A Guide to the Unlimited Format

Not so much a deck request as a final question for everyone in here; these are my options for an Unlimited Charizard deck:

http://pokebeach.com/2012/10/boundaries-crossed

http://pokebeach.com/tcg/arceus/gallery

Which of the two seems more lethal: the Boundaries Crossed Charizard, or the Arceus set Charizard?
 
Here's what I have, then, using the Arceus set Charizard with Fire Formation:

4 Charmander (Arceus)
1 Charmeleon (Secret Wonders)
4 Charizard (Arceus)
2 Vulpix (Platinum; Shiny version)
2 Ninetales
2 Torchic
1 Combusken
2 Blaziken (Ruby and Sapphire)

4 Poke Drawer +
4 Erika
4 Pokedex Handy 910 is
3 Pokemon Collector
4 Broken Space Time
4 Rare Candy
3 Expert Belt
2 Fisherman
2 Item Finder

12 Fire Energy

I'm using Blaziken in place of what was traditionally Typhlosion Prime. My reasoning is that Expert Belt gives my opponent two prizes if they KO the pokemon it is attached to.Typhlosion Prime adds 1 damage counter to the pokemon that gets the discarded Fire Energy from its power. So I'm using Firestarter Blaziken; the catch is that Blaziken attaches the energy to a benched pokemon. Pokemon Collector lets me grab 3 basic pokemon from my deck, so it seemed good to dig out my key pieces. I did want to add some Trainer-based defense in the form of stuff like Lass, and maybe Gold Berry, but I couldn't find room with the 2-1-2 Blaziken/Typhlosion Prime line. I felt Expert Belt would be good to help me get rid of problem pokemon ASAP with Charizard; 1-shotting as much as possible. Should I kick the 2-1-2 and go for more Trainer cards?
 
I built this in the pokemon TCGO, during the beta, as always is with me, I didn't pay attention to the competitive stuff, just pokemon I liked, and I knew that with the overpowered attacks, ex and primes in general and BW zekrom and reshiram in particular, the deck wouldn't stand a chance. I was wrong. It surprisingly defeated a lot of decks with primes, OP pokemon, and even several zekrom and reshirams. So, this is the little deck that could:

Petilil BCR x4
Lilligant EPO x1
Lilligant BCR x2
Snivy BCR x3
Servine BCR x2
Servine BLW x1
Serperior promo x1
Serperior BCR x1
Ducklett EPO x4
Swanna EPO x3
Minccino NEX x3
Cinccino NEX x2

Potion x2
Bill x 2
Cheren x2
Flowershop lady x2
Professor elm's training method x2
Professor oak's new theory x2
Burned tower x1

Water energy x9
Grass energy X9
Rescue energy x1

The gist of it was mainly to set up swanna and burned tower and have a perpetual motion machine, discarding energy for 70 damage and recovering it with burned tower. It worked.
And I found out he deck was fast. really fast, it was usual to have in my third turn a swanna ready to do 70 damage or stall with wing dance, if that didn't happen, there was lilligant, doing a lot of damage or using return, petilil stalling, minccino using call for family and cinccino, who I dubbed "the impenetrable wall"; more than one zekrom fell to her.

So, I know it's not as impressive as your decks, but for me, this is almost the best deck ever.
 
So long as you like your pokemon selection, and you can get your engines working, its cool. :) I know one of the Serperiors has a poke power, poke body, or maybe ability, which heals your pokemon. I'd make it a bench sitter to keep your beaters in good shape. Since Bill is now a supporter, I recommend Erika or Blaine's Quiz #2.
 
RedJackal said:
So long as you like your pokemon selection, and you can get your engines working, its cool. :) I know one of the Serperiors has a poke power, poke body, or maybe ability, which heals your pokemon. I'd make it a bench sitter to keep your beaters in good shape. Since Bill is now a supporter, I recommend Erika or Blaine's Quiz #2.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the promo serperior. The snivy line is more filler than useful. snivy is useless and serperior takes a lot of time to set up, but if the others perform well, I can get it up in the bench or even retreat swanna for 70 or 60 damage without discarding.
That bill was a supporter. Using my real cards, I use 4 mom's kindness, which has the same effect and is also a supporter.
Doesn't Erika benefits your opponent too? why would you choose to do that? the only case I do that is using erika's kindness. It's not exactly a smart move, but I absolutely adore that card.

