Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Jumpluff

I'm ok with spoiling the deck because I'm done until Worlds. I just figured I'd spice regionals up a bit for everyone else ;) So sorry Brent, not going to be winning Regionals this year. ( I'll LET someone else do it ;) )

I just wanted to point out this is what I was talking about in the prior threads in regards to a difference in potential article quality. Anyone is willing to write up an article, but to write one that really, honestly goes in depth, with quality, accurate information is much harder to come by. I also want to give a few props now, for motivation and innovation on the deck.

Props to Chad Harris (Scizor) for doing a lot of the basework, and giving me the rough strengths and weaknesses of the deck after I was impressed with it during my first few games testing vs it. Props to Drew Holton and Martin Moreno and Sam Bittinger for helping me log some good testing games with it as well. Props to Gabriel for some post-States discussion with the deck as well, which led to some of the tech ideas. And props to PokePop, for suggesting I decide to write this thing up, as otherwise I certainly was going to be too lazy to.

And how do you get around Luring Flame on a Regice? Don't bench Regice. You NEVER bench Regice vs a Blaziken FB including SP deck. I guess if you open with it and are stuck with it, "good beats", but you have WPs, and you can retreat it for "two" which isn't even that bad. Remember, they take the turn to gust it. You attach. They retreat, and snipe. You attach, attach Unown Q, and retreat, and match the prize. Your also in a position where your opponent REALLY can't safely Lure it up, because they have no idea of knowing if you DO have a Warp Point, and if you do, that wasted Luring Flame pretty much loses them the game. From the SP player's perspective, they can't really afford to make a play that MIGHT work, and if it DOES work, certainly doesn't come close to "winning" the game, when if it backfires, pretty much LOSES them the game. ( They switch, you attach an energy. If they re-lure, attach, Unown Q, kill Blaziken. ) BUT to reiterate, just don't bench the Regice.
 
If you do a very poor job of gathering information about your opponent. I always keep track of pairings each round so that I can go ask players previous round opponents what they were using. That way you get a heads up on techs, and can go into the game knowing a good gameplan. Plus, as the tournament wears on, you get a good feel for what a player is using. You don't usually bench it against SP unless your getting a huge benefit from it ( killing a key Pokemon with energy if they only have one Pokemon on the bench, for instance ) Whether they have Blaziken or not really doesn't change this, as I'd be far more worried about Luxray gusting it and then the snipe more so then the Blaziken. SO "hiding the Blaziken" shouldn't change the fact you shouldn't recklessly bench a giant 3 retreat costing target vs a deck with Gust of Wind options. You really only want to bench Regice when your using it to augment a fantastic start and you can near cripple them ( at which point if they buy a turn or two your position is still so good it is irrelevent ) or when your ending a game and want to kill their benched Pokemon that aren't leveled up yet. Relying on an opponent making a huge mistake and banking on them not having a card that lists run 2-3 of is a pretty bad game plan for "winning" an otherwise bad matchup isn't reassuring to me, and I'm sure isn't reassuring to most other players either.
 
Leheure and PokeChamp got OWNED.

Chris, what would you say to people that don't want to play Jumpluff in fear of getting donked?
 
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Touche.

Alright, I'm pretty confident SFGar won't impact the matchup too much. Jumplux is actually a totally different deck from Speedpluff, so I guess my statement didn't make too much sense. Looking at it from your point of view, I stand corrected.
 
For people who are afraid of getting donked? Lets look at a few basic arguments. First, if your alternative is Gyarados, shame on you, same odds. If not less likely to get donked, as you intentionally inflate your basic count in Jumpluff in order to A.) not be donked, B.) have extra cards to shuffle in with Comm. Magikarps get donked and no one really brings that argument up...mainly because it happens far less then you'd think it does.

Now, it does happen. BUT, look at an average deck. It runs far less draw power than this. So you'll offset this donking rate by having less bad starts in general. Also, offset it by the number of games you simply win by donking opponents. Also, you have far better matchups across the board then other decks, so you gain more overall wins as a result of that too.

