soragu.deviantart.comHello again SixPrizes. We have closed up the Battle Roads season with some interesting results and new decks, but I am not here to talk about those now. I went to four Battle Roads this Spring with four (two are really, really similar) rogue decks. I ended up having no way to get enough Raikou-EX or Tornadus EX for the RaiEels deck featured in my last article, and nearly no cards for any sort of dark deck, so I just had fun with some cool mutations. About a week before the first one, I had a new deck idea.
It started out as a Bellsprout TM/Carnivine TM stall deck idea, which spammed Inviting Scent until your opponent ran out of Energy to retreat and/or Switch (if you didn’t run Vileplume UD). I thought about including Vileplume to lock Dark Patch and Switch, and Yanmega Prime to snipe a bunch of Tynamo before they evolved. Included, of course, would be Jirachi UL/CL to devolve the stragglers that did evolve.
Well, it wasn’t very good, so I changed it up a bit just to spam disruption Items and stall with Spinarak HS’s Spider Web. Unfortunately, it had serious problems with Eelektrik variants’ back-from-the-discard acceleration. So, I stole the Yanmega/Jirachi idea from the past deck.
When I finished polishing the list as much as I possibly could (after lots of testing), it ended up like a Hammertime/Eel hate/Smeargle hate deck. Here’s the list I ended up playing for the first Battle Road:
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Pokémon – 153 Yanma TM 1 Rotom UD 1 Jirachi UL/CL 1 Tyrogue HS/CL 1 Cleffa HS/CL
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Trainers – 39 4 Twins 2 Copycat 1 Alph Lithograph FOUR |
Energy – 6 4 Prism 2 Rainbow
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pokemon-paradijs.comAfter inadvertently getting the name from Hunter at a later Battle Road, I call this deck: “Yanmega’s Still Legit”. Now for a brief explanation before I get into the report, as I’m sure most of you are befuddled by this odd yet creative rogue.
I run 3-4 Yanmega because, in my testing with 4-3, I always found myself needing to get more Yanmega out easier. It is easier to stream Yanma because of Dual Ball and Revive, but I wanted to be able to get Yanmega out easier and more repeatedly. If I ever actually need 4 Yanmega attacking in one game, I can just Revive Yanma.
It is not a problem if either of them are prized because of half of the deck’s main engine, Rotom + Alph Lithograph. Rotom + Alph Lithograph and Twins keep this deck rolling, and are just really great cards in this type of deck where you need to consistently get specific cards.
Cleffa is the clutch card and is helpful when you’re not behind and the only Supporter you can seem to get is Twins. Tyrogue can donk with PlusPowers and assists in Eel hate with early Catchers and/or PlusPowers.
pokemon-paradijs.comSableye and Spinarak can really tick (well, I know, Spinarak is a spider) your opponent off. Spinarak can consistently lock up Smeargle and babies. With Twins, Max Potion/Crushing Hammer (potentially), Junk Arm, and Revive, even with many Switches/Junk Arms by your opponent. If you spam Spider Web, you can easily lock up a Smeargle or baby to deck your opponent. It helps if you Catcher some high retreaters early though, so they can burn some Switch, making decking them out easier.
However, this is not mainly used to deck your opponent out (unless you catch them off guard in the late-game) but more to make them burn many Switch/Junk Arm so you can Catcher and snipe around with Yanmega. This obviously goes in tandem with Crushing Hammer and Lost Remover to really be annoying. Sableye comes in as nice mid-game support as well as giving a Hammertime effect to auto-win decks without Energy acceleration, and giving a strong matchup against decks without back-from-the-discard acceleration.
Everything else should be self-explanatory after reading the strategy and list of the deck. Now for the tournament report! Also, as a sort of side note, most of the battles (two are really long) will not be in depth because there are so many battles, so if I don’t mention a crucial turn or game play-by-play, that’s why.
Battle Road #1 – Cary, NC
Unfortunately, there are only 7 Seniors and 7 Juniors, so we each have our own division with 3 rounds and one person shy of a top cut. Wow. This is the first tournament I’ve ever been to in Seniors without there being a top cut (besides prereleases, of course)! Before the tournament started, I lent out an FA Zekrom-EX, Eelektrik, and two Mewtwo EX because I wasn’t using any of them!
Round 1 vs. Yush P. w/ A Random Pile of Cards
pokemon-paradijs.comOk, if you want to know what his deck really was, here are all the Pokémon in the deck, most of which have no synergy: Empoleon DEX, Hydreigon NVI, Eelektrik NVI, Plusle DEX, Pichu HS, Terrakion NVI, Raikou-EX, Tornadus EX, and Zekrom-EX. That (no synergy) is what I mean when I say my opponent has a random pile of cards. Anyway, should be easy.
He starts out lone Pichu and I start lone Sableye, with me going first. Unfortunately, I cannot get the donk. I don’t do much, maybe play a draw supporter or two, and wait for him to fill my bench. On his turn he Playgrounds and we both fill our empty benches. He gets Zekrom-EX, Tornadus EX, Terrakion NVI, Plusle DEX, and I believe he holds off on the fifth Basic or gets a Raikou-EX, not sure.
