Moth Balls
"Who let a goddamn moth in my house?!"
Mrs. Nguyen wants to know, and she seems pretty serious about it too. But the youngest of the household says it wasn't her, she was watching TV in the other room with her boyfriend. And it couldn't have been the oldest, because she has her own place living on her own now. Which only leaves the middle child, but she also swears it wasn't her, as she was busy on the computer looking up Blackpr0n. Mrs. Ngyuen replies strictly, "I know it was you Vi, you always have your window open." And thus begins the tale of our deck here.
This deck is apart of a huge chain of Sceptile-EX decks that built pairing the cards (both [Agility] and [Unseen Claw]) with various Stage 2 Grass type Pokémon. The primary strategy of the deck here aims to use heavy Poison damage to quickly wind down the opponent's HP, to effectively enable a powerplay or two with Ancient Trait Dustox and its Delta Plus ability.
One important thing to note is that you will not get the bonus Prize if the Pokémon is Knocked Out from Poison damage—and not the damage from Dustox's actual attack. For this reason, Dustox plays a secondary role here—only to be mobilized in the event it can Knock Out an opponent's Pokémon with the damage from one of its attacks. The resources here are diversified as best as possible to help provide alternate options facing Type-disadvantage matches—with a heavy tech from Float Stone to help further this potential—and general mobility between Pokémon in this deck.
Moth to the Flame
To help give this deck an edge against cards like Virizion, I included two Silent Lab here to help give a chance to shut off preventive abilities from such cards and their Abilities. However, since Dimension Valley is so important to the offensive speed of Chandelure's [Eerie Light]—Silent Lab has to take a backseat to Dimension Valley and forces this deck to run a total of five Stadium cards to prime consistency as best possible to cover both scenarios.
The disruption power of Red Card is further included in this deck to dampen the opponent's potential to resource cards that might naturally help them fight the flames. Given the absence of Mystery Energy, Olympia takes a place here to assist this deck's mobility potential, providing with a small extension from a tech on Float Stone, and the presence of Scoop Up Cyclone as this deck's Ace Spec card.
Lysandre is included this deck (despite its redundancy to [Luring Flame]'s effect) to best suit [Eerie Light], with the potential to draw out late bench placements and get the edge on them. However, it could be unnecessary, if this deck included a 2-2 split between Fighting Fury Belt and Float Stone—which would provide greater mobility and possibly enable this deck to replace Lysandre for two copies of Pokémon Center Lady to some even greater success.
The disruption power of Red Card is further included in this deck to dampen the opponent's potential to resource cards that might naturally help them fight the flames. Given the absence of Mystery Energy, Olympia takes a place here to assist this deck's mobility potential, providing with a small extension from a tech on Float Stone, and the presence of Scoop Up Cyclone as this deck's Ace Spec card.
Lysandre is included this deck (despite its redundancy to [Luring Flame]'s effect) to best suit [Eerie Light], with the potential to draw out late bench placements and get the edge on them. However, it could be unnecessary, if this deck included a 2-2 split between Fighting Fury Belt and Float Stone—which would provide greater mobility and possibly enable this deck to replace Lysandre for two copies of Pokémon Center Lady to some even greater success.
Mudhole My Home Is
Tom is an aspiring wizard and basement dweller whose home is a mudhole—or who suggestively would like to stomp a mudhole in his homies? I'm not entirely sure, but the aspiring wizard part, and the basement dweller part is 100% on point for our tall bearded friend.
And this is Tom's deck—it's a lot better than any of Tom's typical decks—as it represents a number of awesome things Tom would never think of to put in his deck. Such as the joy of cracking a fresh, ice cold Coca-Cola—to coming home after school to watch Dragonball Z—to stomping a mudhole in the old man in a long fought game of StarCraft—to experiencing the warmth of a woman for the first time. Effectively creating the most flavorful Tom deck of all time.
