Magic_Umbreon
Researching Tower Scientist, Retired
Redshift: Speed Moltres
for the HP-MD format
Pokémon and their functions
Moltres - Strengths include the strong 100 damage it can inflict and the synergy between its poké-power and attack. Play a Moltres down onto your bench and it can fuel up instantly on a coin flip. Best accomplished with three :fire: energy in the discard pile and a free retreater active. The action of playing a Moltres that charges up, becomes active and inflicts 100 damage in the same turn is called a Redshift.
In my deck of the same name, I use an engine of other basic pokémon and mentor/roseanne's to keep Moltres charged and Redshifts possible.
Rotom - Dual Trans is a very effective method of fuelling Moltres. Along with Moltres' poké-power for a Redshift, both need energy to be in the discard pile. This means anything used to put energy there will help both. A failed Redshift can be energised with dual trans. To support Moltres and Rotom, I use a pokémon to discard energy for Rotom to attach while still refreshing the hand:
Lunatone - Lunatone can discard anything you need from your hand with its poké-power. With Solrock in play, you even get to draw in addition. This helps circulate the deck and draw into more useful cards. As long as you can tap into Garvity Change, you can drop energy as you need to.
Solrock - Solrock, after playing ends up just as a tech to draw into useful things if you only start with one supporter. The extra card draw a turn is very useful for setting up, and is a way out of an otherwise fatal situation. Usually, not played to save bench space.
Unown Q - Free retreat itself is excellent. Unown can be attached to Rotom, so you never need to waste energies on Rotom. It can also help Moltres in retreating. Generally, Unown Q is just a central part of the deck and with the SSUs you can effectively transfer it, or any other tools around as necessary. The energ(ies) you might need to retreat can instead be attached to an attacker. Runs smoothly and allows for more attacks faster.
Holons Castform - Good old castform revolutionises your Mentor/Roseanne’s. Holon's Castform is searchable by any of these 8 supporters in the deck. Attaching it from your hand can be used in a lot of energy manipulation combos described later. In the latest build, castform pays for the energy costs of the techs. its generally just useful to keep your fire energy in the discard, so if you have to attach a fire, you can bounce it back and discard.
Latias and Latios δ - Mentor for these two to shut off threats such as Magmortar, Kabutops (PK and MD), Eeveelutions, Pidgeot, Ampharos, Sceptile and Garchomp to name a few. Latias is a potential attacker for when you want to save Moltres as drops. it could KO a Garchomp LvX perhaps too, but I know little about that matchup.
Mew δ star - Mimics Magmortar's attacks using the fire energy in the deck. Use rainbow wave with the basic water energy to do 20 to everything in Empoleon and put things in KO range. Rainbow wave with a basic water and fire for the same principle against Magmortar. Mimic psychic blade and such for big damage. Mimic Garchomp LvX's Restore for Redshift without the flip. Lots of fun opportunities, even as an opener versus Pachirisu.
Jirachi ex - So fast and effective, stops Claydol and put things in Ko range. SSU it up to avoid the ex 2 prize. So energy efficent that even if they get the two prizes, you are so setup and their setup is wrecked you can sweep from there.
Shuckle - The idea is to have it sit there against heavy call energy and heavy scramble/DRE users. While you try and get a Redshift or just draw into stuff and setup techs. Unown Q to get the "suprise extra energy". Ie they think you can't attach 2 because you need 1 for the other attack and 1 to retreat. That strategy is effective with all techs but Shuckle is a particularly useful one.
