Pokémon [21]
1 — Lugia EX — Ancient Origins (68/98)
2 — M Charizard EX — Generations (12/83)
3 — Charizard EX — Flashfire (11/106)
2 — Ho-Oh BREAK — Ho-Oh BREAK Box (XY154)
4 — Ho-Oh — Ho-Oh BREAK Box (XY153)
2 — Emboar — Black & White (20/114)
2 — Pignite — Boundaries Crossed (25/149)
3 — Tepig — Black & White Blister Promo (BW07)
2 — Victini — V for Victini Tin (BW32)
Trainers [24]
1 — Master Ball — Plasma Blast (94/101)
1 — Ultra Ball — Sun & Moon (TBA)
2 — Level Ball — Next Destinies (89/99)
2 — Evosoda — X&Y (116/146)
2 — Teammates — Primal Clash (160/160)
3 — Shauna — X&Y (127/146)
3 — Cheren — Dark Explorers (91/108)
4 — N — League Promo (BW100)
2 — Charizard Spirit Link — Evolutions (75/108)
4 — Energy Pouch — Fates Collide (97/124)
Energy [15]
3 — Double Colorless Energy
12 — Fire Energy
Epilogue
Happy New Years! It's time to party!!
I've got a grand ball prepared for you all tonight, featuring the mighty Ho-Oh BREAK and [Heat Inferno] M Charizard-EX!!! This deck utilizes a [Stoke] strategy, alongside the effects of Energy Pouch and {Inferno Fandango}, to burn up the dance floor all night long!
The consistency of our starting Pokémon base is primed to put our feet on the ground and keeps our steps in perfection motion. We have 3 Charizard and 4 Ho-Oh to prime our successful starting spot. Together, they give us an 80% success rate of starting with at least one of them. Lugia-EX is a wild card, that provides us an additional starter and ups the success of having a good starter to 93%.
It's not a perfect 100% or plus, but due to the nature of the game's dynamics, is sure play out with that kind of success or better! The reason for this being we only have 5 cards in our deck that we don't want to start with—2 copies of Victini and 3 copies of Tepig. Victini is our superstar for empowering the success of [Stoke], when it comes to important coin flip effects, that additional chance is a must. It reduces your chances of failure to 1 out of 4, which is really great odds for your success. The 3 Tepig is an elevated measure from the traditional 2-2-2 line prominently used. That extra copy at the Basic level helps us hit the ground running, which is very important here given, how the foundation of this deck's strategy lies in {Inferno Fandango}.
Okay now, just 5 copies of these cards produces a 50% chance of getting on in our opening hand. However, the chances of us NOT getting at least 1 copy of our other Basic Pokémon in our opening hand—is a very pitiful 19%. The math is simple. We have 8 cards between Ho-Oh, Charizard, and Lugia, with 6 cards left to draw, and 59 cards remaining in our deck. 8 times 6 is 48—divided by 59 is 0.81 (or 81%). 81% is the success rate we will draw one of those starting Pokémon follow the first card, inverse that value out of 100 and the chances of us NOT drawing at least 1 copy comes to 19%.
This actually stacks a 50% chance atop a 19%—furthers lessens the probable chance of total failure overall. It's just very—very unlikely. And that's how the Pokémon base is primed for our success.
This is important to our success with always choosing to play second. Playing second is very important for us to make best use of [Stoke]. This attack is at the center of our deck's strategy, as it hyper-accelerates our offensive potential, and enables us to make a very powerful 100 plus damage attack on following turn.
Even if we can't make an attack the following turn, this deck still boasts the potential to make a powerplay on the effect of [Stoke], providing amazing versatility against more offensive swarmer decks. The technique for this involves equipping Energy Pouch to our [Stoke] Pokémon, then simply evolving Tepig to Emboar to evacuate the dancefloor. Through the combination of these effects, we can gather energy carefree with [Stoke], and return them all to our hand with Energy Pouch, then directly attach to our next Pokémon for an instant fully powered offensive!
This deck utilizes a lot of Item cards, which does make it somewhat vulnerable to Item lock. However, the offensive power of [Stoke] and their follow up attacks kind of see this leaning towards Seismitoad Item lock being the only significant threat. It has weakness advantage, and isn't easily Knocked Out on the next turn as Trevenant can be by either Charizard-EX or Ho-Oh BREAK.
Items are crucial to success of the typical deck, so one should always remember their importance. The Item here is just as primed as the Pokémon base to help ensure we have a ball tonight! We have 2 Evosoda that boost the evolution heavy dynamics of our grand ball. It wouldn't be a champagne jam with the champagne—but just like any other alcoholic drink—too much could surely kill us.
