New Decklist and Battle Festa Preparation

Hey people,

I am finally back with a new article.

The midterms in my uni have started, so I will have to concentrate more on those, but I will still try to write articles on a regular basis.

This one will revolve about another deck, and my preparations for Battle Festa, which gets closer and closer.

Many people found my last article, in which I featured MManectric and the Night's March deck, very interesting, and I got lots of feedback. I want to thank you all for your support.

Thats how my blog can get better.

Also I want to announce, that I will change this blog's name.

I was designing a logo for this one, but then stumbled upon the problem of copyright for the Pokémon logo, why I cant use I in the way I wanted to.

So instead of this, I'll have to think of something new.

Also, when I look at it, it looks a little to official for just a personal blog.

So, if you have any ideas how this blog could be called in the future, I will be thankful for every single suggestion and inspiration.

But now, lets get to business.

The deck I want to cover this time had some success in japanese tournaments and people are talking about it here and there.

I will give you a list for BCR-on, because I do not plan on playing this deck here in Japan, and this way it is more interesting for you.

This mysterious deck revolves around  

Gengar EX!

  

Gengar-EX - Psychic - HP170
Basic Pokemon

[C] Night Attack: Place 3 damage counters on 1 of your opponent's Pokemon.

[P][C][C] Dark Corridor: 60 damage. Your opponent's Active Pokemon is now Poisoned. Switch this Pokemon with 1 of your Benched Pokemon.

When a Pokemon-EX has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: 2

On first sight this card is not fantastic, but due to its synergy with others, this has potential to be good. Night Attack is a nice attack to get around things, that would keep your opponents Pokémon safe, like Safeguard abilitys, or Mr. Mime for bench damage. With this attack you can even hit Pyroar, since it says damage counters, which don't count as damage done by an attack.

But most of the time you will be using the second attack to work as some kind of hit-and-run deck, like Donphan or Accelgor. Those often use walls to stop their opponents from attacking, when they switched out their active Pokémon, like Suicune or Sigilyph. Sometimes, especially in Accelgor decks other cards are used, which interrupt the opponent in different ways, like Trevenant, which doesn't let the opponent play item cards, or Snorlax, which deosn't let him retreat his active Pokémon. 

Another addition came in the Phantom Gate expansion, which is Wobbuffet.

Wobbuffet - Psychic - HP110
Basic Pokemon

Ability: Perseverance Wall
As long as this Pokemon is your Active Pokemon, all Pokemon in play, in each player's hand, and in each player's discard pile have no Abilities (excluding [P] Pokemon).

[P][C] Psychic Damage: 10x damage. This attack does 10 more damage for each damage counter on your opponent's Active Pokemon.

Weakness: Psychic (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

This might be an interesting addition, to counter some specific Pokémon's abilitys, that could interrupt your strategy. As long as this is your active Pokémon, your opponent can't use any abilitys.

Examples are: Deluge, Magnetic Draw, Diving Draw, Red Signal, Lugis EX's Overflow, and many more. It also has a high HP for a basic, which makes it hard for things like Pyroar to knock it out in one hit.

All these, or most of these cards, already saw some play in different hit-and-run decks.

But this one is different.

You may have noticed, that all the Pokémon I showed you are Psychic-type. There is a reason behind that, because in contrast to those other decks, in this deck, the walls will be able to attack. And they have some quite good attacks. Just go back and look at them!

But most of them have huge attack costs, which are not worth the outcome of the attack.

And here, another card comes into play:

Dimensional Valley - Trainer
Stadium

Each player's Psychic Pokemon pays 1 [C] less to attack.

This card stays in play when you play it. Discard this card if another Stadium card comes into play. If another card with the same name is in play, you can’t play this card.

I alredy talked about this card in the last article, when I featured the Night's March deck. This card allows you to actually attack with your "walls", which makes them not walls anymore, but more like secondary attackers.

Another point that comes up in hit-and-run decks is the way to get your wall out of the active spot again. Many decks use either Float Stone, or a combination of Float Stone and Keldeo EX. This deck has another way to deal whith this problem:

Mystery Energy - Special Energy

This card can only be attached to a [P] Pokemon. This card provides [P] Energy only while this card is attached to a [P] Pokemon.

The Retreat Cost of the [P] Pokemon this card is attached to is [C][C] less.

(If this card is attached to anything other than a [P] Pokemon, discard this card.)

With this energy attached all our walls, except for Trevenant, have no retreat cost.

Of course you can only play 4 of them, but I can see no reason to not play them.

A trainer cards, that caused quite some trouble, could also see some use in this deck:

Substitute Robot - Trainer
Item (Team Flare Gear)

You may play this card as a [C] 30 HP Basic Pokemon as your Active Pokemon. You may discard this card at any time during your turn.

This card cannot retreat and even if your opponent Knocks Out this Pokemon, your opponent does not take a prize.

You may play as many Item cards as you like during your turn (before your attack).

