Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Dialga/Garchomp - My take on it

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Barkjon said:
True... but what about a Lux ball? Maybe -2 Rosy's for a Lux Ball...
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Lux Ball is great and I would try and run one, but you NEVER cut Rosy in an SP deck. It really improves the consistency of the deck, and that's what any good deck depends on.
 
butlerforhire said:
Claydol is absolutely necessary for this deck, and it is a staple in most SP builds, aside from Palkia G. How else do you expect to actually tank Dialga G with special Metals, and draw into your Warp energies? Keep it, and keep the 2 Bebe's as well to help increase your ability to get it out.

Power Spray doesn't need to be maxed, or necessarily used at all. This deck is about tanking and disrupting with Deafen; it doesn't have to constantly be stopping Powers too.

Warp Energy is vital to the entire strategy of the deck. You want to play that on Dialga G when its heavily damaged, moving it to the bench and promoting Garchomp C, which you'll level up and activate Healing Breath, restoring your Dialga G entirely. Then you can Galactic Switch the Warp energy over to Garchomp C lv. X, Poketurn it, and then you're ready to do this exact same thing again later on, when Dialga G has once again been heavily damaged.

Chatot is useful in most decks as an insurance card. Uxie and Chatot perform different functions, and Uxie won't do anything at all when it gets Sprayed or if you are stranded early game with nothing but Call energy.

Taking out Unown G is not a good suggestion, as it weakens your Machamp, Gengar, and Flygon match-ups.

To the OP: Max your Call energies, always-- 4 or 0 policy. Drop the Lucian's, change the NM to another Aaron's. Run another Expert Belt-- this card is essential here. Possibly drop the lone Spray for a 2nd Garchomp C lv. X. You can get 6 Healing Breaths off that way, not even factoring in Aaron's/Premier Ball. I also like 3 Galactic HQ over 2, and you should try Toxicroak G promo over Quagsire GL, since it essentially performs the same function but is more flexible (it handles a lot of things, whereas Quagsire GL just deals with fire).
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Like OmegAJ said, Claydol takes up bench space and can lead you to waste resources when they force it out. Plus it is an easy target for spread dmg, eventually leading up to the kill. In an SP deck, you rarely need a "draw engine" since SP decks are ridiculously fast in setting up.

Power Spray is essential in an SP deck, just like Cyrus and Poke Turn are. Why not stop powers to completely shut their deck down. If you are doing Deafen lock, then why not also stop their potential poke powers?

Poke Turn does a better job of retreating than Warp Energy. Plus, it clears up bench space and you don't have to use Galactic Switch, but instead attach an energy of your choice.

Uxie is a much better card than Chatot considering the fact that it can retreat via Psychic Restore, when it is about to die and you can recycle it and the energy. Uxie is an amazing first turn card, especially if you have call, as your scenario stated, because you can set up faster and deal 20 dmg....and if they start off with a psychic, then you can potential tank for the win...considering they don't draw a basic. Point is...while Chatot does have free retreat, once it hits the bench, it is pretty much a free kill for your opponent.

You don't need 2 Unowns in this deck...if the deck does what it is supposed to, you will be fine running 1 Unown G....the only thing you should worry about is Machamp and honestly there is very little chance you can stop it...unless you completely change you deck to counter it.
 
Ozymandias said:
Poke Turn does a better job of retreating than Warp Energy. Plus, it clears up bench space and you don't have to use Galactic Switch, but instead attach an energy of your choice.
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Except that you can't use Poke Turn under a Spiritomb Lock (or Deafen Lock in a mirror match), plus, if you Warp a tanked Dialga with multiple Special Metal, you don't lose any of those attachments. Then you Level Up Garchomp C, heal completely and can either snipe with Chomp or free retreat it and carry on with Dialga.

Like OmegAJ said, Claydol takes up bench space and can lead you to waste resources when they force it out. Plus it is an easy target for spread dmg, eventually leading up to the kill. In an SP deck, you rarely need a "draw engine" since SP decks are ridiculously fast in setting up.
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Yep, they are very fast at setting up. What they DON'T do fast is get Special Metal Energy which this deck needs asap.

Claydol does take up space and can be sniped, true, but you can say the same for any card. Would you drop Bronzong G from an SP deck for those reasons? Claydol is just as important in this build.
 
Ozymandias said:
Like OmegAJ said, Claydol takes up bench space and can lead you to waste resources when they force it out. Plus it is an easy target for spread dmg, eventually leading up to the kill. In an SP deck, you rarely need a "draw engine" since SP decks are ridiculously fast in setting up.

Dialga G is known as the one SP deck that needs Claydol the most. Special Metal aren't searchable. any other draw isn't good enough. Unown G the Claydol, Power Spray any powers to get it out and I don't see the problem. Dialga G is a completely different type of SP deck, don't compare it to others.

Power Spray is essential in an SP deck, just like Cyrus and Poke Turn are. Why not stop powers to completely shut their deck down. If you are doing Deafen lock, then why not also stop their potential poke powers?

Its not essential. Many people drop Power Sprays before Poketurn and Energy Gain which are essential in SP builds. You can lock their powers, but other things in Dialga G decks are more important and Power Spray gets cut for space.

Poke Turn does a better job of retreating than Warp Energy. Plus, it clears up bench space and you don't have to use Galactic Switch, but instead attach an energy of your choice.

Right, so put a Dialga G Lv X with 3-4 special metal on and an Expert Belt back to your hand, because you can attack all of those straight away? Besides, the most important thing about running any SP deck is using your Poketurns correctly. Why, when there's a better alternative? Keep them for more important things.

Uxie is a much better card than Chatot considering the fact that it can retreat via Psychic Restore, when it is about to die and you can recycle it and the energy. Uxie is an amazing first turn card, especially if you have call, as your scenario stated, because you can set up faster and deal 20 dmg....and if they start off with a psychic, then you can potential tank for the win...considering they don't draw a basic. Point is...while Chatot does have free retreat, once it hits the bench, it is pretty much a free kill for your opponent.

Uxie cannot be called for and used for it's power, it can be power sprayed, and it may only draw 2-3 cards. Chatot has free retreat, is a good tech against Power Lock decks, can't be stopped, has free retreat and can be called for. Run 4 Call and you have a 50% chance of getting one in your hand. Good players don't want to risk all of that, they want something consistent that does the job they want it to do.

You don't need 2 Unowns in this deck...if the deck does what it is supposed to, you will be fine running 1 Unown G....the only thing you should worry about is Machamp and honestly there is very little chance you can stop it...unless you completely change you deck to counter it.

Against Gengar, please tell me how you will win not being able to Unown G both Skuntank G and Claydol?
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Replies in blue :cool:
 
Ozymandias said:
Like OmegAJ said, Claydol takes up bench space and can lead you to waste resources when they force it out. Plus it is an easy target for spread dmg, eventually leading up to the kill. In an SP deck, you rarely need a "draw engine" since SP decks are ridiculously fast in setting up.

I totally agree. This is one deck where Claydol hurts more than helps IMO. Others may feel differently, and that's fine, but in my experience it just clutters the deck and makes for an easy target.

Power Spray is essential in an SP deck, just like Cyrus and Poke Turn are. Why not stop powers to completely shut their deck down. If you are doing Deafen lock, then why not also stop their potential poke powers?

Agree again. Play at least 2 sprays. You never knowwhen it can be a killer. Gengar LvX tries to shuffle your Dialga X.... not this turn. Uxie setup? Nope.

Poke Turn does a better job of retreating than Warp Energy. Plus, it clears up bench space and you don't have to use Galactic Switch, but instead attach an energy of your choice.

??? Poke Turn does not retreat. You don't want to put your Dialga G LvX with a few energies attached back into your hand. Warp Points or warp energies definitely.

Uxie is a much better card than Chatot considering the fact that it can retreat via Psychic Restore, when it is about to die and you can recycle it and the energy. Uxie is an amazing first turn card, especially if you have call, as your scenario stated, because you can set up faster and deal 20 dmg....and if they start off with a psychic, then you can potential tank for the win...considering they don't draw a basic. Point is...while Chatot does have free retreat, once it hits the bench, it is pretty much a free kill for your opponent.

Uxie>Chatot any day for the reasons listed above.

You don't need 2 Unowns in this deck...if the deck does what it is supposed to, you will be fine running 1 Unown G....the only thing you should worry about is Machamp and honestly there is very little chance you can stop it...unless you completely change you deck to counter it.
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Comments are in bold. I love this deck and am going to tweak my current build a little based on some suggestions. Thanks!
 
baby mario said:
Except that you can't use Poke Turn under a Spiritomb Lock (or Deafen Lock in a mirror match), plus, if you Warp a tanked Dialga with multiple Special Metal, you don't lose any of those attachments. Then you Level Up Garchomp C, heal completely and can either snipe with Chomp or free retreat it and carry on with Dialga.



Yep, they are very fast at setting up. What they DON'T do fast is get Special Metal Energy which this deck needs asap.

Claydol does take up space and can be sniped, true, but you can say the same for any card. Would you drop Bronzong G from an SP deck for those reasons? Claydol is just as important in this build.
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When you have dialga X, spiritomb shuts down. I don't consider Special Metals to be so important as to construct a deck around them.

Bronzong G provides an extra energy which is infinitely better than draw power.
 
Guys, at the moment I'm not really seeing suggestions. Instead, 'arguments' over whether or not to play Claydol or not and how many Power Sprays are needed. Can you please make suggestions that can help me? Thanks.

Anyways, from what I've seen PromoCroak>Quagsire GL seems to be a good choice?

Donez
 
I suggest playing a 1-1 Claydol, and maybe looking into an ambipom G tech for the mirror. 2 Power spray is fine in this deck, you just need enough to spray the "right" powers a few times.

And yes your are right, promocroak is much better than quagsire.
 
Ozymandias said:
I don't consider Special Metals to be so important as to construct a deck around them.
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Umm.. how do I put this politely. The deck IS built around Special Metals -- next to Deafen the most important part of this decks operation is having a ton of Special Metals sitting on your Dialga Tank.

Why does the deck benefit from Garchomp C more than other SP decks -- because it gives you an alternative to remove damage from Dialga without Poketurning it and costing you all of those energy drops. Why does it play Warp Energy -- to put Garchomp C into the active position by attaching it to Dialga G and then to move it with Bronzong G to the Chomp to pick it back up again. This means the precious Special Metals are protected and stay attached.

If you can't fish out Special Metal Energies, this deck losses a lot of its luster, as you want to move to 3HKO's on Dialga G from 2HKO range which means you can be much more efficient wiith your Chomp X drops.

I'm sorry but Claydol isn't a flavour issue for the deck that's been put up... it's an integral part of getting this beast to work.

==

Now here's my comments having built the deck and played it... (which again is often helpful when trying to figure out what is and isn't necessary in the deck).

I find that the bench Clutters up pretty badly -- for one thing with all of these singles you almost always end up having to drop Azelf - which just stares up at you uselessly from the bench. And you do not repeatably get a Dialga G or Garchomp Start, which means you often have a sub-optimal starter with a call energy on it. So for bench space you have, (1) Bronzong G, (2) Skuntank G, (3) Claydol, (4) Azelf, (5)Left-Over Starter Pokemon -- and no place to put down the Chomp C (or you run without Bronzong G and there's no way to recycle your Warp energy -- also makes it a pain to get your Unown G's down, you can't drop Crobat, etc.. For this reason I agree with the Promo Toxicroak idea, at least with Leap Away it get's out of your hair once you've used him. It's also a better starter than Quagsire, again because it gets out of play without costing you a Poketurn. Same problem with Chatot, although I don't disagree that its nice to have a "Callable" hand change, he again is not the best starter as he ends up taking a valuable bench space, if your opponent is smart enough not to knock you out.

Although I do like the Deafen for 50 (10 + Expert Belt + 2 In-between-turns of poison) concept, it is more difficult to pull off in practice than I would have thought and it tends to come at the cost of not getting the healing engine working on Dialga G. I'm pretty close to tossing the Skuntank and trying to concentrate on what this deck does best which is take a whole bunch of damage and then just shed the damage counters. Deafen's for 30 add up pretty quick too -- and they can be had with much less bench space trouble.

BTW 1 Conductive Quarry and 2 GHQ seems to be the stadium line that works well, it's tough to avoid lossing your Special Metals in a long drawn out game and Conductive Quarry sure helps when that happens.

===

The build here is pretty good and consistent with the strategy. Maybe it's just me that can't get this dog to hunt -- but no question it hunts better with PromoCroak and without Chatot and Quagsire as bad starters.
 
