Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Why are people playing Lasers AND Hammers in their Darkrai decks?

honchvire

honchvire

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Maybe I'm completely off base here, but I don't believe hammers and lasers belong in the same deck. Both are stall tactics, both involve flips, but you can only get 2 things back a turn with Junk Hunt. The Hypnotoxic Laser has the added benefit of adding damage to your opponent's side of the field. The Hammers have the benefit of being able to (hopefully) deplete your opponent's resources, and you can knock off multiple energy per turn if you flip well.

Well, why not have both in a deck?

The answer is space and that beloved consistency. My question to you hammer/laser folks out there is "What are you waiting for?" Why are you trying to buy time with these cards? Is there ever really a time when you'd rather have a hammer than a laser and vice versa? If those 3-6 spots(or more) that you have devoted to the frivolous extra flip cards were consistency cards instead, would you even need to stall for time?

Darkrai is fast. Really fast. With all the options available to him, T2 Nightspear should be no problem if you build your deck well, and T1 Nightspear is even a possibility with cards like Bicycle and Ether in those crazy speed builds.

I've seen far too many hammer/laser decks floating around online and it makes me cringe. I watch them Junk Hunt a hammer and a laser and then flip tails on the one they really needed to matter. I wonder what could've been, had they junk hunted an Energy Switch or something else instead.

Until someone makes a strong case for a match up where you absolutely need Hammers and Lasers I'm going to feel sad for folks playing sub-optimal decks.

Prove me wrong?
 
I noticed that too.
What about if they couldn't get a playset of hammers or a playset of lasers...

And play a split to compensate?
 
Are we talking full Laser and full Hammers here (3-4 Crushing, 2 Enhanced)? Because yeah, I don't see how that fits in a deck without being a consistency killer.

The deck does have room for an Enhanced or two though, and that might not be a bad call in a meta with Special Energy reliance. Much like how a couple of Lost Remover was common in a lot of decks around the time of Worlds last year.
 
Space is the only reason not to run either card in any deck.

Hypnotoxic Laser provides Poison and Sleep; a weak offense and defense on its own, but an Item having either of those traits is stupendous. Crushing Hammer and Enhanced Hammer only provide a defense by slowing down the opponent, but consider something... what happens when an opponent can't fight back while Poisoned? Oh yeah, they slowly get KOed.

Due to the metagame (thankfully) having answers to this, and the fact that a KOed Pokémon can't attack you and its Energy is discarded, when you don't have room for both you go with Hypnotoxic Laser. The two together do have natural synergy, and so a deck with room to run them both adequately would of course do so.

It just does not look like any deck has that much room, at least while being consistent/stable enough to safely play. Many players are working on it, though, just in case. ;-)
 
I don't think of Lasers as a stall tactic at all; I run it on the merit of a triple plus power alone. I feel like they both can fit quite well in a Darkrai deck. My current list runs 4 Lasers and 4 Crushing Hammer (no enhanced). It's really a fantastic combination. You Night Spears are doing 120 (or 150 with Dark Claw), AND you are removing energy to stop attacks.

I also don't usually junk hunt for Lasers at all. Like I said, I view it purely as a triple plus power. 4 of those a game is almost always enough.
 
150 with dark claw? I'm assuming you mean 140, if it did +30 it would be unbelievably good haha.
 
Raen said:
I don't think of Lasers as a stall tactic at all; I run it on the merit of a triple plus power alone. I feel like they both can fit quite well in a Darkrai deck. My current list runs 4 Lasers and 4 Crushing Hammer (no enhanced). It's really a fantastic combination. You Night Spears are doing 120 (or 150 with Dark Claw), AND you are removing energy to stop attacks.

I also don't usually junk hunt for Lasers at all. Like I said, I view it purely as a triple plus power. 4 of those a game is almost always enough.
Click to expand...

Let me be clear; a Hypnotoxic Laser can be used as a "better" PlusPower barring the return of effects like Thick Skin or when you could exploit Weakness. With Virbank City Gym in play, the two cards act as a "triple PlusPower", again barring those circumstances. In both cases you have 25% of also putting the Defending Pokémon to Sleep and having it stick (that is, 50% chance scoring "Sleep" on Hypnotoxic Laser, then a 50% chance they don't wake-up between turns).

