Un-Tropical Paradise

Playing Blastoise without Beach
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Linoone: State Pokémon of Wisconsin

Hey everyone! Wrags23 here again after not writing for just over a month. For those of you who don’t know, I am a 15 year old new Masters Division player from Wisconsin. Other than playing Pokémon, I really enjoy playing basketball (the season starts next week!) and other sports.

While most of you were attending Fall Regionals, the Legendary Treasures Prerelease, and maybe even a League Challenge or two, I still haven’t gotten the opportunity to attend any events! I can’t even make it to a Pokémon League on a consistent basis, considering the fact that I live about 80 minutes from the nearest one and I can’t drive. The nearest Regional to me (Fort Wayne) is 9.5 hours away, and the next League Challenge is on December 1st. I have been absolutely giddy to start my Masters career, to say the least.

Even though I haven’t been able to attend any official events, I have still been playtesting like mad. Last season, I piloted a Plasma deck for the 3 tournaments I attended. The deck gave me decent results, but when I saw the rule changes coming November 8th, I knew it was time for a change. Combining the loss of Turn 1 Frost Spears and Raiden Knuckles and a flippy Catcher mechanism, I didn’t feel confident playing the deck in a competitive environment. Blastoise, Virizion variants, straight Darkrai, and Flareon were really my top four when it came to choosing a deck. I decided on building Flareon and Blastoise, mainly due to cost.

Today I will be focusing on Blastoise, an early favorite to be one of the heavy contenders in the coming format. My list, however, is different than most successful Blastoise lists in one way, though: I don’t run Tropical Beach. Like many players, I really don’t have the money to drop $600 on the 3 copies necessary for consistent performance. I believe, however, that the deck can still win games without it. Anthony Wilson’s Top 8 finish at Arizona Regionals with a Beachless Blastoise deck validates this, and his list can be found here.

When first building the deck, I made the mistake of taking a standard list, and instead of finding a replacement for Beach, I decided that a few more Supporters, Jirachi-EX, and Battle City could take its place. While the deck still had power, there was absolutely no consistency or draw power. I learned that you do need to find a replacement for Beach, and in this article I will be going over two ways to do that.

List 1: Blastoise w/ Electrode PLF

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Electrode to the rescue!

This is actually the card that Wilson used in his deck to take Beach’s place. When I first heard the idea, I was skeptical about running a 2-2 Stage 1 evolution line in a deck that can already have troubles setting up and keeping consistency. I did end up testing it, though, because of the success that Anthony had with it.

I instantly realized one thing; Magnetic Draw is good. Really good. Being able to play your hand down and know that you can always refill your hand is great in Blastoise. The Catcher nerf also helps this deck, preventing people from just Catcher-ing up this 90 HP card and taking away your Magnetic Draw with a quick KO.

The only downside is that, because Magnetic Draw is an Ability, Garbodor shuts it down, making an already bad matchup worse.

So, without further ado, here is the list:

Pokémon – 16

4 Squirtle BCR

4 Blastoise BCR

2 Keldeo-EX

2 Black Kyurem-EX PLS

2 Voltorb PLF

2 Electrode PLF

Trainers – 32

4 Skyla

3 Professor Juniper

3 N

2 Colress

1 Cilan

 

4 Rare Candy

3 Ultra Ball

2 Level Ball

3 Superior Energy Retrieval

1 Energy Retrieval

2 Tool Scrapper

1 Float Stone

1 Dowsing Machine

 

2 Pokémon Center

Energy – 12

9 W

3 L

Card Explanations

4 Skyla

When I have Electrode, I like the idea of playing Skyla. Like I said earlier, I don’t have to play a draw Supporter every turn, so I find it better to be able to search for whatever you need and then use Magnetic Draw to fill up your hand. It helps to get T2 Blastoise, which is really key to this deck.

1 Cilan

Say what you want about this card, but this card is good in Blastoise. While it is very situational, it can set up huge, game-breaking plays. Although it does use your Supporter for the turn, this is where Magnetic Draw comes into play.

1 Dowsing Machine

In my opinion, this is really the ACE SPEC of choice. Really, the only other good option for the deck is Computer Search. I prefer not to play Computer Search because I play 4 Skyla, and I usually don’t have many problems getting the cards I need into play. Dowsing can get back key, game-changing cards like Cilan, Superior Energy Retrieval, Tool Scrapper, and even Float Stone.

2 Pokémon Center

In this deck, you need to run some kind of Stadium to counter cards like Frozen City (this deck’s nightmare) and Virbank City Gym. The two best options are this and Battle City, and with Electrode, I felt I didn’t need the draw power that comes with Battle City. Also, being able to heal snipe damage off Blastoise and Electrode is a nice option to have against Darkrai EX and Kyurem PLF.

Other Options

1 Max Potion

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Black Kyurem discards Energy anyway.

This is a card that I am still experimenting with in my list. With 4 cards to Energy out of the discard (5 if you count Dowsing Machine), I am not too concerned about discarding the Energy. If you get off to a slow start, which this deck occasionally does, this can save you for at least a few more turns until you can get set up.

The problem comes when you don’t have a way of returning your discarded Energy, and the card is a big risk to take that rarely pays off in these situations.

3 Keldeo-EX or 3 Black Kyurem EX

These are your main attackers, and when you only run two copies of each, you can come up short if one is Prized or discarded with an early Juniper. It is especially frustrating when, for example, you are playing VirGen and both Black Kyurem EX are Prized, or both of your Keldeo-EX are Prized against a Status Condition deck (like Ninetales).

