A Fleet-Footed Dance — Suicune V / Ludicolo Deck Breakdown

Hello to all PokeBeach readers! Here’s Gabriel Semedo again with another Pokémon TCG article and this time I’m going to talk about the deck I created and used to win a tournament of almost 500 people; the Suicune V / Ludicolo deck.

Last week we had the Chill Series #46, an online Pokémon TCG tournament with almost 500 participants from all over the world, already in the post-rotation format. With enough curiosity and excitement from the players to discover which would be the best decks of this new season we had several established decks appearing among the best, but the champion of this tournament was a Suicune V / Inteleon deck with a different tech; Ludicolo.

I believe that few players would be expecting Suicune V to be the champion of the first major tournament in the post-rotation format, but the combination of Suicune V with Ludicolo was perfect for this new format, mainly because it enables the OHKO of a Pokémon VMAX.

We know that it’s not easy to Knock Out a VMAX Pokémon as they are usually able to withstand at least one attack, or the opponent has to make a huge effort to get a high enough damage output. The point is that for Suicune V / Inteleon / Ludicolo to reach 320 damage is not such an absurd effort, in fact, it is quite effortless — unless your opponent hinders you a lot, you can always use the Ability from Ludicolo to achieve incredible damage.

Today’s article will be an analysis of that deck that allowed me to win this great tournament — I want to tell you all the details of the construction and how I came up with this idea that will apparently be part of the metagame for a long time.

The Deck List

Card Explanations

Four Suicune V

I believe Suicune V will be a Pokémon you will hear about for a long time. The Ability can already be considered a reason to put this Pokémon in a deck solely to draw one more card per turn, but the attack is worth playing it for as well. For only two Energy (one of them being colorless and can be a Capture Energy and a Water Energy that can be attached with Melony) Suicune V is capable of doing up to 220 damage to the defending Pokemon if the opponent fills their Bench. The real reason to use Suicune V is the strong attack for its low Energy cost, but the Ability confirms to you that this Pokémon is too good and needs to be used.

The lowest damage Suicune V is capable of dealing is 120 damage, as long as you can put five Pokémon on the Bench and the opponent has none, but normally the opponent will drop two more Pokémon — one Pokémon that will enter later if their Active is KO’d and some other support Pokémon, often Drizzile or Crobat V. This means that in practice Suicune V does at least 160 damage, which is enough to Knock Out a Pokémon VMAX in two attacks. Despite being satisfactory, it’s still not incredible damage, so the deck has Inteleon and Ludicolo to increase the damage and open more KO possibilities, the most important and notable being the possibility of Knocking Out a Pokémon VMAX in a single attack.

Four Sobble, Four Drizzile, Two Inteleon CRE, One Inteleon SSH

You must be tired of seeing Inteleon in the metagame, as besides improving ideas that already exist, this Pokémon line has allowed new ideas to work. It is a line that brings power and consistency without having to interfere in the strategy you are trying to execute.

In the case of Suicune V / Ludicolo, the entire Inteleon Line is fundamental to the deck; Drizzile offers consistency throughout the game, especially in the second and third turns to find Melony, while Inteleon CRE is responsible for providing the additional damage that is needed to perform a Knock Out with Suicune V. Finally, Inteleon SSH enables stronger plays like Rare Candy + Evolution Incense for Ludicolo.

Remember that in this deck Inteleon SSH is a great attacker, and I find myself using it often. After losing two Suicune V in a match you can avoid benching the third Suicune V, and instead use Raihan to attack with Inteleon SSH and have a field with only single-Prize Pokémon — this way your opponent will be forced to perform two more Knock Outs to win the match. When the opponent KOs Inteleon SSH, you can bench the third Suicune V, use Melony, and perform another big attack. This move often works to buy an extra game turn.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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