yeah im just going to stop posting on this site...
BW-on Tornadus EX / Ho-Oh EX
- Thread starter ryuninja
- Start date
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yeah im just going to stop posting on this site...
This forum is for posting your deck to get help. You do nothing but complain when people offer suggestions. It looks like is all you want is people to post and agree with you. If you don't want any help or suggestions for your deck just let me know and i will lock this.
maybe you've seen a well-functioning deck discussion forum, but generally when someone gives you a suggestion for your deck they're supposed to give you an explanation for making the change. all the posts in this thread thus far have either been suggested changes of cards in the deck without explanation, or just suggestions to add certain cards without posting what i should remove, and giving poor reasoning for the addition. i guess im just used to forums where genuinely good players corroborate and give suggestions backed by solid explanations and extensive testing experience. definately isnt the case here...guess i'll try pokebeach :/
vaporeon
Moderator
PokeGym is a functioning deck discussion forum. You posted a deck and asked for help and when help was given, you spat in back in the posters face, discrediting it all together because you feel like no one here is on your level.
Ho-Oh EX has just been released. I'm one of the few people to text Ho-Oh EX and I gave you options that I think work for the bird. I've been playing the deck months before its release while everyone else was testing Darkrai Hydreigon. What I posted was clear enough and you threw it back in my face. If you are as good a player you think you are, then you can read in between the line.
If you ask for help and someone is willing, then expect it.
ryuninja, my suggestions are simple: -1 rufflet +1 energy switch, -1 rufflet +1 ho-oh, -1 tornadus +1 mewtwo; setup decks need emolga, this deck needs to donk, to spam energy, to overwhelm the opponent
If you can add +1 rayquaza it is worth it to add over a tool scrapper 100% for sure, but I definitely understand if that is too expensive...with you already running the fire and lightning in heavy counts I figured you could easily adapt to that.
My last suggestion - test out plus power and tool scrapper apart from each other, see which one works better. I think it would be a good change to test in later battle roads if you can attend more battle roads and plan to play this deck in regionals.
Vaporeon first of all I want to say that I think the fight between you and ryuninja is because you tried to change their deck into your deck...Furthermore, I think you were wrong on a lot of points and right on a lot of points. I just won 2 battle roads with Ho-Oh in 2 days, I do not purport to be an expert but what has gone right or wrong has been obvious on some points.
Wrong:
-Just like every deck, you should always have 4 Catchers. Period. There is no resource that could possibly be worth not running this.
-Energy Search in Ho-Oh is a gigantic waste of space. A deck with 15-16 energy will always run into what it needs on average, if you whiff something you have so much to stall with!
-Sableye might work, and kudos if you have a list with that doing well for you. It is something easy to KO, this deck wants to play mean scary things that are all hard KOs. Bouffalant is one of these, and while I have not had a list with Bouffalant that felt "just right" so far, but it was actually in my starting list and thrown in and out of lists constantly.
Right:
-Rufflet is absolutely, stupidly terrible in this deck. I know that it is a cute, fun thing - "I have a 50 hp pokemon with cute art making my deck run! This is fantastic!" - but it is something that will automatically relegate you to 3-3 or 4-2 while you give up easy KOs and wreck this deck's selling points. I only use a word as strong as stupid because what was a cute starting point for the deck somehow turned into a widespread "half the time there" sort of thing.
- +1 Mewtwo is right on
- Sigilyph is useful if you find it useful, I had 2 Mewtwo 1 Sigilyph in my first win
- I think you (vaporeon) have a really good grasp on the freedom you have to shape your energy lines, whatever partners you use keep being unafraid to push things to 2-3, you could run 4 dce and 3 3 3 2 or 3 3 3 3 and you would probably lose zero consistency as far as pulling off Ho-Oh.
I have too many friends who have not gotten a chance to play Ho-Oh after I forced them to buy in, so I have to keep mum on certain particulars. I appreciate that fact could make this post a less helpful interjection than it could be than just posting my example list, but I hope my thoughts on right/wrong points here is something that can help you both out.
If you can add +1 rayquaza it is worth it to add over a tool scrapper 100% for sure, but I definitely understand if that is too expensive...with you already running the fire and lightning in heavy counts I figured you could easily adapt to that.
