GuRu Deck Challenge: BEARTIC

[Rogue Archetype]

Hi PokeGymers!

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Today's Deck is: BEARTIC

"Beartic" is a card that does not allow the defending Pokemon to attack! It is a scary card to see hit the table because the only things you can do to stop it are:

• Sniping it off of the bench before it's ready.
• Retreating your active and hitting it with something different.
• Teching in something that is immune to "effects of attacks."

There are SO MANY different ways to use Bearticin the format.
Can we can figure a way to build a beast deck that uses Beartic?
(Beartic does NOT need to be an attacker in your deck strategies)​

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Example:
Person A - You should tech in a Beartric.

Person B - Beartric is good against ___, ___, and ___. You have to remember to use it only when __________. In my last tournament, I won 2 games using it like this: ________________. If you're going to use Beartic in your deck, consider putting 4 copies of _______ as a starter because he helps Beartic get set up using his _____ power/attack.​

In the above example, Person A might receive 1 Guru Point if his suggestion contributes to the deck's strategy. Person B may receive 2 or 3 points for expanding the idea and making it more useful/understandable to someone who may be considering a use for the card.

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[espeon200]

Well, to get started, Beartic is basically going to be used for it's first attack Sheer Cold. Costing :water::colorless::colorless: the attack, as mentioned in the opening post stops the opponent from attacking. This has been a viable technique in the TCG before as there was a somewhat popular Neo-on deck that used Piloswine to stop the opponent from attacking and Murkrow to lock them active.

Unfortunately that's not going to work as well this time. The reason being that Beartic's attack only lock's the opponent from attacking if it's used every turn, something that Piloswine didn't have to worry about (it locked until the defending Pokemon was benched). So that means you're going to want to use Beartic's attack on heavy-retreat attackers. Again we see a problem, though. Switch can be played to get a heavy-retreater out of the active position, ruining your setup. This means that if you want to set up the lock you're going to have to control your opponent in some way.

Of course, the biggest partner that is being suggested for Beartic at the moment is Vileplume. It can sit on the bench, and as long as it's there, neither player can play trainer-item cards. While this does fix the problem of the opponent playing Switch (as well as several other nasty cards) it also means that you will be unable to play Pokemon Catcher, which is key once you have your Beartic set up since it lets you pick a high-retreat Pokemon and place it active. So if Vileplume isn't the best solution, what is?

I would suggest fitting Beartic into a lock deck such as the Ambipom/Weavile deck that did well in Canadian Nationals. Your goal would be to lock your opponent active by Catchering up a heavy retreater (Donphan or Magnezone would be ideal, but anything with 2 or more retreat will force your opponent to waste resources) and then using Slowking (HS or CoL) to control their topdecks. You would also want to include hand disruption supporters such as Team Rocket's Trickery to whittle down you opponent's hand and Weavile to discard possible out your opponent may have when they start out such as switch or Junk Arm (If given a choice between the Switch of the Junk Arm, always go for Junk Arm since it's almost completely unrecover-able from the discard). If you can set up the lock early, you can take your time to take out your opponent's active with Sheer Cold. But how do you deal with the revenge KO on Beartic once you've knocked out your opponent's active with Sheer Cold? The answer is that you don't want to KO any Pokemon with Sheer Cold until every Pokemon is within 30 damage of being knocked out. At that point you can use your Weaviles to take out all of your opponent's Pokemon via Feint Attack. If your opponent has six Pokemon you can take six prizes in six turns. Also by waiting to take the prizes, you can utilize Twins to speed your setup as soon as your opponent has taken his or her first prize.

Based off of this, here's a basic Skeleton List to get started with:

Pokemon (16)
4-4 Weavile UD
3-3 Beartic EPO
2-2 Slowking HS/CoL

T/S/S (20)
4 Pokemon Catcher
3 Pokemon Collector
4 Twins
3 Pokemon Communication
2 Team Rocket's Trickery
4 Professor Oak's New Theory

Energy (12)
4 Water
4 Rainbow Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy

Open Slots: 12

This skeleton gives a lot of room to add consistency of techs to the deck depending on what way you want to take it. A couple of suggested techs would be Crushing Hammer (gets rid of opponent's energy making it harder to retreat), Ambipom (can set up lock earlier, but puts cards back in deck instead of discarding), Rescue Energy (recycles KOd Weavile and Beartic).

