"The Inside Scoop" Deck Discussion - GYRARADOS SF -- Why is it SO Good??

[Rogue Archetype]

If you follow the decks that have performed very well for a long time (including CCs, NATS, Worlds, and BRs), you'll find Gyrarados top cutting and/or winning EVERYWHERE around the world.

What is the "Gyrarados" deck?

How does this deck work and WHY is it doing so well ?

Let's talk about it.

Here are your links to the featured cards:

• Gyrarados SF
• Sabeleye

Tip: If you're going to discuss "techs", please try to define what a "tech" is for our new readers. Thanks!

A great article about the deck can be found here: Gyrarados article by blitzer

Let's give our visitors the "INSIDE SCOOP" on this extremely successful tournament winning deck!
RA

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QUESTIONS TO ANSWER: -- answering these would help new players alot.

Question #1 = Gyrarados needs alot of energy to do alot of damage doesn't it?

Question #2 = What are the most important cards in a Gyrarados deck?

Question #3 = How do you start your first few turns? How do you set it up?

Question #4 = How do you get past a bad first hand? (i.e. bad start)

Question #5 = What IS considered to be a "Good Start"?

Question #6 = What is considered to be a "bad start"?

Question #7 = What happens if they're building up something on the bench? Gyrarados doesn't do bench damage!

Question #8 = How Do I Beat LuxChomp with this deck ???

Question #10 = How do I beat a deck that Prevents me from using my trainers?​

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Note: Anyone, old and new, may contribute to this discussion. Ask questions or answer them! This is how we build :smile:

 

[Barkjon]

Questions:

1. Not at all. You only (usually) play Rescue Energy, as Gyrados's first attack - and primary one - is free.
2. Sableye is extremely important to get discarding Magikarps quickly, and helps with set-up otherwise. Magikarps are important to both do damage and evolve into Gyrados. Gyrados is important, as he is main attacker.
3. Your first few turns will hopefully be when you start with a Sableye. You want to use a Collector early on to get Karps in your hand, and then discard them later with Junk Arms and Volkner's Philosophy and Regice LA, if your play them.
4. Hopefully you get a Collector early on after that, so you can get a Sableye up. Sadly, bad starts with Gyrados are really bad...
5. You start with Sableye, and have a Junk Arm(s) in your hand, as well as a Collector.
6. When you start with Unown Q, Magikarp, or Regice (if you play it).
7.That's where Regice comes in. In addition to discarding Magikarps for you, you get to pull up one of your opponent's bench.
8.Very carefully. If you get up a charged G-dos before they get much up, you will probably win. Otherwise, it's a hard game. Of course, you can kinda snipe around their active using Regice.

You didn't do 9 sooo...

10. Well, you have Volkner's and Regice to discard Karps from your hand, and you can do good damage even without a belt.

I don't have time for a list, but you play 4 Sableye and 4-4 Gyrados SF. You often play a Regice LA. Plus, you play 2 Uxie LA and an Azelf LA.

The T/S/S/ includes 3-4 Collector, 1-2 Volkner's Philosophy, 2-3 Junk Arm, 3 BTS, and 3 Bebe's Search.

May post a list later.

 

[pkmn202]

woah! Nice post barkjon!

i don't have much to add to barkjon's post but i think a coupla pokemon rescue or combee sf can help this deck a lot in case all four karps are in the discard.

 

[Barkjon]

^
Yeah, forgot to mention them. However, you play Rescue Energy as your usually primary source of energy soo...

As far as I remember, Mespirit is good here.

 

[Jason]

My replies are in red.



Question #1 = Gyrarados needs alot of energy to do alot of damage doesn't it?
1. Not at all. You only (usually) play Rescue Energy, as Gyrados's first attack - and primary one - is free.

Well, Rescue Energy is a must, but don't forget that Warp Energy is also needed to keep the Seeker/Warp heal combo at check.



Question #2 = What are the most important cards in a Gyrarados deck?
2. Sableye is extremely important to get discarding Magikarps quickly, and helps with set-up otherwise. Magikarps are important to both do damage and evolve into Gyrados. Gyrados is important, as he is main attacker.

