Farewell Friends — My Entire Collection

Razor's Edge

 

This is a deck about living on the razor's edge, and the concept of this deck has always revolved around this aspect, originally boasting a Prize edging strategy, that would force the opponent against hard hitting two prize Pokémon-EX, ultimately building up to a brutal finish that would then pit them against the super-empowered attacks of [Hurricane Kick] Lucario or [Revenge Blast] Shaymin-EX. This deck sat on hold for the longest time imaginable as it originally sought to incorporate the Full Art [Energy Press]/[Iron Breaker] Cobalion (which were very hard to find among Public Trades).

 

What ultimately resulted from this hold changed the face of this deck entirely. This version of the deck now focuses on a hyper-defensive strategy with [Fight Alone] Lucario taking the lead—Cobalion-EX and Lugia-EX providing bulk power and tactical prowess—and the very special [Revenge Blast] Cobalion from the Steam Siege expansion providing a much more efficient Prize-edge finisher over [Hurricane Kick] Lucario and the very out of place Grass-type Shaymin-EX.

 

With the addition of [Revenge Blast] Cobalion, it enabled this deck to focus itself into a pure Steel-type, and do away with [Hurricane Kick] Lucario entirely, and Fighting energy included to accommodate for it. As this deck took a pure Steel-type channel, Shield Energy then found a perfect place here to further stack with the hyper-defensive effects between Parallel City, Hard Charm, and Jamming Net.

 

The addition of Shield Energy was offset here to actually help properly adapt its potential, since it can't be equipped to Lugia-EX, or the Fighting-type Riolu prior to its evolution. Three is the magic number for cards you want to have a great chance of getting to within a single wheel of N, so the exchange of 1 Shield Energy for 1 basic Steel Energy hopes to best sync up with the evolution of Riolu to Lucario, while also doubling to help boost the success of Max Elixir.

 

Although this deck greatly benefits from the utility of Parallel City, it's run in a 2-2 split between Chaos Tower for extra reinforcement against Special Conditions, which given the absence of Float Stone here, can pose a very serious threat. This is even despite the utility and extension of Pokémon Center Lady, which remove Special Conditions, and works wonders with heavy defensive strategy here to set the opponent back further against the grind of stacking damage prevention effects.

 

However, with only three copies, it's not a card you want to waste prematurely, and some Special Condition invoking effects can reoccurring the Special Condition on the next turn. Considering this, Chaos Tower provides a permanent lockdown, and hopes to check against another important aspect while the bulk of Hard Charm, Jamming Net, Shield Energy provide strong defensive cover all their own. 

 

 

Reading Rainbow

 

"Butterfly in the sky, I can fly twice as high."
"Take a look, it's in a book—a Reading Rainbow!"

 

Here's a creative idea I had for a theme featuring the {Adaptive Evolution} Butterfree/[Powerful Friends] deck. Back at the release of these cards, this was actually a deck strategy that I discovered myself before it ever hit the mainstream. This deck here is actually the remnants of that original deck.

 

One day, I had the brilliant idea to add M Rayquaza to this deck to provide some bulk power and compliment one of Miltank's considerable shortcomings. Despite Miltank's power, and its ability to attack on a single energy, Miltank can still fair very poorly against the Virbank/Laser combo, Fighting-type deck, and [Outrage] Dragons. M Rayquaza-EX on the other hand has a number of qualities that can turn the tables on a number of these vulnerabilities entirely. The power that M Rayquaza boasts is another very strong attribute to match up against heavy hitting decks like this.

 

Both Pokémon get a considerable HP boost from Aspertina Gym, taking M Rayquaza up to 240HP, while Miltank the combination of Aspertina Gym and Fighting Fury Belt take Miltank up to a hefty 160HP! Mew-EX provides an extension on both Miltank and Rayquaza, in addition to providing Type-diversity that helps this deck square off even better against Fighting-type and Lightning-type decks.

