Pokémon [17]
2 — Toxicroak EX — Flashfire (41/106)
2 — Toxicroak EX — Flashfire (102/106)
2 — Sigilyph — Plasma Freeze (118/116)
3 — Venipede — Boundaries Crossed (72/149)
4 — Skarmory — Roaring Skies (69/108)
2 — Gulpin — Phantom Forces (37/119)
2 — Swalot — Phantom Forces (38/119)
Trainers [26]
4 — Hypnotoxic Laser — Plasma Storm (123/135)
4 — Robo Substitute — Phantom Forces (102/119)
2 — Ace Trainer — Ancient Origins (69/98)
3 — Teammates — Primal Clash (160/160)
4 — N — Dark Explorers (96/108)
4 — Virbank City Gym — Plasma Storm (126/135)
1 — Rock Guard — Plasma Freeze (108/116)
4 — Rocky Helm — Boundaries Crossed (153/149)
Energy [17]
4 — Mystery Energy — Phantom Forces (112/119)
4 — Double Colorless Energy
9 — Psychic Energy
MAIN STRATEGY
Skarmory & Sigilyph: Skarmory represents going door to door on Halloween to collect candy—and Sigilyph is like when we get home and pour out the candy to see what we got. These two are not a starting pair though. Sigilyph holds about as much potential as a starter in this deck as Gulpin does. It's pretty low. Skarmory is our primary starter for this deck. And the strategy generally involves playing second, so that we can use [Call for Family] right away.
Even at first, the contents of this deck appeared to me as though they were going to be really difficult to work with. Yet by the end of the development process, it had been assured that this was one of most difficult deck structures I had ever developed. I was extremely surprised to learn that this deck would literally require Skarmory to stabilize the flow of the cards—especially since this deck doesn't run high on evolution chains, or rely on the bench in any way.
Given the prominence of item cards here, I had originally tried working with [Close Encounter] Deoxys—yet that card kept falling terribly short in the test runs (even with Dimension Valley—the original Stadium card for this deck). It was then I had the idea to try [Call for Family] instead—given how universal the potential of that effect tends to be. And it was from that decision that I had discovered it was the Pokémon base in this deck that had been polluting the flow of the cards.
And it was by filtering them out—with [Call for Family]—that I was majorly able to unlock this flow. Unfortunately, the art on the card for Skarmory didn't match the Halloween theme as well as the art on [Close Encounter] Deoxys did—but I guess I actually ended up getting a little more flavor out of it this way. Because sometimes it rains on Halloween, and other times you have to Trick or Treat in the daylight—both of which can spoil the fun of Halloween a little.
As for Sigilyph, it could probably double as our secret stash given how it often plays out here. You see, Sigilyph has a habit of hiding away, and doesn't see much action in this deck (at least based on my experiences with it). It's very much a distant backup resource, that you save for a rainy day (thus the double entendre). And even if you perceive that you don't need it, keep in mind that it can block up the flow of the cards if you carelessly shuffle them back into your deck.
For this reason, there is somewhat of an importance of not keeping them in your hand (even if you can't use them). In order to snug in all of the tactical content that was needed to stabilize the deck structure, it thinned out our card advantage resources pretty well. And given how many of them are conditional, we don't want to pollute the contents of our deck any—so try to play out the first Sigilyph you get into your hand (even if you don't need it)—and get it out of the way to help concentrate the flow of the cards.
Gulpin & Swalot:
"Why don't you give meee some candy?"
"Ewuuuu...I don't think so...you're fat enough."
These two represent our dysfunctional family—always trying to get us to do stuff we don't want to do. Which is an interesting gem of symbolism, since developing this deck literally involved forcing myself to figure out how in the hell to make good use of Phantom Forces Swalot. I had not choice either, because this card was the counterpart to Gourgiest, and the centerpiece for a post-Halloween deck revolving around the theme of eating candy. Ironically, figuring out how to use this card was more like Nightmare on Elm Street. Which is actually kind of funny—when you look at the art for the card.