THIS POST HAS RECEIVED GURU POINTS! ( click here to discover why ) - GuRu SQuaD

 

[cabd]

While many player see Beartic as a card that should be the focus of his/her own deck, I see the card as a great tech for an already proven Tier two deck that was “missing something.” That deck is Blastzel. (Blastoise UL, Floatzel UL)

Before I continue, here’s the sample list that I’m currently testing on the TCGO:
(I’ll be making this list link-happy once I get home from school)

Pokemon: 20
3 Squirtle UL
2 Wartortle UL
3 Blastoise UL
3 Buziel UL
3 Floatzel UL
2 Cubchoo EP
2 Beartic EP
1 Cleffa HS
1 Tyrogue HS

Trainer-Items: 16
2 Dual Ball UL
2 Switch BW
3 Rare Candy UL (Newer players,be advised there's an erreta on this card)
2 Energy Retrieval BW
1 Catcher EP
4 Pokemon Communication BW
2 Junk Arm TM

Trainer-Supporters: 11
3 Pokemon Collector HS
2 Twins TM
2 Copycat HS
4 Professor Oak’s New Theory HS

Energy: 13
11 Water Energy HS
2 Double Colorless Energy HS


The idea of this deck, for those newer players who don’t know, is to snipe for 100 damage per turn, using Blastoise’s attack in conjunction with the poke-powers of both Blastoise himself paired with his finned friend Floatzel. The ability to attach multiple water energy per turn is not to be underestimated, as with only one Floatzel on the board, one can hit for 100 every single turn. With two Floatzel, one can begin to power up a second attacker, as well. Beartic fits into this deck as the “Backup Plan” for Blastoise. With Zekrom and Magnezone both running around in the format, seeing your opponent flip over an electric deck at the start of the match used to make the Blastoise player give up hope on the spot. Beartic, with his steel weakness, brings some of that hope back.

Here’s the strengths to this deck:
~The ability to snipe puts you at an advantage over the new “goth and reuniclus” deck, as reuniclus only has 90 HP, and you snipe for 100.
~People playing modified versions of the 2nd place deck from worlds, “The Truth” (aka Ross.dek) will struggle against you for the same reason.
~Fire is a very popular type right now
~Most supporting pokemon have heavy retreat, so bring them up by using twins for your catcher, then snipe around them all day as your opponent struggles to get them out of the active spot
~With both Blastoise and Beartic having 130HP, they’re not an easy KO for the various stage one attackers in the game.
~Donphan has a water weakness, meaning you can hit him for 180 damage if he’s active.
But this deck has weaknesses too:
~This deck plays from behind on prizes, meaning quick-timed games will usually result in a loss
~20 Pokemon with only 2 junk arm means anyone using a lost zone deck will have an easy time
~Setting up a stage 2 pokemon with several stage 1 pokemon is hard to do without a built in draw engine, so you’ll take a few turns to set up.

And that’s my basic run-down of BFB: Blastoise Floatzel Beartic

THIS POST HAS RECEIVED GURU POINTS! ( click here to discover why ) - GuRu SQuaD

 

[ShadowGuard]

Well, Beartic isn't very fast and doesn't do a lot of damage. Locking attacks can be useful but almost any deck that hast more than 2 retreat costs runs Switches (and often Junk Arms).

If you look at Beartic its main strenghts are 130 HP on a stage 1 and a weakness to a type that sees least play at the moment. This means, the only common thing that is able to OHKO it is Magnezone.

That's why I think the most viable way to play Beartic is in a deck similar to "The Truth", mainly replacing both Donphan and SEL in the original list. With trainer lock you also prevent switches etc so even Magnezone isn't an autoloss, thanks to Beartic's first attack.

 

[Excalibar]

Beartic as a deck:

Bearplume:

The List:

Pokemon:#24
4-4 Beartic
3-2-2 Vilplume
3-2-3 Serperior(Royal Heal, B&W)
1 Cleffa(HGSS)

T/S/S:#25
4 Pokemon Collector
3 Professor Oak's New Theoray(HGSS)
4 Twins
4 Sage's Training
2 Copycat

4 Pokemon Communication
4 Rare Candy

Energy:11
3 Double Colorless Energy
8 Basic Water Energy

The basis of this deck is to Trainer Lock your opponent(via Vileplume) and make it so they cannot attack you either(via Beartic's Sheer Cold). This deck is meant to fall behind on the prize trade(due to Oddish's low HP, as well as Cleffa's), so that you can set via the Supporter "Twins". In a very similar fashion to Ross Cawthorn's list. The Serperior is part of the deck mostly due to one of the most popular cards in format: Yanmega Prime. Yes, you can make it so the Yanmega cannot attack, but more often than not your opponent will simply retreat their active Yanmega and replace it with another, allowing them to damage your Beartic. The Serperior heals this damage off, making it so that even if they can attack you, you can simply heal the damage off and continue attacking.

Beartic as a tech:

Now, what if you like Beartic, but not enough to run a deck based on it alone? Here is one list were it is a "tech":

Pokemon:#18
3-3 Donphan Prime
2-2 Beartic
4-3 Yanmega Prime
1 Cleffa

T/S/S:#30
4 Collector
3 Judge
4 Copycat
4 Cheren
4 Pokemon Communication
4 Catcher
4 Junk Arm
2 Plus Power
1 Switch


Energy:#12
4 Rainbow Energy
3 Double Colorless Energy
5 Basic Fighting Energy

It's a typical Stage 1 Rush list, but with the addition of the 4 Rainbow Energy it also receives the benefit of being able to run Beartic. Thus adding the ability to lock your opponent in case this deck's natural speed doesn't overwhelm them. It also improves your Reshiphlosion and Reshiboar matchups, as Beartic's "Icicle Crash" attack 1-kit-KO's Reshiram.

