I have been playing Pokémon for two and a half short years, but luckily I have managed to pick the game up pretty easily. From 5th grade until now I have always been involved in some kind of card game starting with Yu-Gi-Oh, moving into VS System, Magic, and now poker and Pokémon.
While my list of accomplishments is nowhere near the level of what other writers on SixPrizes have achieved, I am very happy with them for fairly short time I’ve been playing the great game of Pokémon.
pokemon-paradijs.com2009: Played in my first tournament: the North Carolina State Championship. I went into this tournament playing Magmortar SW/Infernape DP, where I ultimately learned that the current metagame consisted primarily of Kingdra LA and Palkia G decks. This was my one and only tournament in 2009.
2010: I began frequenting PokéGym and actually started to play established decks. I attended 1 Battle Road and 1 City Championship, missing top cut at both. I went 4-2 at two States and made top 16 at Regionals.
2011: I attended many more events this year and finally started to see some success. I won 2 Battle Roads, 2 Cities and managed to make the top cut in 5 other Cities that year. I also received a very nice medal for 3rd place at Regionals. That made me 2 for 2 top cutting Regionals, both years with DialgaChomp.
2012: Now I am starting to take this game very seriously. I have learned so much this year through rigorous play testing, online articles, and talking with friends. I have attended more events than just about everyone other than 2 time champ Jason K. During Fall Battle Roads, I won 3 of the 6 that I attended – losing to Mike Reynolds in the finals of another Battle Road to earn my first 2nd place Victory Cup as well as a single Championship Point.
For Fall Regionals, I played Yanmega Prime/Magnezone Prime with a 2-2 Zoroark BLW tech, cruising to an 8th place finish and 5 Championship Points. During States I was able to make top 4 during week one, losing to my very good friend, Erik Nance. Week two, I bombed out with a 4-3 record, and week three I bubbled out as 17th place with a 5-2 record.
For Spring Regionals, I did virtually no testing beforehand. Somehow I still came through with a 10-2 record for a 4th place finish, giving me a 4 for 4 top cut ratio at Regionals. I have attended six Spring Battle Roads. I’ve won three of them, and bubbled out of one at 4-1. I went 4-2 at the next and finished 3rd at the last.
Right now, I’m sitting at 53 Championship Points, which is good enough for 10th in North American Masters, as well as an ELO rating of 1896.
If there is anyone left who sat through my very detailed, and very lengthy introduction, let’s get to what you really came to this article for! This article will not be a typical tournament report – instead, I aim to bring you into my thought process when creating the deck; as well as how I approached each individual deck that I played against.
For my first five Battle Roads I played an almost identical Darkrai EX list each time. I even escaped one weekend with a perfect 15-0 record. Want to know the secret to my success?
Deck Choice and the Power of Simplicity
pokemon-paradijs.comAmidst all of the crazy hype of a new set being released; everyone wants to try out new ideas and different ways to play their favorite decks. This is perfectly acceptable especially considering that Battle Roads are usually just considered entry-level tournaments without much on the line to compete for. However I decided to capitalize on a different approach hoping to earn the last few points I needed to secure my worlds invite for this year in beautiful Hawaii.
I decided it might just be best to keep things as simple as possible. In my Darkrai list, I played zero Dark Claw, zero PlusPower, zero Special Dark, zero Skyarrow Bridge and zero Tornadus EX. Instead, I focused on keeping my EXs alive. With the extra space I was able to include the full four copies of Smeargle UD to gain bundles of early game consistency as well a near 40% chance to open with my preferred starter, allowing me to save my copies of Ultra Ball, Dual Ball, and other valuable resources to search out my attackers to start applying pressure immediately.
I was getting very lackluster results with Tornadus EX and felt that Mewtwo countered Fighting just as well as Tornadus EX. I also loved the early aggression it allowed me to use against Eelektrik-based decks. There were quite a few games when I Knocked Out a Tynamo turn 1 and turn 2, then transitioned into a couple of fully powered Darkrai to sweep the game.
Often when I sat down to begin a new round, I soon found out that I was faced with a mirror match. I played 8 mirror matches that I can recall off of the top of my head with only one loss when my lone Smeargle was so kindly introduced to a fully powered Tornadus ex on the first turn of the game. Through all of Battle Roads, I felt like I had a list and strategy that gave me a very strong matchup against the standard Darkrai list.
Shaymin UL + Max Potion, and Countering Terrakion
pokemon-paradijs.comNow you’re about to see where all the magic begins! This beautiful two-card combo won me game after game.
Outside of Terrakion NVI showing his pretty little face, there isn’t much that’s capable of taking down Darkrai in one hit. Throw an Eviolite on Darkrai and you can even find the big bull running home for his mommy.
Because of this, I’ll let a Darkrai take a hit (usually 2 hits with Eviolite) retreat to a fresh Darkrai, and then use Shaymin’s Celebration Wind to move all of the energies to the new Darkrai. I’ll then use max potion on the old Darkrai, losing no energies but healing all of the damage, effectively rendering my opponent’s last few turns useless. So far, nothing in this game has been more satisfying for me than seeing the way my opponents react when I heal 140+ damage off of one of my big EXs – especially when they overextend their resources trying to do so.
Naturally, after the first week of Battle Roads, other people in my area started to realize how strong Max Potion really is, so I began to face mirror matches where both of us had the Celebration Wind + Max Potion combination at our disposal. I won a majority of these matchups simply because my opponents brought up every Smeargle that I put down using Pokémon Catcher to take cheap prizes, while I focused everything on wearing down their Pokémon-EX.
There were multiple instances where I was able to put 30 damage on a benched Darkrai three times netting me a 1HKO when they powered it up and brought it to the Active Spot, giving me a huge advantage. By applying early pressure on the EXs, they were forced to burn their Max Potions way before I used mine, so when I stopped benching Smeargles, I was always able to prevent them from Knocking Out more than one of my EXs.
I felt like I had a huge advantage every time that I came across a Darkrai deck that did not have a Mewtwo EX of their own to fight mine – I even managed to get a 1HKO on a Darkrai! In the finals of one Battle Road, I played against Darkrai/Terrakion. I learned throughout the day that he did not play a single Mewtwo, Shaymin or Max Potion, so I was able to be very aggressive with Mewtwo as early as turn 1 if I started with a good enough hand.
I faced many decks that had teched Terrakion, but in a very large portion of the games, my opponent benched Terrakion before they were ready to use it so all it took to avoid the disaster was a Pokémon catcher. Even if my opponent retreated or used Switch on their Terrakion, I would simply catcher it again for the knockout.
One simple way to counter a benched Terrakion is refusing to knockout anything else on their field. Generally Terrakion is only able to use his first attack so instead of activating retaliate you can use a couple of catchers to kill the Terrakion before he’s able to unleash a world of pain on your defenseless little Darkrai.
Matchups Faced
Quad-Entei-EX
In one of my top 4 matches I was paired against my friend Austin Tyner and his Quad Entei-EX deck. Unfortunately for him, I knew exactly how to crush Entei-EX. I started attacking with Mewtwo EX no later than turn 2 in both games, putting extreme pressure on his field before he was able to get enough energy on his Entei-EXs to attack with. After a few turns of manually attaching as well as using Dark Patch + Celebration Wind on a benched Darkrai, I was able to take out Entei-EXs in just one attack leaving him with no options.
Austin was not able to get off a single Grand Flame in either game taking zero prizes. There was nothing he could do about it that’s just how the matchup is. For this very reason I am completely against quad decks at the moment; they completely fold to any smart player with a Mewtwo EX in their deck. Sure the quad deck could add a Mewtwo to counter an opposing Mewtwo, but doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of a quad deck?
pokemon-paradijs.comZoroark decks were among the easiest matchups I faced. With Shaymin, Eviolite, and Max Potion, they never take out anything more than a few of my 70 HP Pokémon. They are forced to set up fragile Stage 1s while I’m pumping out bigger Basics. It’s important to be wary of using Night Spear against a Zoroark leaving it with 10 HP remaining, or you might seriously regret it when you read what Dark Rush does.
Mono-Fighting
There was one matchup that I remember dreading so much going into another one of my top 4 matches. I was paired against Nick (one of the nicest people ever!) with Landorus NVI/Terrakion NVI/Donphan Prime. This actually turned out to be one of my easiest matchups as I powered up Mewtwo with Eviolite as soon as I possibly could – Knocking Out everything before he had enough energies to get much going. If they, too, have Mewtwo in their deck – proceed with caution.