I fill up with two Yanma, Tyrogue, Cleffa, and Spinarak. I get a Yanmega or two and ended my turn with a Spider Web. He informs me (after I ask nicely) that he runs 2 Switch and 1 Junk Arm, because I forgot since I looked through his deck earlier when I lent him Zekrom-EX and Eelektrik.
He has a Switch and uses it to switch his Pichu with Tornadus EX, which he attaches a DCE to and then proceeds to Catcher-KO my Tyrogue. This activates Twins, and I Catcher up Terrakion and start sniping away with Yanmega. He starts powering up his Zekrom-EX, but I hinder it greatly with Lost Removers, Crushing Hammers, and Junk Arms. For some reason he runs Burned Tower, but it doesn’t end up being that much of a help to him. Eventually I 5HKO snipe his Tornadus EX to death.
After I start sniping his Zekrom-EX, he catches on and starts attaching to Terrakion instead of powering up his bench. Once he gets a Retaliate off for 10 and a Land Crush for 70, I retreat for another Yanmega, hit a Crushing Hammer flip, and continue sniping. He then drops and Energy and a Skyarrow Bridge and brings up his finally charged Zekrom-EX. However, instead of using Strong Volt like he probably should’ve, he risked a Glinting Claw and got tails, leaving my Yanmega with 10 HP left.
Throughout the entire game I am hammering and Max Potioning, so I promptly Max Potion this time. I re-Catcher Terrakion and continue sniping Zekrom-EX until it’s Knocked Out. With all of my disruption, he cannot get anything off so I snipe Pichu for my fifth prize. The next turn is where I make a crucial mistake in this game where he basically had no chance. To match his hand size to take the final prize, I drop an unneeded PlusPower and 1HKO Terrakion with Sonicboom.
I had a Pokémon Catcher in hand so I could’ve Catcher’ed Plusle and Sonicboomed that while keeping the PlusPower in hand, but I didn’t think it mattered, so I just Sonicboomed Terrakion. We both started picking up our fields but the Judge came over at the last second of the game and reminded me (a little late) that Yanmega’s Sonicboom wasn’t affected by weakness or resistance. Crap.
They went over and read the rules and conferred with the PTO I think, but they gave me the win anyway because they knew my opponent was stuck and he still had 4 Prizes left. A funny thing about that game was that I didn’t see anything from the Empoleon line or Hydreigon line during the whole game! I think he ran 2-1-1 or 1-1-1 on both of those lines. And, yes, that was one of the two rounds which will be that long to read.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Jonah w/ Arcanine NXD 12/Fliptini/Other Attackers That Would Fit Nicely Into Fire
pokemon-paradijs.comSo, I was facing the guy who got the bye, and not someone who earned a win. Nice. However, since that little mistake at the end of Round 1, I got a prize penalty, so he only had to deal out 5 Prizes. This was great! I got auto-activated Twins!
I went first with a lone Sableye AGAIN. He opened with two Growlithe NXD 10. I think I Copycat’d into a dead hand and he opted to start powering his bench. I literally drew-passed for… I don’t know for sure, probably about 10 turns while his bench started getting intimidating (kind of). He had Reshiram BLW, Entei-EX, Fliptini, and Tornadus EX aside from the Arcanine which he started with as a Growlithe.
I eventually got going, although slowly. He had a semi Energy drought because he spent a lot charging his bench up. I quickly KO’d Fliptini as soon as I could and his other one was prized. His active Arcanine was just sitting there with its cute retreat of three while I was sniping away. I 5HKO’d Entei-EX before he got Energy to attach to the active.
Now, the scan is here for reference because this is not a card most people feel the need to memorize. It does exactly 100 damage, perfect for Max Potion shenanigans. So, I eventually Sonicboomed it, but forgot about the Ability, so I was Burned and flipped tails and could get 1HKO’d. Whatevs.
Anyway, he eventually flipped tails with Fire Spin, and I was relentless with my Hammers and Max Potions, so I won by sniping stuff to death.
2-0
Round 3 vs. Ben A. w/ Zekeels
pokemon-paradijs.comYeah, now I get to vs. someone good! Ben is my friend, and he had to actually earn his way through, beating a CMT and mono-Donphan Prime (both by good players). Anyway, we had only played this matchup once against each other, in which I baited out his Switches/Junk Arms and decked him by locking Smeargle with Spinarak. (Okay, okay, we didn’t actually finish the game but that is how it surely would’ve gone.)
So, he had a bad start and mine was mediocre, but certainly not bad. I sniped away, but he eventually got going. It was a decent game of sniping and locking on my part, but Switching and a beefed-up Zekrom-EX on his part. It eventually went to time and I double devolved/KO’d two Eels with Jirachi on T0.
He got a KO on his turn and I could not do anything in response to win, but I had to make it close. I Catcher-KO’d a Smeargle with Yanmega to tie the prizes on T2 and he finished me with a Zekrom BLW on the last turn. Really GG.
2-1
Summarizing The Day
Since I lost only in the last round to the undefeated, I placed second. The CMT player, Tristan, who Ben beat Round 1 got third and Yush somehow got fourth. I got to hang out for a while and got some interesting trades. I traded my precious single copy of FA Mewtwo EX for a regular one and some reverse-holo NXD cards, which I’m trying to collect. I also traded away the Victory Cup I just got for some more NXD reverses, so now I only need four more to complete the reverse set!