Chatot is nice to have, but not necessary. The stadiums I run is just 2 Conductive quarry, although I have tested GHQ and liked it somewhat. Just because of the low search able metal count in the deck I decided to run two Conductive quarry.
 
Ahh ok. So Chatot is nice but not necessary? I feel it could be dropped then. I have tried Conductive Quarry in the past and haven't had much luck, though I will try it again and see how it does.

So changes are gonna be:

-1 GHQ
-1 Chatot
-1 Quagsire
-1 Water Energy

+1 Conductive Quarry
+1 Power Spray
+1 Promocroak

... And then there is one empty space. What can this be filled with? Perhaps another energy I was thinking of?

Donez
 
But if you Turn your Dialga with your Special Metals on it you'll end up being behind on energy drops in the long run, which hurts your momentum/tempo, which is huge in this game. Warp Energy + Garchomp C saves you energy drops which are crucial when you're trying to tank a Dialga (and then when you turn the Leveled up Garchomp you get to reuse that Warp later on). Bronzong can only work with what's already in play, so it can't do much with all those Metals in your hand from Turning the active Dialga.
 
Ozymandias/anyone else disputing Claydol/Warp energy: Go look at Cyrus' or Ruiner's reports. They both swept two Cities with this deck, and they both ran Claydol and Warp energy-- because they're essential. I don't think the true potency of the Warp energy/Healing Breath/Galactic Switch/Poketurn cycle has settled in yet.

To the OP: I wouldn't bother with Conductive Quarry. Galactic HQ will help you win match-ups, while CQ won't. You shouldn't be losing your Special Metal energy much, aside from the mirror match perhaps, although in that instance they'll be permanently removed anyway.

Make sure you run at least 2 Expert Belt. I like to run a single Department Store Girl and 2 Belts, but 3 Belts can also work. (Drawing into these is another reason for Claydol.) Expert Belt will win you games.
 
I dont like GHQ...since Flygon is rampant and a sand wall will not only dmg you, but set you back a turn, which is essential in this game.

I do like the expert belt...and I will agree with warp energy. I still don't agree with Claydol. if you are not running Luxray, then it'll be hard to keep their bench in check. Chomp will only do so much.
 
You just don't play the stadium down against Flygon. Against every other evolution deck out there, GHQ plus Deafen plus Poison Structure is amazing. It slows Beedrill and Kingdra and any other stage 2 deck out there to a crawl while softening them up, it locks out Gyarados even further (losing a Gyarados on a Deafen KO is already brutal)-- it's just a great tool to have at your disposal to fully abuse Deafen since it won't be discarded and you can constantly use Poison Structure.

I don't see how you can keep "disagreeing" about Claydol when people have explained its usefulness here numerous times, and when there is actual winning proof of that usefulness out there.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "keeping their bench in check." This deck isn't supposed to do that. Their bench hardly matters when they can't set up or ever KO the tanked Dialga G lv. X that is shutting off their Bodies, Trainers, and Stadiums while occasionally getting super-aggressive and permanently stripping away their energies with Remove Lost. Garchomp C lv. X can take out the occasional threat that is getting built if it has to, or it can just seal the game with an unavoidable 80 snipe, or it can take out Claydol (better than Power Spray) when that would be devastating, but it isn't in the deck as a bench regulator. Its sniping is just an added bonus on top of Healing Breath.
 
^ To add onto what butlerforhire said, if they do manage to drag up the claydol and KO it, it shouldn't matter THAT much. Besides, you can spray the bright look and stop them from dragging it out. If they drag it out and KO it, there is plenty of other search/draw power in the deck to keep it going strong. Claydol is primarily there to get early-game draw power (along with uxie) get a dialga/chomp set up and tank ahead. I find later in the game it isn't that neccesary anyways.

As I said earlier, the changes I am intending to make are as follows:

-1 Chatot
-1 Quagsire
-1 Water Energy

+1 Power Spray
+1 Promocroak

And then there is still that empty space. I have narrowed it down to 3 cards that I can fill that empty space with:

- Another Garchomp C LV X (As some people have already suggested)
- Expert Belt
- Call Energy

Personally, I would add the extra expert belt. However, I would like your opinions on these changes before I put them 'into action'.

Donez

(I will make the changes for now as temporary and highlight them on the main list)
 
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