Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

HGSS-on Durant. It eats things.

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ryjacabe

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Article by: ryjacabe
Format: HGSS-on
Posted: November 21, 2011

Durant. It eats your opponents deck.

For starters. I am trying to figure out how to put the picture of the pokemon in this article and I don't know how so any help with that would be very appreciated.

The list:

:pokeball: POKEMON :pokeball:
4 Durant
1 Rotom
2-1 Weavile
8 pokemon

:eek: SUPPORTERS :eek:
4 Pokemon Collector
4 Twins
3 Professor Oaks New Theory
3 Judge
3 Copycat
2 Juniper
1 Flower Shop Lady
20 Supporter

:biggrin: TRAINERS :biggrin:
4 Super Scoop up
4 Eviolite
4 Dual Ball
3 Junk Arm
2 Defender
2 Revive
1 Alph Lithograph (Look at your prizes)
1 Pokemon Catcher
21 Trainers

:metal: ENERGY :metal:
4 Special Metal
6 Basic Metal
1 Rescue
11 Energy

Durant:
This guy is the main attacker. What he does is discard the top card of your opponents deck for each of them you have out. You will be discarding 4 or 3 each turn. If you go first your opponent will have 47 cards in their deck or less if you mulligan. If all your opponent does is draw pass (Which won't be likely to happen) It will take you 10 turns to munch through their deck if you get out 4 Durants from the get go. But it is guaranteed that they will not just draw pass the whole game so this is what makes Durant a faster deck. Lets say they play a collector and a juniper on different turns. They just got rid of 10 cards and now it only takes you 8 turns after two supporters to win the game.

Rotom:
Do you have a spare tire? Probably
Do you use it everyday? No
But aren't you glad you have it when you need it? Yes
That is what Rotom is he is like your safety net if a Durant gets prized. He isn't necessary to have out but when you need him you are definitely going to want him. He lets you swap one of your prizes with your top deck so no more having to worry about taking prizes blindly. Rotom and Alph Lithograph together make an awesome pair.

Weaville:
Insert Tech you like. I personally prefer Weaville because you can sometimes get rid of some clutch cards that your opponent may need. What you do is if you don't have to use Rotom. You just grab 2 Sneasel and you can claw snag on your next turn, super scoop up, claw snag another card. You can use this for getting rid of things like, Halves of a Legend Piece, Rare Candy, Energy they may need, or anything in between. I like him mainly for if they are playing Rayquaza & Deoxys legend you can disrupt this Durant buster.


Pokemon Collector:
For obvious reasons you need this to most efficiently reach the magic number 4 if you start with an active Durant. You also can grab Sneasels or Rotom. Also Collector can be used late game if you used flower shop lady so you can grab your Durants back.

Twins:
Also an obvious choice since you will never pull a prize. You can use twins for grabbing that clutch trainer you need, or a special metal, maybe even another Durant. The choice is yours. Use twins wisely you only get to pick two cards.

Professor Oaks New Theory:
I think that basically every deck should play this because it is a reliable hand refresher. Have all your Durants out and just wanna see something new? Play PONT, you won't be disappointed. Just don't misplay and not play a card that you really should play before using PONT because you may not draw into it.

Judge:
Now this is where my list gets a little different from others. I use judge actually as an early game opener. I plan on Mulliganing 2 to 3 times before getting a basic. If you play first it is a major set back to your opponents sometimes 8 card opening hand. A lot of people like to play cheerleaders cheer. If I didn't play judge I would insert Cheerleaders cheer. And the reason why I play judge over N is because I don't really care to draw 6 cards late game and them draw 1. because if they are down to one prize I am most likely about to win. I would just rather have the disruption of Judge.

Copycat:
For the same reason why you play PONT. Every deck needs draw support and Copycat can sometimes give you a few extra cards or if you don't open with a judge or collector you can play copycat and then copy that 8 card hand that they have.

Juniper:
This is for getting rid of clog trainers if you are playing against Vileplume. I personally don't like having huge 13 card hands so I like to play Juniper. Juniper plays really well also if you play Junkarm because you can get rid of your whole hand a lot of the time. Play the cards you want and then Juniper for a fresh 7.

Flower Shop Lady:
This is something that I recently just added in. It is a good play for if you are playing Vileplume/Gothitelle. If they knock out a Durant you won't be able to play that Revive to bring it back so you are discarding 4 then 3 then 2 and eventually 1. Soon you are left with just Weaville and they have just 2 more prizes to take. Not very fun. So play Flower Shop Lady it will let you grab those Durants back from your discard pile.