As you could have probably guessed one of the most common decks I played against during Battle Roads was Zekrom/Eelektrik. If they did not play Terrakion then it was a piece of cake. With Darkrai, you’re able to score extra knockouts every few turns by targeting Tynamos first, then Eelektriks with Darkrai’s 30 snipe damage from Night Spear.
Darkrai is also capable of scoring a 1HKO on Zekroms that just used Bolt Strike making this matchup pretty easy. Settle for 2HKOs on everything else, rinse and repeat. If they teched a Terrakion then things got a little bit trickier, however it is still very winnable.
Conclusion
I think that I’ve covered how I approached just about very matchup that I faced during Spring Battle Roads. If you have any questions about anything at all in this article, please let me know and I will be happy to answer them! Want to see my 34-5 Darkrai EX/Mewtwo EX decklist?
If I get enough likes/feedback on this article then I may write another soon including the exact list I piloted to 3 wins. I want to thank everyone that took the time to read my first article for SixPrizes – be sure to look out for more in the future!
Well done, Mr. Bivens!
you got to judge him :P
Well written article, but it seemed a bit like a teaser. It’s like a big buildup that left me wanting more. Maybe that was the point.
“Outside of Terrakion NVI showing his pretty little face, there isn’t much that’s capable of taking down Darkrai in one hit. Throw an Eviolite on Darkrai and you can even find the big bull running home for his mommy.”
Totally underestimating Terrakion/Pluspower.
“I faced many decks that had teched Terrakion, but in a very large portion of the games, my opponent benched Terrakion before they were ready to use it so all it took to avoid the disaster was a Pokémon catcher. Even if my opponent retreated or used Switch on their Terrakion, I would simply catcher it again for the knockout.”
So you weren’t playing good people.
Also I don’t like how you are bribing for likes. If you really want likes, write a longer article.
i think he knows about terrak + pluspower to ohko a eviolited darkrai. I know for a fact that the darkrai/terrakion variants he played against had pluspower, but not every single person can hit a terrak + pluspower every single game and you can also play around terrakion but hitting it and not koing anything else. but through my games and testing i have found that hitting terrak and pluspower is not guaranteed and evioliting a darkrai has saved me so many games. regarding people playing down terrak and not attacking that turn, well for one thing mono fighting decks dont have energy acceleration and sometimes darkrai lists can’t power up terrak in 1 turn. why does every single person on this site have to be a critic? not only are people critics but sometimes they are rude. this is supposed to be a friendly site, where people can relay information to the community. Do you forget the fact they people put in their time to write these articles and do not have to tell anyone about their finding and results to help every single person out in the community. this site is supposed to represent a community, and negative criticism is not needed.
First off that large mass of words is super hard to read. If you respond to my post, please capitalize.
Also, are you the author?
” regarding people playing down terrak and not attacking that turn, well for one thing mono fighting decks dont have energy acceleration and sometimes darkrai lists can’t power up terrak in 1 turn.”
I’m talking about ZekEels with Terra.
“but through my games and testing i have found that hitting terrak and pluspower is not guaranteed and evioliting a darkrai has saved me so many games.”
How hard do you think it is than? To be honest, not hard at all.
“why does every single person on this site have to be a critic? not only are people critics but sometimes they are rude. ”
I am giving the author (or you if you’re the author) feedback on the article. Not to purposefully be offensive, but I disagree with points in the article, and there is no way to respectfully disagree with you because any bit of criticism on my part you mistake as being rude.
“this is supposed to be a friendly site, where people can relay information to the community.”
Yeah, I know, and I am relaying information by correcting and arguing with the authors information. Do you have a problem with people disagreeing with you?
“Do you forget the fact they people put in their time to write these articles and do not have to tell anyone about their finding and results to help every single person out in the community.”
No, I most certainly do not forget. Why do you supposed that? It is because I criticize? A good author should accept criticizing as a way to learn about how they can write better in the future. My opinion is not going to change no matter how much you shame me for criticizing.
boo
I like how this format right now is really skill-based. You need to know when to bench your Mewtwos, Terrakions, and when to bench an EX, and when to make your opponent win the hard way. People sometimes don’t see that with the Terrakion thing, however. They usually don’t end up at the top tables.
