Space Invaders
This is an inventive deck concept I had at the swing of the Virizion/Genesect era. At the time, I had thought about alternative strategies involving the [Team Plasma] Genesect. I contemplated if there was some greater alpha potential available for this card beyond the mainstream Virizion-EX strategy. After some scenario crunching, I came up with an idea that first involved paring [Team Plasma] Genesect-EX with the non-EX version of [Team Plasma] Genesect as a greater lead; then loading the bench with [Team Plasma] Deoxys for the power boost they provide; and ultimately utilizing Exp. Share for energy acceleration on the Benched [Team Plasma] Genesect-EX. After all, insects as a hive—possess a hive mind, so this hive mind strategy began the concept for this deck.
I secondly felt that the non-EX [Team Plasma] Genesect possessed some alpha potential all its own, especially embodying the fact that its first attack can invoke Confusion. Although this doesn't necessarily work against Virizion-EX, as far as the broader spectrum of decks were concerned, this potential would in theory give this deck some edge against Fire-type decks that the Virizion/Genesect deck entirely lacked.
It was another theory of mine at that time there was obviously some uncharted Fire-type deck that no one had figured out—yet would have ripped the Virizon/Genesect apart if anyone had. So what I thought to do was—build a [Team Plasma] Genesect-EX deck that would have a fighting chance against Type disadvantage decks.
The strategy here combines energy acceleration and Special Condition invoking to lock up the opponent's Active Pokémon, then quickly finish them off with powered up attacks. It also strives to include more single Prize Pokémon to offset the Prize exchange.
To arm this deck against Virizion/Genesect itself, I think a simple heavy tech of 2 Tool Scrapper (or the latter Startling Megaphone) could do the trick. Without the utility of G Booster, Genesect/Virizon becomes entirely helpless to cards like {Safeguard} Suicune and Sigilyph (which was yet another vulnerability I strived to check in this deck through the utility of the non-EX [Team Plasma] Genesect). Back then there weren't any anti-Basic effects either, where cards like Jolteon-EX could pose a serious challenge to this deck these days, but I think this deck could be armed to deal with cards like this through notable techs such as [Shred] Giratina-EX and maybe even G Scope.
Although Skyarrow Bridge enables many of the Pokémon in this deck to retreat for free, a heavy presence of Switch was originally provided in this deck to help guard its Pokémon against Special Conditions like Asleep and Paralyzed in place of Virizon-EX, yet this has since been majorly replaced with a heavy presence of Pokémon Center Lady for her bonus effects.
Spider-Man 2099
I consider this deck to be one of my crowning achievements, although I never got to put it to much use. This is undeniably one of the coolest decks in my collection. This deck is about the technoverse Spider-Man 2099 timeline, where the young Mexican student, Miguel O'Hara becomes the legendary Spider-Man. The strategy for this deck primarily revolves around the [Dark Penalty] Weavile, whose [Dark Penalty] attack can deal an amazing 90 damage for just a single energy. The only catch is that the opponent's Active Pokémon has to have a Pokémon Tool card attached to it, and this technicality began the development of the deck structure you see here.
To first reinforce the effect of this attack, I included the Head Ringer in this deck. Head Ringer acts as a double negative against the opponent, first providing the enabling condition for [Dark Penalty] while both potentially stalling their Pokémon-EX and preventing the opponent from attaching their own Pokémon Tool cards to it. The natural tech I run for Team Flare gear includes a heavy 2 copies of Xerosic, which enables a powerplay later in the game to remove an opponent's Pokémon Tool card and equip them with Head Ringer. Xerosic also acts as disruption that can set the opponent back en entire turn, which in this deck sees some very explicit potential given the contents here.
Now, although 90 damage for a single energy is a lot, it's still considerably underwhelming because it's not a One-Hit KO, and Weavile only has 90HP. To add some synergy to this, the Virbank City Gym/Hypnotoxic Laser combo was added here to further the damage stack against the opponent. Normally, a deck running this combo would definitely want 4 copies of Virbank City Gym to ensure it remains the dominant Stadium card. However, at the time this was a very popular Stadium, where it was likely to be the dominant Stadium by default, so you didn't want to run more than three copies because it would likely just sit around end up adulterating the consistency of the deck.
Three is still the magic number when it comes to cards you want to get to within a single wheel, so this deck was pretty secure running just 3 copies of Virbank City Gym. Not to mention, the synergy between the cards in this deck is outstanding. Everything here boasts immense synergy with Yveltal-EX, which makes for a primary starting Pokémon that most opponent's might not even make it past.
Springfield Powerplant
"The Simpsons..."
It's another hopeful day in Springfield, as this deck stars a huge collection of the Simpsons cast—from Marge, Homer, Lisa, and Bart—to Mr. Smithers, Mr. Burns—even Lenny and Carl. The strategy of the deck here is my take on the super preventive strategy between collective the effects of Jolteon-EX, Glaceon-EX, and [Resistance Blizzard] Regice. The effects of these cards effectively prevent all damage from a certain type of Pokémon, the collection of three here are intended to provide a diverse array of options to lockdown the opponent under various conditions.
