Farewell Friends — My Entire Collection

Poundtown

 

This deck is about being taken to Poundtown—or more specifically—about me taking you to Poundtown. This is something I literally seem to have become an expert at in life. I find myself having to take someone new to Poundtown on a regular basis. It never seems to end. So just sit back and relax—because I'm going to take really good care of you—and fully indulge you in all my talent till your heart's content.

 

I think a survivalist deck would be the best way to explain this one, given how it combines the effects of heavy damage prevention with heavy damage healing. This deck strives to out-survive everything, and triumph with the most flawless victory possible.

 

[Geomancy] Xerneas is the most prominent starter for this deck, as its energy acceleration is the golden key to victory with high energy Pokémon. This deck here pairs the power of [Geomancy] with Diancie-EX and {Pressure} Lugia/Lugia BREAK—two very powerful cards—with all kinds of chemistry together in this deck structure here. Both have damage preventive Abilities that stack with Hard Charm and Parallel City, reducing the damage of an opponent's attack from 40 to 70 damage.

 

To perfectly compliment this, the high volume of 3 Fairy Drop and 3 Pokémon Center Lady further dial back the effects of the opponent's attack—reducing their best efforts to nothing at all. This ultimate defense technique is further coupled with very powerful attacks, and an array of hard disruption between between Judge, Delinquent, and Enhanced Hammer, sure to make Poundtown really exciting.

 

As an advanced deck structure technique, you'll notice there are only two copies of Xerneas BREAK in this deck. Although Xerneas BREAK is a really powerful card that a deck might want to make the most use out of that it can—the spitfire of Lugia BREAK is here to make up for the loss of Xerneas BREAK—while the lower number of copies helps to prevent Xerneas BREAK from being discarded.

 

 

Premier of China

 

China is a world of its own—so naturally a deck about the Premier of China should be a really complex and busy one. This creative deck seeks to put the Ancient Trait of Entei to its full potential, embodying a heavy volume of diverse Pokémon Tool cards to represent the full scope of talent and responsibilities enacted by the honorable premier. The deck engine here majorly consists of a straight draw tactic, combining the effects of Cheren/Tierno, Professor's Letter, and Scorched Earth, with the intention to best compliment to utility of Elsa here. Elsa is a direct retrieval card perfect for this deck to help quickly resource its immediate needs among the vast collection of Pokémon Tool cards here.

 

The collection of Pokémon Tool cards is a toolbox of sorts containing a number of tactical accessories to provide a diversity of offensive and defensive options against a number of different challenges. Weakness is possibly one of the most prominent challenges for Fire-type Pokémon, so two Weakness Policy here is a must. Fighting Fury Belt stacks wonderful with all the Basic Pokémon here, so it's a given why its consistency is so high here.

The tech of Evolite and Silver Bangle cater particularly to Ancient Trait Entei's [Flame Screen]—boosting both offensive and defense respectively. Rock Guard is pretty much all-purpose potential. It probably goes best with Ancient Trait Entei, give the ability to combine its effects with other powerful Tool cards. A final tech of Float Stone provides some mobility to help guard against Confused and Poison while doubling as an emergency escape route for heavy or energized Pokémon.

 

 

 

Princess and the Frog

 

This is a fairytale deck featuring a turbo Shaymin/Skyfield/Hoopa strategy revolving around the power of the [Round] attack. [Round] can be an incredibly powerful attack, dealing an exponential amount of damage for each Pokémon you have in play with the [Round] attack. The strategy here is pretty simple, the combination of cards in this deck structure are revolve around gather as many [Round] Pokémon on the bench as possible with Skyfield out—then quickly evolve Tympole to Seismitoad via Rare Candy—and hopefully One-Hit KO the opponent's Pokémon with [Round].

 

The deck structure here is incredibly tight knit, as every Trainer card in this deck provide extensions to one another, ultimately hyperboosting the consistency of the deck, the flow of the cards, and direct access of particular cards. Pokémon Fan Club works in this way with Ultra Ball and Master Ball, proving definite resourcing for a turn one setup alongside the Abilities of Shaymin-EX and Hoopa-EX. Skyla is run in a split with Teammates, as Teammates holds immense potential with Rare Candy and Seismitoad. The heavy tech of 2 Paint Roller enable a powerplay on Sky Field, for this deck to discard liable copies of Shaymin and Hoopa on the bench, and get them out of harms way.

 

On a final note, the energy base here makes great bait for Ultra Ball in place more precious cards, while provided in enough volume to still make consecutive energy plays all throughout the game.