My last suggestion - test out plus power and tool scrapper apart from each other, see which one works better. I think it would be a good change to test in later battle roads if you can attend more battle roads and plan to play this deck in regionals.
Vaporeon first of all I want to say that I think the fight between you and ryuninja is because you tried to change their deck into your deck...Furthermore, I think you were wrong on a lot of points and right on a lot of points. I just won 2 battle roads with Ho-Oh in 2 days, I do not purport to be an expert but what has gone right or wrong has been obvious on some points.
Wrong:
-Just like every deck, you should always have 4 Catchers. Period. There is no resource that could possibly be worth not running this.
-Energy Search in Ho-Oh is a gigantic waste of space. A deck with 15-16 energy will always run into what it needs on average, if you whiff something you have so much to stall with!
-Sableye might work, and kudos if you have a list with that doing well for you. It is something easy to KO, this deck wants to play mean scary things that are all hard KOs. Bouffalant is one of these, and while I have not had a list with Bouffalant that felt "just right" so far, but it was actually in my starting list and thrown in and out of lists constantly.
Right:
-Rufflet is absolutely, stupidly terrible in this deck. I know that it is a cute, fun thing - "I have a 50 hp pokemon with cute art making my deck run! This is fantastic!" - but it is something that will automatically relegate you to 3-3 or 4-2 while you give up easy KOs and wreck this deck's selling points. I only use a word as strong as stupid because what was a cute starting point for the deck somehow turned into a widespread "half the time there" sort of thing.
- +1 Mewtwo is right on
- Sigilyph is useful if you find it useful, I had 2 Mewtwo 1 Sigilyph in my first win
- I think you (vaporeon) have a really good grasp on the freedom you have to shape your energy lines, whatever partners you use keep being unafraid to push things to 2-3, you could run 4 dce and 3 3 3 2 or 3 3 3 3 and you would probably lose zero consistency as far as pulling off Ho-Oh.
I have too many friends who have not gotten a chance to play Ho-Oh after I forced them to buy in, so I have to keep mum on certain particulars. I appreciate that fact could make this post a less helpful interjection than it could be than just posting my example list, but I hope my thoughts on right/wrong points here is something that can help you both out.
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first of all, i would like to thank you for giving rationalization for these changes.
as for rufflet, i agree. after countless hours of testing this week, i have decided to drop the rufflets. while they were solid openers when i didn't open a tornadus, practically every game i opened with tornadus or even mewtwo in some cases i would choose to promote that pokemon and leave rufflet in hand only to be juniper/ultra ball fodder. the build i used at BR the past 2 days used a second bouffalant and a fourth tornadus in place of the 2 rufflets.
a second mewtwo is something ill have to try, but i think it'll require a larger commitment to installing mewtwo as one of my designated set-up attackers. in the current list he's purely for countering other mewtwos, and he's been doing an absolutely fantastic job at it. i could see mewtwo working well as the primary attacker in here, as it does about the same damage output if not better against garchomp and eels; i just think that tornadus being able to attack for 60 on turn 1 is much more valuable.
you didnt give any explanation for the addition of a third ho-oh... i REALLY hate having to start with only ho-oh, so i run the minimal number to still be able to see it enough to have access to it mid-late game, while having a very low chance of opening it alone.
rayquaza is an interesting choice in here; there are a few rayquazas floating around among my teammates so i'll have to test that.
tool scrapper has been alright in here...i see less and less people running eviolite nowadays, but when i play a deck that does i NEED eviolites to win that match-up, plain and simple. the garbodor/terrakion match-up doesn't require tool scrapper to win, but the garbodor/hammertime build can be alot more difficult without them.
i may decide to remove tool scrapper altogether, but if i do it definately wont be for pluspowers. pluspower is good for getting that early kill on emolga/sableye, but other than that its uses are VERY limited. using it for that purpose alone is just really too situational for my taste. i'm not sure if you read my tournament report a couple posts back, but i ended up having to main 3 pluspowers and they really underperformed, so i'm pretty much scarred from using them in here again.
as for your comment to vaporeon on shaping energy lines, i realize that running 3 3 3 3 will still enable you to use rebirth to its max potential, but after that you will have a really low chance of attaching that 4th energy to allow ho-oh to 2HKO EXs, and powering it up further than that is impossible (although it's rare that you should need to do this, in garchomp and other match-ups it is very beneficial for you to do so).
