This deck doesn’t stand any chance whatsoever in competitive play. The only games I could see this deck winning in a tournament are games in which it starts with Zekrom, and either through Sage’s/Oak/Juniper or a god first hand is able to attach an energy, drop Pachirisu and use its ability to attach 2 lightning, then Shaymin it up to the active Zekrom and then knock out their only pokemon, or there pokemon two turns in advance.

    I’m not sure if the author realizes that you can’t start with a Legend Pokemon, even if you start with both pieces, because it’s a Legend Pokemon and not a Basic Pokemon, so you can’t even get a first turn donk with the Ho-Oh, unless you start with Tyrogue/Cleffa. And even if you magnificently start with Cleffa/Tyrogue and don’t get donk, and lay down the Ho-Oh legend followed by the Pachirisu/Shaymin combo, why would doing 100 with a discard be preferable to 120 from Zekrom? At which point, why not play ZPST, which is more versatile in getting the good start/donk potential because of Tornadus?

    Because of the lack of supporters (and the general clunkiness of Legend Pokemon anyhow), you’re either going to have games where you get your pokemon out, but don’t have the energy to attack, or you won’t have the pokemon, but a ton of energy.

  13. Jak Stewart-Armstead

    Hated the match up bit. Obviously untested theorymon like everyone is saying. Inaccurate theorymon too.

    Not sure why you would need match ups for a donk list anyway. If it donks, you win, if it doesn’t, might as well scoop right there.

    Don’t really hate the article as a whole. This is obviously the silly season on 6P. So I chose not to rate it. I wouldn’t want to see another one like this though.

  14. Steven Nilsen

    Great effort! Liked it b/c even if I never try any of these decks it was at least an original topic. None of these are for winning tournies, obviously, but the ideas are moderately interesting.

  15. Taylor Pagani

    A player who doesn’t test, wants cheap wins, and thinks his theorymon is worth reading despite not testing .

    …How heck does this article have a positive review?

    • Victor Sobralske  → Taylor

      I don’t know if the downvotes are affecting the actual score. Perhaps it was manipulated that way I don’t know.

  16. Victor Sobralske

    I appreciate that you went to a lot of work in writing this, but all of these decks are really bad and untested. Creativity is great but only when it can have some potential for success and is well crafted.

    Adam, there have been complaints about lack of quality on the frontpage and this is probably the best example of that. It seems as though there is no quality standard whatsoever for what makes a frontpage article.

  17. Emil lumen

    Not a big fan of donks, but its cool how you gave cards no one plays a deck to be in.

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