Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Slow Torterra needs a speed boost

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FutureTrainer

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Please help me speed up this Torterra deck for my son. He has problems getting Claydol and Grotle. (Originally I had 2 Grotle, but added a 3rd because he ran out of candies most of the time).

Pokemon: 20
4-2-2/1-1 Torterra lv X (2 Torterra DP/1 Torterra MD)
2-1-2 Sceptile GE
2-2 Claydol GE
1 Chatot MD

Trainers: 26
4 Rare Candy
4 Roseanne's Research
4 Bebe's Search
2 Dawn Stadium
3 Super Scoop Up
2 Switch
2 Night Maintenance
1 Premier Ball
2 Prof. Rowan
2 Cynthia's Feelings

Energy: 14
10 Grass Energy
4 Call Energy


Strategy: Preferred start with Turtwig or Chatot and Call Energy. Call for Turtwig and Baltoy. Get Claydol setup ASAP while building 1-2 Grotles. Then setup Torterra. Sceptile is for Wild Growth (This helps a LOT for recovering Torterra) . Then the idea is to build 2 Torterra's and an extra Grotle on the bench while your active is attacking. If Torterra gets knocked out, use Night Maintenance to get back the Turtwig and Torterra, and then either a Grotle (if this one had him) or a Grass energy. Warp point should be helpful for switching out a wounded Torterra, but so far that hasn't been very consistent.

The problem is he usually ends up drawing 1 card per turn for the first 3-5 turns before he gets some good draw going. By then he's lost 2 Turtwigs and it is very hard to get the others setup. Oddly enough he frequently ends up with a hand full of Torterra and Sceptile with either no basics, no stage 1's, or no rare candy. All these problems can be solved with better draw.

I'm thinking of adding some Poke Balls and Cynthia's Feelings. What would I remove? What other changes will help get the deck?

Thanks in advance,
Jeff
 
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-1 chatot
-2 super scoop up
-4 call nrg
-3 warp poin
-1 rare candy
-1 turtwig
-1 torterra MD
-1 Grotle

+4 pachirisu
+1 grovyle
+4 ts-1
+1 torterra X
+4 Oak's visit/Felicity's

17 nrg is far too much. Pachi is a much better starter since it puts baltoy on the bench immediately. TS-1 makes life MUCH easier for this deck. This way you can evolve turtwig/treecko then evolve them again right away. That's also the reason for the extra grovyle. Since sceptile is so important, you don't want to totally depend on rare candy.
 
-3 Grass Energy for +3 professor Rowan. I run almost the exact same line and I have no problem getting anything out.
 
Honestly, I recommend pokeball. You need to keep Sceptile out and pokeballs can help you recover from a sniped sceppy as well as build up both your stage 2's asap.

Your lines look fine, except I recommend 2 MD Torterra, 1 DP Torterra, as I played it at grinders at worlds - thats more discretion than anything else, though.

Keep chatot, its necessary.

- Xaej
 
Thanks for the ideas. I'm already using all our Prof Rowans so I added 3 POV. It helps a lot. It looks like I have some trading to do since we've only got 1 Torterra MD and we need more Prof Rowan.

I haven't tried the Pokeballs yet. I may remove 2 Roseanne's and 1 Warp Point. Any other suggestions on what to change? I really want to keep some SSU and Warp Points since they work very well for him when his Torterra is wounded. Is 1 of each too few?

What about the TS1? I think 4 is way too many, but 2 might be useful. Can you use it from the bench?

Jeff
 
do not take out Roseanne's, at all. if you want this deck to really be fast, then 4 is necessary. As for PokeBall, why not try PokeRadar first. it could help your son get his pokemon out quickly, and its not flippy. here's what i would do.
-2 SSU
-2 Call energy
+3 PokeRadar
+1 Uxie LA

I just feel that with SSU, you're relying on flips to keep your active alive, and Torterra's best ability is the ability to easily come back.
 
-2 super scoop up
-1 Roseannes
-1 Call Energy

+2 Pokeradar
+1 Cynthia's Feelings
+1 Switch

When I run my Torterra deck I find switches are better suited for this deck. The reason being is that you don't run Tangrowth, you rely on overwhelming HP and frontal assaults. It's best to keep the opponent's active pokemon out so you can deal the finishing blow. (while warp point switches them out.) Thats not to say Warp point is horrible for tort decks, they do have horrible retreat costs.

Lastly, if you are having trouble with horrible hands theres a couple of other things you can do. Add in some drawing cards which I've seen people have suggested, but you can also try to do a better job of shufffling. I've had the same problems your son is having and just a simple thorough shuffling smoothed it out.
 
-3 Grass Energy
-1 Grotle
+1 Chatot
+2 SSU(Its Awesome in Torterra)
+1 TSD
That will make it faster and more consistent.
When Stormfront comes out use 2 Sableye instead of chatot

Poke-Body: Rashness
If this Pokemon is an Active Pokemon when the cards are flipped over at the beginning of the game, regardless of who won the coin toss, the owner of this card goes first. (This Body doesn’t work if the opponent’s Active Pokemon also has a Rashness Poke-Body.)

[.] Human Mimic: Search your deck for a Supporter card, discard it, and shuffle your deck. Then, use the effect of the discarded card as an effect of this attack.
[D] Overreach: 10 damage. If the Defending Pokemon’s remaining HP is less than Sableye’s remaining HP, this attack does 40 damage instead of 10.
 
Ok...