In my attempts to work this magic, I had originally started with [Dimension Valley]—feeling as though its power was needed in order to bridge the high costs of Swalot's attacks. This didn't work out however—since the power of [Poison Gas] is miserably low for a Stage 1 Pokémon (even at 1 energy). And Swalot's HP is also too low to make consistent use of [Swallow Up] (even at 2 energy).
I had tried a bunch of different combinations trying to unlock the hidden potential. It was like the Hellraiser puzzle box. At first I included [Close Encounter] Deoxys and [Psychic Assault] Wobbuffet—both of which attack for one energy—and work incrementally with attacks like [Poison Gas] and [Triple Poison]. With such quick attack power, I was convinced that there had to be someway to get Dimensional Valley to in this deck with Swalot. However, I had come to conclude that the deck structure was just too unstable with Swalot.
And so, this forced me to try something new. And in the end, I had learned something unique from this experience. Normally, I like to run a broad line of 4/3—or 3/3 for my Stage 1 evolution chains. You need a broad line like that in order to ensure consistency. It's essential to quickly get your cards on the table and make decent use of your Stage 1 Pokémon.
However, it appeared to be that Swalot was a special case. Where seemingly, the only way to get the card to actually work—is by running the evolution chain in a thin line like we have here. The reason for this was because the card itself isn't especially useful. It does have potential, yet that potential is so narrow, it requires you to run a thin line if you want to actually make good use of it. If you try to run a broader line, then the lesser qualities of the card are going to hold you back.
As far as I can tell, Swalot's best potential seems to be as a late game finisher—when you only have one two prize cards left, and you need to deal a troublesome 100 damage to finish the game. This can't be achieved in one attack with any other Pokémon in this deck—and that's where Swalot rises above the crowd a little. So maybe it wouldn't be so bad to give him a little candy. After all, Swalot is likely to be the one that has your back when no one else does.
Toxicroak EX & Venipede: This combination probably sums up the fun of Halloween for us all. We all start out as a little peapod in this big world, looking back at Mom & Dad, and wondering if they're really going to send us up to the door all by ourselves—to a broke kid in college running around on Halloween all by ourselves with no shame in collecting free candy from other adults. Toxicroak EX can make quick of pretty much anything in this deck—like some horror movie killer. And that's why there are four of them here, because Toxicroak is an explicitly strong starting Pokémon.
In this deck, all you need is a double colorless energy, and you can totally dominate with [Triple Poison] between Virbank City Gym, Mystery Energy, and Robo Substitute. You'll be stacking up 50 damage a turn on your opponent without even needing Toxicroak EX to remain your active Pokémon, while Mystery Energy enables you to vanish like Michael Myers. Put a Rocky Helmet Toxicroak—and you'll be tearing them up like Jason Voorhees. Throw Rock Guard on there—and that's like Jason Takes Manhattan. Heads will roll.
Venipede on the other hand is our distant backup starter in this deck, and doubles as a transitional resource whenever we need to switch to a defensive stance. {Poison Point} and Virbank City Gym go hand-in-hand. This combination can keep a smart opponent at bay, while more reckless opponents are going to start stacking up some heavy poison damage on themselves from {Poison Point}—thus adding some offensive edge to what would otherwise be an unprogressive stalling tactic.
As such a resource, Venipede also doubles as an enabler for us—working powerful Supporters like Ace Trainer and Teammates. We couldn't possibly get this much out of any other basic Pokémon in the game, which kind of makes Venipede appear to me as the old lady at the top of the hill, who drops so much candy in your bag—you can't help but love her. She's our favorite person in the world to visit on Halloween, and just ringing her door bell makes our heart glow like a jack-o'-lantern.