 

 

Punch Power

 

Step up folks and test your might. [1] Here's a deck featuring the heavyhitting team of {King's Palace} Nidoking and Ancient Trait Nidoqueen, in a deck about the fun of the arcade Punch Machine. [1] The strategy for this deck involves the most tactical dual Stage 2 evolution chain building deck structure I could come up with. Building a Stage 2 evolution chain is challenge enough, but this deck seeks set the heavyweight record, and build side-by-side Nidoking/Nidoqueen lines in heavy volume.

 

To reinforce this as best as I could, this deck includes heavy volume of Bridgette to effectively set the foundation for the side-by-side Stage 2 evolution climb. From there, Evosoda/Level Ball/Master Ball and Wally super reinforce the lighting climb to Stage 2, together providing Rare Candy like jumps from Nidoran directly to Nidoking or Nidoqueen.

 

If you pay close attention, you'll notice how I applied a really innovative technique to deck structure here in hopes of besting its evolution chain success. This technique involved opting out one copy of Nidorina from the Ancient Trait Nidoqueen line for an additional copy of Wally. What this technique aims to do, is take a deadweight copy of the middle-placed card, and use it to add to the universal potential of evolution support. The Nidoqueen line gets an natural extension here from the Karen tech in this deck, while the three copies of Nidorina still provide a decent enough consistency for great success.

 

Both Stadiums compliment the power of this deck equally, so they're provided in an even split for best results. This even split also hopes to breed greater success against decks that run the same Stadiums, enabling alternating plays to ace out enemy Dimension Valleys and Virbank City Gyms, so copies of these cards don't collect in the hand and just adulterate the consistency of the deck.

 

[Reflective Shield] Sigilyph and [Damage Change] Mewtwo-EX provide perfect starters for this deck, as both cards make excellent leads to hold down the fort while Nidoking and Nidoqueen get ready from the bench. Giant Cape lastly finds its place here for its universal potential with every card in this deck. I considered all options, but in the end, Giant Cape stacks significantly with [Damage Change] Mewtwo, can used to great success with Sigilyph—and unlike Fighting Fury Belt—there's never a time you can't make use of it given its universal potential. It was a no contest.

 

 

Pundit Kitchen

 

This is a deck for all those people who stay up all night making political memes on Pundit Kitchen. This a [Triple Draw] Kangaskhan/[Hand Fling] Ambipom deck that seeks to diversify itself through the effects of the Type advantage Eeveelution cards. As with all humor, sometimes the jokes can be all in fun, but sometimes the punchline can be downright cruel. In the same way, [Hand Fling] can be loads of fun in this deck accompanying its straight draw strategy. But sometimes time can play a cruel trick against you, where tacking on the Type-advantage is going to be essential to victory.

 

The deck structure here is a pretty complex one. It majorly seeks to both hyper-accelerate the hand size to power up [Hand Fling], while also utilizing a number of direct retrieval cards to enable a choice selection of particularly important cards. At the apex of this, Caitlin provides some really amazing potential to this deck, enabling a powerful filter on the bulk of cards that it draws, placing them out of the way on the bottom of the deck, for a more organized draw off the top in search of what's needed.

 

Taking advantage of the Colorless theme here, this deck runs both Dark and Fairy energy, to bridge off the benefits of Fairy Garden and Shadow Circle for this deck's Pokémon. I would naturally place Shadow Circle as a bit greater importance over Fairy Garden (given how reckoning Type disadvantage can be). But free retreat can easily be just as important—so they're here in an even split for good measure—with Professor's Letter providing an instant outlet to their specific energy needs.

 

A tech on Mew-EX hopes to provide further Type advantage diversity to the Eeveelutions, while a tech of Exp. Share hopes to come in handy and enable a quick follow-up attack mid-or-endgame.

 

  

Republic of China

 

China—where occasionally a firefighter has to sneak on top of a roof to mug a man sitting on a ledge and prevent him from jumping to his death. Mystical land of flying dragons, medicine balls, kung fu, and one of the largest economies of people in the world. This right here begins a number of decks that I've come to dub, the Max Elixir Republic series. The story behind them is simple, I was basically just derping around checking out all the energy acceleration for the Fighting-type, when I decided to try combining their effects with Max Elixir seeking to create an alpha turbo deck for a number of different Fighting-type Pokémon-EX.

 

The strategy behind this deck here combines the energy acceleration of [Shout of Power] Landorus with Max Elixir in attempts to jumpstart the power of the mighty M Groudon-EX. This card can be a very challenging one to make good use of. It has a heavy resource dependency between the number of energy required for it to attack, and the need of expendable Stadium Cards, to boost the level of this attack's damage to significant amounts. The energy acceleration suite here hopes to quickly make these ends meet, while the tactical array that surrounds attempts to best support the deck's longevity.