Super Scoop Up:
I think they like invented this card for this list of mine. If you are playing Durant and it gets damaged. Play a super scoop up. Need to discard a card from your opponents hand with Weaville? Not a problem. Play super scoop up. Need to get that Rotom out of the active spot after they catcher it to stall? Super Scoop up. It solves a lot of problems.

Eviolite:
This card works well with a whole bunch of cards now and Durant is no exception. Preventing Durant knock outs is as important as discarding your opponents deck. Its like if you watch football and your team has a really crappy defense but a really good offense. It doesn't matter how much you score if your opponent can just return the score every time. So you need to stop clutch knock outs from happening. They could be spreading with Kyurem or they could be attacking with Yanmega. Eviolite will help turn one shots into two shots against speed attackers and negate damage against spread decks.

Dual Ball:
A phenomenal card that I overlooked to play in my very first list. These balls let you grab a possibility of two basics. Even if you are grabbing on average one basic it is still good because you can combo this with Flower Shop Lady or you can play this instead of Collector so you can Judge your opponent. You can grab basics before you Juniper and play them. It is a consistency card that speeds up the deck and it can help in Clutch moments.

Junk Arm:
This card lets you play some of your 1 or 2 card only trainers. Like Catcher and Revive. It also lets you grab discarded Eviolites and extra super scoop ups if you fail at flipping. It works well if you are about to Juniper or Judge so you can play some key trainers before you hand refresh. Just don't misplay and discard a Durant or something crucial.

Defender:
This gives you that extra defense that you may need against stronger attacks such as Magnezones attack to only have to lost zone 2 if you have eviolite. now it needs to lost zone 3. Defender is a tech card though and is not always crucial. It is replaceable.

Revive:
This guarentees that you get your Durants back into play immediately. So no playing around having to search your deck. With revive you will be able to just plop those Durants right where they need to be.

Pokemon Catcher:
This bad boy is meant to stall your opponent. They are playing Ability Emboar? oh catcher that because no one wants that thing active. Even though it one shots Durants. Oh you going to play that switch in your Chandelure deck? well I am going to catcher up a Chandelure with no energy and discard your switch with Weaville. Basically with this card you are going to be Catchering up one of two things. either A) a high retreat Pokemon that they don't want to attack with or B) Something with no energies on it that has a one or two retreat cost. Oddishes are always a good thing to catcher because no one wants their Vileplume active. I only play one because you can normally only stall your opponent once in a game with this and if you have the opportunity to stall again you always have Junkarm.

Special Metal:
You need to play these in pretty much any deck that has a metal Pokemon as a main attacker. It goes back to that whole defensive idea. If you attach one of these to each of your Durants and have an Eviolite on all of them it completely negates Kyurem.

Basic Metal:
Because you need to play more then 4 energy in this deck obviously.

Rescue:
Same principle behind playing Revive. It is just another option to get your Durant back.

MATCH UPS!

Reshiram/Typhlosion: 20% chance against it. This deck was just meant to counter Durant. You discard their energies well Typhlosion is just going to get them back and typically they won't have to worry about stacking damage on reshiram because you aren't attacking. so after they get 4 damage on Reshiram it is easy kills for them from there on out. If you are playing against this deck I advise you go for discarding Typhlosions with Weaville and you need a lot of praying.

Note: Almost anything fire will have a distinctive advantage over you so don't be surprise if you are getting one shotted. I mean even Roast Reveal Ninetails is packing 120 damage to your 70 HP Durant

TrainerLock: 30% chance against it. Trainer locks are really difficult to beat especially if they are playing special conditions with trainer locking. They paralyze a Durant you can't attack. They knock you out next turn. You can't play revive. I edited my list a lot from when I first built it so now it can stand up to trainerlocks better but it is still a slim chance of winning.

Yanmega/Donphan: 80% chance against it. This is an easy match up because you have eviolites at your side you have special metals you can catcher Donphan since Donphan is typically a worse attacker then mega. Its a pretty easy match up.

Kyurem builds: 70% chance against it. A little more challenging then the Yanmega/Donphan match up but it varies. If it is straight Kyurem with Feraligatr they can literally only 2 shot you with F-Gatr. Kyurem spread will take multiple turns to build up but if you can get a special on each Durant and an Eviolite its game over. If they are playing Blastoise in it however they will be able to knock your durants fairly easy but you can just come back and Blastoise typically takes a little longer to set up so you will have more turns to discard from their deck.

I don't really know what the Metagame is right now but these are just decks that I know have been big and may get big. If there is more decks that you want match ups for just comment on it and I will add them. I really want to put in picture on this article also. I hope you enjoyed the read.
 
