Standard Decidueye/Trevenant

[Wockomtosh]

So I'm a little obsessed with the new Decidueye GX card, and I went on TCGO to build a deck list and this is what I came up with

****** Pokémon Trading Card Game Deck List ******
##Pokémon - 15
* 4 Rowlet SM 9
* 4 Dartrix SM 10
* 4 Decidueye SM 11 (replace with the GX)
* 3 Trevenant-EX PRC 19
##Trainer Cards - 35
* 4 Trainers' Mail ROS 92
* 2 N PR-BLW BW100
* 1 Brock's Grit EVO 74
* 4 Timer Ball SM 134
* 2 Lysandre AOR 78
* 4 Professor Sycamore BKP 107
* 4 Forest of Giant Plants AOR 74
* 3 Nest Ball SM 123
* 1 Escape Rope PRC 127
* 2 Float Stone BKT 137
* 4 Ultra Ball FAC 113
* 4 VS Seeker PHF 109
##Energy - 10
* 2 Double Colorless Energy EVO 90
* 8 Grass Energy Energy 1
Total Cards - 60
****** Deck List Generated by the Pokémon TCG Online www.pokemon.com/TCGO ******

The strategy is to put a Trevenant in the active and trap their pokemon (such as Hoopa) and set up your owls for 80 damage per turn, wherever you want. You can also start loading up Trevenant for big ko's, or a Decidueye for 90 damage per turn. I'm hesitant with the DCE still, and I don't know how consistent it will be, any suggestions?

 

[xaej806]

A few thoughts.

-I realize bench space is going to be invaluable to you, but I'd still heavily consider using Shaymin to help you get there. Realistically, you're not going to set up 4 Decidueye at a time every game anyway. Pieces are going to be prized & knocked out. 3 should be your goal, 2 is what you'll end up working with a lot of the time. If your intention is to lock & spread, risking Shaymin as an easy knockout isn't a huge deal, because you should realistically be keeping them locked most of the time, and you're going to need to go through more cards to get this running.

-Right now you have a lot of card space dedicated to various Balls. I'd concentrate on Ultra Ball & Level Ball. Ultra will obviously get you Shaymin, Decidueye, and Trevenant, while Level will get you Rowlet & Dartrix. I'm not really a fan of the flippy Timer Ball, personally. You should only expect to get 1 Pokemon off it anyway, and even that's not a guarantee. Might as well take the sure thing every time, in my opinion.

-I'm going to make this with Revitalizer in mind. This frees up your hand as Ultra Ball-fodder. Need to dump owl pieces or Trev? No problem. Do it, and bring them back later. Need to Sycamore away all your evolutions because random shuffling hates you? Fair game. It also serves to recover your Pokemon late game.

-I thickened your supporter lines in favor of the 4th VS Seeker. It's a preference thing, really, but this also makes you a little less Vileplume susceptible - and with the new grass support coming out, I wouldn't be surprised to see an uptick in Vileplume.

-Maximize N. As a spread deck, you choose when to draw your prizes making this card your best friend.

-I did drop the DCE's in favor of all grass. I don't feel like you're in a rush to attack with this deck anyway, and this makes you less vulnerable to things like Enhanced Hammer. Take your time, manage your cards, and you shouldn't need DCE.

-I added Olympia in favor of Escape Rope since it's re-usable and since you're spending time & effort trying to lock their Pokemon in the active spot, you may not want to give them a free escape rope.

-I added Ariados. With so much damage manipulation in the deck, it seems like a good opportunity to try to set things up to be knocked out from Poison coming back into your turn, so you get another first hit on whatever they promote/you Lysandre next. NOTE: You may not play this every game. You will just have to manage your bench space accordingly, and see what you have to work with.

-I wasn't able to fit Trainers' Mail, so I used my final card spot on an Ace Trainer. I feel like you're going to find yourself behind often enough that it should be valuable as disruption, but it also gives you that 9th draw supporter as well.