---------- Post added 09/02/2012 at 09:55 PM ----------
just thought i'd post my results at the second BR i attended this weekend. i ended up going 4-2 at this BR as well, and got 8th place. more championship points yay
R1 vs Triple Mewtwo Eels
mewtwo can be nasty, but i killed a tynamo turn 1 with tornadus, and proceeded to catcher kill 2 more eels within the first 4 turns before he could set up any of his attackers. GG
1-0
R2 vs Ho-Oh
i opened decently, but after attaching a basic energy and an eviolite to my tornadus, i played N drawing into 3 skyarrow and 3 useless trainers (i think like 2 energy switch 1 tool scrapper) and didnt draw a single energy OR supporter/RR for the next 4 turns. i ended up bringing it back, but lost in time 1-2 prizes.
tbh i was extremely mad at this loss. from what i saw of his deck he was running a really bad version of the deck that just happens to perform extremely well vs the mirror match. he was maining no tornadus EX, mewtwo, or bouffalant. instead he decided to run 3 sableye, 3 sigilyph FML, tornadus EP, and 4 ho-oh -__-
1-1 and steaming mad
R3 vs Garchomp/Altaria
i opened well and killed a gible turn 1 with tornadus. after that i focused on catcher killing all his ataria and sustaining an attacker with eviolite to force his garchomps to 3hko me while i 2hko them. game ended quickly, 6-2 prizes. GG
2-1 and slightly less mad
R4 vs Mewtwo/Terrakion/Bouffalant
the player that won the Sept 1 BR undefeated was playing this build today. it was apparently a tweaked version of the winning Japanese nationals deck.
I catcher'd around exp share, picking off her terrakions while she tried to set up a mewtwo on bench. after getting enough energy on mewtwo to OHKO my tornadus, i played a sigilyph + DCE + Energy Switch to snipe it and leave her field energyless. SCOOP
3-1 and mildly enthusiastic about the tourney after getting a few good ygo trades in.
R5 vs Ho-Oh ...Again...
it was a teammate of that guy i lost to earlier in the tournament. they were running identical bad decks, and equally bad luck lost me this game as well. after killing 1/3 of his sigilyphs with my own, he dropped another + 2 energy switches to kill mine, leaving me without a solid answer. i played a bouffalant + eviolite and attempted to peck it to death with 60. he retreated and smacked bouffalant for 100 with a ho-oh. next turn i ripped a catcher and got the KO on sigilyph to bring the game to a state where i could feasibly win. he topped a supporter after an N to 1 TWICE, and i got 3 tails on super scoop ups which would've won me the game otherwise. back to being mad off -__-
R6 vs Darkrai/Hydreigon
he apparently had a couple darkrai prized, because after I killed his first one the only pokemon he saw were deino and sableye. 6-0 prizes GG
the two ho-oh builds i played went 3-3 and 4-2 respectively, although the one that went 4-2 got 9th place while i burst the bubble and got 8th/64 ppl. JUSTICE!
The thing is that going aggro Mewtwo is good against every single deck except ZekEels. Only ZekEels can maintain a Mewtwo war like this deck can. Mewtwo/Terrakion with Exp. Share or Mewtwo/Terrakion EX cannot really even keep up.
A 3rd Ho-Oh is the best balance between not starting with it the most in your deck out of any card and also not whiffing on it too badly. Ho-Oh is this deck's engine. You do not need it right away in your discard, but the quicker the better. And if you start with one you just have to live with it, and hopefully they never have the time to try to KO it with the other billion threats you have on your bench or hopefully you get to scoop it up after 0-1 hits and getting 2 Ho-Oh in the discard is about the right number, 1 is worse
-1 tool scrapper was just the next easiest change is all, if you like it enough to keep then keep it! You should always play the small details in a deck how you feel most comfortable.
Rayquaza is the type of thing that would require something like the 3-3-2 or 3-3-3 energy I was discussing, whereas say no Rayquaza would not. In my opinion the few Japanese lists that top cut showed worked at least roughly the same and one was only missing like 1 energy while one was missing like 4.
