Help Beating Baby Blacephalon
- Thread starter payton
- Start date
If you can KO a blace every turn, especially when they don't have a baton attached, they will eventually run out of steam and whiff a KO, giving you the win.
In my mally deck, I just use tina until they whiff a KO.
Also, having non GX attackers will force them to have a fully powered blace AND 3 fire in hand EVERY TURN.
Just try to run them out of steam. They only have 4 welder to get 6 prize cards.
In my mally deck, I just use tina until they whiff a KO.
Also, having non GX attackers will force them to have a fully powered blace AND 3 fire in hand EVERY TURN.
Just try to run them out of steam. They only have 4 welder to get 6 prize cards.
I think it's a bit early to know now, but the Dewgong idea is probably the most suitable for now, although I'm sure people will come up with hard-counters as the meta evolves. In all honesty, this is my current deck of choice, so if I run into any real counters, I'll post about it.
I'm sorry, but this is some general non-advice; a lot of ifs: "if" you can KO Blacephalon ever turn, "if" they don't have Baton, "if" they run out of steam and "if" they whiff a KO, they will give you a win? Not precisely giving you the win then. That's 4 ifs which is not very likely to happen, with all the support the deck has; Fiery Flint, Fire Crystal, Psychic Oricorio, Lady, Fisherman, Energy Retrieval, PokeGear 3.0, Beast Ring among plenty more.
Blacephalon is very good at handing out KOs every turn, Guzma is still a thing, so even if you are setting up a Pokemon on your Bench, it is not safe. That alone makes the first "if" hard to achieve. The fact that Baton is so good in this deck means a lot of people run 3 of them, with ways to search them out. That makes the second "if" hard to achieve unless people start playing Field Blowers again or potentially Faba. I'm not entirely sure about the steam "if" because all decks have the potential to "run out of steam", but with all the Fire support, Blacephalon has a lot of ways to bring the steam back. And finally, whiffing a KO; that alone is not necessarily a lose condition for Blace because it's a 1-Prizer with a lot of ways to bring it back. The hardest deck so far that I have played against with my Baby Blace was a mirror, where the ifs actually come into play because you're both on a level playing field.
And 4 Welders for 6 prizes? You're forgetting about the fact Burst GX is a thing and about manual attachments every turn. Every Baby Blace deck should run 1/2 Blacephalon GX, be it to take the last prize using the GX attack or in extreme situations using Mind Blow. And what about Knocking Out GXs and TTGXs? This suddenly becomes 4 Welders for 2/3 KOs, which is not that hard with unbounded damage output.
If you really want to bring back the game, I'd suggest using Judges and Marshadow to disrupt their hand mid-game. That is probably the biggest counter to the deck, something I have feared ever since I started playing the deck, but thankfully haven't run into yet.
EDIT 1: Looking at my collection, I realised that Lysandre Labs could be used to counter your opponent's Baton and Stadium (Heat Factory or Ultra Space). So there's that as well.
I'm sorry, but this is some general non-advice; a lot of ifs: "if" you can KO Blacephalon ever turn, "if" they don't have Baton, "if" they run out of steam and "if" they whiff a KO, they will give you a win? Not precisely giving you the win then. That's 4 ifs which is not very likely to happen, with all the support the deck has; Fiery Flint, Fire Crystal, Psychic Oricorio, Lady, Fisherman, Energy Retrieval, PokeGear 3.0, Beast Ring among plenty more.
Blacephalon is very good at handing out KOs every turn, Guzma is still a thing, so even if you are setting up a Pokemon on your Bench, it is not safe. That alone makes the first "if" hard to achieve. The fact that Baton is so good in this deck means a lot of people run 3 of them, with ways to search them out. That makes the second "if" hard to achieve unless people start playing Field Blowers again or potentially Faba. I'm not entirely sure about the steam "if" because all decks have the potential to "run out of steam", but with all the Fire support, Blacephalon has a lot of ways to bring the steam back. And finally, whiffing a KO; that alone is not necessarily a lose condition for Blace because it's a 1-Prizer with a lot of ways to bring it back. The hardest deck so far that I have played against with my Baby Blace was a mirror, where the ifs actually come into play because you're both on a level playing field.
And 4 Welders for 6 prizes? You're forgetting about the fact Burst GX is a thing and about manual attachments every turn. Every Baby Blace deck should run 1/2 Blacephalon GX, be it to take the last prize using the GX attack or in extreme situations using Mind Blow. And what about Knocking Out GXs and TTGXs? This suddenly becomes 4 Welders for 2/3 KOs, which is not that hard with unbounded damage output.
If you really want to bring back the game, I'd suggest using Judges and Marshadow to disrupt their hand mid-game. That is probably the biggest counter to the deck, something I have feared ever since I started playing the deck, but thankfully haven't run into yet.
EDIT 1: Looking at my collection, I realised that Lysandre Labs could be used to counter your opponent's Baton and Stadium (Heat Factory or Ultra Space). So there's that as well.
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I don't know what absolute FIRE (pun intended) you've been testing, but from MY testing, blace can't chain KOs on non GX attackers if they are being KOed in the process.
Well it can for like 4 turns, and then it loses steam.
Let loose + blower baton away = gg (at least for greens search based builds)
I just saw a list at my league That is super consistent like turn one 150 or more and stays consistent so i might try a quagnag list with other unbroken bonds techs
Yeah, return of field blower will really hurt, assuming that does return to the meta. I wonder though if it will - do we really have that much where blower is used other than this deck anymore? Until someone wins a regional with Baby Blacephalon, anyway...
Baby Blacephalon can be relatively inconsistent from my testing so I feel 1/3 games they will brick and that statistic goes up if you can let loose or judge turn 1. I don’t think you need to counter it. If you do use an extra Marshadow or judge.
I feel like someone will come up with a Baby Blacephalon deck that works; perhaps one with Salazzle, perhaps not, but I think it's a possibility still. For it to work it'll definitely have to counter judge/marshadow, though, which is a tall order. Reset stamp will be a bigger issue, IMO, but that's not a problem - yet.
FWIW, I've played several QuagNag lists, including one that I hired a well known coach for a month in order to help me prep it for Denver. I've also played a ton of games with different Baby Blowns builds. The good Blowns builds will win against QuagNag almost every time from my experience.
The saving grace is that the good lists (or, really, any baby blowns list) punishes bad decisions in setup pretty heavily. You can play it well, but if you play it with insufficient practice or a mediocre list, it's very easy to slip up.
That varies from player to player and coach to coach. Some are basically giving you playtesting against a world class player. Others will work on deck building with you. Others will talk through all relevant decisions during whatever testing matches you feel are most helpful, so that you can iron out the best approach. Some combine multiple aspects of the above. Some will go so far as to take note of any plays or thought processes you had which were questionable.
A lot of coaching is through video chat and stuff anyway AFAIK, 'cause it's a global game and people wanting to improve don't necessarily live anywhere near world-class players who offer coaching. Never done it personally though.
And as for the original question, Vileplume absolutely walls the straight Baby Blowns list, though it gets bodied by builds that play a stage 1 with it.
And as for the original question, Vileplume absolutely walls the straight Baby Blowns list, though it gets bodied by builds that play a stage 1 with it.
Even then, they could just play Stealthy Hood to completely bypass Vileplume's effect. Obviously Wishful Baton is a much better and overall card to use for the general idea of this deck, but I just wanted to point that out if anyone decides to run it.