_________________
Strategy
Use Holon Mentor and Roseanne's Research to get any pokémon from your deck: multiple at once. Go for Redshift or charge up with Rotom or Solrock. The following are methods of energy going to the discard pile:
_________________
Decklist
Click names for scans:
Pokémon: 19
4 Moltres
3 Rotom
1 Solrock
2 Lunatone
2 Unown Q
1 Latios δ
1 Latias
2 Holons Castform
1 Mew δ star
1 Jirachi ex
1 Shuckle
Trainers: 23
4 Holon Mentor
4 Roseannes Research
3 TV Reporter
2 Stevens Advice
1 Castaway
2 Cessation Crystal
3 PlusPower
3 Super Scoop Up
1 Time-Space Distortion
Energy: 18
10 Fire Energy
4 Call Energy
2 Lightning
1 Water Energy
1 Psychic Energy
_________________
Tournament Results
Leicester STP: 2-2
UK Nationals: 3-2
_________________
Matchups
Magmortar varients: Great. Their only chance is to be super quick, even then Redshift can endure the attack and setup well. Latilock is there if needed to shut off the pokébodies. It is difficult for Magmortar to KO a Moltres in one attack. if they stack too many energy, they are left in a vulnerable situation. Rotom might help the matchup for them, but with a heads or two from flame Charge this is easy. Even just Rotom energy reflect to bring it to 80, then Latias to take the KO, saving Moltres for a finishing attack.
Empoleon: Good. Their Omastar line is useless here. Rotom can be quite a threat with energy reflect while you slowly setup some Moltres, with or without heads from flame charge. Roseanne for Mew* and the water energy to rainbow wave all their pokémon for 20. if you do this fast enough when they have a big bench, you're doing big damage for little resources and can setup any attacker needed while Mew* is active. If they can OHKO Moltres, then you have about three turns of energy drops to make waste of with another attacker. Generally, you win by energy eficency but a god hand by them can be difficult,
GG: Bad. Jirachi ex is a great card for this matchup you need to use as soon as possible. After that, because they have less prizes and setup, nothing can OHKO Moltres even if they do gte everything out. it comes down to whether you can get get the Flame Charge effect before psychic lock is too deadly, and whether they have the DRE to make it easy. Not a good matchup at all though.
Grass decks: Great. Anything like Sceptile you can both shut off and OHKO is easy picking for Redshift. Just scorching wing, rinse repeat. Eeveelutions like Glaceon LvX are also shut off by Latilock so its simple enough to make them have wasted their Eevees.
_________________
Ending Notes
Massive thanks for reading! Any comments, particularly critical are very much appreciated.
for the HP-MD format
Pokémon and their functions
Moltres - Strengths include the strong 100 damage it can inflict and the synergy between its poké-power and attack. Play a Moltres down onto your bench and it can fuel up instantly on a coin flip. Best accomplished with three :fire: energy in the discard pile and a free retreater active. The action of playing a Moltres that charges up, becomes active and inflicts 100 damage in the same turn is called a Redshift.
In my deck of the same name, I use an engine of other basic pokémon and mentor/roseanne's to keep Moltres charged and Redshifts possible.
Rotom - Dual Trans is a very effective method of fuelling Moltres. Along with Moltres' poké-power for a Redshift, both need energy to be in the discard pile. This means anything used to put energy there will help both. A failed Redshift can be energised with dual trans. To support Moltres and Rotom, I use a pokémon to discard energy for Rotom to attach while still refreshing the hand:
Lunatone - Lunatone can discard anything you need from your hand with its poké-power. With Solrock in play, you even get to draw in addition. This helps circulate the deck and draw into more useful cards. As long as you can tap into Garvity Change, you can drop energy as you need to.
Solrock - Solrock, after playing ends up just as a tech to draw into useful things if you only start with one supporter. The extra card draw a turn is very useful for setting up, and is a way out of an otherwise fatal situation. Usually, not played to save bench space.
Unown Q - Free retreat itself is excellent. Unown can be attached to Rotom, so you never need to waste energies on Rotom. It can also help Moltres in retreating. Generally, Unown Q is just a central part of the deck and with the SSUs you can effectively transfer it, or any other tools around as necessary. The energ(ies) you might need to retreat can instead be attached to an attacker. Runs smoothly and allows for more attacks faster.
Holons Castform - Good old castform revolutionises your Mentor/Roseanne’s. Holon's Castform is searchable by any of these 8 supporters in the deck. Attaching it from your hand can be used in a lot of energy manipulation combos described later. In the latest build, castform pays for the energy costs of the techs. its generally just useful to keep your fire energy in the discard, so if you have to attach a fire, you can bounce it back and discard.
