Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Survival of Gyarados.

OK, since we don't know what is going to be exactly released just yet for BR, let ignore that new to-be-determined metagame for a moment. And focus on what we have lost to the current metagame.

Regarding Machamp, Speed Machamp get's good again because the format early in the BR will be heavy SP, and non-SP decks without Claydol get reduced. As the format narrows to SP players. Speed Machamp beats SP more often than not. SP has basically relied on some Unown G, the rest of the field to keep Machamp down. SP players, ignore Champ if you like, but for the non-SP players, the deck choices have been narrowed thus Machamp will be played by attrition of deck choices.

"Hello, T1, I have Machamp Active, and often a 2nd Machamp on the bench....... DEAL WITH IT." That being said, SP will need Toxcroak G and often a good Mewtwo / Machamp counter to make the match up manageable.

Regard Gyrados, I haven't bother much with G-Dos myself this year, but it seemed to lose less in rotation than the claydol based deck did. When vileplume enters, Flotzel SP could help, but that seems difficult. It also has a very favoriable Machamp match up! I will think for g-dos players, it will stay in there deck bag.

Again, Lost Zones, Vileplume ect. ect.... until we have the final release set for Undaunted, it is hard to predict what will or won't be viable.
 
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xcfrisco said:
I would really like to see a consistent gengar prime list (if and when it comes out) that doesnt use Claydol.


Same thing with all of you guys hyping up vileplume. Show me these consistent multiple stage 2 builds with all the cards we've seen available to us next format and then I'll start writing of Gyarados as a contender :fire:
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lol It's not that hard to build a solid gengar list. Few uxies, few girantina, some hunters, and normal t1 stage 2 stuff. Yay. And plume....well, that you need a starter for. Not that big of a deal.
 
Gengar is Spiritomb-based, which means it can get its setup even without Claydol. Twins will be a huge boost for Curse/Zonegar, too. But don't forget that Gyarados still has stuff like Luxray Lv.X to deal with Gengar.

About Machamp, the problem is still, it loses to all other decks. Why play Machamp if you could play Charizard which has better matchups all over the field? Charizard has a highly favorable Matchup against SP decks (except for those involving Palkia or other exotic stuff), beats Machamp and Jumpluff and can deal with most of the other decks. The only thing to stop it right now (besides Sablock combined with bad draw) is Gyarados, and that may be one reason for Gyarados to still see play.
 
ShadowGuard said:
Gengar is Spiritomb-based, which means it can get its setup even without Claydol. Twins will be a huge boost for Curse/Zonegar, too. But don't forget that Gyarados still has stuff like Luxray Lv.X to deal with Gengar.

About Machamp, the problem is still, it loses to all other decks. Why play Machamp if you could play Charizard which has better matchups all over the field? Charizard has a highly favorable Matchup against SP decks (except for those involving Palkia or other exotic stuff), beats Machamp and Jumpluff and can deal with most of the other decks. The only thing to stop it right now (besides Sablock combined with bad draw) is Gyarados, and that may be one reason for Gyarados to still see play.
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People still play Charizard? :confused:
 
why is everyone so worried about machamp, drifblim says bye bye if you run lucario gl before they can even set up. and toxitank also laughs at it, especially when i can drop a crobat so the poison would knock you out come your turn if your dumb enough to leave it active.
 
To be honest, I rarely even use Felicity's in my Gyarados deck, even though I have 4 in my deck.
They seem to be more of a backup discarder for me. I end up using Regice to do all my discarding.
Whenever I have Felicities in my hand, I end up using a different supporter on that turn that ends up
benefitting my game more.
 
Brady1 said:
lol It's not that hard to build a solid gengar list. Few uxies, few girantina, some hunters, and normal t1 stage 2 stuff. Yay. And plume....well, that you need a starter for. Not that big of a deal.
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Show me said "solid" gengar list, please. Lol, we might not even get hunter/lost zone/gengar prime until as late as february. Thats a solid 6 months for gyarados to destroy faces without its "auto-lose" lost zone matchup :fighting:


ShadowGuard said:
Gengar is Spiritomb-based, which means it can get its setup even without Claydol. Twins will be a huge boost for Curse/Zonegar, too. But don't forget that Gyarados still has stuff like Luxray Lv.X to deal with Gengar.
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When people talk about "set-up" I hope they're refering to more than just evolving all their pokemon into play. Cursegar still requires 3 energies to do anything, and getting that many energies on a single pokemon (against decks that require little no energy/set up to get into play ala gyarados, machamp, SP, etc) is gonna be pretty lol in a format without claydol or roseanne's but full of things like bright look, dragon-rush, and pokemon reversal.


And lastly, maybe this is meant for another thread but I'm still not sold on lost-zone being the most viable tactic to win a pokemon match. I mean, its the same as playing against deckout. All I have to do is take a single prize and then wait 40 mins for my match to end while you're stil trying to get you're other win condition in place/set-up. Too ez to play around imo.
 
xcfrisco said:
When people talk about "set-up" I hope they're refering to more than just evolving all their pokemon into play. Cursegar still requires 3 energies to do anything, and getting that many energies on a single pokemon (against decks that require little no energy/set up to get into play ala gyarados, machamp, SP, etc) is gonna be pretty lol in a format without claydol or roseanne's but full of things like bright look, dragon-rush, and pokemon reversal.
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Claydol is not about setup, it's about faster setup. Cursegar is a slow deck by nature, and it doesn't care for beeing slow since it doesn't go down (at least, it shouldn't, that's why I mentioned Luxray X in Gyarados). Cursegar will not miss Claydol as much as decks like Machamp or Jumpluff do.

kamz said:
gyarados with ERL and manectric pl. screw garchomp c
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Ehm... seriously, you should use techs that fit at least a bit into your deck. Besides the fact that you need extra energy types, at least 4 Pokémon and have no option to get them out easier, this is somewhat pointless.

