Discussion Best Way to Abuse Infinite Draw?

Professor Willow

Professor Willow

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Let me start by saying i havent played since before BDC-on rotation so about 2 seadons, but I've decided to pick it up again because of extended being a supported format. Ok, so I've deck that draws an average of 45-50 cards T1 going first or second. The exact list is irrelevant at the moment. However i need a way of abusing the strength of the dexk which is effectively drawing the whole deck turn 1. Current Ihave 40 slots dedicated to drawing the deck. Which leaves me with 20 slaots for win conditions. Currently I'm running an accelgor/mew lock as my main attackers. My question is with only 20 slots. What is the best way to abuse drawing you're whole deck? Is there a better pokemon line to take advantage of having 90% of your deck in your discard pile and the rest in hand/play? What do you guys think? I don't know all the cards available as im just picking it up again. Thanks for all your help.
 
There's definitely a lot of card draw out there now, that's for sure!

The kind of draw you're describing was popular around US Nationals this past season in decks focusing on Seismitoad EX, Crushing Hammers, and Hypnotoxic Laser. Players would draw through half their decks in one turn, shuffle it back with Lysandre's Trump Card the next, and repeat the whole process over and over to deny their opponent's any board position. A deck like this won Nationals. TPCi decided to ban Lysandre's Trump Card shortly after this happened, though, making that kind of strategy much less viable.

Without LTC, drawing that much at once can be a liability, and in the absence of a real reason to draw so much I'd ask if it's even worth it. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, after all. But to do the best I can to answer your question...

Accelgor does appreciate a small deck to allow you to find DCEs again after Deck and Cover, and it's a solid deck in Expanded. VS Seeker would allow you to take advantage of having a bunch of different Supporters in your discard pile, but you may be limited by the space you have for them. In Expanded, Sableye allows you to grab Items out of your discard pile, including something like Life Dew which can be a nightmare to deal with over and over.
 
I completely agree that just because you can, doesn't mean you should. But im seeing taht you also seem to think accelgor seems to be the best option at the moment.
 
I think Accelgor makes sense to some degree, but I think that the decks wants to do more than what 20 cards will allow it space to do. Even in a deck like that, you're going to be better off reining in the draw in order to put other stuff like Trevenant in there.
 
Honestly, infinity draw is not really a great strategy. A deck that uses lots of draw is required to quickly take KOs before decking out. The problem is that there isn't many decent Pokemon that can actually do that. Any deck that runs energy disruption or another defensive trait, or runs milling Bunnelby ATs can easily stall enough so you deck out.
 
I think Musharna PHF works with this engine. I'm busy playing with a Musharna/Slurpuff deck just now that aims to draw through the entire deck as fast as possible then, once you deck out, you use Dream of Memories to put back in the exact 3 cards you want for next turn. You draw all 3 of those cards using draw-for-turn + 2 Slurpuff, play them all, then shuffle them back in with Dream of Memories again. If you can get down to a 0 card deck fast enough you can use this to play infinite Trick Shovels, TFGs, Hex Maniacs, or whatever you need to make sure your opponents Pokemon will never attack. Even if they run Bunnelby, you'll still deck them out eventually since you can play & recycle 3 Trick Shovels where they can only Rototiller for 2.
 
I like the musharna idea, however, how do you keep them from just 1 shoting you? I get you could cycle enerygy removal but tbe best form is supporter but thats 1 per turn so if they have a 2 energy attack (or even 1 energy attack) you would just prob lose before your able to shuffle and cycle trick shovels enough. I could be wrong. Ive never played with trick shovel. And this is in extended incase i forgot to mention that.
 
Professor Willow said:
I like the musharna idea, however, how do you keep them from just 1 shoting you? I get you could cycle enerygy removal but tbe best form is supporter but thats 1 per turn so if they have a 2 energy attack (or even 1 energy attack) you would just prob lose before your able to shuffle and cycle trick shovels enough. I could be wrong. Ive never played with trick shovel. And this is in extended incase i forgot to mention that.
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You could play this in Expanded with Life Dew.
 
The problem i have with life dew is it takes a full turn to recycle then anotherturn to attach. Not to mention the best abuser of life dew is sableye DEX. So i i go that route id have to prob go hammertime in order to stall long enough to deck them out plus then with drawing my whole deck its difficult to put cards back in my library to avoid decking out. Thats why i started with accelgor/Mew as its attack alone keeps me from decking plus it prevents return KO's for at least a turn.
 
Even if you can't attach Life Dew every turn, it still helps. Sableye still has the same problem in that you can't retrieve it from the discard and attach it in the same turn.
 