This deck strategy further employs the energy acceleration of [Energy Assist] Mancetric to quickly energize Pokémon from the bench, while the deck engine here contains a number of cards (from Professor's Letter to Ultra Ball and Cheren) to up the synergy of the deck and bring everything together in a single turn for a quick and perfect execution of [Energy Assist].
Alongside the preventive effects, this deck hosts a heavy presence of Pokémon Center Lady to stack with the healing effects of Rough Seas, and powerfully offset the damage stack against opponents. A 1-3 split between Parallel City and Rough Seas might do better to support this, but the reason the 2-2 split exist here is to support against other Water-type decks where Rough Seas can be a dominant cards. In this event, Rough Seas can become a liability whereas Parallel City can be used against the opponent to prevent damage from their Water-type Pokémon and further offset the damage stack in this deck's favor.
St. Michael's Sword
Legend speaks of an Archangel in the Garden of Eden who guards its gates with a flaming sword. This is an inventive [Solar Birth] Volcanion deck affixed with a heavy defensive strategy. This deck contains a toolbox like assortment of Pokémon, the collective of which aims to provide diverse options against various different types of decks. Many of these Pokémon have defensive effects that stack with other defensive content in this deck—furthering the synergy between the cards—and helping to create an impenetrable defense.
A clever tech of 1 [Transform] Ditto here enables a powerplay in the event you have one of the Pokémon you want to use in your hand, and can't use [Solar Birth] to put it on the Bench and energize it. With this powerplay, you can choose Ditto from your deck with [Solar Birth] then use Ditto's Ability next turn to play the Pokémon you want directly from your hand.
Starship Troopers
In the 23rd century the people of Earth have become a space colonizing civilization, on a Military expedition to search for new words, they encounter a race of giant predator insects from the distant planet Klendathu that threaten to rip them apart. Here's another one of my original series decks, from back when I first got back into the Pokémon Trading Card game. The idea behind this deck was to utilize all single-prize Pokémon with a special combination between the technical effects of the anti-EX [Steel Slash] Scizor, and the tactical [Metal Sound]/[Metal Wallop] Bisharp.
This was at a time when decks loaded with nothing but Pokémon-EX dominated the Metagame, so striving to improvise against this play style, I took this set of intriguing Stage 1 Pokémon to put together a superbugs deck with them. This deck relies on the technical potential of Energy discard effects, anti-EX effects, and Confused Special Conditions in order to lockup the opponent's Active Pokémon and eventually overwhelm them with crushing numbers.
Strahd Von Zarovich
Here's a deck that takes you on an adventure through the Dungeons & Dragon's Ravenloft campaign, pitting its opponent against the mighty Fighter/Necromancer class Vampire boss, Strahd Von Zarovich. The strategy here is a Slugger/Swarmer hybrid that utilizes the power of Lucario-EX and Landorus-EX alongside the damage accelerating Golbat/Crobat evolution line. The Supporter spread here aims to keep the draw as one-sided as possible to work against the opponent's card advantage, while bridging off the card advantage potential of Lucario's [Corkscrew Smash], to enable the heavy use of more technical Supporters (such as the crushing Ghetsis and Giovanni's Scheme).
As a Fighter-class boss monster, Strahd Von Zarovich packs a fierce punch, and his crushing power is strongly symbolized here between the addition of M Lucario, and the array of technical disruption cards between the heavy tech of 2 Enhanced Hammer, and the selection of the Rock Guard as the Ace Spec card for this deck. When you're up against the crushing power of Landorus/Lucario/Bats, the last thing you can afford to do is lose a turn, or have the damage stack exceeded further. Bats can further be used as an outlet to retreat Lucario-EX with Float Stone for a quick mega evolution—and that makes these cards very powerful accessories for this deck.
Having an ace against Fighting-type resistance was another main reason why Enhanced Hammer and Rock Guard were included here, but this deck could probably ascend another level by replacing 2 copies of Fighting Stadium for 2 copies of Magnetic Storm (to further reinforce its potential against Fighting-type resistance).
Street Fighter: Dhalsim
This deck is apart of a Street Fighter deck series and that I had a concept idea for after piecing this deck structure together. This is the only deck I have for the series, which would seek to utilize Max Elixir as an axis to the central theme for the series. Among card Type, there are typically cards with energy supportive effects that can compliment the accessory of Max Elixir. The deck here utilizes Carbink BREAK as a recovery option after your Max Elixir [SUPER] gauge is used up.
The tactic here embodies a Slugger/Swarmer strategy between the combo of Landorus-EX and Lucario-EX. From there, [Stretch Kick] Hitmonlee provides some unique flavor and sniping potential to this deck—while the 2-2 addition of [Pure Power] Medicham further supplements this—atop some added tactical power from its Confusion invoking [Windmill Kick] attack.
