Arithmatic (formerly 4 corners)
Hello all,
As you all know I developed a deck that I called Arithmetic. It is a deck that I designed for my play style that would give me an advantage in games versus the top two decks. Magmortar and Gallade variants. It was not built to face random decks such as Beedrill, Electivire, etc… It does well against other viable decks as well, such as Banette and Blissey variants.
This is difficult deck to run with some extremely advanced strategy. Every energy attachment, damage counter placement and overall set up is critical to the decks success.
Now on to the initial concept and list…
4 Shuppet CG
4 Banette SW
2 Magikarp MT
2 Gyarados MT
2 Cresselia
2 Cresselia Lv. X
2 Baltoy GE
2 Claydol GE
4 TV Reporter
4 Warp Point
3 Dusk Ball
3 Master Ball
3 Lake Boundary
2 PokeNav
2 Copycat
2 Holon Mentor
2 Energy Switch
1 Night Maintenance
8 Psychic Energy
4 Double Rainbow Energy
2 Holon Energy WP
As you can see it is not a traditional build. It has tons of options for a variety of different matchups. I decided to utilize a modified ball engine. I have found in my testing of THE ANSWER, GG can really manipulate the use of my Celios and/or Bebe’s to gain quick control of the match assuming I didn’t have a Pidgeot lock on yet. With this in mind I decided to stay away from both of them to eliminate their quick setup. However, I did need another way to get a Banette into my discard pile, so I went with reporter. The original version had master ball in there instead of Holons mentor. Once I found out about the newest version of plox I decided that 2 more cards to discard a Banette wouldn’t be so bad.
So on to the matchups….
GG… There are so many different variants of this deck; I can’t even begin to touch on them all. So for this article I will focus on a straight GG with Dusknoir…
It should be pretty self-explanatory. Banette is such a BEAST against GG. Combo Banette with a tank like Gyrados, Arithmetic has many different ways to attack them. I personally like to set up a Cresselia early and move a counter to attack for 40. Force the GG player to deal with the initial Gyrados, and then swarm with Banette. If you play the game correctly you should be able to take your last 2 prizes with Cresselia. Sure the Psychic lock is a pain, but not as big a pain as getting OHKO’d by Banette.
Magmortar…. Again, so many variants. It seems that the Typhlosion variant is much easier to beat than the Blaziken variant. This also should be relatively straightforward. Setting up 2 Cresselia almost guarantees you a victory. Being able to manipulate the bench damage that Mortar throws at you is key in this match. Swarming with Banette early and key use of all 4 warp points should net you a victory.
These are NOT easy victories. This deck was not built to blow out the top 2 deck. It was however built to COMPETE with them, even at their full set-up. Arithmetic, like any other deck, has its issues as well. Getting out that early Claydol makes every match so much easier. Sometimes the ball engine can fail to net you the cards you need at any particular time. Considering the trade off with Celios/Bebe’s, I like this better.
As many of you have already seen, this deck can be played a variety of different ways. Several different techs have been tried and some actually adopted by some players. I personally liked it just as listed. I will show below some of the things we tried and had moderate success with.
Absol EX… Set up that late game 2 prize Cresselia attack.
Jolteon*….. Self-explanatory
1-1 Dugtrio… Mostly to solidify the Blaze/mortar match
1-1 Crawdaunt Ex… Help against many set-up decks
Strength Charm / Plus power…. Too situational to keep in this build.
Cess Crystal…. Again, too situational. But it really worked when locked.
Crystal beach… Stunned GG hard. Also good in many othe matches.
In the end I felt that the energy switch allowed me to keep pace with all the DRE/Scramble decks. It also had that surprise factor that every ROGUE deck should have. Have fun with this, as it is, what I feel, is the best available counter to the metagame.
I DO NOT CLAIM THAT THIS DECK CAN BEAT EVERY DECK IN THE FORMAT!!!! It sometime fails to beat the ones that are listed above. I can however claim that it CAN beat both more times than it loses to them both.
I just want to thank all who supported me and had enough faith in the concept to run it. STONES!!! Props!!!
Thank you to all my friends on Banginboards.