A 3rd Ho-Oh is the best balance between not starting with it the most in your deck out of any card and also not whiffing on it too badly. Ho-Oh is this deck's engine. You do not need it right away in your discard, but the quicker the better. And if you start with one you just have to live with it, and hopefully they never have the time to try to KO it with the other billion threats you have on your bench or hopefully you get to scoop it up after 0-1 hits
and getting 2 Ho-Oh in the discard is about the right number, 1 is worse-1 tool scrapper was just the next easiest change is all, if you like it enough to keep then keep it! You should always play the small details in a deck how you feel most comfortable.
Rayquaza is the type of thing that would require something like the 3-3-2 or 3-3-3 energy I was discussing, whereas say no Rayquaza would not. In my opinion the few Japanese lists that top cut showed worked at least roughly the same and one was only missing like 1 energy while one was missing like 4.
You'll get good and bad advice to matter what forum you use. As for the beach pffffffft it isn't all that good.
The thing is that going aggro Mewtwo is good against every single deck except ZekEels. Only ZekEels can maintain a Mewtwo war like this deck can. Mewtwo/Terrakion with Exp. Share or Mewtwo/Terrakion EX cannot really even keep up.
A 3rd Ho-Oh is the best balance between not starting with it the most in your deck out of any card and also not whiffing on it too badly. Ho-Oh is this deck's engine. You do not need it right away in your discard, but the quicker the better. And if you start with one you just have to live with it, and hopefully they never have the time to try to KO it with the other billion threats you have on your bench or hopefully you get to scoop it up after 0-1 hits
-1 tool scrapper was just the next easiest change is all, if you like it enough to keep then keep it! You should always play the small details in a deck how you feel most comfortable.
Rayquaza is the type of thing that would require something like the 3-3-2 or 3-3-3 energy I was discussing, whereas say no Rayquaza would not. In my opinion the few Japanese lists that top cut showed worked at least roughly the same and one was only missing like 1 energy while one was missing like 4.
against eels i dont try and mewtwo war with them. i just try and disrupt their eel set-up and apply pressure with tornadus, bouffalant, and ho-oh until they drop their own mewtwo. as soon as their mewtwo has 3 energy i'll drop my own mewtwo (or sigilyph if i have energy switch) + DCE and KO it. against eel builds that play mewtwo, i try and keep my 1of mewtwo's pressence unknown until it can score some surprise KOs. powering up my mewtwo(s) on bench early leaves me susceptible to the same strategy as mewtwo eel decks almost always play DCE.
where do you find these Japanese lists?
You should Mewtwo war every deck with Mewtwo that is not Eels is what I was saying. It is your surest path to victory and gives you like at least a 70/30 over mewtwo/terrakion(s) in my opinion, you can handle whatever they throw at you as long as your setup was even remotely smooth.
Like look at it this way, I would say with 1 Mewtwo 1 Sigilyph you drop from 70/30 to 60/40 against Mewtwo/Terrakion(s) and from 50/50 or better to 40/60 against Garchomp/Altaria (two of the top 5 decks). It makes your matchup worse against 0 decks - you never HAVE to play 2 Mewtwos if it ends up shaking out you can win faster/safer another way.
If it is just a money thing just get one after tins drop, I promise you that it will be a worthwhile addition.
Like look at it this way, I would say with 1 Mewtwo 1 Sigilyph you drop from 70/30 to 60/40 against Mewtwo/Terrakion(s) and from 50/50 or better to 40/60 against Garchomp/Altaria (two of the top 5 decks). It makes your matchup worse against 0 decks - you never HAVE to play 2 Mewtwos if it ends up shaking out you can win faster/safer another way.
If it is just a money thing just get one after tins drop, I promise you that it will be a worthwhile addition.
tornadus does a MUCH better job than mewtwo vs those two decks. tornadus with or without an eviolite can tank hits from mewtwo and terrakion, while 2 shotting everything in the deck. my 1of mewtwo and sigilyph are enough to pseudo mewtwo war against them, since with 4 ultra balls i can toolbox whatever i need at the current moment. and if they start with terrakion/terrakion ex/bouffalant (pretty likely since over half their basics are these bad starters) then the 160 damage by turn 2 that tornadus applies is much more valuable than the 100-120 mewtwo will.
against garchomp/altaria, mewtwo needs 5-6 energy to 1shot garchomps, and 4 energy to 1shot altarias. if you're going for the mewtwo sweep, ho-oh can potentially do the same thing without disruption from mach cut eating DCE. however i generally choose neither of these methods, and simply focus on catcher killing all their altarias while keeping my tornadus + eviolite up to tank hits. without altarias garchomp is forced to 3 or 4HKO tornadus, while i 2HKO garchomp. using 4 tornadus also pretty much guarantees me a turn 1 kill against that deck, which severely hinders their set-up (something mewtwo is incapable of). in testing garchomp hasn't given me any problems, and i would consider the deck a solid 60/40 if not better match-up in my favor.
