Fossil Deck for States

[mozartrules]

I just played in the NJ State Championship and did reasonably well (lost semi). The field was infested with Blaziken decks (not entirely surprising) with 6 of the top 8 decks, 3 of the top 4 and the top 2. I wanted to play something different, so I took the fossil deck that I have talked about in some other topics.

Pokemon (18)
3 Lileep (Influence)
3 Cradily
3 Amorith (Fast Evolution)
3 Armaldo
3 Omanyte
3 Omastar

Trainers (23)
4 Root Fossil
4 PETM
4 Switch
4 Desert Shaman
3 CopyCat
2 Crystal Shard
1 Town Volunteers
1 Wally's Training

Energy (19)
4 Multi
3 DRE
6 Fighting
3 Water
3 Grass

It is clear that you have to Mulligan until you get a Root Fossil and either a Lileep or a PETM/Wally (Wally is only there because I can't play 5 PETM). You the use Influence twice to fill the bench with Omanyte and Anorith and go from there (there are cases where you use the attack only once when using Cradily is beneficial).

Desert Shaman is partly anti-Oracle, partly an attempt to reduce the hand size after Mulligans (the deck mulligans an average of 2 times per game). Shard is important because Rayquaza has resistance to two of my guys (it worked great both against Ray and a Latias someone was playing?). Switch is partly because I have so high retreat, partly to be able to get benched Pokemon out using Cradily and then knock them out with one of the other attackers when the opponent has weakness.

DRE worked really well in this deck, I never had a situation where the -10 damage was important and the extra speed was beneficial. I should have played 4 with hindsight.

Town Volunteers was never useful and I would have preferred another Copycat, particulatly in the game where I was severely energy starved.

Playing Warp Point instead of Switch would have saved me in the last game of the smifinal, but I don't think that card is very compatible with Cradily.

It seemed that people in the NY area played more switch/warp point and less Rare Candy that the decks most often posted here. That was a pity since it was those two things I had planned on exposing more than anything. The decks still worked very well, being 2-2 against Blaziken and easily beating everything else.

Suggestions on how this deck could be improved (I will probably find something new for the Gyms though)?

 

[HYPER EEVEE]

if you did so well i wouldnt change it but i dont really see how this deck works with any degree of success.

 

[Hero]

Mozartrules - Who won the NJ State Championships ? and what deck did he use ?

Too bad me and jerm couldn't go

 

[mozartrules]

Mozartrules - Who won the NJ State Championships ? and what deck did he use ?(

Lawrence F. playing RAMBO (top 4 was three RAMBO decks and mine in the 11-15). 11-14 was won by a Gardevoir deck.

 

[mozartrules]

if you did so well i wouldnt change it but i dont really see how this deck works with any degree of success.

That is a very common reaction and quite an understandable one. It is obvious that you have to start with a Root Fossil and you then evolve to Lileep turn two and search for whatever you need against your particular opponent. Apart from being one round late (and I admit that is an issue) this is almost as easy as laying down basics with Dunsparce. The big difference is that you only need a single evolution after this to get 100+HP Pokemon that are difficult to handle (this is why I focus on PETM).

Each of the three Stage-2 Pokemon have very annoying effects apart from being able to exploit the weakness of every Tier-1 or Tier-2 deck that I know of. Getting caught by Cradily with no switch or Warp Point is really annoying and if the Pokemon card is Delcatty it shuts down your power too. I got Penalties from people playing supporters (repeatedly) against Armaldo, but the simple fact that they couldn't play them was plenty of disruption. Omastar can be lethal against both fire decks and decks that rely too much on Rare Candy!

I might have done better playing Blaziken (I have all the cards), but I see no fun in that. I will probably retire this deck since a lot of the advantage comes from the fact that it is a hard deck to adjust to.

 

[AbsolutelyNobody]

Well, I played this deck at my states and went 4-3. I got used to it after a while and was able to win easily. The only problem was that 2/3 times i lost, i went second and mulliganed 7-10 TIMES! I had no desert shaman anyway, so oh well. My changes would be to take out the armaldo, it only helped me in one match, due to weakness. I needed that extra 10 damage to ko dunsparses (one guy flipped 9 heads with sudden flach against my craydily) and other basics (torchic, ralts ect.) strengh chars may go into my version. Anyway, Craydilly is awesome!!!!!!! I used it in every game and did well, though if i put in LPS, it would have helped, because i los one game due to that and the mulligan prob. Another problem was root. I had a game when i lost because i started with a lone root (going second) and he had dr torchic. Second turn, 2 heads. Lost in 17 seconds. I will continue to test this deck, though.

