Dark Mountain

Pokémon [16]

2 — Darkrai EX — Dark Explorers (63/101)
2 — Darkrai EX — BREAKpoint (74/122)

2 — Larvitar — Fates Collide (40/124)
2 — Tyranitar — Fates Collide (56/124)

1 — Sableye — Dark Explorers (62/108)
3 — Spiritomb — Legendary Treasures (87/113)
4 — Yveltal — Generations (RC16/RC32)

Trainers [29]

2 — Pal Pad — Flashfire (92/106)
2 — Rare Candy — Primal Clash (135/160)
3 — Battle Compressor — Phantom Forces (92/119)

2 — Skyla — BREAKpoint (148/162)
2 — Giovanni's Scheme —  BREAKthrough (138/162)
2 — Professor Birch's Observations — Primal Clash (134/160)
2 — Teammates — Primal Clash (141/160)
4 — Steven — Roaring Skies (90/108)
4 — N — Dark Explorers (96/108)

3 — Shadow Circle — XY (126/146)

1 — Dark Claw — Dark Explorers (92/108)
2 — Fighting Fury Belt — BREAKpoint (99/122)

Energy [15]

4 — Dangerous Energy — BREAKpoint (99/122)
11 — Dark Energy

Epilogue

Giovanni is a buffet of manliness. This is well known in the Pokémon world. But we've got here is a deck that provides this perspective in a whole new light—to show just how boss the boss really is.

We're going deep into the darkest depths of Mt. Silver, where Giovanni personally catches one of the most dangerous and powerful Pokémon of them all—Tyranitar. It might be previously unseen in the series, but Tyranitar would definitely be one of the Pokémon in Giovanni's top arsenal.

It's a Pokémon that embodies the status of elite power and respect, because it's so dangerous and elusive, only the most powerful trainers in the world could ever survive the expedition to capture one.

You see, unlike in the game, the most powerful Tyranitars in the world wouldn't be among the ones raised from Larvitar, but instead would be among one of the wild Tyranitar that exist as the alpha male and apex predators of Mt. Silver. And it shouldn't be a mystery as to why. Mt. Silver is a harsh environment, whose conditions would naturally breed strength in wild Pokémon that simply can't be achieved through traditional training.

If you wanted the strongest Tyranitar, in its prime, then you would have to journey through one of most dangerous territories in the Pokémon world, to fight a brutal monster in its natural habitat. And that's where our adventure begins—emblazoned by our collection of Pokémon and Supporters.

Giovanni has all kinds of people on his payroll—and his collection of Supporters here are intended to provide us with a lot of options—to successfully guide us through the darkest depths of Mt. Silver.

At the start of the game, we're just looking to set up with Battle Compressor and get ready for whatever Mt. Silver throws at us. Battle Compressor is like the juice. Everybody knows that Giovanni gets juiced. But for this expedition, he's going to need to get extra juiced. This doesn't mean getting careless though. Giovanni is a very smart man—so unless we want to waste it (or have it accidentally become our undoing) we'll need to be as tactical as possible with Battle Compressor.

First we need to pay careful attention of our deck's contents, because its consistency will ultimately want to define how we make our first play.

Typically, we're going to want to juice two Dark energy to set up for [Oblivion Wing]—and one spare Pokémon (to increase the consistency of our deck some). This will most likely be a Spiritomb—yet this is also where the caution begins.

Next check the board. If we don't already have a Spiritomb out, and we notice one or more of them as been prized, then we'll want to juice a different Pokémon instead (because juicing for Spiritomb would reduce the consistency too dramatically—and getting Spiritomb out to lock-down ACE SPEC cards right away is a top priority of ours every game).

If this is the case, you'll want to juice something like a spare Yveltal or Darkrai EX—which also serve as our best options for our second play with Battle Compressor (alongside two more Dark energy).

We traditionally only need three copies of Yveltal at most, and generally won't even be able to make use of another copy (since Tyranitar wants to be among the last two Pokémon we send out). The same is also very true for our Darkrai with {Dark Cloak} (since we traditionally only need one copy on the bench for its ability—and generally won't be able to make use of it for anything else).

Shadow Circle can be another prime selection to juice (in place of a Pokémon), but only if we absolutely don't need them, since they are really important for acing our opponent's Stadium cards.

Something we never want to ever consider juicing are Supporters. We need to keep out options as open as possible, and juicing our Supporters is only going to detract from the potency of our deck. Even if it's just one—it's still a bad choice. Because we can't assure the flow of the cards in each wheel, making every Supporter card very significant to the consistency of our deck.

We need to keep our team tight. Each crew member provides a unique talent to the team—and it's not ever certain which one we'll need to call—and when.

We have a couple primary objectives to accomplish in our opening turn. Get Yveltal active, get Spiritomb and Darkrai out on the bench, and hit the juice with Battle Compressor.