WELL Sableye is not a FULL must, some decks run Smeargles even myself I run 3 SMeargle and 1 Sableye so it is up to the player to run X Sableye and X Smeargle, so it is definitely up to the player based on their playstyle.
Other key cards are: Regice, Junk Arms, Expert Belt, Combee SF, Uxie LA, Azelf LA.


Question #3 = How do you start your first few turns? How do you set it up?
3. Your first few turns will hopefully be when you start with a Sableye. You want to use a Collector early on to get Karps in your hand, and then discard them later with Junk Arms and Volkner's Philosophy and Regice LA, if your play them.

Most lists don't run Volkner, so yeah, just Junk Arms and Regice do justice but also getting karps off Collectors is important via either Sableye or Smeargle but I know for a fact, is using Smeargles to get T1 Gyarados for 60+ damage.



Question #4 = How do you get past a bad first hand? (i.e. bad start)
4. Hopefully you get a Collector early on after that, so you can get a Sableye up. Sadly, bad starts with Gyrados are really bad...

Don't forget that the deck also run Mesprits that can really slow down the opponent which can try and help you set up.



Question #5 = What IS considered to be a "Good Start"?
5. You start with Sableye, and have a Junk Arm(s) in your hand, as well as a Collector.

Smeargle needs some love too but you know, Smeargle is heaps better if you nail the Collector right.


Question #6 = What is considered to be a "bad start"?
6. When you start with Unown Q, Magikarp, or Regice (if you play it).

Don't forget about Azelf, Combee, Mesprit etc.



Question #7 = What happens if they're building up something on the bench? Gyrarados doesn't do bench damage!
7.That's where Regice comes in. In addition to discarding Magikarps for you, you get to pull up one of your opponent's bench.

Nailed it, don't have anything else to say... Unless the Gdos player have the room to fit in a Lux GL X tech or Pokeblower+



Question #8 = How Do I Beat LuxChomp with this deck ???
8.Very carefully. If you get up a charged G-dos before they get much up, you will probably win. Otherwise, it's a hard game. Of course, you can kinda snipe around their active using Regice.

That is not the ONLY thing you need - you also need a really unbreakable Mesprit chains which can really prevent your opponent from Flashbiting you as well as doing a well timed Judge, that can also cripple them, like after they have exhausted the Cyrus chains etc.



Question #10 = How do I beat a deck that Prevents me from using my trainers?
10. Well, you have Volkner's and Regice to discard Karps from your hand, and you can do good damage even without a belt.

Volkner's bad. Regice is all you need along with Skuntank G.



I don't have time for a list, but you play 4 Sableye and 4-4 Gyrados SF. You often play a Regice LA. Plus, you play 2 Uxie LA and an Azelf LA.

The T/S/S/ includes 3-4 Collector, 1-2 Volkner's Philosophy, 2-3 Junk Arm, 3 BTS, and 3 Bebe's Search.


4 GYARADOS? BAD. 3 is all you need, since you have the Luxury Ball, Bebes, Communication to search out for... Most lists nowadays does not play Volkners as there is too many Supporters outshines the poor guy. Plus 4 Collectors, 4 Junk Arms, 4 BTS are a must in this decks to maximize consistency. Oh last thing, 3 Bebes is overkill.

Perhaps I can post my list later but let's see how the folks are dealing.

By the ways PLOX DOS >>> Standard as it does better matchups, nuff said.

 

[TheKing]

1. No it really only needs rescue and warp energy because it uses its first attack to do up to 110 for no energy
2. Sableye, Regice, Uxie, Azelf, Mespirit junk arm and volkner's philosophy
3. Start with sableye, impersonate a collector for 2 magikarps and a regiice and discard them next turn
4. Hopefully draw into a collector or a sabeye, if you don't there's not much you can really do.
5. starting with sableye with a junk arm/volkner's in hand
6. Anything in your deck that isn't a Sableye
7. Switch out the active with regice or use reversal if you play it
8. set up a gyrados before they can get out a luxray and lucario
10. Just use Regice and Volkner's to discard Gyrados doesn't rely on trainers that much

 

[flash2351]

Question #1 = Gyrarados needs alot of energy to do alot of damage doesn't it?