Good to see this on the FP.
There is a lot of good info here that you don’t get with the usual type of report, it was nice to see an in-depth description of the process that went into building the deck.
That said, it IS a bit of a tease to leave off the list. I understand you doing that in the forums, and I would completely understand if you didn’t want to reveal it at all, but to say you’ll do it for Likes . . . hmmmm.
ehh zach boy… still need to beat you in tourney… cant seem to do it :( i can beat nances but not you lol
Maybe one day Perry ;P
Your a fantastic player so ive been pretty lucky to escape all of our games with a win.
He is a really good player :lol: You guys must have some epic matches though.
First off welcome to 6 Prizes!! :) It was really interesting to read about how you managed to beat your opponent’s Pokemon. The strategy you used was pretty impressive I must say. I have some questions for you though? Did you ever face a Fighting deck, or Terrakion tech with Pluspower in their deck. If you didn’t it’s understandable, because some people don’t know, or didn’t learn about how to beat Darkrai EX with an Eviolite until it was too late. Or, maybe they wiffed on getting a PP to their hand.
Also, did you ever face a Terrakion tech, or Fighting deck that used Max Potion? I’m guessing no, because I’m sure if they were able to switch and heal their Terrakion that you brought up with Catcher, that would make it harder to defeat them. Of course this wouldn’t really work if Terrakion had 2-3 energies on it. And if it does energies on it, then you could just use Mewtwo EX to take it out. But, most of the time when you/players Catcher up a Terrakion like that, it has 1 to no energies on it and maybe an Exp. Share.
I also beleive that you were playing good players, (well,I’ve actually seen you play them) unlike Glaceon,who just thinks that you easily rode to victory without any opposition.
I loved your article and how you went into your thought procces for playing against certain decks. So Much so that when I do another article, I’ll do the same thing. It really helps players understand you and the deck that you played better, than just some random report that has a hyped up winning deck and list and what they played against. Expecting People to just figure out that you won just because you were using a hyped up top tier deck.
I beleive there’s more to winning than just having the best deck and I hope players learn that more in the future. Thanks again for the good article and if I don’t see you at Nats, then I’ll see you sometime next season. :)
“I beleive there’s more to winning than just having the best deck”
yeah flip well and draw well. :) hey sir we need to hang out at nats
If I could get a ride, I’ll see you there and then we along with ZcBivens could hang out for sure!! :)
Flip well and draw well? With Durant, maybe.
“If they teched a Terrakion then things got a little bit trickier.”
What Glaceon said, you aren’t testing against good people. And no one runs just 1 Terrakion. That’s just stupid.
“Darkrai is also capable of scoring an OHKO on Zekroms that just used Bolt Strike making this matchup pretty easy”
Higher Eviolite count + a 2 Terrakion tech works wonders against Darkrai.
Dislike.
So you’re saying that bad players only play with 1 Terrakion in their Zeels list? Good luck explaining how you don’t end up starting with it if it’s any higher than 1, or the inconsitency and space of energies you have to run in order to do that. You must think it’s easy to tech Terrakion/s in the deck. Well, it’s not!! There’s space and consitency issues that goes along with that.
Now you maybe right, some decks do play more than 1 Terrakion. Even if they do, they might not have both of them out at the same time. Now if they just played a fresh one then you could take advantage of it and Catcher it up. (I think he said that in the article too) Because you know Terrakion has NO energy acceleration at all and would need at least 2 turns to beable to do retaliate. Then, if it has Exp. Share it only needs 1 turn.
Now IF Zekrom has Eviolite on it AND they have 2 Terrakion (which most of them that he faced didn’t I guess), then they can win. BUT, that is only theory on your part since it doesn’t allways happen like that. Are you understanding this at all, or is this all alien to you? You and Glaceon need to open up your eyes and see beyond the sackyness that you think ZcBivens has and look at the bigrer picture, or you’re never going to get it.
You guys sond like angry players that got beat by him, or something. If you guys are just here to criticize it because it spoils your own strategy, then you’re doing a terrible job of it.
