Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

No Hand For You!!! - Updated with first game!

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Prime

Content Developer<br>Blog Admin<br>Contest Host
The Deck:
3 Aimbipom MT
3 Aipom MT
4 Absol SW
TOTAL: 10 (7 Basics, 3 Evolutions)

4 Special Dark Energy
10 Basic Dark Energy
TOTAL: 14

3 Great Ball
4 Celio's Network
2 Team Galaxy's Mars
4 Team Galaxy's Wager
4 Castaway
1 Scott
2 Steven's Advice
1 Copycat
4 Battle Frontier
4 Cessation Crystal
4 Energy Removal 2
2 Night Maintenance
2 Warp Point
TOTAL: 36

The Strategy:
I've run into decks recently that make me reconsider my whole view of this game. Even the biggest beast can crash and burn if it's player has no hand. Even the best deck can lose if they cannot refresh it's player's hand and keep it growing. Even the best strategy can fail if they cannot counter the opponent's actions. This logic leads you to my deck. Call it whatever you want. The name is not important. The idea behind it is.

Absol is a beast. It doesn't do massive damage. It doesn't draw you your whole deck. It doesn't set you up. But it works. It is so disruptive, and mean, and evil, and can turn any win advantage into a loss. I once thought that Absol lost it's shine past early game. But I have my doubts now. If at any point in the game, you cannot refresh your hand, well Absol then will take advantage of that and lower it even further. Not only that, but Absol does easy damage, for 1 energy, and can take the blunt of attacks in many cases. All in all, Absol is definitely one of my favorite Pokemon from SW, and one of my most hated Pokemon all at the same time.

Ambipom is a experiment. I've never seen it in action, but on "paper", it makes sense. It's first attack that can push energy to the bottom of the opponent's deck combined with energy removal 2 could be a problem to many decks. It's second attack combined with constant Team Galaxy's Wagers, Team Galaxy's Mars, and Absols could be a big threat. I don't have much to say about Ambipom. I hope he turns out well.

4 Wager == Loss? I hear this a lot, and I don't think this is true. I've run into my share of opponents that have run 4 Wager and it has scared me. Scared me because I know at any time, my hand could be shuffled back into my deck. At any time, after using a Castaway or Scott, or Celio, could my hand be ruined. And the kicker is the idea that my hand could be reduced to 3 cards. 6 cards sounds alright, but my hand was still ruined in the first place. So the 3 Boost Energy I was holding has now been flung throughout the deck. And yes, the Wager player can lose the RPS and put themselves in a really bad situation. But I feel if the deck is made so that it can come back from a loss in RPS, it can handle those situations better. What cards could help that idea? Maybe cards like Copycat (to refresh your hand to a bigger size), Steven's Advice (to draw up to 6 cards), and cards like Pokedex (I know I don't have any in the list, but it might be a good idea for the deck) that help you inch closer and closer to that supporter that could save you. IMHO, 4 Wager is so disruptive, and even if you lose, the constant barrage of them can disrupt any player significantly and turn any hand advantage they might have into just a pile of rubbish.

No deck at the moment really abuses Energy Removal 2 and I've seen many decks focusing more on Cessation Crystal over Battle Frontier. I like Battle Frontier against D/M/C decks a lot more than Cessation Crystal because it sticks a lot easier. A warp point doesn't mess it up, or KO'ing the active doesn't remove it. But I run both in the deck, and that might not be the best idea. Maybe Strength Charm might be a better idea to help do more damage. I'm just out of Strength Charm running 4 in every deck at the moment, so I had to come up with ideas with cards I actually own. Energy Removal 2 is very flippy. But I hope I get lucky and am able to remove energy because most decks don't run Poke-Powers to lay multiple energy a turn anymore. Many decks are reliant on DRE/Scramble and constant energy dropping to power-up Pokemon. A single ER2 can disrupt any setup.

This is definitely a rough draft list of the deck. So critique and offer changes if you want, but I just wanted to get the idea out there and maybe discuss it a bit.
 
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No Quick Balls? No Crystal Beaches?
Remove Great Balls to make room for Quick Balls, and BF for another TGM...
 
yea steven's is a really good counter for wager.
copycat is a double edged sword in this deck, for these reasons:

GOOD: you can burn down your hand really easily with all the techs in this deck, (ER2, Cess Crystal, Battle Fronteir)
and then refresh your hand with Copycat.

GOOD: After your opponent wins a wager, many players will keep cards in their hand, (to discard vs Ambipom)
ensuring you a decent copycat.


BAD: Your opponent will most likely have a small amount of cards in their hand vs this deck so often, that Copycat will be useless most of the time.

BAD: After winning a Wager, (depending on the situation) some people may play down cards from their hand,
giving you a copycat of about 3, (f you're lucky, 4 cards)


I think overall, Steven's is more useful in this deck.
try this:


-4 Battle Fronteir (Cess Crystal should work, with all the deck's hand denial)

+2 Crystal Beach (ER2+Beach+opponents zero hand=total ownage)
+1 Steven's
+1 Mars (or copycat, if you really wanna make sure this deck can take a wager loss)
 
Copycat also helps when you mullagin. And with only 7 basics, I might mullagin every now and then. But I didn't want to go crazy with Copycat because then my opponent could control my hand size. I like the 3 Steven's Advice. I will try the Crystal Beach over Battle Frontier.

