Flare When the Whistle Blows — A Quick Look at Target Whistle

Hello everyone.  This is my first article, so let me introduce myself: I’m a 14 year old American Senior division player.  I started playing competitively around the release of Primal Clash.  My best placement in a tournament was 5th place in a City Championship running a M Glalie-EX / Regice deck.  But now, onto my topic for the article: A few cards that work well with Phantom Forces 106/119, Target Whistle Team Flare Gear, which allows you to increase the number of Basic Pokemon on your opponent’s Bench.

Standard Format

In Standard format, I created a Shiftry deck to take advantage of Target Whistle, and I’ll discuss the cards that make this deck effective.

Shiftry

The most important Pokemon in this deck is Shiftry (FLF #07).  With its Deranged Dance attack, you can deal 20 damage times the number of benched Pokemon in play, so it matches up perfectly with Target Whistle.  You can get Shiftry onto the field quickly by using Pokémon Fan Club to get 2 Seedot cards into your hand.  If you have the Forest of Giant Plants Stadium card in your hand, you can play that to get at least Nuzleaf down in one turn.  Ultra ball can also help you get Nuzleaf and / or Shiftry into your hand.  If you want to skip Nuzleaf and go straight to Shiftry, then you can use Rare Candy (PRC #135).

You may need a different Pokemon to either take hits or deal damage, while waiting for Shiftry to power up.  A card that can do that well is Sceptile-EX (AOR #07 or #84).  Sceptile-EX can hit hard for a low Energy cost, so it’s easy to use while setting Shiftry up.  If Sceptile-EX gets knocked out, then Shiftry can come in and start using Deranged Dance.  With this card, you really want to put as many cards as possible onto your Bench, so two good cards to have in this kind of deck are Revive and Shaymin-EX (RSK #77).  The Abilities of Shiftry and Shaymin-EX are really helpful if you can’t get the cards you want, such as Target Whistle.  Shiftry has Leaf Draw, which lets you discard a Grass Energy from your hand and draw three cards.  When you put Shaymin-EX onto your Bench, you get to draw cards until you have six in your hand.

When Shiftry starts using Deranged Dance, it’s time to use Target Whistle, Skyla, VS Seeker, and Revive.  Skyla can be used to get Target Whistle and Revive into your hand, VS Seeker can be used to get Skyla back out of your discard pile, and Target Whistle and Revive can be used to keep the Benches full for extra damage.

Bunnelby

Bunnelby (PRC #121) is another good choice for a Shiftry deck.  Using Bunnelby is a very helpful and easy way to get Target Whistles back into your deck.  With its Ancient Trait, Omega Barrage, and only needing one Energy to use Rototiller, Bunnelby can use that attack twice in one turn.  That means that you can get two Target Whistles back into your deck per turn.

Fighting Fury Belt isn’t a bad idea to use with Bunnelby, since Bunnelby only has 60 HP.  This at least gives Bunnelby 100 HP, so this makes it a little more durable.

Here’s a sample decklist, but you can play around with it.

Sky Field is not a bad addition because it may allow you to trick your opponent into filling his or her Bench up.  In Expanded, you can add Dowsing Machine or Computer Search for an added effect.

Expanded Format

For Expanded format, there are several cards that work well together as a base for a deck with Target Whistle.

Beheeyem

First up is Beheeyem (NVI #56).  This card is much harder to use with Target Whistle than any other card mentioned in this article.  With this card, you have the attack Synchronoise, which does 20 damage to each of your opponents benched Pokemon that shares a type with the defending Pokemon.  While either Beheeyem is being charged up or you’re trying to get Beheeyem to evolve Elgyem, you can start getting Target Whistles into your hand.

Beheeyem can take care of some Night March problems when combined with Target Whistle.  If your opponent uses Battle Compressor to discard Pokemon with Night March, then you can use Target Whistle to pull the discarded Joltik and Pumpkaboo onto their Bench.  Beheeyem can then come in and start blowing through Joltik and / or Pumpkaboo.

If you run into HP problems with Beheeyem, then you can use Giant Cape (DRX #114) to give Beheeyem 20 extra HP and / or Beheeyem BREAK.

Once Beheeyem starts knocking out benched Pokemon, then you can play another Target Whistle to get some of the weaker benched Pokemon of the same type you knocked out, back on your opponent’s Bench.

Gothitelle

The second main Pokemon in a Target Whistle deck is Gothitelle (DRX #57).  Its Black Magic attack does 40 damage plus 20 more for each of your opponent’s benched Pokemon.  A good Stadium card to have in your deck to try and trick your opponent with is Sky Field (RSK #89).  They may jump at the chance to put down extra Pokemon, especially if their running a M Rayquaza-EX deck.

Charge up Gothitelle on your Bench, and then either retreat your Active Pokemon or use a Switch card to get Gothitelle out front.

Before using Black Magic, make sure that the best HP Pokemon to target is your opponent’s Active Pokemon.  You can switch your opponent’s Active Pokemon by using Lysandre or Escape Rope.  As soon as Gothitelle starts using Black Magic, be ready to use Skyla, VS Seeker, and Target Whistle, as described in the discussion of Shiftry.

Dowsing Machine

Dowsing Machine should be used with these cards only if Target Whistle, Skyla, Revive or VS Seeker are in your discard pile.  Dowsing Machine lets you discard two cards from your hand and then put a Trainer card from you discard pile into your hand, so when you use this card, be sure to discard two useless cards from your hand, or cards that can easily be returned to either your hand or your deck.

Bunnelby can also put this card, or any cards you discarded while using this card, back into your deck.

Computer Search

The last card is Computer Search.  Just like Dowsing Machine, in order to use Computer Search, you have to discard two cards from your hand.  Then, you get to search your deck for any card you want and put it into your hand.  As recommended with Dowsing Machine, discard either useless or easy to retrieve cards.  But, with this card you don’t have to wait to use it until you discard a useful trainer, and you can use it to get any card, instead of just trainers.

Again, Bunnelby’s Rototiller is a useful attack, letting you play this Ace Spec more than once in a battle.

This batch of cards can give some variety to your decks.

That’s all for this article, but try to think of some Target Whistle deck ideas of your own.

Thanks for reading,

Clamtrak