Otaku
Active Member
Less than you might think. Dark Trance decks do have their "weaknesses", though they may be the best deck in the format. Be grateful that the hardest hitter in the deck is also the source of Dark Trance and needs an off-Type Energy too boot: that is how you bait it out to easily OHKO. If you can't easily OHKO it or otherwise trap it, you may have to accept a bad match-up or tweak your deck.
This Hydreigon has Weakness to the new, popular Type. It hits those same Pokémon for double damage, but the only targets where that matters are the ones most likely to OHKO it back! 150 HP is a 2HKO for most decks... unless they put a little effort in. The real trick is getting some damage on Hydreigon while it is Benched... something easy enough that dropping Max Potion to heal it is a waste. Then later finish it off (usually next turn).
Or you run Garbodor to shut down the Ability. Or you run the right Fighting-Type Pokémon (and probably Tool Scrapper) that you don't care about Hydreigon since you're OHKOing Darkrai EX. Most of my decks make room for two Crushing Hammer and an Enhanced Hammer; while I am not fond of relying on a coin flip, either resorting to Hammer Spam or just the simple fact that a few turns without being able to hit hard back can force the Dark Trance player to burn through their Max Potion prematurely... or give up some early game KOs.
Did I mention the simplest thing of PlusPower? I know it isn't as easy to utilize as it was with Junk Arm, but for the beefy attack that do just barely miss out on finishing off the Defending Pokémon... and this is ignoring our format is only half finished! Soon we will have Poison Hypnotic Beam (also good for an extra damage counter and 25% chance of denying Retreat), and with Virbank City Gym you have a two card combination (one card potentially re-usable) to place an extra 3 damage counters on the Defending Pokémon.
Except it doesn't do everything. It has big HP, and a risky big attack, and a good Ability. Darkrai EX provides the free Retreat. Max Potion provides the healing. Dark Patch can give it some extra speed, but requires at least a little set-up, and a large part of what makes Dark Trance work is trying to get by with less Energy (potential clash with Dark Patch).
Plus... the TCGO. Really? Given the glitches with it as well as the unusual nature of it to begin with, I wouldn't really take a TCGO game as a sign the whole format is unbalanced. Dark Trance is strong, but its greatest strength has been a steep learning curve on how to counter it. There is the chance that players are just stubbornly refusing to adapt to what can work well as a counter. I mean, how many Pokémon have had attacks that hit for 150 damage reliably, but were "unneeded" before since Stage 2 Pokémon weren't as popular and Pokémon EX still could survive a shot?
It would be rather funny for something like Emboar made a comeback because someone ends up taking the upcoming card, handles the Water Weakness, and now uses "Bad Boar" or Reshiram EX coupled with Poison Hypnotic Beam, Tool Scrapper, andVirbank City Gym to OHKO anything. For that matter, the upcoming Raticate with Poison Hypnotic Beam does OHKO anything not protected from attack effects/Poison.
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