Buzzing Without Abilities — Garbodor / Buzzwole-GX for Oceania

Garbodor has been in the background of the Standard format ever since the European International Championship. There, most decks were prepared for it with multiple copies of Field Blower, so it would have been difficult to get anywhere in the event. My friend and teammate Frank Percic, however, was able to prove the haters wrong with a day-two finish at Tennessee Regionals with this deck. While he changed about ten cards from my original list, this deck’s creation was my doing. I didn’t think it was that great at the time, so I never ended up using it at an event until recently.

It’s worth noting that I used this deck to blaze through two League Cups recently. My records were as follows:

01/07/2018 in Coon Rapids, Minnesota: 5th Place at 5-1-1

• Round One versus Turtonator-GX / Lurantis / Mewtwo: 1-0-0
• Round Two versus Tapu Bulu-GX / Vikavolt / Tapu Koko / Mew: 2-0-0
• Round Three versus Tapu Bulu-GX / Vikavolt / Tapu Koko / Mew: 3-0-0
• Round Four versus Zoroark-GX / Golisopod-GX / Mewtwo / Mr. Mime / Tapu Koko: 3-0-1
• Round Five versus Turtonator-GX / Volcanion / Volcanion-EX / Starmie: 4-0-1
• Round Six versus Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX / Mewtwo: 5-0-1
• Quarterfinals versus Xerneas BREAK: 1-2; 5-1-1

01/13/2018 in Chicago, Illinois: 1st Place at 7-1-0

• Round One versus Zoroark-GX / Zoroark / Lycanroc-GX / Mewtwo: 1-0-0
• Round Two versus Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX / Mew-EX: 2-0-0
• Round Three versus Tapu Bulu-GX / Vikavolt: 3-0-0
• Round Four versus Zoroark-GX / Decidueye-GX / Mewtwo: 4-0-0
• Round Five versus Concession: 4-1-0
• Quarterfinals versus Zoroark-GX / Lycanroc-GX / Mew-EX: 2-0; 5-1-0
• Semifinals versus Tapu Bulu-GX / Vikavolt: 2-1; 6-1-0
• Finals versus Golisopod-GX / Garbodor / Tapu Koko: 2-0; 7-1-0

The first event didn’t end well since I drew awfully in the last two games of the quarterfinals, but aside from that, the deck ran super well. Dominance of this kind in any setting is impressive, even if it is a League Cup. Frank’s run with it in Memphis does a lot to prove the merit of the deck as well. Almost every matchup for the deck is positive, and even the negative ones can be flipped around if your opponent plays foolishly with Items. Mewtwo is very easy to play around if you have Acerola and attach your Energy wisely.

In any case this deck is primed for a big finish in Oceania for Internationals, as well as any League Cup events before then. Zoroark-GX decks are easy work for this deck for many reasons, namely because of their Weakness to Fighting types and then Garbodor with Garbotoxin makes it even easier. This deck is a great play in the Standard format, and it shouldn’t even slow down with the release of Ultra Prism, either! The following list is the exact build that Frank used in Memphis and the one that I’ve used recently to some success:

List

Four Trubbish, Two Garbodor and Two Garbodor

Three Trubbish is a minimum, but four is incredibly nice to have so that you find them early and often without having to play Brigette. Two of each Garbodor gives you plenty of options and helps you find those more often as well. Garbodor decks are inherently inconsistent, so you want to mitigate that as much as you possibly can.

Three Buzzwole-GX

With four Float Stone in your deck, you don’t need to play a fourth of these to improve your odds of starting with it ever so slightly. In a game, you’re usually going to use three Buzzwole-GX and a Garbodor in between that. Rescue Stretcher can get you another Buzzwole-GX in the event that you prize one, so don’t worry about this count. I haven’t had any problems with it at all.

Two Tapu Lele-GX

I’d like to have three Tapu Lele-GX to improve the odds of nailing a first turn Brigette, but this deck’s space is limited, and Bench space is too. You’re going to want a lot of Trubbish down and another Buzzwole-GX to attack with, so you likely won’t be able to afford the luxury of playing three of these.

One Espeon-EX

Without Espeon-EX, matchups like Gardevoir-GX, Golisopod-GX and even Metagross-GX wouldn’t be favorable. It allows you to get the most use out of Jet Punch and set up Knock Outs on the pre-Evolutions of evolved Pokemon. Knock Outs are just a whole lot easier to come by with this card in the deck, so it’s absolutely worth playing.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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