Jack-in-the-Box
"Round and round the handle goes—what pops out might claim your soul."
Here's one of the most original decks I've ever built. This is a [Celestial Roar] with a technique involving using the attack to quickly gather masses of energy from the deck, for a powerplay on Scramble Switch to retreat the Active Rayquaza, and fully energize one of the deck's select benched Pokémon to begin a powerful advance.
Although I had originally intended on doing so, not all the Pokémon in this deck in are intended to be offensive. Some of the Pokémon here are included for their technical potential alone—such as Virizion and Malamar. Virizion-EX was chosen over [Wood Blast] Trevenant-EX for the lock against Special Conditions (a much more prominent issue than Type-advantage). Then in a very tough choice, Malamar-EX was chosen over [Evil Ball] Yveltal-EX for its ability to disrupt the opponent with {Hyper Hypnosis} while Rayquaza-EX leads with [Celestial Roar].
Sableye is an axis to this deck if you didn't notice, enabling continuous plays on Scramble Switch with [Junk Hunt]. Hoopa-EX is another main axis to this deck, given its potential to instantly gather the perfect assortment of Pokémon-EX for the scenario at hand (including M Rayquaza).
I included a split between Delta Wild and Theta Max M Rayquaza for power options facing two primary scenarios. The first revolves around if-and-when [Celestial Roar] picks up a lot of double energies, where a reach for Delta Wild M Rayquaza can be made to begin bringing the serious pain with [Dragon Ascent]. The second involves when Rayquaza takes heavy damage, in which a reach for the Theta Max M Rayquaza can be made instead, to fully heal Rayquaza and reserve the power of [Emerald Break] for whenever it's needed.
On a final note, an alternative version of this deck can be made with [Dark Pulse] Darkrai. The technique for this is going to involve upping the number of Double Dragon Energy in this deck to a full playset, then replacing an assortment of Pokémon with copies of Darkrai-EX, and other Dragon-type Pokémon to support the heavy presence of Double Dragon Energy.
Jamaican Me Crazy
Rastafarian Mahn! Get yo' Mellow Mood tea, and pick up da payce on tha double, because we're in parallel Jamaican universe, where the iguana hunts you brotha. The strategy behind this deck involves teaming up Sceptile-EX's [Unseen Claw] attack with {Wafting Scent} Victreebell. These two cards have some incredible synergy together, as {Wafting Scent} enables the bonus damage for [Unseen Claw] and given the effect of Confusion, potentially doubles to cover the difference in damage between [Unseen Claw] the average Pokémon boasting 160HP and up.
This deck includes Forest of Giant Plants to help hyper-accelerate theVictreebel evolution line, and furthers to bridge on this potential by including a tech on M Sceptile. This enables a powerplay with Forest of Giant Plants, that enables a search with Ultra Ball to mega evolve Sceptile on Turn 1 without suffering any major loss of the turn. Given the high volume of Sceptile, and the split lead between Illumise, the potential to bench two Sceptile (and mega evolve one) should be prime.
Illumise is a split lead in this deck for the additional synergy it provides with Sceptile-EX. Illumise can enable [Unseen Claw] with [Twirling Sign], or can double to provide energy acceleration instead, in games where the setup with Victreebell is apparent.
Jawbreaker Tofu
This is an original turbo M Gardevoir deck of mine, that sought to utilize the heavy draw power of Kangaskhan-EX, with straight draw Supporters, and heavy utility from Great Ball and Level Ball to make a play on {Serene Grace} by the second turn and attach up to 5 energies on average, to fully energize M Gardevoir, and boost its power to 150 in a single play. In addition to this, I included 2 Devolution Spray to provide extensions on Ancient Trait Togekiss, and enable frequent double plays on {Serene Grace} during turn 2. This deck would often make about 4 to 5 plays with {Serene Grace} on average—sending M Gardevoir Active by Turn 3 to deal over 300 damage regularly.
This final edit of deck seeks to diversify upon the original some. The first addition includes [Powerful Friends] Miltank, to provide an answer for anti-EX effect. The second involves replacing [Life Leap] Gardevoir-EX, for the more powerful starter, [Luminous Blade] Gardevoir-EX. A copy of M Gardevoir has been dialed back to make room for Miltank, and a copy of Great Ball and Level Ball as been removed to supplement this, and make room for an overhaul to the Supporter array.
This new array replaces 4 Shauna with split between Caitlin and Misty's Determination. Misty's Determination helps to reach deep into the deck for a potential faster draw on Togekiss—while keeping as many cards in the deck as possible—to prime the energy base for {Serene Grace}. Caitlin enables the potential to put energy from the hand back into the deck (then shuffle it up with a play on another card) to much of the same potential.
The theme behind this deck is a cut one about borrowing money from parents to buy candy. The name takes inspiration from the actual name of my Togepi in Pokémon Gold version.