The metagame over here is 4/7 gardy 2/7 blaze and the rest red face paint/other archtypes. 6/7 of the top 8 decks in 11-14 were gardy decks!!!!!!!! the top 2, and probably top 4, were gardy!!!! Its insane!

Just my 0.19254365859679068576254684350035 cents
Good deck, just might need some tweaking for the meta over here.

 

[mozartrules]

My changes would be to take out the armaldo, it only helped me in one match, due to weakness.

That is certainly an option, the deck can be adapted to the metagame (some people might want to plat Kabutops EX). I played it because I saw a number of people playing Ampharos EX or Aggron EX at the CCs and both of those would have given me trouble without Armaldo (whereas Armaldo makes it an almost automatic win). They were both absent from the SC, probably because it was so Blaziken infected.

Cradily is awesome!!!!!!!

I agree and it would be perfectly reasonable to play more Gradily if you have lots of Gardevoir in your area (top 8 in NJ was 6 Blaziken, one Swampert and this).

I had the lone root problem once when I went second (it was a 2/3 match, I had won the first game so the opponent knew what I had so he started with Rayquaza active even though he had a Dunsparce!). You could choose to wait for a second Root (extra mulligans doesn't matter much), the problem is that an extra round wouldn't even have helped you against Tochic since the 2 heads would have knocked out Lillep too.

 

[Monkey]

I play a fossil deck also. Last week at NH states, I played a
Armaldo/Omastar/cradilly ex deck. It got me into the top 4,
but I lost to a kingdra ex deck which eventually won it all.
But after that, I took out the cradilly ex, becuase I was relying on
rare candys to bring it out and I only had 1 copy of it at the time.

This week at CT states, I put in a Kabutops ex line in place of cradilly ex.
Unfortunately almost half the people in my age division played grass.
Infact I played against 2 sceptile decks. That was very bad for me
becuase:

1. Sceptile has resitance to water.
2. Armaldo is weak to grass.

Sceptile just kills this deck. I didn't even like touch the Sceptile
decks I played against. Infact, Johnny Blaze won with his Sceptile
deck! Im very glad he won even though he murdered me!

The fossil deck I play is very hard to play with, and requires me to
always go first, in order for my strategy to work. My strategy is to
go first, and keep on muligining until I get a hand with some fossils,
a desert shaman, and a mystery plate alhpa. The whole point of this
deck is to create disruptence. Sometimes that doesn't happen,
and I like give them better hands after I shaman. My deck also doesn't
have a lot of draw power, so thats a problem also. And if I go 2nd, that
means I have to kind of rethink my strategy.

I was thinking of maybe taking out the armaldo, and adding in some
cradilly and cradilly ex. I would play with 3 stage 2 lines,
but they are very hard for me to try to get all of them out.
Im also thinknig of getting rid of the whole deck idea also.
Its a fun deck to play, but it doesn't have the power
of like a BAR deck, even though this deck was ment to be played against
them.

 

[Hero]

Just as I expected. New Jersey and New York are littered with blaziken varients. Must be the air..

 

[mozartrules]

I was thinking of maybe taking out the armaldo, and adding in some
cradilly and cradilly ex.

I had thought about playing Cradily EX, but didn't because (1) fire and water weakness is horrible in the Northeast with so much Blaziken and anti-Blazike and (2) DRE really helps this deck, but it cannot be used for Cradily EX so I would have to play a lot more grass energy.

Its a fun deck to play, but it doesn't have the power of like a BAR deck, even though this deck was meant to be played against them.

I disagree, this deck plays about even with the BAR decks and I didn't built mine to be specific against BAR (I would have played Kabutops EX instead of Armaldo if that was the case). I know that Sceptile would be bad news for this deck, but that problem is shared by almost all water decks.

 

[JohnnyBlaze]

Mozart - Great showing with all the Blaze infestation. Yeah a 4th DRE and the Copycat will help greatly. Dont give up on it. It is very competitive and annoying. Monkey did run using the Kabutops EX line but then all the DRE would be useless, but becasue of all the fire I think the Kabutops EX line will work for you.