Because Garchomp/Altaria is discarding Mewtwo EX DCEs but not Tornadus EX DCEs, and since Tornadus EX is also flipping its non-DCE energy off of itself surely it can totally sustain attacking through losing DCEs and losing its other energies.
I have put 6 energy on a Mewtwo against Garchomp/Altaria and Empoleon once each in real brs not playtesting so far.
In this entire deck only one thing can attack for "1" energy (without rayquaza), and that is Mewtwo. In Mewtwo wars when they have access to a non-EX pokemon, they will kill your Sigilyph, take energy off the field, and you will not even OHKO their Mewtwo unless they have 3 energy and you hit a plus power. And when that 1 Mewtwo is prized you are going to lose to Mewtwos railroading you. I do not even get why you want to be stubborn about this, it is not like you have tried this deck out with it in an ideal state yet anyway. You are just going to hurt your deck build though. Not even like an "I am better than you" thing, the way to play this deck has been established as 3 Mewtwo. Altering that to 2 Mewtwo 1 Sigilyph is not different, but if you want to challenge 2+ Mewtwo you need a better reason than "it's a toolbox you can play whatever you want", in what way is 2 Mewtwo 2 Tornadus or 3 Tornadus 2 Mewtwo not better than 1 Mewtwo 3 Tornadus? It is just common sense / obvious from about 1 playtest ever that it is better.
I have put 6 energy on a Mewtwo against Garchomp/Altaria and Empoleon once each in real brs not playtesting so far.
In this entire deck only one thing can attack for "1" energy (without rayquaza), and that is Mewtwo. In Mewtwo wars when they have access to a non-EX pokemon, they will kill your Sigilyph, take energy off the field, and you will not even OHKO their Mewtwo unless they have 3 energy and you hit a plus power. And when that 1 Mewtwo is prized you are going to lose to Mewtwos railroading you. I do not even get why you want to be stubborn about this, it is not like you have tried this deck out with it in an ideal state yet anyway. You are just going to hurt your deck build though. Not even like an "I am better than you" thing, the way to play this deck has been established as 3 Mewtwo. Altering that to 2 Mewtwo 1 Sigilyph is not different, but if you want to challenge 2+ Mewtwo you need a better reason than "it's a toolbox you can play whatever you want", in what way is 2 Mewtwo 2 Tornadus or 3 Tornadus 2 Mewtwo not better than 1 Mewtwo 3 Tornadus? It is just common sense / obvious from about 1 playtest ever that it is better.
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I made a Ho-Oh deck too and I play:
3 x Ho-Oh Ex
2 x Tornadus EX
1 x Sigilyph
2 x Mewtwo EX
2 x Terrakion
4 x Energy Switch
4 x Pokemon Catcher
4 x random Receiver
4 x Juniper
3 x Cheren
4 x Eviolite
4 x Switch
4 x ultra Ball
19 Energies
And it works great. I have choice to kill sigilyph with terrakion and to compet against mewtwo with 2 mewtwo, sigilyph and revenge kill with terrakion against darkrai.
3 x Ho-Oh Ex
2 x Tornadus EX
1 x Sigilyph
2 x Mewtwo EX
2 x Terrakion
4 x Energy Switch
4 x Pokemon Catcher
4 x random Receiver
4 x Juniper
3 x Cheren
4 x Eviolite
4 x Switch
4 x ultra Ball
19 Energies
And it works great. I have choice to kill sigilyph with terrakion and to compet against mewtwo with 2 mewtwo, sigilyph and revenge kill with terrakion against darkrai.
