Deck Name: Speed Empoleon
Author: Me (Arceus999)
Date: 2008/06/17
The older version of this deck, which used Empoleon DP instead of MD, came second at Worlds 07 in Seniors. How well will it do this year? Many people think very well. Me included.
This is the list:
Pokemon (17):
Empoleon MD x4
Prinplup DP x3
Piplup (Berry) x4
Claydol GE x2
Baltoy GE x2
Phione MD x2
Suicune SW x1
Trainers (27):
Ceilio's Network x4
Roseanne's Research x4
Rare Candy x4
Team Galactic's Wager x2
Warp Point x2
Steven's Advice x3
Cessation Crystal x3
Castaway x2
Strength Charm x1
Night Maintenance x1
Energy (16):
Call Energy x4
Scramble Energy x3
Water Energy x9
Strategy: Ideal start is Phione, but Piplup is fine too. If Phione start, start Evolving til you have an Empoleon set up, then Retreat Phione for Empoleon, and start spreading and attacking. If Piplup start, use Splatter on a Benched potienal threat, like, say, a Ralts. Get a quick Empoleon this way, using Prinplup, Empoleon, and Rare Candy. Now, once you get Empoleon up, you can get your game on! Empoleon's first attack, called Dual Splash, hits two Benched Pokemon for 30 damage each. That's amazing! Especially for only two Energy. Why is this so amazing? It can KO threats on the Bench, and if they are trying to sacrifice their Starter so they can activate a Scramble, don't let them! Hit their Bench for 30-30 damage. Now, we haven't even covered his second attack yet! Well, it's called Surf Together, and it only does 50 damage for three Energy... but it adds 10 damage for each Pokemon on your Bench, maxing out at 100 damage for only 3 Energy! Of course, there is a downside... that you flip a coin, and if it's tails, it does 10 damage to each of your Bench. Still, if you look at everything Empoleon all ready have, combined with 130 HP and a good Weakness, means Empoleon is one of the best cards in the format.
About the Cards:
Empoleon (Majestic Dawn): Empoleon is the main attacker. I said everything about Empoleon already, but I'll tell you a little more. You know how awsome Dual Splash is. Spreading is amazing. Dual Splash is probally the single best spread move in the format, with Fireball Bazouka comming in a close second. Surf Together is another great move, doing 100 damage for 3 Energy is amazing. In this deck, it may be hard to get that 100 mark (with only 10 Basics), so you could add techs like Absol EX and Zapdos MD to fill up the Bench and to help with the spread. A tech Omastar could work too, I guess. However, too many techs and this will become Empotech, and lose some of the consistency.
Prinplup (Diamond & Pearl): This Prinplup is the better Prinplup. It spreads more for less Energy then the new one. It's great to do 10 to each of their Bench with Aqua Shower, and Brine is a useful last-ditch big damage spread move. It can 3-hit a Benched Gardevoir, which is good. Aqua Shower can also start the spreading, and helps Dual Splash, by bringing down those 130 HP Pokemon to 120, or within the 4-hit range of Dual Splash.
Piplup (Majestic Dawn): I chose this Piplup to help with the spread even more. It can do 10 to one Bench, which can prepare for Aqua Shower, which in turn can prepare for Dual Splash. We don't want our first 2 Evolutions to be useless, because then if we start with Piplup, we rely on topdecking Candy. So, best to be able to hold our own with our Basics and Stage 1s, until we get out the big penguin.
Claydol (Great Encounters): Claydol; the staple of every deck. Claydol; the single best Pokemon out there. Claydol; the best card-drawer in the format. Why not? It only takes up 4 spaces, and offers great draw and support. I repeat, why not? Claydol has found it's way into every deck, why not this one? No reason? Exactly.
Baltoy (Great Encounters): Um... er... Evolution to Claydol? That's really it... well, I guess Psychic Balance could be a useful move if you mulligan, or if you they go first and draw some cards or something... but really, Evolve it ASAP.