I was excited for the Battle Road the next day and already had my deck planned out. Also, I think it’s funny how all three of my opponent’s decks had Tornadus EX and how much the Rotom + Alph Lithograph engine helped me in all of my games. Don’t get me wrong, I like the deck a lot, but it was about time to play something I’ve been meaning to for quite a while…
Battle Road #2 – Morrisville, NC
This was where the league I attended to was held and there is always a great attendance. Well, we had 19 Seniors, so 5 rounds with a top cut of 4; acceptable. Here is the list that I finally got up the guts to use:
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Pokémon – 17 1 Shaymin EX 1 Kyurem EX |
Trainers – 27 3 Twins 2 N
1 Revive 1 Eviolite 1 Switch 1 Junk Arm |
Energy – 16 4 Rainbow 4 Prism 3 R 1 W |
Some of you probably remember my article on an Electrode variant called “The Weirdo”. Believe it or not, this is what it has become! Except now I like to call it Revengemite or Electrodebox (credit to coolestman22). I will agree that this list looks super inconsistent on paper, but I have been tweaking it and perfecting it since February. The idea is like Six Corners/EX Corners to use Basic beat-sticks to hit your opponent for Weakness while super charging them fast with Electrode Prime.
Even if you can’t hit them for weakness early, no one likes a T2 Brave Fire to the face, which this deck can pull off a lot. I was extremely comfortable with this deck and probably got a little cocky because I honestly expected nothing less than a 1st place finish. On to the games!
Round 1 vs. Samantha S. w/ Zekeels
pokemon-paradijs.comLittle did I know that this would be the first of many, many Zekeels to come… So, I go first and start lone Shaymin UL. Great way to kick off the day. She started off with a lone 30 HP Tynamo. I manipulate my topdeck with Research Record, attach Rainbow to Shaymin and pass. Oops. Another great way to start off the day, open myself up for a Mewtwo donk, darn.
She benches Tynamo, informs me that she does run Mewtwo (like every Zekeel should), and PONT’s. She plays down Mewtwo, obviously frightening, but thankfully only attaches a Lightning and passes. During my turn I attach a Prism to Shaymin and KO the Tynamo with Energy Bloom, healing that 10 damage that Rainbow gave me.
She sends in her other Tynamo and evolves it, leaving the Mewtwo with one Energy on it still. I have the Mewtwo + DCE + Catcher drop ready and whack her Mewtwo for 120. During her turn she gets an Energy and whacks mine for 160. Not sure what I finish her Mewtwo with but it’s downhill for her from there.
1-0
Round 2 vs. The “Other” Tristan w/ Zekeels
He goes first and gets the T1 60 damage on my lone Reshiram-EX. He gets set up quickly while I do not and he disrupts my set up with Catcher. I don’t believe I get an Energymite off all game, and he loads up two Mewtwo EX, so even if I Catcher KO one with my Mewtwo he has another ready. Overall a really sloppy game, and I cannot believe my deck lost that early, especially to a Zekeel that runs a freakin’ Great Ball.
1-1
pokemon-paradijs.comRound 3 vs. ? w/ Zekeels
Don’t remember his name, unfortunately, but here I was, up against another Zekeel deck. I think I open with my only Shaymin EX, and he opts to power his bench up, so I start Double Drawing away. He is loading up a Mewtwo and a Zekrom BLW. Once he even used Enhanced Hammer on my Terrakion’s Prism!
So, I brought in Terrakion when he finally took a prize with Zekrom and Retaliated. He brings in his completely overloaded Mewtwo and KOs my Terrakion. Then I use Twins and revenge KO his Mewtwo and it’s downhill for him from there.
2-1
Round 4 vs. Ben A. w/ Zekeels
Wow, four Zekeels is a row! (I bet you can guess what my round 5 opponent was playing) Anyway, I was playing up to Ben, who was 3-0. We had played this matchup only two or three times before in which I won all of them, but Ben is very good so we are both nervous at the start of this game. My hand is something really pitiful like: Kyurem EX, Voltorb, PONT, and energies. I opted not to bench Voltorb.
He goes first with a lone Smeargle. He Level Ball’s and grabs Tynamo. Then, he Junk Arm’s away two L Energy for Level Ball to grab another Tynamo. He Portraits and obviously uses PONT. Off my PONT and his own PONT that he got off mine, he gets a Skyarrow Bridge, DCE, and, yes, a Tornadus EX. He also got a Catcher in his starting hand I believe, so it was good I didn’t bench Voltorb.
pokemon-paradijs.comDuring my turn I draw Twins, attach DCE, and bench Voltorb to lure out the Catcher so I can Frozen Wings his DCE next turn. I choose not to PONT for the sake of Twins. On his turn he Switches back to Smeargle to steal my PONT and gets a combination of PlusPowers and Junk Arms during his turn to KO my Kyurem EX with Power Blast. This actually turns out good for me. Besides that scary, Eviolite-ed Tornadus EX, he is kind of stuck.
So, I use my Twins and get my secret tech that I recently included that he doesn’t even know about, Zekrom. I also get Electrode. I bench Zekrom, evolve Voltorb, and go straight into the Energymite. Now, since I have a Rainbow Energy in hand, I only need to get a measly two Energy off this Energymite, one of which has to be a Prism or Rainbow. Of course, all I see is one Energy.