Thanx,
Jimmy
Hello all,
As you all know I developed a deck that I called Arithmetic. It is a deck that I designed for my play style that would give me an advantage in games versus the top two decks. Magmortar and Gallade variants. It was not built to face random decks such as Beedrill, Electivire, etc… It does well against other viable decks as well, such as Banette and Blissey variants.
This is difficult deck to run with some extremely advanced strategy. Every energy attachment, damage counter placement and overall set up is critical to the decks success.
Now on to the initial concept and list…
4 Shuppet CG
4 Banette SW
2 Magikarp MT
2 Gyarados MT
2 Cresselia
2 Cresselia Lv. X
2 Baltoy GE
2 Claydol GE
4 TV Reporter
4 Warp Point
3 Dusk Ball
3 Master Ball
3 Lake Boundary
2 PokeNav
2 Copycat
2 Holon Mentor
2 Energy Switch
1 Night Maintenance
8 Psychic Energy
4 Double Rainbow Energy
2 Holon Energy WP
As you can see it is not a traditional build. It has tons of options for a variety of different matchups. I decided to utilize a modified ball engine. I have found in my testing of THE ANSWER, GG can really manipulate the use of my Celios and/or Bebe’s to gain quick control of the match assuming I didn’t have a Pidgeot lock on yet. With this in mind I decided to stay away from both of them to eliminate their quick setup. However, I did need another way to get a Banette into my discard pile, so I went with reporter. The original version had master ball in there instead of Holons mentor. Once I found out about the newest version of plox I decided that 2 more cards to discard a Banette wouldn’t be so bad.
So on to the matchups….
GG… There are so many different variants of this deck; I can’t even begin to touch on them all. So for this article I will focus on a straight GG with Dusknoir…
It should be pretty self-explanatory. Banette is such a BEAST against GG. Combo Banette with a tank like Gyrados, Arithmetic has many different ways to attack them. I personally like to set up a Cresselia early and move a counter to attack for 40. Force the GG player to deal with the initial Gyrados, and then swarm with Banette. If you play the game correctly you should be able to take your last 2 prizes with Cresselia. Sure the Psychic lock is a pain, but not as big a pain as getting OHKO’d by Banette.
Magmortar…. Again, so many variants. It seems that the Typhlosion variant is much easier to beat than the Blaziken variant. This also should be relatively straightforward. Setting up 2 Cresselia almost guarantees you a victory. Being able to manipulate the bench damage that Mortar throws at you is key in this match. Swarming with Banette early and key use of all 4 warp points should net you a victory.
These are NOT easy victories. This deck was not built to blow out the top 2 deck. It was however built to COMPETE with them, even at their full set-up. Arithmetic, like any other deck, has its issues as well. Getting out that early Claydol makes every match so much easier. Sometimes the ball engine can fail to net you the cards you need at any particular time. Considering the trade off with Celios/Bebe’s, I like this better.
As many of you have already seen, this deck can be played a variety of different ways. Several different techs have been tried and some actually adopted by some players. I personally liked it just as listed. I will show below some of the things we tried and had moderate success with.
Absol EX… Set up that late game 2 prize Cresselia attack.
Jolteon*….. Self-explanatory
1-1 Dugtrio… Mostly to solidify the Blaze/mortar match
1-1 Crawdaunt Ex… Help against many set-up decks
Strength Charm / Plus power…. Too situational to keep in this build.
Cess Crystal…. Again, too situational. But it really worked when locked.
Crystal beach… Stunned GG hard. Also good in many othe matches.
In the end I felt that the energy switch allowed me to keep pace with all the DRE/Scramble decks. It also had that surprise factor that every ROGUE deck should have. Have fun with this, as it is, what I feel, is the best available counter to the metagame.
I DO NOT CLAIM THAT THIS DECK CAN BEAT EVERY DECK IN THE FORMAT!!!! It sometime fails to beat the ones that are listed above. I can however claim that it CAN beat both more times than it loses to them both.
I just want to thank all who supported me and had enough faith in the concept to run it. STONES!!! Props!!!
Thank you to all my friends on Banginboards.
Thanx,
Jimmy