“So you’re saying that bad players only play with 1 Terrakion in their Zeels list? Good luck explaining how you don’t end up starting with it if it’s any higher than 1, or the inconsitency and space of energies you have to run in order to do that. You must think it’s easy to tech Terrakion/s in the deck. Well, it’s not!! There’s space and consitency issues that goes along with that.”
A good list is able to fit it, and yes, I cannot explain how I don’t end up starting with it. Can you explain how you never start with your on-of Terrakion tech? There’s only one way to explain that, and that is stacking. If you playing Terrakion, you will sometimes start with it… it happens.
“Now you maybe right,”
*you’re
“some decks do play more than 1 Terrakion. Even if they do, they might not have both of them out at the same time.”
Good for them. You only need one to get the return ko.
“Now if they just played a fresh one then you could take advantage of it and Catcher it up. (I think he said that in the article too) Because you know Terrakion has NO energy acceleration at all and would need at least 2 turns to beable to do retaliate. Then, if it has Exp. Share it only needs 1 turn.”
You know he’s talking about ZekEels, right? I hope not.
“Now IF Zekrom has Eviolite on it AND they have 2 Terrakion (which most of them that he faced didn’t I guess), then they can win. BUT, that is only theory on your part since it doesn’t allways happen like that. Are you understanding this at all, or is this all alien to you?”
Yeah, you drop them when you need them ://
“You and Glaceon need to open up your eyes and see beyond the sackyness that you think ZcBivens has and look at the bigger picture, or you’re never going to get it.”
Is it because I’m a Senior?
“You guys sond like angry players that got beat by him, or something. If you guys are just here to criticize it because it spoils your own strategy, then you’re doing a terrible job of it.”
Um, no, that would never be my strategy… and I doubt I would lose to him either, based off this article at least.
Why can’t you explain why you don’t start with Terrakion? Is that too hard for you? And saying it happens is like Ability boar being ready to go on turn 2.
You assume that everyone runs the same cookie cutter deck, when they don’t.
I’m not talking about Zeels in that paragraph. I know he was talking about Zeels. But there’s more than 1 deck that plays/techs Terrakion. Those decks can’t just drop one and go. Also, you might not be so lucky to just drop a Terrakion out of the blue, have the fighting energy, an Eel and a Pluspower all on the same turn. That’s a 4 part combo that doesn’t happen all the time.
Again, your assuming that the Zeels player will have EVERYTHING exactly when they need it at the right time. So what happens when you can’t drop it when you need it? What happens when you don’t have everything you need to KO Darkrai EX?
No, it’s not because you’re a senior, it’s because you’re incompetent. Dude, you’re not in the same league as him AND you’re a nieve little senior, who’s got his head screwed on wrong.
“Why can’t you explain why you don’t start with Terrakion? Is that too hard for you? And saying it happens is like Ability boar being ready to go on turn 2.”
For the same reason you can’t explain not starting with it as a one of. Sure there is a lesser chance, but I’d say it’s worth it.
“You assume that everyone runs the same cookie cutter deck, when they don’t.”
No I don’t…
“I’m not talking about Zeels in that paragraph. I know he was talking about Zeels. But there’s more than 1 deck that plays/techs Terrakion. Those decks can’t just drop one and go. Also, you might not be so lucky to just drop a Terrakion out of the blue, have the fighting energy, an Eel and a Pluspower all on the same turn. That’s a 4 part combo that doesn’t happen all the time.”
Good, because I was. I know it beats Straight Terra.
“No, it’s not because you’re a senior, it’s because you’re incompetent. Dude, you’re not in the same league as him AND you’re a nieve little senior”
So it’s not because I am a Seniors, but it is?
Insulting will add nothing to the situation. Your bratty remarks aren’t really helping either. When commenting, I was hoping to get responses from the author, not you.
You’re sounding exactly like a duchey kid. (I’m not saying you’re duchey, but that’s what you sound like)
I admit it, you did get under my skin a little bit and I responded with a minor insult. I didn’t mean to be harsh, but when you come off like that to people, just don’t expect the happiest of coments back.