This stinks, because he would be in a really tough position had I gotten even less than a normal amount of Energy (I run 16!, come on). I drop the Rainbow and am resigned to Outrage for 40. (20 + Rainbow damage = 30, x weakness = 60, – Eviolite = 40). Then, he of course gets the needed insta-charged Zekrom and PlusPowers for game.
2-2
Round 5 vs. Kayla H. w/ You-Know-What: Zekeels
By some miracle, I can actually make top cut. Kayla is 3-1, so I am playing up once again. My round 3 opponent is 2-2 as well, and he is also playing up to a 3-1. So, if I win and my round 3 opponent wins, I will make top cut as 4th seed because of my insane resistance (Playing up twice, only losing to the top 2 seeds). Alright, here it goes. I open lone Shaymin EX and go second.
pokemon-paradijs.comAgain!? Really!? I keep opening with lone 1-of’s, what is up with this? Never once have I opened with my opener, Virizion! Anyway, she gets a T1 Charge with a couple Tynamo and a Raikou-EX on her bench. I have Collector so I go for two Voltorb and a Virizion. I don’t get a Double Draw off that turn so I settle with attaching and passing. She gets Disaster Volt off but gets no Eels.
So, on my turn I get a Double Draw off and not much else. She Disaster Volts again and whiffs Eels. This goes on for a little while until she her bench is: Two Tynamo, an Eel, and two Raikou. She Catcher KOs my Shaymin EX and I go off with Twins.
Since she Dynamotor’ed to a Raikou last turn, I get a Catcher-Retaliate KO on that. She Disaster Volts Terrakion and on my turn I Catcher up the other Raikou and Land Crush that. Now she can KO my Terrakion but my board is established and I take the win.
3-2
Unfortunately, my round 3 opponent loses so I bubble cut at 5th place. Sigh. Oh well, at least I’m extremely used to it by now. Yeah, I bubble at 5th a lot. At least my brother won Juniors in a tough top 2 with Zekeels against a Celebi/Mewtwo. And at least my brother pulled a Golden Catcher in the packs (we share cards, score!).
The top 4 looked like this:
- 2 Zekeels (Ben and Tristan)
- 1 Darkrai/Tornadus (Tristan L.)
- 1 Fighting Variant (Other person)
I’m a little surprised that only two Zekeels top cut just because of the sheer number of them running around, and a little surprised that anyone even played Fighting. I believe that the person who top-cutted with Fighting was the only person there playing it. I normally would be surprised of Dark Tornado cutting due to the sheer amount of Zekeels, but the player using it was arguably the best player there.
Alright, we had a two week break until Battle Road #3, in which I started testing and tweaking my newest rogue creation. This.
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Pokémon – 18 4 Pichu HS 1 Kyurem EX 1 Shaymin EX |
Trainers – 32 4 Twins 2 N
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Energy – 10 4 F 4 Prism |
Before I start explaining this list, I want to address the one major flaw that I realized a little while after the Battle Roads. I ran Random Receiver instead of Pokégear 3.0. I obviously should’ve run Pokégear 3.0 instead because there are Twins and Pokémon Collector in this deck, both of which can be useless in lot of situations. I don’t think it made any difference in the long run, but I had to put it out there.
The idea behind this crazy Vileplume variant is to get Vileplume out T2 every game. Most Vileplume decks get the T2 Vileplume every now and then, but is mainly a bonus. I’ve mainstreamed this deck as much as I could while keeping it playable and good. Pichu, Communication, Rare Candy, Ultra Ball, Random Receiver, Sage’s, Juniper, Twins (Opponent’s T1 Mewtwo/Tornadus EX), Pokémon Collector, and even N can assist with getting the T2 Vileplume as often as possible.
4-0-4 Vileplume is used because I want to maximize drawing into it as much as possible, as well as minimizing the chance that all of one of them are prized as much as possible. (One time, my friend, Wesley, prized 4 Scizor SF!) I run 0 Gloom because that would ruin the whole point of the deck, getting the T2 Vileplume. Even if you somehow whiff the T2 Vileplume, you will almost always get it out T3.
You can hit most metagame giants for weakness with Terrakion, and Kyurem’s Energy denial under Vileplume is just devstating. Mewtwo EX is great with Twins and DCE, and keeps your opponent in check if they go too crazy with theirs. Shaymin EX is agreeably less effective without Energy acceleration, but is pretty good in this deck for the stale Terrakion mirror and late-game combo’ed with N.
Battle Road #3 – Hillsborough, NC
Again, we hit magic number 7 for Seniors, so 3 rounds with one person short of top 2 cut. We are mixed in with the 5 Juniors so no one gets a bye.
Round 1 vs. A Little Girl in Jr.s w/ A Random Pile of Cards
I bet you Masters wish you got easy games like this. By the way, I did get T2 Vileplume.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Tristan L. w/ Hammertime
Cool auto-win (supposedly) matchup! I go first with an amazing start, and T2 Vileplume ready. He has a pretty bad hand. What more can I ask for? Oh, and he thinks it’s bad that he has to play N on T1. Anyway, I get N’ed into a bad hand and whiff the T2 Vileplume. Next turn, I amazingly whiff the T3 Plume.