I hope I've given you some insight on Beartic's usefulness in our current format.

 

[Ace-]

Basic and stats

http://pokegym.net/forums/view.php?pg=towercard&imageid=52284

http://pokegym.net/forums/view.php?pg=towercard&imageid=52333

Beartic has 2 cubchoos at the moment. the first one is better because it can attack for 1 energy and "rest" is a good stall attack. In some situations the 2nd cubchoo can be superior than the 1st one but these situations dont happen often. (e.g. you start with 2nd cubchoo, attach :water: energy and pass, your opponent has only one basic with 30 hp and pass. you attach another energy and then attack)

http://pokegym.net/forums/view.php?pg=towercard&imageid=52308

Beartic is a stage 1 pokemon with 130 hp, :metal: weakness x2 and 3 retreat cost. 130 HP is above average (usually a stage 1 pokemon has 70-110 hp.) it can compete with stage 2 pokemon in terms of HP. The :metal: weakness is okay because you won´t find many decks with :metal: pokemon due to popularity of fire decks like Reshiram with Tornupto Prime or Ability Emboar. So it is not easy to ko Beartic with one attack because you can not abuse the weakness often and their arent many pokemon which can do 130 damage easily. However 3 retreat costs are huge. You wont be able to retreat Beartic easily, so special conditions hurts beartic a lot.

Attacks:

Beartic has 2 Attacks. the first one is Sheer Cold. You need 3 energies water::colorless::colorless: ) to use Sheer Cold and deal 50 damage. 50 damage for 3 energies doesnt look well, but Sheer Cold has a very good effect. Your opponent cant attack with the defending pokemon during his next turn.( evolving or retreating the defending pokemon removes that effect) Thats the reason why players want to get and playtest beartic. You keep attacking with sheer cold, your opponent give you a basically free prize or retreat his/her main pokemon by removing energies (unless the pokemon has no retreat costs) which means he/she removes energies which especially hurts pokemon with high retreat costs or using switch. at some point of the game it hurts your opponent a lot because he/she will spend all her switches/junk arms and probably even the energies.
The 2nd attack is Icicle Crash. It does 80 damage for 4 energies water::water::colorless::colorless which isnt much but the damage isnt affected by resistance. However there arent many pokemon with :water: resistance in competitive decks so you wont use this attack often

Strategy:

In my opinion Beartic has a weak early game because Sheer Colds effect can be removed by evolving but it gets stronger in mid/late game because your opponent will have many fully evolved pokemon in play. thats why i personally think that beartic works well with a pokemon with a good/strong early game like Yanmega Prime and Cincinno BW. Besides i personally think that you need cards which

-increase the retreat cost of your opponent´s pokemon
- dont let your opponent playing switch
- forcing the pokemon to switch his defending pokemon

Higher retreat costs-> harder to retreat the pokemon. he/she has to remove more energies to retreat pokemon (assuming all junk arms and switches were uses). Unfortunately there are no viable cards which increases the retreat costs.
There are some 2 ways to stop playing switch cards. The first and more obvious way is trainer lock. Only Vileplume can work with beartic well, but vileplume stops you playing trainer cards as well which can hurt beartic a lot. If you play against pokemon with no retreat costs like Mew prime and Yanmega Prime or Zoroark, you should not use Sheer cold every turn. Mew and Yanmega outdamages Beartic and they can avoid the lock easily. To solve this problem you can tech in a kingdra prime because kingdra prime is basically a plus power every turn. With Kingdra Beartic is able to one shot Mew and 2 shot yanmega prime. However under trainer lock its not easy to get a fast kingdra prime. Another way to stop your opponent playing switch is discarding the switch and junk arm by using weavile ud. However Weavile is a coming into play power which isnt reliable
Besides you want to choose the locked pokemon. The most reliable way is using pokemon Catcher. If your opponent decides to give up the defending pokemon while power up a benched pokemon, use pokemon catcher and lock the pokemon your opponent wants to power up.

final words:

these are my thoughts on beartic. i dont want to give any lists because i dont have any and i think it supports the creativity. i am pretty sure there are some language mistakes but i hope you understand what i want to say

 

[Politoed666]

3x Magnezone Prime
2x Magneton TM
3x Magnemite TM
2x Feraligatr Prime
2x Croconaw HGSS
3x Totodile HGSS
2x Beartic Ability
2x Cubchoo
2x Pichu HGSS
1x Cleffa HGSS
T/S/S line with 4 Candy, 4 Twins, 4 Communication, 4 Judge, 4 Dual Ball, no Collector, and lots of energy.

Here's an interesting build. You have built-in drawpower in the form of Magnezone, a heavy hitter in the form of Magnezone, weakness on Reshiram and Typhlosion with Feraligatr, a virtual autowin on Donphan and a good matchup on Zekrom with Beartic. Zekrom often burns resources to the point where it doesn't have a Switch and can't commit the energy to retreat, meaning Beartic can KO it without fear of Outrage.