That doesn't mean they cannot be used to stall; it has a built in chance of Sleep, and Poison has natural synergy with stalling; the longer the KO takes, the more times Poison can activate. Yes, it is to your benefit to KO them quickly in all but some rare circumstances (like N shenanigans).

Likewise, Crushing Hammer is a more defensive card, because discards Energy. Discarding Energy disrupts an opponent's set up (normally) and slows down their offensive (usually). Thing is, it too improves offense because the slower your Pokémon are being KOed, the more attacks they can get it and the faster your resources build.

So I guess I really failed to make my point earlier.

tl;dr: If you have room, you run Crushing Hammer/Enhanced Hammer and Hypnotoxic Laser. Both directly contribute to defense, only Hypnotoxic Laser provides a direct offensive advantage (places damage counters), but indirectly the Hammers do aid offense as well. Most decks simply don't have room for both, but that is the only reason not to run both.
 
The thing is, Hammer fails 50% of the time.
Hypnotoxic Laser has become a staple since its release date, but why do people use Crushing Hammer to help their defense and no Potion?
Seems like a much more effective use of the space. It never fails and it prevents your opponent from some crazy knock outs with Laser.
 
Dark Shedinja said:
The thing is, Hammer fails 50% of the time.
Hypnotoxic Laser has become a staple since its release date, but why do people use Crushing Hammer to help their defense and no Potion?
Seems like a much more effective use of the space. It never fails and it prevents your opponent from some crazy knock outs with Laser.
Click to expand...

Pessimistic side if view, I think its a success 50% of the time. I do however think there is room for and enhanced hammer or two plus the Lasers.

Speaking if potion, I think it might be a good play in Darkrai decks.
 
Dark Shedinja said:
The thing is, Hammer fails 50% of the time.
Hypnotoxic Laser has become a staple since its release date, but why do people use Crushing Hammer to help their defense and no Potion?
Seems like a much more effective use of the space. It never fails and it prevents your opponent from some crazy knock outs with Laser.
Click to expand...
Potion is a very good alternative to Hammers, but Hammers give you some benefits that Potion does not. For example, again Landorus decks, Hammers can stop them from ever using Land's Judgement, saving you from easy OHKOs. Against Klinklang, Hammers essentially give you an autowin if you run them out of energy. The same deal against Quad Sigilyph. Agains Eels, Hammers let you discard fire energy and avoid the OHKOs.

The real problem with potion is that OHKOs are so common between Rayquaza, Landorus, Keldeo, ect. If you're dead, you can't heal yourself :p
 
It isn't just OHKOs.

Healing only matters if it somehow costs the opponent resources. Given the damage output we have right now, between OHKOs (where you can't heal at all to avoid it) and 2HKOs (which end up doing at least 30 points of overkill), there are a lot of times when a single Potion is not going to help. You can play it, but it is a wasted card. There will be times when Hypnotoxic Laser will be a waste as well; you won't need it for the KO. Crushing Hammer has the potential to be useful most of the time; only when all your opponent's Energy is on something you are going to KO this turn does it lack the potential of being useful. Obviously, when it fails it fails and it was functionally useless.

I've said it before; "tails fails" doesn't kill a card's usefulness. Look at the effect; a card can be "broken" and be "tails fails", so long as the reward when it succeeds is enough compensation for the times when it won't. Against the right decks, Crushing Hammer says "Flip a coin. If 'heads', your opponent doesn't get to take a Prize next turn and you get to take a Prize." What do I mean? Against the right decks, that Energy discard will prevent your Active Pokémon from being KOed... allowing you to attack with it again for a Prize when instead you would have been unable to mount as potent an offensive.

There are decks where Crushing Hammer does little good. Of those, I can only think of one where it is almost totally ineffective, and that would be Deluge Decks.
 
i used to use potion to help turn an opponents 2HKO into a 3HKO.
But since they also have the option of using hypno laser, it usually turns it back into a 2HKO.

So i prefer using hammers now to hopefully try to slow/prevent their attack from happening at all.
 
I play Hammertime Lasers and I must say the deck's consistency isn't affected. The deck is terrific and thanks to Lasers, now, Hammertime has a answer to Plasma Klinklang.
 
rcxd999 said:
I play Hammertime Lasers and I must say the deck's consistency isn't affected. The deck is terrific and thanks to Lasers, now, Hammertime has a answer to Plasma Klinklang.
Click to expand...

