Empoleon Variants

TPO3 said:
Question. If you want to live the first turn against Thundurus/Deoxys/Kyurem, why don't you use Shaymin instead of Emolga? Emolga's Lightning-weak, which makes it easier for Thundurus to grab a KO. Shaymin has the same exact attack, but is weak to Fire instead.
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I guess Emolga's free Retreat cost probably?
 
Sheriff_K said:
TPO3 said:
Question. If you want to live the first turn against Thundurus/Deoxys/Kyurem, why don't you use Shaymin instead of Emolga? Emolga's Lightning-weak, which makes it easier for Thundurus to grab a KO. Shaymin has the same exact attack, but is weak to Fire instead.
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I guess Emolga's free Retreat cost probably?
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Well yes, but the attack costs the 1 energy anyways, so you end up using 1 energy in either situation regardless. The only logical reason I can think of would be to prevent "catcher bait" but I don't think many people are going to try catcher-stalling with a pokemon that has 1 retreat. Especially not if they see Switch/Keldeo.
 
TPO3 said:
Question. If you want to live the first turn against Thundurus/Deoxys/Kyurem, why don't you use Shaymin instead of Emolga? Emolga's Lightning-weak, which makes it easier for Thundurus to grab a KO. Shaymin has the same exact attack, but is weak to Fire instead.
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An honest oversight on my part. The one retreat cost is a shame, but it is worth it. With the addition of that I don't find Suicune and DCE needed, which frees up a lot of space. Working with Mew EX and Max Potion at this point. Might even be able to fit in an Enhanced Hammer or two.

Blah said:
I still don't like this deck as a competitive play. Plasma is going to be running heavy scrapper which makes the matchup horrendous despite Silver Mirror. That combined with a very difficult Blastoise matchup (they can run you out of attackers very quickly) makes for a rather sub-par deck in terms of matchups, not to mention that Stage 2 attacker decks have general issues with consistency and set up.
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It's honestly a lot more competitive than I initially thought. Blastoise is definitely an uphill battle if they set up quickly enough, but if they struggle early game, you have the potential to jump off to a huge lead. I've yet to do much testing against generic Plasma, unfortunately. No one I know plays it, and as far as I know, the PTCGO Plasma Blast update hasn't happened yet. From what I can gather though, the match up really revolves around how you manage your tools. I only like to put 1 Silver Mirror on the field at a time, that way they either have to work around you with Catchers, or run themselves out of Tool Scrapper in a hurry. Mew EX is a great way to deliver a final blow by bringing up a bench sitting Deoxys. Either way though, Empoleon obviously isn't the most competitive deck around, but I'd say an experienced player with a good build could take a list far into a tournament.
 
So Ive been testing an Empoleon Deck over the past couple weeks with very promising results, I've been doing pretty decent against Blastoise, Plasma and VirGen honestly, VirGen is the hardest match up IMHO, just because they can OHKO my Keldeo, but I've found that Dowsing Machine is very useful. being able to grab back that Catcher, Max potion, Rare candy ect is invaluable. Only thing I'm thinking, is what stadium would be the best option not including Beach, although it is very good, I don't think the deck needs it as it usually helps your opponent as much as you. between DD and Skyla/Juniper/N I think we have plenty of draw to get at least 1 Empoleon up T2 and then to proceed to set up 1-2 more. I'm thinking either pokemon center or Frozen city to helop against every other deck and can put most EX's within that OHKO from empoleon/Bangle.

What are your thoughts?
 
Champions Festival seems like it could make Empoleon variants as expensive as Blastoise/Keldeo with Tropical Beach cause most of the time you'll have a full bench to maximize Empoleon's damage output with Attack Command anyway and the damage counter removal in between turns is a great asset in the decks' survivability. Pokemon Catcher doesn't hurt Champions Festival too much cause you'll most likely have a Basic to bench up for it like Mew EX which is great to copy Attack Command against Deoxys EX for the TDK matchup and Mewtwo EX for the Blastoise/Keldeo matchup while Landorus EX is excellent type coverage for Empoleon against Thundurus EX in TDK.

As long as you prevent your Opponent from utilizing Champions Festival with Catcher and KO's you should be safe in the longrun. Plus it would also make it harder for bench spread decks and Darkrai variants to score easy KO's when you keep removing damage counters in between turns with Champions Festival, it's almost like Nidoqueen from Rising Rivals which I used to run with Gengar SF with Gengar Lv. X back a few formats ago. While Tropical Beach is way more versatile than Champions Festival due to the amount of drawpower it brings, Festival still has a niche in the format with Empoleon and any deck taking advantage of maximizing damage with a full bench akin to Empoleon for Attack Command and Jumpluff HGSS with Mass Attack.
 
