Ten Thousand Fists
Here's one of my favorite decks among my whole collection. This is a very rare Barbaracle deck that seeks to unlock the full potential of the absolutely crushing [Rock Rush] attack. Back when this card came out in the Flashfire set, it was entirely overlooked by the community. Everyone said that the card was garbage, and that didn't have any potential whatsoever. Naturally, I decided to see how well I could do to build a competitive deck around this intriguing card.
Starting with a straight draw strategy, the technique would involve taking in an huge surplus of cards from [Triple Draw] until Kangaskahn gets knocked out, then swinging out with Barbaracle to literally One-Hit KO ANYTHING with [Rock Rush]. With lots of energy fetching cards and energy returning support, Barbaracle would be able to quickly clear the board of a Pokémon-EX dominated meta at that time.
It worked really well in my initial tests runs. I once played a match where my opponent quickly Mega Evolved to a fully energized M Charizard X—only for Barbarcle to swing out next turn and KO it in a single attack.
As a fun fact, the prototype name of this deck was ebpooface, but there are only a very select number of individuals in the world that would understand the reference of that.
Texas Twister
The Texas Twister is a rapid-spinning thrill-ride at the once legendary Geauga Lake amusement park. It's also the name of a Marvel superhero that first appeared in the Fantastic Four. He was a S.H.I.E.L.D. and held a psychokinetic ability to accelerate air molecules to high velocity from being exposed to radioactive particles during a tornado. He's an expert rodeo rider, lasso thrower, and sharpshooter. This deck basically joins to the two concepts for a day in the park.
This deck utilizes a hand sync strategy to attack for free with Yanmega Prime and immensely boost the damage of [Twister Throw] Tornadus. It further utilizes the heavy card circulation of Team Plasma [Windfall] Tornadus to quickly resource the offensive tactic. Virbank City Gym/Hypnotoxic Laser plays a secondary part in this deck's strategy, furthering the damage threshold of this deck's Pokémon to breach a Knock Out as quickly as possible. Muscle Band further reinforces this strategy with it's additional 20 damage to the stack; while the combination of Head Ringer/Xerosic stack with both this and the Virbank/Laser combo with the intention of locking down the opponent for more turns than they can afford.
Tha Crossroads
"Bone bone bone bone....Bone Bone Bone Bone Bone."
On this track is a Yanmega BREAK/Forest of Giant Plants deck based on the music video for the Bone Thugs N' Harmony song, Tha Crossroads. This deck aims to tap into the hyper acceleration of Forest of Giant Plants and the free attack potential of {Sonic Vision}. This deck includes 15 energy, because even with that potential, you shouldn't expect to be able to attack for free all the time. The energy help to provide safety backups in the event you won't be able to sync up with {Sonic Vision}. They also make great cards to play or hold in order to best sync up with {Sonic Vision}.
Heavy consistency of the technical Supporter AZ provides good chance to make powerplays for full HP resets for Yanmega BREAK and additional bonus plays on {Set Up} Shaymin and {Sudden Cyclone} Hawlucha. While the heavy consistency of Giovanni's Scheme provides good chance of breaching Knock Out amounts of damage with attacks like {Assault Boom}, {Barrier Break}, {Aero Ball}, and {Deep Hurricane}.
The Haunting
Electronic Arts presents, The Haunting staring the infamous ghost kid Polterguy. This is a creative deck about the old Electronic Arts game for the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive. It's a game about a punk rocker ghost who seeks to maliciously persecute a family with a rotten attitude and continuously scare them all from their homes. As Polterguy, you go around jumping into inanimate objects to animate them by the power of your Ectoplasma to scare the members of the Sardini family. Once your Ectoplasm runs out, you're sent back to the basement of the underworld to collect more amongst the dangers that lurk there.
This deck is chock-full of symbolism from the game, and runs a M Gengar strategy that seeks to use [Dark Corridor] to some immense potential between the suite {Empty Shell} Shedinja and Robo Substitue, which Gengar-EX can hide behind after attacking with [Dark Corridor] to prevent the opponent from being able to directly retaliate or collect any Prize cards.
The Longest Yard
"He's going downtown...will he make it?" Here's an Ether/Lunatone deck about getting in it for the long haul and trying to grind it out. This deck utilizes an Item Lock/Red Card/Judge strategy to heavily block the opponent's resources while your main man goes all the way. Vaporeon takes a place here to diversify upon the offensive potential—being a Stage 1—and seeks to benefit superiorly off the {Energy Evolution} Ability of Eevee, and the potential of that under the card oppression of Judge. [Gold Breaker] can be a mighty strong attack for just two energy, but I'm sure they'll eventually be a Vaporeon-GX that'll blow this one out of the water. The final edit of this deck included a tech of Glaceon to further diversify upon its offensive/defensive potential.