Hypnotoxic Laser & Robo Substitute: Robo Substitute—that's like us at the hospital. I think we might have eaten too much candy. And Hypnotoxic Laser is like equipment they have to use to see if we're going to go into diabetic shock. Both of these cards are powerful resources for any Virbank City Gym deck. Hypnotic Laser can jump start the poison damage when we can't even begin to attack yet, while Robo Substitute can extend the range of that damage to at least 90 over the course of a single turn (and that's not even including our follow up attack).
Toxicroak EX makes a sweet pair with Robo Substitute as well, further increasing the overall synergy of the deck. Over the course of a single go, your opponent will get one attack on Toxicroak EX—and by the time it comes back around next turn (after Robo Substitute gets knocked out)—200 damage will have passed from [Triple Poison]. You can use this technique to bag fresh Pokémon EX that your opponent sends out from the bench but hasn't powered up yet. They won't even be able to get two energies on it and it'll be gone.
I guess that could make this pair of cards something like having to fend off our siblings from our candy with a Super Soaker (because they ate all of theirs already). They might be lucky to get one to two pieces, but it'll take a true fat ass to stand there and mooch our candy in the face of getting hosed.
Our Halloween Crew & Virbank City Gym: Ace Trainer reminds me of the perfect Halloween date. There's nothing quite as romantic as a night on the town together amidst the Halloween atmosphere. Virbank City Gym is like our neighborhood on Halloween—or possibly our real home afterwards (where everyone steals our candy). Ace Trainer also represents our friends, where Teammates is like our little sister and her friend. We said that we would take them Trick or Treating so they didn't have to stay inside on Halloween. We don't mind if they tag along. It would have broke their heart to have had to stay inside—which I guess makes us like the brave and endearing hero N by default.
This spread of Supporters is truly beyond anything I would ever think possible. Yet it was through forcing myself to develop this deck that I had unlocked the potential to do the impossible. I had first tried a bunch of different Supporter combinations, many of which were very successful for similar deck structures of mine—yet none of them seemed to work very well at all for this deck in specific. Ultimately, it was in the final major revision of the deck—that there should be some extremely rare and unique potential for this deck's Supporter spread.
After I had unlocked the secret of Skarmory's potential for this deck, and switched over from Dimension Valley to Virbank City Gym (adding Venipede to the deck to suite it)—I had concluded that this deck should have the potential to run an explicitly tactical Supporter pair featuring both Ace Trainer and Teammates. This was something totally unprecedented otherwise (due to their restrictions)—yet in this deck should thrive, given the immense number of satellite resources we have to heavily support both cards. For this same reason, it was obvious to me that N would make a beautiful compliment at the core of this Supporter spread. It works along the lines of the main strategy—and provides the support needed here to accentuate the flow of the cards.
Ace Trainer makes a really great follow up to N, mid-game for example, after your opponent has knocked out one of your Skarmory, Venipede, or even Toxicroak maybe. Yet it's still too conditional to see any extensive use here (due to the prominence of poison damage). The style of this deck is not intended to provide some perfectly one-sided landslide victory. It vies on explicit tactic—revolving around the consistency of poison damage, and all of our tactical resources to support that. Our opponent is likely to pick up more than a few prize cards as we strive to counterstep them, yet we should ultimately pull victory out from under them.
This tactical style is one of the greatest techniques in the game, because it not only works best deck's that are based on simple brute force, it is the only type of deck that has a chance to best other explicitly tactical decks. And this is where title of endearing hero is going to take full perspective for both Ace Trainer & N—with their ability to aggressively short our opponent's hand while they collect prize cards off our satellite resources.
While Teammates plays for free off Robo Substitute—giving us all kinds of tactical retrieval power—that's sure to be especially dangerous in this deck. In fact, it should not only save the day for us—but keeping the pressure on our opponents with Hypnotoxic Laser, Virbank City Gym (and anything else we might need) should come natural.
