How many Pokémon can 1HKO an Pokémon-EX? Not many. 
But from the obscure land of binder-ia, Seismitoad NVI emerges with the release of Next Destinies to take on just this challenge with its partner-in-crime, Wigglytuff NDE. While not exactly tier 1, this deck has been making its way into many a league session, just for its sheer fun factor and huge damage output (up to 180, in case you’re wondering).
For those unfamiliar with the deck, the idea is to swarm your field full of Pokémon holding an attack called Round. Previously, this was rather unimpressive; only Palpitoad NVI and Seismitoad NVI had this attack, and obviously both evolve from Tympole, which puts the maximum number of “Rounders” (as they will hereby be called from now on) to four, which is the maximum number of Tympoles you can have.
With Wigglytuff NDE joining the fray, the deck finally gets some sort of viability. Not only that, but because Wigglytuff’s Round also costs the same as Seismitoad (two C energy), it makes a perfect starter for that T2 prize, unlike Palpitoad.
This was my first build:
|
Pokémon – 21 4 Jigglypuff HS 4 Wigglytuff NDE |
Trainers – 28 4 Profesor Oak’s New Theory 3 Pokémon Collector
3 Level Ball 3 Junk Arm 2 Pokégear 3.0 |
Energy – 11 4 Double Colorless |
I only had three Seismitoads, not only because it was all I had, but because Wigglytuff could handle the fort while building up Rounders. This version did quite well, consistently setting up by the third turn.
Pichu
pokebeach.comThis card was both the deck’s greatest strength and weakness. Between the mind-boggling 19 search and draw cards, a T1 Playground was virtually guaranteed, paving the way for a T2-3 setup. But here’s where its amazingness ends.
Pichu is a dead weight on the bench. And it limits your damage output. Unless your opponent is desperate enough to take the cheap prize early game, Pichu turns into a liability fast, to the point where I often had to force Pichu up just to let it get KO’d to clear the bench.
Level Ball/Communication
This card was almost tailor-made for this deck. The only card you can’t get is Seismitoad, making it an auto-inclusion. Pokémon Communication gets you Toadzilla, and reduces your hand size before a Juniper.
Copycat
I just needed more refreshers, and Copycat was better than N in the later stages of the game. Juniper discarded way too much early game for me to justify more than two.
Super Rod
I would never run less than two, not even if I had the space for a fourth Junk Arm. Like the old Jumpluff, it’s all about recyclability, which also explains why Rescue energy is maxed out.
The Problems
Immediately after I solitaired a few games, I discovered a few flaws. One, the amount of search I had for Pichu was so huge that Collector became redundant. In fact, I never even used it once during setup.
The other problem was Rare Candy. It could be the numbers, but even if I were to fit in four, I doubt it would have made a difference. I was relying so much on Palpitoads to jack up my damage that the chance to use them almost never came up. This card is obviously meant to be used early game, and from that logic alone, cannot be excluded.
The deck also suffers from a slight energy problem because of a lack of Energy accelerator. Fortunately, Seismitoad’s bulk makes up for this if only by a little.
Scouring various forums for tips and advice, I found that Pichu users were actually somewhat rare. I already knew the problems Pichu was causing, so I decided to dump it and go for the traditional setup option.
In its place, another Collector and Rare Candy.
Why Pichu is Needed
The results were drastic: I was looking at a T4 setup on average, if not worse. It was just not feasible to rely on Collectors to fill my bench, especially in a Catcher-filled metagame.
“What about Dual Ball?”, I thought. There, I hit another snag: from my Durant experience, I knew that filling a bench using a Trainer-based engine just could not work, especially since I was filling two more spaces than Durant.
And so I went back to the drawing board.
|
Pokémon – 22 4 Jigglypuff HS 4 Wigglytuff NDE |
Trainers – 28 4 Professor Oak’s New Theory
4 Level Ball 3 Junk Arm |
Energy – 11 4 Double Colorless |
With the exclusion of Collectors, out goes the Pokégears as well for the much needed Catchers and more draw. I also switched a Rescue energy for another Water energy after the many repeated reminders from my friends about the presence of Lost Remover. Rare Candy is also dropped in favor of even more search cards.
The Future
A third Switch is definitely the 61st card to go in if I had the space, simply because of the crazy amount of Catchers in our format. If I had to drop anything, it would probably be the Communication.
Otherwise, that Pichu problem is still staring at me in the face. I could probably run a copy of Seeker and two Twins to deal with it. Super Scoop up is just too flippy to work well, but it could double as a healing option, so that’s in the works as well.
Besides that, I feel that the deck in general has been doing good to me. Granted, it doesn’t have the means to combat speed decks that are all the rage in the format right now, which is why it will never reach the top tiers any time soon.
Still, it’s a fun deck to play. And besides, who wouldn’t want a chance to 1HKO an EX? :)
Ive been testing this deck, and I’ve found out, especially against Celebi/Mewtwo/Tornadus, the pichu, which is definitely needed for your this deck’s setup, ends up helping the other player out so much. They usually have a Mewtwo realy to ko all of your Seismitoads by the time you have 1 built up. I teched 1 Mewtwo into this, and it helped, but was still way too slow. I want it to be good, but it’s just not.
also, this automatically logged me on and posted through my sisters twitter. lolz
Ah, finally an article about my favourite fun deck – one that I built for my wife, originally IRL, but have come to love immensely.