The Miracle of Life
This was a deck that I put together just derping around at the start of my comeback to the Pokémon Trading Card game. It's a really old school deck of mine that utilizes a number of tactical Stage 1 Poison-type Pokémon, whose card art illustrated the miracle of life when projected from right to left in the deck's Carousel view. The deck itself boasts a Virbank City Gym Poison strategy with [Sludge Drag] Muk playing the dominant role. This is easily one of the most powerful cards in the game still. [Sludge Drag] acts as both Lysandre and super Hypnotoxic Laser for a single energy (given the advantage of Confused over Asleep).
There's a lot of other synergy between these cards are well. Hypnotoxic Laser and [Spirit Scream] Gourgeist for example is an instant Knock Out combo—that can make any Pokémon vulnerable to Special Conditions bust instantly. [Eerie Voice] and [Smogbank] also both boast loads of synergy together as well; while their damage stacking is further complimented by the power of Virbank/Laser (doubling up on the damage an Active Pokémon would take)—and finalized by the mighty [Sludge Drag] Muk—which can easily draw out any benched Pokémon close to the edge to finish them off.
The Unforgiven
Here's a deck that I threw together utilizing the Battle Compressor/Ancient Trait Sableye deck engine. This strategy here attempts to utilize the fast paced energy acceleration of Ancient Trait Sableye to quickly and immensely power up Mewtwo-EX to then make a quick Mega Evolution to M Mewtwo X or M Mewtwo Y for a crushing sweep behind the power of their attacks and the utility of a [Damage Swap]/Shrine of Memories combo.
Never really got around to tinkering with this one too much, but I would question a tech of just 1 Wobbuffet for another [Energy Assist] Latias just for good measure. Wobbuffet does make a decent catch for the starting spot in some cases, given the utility of its own Ability shutting down non-Psychic Pokémon; which is why I think I ended up leaving it like it was.
This deck is a tribute to the legendary Metallica song, The Unforgiven, which tells the grim tale of a man brutally oppressed by the people of the world, and forced to live in the misery of imprisonment until he eventually dies at the moment he would be set free. This deck pretty much aims to put the opponent on the Unforgiven side of the table, grinding against the ruthless aggression of M Mewtwo and the merciless oppression of the [Damage Swap] attack.
The Weider Classic
Joe Weider, legendary bodybuilder and trainer to some of the greatest champions in the bodybuilding world. This deck hosts an enchanced Ether/Lunatone strategy, that further includes the power of [Dig Out] Excadrill, and strives to tap into this collective potential to build the world's greatest bodybuilding champion between Landrous-EX and {Craftsmanship} Conkeldurr.
Both cards work incredibly well with the energy acceleration strategy here, although the new addition of Strong Energy might be a little greedy for power. The deck would certainly show significantly more proficiency if they were Basic Fighting energy, and could also benefit to be some non-Fighting energy in order to provide an energy catch for Landorus-EX's punishing [Land's Judgement] attack. Master Ball might also make a great replacement for Life Dew, but Life Dew itself boasts an incredible amount of potential here given the heavy volume of Pokémon-EX.
Thorn In Your Side
Virizon/Trevenant deck that aims to combine a energy acceleration benefit with a disruption style deck engine to simultaneously put the opponent at a disadvantage. While Virizon or Shaymin-EX would be powering up a Benched Pokémon, an excessive play on Judge aims to cut off the opponent's card advantage, and become a heavy thorn in their side. Further disruptive potential is provided by a 2-2 line of [Torment] Simisage, whose attack can single-handedly shut down Mega Pokémon and heavily stall other Pokémon by preventing them from using their most powerful attacks.
To drive the nail further, this deck includes some heavy healing accessories between the likes of Gold Potion, Pokémon Center Lady, and Herb Energy, from which double plays on these cards can set an opponent turns behind and leave them left for dead.
Thunder Climb
M Manectric deck from back when it was super popular. I noticed that Manectric would genuinely suffered some HP issues, so I decided to try something different, and instead of utilizing a Swarmer strategy with Manectric Spirit Link, worked up an Out-Fighter style strategy with {Plump Body} Snorlax at the lead, alongside a heavy Hard Charm/Jamming Net defensive tactic to back it up. This deck also utilizes Darkness energy for the Weakness acing effects of Shadow Circle, as well as the unique benefit it provides (as an energy catch) for Pikachu and Raikou-EX's most punishing attacks. The name of this deck takes inspiration from the Secret Wonders Raikou [16/132]—which I pulled in a random pack once—and happen to love everything about the style of the card's design.
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