Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

THE ANSWER as seen by Jimmy Ballard

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So hey Jimmy the Nats secret deck is there some sort of mailing list I need to be on. I swear I was the only guy that didn't know about Ambush. Thanks for the heads up.

P.S. I already traded for my Claydol Ex's just in case you got the years mested up and its the SD this year.

Thanks
 
I just want to chime in and thank Mr. Ballard for posting this deck. I had tested several versions of decks with either Pidgeot or Gyarados ... and liked both cards ... but never really had success with them in said tests. The Answer nicely combines them both and shows me yet again that I have a ways to go with my own deckbuilding. Thanks!
 
vanderbilt_grad said:
I just want to chime in and thank Mr. Ballard for posting this deck. I had tested several versions of decks with either Pidgeot or Gyarados ... and liked both cards ... but never really had success with them in said tests. The Answer nicely combines them both and shows me yet again that I have a ways to go with my own deckbuilding. Thanks!
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No problem....

This is what I am doing this for. I LOVE to see people excell at deck building. This deck is not for everyone. As I have read in this thread so far. Flygon999 just because you cant seem to steer the deck in the winning direction does not mean it is a bad deck. I like to think it take a GREAT driver to run rogue deck. Some people are still on training wheels.

I posted this deck in the hopes that someone could break it open and really challenge the format. It is a stale format that needs something to shake it up. I believe this concept at least makes the players of GG and mortar a little bit concerned instead of walking into an event all cocky that they are the ones to beat. I like to give them something to worry about.

I seen above that someone had made some changes and got the deck working real well. I'd be really interested in seeing the changes. James Flint told me about the concept on the monday after the first States. I built it tuesday and tested extensively. Above is the final list I settled on before playing it myself. I'm sure it can be improved on.

Keep up the testing and report results here for everyone to see. 2300 views already, I'm sure someone is looking.

Thanx,
Jimmy
 
Thanks Jimmy.
I enjoy watching your decks in action. There's always a lot going on with them.
 
No scott to search for stadiums? I understand Furret can do this early game, but after Furret gets KO'd, a single Wager can mess up your hand.

The decks that you face Jimmy, how many windstorms do they play?
 
I've been testing with -1 Copycat & +1 Scott as suggested earlier in this thread. So far The Answer is 3 & 0 vs the G&G list I was planning on using at States last weekend. I think that it's helpful to me that I've playtested both Gyarados and Pidgeot a fair amount. Some random observations.

Pidgeot delta just kills Telepass, Teleport, Cosmic Power & any other powers that G&G might rely on. Pretty much every game has been over the moment it hit the bench.

Furret + Gyarados is really nice. It's very helpful for conserving energy attachments and sets up Gyarados in a position where he is fairly likely to get some damage on him for Dragon DNA.

You really don't need the stadiums in most of the G&G matchup. I can see where they will be useful vs Mags for OHKOs and Scramble nutering I don't see them as much more than valuable techs there too. You don't really need Lake Boundary to stick past your attack so Windstorm isn't going to limit that too much. Beach is nice if you've got them locked with Pidgeot d ... no power draw can keep them from getting to the storms fast.

Octillery is a really nice tech here. It can get rid of scramble / DRE for any 2 energy or provide nice sniping for WW. It basically won my last G&G game by discarding a DRE on the active and then collecting the last two prizes by bench snipe. Since you can effectively spread damage via Pidgeot it fits well.

TGW didn't hurt The Answer as much as I thought it might even though in testing I had it loose about 2/3 of the RPS games. Just about every card can be used right away.
 
vanderbilt_grad said:
You really don't need the stadiums in most of the G&G matchup. I can see where they will be useful vs Mags for OHKOs and Scramble nutering I don't see them as much more than valuable techs there too. You don't really need Lake Boundary to stick past your attack so Windstorm isn't going to limit that too much. Beach is nice if you've got them locked with Pidgeot d ... no power draw can keep them from getting to the storms fast.
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The stadiums are not really needed as you say. However, I looked at it this way.... Pachirisu hit us for 40 without the stadium in play. It only hits for 20 with boundary locked. Big difference there. Also, you need to be aware that some GG's run Battle frontiers. I figured this was a more effective way than using windstorm. I initally had 3 beach and a Scott. But like you said it wasnt a HUGE focus of the deck. I do like to let the GG player think that you only have boundary so that they discard or misplay their windstorms. Allowing me to lock the Beach late game.

Great info,

Thanx,
Jimmy
 
Jimmy at first great deck but wouldn't Dusknoir be a better tech then Crawdaunt because he can hit for 100 late game with a scramble?
 
