MrScaryMuffin
New Member
About the deck
Prior to the first battle roads, I saw the Hydreigon/Darkrai deck that won the Sendai Spring Carnival tournament and I really liked the concept. I tried making a pure Steelix/Klinklang variant and a pure Cobalion/Klinklang variant with Darkrais teched in. However, testing quickly revealed that Steelix would never last against a Mewtwo and that Cobalion’s Iron Breaker lock was too easy to get out of.
With the Darkrais already teched in, the deck quickly evolved into a toolbox deck with the additions of Terrakion, Kyurem EX, and Mewtwo. Going into the first BRs, I felt that my list was pretty tight and I managed to convince one of my friends to pilot my list as well.
Unfortunately, I ran into terrible dry spells throughout the day. The worst was in the crucial round 5 where I did not hit a draw supporter for the first five turns. It also didn’t help that I flipped 16 Dual Balls that day and got double tails 12 times, double heads twice, and 50-50 twice. However, the fact that I ended the day 4-2 in spite of my bad luck convinced me that I was on the right track. Additionally, my co-pilot got second place after swiss but lost in the top four of top cut after whiffing energy off PONT in sudden death.
What to play?
I was actually quite surprised to see Klinklang explode in exposure after the first week of BRs. For once, I thought I had stumbled upon something unique, but I guess great minds think alike! I took great care to follow what other people had to say about the deck and concept. It was interesting to compare my notes and lines with other people. In the end, however, the consensus was that the deck died to energy removal, especially Lost Remover.
For a few days, I was ready to play Hammerrai (Like Samurai, but with hammers). I knew a few people wanted to try out the Klinklang deck and Darkrai/Sableye with hammers and Lost Removers would have a field day. However, I’ve never really felt comfortable playing meta.
Also, I wasn’t quite ready to call it quits on Klinklang. I borrowed a page from Ross and tossed in Vileplume to see how things went and I was quite impressed! The ability to rotate attackers was great and Klinklang had an advantage over Reuniclus in that its Basic form wouldn’t die from Night Spear. Once again, I did the most that I could do with the list on my own. This time, I would be the only person piloting the deck. Maybe I would have had a better time convincing other people to hop on the train if I didn’t built the deck the night before!
Round 1 vs. David (Reshiboar)
David was a Pokedad, but he had a pretty consistent deck in Reshiboar. I was and wasn’t worried at the same time. My deck was designed to handle meta decks so this was outside of my comfort zone. At the same time, David was a fairly new player and that was an advantage that I had.
I Collector’d early for Darkrai and Smeargle and retreated my active to Portrait. However, David kept only Cilans in his hand between turns and I didn’t have basic energies that I could get to thin out my deck. Still, I managed to get Vileplume up by T3 or T4 using Twins after my Smeargle died. I 2HKO his Reshiram using Terrakion and left him with just two Pignites and a hand full of energies and trainers that he couldn’t use. The following turn, I Seeker’d the plume and communicated for a Kyurem to take the win.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Simon (Brown.dec)
It’s Simon again! This report is dedicated to Simon, who always asks me to write them. Since this isn’t really a winning report, I’m certain that he’ll be the only person reading this.
In either case, Simon was running a semi-rogue deck that focused on taking advantage of the shared weaknesses of the top two meta decks. Early on, he abused his hammers and Lost Removers to keep my field void of energies. My Smeargle died fairly early and the other was prized. I unfortunately ran dry and couldn’t get a Vileplume up until Simon grabbed four prizes. I rotated Terrakion and Cobalion around as much as I could while I fished desperately to get my energies on the field again.
Finally, it fell on Shaymin EX to help me make a comeback. After I KO’d a Donphan, Simon promotes Hipppowdon and swings for 50, moving an energy over to a benched Terrakion. I noted that Simon did not play an energy down that turn and, lacking an N I opted to risk that he would not top deck the energy needed for Retaliate and KO’d the hippo. Unfortunately, Simon was bluffing! He had the energy the whole time and took his last two prizes with the KO on Shaymin EX.
1-1
Round 3 vs. Joseph (Darkrai/Terrakion)
Joseph was already somewhat familiar with my Klinklang deck. I played against his Entei deck in the first BR and Kyurem EX ruined his day. This time around, he was looking to get revenge. Unfortunately T2 Vileplume threw a wrench into his plans! During the limited time that he had, he did manage to power up one Darkrai on the bench and had to attach manually to his Smeargle to retreat.