Phione (Majestic Dawn): The Starter. It's first attack, Evolution Wish, Evolves one of your Benched Pokemon, regardless of if you have Evolved that card that turn or not. Great! Combined with Call Energy, you can get Dual Splash T2 consistently, with only having to have 3 cards in your opening hand - Phione, Empolelon/Ceilio's Network, and Call Energy. 60 HP isn't the most, nor the least. Pachirisu GE, the previous big Starter, had 70 HP. But, some Starters have 40 HP! So, 60 isn't too bad.
Suicune (Secret Wonders): Recovery. When you play it from your hand to your Bench, you get three Water Pokemon from your discard pile to your hand automaticly, no flips needed. Also, it helps with Surf Together.
Ceilio's Network: Another staple. Adds to the speed of any deck. Gets out a Pokemon from your deck. Great. Obvious why it's in here, becuase the only disadvantage is that it counts as your Supporter per turn, but given it has such an obviously good effect, that's fine. Get it in your oppening hand? Great! Now you can get out that Empoleon or Prinplup or Claydol. Also used to get T2 Claydol easily.
Roseanne's Research: Yet another staple. Gets out Basics and Energy. Helps with Energy drought, and Surf Together, and, of course, with getting out Basics. It's a great card, worthy of any deck. Can replace Call Energy, too, if you go second.
Rare Candy: A staple in Stage 2 decks. It automaticly Evolves one of your Basic Pokemon into the Stage 2, if you have it in your hand. And it ignores Evolving rules, like Phione, so you could play a Piplup to your Bench, and then Rare Candy it into an Empoleon, attach a Scramble, Surf Together out of nowhere. Pretty nice.
Team Galactic's Wager: A luck-based staple that requires you to play the annoying and childish game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. Oh well. It's good. Both you and your opponent shuffle your hand into your deck, then you play RPS, winner draws 6 cards, loser 3. Offers disruption to your opponent, and refresh. Also, if your opponent says "Yessss!" when they draw their oppening hand, you know to Wager ASAP.
Warp Point: An interesting card that's a staple, of course. It switches out you Pokemon with one of your Bench, and same thing with your opponent. Disruption, and avoiding a possible KO. Oh, and your oppnent switches first, which is good.
Steven's Advice: A great draw card, and combos very well with Claydol. It draws card equal to the amount of your opponent's Pokemon in play... up to 6 cards. However, you can't draw cards if you have 7 or more cards in your hand including Steven's, which is limiting, and which is why it works well with Claydol.
Cessation Crystal: A lock-down card. Used to lock the opponent down while spreading damage around. Stops Claydol, but you'll just have to live with that. You can Warp/Retreat if you really need to use Claydol. Also stops Suicune, so again, Warp/Retreat if you really need to use it.
Castaway: A cool card that gets out a Tool (Strength Charm), a Supporter, and a Basic Energy. The Tool getting is good for doing 10 more damage when needed, the Energy is for Energy droughts, and the Supporter is obvious. A nice card overall.
Strength Charm: Adds 10 extra damage, which can get that OHKO on Gardevoir with Surf Together, or just 10 more damage. Play it wisely, as you only have 1.
Night Maintenance: Recovery #2. You shuffle 3 Pokemon and/or Energy into your deck. That's really it. Better then TSD in some cases, when you have the time to get out the cards, need 3 Pokemon, any less and it won't work, or need some Energy. So, sure recovery. The safe but slow way.
Call Energy: Starter #2. It's an Energy, and it gets out 2 Basic Pokemon and puts them onto your Bench. Great! Okay, so I'll attach one to Phione T1, get Baltoy and Piplup, next turn, start Evolution Wishing! Very good... and remember, it counts as an Energy too!
Scramble Energy: Comebacks. Bench a Piplup, Candy to Empoleon, attach Scramble, boom. you have a fully charged Empoleon up when you're losing. Yay! And it also counts as an Energy when you aren't losing, remember.
Water Energy: ...What do you think?
Matchups:
Note: These are untested.