I can't see how consistency isn't affected, unless you are playing 4 Lasers and 2 Enhanced Hammer. If you are indeed playing 4 Crushing, 2 enhanced and 4 lasers, statistically your statement makes no sense. That's -10 consistency cards, that's a bad number when you factor in Pokemon Catcher, Virbank, Tool Scrapper, and potentially dark claw. That's a lot of inconsistency.
 
baby mario said:
Are we talking full Laser and full Hammers here (3-4 Crushing, 2 Enhanced)? Because yeah, I don't see how that fits in a deck without being a consistency killer.

The deck does have room for an Enhanced or two though, and that might not be a bad call in a meta with Special Energy reliance. Much like how a couple of Lost Remover was common in a lot of decks around the time of Worlds last year.
Click to expand...

I'm referring to full laser, full crushing hammer(3+ of each). 1-2 enhanced hammer is an understandable tech if the metagame evolves in such a way that special energy dependance is exploitable.

Raen said:
I don't think of Lasers as a stall tactic at all; I run it on the merit of a triple plus power alone. I feel like they both can fit quite well in a Darkrai deck.
Click to expand...

Stall tactic may not be the best terminology. I was trying to draw a parallel between hammerspam forcing opponents to dig through their deck to find more energy and laserspam forcing opponents to find ways to clear special conditions every turn or risk a lot of damage being accumulated. Both usually give the Sableye/Darkrai player time to set up and stabilize their own field as their opponents will have to choose whether to attack, defend, or set up. Attack would be making aggressive plays to take prizes. Defend would be finding their outs to the spam such as disrupting the stream of lasers/hammers and collecting more energy/switches to play. Set Up would be finding all the pieces you need to accomplish the specific strategy or goal of the deck.

rcxd999 said:
I play Hammertime Lasers and I must say the deck's consistency isn't affected. The deck is terrific and thanks to Lasers, now, Hammertime has a answer to Plasma Klinklang.
Click to expand...

Have you tried it without the Hammers? Have you tried it without the Lasers? How can you honestly say the deck's consistency isn't affected? You must have a very different definition of consistency than I do.

Does Hammertime really have a problem with PlasmaKlang? I figure energy removal and catcher-stalling would spell doom for the gear-dude. What do lasers add to the match-up?

If you want to play hammers and lasers, I suggest you just play QuadSableye.
 
Vegeta ss4 said:
I can't see how consistency isn't affected, unless you are playing 4 Lasers and 2 Enhanced Hammer. If you are indeed playing 4 Crushing, 2 enhanced and 4 lasers, statistically your statement makes no sense. That's -10 consistency cards, that's a bad number when you factor in Pokemon Catcher, Virbank, Tool Scrapper, and potentially dark claw. That's a lot of inconsistency.
Click to expand...

Well, this is going to be a shocker for you. Here my list:

Darkrai Ex x 4
Sableye x 4
Keldeo x 1

Pokemon: 9

N x 4
Skyla x 4
Juniper x 3

Supporters: 11

Gold Potion x 1
Pokemon Catcher x 4
Hypnotoxic Laser x 4
Virbank City Gym x 2
Crushing Hammer x 4
Enhanced Hammer x 4
Ultra Ball x 3
Dark Patch x 3
Energy Switch x 3
Dark Claw x 2

Trainers: 30

Darkness Energy x 10

Energy: 10

I played this list at my local card store as they were holding a unofficial tournament (at least 100 people, about 75 of them were 20 or over). I ended up coming 2nd, just losing to a red face paint Gothitelle deck because it disabled 30 of my cards:nonono:. This list is very consistent, I find that I don't need Tool Scrapper because Hypnotoxic and Virbank City Gym just go through Eviolite and Dark Claw isn't usually a problem as Darkrai isn't that popular around my area. I haven't played against any Plasma Klinklang builds yet (I own one but no one else does:lol:) so I can't back up my theory about this deck doing OK against Plasma Klinklang but in theory I should be able to keep junk hunting out Catchers while my opponent has to waste his switches and I don't even have to attack because I'm just using Htl and VCG to damage it while I get free junk hunts. Hope this helps the discussion.
 
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