While I traded blows with his Darkrai, he manually set up his Terrakion. However, after that, he had no more energies on the field. Even after using Portrait into Twins, he found that most of his energies were discarded or prized and he could only get two energies down on a Darkrai, at which point he scooped. Sorry Joe!
2-1
Round 4 vs. Alicia (Eels)
Alicia was another beginner player who was having a great first tournament. Much better than my first tournament! Alicia also seemed to be running into draw supporter issues as I Portrait into nothing twice. However, I did have my own draw supporters and baited a KO so that I could activate Twins and get my Vileplume up while she only had one Eel and some attackers that Terrakion made short work of.
3-1
Round 5 vs. Dylan (Darkrai/Sableye)
Similar to the match up against Simon, my energies never stayed on the field for more than a turn. Dylan’s Sableye kept his Lost Removers in play. Every time he used a shuffle draw supporter I would chance an energy, but after losing the third one I just stopped trying altogether. Instead, I focused on getting Vileplume up, which seemed to take forever. This was mainly because Dylan used his catchers to spread damage around and never let me activate Twins. I also foolishly filled up my bench and had no room to drop a Darkrai to retreat my active into a Smeargle. I will never make this mistake again!
When I finally got Vileplume up, Dylan took the KO on Groudon and Terrakion for three prizes and followed up with another KO for his fourth prize. I had burned all my Collectors when attempting to thin my deck and I knew that my second Terrakion was prized. I had Cobalion and a damaged Darkrai on the board and tried to buy some time with Cobalion’s Iron Breaker. Despite the special Dark energies and Dark Claws on the field, neither of Dylan’s benched Darkrais could OHKO my Cobalion. However, the active Darkrai could…except that Iron Breaker prevented it from attacking. Whether Dylan was eager to finish the match or simply forgot about Iron Breaker, I wouldn’t know. But he announced his attack on Cobalion and the benched Oddish with 30 damage for the double KO.
Unfortunately, since he announced an invalid attack and could do no other attack due to Iron Breaker, Dylan had to pass his turn. This allowed me to Seeker up the damaged Darkrai and KO his Darkrai. I luckily got my Terrakion off the prizes. Dylan returned with an attack of his own, but could not OHKO anything. I used a Rainbow energy to KO my benched Oddish and free up bench space for the Terrakion and OHKO his Darkrai with Land Crush, at which point he scooped.
After the match, one of the spectators pointed out that my benched Kyurem EX was within sniping range of Dark Spear. Dylan had enough turns to kill it for the win but scooped early. I really got lucky in this match, twice over! I did feel bad for not letting him take back his attack and let him keep the two Crushing Hammers that he borrowed from me earlier in the day.
4-1
Round 6 vs. Lourence (Brown.dec)
A different all fighting deck! Lourence was 3-2 at this point, so I got paired down. He started Groudon and proceeded to Tromp as much as he could. Unfortunately, that wasn’t very much as I got Vileplume up T2 to bar any Exp. Shares from going down. I had discarded a Klang from a Sage earlier and Collector showed that my other one was prized. So I sacrificed my Smeargle and activated Twins to grab two Rare Candies and benched an Oddish for the Seeker play next turn, hoping that he did not have an N.
Luckily he did not and I Seekered the Vileplume and candied my Klinklang and Vileplume and proceeded to roll his deck with Kyurem EX and Vileplume. Yes, Vileplume OHKOs Terrakion on flip! With no energies on the field and no way to wall damage, Lourence scooped early.
5-1
Will I cut?
Nope. I knew early on that my chances were slim to none. I played several beginners, so my resistance was terrible, and the other players that I played against didn’t do well either. Around the fourth round, I focused on testing my deck in a competitive setting and took note of things that worked and things that didn’t work.
Early Vileplume is simply too strong in the current meta. I really need to find a way to get it out reliably. From my testing, as long as I can get it out before my opponent takes four prizes, I should have enough room to comfortably make the comeback win. Most of the lines in the deck is already pretty tight, but I do have about 2-4 card slots to work with. I’m not sure if I’ll be playing this deck again next week. It will be the final tournament of the season for me since I’m not planning to go to Nats or Worlds this year. I may take the deck underground to test with some friends who are going and help them pilot some stuff that they want tested in the field instead.