Strike of the Champion
Here's one of my first decks created around the start of the XY era. This deck features the crushing [Strike of the Champion] Haxorus, a very powerful Stage 2 Pokémon with two immensely powerful attacks. The first, [Dragonaxe] is an energy based attack that does 40 damage times the number of Steel energy attached to Haxorus. And the second, [Strike of the Champion], is an effect based attack that cold Knocks Out the Defending Pokémon if it's a [Team Plasma] Pokémon.
The original version of this deck utilized a Swarmer strategy, between a trio of cards including Excadrill-EX, {Premonition} Lunatone, and [Axe Smash] Haxorus. This strategy aimed to utilize Excadrill-EX to soften up the opponent with [Dig Out], while {Premonition} Lunatone and the effect of [Dig Out] double up on the energy drop for Benched Axew/Fraxure/Haxorus. This version of the deck utilized split between Fighting and Steel energy, where I ultimately decided it would probably be better to just revert to a pure Steel energy base, to super reinforce the power of [Dragonaxe].
Akin to this, I decided to include {Fight Song} Altaria to further reinforce the power of Haxorus in place of Pokémon Tool cards. This would enable me to focus the deck's Item resources on evolution chain building cards, in hopes to provide the deck with a more linear, fluid operating function. Double Dragon Energy then gave this deck another heavy power up, as when it's attached to Haxorus, it counts as TWO Steel energy for [Axe Smash].
I once experimented with a [Call for Family] strategy to help resource the deck's heavy evolution chains, but it's now been replaced with a powerful Evosoda/Level Ball/Wally combination—to hyper jump Axew to Haxorus—and start dealing mega damage right away. Training Center and Hydreigon-EX provide further tactical potential to this deck, that enables free retreating for Haxorus to ward off Special Conditions, while also enabling the potential to HP cache between several Haxorus together.
Sun and Steel
"Sunlight, falling on your steel. Death in life is your ideal—life is like a wheel."
Here we have an Aegislash deck that seeks to create an impenetrable defense through a combination of Float Stone and two [King's Shield] Aegislash. This was a fairly popular deck back at the start of the XY era, but my version is considerably different, and seeks to improve upon the deck structure with the addition of heavy Special Energy disruption to offset the time exchange between the opponent's offensive movement and our energy hike.
Special Energies (especially Double Colorless Energy) can be really tough to recover the loss from. This deck runs 2 Enhanced Hammer alongside the power of [Righteous Edge] Cobalion-EX (our captain here), who for a single energy can ace a Special Energy card attached to the opponent's Active Pokémon. It's second attack can also pierce through preventive effects, which is an amazing utility to have if-and-when you can't afford to let up on your offensive movement.
[Call for Family] Skarmory is only a backup starter here, intended to create some diversity, while primarily helping to provide a catch at the start of the game in place of the considerably vulnerable Honedge. The combination of Evosoda/Wally is here to help to supercharge the evolution process of our Aegislash line in general, while the majority of this deck's Supporter spread focuses on the highest draw ranges possible—to promote the greatest measure of resource gathering—which is crucial given this deck's heavy resource needs.
A dominant split between {Miracle Guard} Aeglislash is present to guard against overwhelming Type disadvantage from Fire-types—while Steel Shelter helps to brings the perimeter lockdown full circle—and guard this deck's Steel Pokémon against Special Conditions.
Super Battleship
C4—hit or miss? This is a deck about the legendary Battleship board game. Like battle on the high seas, this action packed deck runs a rather suspenseful strategy, that revolves around the power of [Damagriiigus] Cofagrigus. This attack removes all the damage counters from 1 of your Benched Pokémon and places them on your opponent's Active Pokémon. It's basically a powerful 2 for 1, and this deck seeks to utilize the full potential of this card through its mighty crew of high HP Pokémon.
Wailord-EX is of course the mighty battleship here. It starts out with a whopping 250HP—and for that reason alone—is a perfect match for [Damagriiigus]. Wailord-EX can go straight out to the frontline and crash any opponent who can't get around it against the rocks. [Call for Family] Skarmory is our air fleet, and it makes our primary starter here because I find the utility of [Call for Family] to be especially beneficial to this deck's diverse and specific needs.
It's a free mass direct retrieval, which aims to free up the deck structure here for more technical content (such as copies of Float Stone, Switch, and Trainer's Mail) needed to reinforce the central strategy and batten down the hatches as strongly as possible.
Deoxys and Gallade-EX make up the crew, providing tough offensive power to break through frontiers. While Chandelure-EX plays the role of our mighty captain. The power of Chandelure-EX and [Eerie Light] is simply legendary with the support of Dimensional Valley. It alone can sink entire fleets, but here becomes a ruler of the high seas with all the immensely supportive content to promote Chandelure-EX's mobility and endurance.
A considerable adaptation for this deck could involve a just 1 Wailord-EX and 2 Chandelure, but from what I recall, it's a little better having the Wailord-EX in consistency to help provide a the potential to blockade an opponent when they would have the type advantage but can't directly play around Wailord-EX.
No comments:
Post a Comment