I find a heavier ball engine works better than a surplus of Communication. I run…
4 Level Ball
2 Heavy Ball
2 Dual Ball
2 Pokémon Communication
And since most everything in your hands is Item-based, you can max Juniper and Cheren and tech in a couple Ns for the inevitable slow start. This deck, while certainly not Teir 1 is a solid Teir 2 and awfully fun to play. I have OHKO’d Regigigas EX and Mewtwo EX with this deck.
And Seeker can solve the Pichu problem, although I agree it is a inelegant solution.
Also, I run 5-6 Water 4 DCE and no Rescue energy. Lost Remover is bad enough without running Rescue, I find.
Thanks! I adore the article!
Exp. share can help the energy problem a tad. I immediately started testing Seismitoad after I saw the scans for wigglytuff; the greatest strength of the deck is probably the weakness on seismitoad and Wigglytuff, but that aside the deck just falls apart for being too slow and the absence of a plan B. Everyone loves the idea of the OHKO on an EX from a non EX, but seismitoad never produces this.
That aside, a very nice article, I still love seismitoad :D Maybe if another pokemon with round comes out in the future; any basic with round would make this deck the BDIF IMHO.
vs this deck online. Wow I didnt realize the round attack was on wigglytuff and the person was hitting for an easy 180. To bad the luck of the gods was on me and I lost zoned his dce lol. Over all its a budget deck that serves a purpose
How is there not 4 twins in this deck? You just got done writing how it takes at least 3 turns to get set up, which means 90% of the time you’re behind in prizes.
Because Twins is always going to have less efficacy than Juniper or Oak. This deck finds what it needs with what it draws – so much of it is search that Twins is a waste of space.
And, I should note, I tend to be totally set up and swinging for 120 by turn 2, 150+ on 3. It’s not fast, but it hits hard when it does.
This would be competitive if we still had Broken Time Space. You just cannot stream evolution attackers in a meaningful way with the EXs around.
As is, I couldn’t give this a plus.
1) You need Rare Candy, and lots of them to get this rolling fast.
2) Being slow, Twins is a great addition.
3) N is also a great card.
4) Copycat is not a great card right now (ok, but there is a lot better stuff out there)
Copycat is only good in trainer lock decks………
1) The problem with rare candy is that you need palpitoad as a bench sitter, and if you try to run both you will need to cut a lot of other important stuff in the list. Also, rare candy hinders the potential of rescue energy, which can work incredibly well in this deck.
2) What Pooka said, you need lots of different stuff fast, not 1 or 2 specific things at a time.
3) I completely agree.
4) What Pokemaster1970 said.
1) Rare Candy does not hinder Rescue Energy. You can get back to the stage two faster after rescue energy with Junk Arm or another Rare Candy. So, just leave Tympole out and Rare Candy into on your turn. Also, the list is tight. But for this to be optimal, it needs to be almost like Magnezone. You don’t really need a ton of Catchers, the fourth Palpitoad, etc. You just need a stream line focus of getting 6 Pokes with Round in play and smashing whatever is in front of you.
2) You do need a lot of stuff, but Twins is never bad in a deck that is going to fall behind. I would suggest trying 4 PONT, 4 Juniper, 2 Twins to start.
4) This is not a trainer lock deck. So, Copycat is not very good in here…
1) Rare candy inevitably hinders rescue energy, getting a 1/1/1 line back will always be better than getting a 1/0/1 line back and hoping you have the candy/junk arm in hand, especially with N running around. I think that the magnezone comparison is somewhat wrong (can’t think of a better word ATM =/). Yes, the overall strategy is quite the same, but magnezone’s damage output is not effected by a magneton, while a benched palpitoad in a round deck makes a 30 damage difference. I wouldn’t recommend replacing any more than 1 Palpitoad with rare candies.
2) Not bad, but not needed, I’d recommend N or Pokegear over twins just from my testing. There’s different ways to run the list though so I can see where twins would be used.
4) Yes, sorry if I wasn’t clear before, I was agreeing with you.
Thanks for the replies guys.
To be honest, I’m not completely comfortable with dumping the candies either because of the need for speed. But simply because of the way the deck runs, it becomes like that; in fact, all my friends who tested this agreed that rare candy almost never saw play at all. Worst case scenario, I dump TWO palpitoads and a search each for four candies, and swarm with wigglys instead of toads on the bench.
Regarding N and copycat, well, this is subjective. I personally HATE N’s effect late game when I’m trying to refill Rounders, and because hand sizes seldom drop below four, I switched to copycat during my first build. But if you guys feel strongly against it…
Having played it with and without RC I can confirm that the RC build works better. However you can run thin lines, I tend to run 2 or 3 depending on my mood at the time.
RC won’t always be useful, but on the rare occasion that you can get a Seismitoad out to Round T2 due to RC, you see the efficacy.
And always swarm Toad, Wiggly is just there for the late game after a couple toads have died off.
I think that Pichu just would waste good room for maximum damage. I would just do 4 Level Ball, 4 Pokemon Collector, 2 Pokemon Communication, and 3 Heavy Ball. That’s 13 ways to get the Round going fast.
love love love the deck, with the right build it can be very effective. Short and sweet article, cheers
durant just loves to play against this deck.
Nice article again Roarkiller im going to build this deck for my brother and have him test it for states lol
The juniors would love it for sure :P And it’s easy to use too.
I want to play against this deck in states badly, munch munch munch…
I played against a deck like this. They attacked at full power with Seismitoad. I had Reshiram EX out. I had my behind well and truly kicked.