Gyarados decks revolve around getting your 3 other magikarps into the discard pile and attacking using tail revenge for 90 with no energy.

Question #2 = What are the most important cards in a Gyrarados deck?

A gyarados deck can easily be broken down into two parts, set up and recovery.

Firstly to set up your gyarados with 3 magikarps in the discard pile,

Sableyes/Smeargles: This are your starters, allowing you to use up to 3 supporters in one turn if you play both, open with smeargle, potrait, retreat, play your own supporter and impersonate =D.

Regice: This helps you discard your magikarps and also gets rid of spiritomb starts.
Junk arm: This is another card that helps you discard your magikarps.

Since your 3 other magikarps are in the discard pile, you will need ways to heal or recover your gdos when it gets damaged or knocked out.

Warp energy/seeker combo: Attach warp energy to your heavily damaged gdos, send out something with free retreat, seeker up your gdos and put it back down fully healed. Then retreat your active and keep attacking with gdos. Moreover, you get the warp energy back in your hand =D.

SSU: this is another card that can help you pick up your dmg-ed gdos but it is flippy. However, a good thing about this card is that you can recycle it via junk arm.

Rescue energy: This can be attached to your gdos so that if your opponent knocks your gdos out via damage, both magikarp and gdos comes back to your hand.

Pokemon rescue: This is great for recovering a dead karp from your discard pile. Its a trainer and thus, can be recycled via junk arm too.

Combee sf: This is a key card in gdos as it can get a karp back from the discard without using powers or trainers.

Question #3 = How do you start your first few turns? How do you set it up?

You start with either sableye or smeargle and get a collector out asap. You collector for your regice and magikarps. Get 3 karps in your discard pile and build up a gdos, hopefully by t2 to start attacking for 60 or 90.

Question #4 = How do you get past a bad first hand? (i.e. bad start)

Try and hit a collector as fast as possible, get your smeargle/sableye out asap to use your supporters.

Question #5 = What IS considered to be a "Good Start"?

A good start is opening with either sableye or smeargle with a collector and gyarados in your hand. This ensures you get your gyarados out latest by t2.

Question #6 = What is considered to be a "bad start"?

Generally, there are only 2 cases of bad starts. 1:starting with a lone magikarp/combee and getting donked. Nothing much you can do about this case.

2: starting with stuff like azelf, uxie and worst, regice. In such cases, unown q would greatly help in getting uxie and azelfs out of the active while for regice, you have to use warp energy or SSU to get him out of the active spot.

Question #7 = What happens if they're building up something on the bench? Gyrarados doesn't do bench damage!

Gyarados is a speed deck, aka hopefully, you can simply tail revenge all the way through your opponent's pokemon and claim 6 prizes before they can set something up. However, there are gdos lists that run pokemon reversals or luxray gl to bright look/pull potential threats up.

Question #8 = How Do I Beat LuxChomp with this deck ???

Luxchomp is one of this decks' hardest matchup imo. Firstly, keep a warp energy/ssu handy whenever you have regice benched to prevent them from bright-looking your regice and sniping around it. Try and regi-move asap before they get enough sp out to spray your regi-move. If possible, seeker your regice up once you dun need it to regimove anymore.

Secondly, key mesprit drops allow you to use your belts wisely. When you have a fully healed gdos out, belting it with a mespirt drop means your opponent cannot return the ko on the gdos. After which, you can easily retreat and seeker it to heal your gdos.

Thirdly, don't use your belts loosely, crobat drops for the ko helps ensure you don't lose the prize lead.

Lastly, reversals/bright looking his lucario and killing it is a great move to cripple his ability to ohko you

Question #10 = How do I beat a deck that Prevents me from using my trainers?