 

Olympia is the tech supporter of choice for her ability to double as a copy of Switch. This effectively enables a powerplay between benched Miltank, that can swap out a damaged Miltank for a fresh one from the bench, thus forcing the opponent to start over against a fresh Miltank. This also works incredibly well with Rayquaza-EX, and helps to spare precious energy, which this deck runs dangerously low on. These qualities help to give Olympia some edge here over the considerably champion of healing—Pokémon Center Lady.

 

As an advanced tech, a copy of the Delta Evolution M Rayquaza can be swapped for a copy of the Theta Max M Rayquaza. This tech enables diverse options with Winona, and unlocks a powerplay with Olympia where a heavily damaged Active Rayquaza-EX can duck behind a benched Miltank and mega evolve to fully heal itself—effectively placing the full power of M Rayquaza and [Emerald Break] in reserve on the bench. This tech also makes a great compliment to the accessory of Scoop Up Cyclone, which can be used in a powerplay to fully reset mega M Rayquazas and switch between the two types.

 

In this final edit, Karen and the storybook Dragonite-EX from Evolutions find a nice home in this deck. Karen is an amazing shutdown against [Bee Revenge] and [Night March] decks, while doubling to provide desperate extensions on copies of Milktank and the Butterfree evolution line. Then Dragonite-EX provides an extension on this potential through its {Pull Up} Ability—which provides an on-demand extension to extra copies of Miltank in the discard pile.  

 

 

Red Muscle Fiber

It's the 2004 Mr. Olympia—and defending champion Ronnie Coleman swears that his top contender Jay Cutler "must be smoking crack" for suggesting that Ronnie is 100% beatable in this year's competition. This deck utilizes a Landorus/Professor's Letter/Ultra Ball combination in a Swarmer/Slugger strategy to get a jump on the damage stack while quickly energizing one of its powerful follow-up offensive leads between Landorus-EX, Terrakion-EX, and [Team Magma] Aggron.

 

The deck structure here is suited for Terrakion-EX to be the strongest follow-up lead. Not only does Terrakion-EX possess an alternative Weakness from the primary starter [Shout of Power] Landrous, the utility of Professor's Letter makes a perfect compliment to the effect of Terrakion's [Pump Up Smash] attack.

 

As an alternative starting option, [Sol Generator] Solrock attempts to set up for the most powerful follow up possible, by gathering Strong Energy to load up on Landorus, Landorus-EX, Terrakion-EX, or even [Team Magma] Aggron to come out swinging as hard as possible in the absence of Swarmer damage.

 

Consider switching out as quickly as possible (or at least always leading with) [Shout of Power] Landorus after Solrock to soften up the opponent's Active Pokémon as best as possible. You'll be able to recoup the energy lost with [Shout of Power], further power-up your benched Pokémon with [Pump Up Smash] after that, and ultimately in the exchange, potentially grind your opponent's resource down to the bone as they struggle to keep up with the heavy damage and energy acceleration of this deck.

 

Float Stone helps to provide some very important mobility between traditionally heavy Pokémon, and enable a Slugger style of play alternating between Active and Benched Pokémon to create a heavy HP cache. Float Stone also helps to guard them against Special Conditions—Poisoned and Confused. However,  this deck (especially encompassing the use of Solrock) might also be able to greatly benefit from a 4-1-2 Bursting Balloon/Rock Guard/Eco Arm strategy—exchanging a copy of Solrock, a Basic energy, and all three copies of Float Stone—for that respective suite.

 

 

Rich Piano Man

 

Rich Piana, renowned lifelong bodybuilder and frontman for his 5% Nutrition brand is at the LA Expo calling out fellow Bodybuilder Mac Trucc to step outside and settle a petty grievance between them in a fisticuffs. After a bit of aggressive conversation back and forth, Mac Trucc drawing near to the daunting bodybuilder unleashes a straight right jab directly to Rich Piana's jaw.

 

And the man in the back said everyone attack / And it turned into a ballroom blitz.

 

A mass scuffle breaks out between Mac Trucc's boys ant the 5% Nutrition Crew. Rich Piana strives to assert some loose crowd control saying, "No! Just me and Mac Trucc—just me and Mac Trucc." as he repeatedly attempts to guide the commencement of an official (unofficial) duel between him and Mac Trucc after being directly assaulted.

 

And thus, we have our feature presentation here, a Nidoking BREAK/{Garbotoxin} deck that attempts to overt Special Condition preventive effects and crush the opponent in a deadly fisticuffs. This deck has some heavy evolution chain building to it, so it employs the help of both Evosoda and Level Ball in connection with Wally to supercharge its evolution chain building. For Stage 2 evolution chains whose Stage 1 Pokémon is 90HP or less, Level Ball is actually twice as effect as Evosoda, since it can double to resource copies of Basic Pokémon (either to set the foundation for the first evolution chain—or get a jump on building the next evolution line).

 

Chandelure takes a heavy presence of 4 here to help create the best possible catch for the opening spot, as Chandelure-EX is an amazing lead to Nidoking/Nidoking BREAK. Its [Eerie Light] attack is immensely debilitating, and can be quickly retreated on a single Mystery Energy to switch out for Nidoking or Nidoking BREAK to lead the fight. Nidoking's line takes the next best spot, where in this deck it should be easy to quickly ascend a Nidoran to a Nidoking in a single turn to slug it out the opponent's Active Pokémon.

 

Exp Share takes a special place here to hyper-accelerate this deck's follow-up potential on the offensive. Exp. Share stacks great with everything in this deck, especially Garbodor, to help meet the immense energy needs for its very powerful (but expensive) [Offensive Bomb] attack. This deck further includes a very heavy presence of Delinquent, which is intended to create a lockdown condition, against the heavy Poison damage of Nidoking BREAK. However, the Tool card split here could easily just tech a single Float Stone to better the energy spread—while Delinquent could also be replaced to some great expected success with Lysandre (or even better—Pokémon Center Lady).

 

 

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

 

"Hear the rime of the ancient Mariner. See his eye as he stops one of three Mesmerizes one of the wedding guests—stay here and listen to the nightmares of the sea."

 

Here's a Plasma Badge/{Power Connect} deck with a heavy cocktail of synergy boosting combinations between the effects of its cards. The first benefit of this Plasma Badge involves its ability to extend the energy acceleration of Colress Machine to the Pokémon sporting it. This can be a very worthwhile effect for certain Pokémon, as you can see in this deck, as Colress Machine enables the traditional Slugger Thundrus-EX to become a Swarmer style attacker. Colress Machine naturally provides the same effect for [Team Plasma] Zapdos, and it further enables the Slugger Zekrom (equipped with Plasma Badge) to unleash it's [Bolt Strike] attack a turn earlier and potentially get a nice jump start on the Prize exchange.

 

This energy acceleration is further complimented by the power increasing utility of [Team Plasma] Deoxys—whose {Power Connect} Ability stacks with one another—ultimately boosting the attacks of Team Plasma designated Pokémon by 10 damage each. This increased damage helps to significantly power-up the considerably underwhelming, yet immensely tactical predominant attacks of Thundrus and Zapdos. Much needed power that helps to close the time frame of how many attacks needed to Knock Out any given Pokémon. This time frame can be crucial when effects like Lysandre are considered, so the added power here is a really great compliment the attacks of Thundrus and Zapdos, while their effects hope to hold the opponent at bay.

 

These attacks rely on the flip of a coin, where {Victory Star} Victini comes in as a powerful utility that provides an additional coin flip, which boosts the success rate of these attacks to a 3 out 4 chance. Given the nature of probability, this is more likely to play out as a 5 out 6 success rate, because the high range of success nearing the 100% mark naturally boasts greater mathematical results (whereas lower ranges underneath the 50% mark veer towards lower successes rates).

 

Hoopa is included as a nice tech to help resource lots of [Team Plasma] Deoxys. It's there when you need it, but you don't necessarily need it, and more than a single copy would just get in the way for this reason. Pokémon Fan Club provides an extension on this deck's resourcing with Ultra Ball, while the tactical split between Sky Field and Plasma Frigate enables this deck to bench cards and get rid of them when they're no longer needed, to then remove the prominent Weakness factor for any Pokémon with Plasma Energy attached to them.

 

A final tech addition of [Circle Circuit] Raichu helps to diversify this deck's offensive potential—while potentially stacking with Sky Field—and ultimately symbolizing the grand principal of the ancient mariner's tale; "To teach God's word by his own example—that we must love all things that God made."

 

And the tale goes on and on and on...

 

 

Rocky I

 

Here's a classic deck of mine based on the legendary movie Rocky, where the underdog boxer Rocky Balboa takes on the fierce World Champion Apollo Creed in a very brutal rivalry to the bitter end. The first version of this deck was devised while I was on my "Everything's Does Better on Ether" kick, so the original strategy of this deck utilized a {Premonition} Lunatone/Ether combo, doubled up with Ultra Ball and [Shout of Power] Landorus for heavy energy acceleration on its lead Pokémon.

 

This updated version of the deck replaces Ether with the modern Max Elixir, as Max Elixir boasts a little more speed and overall potential towards the energy acceleration objective. With Lucario-EX as the lead here, this deck further seeks to take advantage of the card drawing power provided by the effect of [Corkscrew Smash]. Akin to this, you'll notice a heavy presence of technical Supporters Judge, Giovanni's Scheme, and Pokémon Center Lady. Judge is centerpiece starter, that provides hard disruption against the opponent's card advantage, while [Corkscrew Smash] offers this deck instant bounce back from the card's doubled-edged 4 card limitation.

 

Giovanni's Scheme furthers the damage stack, helping to breech One-Hit KO amounts of damage, and get a jump on the damage stack and Prize exchange. And last but certainly not least, Pokémon Center Lady provides a solid guard against Special Conditions while further offseting the damage stack in this deck's favor to keep its Pokémon in fight while the opponent's Pokémon hit the ground.

 

The potential of Korrina should be obvious here. It's a two-for-one direct retrieval that pairs perfectly with Scramble Switch and Max Elixir. However, it's also considerably an underwhelming Supporter that can only draw you two specific cards, and can't get you to number of specific resources in this deck (such as Stadium Cards, Energy cards, and Supporters). That's why Korrina is only present in three copies. Heavy wheel effects provide the bulk—while Korrina provides the cut.

 

Scramble Switch helps to provides somewhat of an extension on Pokémon Center Lady, which could easily see immense success with 4 copies in this deck. However, I opt'd to split the deck space between Giovanni's Scheme, to help better reinforce the flow of the cards in the event you don't get to start with Lucario-EX, and have to make a quick play on Judge. {Premonition} Lunatone is also here to help support the heavy use of Judge, and its presence here further explains the addition of [Cosmic Spin] Solrock, over an alternative offensive resource such as Evolutions Hitmonchan.

 

Although it seems like the Evolutions Hitmonchan would be a perfect accent to the flavor of this deck, the two cards have the same amount of HP, but Solrock's [Cosmic Spin] boasts an additional 10 damage, and the pair between Lunatone and Solrock help support this deck's use of Judge.

 

 

Safari

 

This deck is about a little story of mine. One day, I was up at Macy's in the mall, hanging around the men's designer fragrance counter, when a Rhyperion-looking woman came in inquiring about some cologne for her (most likely) Rhyperior-looking husband. The Rhyperior-looking woman had mentioned that her husband had run out of his favorite cologne, Safari by Ralph Lauren, which Macy's did carry anymore, because it was suggested to have been discontinued.

 

As a replacement, the sales lady at the counter suggested Vince Camuto as a replacement. Alarmed at her mix-matching of the man's said style, I quickly went over to the other side of the counter and brought the Rhyperior-looking woman a sample sprayed on card, saying, "Here, try this one. This Fahrenheit—by Dior. A very good alternative to the masculine style of Ralph Lauren Safari." 

 

The lady bobbled her head in awe at the scent of Fahrenheit, but unfortunately, succumbed to the suggestion of the sales woman—purchasing the original black label Vince Camuto instead—a terribly mix-matched sweet/metrosexual fragrance. I had mentally thought to myself that the lady probably went home and presented the cologne to her husband, only for him to begin beating her in an outrage saying, "What the F*CK is this?! ...Vince Camuto?! B*tch—I said SAFARI!!"

 

The deck here is a Regirock-EX/Carbink BREAK deck affixed with a heavy defensive Hard Charm/Jamming Net/Parallel City combination that gets further reinforcement from Rhyperion's {Rock Wall} Ability. Since weakness to Grass-type can be so domineering, this deck includes a tactical 2-2 Split between Hard Charm and Weakness Policy instead of just 4 Hard Charm.

 

Although it might seem awkward that this deck suggestively wants to fill up the bench, yet utilize the bench capping side of Parallel City, the logic behind this revolves around Regirock-EX being such a liability without the utility of Float Stone. You don't really want to load up the bench, except for maybe with Skarmory, to help thin the deck of them once the Parallel City hits the board. This deck involves a duck and cover strategy, where its best bench array is going to consists of a Carbink BREAK and two Rhyperior—with Regirock-EX taking the lead.

 

From here, you hold your Regirock-EX in your hand, and can drop one back on the bench once the first gets Knocked Out, then swinging Carbink BREAK in as the Active to begin a quick power-up for another assault with Regirock-EX or Rhyperior.

 

This deck utilizes Skarmory as the prime active for the resourcing of its [Call for Family] attack, but could easily switch up to a Swarmer style strategy, replacing Skarmory with some quick hitting Fighting-type (preferably one with a defensive effect that stacks with defensive theme here).

 

 

Sausage Fest

 

Jessie is a Korean girl who's going back to her homeland for the Autumn season to see her family, when she sees a flyer at the Airport for a big sausage festival, and decides to skip out on her flight to go have herself a good time. This is a Forest of Giant Plants deck that pairs the two superpowers of Yanmega BREAK and [Bee Revenge] Vespiquen for some really powerful synergy together.

 

Forest of the Giant Plants enables a hyper evolution for Stage 2 Grass Pokémon (which Yanmega BREAK plays the equivalent part of here). Stage 2 Pokémon legendarily boast elevated power to balance out the evolution chain hike, and in this deck, they not only provide a number of quick and powerful heavyhitters, but their numbers (when Knocked Out) further supercharge the power of [Bee Revenge].

 

It's a match made in heaven. And with {Sonic Vision} Yanmega playing the lead here, this deck structure is tailored to help support the potential of its Ability, which enables Yanmega and Yanmega BREAK to attack for free when a player has exactly four cards in hand. Heavy utility from Judge provides an instant ticket to this, while doubling as hard disruption against the opponent's hand. Trainers' Mail helps to provide a little extension for Forest of Giant Plants and Ultra Ball—which itself I find to be the best Ball to run with in this deck strategy—given its secondary potential to make use of odd end Pokémon near the endgame and further empower [Bee Revenge].

 

Consistency makes up the bulk for resourcing, so I don't really think any more than 3 copies of Ultra Ball are needed. You don't really want to discard too many cards for this deck either, since it needs the few precious energy it has, and needs every last Supporter to help take the edge off Judge. Shaymin-EX helps to provide an extension on this, with Ultra Ball further providing an extension on that.

 

Although attacking for free can enable some special potential with Max Potion, this deck only runs a single tech to provide a single powerplay on this. It might be useful, but this deck faces a much more precedent concern of resourcing the Pokémon and Stadium cards it needs right away, so the majority of the deck structure has to accommodate for that as carefully as possible. Just spamming through the deck could end up wasting a huge number of them, but this deck hopes to make use of at least 3 Yanmega BREAK on average.

 

A heavy tech of 2 Weakness Policy provide the finishing touch to this deck—as it has in ever other Forest of Giant Plants/Vespiquen/Stage 2 Grass deck I've made. I find that Weakness Policy provides the best utility over any other Pokémon Tool card available, by revoking the condition of Weakness, and potentially turning the tides against Fire-type decks entirely.

 

 

Screaming for Vengeance

 

Judas Priest is live tour in Nihon, performing their last show at the grand Tōdai-ji temple, and is about to play their last song of the night—Screaming for Vengeance—in hopes to end the night with the grandest style. The deck here is mighty Sky Field/M Rayquaza/Barrier Shrine, whose strategy involves loading up the bench and getting a Stadium lock with {Barrier Shrine} Ninetales. This Stadium lock enables a lock on the power of [Emerald Break]—boasting an incredible 240 damage with the bench full!

 

The deck structure here is tailored as best as I could provide a heavy coverage for the opening game scenario. Theta Max Rayquaza takes the place of Delta Evolution to enable Rayquaza-EX to better start the game and make a powerplay off Rayquaza Spirit Link for a full heal, setting the opponent against the crushing power of [Emerald Break] with Rayquaza at full HP.

 

[Outrage] Dragons make up the counterside of opening clutch, hoping to provide powerful time support for M Rayquaza with the diversity of their high HP, their Type diversity, and their Slugger potential. A heavy tech of 2 Enhanced Hammer hopes to further the time support, by potentially pushing an opponent back a turn against one of the worst decks to face that against. Among the Supporter spread, Skyla and Pokémon Fan Club hope to provide an extension on Ultra Ball, Enhanced Hammer, Shaymin-EX, and Hoopa-EX to further the flow of the cards. While Lysandre and Blacksmith hope to provide some technical power for the mid-game/endgame scenario.

 

With the elevated HP of the Pokémon GX coming up, a considerable tech for this deck could include a Volcanion-EX for the damage boosting power of {Steam Up}, which can enable M Rayquaza to One-Hit KO 250HP+ Pokémon GX.

 

 

Senbonzakura

 

He we have a very creative [Lifesplosion] deck that seeks to combine the power of [Petal Dance] Florges and [Painful Sword] Aegislash to create a deck that encompasses the Bankai spirit Senbonzakura, whom guards over Byakua Kuchiki, the 6th Division Captain of the Soul Society in the Bleach manga series.

 

[Lifesplosion] is a deck engine that I've always been very intrigued by. I've seen a lot of people cheat to make it work, but I've always strived to unlock that power the honest way, as I felt the diverse combinations of Stage 2 cards that could be had afterwards would breed a lot of fun. When [Painful Sword] Aegislash card was released, it intrigued as another really powerful card with a lot immense potential, so naturally I began looking into cards that might team well with this Aegislash in the [Lifesplosion] deck engine.

 

{Sinister Hand} Dusknoir was the first one that came to mine—a classic staple to the [Lifesplosion] deck. The other card that caught my eye was the surprising [Petal Dance] Florges, whom for a single energy, could deal 20 damage to all the opponent's Pokémon. This could be a perfect setup for the a double play on [Painful Sword]—to literally finish every one of the opponent's Pokémon off. {Sinister Hand} Dusknoir was originally a tech in this deck, but when sketching out the deck structure, I found myself very tight on space in the end. And after some test runs, ultimately decided that Dusknoir was only adulterating the consistency of the deck.

 

From this, I decided that it would ultimately be much more efficient to simply rely on consecutive offensive from Florgress, Aegislash, and Mew-EX. Florges only gives up a single prize, and although Mew-EX gives up two, it makes a very strong lead with Fighting Fury Belt for Aegislash to swing in last and finish the game with a final [Painful Sword]. This deck does veer close to the edge when it comes to the Prize exchange, but this aspect invokes a final line spoken by Byakuya Kuchki to Tsukishima, in a very close battle between the two, where it seemed Byakuya was nearly defeated.

 

"I used to think that battle was something you trained for and went into fully prepared. But today, for the first time, I experienced the ecstasy of being in the moment between life and death..."