The odds of actually being donked are very low. I'm not going to do the actual math but I'll give you the events that have to line up. First, you have to open with a lone basic. You run 16. It has to be Hoppip or Unown Q, really. Next, they have to open Sableye ( 4 copies out of 60 ) WITH a dark ( using the FL garchomp deck as an example, they run 7...). Vs SP, they have to open Luxray or Garchomp ( usually 5 total ) you have to open just hoppip or Unown, they have to open DCE ( 4 total ). Just realize you have to open poorly, go 1st, and have them have the magic donking cards necessary. The only time out of 22 games I got donked at States was against Gengar when I felt it was safe just to bench Hoppip, and he opened Duskull ( Shining ) and killed me. I had a hand of two basics.
 
I wouldn't add call: The energy count is very low. We can't go LESS colored energy, So the cuts have to come from somewhere else, which there is no room for.
 
uuuufff said:
Leheure and PokeChamp got OWNED.

Chris, what would you say to people that don't want to play Jumpluff in fear of getting donked?
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well i guess he got me with the whole " I like to scout so i can better my odds" Guess its just another way to play the game.
 
16 basics is a very safe basic count for the donk. Call just doesn't work. Can you get donked, of course.

This list seems like Chris's exact list. He is too good of a player to do much enhancements here.

If anything I would ask if 6 energy is really enough. Failure to score a first or second turn energy would seem to just sink your plans. Failure to hit on energy is a failure just the same if you end turn without an attack. I am somewhat silly and still run 16 energy in my Flygon deck and I have run uxie donk with 2 energy, thus I have played heavy and light, and consistency includes having energy to press attack. 6 energies seems like sour grapes waiting to happen on not finding an energy to attack with.
 
Make that 9 Basic Energy, Rob. Include the Roseannes in that count, as they get you Energy. With all the other card drawing in here, I doubt there'll be any problems getting what he needs.
 
Eh, 9 isn't ENTIRELY accurate. You don't always getting a chance to use Roseanne. You do, on the other hand, Claydol and Uxie a lot. We've debated 6 and 7 energy, and I've had plenty of success with just 6. 7 is likely the "BEST" case scenario but there are a lot of numbers that have to get shaved to good but not great counts just because better cards must be addressed.
 
Yeah, like Chris said, this deck actually should get donked the same amount of time if not less than a deck like Gyarados which is forced to go first with a Sableye start. This is one of the many things people try to bring up to downgrade Jumpluff being great. It's just a really poor argument and shows people's bias and that they are uneducated about the deck.

Adding Call Energy is not a good idea. If this deck actually benefited from the Colorless Energy like Garchomp C or Flygon later in the game then it would definitely be considered. If anything you should be thinking about adding more Basic Pokemon or search cards.

To put things in perspective: I went first 13 times at States and took one T1 loss, and that was with an Uxie start against Sableye/SP Dark/Flash Bite x2, so I'm pretty sure that can happen to any deck.
 
baby mario said:
Fantastic article. Now this has been on the Gym, Charizard is probably the smart play for Regionals.
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I love your logic:

"This report encourages me to play Charizard, despite the author claiming that Charizard is a poor metagame selection."

Hmmm...
 
Cyrus said:
I love your logic:

"This report encourages me to play Charizard, despite the author claiming that Charizard is a poor metagame selection."

Hmmm...
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ok, you'll play charizard and i'll play gyarados, now, lets see how that works out (again, great article, people have to write more like this one)
 
Yeah, I wasn't being completely serious, just suggesting that, now this has been posted, the list is probably going to be netdecked a lot.

Should have used a smiley, I know.
 
Charizard isn't THAT bad. It probably has a pretty strong SP matchup, unless they run Palkia. It has issues vs Gyarados, and Kingdra though. I wouldn't play it, but as shown in NC, it definitely has some legs to it.

And ahaha @ Scizor's sig. Didn't even see that before :D
 
Ha. As if i needed more of a reason to try my hand at Jumpluff. Awesome article. I agreed with pretty much everything you said.
 
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