You can't get it out with two energies in one turn (for example, Luxchomp can with Bronzong G, Magnezone can with Super Connectivity / Electric Trans). That means, once you put it on your bench, your opponent is like "oh noez ERL is coming. Lemme quickly poketurn my Crobat and Bronzong".
 
xcfrisco said:
Show me said "solid" gengar list, please. Lol, we might not even get hunter/lost zone/gengar prime until as late as february. Thats a solid 6 months for gyarados to destroy faces without its "auto-lose" lost zone matchup :fighting:




When people talk about "set-up" I hope they're refering to more than just evolving all their pokemon into play. Cursegar still requires 3 energies to do anything, and getting that many energies on a single pokemon (against decks that require little no energy/set up to get into play ala gyarados, machamp, SP, etc) is gonna be pretty lol in a format without claydol or roseanne's but full of things like bright look, dragon-rush, and pokemon reversal.


And lastly, maybe this is meant for another thread but I'm still not sold on lost-zone being the most viable tactic to win a pokemon match. I mean, its the same as playing against deckout. All I have to do is take a single prize and then wait 40 mins for my match to end while you're stil trying to get you're other win condition in place/set-up. Too ez to play around imo.
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4-3-3-1 gengar
2-1 uxie
2-1 girantina
1-1 azelf
1-1 mespirit
1 jirachi
1 shaymin
1 Mr. Mime
11 psychic
4 hunter
4 candy
3 Lost zone stadium
4 bebe's
4 collector
1 Palmer's
3 Looker's
2 whatever you want

Enjoy. Lost Link will be our cities set....why do people think otherwise? Do people honestly think we'll skip over it cause its a mini-set? lol please. And theres far more than 1 auto-lose for gdos next format. Heck, if he has more positive matchups than negative as built NOW next format I'd be surprised, nevermind the slower version is will be.
 
Brady1 said:
4-3-3-1 gengar
2-1 uxie
2-1 girantina
1-1 azelf
1-1 mespirit
1 jirachi
1 shaymin
1 Mr. Mime
11 psychic
4 hunter
4 candy
3 Lost zone stadium
4 bebe's
4 collector
1 Palmer's
3 Looker's
2 whatever you want
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Uhm... sorry, but this is not what I call "solid". Where's Spiritomb and Call Energy? Where's Twins?
 
It's lost zone gengar....tomb, while consistant, does not actually help you speed up early game (where most of the pokes will be), and thus makes gengar a terrible t3ish attacker. Call energy can be tossed into it (7/4 split there) but this was just off the top of my head (hence the amu stuff as filler, though 2/3rd are very legit in here). Twins is due by states AFAIK.
 
Why by States? Lost link is 40 cards....they can't just put Lost Link as our CC set and call it a day, most likely they'll combine Lost Link with CATS.
 
Why are we assuming Lost Link Gengar is even viable without Lost World which is assumed to be so powerful in Japan it may get banned? Unless we get Lost World, why even make theorycrafting around it? Furthermore, why discuss said deck in a thread about Gyarados?

Lets leave it at this. Gengar and Machamp are at the same level they've been all previous season. Gengar is good but still just can't cut it against SP's, and Machamp completely sucks without a draw engine and can't beat much of any deck except for SP's, which it can't even do that well (I've seen good Luxchomp's beat it easily, and Sablelock has no trouble turning it off)

Gyarados? Have fun getting back into the game after your Sableye dies and your hand is Judged to oblivion.
 
Naki Feralkin said:
Gyarados? Have fun getting back into the game after your Sableye dies and your hand is Judged to oblivion.
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Amazing how inaccurate your statement is. I RAN Team Galactic's Wager in my G'dos list and took 2nd at regionals. Losing your hand doesn't hurt that bad unless you have a terribly inconsistent list. Judge doesn't remove your hand and leave you with nothing, it gives you 4 cards. Between cynthia's, volkners, monk, uxie, etc, you should pretty much be fine. Out of the 5-7 times I actually used Wager, it wasn't beneficial one time.

I've won recent games where I was judged multiple times and there are too many factors to meet for the judge/TGW to bee effective AGAINST G'dos.
~G'dos HAS to be KO'd
~Opponent isn't hurt by their new cards
~New cards don't include recovery
or
~New cards don't include a draw card


If those factors aren't met fully, the Judge isn't "game changing" like everyone theorymons.
 
Scipio said:
Why by States? Lost link is 40 cards....they can't just put Lost Link as our CC set and call it a day, most likely they'll combine Lost Link with CATS.
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Man i remember when we were supposed to get Vileplume by nationals too..


..oh wait. :colorless:
 
xcfrisco said:
Man i remember when we were supposed to get Vileplume by nationals too..


..oh wait. :colorless:
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Actually, anyone with two half brain cells couldve figured out we'd probably NOT get it by the time our HGSS setlist was out. Unleashed was OBVIOUSLY going to be made of scraps. However, look at what after Undaunted will be left that we didnt get yet:

Lost Link (40-something cards)
CATS minus 2 legends (80-ish cards)
Random promos (No decks or anything like were used for Unleashed)

The next set in Japan will be B&W. We aren't getting THAT before states. So its pretty obvious our CC set will be made up of CATS, Lost Link and thats it (Coincidentally, CATS and LL combined will give us 2 legends, Cresselia/Darkrai and Dialga/Palkia)
 
Scipio said:
snip
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Touche' (also, CATS is an epic acronym for a set).


On topic: It looks like the same set that releases Lost Zone will also have cards that make Gyarados super buff like Junk Arm and Rescue Energy. Cities looks to be an interesting metagame, way more interesting than whatever Fall BR's ends up being (lol at this point).
 
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