After attacking with Gengar EX, simply switch into this little guy, and if your opponent doesn't have a way to switch it out of your active spot, AND get rid of Gengar EX's poison at the same time you had an easy way to interrupt their gameplay. 

Now let's get to some additional cards, that support this deck.

First is the Crobat line:

Zubat - Psychic - HP50
Basic Pokemon

[C] Skill Dive: Choose 1 of your opponent's Pokemon. This attack does 10 damage to that Pokemon. (Don't apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokemon.)
Weakness: Lightning (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: 1

Golbat - Psychic - HP70
Stage 1 - Evolves from Zubat
Ability: Sneaky Bite
When you play this card from your hand to evolve 1 of your Pokemon, you may choose 1 of your opponent's Pokemon and place 2 damage counters on it.
[C] Barrage Fly: Does 10 damage to all of your opponent's Pokemon. (Don't apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokemon.)
Weakness: Lightning (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: 0

Crobat - Psychic - HP130
Stage 2 - Evolves from Golbat
Ability: Abrupt Bite
When you play this card from your hand to evolve 1 of your Pokemon, you may choose 1 of your opponent's Pokemon and place 3 damage counters on it.
[C] Skill Dive: Choose 1 of your opponent's Pokemon. This attack does 30 damage to that Pokemon. (Don't apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokemon.)
Weakness: Lightning (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: 0

When you play some of those, it gets easier to hit higher numbers, or to finish up damaged Pokémon on your opponent's bench. In contrast to decks, that rely on their stage twos, like Empoleon, Blastoise, or Emboar, this one is an addition, not a requirement. You can get it out in the middle of the game, when you feel like some extra damage would be nice.
Also, with Dimensional Valley in play Golbat and Crobat make some good attackers without energy cost.

As you can see, this deck has many ways to deal snipe damage (Gengar EX, Trevenant, Crobat line), so you have good chances to KO the Pokémon, your opponent wanted to save on his bench.

A second addition, in my opinion, would be M Gengar EX, to take an advantage of some special attacks like Evil Ball, Night Spear, X-Ball, or even Quaking Punch. The high amount of HP can also be a way to avoid OHKOs, and if you have another Gengar EX in play, you could also just copy it's Dark Corridor and continue your strategy.

M Gengar-EX - Psychic - HP220
Mega Evolution - Evolves from Gengar-EX

[P][C][C] Phantom Gate: Choose 1 of your opponent's Pokemon's attacks and use it as this attack.

When a Pokemon-EX has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.
Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: 1

Following this, I  can see two ways to play this deck:

Either with Dimensional Valley, to keep your attackers flowing and not have to worry about high attack costs, really, 

or play it more aggressively with Virbank City Gym and DCEs, to let the poison damage do the work for you.

A possible list for the first example would be:

Pokémon

3 Gengar EX

2 Wobbuffet

2-2 Trevenant

2-2-2 Crobat

1 Sigilyph

16

Trainer

4 Professor Juniper

3 N

4 Skyla

2 Substitute Robot

2 Jamming Net

1 Switch

2 Evosoda

3 Ultra Ball

3 Dimensional Valley 

3 VS Seeker

1 Xerosic

1 Lysandre

3 Muscle Band

1 Computer Search

33

Energy

4 Mystery Energy

8 Psychic Energy 

12

The more aggressive list I was talking about would look more like this:

Pokémon

3 Gengar EX

1 M Gengar EX

2 Sigilyph

2 Wobuffet

8

Trainer

4 Professor Juniper

4 N

4 Skyla

3 Virbank City Gym 

1 Dimensional Valley

2 Substitute Robot

2 Jamming Net

1 Gengar Spirit Link

2 Xerosic

2 Lysandre

4 Ultra Ball

3 VS Seeker

2 Switch

4 Muscle Band

1 Computer Search

2 Bicycle

1 Professor's Letter

40

Energy

4 Mystery Energy

4 Double Colorless Energy

4 Psychic Energy

12

These are two extrema.

You can mix these decklists to the degree of agression/ annoyance that you like, and feel best, with.

Of course I do not claim, that any of my lists are better than others.

I am open to suggestions and feedback, if you feel there is something wrong in these decks, or something's missing, just write it in the comments and I will take it in consideration.

For the last part of my article I will tell you how my preparations for 

Battle Festa

are going.

First of all: I have made my deck-choice.

It will be...

M Manectric/ Genesect!

I think this deck has some great matchups and consistency, and I found someone to sell me the cards I need, so I got this going.

The night-bus to Tokyo on the 31.10. is booked and there is no need to sign up, so everything is looking good.

In Tokyo, I will also, of course, visit the Pokémon Center and look for other cool stuff to show you.

Before I go, there will be at least one more article, so, wait for that one for more information!

I hope you enjoyed this article, too.

The next one will be out soon.

As always, I hope to get some feedback from you.

See you next time,

Greets from Japan,

Hannes (hanfffff)