Vs. PLOX 50-50
This is a tough matchup. Gardevoir shuts down your Claydol, which is bad. Gallade OHKOs the first Empoleon, and 2HKOs two more after. Wager can hurt, and avoid using Wager as much as possible, because then they can Telepass it. Beware the Dusknoir tech that is commonly found in PLOX decks, it will hurt you when you try to go for the 100 damage Surf Together. Dual Splash is very good here. Take advantage of the 130 combined power on Surf Together. Tough, but very winnable.
Vs. Garchomp 55-45
If they tech in a Lightning type, this could be tough. Well, Surf Together is great here, and Dual Splash hurts their Banched techs and Chomps. Active Chomp Lv.X takes a while to take down, but when you do, good. You're faster then them. Take advantage of the 30-30 spread T2, it will help later. Surf Together is good here, make sure not to use it too much or you'll find that you have a weak Bench. They can't OHKO you, which is good. You can Dual Splash. They need Lightning Energy to do 110, or else they're doing hardly anything (70). You can Dual Splash their Active Chomp T2, and one of their Bench. Next, you can Surf Together for the hopeful KO, if you have a full Bench. Rinse and repeat. Try to rush them, so they can't Rebirth or risk being KOd by a fully charged Empoleon.
Vs. Eeveelutions 60-40
You're faster then them. Great. You OHKO them. Perfect. You spread amazingly. Very, very good. Leafeon is a problem, try to Dual Splash it off the scene. Again, early Dual Splash is crucial, followed up by Surf Together for the KO on their initial Glaceon/Leafeon. Use a combination of Surf Together and Dual Splash here, by getting rid of potienal threats and Espeon on the Bench. Jolteon tech hurts, though. However, you can overcome it. Surf Together with a full Bench = OHKO on everything except Leafeon/Lv.X. Good matchup here.
Vs. T2 Banette 65-45
They outspeed you, but you can get a Dual Splash as early as Spiteful Pain. You OHKO them easily with only 3 Bench, they don't. If you used Aqua Shower earlier, you can get double KOs on Shuppets. You shouldn't have too much trouble here.
So, what do you think of my first Article? Fixes to the list and Article are both appreciated. Thanks.
Author: Me (Arceus999)
Date: 2008/06/17
The older version of this deck, which used Empoleon DP instead of MD, came second at Worlds 07 in Seniors. How well will it do this year? Many people think very well. Me included.
This is the list:
Pokemon (17):
Empoleon MD x4
Prinplup DP x3
Piplup (Berry) x4
Claydol GE x2
Baltoy GE x2
Phione MD x2
Suicune SW x1
Trainers (27):
Ceilio's Network x4
Roseanne's Research x4
Rare Candy x4
Team Galactic's Wager x2
Warp Point x2
Steven's Advice x3
Cessation Crystal x3
Castaway x2
Strength Charm x1
Night Maintenance x1
Energy (16):
Call Energy x4
Scramble Energy x3
Water Energy x9
Strategy: Ideal start is Phione, but Piplup is fine too. If Phione start, start Evolving til you have an Empoleon set up, then Retreat Phione for Empoleon, and start spreading and attacking. If Piplup start, use Splatter on a Benched potienal threat, like, say, a Ralts. Get a quick Empoleon this way, using Prinplup, Empoleon, and Rare Candy. Now, once you get Empoleon up, you can get your game on! Empoleon's first attack, called Dual Splash, hits two Benched Pokemon for 30 damage each. That's amazing! Especially for only two Energy. Why is this so amazing? It can KO threats on the Bench, and if they are trying to sacrifice their Starter so they can activate a Scramble, don't let them! Hit their Bench for 30-30 damage. Now, we haven't even covered his second attack yet! Well, it's called Surf Together, and it only does 50 damage for three Energy... but it adds 10 damage for each Pokemon on your Bench, maxing out at 100 damage for only 3 Energy! Of course, there is a downside... that you flip a coin, and if it's tails, it does 10 damage to each of your Bench. Still, if you look at everything Empoleon all ready have, combined with 130 HP and a good Weakness, means Empoleon is one of the best cards in the format.