A lot of solid matchups against metagame decks give this build good credentials. I can see consistency being a problem, but the combination of Pichu, ways to get Pichu, and Twins make setup a lot easier.

Tried to think of a non-S1s, non-Vileplume way to play Beartic, and this seems most viable.

 

[luxray626]

Beartic Lock

Pokemon: 21
4 Cubchoo
4 Beartic
3 Oddish
2 Gloom
2 Vileplume
2 Slowpoke
2 Slowking
1-1 Suicune Entei Legend

Trainers: 7
4 Pokemon Communication
3 Rare Candy

Supporters: 19
4 Twins
4 Sage's Training
4 Pokemon Collector
4 Copycat
3 Cheren

Energy:
9 Water Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy

Strategy:
The strategy is to get Beartic and Vileplume set up to lock you opponent from trainers and attacking.

Beartic:
This is the attacker for the deck. Its attack Sheer Cold allows you to stop your opponents defending pokemon from attacking. This is extremely powerful because they cannot, without trainers, it will be very hard for them to retreat and then attack Beartic. Because it only does 50 damage, it can easily take 2-3 attacks to knock out their pokemon, so the game could take awhile.

Vileplume:
This is the most important part of the lock. When it is in play, neither player can use trainers. This can stop your opponent in their tracks or prevent them from setting up. It also prevents the use of Switch, which can break the Sheer Cold lock.

Slowking:
This is a small part of the lock. Manipulating your opponent's draw is very powerful and can lock them out of the game if they do not have a hand refresher. It can also make sure you draw a card you need.

Suicune-Entei Legend:
This is overall a great card that was popularized at Worlds. Being able to snipe a Reuniclus or any other troublesome card is a really great effect.

Pokemon Communication:
Even though the deck contains Vileplume, this is still a very important card to help get set up.

Rare Candy:
Only used to get Vileplume into play fast.

Twins:
Because the deck is trying to set up a lock, it can often fall behind in prizes. Twins lets you get any two parts of the lock you need at that point.

Sage's Training:
Lets you sift through five cards. Early game it can get a card you need to get the lock up and late game can get rid of trainers you don't want to draw.

Pokemon Collector:
Gets all of the basics that are needed to set up the lock.

Copycat:
This is the hand refresher of choice because when Vileplume is set up, the opponent's hand becomes clogged with trainers. This will net you a lot of cards.

Cheren:
Free three cards that can be used under trainer lock.

Double Colorless Energy:
This and a water leads to a turn two Sheer Cold.

Water Energy:
Needed to attack with. Obvious inclusion.

Something to look out for:
Zoroark
If your opponent plays Zoroark, you have to be very careful about how to play. If you knock out an opponents pokemon, they can promote Zoroark and Sheer Cold, locking you out of attacks. Try to set up a back-up Beartic so you can either retreat when they send up Zoroark or for when they knock out the Beartic. Still, this can be a very hard card for Beartic to play against.

Techs

Judge:
Once you are set up, Judge can cripple your opponent and, combined with Slowking, can destroy your opponent.

Reuniclus:
Taking the lock one set further, Reuniclus can make it nearly impossible to knock out.

Pichu:
Gets all of the basic pokemon you need, but lets your opponent get all of theirs.

All in all, this can be a very scary deck to play against and very hard to beat. Expect to play against Beartic at Battle Roads.

 

[Victory Bell]

This thread is great. I'd give out points if i had a working computer.

Just some words of encouragment.

 

[Prime]

I think Pokemon Catcher and Kingdra Prime would go together well with Beartic. "Catch" up an unpowered Pokemon like an Emboar, attack it with Beartic while you lay damage counters on the opponent's bench with Kingdra Prime's Poke-Power.

Crushing Hammer could help slow the opponent, too.

I don't think Vileplume is necessary. Decks don't run that many Switch as it is, and they will have to burn their Junk Arms for each Pokemon Catcher you use, and obviously 4 Catcher + Junk Arm is going to win out sooner than later against 1-2 Switch + Junk Arm.

 

[prodigal_fanboy]

I personally think that playing Beartic without Vileplume is a mistake. Switch was already decent with a Reversal-heavy format and fatty bench sitters, and for preserving attachments (energy on board can win S1 mirrors), and there's no reason for it not to be valuable in the future.

Magnezone helps keep your consistency up, and is frankly the lazy go-to option for deck-building, and brings a nice beatstick option to the table as well.

4-4 Beartic
3-2-3 Magnezone
3-2-2 Vileplume
2-2 Dodrio
1 Cleffa
1 Pachirisu COL
1 Pichu HGSS

4 Collector
4 Sage's
4 Juniper
3 PETM
3 Twins

3 Rare Candy
3 Communication
2 Switch

4 DCE
2 Rescue
3 W
4 Rainbow
2 L

This is a prototype list of how to run BearZone. The trainer engine will probably have to be ironed out as the realities of achieving set-up are balanced against the needs of the deck. You have potential to succeed with the deck, however, I'm leery of the Yanmega/Donphan/Zoroark matchup. Essentially what you're banking on is that you can hit a Plume before they can hit a Zoroark with sufficient lead time that you can manage the threat it poses to your strong lock. Otherwise you are more or less forced to switch and Yanmega KO it as the instant they Foul Play you your lock is broken and you become a sad panda.

