Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Skittles Starters

Rocky500

New Member
Im at a loss honestly. Is it worth playing Phione/Call energy in Skittles, or is Pachi still the best starter for this deck? If so, I can't see Call energy doing much but limiting your rainbow, lol.
 
*shrugs* Rotom? That might do some interesting tricks should Ho-oh be knocked out early on.

I'd probably accept Pachirisu as the best starter for Skittles though. Togekiss doesn't want to be played via Wish for Evolution. Pachirisu has more HP. It'll certainly work with Pachirisu with little effort needed.
I wonder how good Chatot would be though. Free retreat... But shuffling your hand away could be problematic if you need to keep that Rare Candy. Hm.
 
Phione/Call is a NO-GO in Skittles. Unless you enjoy the agony that is revealing 3 energy off Serene Grace and 2 of them are Call.

I find Pachi to be the best starter as long as you're running Claydol. Otherwise, Furret is pretty decent. You could give Chatot a shot in a more fishing engine-oriented list.

In my States list for Skittles, the big concern was str8 Blissey packing 4 Cess, and I wanted a reliable way to get rid of them because a turn 2 Cess + Blissey is auto-loss, and Windstorm isn't a good enough answer to it. It just turns out that this deck likes to get basics out on the bench early, so CFF was a big bonus.
 
Play pachi. Call energy is a huge waste of space in Skittles because togekiss can't get it and ho-oh can't use it. Also unless you play over 20 Energy including call energy you will ruin consitency and getting the right energhy from ho-oh.
 
I have to agree with Black Mamba, Furret plain and simple. Why use a shot gun when you have a rifle handy? More importantly it helps when staging a comeback. Pachi is usually a straight sacrifice whereas Furret provides additional setup. Can I also assume your using a bench spot for Claydol too. Hmm..let's see one spot for the retreated Pachi, one spot for Claydol, One spot for Kiss and One spot for the back-up Ho-oh ...opps Dusknoir ate it.

Yeah, I'd say Furret was the play.
 
One of the things that I like best about Patchi + Claydol is the ability to get energy back into the deck. Many games I would put two basic energy on the bottom of the deck with Claydol and then use Bebe's or something to put a thrid back in and shuffle just before doing Serene Grace. It's a solid way to increase the effictiveness and speed of the deck. Early game Patchi & Claydol can set you up faster than Furret will and mid game they can help Serene Grace as described. Patchi + Claydol builds ironcially can be more vulnerable to power killing cards like Cess or G&G Power Lock.

Furret is a *great* starter. I really like him in a number of decks that I've built. If you use him your odds of a solid Skittles setup are very good ... but the odds of the T1 or T2 fully powered Ho-oh go down IMHO. You trade a bit of speed for a bit more stablity and less reliance on powers for setup. Mid Game Furret may cost you a prize ... but it can be well worth it to get exactly the cards you need. Furret is hit harder by TGW than Claydol type builds usually are.

I ran Patchi at Regionals and I'll probably run it that way again at a BR, but it's largely a matter of style and the local meta IMHO.

Edit ... something to consider is that Omastar + TGW is going to be in a number of decks. That hurts benched Claydols and Furrets, though ironcially it may actually help you in the long run if you get an extra Serene Grace or two from Togekiss. Glaceon lv X is also going to be a hard card for Ho-oh to deal with but will be especially problematic for Claydol builds.
 
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One of the things that I like best about Patchi + Claydol is the ability to get energy back into the deck. Many games I would put two basic energy on the bottom of the deck with Claydol and then use Bebe's or something to put a thrid back in and shuffle just before doing Serene Grace. It's a solid way to increase the effictiveness and speed of the deck. Early game Patchi & Claydol can set you up faster than Furret will and mid game they can help Serene Grace as described...

Exactly. The ability to put energy back into your deck via Chatot is why I've been testing the deck with Chatot as the starter.

The annoying bird seems to be more useful in my games then Pachirisu, but that's just my style :/ I'd still play Claydol with it, because Claydol can take over the hand management job once you have Ho-oh active.

...Heck, that's one of the things I don't like about using Furret. Your engine relys on Furret to work? Okay, what are you going to do when Ho-oh starts attacking? Just forget about building up the next card? Claydol lets you continue to look for Togekiss while Ho-oh is attacking at a speed faster then mere supporters.
I've still yet to find an answer for Glaceon though. Empoleon's brutal too, since they can pick off your Togepis, Baltoys, etc. if you don't Rare Candy abuse enough. Ho-oh's fairly easy to KO as well for them. Hm.
 
Exactly. The ability to put energy back into your deck via Chatot is why I've been testing the deck with Chatot as the starter.

The annoying bird seems to be more useful in my games then Pachirisu, but that's just my style :/ I'd still play Claydol with it, because Claydol can take over the hand management job once you have Ho-oh active.

...Heck, that's one of the things I don't like about using Furret. Your engine relys on Furret to work? Okay, what are you going to do when Ho-oh starts attacking? Just forget about building up the next card? Claydol lets you continue to look for Togekiss while Ho-oh is attacking at a speed faster then mere supporters.
I've still yet to find an answer for Glaceon though. Empoleon's brutal too, since they can pick off your Togepis, Baltoys, etc. if you don't Rare Candy abuse enough. Ho-oh's fairly easy to KO as well for them. Hm.

Lati-Lock.
 
Lati-lock is a reasonable answer for G&G and some other decks but it's just not going to work in most Skittles builds. You usually end up with a full bench ... Claydol, Togekiss, Togekiss, Ho-oh, & something random. Unless you run a lot of SSU or have some other way of clearing your bench there just isn't room for two additional bench sitters in Skittles.
 
I don't find bench space to be an issue here. You can run just fine with a field of Pachi, Claydol, Ho-Oh and Togekiss.

I honestly wouldn't worry about Glaceon decks tbh. It's just the same as CessCrystal-phobia. If you are really that concerned, run 3 Warp Point or something.
 
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