That's what I have figured. It's my only completed deck, I am putting together a Durant but I don't have the time nor money to finish it by this weekend, when Cities is.
I will retire my Gothitelle deck once Spring BRs / States rolls around. I might still use it at my league for a while to get the last of it - even after N.D. I just started playing the TCG recently and Gothitelle was my first deck, so I'm kinda reluctant to take it down, though I know for a fact there is no way I could survive any tournament after this Cities.
I am going for current meta. Do you have any tips to help me speed up Goth just for this weekend, at least? I run 3-1-3 Gothitelle, 3-1-3 Reuniclus, 1 of each dragon, Jirachi, Shaymin and a Cleffa.
I have Collectors, candies, etc, all the basics. I built my deck off of the skeleton list on the Deck Out for "The Gothic Girl." If that information helps.
I'm not too familiar with Gothitelle play, but I would like to consider myself generally a good enough deckbuilder and aware enough of game variables to generally do okay. So, let's start with the supplied skeleton list:
4x Gothita(Hypnotic Gaze)
2x Gothorita(Deleting Glare)
3x Gothitelle
3x Solosis
1x Duosion
2x Reuniclus
1x Zekrom
1x Reshiram
1-2 Starter
= 18-19
Trainer:
4x Pokémon Collector
4x Pokémon Communication
4x Rare Candy
4x Twins
2x Max Potion
3x Junk Arm
2x Pokémon Catcher
=23
Energy:
3x Double Colorless Energy
9x Psychic Energy
=12
Okay, so the current major meta decks at this moment are:
- Magnezone/Eelektrik
- Zekrom/Pachirisu/Shaymin/Tornadus
- Chandelure
- Kyurem/Cobalion/Electrode
- Vileplume/Reuiniclus/SuicuneEntei LEGEND/Donphan/Zekrom
- Zekrom/Reshiram/Kyruem/Virizion/Terrakion/variants
- Lanturn/Eelektrik
- Donphan/Zekrom/Reshiram/Kyruem
- Magnezone/Yanmega
- Durant
- Reshiram/Typloshion
**Credit to Shino's Midpoint Analysis Article.
So let's start marking down the decks we've got to go against.
Magnezone / Eelektrik: This'll be your main challenge. Magnezone can overpower and outspeed Gothitelle, so you'll be need to counter Magnezone somehow. It's going to be hard to take on Magnezone. My only suggestion in this case is to play a spread game. You'll probably want to run more aggressive Sage and Juniper lines with a Goth run. Your play might rather be devolving Magnezones rather than aiming to OHKO them. My suggest is to play aggressive Catchers on their Magnezones, put 50+ damage on them, and then devolve them. For all else, aim for the Eelektriks. + Jirachis, + topdeck supporters
ZPST: Last I knew, Gothitelle did alright in keeping Zekrom in check. I'm assuming you're good with Zekrom, so I'm gonna not really focus on it.
Chandelure: This is a touch matchup no matter how you cut it. They can Ability snipe, use Status Conditions, hit for weakness and function under a lock extremely well. Your best bet is to run a solid Absol line, and hit with Vicious Claw as fast as you can. Jirachi and Shaymin should be able to accelerate you so that it doesn't become a complete autolock. Don't focus on the lock - focus on striking down the Chandelures before they get three energies on them. +Absol Prime, +Rainbow
CoKE: Another tough matchup. Cobalion will not only attack-lock your Gothitelles, but also prevent you from doing optimal damage due to resistance and Special Metal. Kyurem will do a number on your bench. There's nothing to devolve, and you can't Twins until they go on the offensive, by which it may become too late. There's really good way to approach this. My only suggestion is to strike their Voltorbs as fast as possible to prevent Energymites. It's not a glamorous strategy, but it's really all you've got going in this matchup. V-Create Victini
may work, but it's pretty superfluous.
Ross Variants: Just go with your original strategy, whatever it is against Ross variants.
Lanturn / Eelektrik: You should be able to overpower them if you establish a 2 Gothitelle lock (1 energyless active, build one on bench).
Donphan and Dragons: You should be fine, last I checked.
Magnezone / Yanmega: Maintain whatever strategy you had for this.
Durant: This is probably the most difficult one, to be honest. There's so much setup required for Gothitelle that no matter what you do, you're in a bad position. There's so much setup required for Gothitelle that T1 4-card Devours will set you back fearsomely. Your best bet is to establish a quick and stacking Gothitelle multiple energies, and snipe their Rotoms to prevent them from hitting you. Electrode Prime in this case should put them back on Twins for a little bit and you on the offensive. You'll be limiting Crushing Hammers and Revives, so just keep that 'sweet spot' damage amount to take on the ants. It's not glamorous, but it's better than nothing. +Electrode Prime
Reshiram / Typhlosion: Maintain your strategy.
So, what's to take from all this? Well, looking at the situation in Noble Victories and onwards, if you want to play Gothitelle, my argument would be you'll need to focus less on Tank-Gothitelle and more on Aggro-accelerate Gothitelle.
