Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

BW-on Durant

SolarPichu

Member
Pokemon
4 Durant [NVI]
1 Nincada [DRX]
1 Ninjask [ROS]

Trainers
4 Professor Juniper
3 N
1 Ace Trainer
4 Trainers' Mail

4 Crushing Hammer
2 Enhanced Hammer
2 Team Flare Grunt
2 Xerosic
3 Head Ringer
4 Pokemon Catcher
2 Guzma

4 Level Ball
2 Nest Ball
4 VS Seeker
2 Super Rod
2 Rescue Stretcher
1 Dowsing Machine

Energy
8 Metal

An homage to the deck that I played competitively 5 years ago.

Strategy: Discard your opponent's deck. Lots of disruption to keep their energy down. Ninjask is great to promote when a Durant gets knocked out for that free retreat and extra discard (also Guzma). I have had moderate success in PTCGO.

Any suggestions to make it better?
 
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Since you wont be taking prizes you want rotom dex to reset your prizes if Durant is in them. Also some sort of stadium would be good, silent lab or altar of the sunne maybe.
 
I would consider:

-4 Professor Juniper +4 Brigette Juniper is a bit too aggressive for this deck in my opinion. You really don't want to be discarding too many resources and this deck basically just requires Durant to set up. Sure, every remaining Brigette will essentially be useless, but your goal is to get as many Durant on the bench as soon as possible so you really want this card in your opening hand if at all possible. Extra Brigettes would be ideal to toss with Ninjask if the opportunity arose.

-1 Ace Trainer +1 Teammates I think N does a better job disrupting than Ace Trainer. Except in the early game, of course. Teammates doesn't inherently disrupt as much as Ace Trainer, but it is an incredible consistency boost to a deck you know will be giving up prizes and you could even grab cards with which to disrupt your opponent.

-1 Team Flare Grunt +1 Team Rocket's Handiwork Milling is the name of the game with Durant and Team Rocket's Handiwork is too good to pass up in my opinion.

-3 Head Ringer -1 Xerosic +4 Puzzle of Time The recovery and flexibility of this card is too good to pass up. You could potentially turn a 4 of into an "8 of", or 1 of into a "3 of." It will help you get away with running some thinner lines of things. The meta is heading in more of a GX direction so I don't feel Head Ringers would do a whole lot of good, plus there are quite a few options for Tool removal in Expanded. One Xerosic is probably enough. Puzzle and Seeker should be enough to justify only running one.

-4 Pokemon Catcher +1 Rotom Dex + 1 N +2 Silent Lab Like mentioned above, prizing Durant will be a huge detriment to the deck's strategy. Silent Lab will be incredibly disruptive towards an opponent's set up. I don't like flippy cards too much, except for the Team Rocket's Handiwork. The deck is a bit low on draw power so I feel the extra N is much needed.

-2 Nest Ball +2 Random Receiver This is really only to increase the chances of a turn one Brigette. There are quite a few other supporters that would do little to help you set up so I do consider this a bit of a YOLO play. Keeping the Nest Balls to play it a little safer wouldn't be bad either.

-2 Super Rod +2 Rescue Stretcher. Durant don't do you a whole lot of good in the deck and Rescue Stretcher would effectively let you bench one immediately rather than shuffle a few in to the deck. If you need to recover more than 4 Durant, you are probably already fighting an uphill battle. If you were really worried about being able to recover Durants you could shuffle a few in instead if need be. I don't see you needing to recover energy very much unless things are really going South, plus Puzzle can grab energy in a pinch if need be.

-1 Dowsing Machine +1 Life Dew Durant are fragile. They will be knocked out at many points throughout the game, might as well try to grinch an extra prize (or two, or three with Puzzle of Time!) out of your opponent. Puzzle of Time can recover anything, plus more, that Dowsing Machine could.


While I may have suggested quite a few changes, keep in mind that they are only suggestions. :) I tried to give a little reasoning to all of the changes I made, feel free to alter counts or completely ignore anything I suggested. I definitely feel like making all the changes I suggested might lead to a few hands that will brick on you but, at least individually, each piece of advice is fairly sound.
 
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Out of curosity, why isn't Mew (FCO 29) being considered for this deck? It has free retreat, if for some reason it is needed, and can copy the Durant's attack.
 
Thank you for your suggestions! I did extensive playtesting last week, and incorporated a lot of ideas into the deck that I brought to a tournament. I ended up going 2-4, winning against Night March and Trevanant, and losing to Darkrai, Toadtina, Travanant, and Seismitoad. Here's what made the cut:

Pokemon
4 Durant [NVI]
1 Nincada [DRX]
1 Ninjask [ROS]

Trainers
4 Brigette
1 Professor Juniper
4 N
1 Ace Trainer
4 Trainers' Mail
2 Random Receiver

4 Crushing Hammer
2 Enhanced Hammer
2 Team Flare Grunt
1 Xerosic
3 Head Ringer
2 Guzma

4 Level Ball
4 VS Seeker
2 Super Rod
2 Rescue Stretcher
1 Rotom Dex
1 Dowsing Machine

2 Silent Lab

Energy
8 Metal

Rotom Dex - Ended up not needing it in any of the games, but it's definitely needed for when things are prized
Silent Lab - This was the better choice in stadium, as it did help slow down Darkrai and Mew a bit
Brigette - Turn 1 Brigette was great, as I didn't have to worry about using up resources to get everything out quickly
Juniper - Kept 1 in there, just because I didn't want to rely solely on N for draw. It was helpful.
Ace Trainer - Ace Trainer actually helped me win the game against Night March, as it forced him to draw the cards needed to devour the rest of the deck
Teammates - Opted not to play for the extra draw in Ace Trainer
Team Flare Grunt - Opted to keep the number at 2, as energy denial really slows them down
Team Rocket's Handiwork - Oped not to play. I know the goal is to deck the opponent, but I would rather gain an extra turn to Devour using Energy Denial, then to most likely discard 2 cards.
Head Ringer - I kept this in, as it does slow down Seismitoad and Darkrai quite a bit.
Xerosic - I ended up going down to 1 as suggested. It is useful to combo with Head Ringer, but space was a bit tight for 2.
Puzzle of Time - Opted out of using it. Probably would have worked nicely with Teammates, but I found it tough to get 2 when needed
Pokemon Catcher - Opted out of using it. Personally, I liked the idea of a flip to force the opponent to retreat and waste energy, but it was probably better not to play it in the heavy trainer denial environment.
N - I did bump up the N count, since it is great that I will always get 6 cards, and it was my primary method of draw
Nest Ball - Ended up dropping these, since Brigette took care of grabbing everything
Random Receiver - Worked out pretty good
Super Rod - I did end up keeping these, just so I can grab basic energy. There's a lot of Team Flare Grunt, so it worked out.
Dowsing Machine - Did not use once.
Life Dew - Should have used instead of Dowsing Machine after all.
Mew - I like the idea, but then I would need to ditch Silent Lab. Might be worth it.

I think I want to try adding Jirachi XY67. There was a lot of special energy being played, and I think this could have given me the edge in the Seismitoad and Toadtina matchups.

Let me know if you have any other suggestions! Thank you!
 
Two suggestions based on a Houndoom based mill deck I saw used to good effect.

Four trick shovel: Let's you discard the top card of your opponent deck.

Run one or two Bunnelby (Primal Clash 121): You can either Burrow twice to mill two cards, Rototiller twice to get items back into your deck, or one of each.
 
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