I'd also like to see an extra discard outlet, more freetreat starters, and to see whether you can get away with no Dodrio in competitive play (is there a Warp Energy analog in format?).

Beartic/Magnezone/Vileplume is a rather boring way to play it, however it has a strong capacity to pubstomp and should have a playable game against most of the meta, making it worth a try. Plus it's somewhere new to stick your shiny Magnezones that you dropped $30/per on.

 

[masterswrd]

Well, to get started, Beartic is basically going to be used for it's first attack Sheer Cold. Costing :water::colorless::colorless: the attack, as mentioned in the opening post stops the opponent from attacking. This has been a viable technique in the TCG before as there was a somewhat popular Neo-on deck that used Piloswine to stop the opponent from attacking and Murkrow to lock them active.

Unfortunately that's not going to work as well this time. The reason being that Beartic's attack only lock's the opponent from attacking if it's used every turn, something that Piloswine didn't have to worry about (it locked until the defending Pokemon was benched). So that means you're going to want to use Beartic's attack on heavy-retreat attackers. Again we see a problem, though. Switch can be played to get a heavy-retreater out of the active position, ruining your setup. This means that if you want to set up the lock you're going to have to control your opponent in some way.

Of course, the biggest partner that is being suggested for Beartic at the moment is Vileplume. It can sit on the bench, and as long as it's there, neither player can play trainer-item cards. While this does fix the problem of the opponent playing Switch (as well as several other nasty cards) it also means that you will be unable to play Pokemon Catcher, which is key once you have your Beartic set up since it lets you pick a high-retreat Pokemon and place it active. So if Vileplume isn't the best solution, what is?

I would suggest fitting Beartic into a lock deck such as the Ambipom/Weavile deck that did well in Canadian Nationals. Your goal would be to lock your opponent active by Catchering up a heavy retreater (Donphan or Magnezone would be ideal, but anything with 2 or more retreat will force your opponent to waste resources) and then using Slowking (HS or CoL) to control their topdecks. You would also want to include hand disruption supporters such as Team Rocket's Trickery to whittle down you opponent's hand and Weavile to discard possible out your opponent may have when they start out such as switch or Junk Arm (If given a choice between the Switch of the Junk Arm, always go for Junk Arm since it's almost completely unrecover-able from the discard). If you can set up the lock early, you can take your time to take out your opponent's active with Sheer Cold. But how do you deal with the revenge KO on Beartic once you've knocked out your opponent's active with Sheer Cold? The answer is that you don't want to KO any Pokemon with Sheer Cold until every Pokemon is within 30 damage of being knocked out. At that point you can use your Weaviles to take out all of your opponent's Pokemon via Feint Attack. If your opponent has six Pokemon you can take six prizes in six turns. Also by waiting to take the prizes, you can utilize Twins to speed your setup as soon as your opponent has taken his or her first prize.

Based off of this, here's a basic Skeleton List to get started with:

Pokemon (16)
4-4 Weavile UD
3-3 Beartic EPO
2-2 Slowking HS/CoL

T/S/S (20)
4 Pokemon Catcher
3 Pokemon Collector
4 Twins
3 Pokemon Communication
2 Team Rocket's Trickery
4 Professor Oak's New Theory

Energy (12)
4 Water
4 Rainbow Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy

Open Slots: 12

This skeleton gives a lot of room to add consistency of techs to the deck depending on what way you want to take it. A couple of suggested techs would be Crushing Hammer (gets rid of opponent's energy making it harder to retreat), Ambipom (can set up lock earlier, but puts cards back in deck instead of discarding), Rescue Energy (recycles KOd Weavile and Beartic).

This is the route I would go with Da Bear if I were going to play it. Disruption plus speed is the key. I feel that Slowking proves to be a faster and more reliable partner to Beartic, one thing missing from this skeleton list would be Judge. Judge IMO is needed in any deck that looks to disrupt your opponent, with slowking looking at the top three and basically denying any cards that would help your opponent or hurt you (Switch,Zoroark,etc) the only thing you then have to fear is one of 4 cards being a juniper or PONT or etc, oh wait did I say 4? I meant three cause Weavile got dropped and claw snagged a card. Curse you sir for getting this up before me

 

[Heartgold22]

So, felt like felt doing this to occupy time, so this won't be long...
Pokemon 23
3-3 Beartic
2-2 Golduck TM
2-2-2 Feraligatr Prime
2-1-2 Reuniclus
1-Pichu
1-Cleffa