To work with Gothitelle in the current format:
My suggestion is to run thicker counter lines. Ditch Reshiram in favour of V-Create Victini so you can more easily take down Cobalions. The less you need to setup against those types of decks, the better. Instead of Zekrom, my suggestion is to run Terrakion so that if you're fighting Magnezone Prime, you're going to be taking at least one down with you. It's not optimal, but we're not going for a 50-50 matchup; we're aiming to prevent an autoloss (which is what we're
very close to right now).
I would also suggest minimising the Reuniclus line to a thinner, perhaps even nonexistant one, and running an Electrode Prime (3-3 is optimal) line to power you or whatever counters you have up and start swinging as soon as possible. Reuniclus is nice, but it's not going to help you in this format as much with Kyurem on the prowl, because you'll just be softening yourself up, and putting a lot of damage counters on certain Pokemon is just too risky right now.
I would definitely suggest both a thicker Jirachi and Shaymin line. If you're running something along the lines of 2-1 Jirachi-Shaymin or 1-1, I suggest 2-2. In any counter-deck, Shaymin is the undisputed MVP because he can move energies without hurting. This is
crucial. Jirachi will likewise become more important because you'll want to be doing Basic-Stage 1 damage kills, not high damage kills (you devolve and subsequent knock out Pokemon with 50-80 damage on them).
So my suggestion would be:
4x Gothita(Hypnotic Gaze)
2x Gothorita(Deleting Glare)
3x Gothitelle
3x Voltorb
3x Electrode Prime
1x Cleffa
1x V-Create Victini
1x Terrakion
1x Absol Prime
1 Jirachi
2 Shaymin
4x Pokémon Collector
4x Pokémon Communication
4x Rare Candy
4x Twins
1x Super Rod
4x Junk Arm
2x Max Potion
2x Pokémon Catcher
4x Rainbow Energy
2x Double Colorless Energy
7x Psychic Energy
It looks extremely awkward, I know, and my apologies, but I have a blind understanding of what your meta is like, so I'm working on the statistics provided by Shino Bug Master. I've eschewed the Reuniclus line entirely because you're working with faster decks that can OHKO you. You'll want to try and get something like a powered Gothitelle up faster.
4 Rainbow, I think, is crucial, because if you want to have a fighting chance against decks like Magnezone, you'll need them to power up Retaliate to take a Magnezone down with you. Absol Prime, likewise, is good for taking on Chandelures, and Victini should (optimally) take down one Cobalion, and therefore should buy you a turn or two to have an offensive that can last.
This is untested, so my suggestion, if you're wanting to run Gothitelle still, is to proxy and see how it functions, if there are good or bad hiccups, and change accordingly. Now, I've added two Shaymins because the second one is vital to moving and countering. Against Magnezone, my suggestion is to aim for three Gothitelles and Terrakion, have them pushed into a Lost Burn scenario and then use Retaliates. It's very hard to keep active pressure (disruption, heavy attacks) with Gothitelle, since Gothitelle is more focused on passive pressure (trainer locking), and Magnezone can wriggle its way out of passive pressure pretty well.
Absol Prime will help against Chandelure. Start a swift lock as fast as you can with an active, energyless Goth, and then attach to Absol Prime to hit for 140 with Vicious Claws. Your best play I can see is to manually retreat Goths to promote powered Absol, play down Jirachi, Stardust song the discarded energy back, and then attack with Vicious Claw. Shaymin energy onto Gothitelle if Absol Prime is knocked out from Jirachi, leaving one. Hope you can kill with devolving.
With Durant, your best bet is to tank an active Gothitelle and just keep hitting. Aim for stuff that doesn't have Eviolite or Special Metals on them yet, since they'll be the cheapest things to knock out. As long as you have Gothitelle active, they can't just Revive, Crushing Hammer, Lost Remover, Catchers, etc., on you.
To work with Gothitelle in Next Destinies:
Gothitelle will get a boost from Gardevoir. In this situation, you should probably still focus on a Goth / Electrode run, but this time instead of a bunch of techs, you use Gardevoir on the bench to augment your Psychic energies. Mewtwo EX will be a problem, but that requires segmenting careful attachments more than anything. In fairness, though, if you have a Gardevoir in play, you'll only need need two psychic energy to OHKO Mewtwo (assuming they run Eviolite). That said, you'll need to get two Stage 2's in play, and then get appropriate attachments on them. That's easier said than done.
Now, I'm not going to supply a decklist for the Next Destinies one, since I generally don't want to make a deck before we can figure out precisely how the meta's going to play out (since I'm not crazy), but my position is that if you still plan on playing Gothitelle, you'll be playing it with Electrode and Gardevoir. There's really no other viable way to do it that I'm seeing.
Overall...
You're dealing with Gothitelle aggro, not Gothitelle tank, if you want to do well with it. It's a slow Pokemon that's meant to tank, but since it can't, the only thing you can do now is to speed it up and play heavy pressure. Gothitelle / Electrode, I would argue, is more viable in this current format than Gothitelle / Reuniclus, just primarily on the fact that Gothitelle / Electrode can still function with counters to make your autolosses less of an autoloss. Of course, you're nowhere near 50-50, but my position is that if you want to make Gothitelle 'work' in this format, you're going to have to speed it up, not tank it out.