Latias and Latios δ - Mentor for these two to shut off threats such as Magmortar, Kabutops (PK and MD), Eeveelutions, Pidgeot, Ampharos, Sceptile and Garchomp to name a few. Latias is a potential attacker for when you want to save Moltres as drops. it could KO a Garchomp LvX perhaps too, but I know little about that matchup.
Mew δ star - Mimics Magmortar's attacks using the fire energy in the deck. Use rainbow wave with the basic water energy to do 20 to everything in Empoleon and put things in KO range. Rainbow wave with a basic water and fire for the same principle against Magmortar. Mimic psychic blade and such for big damage. Mimic Garchomp LvX's Restore for Redshift without the flip. Lots of fun opportunities, even as an opener versus Pachirisu.
Jirachi ex - So fast and effective, stops Claydol and put things in Ko range. SSU it up to avoid the ex 2 prize. So energy efficent that even if they get the two prizes, you are so setup and their setup is wrecked you can sweep from there.
Shuckle - The idea is to have it sit there against heavy call energy and heavy scramble/DRE users. While you try and get a Redshift or just draw into stuff and setup techs. Unown Q to get the "suprise extra energy". Ie they think you can't attach 2 because you need 1 for the other attack and 1 to retreat. That strategy is effective with all techs but Shuckle is a particularly useful one.
_________________
Strategy
Use Holon Mentor and Roseanne's Research to get any pokémon from your deck: multiple at once. Go for Redshift or charge up with Rotom or Solrock. The following are methods of energy going to the discard pile:
- Holon Mentor
- Felicity's Drawing
- TV Reporter
- Retreat cost
- Moltres' Burning Wing cost
- Lunatone's Gravity Change
- KO'd pokémon
_________________
Decklist
Click names for scans:
Pokémon: 19
4 Moltres
3 Rotom
1 Solrock
2 Lunatone
2 Unown Q
1 Latios δ
1 Latias
2 Holons Castform
1 Mew δ star
1 Jirachi ex
1 Shuckle
Trainers: 23
4 Holon Mentor
4 Roseannes Research
3 TV Reporter
2 Stevens Advice
1 Castaway
2 Cessation Crystal
3 PlusPower
3 Super Scoop Up
1 Time-Space Distortion
Energy: 18
10 Fire Energy
4 Call Energy
2 Lightning
1 Water Energy
1 Psychic Energy
_________________
Tournament Results
Leicester STP: 2-2
UK Nationals: 3-2
_________________
Matchups
Magmortar varients: Great. Their only chance is to be super quick, even then Redshift can endure the attack and setup well. Latilock is there if needed to shut off the pokébodies. It is difficult for Magmortar to KO a Moltres in one attack. if they stack too many energy, they are left in a vulnerable situation. Rotom might help the matchup for them, but with a heads or two from flame Charge this is easy. Even just Rotom energy reflect to bring it to 80, then Latias to take the KO, saving Moltres for a finishing attack.
Empoleon: Good. Their Omastar line is useless here. Rotom can be quite a threat with energy reflect while you slowly setup some Moltres, with or without heads from flame charge. Roseanne for Mew* and the water energy to rainbow wave all their pokémon for 20. if you do this fast enough when they have a big bench, you're doing big damage for little resources and can setup any attacker needed while Mew* is active. If they can OHKO Moltres, then you have about three turns of energy drops to make waste of with another attacker. Generally, you win by energy eficency but a god hand by them can be difficult,
GG: Bad. Jirachi ex is a great card for this matchup you need to use as soon as possible. After that, because they have less prizes and setup, nothing can OHKO Moltres even if they do gte everything out. it comes down to whether you can get get the Flame Charge effect before psychic lock is too deadly, and whether they have the DRE to make it easy. Not a good matchup at all though.
Grass decks: Great. Anything like Sceptile you can both shut off and OHKO is easy picking for Redshift. Just scorching wing, rinse repeat. Eeveelutions like Glaceon LvX are also shut off by Latilock so its simple enough to make them have wasted their Eevees.
_________________
Ending Notes
Massive thanks for reading! Any comments, particularly critical are very much appreciated.
Last edited:
