Denjin Hadou
New Member
I got the idea to make a Beedrill deck back in 2001 by Master Trainer Mike. Back then he termed this neat little deck of his "Thread the Weedle"
Format: Unlimited
The deck went like so:
And this is how I have the deck is looking now:
For a time, I thought this deck was pretty fast to take on other decks. A Turn 2 Beedrill that showed up via Cleffa/Trader-Breeder with Kabutops on backup had me feeling this was exactly what I was looking for in a speed deck in terms of efficiency and recovery.
It was until a couple of months ago that I started playing again, just for the hell of it. Looking at these new cards I thought about modding it one more time:
Pokémon: 17
3 Beedrill
1 Kakuna
3 Weedle
2 Rocket's Scyther (Gym Heroes)
2 Yanma
2 Kabutops
2 Kabuto
2 Cleffa
Trainers: 28
1 Ecogym
1 Resistance Gym
2 Lucky Stadium
2 Professor Elm
3 Trash Exchange
2 Nightly Garbage Run
1 Time Capsule
2 Rare Candy
2 Pokémon Trader
2 Mysterious Fossil
3 Focus Band
4 Poké Healer
3 Double Gust
Energy: 15
1 Scramble
3 Recycle
3 Fighting
8 Grass
[gal=46820]Beedrill[/gal]
Your main attacker. Priority #1. A successful Triple Poison on the second turn should start things off right.
[gal=46843]Kakuna[/gal]
A Second Thought for your opponent, but in this case, a Worst-Case alternative to Rare Candy. Avoid if at all possible.
[gal=46872]Weedle[/gal]
This guy needs to be out on your first turn on the bench. Also, remember that the evolution line is 3-1-3, so he should never see the light of the opening Active Pokémon spot.
[gal=46074]Rocket's Scyther[/gal]
Just great at stalling for one energy. Essentially a 60 HP Baby that can do 40.
[gal=46676]Yanma[/gal]
A 1-energy spreader with free retreat seems just too good to pass up. While not often used, Swift goes unblocked, right though Smokescreens, Agility, and the like.
[gal=46665]Kabutops[/gal]
Your second evolution line. Averaging about 80 per turn with Hydrocutter, he just had to be in here. This line runs 2-2-2 to give more priority involving Trader/Candy to Beedrill.
[gal=46858]Kabuto[/gal]
This little guy's Pokémon Power should get his brother out whenver possible. Other than that, he should only be used to reach Kabutops. Better for you if you have Rare Candy and Pokémon Trader to trade up to Kabutops.
[gal=46727]Cleffa[/gal]
Necessary. Absolutely. This needs to be out on your first turn, always.
Trainers:
Stadiums:
[gal=46790]Ecogym[/gal]
Energy Removal, Super Energy Removal, Hyper Beam, Whirlpool, etc..... MOOT. When almost all of the Pokémon in this deck only need 1 energy to do anything, this makes worrying about removal a non-issue.
[gal=46615]Resistance Gym[/gal]
Tell those Steel types, "Not so fast!"
[gal=1107]Lucky Stadium[/gal]
A chance at a +1 to your hand is always welcome.
Card Engine:
[gal=46802]Professor Elm[/gal]
Get another shot at getting Weedle out if your first hand couldn't in that first turn.
[gal=46334]Trash Exchange[/gal]
All kinds of necessary to keep that Pokémon support coming. Used with Nightly Garbage Run and Time Capsule.
[gal=46142]Nightly Garbage Run[/gal]
Returns a combo of up to 3 Evolution, Basic Pokémon, or Energy to your deck. No aftertaste.
[gal=46796]Time Capsule[/gal]
Should only be used after Trash Exchange or if using Nightly Garbage Run wasn't enough. All of these together should prevent you from decking out each and every single time.
Evolution Support:
[gal=33233]Rare Candy[/gal]
This is what should be what your second turn should end up like. This is your gate to Beedrill.
[gal=45772]Pokémon Trader[/gal]
This is your detour to Beedrill when Rare Candy isn't in that hand by turn two. Usually, it shouldn't.
Pokémon Support:
[gal=46792]Focus Band[/gal]
So essential in a deck that runs a low bench count. To be used in tandem with Poké Healer +.
[gal=41101]Poké Healer +[/gal]
Use one, and it becomes a Full Heal with a band-aid. Use two, and this becomes your ICU, healing 80 and removing all status conditions. For Beedrill and Kabutops, this is a second shot at life when Focus Band kicks in the clutch.
[gal=46807]Double Gust[/gal]
This serves two purposes:
Misc.
[gal=20428]Mysterious Fossil[/gal]
Decided to upgrade to the latest one, now sporting 50 HP instead of 10. Better to have now that KO'd fossils equate to prize cards. =\
Energy:
[gal=283]Scramble Energy[/gal]
This is primarily for early game business. Second, Third-turn damage for Beedrill as well as possibly yielding the 2TKO is too good to pass up. Pray that this never gets needed late game.
