Infernape 4 > Blaziken FB?

[louist200]

I think people are failing to see the point. If you build a blaze ray and try and play it like a Infer ray you will lose.
If you build a Infer ray and try and play it like a Blaze ray you will lose. I have played both decks quite alot it completly depends on play style.
they are two different decks. Infer ray you set up Ko's with split bomb and in the mid/late game kill off vital attackers that you hurt while they were a basic. Also you kill off their claydols early.
Blaze ray you go for speed speed speed. You want to be in their face asap. Staring down a 110 hp pokemon that will be hitting you for 80 is rather scary. You want to be hitting for 80 every turn and premier balling back after they ko. Luxray up their claydols or luring flame them but you want them dead early.
I know other people play the deck differently but if I have a style of deck that works for me how dare you say I am wrong.
This entire argument is silly.If you are saying one is better than the other without testing both I think you are an idiot go some where else. If you have tested both then I respect your opinion you are entitled to it.

 

[toxicroak 96]

I like Luxape more, it has better damage output and Blaze kind of dies out in the midgame.

 

[louist200]

Blaze isnt about the mid game. it is about the rush. If you cant keep the rush going you lose.

 

[Pogiforce]

blaziken beats infernape's damage output in the early game. if your opponent's deck is built for the mid to late game sweep, it's highly probably that blaziken will simply overwhelm them. that's the benefit of rush decks. yes, mid to late game, they will start to struggle more. which is why I like the idea of combining infernape 4 and blaziken FB. then you just assess the situation, and decide whether you need to be fast and super aggressive, or a little more evenly paced.

 

[Ariadosman]

I am aware Blaziken FB is about the early game. But Luxray is already an amazing rush card early game. Blaziken can do 80 damage for 1 energy with a bad drawback. Luxray can do 60 for 1 with a not-so-bad drawback. Blaziken has Luring Flame. Luxray has Bright Look.

on the other hand, Infernape 4 has some qualities that Luxray doesn't, and vice versa. They compliment each other better. Playing two similar rush cards isn't too effective.

 

[louist200]

It all depends on your play style. If you enjoy the infernape then play that. I personaly prefer Blazekin.

 

[Pogiforce]

I am aware Blaziken FB is about the early game. But Luxray is already an amazing rush card early game. Blaziken can do 80 damage for 1 energy with a bad drawback. Luxray can do 60 for 1 with a not-so-bad drawback. Blaziken has Luring Flame. Luxray has Bright Look.

on the other hand, Infernape 4 has some qualities that Luxray doesn't, and vice versa. They compliment each other better. Playing two similar rush cards isn't too effective.

I never said anything about Blaziken with Luxray. And really, why is it Blaziken is quote unquote "worse" than infernape just because infernape pairs wel with luxray and blaziken doesn't? Just because a card doesn't pair that well with luxray doesn't make it a bad card. Blaziken has it's own deck it can fit nicely in. It's just as some others were saying: you can't compare blaziken and infernape to each other. they're meant to serve different purposes, in different decks. and as I keep saying, just becauase blaziken is a fire Sp that happens to have an attack that can force switches does NOT mean he is supposed to be Infernape's replacement. I mean look at his level X. read his power. Obviously he's meant to abuse the status condition burn. how is a luxiken deck going to do that? It isn't. you need a burn deck to fit him in. there Blaziken doesn't have to be an attacker, because he can just sit on the bench for the easy +40 on attacks while the opponent is burned, and you can pull him out for an emergency OHKO if you absolutely have to.

Completely different from infernape, who's suppose to spread around quick damage in the early game and hten constantly forces switches for disruption in the late game. it's a completely different purpose. That's like Comparing Blastoise to Weavile SW, just beacuse they both are a different sort of energy engine.

 

[HoLoN_TrAiNeR]

I mean look at his level X. read his power. Obviously he's meant to abuse the status condition burn.

Oh, you mean like... the same way Kingdra was meant to abuse its first attack?


Blaziken is just more consistent and has a faster recovery, it is all about hitting hard and fast, I guess it could be compared with the old banette ex decks.
If you take your Luxray/Infernape build and just replace the Infernape with Blaziken then it is not going to work.

 

[louist200]

Excatl they are two completly different decks. hey i know lets compair every deck that has luxray in it and switch the pokemon around. Yeah so switch out my infernape in Inferray with my beedrill line from ray bees didnt work. What should switching a blazekin lin with your inferline work either.

 

[Ariadosman]

I never said anything about Blaziken with Luxray. And really, why is it Blaziken is quote unquote "worse" than infernape just because infernape pairs wel with luxray and blaziken doesn't? Just because a card doesn't pair that well with luxray doesn't make it a bad card. Blaziken has it's own deck it can fit nicely in. It's just as some others were saying: you can't compare blaziken and infernape to each other. they're meant to serve different purposes, in different decks. and as I keep saying, just becauase blaziken is a fire Sp that happens to have an attack that can force switches does NOT mean he is supposed to be Infernape's replacement. I mean look at his level X. read his power. Obviously he's meant to abuse the status condition burn. how is a luxiken deck going to do that? It isn't. you need a burn deck to fit him in. there Blaziken doesn't have to be an attacker, because he can just sit on the bench for the easy +40 on attacks while the opponent is burned, and you can pull him out for an emergency OHKO if you absolutely have to.

Completely different from infernape, who's suppose to spread around quick damage in the early game and hten constantly forces switches for disruption in the late game. it's a completely different purpose. That's like Comparing Blastoise to Weavile SW, just beacuse they both are a different sort of energy engine.

I was most definitely responding to the comments of blaziken being paired with luxray (louist). I am aware Blaziken can be played with other cards (Magmortar, other Blaziken, etc.) but those decks are subpar because they have a bad mono-weakness to palkia g and NEED poke-powers to do any real damage. But I was specifically responding to blaziken in luxray as a replacement for infernape.



I KNOW Blaziken is faster and more consistent. I KNOW the deck is played differently from a luxape. I just don't see the point running Blaziken FB and Luxray GL in the same deck.

 

[louist200]

It is to have complete feild control. Once you have their claydols dead they are left with very few options and you have your sprays to cancelle whats left. If they get set up you will lose. I know in theroy mon you will be set up every game. No you wont be in real life though. Almost every deck in this format relies on claydol and having early feild control gives you the ability to kill those claydols. You dont have to have them burned you just have to make sure you limit their options.What I am trying to get around to is that with luxray and blazekin it is much easier to kill claysols and establish board control.

 

[Pogiforce]

Doesn't Luxray need his pokepower? I mean, that's why everyone is playing him isn't it? Otherwise no one would give him a second look. and Infernape 4's pokepower, imho, is what makes him pair up so well with luxray for that deck.

As for Palkia G, I don't deny that a mono fire deck with Blaziken Sp will have problems against it. but you could tech in Manectric PL. I've seen someone do it to counter Flygon X, but works just as well in this case. send out manectric, do Attract Current. Or power wave, whichever you feel like, if you're up against the level X they both work. Unless you're running Buck's Training or the random pluspower, Manectric has free retreat, so after it gets hit you pull him back. and his pokebody protects Blaziken from being hit by Hydro Shot while blaziken is on the bench. After taking sixty to eighty from Manectric, Blaziken could easily clean that up with Vapor Kick. so the palkia person will either be forced to retreat, poketurn, or let palkia die.

the reason why I'm so up in arms over this, is because people are treating Blaziken like he's utter garbage, just because he doesn't pair well with Luxray. and it bothers me that people are so obsessed with Luxray that if a card doesn't work well with him they automatically consider it trash. That's not the way it's supposed to work.

 

[prodigal_fanboy]

the reason why I'm so up in arms over this, is because people are treating Blaziken like he's utter garbage, just because he doesn't pair well with Luxray. and it bothers me that people are so obsessed with Luxray that if a card doesn't work well with him they automatically consider it trash. That's not the way it's supposed to work.