List 2: Blastoise w/ Bicycle

The second option for replacing Beach is Bicycle. Like Electrode, it isn’t a Supporter and it allows you to draw cards until you have 4 in your hand. With it being an Item card, it also has the ability to take advantage of Skyla and Dowsing Machine, something that Electrode can’t do.

Here’s my list:

Pokémon – 14

4 Squirtle BCR

4 Blastoise BCR

3 Keldeo-EX

2 Black Kyurem-EX PLS

1 Suicune PLB

Trainers – 34

3 Skyla

3 Professor Juniper

3 N

2 Colress

1 Cilan

3 Bicycle

 

4 Rare Candy

3 Ultra Ball

1 Heavy Ball

1 Level Ball

3 Superior Energy Retrieval

1 Energy Retrieval

2 Tool Scrapper

1 Float Stone

1 Dowsing Machine

 

2 Battle City

Energy – 12

9 W

3 L

Card Explanations

1 Suicune PLB

This is another card that gets a boost from the Catcher nerf. It can buy you valuable time while you set up your other attackers, depending on the matchup. It also gives you some help against VirGen, a bad matchup for this deck, and it provides an edge in the mirror match, forcing your opponent to set up a non-EX attacker (most likely Blastoise himself) to get rid of this little nuisance.

1 Heavy Ball, 1 Level Ball

Because I am not running Electrode, I like to go with one Heavy Ball and one Level Ball to get T2 Blastoise easier. Heavy Ball can also search out Black Kyurem EX, giving you the potential to be using Black Ballista on the second turn of the game.

2 Battle City

The “poor man’s Tropical Beach” is better than Pokémon Center in this situation. Sure, it requires a flip, and if you do get heads you only get to draw one card, but in Blastoise (especially with Bicycle) one card can make a big difference in winning and losing a game.

Other Options

Jirachi-EX

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Safe at last.

This card benefits a ton from the Catcher errata. Stellar Guidance is certainly a stellar way to improve consistency in this deck, and with a flippy Catcher, it should be safe on your Bench when it does hit the field.

Energy Search

One of the classic Trainer cards can still be useful in Blastoise. The most common use is to search out those key L Energies for Black Ballista. It is almost always good to see in your hand, because it usually means more damage output. It can be run in both this version and the Electrode build.

Conclusion

Blastoise is often linked immediately to Tropical Beach, and $700 out of your pocket. While it is clear that Tropical Beach takes this deck to a new level (especially with the rule changes), the deck can still be successful without it. All you need is a little creativity and a whole lot of playtesting, but this deck has the raw power to win its fair share of games, Beach or no Beach.

Good Luck on the rest of your seasons!

Reader Interactions

11 replies

  1. Christian Ciocoiu

    Great article! I used to play beachless Blastoise, but I quit the deck because I wasn’t getting the card draws I needed. I’ve recently been thinking about that deck again, and am not sure about switching to it. Do you have any suggestions?

    • Abe Tyler  → Christian

      I don’t know when you started playing it, but, like I said in the article, Electrode was never really big until Anthony Wilson made Top 8 at Arizona Regionals with it. It is definitely worth testing. Good Luck!

  2. Tim Long

    One card that will give Blastoise a nice alternative draw in the next
    set is going to be Delphox, who has an ability identical to the beloved
    Magnezone Prime’s Magnetic Draw.

    • MultX  → Tim

      I think no. Another stage2 just for drawpower will really hurt the consistency instead of upping it. Magnezone was a great attacker as well.

      • Joseph Lee  → MultX

        I question Delphox even with Emboar.

        1) Two Stage 2s is still challenging without a card like Broken Time-Space or pre-nerf Rare Candy.

        2) Delphox has a good attack, but not a great attack. You’ll need a minimum of three Energy to do anything and if you push for a OHKO, Mewtwo EX (and by then, Yveltal EX) will likely come up for the easy OHKO. You’ll have to be able to spam Delphox and Energy to keep taking out all the hitters that smack Energy hogs upside the head.

        Magneboar decks were already down and out by the time we got Mewtwo EX and Frozen City; by the time Delphox hits we’ll also have Yveltal EX. You’ll have to perfectly stream Delphox after Delphox and I don’t know what you’ll do against Garbodor decks.

        • Joseph Lee  → MultX

          Not following; yes you could do that but it doesn’t strike me as the best use for either card. Relevance to Delphox/Emboar? If you meant as an additional attacker… yes, but now you’re adding in Special Energy cards.

      • Tim Long  → MultX

        To clarify, I’m pointing out Delphox as a thin tech here, 1-0-1 probably, just as an alternative to Electrode. Since I use beach, I don’t think I’d run it in my own list, but if you’re trying Electrode, Delphox may be a more
        powerful alternative for you.

        Delphox, also, is not really an attacker, and its retreat cost is undesirable, its just the ability that stands out to me, since its nice to see some good draw power returning to Pokemon, that we’d been lacking ever since the format was BW-on.

        I’d probably not run it in with Emboar either, since that deck has enough
        on its plate as is, lacking the versatility of Keldeo EX.

  3. jet9855

    awesome article man! I too am 15 and obviously unable to drive. And the nearest league is 70 min away. I have a cousin that is mid 20s and he drives me sometimes but not as often as I would like so I am forced to play with competitive decks with about 5 of my friends. I have just picked up blastiose yesterday and today I played with my best friend he played plasma and used frozen city. I had no idea what stadium to use to combat it and I didn’t use or proxy any tropical beaches. This article was perfectly timed you had some great ideas thank you.

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