Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

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Rai

Rai

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Considering the following...

Blissey (The most commonly played deck in the Washington Area) is weak to Fighting.
Empoleon becomes weaker when it is punished for retreating, and unable to deal damage without switching.
Meganium d allows for searching of three pokemon from deck at once whenever it's played.
Meganium d's Delta Reduction and large HP ensures that it'll survive long against non-infernape decks.
Meganium's pre-evolutions are capable of stalling (putting opponent to sleep) and searching the line out (With Bayleef MT)

Therefore, Meganium Delta can be rightfully declared the single best pokemon in the format. Now, the question comes... What goes well with it? If Meganium is capable of slowing games down, why not something that punishes the opponent for staying active? Why not have a pokemon that can clean up by hitting the bench after the opponent flees? Ah, now the combo becomes clear... Now how to get it to work...? That's the problem...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pokemon x20

Meganium d (DF) x3
Meganium (MT) x1
Bayleef (MT) x3
Chikorita (MT) x3
Crobat (MT) x2
Golbat (MT) x2
Zubat (MT) x3
Chingling (MT) x2
Skarmory EX (PK) x1


Trainers x29

Rare Candy x4
Windstorm x3
Super Scoop Up x3
Night Maintenance x2
Professor Rowan x1
Bill's Maintenance x2
Steven's Advice x2
Holon Mentor x2
Celio's Network x3
Castaway x2
Scott x1
Strength Charm x2
Lake Boundary x2

Energy x11

Double Rainbow Energy x3
Multi Energy x3
Psychic Energy x4
Fighting Energy x1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now for some obvious problems.

-The energy amount is flawed. Highly. 11 is definately not enough, and there's little to remove.
-Chingling winds up being either dead weight or vital each game. Usually it winds up as dead weight. What's there to remove reliance on a card that loses all usefulness after turn 1 (finding Holon Mentor or Castaway)?
-Supporter line is MESSY. Obviously.
-Super Scoop Up also seems problematic. It never comes up. Never. Keep it for the combo with BOTH Meganium and Crobat AND acting as a switch for Meganium, or remove?
-And obviously a 3-3-3-1 line of Meganium is odd beyond belief. Recommendations on how to set the ratios?
 
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How about going with a Ball engine instead of relying on getting a Chingling to grab Mentor? I'd also drop a Bayleaf for a Chikorita and definately rework the Trainers into something more functional.
 
Chikorita d is better; it gives you 50% sleep instead of 25.
I'd try Sableye CG instead of Chingling. It saves a ton of time against Blissey.
 
Sableye, eh? I'll give it a shot (certainly the ability to absorb a Blissey and force switches can't be bad at all)

About the Chikorita DF/MT decision: When an octillery or Empoleon can snipe a Chikorita on the bench (due to DF's mere 40 HP), I become rather concerned. Even Lucario can one shot a Chikorita d with Aura Sphere... Not to mention Riolu + Strength Charm/PlusPower. And obviously the current energy situation makes energy-less attacks all the more ideal. Admittedly, the coin flips make it all the more risky, but I feel Higher HP makes for a more reliable game, especially when Delta Reduction does not always protect your bench when your opponent plays Warp Point/Retreats to remove it's effect.

I am moving though to a 4-2-3-1 Meganium line though, rather then 3-3-3-1. :X

With Meganium being able to clear the deck of pokemon so quickly, I'm considering running the following...

Trainer total x27

Rare Candy x4
Windstorm x2
Night Maintenance x2
Copycat x1
Steven's Advice x2
Holon Mentor x2
Celio's Network x3
Castaway x2
Strength Charm x2
Lake Boundary x2
Quick Ball x3
Great Ball x2

This opens room for 2 more energies (1 Fighting, one Multi). Of course, now the drawing cards are even more limited, but as they were not too useful in testing... :/
 
quick ball is terrabad in this deck, patrick. =/ 2 s2 = you will NOT get what you need w/o literally whiffing everything.
 
After ~2 Evolutionary Calls and a Holon Mentor, almost all of the pokemon are usually gone from the deck, thus turning Night Maintenance + Quick Ball into a TSD that does not rely on flips.

The late game is why I inserted it. Even I'm not silly enough to think that 3 Quick Ball will always get you pokemon you need early game.

Now... Testing has yet to state whether 2 or 3 quick balls are better, and it's even yet to prove anything more then these conjectures. :/
 
I had no idea that Night Maintenance was worthless and not putting in any deck. I mean, it's useless early game...! Even Quick ball has the chances of being useful (landing a Meganium d, which is more likely then you might think considering the other searchers)

And thanks to mrdraz; Sableye's incredible :X
 
Does Night Maintenance have any shot of being helpful early game? Other then discard bait, not really.

Does Quick Ball have any shot of being helpful early game? Yeah, it gets you... something. More reliably then Master Ball (which has a chance of finding nothing. Quick Ball always finds a pokemon unless there is nothing in your deck). Something WILL be a pokemon. It WILL be playable at some point, because no one is silly enough to play a deck like this and randomly throw in an Ampharos d (for an example of something completely worthless at all times). Just because I can't be 100% sure it'll always be Meganium d doesn't make the Quick Balls terrible. (And the Crobat Line's actually rather thin, so Quick Ball has a tendency to miss them and hit the more bulky Meganium line. Probability is lovely)

3 Quick Ball is working so far. The current Energy count is decent, though another game of not finding an energy until turn 3 might be convincing enough to change a quick ball into another energy. :/

And clearly I've yet to test against an Infernape Match-up. So far as I can see, it's hopeless beyond belief. Meganium is weak, Crobat is KOed with a Strength Charm or 1/2 Pluspowers, Skarmory EX is KOed quickly, and Sableye has limited ability to stall due to free retreat (as nicely as this sets up Skarmory's power, shuffling between two Infernapes is painful)

I've thought of Mr. Mime, but a lack of switching cards makes it a pokemon whom has to be rescued from the active position at some point, and against Cessation Crystal using decks (Kricketune, straight blissey), it's dead weight. And it's not like I have bench space to speak of anyways.

Other thoughts? Is there room for Battle Frontier or something like that (due to my lack of Colorless powers)? Or just hope to outspeed the Ape? Hm...
 
Considering the number of posts by tyler in this post, I'm assuming I'm talking to patrick?

You should prolly run less quickball, they're a dead draw early game, so you put in better cards in their place, like more celio. That way you draw the quickballs later when you actually need them.
 
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