-3 Grass
-1 Grotle

Sceptile allows the Energy Boost needed and you run the 4 Candy. This allows for a little more abuse of the Low Energy count!

+2 Rowan Trade Young GrassHopper.... Trade!
+1 SSU 3 Scoop Ups should be nice and help out with things!
+1 Wager/Cynthia's

With Claydol, you can abuse these cards to try and help out wiht dry hands mid game to late game!

Good Luck Trainer!!

Fish
 
the point of torterra ARE the super scoop ups MAX THEM OUT!!! also put in 3 Prof. oaks visit. take out a warp point. Take out the premier ball. take out 4 grass. add in 2 pkeradar. then u have a card left to do wat u want with it
 
Thanks for all the great ideas folks.

Clement30 - I like PokeRadar, it might work well since this deck has so many pokemon. I'll try it if he still has problems. I'm not sure about Uxie. The deck already has a lot of pokemon, and his bench gets crowded with Claydol, Sceptile, and 2-3 Torterra's in training.

Bridgeburner - He has a really tough time shuffling. I have him bring me his deck between matches so I can power shuffle. It doesn't help that he likes the prerelease sleves, and they aren't the easiest to shuffle with. During one game he had 3 Turtwig and 1 Torterra in his prizes. Guess who won that match!

Vorg7 - Sableye seems useful. He's already got his eyes on Shaymin Lv.X. I think he'll have a lot of fun whichever way he goes.

Fish - I've always been a packrat, so it is hard to give away perfectly good pokemon. But… we'll see how this works.

Riq - I agree about the SSU, they really help out. Well, as long as he's already got a Turtwig or Grotle on the bench.

Train hard,
Play harder,
Jeff
 
Ditto on the shuffling comment. My daughter is a young junior and she struggles with card handling. "Pile shuffle" was a simple solution for her. Easy shuffle method, plus the sleeves/cards aren't getting damaged as they were with other methods. Shuffle a few times, check for "clumpiness" in deck, then shuffle one or two more times. Works wonders for better junior draw,:wink:
 
Can you explain 'Pile shuffle'? I've tought my juniors 2 different shuffle methods. I like the idea of checking for 'clumpiness'. I guess that means look for cards that appear to be stuck together. I do that quite often. Also, after he's shuffled, I sometimes do a quick search to see how well the cards are separated. I usually find 1 or 2 entire evolution lines still in order so I make him shuffle again.

So here are the two methods.

1. Vertical drop: Split the deck into two piles. Hold them with the long edge up. Put one pile on top of the other and hold them loose enough so the cards 'fall' together. A little jiggling helps.

2. Horizontal slide: Split deck in two. Place each pile facedown with the long edges of each pile touching. Gently push the piles into each other. Put a little more pressure on one end of the pile so the corners will merge first. Now this is the fun part. Repeatedly slide your hands together like you are gently clapping. With each clap, gently push the piles together. In a few moments you will have one pile of shuffled Pokemon cards.

Enjoy,
:)
 
a pile shuffle is when you separate the cards of the deck into, 2, 4, 6 etc. piles, one card at a time. not only does it help get clumps out, but its a great way to make sure you still have 60 cards in between matches
 
Pile shuffle is simple and doesn't involve pushing cards together... which is something my 1st grade daughter struggles with using her small hands... cards usually fly when she trys one of the methods to noted.

6-Pile-Shuffle: This is harder to explain than it is to do....grab the deck and deal the cards into 6 piles. Usually the piles are in two rows of three so you deal in a circle. You end up with 6-piles of 10 cards. Stack the piles and repeat. 3 or 4 times usually is fine.

Piles are dealt in a circle like so :

1 2 3
6 5 4


Just repeat dealing the cards into the 6 piles. A side benefit is that it is also a nice way to make sure you have 60 cards. You will always finish "dealing" on pile #6. (for example, if you follow the order and deal the last card to pile 5, you have lost a card and only have 59 cards.)

Aha... youtube is my friend: here is a video clip of an 8-pile shuffle. This guys shuffles into 2-rows of 4. At our league, most kids shuffle this way but use 6-piles (since pokemon is 60 cards) and I usually see it done in a circular motion rather than right-to-left down each row (circle is faster imho).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnULsmjX4VA


rofl... too much typing for something so simple but I am a bad explainer. Anyhow, I noticed Clement beat me to the reply, but I would add that this method really keep damage to sleeves and cards to a minimum so I do it this way too.
 
sry about beating you to the punch, but your explanation was much better than mine, and had video assistance. :)

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

Oh yea, for the Uxie, the main reason why i suggested it was that, although it may take up space on the bench, its attack can put it back in the deck, which helps for 1)permanent set-up and 2) always having at least one bench spot open during your turn. Just thought i would put that here since, i forgot to put that in my first post, sorry. Oh, and keep us posted on how your son does. Have him keep notes on his matches so he can see what needs to fixed in the deck. Just a little helpful suggestion.
 
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Abudoggie said:
Pile shuffle is simple and doesn't involve pushing cards together... which is something my 1st grade daughter struggles with using her small hands... cards usually fly when she trys one of the methods to noted.
Click to expand...

Yah, we had quite a mess the first dozen times. But he's gotten the hang of it.

I guess the pile shuffle is what I do for him between games. I can teach him easy enough.

How do they shuffle mid-game? It takes too much time and too much table space to make piles.

Clement30, good idea on the notebook. I keep notes on my games and it has helped me out quite a bit.

Thanks,
Jeff
 
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