Ultra Prism Upgrades: Golisopod-GX / Garbodor

Hey there PokeBeach readers! After discussing the Expanded format a little bit in my last article, I’m back again.  This time we have an article on the new Standard format. Ultra Prism has just been released, and ever since it’s been legal on PTCGO I’ve been grinding games trying to figure out what decks I like in the new format. With only two weeks of testing time online before the St. Louis Regional Championships, it was imperative that I used every day to get in some quality testing in order to prepare myself for this Regional. In my testing, one deck (and to a lesser extent, one other) has really stood out to me as a strong contender in the new format, and the deck I am currently leaning towards playing for the next Regional. That deck is none other than Golisopod-GX  / Garbodor. Without further ado, let’s start talking about the deck.

Golisopod-GX / Garbodor in Ultra Prism

Golisopod-GX / Garbodor has been somewhat of the forgotten deck of the format; although Azul Griego managed to come in second place with it at the Memphis Regional Championship in December, it has seen very little play both by top players and in the general metagame. As such, many people have forgotten about the deck, instead choosing to pilot the other Golisopod deck in the format, Golisopod / Zoroark-GX. Although Golisopod / Garbodor might have been forgotten by the general population, it is definitely not a deck you should forget about. It has strong matchups across the board and got a boost with some of the cards printed in Ultra Prism. The first boost Golisopod / Garbodor gets is Cynthia. While the entire format got Cynthia, Golisopod / Garbodor benefits from it more than most. Prior to Ultra Prism, the deck’s biggest issue was consistency, so any consistency card will have a large benefit on an already inconsistent deck and won’t suffer from diminishing returns that an already consistent deck would get from adding more consistency to it.

Second, Pal Pad was reprinted. This card is perfect in Golisopod / Garbodor in Standard, as VS Seeker is not legal and the deck doesn’t run Puzzle of Time. Pal Pad helps it get back Guzma and Acerola mid to late game, as well as consistency cards like Cynthia and Professor Sycamore if needed. This allows you to chain First Impressions much more often late game, which was another issue the deck faced prior to Ultra Prism.

Finally, while this did not directly boost Golisopod / Garbodor, it definitely benefits from Glaceon-GX being introduced to the metagame. Golisopod / Garbodor is not really affected at all by Glaceon’s Ability, meaning that Golisopod / Garbodor does not need to build its deck specifically for Glaceon-GX (for example, playing less Tapu Lele-GX and more item Pokemon search cards such as Nest Ball, Heavy Ball, or Evosoda) while other decks do.

Now that we’ve gone over the reasons Golisopod is worthy of being a top deck in the new Standard format, let’s go over my current list of the deck. Keep in mind that while I’ve been testing this deck since Ultra Prism dropped on PTCGO, I’m sure there are still some things that can be changed in this list to perfect it, as a week is not enough time to completely dive into a new set.

This list was heavily influenced by Azul Garcia Griego’s second place Memphis Regionals list, and so far it’s been working well for me in the new format. Let’s now look at some of the more interesting cards in depth as I explain the reasons behind including them and at their counts.

Card Explanations

Four Wimpod

This might seem very obvious, but many people (including myself) have toyed with only three Wimpod in the past. However, Golisopod / Garbodor’s main issue is its inconsistency, so it was important to me to max out my count of Wimpods in order to give myself the highest odds of getting them in play turn one.

Two Garbodor (Garbotoxin)

I highly considered adding two Trashalanche Garbodor (both for the Buzzwole-GX matchup and just because it’s generally good in the meta game right now) and thickening my Trubbish line, but what I found after a few games is that adding the Trashalanche line it made the deck incredibly inconsistent. I decided that, if this deck was going to succeed, I’d need it to have some sense of consistency, and with Trashalanche Garbodor, that just didn’t exist. If you want to include Trashalanche in your list, I’d recommend removing the Enhanced Hammer, a few Grass energy, and maybe a Pal Pad for a 2-2 line of Trashalanche Garbodor and a couple of Rainbow Energy.

One Mewtwo EVO

Without the Trashalanche Garbodors, I needed something in order to check Buzzwole decks, and Mewtwo is one of, if not the best, Buzzwole GX checks in the game currently. The main reason I chose to stick with Mewtwo over the Trashalanche line, besides consistency, is space. Trashalanche Garbodor would have required me to completely change up my list, while Mewtwo can just be teched in as a one-of to greatly improve that matchup. Thus, it was a pretty easy decision for me to keep Mewtwo in the list over adding Trashalanche Garbodors.  If there isn’t a lot of Buzzwole in your meta, or you aren’t afraid of the deck at all, this can be cut for another Supporter card such as Cynthia or N to help boost the deck’s consistency.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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