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Gyarados: The Atrocious Pokémon
Gyarados was made famous by Fabien Garnier after he placed 5th at the 2009 World Championship. The deck has become even more powerful with the release of the Arceus set, giving the Atrocious Pokémon the ability to consistently deal 110 damage for no energy. This list is largely metagame-agnostic, because Gyarados naturally handles many of the threats in the current format, and because not much can be done to salvage what few bad matchups it has without sacrificing the overall flow of the deck.
Author: Joey Gannon
Date: January 5, 2010
Format: DP-AR
Division: Masters
Pokémon:
4x Magikarp SF
3x Gyarados SF
4x Sableye SF
1x Regice LA
1x Combee SF
1x Baltoy GE
1x Claydol GE
1x Uxie LA
1x Azelf LA
1x Chatot MD
1x Crobat G PL
1x Unown G GE
Trainers:
1x Bebe's Search
3x Broken Time-Space
1x Cynthia's Feelings
3x Expert Belt
3x Felicity's Drawing
1x Luxury Ball
4x Poké Healer +
3x Pokémon Rescue
3x PlusPower
4x Roseanne's Research
4x Super Scoop Up
1x Time-Space Distortion
2x Warp Point
Energy:
4x Call Energy
1x Cyclone Energy
2x Darkness Energy (basic)
Strategy
Start with Sableye, or use Call Energy to get a Sableye. Start attacking with Impersonate, first using Roseanne to get Magikarps into your hand, and then using Felicity to dump them into your discard pile. Build a Gyarados on your bench, bring it up, and start swinging with Tail Revenge for massive damage, adding an Expert Belt when necessary. Once your Gyarados is knocked out, use a combination of Broken Time-Space and recovery cards to assemble another one immediately. Uxie should be used as early as possible, and Claydol shouldn't be used at all if you can set up without it, because you'll spend most of the game with a 10-15 card hand.
Magikarp SF is the best Magikarp for the deck. If you are stuck with a Magikarp start and no Call Energy, Sea Spray may be your only chance to start digging your way out. Hopefully you'll never end up with one of these guys active.
Regice LA gives you another option for discarding Magikarps, and its power lets you play around Spiritomb AR and Mr. Mime MT, which otherwise would bring this deck to a standstill.
Combee SF is a searchable way to recover a Magikarp from the discard after your Gyarados has been knocked out, and it's the only way guaranteed to get around both power lock and trainer lock. It's also guaranteed to get puzzled looks from many opponents, particularly if they think you're calling them "honey".
Chatot MD sure beats starting with a Magikarp, and you can retreat for free into Sableye if you're going second and have a Roseanne in hand. Mimic is useful mid-game if your recovery options stall out. Since your energy is largely useless after you're set up, there's no harm in attaching one to Chatot and threatening the Chatter lock to discourage your opponent's use of Spiritomb.
Crobat G PL is used as a searchable PlusPower, and is also a better starter than Magikarp. Since the focus of the deck is taking down the Defending Pokémon in one hit, his power is not as useful as it is in decks that spread damage around. As such, I've opted to omit Poké Turn in favor of PlusPower.
Unown G GE is used primarily to keep Regice or Claydol from getting dragged active by cards like Blaziken FB SV and Trapinch SW, where they would be stuck because of their high retreat cost. Unlike most decks, GUARDing your Claydol when playing against Gengar SF is not a top priority, because you likely won't need it after the first few turns, and it opens the door for a Relicanth SV tech to cause problems later on.
Expert Belt is the only card in this deck from a set since Platinum, and it's the reason why this deck has become even more viable. It transforms Gyarados into a 150HP beast who deals 110 damage without any energy. The extra prize given up when Gyarados is eventually knocked out is more than recompensed by the vast number of Pokémon it allows you to OHKO.
Poké Healer + is crucial for healing a damaged Gyarados, particularly when it saves you from giving up two prizes. Turning a 2HKO into a 3HKO keeps the prize balance firmly in your favor, and gives you one extra turn without having to lay down Broken Time-Space. Singleton Healers can also be key in removing special conditions, since Gyarados isn't always easy to move to the bench.
Super Scoop Up has many uses in this deck, so it's important to use them conservatively. They can fully heal a Gyarados, which can be put back into play with Broken Time-Space. They can allow an extra use of Azelf when you prize multiple Magikarps, Crobat G when you don't have enough PlusPowers, Combee when you have no other outs to recover a Magikarp, or Uxie/Claydol when your hand size has dropped. They can rescue Regice or Claydol from the active position without having to send the Defending Pokémon to the bench with Warp Point. It's a veritable Swiss army knife.