You are more experienced than me: how the hell did this deck managed to beat so many other, more powerful decks? by all accounts, zekrom and reshiram should be deadly against it. I'm still astounded it worked, honestly.
 
professorlight said:
RedJackal said:
So long as you like your pokemon selection, and you can get your engines working, its cool. :) I know one of the Serperiors has a poke power, poke body, or maybe ability, which heals your pokemon. I'd make it a bench sitter to keep your beaters in good shape. Since Bill is now a supporter, I recommend Erika or Blaine's Quiz #2.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the promo serperior. The snivy line is more filler than useful. snivy is useless and serperior takes a lot of time to set up, but if the others perform well, I can get it up in the bench or even retreat swanna for 70 or 60 damage without discarding.
That bill was a supporter. Using my real cards, I use 4 mom's kindness, which has the same effect and is also a supporter.
Doesn't Erika benefits your opponent too? why would you choose to do that? the only case I do that is using erika's kindness. It's not exactly a smart move, but I absolutely adore that card.

You are more experienced than me: how the hell did this deck managed to beat so many other, more powerful decks? by all accounts, zekrom and reshiram should be deadly against it. I'm still astounded it worked, honestly.
Click to expand...
Cheren > Mom's kindness

The reason people use Erika over those cards is because she isn't a supporter, which means you can use as many of her as you want per turn.
 
Catfish said:
professorlight said:
Yeah, that's the promo serperior. The snivy line is more filler than useful. snivy is useless and serperior takes a lot of time to set up, but if the others perform well, I can get it up in the bench or even retreat swanna for 70 or 60 damage without discarding.
That bill was a supporter. Using my real cards, I use 4 mom's kindness, which has the same effect and is also a supporter.
Doesn't Erika benefits your opponent too? why would you choose to do that? the only case I do that is using erika's kindness. It's not exactly a smart move, but I absolutely adore that card.

You are more experienced than me: how the hell did this deck managed to beat so many other, more powerful decks? by all accounts, zekrom and reshiram should be deadly against it. I'm still astounded it worked, honestly.
Click to expand...
Cheren > Mom's kindness

The reason people use Erika over those cards is because she isn't a supporter, which means you can use as many of her as you want per turn.
Click to expand...

Bill = mom's kindness, and I dislike cheren, anyway.

But still, erika also benefits your opponent, unless you get an advantage if the guy has a lot of cards in the hand, I don't see why you would use it over cheren or bill, especially when it's very unlikely you get 2, 3 or 4 to use in the same turn.
 
professorlight said:
Catfish said:
Cheren > Mom's kindness

The reason people use Erika over those cards is because she isn't a supporter, which means you can use as many of her as you want per turn.
Click to expand...

Bill=mom's kindness, and I dislike cheren, anyway.

But still, erika also benefits your opponent, unless you get an advantage if the guy has a lot of cards in the hand, I don't see why you would use it over cheren or bill, especially when it's very unlikely you get 2, 3 or 4 to use in the same turn.
Click to expand...
When you're playing even slightly competitively, you're going to want to use the card with more drawpower.

In a competitive unlimited deck, you're usually going to have enough drawpower to run through an entire deck, so you're probably going to get 3-4 on T1, your opponent drawing cards isn't going to be very much of a problem because they were going to go through most of their deck anyway. It does suck though when they draw into a power spray. :p
 
Bringing this build to the new page for any suggestions. :D

Here's what I have, then, using the Arceus set Charizard with Fire Formation:

4 Charmander (Arceus)
1 Charmeleon (Secret Wonders)
4 Charizard (Arceus)
2 Vulpix (Platinum; Shiny version)
2 Ninetales (Heart Gold Soul Silver)
2 Torchic
1 Combusken
2 Blaziken (Ruby and Sapphire)

4 Poke Drawer +
4 Erika
4 Pokedex Handy 910 is
3 Pokemon Collector
4 Broken Space Time
4 Rare Candy
3 Expert Belt
2 Fisherman
2 Item Finder

12 Fire Energy

I'm using Blaziken in place of what was traditionally Typhlosion Prime. My reasoning is that Expert Belt gives my opponent two prizes if they KO the pokemon it is attached to.Typhlosion Prime adds 1 damage counter to the pokemon that gets the discarded Fire Energy from its power. So I'm using Firestarter Blaziken; the catch is that Blaziken attaches the energy to a benched pokemon. Pokemon Collector lets me grab 3 basic pokemon from my deck, so it seemed good to dig out my key pieces. I did want to add some Trainer-based defense in the form of stuff like Lass, and maybe Gold Berry, but I couldn't find room with the 2-1-2 Blaziken/Typhlosion Prime line. I felt Expert Belt would be good to help me get rid of problem pokemon ASAP with Charizard; 1-shotting as much as possible. Should I kick the 2-1-2 and go for more Trainer cards?

The Ninetales has Roast Reveal, which lets me discard a Fire Energy to draw 3 cards, by the way.
 
^List looks pretty good, but here is what I'd do:
-2 BTS
-Blaziken Line
+1-1 Ninetales
+4 Catcher/2-2 Blaziken FB Lv.X
+1 Luxury Ball
 
Catfish said:
professorlight said:
Bill=mom's kindness, and I dislike cheren, anyway.

But still, erika also benefits your opponent, unless you get an advantage if the guy has a lot of cards in the hand, I don't see why you would use it over cheren or bill, especially when it's very unlikely you get 2, 3 or 4 to use in the same turn.
Click to expand...
When you're playing even slightly competitively, you're going to want to use the card with more drawpower.

In a competitive unlimited deck, you're usually going to have enough drawpower to run through an entire deck, so you're probably going to get 3-4 on T1, your opponent drawing cards isn't going to be very much of a problem because they were going to go through most of their deck anyway. It does suck though when they draw into a power spray. :p
Click to expand...

I see, I don't get it, but I see your point. I guess the game has changed too much since base set. Those were the good ol' days. you didn't have to cut your deck in half in the first turn to win. you and your opponent had to wait at least four turns to get your pokemons up and running. It sounds like this days the game is a lot less fun and a lot more "hit hard, win fast and move on to the next" kind of thing.

Now I'm rambling... damn, I'm old.
 
professorlight said:
Catfish said:
When you're playing even slightly competitively, you're going to want to use the card with more drawpower.

In a competitive unlimited deck, you're usually going to have enough drawpower to run through an entire deck, so you're probably going to get 3-4 on T1, your opponent drawing cards isn't going to be very much of a problem because they were going to go through most of their deck anyway. It does suck though when they draw into a power spray. :p
Click to expand...

I see, I don't get it, but I see your point. I guess the game has changed too much since base set. Those were the good ol' days. you didn't have to cut your deck in half in the first turn to win. you and your opponent had to wait at least four turns to get your pokemons up and running. It sounds like this days the game is a lot less fun and a lot more "hit hard, win fast and move on to the next" kind of thing.

Now I'm rambling... damn, I'm old.
Click to expand...
Well, you have to keep in mind that this is only in unlimited, in modified, it's actually quite similar to the old base set format, with a bunch of powerful basics dominating the format.
 
It is uncanny, and a little disheartening. I liked the previous formats, where you could run Stage 2's and still do pretty good.
 
Than just play with old format decks, I am building a 2007 metanite deck and getting the world championship decks to play around with at league and at tourneys because that is a popular format that people still play.
 
Catfish said:
professorlight said:
I see, I don't get it, but I see your point. I guess the game has changed too much since base set. Those were the good ol' days. you didn't have to cut your deck in half in the first turn to win. you and your opponent had to wait at least four turns to get your pokemons up and running. It sounds like this days the game is a lot less fun and a lot more "hit hard, win fast and move on to the next" kind of thing.

Now I'm rambling... damn, I'm old.
Click to expand...
Well, you have to keep in mind that this is only in unlimited, in modified, it's actually quite similar to the old base set format, with a bunch of powerful basics dominating the format.
Click to expand...

I don't know, I just used that deck in TCGO against the computer:
first turn: thundurus (active pokemon), energy, charge (got another energy).
second turn: energy, 80 damage, my minccino is out, petilil goes in.
third turn: energy, 80 damage, petilil out. It was like that for a while.
The only reason I was still in the game was because I kept getting basics (snivy, servine, ducklett).
I know it was just luck, but it was still frustrating, that my opponent just got a powerful pokemon and in two turns it could knock out my entire deck without even using weakness.

I prefer unlimited, but the potential for that kind of unevenness is still there.

If modified is like base set, but with a bunch of powerful basics, then it's nothing like the base set. Back then you and your opponent had to stay alive until you or him could get the powerhouses up, now it's just draw engine/rare candy/uber basic/energy engine/catcher/win or lose.
 
2-2 Porygon2
1-1 Drifblim
4 Uxie
1 Regice
4 Sableye
1 Azelf
1 Rotom


4 Pokedex Handy
4 Pokedrawer
4 Erika
4 Item Finder
4 Seeker
4 Fast Ticket
4 Scoop Up
1 Luxury Ball
1 Swoop Teleporter
2 BTS
1 Computer Search
1 Oracle
1 Collector
1 Windstorm
3 Professir Oak
2 Junk Arm
1 Vs Seeker

1 Boost Energy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top