I finally get Vileplume out on T4 but by then it’s way too late. He has a few Darkrai out already charged and armored with Eviolite, I have no chance. Really upset I lost this early to a deck I shouldn’t have, but that’s Pokémon I guess.
1-1
Round 3. vs. Brandon S. w/ Fighters (Landorus, Terrakion, Groudon EX, Exp. Share)
pokemon-paradijs.comCool, another deck with a strong Item engine. I go first and, as expected, I get the T2 Plume. His start isn’t optimal, and he gets an Abundant Harvest off on T2. I follow up with a Frozen Wings for KO because of handy-dandy weakness and set him back a bit. This game gets trickier for him without anymore Exp. Shares and I’m careful with Kyurem not to faint until it wouldn’t be a problem.
A while longer into the game, I get a silly plan to help me not get starved of attackers and Energy. He has healthy Terrakion active and I have an extra Oddish benched. Since Terrakion has 130 HP, just short of a charged and a non-charged Retaliate, I attach to Oddish and Ram the Terrakion.
He doesn’t have much of a choice but to Land Crush it back. Then I bring in a Terrakion with two Energy and Retaliate for 90, putting him with 20 HP left. He ovbiously Land Crushes. I then can Retaliate back for KO, without wasting an Energy attachment.
A bit later, I get another silly plan. He has Terrakion with three Energy and an Exp. Share that he attached very early. I drop Mewtwo + DCE, knowing that he doesn’t run Mewtwo, and KO’ed his active. Now, at the time, we both thought Exp. Share’s effect was mandatory, but neither of us brought it up, both just assuming that was right, so, he moved the Energy back to Terrakion to make 4 Energy on it and whacked my Mewtwo for 90.
I planned this so I could manually attach an Energy to Mewtwo (my other DCE was wasted on Kyurem earlier) and have exactly enough Energy to X Ball KO. He is then starved of Energy and the I take the win. I am not sure how the game would’ve gone had we known that Exp. Share’s effect is not mandatory, but I always beat Brandon anyway.
2-1
Unfortunately, I whiffed a Victory Cup at 4th place, but at least I got two packs. There was a Truth deck there that got 2nd (no one played Raikou) and I was lucky to avoid that deck during the day because I surely would’ve lost.
Battle Road #4 – Burlington, NC
Alright, finally the last BR! In Hillsborough, The Truth player, William, let me know that he was coming here with The Truth. For this Battle Road, I was planning all along to play my neat Accelgor/Gothitelle deck, but found myself really liking the deck I played the previous day. I thought and re-thought my choice and decided about 15 minutes before registration closed.
Unfortunately, I lolligagged a bit and hurridely scribbled my decklist, getting in just in time, despite getting there an hour earlier…
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Pokémon – 18 4 Pichu HS 1 Shaymin EX 1 Kyurem EX |
Trainers – 32 4 Twins 3 N
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Energy – 10 4 Prism 3 F 1 M – Special |
pokemon-paradijs.comSadly, I wimped out on Gothigor, it operated off Items and I was too scared of The Truth. So, I just changed this deck a little to make my Truth matchup favorable, while keeping it consistent; here are the changes I made because it’s boring work figuring it out from the list:
-1 Professor Juniper, -1 Pokémon Collector, -1 Oddish UD, -1 F Energy.
+1 N, +1 Cobalion NVI, +1 Special Metal, +1 Pokémon Catcher.
I needed more N for Shaymin EX. I dropped a Juniper because seemingly every time I used a Juniper the day before I ended up discarding another Juniper so I knew I didn’t need four. That was just a needed change and had nothing to do with The Truth.
I decided to drop an Oddish while keeping Vileplume to make the line 3-0-4 because it was easier to search out Oddish and I wanted to keep my chances of drawing into Vileplume. I dropped Collector to make my Pichu/Collector split 4/3, still statistically guaranteeing a start of either one.
To theoretically give my Truth matchup a huge boost, I included some interesting cards. First up is Cobalion NVI. Kyurem EX would just screw me over a ton if I couldn’t 1HKO it. I included Special Metal mainly to not get 1HKO’ed by Hail Blizzard but it also works well against Bolt Strike should I encounter it. Now, for the nasty one: Pokémon Catcher. I absolutely cannot believe I hadn’t thought of this before. So, imagine this scenario:
pokemon-paradijs.comYou get Vileplume out with an extra Oddish just sitting there being worthless but you had to get it out there in case your opponent could Catcher-KO your only one before you got Item-lock. Now, all four Rare Candy and Vileplume are dead cards for the rest of the game.
So, instead of sacrificing my Oddish to activate Twins, I would sacrifice Vileplume so my opponent would have to expend more resources KOing it. Then, I would get whatever I needed at the moment with Twins, Catcher an important Pokémon, Rare Candy to Vileplume, and Retaliate (hopefully) KO. I imagine that to be one of the most handy abilities an Item-lock deck can have.
However, this is more handy against The Truth, because we will both hold off on Vileplume a bit so we can set up with the few Items we have. Since Reuniclus BLW is such a key part in The Truth’s strategy, and is hard to stream consistently, and because the opponent typically does NOT expect a Catcher out of Item-lock, this can be a crippling, match-winning card in Vileplume mirrors.