-Finally, while I did include a list below, let me just say that I'm not necessarily sure this deck has what it takes to be viable right now. Volcanion is too popular, and other decks are playing too many switch cards & Parallel Cities for the idea to really be as effective as it may be at a later time. Anyway, here's a list I threw together:

4/4/4 Decidueye GX
3 Trevenant EX
1/1 Ariados
2 Shaymin EX
=19

4 Forest of Giant Plants
4 Ultra Ball
4 Level Ball
4 Professor Sycamore
4 N
3 Lysandre
3 VS Seeker
2 Revitalizer
2 Float Stone
1 Ace Trainer
1 Brock's Grit
1 Olympia
=35

8 Grass Energy

Hope you find this information helpful!

 

[xaej806]

Upon thinking about this a little further, another idea would be to drop Trevenant entirely, use the space to focus on Shaymin-EX as your attacker.

I know that sounds bizarre, but hear me out.

You would obviously need DCE in this variant, but you could play less Grass as well. Play 3 or 4 Shaymins. Supplement their damage with Fighting Fury Belt & Ariados and soak hits & Sky Return. It will keep your deck going, allowing you to play less draw supporters, it will keep your bench space flexible, and still have good damage output with Decidueye. Plus, this gives you DCE back to attack w/ Decidueye if need be.

You obviously lose the effect of Trevenant's attack, but if you're yanking up bigger stuff like Hoopas anyway, I don't really see that as much of a problem.

4/4/4 Decidueye GX
4 Shaymin EX
1/1 Ariados
=18

4 Forest of Giant Plants
4 Ultra Ball
4 Level Ball
4 VS Seeker
3 Fighting Fury Belt
3 Lysandre
3 N
2 Professor Sycamore
2 Revitalizer
2 Float Stone
1 Ace Trainer
1 Super Rod
1 Olympia
=34

4 Double Colorless
4 Grass
=8

 

[Wockomtosh]

I don't really like the idea of a Shaymin loop deck, mostly because of the price, but I like your idea in the first list you posted. I like to keep Trevenant around because he makes it so that float stones don't work, they have to use a switch/escape rope to get out, which most decks don't play a ton of, and even if they do I could keep using Lysandre. I also might cut the ace trainer for another vs seeker, it gives a space to use Lysandre again and I don't really like how you have to be behind to use ace trainer, I get the idea behind putting it in this deck, but I'm not totally sold on it. I'll definitely have to test it though, I would love having extra disruption. And though I don't want to forward the money for it, Shaymin would really help this deck. Also, I'm might want to put back a couple nest balls. They aren't as good as level balls for Rowlet, but they also grab Trevenant, which is very nice.

I probably should have said budget before, but what do you think of Octillery here? Remove the shays and Ariados and it could fit nicely, though it's slow and could just get in the way. Honestly if I like this deck enough it might be the thing to get me to buy a couple Shaymin.

 

[xaej806]

There are some decks where I do feel like Octillery is a sufficient budget-friendly replacement for Shaymin, but this really isn't one of them, in my opinion. In a Forest of Giant Plants deck, you really want that extra set-up speed that Shaymin brings.

Also, once you get used to setting up poison-knockouts coming into your turn, you won't want to drop the Ariados, trust me.

One more reason I though off that now isn't the best time for this deck - Garbodor. Until real tool removal comes back, he just completely shuts this down.

Again, I actually do like the idea. There's just too many problems with it in the current meta.

 

[Wockomtosh]

Garbodor shouldn't be too hard with a couple feather arrows before it evolves and a Lysandre, but I see your point. I guess we have to wait for awhile until we can test it better (I do most of my stuff online, so I still need to wait)

 

[xaej806]

Garbodor shouldn't be too hard with a couple feather arrows before it evolves and a Lysandre, but I see your point. I guess we have to wait for awhile until we can test it better (I do most of my stuff online, so I still need to wait)

Yeah. Even if you manage to land a Feather Arrow before it evolves, you still then have to dedicate a turn to Lysandre & KO'ing it for 1 prize in order for your deck to continue functioning. Meanwhile your opponent gets first hit (or knocks out) your 2-prize Trevenant/Shaymin/Decidueye.

It may be workable, but it's still going to be unfavorable.