And this is Tom's deck—it's a lot better than any of Tom's typical decks—as it represents a number of awesome things Tom would never think of to put in his deck. Such as the joy of cracking a fresh, ice cold Coca-Cola—to coming home after school to watch Dragonball Z—to stomping a mudhole in the old man in a long fought game of StarCraft—to experiencing the warmth of a woman for the first time. Effectively creating the most flavorful Tom deck of all time.
The primary strategy for this deck seeks to tap into the max potential of [Mud Flood] (that's where the name come from)—but is also affixed with the potential of [Seafaring]—to effectively provide this deck with an alternative strategy it can solidly rely on. In addition to the [Seafaring] strategy, Archie's Ace in the Hole makes a heavy presence in hopes of making a powerplay off Judge, Shauna, or N. This can enable an instant play on {Diving Search} Swampert or M Swampert from the discard pile—using Battle Compressor, Ultra Ball, or Computer Search to further help setup for this.
A tactical split between Chaos Tower and Heavy Boots furthermore helps guard against Special Conditions—especially Confused. I personally have a lot of decks that utilize Confusion as a powerful tactic, so I know first hand how important it can be to have a guard against it. Given that Swampert or Kyurem can be expected to go out as the Active here, and likely end up stuck out there with no way to retreat—while resources in the hand can get spare due to Judge—having a definite guard against Special Conditions such as Confusion can be essential to success.
Muppets Take Manhattan
This is a Miltank\Greninja deck that uses [Team Plasma] Tornadus-EX (Kermit the Frog—large and in-charge) to super resource multiple {Mist Shuriken} Greninja on the bench, so that their collective Abilities can be used to compliment Miss Piggy Miltank as she then leads the offensive with [Powerful Friends].
Since the style of this deck is majorly an Out-Fighter style, with the factor of time working against it, in addition to the potentially underwhelming power of {Mist Shuriken} and [Powerful Friends] against the typical Pokémon-EX (and now Pokémon-GX)—this deck adds Bursting Balloon to its ranks to help instantly close the gap between [Powerful Friends], {Mist Shuriken}, and quick Knock Outs against Pokémon with 170HP Pokémon or higher.
Eco Arm is included as apart of the typical Bursting Balloon suite, but this deck in particular replaces the standard Rock Guard with Life Dew instead, to help offset the Prize exchange with a double Prize Pokémon leading the deck strategy here. The Prize exchange can be a challenging factor for this deck, where Life Dew provides some life-saving potential for this deck to come out on top in the end.
Mutant League Hockey
Here we have a hybrid [Seafaring] deck whose theme covers the alternative concept of the Mutant League Football deck. The central theme of this deck is a damage based one. For anyone familiar with Mutant League Hockey, you know the brutality on the ice can get so severe that the games almost always end before the final clock, due to one of the teams no longer having enough players left to carry on the game.
As you can see, this deck evenly splits its resources to best round-out its potential against Type-advantage/Type-disadvantage scenarios. This primarily enables a more tactical selection between Seismitoad and Kyurem as the best outlet for [Seafaring], yet also enables this deck to freely switch up its style of play from an Out-Fighter style—to a Slugger—to a Swarmer style, based on the contents of opening hand, and which style of play best suites it.
As for the synergy between the cards here, the brutality of Frozen City amplifies damage across the board, closing the gap on the opponent's HP, while simultaneously building up the power of Kyurem's [Outrage] and Beartic's [Powerful Rage]. Since this can still be a double-edged sword, a heavy presence of Fighting Fury Belt is provided to boost the HP of this deck's Pokémon as much as possible, with a split between Heavy Boots to add some dynamic potential to this for Beartic. The guard against Confusion can be dynamically helpful here, as this deck only techs a single copy of Manaphy-EX for safety reason. So when it falls through the ice, that can be the end of your free retreating.
My Girl
This here is a deck based around the 1991 comedy-drama movie where two best friends bound by their medical issues share a childhood romance with each other. That is, until one sad and fateful day, when they are walking through the forest together, and the boy (who is "allergic to everything") knocks over a bees nest, eventually getting stung by the bees, and dying from allergic shock.
