Standard Darkrai / Crobat / Hypno

[matuxlogan]

Pokémon: 17

• 4 Darkrai EX
• 2 Drowzee
• 2 Hypno
• 3 Zubat
• 3 Golbat
• 3 Crobat

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums: 30

• 4 Professor Sycamore
• 3 Professor Birch's Observations
• 2 Lysandre

• 3 Super Scoop Up
• 4 VS Seeker
• 4 Max Elixir
• 2 Level Ball
• 2 Ultra Ball
• 1 Startling Megaphone
• 3 Trainers' Mail

• 3 All Night Party

Energy: 13

• 9 Darkness Energy
• 4 Double Colorless Energy

Strategy:

Hi! Looking for some advice to my deck list to make it faster/stronger. Thanks!

 

[ToToLaw]

What are the role of the bats here? Darkria EX hit 180 with Muscle Band, or with Fighting fury belt and reverse stadium

 

[matuxlogan]

What are the role of the bats here? Darkria EX hit 180 with Muscle Band, or with Fighting fury belt and reverse stadium

Hi! Thanks for your question. I really don't like the muscle band thing, or even the fighting fury, so I'm trying to do something to hit that 180 (or more) with Darkrai, so... Bats for now

 

[fr33land]

You need a tool for Darkrai EX anyways. Might as well run 4 Muscle Band instead of 9 Bats. Up to you, unless you prefer Head Ringer.
Hypno seems kind of stupid also, I guess it's not susceptible to Silent Lab, but equally susceptible to Garbodor, whic is a thing. I have a few suggestions for the remaining 9 spots when you decide Bats are a bad idea. . . 2 Malamar EX and 3 Energy Switch. Problem is, is you don't OHKO the opponent, they're just going to use the Rave Party stadium themselves, seems way too complicated when compared to running Hyper Hypnosis. 2 Malamar EX vs 2-2 Hypno and 3 All Night Party?? pretty obvious which one is the more economical play.
Maybe you do want to run Hypno and All Night Party, but you'd be foolish not to include Malamar EX and maybe an energy switch or two.
I suppose you thing Max Elixir is enough energya cceleration and you don't care about Head Ringer? Or you'll just scoop up that one 50 percent of the time and charge up another?

 

[matuxlogan]

You need a tool for Darkrai EX anyways. Might as well run 4 Muscle Band instead of 9 Bats. Up to you, unless you prefer Head Ringer.
Hypno seems kind of stupid also, I guess it's not susceptible to Silent Lab, but equally susceptible to Garbodor, whic is a thing. I have a few suggestions for the remaining 9 spots when you decide Bats are a bad idea. . . 2 Malamar EX and 3 Energy Switch. Problem is, is you don't OHKO the opponent, they're just going to use the Rave Party stadium themselves, seems way too complicated when compared to running Hyper Hypnosis. 2 Malamar EX vs 2-2 Hypno and 3 All Night Party?? pretty obvious which one is the more economical play.
Maybe you do want to run Hypno and All Night Party, but you'd be foolish not to include Malamar EX and maybe an energy switch or two.
I suppose you thing Max Elixir is enough energya cceleration and you don't care about Head Ringer? Or you'll just scoop up that one 50 percent of the time and charge up another?

Hi! Thanks for your comment. All that you said it's true. Actually I got to say, I'm coming back to Pokemon TCG 'cause I don't play since 2014, not to far but that's a time. Anyway what you said it's really cleaver, looks like a "faster" way to hit and I forgot about Malamar EX. I got a question for the Max Elixir: of corse that card is the energy acceleration, but is that the only card to do that job? Thanks for your advice, I'll definitely try it out !

 

[fr33land]

Mmmm. . . I dunno. . . Max Elixir is a reprint of a card that predates my interest in Pokemon. Can't say how good it is, since I never tried it. Seems like it should be awesome, isn't it dig 7 or 8 cards deep and attach a basic energy you find there any way you like? Kind of like Ether, except it isn't confined to the top card of your deck?
In Expanded you have access to Dark Patch an item that attaches a basic Darkness energy from discard to a benched pokemon. Yveltal XY attaches a darkness energy from discard to a benched pokemon and does 30 damage, neither seems as easy as Max Elixir.
The biggest problem I can foresee and I'm struggling with this myself in Malamar-EX / Zoroark Break / Sableye or Malamar Trash Tentacle is uniform fighting weakness. Shadow Circle, which takes away weakness from any pokemon with darkness energy attached isn't a great help, since fighting decks often run Fighting Stadium and can counter your stadium on their turn and hit you for weakness anyway. . . Weakness Policy isn't a terribly strong play, since Muscle Band lets you hit the 'magic number'. You certainly need a counter stadium, like reverse valley since Silent Lab would shut down Malamar EX. . . this does make it worth it to run 2-2 Hypno and 3 AllNight Party. . .
I think my main argument would have been that the Bat line certainly takes up a lot of deck space, 9 cards. . . that's 2 Malamar EX, 4 Muscle Band and 3 more cards. . . still leaving you the option of Hypno and All Night Party. You could take 2 more Ultra Ball and a Shaymin EX. . .
I should point out I am no champion, but everyone loves the combos that are presented inside of a given collection, like Hypno / Darkrai EX, when I am open to hearing where Malamar EX is a less good option, it's faster. . . it does require that energy attachment. . . I dunno

