Birds and Toads

Hey what’s up everyone! James here and I am super excited for the new season as I have already racked up a few Championship Points from League Challenges. There are tons of viable decks in this new format and today I will be looking at Turbo Lugia and Seismitoad. Let’s jump right in!

Seismitoad

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The main strategy of the deck is to use Seismitoad’s attack Quaking Punch by turn one or two to prevent your opponent from playing Item cards on their next turn. This may not seem very powerful since Quaking Punch only does a base damage of 30, but when you combine it with Hypnotoxic Laser and Muscle Band, the damage adds up fast. We also have some partners since Seismotoad cannot do the job alone. Now that we have the strategy down, let’s take a look at the list:

Card Explanations

3 Seismitoad-EX

Four Seismitoad is overkill. Sure, it increases your chance of starting with it, but how many games are you going to use four Seismitoad? Never! In testing I have found that we only use about two Seismitoad per game.

2-2 Pyroar FLF

Pyroar is in the deck for the Virizion/Genesect matchup because without it, the matchup is an auto-loss. Pyroar is better than Reshiram because the VG player has to at least put 50 damage on Reshiram to allow it to 1HKO a Virizion or Genesect. Pyroar can also stall if you are having a hard time setting up.

3 Bicycle

Bike is good in this deck because it plays down a lot of cards in the early turns. It helps us get set up faster and it doesn’t use up our Supporter for the turn.

That does it for the card explanations as there really isn’t that much to explain besides the cards above. Now, let’s look at the matchups.

Matchups

Big Basics – Favorable

Seismitoad does a pretty good job versus Landorus-EX, hitting for 100 with a Muscle Band. Mewtwo counters Lucario, 1HKOing it with DCE, Muscle Band, and a Hypnotoxic Laser. That is when there is only one Energy on Lucario. As long as we set up decently, the game is ours.

Mirror – Even

This matchup is decided on who gets the first Quaking Punch. The first person unable to play Items is at a huge disadvantage, because that means not being able to attach a Muscle Band or play any other strong cards that are needed.

Plasma/Kyurem – Very Favorable

This matchup is greatly in our favor. Since they can only attach one Energy per turn because of not being able to play Colress Machine, that means it takes them 3 turns to Blizzard Burn. Once they do that, they can’t play any Switch or Float Stone to use Blizzard Burn in consecutive turns. We are also shutting off Abilities and they cannot play Startling Megaphone because of Quaking Punch. It takes so many resources for our opponent to KO a Seismitoad.

With Muscle Band and Hypnotoxic Laser, we should win the game easily. We also have the option to just go with Pyroar and ditch Seismitoad, but since most Kyurem decks play Hypnotoxic Laser, Seismitoad is better most of the time.

Plasma/Lugia – Favorable

This matchup is slightly less favorable because a quick Plasma Gale for 3 Prizes before we can set up Garbodor is really scary for us. But if we do slow down our opponent enough that they cannot get a Plasma Gale till turn 3 (which is not that hard to do), it’s just like the Kyurem matchup: super favorable. Pyroar is also a good option unless they play Beartic FFI.

Virizion/Genesect – Favorable to Very Unfavorable

As long as we can get out at least one Pyroar, we should be fine. They do have G Booster, but once they get it out, we can either respond with our other Pyroar or just hit with Mewtwo’s X Ball. If they run Beartic FFI, we are pretty much screwed. We can KO Beartic with Mewtwo after they attack using Igloo Hold, but we need DCE, Muscle Band, and LaserBank. After we do that, they can just G Booster and we probably cannot respond right back with a KO.

I am expecting the Pyroar decks to drop in popularity, however, so we should see the VG decks start to not play Beartic anymore.

Virizion/Dragonite – Highly Favorable

Almost all Dragonite decks do not run any Evolutions besides Altaria BCR, so all we need to do is get one Pyroar going and we win; it’s pretty simple.

Stage 2 Decks – Very Favorable

Seismitoad shuts these decks down. All we need to do is Quaking Punch over and over again to prevent them from using Rare Candy. Stage 1s are a thing, but most Stage 2 decks only play these as 1-of copies and we prevent them from playing Item cards, so we force them to draw into them.

Yveltal – Even

With Yveltal’s recent loss of Dark Patch, we now have a chance in this matchup. We need to start off using Quaking Punch while setting up Mewtwo on the Bench getting ready to X Ball their Yveltal once they get enough Energy on them. Hypnotoxic Laser and Muscle Band are so good in this matchup because the extra damage allows us to get KOs we wouldn’t have gotten without.

That was the Seismitoad deck. It is very powerful and I would definitely consider it for upcoming League Challenges and possibly Fall Regionals. Now, let’s take a look at a deck a little more aggressive: Turbo Lugia!!!

Turbo Lugia

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Since pretty much everyone knows the strategy of Lugia, I will explain it briefly. The main strategy of the deck is to take Prizes in chunks with Lugia so you can win the game fast. Setting up Benched Pokémon with Thundurus-EX’s Raiden Knuckle is also an option when unable to use Plasma Gale.