[gal=46812]Recycle Energy[/gal]
Mainly for use with Kabutops. After that first Fighting Energy, any other energy will be good enough for Hydrocutter. I prefer to keep the Grass Energy towards the Grass types and for situations that would otherwise warrant a retreat for Kabutops, two of these attached is perfect.
Start of Game:
Ideal start should be Cleffa in active position with Weedle on bench. If you're going second, drop that Mysterious Fossil. If you have Lucky Stadium, drop that as well and wait for next turn. Eeeeeeek. Second turn, Rare Candy > Beedrill, or if it's not there, Pokémon Trader to Beedrill > Rare Candy on Weedle > Beedrill. Focus Band if possible, then try getting that combo of Professor Elm with Lucky Stadium for the ultimate hand refresh. Complete the rush with Triple Poison. Wish for your opponent's end-of-turn KO, or if you have Scramble Energy, just go for big damage with Pin Missile.
Mid-Game:
If your first Beedrill hasn't fallen yet, your opponent should have one Pokémon one energy away from attacking, or some sort of one energy responder/large HP sacrifice/baby. Around this time, either you are either down one Beedrill or it's close to getting knocked out. If you haven't gotten a Focus Band in by now, do it. Also, this should have been enough time to bring up a Kabutops. It's at this time that you should decide whether to keep Beedrill out there and poison everything in sight, or try to go big with Kabutops. Obviously, this is dependent on what's sitting on your opponent's bench. Should you decide to stay, make sur e you have an extra Focus Band and two Poké Healer + in your hand should he survive your opponent's next turn. Remember that you have Double Gust, so as long as you keep your bench low, you limit who on your side gets gusted to and on your side, get either a quick KO by picking out their weakest link or stall for time by dragging out benchwarmers like Slowking or Claydol.
Late Game:
If you haven't already done so by mid-game, you should be putting that recycle engine to use; Nightly Garbage Run > Trash Exchange > Nightly Garbage Run > Trash Exchange > Time Capsule. At the most, you can bring back up to 11 cards per run. You really shouldn't be aiming to bring your discard pile to 0 since the thinner your remaining deck, the better chance you have at drawing something you need. Keep the Focus Band/Poké Healer combo rolling. The whole recycle engine should be bringing those cards back as well as itself to be used over and over again. In fact, this hold true for all your trainers. Unless your opponent is running its own recycle engine, you should be able to outlast them. The engine is far from perfect though, as you stand a chance at accidentally discarding necessary trainers once you play Trash Exchange.
If by some chance your opponent has been offering sacrifices to you to build up their main attacker, that's when having both Beedrill and Kabutops become more important. What you can do in this situation is when their main attacker comes forward, have Beedrill poison it first. Hold out with him for as long as possible, and when you feel it's time, bring out Kabutops to make the finishing blow.
Again, this deck is meant to rush towards Beedrill via Trading and Rare Candy in two turns. Kabutops is backup with Cleffa for the obvious, Rocket's Scyther to stall, and Yanma for spreading and dealing with Steel Types (although Beedrill is better suited for that).
The deck runs itself dry over the course of the game and having a card recovery engine felt necessary with Trash Exchange, Nightly Garbage Run, and Time Capsule to help get cards back as the game goes on.
Focus Band/Poké Healer can be so vexing to the opponent when it takes off, dropping another Focus Band after the previous one kicks in and two Poké Healer are used. Double Gust serves two purposes in both picking off the opponent's stragglers as well as giving you a psuedo Full Heal.
This deck is meant to have a small bench (3-4), so everyone there should have all necessary to be useful and not useless if they get gusted.
As far as Stadiums are concerned Lucky Stadium should always be out every game (except in case of Flygon). Resistance Gym is there for those Steel Types resistant to Grass and Ecogym is there to make Energy Removal moot.
I'm open for suggestions, folks. A couple of other cards I was considering were Broken Time Space and Poké Drawer. When you're making suggestions, I'd like to ask that you link to the cards you're talking about. If you do want to talk about matchups, go ahead and explain to the best of your ability why you believe the matchups probable results are so. I also ask that you be civil when posting fixes and asking questions. I'm not here to cause beef nor do I seek to bait anyone.
If there's anything I'm noticing right now is the huge count of trainers since I'm so eager to fish out Beedrill, if you can do anything to better the Pokémon-Energy/Trainer ratio, I'd be grateful.
EDIT LOG:
12/07/09 - Fixed Conditions for Scramble Energy
12/08/09 - Typos, Grammar, Added Start, Middle, and Late Game strategies
12/09/09 - Small edits to card descriptions and strategy
Format: Unlimited
The deck went like so:
And this is how I have the deck is looking now:
For a time, I thought this deck was pretty fast to take on other decks. A Turn 2 Beedrill that showed up via Cleffa/Trader-Breeder with Kabutops on backup had me feeling this was exactly what I was looking for in a speed deck in terms of efficiency and recovery.
It was until a couple of months ago that I started playing again, just for the hell of it. Looking at these new cards I thought about modding it one more time:
Pokémon: 17
3 Beedrill
1 Kakuna
3 Weedle
2 Rocket's Scyther (Gym Heroes)
2 Yanma
2 Kabutops
2 Kabuto
2 Cleffa
Trainers: 28
1 Ecogym
1 Resistance Gym
2 Lucky Stadium
2 Professor Elm
3 Trash Exchange
2 Nightly Garbage Run
1 Time Capsule
2 Rare Candy
2 Pokémon Trader
2 Mysterious Fossil
3 Focus Band
4 Poké Healer
3 Double Gust
Energy: 15
1 Scramble
3 Recycle
3 Fighting
8 Grass
Breaking it Down:
Pokémon:
[gal=46820]Beedrill[/gal]
Your main attacker. Priority #1. A successful Triple Poison on the second turn should start things off right.
[gal=46843]Kakuna[/gal]
A Second Thought for your opponent, but in this case, a Worst-Case alternative to Rare Candy. Avoid if at all possible.
[gal=46872]Weedle[/gal]
This guy needs to be out on your first turn on the bench. Also, remember that the evolution line is 3-1-3, so he should never see the light of the opening Active Pokémon spot.
[gal=46074]Rocket's Scyther[/gal]
Just great at stalling for one energy. Essentially a 60 HP Baby that can do 40.
[gal=46676]Yanma[/gal]
A 1-energy spreader with free retreat seems just too good to pass up. While not often used, Swift goes unblocked, right though Smokescreens, Agility, and the like.
[gal=46665]Kabutops[/gal]
Your second evolution line. Averaging about 80 per turn with Hydrocutter, he just had to be in here. This line runs 2-2-2 to give more priority involving Trader/Candy to Beedrill.
[gal=46858]Kabuto[/gal]
This little guy's Pokémon Power should get his brother out whenver possible. Other than that, he should only be used to reach Kabutops. Better for you if you have Rare Candy and Pokémon Trader to trade up to Kabutops.
[gal=46727]Cleffa[/gal]
Necessary. Absolutely. This needs to be out on your first turn, always.
Trainers:
Stadiums:
[gal=46790]Ecogym[/gal]
Energy Removal, Super Energy Removal, Hyper Beam, Whirlpool, etc..... MOOT. When almost all of the Pokémon in this deck only need 1 energy to do anything, this makes worrying about removal a non-issue.
[gal=46615]Resistance Gym[/gal]
Tell those Steel types, "Not so fast!"
[gal=1107]Lucky Stadium[/gal]
A chance at a +1 to your hand is always welcome.
Card Engine:
[gal=46802]Professor Elm[/gal]
Get another shot at getting Weedle out if your first hand couldn't in that first turn.
[gal=46334]Trash Exchange[/gal]
All kinds of necessary to keep that Pokémon support coming. Used with Nightly Garbage Run and Time Capsule.
[gal=46142]Nightly Garbage Run[/gal]
Returns a combo of up to 3 Evolution, Basic Pokémon, or Energy to your deck. No aftertaste.
[gal=46796]Time Capsule[/gal]
Should only be used after Trash Exchange or if using Nightly Garbage Run wasn't enough. All of these together should prevent you from decking out each and every single time.
Evolution Support:
[gal=33233]Rare Candy[/gal]
This is what should be what your second turn should end up like. This is your gate to Beedrill.
[gal=45772]Pokémon Trader[/gal]
This is your detour to Beedrill when Rare Candy isn't in that hand by turn two. Usually, it shouldn't.
Pokémon Support:
[gal=46792]Focus Band[/gal]
So essential in a deck that runs a low bench count. To be used in tandem with Poké Healer +.
[gal=41101]Poké Healer +[/gal]
Use one, and it becomes a Full Heal with a band-aid. Use two, and this becomes your ICU, healing 80 and removing all status conditions. For Beedrill and Kabutops, this is a second shot at life when Focus Band kicks in the clutch.
[gal=46807]Double Gust[/gal]
This serves two purposes:
- Dragging out your opponent's bench players. To you, they're better off the bench getting smacked around by Beedrill and Kabutops.
- Auto-Full Heal. It didn't hit me until after I built this deck the first time that this mere common from Neo Genesis could do this.
Misc.
[gal=20428]Mysterious Fossil[/gal]
Decided to upgrade to the latest one, now sporting 50 HP instead of 10. Better to have now that KO'd fossils equate to prize cards. =\
Energy:
[gal=283]Scramble Energy[/gal]
This is primarily for early game business. Second, Third-turn damage for Beedrill as well as possibly yielding the 2TKO is too good to pass up. Pray that this never gets needed late game.
[gal=46812]Recycle Energy[/gal]
Mainly for use with Kabutops. After that first Fighting Energy, any other energy will be good enough for Hydrocutter. I prefer to keep the Grass Energy towards the Grass types and for situations that would otherwise warrant a retreat for Kabutops, two of these attached is perfect.
Start of Game:
Ideal start should be Cleffa in active position with Weedle on bench. If you're going second, drop that Mysterious Fossil. If you have Lucky Stadium, drop that as well and wait for next turn. Eeeeeeek. Second turn, Rare Candy > Beedrill, or if it's not there, Pokémon Trader to Beedrill > Rare Candy on Weedle > Beedrill. Focus Band if possible, then try getting that combo of Professor Elm with Lucky Stadium for the ultimate hand refresh. Complete the rush with Triple Poison. Wish for your opponent's end-of-turn KO, or if you have Scramble Energy, just go for big damage with Pin Missile.
Mid-Game:
If your first Beedrill hasn't fallen yet, your opponent should have one Pokémon one energy away from attacking, or some sort of one energy responder/large HP sacrifice/baby. Around this time, either you are either down one Beedrill or it's close to getting knocked out. If you haven't gotten a Focus Band in by now, do it. Also, this should have been enough time to bring up a Kabutops. It's at this time that you should decide whether to keep Beedrill out there and poison everything in sight, or try to go big with Kabutops. Obviously, this is dependent on what's sitting on your opponent's bench. Should you decide to stay, make sur e you have an extra Focus Band and two Poké Healer + in your hand should he survive your opponent's next turn. Remember that you have Double Gust, so as long as you keep your bench low, you limit who on your side gets gusted to and on your side, get either a quick KO by picking out their weakest link or stall for time by dragging out benchwarmers like Slowking or Claydol.
Late Game:
If you haven't already done so by mid-game, you should be putting that recycle engine to use; Nightly Garbage Run > Trash Exchange > Nightly Garbage Run > Trash Exchange > Time Capsule. At the most, you can bring back up to 11 cards per run. You really shouldn't be aiming to bring your discard pile to 0 since the thinner your remaining deck, the better chance you have at drawing something you need. Keep the Focus Band/Poké Healer combo rolling. The whole recycle engine should be bringing those cards back as well as itself to be used over and over again. In fact, this hold true for all your trainers. Unless your opponent is running its own recycle engine, you should be able to outlast them. The engine is far from perfect though, as you stand a chance at accidentally discarding necessary trainers once you play Trash Exchange.
If by some chance your opponent has been offering sacrifices to you to build up their main attacker, that's when having both Beedrill and Kabutops become more important. What you can do in this situation is when their main attacker comes forward, have Beedrill poison it first. Hold out with him for as long as possible, and when you feel it's time, bring out Kabutops to make the finishing blow.
Again, this deck is meant to rush towards Beedrill via Trading and Rare Candy in two turns. Kabutops is backup with Cleffa for the obvious, Rocket's Scyther to stall, and Yanma for spreading and dealing with Steel Types (although Beedrill is better suited for that).
The deck runs itself dry over the course of the game and having a card recovery engine felt necessary with Trash Exchange, Nightly Garbage Run, and Time Capsule to help get cards back as the game goes on.
Focus Band/Poké Healer can be so vexing to the opponent when it takes off, dropping another Focus Band after the previous one kicks in and two Poké Healer are used. Double Gust serves two purposes in both picking off the opponent's stragglers as well as giving you a psuedo Full Heal.
This deck is meant to have a small bench (3-4), so everyone there should have all necessary to be useful and not useless if they get gusted.
As far as Stadiums are concerned Lucky Stadium should always be out every game (except in case of Flygon). Resistance Gym is there for those Steel Types resistant to Grass and Ecogym is there to make Energy Removal moot.
I'm open for suggestions, folks. A couple of other cards I was considering were Broken Time Space and Poké Drawer. When you're making suggestions, I'd like to ask that you link to the cards you're talking about. If you do want to talk about matchups, go ahead and explain to the best of your ability why you believe the matchups probable results are so. I also ask that you be civil when posting fixes and asking questions. I'm not here to cause beef nor do I seek to bait anyone.
If there's anything I'm noticing right now is the huge count of trainers since I'm so eager to fish out Beedrill, if you can do anything to better the Pokémon-Energy/Trainer ratio, I'd be grateful.
EDIT LOG:
12/07/09 - Fixed Conditions for Scramble Energy
12/08/09 - Typos, Grammar, Added Start, Middle, and Late Game strategies
12/09/09 - Small edits to card descriptions and strategy
Last edited:
and Unlimited tournaments aren't POP sanctioned so they're really hard to find :/ 