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Q: What deck could possibly win Nationals and Worlds without batting an eye? A: Powdacham, which very well could be this season’s deck to beat!
Article Title: Powdacham
Author: Matthew J. Moss
Date: December 03, 2005
Format: Modified, HL-DS
Latest Set: EX: Delta Species
Email: [email protected]
AIM: Mossy695
Discuss: Powdacham in the Archetypes and Standard Strategies Forum.
Powdacham: The Deck!
Pokémon: 16
3 Medicham ex
3 Meditite EM
4 Jirachi DX
2 Espeon ex
1 Umbreon ex
2 Eevee DS
1 Holon's Magneton
Trainers: 30
4 Mary's Request
4 Rocket's Admin.
4 Swoop! Teleporter
4 Energy Removal 2
4 Pow! Hand Extension
4 Island Cave
3 Professor Elm's Training Method
2 TV Reporter
1 Pokémon Retriever
Energy: 14
6 Fighting Energy
4 Metal Energy
4 Psychic Energy
Key players:
Description: The name alone strikes fear into the hearts of Pokémon around the world. I can’t even count the number of once powerful Pokémon that Medicham ex has not only KOed, but sent directly to Lavender; its not a “friendly” game after Medicham ex hits the table, things are serious.
Despite my grandeur, Medicham ex is a very solid Pokémon ex that takes a lot of skill to play correctly. Its key attribute is its Poké-Body, Wise Aura. This formidable Poké-Body’s main goal is to specifically shut down the Poké-Powers of Pidgeot and Magcargo. Since a great number of decks rely on these card-searching Pokémon to set up their powerful attackers, we’re cutting their supply chain off—effectively eliminating threats by ensuring they never materialize in the first place. Most players focus on Stage 2 Pokémon, and generally more than one line in their deck. By focusing on a single Stage 1, we should outrace them to become set up.
Another great side effect of Wise Aura, is that not only does the opponent have difficulty in getting their Pokémon evolved to their highest levels (i.e., getting out Blastoise in a Squrtile-Wartortle-Blastoise line), but also they have trouble finding energy in play. Typically their draw will be focused on either getting the Pokémon in play, or getting them powered up. Doing both without their key search Pokémon is a difficult task.
Sky Kick is a very strong attack. Requiring only one Fighting Energy card, this attack makes adding multiple Energy cards into the deck possible, while still maintaining consistency. This becomes important as we will discuss later. Sky Kick does the magic number of damage, 60, meaning it can KO the common 120 HP Pokémon in two clean shots. With 110 HP itself, it should be able to survive most onslaughts and live to strike again. If not, the convenient (1) retreat cost allows Medicham ex to evade an attacker and get out of the active position without much trouble.
Also, it has a nice positive side effect in that anything that resists Fighting gets a nice surprise: instead of doing less damage, Medicham ex does more damage with Sky Kick! So you’re at a disadvantage being a Fighting-resistant Pokémon receiving a Sky Kick from Medicham ex. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know of many Pokémon that could survive a massive Sky Kick from a fully powered Medicham ex; better put your Focus Band on!
Medicham ex’s other attack, Pure Power, is what makes the deck great. If you’re able to maneuver a weak Pokémon into your opponent’s Active Position, you can tear up the bench while they pass. Later on, I’ll discuss how our deck plans to do this. Pure Power takes two colorless energy to activate, thus its easy to splash other Energy types into a deck containing Medicham ex, as it won’t need a Fighting Energy until the third drop at the earliest. Pure Power is so powerful in its damage spreading and bench damaging properties. The fact that it “places damage counters,” as opposed to “does damage” is huge! This means you get around Metal Energy’s healing effects, you evade damage preventing properties such as Feebas’ Submerge Poké-Body and Scizor ex’s Steel Wing attack, resistance to Fighting, and anything else that prevents or reduces an attack’s damage.
This makes Medicham ex the perfect Pokémon for a lock deck: speed, control, and power all in one.
Jirachi
You’ve seen the win condition, now its time for the support Pokémon. Jirachi is what makes the deck tick. It’s the perfect opener, and is what gives Medicham ex decks the popular moniker “Turn 2.”
Description:
Jirachi is a decent attacker, doing an overvalued 50 for [1M] with Metallic Blow to any Pokémon with a Poké-Body. This can save you against some decks, specifically Ninetails and other Pokémon with the Safeguard Poké-Body. The main asset Jirachi has, however, is in its Poké-Power, Wishing Star.
Wishing Star allows a player to look at the top five cards of their deck, choose one, and shuffle the rest back in. This allows us an extra draw effect that most other decks don’t have! Typically you’ll play a supporter, and then you’re done with drawing cards for the turn, at least in the first few turns before you can get up an evolved card-drawing Pokémon. However with Jirachi, we’re able, even on turn one when going first, to start searching through our decks.