How is that not the way it's supposed to work? From what authority do you derive this claim?

The reason people make the comparison is simple. Luxray GL Lv. X is an insanely good card, both in terms of what it does and the speed and relative ease with which it does it (given its support system). Hence, when discussing a deck utilizing the same support system that is also speed-oriented, people are bound to suggest its inclusion and evaluate it in the context of how it performs with said card.

In other words, if you're going to get your panties in a bunch over people posting how Blaziken has bad synergy with Luxray, and hence is bad, stop reading these forums or make a high quality list and test it against high quality lists with high quality players. This means the six year old at league's new all-psychic deck does not count. If you come back with empirical data to support your claim, or at the very least a simple analysis of performance in matchups with a list to accompany it, then perhaps you'd be given the time of day.

However, if all else fails, you could find a competent Master who would be willing to run your list, and given enough Masters having enough success with your list or variants you could prove your claims through BRs performance.

The preceding paragraph has two inherent assumptions. The first, and less difficult, being that BRs actually count for determining a deck's validity. This is debatable - well-built decks that would not be considered archetypes can have success at BRs if a large enough portion of the players are also using well-built decks that aren't quite archetypes, or if the player size is small enough that a good player with a decent deck can pull off the win, regardless of deck caliber. The second assumption is that only Masters data counts. No offense, I'm sure there are very many competent Seniors and Juniors, however, in terms of play caliber, there is a difference, and for that reason most masters players (the one and the same whom you'll find knocking your beloved Blaziken) only give credence to Masters results. If you doubt this disparity, look at the relative win percentages for Machamp and Kingdra decks in the Juniors division vs. the Master's.

 

[Pogiforce]

Who says I need authority to tell the truth? I make this claim because when one card is so insanely good that the game essentially requires you to play it to place well in major events, that takes all of the fun and personalization out of deck building. Yugioh is no fun because it's full of these "must use" cards, and what makes it worse is that each block has a different number of "Must use" cards getting rid of almost all originality. Duel masters was essentially killed by such a thing, because they introduced a broken card, allowed you to run four copies of it, and then insisted on not limiting or banning the cards that synergized with it, allowing it to completely dominate the tournament scene with no competition and resulting in nothing but mirror matches at major events because if you varied from that formula you were going to lose. When I say "That's not how it's supposed to work", that's the sort of thing I'm talking about!

Luxray Lv. X should not be the be all to end all, and cards that synergize well should not be considered accessories to the "be all to end all", and everything else is garbage. Blaziken has his own deck. that doesn't make him bad. Yes, Luxape won nats, and yes, it placed well at worlds, but did it WIN worlds? No. So it actually is conceivable that a deck doesn't have to be luxape , or built like luxape, to do well. I'm not calling Luxape a bad deck. I am saying that you shouldn't consider Luxape the ultimate pinnacle, and anything that can't immediately improve that specific build is a waste of time. Deck's can be good WITHOUT the luxape engine.

Also, just because I disagree with everyone's narrow minded approach doesn't mean I have to leave. that's what these discussions are for. not for everyone to pat each other on the back and kiss each other's butts like a bunch of yesmen.

and don't talk about my league like it's full of pushovers who don't know what they're doing. There are several respected members of the gym here who participate in my league. Totoro RUNS my league!

And by the way, your preceding statements also make another assumption: that I'm a junior or senior. I'm a Master. 22 years of age, capable of drinking, smoking and driving though not necessarily at once. I know you assume I'm not a master, because you talk to me as if I'm not part of that group, not to mention you thought I would be insulted by the implication that juniors or seniors aren't competent. So you've apparently made a LOT of assumptions, all of which are quite incorrect in my case.