The deck strategy here is a [Lifesplosion] Cradily that utilizes Beedrill as the Stage 2 selection to effectively bring the drama of allergic reactions and killer bees to life against the opponent. [Swift Sting] is a really great accessory to the finishing power of Sceptile-EX or Lugia-EX—while a tech on [Allergic Reaction] helps to provide some emergency One-Hit KO potential. Unlike most of my [Lifesplosion] decks, this one doesn't solely to rely on [Lifesplosion]—or doesn't need to at least—as the stand-alone Swarmer potential between Sceptile and Victini can efficiently win games by itself.
[Swift Sting] simply acts as a technical utility against more aggressive decks where [Agility] and {Victory Star} hold little-to-no potential (such as [Shred] Dragons). This deck's selected Pokémon Tool cards aim to best stabilize this deck's primary Swarmer strategy (heavily reinforcing attack damage and HP). Otherwise, Float Stone would have been an essential addition here to prime mobility (even despite the fact that Sceptile-EX retreats on a single energy).
Virizion-EX is further included in this deck to help stabilize this deck's Swarmer potential by effectively preventing disruptive Special Conditions. However, if this deck wanted to switch up to a Slugger style strategy, it could include Float Stone instead, and replace Virizion with a creative tech from {Aroma of Gratitude} Shaymin-EX to boost the healing of retreated Pokémon.
Notes in Constellations
"I see her smile in her sleep...I know that she's a dreamer.
Oh—I follow every move she makes..."
Oh—I follow every move she makes..."
The deck concept here is a turbo M Mewtwo X deck, that utilizes an Out-Fighter style strategy between [Energy Assist] Latias and Ancient Trait Sableye to quickly energize M Mewtwo X for the win. Battle Compressor is the tool of choice here to get the needed energy into the discard pile for the setup, as it is by far the most efficient card to get the job done. M Mewtwo X has some very specific energy needs—that are not only color heavy—but Type-specific as well. Battle Compressor however is a one card direct ticket to M Mewtwo's exact needs—instantly enabling [Energy Assist] and [Energy Hunt] finish the job.
From there, [Vanishing Strike] can basically plow through the opponent. It deals up 200 damage and busts right through all preventive effects. However, since this isn't going to net a One-Hit KO against certain Spirit Link Mega Pokémon decks (and various new Pokémon-GX), Latias plays the lead here for the subtle damage bonus, which better enables M Mewtwo X to swing in after and Knock Out Pokémon with 210HP or more. It might be a little slower, but the lead with Latias ultimately aims to be much more successful.
Once M Mewtwo X goes Active, it becomes somewhat vulnerable to heavy damage and Special Conditions, which is why this deck includes three copies of Pokémon Center Lady and Mystery Energy respectively. Naturally, for a Psychic-type deck, you might want to include a full playset of Mystery Energy, but since both Latias and Meloetta are incompatible with Mystery Energy, it's been dialed down here to three copies to best stabilize the deck structure.
Meloetta itself is a really creative addition to this deck—that holds some diverse potential to open up the game as the Active Pokémon and bridge off the first play on Battle Compressor with [Accelerating Spin], then duck behind a Latias or Sableye, whom can then make explicit use of a second play on Battle Compressor, to begin energizing M Mewtwo X for a double play.
Nurse's Aid
Here's a unique [Tender Vengeance] Blissey deck. The original concept I had for this deck was to bridge off the power, HP and mobility factors of {Dark Cloak} Darkrai-EX and Yveltal-EX. However, when I actually got around to the concept, I began searching to see if there was some even greater potential for this deck available.
From this brainstorm, [Outrage] Dragons first came to mind as an obvious perfect match. [Outrage] Dragons is a signature of mine, and there are a lot of qualities that make it perfect for [Tender Vengeance] Blissy. First you have the Type-diversity between [Outrage] Dragons, which helps to suite Type-advantage/Type-disadvantage scenarios. Then you have the elevated HP factor that comes natural with the 130HP Basic Pokémon. And last but not least, you have the HP cache technique that's native to the Slugger-style of combat.