One would imagine that having Jirachi active would slow us down. Jirachi’s retreat cost of (1), while fairly cheap, still costs us an energy drop in the critical early game turns. This appears to not be worth it, and that’s because it isn’t! Instead, what we’ll do is power Jirachi up with Energy directly, and then use Swoop! Teleporter to exchange it for a Meditite and evolve it into Medicham ex… often as early as turn two! Thus the popular name, “Turn 2.”
Jirachi allows us, through its searching Poké-Power, to get a Medicham ex into the active position as fast as possible. This is critical to our success as we do not want to allow our opponents to use their card-searching Poké-Powers in order to get set up. Jirachi has a 25% chance of staying asleep through both turns, however despite this unlikely occurrence, we hedge out bets by playing Island Cave, a Stadium which will wake Jirachi up in the event it decides to sleep on the job.
Espeon ex and Umbreon ex
These “Eeveeloutions” are not here for their superior attacks, but because they aid with “the lock.” Medicham ex is what you want in the active position at all times, because Wise Aura only works when Medicham ex is active, and we need Wise Aura to keep our opponents under our proverbial thumb.
Description:
What Espeon ex offers is its Poké-Power, Devo Flash. Luckily for us, Espeon ex, being an ex Pokémon, is unaffected by our own Wise Aura, as Medicham ex’s Poké-Body only affects non-ex Pokémon. What you want to do with Devo Flash is to quickly KO a benched Pokémon that has been damaged by Pure Power. This really takes advantage of opponents who use Rare Candy to evolve their Basic Pokémon into Stage 2 Pokémon. Most Basic Pokémon that evolve into Stage 2 Pokémon have 60 or less HP. If you Pure Power a Stage 2 Pokémon twice that has been Rare Candied, you can then use Devo Flash, KOing the basic, and then you’re able to attack another target. This shortens the time you need to be “in the lock,” by KOing benched Pokémon quickly before your opponent can get a threat going that will rival Medicham ex.
Umbreon ex works in this same vein of maintaining the “lock” by allowing you to “gust” up a benched Pokémon with Darker Ring even if you’re up in prizes! This often takes opponents by surprise.
Remember that both of these Poké-Powers only work once: when you play them from your hand. So make sure you time when you use Devo Flash and Darker Ring to perfection, because you only get one shot!
The attacks of these Pokémon ex not only aren’t bad, but they fit almost perfectly into the style of deck that Powdacham is. Espeon ex’s Snap Tail requires no specific energy types, and does 30 damage to any Pokémon in play. Sounds a lot like Pure Power to me! If a Medicham ex is KOed and you don’t have one to replace it, its possible to finish off a damaged Pokémon that Medicham ex couldn’t with Snap Tail. Also, since it attacks any Pokémon (even ones on the bench), its great for picking up the last prize, or a quick prize at the end of time in a POP-sanctioned Tournament Game.
Psyloop does 60 for [2P], which is pretty standard. If your opponent has something odd like a Pokémon Tool attached to one of their Pokémon, this attack does 90 damage, which is nice, albeit obscure.
Umbreon ex’s first attack Black Cry has an advantage of being the only way to do 20 damage for one energy in the deck. This can be important if there is a Pokémon with few HP left that we need to KO quickly. Black Cry also fits the grain of the deck, in that it stops Poké-Powers and locks a Pokémon into the active position. This works very well against a Pidgeot, making it so the poor Pokémon can’t retreat or use its superb Poké-Power. As for Darkness Fang, its yet another 60-damage attack for three energy, this time [2D], of which we’ll need Holon’s Magneton to use.
Another nice property of Umbreon ex is that it resists Psychic, a type which Espeon ex and Medicham ex are both weak to. There aren’t many very popular Psychic decks, however this could potentially save you if you happen to run into one.
More into the deck…
A major part of the deck is devoted towards consistently getting a turn two Medicham ex into the active position. To achieve this, in addition to the Jirachi and Swoop! Teleporter combo discussed earlier, we run a total of thirteen draw cards. The best of which is Mary’s Request. Mary is requesting cards now, and I’m not one to tell a lady “no.” However, with Mary there is always a catch: if I have any Stage 2 Evolved Pokémon in play, I only get to draw one card. Luckily for me, we run zero Stage 2 Pokémon in the entire deck, so we’ll be able to draw the maximum three cards 100% of the time! Not bad. Mary’s Request is so good, we’re adding two more nearly congruent draw cards in TV Reporter. This allows us to draw the same three cards, however has the drawback of forcing us to discard a card. This typically isn’t an issue, as we run the maximum of eight different cards in the deck for consistency purposes, thus discarding one of the them typically won’t hurt us. And since getting Medicham ex out turn two is so vital to the deck’s success, we’re willing to make sacrifices.