N can be used successfully both early and late, just for different reasons. It's not too effective mid game other than for general hand disruption.
 
Is it me, or am I the only one who thinks that Durant ought to be maxing out on Eviolite and Defender, or at least something like 3 of each?

I feel like the deck ought to play more than 1 Rotom, IN CASE your "spare tire" gets prized. If that happens, you're just outright hosed if you've prized it and at least one Durant.

I'm speaking all theory, as I actually haven't given any Durant list a spin yet.
 
Is it me, or am I the only one who thinks that Durant ought to be maxing out on Eviolite and Defender, or at least something like 3 of each?

I feel like the deck ought to play more than 1 Rotom, IN CASE your "spare tire" gets prized. If that happens, you're just outright hosed if you've prized it and at least one Durant.

I'm speaking all theory, as I actually haven't given any Durant list a spin yet.

The chances of that happening are rather slim, and I've only had that happen once, and that was a game of solitaire. You'll rarely prize the Rotom and Durant at the same time.
 
The chances of that happening are rather slim, and I've only had that happen once, and that was a game of solitaire. You'll rarely prize the Rotom and Durant at the same time.

you have (I forgot the exact numbers so you mathematicians have a field day here) approx 10% chance of prizing your lone Rotom. Less than 1% of prizing 2 if you have a pair in the deck. If you are fine with a near auto-loss 1 out of every 10 games you play, then I can respect that. I would prefer 1 in 100 myself.

Anything important to the overall strategy of any deck (especially those which are designed to take no prizes) should have 2 copies minimum. Goes for your Weavile as well.
 
ryjacabe said:
I am trying to figure out how to put the picture of the pokemon in this article and I don't know how so any help with that would be very appreciated.

I'm not sure if you can have pictures in normal articles(am new still reading up on all this stuff) this forum uses bbc so if it is not disabled images would be added using
tags. =] Seeing as how they are likely disabled this won't help much. ^_^ I hope this isn't too irrelevant to the post in general.
 
you have (I forgot the exact numbers so you mathematicians have a field day here) approx 10% chance of prizing your lone Rotom. Less than 1% of prizing 2 if you have a pair in the deck. If you are fine with a near auto-loss 1 out of every 10 games you play, then I can respect that. I would prefer 1 in 100 myself.

Anything important to the overall strategy of any deck (especially those which are designed to take no prizes) should have 2 copies minimum. Goes for your Weavile as well.

Yes, but prizing Rotom in of itself isn't a problem, it's when Durant is prized too. I'm not saying it's a bad choice, just that it isn't completely necessary. On top of that playing 2 Rotom increases your chances of starting with it, which I have enough bad luck as it is with starting with the lone Rotom every so often, and I don't want that threat increased personally.

It's still something worth noting though.
 
One thing, using Pokemon Catcher on Abilityboar might not be the best idea. Once you get enough energy on it, it is a more energy efficient attacker than Reshiram, not needing to discard to wreck Durant.
 
You can add links to the cards by adding in this next line - but take out the space beside "URL"

[url =http://pokegym.net/gallery/showimage.php?i=52573&catid=searchresults&searchid=9180]Durant[/url]


In that case I surfed to find the picture of Durant in the gallery and copied the address in the address bar after the characters "[url =" (again, without the space afterwards) and a bracket, added the actual name of the card so people know what the link was for, then added the ending to the link . When you submit the post the link will look like this: Durant

I hope that helps. It won't give you the pics in the article, but it will help put links to where people can see the cards.
 
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There are lots of ways to run Durant (as I've seen just browsing forums) and the best I've seen in testing is without Eviolite or Defender since its actually hard to keep Surant from getting KO'ed anyway, and at that point your better off playing more cards used to recover the Durant instead of trying to prevent a KO.
 
...the best I've seen in testing is without Eviolite or Defender...

They are in the deck for early game to keep an ant alive for an extra turn or two and to prevent the wrecking ball that is Kyurem. A list without Eviolite especially won't do well in tournaments.
 
They are in the deck for early game to keep an ant alive for an extra turn or two and to prevent the wrecking ball that is Kyurem. A list without Eviolite especially won't do well in tournaments.

:shrugs:
Each to their own. I'm undefeated in my testing vs everything except one ZPST game where I prized 3 Durant...

But again, arguing it is useless....
 
:shrugs:
Each to their own. I'm undefeated in my testing vs everything except one ZPST game where I prized 3 Durant...

But again, arguing it is useless....

How many games did you play? And what decks, and how many games for each. I'm interested to see how your deck faired.
 
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