The most common trainer lock deck is vilegar so i'll just talk in terms of it. Regice is your best friend here. Using regimove early game can break the lock for a turn or two, Also, later on, regice is great for discarding useless trainers.

The most crippling thing about vilegar is that it shuts down your recovery completely with the lone exception of combee. A few tips to soften this matchup. Firstly, dun discard all 3 karps at one go. Hitting for 60 is still a 2hko on gengar. Thus, if he's lucky enough to flip a heads on fainting spell, you can get a second gdos up without needing to use your combee.

Secondly, try to keep your regice alive since its the main way to dump your trainers. Whenever your opponent shadow rooms your regice, use regi-move, then seeker it up to heal.

Lastly avoid fainting spell as much as possible. Crobat, seeker, crobat is a great way to ko gengar after a tail's revenge. Uxie's psychic restore also ko's gengar if needed.

 

[Jason]

Luxchomp is one of this decks' hardest matchup imo. Firstly, keep a warp energy/ssu handy whenever you have regice benched to prevent them from bright-looking your regice and sniping around it. Try and regi-move asap before they get enough sp out to spray your regi-move. If possible, seeker your regice up once you dun need it to regimove anymore.

Secondly, key mesprit drops allow you to use your belts wisely. When you have a fully healed gdos out, belting it with a mespirt drop means your opponent cannot return the ko on the gdos. After which, you can easily retreat and seeker it to heal your gdos.

Thirdly, don't use your belts loosely, crobat drops for the ko helps ensure you don't lose the prize lead.

Lastly, reversals/bright looking his lucario and killing it is a great move to cripple his ability to ohko you

You may have said it all, but there is one thing missing from it and can understand that most lists dont run it - Judge. Once Luxchomp used up their Cyrus chain, you can judge them and strong odds, they won't make a comeback. Two Mesprits, along with 4 Seeker, 4 Super Scoop Up, 2 VS Seeker etc is a great way to ensure an unbreakable Mesprit chain while you can just roll through the deck, assuming Luxchomp does not Spray to break the lock.

The most common trainer lock deck is vilegar so i'll just talk in terms of it. Regice is your best friend here. Using regimove early game can break the lock for a turn or two, Also, later on, regice is great for discarding useless trainers.

The most crippling thing about vilegar is that it shuts down your recovery completely with the lone exception of combee. A few tips to soften this matchup. Firstly, dun discard all 3 karps at one go. Hitting for 60 is still a 2hko on gengar. Thus, if he's lucky enough to flip a heads on fainting spell, you can get a second gdos up without needing to use your combee.

Secondly, try to keep your regice alive since its the main way to dump your trainers. Whenever your opponent shadow rooms your regice, use regi-move, then seeker it up to heal.

Lastly avoid fainting spell as much as possible. Crobat, seeker, crobat is a great way to ko gengar after a tail's revenge. Uxie's psychic restore also ko's gengar if needed.

Relying on Crobats is not as reliable, hence why Skuntank G is needed all because it will make bypassing Fainting Spell alot easier, only downside is that if you can't get to play the first BTS, he's useless. Another thing, it will make it harder for your opponent to chose which one to kill - ice or tank and you will more likely slow them down and deny prizes. What in this matchup mainly is to keep regice and skuntankG alive as much as you can while still using bats. Leave Mesprits in hand as much as you can seeing Vilegar key power useage would be Uxies and I am sure this deck does not fear it much, considering the consistency of Vilegar compared to consistency and speed of Gyarados.

 

[Blue Wave]

A lot has been said about the deck already, so I won´t go through the questions and repeat what many others have said.
...well, that wasn´t completely true. I may repeat what they said at some points, but repetition is the mother of learning.

Question #1 = Gyrarados needs alot of energy to do alot of damage doesn't it?

>Not one! You will use the Tail Revenge attack hitting for 90, since you will have three Magikarp in the discard by using methods like Regice LA´s Poké-Power and Junk Arm.

Question #2 = What are the most important cards in a Gyrarados deck?