The reason that this “direct draw,” i.e., draw off the top of our deck, is so important goes back to the Jirachi / Swoop! Teleporter combo. You’ll need both Medicham ex and Swoop! Teleporter in hand at the same time for the combo to work, so if we have one piece of the puzzle, we want to keep it. That is why “direct draw” is superior to other draw cards, such as Copycat and Professor Oak’s Research, where we’ll have to dump one piece of the combo looking for the other, a very dubious proposition.
Professor Elm’s Training Method was the first supporter search card that allows us to get Pokémon ex out of our deck. I’m glad Professor Elm was able to overcome the obvious racial stereotypes that the other Pokémon characters hold towards Pokémon ex and allows us to search for them in the deck, albeit only Evolved ones. He still excludes basics, but it’s a step in the right direction for the Pokémon civil rights movement.
This is a key card in that it allows us to find Medicham ex, Espeon ex, and Umbreon ex. Without being able to search for these Pokémon ex directly, most likely running the side “Eeveeloution” lines would be impossible, and Medicham ex would be even harder to get out.
Often if you don’t have a Medicham ex in your hand, but you have a Swoop! Teleporter and another supporter such as Mary’s Request or TV Reporter, you’re going to want to go against the conventional wisdom of playing the direct draw supporter and use Wishing Star first. Typically this is a cardinal sin, because you want to see what cards you get from the direct draw, as these are inflexible, and then once you know those, you can use Wishing Star and know exactly what you need. Playing those in the wrong order is a clear misplay, but not in the case where you have a Swoop! Teleporter in your hand. If you have one piece of the “Turn 2” puzzle, you’ll want to Wishing Star before playing any other supporters. The reason for this that you’re able to now grab a Professor Elm’s Training Method with your Wishing Star and use it that turn to pull off your Medicham ex combo, whereas if you played the direct draw supporters first, you’d have to wait another turn. This is huge!
Best case scenario, however, is that you use Wishing Star, grab the Medicham ex right there, then get to play the direct draw in addition. Always remember the order that you use these effects in has a massive impact on the game. It may seem subtle, however consistently removing randomness from your play goes a long way in large tournaments where you need to avoid getting unlucky round after round in order to succeed.
Rocket’s Admin. is an amazing card for this deck. Early game its better than a Professor Oak’s Research and usually comparable with Copycat. Late game it becomes an offensive weapon against your opponent’s most precious resource: their hand. What I like to do often is leave the first Medicham ex I build at two energy, and simply spread damage around with Pure Power. Eventually they’ll knock it out, and then I spring them with a second Medicham ex combined with a Rocket’s Admin.. Since Medicham ex allows the opponent to draw two prizes when KOed, Rocket’s Admin. destroys their hand, forcing them down to only four cards. Without any draw support, and with a Medicham ex typically hitting back whatever KOed the first one, they’re in for a world of hurt. If that wasn’t enough, later on I’ll discuss a few other traps we have in store for the opponent once the first Medicham ex dies.
Island Cave, mentioned earlier, is great in its ability to wake up a sleepy Jirachi, but its main purpose is in countering Desert Ruins. Desert Ruins is a Stadium card that does 10 damage to every Pokémon ex in play with 100 HP or more. All of our evolved Pokémon are Pokémon ex and all have 100 HP or more. This can be a disaster if our opponent is able to spread 20 damage per turn passively. It puts us on a clock, and that’s a very bad thing for a slow, controlling lock deck to be under. Thus we must counter this immediately, and Island Cave does the job well. Possible other gyms we could use for this are Magnetic Storm and Battle Frontier, however I like Island Cave for its synergy in working with Jirachi, Medicham ex, and Espeon ex, as well as being a great counter to Nidoqueen’s Toxic attack, an attack that gives this deck a lot of problems, especially with Desert Ruins in play. Island Cave is a one-two punch against that threat, and makes your uphill Nidoqueen match playable.
The basics to the evolution cards used in the deck I chose were the Emerald Meditite and the Delta Species Eevee. Meditite is able to attack for a single colorless energy, which is about as good as anyone can ask for in this format. Eevee is superior to the Unseen Forces one, as its Poké-Power doesn’t activate Devo Flash and Darker Ring. Plus Call for Family is generally useful.
The energy cards used were quite varied. This is because all of the Pokémon in the deck only require one specific type to use all their attacks, and the Pokémon ex are able to use their first attacks using any type of energy. These properties allow us to experiment with different energy lines, including Metal Energy for Jirachi and Psychic Energy for Espeon ex. The Holon’s Magneton, which I will discuss next, also aids us in getting the right energy at the right time.
Single cards include Pokémon Retriever and Holon’s Magneton. I think running one Holon’s Magneton is the correct play as, using its Energy ability, I am able to have a playable energy on any of the four types of Pokémon that this deck plays! Another reason this card is great is that I can use Professor Elm’s Training Method to search for it, or Pokémon Retriever to get it out of my discard for a quick energy drop. Also, if you’re strapped for energy, this allows you to effectively have two energy for one card. For example, if you have a Medicham ex active with two energy on it and a benched Pokémon ex with one energy, you’d have to choose between having two under-powered attackers, or one powered and one very weak if you’re stuck with only a single Energy card to play. With Holon’s Magneton, you’re able to power up the Medicham ex, while returning an energy card to your hand that you can use to further build your bench, all for one card. It conserves resources and has great synergy with the deck. Pokémon Retriever is good because it gives me staying power in a longer game after a few Pokémon have been Knocked Out or discarded via Swoop! Teleporter or TV Reporter.
The real meat of the deck comes in the last two cards, and if you’ll notice, I saved them for last! Energy Removal 2 and Pow! Hand Extension. Its no coincidence that this deck plays two cards with an exclamation point in their name: these cards are typically very exciting and illicit a positive response from the crowd when played. What, you don’t have a crowd watching when you play? Maybe you will after building this deck!
As I was discussing in the side notes on Rocket’s Admin., you want to set a trap for you opponent to fall into once your first Medicham ex is taken out. You can be as aggressive or passive with the first Medicham ex as game conditions allow, but one thing you must keep in mind is that once your first Medicham ex dies, unless your opponent is seriously on the ropes, you have to hold back enough so that you have more prize cards than your opponent. That’s when you spring “the lock.” Pow! Hand Extension allows you to “gust” up any weak benched Pokémon your opponent has and then subsequently with additional Pow! Hand Extensions and Energy Removal 2s, you can keep that Pokémon stripped of energy while you tear the opponent’s bench to ribbons using Pure Power. A very “pow”-erful combination, indeed! Pokémon that are great to lock include Magcargo, Metagross, Dark Ampharos, and many others. Typically anything with a big retreat cost and mediocre attacks works great. To keep them drawing slop for the next few turns, remember you can slam them with a Rocket’s Admin., and you can always use Darker Ring to lock them further even if you go up in prizes. You’d be surprised how tricky you can be if you get a good feel for how to sit in “the lock.”
Basically once you’re in “the lock,” your deck becomes an energy-suppression deck. The goal is to remove all the energy from play. Rocket’s Admin. ensures they’ll have a small hand and no energy to play. Wise Aura makes it so they can’t use Poké-Powers to draw Energy. Use Energy Removal 2 on the active Pokémon to ensure it won’t be able to attack you. If you’re flipping poorly, use Pow! Hand Extension to move the energy to something on the bench. If they have energy on a benched Pokémon, remove it by knocking that Pokémon out! A great combo is to use Pow! Hand Extension to move all of the active Pokémon’s Energy cards onto one benched Pokémon, then use Pure Power to KO that Pokémon, effectively removing all their energy and a Pokémon from play, as well as drawing a prize: not a bad deal!
Tempo is very important once you’re in “the lock.” You have to know when to get out of “the lock” and just start Sky Kicking relentlessly. Typically after you’ve used Pure Power combined with Devo Flash enough to eliminate all of the main threats it’s a good idea to just start attacking and try to rush them as best as possible while they struggle to topdeck anything. Usually decks play less draw than you, because they rely on Pokémon with card-drawing Poké-Powers (of which we’ve conveniently muted via Wise Aura). Always remember that whatever you’re locking, you’ll always want to be able to KO it once you run out of Energy Removal 2 and Pow! Hand Extension cards, so I suggest using Sky Kick right away, assuming Sky Kick won’t KO the Pokémon you’re locking. If worse comes to worse and they manage to power it up, you’ll want to immediately be able to take it out. Generally this means that once they finally get enough energy on something to be a real threat, you’ll KO that as well. If you have another Medicham ex on the bench, don’t worry about them KOing you (as long as this won’t cause you to lose). Stay in “the lock” as long as possible, just make sure you can quickly get rid of whatever they’re building.
Conclusions
The strategies and combos in this deck are numerous, and I feel that, thanks to the lock, you have a decent shot against even your worse matchups. Despite this, many decks without anything good to lock, such as Nidoqueen, Dark Slowking, Dark Steelix, and ZRE are going to be an uphill battle for you. You’re simply going to have to pick your spots, and always keep your eyes peeled for something that you can lock. You’d be surprised about how dire of a situation you can get out of simply by locking something your opponent foolishly benched.
This deck is the real deal, winning Nationals and Worlds: an impressive feat to say the least! It takes a lot of skill and patience to play, and probably isn’t the best deck to use if you’re new to the game. But if you’re looking for a great solution to Rock Lock or any other Poké-Power-intensive deck, or even just looking for a deck that will challenge your thought process and force you to make often counter-intuitive plays such as not attacking with your full potential and allowing yourself to fall behind on prizes, this could be a great deck for you. Good luck!