Jawbreaker Tofu After 40
Here is the alternate version of the original Jawbreaker Tofu deck. This deck sought to replace M Gardevoir, with the faster and more universal Lugia-EX as the satellite for Togekiss and its {Serene Grace} Ability. The two deck ran almost indentical deck structures, with this one originally running 4 Great Ball and 3 Level Ball to compliment the straight draw strategy, and hyper-accelerate the speed of {Serene Grace}. It was immensely effective, but faced trouble against preventive effects, seeing as how Lugia-EX was the only major offensive resource (aside from Kangaskhan/M Kangaskhan).
This final edit of the deck attempts to diversify on it some, adding [Powerful Friends] Miltank to matchup against anti-EX effects, and also splitting the energy-based attackers between Lugia and Mewtwo for some Type-diversity. The Ball selection has been changed to a simple split between Level Ball and Ultra Ball accompanying the increased diversity here. The Supporter spread also adds a heavy presence of Caitlin, whose purpose is to put energy back into the deck (then shuffle it up), to better improve the power of {Serene Grace}.
Jelly-Filled Donut
"Nothing beats a jelly filled donut!"
Brock said it best, and this deck pays tribute to the greatness of the jelly donut. This is a deck that began as an attempt to centerpiece {Gooey Regeneration} Goodra. It seemed like a powerful card with a lot of potential—given the ability to endlessly heal itself. I thought to supplement Goodra's Ability with a defensive strategy that included Hard Charm, Jamming Net, and Parallel City. This would effectively reduce the amount of damage dealt to Goodra, and enable Goodra to either fully heal itself at the expense of less energy, or amount to Goodra having to heal itself less frequently.
Although Parallel City seems counter-intuitive to Seismitoad, Seismitoad's major role here was only for the Item lock effect (to stall the opponent—and give time to build up Goodra from the bench). It turns out though, that Parallel City can actually come in fairly handy, as it reduces the damage [Grenade Hammer] does to Benched Pokémon—to just 10 damage.
This final edit now leads with Team Aqua's Secret Base instead, since this deck's heavy Pokémon aren't going anywhere once their Active, so this deck doesn't want the opponent's Pokémon going anywhere either. It also places the previous centerpiece on the lower end of the split with [Liquid Blow] Goodra instead, given the quick attack power, and potentially heavy damage (to any Pokémon) that stacks with Team Aqua's Secret Base.
The deck structure has also been arranged to an even more hardened disruption policy, including 4 copies of Judge, 3 copies of Ilima, and then 4 copies of Professor Juniper to help brace the short end of the draw. A tech on Brock's Grit then helps to brace the loss of important Pokémon, facing the heavy presence of Professor Juniper. Lapras-GX also makes its way into this final edit of the deck, in order to provide a strong catch for the opening spot in place of Seismitoad, given how well the three card draw of [Collect] helps this deck to recover from the short end of Judge and Ilima.
Jinlong Airship
In a distant future, a notoriously powerful airship takes this name Jinlong, which literally means Golden Dragon. This airship rules the skies and space, commanded by a group of outlaw bounty hunters, who search the cosmos for criminals that have escaped justice.
This is a hybrid Team Plasma deck that combines the [Team Plasma] Deoxys, Plasma Badge, [Shred] Garchomp, and [Team Plasma] Thundurus-EX to create a powerful Slugger/Swarmer strategy in unison with {Max Wind} Dragonite. The technique here involves beginning the game with Thundurus (or Garchomp with Plasma Badge) and swarming the opponent with their quick attacks, while loading Deoxys on the bench to increase their power more and more. While Thundurus-EX or Garchomp build energy and slug it out, Dragonite builds on the bench to provide a full heal for the swarmer at the most crucial moment before it gets Knocked Out. This powerplay then offsets every element of the game, and pits the opponent against a fully energized, fully healed Pokémon-EX.
AZ and Scoop Up Cyclone are teched here to provide extensions on Dragonite's {Max Wind} Ability and enabling multiple full heals on this deck's Pokémon. Could be a neat idea to tech a Pokémon GX into this deck, but there aren't any just yet that would fit in here well—something to think about for the future though.
Joe's Apartment
"Welcome to Joe's apartment, it's our apartment too!
We've been around for a hundred million years—and we'll be here long after you!"
We've been around for a hundred million years—and we'll be here long after you!"
This is a deck based on the MTV movie Joe's Apartment. Joe is an average guy living in the ghettos of New York City. He lives in a very rundown apartment building, struggling to get by, but Joe is not alone. He lives with a huge family of talking cockroaches, who treat Joe in part as their best bud, and one fateful day, help him and his love life.
As a hybrid Genesect/Virizion deck, the strategy here involves leading with [Sol Generator] Solrock instead of Virizion, then using the powerful suite of resourcing cards between Hoopa-EX, Ultra Ball, and Shaymin-EX to flood the Pokémon onto the bench like one big family. This deck adds the ranks of Max Elixir to Colress Machine, in order to quickly energize Genesect in place of Virizion. The strategy here with Genesect especially involves making explicit use of G Booster, through the utility of Double Colorless Energy, which can be used by G Booster (in place of two Grass energy) to power the massive attack. And this is primarily where Solrock comes in, as [Sol Generator] enables and instant retrieval for Double Colorless Energy, while Max Elixir and Colress Machine double up energy on Genesect from the bench.