Now that you hopefully understand this extremely odd list, let’s see how it can do…
(Oh, and we Seniors hit cursed number 7 in attendance again, and the Juniors had 9. Fail.)
Round 1 vs. Tristan L. w/ Hammertime
Okay, I get a rematch with this guy. I don’t remember if I got the T2 Plume, but I probably did. We both had slow setups and two out of three of his Darkrai were prized. His turn to get stupidly unlucky. I get two Terrakion powered up eventually and since he doesn’t run any attackers besides Darkrai he can’t do much about that.
1-0
Round 2 vs. William L. w/ The Truth
pokemon-paradijs.comAlright, I’m excited to vs. the deck I over-teched against! Unfortunately, he goes first and flips over a lone Solosis, which I might’ve donked had I gone first. I started with a Pichu and Kyurem EX. He uses a Sage’s Training right off the bat and as he’s deciding what to get he drops a Reuniclus out of his Sage cards and says he really didn’t want me too see that. I didn’t really care though.
His Sage forces him into a painful discard of Shaymin UL, Shaymin EX, and a bottom half of Kyogre & Groudon LEGEND so I know he hit a Reuniclus off that Sage. He then shows me the KGL top half in his hand. Wow. He then attaches a Prism to Solosis, drops a Darkrai EX, and actually uses Solosis’ attack, Cell Culture.
On my turn I use two Communication at a time to put away two Vileplume in exchange for Terrakion and Oddish. I probably played some supporter during my turn (All 17 + 4 Random Receiver pretty much guarantees it) and attached to Terrakion. I chose to ignore Playground this time because I didn’t really need it and it looked as if Playground would benefit him.
In his turn, he Communicated away that useless half of KGL for Duosion, which he promptly evolved the benched Solosis into, and left his other Solosis active to get KO’ed because he had Twins in-hand. I went for the bait and KO’ed the Solosis with a minimum-powered Retaliate. I knew he wanted me to but I needed to start taking prizes sometime and I also had the secret weapon, Catcher, ready. So he obviously uses his Twins and evolves to the Reuniclus he got off Sage. Oh and this whole three turns he completely ignored the Vileplume line!
I forget if he was building up an attacker and if he was than I forget which one, but he was extremely shocked when I dropped Catcher to drag up his Reuniclus (I was so tempted to use it on Darkrai!). In the same turn I candied to Vileplume to slow down his process of getting another Reuniclus out. Then I obviously attached and Land Crushed Reuniclus for KO. Phew. That was fun.
pokemon-paradijs.comHe then played down a Mewtwo EX and DCE and X Balled. I benched and attached to a second Terrakion and whacked the Mewtwo for 90. Then he did this nasty little trick of retreating (burning a DCE) to a second Mewtwo, Seeker’ing up the damaged Mewtwo, attaching a DCE, and KOing my Terrakion. Ouch. I brought in my other Terrakion and again, whacked the Mewtwo for a solid 90. He then did the same little trick as last turn and X Balled. I used Sage’s Training on my somewhat thin deck to grab a Collector and something else to set myself up for an awesome, yet extremely simple, play next turn. Then I didn’t attach and mysteriously just Retaliated for 30.
So, on his turn he easily KO’ed my Terrakion with his Mewtwo with 30 damage on it. I promoted the same old Pichu that I opened with and Collector’ed for a Mewtwo EX with DCE in my hand to put him in an impossible position. There was a flaw in that plan though that I should’ve seen coming with the luck we all know I have. My only Mewtwo was in my last 4 Prizes.
Odds of that? Not much. Take four cards from a sixty card deck that has one Mewtwo in it and you’ll not find a Mewtwo in the prizes very often. Ugh, this is bad for me now. I know The Truth can recover from some pretty tough situations but it certainly wouldn’t have recoverd from that.
From there I don’t remember any details until this: We still both have 4 Prizes left. My Kyurem EX and his Mewtwo EX (I believe still with 30 damage) are active, both with a Prism and a DCE attached. He X Balls for 120. He has a rather large hand but my best bet is to use Frozen Wings to discard his 4th DCE. On his turn time is called and he N’s away both of our huge, worthless hands. His absolute only chance to have this game is to get an Energy which is highly unlikely (There were not many left in his huge deck and he only got 4 from N).
Obviously (again, it’s my trend of luck), he hits the Energy for the KO. Enormous sigh. That ended up giving him the game because he also hit his ONlY Reuniclus BLW left off that 4 card N. Even if time hadn’t been called I still would’ve won because I would’ve come back with Shaymin EX + N, obviously letting him get to 1 Prize first. I’m not sure he knows how narrowly he escaped defeat three different times but hey, that’s Pokémon.
1-1
Round 3 vs. Jonah w/ The Same Deck He Used In BR #1
pokemon-paradijs.comI unfortunately have to fill up his bench early with Pichu. It doesn’t matter because I get T2 Vileplume and blow all of his Fire Pokémon away with Kyurem EX and he can’t stream attackers fast enough because he doesn’t have Energy acceleration.