Rocky Helm & Rocky Guard: Rocky Helmet is like the knots on your head—tryin' to steal my candy; and Rock Guard is like our candy collection when there's nothing left but Tootsie Rolls. You can have them all. It could also be like our stash of the good stuff I guess, versus all of the junk stuff that we give to our family to keep the fiends out of our stash. It could even be our stomach in knots after eating too much junk food (that's how we ended up in the hospital). There are lots of possibilities here...makes it hard to pick just one.
Luckily, making good use of these cards is about as simple as can be—you won't have to put too much thought into it. You'll just want to save Rock Guard for Toxicroak as often as possible—as well as Rocky Helmet for something like Swalot or Skarmory. We want to get the most out of these cards, so we don't want to attach them to any Pokémon with low HP, unless it would be a game winning move. So eat up all the good stuff right away, but try to savor the flavor if you can. That's what's most comfortable, so that's always going to be our best move.
Even at first, the contents of this deck appeared to me as though they were going to be really difficult to work with. Yet by the end of the development process, it had been assured that this was one of most difficult deck structures I had ever developed. I was extremely surprised to learn that this deck would literally require Skarmory to stabilize the flow of the cards—especially since this deck doesn't run high on evolution chains, or rely on the bench in any way.
Given the prominence of item cards here, I had originally tried working with [Close Encounter] Deoxys—yet that card kept falling terribly short in the test runs (even with Dimension Valley—the original Stadium card for this deck). It was then I had the idea to try [Call for Family] instead—given how universal the potential of that effect tends to be. And it was from that decision that I had discovered it was the Pokémon base in this deck that had been polluting the flow of the cards.
And it was by filtering them out—with [Call for Family]—that I was majorly able to unlock this flow. Unfortunately, the art on the card for Skarmory didn't match the Halloween theme as well as the art on [Close Encounter] Deoxys did—but I guess I actually ended up getting a little more flavor out of it this way. Because sometimes it rains on Halloween, and other times you have to Trick or Treat in the daylight—both of which can spoil the fun of Halloween a little.
As for Sigilyph, it could probably double as our secret stash given how it often plays out here. You see, Sigilyph has a habit of hiding away, and doesn't see much action in this deck (at least based on my experiences with it). It's very much a distant backup resource, that you save for a rainy day (thus the double entendre). And even if you perceive that you don't need it, keep in mind that it can block up the flow of the cards if you carelessly shuffle them back into your deck.
For this reason, there is somewhat of an importance of not keeping them in your hand (even if you can't use them). In order to snug in all of the tactical content that was needed to stabilize the deck structure, it thinned out our card advantage resources pretty well. And given how many of them are conditional, we don't want to pollute the contents of our deck any—so try to play out the first Sigilyph you get into your hand (even if you don't need it)—and get it out of the way to help concentrate the flow of the cards.
Gulpin & Swalot:
"Why don't you give meee some candy?"
"Ewuuuu...I don't think so...you're fat enough."
These two represent our dysfunctional family—always trying to get us to do stuff we don't want to do. Which is an interesting gem of symbolism, since developing this deck literally involved forcing myself to figure out how in the hell to make good use of Phantom Forces Swalot. I had not choice either, because this card was the counterpart to Gourgiest, and the centerpiece for a post-Halloween deck revolving around the theme of eating candy. Ironically, figuring out how to use this card was more like Nightmare on Elm Street. Which is actually kind of funny—when you look at the art for the card.
In my attempts to work this magic, I had originally started with [Dimension Valley]—feeling as though its power was needed in order to bridge the high costs of Swalot's attacks. This didn't work out however—since the power of [Poison Gas] is miserably low for a Stage 1 Pokémon (even at 1 energy). And Swalot's HP is also too low to make consistent use of [Swallow Up] (even at 2 energy).
I had tried a bunch of different combinations trying to unlock the hidden potential. It was like the Hellraiser puzzle box. At first I included [Close Encounter] Deoxys and [Psychic Assault] Wobbuffet—both of which attack for one energy—and work incrementally with attacks like [Poison Gas] and [Triple Poison]. With such quick attack power, I was convinced that there had to be someway to get Dimensional Valley to in this deck with Swalot. However, I had come to conclude that the deck structure was just too unstable with Swalot.
And so, this forced me to try something new. And in the end, I had learned something unique from this experience. Normally, I like to run a broad line of 4/3—or 3/3 for my Stage 1 evolution chains. You need a broad line like that in order to ensure consistency. It's essential to quickly get your cards on the table and make decent use of your Stage 1 Pokémon.
However, it appeared to be that Swalot was a special case. Where seemingly, the only way to get the card to actually work—is by running the evolution chain in a thin line like we have here. The reason for this was because the card itself isn't especially useful. It does have potential, yet that potential is so narrow, it requires you to run a thin line if you want to actually make good use of it. If you try to run a broader line, then the lesser qualities of the card are going to hold you back.
As far as I can tell, Swalot's best potential seems to be as a late game finisher—when you only have one two prize cards left, and you need to deal a troublesome 100 damage to finish the game. This can't be achieved in one attack with any other Pokémon in this deck—and that's where Swalot rises above the crowd a little. So maybe it wouldn't be so bad to give him a little candy. After all, Swalot is likely to be the one that has your back when no one else does.
Toxicroak EX & Venipede: This combination probably sums up the fun of Halloween for us all. We all start out as a little peapod in this big world, looking back at Mom & Dad, and wondering if they're really going to send us up to the door all by ourselves—to a broke kid in college running around on Halloween all by ourselves with no shame in collecting free candy from other adults. Toxicroak EX can make quick of pretty much anything in this deck—like some horror movie killer. And that's why there are four of them here, because Toxicroak is an explicitly strong starting Pokémon.
In this deck, all you need is a double colorless energy, and you can totally dominate with [Triple Poison] between Virbank City Gym, Mystery Energy, and Robo Substitute. You'll be stacking up 50 damage a turn on your opponent without even needing Toxicroak EX to remain your active Pokémon, while Mystery Energy enables you to vanish like Michael Myers. Put a Rocky Helmet Toxicroak—and you'll be tearing them up like Jason Voorhees. Throw Rock Guard on there—and that's like Jason Takes Manhattan. Heads will roll.
Venipede on the other hand is our distant backup starter in this deck, and doubles as a transitional resource whenever we need to switch to a defensive stance. {Poison Point} and Virbank City Gym go hand-in-hand. This combination can keep a smart opponent at bay, while more reckless opponents are going to start stacking up some heavy poison damage on themselves from {Poison Point}—thus adding some offensive edge to what would otherwise be an unprogressive stalling tactic.
As such a resource, Venipede also doubles as an enabler for us—working powerful Supporters like Ace Trainer and Teammates. We couldn't possibly get this much out of any other basic Pokémon in the game, which kind of makes Venipede appear to me as the old lady at the top of the hill, who drops so much candy in your bag—you can't help but love her. She's our favorite person in the world to visit on Halloween, and just ringing her door bell makes our heart glow like a jack-o'-lantern.
Hypnotoxic Laser & Robo Substitute: Robo Substitute—that's like us at the hospital. I think we might have eaten too much candy. And Hypnotoxic Laser is like equipment they have to use to see if we're going to go into diabetic shock. Both of these cards are powerful resources for any Virbank City Gym deck. Hypnotic Laser can jump start the poison damage when we can't even begin to attack yet, while Robo Substitute can extend the range of that damage to at least 90 over the course of a single turn (and that's not even including our follow up attack).
Toxicroak EX makes a sweet pair with Robo Substitute as well, further increasing the overall synergy of the deck. Over the course of a single go, your opponent will get one attack on Toxicroak EX—and by the time it comes back around next turn (after Robo Substitute gets knocked out)—200 damage will have passed from [Triple Poison]. You can use this technique to bag fresh Pokémon EX that your opponent sends out from the bench but hasn't powered up yet. They won't even be able to get two energies on it and it'll be gone.