Now the author DID respond to you. He didn’t come off like you did and criticize what you said to him right. You could have said what you said better than the way you said. If you want respect, you have to first give it. Please remember this the next time you post. Not everyone on here is a kid, so don’t talk to us like one. Thank you.
Amphy, please stop. The argument was resolved and you’re really not in a position to patronise anyone. Kid or otherwise.
Stop with what? I just wanted to let him know that it’s not good to say what he said the way he said it. I just wanted him to understand me, that’s all. I’m not mad, at all. You’ve known me for a while now. What I said was miles better than what I used say. I just didn’t want him to think I said what I said because he’s a senior, or inferior, or anything. I only came on here to nicely reply to the author, which I did. I also defended my friend, since I usually see him at tournaments, played him and see him play against top ranked players. I didn’t mean any harm in what I said, so I don’t see what the problem is.
I tried to be the better person by ending this conversation, but you can go on if you must. I don’t really care what you say about me because I am a Seniors which means you will always think I’m bad and stupid. You can keep throwing insults at me, but all it does is make you look immature and childish.
I am very well aware the author replied to me. He replied in a much more professional manner than you did, which is why I said I would rather speak with him. I criticized his article, and you took it as a way to criticize me for it. He responded to my points, and that is great for him to do.
Also, I don’t know why you’d be offended when I didn’t even criticize you. I was hoping for the response from the author, not a brat. I was hoping the response was not going to be childish and immature, and it was from you. I thank the author for his post, and that’s all there is to it. I don’t know why my opinion on the article should bother you, and in the future please do not jump into my conversations when I try to have a conversation with the writer. I didn’t start my thoughts off with “Dear Amphy, here is what I have to say about this article,” now did I?
Also, I won’t be responding if you response aimlessly bashes me for my opinion.
I’m not trying to continue either. I don’t think You’re bad and stupid, but what you said to me was. I’m not going to always think you’re like that as long as you don’t come off sounding like that. How can you say I’m throwing insults at you? If I wanted to, I could really go off, but I’m not going to do that.
Actually, you didn’t really specify who you were talking to when you first posted.
A couple of people, not just me, responded to your coments. You spoke to them the same way you spoke to me which wasn’t good at all. We are allowed to respnd and coment about the article and discuss things with EACH OTHER, not just with the author.
I am offended a little, even more so now, because you accused me of insulting you. It’s the way you said things that made me a little offensive. That’s all. Dude, you just called me a brat!! What’s up with that? Who’s starting stuff now? Childish and Imature? Really? Jump in YOUR conversation? This article was posted here for EVERYONE to coment on. We can respond to the author AND to the people posting in the thread as we like. This is a DISCUSSION. I don’t bash you for your opinion at all. Just please be careful with what you say ok. And please don’t call me names. This will NEVER end if you continue to do that.
Ugh…
This conversation is over on my part.
“I was hoping for the response from the author, not a brat.”
That’s what YOU said.
And yet you come back with another insult.
An Eel is necessary to power attackers and will have been there already, even against Darkrai. I wouldn’t call it part of the combo.
A Terrakion, well, most Zeels play 4 Dual Ball.
A PlusPower, most Zeels play 4 Junk Arm.
All you need out of that that’s too hard to get is a Fighting energy, which you run at least two of and will eventually have.
Yes I know that. But, you may not have dual ball, or junk arm, or pluspower, or the energy. If you have 1 of them already in your hand, you’ll have to junk arm, or draw the other pieces from the deck. Eventually won’t win the game for you. You would have to make another play other than send out Terrakion on that turn if you don’t get everything, which could cost you.
If you “eventually” hit a Darkrai for OHKO, and hit it for 2HKOes with Zekrom, you’re in good shape.
ok
Regardless of the contents of your argument…when you are trying to have a logical discussion with someone, correcting their grammar is very condescending and really doesn’t add anything to the conversation. All it does is suggest that you are an arrogant douche who likes insulting people to boost your own self-esteem. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling you an arrogant douche, just saying it makes you look that way.)
The sole propose of grammar is so that we can understand each other, and the incredibly ironic thing about correcting someone’s grammar is that in doing so you imply that you understood EXACTLY what they meant to say.