[split] Empoleon Variants

Good point, ill have to look into play testing festival, who knows with a few league challenge tournaments it might make a big enough splash to get empoleon back in the meta game. I think empoleons other great strength is that it's not weak to grass like the blastoise deck, so the new big deck isn't as much of a threat and with the sheer amount of anti-plasma the one big threat to the deck is easily countered.
I'm currently trying sawk/E hammers in the deck to counter thunderus/plasma since I don't have to tech in any different energy and its searchable via lvl ball
 
Champions Festival was only released as a Worlds 2013 Invite Promo so I expect it's going to be around $100-200+ a piece like Tropical Beach was for Worlds 2012 and Worlds 2011, don't know when it will be released for PTCGO like with Tropical Beach. I take it Sawk from Plasma Blast with Enhanced Hammer is working better for you over Landorus EX with Blend Energies? I overheard that Tool Scrapper is starting to become a staple card in alot of decks nowadays. Have you tried pairing Kingdra up with Empoleon? It's got alot of great synergy going for it and despite running 2 Stage 2 lines in the deck they both each rely on 1 energy attachments for their attacks.
 
Yeah festival is high but not nearly as high as beach as its not as popular (yet) or as powerful. The few I've found for sale are about $80ish and a full worlds promo set for about $130. But I know a few people that went to worlds so I may be able to pick them up a little easier.

Yeah Sawk is plasma blast and with out landorus EX it keeps the consistency more (not needing blend/prism) and only gives up 1 prize plus I can use it as a surprise counter
 
I've thought about Empoleon/Kingdra quite a bit at one point. It seems like a great combo. But then Empoleon is mostly for support. Sure you can use it as an early game attacker, but your opponent and you have to have a good amount of pokemon already out. I feel like empoleon is mostly a mid game attacker. As i rather have kingdra hitting for 30 to 3 pokemon for 90 damage, than empoleon hitting for as low as just 20 damage for a 2nd step. I've also seen how much trouble a deck with two 2-step pokemon can have without a card like pokemon communication. single energy cost is great for 2 attackers, and you can also abuse max potion. But your deck still needs a lot of energy to make kingdra hit hard consistently. Not to say that discarding 1 energy per turn isnt worth it for this deck and helps making Kingdras attacks more consistent.

I found Kingdra/Electrode with tons of discarding cards, a much more consistent deck than Kingdra/Empoleon. Since much of the deck revolves around item cards that discard cards, its quite easy to make use of "magnetic draw" every turn, plus there is more space to add in additional pokemon for attacking or support. This deck hits harder, faster in theory. Though it can run out of steam late game and have to rely on only tri bullet.
 
I would agree that kingdra can hit harder 1-2 times effectively in a game. But empoleon can continue to hit consistent numbers every turn from T2 you can control the damage up to 70 and unless your opponent is beached for pokemon then your going to be doing 90+ to almost every deck in the game. Even the lightest pokemon decks are going to be running 3+ pokemon on they're field since darkrai (arguably the deck with the fewest pokemon in play at any one time) has at least 3 pokemon 1-2 darkrai and 1-2 sableye. So at minimum you control up to 90 damage. With the addition of max potions it makes it much harder to take them out. Yes, OHKO are very possible but with less players running lasserbank it makes it that much more difficult.
 
Cortel II said:
Yeah Sawk is plasma blast and with out landorus EX it keeps the consistency more (not needing blend/prism) and only gives up 1 prize plus I can use it as a surprise counter
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True but Sawk (Plasma Blast) with Silver Bangle isn't a very effective counter against Darkrai because it's not a Plasma Pokemon. It seems like your Empoleon deck only focuses on one specific matchup being TDK, you need to take other popular metagame decks into account when competing with this deck.

Ivy_Profen said:
I've thought about Empoleon/Kingdra quite a bit at one point. It seems like a great combo. But then Empoleon is mostly for support. Sure you can use it as an early game attacker, but your opponent and you have to have a good amount of pokemon already out. I feel like empoleon is mostly a mid game attacker. As i rather have kingdra hitting for 30 to 3 pokemon for 90 damage, than empoleon hitting for as low as just 20 damage for a 2nd step. I've also seen how much trouble a deck with two 2-step pokemon can have without a card like pokemon communication. single energy cost is great for 2 attackers, and you can also abuse max potion. But your deck still needs a lot of energy to make kingdra hit hard consistently. Not to say that discarding 1 energy per turn isnt worth it for this deck and helps making Kingdras attacks more consistent.
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Empoleon is supposed to be your main attacker in Empoleon/Kingdra cause the way it works is that you open the game with Shaymin (Boundaries Crossed) for Call for Family to fill your bench up with Basics, use Skyla to get Rare Candy or draw into it to get Empoleon out and attach a Water energy to it for Attack Command. Kingdra is mainly in the deck as your backup/support attacker since you'll be attacking with Empoleon most of the time including with Mew EX and Landorus EX If necessary so you'll be able to get enough energy in the discard pile with Diving Draw, Ultra Ball, Juniper, and other stuff so that you can get off Dragon Vortex with Kingdra mid to late game. I usually cap to 120 damage (240 damage with weakness) using Kingdra's Dragon Vortex anyway.
 