Article Title: Powdacham
Author: Matthew J. Moss
Date: December 03, 2005
Format: Modified, HL-DS
Latest Set: EX: Delta Species
Email: [email protected]
AIM: Mossy695
Discuss: Powdacham in the Archetypes and Standard Strategies Forum.
Powdacham: The Deck!
Pokémon: 16
3 Medicham ex
3 Meditite EM
4 Jirachi DX
2 Espeon ex
1 Umbreon ex
2 Eevee DS
1 Holon's Magneton
Trainers: 30
4 Mary's Request
4 Rocket's Admin.
4 Swoop! Teleporter
4 Energy Removal 2
4 Pow! Hand Extension
4 Island Cave
3 Professor Elm's Training Method
2 TV Reporter
1 Pokémon Retriever
Energy: 14
6 Fighting Energy
4 Metal Energy
4 Psychic Energy
Key players:
Description: The name alone strikes fear into the hearts of Pokémon around the world. I can’t even count the number of once powerful Pokémon that Medicham ex has not only KOed, but sent directly to Lavender; its not a “friendly” game after Medicham ex hits the table, things are serious.
Despite my grandeur, Medicham ex is a very solid Pokémon ex that takes a lot of skill to play correctly. Its key attribute is its Poké-Body, Wise Aura. This formidable Poké-Body’s main goal is to specifically shut down the Poké-Powers of Pidgeot and Magcargo. Since a great number of decks rely on these card-searching Pokémon to set up their powerful attackers, we’re cutting their supply chain off—effectively eliminating threats by ensuring they never materialize in the first place. Most players focus on Stage 2 Pokémon, and generally more than one line in their deck. By focusing on a single Stage 1, we should outrace them to become set up.
Another great side effect of Wise Aura, is that not only does the opponent have difficulty in getting their Pokémon evolved to their highest levels (i.e., getting out Blastoise in a Squrtile-Wartortle-Blastoise line), but also they have trouble finding energy in play. Typically their draw will be focused on either getting the Pokémon in play, or getting them powered up. Doing both without their key search Pokémon is a difficult task.
Sky Kick is a very strong attack. Requiring only one Fighting Energy card, this attack makes adding multiple Energy cards into the deck possible, while still maintaining consistency. This becomes important as we will discuss later. Sky Kick does the magic number of damage, 60, meaning it can KO the common 120 HP Pokémon in two clean shots. With 110 HP itself, it should be able to survive most onslaughts and live to strike again. If not, the convenient (1) retreat cost allows Medicham ex to evade an attacker and get out of the active position without much trouble.
Also, it has a nice positive side effect in that anything that resists Fighting gets a nice surprise: instead of doing less damage, Medicham ex does more damage with Sky Kick! So you’re at a disadvantage being a Fighting-resistant Pokémon receiving a Sky Kick from Medicham ex. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know of many Pokémon that could survive a massive Sky Kick from a fully powered Medicham ex; better put your Focus Band on!
Medicham ex’s other attack, Pure Power, is what makes the deck great. If you’re able to maneuver a weak Pokémon into your opponent’s Active Position, you can tear up the bench while they pass. Later on, I’ll discuss how our deck plans to do this. Pure Power takes two colorless energy to activate, thus its easy to splash other Energy types into a deck containing Medicham ex, as it won’t need a Fighting Energy until the third drop at the earliest. Pure Power is so powerful in its damage spreading and bench damaging properties. The fact that it “places damage counters,” as opposed to “does damage” is huge! This means you get around Metal Energy’s healing effects, you evade damage preventing properties such as Feebas’ Submerge Poké-Body and Scizor ex’s Steel Wing attack, resistance to Fighting, and anything else that prevents or reduces an attack’s damage.
This makes Medicham ex the perfect Pokémon for a lock deck: speed, control, and power all in one.
Jirachi
You’ve seen the win condition, now its time for the support Pokémon. Jirachi is what makes the deck tick. It’s the perfect opener, and is what gives Medicham ex decks the popular moniker “Turn 2.”
Description:
Jirachi is a decent attacker, doing an overvalued 50 for [1M] with Metallic Blow to any Pokémon with a Poké-Body. This can save you against some decks, specifically Ninetails and other Pokémon with the Safeguard Poké-Body. The main asset Jirachi has, however, is in its Poké-Power, Wishing Star.
Wishing Star allows a player to look at the top five cards of their deck, choose one, and shuffle the rest back in. This allows us an extra draw effect that most other decks don’t have! Typically you’ll play a supporter, and then you’re done with drawing cards for the turn, at least in the first few turns before you can get up an evolved card-drawing Pokémon. However with Jirachi, we’re able, even on turn one when going first, to start searching through our decks.