Prior to the first battle roads, I saw the Hydreigon/Darkrai deck that won the Sendai Spring Carnival tournament and I really liked the concept. I tried making a pure Steelix/Klinklang variant and a pure Cobalion/Klinklang variant with Darkrais teched in. However, testing quickly revealed that Steelix would never last against a Mewtwo and that Cobalion’s Iron Breaker lock was too easy to get out of.
With the Darkrais already teched in, the deck quickly evolved into a toolbox deck with the additions of Terrakion, Kyurem EX, and Mewtwo. Going into the first BRs, I felt that my list was pretty tight and I managed to convince one of my friends to pilot my list as well.
Unfortunately, I ran into terrible dry spells throughout the day. The worst was in the crucial round 5 where I did not hit a draw supporter for the first five turns. It also didn’t help that I flipped 16 Dual Balls that day and got double tails 12 times, double heads twice, and 50-50 twice. However, the fact that I ended the day 4-2 in spite of my bad luck convinced me that I was on the right track. Additionally, my co-pilot got second place after swiss but lost in the top four of top cut after whiffing energy off PONT in sudden death.
What to play?
I was actually quite surprised to see Klinklang explode in exposure after the first week of BRs. For once, I thought I had stumbled upon something unique, but I guess great minds think alike! I took great care to follow what other people had to say about the deck and concept. It was interesting to compare my notes and lines with other people. In the end, however, the consensus was that the deck died to energy removal, especially Lost Remover.
For a few days, I was ready to play Hammerrai (Like Samurai, but with hammers). I knew a few people wanted to try out the Klinklang deck and Darkrai/Sableye with hammers and Lost Removers would have a field day. However, I’ve never really felt comfortable playing meta.
Also, I wasn’t quite ready to call it quits on Klinklang. I borrowed a page from Ross and tossed in Vileplume to see how things went and I was quite impressed! The ability to rotate attackers was great and Klinklang had an advantage over Reuniclus in that its Basic form wouldn’t die from Night Spear. Once again, I did the most that I could do with the list on my own. This time, I would be the only person piloting the deck. Maybe I would have had a better time convincing other people to hop on the train if I didn’t built the deck the night before!
Round 1 vs. David (Reshiboar)
David was a Pokedad, but he had a pretty consistent deck in Reshiboar. I was and wasn’t worried at the same time. My deck was designed to handle meta decks so this was outside of my comfort zone. At the same time, David was a fairly new player and that was an advantage that I had.
I Collector’d early for Darkrai and Smeargle and retreated my active to Portrait. However, David kept only Cilans in his hand between turns and I didn’t have basic energies that I could get to thin out my deck. Still, I managed to get Vileplume up by T3 or T4 using Twins after my Smeargle died. I 2HKO his Reshiram using Terrakion and left him with just two Pignites and a hand full of energies and trainers that he couldn’t use. The following turn, I Seeker’d the plume and communicated for a Kyurem to take the win.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Simon (Brown.dec)
It’s Simon again! This report is dedicated to Simon, who always asks me to write them. Since this isn’t really a winning report, I’m certain that he’ll be the only person reading this.
In either case, Simon was running a semi-rogue deck that focused on taking advantage of the shared weaknesses of the top two meta decks. Early on, he abused his hammers and Lost Removers to keep my field void of energies. My Smeargle died fairly early and the other was prized. I unfortunately ran dry and couldn’t get a Vileplume up until Simon grabbed four prizes. I rotated Terrakion and Cobalion around as much as I could while I fished desperately to get my energies on the field again.
Finally, it fell on Shaymin EX to help me make a comeback. After I KO’d a Donphan, Simon promotes Hipppowdon and swings for 50, moving an energy over to a benched Terrakion. I noted that Simon did not play an energy down that turn and, lacking an N I opted to risk that he would not top deck the energy needed for Retaliate and KO’d the hippo. Unfortunately, Simon was bluffing! He had the energy the whole time and took his last two prizes with the KO on Shaymin EX.
1-1
Round 3 vs. Joseph (Darkrai/Terrakion)
Joseph was already somewhat familiar with my Klinklang deck. I played against his Entei deck in the first BR and Kyurem EX ruined his day. This time around, he was looking to get revenge. Unfortunately T2 Vileplume threw a wrench into his plans! During the limited time that he had, he did manage to power up one Darkrai on the bench and had to attach manually to his Smeargle to retreat.
