Prof. Amphy#1's New Theory: GRD (Gothitelle, Reuniclus, Dragons)

[amphy#1]

Prof. Amphy#1's New Theory: GRD

Wuz up Poke Gym!! I'm back with another smashing deck article!! The prereleases are over, and everyone is still scrambling to get the new cards for their decks. Emerging Powers only gave us a couple of really good cards to work with, and they are pretty hard to come by, unless you spend a lot of money. 2 of those cards are going to be explained, and used in this deck. That brings me to my first point.

Gothitelle#47

First, lets go over what it does. Gothitelle, is a Psychic type, stage 2 Pokemon, with 130 HP, that has an ability that says, that if she's your active Pokemon, your opponent can't play any Item(Trainer) cards. It also has 1 attack for 3 Colorless Energy that says, 30+. You can do 20 more damage for each Psychic Energy attached to Gothitelle. Lets go over its ability first. With her being in the active spot, you can stop your opponent cold in their tracks. No Catcher, no PlusPower, no Rare Candy, No Junk Arm, etc... It's literally game breaking!!

Now her attack is not so game breaking. You CAN use a Double Colorless Energy, and a Psychic Energy to power it up quickly, but you'll be only doing 50 damage. That's not really good in a format full of powerful basics, and stage 1's. That only leaves you with attaching 3 psychic Energies to it, for 90 damage, and that takes 3 turns, which is too long for some people. It also has a weakness to Psychic, and a retreat cost of 2. There's not really any other psychic types being used right now, unless you face a mirror match.

And why would you want to retreat something that stops your opponent from using trainers? Being a Stage 2 means that it's going to take some turns to get her out which could be a problem, if your opponent KO'S you before you get it evolved and active. It's pretty good that it has 130 HP. It can't be KOed easily. But it would still take a lot of damage, and put pressure on you to get out another one powered up on the bench. That brings me to my next point.

Reuniclus

Reuniclus is only used for 1 thing. Moving counters around with its Poke-Power. It's a 90 hp, Psychic type, that has a Mediocre attack. In this deck, it'll sit on the bench and move the counters off of Gothitelle, and on to one of the dragons Zeckrom, and Reshiram.

This is what makes Gothitelle more annoying when playing against it. It is a stage 2, so takes some time to set up, but it can be done. The 2nd place deck at worlds used it to move damage of of its Pokemon onto the dragons as well. This is sorta like that, but with an EP twist on it.

Outrage

Yup, you guessed it. Reshiram and Zekrom's 1st attack that doesn't get used that much, is the only attack this deck will consider using. For the simple fact that you're moving damage to them with Reuniclus, they'll have enough damage on them to KO just about anything. The only down side to this, is that if you do attack with it, then you'll lose the trainer lock for a turn, which is crucial to keep going to keep your opponent at bay.

Nevertheless, it's a great attack that this deck can take advantage of. With only needing 1 Double Colorless Energy, you can easily power it up when you need to. It's great for stalling when you're trying to get another Goth out, and powered up on the bench. With that said, it will be totally up to you weather you want to capitalize on this strategy, or not.

Seeker/Max Potion

These are the 2 cards that will annoy your opponent even further when playing against them. Seeker lets you pick up a Pokemon on the bench, and put it back in your hand. This takes off all the damage on it. Using it on either dragon, when they have a lot of damage on them is a pretty epic play, considering that you can just put it right back down on the bench fully healed, and ready to soak up more damage.

Now Max Potion is one of the new cards from Emerging Powers, that let's you heal all the damage counters from one of your Pokemon, at the cost of discarding all your energy attached to it. This is also great with the dragons, seeing that you won't attach an energy, unless your attacking with them. So you can just heal the damage off of them without discarding anything, which is broken with this decks strategy. the only downside to this is running into other trainer-locking decks. With most of them being stage 2 Pokemon, I don't think it's a real problem.

Catcher

With this card it makes it that much easier to KO your opponent. With 3 Psychic Energies on Gothitelle, and only doing 90 damage, you're not going to OHKO anything over that. So you'll just bring up someone weaker, or with the same HP as that with Catcher, and knock them out. With 90 damage, you get over basics, (except the dragons) and stage 1's with 90 or less, which makes Catcher broken in this deck. Especially since you can use yours, and your opponent can't use his, because they are locked.

GRD

Pokemon-18
3. Gothitelle#47
2. Gothorita
3. Gothita
2. Reshiram
2. Zekrom
2. Reuniclus
1. Duosion
2. Solosis
1. Cleffa/Manaphy

Trainers-31
4. Pokemon Collector
3. Professor Juniper
3. Professor Oak's New Theory
2. Professor Elm's Training Method
2. Twins
2. Seeker/Max Potion
1. Flower Shop Lady
4. Rare Candy
3. Junk Arm
3. Catcher
2. Pokemon Communication
2. Max Potion/Seeker

Energy-11
11. Psychic Energy

Techs

Manaphy UL, or Cleffa? It's totally up to you what you want to play with. With Cleffa's low HP, it will get KOed quickly by just about anything if it wakes up at the wrong time, or it gets sniped off by Yamega Prime. Manaphy has more HP, but requires you to attach an energy for it to use it's attack. Energy attachments are crucial to this deck, as you will need to manually attach them to Gothitelle. She needs at least 3 to be succesfull, and it takes 3 turns to do so. Just something to think about.

If you fear trainer lock, then play with more Seeker. It totally depends on the meta in your area. As for playing DCE for Outrage with the dragons is your choice also. If you can do it without giving up too much advantage on the trainer lock, then congrats to you.

Conclusion

With Emerging Powers now out, this is one of the many new strategies you'll see. With 2 of the most talked about cards out of the set, Catcher, and Gothitelle#47. You might just see it at the top tables at Battle Roads. Comment, and rate this however you want. We can only grow stronger by that which we don't know yet, and what we don't know, won't kill us. That's what we are here to learn. Until next time, Amphy#1 out!!