One would imagine that having Jirachi active would slow us down. Jirachi’s retreat cost of (1), while fairly cheap, still costs us an energy drop in the critical early game turns. This appears to not be worth it, and that’s because it isn’t! Instead, what we’ll do is power Jirachi up with Energy directly, and then use Swoop! Teleporter to exchange it for a Meditite and evolve it into Medicham ex… often as early as turn two! Thus the popular name, “Turn 2.”
Jirachi allows us, through its searching Poké-Power, to get a Medicham ex into the active position as fast as possible. This is critical to our success as we do not want to allow our opponents to use their card-searching Poké-Powers in order to get set up. Jirachi has a 25% chance of staying asleep through both turns, however despite this unlikely occurrence, we hedge out bets by playing Island Cave, a Stadium which will wake Jirachi up in the event it decides to sleep on the job.
Espeon ex and Umbreon ex
These “Eeveeloutions” are not here for their superior attacks, but because they aid with “the lock.” Medicham ex is what you want in the active position at all times, because Wise Aura only works when Medicham ex is active, and we need Wise Aura to keep our opponents under our proverbial thumb.
Description:
What Espeon ex offers is its Poké-Power, Devo Flash. Luckily for us, Espeon ex, being an ex Pokémon, is unaffected by our own Wise Aura, as Medicham ex’s Poké-Body only affects non-ex Pokémon. What you want to do with Devo Flash is to quickly KO a benched Pokémon that has been damaged by Pure Power. This really takes advantage of opponents who use Rare Candy to evolve their Basic Pokémon into Stage 2 Pokémon. Most Basic Pokémon that evolve into Stage 2 Pokémon have 60 or less HP. If you Pure Power a Stage 2 Pokémon twice that has been Rare Candied, you can then use Devo Flash, KOing the basic, and then you’re able to attack another target. This shortens the time you need to be “in the lock,” by KOing benched Pokémon quickly before your opponent can get a threat going that will rival Medicham ex.
Umbreon ex works in this same vein of maintaining the “lock” by allowing you to “gust” up a benched Pokémon with Darker Ring even if you’re up in prizes! This often takes opponents by surprise.
Remember that both of these Poké-Powers only work once: when you play them from your hand. So make sure you time when you use Devo Flash and Darker Ring to perfection, because you only get one shot!
The attacks of these Pokémon ex not only aren’t bad, but they fit almost perfectly into the style of deck that Powdacham is. Espeon ex’s Snap Tail requires no specific energy types, and does 30 damage to any Pokémon in play. Sounds a lot like Pure Power to me! If a Medicham ex is KOed and you don’t have one to replace it, its possible to finish off a damaged Pokémon that Medicham ex couldn’t with Snap Tail. Also, since it attacks any Pokémon (even ones on the bench), its great for picking up the last prize, or a quick prize at the end of time in a POP-sanctioned Tournament Game.
Psyloop does 60 for [2P], which is pretty standard. If your opponent has something odd like a Pokémon Tool attached to one of their Pokémon, this attack does 90 damage, which is nice, albeit obscure.
Umbreon ex’s first attack Black Cry has an advantage of being the only way to do 20 damage for one energy in the deck. This can be important if there is a Pokémon with few HP left that we need to KO quickly. Black Cry also fits the grain of the deck, in that it stops Poké-Powers and locks a Pokémon into the active position. This works very well against a Pidgeot, making it so the poor Pokémon can’t retreat or use its superb Poké-Power. As for Darkness Fang, its yet another 60-damage attack for three energy, this time [2D], of which we’ll need Holon’s Magneton to use.
Another nice property of Umbreon ex is that it resists Psychic, a type which Espeon ex and Medicham ex are both weak to. There aren’t many very popular Psychic decks, however this could potentially save you if you happen to run into one.
More into the deck…
A major part of the deck is devoted towards consistently getting a turn two Medicham ex into the active position. To achieve this, in addition to the Jirachi and Swoop! Teleporter combo discussed earlier, we run a total of thirteen draw cards. The best of which is Mary’s Request. Mary is requesting cards now, and I’m not one to tell a lady “no.” However, with Mary there is always a catch: if I have any Stage 2 Evolved Pokémon in play, I only get to draw one card. Luckily for me, we run zero Stage 2 Pokémon in the entire deck, so we’ll be able to draw the maximum three cards 100% of the time! Not bad. Mary’s Request is so good, we’re adding two more nearly congruent draw cards in TV Reporter. This allows us to draw the same three cards, however has the drawback of forcing us to discard a card. This typically isn’t an issue, as we run the maximum of eight different cards in the deck for consistency purposes, thus discarding one of the them typically won’t hurt us. And since getting Medicham ex out turn two is so vital to the deck’s success, we’re willing to make sacrifices.
The reason that this “direct draw,” i.e., draw off the top of our deck, is so important goes back to the Jirachi / Swoop! Teleporter combo. You’ll need both Medicham ex and Swoop! Teleporter in hand at the same time for the combo to work, so if we have one piece of the puzzle, we want to keep it. That is why “direct draw” is superior to other draw cards, such as Copycat and Professor Oak’s Research, where we’ll have to dump one piece of the combo looking for the other, a very dubious proposition.
Professor Elm’s Training Method was the first supporter search card that allows us to get Pokémon ex out of our deck. I’m glad Professor Elm was able to overcome the obvious racial stereotypes that the other Pokémon characters hold towards Pokémon ex and allows us to search for them in the deck, albeit only Evolved ones. He still excludes basics, but it’s a step in the right direction for the Pokémon civil rights movement.
This is a key card in that it allows us to find Medicham ex, Espeon ex, and Umbreon ex. Without being able to search for these Pokémon ex directly, most likely running the side “Eeveeloution” lines would be impossible, and Medicham ex would be even harder to get out.
Often if you don’t have a Medicham ex in your hand, but you have a Swoop! Teleporter and another supporter such as Mary’s Request or TV Reporter, you’re going to want to go against the conventional wisdom of playing the direct draw supporter and use Wishing Star first. Typically this is a cardinal sin, because you want to see what cards you get from the direct draw, as these are inflexible, and then once you know those, you can use Wishing Star and know exactly what you need. Playing those in the wrong order is a clear misplay, but not in the case where you have a Swoop! Teleporter in your hand. If you have one piece of the “Turn 2” puzzle, you’ll want to Wishing Star before playing any other supporters. The reason for this that you’re able to now grab a Professor Elm’s Training Method with your Wishing Star and use it that turn to pull off your Medicham ex combo, whereas if you played the direct draw supporters first, you’d have to wait another turn. This is huge!
Best case scenario, however, is that you use Wishing Star, grab the Medicham ex right there, then get to play the direct draw in addition. Always remember the order that you use these effects in has a massive impact on the game. It may seem subtle, however consistently removing randomness from your play goes a long way in large tournaments where you need to avoid getting unlucky round after round in order to succeed.
Rocket’s Admin. is an amazing card for this deck. Early game its better than a Professor Oak’s Research and usually comparable with Copycat. Late game it becomes an offensive weapon against your opponent’s most precious resource: their hand. What I like to do often is leave the first Medicham ex I build at two energy, and simply spread damage around with Pure Power. Eventually they’ll knock it out, and then I spring them with a second Medicham ex combined with a Rocket’s Admin.. Since Medicham ex allows the opponent to draw two prizes when KOed, Rocket’s Admin. destroys their hand, forcing them down to only four cards. Without any draw support, and with a Medicham ex typically hitting back whatever KOed the first one, they’re in for a world of hurt. If that wasn’t enough, later on I’ll discuss a few other traps we have in store for the opponent once the first Medicham ex dies.
Island Cave, mentioned earlier, is great in its ability to wake up a sleepy Jirachi, but its main purpose is in countering Desert Ruins. Desert Ruins is a Stadium card that does 10 damage to every Pokémon ex in play with 100 HP or more. All of our evolved Pokémon are Pokémon ex and all have 100 HP or more. This can be a disaster if our opponent is able to spread 20 damage per turn passively. It puts us on a clock, and that’s a very bad thing for a slow, controlling lock deck to be under. Thus we must counter this immediately, and Island Cave does the job well. Possible other gyms we could use for this are Magnetic Storm and Battle Frontier, however I like Island Cave for its synergy in working with Jirachi, Medicham ex, and Espeon ex, as well as being a great counter to Nidoqueen’s Toxic attack, an attack that gives this deck a lot of problems, especially with Desert Ruins in play. Island Cave is a one-two punch against that threat, and makes your uphill Nidoqueen match playable.
The basics to the evolution cards used in the deck I chose were the Emerald Meditite and the Delta Species Eevee. Meditite is able to attack for a single colorless energy, which is about as good as anyone can ask for in this format. Eevee is superior to the Unseen Forces one, as its Poké-Power doesn’t activate Devo Flash and Darker Ring. Plus Call for Family is generally useful.
The energy cards used were quite varied. This is because all of the Pokémon in the deck only require one specific type to use all their attacks, and the Pokémon ex are able to use their first attacks using any type of energy. These properties allow us to experiment with different energy lines, including Metal Energy for Jirachi and Psychic Energy for Espeon ex. The Holon’s Magneton, which I will discuss next, also aids us in getting the right energy at the right time.