While I traded blows with his Darkrai, he manually set up his Terrakion. However, after that, he had no more energies on the field. Even after using Portrait into Twins, he found that most of his energies were discarded or prized and he could only get two energies down on a Darkrai, at which point he scooped. Sorry Joe!
2-1
Round 4 vs. Alicia (Eels)
Alicia was another beginner player who was having a great first tournament. Much better than my first tournament! Alicia also seemed to be running into draw supporter issues as I Portrait into nothing twice. However, I did have my own draw supporters and baited a KO so that I could activate Twins and get my Vileplume up while she only had one Eel and some attackers that Terrakion made short work of.
3-1
Round 5 vs. Dylan (Darkrai/Sableye)
Similar to the match up against Simon, my energies never stayed on the field for more than a turn. Dylan’s Sableye kept his Lost Removers in play. Every time he used a shuffle draw supporter I would chance an energy, but after losing the third one I just stopped trying altogether. Instead, I focused on getting Vileplume up, which seemed to take forever. This was mainly because Dylan used his catchers to spread damage around and never let me activate Twins. I also foolishly filled up my bench and had no room to drop a Darkrai to retreat my active into a Smeargle. I will never make this mistake again!
When I finally got Vileplume up, Dylan took the KO on Groudon and Terrakion for three prizes and followed up with another KO for his fourth prize. I had burned all my Collectors when attempting to thin my deck and I knew that my second Terrakion was prized. I had Cobalion and a damaged Darkrai on the board and tried to buy some time with Cobalion’s Iron Breaker. Despite the special Dark energies and Dark Claws on the field, neither of Dylan’s benched Darkrais could OHKO my Cobalion. However, the active Darkrai could…except that Iron Breaker prevented it from attacking. Whether Dylan was eager to finish the match or simply forgot about Iron Breaker, I wouldn’t know. But he announced his attack on Cobalion and the benched Oddish with 30 damage for the double KO.
Unfortunately, since he announced an invalid attack and could do no other attack due to Iron Breaker, Dylan had to pass his turn. This allowed me to Seeker up the damaged Darkrai and KO his Darkrai. I luckily got my Terrakion off the prizes. Dylan returned with an attack of his own, but could not OHKO anything. I used a Rainbow energy to KO my benched Oddish and free up bench space for the Terrakion and OHKO his Darkrai with Land Crush, at which point he scooped.
After the match, one of the spectators pointed out that my benched Kyurem EX was within sniping range of Dark Spear. Dylan had enough turns to kill it for the win but scooped early. I really got lucky in this match, twice over! I did feel bad for not letting him take back his attack and let him keep the two Crushing Hammers that he borrowed from me earlier in the day.
4-1
Round 6 vs. Lourence (Brown.dec)
A different all fighting deck! Lourence was 3-2 at this point, so I got paired down. He started Groudon and proceeded to Tromp as much as he could. Unfortunately, that wasn’t very much as I got Vileplume up T2 to bar any Exp. Shares from going down. I had discarded a Klang from a Sage earlier and Collector showed that my other one was prized. So I sacrificed my Smeargle and activated Twins to grab two Rare Candies and benched an Oddish for the Seeker play next turn, hoping that he did not have an N.
Luckily he did not and I Seekered the Vileplume and candied my Klinklang and Vileplume and proceeded to roll his deck with Kyurem EX and Vileplume. Yes, Vileplume OHKOs Terrakion on flip! With no energies on the field and no way to wall damage, Lourence scooped early.
5-1
Will I cut?
Nope. I knew early on that my chances were slim to none. I played several beginners, so my resistance was terrible, and the other players that I played against didn’t do well either. Around the fourth round, I focused on testing my deck in a competitive setting and took note of things that worked and things that didn’t work.
Early Vileplume is simply too strong in the current meta. I really need to find a way to get it out reliably. From my testing, as long as I can get it out before my opponent takes four prizes, I should have enough room to comfortably make the comeback win. Most of the lines in the deck is already pretty tight, but I do have about 2-4 card slots to work with. I’m not sure if I’ll be playing this deck again next week. It will be the final tournament of the season for me since I’m not planning to go to Nats or Worlds this year. I may take the deck underground to test with some friends who are going and help them pilot some stuff that they want tested in the field instead.