Final statemet: POkemon is not supposed to be some cookie cutter butt kissing narrow minded game where everyone tries to build the same decks because there's one deck that everyone is putting up on a pedestal like it's the holy grail and it will win you every tournament without question. This isn't supposed to be yugioh. Instead of that, you SHOULD be finding ways to bring such a deck down, because when one deck completely dominates a format, the environment stagnates. Besides, where's the fun or challenge in playing something that does so well, just because of tournament reports? how about trying your own original ideas that you come up with yourself? build your own way. and just because a deck ISN'T luxape doesn't mean that, with a skilled player in control, it isn't capable of doing well, or possibly even BETTER, than your beloved luxape. my view isn't so much about blaziken, so much as to prove a point: people are obsessing over Luxray. they act like you absolutely have to use him to be any good at the game. Any new card is automatically compared to such and called bad just because you can't squeeze it in and make the deck even more unfair. THAT'S. NOT. RIGHT!!!!

 

[chetabear]

lots of people lay like that^ its called rougue, and its no whare near as rare as you seem to think.
there is a kind of rogue, the one you are talking about that only beats a small selection of decks, so the fact that not loads of people dont play luxray ruins the concept of killing off luxray.

 

[Pogiforce]

Just because it's rogue doesn't mean it can't do well. :\ In fact playing rogue is really the only way to learn HOW to kill off luxray. because you don't kill off luxray, by playing Luxray.

That was one thing I really loved about Duel Masters. the game was good, there were no broken cards, and almost no useless cards. It all came down to individual skill, and technical deck building ability. winning a match of Duel Masters was more about actual skill than who had the most money to dish out for "must use" cards. That changed with the introduction of Bombazar Dragon of Destiny though.

and I understand rogue is fairly common. People are talking about how they're going to play rogue decks in the "what are you going to play for BRs?" thread. But it seems like this thread is full of elitists who insist on playing main archtypes and forsake almost all originality and individual style just because a deck does exceptionally well at the previous worlds. Whatever happened to inventing your own deck? It's much more satisfying to come up with something to BEAT that overpowered archtype deck, than it is to use it. Now I'm not saying Blaziken can beat luxape. I've too little experience against luxape to make that assumption. But I do think blaziken deserves more credit than it's getting. Blaziken can do 70 for 1, 100 for one if the opponent is running any water, and if you're willing to risk it, 120 for 1 with the +40 against him on the next turn. not to mention the ability to force a switch on your opponent and inflict burn. maybe not as good as Luxray's forced switch, but a forced switch is a forced switch. That's a nice ability, and impressive damage output. Yes, he's kind of light for a level X, and yes, he tends to make killing him off easier, but that's what Aaaron's and Premiere balls are for. But people are going to call it bad just because it doesn't fit quite as well as infernape? come on.

 

[Ariadosman]

Doesn't Luxray need his pokepower? I mean, that's why everyone is playing him isn't it? Otherwise no one would give him a second look. and Infernape 4's pokepower, imho, is what makes him pair up so well with luxray for that deck.

I don't get what you are trying to say. Infernape 4 Lv X's Poke-Power IMO is not what makes the Ape go well in LuxApe. Intimidating Roar is alright, but not amazing, and definitely has no synergy with Bright Look.

As for Palkia G, I don't deny that a mono fire deck with Blaziken Sp will have problems against it. but you could tech in Manectric PL. I've seen someone do it to counter Flygon X, but works just as well in this case. send out manectric, do Attract Current. Or power wave, whichever you feel like, if you're up against the level X they both work. Unless you're running Buck's Training or the random pluspower, Manectric has free retreat, so after it gets hit you pull him back. and his pokebody protects Blaziken from being hit by Hydro Shot while blaziken is on the bench. After taking sixty to eighty from Manectric, Blaziken could easily clean that up with Vapor Kick. so the palkia person will either be forced to retreat, poketurn, or let palkia die.

Sticking a Manectric line in Blaziken/Things that burn along with some lightning energies is not ideal. And Manectric doesn't even work anyway. You Power Wave them, They Lost Cyclone all the pixies you damaged and poke turn the damage off their Palkia (possible using Bronzong G's Galactic Switch before doing so).

the reason why I'm so up in arms over this, is because people are treating Blaziken like he's utter garbage, just because he doesn't pair well with Luxray. and it bothers me that people are so obsessed with Luxray that if a card doesn't work well with him they automatically consider it trash. That's not the way it's supposed to work.

