IMHO, so much this comment. The way the meta is shaping up, pretty much every competitive deck is going to run at least 1 blower to counter something. Marshadow/Judge is also really commonplace. Baby Blowns is nowhere in the Japanese meta, which people attribute to Reset Stamp, but I'm suspicious that the deck is just not as good as people think it is -- even without Reset Stamp, there's just too many ways to deal with baby Blowns that are tools that competitive decks are already going to run.
Help Beating Baby Blacephalon
- Thread starter payton
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IMHO, so much this comment. The way the meta is shaping up, pretty much every competitive deck is going to run at least 1 blower to counter something. Marshadow/Judge is also really commonplace. Baby Blowns is nowhere in the Japanese meta, which people attribute to Reset Stamp, but I'm suspicious that the deck is just not as good as people think it is -- even without Reset Stamp, there's just too many ways to deal with baby Blowns that are tools that competitive decks are already going to run.
I still think it’s a good card, just don’t like the greens build for the reasons you mention. I have been running a jirachi/salazzle build that can withstand disruption much better. I think it’s much stronger overall in this meta, you can really body the popular tag team decks, but flip side is being weaker against other single prize decks. Zapdos effortlessly takes out your engine and Malamar is more consistent once it sets up
Fight fire with fire, I beat him 7/10 times with arcanine. If you can accelerate energies to 1 prizers fast, Baby B will run out of steam and have nothing left to attack. I run a blacephalon specifically for a 1-2 mega damage combo with victini prismstar, anything more is just a means to an end.
I don't run blacephalon, I run arcanine.
I can't disagree more with those statements.
Going down to 4 cards, 5 with the card drawn on the beginning of the turn is not a straight synonym of loosing the game.
Moreover, Let Loose or Judge will often give a dead hand to you too anyways. I don't think such an uncertain result can be considered as a good tech against a specific matchup. I can't count the number of games won after an unfortunate Let Loose from my opponent.
Field blower is much better, that's true.
The batons are very important, but not as vital as everybody is thinking.
I make decks specifically to counter marshadow - running less supporters and a lot of thinners specifically because of dead hands that come with it. Marshadow in a deck that requires you to have a big hand of energies, is just a way to brick yourself, or to get your blacephalon's wiped out.
Blacephalon cannot run by itself, judge will still be in format and it will wreck your strat. I would add something else as a secondary attacker while you work around a judge, or any type of hand distruption.
Blacephalon cannot run by itself, judge will still be in format and it will wreck your strat. I would add something else as a secondary attacker while you work around a judge, or any type of hand distruption.
Agreed, 100%. I got second at a recent Challenge, behind a Plume deck. Twice in that I faced Reshizard with them going first, playing let loose turn one, and then playing let loose a second time later in the game. Not only did my Blowns deck recover fine every time, but the matches left me thinking I had given Reshizard too much credit.I can't disagree more with those statements.
Going down to 4 cards, 5 with the card drawn on the beginning of the turn is not a straight synonym of loosing the game.
Moreover, Let Loose or Judge will often give a dead hand to you too anyways. I don't think such an uncertain result can be considered as a good tech against a specific matchup. I can't count the number of games won after an unfortunate Let Loose from my opponent.
Field blower is much better, that's true.
The batons are very important, but not as vital as everybody is thinking.
This is incorrect. Hand disruption beats bad Blacephalon players, but when a deck is built well and piloted well, hand disruption isn't that big of an issue. Judge being in format is way better than Marshadow, as that means our opponent had to use it as their supporter for turn as well! If you can beat someone who plays Let Loose after an 8 card Lillie, imagine playing someone whose supporter shrunk their own hand to 4.
It seems that I need to re-look at these strats, I know that after being marshadow'd so much that I needed to rework my deck around that to keep me from bricking which ment less supporters and more thinners. You cannot trust your decks strategy when a marshadow can leave you with a hand full of guzma's or acerola's/max potions.
Deck thinners are good here. As are cards that represent multiple other cards. I try to get most of my energy into the discard pretty quickly, but save my crystals and whatnot as much as possible. Baby Blacephalon shouldn't be playing any Acerola or max potion.
I have had success as well as some of the issues already mentioned in this thread while playing Baby Blowns. From my experience the Jirachi build is far superior to the Greens engine. Without Jirachi I am having to chain Greens almost every turn besides an early Welder. If the game goes beyond a few turns, I either wiff on Greens or simply run out of them. I even went so far as to play one Pal Pad to ensure a constant supply.
Having switched to a Jirachi engine I have more flexibility and greater draw power, replacing the Greens with Lillie. I am currently running 3 Jirachi and that seems to be an acceptable count. More importantly, Judge and Let Loose, while still potentially damaging are not as devastating as they were with the Greens engine.
Field Blower is still a problem, but not the end of the world as you still have welder. I have opted for one Beast Ring as a third means of energy acceleration mid-game and it has already proved its worth in play testing. I was considering adding a second as field blower is getting so common in the meta, but I cannot justify cutting anything to make room.
Having switched to a Jirachi engine I have more flexibility and greater draw power, replacing the Greens with Lillie. I am currently running 3 Jirachi and that seems to be an acceptable count. More importantly, Judge and Let Loose, while still potentially damaging are not as devastating as they were with the Greens engine.
Field Blower is still a problem, but not the end of the world as you still have welder. I have opted for one Beast Ring as a third means of energy acceleration mid-game and it has already proved its worth in play testing. I was considering adding a second as field blower is getting so common in the meta, but I cannot justify cutting anything to make room.
My personal advice would just be to find a good turn to Field Blower their Wishful Batons and play a Judge or SHL Marshadow. Shuffling their hand to 4 (while of course getting rid of their Heat Factory Prism Star as well as any other form of draw they're playing) with no backup attacker to follow up should cripple them good. I thought it was pretty broken at first, and while the deck itself can still be pretty good at times, but you just have to make accomplishing their goal of not only setting up another Blacephalon in order to attack in the first place, but getting enough energies in your hand to knock out the defending pokemon after doing that.
Blacephalon is consistently fast, powerful, and wins the prize trade. Try Girafarig to send [R] from the discard to the ‘Zone. Then, they can’t Fiery Flint.
Since when did people really play baby blace anyway? Hasn’t seen any play in japan or any other countries. Should wait until Madison results though. First post by the way.
Lost Purge GX would work too, if you're playing stall, but either way I think you'll find that unless you do that real early you won't have enough impact with that. Blacephalon runs plenty of energy, and has both fiery flint (which gets it from deck) and fire crystal/energy retrieval from discard. Sometimes it helps to remove a few from discard, but I feel like more often it won't matter all that much.
I’m rarely seeing this deck on events/leagues I do play. As a Reshizard player, whenever I do play against one, Volcanion is my choice. This makes the opponent spend more out of their deck against 1-prize monster.
Most good Blacephalon lists I’ve played against play 3-4 Guzma, so idk about this one.
From experience, zoroark/dewgong is really effective against all fire variants except reshizard.
Baby blacephalon should be an autowin with this list:
https://limitlesstcg.com/decks/?list=2672
You could try Stephane Ivanoff's decklist too:
https://limitlesstcg.com/decks/?list=2670
Baby blacephalon should be an autowin with this list:
https://limitlesstcg.com/decks/?list=2672
You could try Stephane Ivanoff's decklist too:
https://limitlesstcg.com/decks/?list=2670
Sure they do, that’s why at first I do play with Volcanions, so Guzma would bring another Volcanion in fear they would track down 3-prizes Pokemons on my side.