What do people think about using Garbador in the Empoleon deck? you can use Diving Draw to get everything you need/set up then lock everything down. with tools. I'm running 3 float stones and 2/2 Silver Mirror/Bangle anyways so you don't have to worry to much about tools. plus then you could maybe fit in Lasers and get an interesting deck going. maybe something similar to this:

4-1-4 Empoleon DE
2-2 Garbador DRX
2 Terrakian (Retaliate)
1 Eggsacute

3 Juniper
3 N
3 Skyla
4 Rare Candy
3 Floatstone
2 Silver Mirror
2 Silver Bangle
3 Pokemon Catcher
3 level ball
2 Ultra Ball
1 Dowsing Machine ACE SPEC
3 HTL
2 Virbank City Gym

6 water energy
4 Blend Energy WLFM

This is just a rough draft but what do you guys think about the concept? at all viable? or do you think its too much to fit into a deck? I'm intrigued by the idea of having Lasers/Virbank in Empoleon giving its great damage output, mixed with Silver Bangle/Laser you have to ability to OHKO any EX.
 
Cortel II said:
What do people think about using Garbador in the Empoleon deck? you can use Diving Draw to get everything you need/set up then lock everything down. with tools. I'm running 3 float stones and 2/2 Silver Mirror/Bangle anyways so you don't have to worry to much about tools. plus then you could maybe fit in Lasers and get an interesting deck going. maybe something similar to this:

4-1-4 Empoleon DE
2-2 Garbador DRX
2 Terrakian (Retaliate)
1 Eggsacute

3 Juniper
3 N
3 Skyla
4 Rare Candy
3 Floatstone
2 Silver Mirror
2 Silver Bangle
3 Pokemon Catcher
3 level ball
2 Ultra Ball
1 Dowsing Machine ACE SPEC
3 HTL
2 Virbank City Gym

6 water energy
4 Blend Energy WLFM

This is just a rough draft but what do you guys think about the concept? at all viable? or do you think its too much to fit into a deck? I'm intrigued by the idea of having Lasers/Virbank in Empoleon giving its great damage output, mixed with Silver Bangle/Laser you have to ability to OHKO any EX.
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A few thoughts:
  • Of your 7 Tools, I suspect a few of those (e.g., Silver Bangle and Mirror) are not intended to be attached to your Garbodor, just the Float Stone (especially when it is Catcher'ed to perhaps buy some time for your opponent). Devoting only 3 Tools to Garbodor is woefully insufficient, IMHO. Most players I know are running 2-3 Tool Scrappers which would either nullify your Garbotoxin "lock" or you might have to attach a Silver B/M to a Garbodor which may not be the "ideal" attachment. I would suggest replacing the Silver Mirror with Rescue Scarf to improve the Garbodor recycle time when it is KOd.
  • Once Garbotoxin is in effect, you'll lose the use of Diving Draw. I believe, the 6 card draw Supporters will be quite insufficient to sustain you mid-late game. Early game you MIGHT be able to use Diving Draw, but potentially by yielding an advantage (namely your opponent can use Abilities of his/her Poké).
  • Other than Terrakion, all of your other basic Poké can "easily" be KOd T1; so, you might want to consider using a big HP basic Poké with a Call for Family attack. There are several viable candidates and they could replace your Level Balls.
I hope you find these comments helpful.
 
TuxedoBlack said:
Cortel II said:
What do people think about using Garbador in the Empoleon deck? you can use Diving Draw to get everything you need/set up then lock everything down. with tools. I'm running 3 float stones and 2/2 Silver Mirror/Bangle anyways so you don't have to worry to much about tools. plus then you could maybe fit in Lasers and get an interesting deck going. maybe something similar to this:

4-1-4 Empoleon DE
2-2 Garbador DRX
2 Terrakian (Retaliate)
1 Eggsacute

3 Juniper
3 N
3 Skyla
4 Rare Candy
3 Floatstone
2 Silver Mirror
2 Silver Bangle
3 Pokemon Catcher
3 level ball
2 Ultra Ball
1 Dowsing Machine ACE SPEC
3 HTL
2 Virbank City Gym