I am not critiquing your arguments at all. They are all legit and sensible arguments. However, your arguments would be received MUCH better if you didn’t come off as being insulting, condescending and rude. So please everyone, let’s just forget the arguing. We can accomplish so much more if we just talk civilly. This isn’t just aimed at Glaceon, it goes for everyone else as well.
Oh, and if it really means that much to you…
“There are* space and consistency* issues that go* along with that”
“one*-of Terrakion tech”
“if you’re* playing Terrakion.”
But seriously, it’s the internet for god’s sake :/
Yeah, I guess I can see where you’re coming from on my part. My bad.
If it were YouTube, you would be correct, good sir, but I think that since this is a site where we’re all smart for the most part and we’re not commenting on smartphones we should try to have decent grammar, just to be easy to read.
boo
Like I said in my response to Glaceon, I reported exclusively what I played against at Battle Roads. I did not say anything about what I have found in my testing.
A higher Eviolite count could potentially cause problems forcing my deck to heal the damage every turn. Two Terrakions is also very challenging for Darkrai but I have yet to build a Zekeels/Terrakion deck that has been able to consistently pull off 2+ eviolite as well as 2 terrakions so I feel like you would have to choose one way or the other. If you disagree then so be it, no one will like every article that they read, I certainly do not.
Since I built this deck the way I did to perform well in my area I did not claim that this is an unbeatable deck or even that it was a good deck to bring to Nationals.
Hey I saw you at Burlington I think. I’m that squirt you battled and I used Vileplume/Terrakion and you used Thundurus/Terrakion in a practice game. btw where do people come up with all these Darkrai! EVERYONE has at least 3 it seems and I have 0.
Hey Grant it was nice to meet you in Burlington, I enjoyed our game! You had a very interesting deck. I bought my Darkrai from Troll and Toad lol.
great details about mewtwo-ex and opponents dropping terrakion w/o energies. darkrai-terrakion-mewtwo-shaymin is a righteous deck
Who are all these people playing decks that fall to Mewtwo that aren’t techning in mewtwo? Outside of quad decks i can only assume these people are idiots.
I LOVE playing people who don’t play Mewtwo. Mewtwo is AWESOME!
Pretty good idea. The article isn’t very long but good enough for me.
It’s true that Terrakion + PlusPower kills Eviolited Darkrai as many of the comments say, but if you run something like a 4-3 or 3-3 split of Super Scoop Up and Max Potion, then letting your opponent get 2 prizes isn’t that bad, because they won’t have the PlusPower + Terrakion, and Fighting energy if Terrakion is teched. Also, Mewtwo is there for Terrakion. So, nothing more to say but “Like”.
Glaceon, I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say in that sentence. I was simply pointing out that I have seen decks struggle to get Terrakion, a Fighting Energy, and a Pluspower during the same turn so Eviolite has the potential to save your Darkrai. I was not trying to say that they rarely get the Pluspower or even that they only have it 50% of the time because far more often then not they actually do have all the cards required to OHKO the Darkrai in one turn. I was only trying to point out that it has saved my Darkrai before.
While I do admit that at least one-third of my games at Battle Roads where against players that play less than optimally I also played against quite a few top ranked players such as Curran Hill (National and World Champion), Erik Nance (2nd place at Nationals), Ryan Sabluehaus (Won States and Regionals this year and in the past), Ashon Haswell(Won States this year, 2nd at regionals) Kevin Nance (Multiple time State and Regional champion) as well as other great players.
The reason that I asked for likes/feedback is because:
1) I was trying to build anticipation for another article. I wanted readers to finish this article and immediately wish that there was more.
2) I legitimately wanted to see if the six prizes community enjoyed the way that I wrote this report.
After reading all of the comments I now see how this could have been perceived as “Bribing for likes” and I apologize for going that route with the article. I also wanted to keep my first article short with an introduction and a brief explanation of my performance at Battle Roads
The sole purpose of this report was to let readers into my thought process during 2012 Spring Battle Roads. I built this deck the way I did to perform well in my area. I tried not to deviate from this purpose in my article. I did not claim that this is an unbeatable deck or even that it was a good deck to bring to Nationals. I reported what I came across during Battle Roads exclusively.
I appreciate the constructive criticism and hope to receive much more as it will only help improve the quality of my articles
Thank you.