Trainers 25
4-Pokemon Collector
4-Pokemon Communication
3-Sages Training
3-PONT
3-Twins
2-Black Belt
1-Seeker
3-Rare Candy
2 Pokemon Catcher

Energy 7
5- Water Energy
2-Double Colorless Energy

Open Slots: 5

So, for the set -up,what you do is try to get Beartic up as fast as you can and stop the opponent from attacking. While doin this get a Golduck, Feraligatr, and Reuniclus on the bench.
Strategy: Get Beartic up and running as fast as possible, while you do this you want to get up a (1)*Golduck, (2)*Reuniclus, (4)*Feraligatr, and another (3)*Beartic on the Bench. What the plan is , is to switch the damage from Beartic to Golduck and attach a Water Energy to heal off 2 damage counters so you can keep the big guy going. You can also put up a Golduck to OHKO if you have enough energy on it since it's attack increases for each energy attached to ALL of Your Pokemon. Now, you can also Seeker up the Golduck so you can get those Water energies back to your hand and to reattach them to Heal again.
And since Beartic can't hit that hard, ( and You will be behind in prizes) I put in Black Belt so you can hit for 40 more, which can make all the difference. Along with Black Belt, I put in three Twins so you can use the Twins Engine along with Sages & PONT.
OVerall, you need to get your bench set up as fast as you can so they can't catcher them all up and keep OHKOing you. Once you get set up, it should be fairly easy to keep healing damage off to keep the Bear as a tank.
What is cool about this deck is that two out of the three Bench Sitters can attack for a decent attack, Feraligatr and Golduck. I know this isn't good deck, but I did my best for 11 P.M. Just wanted to try. Sorry for any typos.
*THe order in which these Pokemon need to set-up.

 

[Stegy]

Well, to get started, Beartic is basically going to be used for it's first attack Sheer Cold. Costing :water::colorless::colorless: the attack, as mentioned in the opening post stops the opponent from attacking. This has been a viable technique in the TCG before as there was a somewhat popular Neo-on deck that used Piloswine to stop the opponent from attacking and Murkrow to lock them active.

Unfortunately that's not going to work as well this time. The reason being that Beartic's attack only lock's the opponent from attacking if it's used every turn, something that Piloswine didn't have to worry about (it locked until the defending Pokemon was benched). So that means you're going to want to use Beartic's attack on heavy-retreat attackers. Again we see a problem, though. Switch can be played to get a heavy-retreater out of the active position, ruining your setup. This means that if you want to set up the lock you're going to have to control your opponent in some way.

Of course, the biggest partner that is being suggested for Beartic at the moment is Vileplume. It can sit on the bench, and as long as it's there, neither player can play trainer-item cards. While this does fix the problem of the opponent playing Switch (as well as several other nasty cards) it also means that you will be unable to play Pokemon Catcher, which is key once you have your Beartic set up since it lets you pick a high-retreat Pokemon and place it active. So if Vileplume isn't the best solution, what is?

I would suggest fitting Beartic into a lock deck such as the Ambipom/Weavile deck that did well in Canadian Nationals. Your goal would be to lock your opponent active by Catchering up a heavy retreater (Donphan or Magnezone would be ideal, but anything with 2 or more retreat will force your opponent to waste resources) and then using Slowking (HS or CoL) to control their topdecks. You would also want to include hand disruption supporters such as Team Rocket's Trickery to whittle down you opponent's hand and Weavile to discard possible out your opponent may have when they start out such as switch or Junk Arm (If given a choice between the Switch of the Junk Arm, always go for Junk Arm since it's almost completely unrecover-able from the discard). If you can set up the lock early, you can take your time to take out your opponent's active with Sheer Cold. But how do you deal with the revenge KO on Beartic once you've knocked out your opponent's active with Sheer Cold? The answer is that you don't want to KO any Pokemon with Sheer Cold until every Pokemon is within 30 damage of being knocked out. At that point you can use your Weaviles to take out all of your opponent's Pokemon via Feint Attack. If your opponent has six Pokemon you can take six prizes in six turns. Also by waiting to take the prizes, you can utilize Twins to speed your setup as soon as your opponent has taken his or her first prize.

Based off of this, here's a basic Skeleton List to get started with:

Pokemon (16)
4-4 Weavile UD
3-3 Beartic EPO
2-2 Slowking HS/CoL

T/S/S (20)
4 Pokemon Catcher
3 Pokemon Collector
4 Twins
3 Pokemon Communication
2 Team Rocket's Trickery
4 Professor Oak's New Theory

Energy (12)
4 Water
4 Rainbow Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy

Open Slots: 12

This skeleton gives a lot of room to add consistency of techs to the deck depending on what way you want to take it. A couple of suggested techs would be Crushing Hammer (gets rid of opponent's energy making it harder to retreat), Ambipom (can set up lock earlier, but puts cards back in deck instead of discarding), Rescue Energy (recycles KOd Weavile and Beartic).