6 water energy
4 Blend Energy WLFM

This is just a rough draft but what do you guys think about the concept? at all viable? or do you think its too much to fit into a deck? I'm intrigued by the idea of having Lasers/Virbank in Empoleon giving its great damage output, mixed with Silver Bangle/Laser you have to ability to OHKO any EX.
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A few thoughts:
  • Of your 7 Tools, I suspect a few of those (e.g., Silver Bangle and Mirror) are not intended to be attached to your Garbodor, just the Float Stone (especially when it is Catcher'ed to perhaps buy some time for your opponent). Devoting only 3 Tools to Garbodor is woefully insufficient, IMHO. Most players I know are running 2-3 Tool Scrappers which would either nullify your Garbotoxin "lock" or you might have to attach a Silver B/M to a Garbodor which may not be the "ideal" attachment. I would suggest replacing the Silver Mirror with Rescue Scarf to improve the Garbodor recycle time when it is KOd.
  • Once Garbotoxin is in effect, you'll lose the use of Diving Draw. I believe, the 6 card draw Supporters will be quite insufficient to sustain you mid-late game. Early game you MIGHT be able to use Diving Draw, but potentially by yielding an advantage (namely your opponent can use Abilities of his/her Poké).
  • Other than Terrakion, all of your other basic Poké can "easily" be KOd T1; so, you might want to consider using a big HP basic Poké with a Call for Family attack. There are several viable candidates and they could replace your Level Balls.
I hope you find these comments helpful.
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Thanks for your input, but I was more just throwing out the idea to get peoples opinion on the idea behind the deck, I know its far from a perfect list, but the idea is have Garbodor for those few bad match ups like plasma and blastoise. the idea behind it was that you use DD to get stuff set up, and with only needing 1 energy to attack its not hard after getting N'd to 2-3 cards. plus shutting down Verdent Wind and Red Signal with the new rule changes coming will just make it better because they cant pull out your bench sitters as easily. and since you should have 2-3 Empoleon set up you don't have to worry about escape rope as much if it becomes popular in replacement for catchers. plus you can always just drop the catchers from the above list if you need more space and with my testing Silver mirrors are far inferior to bangles for this deck so that gives you 2 more tool spaces. plus in my current deck i only run 8 energy with pretty good succes so maybe,

-2 mirror
-2 Water
+1 Float stone
+1 Rescue Scarf
+1 Juniper
+1 N
 
Combining Empoleon with an Exeggcute might not be a bad idea. That way, you can consistently use Diving Draw without losing any important cards.
 
Exeggcute works well in any deck that utilizes Ultra Balls; works very well in all my stage 2 decks..

Post-November 8th game rule changes, I'm finding Empoleon is gaining more popularity, straight Empoleon especially since more decks will now probably tech-in Mr. Mime. So, I no longer run Kingdra in combo with Empoleon, and have found Dusknoir to be a better partner at this time. My deck's core consists of:

4 - Empoleon
2 - Prinplup
4 - Piplup
2 - Terrakion
1 - Mr. Mime
1 - Exeggcute

Currently testing some CfF Poké instead of heavy counts of Level and Ultra Balls.
 
What version of Empoleon does everyone think is better? I've been using the below Pokémon line and have found it really successful.

4 -0- 4 Empoleon DE
3 Landorus EX
1 Cobalion EX (considering taking it out for Mr. Mime, but still not sure)
1 Mew EX
2 Keldeo EX
 
I'm still playing around with an Empoleon/Aerodactyl deck. Basic idea is to get 2 empoleon, 3 aerodactyl, and 1 keldeo ex in play and an exeggcute in the discard. This allows empoleon to still hit decent damage, even if your opponent ends up only having 2 or 3 pokemon on the field. With this set up, empoleon can hit for 90 before factoring in opponents pokemon. With the addition of bangle it can hit an Ex for 120 with only your side of the field. As an added bonus, twisted mountain is a decent counter stadium that will probably not benefit any other deck you play against.

It seems to work pretty well with the new format. Though i havent really done much testing, it has atm a 75%-ish win ratio, so it seems decent.

Any thoughts on how to improve this deck? Or just the overall concept? I do enjoy my gimmicky decks, but this one works pretty well.
Pokemon:
4-2-4 Empoleon
4 Aerodactyl
2 Keldeo Ex
1 Exeggcute

Supporters:
4 Juniper
4 N
3 Skyla
1 Colress

Trainer:
4 Rare Candy
3 Level Ball
2 Ultra Ball
2 Max Potion
3 Silver Bangles
2 Float Stones
1 Super Rod
1 Scoop Up Cyclone
3 Twisted Mountain

Energy:
10 Water
Im thinking

-1 Ultra Ball (Level ball is just better for this deck)
-1 Aerodactyl (3 is all this deck really needs)
-1 Prinplup (Added for more consistency, though its not super needed)
+1 Level Ball (Gets me piplup,prinplup, and aerodactyl)
+1 Colress (1 more supporter can always help)
+1 Super Rod/Max Potion (Super rod cause somehow the first one always goes down early, 1 more max potion is always nice.)
 
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