>Apart from Gyarados, I would say that Sableye SF and Smeargle UD are the most important cards in the entire deck.
THEY are the cards that help you towards victory: Sableye with its Impersonate, allowing you to use a Collector right off the bat, and Smeargle with its Portrait Poké-Power.
Smeargle may actually be better, since everyone wants to run consistently and thus most decks play full lines of Pokémon Collector and a couple copies of Bebe´s Search.

This doesn´t use up an attack either, so your opponent having something nice stuck in their hand is really an advantage for you.
I would personally recommend to play at least five copies of these cards in total, though four is also good. The line I´ve seen being played the most is 3 Smeargle and 2 Sableye, although there are variations like 4 Smeargle and 1 Sableye, 4 Sableye and one Smeargle... test yourself and see what you like the best.
I have played 2-2 Sableye and Smeargle, 3 Smeargle and 2 Sableye and 4 Sableye with 1 Smeargle at tournaments, and have consistently played 4-2 with each one of them.

Question #3 = How do you start your first few turns? How do you set it up?

>Your aim is to start with either Sableye or Smeargle, and get a Collector to get your game going. If you don´t start with them, you´ll want to get either one out (in these cases, Sableye is often the best bet).
Then, you search for Regice, your Magikarps, and possibly an Unown Q or Uxie depending on whether you need some draw or free retreat for something else.
Getting Gyarados out - use Luxury Ball, Bebe's Search, Pokémon Communication or just draw into it, possibly with an Uxie. You will be able to, if you play enough cards to be consistent.
I personally play one of each, but it´s a matter of preference really.

Question #4 = How do you get past a bad first hand? (i.e. bad start)

>Get a Collector in your hand, or somehow get Sableye out (it´s usually better for this situation).
Use your Luxury Ball if you wish, since you have Junk Arms to reuse it.

Question #5 = What IS considered to be a "Good Start"?

>It is difficult to define, but whatever gets your Gyarados out by turn 2 at latest. Simply put, all you may need is a Pokémon Collector to get that Sableye and 2 Magikarps if you start with Unown Q and Regice. Then again, you may need a lot more.

Question #6 = What is considered to be a "bad start"?

>Anything which leaves your Gyarados in the deck and without three Magikarps in the discard.
If you find yourself lacking options, you know you have run into one. Mainly a bad start is inability to get a Sableye or Smeargle out.

Question #7 = What happens if they're building up something on the bench? Gyrarados doesn't do bench damage!

>Regice will bring it up active if they only have one Benched Pokémon and their Active Pokémon is not an Evolved Pokémon.
Warp Point will bring it active if they only have one Benched Pokémon.
Pokémon Reversal will bring it active if you flip heads.
Poké Blower+ will bring it active if you play two at the same time.
Luxray GL LV.X will bring it active if you use its Bright Look Poké-Power.

Out of all these options, I recommend Luxray and the Reversal. Having tested with 1 Reversal in my deck and Junk Arm support, it actually works magic. Yes, it´s a flip card and isn´t as reliable as Luxray, but it saves me from running Poké Turns if I don´t need them for Crobat G:s.

Question #8 = How Do I Beat LuxChomp with this deck ???

>Hit them for 110 (with the Expert Belt) as fast as you can, since you will one-hit KO everything in their deck unless they run Expert Belt themselves - and they rarely do, at least in my area.
If they get a good start and you are falling behind, you can always make a come-back by Knocking Out their Lucario GL, since they will almost without exception play one.
To get it active, use Pokémon Reversal or Luxray GL LV.X - alternatively, you won´t need to do that if you use Mesprit LA to lock their Poké-Powers when you need to and then lock them for one more turn if you need to then.
SP without Flash Bites, Bright Looks and Healing Breaths is just not that effective.


Question #10 = How do I beat a deck that Prevents me from using my trainers?