if they have a garchomp up early enough where ditching my DCE's would actually leave me energy starved, i've done a very poor job at allowing them to set up. turn 1 tornadus should kill a gible/swablu, turn 2 it should kill another gible/swablu/gabite (if i went second) or an emolga. even if i flip that energy off, the opponent isnt seeing a garchomp next turn at the least, meaning i'll get a chance to stream energy onto my benched tornadus or try and set up a rebirth to put more energy on my board.
congrats..
tornadus ex?
how are mewtwos going to railroad me? if i'm capable of ever-so-easily winning a mewtwo war with this deck, i should be able to at least keep up with them using just tornadus/bouffalant/sigilyph. i dont use mewtwo unless it can OHKO theirs, which i mean if mewtwo doesn't have 3+ energy on it then i can take care of it with my other mons.
i played through 1 BR in an "ideal state" and i proxied the deck in its totality in dozens of games.
im sure having the option of a second mewtwo in cases where one is prized would be better, im just saying that i dont think it's necessary and so i dont want to cut something else important to fit it in for those uncommon situations. ill still test it out, but ill have to rearrange some things.
and where do you find the Japanese lists for ho-oh? only one i've seen played 3 rufflet 4 ho-oh 2 mewtwo 1 braviary and i didnt like the way it played out.
nice list. I will try something very similar but want to fit in a couple skyarrow bridges and maybe a tool scrapper somehow.
how do you split your energies?
The starting point of understanding this deck is understanding that Darkrai and Mewtwo are the still the two most dangerous cards in this format, and that Ho-Oh is going to let us use Mewtwo and Terrakion both better than a regular Exp. Share variant.
I am not going to try to get through to you more than this, I do not know why you are so resistant to being told one of the few things that is a fixed rule in this deck. You want to know what the best 5 decks in the format have in common?
1) Darkrai/Hydreigon - not playing 2 Tornadus EX
2) Garchomp/Altaria - not playing 2 Tornadus EX
3) ZekEels - not playing 2 Tornadus EX
4) Ho-Oh EX - not playing 2 Tornadus EX (although Japan liked to run 2, the 2 battle roads I won and the 2 battle roads my friend won played 0 Tornadus EX for a good reason - purposely taking energy off the board without doing a OHKO level of damage is stupid and is going to end your day at some point)
5) Mewtwo/Terrakion(s)/Bouffalant/option Sigilyph/optional whatever - not playing 2 Tornadus EX
Mewtwo EX being better than Tornadus EX was settled months ago.
I am not going to try to get through to you more than this, I do not know why you are so resistant to being told one of the few things that is a fixed rule in this deck. You want to know what the best 5 decks in the format have in common?
1) Darkrai/Hydreigon - not playing 2 Tornadus EX
2) Garchomp/Altaria - not playing 2 Tornadus EX
3) ZekEels - not playing 2 Tornadus EX
4) Ho-Oh EX - not playing 2 Tornadus EX (although Japan liked to run 2, the 2 battle roads I won and the 2 battle roads my friend won played 0 Tornadus EX for a good reason - purposely taking energy off the board without doing a OHKO level of damage is stupid and is going to end your day at some point)
5) Mewtwo/Terrakion(s)/Bouffalant/option Sigilyph/optional whatever - not playing 2 Tornadus EX
Mewtwo EX being better than Tornadus EX was settled months ago.
vaporeon
Moderator
The huge fact of the matter is Ho-Oh EX does not like Mewtwo EX. His lone Mewtwo EX versus his opponents 2 or 3 will always lose the Mewtwo War. Then his opponent Will X-Ball the bird for at least 100 damage, leaving it with 60 HP left. I've been playing Ho-Oh for while now and Mewtwo EX is still a problem for it because of that. They will just kill your Sigilyph with some other attack and start attacking you with Mewtwo again when you can't respond.
The big difference in our decks is I can win a Mewtwo War and fight against Darkrai because my deck was built to do it. Ho-Oh EX is good with techs.
It does not matter what the Japanese are playing. Their meta is different then ours. They use cards we don't.
The big difference in our decks is I can win a Mewtwo War and fight against Darkrai because my deck was built to do it. Ho-Oh EX is good with techs.
It does not matter what the Japanese are playing. Their meta is different then ours. They use cards we don't.
Fox_Master51
New Member
Surprising that the Trainers aren't just straight 4's. Poor Cheren only gets 3? lol:lol:
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