I understand this. Sorry if you thought that's what I meant.

Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:

It is to have complete feild control. Once you have their claydols dead they are left with very few options and you have your sprays to cancelle whats left. If they get set up you will lose. I know in theroy mon you will be set up every game. No you wont be in real life though. Almost every deck in this format relies on claydol and having early feild control gives you the ability to kill those claydols. You dont have to have them burned you just have to make sure you limit their options.What I am trying to get around to is that with luxray and blazekin it is much easier to kill claysols and establish board control.

Since when did I say decks set up every game? That's not even the point anyway. I know Blaziken's Luring Flame can help kill a Claydol, but Luxray'ing the Claydol and KO'ing it is what you would do most times anyway.

 

[prodigal_fanboy]

1. You need authority or at least well-presented logic/rhetoric when making claims that aren't commonly held as the truth. That aside, Luxray GL Lv. X is not the god card that you are implying it to be. What you are doing is taking our arguments, that for fast, damage-oriented SP decks, Luxray is the superb choice and metric of viability, dropping all qualifiers, and acting as if we said that Luxray GL Lv. X is the only card worth playing in any deck. What you're talking about is a broken format, what we're talking about it is a sub-par card, two different concepts entirely.

2.Again, you're making the argumentative leap that because we hold Luxape to be the optimal damage-oriented SP deck that we hold it to be the best deck in the format. No, a deck need not be built like Luxape to do well, we both can agree upon that. However, when building a fast, damage-oriented SP deck, Luxape works remarkably well because it plays the numbers game with a curve that the Blaziken FB can't match as an attacker. Hence you saw Ariadosman's criticism of Blaziken-Blaziken as suffering terribly from its monoweakness to water, which is not good in a meta with Kingdra, Gyarados, and Palkia G.

3.Pardon my narrow-mindedness for actually trying to play to win, rather than using a card that is rather mediocre both in its own merits and the context of the meta.

4.Don't you just love assumptions? Because this statement comes prior to the next one, I'll ask you to also visit my contention five before reading this. Feel free to show me where I said your league was full of pushovers. I said that the six year old with the all-psychic deck does not count, implying that testing against children or bad players produces irrelevant data. Nowhere in that statement do I say that your league is full of six-year-olds with all-psychic decks, or anything to that effect. Calm your jets.

5.I tend to make mental estimates of people's age on these boards, based on the content, diction, and construction of their posts. I've been surprised many times before by how young some people were whom I held to be older, and how old some people were to be younger. As for the insult thing, that was not for you. There exists a bevy of seniors and parents on these boards who either do not fall into that category of bad seniors, or who flip out and post semi-illiterate replies when they perceive someone to be calling all Seniors bad. Rather than risk that here on this thread, I stifled that upfront.

6. Outside of your repeated use of butt-kissing, as if concurrent analysis implies such, you also weaken what pro-Blaziken arguments you could have presented, by once again assuming that anyone here believes Luxrape to be the BDIF, when it clearly has multiple tough matchups that really require skill and a good hand to pull off. Furthermore, with your whole “find a rogue to bring it down.” That's lovely. However, you should know that the past format has been rather wide-open for the most part, and there's no real sign of that changing for Brs.

Final Statement: No one here is acting like you HAVE to have Luxray to be the best deck. No one is calling it bad because Blaziken can't be “squeezed in to make the deck more unfair.” They're calling it bad because the energy discard requirement of Infernape is more manageable than the extra damage on Blaziken that makes it more than likely that he will be KO'd. This, combined with the fact that Infernape is far more capable of getting the OHKO within the resource system of the deck than Blaziken, both against other SP decks and against things like Bees (where he can take use High Jump Kick with Crobat and Lucario, or at least not be virtually guaranteed the counter-KO), Dark Flygon, Flychamp, Gengar, etc. In other words, Blaziken isn't better because it can't OHKO as well in a format that is dominated by OHKOs, and because the drawbacks of its attack are less preferable than the drawbacks of Infernape's attack.

