06.10.2014

New Phantom Gate Decks

Hello people, and welcome back.
This time, I will talk about decks that revolve a little bit more around the new Phantom Gate cards.

One idea that immediatly came to my mind when I saw MManectric EX was to combine it with Virizion/Genesect. This deck has shown great potential in many tournaments since it appeared with the release of Plasma Blast.
It has a consistent, fast setup and is able to deal with any threat.
The strategy revolves around using Virizion EX's Emerald Slash to power up as many Genesect EX as possible, to then use Genesect EX to clean up the board and getting rid of threats as soon as possible by using the Red Signal Ability. In situations where it is neccesary you also have the possibility of using G-Booster to hit everything for 200 damage.




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
With the release of Flash Fire, though, Virizion/Genesect's natural enemy appeared:
Pyroar
This card gives VirGen a hard time and players piloting VirGen at tournaments usually try to avoid the match-up by all means.
Another problem that came up in VirGen decks after the rotation is the lack of Super Rod to get their energies back. With this you have to be much more carefull with discarding energies, than before.

MManectric EX solves the Pyroar problem as no other card could.
An evolved Pokémon, that does 110 damage for 2 energies, and then even gets 2 energies back from the discard pile.
This second effect of the attack solves the energie recovery problem.
 
Now you just have to find a way to fit this card into your VirGen deck.
 
I'll first give a decklist for expanded format, since that's what we play here in Japan in, and then try to help you convert the deck to standard.
 
My decklist is:
 
Pokémon:
3 Genesect EX
2 Virizion EX
2 Manectric EX
2 MManectric EX
1 Tropius PLB
10

Trainers:
4 Professor Juniper
4 N
4 Skyla
1 Shadow Triad
1 Colress
2 Skyarrow Bridge
3 Ultra Ball
3 Energy Switch
3 Muscle Band
2 Tool Scrapper
1 G Booster
1 Professo's Letter
2 Enhanced Hammer
3 VS Seeker
2 Manectric Spirit Link
36

Energies:
4 Plasma Energy
2 Lightning Energy
8 Grass Energy
14

Card choices:
 
Tropius PLB:
This card is a nice addition to the deck, since it makes your opponent draw odd prices and has fighting resistance. It helps in the Donphan match-up and it is also nice if you are stuck and just want to draw some cards.







3 Energy Switch:
This card is awesome!!!
You have so many two-energy-attackers, that as soon as you have one energy in play you can just slam down a fresh attacker, attack an energy, Energy Switch, and you are ready to go again.
I would never play less than 3.
 
2 Enhanced Hammer
Even though I don't play Balloons I can still take advantage of this card. It makes so many match-ups so much easier and helped me a lot in the meta here in Japan, that I wanted to include 2 of them.
 
Strategy:
The Strategie in this deck revolves around using Virizion and Genesects power to hit the opponent fast on a constant basis. Then, when the game is developed use MManectric to finish the opponent off by having the board advantage with many energies.
MManectric and even its basic EX do wonders against every lightning weak Pokémon like Yveltal EX, or Lugia EX, or even Empoleon.
On the other hand, it makes your Donphan match-up worse, but if you just don't play your Manectrics down it is just like playing with straight VirGen.
 
 






29.09.2014

Revisiting an old Friend

Hey people,

I'd like to have some fun here. 
Don't yell at me for doing this, or tell me, this is not a viable deck anymore.
I just want to do this - because I can.

So, I will update my beloved Blastoise deck to the current set in Japan: Phantom Gate.


First I will tell you about the cards I can see in there, and why:

- VS Seeker:
Well, I hope this choice is pretty obvious for you. 
This works well with Battle Compressor, and other discarding mechanics. And also with the many one-of supporter counts will be playing in this deck. 
Being able to play more than 4 Juniper, or N is also a too tempting possibility, to not play this card.





28.09.2014

Deck-Choices for Battle Festa

Hey people,

as already stated in my previous article, this one will be about my deck-choice for the japanese Battle Festa in Tokyo in November.

Choices are:

Fighting
A deck, that has the power, to hit for high numbers for low energy-cost.
My favorite build would be the Tyrantrum-version, since it has pretty good matchups all over the current meta. But that build would have a bad time against the new Metal decks, because of Aegilash EX, that can't be attacked by Pokémon with special energy attached. Another build would be Big Basics Garbodor. With a heavy Garbodor line it can do pretty good against Metal and Pyroar and has some really good consistency, so I think thats the way to go.

25.09.2014

Battle Festa (バトルフェスタ)

Hey people,

Time for a new article.
Sorry I didn't write one for quite some time, but I had lots of stuff to do here in uni.

This new article is going to be about something some of you might already have heard about:
The japanese Battle Festa (バトルフェスタ) which will be held this fall in the bigger japanese citys.
Maybe you've seen these cards, which people can get there:



13.09.2014

Phantom Gate Release

Well,welcome back, for the long awaited article about the new set Phantom Gate (Phantom Force in English).
I'm Hannes bloggin for you, right from Japan about the Pokémon TCG.

I went to the city today, on a special mission:
Buy as much Phantom Gate stuff, as you can find!
And that's, what I did.
I looked up every toy store around, to get, what I wanted, and it was successfull.

As I said in my last article I bought some packs, and of course - more or less - every other Phantom Gate stuff (sleeves, becuase nobody wants deck boxes).

Go ahead and take a look:

08.09.2014

Manga MANIAAAAAA!!!

Well, well...

It's time for a new article, isn't it?

So, what have I got for you?

Alright!!! Yes!!!

Let's go!

As you may know by now: This is Hannes, blogging about the Pokémon TCG, - more or less - right from Japan, just for you!
First  week of lessons is over, so I'll give a small review on that, for all the people, that are not so much into the Pokémon TCG.
I got some interesting courses, like "criminal justice in film and literture" or "history of economic thoughts", of course Japanese language course, and some others, more traditional like calligraphy.
And then, there is "MANGA MANIA"!!!
Awesome!!!
Who wouldn't want to be in a course called Manga Mania?!?

01.09.2014

What a weekend!!!

Hey guys,

It's Hannes blogging about the Pokémon TCG right from Japan, just for you.

Lots of stuff happened the last few days, and I'm gonna give you a short overview.


Saturday 30.08.

Trip to Akita City. 
I knew there would be a gym challenge near the university at 10:00, but I slept in (happens, if you go to the bar, the evening before.. ^^'). So I was a little bit late, but not too much. I went to the university, but I just couldn't find the shop. So after 2h I got back to the station and decided to get a map, but I couldn't find it on there either.  

I gave up on my initial plan and started to explore the city a bit, it was beautiful.
 


The seaflower field in front of the park. 
Those seeds freaked me out. O______O