Cold Iron Truth [Vileplume/Reuniclus/Cobalion/Beartic]

[vareki]

Pokemon 23

2 Vileplume UD
1 Gloom UD
3 Oddish UD
2 Reuniclus BW
2 Duosion NV
3 Solosis NV
3 Cobalion NV
2 Beartic EP
2 Cubchoo EP (#28)
2 Reshiram BW
1 Cleffa HG

TSS 23

4 Pokemon Collector
4 Twins
4 Proffessor Oak's New Theory
3 N
2 Seeker
3 Rare Candy
3 Pokemon Communication

Energy 14

4 Double Colourless Energy
4 Special Metal Energy
2 Metal Energy
4 Water Energy

-2 Proffessor Elm's Training Method
-1 Rare Candy

+3 Pokemon Communication

I'd assume that all of you know the basic strategy of The Truth, which is to prevent the play of Trainer Items, allowing you to use Reuniclus's Damage Swap ability to prevent your attackers from being KO'd by your opponent's pokemon, and just controlling when they get to take Prizes, and off of what. Unless your opponent can break the Damage Ceiling of 130 without the use of trainers, you take control of the game after you get setup.

However, it really breaks away from google Cawthorn's list when it comes to the Attackers. Trading out Donphan and Suicune Entei Legend for Cobalion and Beartic, giving even more control to me; now they lose the option to Attack with their Active pokemon as well as having no Trainer Cards.

I decided to pass on using Rainbow Energy here because of my relentless fear of Scizor Prime, which is annoyingly making a return to my Metagame. Keeping the higher count of basic energy allows me to grab them with Twins to power Reshiram's Outrage, which means I don't have to sit there slowly decking them out by using Iron Breaker turn after turn and hoping they haven't teched Dodrio or something. Reshiram also helps against opposing Cobalions.

I'm fairly sure that should be it.

Any suggestions, rates and reviews are greatly appreciated

 

[umbeosion]

The list seems really slow; how well does this set up???

 

[dBlue]

Nice job, ever consider Blissey Prime? He works really well in these kinds of decks (see my sig).

 

[vareki]

Nice job, ever consider Blissey Prime? He works really well in these kinds of decks (see my sig).

Blissey is certainly a very powerful card in both The Truth and Gothic Lock, and I will certainly rotate a 1-1 line of it into the build to test when the oppurtunity arises.

Currently, I'm happy with 2 Seekers and board management to deal with Damage, but Blissey holds a lot of appeal, and in my current testing I often find myself wanting for it. The List as I've built it is very tight though, so I'd need to deliberate on what drops to make (possibly sacrificing the energy diversity to avoid the otherwise autoloss to Scizor Prime, which is an incredibly annoying prospect, and investing in Rainbow Energy instead to find space).

Depending on how far CaKE and other Kyurem variants go in my metagame, it may become a necessity, but for now I feel like it I can get away with leaving it off the list.

Also, I quite like that quote.

The list seems really slow; how well does this set up???

Well, you hit the nail on the head with "slow"

Building this list, my first piece of testing was to open solitaire hands and see how long it would take for me to get A) Vileplume into play and B) Reuniclus into play after that point (or before as the case may be). I determined that a decent way of applying the Twins engine into solitaire would be assuming that my starting pokemon would be knocked out by T2 if it had less than 100 HP, or T3 if it had more than 100 HP, barring extraneous Circumstances such as Cleffa staying asleep through my "opponents turn".

Out of the 40 or so solitaires I played my average setup of Vileplume was T3-4 and the Average Setup for Reuniclus was T5-6. Not ideal, but manageable.

I then started testing against ZPST and Zektrik, to see how my build would fare against the very antithesis of The Truth; a deck that is successful because it uses as much speed and brute force as possible, rather than taking the "Slow and Steady wins the race" approach. Discounting games when I was donked (which happened twice), as that really cannot be avoided in this matchup; if you start with a lone basic and they go first, it is a very real risk.

Besides those two donks, my testing buddy and I played 20 Games all up; 10 with ZPST and 10 with Zektrik, and my list performed well in both matchups. 8/10 against Standard ZPST, the two losses stemming from not having access to the Twins Engine in one game, to multiple key Catcher KOs in the other, coupled with limited access to supporters and miraculously drawing into every energy in my deck and little else.

Zektrik, on the other hand, brought me down to a 6/10 record. Three of those games were decided by my own misplays, and not adapting quickly enough to a deck that is easily able to keep everything on their board energized at all times, and retreat out of Iron Breaker or Sheer Cold every turn under trainer lock without facing any problems at all. Outrage played a key part of these victories, since depending on how much Energy my opponent's Zekroms were carrying, I would be unable to attack with my Cobalion without setting them up for a KO with Outrage two turns later. Limited access to my Supporters and difficulty fishing for both Vileplume and Reuniclus also proved to be a damning blow.

Still, in the later games I had more luck with my draws, and got access to Supporters more often, allowing me to get Vileplume into play and then shut down the game. Three Special Metals on a Cobalion proved to be the silver bullet for the deck, since it could never be OHKO'd under any circumstance.

After that testing, I've decided to try out Pokemon Communication once more, as Elm's just never got into play; I always had something else I needed to use my supporter on, and it was just sitting in my hand. So, I dropped 2 Elm's for 2 Pokemon Communication, and I'm performing my solitaire routine once more (switching out the 4th PONT or 4th Rare Candy for a 3rd PokeCom every other solitaire).

Next time I get the oppurtunity, I really want to do some real testin against Durant and CaKE, both of which are decks that I anticipate to be very difficult Matchups. Reshiram helps out there just as much as it does in the nightmarish Scizor prime matchup, and Cobalion should prove to be a key defense against Kyurem. Only time and further testing will tell.

Thunderdome looks like it could be a very difficult uphill battle for me, however; uncapped Damage Ceiling alongside the resource management that Eelektrik provides, along with the power of Magnetic Draw...all in all, doesn't look like a good matchup, which I'm not sure Donphan is the answer to. Terrakion looks like an attractive tech, but it would once again require me to sacrifice the energy diversity needed to combat Scizor. I hate that my deck building choices are so restricted by that stupid metal bug, but as long as it continues seeing play in my area, I can't stomach the Autoloss (Australia is such a silly place). Thankfully, the number of players still using Magnezone is quite small, due to the popularity of D&D and Zekrom around here, so for now the weakness isn't too crippling.

 

[dBlue]

Well, it seems as if your very serious about this and very committed. I'm pretty sure you would benefit from turning the Elms to Communications and cutting a rare candy for another communication. You can use them early and dump them with Sages later. I found this helpful in the kinds of decks similar to this that I've played:
-2 Elm's Taining Method
-1 Rare Candy
+3 Communication.

 

[Slowbro]

Elms is quite useful without tropical beach to help maintain search under trainer lock.

 

[vareki]

Well, it seems as if your very serious about this and very committed. I'm pretty sure you would benefit from turning the Elms to Communications and cutting a rare candy for another communication. You can use them early and dump them with Sages later. I found this helpful in the kinds of decks similar to this that I've played:
-2 Elm's Taining Method
-1 Rare Candy
+3 Communication.

Thanks, I always try to be somewhat serious when I'm testing new decks; if the extent of my claims is "that it can beat my friend's stoutland deck" than I'm really not doing this properly

Communication has proven to be a good play at this point, and the increase to early game momentum has been notable. No Sages keeps them caught up in my hand in the late game, but I don't really want to go back to using sages. The resources in this deck, be it Pokemon, Energy or Supporters are often too precious for me to justify discarding with Sage's Training. Its a double-edged sword really, but I'm going to accenuate the negative for now, at least until I do some more testing with Sage's (and Blissey Prime)

Elms is quite useful without tropical beach to help maintain search under trainer lock.

Which is why I originally included Elm's (like most, I'm too poor to own a Tropical Beach). Unfortunately, it was an effort in making the deck more clunky, and didn't increase consistency a noticeable amount, often because I couldn't prioritise using Elm's, since I would almost always need to use my Supporter for something else, that was more important and ultimately more rewarding than searching out a Gloom or Duosion.

 

[ArceusIsTheBest]

Where's your Dodrio for free retreat? (1 retreat for Beartic)

 

[Jirachi]

I think that some higher hp pokemon would be great here to load up damage on like regigigas or mew two EX (for a counter). I think that shaymin EX works really well because you are usually going to be a prize card behind by the time you setup. In my testing regigigas has worked well and mew two has worked pretty well too, as well as shaymin.