 

[arulz]

Well that's just it- it requires the energy attachment. I ran a honchkrow deck with malamar EX and honchkrow's nightmare mambo- basically the same attack as darkrai except only 120 damage. The issue was never damage output, it's that it requires having a basic energy in hand as well as an energy switch. The other option is to run aromatisse and rainbow energy, but at that point you need a stage 1 plus malamar EX, making it pretty similar to using hypno.

The other problem with malamar is that if you need to attach a DCE that turn, no matter what you can't get the sleep. There will certainly be turns like that, so it can't be fully relied upon.

Not that my list was perfect of course, far from it. But malamar has some serious holes, just as hypno does.

As cool as this combo is I have a hard time seeing it being top tier.

 

[fr33land]

You know what Arulz, I've just gone through the same considerations as you trying to figure out how to manage powering up Darkrai EX in a timely fashion while still taking advantage of Hyper Hypnosis. . . It simply doesn't seem fast enough. This discussion kind of continues in a Darkrai / Malamar thread.
What do you think of Max Elixir (or Dark Patch) Zoroark / Float Stone and Hypno? Getting both the Rush In and Hypno set up might be difficult but it should work for both energy acceleration and status condition immunity, you think?

 

[matuxlogan]

You know what Arulz, I've just gone through the same considerations as you trying to figure out how to manage powering up Darkrai EX in a timely fashion while still taking advantage of Hyper Hypnosis. . . It simply doesn't seem fast enough. This discussion kind of continues in a Darkrai / Malamar thread.
What do you think of Max Elixir (or Dark Patch) Zoroark / Float Stone and Hypno? Getting both the Rush In and Hypno set up might be difficult but it should work for both energy acceleration and status condition immunity, you think?

Yeah, it's a little hard make this faster and I'm thinking about Zoroark (works as keldeo ex so that's nice) as a good card to play, but I got doubts about the set up, little slow. Can you give me the link of the thread darkrai/malamar please? Thanks!

Yeah, it's a little hard make this faster and I'm thinking about Zoroark (works as keldeo ex so that's nice) as a good card to play, but I got doubts about the set up, little slow. Can you give me the link of the thread darkrai/malamar please? Thanks!

My mistake, I guess you're talking about my other post hahaha. I thought there was another one.

 

[arulz]

You know what Arulz, I've just gone through the same considerations as you trying to figure out how to manage powering up Darkrai EX in a timely fashion while still taking advantage of Hyper Hypnosis. . . It simply doesn't seem fast enough. This discussion kind of continues in a Darkrai / Malamar thread.
What do you think of Max Elixir (or Dark Patch) Zoroark / Float Stone and Hypno? Getting both the Rush In and Hypno set up might be difficult but it should work for both energy acceleration and status condition immunity, you think?

The really nice thing about zoroark is that it gives you a versitile attacker that doesn't require the sleep condition, so if you can't find your hypno or stadium you don't have to worry about putting yourself to sleep or sacrificing too much damage output. Plus with a float stone it removes the sleep. I'd say it's certainly worthwhile on paper- 100% worth trying out.

I haven't tested out max elixir yet, but darkrai seems like a great candidate! And dark patch of course is awesome, especially w battle compressor

 

[matuxlogan]

The really nice thing about zoroark is that it gives you a versitile attacker that doesn't require the sleep condition, so if you can't find your hypno or stadium you don't have to worry about putting yourself to sleep or sacrificing too much damage output. Plus with a float stone it removes the sleep. I'd say it's certainly worthwhile on paper- 100% worth trying out.

I haven't tested out max elixir yet, but darkrai seems like a great candidate! And dark patch of course is awesome, especially w battle compressor

Yes, dark patch works really good, but I can't play it in this time.