Quick Balls just isn't going to be that useful IMHO. When I need the Ambipom, like T3 or something, and all I have on the field is 1 Aipom and 1 Absol, I have a 3/8 chance of actually getting the Ambipom. Even if I remove all the Absol from the deck, and have 1 Aipom on the field, I still only have a
3/5 chance of getting the Ambipom. It's not really that useful. I love Quick Balls in solo decks like Solo Blissey and Kricketune, but I just don't find it that useful here.

And if I got rid of the Great Ball, I lose my ability to grab basics from the deck without using a supporter. Because supporter use is so important to this deck, I can't waste my one supporter for the turn on getting a basic with celio.
 
Hi Prime,

Nice deck. Love the massive amount of Galactic's Wager since three are common in most solo decks around here. However make sure to have Ambipom to benefit from the success of Wager same turn or at least reduce their hand a little.

Consider these modifications:

- 2 Darkness Energy
- 4 Battle Fronteir
- 2 Warp Point
- 1 Scott

+ 4 Crystal Beach
+ 3 Cyclone Energy
+ 1 Steven's Advice
+ 1 Team Galactic's Mars

A lot of deck abuse Double Rainbow and boost at the moment and a lockdown on those cards works awesome with the energies removal tactic. Discard energies or return them to the bottom of their deck while the stadium renders the Double Rainbow close to useless in several decks.

Cyclone Energy is similar to Warp Point in this deck since it still switches the opponent around on the battlefield but the own team remains unaffected. Since the retreat cost in this deck is real low this should not be an issue at all in case there is a need to retreat someone on the own team.

Scott seemed useless since most of the time Wager will undo the benefit of Scott. Run more draw cards instead to assist the deck to recover faster than the other side.
 
Crystal Beach is definitely a good idea. I can understand the logic of removing the scott too. With 1 Copycat and 4 Wager, Scott just won't be that useful other than getting the 1 Stadium. I will think about the removal of Warp Point and Darkness Energy for the addition of Mars, Advice, and Cyclone Energy.

Thanks for the suggestions.
 
Dual Ball is flippy, and I'd rather not make my deck anymore flippy.

Umbreon* would probably work, but I don't have one. So...I'm going to pass.

But thanks for the suggestions.
 
I have seen similar lists with buffer piece and Drakes Stadium. And Rosanne's.
Like this version though too.
Tina
 
If you want a bit more of consistency....maybe add say 2 Roseanne's Research. Gets you combo of 2 basics and/or basic energy. With only 14 energy....you may run dry, esp after an unsuccessful wager.

I like crystal beach too, to eliminate the use of DREs and Scrables (if you miss on the ER2 flip), exchange 2 with the BF for a 2/2 mix.

If you can squeeze in a couple buffer pieces, it might help in keeping an absol active longer. If you want to keep messing with their hand, up the Mars to 3 and drop wager to 3. With an Absol active, you will be taking 2 cards from them w/ atk and a Mars.

Keith
 
I haven't tested the idea any. I ordered 4 Absol but haven't gotten them yet. Quick Balls I feel won't work in this deck because it's not just 4/4 of something. It's 3/3 of something and 4 of something else. I wouldn't be able to control the Quick Ball unless I pulled all 7 basics out of my deck, and that would take a lot of time to do just to use Quick Ball successfully.
 
How are you going to take prize cards? I see the disruption but Absol is totally useless to take a prize. You may slow your opponent to a crawl but I just don'ty see Ampibom as a take out pokemon.
You have a great deck for frustrating and probably will work well but what happens if your having one of those days when you don't get the flips?
I would try to find a basic or stage 1 with a good attack ( Hate to say it but maybe Blissey) to cream your oppoenent once you have him on the ropes.

I like it very much though.
 
The mono fighting weakness and fragile pokemon will lose you games. Ambipom just needs to get sniped once by aura sphere to put it in 1-hit range for Lucario. For Absol, they just need a pluspower. And on top of all of this, Lucario is probably one of the least susceptible pokemon when it comes to energy disruption. This deck is great but its matchup against Lucario decks makes it trash unless you know for sure you won't see any Lucario in your metagame.
 
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I had the same thought Aggy, before I started playing against a deck like the above. Pretty much, I'd setup a Kricketune or Blissey and would get a slight lead. My hand would slowly go down as time went on, and before I knew it, my hand would be pretty much all gone. From that point on, with no hand, even if my opponent couldn't OHKO my pokemon, I just couldn't keep up. With no hand, I couldn't counter anything being played. As soon as I would draw card, it would be gone.

Pretty much, the second you limit your opponent's hand to 0-2 cards, they stop setting up anything. So you slowly KO the pokemon they do have on the field and win. It's happened to me many times. But of course any deck can be beat, but the time to beat it is early game. If this deck survives past early game, it gains a lot of advantage. I guess in that aspect, it's the opposite of Kricketune.

The deck I've run into is Honckrow/Absol. It might be the better idea than this, but it can't run Cessation/Battle Frontier/Crystal Beach/most of the disruption cards. So I choose a pokemon that could compliment the discard idea and be able to use the disruption cards.

Jayson: That's fine. I can accept a loss.
 
Prime I agree with what you said and don't have much too add to your deck other than to say what about using Lugia from SW, If you get the roll you remove an extra energy, build up and you have the power to one hit most anything, reasonable hit points to stay around for a bit. I myself have been playing with Absol to see if I can work someting out like you have here. When you start with Absol it really does work well, add the Mars = trouble for the opponent.
 
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Hand Nazi deck? Thx, but I prefer to call this the A-Team. Got an article going up about this deck in about a week. Prize Nazi, however, is something completely different.
 
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