Now N is our primary resource for this. It unconditionally gets us the most cards one can wheel for at the start of the game, while Professor Birch's Observations acts our emergency backup (to increase the probability of being able to wheel in our opening turns).

Next we have Steven, who's like our soldier of fortune, providing us with the expert route to all our most important needs—alongside the luxury of selection between wheel Supporters (for when it's either in our favor to disrupt our opponent's hand with N—or when it's in our best interests to leave them empty handed with Professor Birch's Observations).

Steven is also our primary gateway to Teammates, which is our key card for summoning Tyranitar in the darkest hour. Skyla then acts our backup for this, while doubling as a tactical retrieval when we need to get to cards like Pal Pad, Shadow Circle, and Battle Compressor—when we need them right away—or can't afford to wheel for them.

On the far end, we have Giovanni's Scheme, which serves two main tactical purposes. The first is to provide a net for card advantage against the low end of Professor Birch's Observations—in addition to reinforcing the card advantage potential against the number of our spot retrieval Supporters.

Giovanni's Scheme can double as straight draw, and that's what sets it apart from other tactical Supporters. This potential comes in especially useful here, where the number of cards in our hand can fall dramatically low due to the aforementioned conditions—in addition to a late-game N.

Secondly, Giovanni's Scheme doubles as two tactical copies of Dark Claw—so that we can further expand upon that potential if it happens to fall out of reach or has otherwise been appropriated elsewhere.

This is very useful for Tyrannitar itself—when we don't want to underestimate dangers of gambling on [Dark Mountain]. It's also a very powerful with the combined power of Darkrai EX & Fighting Fury Belt—as the additional 30 damage between them can work miracles to instantly close any gaps between the power of Darkrai's [Dark Pulse] and the opponent's surmounting HP.

As for the rest, Giovanni is a man with the spirit of a legendary Pokémon, and that's the symbolism behind our collection of legendary Pokémon here.

They're intended to represent the man himself in some light or another. Out to capture one of the most dangerous wild Pokémon in the world with his bare hands—dressed to kill in Fighting Fury Belt. [1]

Merciless Corporate Ladder

Pokémon [18]

1 — Aegislash EX — Phantom Forces (65/119)
1 — Tyrantrum EX — Tyrantrum EX Box (XY70)
1 — Latias EX — Plasma Freeze (85/116)

3 — Deoxys — Roaring Skies (33/108)
4 — Skarmory — Roaring Skies (69/108)

2 — Flygon — Furious Fists (74/111)
2 — Flygon — Primal Clash (110/160)
4 — Trapinch — Boundaries Crossed (83/149)

Trainers [25]

1 — Computer Search — Boundaries Crossed (137/149)
3 — Professor's Letter — BREAKthrough (146/162)
4 — Rare Candy — Dark Explorers (110/108)

1 — Cheren — Dark Explorers (91/108)
1 — Fisherman — BREAKthrough (136/162)
1 — Ace Trainer — Ancient Origins (69/98)
2 — Teammates — Primal Clash (141/160)
3 — Steven — Roaring Skies (90/108)
4 — Tierno — BREAKpoint (112/122)

1 — Parallel City — BREAKthrough (145/162)
2 — Chaos Tower — Fates Collide (94/124)

2 — Fighting Fury Belt — BREAKpoint (99/122)

Energy [17]

4 — Double Dragon Energy — Roaring Skies (97/108)
3 — Double Colorless Energy
10 — Steel Energy

Epilogue
Today we're here to illustrate the fundamentals of the merciless corporate ladder. With us for this demonstration, is our top performer, Tyrantrum EX; who busts into the office with [Dragon Impact]—and with [Despotic Fang] demands a raise and a bl**j**.

Unfortunately, even our top performer is not yet considered an earner, and only earners are entitled to such benefits—so our top performer storms out of the office—and begins on rampage looking to secure the profits of a legendary earner.

This is the harsh reality of the merciless corporate ladder, which can generally be found located at the heart of every city, where it potentially stretches into infinity. Here, many hard working business people get up early in morning and scurry into the streets on their rush to work, while many more are sent on many flights all over the place, to attend important business meetings with international partners.

And that's where out our entry level business man comes in. He dreams of early retirement and flights to exotic island locations. But in the meantime, is stuck with Deoxys and the business team pulling doubles for our two primary divisions. As with any typical company, these two main divisions would be the investment division and sales of service division.

[Rainbow Shower] Flygon represents the head of the investment division, and [Sand Flap] Flygon represents the head of the sales of service division.

Through the work of Deoxys, Skarmory (and our business team of Supporters), we're looking to help the head of the division (or get some help from them) so that we can climb a few rungs on the merciless corporate ladder. This can be a very tedious effort, and can even take ever member of our business team to get the job done, but in the end we can be the ones fishing or lounging on that exotic island location.