I enjoyed the article, though i found it a little brief it contained some really useful info.
I did not enjoy your “like it and i’ll give you my list approach”. It’s like developers who code things into a game then make you pay to unlock it. You’re withholding things to try and artificially increase your “like” count.
The irony is, you say you want to know if people liked your article but you then invite people to “like” it not because they actually liked it but because they want to see your (clearly pretty darn good) list.
There’s some awesome stuff (the match-ups bit etc) but then you say “if… then proceed with caution”. How do we do that? You’re clearly a top player with a lot of tips to give but you tease us and then leave us hanging.
I REALLY want to see another article of yours. It’d be nice for it to be a whole article though ;)
Ross, that is a very very good point that you for that.
I know how to greatly improve my next article haha.
I will be adding the list to the article either tonight or tomorrow.
So about that list lol
I wasn’t able to edit this article since its already hit the front page but I will be finishing my second article tonight that WILL include the list and submitting it tomorrow then all thats left is for the editors to check it out.
Cool lol. I look forward to it XD. I’m not playing Darkrai myself (anymore), but I am curious about your build. I abandoned it because of VVV and Terrakion giving me too much of a headache.
Just submitted my next article.
Im not sure I see myself playing Darkrai at Nationals either.
To be honest, I almost disliked the article when I saw “the bribing for likes” part as I felt it to be rather unethical. I better idea would have been just leaving it at, “If I get enough feedback and interest, I will post the deck list.” That being said however, I still gave you the +1, because I thought the article was extremely well written and very interesting. I would like to see the decklist, but mainly I am just curious how you did so well without the mighty Pluspower. Night Spear on active Terrakion with Pluspower on Terrakion with 30 on a benched Landorus followed by a catcher on the Landorus and Night Spear for double KO won me a Top 4 match and shouldn’t be underestimated. It has been useful in countless matchups and that was playing Darkrai/Tornadus. In turbo Darkrai I would imagine it to be even more important. Also 0 Skyarrow with 4 Smeargle seems …. odd. Congrats on the record though, and I look forward to the follow-up article.
Tokyovampire, that would have been a much better way to put it. I should have thought more carefully about what I said. If I would have known that it would have caused this much trouble then I would have just included the list in the first place. Like I have said before I wanted to generate some hype for the follow up article. Clearly this was not appreciated in the least bit so it is something that I will take note of for the future.
With this being my first article I am quite pleased with the way it has turned out as well as comments such as yours and Ross’s, it will help me improve if I decide to write any future articles.
I don’t think asking for likes is the best way to build hype. People will want to see the list, so regardless of whether they like the article or not they still +1 it. Like YouTube.
“I really wish there were another article.”
There will be another by the weekend. Hopefully Sooner just depends on when the editors get it posted :)
Nice Article! I makes me want to play Darkrai :P
I agreed with most of what you had to say, it just kinda seems that your darkrai variant would run out of steam late game vs. zeels since you have no way to nab those final ko’s if they just go arggo zekrom/eviolite. Also since zekrom does 100 damage to darkrai w/ eviolite you have to use max potion/shaymin every turn to keep up, correct? It’s sounds like you’d kinda be on a max potion/SSU shortage late game against zeels :/ (then again you could be running sableye to correct that problem)
terrakion is overrated imo. I’ve tried him, but he’s really easy to play around if you run sp. darkness/dark claw. Terrakion in zeels works, but it also is a risky play for zeels players since they will more likely than not run less DCE….
Zekeels can get away with 3 Double Colorless, it’s not like their main attacker uses it.
I think this was a fine article. I really do.
But I don’t like the “build hype, give out list” system. I really don’t. You seem like a petty good player, and yes, I believe some people would want to see your list.
However, I don’t think even giving out your list is a great idea. It would be better for one to build a Darkrai deck from the ground up, with their own playstyle considered, instead of doing what you do with lackluster results.
If you had given out your list here, I would have +1d this. I would now give it a -1 if it were to make any sort of difference.
Hey Zach! I’m kinda slow, so Phillip had to tell me who wrote this….
Great article regardless of who the writer is.
Write More
Hey what’s up, I’t’s me Sam. I figured it out when I saw Bivens in the name btw. :lol:
He should write more.