>This is where your Supporter line comes in!
You will want to play Pokémon Collectors, Bebe's Search, Seekers, and though people will say that playing Twins and/or Black Belt detracts from what Gyarados should be doing, those two cards have saved many games for me.
You will usually be facing Gengar/Vileplume, and that means you will want to avoid the Fainting Spell, or have a recovery card in your hand. The problem is, the main recovery you have is Combee, even though you play 3 Gyarados and can search for them!
There are two ways for you to go. You can either get two Magikarp in the discard pile and two-hit KO their Gengars, or you can do what you always do and get three Magikarp while hitting for 90.
If you hit for 90, the crucial thing is that you will want to avoid Fainting Spell if you can, and there are many methods to do this.
Skuntank G and Crobat G are great ways to do this because of their Poké-Powers - if used on the same turn, their Gengar will be Knocked Out in one turn!
Another way to do this is to attack with Uxie´s Psychic Restore, putting it on the bottom of your deck. The problem with this in Gyarados is that you run little energy (usually 6 or 7).
However, if you have any spare Warp Energies or Special Dark Energies around, attaching them to Uxie and using Psychic Restore not only evades Fainting Spell, but gets an easy target for Gengar off your bench.

 

[Scubadude]

Questions:

8.Very carefully. If you get up a charged G-dos before they get much up, you will probably win. Otherwise, it's a hard game. Of course, you can kinda snipe around their active using Regice.

.

They play lux use bright lock regice is up and you GG.

 

[Barkjon]

^
Bright Lock is awesome, right?

If it was a thing...

The thing is, if you get a charged Gdos up quick enough you will (probably) win.

 

[Blue Wave]

No need to worry about Regice getting Bright Looked, even though it probably will at some point.
First off, it is easy enough to Dragon Rush with a Crobat G drop. If they do Bright Look it up, Gyarados runs Warp Energy, Warp Point and Super Scoop Ups to deal with that.
And, Warp Point is reusable with Junk Arm, without taking up the bench space Regice does late game.

 

[Barkjon]

^
Yeah, pretty much.

 

[flash2351]

Question #8 = How Do I Beat LuxChomp with this deck ???

>Hit them for 110 (with the Expert Belt) as fast as you can, since you will one-hit KO everything in their deck unless they run Expert Belt themselves - and they rarely do, at least in my area.
If they get a good start and you are falling behind, you can always make a come-back by Knocking Out their Lucario GL, since they will almost without exception play one.

I strongly disagree with this. In the luxchomp matchup, you should NEVER belt yourself loosely. You should only belt it when you have your opponent under power lock first. If you belt simply for the ko, they can easily return the ko via 3 bat drop+flash impact, or 1 bat drop+trash bolt. Then they will take 2 prizes as opposed to your one, so u just handed the prize lead to them on a platter.

 

[Blue Wave]

^I´m afraid I missed the key point in there, which Jason pointed out earlier: Mesprit.
Powerlocking them is THE thing to do if you can, otherwise Expert Belting should be done with utmost care.
Without the ability to power lock them with Psychic Bind, you´re in trouble: they will be technically guaranteed to take a prize from you, and you will not - when hitting for 90, you will need for example a Crobat G and a Skuntank G to get that pesky Luxray GL LV.X out of there. Two Crobats will also work, but even with Seeker and SSU in your deck, there may often be better targets for them, like Mesprit if you have that Expert Belt.

But yes, you´re right. Expert Belting should be a careful move, however with Psychic Bind and some resources in your hand, that is the best thing for you to do.
If you don´t have the resources to heal the Gyarados the turn after the Psychic Bind, don´t bother unless you will win the game doing so.
Keeping them in the power lock is also of the essence; Jason already explained how to.
Even Power Spray won´t necessarily stop you, since you can always drop Mesprit again - if they have two Power Sprays, you´re best off not Expert Belting it.

However, you will want to OHKO them whenever you can, even though it isn´t the "Belt And Smash Away" scenario. Far from it.

 

[Jason]

BL regiice? Not if I manage an unbreakable Mesprit chain, assuming you don't spray it, and most of the time if I know if I am up against Luxray GL X, I would avoid benching regice as much as I can. Matchup knowledge is the key.

 

[Rogue Archetype]

Thanks to all who contributed to this.