Let’s look at the list:

Card Explanations

1-1 Cofagrigus PLF 56

This is just for when we are short of a KO with Lugia. Cofagrigus allows us to place the extra damage we need to get the knockout.

0 N

I don’t like N at all in this deck. You are taking Prizes so quickly that Colress or Juniper is almost always better. Disruption is good, but most of the time you are just disrupting yourself.

4 Colress

Your Bench is filling up so fast that even a turn one Colress isn’t too bad. Mid game you will be always be drawing at least six cards.

4 Roller Skates, 2 Bicycle

Four Roller Skates in Plasma is amazing. You will draw into them often and 50% of the time it will become a Cheren, allowing you to draw three cards! I play two Bicycle is because we will often have a bunch of Colress Machine and Team Plasma Ball in our hand, which we can immediately play and then draw more cards.

4 Team Plasma Ball

We need as many ways to get out Deoxys, Thundurus, and Lugia as possible so that we can get Plasma Gale going ASAP.

3 Frozen City

Extra damage on our opponents can be the difference between a KO and not a KO, simple as that. Running three is the magic number since four is overkill and three is enough to win the Stadium war.

Matchups

Virizion/Genesect – Favorable

This matchup is simple. Make sure to get a Plasma Gale on Virizion before they can get the second Emerald Slash. Sometimes you can even Plasma Gale before they can get off the first Emerald Slash! VG is really in our favor because they have 170 HP and all we need to do is take two EX KOs and we win.

Big Basics – Slightly Unfavorable

Landorus and Lucario are annoying since they both have 180 HP. If we can get the four Deoxys in play and the Muscle Band on Lugia, we are in an amazing position. The one Startling Megaphone helps us out a lot in this matchup since they will have Garbodor and that shuts off Power Connect, Six Feet Under, and Overflow.

We need to either have taken 3 Prizes with Plasma Gale before they get out Garbodor because then we can use Startling Megaphone then take the last EX KO. The other option is to Lysandre out Garbodor because they probably will not be able to get out another Garbodor for at least one more turn.

Seismitoad – Very Unfavorable

This matchup is awful. We have to get out a bunch of Deoxys and a Muscle Band and three Energy (DCE and a Plasma) on Lugia on our first turn to have a chance in the game. It’s pretty unlikely to do, but if we get some heads on Roller Skates it’s possible.

Plasma/Kyurem – Favorable

We can KO Kyurem so easily they would have to get a KO on Lugia on their second turn to have a chance against us. Another thing your opponent can do is have a Thundurus with a Muscle Band and four Deoxys to 1HKO Lugia. If your opponent does indeed do that, just Raiden Knuckle and set up Lugia and hope they do not have a Lysandre in hand to KO Lugia once again.

Overall the matchup is in our favor because the things I mentioned are pretty difficult for the opponent to do.

Plasma/Lugia – Even

This matchup is pretty even. We are just a bit faster and have an extra Colress Machine. We should try to use Thundurus-EX to put some damage on Lugia so we can 1HKO it easier if we cannot get the turn two KO on an EX with Lugia. Whoever can get the first EX KO with Lugia is favored to win.

Yveltal Variants – Even to Unfavorable

The straight and less common Yveltal deck is the easiest matchup. We have Abilities in this matchup, so this allows us to 1HKO Yveltal super easily. We have Thundurus-EX to set up Lugia so he can Plasma Gale for 3 Prizes. Lugia does get KO’d easily by Yveltal, but then we can just set up another one with Thundurus; pretty straightforward.

Yveltal/Garbodor is the matchup that is pretty hard to win versus. First they have Garbodor, which prevents us from getting a 1HKO on Yveltal with Thundurus since Power Connect is shut off. Then we do not have access to Overflow, which is crucial since KOing two Yveltal is way easier than three. We need to Lysandre out the Trubbish and Garbodor quickly or we will just get destroyed by Yveltal. It will take more turns for the Yveltal player to get set up since Dark Patch has rotated out. If there is any time that we can KO a Yveltal with the only Energy on board we should always take the option since they cannot attack us back unless it is with Yveltal XY.

Virizion/Dragonite – Favorable

I like this matchup since it will take our opponent three whole turns to start attacking with Dragonite, so that gives us plenty of time to set up Lugia to 1HKO Dragonite with Plasma Gale. If we Prize a Deoxys and part of the Cofagrigus line (or we cannot get them out) we can use Thundurus-EX to put damage on Dragonite before we use Lugia. Super Scoop Up is annoying to deal with since they can take off the damage, but if they start to 1HKO EX’s with Jet Sonic (which can be reached with three Altaria and a Muscle Band), we will almost certainly lose if we cannot get 1HKOs with Lugia.

That was the Turbo Lugia deck. It is really fun to play and is also pretty cheap to make if you are on a budget! It’s really fast and aggressive and I hope you consider it for upcoming League Challenges.

Thanks for reading guys! I hope you guys enjoyed the decks I looked at and I will see you next time. OshaWaterBottle out.