2-1
The last round, William from Round 2 is against Hunter in a battle for first. Since Hunter has awful resistance, if William wins than I get second! Unfortunately, Hunter manages to win with an Item-based just because two of William’s Oddish are prized. Wow his luck took a drastic turn, and consequently mine because of William’s Round 3 loss I have to settle for 3rd place.
Closing
Overall, these Battle Roads were pretty interesting and fun. I enjoyed playing a variety of decks and surprising people, which is what I do best. I also like the fact that my finishes are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th, which is kind of funny. Sadly, my records do not know how to start counting at 1.
Anyway thanks for reading! Please let me know anything you have to say about the article but refrain from being too harsh please. I appreciate criticism but don’t just bash for no reason, explain how I can improve. Deck help is fine but it won’t help much because I’m not playing any of these decks again.
Rotation is confirmed BW-on, all of those decks are focused on cards from Triumphant and Undaunted. Good luck at Nationals! I won’t be attending unfortunately but if you’re reading this article, you’ve probably read the others on this site and are well prepared!
~Grant
run kumis.dec
you can find it on the deckout and it seems to me to be a rogue.
Oh that, it’s too much of a ripoff of one of my favorite decks, Vilegar. (My favorite deck is Klinkorners, which if I was going to nats, I would play.
Kumis.deck uses Mismagius UL, which moves energy around. Not the Poltergeist one.
oh XD
yeah as said before itsd essentially klinkorners but with vileplume. and the heal is mismagius UL/seeker instead of a klinlkang/max potion
interesting
Kumis.dec is actually a lot like Klinklang decks, just with trainer lock.
Good job, and thanks for the credit!
I always respect rogue players, not only because they had the guts to play something non-meta, but also because they actually got something to work.
In the game against The Truth, he ignored the Vileplume line because there’s no point of it (theoretically) if you play against Vileplume. It’s safer to get it out, but it also takes up the resources you could use for your Reuniclus.
I wanted to play Rogue for a BR, but I just barely couldn’t get it to work. I opted to play Zeels instead. (The rogue was Hippowdon NXD/Weezing HS, it’s supposed to be a metagame counter with Weezing against Mewtwos). If I had gone to a last BR I would have played that.
Thanks.
Btw, I know why he didn’t get Vileplume out that’s why I teched in Catcher because I knew he wouldn’t go for Vileplume. Hippowdon over Groudon wut? Nice idea though. One time, I thought of a deck that contained: Zapdos NXD, Hippowdon NXD, Durant NVI, Vanilluxe NXD, and Cobalion NVI. It was for HS-NXD format. It was better than expected, but it still was terrible.
Hippowdon isn’t an EX, giving it an advantage over groudon.
Hippowdon has Lightning Resistance, giving it an advantage over Terrakion.
I’m working on a Tornadus/Hippowdon/Aerodactyl rogue as we speak. Totally legit.
That sounds pretty cool.
You should have mentioned who won all of the Battle Roads. :P
And coincidence, you wrote an article and I was the first viewer and rater.
-1
jk
“-1”
Gee thanks, “friend”.
+1
Ben won the first one, Tristan won 2nd and 3rd ones. And you lucksacked by your opponent prizing two out of three oddish in the last round, I mentioned that and if he had won than I would’ve gotten second.
Very interesting deck ideas! If I wasn’t such a terrible player and didn’t need to do well at BRs I would probably run fun stuff like that.
Good way to put Carnavine as the article picture, that way people think you are benching people out….
Credit to Adam.
Great article. I really like the 3-0-4 line on Vileplume. The only reason I won in Top 2 was because my opponent prized both Vileplume 2 out of three rounds. The 1st round i got set up too fast with 2 darkrai with eviolite against his mewscoops deck. But I did not even remotely deserve the 3rd round win where he filpped tails too many times and had no access to Vileplume all game because he had it prized. Since you played so many different Vileplume decks what are your thoughts on Pooka suggesting VVV as a counter for Darkrai? Obviously it has a favourable Darkrai matchup but what about the rest of the field.
Doesn’t mewscoops, well, scoop to Eviolited Darkrai?
Nah, double heads can hit Darkrai for 40 and has a 37.5% chance of happening with Victory Star. With paralysis over and over again they can actually deck you. Not only that but T2 plume can prevent you from getting out the Eviolite in time and if you only get one out there is a good chance they can take the game…. eventually. I won only due to Vileplume prizes and 3 turns of all tails on a mew twice and a gloom once in game 3. Game 1 I eviolited both Darkrai and he scooped. Game 2 no eviolite = Darkrai loses.
And if you don’t flip 2 heads, you try again for a 25% chance of no paralysis?
I don’t think so.
No I think you just keep it and stall. You have to play really fast though.
Exactly. In order to win against Vanilluxe with Darkrai, you have to burn through your deck to hit your Eviolites and get quick KOs because if you don’t get a lead of at least 3 before they set up: You are probably going to lose. That being said your deck will be very thin, so they can stall you out. In Pooka’s Top 4, his opponent played N twice to avoid decking out. This is a good example of why Darkrai has such a bad matchup even without getting double heads or even damaging Darkrai.
lol I finally get the name Mewscoops! I thought it was because in Mewscoops you can only do two things, flip over Mew, and then scoop. Now I get it because it’s Vanilluxe lol I’m so slow :P
MewVVV is dead IMO, because Thundurus and Darkrai/Eviolite ruins it. Standard VVV is okay I guess but is too slow now. Yes, it is good against Darkrai but CMT and Zeels outspeed it. It is great against Fighting decks so it might be a somewhat decent play but it depends on how fast it gets setup. I’m probably not the best guy to ask though as my experience with VVV is not much.