Now, what they teach you in merciless business school, is that consistency is king when it comes to success. So consistency is the first factor we need to secure if we hope to successfully climb any rungs up the merciless corporate ladder.

Starting off, we have our opening Pokémon, and with only 4 copies of Skarmory or Deoxys in our deck, we would only have a 47% chance of drawing one in our opening hand. That is not very consistent at all, and we probably wouldn't be able to set up for a fighting chance half the time.

And that is why we have copies of them both here, which together, bring the probability of success in our opening hand up to an amazing 82%. This is about the least amount we want when it comes to a deck where the opening play is as important as it is for us here on the Merciless Corporate Ladder.

To further our continuity, the draw potential of our entry level workers is doubled up by the potential of our draw Supporters—comprised of 4 copies of Tierno (our main mule), 3 copies of Steven (our genuine overachiever), and 1 copy of Cheren (because there's always that one guy at the office who's done for the day—and it's only 8:03). [1]

Between this team of Supporters, we have an 80% chance of drawing one of them in our opening hand. However, with only 3 Steven (arguably our best opener), there's only a 35% chance of drawing a copy of him for our opening turn. You see, a first turn Steven can be very important to get us to Teammates or Ace Trainer so we can make a very key transitional play once Deoxys or Skarmory has punched the clock.

At this point, you might be saying, "Why not just run 4 Steven?" Well, because more copies of Steven would be more likely to actually create a greater redundancy before anything else. And this, in the most important (and common) scenario, where our hand is loaded with cards, and we're better off drawing 3 more cards (before trying to reach for something else).

Steven also has the overlapping energy effect with Professor's Letter, which can create even more redundancy if Steven is present in higher volume, and ultimately make for greater waste (rather than greater benefit).

Considering this—this is why we're better off overlapping the effects of Cheren and Tierno with 5 copies total (opposed to dialing down to 4 copies between them—in place of another Steven).

In addition to that, there should be no need to run 4 Steven, because the odds are still looking prime in our favor for what we use Steven to do on the first turn (reach for a copy of Teammates or Ace Trainer).

You see, with a total of 3 copies between our follow up Supporters, behind our 3 copies of Steven—and 4 copies left between Cheren and Tierno after the first—the numbers tell us that there should still a 100% chance of drawing two supporters in our opening hand (with the first being a copy of Cheren or Tierno).

The exact number is actually 1.016949152542373. But that's too technical—and all that matters is that this decimal value equates to a positive 100% chance of scoring two Supporters in our opening hand. And if one of them is our follow up Supporter, we don't even need Steven in our opening hand.

So there's not much to worry about, and that's why we're better off concentrating the potential of our straight drawers, to better secure a more solid flow of the cards overall.

If we do have the luxury to reach for one with a first or second turn Steven, the one we will want to reach for will depend on the contents of our hand more than anything else. If we have a strong setup, with a lot of cards already in our hand, then we'll want to reach for Teammates first. A little teamwork can be all it takes to instantly close a deal, so we can follow up with the head of the investment division for a power play with [Rainbow Shower].

Otherwise, if our hand is almost on empty, we'll want to reach for Ace Trainer instead (to strongly re-up our hand—and put the advantage as strongly in our favor as possible).

Either way, our first business move should always be made towards strong investment, which here involves getting [Rainbow Shower] Flygon on the bench and ready to distribute the goods.

For our investment options, we're mostly looking to invest in our top performer Tyrantrum EX. Who can possibly swing out next, and clear the year's fiscal goal right on time when the pressure is on, or maybe even with a fiscal quarter remaining when the business is easy. Double Colorless Energy works wonders to help in this, allowing us to discard just one of them, and 1 Steel energy, to meet the costs of [Dragon Impact]. The attack itself (at 190 damage)—alongside {Despotic Fang} (negating the effects of all cards)—can take us straight through some of the toughest hard-ballers in the business.

In addition to this, we will want to diversify our investments, and traditionally invest as much energy as possible into Aegislash EX—who depending on the situation—can lock the entire game down by itself and take us straight up the merciless corporate ladder like a luxurious escalator.

Second to Aegislash, a small investment of a single energy in Latias (or one our Flygon) can also prove itself to be a wise investment choice. With just one Double Dragon Energy alongside that, Latias EX (our office space eye candy) can do the same for us that Aegislash can do—only against Pokémon with Abilities. And Flygon, can make for a really great transitional Pokémon between one of our main leads. A heavy 70 and 80 damage can really go places; their Stage 2 type can power us around the bend of anti-Basic and anti-EX effects and Abilities; and all their HP can buy us some time to further power up one of those leads from the Bench for an even stronger follow up.

Supplementary to that, tack the sales chart (Fighting Fury Belt) onto any one of our star leads, and they might be able to take us on an unstoppable climb up the merciless corporate ladder!

However, no matter how high you make it up the corporate ladder—make sure to never interrupt the boss' banana unless it's really important! [1]