I'm going to both agree and disagree with your post. For one, let me say that I used to play the Piloswine/Mukrow combo back in the day. I believe it used Lt. Surge or something that allowed you to place a Pokemon from your hand into the active position, which you would use on your Murkrow. Murkrow would then snipe everything your opponent put onto the bench while there wasn't a whole lot they could do outside of, say, Double Gust or something.

(I also noticed you're the same user who posted the Samurott/Electrode deck. At the time I was thinking of a Scolipede/Electrode deck (and then when Gothitelle was released, Gothitelle/Electrode, which I love), so we seem to share similar deck interests.)

However, the same idea can still work, if not better. We have Slowking and Weavile, both of which are reusable Pokemon with some of the best Pokemon Powers/Abilities in the game. The backbone of the deck is Slowking/Weavile--don't confuse that with anything else. You can literally use any heavy-hitting Pokemon as long as you have Slowking and Weavile up front, but Beartic is the icing on the cake. Very rarely does a deck have such good synergy among multiple lines like Beartic/Slowking/Weavile does. At first thought, in the current format, Typhlosion/Ninetales comes to mind, but I can't think of anything else.

Beartic's Sheer Cold attack is to be used on every Pokemon, not just Pokemon with "heavy retreat costs". The ability to completely stop your opponent from attacking is nice, especially when it does 50 damage and it's coming from a 130HP Stage 1 Pokemon. Does this mean your opponent can just send up a Pokemon to be "sacrificed" while they build up a Pokemon on the bench? Absolutely, but to what purpose? You are controlling the opponent's draw via Slowking and their hand via Weavile. You literally give your opponent very few options to work with. When Beartic can 2HKO almost every Pokemon in the format (outside of weakness), your opponent is going to be scrambling to build an efficient attacker. And on top of that, that same Pokemon is going to need to do at least 130 damage or be rendered ineffective following its attack due to Sheer Cold. Outside of Weakness, very few Pokemon can reach this number without PlusPower help.

This is where Weavile and Slowking arrive to back-up our beloved Beartic. Weavile strips PlusPowers, Rare Candies, Professor Oaks/Junipers, and any other card your opponent might think as useful so your Beartic can wreck havoc. Can Vileplume do this? Yes, of course, but that also hurts you as well. You cannot use Trainers which can help getting the lock going, or to resume the lock if your opponent recovers. This is why I don't think Vileplume is a good choice, especially since it's a Stage 2 Pokemon that needs extra attention in order to get onto the field. It's useful with a Twins engine but you're just giving your opponent time to set up with that mentality.

You mention using Pokemon Catcher on Pokemon with high retreat cost like Donphan and Magnezone. If your opponent has those Pokemon out, you're not playing the deck correctly. You're meant to cripple your opponent's setup, not bring already-played Pokemon into the active position just to do 50 damage to them. That's not an efficient strategy. Can you stop Magnezone from using its Magnetic Draw? Nope. Can you stop Yanmega from retreating? Not a chance. Now your strategy can work versus Reshiram/Typhlosion (or Reshiram/Emboar) because you can hit for Weakness (100 damage or 160 damage) and go aggressive with the deck, even if you can't quite get the lock going. Weavile can still be used to strip important cards like PlusPower and Switch from your opponent's hand to give you the edge.

Also, attacking with Weavile is not a good idea. Now if you were running, say, Houndour/Weavile/Slowking then yes, I would consider the use of Weavile's snipe attack, but in this build you shouldn't be attacking with it. Beartic should be getting all of your KOs. Spreading damage is not a good idea. Just hit something with Sheer Cold and then follow up with Icicle Crash for 80. That's 130 damage, pretty much enough to knock out anything your opponent has active.

The Decklist

Pokemon 19
4x Sneasel
4x Weavile
3x Cubchoo (Powder Snow)
3x Beartic (Sheer Cold)
2x Slowpoke (Rambunctious Party)
2x Slowking (Second Sight)
1x Cleffa

Trainers 28
4x Professor Oak's New Theory
4x Super Scoop Up
4x Pokemon Collector
4x Pokemon Communication
3x Junk Arm
3x Professor Juniper/Sage's Training/Cheren
2x Professor Juniper/Sage's Training/Cheren
2x Seeker
1x Flower Shop Lady
1x Great Ball

Energy 12
8x Water Energy
4x Double Colorless Energy

==59 cards with 1 free spot to play with

This is currently the list I use. I've added an extra 1-1 Beartic, Switch, Great Ball, Pokemon Catcher, more Water Energy, Judge, an extra Cleffa, Tyrogue, Team Rocket's Trickery, and whatever else I think might be needed to continue the lock.

Strategy
The goal of this deck is simple: strip your opponent of any useful cards, control their draws, and make their attacking Pokemon unable to attack. Simple, right? Actually, it is! Beartic is the only Pokemon in the deck that needs Energy to attack; Slowking and Weavile merely sit on the bench (or, in the case of Weavile, pop in and out of play). Does Beartic need to appear Turn 2? No, not at all, but the sooner you get one out the better. Cubchoo is good for disruption (Sleep is annoying) but isn't a really good attacker. I use it as an opener if I get it and am able to get a Turn 2 Beartic; otherwise I lead with Sneasel or Cleffa.