Single cards include Pokémon Retriever and Holon’s Magneton. I think running one Holon’s Magneton is the correct play as, using its Energy ability, I am able to have a playable energy on any of the four types of Pokémon that this deck plays! Another reason this card is great is that I can use Professor Elm’s Training Method to search for it, or Pokémon Retriever to get it out of my discard for a quick energy drop. Also, if you’re strapped for energy, this allows you to effectively have two energy for one card. For example, if you have a Medicham ex active with two energy on it and a benched Pokémon ex with one energy, you’d have to choose between having two under-powered attackers, or one powered and one very weak if you’re stuck with only a single Energy card to play. With Holon’s Magneton, you’re able to power up the Medicham ex, while returning an energy card to your hand that you can use to further build your bench, all for one card. It conserves resources and has great synergy with the deck. Pokémon Retriever is good because it gives me staying power in a longer game after a few Pokémon have been Knocked Out or discarded via Swoop! Teleporter or TV Reporter.
The real meat of the deck comes in the last two cards, and if you’ll notice, I saved them for last! Energy Removal 2 and Pow! Hand Extension. Its no coincidence that this deck plays two cards with an exclamation point in their name: these cards are typically very exciting and illicit a positive response from the crowd when played. What, you don’t have a crowd watching when you play? Maybe you will after building this deck!
As I was discussing in the side notes on Rocket’s Admin., you want to set a trap for you opponent to fall into once your first Medicham ex is taken out. You can be as aggressive or passive with the first Medicham ex as game conditions allow, but one thing you must keep in mind is that once your first Medicham ex dies, unless your opponent is seriously on the ropes, you have to hold back enough so that you have more prize cards than your opponent. That’s when you spring “the lock.” Pow! Hand Extension allows you to “gust” up any weak benched Pokémon your opponent has and then subsequently with additional Pow! Hand Extensions and Energy Removal 2s, you can keep that Pokémon stripped of energy while you tear the opponent’s bench to ribbons using Pure Power. A very “pow”-erful combination, indeed! Pokémon that are great to lock include Magcargo, Metagross, Dark Ampharos, and many others. Typically anything with a big retreat cost and mediocre attacks works great. To keep them drawing slop for the next few turns, remember you can slam them with a Rocket’s Admin., and you can always use Darker Ring to lock them further even if you go up in prizes. You’d be surprised how tricky you can be if you get a good feel for how to sit in “the lock.”
Basically once you’re in “the lock,” your deck becomes an energy-suppression deck. The goal is to remove all the energy from play. Rocket’s Admin. ensures they’ll have a small hand and no energy to play. Wise Aura makes it so they can’t use Poké-Powers to draw Energy. Use Energy Removal 2 on the active Pokémon to ensure it won’t be able to attack you. If you’re flipping poorly, use Pow! Hand Extension to move the energy to something on the bench. If they have energy on a benched Pokémon, remove it by knocking that Pokémon out! A great combo is to use Pow! Hand Extension to move all of the active Pokémon’s Energy cards onto one benched Pokémon, then use Pure Power to KO that Pokémon, effectively removing all their energy and a Pokémon from play, as well as drawing a prize: not a bad deal!
Tempo is very important once you’re in “the lock.” You have to know when to get out of “the lock” and just start Sky Kicking relentlessly. Typically after you’ve used Pure Power combined with Devo Flash enough to eliminate all of the main threats it’s a good idea to just start attacking and try to rush them as best as possible while they struggle to topdeck anything. Usually decks play less draw than you, because they rely on Pokémon with card-drawing Poké-Powers (of which we’ve conveniently muted via Wise Aura). Always remember that whatever you’re locking, you’ll always want to be able to KO it once you run out of Energy Removal 2 and Pow! Hand Extension cards, so I suggest using Sky Kick right away, assuming Sky Kick won’t KO the Pokémon you’re locking. If worse comes to worse and they manage to power it up, you’ll want to immediately be able to take it out. Generally this means that once they finally get enough energy on something to be a real threat, you’ll KO that as well. If you have another Medicham ex on the bench, don’t worry about them KOing you (as long as this won’t cause you to lose). Stay in “the lock” as long as possible, just make sure you can quickly get rid of whatever they’re building.
Conclusions
The strategies and combos in this deck are numerous, and I feel that, thanks to the lock, you have a decent shot against even your worse matchups. Despite this, many decks without anything good to lock, such as Nidoqueen, Dark Slowking, Dark Steelix, and ZRE are going to be an uphill battle for you. You’re simply going to have to pick your spots, and always keep your eyes peeled for something that you can lock. You’d be surprised about how dire of a situation you can get out of simply by locking something your opponent foolishly benched.
This deck is the real deal, winning Nationals and Worlds: an impressive feat to say the least! It takes a lot of skill and patience to play, and probably isn’t the best deck to use if you’re new to the game. But if you’re looking for a great solution to Rock Lock or any other Poké-Power-intensive deck, or even just looking for a deck that will challenge your thought process and force you to make often counter-intuitive plays such as not attacking with your full potential and allowing yourself to fall behind on prizes, this could be a great deck for you. Good luck!
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