Chandelure's Impact on this Format

thood

thood

Konohagakure Shinobi
Member
So I've been obsessed with the Chandelure from Phantom Forces since they released its scans. It has an insanely powerful ability, but a very lack luster attack. Many people have been ignoring Chandelure entirely and focusing more on Lampent with its night march attack. At league last night I tried something; I ran a Night March deck using Chadelure and Celebi EX. This deck does face a little competition from Gourgeist version. I find that his deck is more powerful than the Gourgeist version mainly because Chandelure's ability is so good. Gourgeist's ability is neat, but really, 200 HP isn't that much anymore. With it's ability, Chandelure has no problem trading 2 for 1, or more often than not 3 for 1 (killing an ex and a non ex). The set up is a little tricky, but if someone can come up with a consistent build to get everything up by turn 3, this deck will definitely be a (phantom) force to be reckoned with (no more jokes now, I promise).
Here's my list:

POKEMON - 22
x4 Litwick
x4 Lampent
x4 Chandelure
x2 Celebi EX
x4 Joltik
x4 Pumpkaboo

TRAINERS - 30
x4 Professor Juniper
x4 N
x2 Skyla
x1 Colress
x2 Lysandre
x2 Dimensional Valley
x4 Battle Compressor
x2 VS Seeker
x2 Enhanced Hammer
x4 Evo-Soda
x2Startling Megaphone
x1 Computer Search

ENERGY - 8
x6 Psychic
x2 Mystery Energy


This was very simple list I created in around 15 minutes to use at league. I destroyed a Landorus deck, struggled with (but eventually won against) a ViriGen deck, and wrecked a Pyroar deck. This deck might struggle a lot against Toads and Yveltal, but I think that someone might be able to think of something to get past those. Any thoughts or ideas? I'd love to hear anything that might get this potential Archetype afloat!

Thood
 
This seems like a powerful deck once it gets set up (I actually think it's more playable than round thanks to battle compressor). One thing I noticed is no ultra ball or pokemon search cards. Evosoda is nice, but it doesn't grab basics. Unless the deck does fine otherwise?

For Yveltal, you can just attack with Joltik. Seismatoad I'm not sure. Maybe Plasma Freeze Leafeon? Idk.
 
pokedan24 said:
This seems like a powerful deck once it gets set up (I actually think it's more playable than round thanks to battle compressor). One thing I noticed is no ultra ball or pokemon search cards. Evosoda is nice, but it doesn't grab basics. Unless the deck does fine otherwise?

For Yveltal, you can just attack with Joltik. Seismatoad I'm not sure. Maybe Plasma Freeze Leafeon? Idk.
Click to expand...

Well the only basics you need to consistently search out are the Litwicks and Celebi, and ultra balling for a litwick just doesn't seem worth it. I am currently experimenting with great ball, and it works alright. Making space for more stuff is tough, though; I'd lick to fit in a switch or two as well. The main benefit I find this deck has is that it trades so well with EX using decks. Chandelure's ability is wicked powerful, I cannot tell you how many times my opponents have raged when my Chandelure knocks out their undamaged EX with it's ability. Maybe my idea isn't the best way to utilize Chandelure, so I'm trying to see if anyone else has had any success with it. I'm dying to make Chandelure playable. It's just so upsetting that they screwed Chandelure over with such an ass attack.
 
Between the ubiquity of Lysandre and Hypnotoxic Laser, and the speed of the current format, I don't see Chandelure PHF ever having much of an impact. It's ability is inconsistent (see Ho-oh-EX), it's need for support makes it clunky, and it's simply too easy to get around. In other words, Chandelure can't have much of an impact on the format because the format is already inadvertently prepared for it.

Like all rogue decks, it may do well when it works, but it won't work often enough to be viable in a tournament.
 
This is also a format that just isn't kind to Stage 2 Pokemon. With the rotation of Tropical Beach, decks running Stage 2s lost a lot of the speed that they needed to be competitive. Machamp has seen limited success due to Korrina, since you can search for both Machamp and a Rare Candy in a single card, but even then it hasn't won any big events. Seismitoad also poses a problem, since even though you're not running Candies (and you should be), it will prevent you from searching for your evolutions. Finally you have Garbodor to contend with. Chandelure's Ability is reaction based, triggering when it knocks out. Except in rare circumstances, this is going to be on your opponent's turn, when they attack. That means that even if you played a Megaphone, your opponent has a whole turn to reattach a tool to Garbodor (not hard to do), and render your Ability null and void.
 
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