That's where the tactical spread from Level Ball, Ultra Ball, and Master Ball comes in. The spread between these Item cards aim to act as a dynamic extension to all the different types Pokémon were catering to here. If you take a look, you will see how each acts as extension to particular Pokémon, while themselves doubling up with one another to act as extensions to each other, and further our overall direct retrieval potential. If you use a Level Ball to grab Tepig, you have 2 Evosoda to back up the remaining copy of Level Ball, and the two copies of Pignite—along with a copy of both Master Ball and Ultra Ball—with can retrieve anything.
Master Ball never has a bad use, so make use of it as soon as you can, especially for the Emboar line. Ultra Ball is a very tactical addition that both acts as an extension to Master Ball's universal potential, while also providing us the opportunity to thin out some of our extra content once the party is in full swing. The consistency of these cards is very important to our initial success, yet unfortunately, can become a liability to us and our Wheel Supporter effects (adulterating the consistency of our draw with now useless cards). Just one Ultra Ball provides us an additional benefit to clean up a little mid-game and keep the party in good order.
Moving on to our Supporter spread, it might seem underwhelming, but alongside the utility of our consistency and heavy retrieval power of our Item cards, is actually very proficient to carry us through the night. Four copies of N make up the general foundation of our draw power. N's heavy draw power at the start of the game, in addition to his ability to act as disruption against opponent's turn 1 retrieval cards makes him the best host for the night. From there we have a heavy split between Cheren and Shauna, whose differing potential is intended to create a wild dance between them.
As a one-sided draw with a decent medium range, Shauna is a great backup Supporter to N. However, our needs can be rather particular here, and when we have cards in our hand we need to keep, or have accumulated a decent sized hand from a previous wheel, Cheren makes a much better play to retain the majority of cards in our hand and make a more concentrated draw off the top of the deck. Given how varied their needs can be, they're provided in an even heavy split of 3-3 to ensure there is a good chance to make best use of them both as consistently as they might be needed.
Finishing off the night as the ball drops is Teammates with the big Happy New Year! Teammates is our final Supporter—provided as a heavy tech of two copies here. Teammates is like a super-extension to the inevitable Knock Out on our of our primary Pokémon. Just a single play on Teammates works wonders for bringing everyone together for a celebration!
It can grab a copy of Charizard Spirit Link and M Charizard-EX to instantly Mega Evolve the next turn; or a copy of Energy Pouch and Evosoda to make another powerful follow-up with Ho-Oh BREAK; or a Double Colorless Energy and another Supporter to keep the excitement heavy. Teammates is just a really versatile retrieval card that works wonders for decks with very diverse needs such as this one. The heavy tech of 2 copies provides a decent consistency, that helps to keep it out of the way at the start of the game where it's least likely to be needed, while seeing its appearance heavy as the deck thins out, enough to have a good chance of making use of it at all.
Consistency is prime—so that our luck might be the most consistent of all. One thing you never want to do is test your luck, and that principal is the reason behind the high consistency of Energy Pouch. This card is very important to the success of our strategy here, so we need the best possible chance to draw it that we can get. We really don't want to test our luck with a single less copy than the max—even if 3 copies is a decent consistency for a card you want to have a great chance of getting to within a single shuffle and draw.
Energy Pouch isn't only important, it's also vulnerable to plays on very popular tech cards such as Startling Megaphone. To best protect against this, we want to play those Energy Pouch one by one as they're needed, while the consistency here helps to heavily reinforce our chances of being able to replace one right away if-and-when it's needed.
The heavy tech of two copies on Charizard Spirit Link hold the same purpose as it does with Teammates. It's a card that only has one use, and although it's a pretty important use, it's still not something we can afford to have adulterate the consistency of other more prominent resources (such as Item cards and Supporters). Just two copies has genuinely proven itself to me to be sufficient in decks like this where the Mega Pokémon doesn't lead the dance. Don't forget that it also gets a really good extension from Teammates, helping to ease the comfort of providing just two copies here.
Once the first one makes a successful play, the second one should be thrown down right away on anything to help get it out of the way. This same technique can be used for the first one as well, if you see you're going to have to make a narrow draw on Shauna. It helps to thin the deck significantly, while the extension that Teammates provides can help to make up for the loss of consistency later. Use your head for what it's there for, and don't let a good opportunity pass you by. All's well that ends well.
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