This deck lastly techs a Junk Arm in the event G Booster is lost, as Junk Arm helps to provide an extension on a lost G Booster (the same can not be said for Joe's virginity).
Jump Into The Smog
Kim Jong Un is on the run from the Chinese police, who case him up to the roof top of a mid-level skyscraper. In a panic, Kim Jong Un runs across the rooftop and over to the ledge, where he suddenly leaps into the smog—vanishing into thin air—from which no one can find him after.
This is a unique deck of mine that combines [Creep Show] Gengar and [Team Plasma] Weezing for the synergy between their attacks. The synergy is increased further with [Dimensional Punch] Hoopa and [Cursed Drop] Chandelure-EX, both of which have attacks that can split damage among the opponent's Pokémon, and set them up for an instant Knock Out from Gengar's [Creep Show].
This deck involves a lot of evolution chain building, so it includes a lot of support for it, to super reinforce this deck's resource gathering potential (especially at the start of the game).
Although this deck seeks to make more explicit use of Colress than Professor Sycamore, it still includes a tech on Karen, because Karen can still be very useful here seeing as how this deck runs evolution lines with just three copies each, and precious copies of Pokémon are sure to get discarded anyways by the effects of Ultra Ball and Sycamore. Considering this, Karen still makes a great tech for this deck, and can effectively extend the evolution lines here to the potential of a full playset or more.
This deck does put an emphasis on Colress for two good reasons. The first is due to all the of Bench support to cushion Colress, while the second reason has to do with the very low energy base here; in which this deck would be sure to suffer immensely if it discarded too many energy cards to Professor Sycamore.
Kanji Inoki
This deck originally began as a parody deck, featuring a number of comical Pokémon from [Detect] Hitmonchan to [Superpower] Throh—and lastly the punchline—{Ancient Scream} Aerodactyl (which I refused to remove—as it's the centerpiece of the deck).
This final edit of the deck take on a form about as mature as the legend himself, seeking to actually accomplish some competitive potential, utilizing an immense damage increase strategy.
This deck leads with the young Kanji Inoki—Lucario-EX—and his legendary cross-genre rival Muhammad Ali—[Shout of Power] Landorus. From there, it then adds a number of power increasing cards—{Fighting Fury} Machamp, {Regi Power} Regirock-EX, and {Ancient Scream} Aerodactyl—to super-empower the attacks of this deck's lead Pokémon.
Korrina/Rare Candy is the primary tactic to quickly evolve {Fighting Fury} Machamp for the additional 20 damage each, but a copy of Machoke is also included here (if for some reason Rare Candy falls through). A copy of {Scoundrel Ring} Hoopa-EX could replace Zygarde-EX, enabling a very quick resource for several Regirock, but it's recommended to replace the Stadiums here for Parallel City instead, for its potential to drop off Hoopa and get it out of harms way after the play is made.
There's only a 2-2 line of Aerodactyl here, which means it's going to be best to try saving those Old Amber until the deck has significantly thinned out. Professor Kukui makes an appearance here to further increase the damage threshold, and could possibly benefit by replacing Professor Juniper entirely. Two Float Stone are also included to help with mobility on Regirock and Machamp, while a final tech on Machamp Prime enables a late game powerplay to tag in and finish the game with a [Strong Lariat] and a [Champ Buster].
Killer Bees
This is Forest of Giant Plants deck that pairs up [Agility] Sceptile-EX, {Victory Star} Victini, and [Allergic Reaction] Beedrill for an aggressive and deadly deck that seeks to live up to the name. The strategy here is a instant kill, preventive strategy, that leads with Sceptile and its [Agility] attack with Victini on the Bench. From there, Forest of Giant Plants helps to quickly evolve the Beedrill line, and then begins to enable [Allergic Reaction] and Sceptile's [Agility] attack to Knock Out any Pokémon instantly and prevent all damage that would be dealt to Sceptile during the opponent's next turn.
To diversify upon this some, [Outrage] Zekrom is included as an alternative to Sceptile. Zekrom is like the wasp that can keep stinging. Zekrom provides some Type-diversity, while being able to move in just as effectively as Sceptile after [Allergic Reaction], and then stay Active as a powerful Slugger with Fighting Fury Belt and [Outrage].
Herb Energy and Pokémon Center Lady are included to help heal Beedrill mostly—as Bedrill is considerably vulnerable after attacking with [Allergic Reaction]. It also includes a single Lysandre, just for the powerplay if-and-when it's available. Since a Pokémon can retreat and disable [Allergic Reaction], Lysandre isn't as effective here as it might normally be. It's still nice to have around just in case. A final tech on Karen helps to support the heavy presence of Professor Sycamore, and provide more extensions on the Beedrill line.
No comments:
Post a Comment