About the Cards:
Empoleon (Majestic Dawn): Empoleon is the main attacker. I said everything about Empoleon already, but I'll tell you a little more. You know how awsome Dual Splash is. Spreading is amazing. Dual Splash is probally the single best spread move in the format, with Fireball Bazouka comming in a close second. Surf Together is another great move, doing 100 damage for 3 Energy is amazing. In this deck, it may be hard to get that 100 mark (with only 10 Basics), so you could add techs like Absol EX and Zapdos MD to fill up the Bench and to help with the spread. A tech Omastar could work too, I guess. However, too many techs and this will become Empotech, and lose some of the consistency.
Prinplup (Diamond & Pearl): This Prinplup is the better Prinplup. It spreads more for less Energy then the new one. It's great to do 10 to each of their Bench with Aqua Shower, and Brine is a useful last-ditch big damage spread move. It can 3-hit a Benched Gardevoir, which is good. Aqua Shower can also start the spreading, and helps Dual Splash, by bringing down those 130 HP Pokemon to 120, or within the 4-hit range of Dual Splash.
Piplup (Majestic Dawn): I chose this Piplup to help with the spread even more. It can do 10 to one Bench, which can prepare for Aqua Shower, which in turn can prepare for Dual Splash. We don't want our first 2 Evolutions to be useless, because then if we start with Piplup, we rely on topdecking Candy. So, best to be able to hold our own with our Basics and Stage 1s, until we get out the big penguin.
Claydol (Great Encounters): Claydol; the staple of every deck. Claydol; the single best Pokemon out there. Claydol; the best card-drawer in the format. Why not? It only takes up 4 spaces, and offers great draw and support. I repeat, why not? Claydol has found it's way into every deck, why not this one? No reason? Exactly.
Baltoy (Great Encounters): Um... er... Evolution to Claydol? That's really it... well, I guess Psychic Balance could be a useful move if you mulligan, or if you they go first and draw some cards or something... but really, Evolve it ASAP.
Phione (Majestic Dawn): The Starter. It's first attack, Evolution Wish, Evolves one of your Benched Pokemon, regardless of if you have Evolved that card that turn or not. Great! Combined with Call Energy, you can get Dual Splash T2 consistently, with only having to have 3 cards in your opening hand - Phione, Empolelon/Ceilio's Network, and Call Energy. 60 HP isn't the most, nor the least. Pachirisu GE, the previous big Starter, had 70 HP. But, some Starters have 40 HP! So, 60 isn't too bad.
Suicune (Secret Wonders): Recovery. When you play it from your hand to your Bench, you get three Water Pokemon from your discard pile to your hand automaticly, no flips needed. Also, it helps with Surf Together.
Ceilio's Network: Another staple. Adds to the speed of any deck. Gets out a Pokemon from your deck. Great. Obvious why it's in here, becuase the only disadvantage is that it counts as your Supporter per turn, but given it has such an obviously good effect, that's fine. Get it in your oppening hand? Great! Now you can get out that Empoleon or Prinplup or Claydol. Also used to get T2 Claydol easily.
Roseanne's Research: Yet another staple. Gets out Basics and Energy. Helps with Energy drought, and Surf Together, and, of course, with getting out Basics. It's a great card, worthy of any deck. Can replace Call Energy, too, if you go second.
Rare Candy: A staple in Stage 2 decks. It automaticly Evolves one of your Basic Pokemon into the Stage 2, if you have it in your hand. And it ignores Evolving rules, like Phione, so you could play a Piplup to your Bench, and then Rare Candy it into an Empoleon, attach a Scramble, Surf Together out of nowhere. Pretty nice.
Team Galactic's Wager: A luck-based staple that requires you to play the annoying and childish game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. Oh well. It's good. Both you and your opponent shuffle your hand into your deck, then you play RPS, winner draws 6 cards, loser 3. Offers disruption to your opponent, and refresh. Also, if your opponent says "Yessss!" when they draw their oppening hand, you know to Wager ASAP.
Warp Point: An interesting card that's a staple, of course. It switches out you Pokemon with one of your Bench, and same thing with your opponent. Disruption, and avoiding a possible KO. Oh, and your oppnent switches first, which is good.