Um, you do know that VVV has Top Cutted Nationals in Europe (I’m not sure which country) at first seed, and made it again at the same Nats at around 7th seed, right?
nope , thanks for bringing that to my attention.
I really hope that you’re in the Juniors division, because I didn’t think any of the lists except the Electrode deck. Too many trainers in the Vileplume decks, and Spinarak HS? Really? Sorry dude. At least you were ballsy enough to actually play these decks at battle roads.
Sometimes it’s fun to just goof off. If you think that someone’s a failure because they decided to use a silly deck, then you’re taking this game too seriously. Lighten up, it’s supposed to be a FUN game.
Also, he stated CLEARLY that he’s in Seniors throughout the article, so, yeah.
I’m not goofing off! Sheesh people seriously underestimate these decks without even trying them AT ALL.
I guess I should’ve worded that differently. I don’t think you’re goofing off; in fact, if you know me, I don’t think I’ve EVER used a metagame deck! (I used Gyarados, but whacky versions of it) You don’t need to use a completely metagame deck (i.e. no crazy techs) to perform well; you obviously did well here, and I think you’re on to something with the Catcher in Vileplume (I’ve teched them in MY Vileplume builds, mainly because they’re just so much fun to use right before you Candy up the ‘Plume XD). red_boy5 was just making seem like you’re an idiot for using a silly deck (just because it works well doesn’t mean it’s not silly :P), so I stuck up for you. Sorry if it made it seem like I was too.
I’m sorry I came out so hard on that last post. I really love playing rogue, especially being a senior, but it just annoys me when I see a list that I think has no shot at winning and it does. Same as Dane, the only time I ran a close to metagame deck was a Reshiphlosion deck on the PTCGO, but I didn’t have rare candies and I only had 2 Typhlosions. Right now, I’m running an Electrode Prime variant with Pokedex (a better version of research record) and Alph Lithograph TWO (the one that shuffles your deck) I still don’t think I underestimated the deck, because you went to one battle road with each deck and went 4-2 total with one deck, 3-2 and 2-1 meaning that the decks still weren’t tested enough to prove if they’re good or not.
Yes, I’m in Seniors as Dane_Carlson said and the decks AREN’T silly. They are competitive decks.
If you can bait out a lot of Switch/Junk Arm while spamming Spinarak on stuff like Smeargle or babies which is easy with Twins, Catcher, and Revive, than it turns out to be easy to lock them. Spinarak is actually a pretty good (kind of, in this kind of deck) card methinks. Too many Items on Vileplume? Dude, the WHOLE POINT is to mainstream the deck for a T2 Plume. I rarely whiff it. Electrode is like EX Corners except it’s good because it gets energy accel and Twins/Black Belt.
Why not just run Vileplume for the Switch/Junk Arm?
IMO that would ruin the deck. I’d rather have a way to dig out my one-ofs from the prizes (Alph Litho), Crushing Hammer, Lost Remover, and Sableye/Junk Arm for Uber disruption than merely locking Items; that would make the deck much weaker. Not to mention the awesome synergy of Max Potion/Yanmega or all of the other Items. Almost half the deck is Items, if you wanted to include Vileplume than it would have to be a completely different deck.
Nice article, I love rogue players, and they’re fun to read. You played with all the fun cards like Electrode and Spinarak that I never got around to making :)
Only line I didn’t like: “Most Vileplume decks get the T2 Vileplume every now and then, but is mainly a bonus.”
It’s just not true. A deck that runs vileplume runs it for a supplement to whatever they’re running, and as a shutdown to the trainer clunked decks in the meta right now. And I haven’t met a player who runs vileplume and considers a T2 plume a ‘bonus.’
wow, that is some insane decklists. deck #1: “it ended up like a Hammertime/Eel hate/Smeargle hate deck”, haha, i can appeciate that. deck #3 is almost quad vile/quad bulls, interesting. keep pushing the envelope.
“(Oh, and we Seniors hit cursed number 7 in attendance again, and the Juniors had 9. Fail.)”
Got me laughing to myself for some reason, instant +1.
After reading this I made my own list of the Plume/Corners (Plume/Terrakion? Plume and friends? Whatever you call it) and, gotta say, it’s an awesome deck. I was thinking of playing something similar to this, straight Vileplume and some sort of quick deck (considered Terrakion or an Eels engine) but just didn’t have enough confidence in it. Well I tried my own list and have been making some modifications to it ever since (Notably, I run FSL, a higher energy count and a second mewtwo, and have teched in Shaymin UL with thoughts of a tornadus/EX or zekrom tech), and so far it’s been fantastic. Autowin vs. Hammertime, positive matchups against all other Darkrai decks, a decent enough Eels matchup, and autowins vs. quad decks and Durant… very solid through and through. I don’t see why people don’t play something like this. It keeps the massive advantage of Vileplume in this format, without the slow setup speed or time problems of VVV, Meganium, Mismagius and Accelgor variants.