 

[Pogiforce]

Your arguments were not presented as "Luxape is the optimal speed Sp deck". it was presented as "Blaziken sucks because blazeray isn't as good as Luxape" which includes the implication that "If it can't run with Luxray, It's bad." Perhaps in the future you should take more care in articulating your point of view so as not to appear so insulting. I tend to respond in kind.

You put Blaziken FB on the bench. Menctric does 80 for two, or 70 for one.against palkia G, that's 100 for one, and still hitting other pokepowers on the bench. that's also a very heavy hit against Kingdra. So putting manectric in with a few electric energies actually works. You only use Blaziken FB Lv X's Jet Shoot if you absolutely need to do 120 damage that turn, and if you place it right it can do the damage without the recoil. you ahve to take the judgement of the player into account. yes, Jet shooting when your opponent has say, a fully charged Luxray GL Lv X on the bench, or say if they have a Kingdra on the Bench. then it's a pretty bad move on your part. But if the most threateing thing they have is an uxie, Or something that has nothing on it energy wise, and you absolutely need to do 120 damage, you can Jet Shoot. yes, that means if they manage to do any damage, he'll take a lot more, but in that scenario it won't kill him. and as stated in regards to Palkia Lock, you can always poketurn him after that. and it takes a LOT less to charge him back up.

The problem is it seems you're evaluating Blaziken without regard to player decision, and without considering his potential as a bench sitter. You're not going to Jet Shoot EVERY turn blindly without first evaluating your situation. You're not going to do all your fighting with him either. that's the cool thing about his effect. ANY pokemon can do a huge chunk of damage for little energy cost if you can guarantee a burn. Which Blaziken PL can do.

And you're still ultimately judging Blaziken poorly because he doesn't do as well with Luxray without proper evaluation of the card as a whole. you're too focused on the negative. You call the card mediocre, without proper research into his capability. All your "proof" is why he doesn't fit with Luxray.

and BTW, you can still play to win without being a bandwagon jumper with no imagination. Just saying.

 

[prodigal_fanboy]

1. They were not presented as such explicitly because from my understanding that was both the nature and the context of the discussion.

2. Manectric is a pretty good card to run against Palkia, but Palkia does pack answers. A lot of what you present though is dependent on the burn damage boost, which either implies you're running Magmortar (can Blazi PT's power work from bench?) or that you've Luring Flame. Luring Flame sets you back a turn, and either way you risk your opponent getting out of the burn. The issue isn't that he takes more damage, the issue is that he takes so much more damage that he gets OHKO'd. If your opponent has a Luxray GL or Toxipromo on the bench, they have the means to OHKO you in return, with a much better board position for it. The same applies if the pack Mankey or Relicanth and have access to a Crobat G drop to Flash Bite. All of this hasn't even left the realm of SP on SP yet.

3. No, I'm not evaluating without regard to player decision. I'm evaluating it in regard to Blazeray's matchups in the meta. Have I tested Blazi-Blazi extensively? No. Have I tested Blazeray extensively? Yes. Was I happy with the results? No. It had a horrible time against all the decks I mentioned in my previous post, because of limited damage output. As for evaluating him as a bench-sitter. Liably a valid deck. Would I run it? No. I wouldn't run any deck where the main focus is Blaziken FB. If you're talking about 4-2-(3/1) Blaziken with a 1-1 FB tech or something along those lines, that's agreeable albeit somewhat tough to set up. The good news being that you can Clutch off of an Upper.

4. I've declared what testing I've done, I've looked into his capabilities in that regard. My proof works when the thread is Infernape v. Blaziken:

"People have been talking about using the new Blaziken FB and its Level X as a replacement for Infernape Lv X in Luxape decks. It was used by the 2nd place Japan nationals guy played blaziken over infernape and everybody says it's good so why not?"

5. Yes, you can play to win without being a bandwagon jumper. Or you can find a deck you love to play with and spend months playing it, and play to win. Either one, really.