I guess that could make this pair of cards something like having to fend off our siblings from our candy with a Super Soaker (because they ate all of theirs already). They might be lucky to get one to two pieces, but it'll take a true fat ass to stand there and mooch our candy in the face of getting hosed.
Our Halloween Crew & Virbank City Gym: Ace Trainer reminds me of the perfect Halloween date. There's nothing quite as romantic as a night on the town together amidst the Halloween atmosphere. Virbank City Gym is like our neighborhood on Halloween—or possibly our real home afterwards (where everyone steals our candy). Ace Trainer also represents our friends, where Teammates is like our little sister and her friend. We said that we would take them Trick or Treating so they didn't have to stay inside on Halloween. We don't mind if they tag along. It would have broke their heart to have had to stay inside—which I guess makes us like the brave and endearing hero N by default.
This spread of Supporters is truly beyond anything I would ever think possible. Yet it was through forcing myself to develop this deck that I had unlocked the potential to do the impossible. I had first tried a bunch of different Supporter combinations, many of which were very successful for similar deck structures of mine—yet none of them seemed to work very well at all for this deck in specific. Ultimately, it was in the final major revision of the deck—that there should be some extremely rare and unique potential for this deck's Supporter spread.
After I had unlocked the secret of Skarmory's potential for this deck, and switched over from Dimension Valley to Virbank City Gym (adding Venipede to the deck to suite it)—I had concluded that this deck should have the potential to run an explicitly tactical Supporter pair featuring both Ace Trainer and Teammates. This was something totally unprecedented otherwise (due to their restrictions)—yet in this deck should thrive, given the immense number of satellite resources we have to heavily support both cards. For this same reason, it was obvious to me that N would make a beautiful compliment at the core of this Supporter spread. It works along the lines of the main strategy—and provides the support needed here to accentuate the flow of the cards.
Ace Trainer makes a really great follow up to N, mid-game for example, after your opponent has knocked out one of your Skarmory, Venipede, or even Toxicroak maybe. Yet it's still too conditional to see any extensive use here (due to the prominence of poison damage). The style of this deck is not intended to provide some perfectly one-sided landslide victory. It vies on explicit tactic—revolving around the consistency of poison damage, and all of our tactical resources to support that. Our opponent is likely to pick up more than a few prize cards as we strive to counterstep them, yet we should ultimately pull victory out from under them.
This tactical style is one of the greatest techniques in the game, because it not only works best deck's that are based on simple brute force, it is the only type of deck that has a chance to best other explicitly tactical decks. And this is where title of endearing hero is going to take full perspective for both Ace Trainer & N—with their ability to aggressively short our opponent's hand while they collect prize cards off our satellite resources.
While Teammates plays for free off Robo Substitute—giving us all kinds of tactical retrieval power—that's sure to be especially dangerous in this deck. In fact, it should not only save the day for us—but keeping the pressure on our opponents with Hypnotoxic Laser, Virbank City Gym (and anything else we might need) should come natural.
Rocky Helm & Rocky Guard: Rocky Helmet is like the knots on your head—tryin' to steal my candy; and Rock Guard is like our candy collection when there's nothing left but Tootsie Rolls. You can have them all. It could also be like our stash of the good stuff I guess, versus all of the junk stuff that we give to our family to keep the fiends out of our stash. It could even be our stomach in knots after eating too much junk food (that's how we ended up in the hospital). There are lots of possibilities here...makes it hard to pick just one.
Luckily, making good use of these cards is about as simple as can be—you won't have to put too much thought into it. You'll just want to save Rock Guard for Toxicroak as often as possible—as well as Rocky Helmet for something like Swalot or Skarmory. We want to get the most out of these cards, so we don't want to attach them to any Pokémon with low HP, unless it would be a game winning move. So eat up all the good stuff right away, but try to savor the flavor if you can. That's what's most comfortable, so that's always going to be our best move.
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