Time-Space Distortion could be replaced with a fourth Pokémon Rescue, but I feel like the reward far outweighs the risk. With so many recovery options available, it makes running a fourth Gyarados superfluous.
Call Energy is the best option for bailing out of a Magikarp start, so there's really no choice but to run four. You'll likely end up one turn and one prize behind where you'd have been with a Sableye start, but at least your opponent will do you the favor of putting a Magikarp into the discard.
Cyclone Energy gives you another option to get around Spiritomb and Mr. Mime, and it's not susceptible to power lock. Super Scoop Up can give you a chance to reuse it if necessary.
Darkness Energy is searchable, making it easier to retreat in a pinch. It also opens the possibility of a first-turn donk with Sableye's Overconfident, and allows Sableye to attack later in the game when you need an extra turn to set up a new Gyarados, or when you'd rather not have Gyarados be the target of Gengar's Fainting Spell.
Good Ideas
Suicune SW: It's just like a Time-Space Distortion, except there's no flipping, and it's searchable. Since this deck features such minimal Poké-Power usage, you can almost guarantee that Aqua Recover will be blocked by Power Spray when playing against SP decks. Otherwise, this is an excellent choice.
Bebe's Search: I have yet to find myself in a position where I couldn't either draw into a Gyarados or Impersonate for my lone Bebe, but I can imagine it happening. It's easily one of the three best Supporters in the format, and the 61st card in this deck would definitely be another one of these.
Luxray GL Lv.X: This is the best answer to hit-and-run cards like Gengar AR and Gliscor LA. It's worth consideration if your metagame is full of such decks, but the Trainer list would require a major overhaul to support it effectively, which comes at the expense of early-game consistency.
Bad Ideas
Toxicroak G promo: This card was in Fabien's list because it was hands down the best Luxray GL counter in the DP-RR format. Now that Gyarados can do 110 damage, the best counter is simply more Gyarados, so there's no need for Toxicroak G.
Floatzel GL Lv.X: It's tempting to replace some of the recovery cards with a 1-1 line of Floatzel GL, so that the Magikarp, Gyarados, and Expert Belt all automatically come back to your hand after being KOed. The downside is that you'd likely need more setup cards to get it out consistently, it does nothing if you get knocked out by something other than damage, and it gets shut down by both Gengar Lv.X and Flygon Lv.X. I wouldn't recommend it.
Matchups
These are the matchups I feel qualified to speak toward from experience playing with or against the deck, and they cover the vast majority of what has been seen at the top tables this season. If you have feedback regarding other matchups, please leave a comment.
Dialga G/Garchomp C: SLIGHTLY FAVORABLE. I know I'm going to hear from Fulop about this, but I'm confident that Gyarados has the edge. There are enough tools here to take down even a tanked Dialga G in one hit, and there's nothing that can come close to OHKOing you in return. Healing Breath does nothing for them, because there's no reason you should be leaving any damage on their field. The biggest risk is getting KOed by Deafen, because it locks down your ability to recover quickly (or at all).
Flygon/Machamp: FAVORABLE. Machamp is total dead weight if they miss the donk, because Machamp Lv.X would need all four heads on a Hurricane Punch to OHKO a Gyarados with an Expert Belt. Playing Broken Time-Space conservatively is key, but Warp Point and Cyclone Energy give you a chance to attack even after being Sand Walled. Don't have Claydol and Regice down at the same time, and use GUARD to protect against getting trapped.
Gardevoir/Gallade: FAVORABLE. Gallade needs to flip six prizes to OHKO a Gyarados with an Expert Belt, and Psychic Lock is underpowered and not particularly disruptive. Three-energy attacks are just too slow to keep up.
Gengar/Gengar: UNFAVORABLE. The one upside is that there aren't many targets for Shadow Room, but everything else makes this matchup ugly. You have very few outs around Fainting Spell. Poltergeist will hit for absurdly high damage against your enormous hand, and burying cards with Claydol or Regice ruins your healing and recovery in the long run. Shadow Skip lets them 2HKO you with an Expert Belt while hiding behind Spiritomb. It's not pretty.
Luxray GL/Blaziken FB: EVEN. Their early game speed puts you at a disadvantage, since you usually need two or three turns with Sableye to get set up, and there's not much you can do if this gets disrupted. Once you have three Magikarp in the discard, you'll trade OHKOs with Luxray GL, and pull away in the long run due to superior recovery power. Replacing Blaziken FB with Infernape 4 has negligible impact on the matchup, whereas Garchomp C tilts it slightly in your favor.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jeanette Stringer and Chris Fulop for inspiring me to build out this deck, and to A.J. Schumacher for pointing out some of my oversights.
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