So starting with [Outrage] Kyurem-EX, Float Stone, and Frozen City for the HP factor and mega synergy between these cards, I began fixing this deck to the Water-type. The technical power of Seismitoad-EX then quickly found its way to frontline of the deck strategy—sealing the deal for this deck to take its foundation as a Water-type instead of Dark. Between its own set of attacks, Seismitoad-EX has all kinds of synergy with the cards in this deck, and its Item Lock effective arguably makes it even more powerful than Yveltal.
With the release of Max Elixir, Fighting Fury Belt, and {Aqua Tube} Manaphy-EX, I progressively began to update the deck structure to its current version here. Each one of these cards adds worlds of potential to this deck, and enables a primary strategy that doesn't need to rely on [Tender Vengeance]. That is why this deck tops itself with just a single tech on {Victory Star} Victini to help with [Tender Vengeance]—while cards like Manaphy and Pokémon Fan Club make a heavier appearance—given how much more essential they are to the primary strategy. Their consistency is very important—as this deck majorly relies on consistency to do a majority of its resourcing.
Omega Shenron
This here is the original turbo [Round] deck, featuring the hyper acceleration suite between {Set Up} Shaymin-EX/Ultra Ball/Sky Field/and Hoopa-EX. As a fun fact, this deck is actually not the true original, but is a variant the original Exploud [Round] deck concept I had named "Le Moaner". This deck included a very similar suite of cards—but further included a tech addition of {Long-Distance Hypnosis} Munna—to help stall for time while Exploud sets up for a crushing [Round].
This version of the deck takes on a Dragon Ball GT theme instead, pitting the opponent against the mighty Omega Shenron in Exploud's [Round] attack. This attack is so powerful—that with the bench filled in this deck—it can virtually One-Hit KO any Pokémon in the game. Despite its power, this deck still faces a number of challenges building up to the [Round] attack. It faces a Stage 2 evolution climb and a massive four energy requirement to use the Exploud's [Round] attack.
The technique for this build up here majorly involves using Loudred's [Supersonic] to Confuse the opponent's Active Pokémon in hopes to stall for the additional turn needed. A 3-1 split between [Screaming Fit] Whismur is further included to reinforce this potential in the event this deck doesn't get to play first. Other technical additions include Rare Candy, Special Charge, Teammates, and Exp. Share to support the time-and-energy factors that pose major challenges here.
The technique for this build up here majorly involves using Loudred's [Supersonic] to Confuse the opponent's Active Pokémon in hopes to stall for the additional turn needed. A 3-1 split between [Screaming Fit] Whismur is further included to reinforce this potential in the event this deck doesn't get to play first. Other technical additions include Rare Candy, Special Charge, Teammates, and Exp. Share to support the time-and-energy factors that pose major challenges here.
Oprah-Chan
Today—on a'h Oprah-chan! Whitney Houston, Tyra Banks, and Beyoncé Knowles—with special guest appearance—Barack and Michelle Obama. This was originally a [Gather Order] Vespiquen deck that sought to combine the quick bench filling utility of [Gather Order] with the exponential damage that Florges-EX can deal with its [Bright Garden] attack. Traditionally, for creativity and uniqueness purposes, I like to stick with the original theme and its cards as strongly as possible. However, this final edit of the deck ends up tech'ing just a single [Gather Order] Vespiquen—replacing the bulk of three copies with the [Intelligence Gathering] Vespiquen instead.
The reason for this has to do with the mobility potential of this Vespiquen's free retreat cost, which enables a late arriving Florges on the bench to get a jump start on the energy it needs for [Bright Garden]. On the next turn, Vespiquen can retreat for free, and the turn's energy play can be used to finish energizing [Bright Garden] for the fastest possible offensive start. This final edit of the deck further adds the suite of Sky Field/{Propagation} Exeggscute/Battle Compressor to its ranks. This combo is intended to extend greater reaches of One-Hit KO potential Florges and [Bright Garden].
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