Professor Willow said:
I like the musharna idea, however, how do you keep them from just 1 shoting you? I get you could cycle enerygy removal but tbe best form is supporter but thats 1 per turn so if they have a 2 energy attack (or even 1 energy attack) you would just prob lose before your able to shuffle and cycle trick shovels enough. I could be wrong. Ive never played with trick shovel. And this is in extended incase i forgot to mention that.
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It's actually quite difficult to reliably one shot something when they're playing constant energy removal. I find I tend to fall behind in prizes early on while I'm still trying to draw through my deck but once I get down to 3 cards it can take several turns for my opponent to take out a Musharna. 90 damage for 1 attachment isn't THAT common. Usually an attack like that will need special energy which I will immediately remove with Enhanced Hammer and/or Xerosic. Trick Shovels are what you do when your opponent has started drawing and passing to speed up the process. I always prioritise hammers, TFGs, or Xerosic if they have any energy on the field at all.

The most common reason I lose with this deck is my own misplays. Bringing your deck down to 0 every turn means you're really on the knife edge since you instantly lose if you cant use Dream of Memories. I need to make sure I always have at least one backup Musharna on the bench with energy on it and an energy in hand for retreating in case a Slurpuff or Shaymin gets Lysandered out. It's not a deck you can play on autopilot.

I made my deck for Standard but I guess it would work well in expanded too. Life Dew would be great even if you can't use it every turn. Making your opponent take 1 prize every second KO should be more than enough time to deck them out. You would need an answer for Accelgor since getting paralysed late game would be a disaster.
 
Maximinn said:
It's actually quite difficult to reliably one shot something when they're playing constant energy removal. I find I tend to fall behind in prizes early on while I'm still trying to draw through my deck but once I get down to 3 cards it can take several turns for my opponent to take out a Musharna. 90 damage for 1 attachment isn't THAT common. Usually an attack like that will need special energy which I will immediately remove with Enhanced Hammer and/or Xerosic. Trick Shovels are what you do when your opponent has started drawing and passing to speed up the process. I always prioritise hammers, TFGs, or Xerosic if they have any energy on the field at all.

The most common reason I lose with this deck is my own misplays. Bringing your deck down to 0 every turn means you're really on the knife edge since you instantly lose if you cant use Dream of Memories. I need to make sure I always have at least one backup Musharna on the bench with energy on it and an energy in hand for retreating in case a Slurpuff or Shaymin gets Lysandered out. It's not a deck you can play on autopilot.

I made my deck for Standard but I guess it would work well in expanded too. Life Dew would be great even if you can't use it every turn. Making your opponent take 1 prize every second KO should be more than enough time to deck them out. You would need an answer for Accelgor since getting paralysed late game would be a disaster.
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Legitimately, I lost against this deck w/ Blastoise, as its easy to get lazy with your attachments, and then if they take out all of your SER's...almost GG.
 
with lysandre's trump card banned mass drawing isn't as good as it used to be.
 
homeofmew said:
with lysandre's trump card banned mass drawing isn't as good as it used to be.
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Yeah, i understand that is not the best strategy, but it's fun. Im just trying to figure out if accelgor is the best endgame as it prevents decking. (From yourself at least) another option i thought was Sableye DEX with life dew (this was suggested earlier) another way to abuse Sableye would be robo substitute as is an irem its recoverable with sableye. Is there any poke powers that let me put cards back into the deck?
 
homeofmew said:
with lysandre's trump card banned mass drawing isn't as good as it used to be.
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Decks such as Accelgor and the Musharna deck that is being discussed are still able to do it since they have ways of putting cards back into the deck so that you don't deck out. Note that you can't deck out the following turn by drawing if you attacked with either Accelgor or Musharna. Of course if for whatever reason, you can't attack, then your opponent might be able to force you to deck out, but against a lock deck such as Accelgor, there's not much you can do to make them miss Deck and Cover once they get set up.
 
Professor Willow said:
Yeah, i understand that is not the best strategy, but it's fun.
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For you it is fun. The deck you are trying to build/run is designed to win by making your opponent sit there and slowly wait for you to achieve a win condition, is it not? When it works it is just fancy solitaire. Now, if this deck is meant to be competitive and you think it is the best play, I won't fault you for using it to try and win tournaments: competitive play is competitive. If it is just "for fun" though, make sure you've got opponents that agree with your idea of fun. Yes I am aware that some people quite enjoy trying to win a "no win" situation by waiting for a convenient draw and/or an opponent's misplay/bad luck. Most of the time however I am not one of them and it is especially annoying to encounter in timed play. ;)

With that said, I must advise some caution; in Expanded your opponent has multiple options to break the lock. If they are one of the decks that run Bunnelby (Ancient Trait version) then when your deck gets low you risk having your combo broken via discard. They might not deck you out (though if you rip through most of your deck and are using Mew-EX top copy Accelgor's attack, that is possible as well) but whiffing on reinstating the lock can still easily cost you the game, but the big risk are people that just know how to deal with your deck. Now it goes from wondering about your opponent having fun to wondering about you having fun if your opponent can lock down or otherwise deny Abilities, Evolutions, Items, Special Energy and/or Stadiums or simply set up just as fast as you do and can steam roll you (possibly with weenie sized attackers you can't help but OHKO, thus breaking the lock).

Mora said:
Decks such as Accelgor and the Musharna deck that is being discussed are still able to do it since they have ways of putting cards back into the deck so that you don't deck out. Note that you can't deck out the following turn by drawing if you attacked with either Accelgor or Musharna. Of course if for whatever reason, you can't attack, then your opponent might be able to force you to deck out, but against a lock deck such as Accelgor, there's not much you can do to make them miss Deck and Cover once they get set up.
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Depends upon the exact version of the deck; the generic tactic was to just wait for the opponent to take enough Prizes and then hit them with N as it usually shuffled their large hand back into deck, leaving them desperately trying to get their next attacker out. Specific decks will simply shut down some vital element; the game has a crazy pace right now. Though this "attacking with Musharna" has me confused. I remember it being used for its Ability, not its attack. Have I goofed and am commenting on a version of this deck I don't know? >.>
 
Otaku said:
Depends upon the exact version of the deck; the generic tactic was to just wait for the opponent to take enough Prizes and then hit them with N as it usually shuffled their large hand back into deck, leaving them desperately trying to get their next attacker out. Specific decks will simply shut down some vital element; the game has a crazy pace right now. Though this "attacking with Musharna" has me confused. I remember it being used for its Ability, not its attack. Have I goofed and am commenting on a version of this deck I don't know? >.>
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Yeah, that's definitely something that players can do to try to break the lock, and that's why it's important to thin your deck and hand as much as possible. Ideally, you'd have nothing but Accelgors, DCE, or cards to get you either of those (Level Ball, Juniper, etc.) left in your deck. Then when you're N'd down to one or two, you could use Forewarn and hopefully hit what you need or else already have it in play. Again, that's ideally.

Also, the Musharna deck that is being discussed uses Musharna PHF (not BCR). That's probably confusing since we happen to be talking about both in the same thread.
 
Mora said:
Yeah, that's definitely something that players can do to try to break the lock, and that's why it's important to thin your deck and hand as much as possible. Ideally, you'd have nothing but Accelgors, DCE, or cards to get you either of those (Level Ball, Juniper, etc.) left in your deck. Then when you're N'd down to one or two, you could use Forewarn and hopefully hit what you need or else already have it in play. Again, that's ideally.

Also, the Musharna deck that is being discussed uses Musharna PHF (not BCR). That's probably confusing since we happen to be talking about both in the same thread.
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Therein lies the rub:

To protect against N similar decks historically have thinned themselves. To protect against Bunnelby the deck needs to have some extra padding. The two are not 100% mutually exclusive but avoiding both at the same time can be tricky. Now... why are we running Musharna (PHF) at all? Yes it provides a means of reclaiming three cards from the discard pile, but it does so with an attack, which means you've broken the lock if you use it. Clearly I am still missing something. ^^'
 
Otaku said:
Therein lies the rub:

To protect against N similar decks historically have thinned themselves. To protect against Bunnelby the deck needs to have some extra padding. The two are not 100% mutually exclusive but avoiding both at the same time can be tricky. Now... why are we running Musharna (PHF) at all? Yes it provides a means of reclaiming three cards from the discard pile, but it does so with an attack, which means you've broken the lock if you use it. Clearly I am still missing something. ^^'
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Yeah. These are two separate decks being discussed. Accelgor, which traditionally plays Musharna BCR, is one deck, and Musharna PHF is another deck.
 
Yes the original discussion is simply the best use way to abuse drawing your entire deck T1. In my original post i said im using accelgor/trevonant to utilise the draw engiene. One of the other posters suggested musharna that puts the 3 cards into your deck basically just using it to mill your opponents with cards like trick shovel or energy denial. They opposite strategies but both can abuse drawing most if not all of your deck.
 
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