Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

La Mer

H

Hippowdon SaveSand

New Member
Hmm. Not sure. I want to run my lovely Hippo deck at this year's Nats, but I can't decide on 4-4 Hippo rr or 4-3-1 Hippo. Having a maxed 4-4 line means moar consistency, but the lvx offers bigger hp, and another attack (don't care about the Power much). BUT, having the X means a poor, undeveloped hippopotas waiting in the wings. Can anyone help me?
 
You just don't play the 4rth Hippopotas.
It means you can use a Palmer's to get back 4 energy and a Hippowdon, knowing the fourth Hippopotas is still decked.
Consistency.
Etc.

No reason not to run the X really.
 
The 4th Hippopotas becomes welcome fuel for Pokemon Communicator and serves two purposes (fast setup and something NOT important to use for searching out other Pokes)

The BIGGEST question to ask is "what will Sand Reset actually disrupt?"

If you foresee it being a factor on the playing field (not vs. Gdos, not vs. Gengar, MAYBE vs. LuxChomp), then you put in the LvX.

Otherwise, you run a hard 4-4 and do your thing.

BTW, are you going to supplement with a second line? Colorless perhaps?
 
Plain Hippowdon isn't too bad of a deck, it will just run a little slowly, though a T1 Hippowdos is possibly if you play a speed orientated T/S/S line (mainly just a good amount of search cards and 3/4 BTS) Or go for the safe set-up route with 4 Spiritomb as a starter. Blissey PL is possible tech, allows you to keep keep Hippowdon alive and/or healing your benched pokemon from any damage they may take from Hippowdon RR Earthquake.
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Hippowdon SaveSand said:
You mean a colourless tech/ secondary hitter?
Click to expand...

Yep. Everytime I see someone go aggro Hippowdon, they fail to consider weakness and run a 2nd line of pokes.

Just for giggles, I ran it with Exploud to eliminate my weakness AND tech against Garchomp SV.

It sounds rediculous, but try it. Exploud SV is just hilarious taking out Garchomps. Sand Cover + GroundQuake bring all SPs within OHKO range. So, even Healing breath becomes less effective.

You'll, already, run DCE so test it with Exploud and Lost Remover (to lost zone those pesky rescue energy).

EITHER WAY ... I don't know if I'd recommend the Hippo for NATS though :(
 
Would try Exploud, except I have none whatsoever. The deck I'm using at the moment is pretty much Hippo/Ninetales/ Sableye- It sounds bad, but the drawpower is phenomenal. Roast reveal, engineer's and impersonating an engineer's in the same turn (not impossible) is just incredible, not to mention save sanding with a dce already attached that sets up for a good groundquake. I run quite a few energy so that combo's rarely difficult to pull off.

I will try Lost Remover to improve the 'Gar matchups (both vile and lost), along with the odd g-dos matchup too. As far as normal techs are concerned, I can't think of any other than Exploud (which I have none of) or Ambipom g. I once considered Breloom sv as a nice tech.

---------- Post added 04/02/2011 at 05:31 AM ----------

I did test 'Tomb as a starter but Sableye is far better for this deck- As odd as it sounds, Hippo needs speed in the combo I'm using. Plus, impersonating an engineer's (or collector) is my ideal start.
 
Hippowdon SaveSand said:
I did test 'Tomb as a starter but Sableye is far better for this deck- As odd as it sounds, Hippo needs speed in the combo I'm using. Plus, impersonating an engineer's (or collector) is my ideal start.
Click to expand...

A Spiritomb might not hurt if you're running a decent amount of Switch/Warp Point/Warp Energy/etc and maybe an Unown Q. Against SP you can Level Up -> Switch/Warp Out to Spiritomb -> and Sand Reset without the threat of being Power Sprayed. It might be more hassle than it's worth, but it could be worth trying. It might be easier just to run a Giratina (Let Loose) to deal with Power Spray or maybe a Judge or Lookers. A Relicanth might tighten up the entire SP match-up all on its own, though. JMO and some ideas to play with :)
 
Hippowdon SaveSand said:
Would try Exploud, except I have none whatsoever. The deck I'm using at the moment is pretty much Hippo/Ninetales/ Sableye- It sounds bad, but the drawpower is phenomenal. Roast reveal, engineer's and impersonating an engineer's in the same turn (not impossible) is just incredible, not to mention save sanding with a dce already attached that sets up for a good groundquake. I run quite a few energy so that combo's rarely difficult to pull off.

I will try Lost Remover to improve the 'Gar matchups (both vile and lost), along with the odd g-dos matchup too. As far as normal techs are concerned, I can't think of any other than Exploud (which I have none of) or Ambipom g. I once considered Breloom sv as a nice tech.

---------- Post added 04/02/2011 at 05:31 AM ----------

I did test 'Tomb as a starter but Sableye is far better for this deck- As odd as it sounds, Hippo needs speed in the combo I'm using. Plus, impersonating an engineer's (or collector) is my ideal start.
Click to expand...

Ok. I'm beginning to like and respect your deck already. Why? Because you're taking a ground-up approach of building it from scratch, testing it, tweeking it.

At this point, the only thing I could do is test against you in RedShark and THEN get a feel for what's keeping you from having that unbeatable deck :smile:

Are you ever on RedShark?
 
Thank you for the compliment, I'm on Redshark sometimes but my internet is very limited (I use an Orange dongle which gives me only 3 hours of internet per day.)
 
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