Steven's Advice: A great draw card, and combos very well with Claydol. It draws card equal to the amount of your opponent's Pokemon in play... up to 6 cards. However, you can't draw cards if you have 7 or more cards in your hand including Steven's, which is limiting, and which is why it works well with Claydol.
Cessation Crystal: A lock-down card. Used to lock the opponent down while spreading damage around. Stops Claydol, but you'll just have to live with that. You can Warp/Retreat if you really need to use Claydol. Also stops Suicune, so again, Warp/Retreat if you really need to use it.
Castaway: A cool card that gets out a Tool (Strength Charm), a Supporter, and a Basic Energy. The Tool getting is good for doing 10 more damage when needed, the Energy is for Energy droughts, and the Supporter is obvious. A nice card overall.
Strength Charm: Adds 10 extra damage, which can get that OHKO on Gardevoir with Surf Together, or just 10 more damage. Play it wisely, as you only have 1.
Night Maintenance: Recovery #2. You shuffle 3 Pokemon and/or Energy into your deck. That's really it. Better then TSD in some cases, when you have the time to get out the cards, need 3 Pokemon, any less and it won't work, or need some Energy. So, sure recovery. The safe but slow way.
Call Energy: Starter #2. It's an Energy, and it gets out 2 Basic Pokemon and puts them onto your Bench. Great! Okay, so I'll attach one to Phione T1, get Baltoy and Piplup, next turn, start Evolution Wishing! Very good... and remember, it counts as an Energy too!
Scramble Energy: Comebacks. Bench a Piplup, Candy to Empoleon, attach Scramble, boom. you have a fully charged Empoleon up when you're losing. Yay! And it also counts as an Energy when you aren't losing, remember.
Water Energy: ...What do you think?
Matchups:
Note: These are untested.
Vs. PLOX 50-50
This is a tough matchup. Gardevoir shuts down your Claydol, which is bad. Gallade OHKOs the first Empoleon, and 2HKOs two more after. Wager can hurt, and avoid using Wager as much as possible, because then they can Telepass it. Beware the Dusknoir tech that is commonly found in PLOX decks, it will hurt you when you try to go for the 100 damage Surf Together. Dual Splash is very good here. Take advantage of the 130 combined power on Surf Together. Tough, but very winnable.
Vs. Garchomp 55-45
If they tech in a Lightning type, this could be tough. Well, Surf Together is great here, and Dual Splash hurts their Banched techs and Chomps. Active Chomp Lv.X takes a while to take down, but when you do, good. You're faster then them. Take advantage of the 30-30 spread T2, it will help later. Surf Together is good here, make sure not to use it too much or you'll find that you have a weak Bench. They can't OHKO you, which is good. You can Dual Splash. They need Lightning Energy to do 110, or else they're doing hardly anything (70). You can Dual Splash their Active Chomp T2, and one of their Bench. Next, you can Surf Together for the hopeful KO, if you have a full Bench. Rinse and repeat. Try to rush them, so they can't Rebirth or risk being KOd by a fully charged Empoleon.
Vs. Eeveelutions 60-40
You're faster then them. Great. You OHKO them. Perfect. You spread amazingly. Very, very good. Leafeon is a problem, try to Dual Splash it off the scene. Again, early Dual Splash is crucial, followed up by Surf Together for the KO on their initial Glaceon/Leafeon. Use a combination of Surf Together and Dual Splash here, by getting rid of potienal threats and Espeon on the Bench. Jolteon tech hurts, though. However, you can overcome it. Surf Together with a full Bench = OHKO on everything except Leafeon/Lv.X. Good matchup here.
Vs. T2 Banette 65-45
They outspeed you, but you can get a Dual Splash as early as Spiteful Pain. You OHKO them easily with only 3 Bench, they don't. If you used Aqua Shower earlier, you can get double KOs on Shuppets. You shouldn't have too much trouble here.
So, what do you think of my first Article? Fixes to the list and Article are both appreciated. Thanks.
Last edited:
