Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Beartic/Vileplume Ideas?

S

ShiningLion

New Member
I am going to attempt to build a Beartic/Vileplume deck. The following Pokemon are ones that I absolutely WILL use, but I'd like some help deciding on the rest.

WILL USE:

4 Cubchoo (28/98)
4 Beartic (30/98)
2 or 3 Oddish
1 or 2 Gloom
2 Vileplume

OPTIONAL POKEMON:

Bellossom
Zoroark
Manaphy
Mantine
Basculine (EP:24/98)
Dodrio
Others?

STRATEGY:

The basic idea is to get vileplume set up on the bench to lock trainer cards from being played, while Beartic uses his Sheer Cold attack to prevent the opponent's pokemon from attacking, forcing them to retreat or evolve in order to retaliate. With no option to play trainers like switch/catcher/energy retrieval, this should put them in a bind and make it easy for Beartic to knock out most pokemon within two or 3 hits.

CONSIDERATIONS:

As for setup pokemon, Manaphy is great for hand refreshing and can't get donked or catchered as easily as baby Cleffa. Mantine is good because it has 80 HP and can help you to search your deck for a Beartic to set up T2. I may use one or the other, or both.

As for backup, I was thinking of employing Zoroark to counter zekroms/reshirams/RDLs with special darkness energies to help him OHKO with Foul Play. With the trainer lock, I won't be able to use any PlusPowers, so darkness energies it is. Also, Zoroark can help alleviate the trainer lock for me by searching for cards using Nasty Plot.

The Basculine is a possible counter for Donphan prime. If it gets hit by Donhphan's Earthquake, it can retaliate pretty strongly for just 1 water energy, hitting Donphan for 120 (minus 20 for Donphan's poke-body for a total of 100)

As for Vileplume, should I even use any grass energies in the deck so it can attack? Dazzling pollen isn't bad (50+ a coin flip that adds 20 or confuse), and Gloom's Miracle powder could be a lifesaver in a bad situation (30+ flip a coin and if heads apply any one special condition to defending pokemon). I was thinking of running 4 Rainbow energies to ease the situation of having 3 different types in the deck (grass, water, dark). I'm considering throwing in a Bellossom to help heal the damage taken from the rainbow energies. Would that be a waste of deck space? It is a stage 2, and I would probably only want to use it if I've already got a Vileplume in play, as Vileplume is a higher priority.

Should I run a Dodrio to help Beartic retreat?

I haven't decided on which trainers/supporters to use, but will definitely run 3-4 rare candies and plenty of hand refreshing and draw power supporters.

Could you please give me some advice on the suggestions I've mentioned here? Are there any other Pokemon I should consider using in this deck instead of the ones I mentioned? I feel like I'm lacking a good counter for free retreat Pokemon like Yanmega. That could be the bane of this deck. Any ideas?
 
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Yeah, Yanmega hurts the big bear pretty bad, at least in my testing. You might try slipping in Lantern Prime to help out, runs of dce, one hits Yanmega, and deal some heavy damage late game.
 
Okay, why in arceus' name do you need a DONPHAN counter? That's what Beartic is. You have no reason to run that.

As others have said Yanmega posses a decent problem,a nd sadly, so does Mew Prime, (Beartic doesn't even OHKO it with Sheer Cold, needs 3/4 energy to). It also has problems against Zoarark, because Beartic has 3 retreat, and can get Sheer Colded itself. Really, Beartic shouldn't be the main focus of any deck.

IF you want to try it for fun though, run it with a Zekrom or 2 so you can have a fighting shot at Yanmega. In that instance a 1-1 Dodrio would probably be pretty decent.
 
Shino Bug Master said:
Okay, why in arceus' name do you need a DONPHAN counter? That's what Beartic is. You have no reason to run that.
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I read the Basculine idea elsewhere. I believe the idea is to use Basculine as a starter while you're setting up Cubchoo and Beartic on yoru bench so that someone starting with Phanpy and evolving to Donphan prime can't OHKO cubchoo with a plus power. Basculine has 80 hp, and if Donphan hits it, you can retaliate for 100 damage against it for just one energy.

I do think the Basculine as Donphan counter is probably unnecessary, but that's why I put it in the "optional" slot. It's really not a terrible idea.
 
You need Dodrio, Bellossom and maybe even Pichu

What I would run is;

4 Cubchoo (28/98)
4 Beartic (30/98)
2-3 Oddish
1-2 Gloom
2 Vileplume
1-2 Bellossom
1-2 Doduo
1-2 Dodrio


3-4 Rare Candy
3-4 Pokemon Comm.

3-4 Pokemon Collector
4 PETM
6-8 Draw cards
2 Twins


4 DCE
8-9 Water

This is a 49 card list. The thing about trainer lock is you need a very special list to get it to work. You may want to try running Pichu to get a faster setup because you want your Plume ASAP. When I was playing a Bearplume at League, It failed to setup because it was too slow. Dodrio is also needed because you can't run switch. It let's your Vileplume retreat for free and Beartic retreat for 1.

You may also want to try maxing the collector if you don't want to run Pichu. Pichu can help but this deck already has a bad Yanmega matchup and you don't need more bench sitters. You may want to try to fit in something to help your Yanmega matchup some but Zekrom is the only good lightning attacker you can run and it stalls enough to help you get setup.

As for Supporters, you may want to add some hand control like Team Rocket's Trickery and Judge. You can also try to control your opponents top decks with Slowking and try to control their hand with Weavile. That also means you might want to run seeker to keep Weavile going.

You have 11 cards from this list to try something but, just see what works for you. The main issue I was with the deck was a lack of attackers. Beartic is the only attacker in the deck and losing up to 4 energy hurts when you can't get another one going.
 
You need to maintain one of two conditions: either to keep a Beartic alive for the whole game (tank lock) or be able to rebound them continuously.
Posted with Mobile style...
 
ShiningLion said:
Why did you choose to include Bellossom even without the Rainbow Energies?
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It's just to heal, plus it works on the same evolution line. 2 is the ideal number for it but you'll have too many bench sitters with it. You want to keep Beartic healthy at all times because you don't have the option of potion. It could also make the difference in a Yanmega KO.
 
vaporeon said:
It's just to heal, plus it works on the same evolution line. 2 is the ideal number for it but you'll have too many bench sitters with it. You want to keep Beartic healthy at all times because you don't have the option of potion. It could also make the difference in a Yanmega KO.
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Bellossom's heal only takes place during your turn though. So it wouldn't make the difference in a Yanmega KO. He'd hit you for 70. You heal 10 on your turn, next turn he hits you for 70 again, adding to the 60 damage on beartic to make 130 damage, knocking him out. Though I could see it maybe helping a benched pokemon that is getting sniped.

I actually feel like the setup and bench space for Bellossom is too demanding for the 10 less damage per turn. If it was between turns like Serperior, that might be worth it, but maybe Bellossom could be good in this deck if you're using Rainbow energies...
 
Pichu, Minun or Stantler should help you to get a fast set up

But Dodrio is a waste of bench, I dont see the point of retreating a Beartic if you are already running vileplume to restrain the use of catcher.

Play Zoroark so you can fight properly against Yanmega. Suicune Raikou Legend works pretty well too
 
ALEXARD said:
...But Dodrio is a waste of bench, I dont see the point of retreating a Beartic if you are already running vileplume to restrain the use of catcher...
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The point of Dodrio is to be able to retreat Beartic from an opponent's Zoroark. That's why some people consider Dodrio essential if you are playing Beartic.
 
ALEXARD said:
Pichu, Minun or Stantler should help you to get a fast set up

But Dodrio is a waste of bench, I dont see the point of retreating a Beartic if you are already running vileplume to restrain the use of catcher.

Play Zoroark so you can fight properly against Yanmega. Suicune Raikou Legend works pretty well too
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I'd rather pay 1 to retreat then 3. Zororak ruins beartic and you don't him stuck out there doing what you're suppose to be doing. It also helps if you vileplume get dragged up. You can retreat. Sure it sucks to use more bench space but you don't have switch as an option.

---------- Post added 08/28/2011 at 09:12 PM ----------
ShiningLion said:
Bellossom's heal only takes place during your turn though. So it wouldn't make the difference in a Yanmega KO. He'd hit you for 70. You heal 10 on your turn, next turn he hits you for 70 again, adding to the 60 damage on beartic to make 130 damage, knocking him out. Though I could see it maybe helping a benched pokemon that is getting sniped.

I actually feel like the setup and bench space for Bellossom is too demanding for the 10 less damage per turn. If it was between turns like Serperior, that might be worth it, but maybe Bellossom could be good in this deck if you're using Rainbow energies...
Click to expand...

I would say try to run 2 of them to get more healing. With the bird, you can pay 1 to retreat and stall heal it.
 
To be honest, the only reason Beartic is there is to counter Donphan, and the Beartic deck by itself can't really function on it's own. In my opinion, it's more of a throw in stage 1 deck, like Donphan/Yanmega/Zoroark if you know what I mean.
 
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