I've been fascinated by this deck since I checked in Jimmy's decklist at Kansas States :)

This is a thinking man's deck, for sure. What I've found in my testing, and I think Jimmy himself made this comment earlier in the thread, is that it takes GG and Mag off of autopilot. Playing against this deck forces careful consideration of every move. I haven't had much opportunity to play this against GG, but against Mag I found that virtually any misplay is an autoloss, and you can easily force misplays just by thinking a little bit ahead (i.e., keeping your bench filled with Gyarados to take away Fireball Bazooka and Flame Buster).

I tend to think another Octillery would be good. Also needs a Night Maintenance in case of early donks. Too bad there isn't something like Energy Root in Modified to raise Pidgeot d's HP, as he's still a big bullseye for Flame Buster with only 100 HP.
 
I would love to be able to fit a night maintenance I decked out against GG but I had the game won if not for decking testing goes well and I am look at more fun and really evil techs instead of Octillary
 
It didn't get me in my testing but I noticed that no NM and no Prof Rowan meant that there was a bit less protection from that than I normally have in decks I build.
 
Magic_Umbreon said:
You could use metal energy. Wouldn't energy root shut off delta reserve?

A thread like this deserves a cat picture. And that's why the gym doesn't allow image code.
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I proposed this earlier in the thread but no one seems to like me t_t"

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I've been testing this deck for a few games now, the main problem IMO is Gyarados.
Bringing up a Gyarados without dmg is totaly pointless because it can't touch anything normaly, but needs to wait ntil it gets hitten, then it can strike back for 90 or sth like that and then it goes down.
And after it goes down, i don't have anythink that does enough dmg to revenge ko the gardi.
Also against anythink like Empoleon / Magmoblaze you just get slaughtert because you're kind of slow and they just snipe your magikarp.
Also Gardi gets along quite will without bring down and to "prevent" bring down by using Pidgeot mostly doesn't work and if it does, it doesn't stop them so much.
I tested against Gardy with Feraligatr but i think the results are kind of the same.

e:/ And who is dumb enought to hit magikarp / Gyarados for 20 ?
 
It's really hard for either Gallade or Mags to OHKO Gyarados so you can send him up with 0 energy while attaching to something else on the bench. Then attach 1 for the flail damage after that if he survives. The turn after that you have another attachment and can finish powering up your next attacker.

Similarly I've taken to attaching 2 energy to Furret and then using Batton Pass to get energy on Gyarados. Your opponent is then facing a Dos with 2+ energy. If they don't attack him then just attach the 4th energy or a DRE and use Enrage.

Free retreat on Pidgeot allows you to play around with Gyarados a bit and time when you want to bring him up. If you think that they will snipe or do something else that will give Gyarados problems then you simply don't bring him up at that time.

What I find is that Pidgeot d is that it REALLY slows down the Garde builds. They tend to rely on Telepass or other powers like Claydol's to get set up fast. If you shut that down then their build slows down too. They might get a Garde or Gallade but they can't keep up the constat flow of them while Pidgeot d is on the field. That one or two might do some damage to your field but this deck recovers a lot faster than theirs will when that one goes down.

And the "hitting dos for 20" thing came from Pachi. If your opponent starts Pachi what are they going to do after the bench is full? They get to pass or use Smash Shot in most cases. Either way it helps you out in the long run.
 
i admit if it has an ok start any you take your time with it you can beat any metagame deck. but the problem is that it is really hard to play without a mistake. i played DLD4A twice with my GG to test his answer and he only made like two small misplays in each game and i ran away with a cess so garys body wold not work. however it is a brilland decek. i like a jolt star tech so they cant dance around the gary.
 
I've done some more testing. The Mags matchup is HARD ... harder than G&G IMHO. I've been very tempted to swap out Octillary for Dugtrio CG just to avoid Mags X.

The biggest issue I see with "The Answer" right now is that it's a bit slow. Most games I've played seems to take a long time to finish ... even against random decks. At leage this weekend for instance I played against a Bastadon / Blastoise d deck and it just took forever to make headway against those high HP Pokemon.

I also have had some problems with inconsistancy, especially with the list posted in the OP. For whatever reason I seem to rarely start with Sentret and have issues getting evolutions out fast enough. Those have been the short games ... T2/3 doinks. I've been trying out several alternative trainer setups with mixed results so far.
 
meganium45 said:
Right now I have some issues with the deck.

1. Slow
Too. Slow.

It gets munched by faster decks out there.

Vince
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It isn't really slow as it is hard to play. I have used it for about a week now(testing my own version) and as Jimmy said, "each energy attachment has to precise" and I see what he is talking about. I gurantee you though, if you play with this deck a lot and tweak it to fit your style, you will love the deck and could very well at any tourney. I have already changed around 6-7 cards for my style and it seems good.
 
Obviously shutting off Pokepowers slows down G&G, but I think you need to add someway to counter it as well! You don't have and Psychic Pokemon in here, whereas I think they will be a great asset and another option for you.
 
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