 

Ultra Ball could be considered a very important card for making first turn use of [Shout of Power]. However, this deck only includes two of them, because Max Elixir helps to detract from the need to reply on [Shout of Power]. In addition to that, Korrina provides an instant extension to Ultra Ball, while this deck runs three copies of Juniper, which can provide an alternative outlet for [Shout of Power] (discarding basic energy from the hand—that can then be equipped with the attack's effect).

 

Providing the Stadium power, Silent Lab takes a heavy presence here as one of this deck's best selections. Silent Lab helps to set the game pace in this deck's favor by shutting down the card drawing power of {Set Up} Shaymin-EX, as well as disabling the damage reducing effects of cards like {Sparkle Veil} Diancie-EX and {Plump Body} Snorlax. This is especially beneficial to this deck, given the level of damage that [Shout of Power] does, and the fact that Silent Lab provides an extra special bonus to {Shining Spirit} Hawlucha, by disabling its own drawback ability, thus enabling Hawlucha's [Flying Press] to deal 120 damage against Pokémon-EX with Fighting-type Weakness.

 

A tech from Shine of Memories hopes to provide a special benefit to M Groudon, by enabling it to attack on three energy, and deal up to 120 damage with [Giant Claw] without any Stadium card in play. A further tech of Ancient Trait Regirock (alongside Dowsing Machine), provide extensions on Stadium cards and other Trainer cards, while Float Stone enables free movement between this deck's heavy Pokémon.

 

Zygarde-EX plays a supporting role as the counterpart EX in this deck. Zygarde provides Weakness-type diversity to Groudon, and receives a nice compliment to its [Cell Storm] attack with the heavy presence of Pokémon Center Lady here. Focus Sash is a late addition added to this deck at the last moment to further boast its longevity against Type disadvantage. Focus Sash stacks incredibly well with Hawlucha as well, enabling [Flying Press] to deal up to 160 damage with Strong Energy before Hawlucha can be Knocked Out.

 

 

Republic of India

 

The feature presentation of this Max Elixir Republic deck takes us on a magic carpet ride through the enchanted land of India. The decks strategy here combines a number of primary aspects, from the energy acceleration of [Shout of Power] Landorus/Ultra Ball/Max Elixir, to the bench punching combination between Landorus-EX, [Pure Power] Medicham, and [Muddy Water] Stunfisk. The energy acceleration aims to quickly energize the superpowers between Landorus-EX and Zygarde-EX.

Both Pokémon are very powerful, but their most prominent attacks involve a bit of an energy hike to make use of, where the energy acceleration strategy here (atop the Float Stone) form a Swarmer/Slugger style of combat that energize and mobilize these superpowers as quickly as possible to finish off the opponent's Active Pokémon, and create an unstoppable momentum from there. 

 

Although there's no Lysandre in this deck to provide a finishing touch on the heavy bench punching, the consecutive damage that stacks up can generally be enough so that Benched Pokémon naturally fall off, or wear them down to the point where they don't stand much of a fighting chance once they do hit the Active spot. Team Flare Grunt takes its place here as this deck's technical Supporter, and it works amazingly well to push the opponent back turns that enable the bench damage to quickly double and triple. A creative tech of Professor's Letter (the doctorate) provides an extension on the utility of Ultra Ball and Korrina, enabling a more definite start with [Shout of Power] Landorus.

 

However, given Max Elixir, [Shout of Power] isn't entirely needed at the start of the game. This deck can easily thrive off just Max Elixir, while using [Shout of Power] Landorus to get a jump on the damage stack. I hate to think this deck can afford to waste too many resources, and that's why you only see three copies of Ultra Ball here.

 

  

Republic of North Korea

 

In this Max Elixir Republic series deck, we journey into the prominent land of North Korea. A secluded nation terribly misunderstood by the world—with a history shrouded in mystery. Just between you and me, legend has it that North Korea actually came to be from a group of Korean liberators (led by Kim Il Sung) who sought to break free from South Korean oppression, and overthrow the oppressionist group in control, through a power in numbers strategy; seizing the brutally oppressed Northern Farm land, and forming a militant nation within it.

 

From there, North Korea became a secret militant force of justice, specializing in surgical operations against criminal members across the Asian emirates. Due to the nature of undercover work, this truth has been hindered to fabricate the legitimacy of their undercover fronts—unfortunately forcing the nation to carry shameful cross among the unknowing population of the world and its people.

 

The deck strategy here is a bit of unique one among the Max Elixir Republic series, namely because this deck runs the mighty Lucario-EX, whose [Corkscrew Smash] attack enables some extraordinary tactics that would be naïve to pass up on. M Lucario is also included here for much of the same reason. It has so much synergy with Max Elixir, it would be naïve to pass up on it. M Lucario here represents the legendary North Korean sniper—one of the most feared entities in the Asian underground.

 

A very creative heavy tech from Hitmonlee provides an extension on this flavor. One can replace it with Landorus-EX if they want, but Hitmonlee provides creative flare to this deck, stacks very well with Bursting Balloon—and as a single Prize Pokémon—creates a more difficult Prize exchange for the opponent to grind against. [Rumble] Zygarde finds its place here for the offensive diversity it adds to this deck, in addition to its synergy with Max Elixir and the Bursting Balloon/Rock Guard/Eco Arm suite. Bursting Balloon and Rock Guard both help to keep pace with the damage stack facing the two energy hike for [Rumble], while from the bench, Zygarde, makes a really amazing satellite for Max Elixir, given its high damage potential and single Prize factor.

 

{Premonition} Lunatone makes a tactical addition to this deck to help quickly resource powerful cards. It also helps to support the heavy presence of Judge, and the shortest straw it pulls for both players. The potential of Pokémon Center Lady should be obvious here. It offsets the damage stack with opponent facing heavy fire from powerful Fighting-types and the amplifying damage of Bursting Balloon and Rock Guard. Xerosic might not be as obvious, and it appears here over say, Team Flare Grunt, for its diverse potential. The ability to snipe Special Energy off Benched Pokémon, and remove Pokémon Tool cards like Fighting Fury Belt (to quickly close the gap on a Knock Out) simply sets Xerosic a bit above Team Flare Grunt. It's not even a question.

 

There is one card in question to me here though. The tech of Special Charge, which this deck wants to make use of as soon as it has the opportunity to use it (even if for only a single Strong Energy). It's strongly advised not to hesitate playing this card. However, I do question if it's really needed here though. It certainly seems like it, given there are only a few offensive resources, and level of damage on their attacks definitely benefit from as much extra reinforcement they can get. And that's what Special Charge hopes to provide—atop the prominent finishing touch it adds to the flavor of the deck.

  

  
Republic of the Congo

 

Grab your drums, tuck your pants into your boots, and suite up for war. This deck in the Max Elixir Republic series takes us through the jungles of the Congo for a Dangerous Match in the Dub Football League. The deck strategy here combines the above and below energy acceleration between Max Elixir and [Shout of Power] Landorus/Ultra Ball/Carbink BREAK. This double strategy aims to double up on energy as best as possible, to quickly power up the heavy energy needs of this deck's primary offensive resources—Golem-EX and Regirock-EX. These are very powerful Pokémon, and the Swarmer strategy here with Landorus helps to further compliment their power. {Regi Power} then further amplifies this power across the board, which most notably can take Golem's [Megaton Slam] up to 200 damage by itself. Add Strong Energy onto that, and Golem can begin One-Hit KO'ing Mega Pokémon (and even up and coming Pokémon GX).

 

Since Golem and Regirock genuinely possess some serious mobility issues, Special Conditions and cards like Lysandre can pose a serious threat against them. To check against this, the deck structure here contains a tactical array of cards between Float Stone, Scramble Switch, and Olympia, which together help run the underground railroad, and effectively bail this deck's Pokémon out from the bonds of such vulnerabilities. It further holds the potential to unlocks a Slugger-style of combat, furthering the diversity of this deck's combat overall. A single tech of Protection Cube is also included here especially for Golem, in the event it can be tapped into let Golem-EX run wild for the Golden Goal.

 

   
Republic of the United States

The final deck I have in the Max Elixir Republic series. This was actually a new one I whipped up to get a full set of five out of the series. This deck here features an alternative concept strategy between [Sol Generator] Solrock and Carbink BREAK for the setup. Traditionally, I would probably run Ultra Ball between these two, as [Sol Generator] can be used to gather Special Energy, which you can then pitch to Ultra Ball, and ultimately swing in with Carbink BREAK next to directly attach to your benched Fighting-type Pokémon.

Would be a really good strategy to run with M Steelix-EX I think, but this deck is utilizing the synergy between M Aerodactyl's [Rock Drill Dive] and Machamp's [Steaming Mad]. It's also running Max Elixir of course, which naturally helps to compensate for the the energy needs, and creates a perfect compliment for [Sol Generator] to gather Strong Energy and amplify the power of M Aerodactly-EX or Machamp-EX when it swings in next. This deck further runs a Bursting Balloon/Rock Guard/Eco Arm suite to help keep pace with the damage stack.