Hydreigon/Zoroark/Cinccino ND for Junior players

[Electrode]

My little cousin, who's eight, was using Crobat Prime but we're trying to find a good, and low-budget deck for her to play before States March 10th.

I found Cinccino ND pretty interesting, so I was thinking something along these lines

3-3 Cinccino ND
4-4 Zoroark (foul play)
3-2-3 Hydreigon


and for energy,
4 DCE, 4 Special dark, and 5-6 reg. Dark energy.

Trainers/Supporters will be pretty standard, I was thinking for sure skyarrow bridge, because Cinccino (and Zoroark) has one retreat so if things get rough she can swap out fairly often.
We don't have a high abundance of collectors, so any decent alternative to it would help, like Dual Ball.

Basically the strategy is to use Cinccino to stall and annoy the opponent, build up Hydreigon to wipe out the bench and help defend against (don't know how many will be in juniors,) Mewtwo EX. Zoroark to mirror EX attacks.

She's been playing for a while now so I think it's time to up the strategy level on her deck.

Any thoughts?

 

[peadawg14]

Skyarrow Bridge only works for basic so it won't work on Cinccino and Zoroark.

 

[TAndrewT]

I really like Cinccino NDE for Juniors, but I think your cousin's opponents will just Pokemon Catcher around it, especially because she'll be trying to evolve stuff on the bench. I think that could get super frustrating, as her opponents pick basics off. To avoid that, you would need to pair Cinccino with Vileplume--which keeps it active by locking out Items, but forces your eight-year-old to monitor whether her opponents are obeying the rules of the card or not--or to try something different. I also think that Hydreigon will be tough to use, with a lot of effort evolving and a lot of energy yielding not much more damage (total) than Basics now deliver at lower Energy cost.

It sounds like you're looking for two things right now, cheap and simple. I think the current winner in the cheap category is Eelektrik NVI. Looks like you're playing an Eel deck, so you know the advantages--for just $0.25 a card (trollandtoad), Eelektrik can be used to power just about anything. But Eel has specific relationships between hand/discard and bench/active, and that can be tough for new Juniors. If cheap is something you're focusing on, you might consider an Eel-based deck with something other than Magnezone, maybe Eel/Zebstrika NDE/Zapdos NDE/Thundurus EPO (locks Items, and snipes the bench, very simple attackers, and all of those guys will be pretty cheap I'm betting).

If your focus is on simplicity, and you really really want to stick with Dark type, you might include some other Dark stage 1's with low energy costs along with Zoroark. Sharpedo TM is super fun (discards your opponent's hand), especially when paired with Victini NVI's Victory Star, and Bisharp NVI hits for extra damage, all for the cost of just one energy. (So, simple like Crobat Prime was simple.) I also like the non-Prime Houndoom UD for messing with the opponent's hand. These are all super-cheap cards ($0.49 or less, except for Victini, $2.49 each), easy to evolve and power, and could catch her opponents off-guard. They also have 90HP or less, and so all Pokemon could be searched with Level Ball NDE, which will be cheap. (The basics could be also searched with Dual Ball. No Collectors necessary.) Damage output on these guys is low though, so you'd have to teach her to use Zoroark to best effect.

Not sure whether that helped. I'm sorry to be so negative on Cinccino, because I really like the card, but I think your cousin will need to learn trainer lock to have it work its best. Best of luck!

 

[Electrode]

Maybe I could remove Cinccino for more Hydreigon and something else. I'll start looking at some other options, maybe I'll have her test it at the league. Thanks for your advice.
Posted with Mobile style...

 

[TAndrewT]

Yeah, I still don't like Hydreigon in the format. Awesome art, really cool looking card, but a Stage 2 with a 4-energy attack cost is going to take her a lot of resources and a long time to set up. Meanwhile, opponents with those Celebi/Tornadus decks, the ones that can potentially do T1 80, will eat her benched basics for lunch. On the other hand, if that's a card that she really likes--well, I'm always of the opinion that Juniors should run what they like!

Best of luck to you both, whatever you choose!