You want to get Weavile in play first. Slowking can come later because striping your opponent of cards is more important than controlling their deck. Can your opponent rip an Oak's New Theory or Juniper? Of course, but it's much better to disrupt their setup while you build the lock. When Slowking hits the table you should be in good shape, meaning that your opponent doesn't have any Pokemon Catchers and their draw has been ruined. You want to make sure your Slowking is safe when you play it.

Beartic is used as the muscle as well as a core Pokemon of the deck. Sheer Cold is its primary attack. If you cannot KO the opposing Pokemon with Icicle Crash then you use Sheer Cold and then follow up with Icicle Crash the next turn. It's a very potent combination. Sheer Cold can be quite annoying. ^_^

Slowking is perhaps the trickiest part of the deck. What do you choose to give your opponent from their top 3 cards? Well, look at their board and their hand. If they don't have any energy in play, give them cards like PlusPower and Switch since they won't be able to attack you. Give them evolutions if they don't have any basics in play; heck, give them evolutions even if they do have basics in play because without energy they won't be attacking (just make sure they're not evolutions like Yanmega or Magnezone or something that will hurt you). If you can KO all of their Pokemon with Icicle Crash and they can't KO you in one shot, give them some energy. But do not give them:

1.) Draw cards like Professor Oak's New Theory, Professor Juniper, and Cheren. Sage's Training is "okay" because you can discard the (likely) draw Supporter card they chose on your next turn since they won't be able to play it after playing Sage's Training.

2.) Ways to get Pokemon. You do not want to allow your opponent access to Cleffa. You do not want to discard cards from your opponent's hand twice after establishing the lock. You just don't.

3.) Pokemon Catcher. Now you can choose this if you have an extra Double Colorless Energy for your Slowking, but other than that don't pick it. It's annoying, and you don't want to allow your opponent to get a cheap prize because you have a damaged Weavile on the bench.

Basically you want to look at their hand and board and think, "If they draw this card, will it help them?" If the answer's no, give it to them. If it's yes, don't. Sometimes you'll see something like 3 energies or 3 Supporters and you just have to make the most of it. Plan to re-establish the lock the following turn if you have to give them a Sage's Training or Cheren or something like that.

Matchups
I'm going to be completely honest with you: Beartic/Slowking/Weavile has amazing matchups versus virtually any deck as long as you get set up. If you fail to get the lock up before your opponent gets his/her board established, you have a good chance of losing the game. It's possible to make a comeback if your opponent puts all his eggs in one basket (that is, has only one attacker) and you can lock it with Sheer Cold and play 1-2 Weaviles alongside Slowking to control the board. But this is tough: you want to get Weavile out as soon as possible so your opponent's set up is hindered. The deck doesn't do well if you don't get set up fast. Period. You also have to have a strong idea of how other decks are played so you know what to discard and how to rearrange the top 3 of your opponent's deck

However, I will say that perhaps the roughest matchups are Yanmega/Magnezone and Zekrom/Tornados/Shaymin/Pachirisu.

Yanmega/Magnezone Very, very touch matchup. If you go first you have an advantage. You can get Sneasels out to be followed by Weaviles the following turn, which helps tremendously. If Magnezone gets out.. well, you're pretty much out of luck. Yanmegas will soon follow and those Yanmegas will 2HKO your Beartic while you only do 50 to one of them (maybe even two). Like I've said earlier, you can hinder setup but there's only so much you can do. It's hard to determine what is a bigger threat: Magnezone or Yanmega. If you can control hand sizes then getting rid of Magnezone would probably be the best course of action; otherwise, you want to get rid of Yanmegas so you can Sheer Cold Magnezone and prevent it from attacking. I'd say the matchup is 40/60 in their favor. If you go first you have a huge advantage, but it all depends on what you draw and what you discard with Weavile.

Zekrom Probably a tougher matchup then Yanmega/Magnezone. If they go first, whatever Pokemon you start with is going to be KO'd, and if it's Zekrom then you're in trouble. There's really not a lot you can do if they go first considering they'll have two turns to get PlusPowers and Catchers to KO Cubchoos and Beartics. Now if you can hit a Zekrom with Sheer Cold and discard Shaymin/ways to reuse Shaymin/ways to get Shaymin, you can gain the upper hand. Like I said: Sheer Cold followed by Icicle Crash is a 2HKO on Zekrom (and Tornados as well). Try to KO the Pokemon with energy and you should be okay. I'd say this matchup is 30/70 in their favor. Going first is absolutely crucial in this matchup. If they go first and they can't get the donk then you have a much better chance at controlling the game. Judge helps in this matchup, if you play it. Judge followed by an Eeeeek is kind of like Lass + Eeek from the olden days. :thumb:


I think that's about it. I've been playing this deck for quite a while now and hope to win a BR (or two ^_^) with it. Anyway, I just wanted to give my personal opinion on the deck.