Standard Energy Lock (Malamar / Starmie)

[Duane Fouche]

Pokemon: 14

• 4 Inkay (Ancient Origins 45)
• 4 Malamar (Ancient Origins 46)
• 2 Deoxys (Roaring Skies 33)
• 2 Staryu (Primal Clash 72)
• 2 Starmie (Primal Clash 73)

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums: 39

• 4 Dimension Valley
• 4 Muscle Band
• 1 Escape Rope
• 4 Crushing Hammer
• 2 Enhanced Hammer
• 2 Team Flare Grunt
• 1 Xerosic
• 2 Lysandre
• 4 Professor Sycamore
• 4 Professor Birch's Observations
• 1 Pokemon Fan Club
• 4 Level ball
• 2 Trainer's Mail
• 1 VS Seeker
• 1 Energy Retrieval
• 1 Sacred Ash

Energy: 8

• 8 Darkness Energy

Strategy:

• Discard your opponents energies and disrupt his strategy as much as possible by using the hammers and supporters, as well as Malamar's Entangling Control attack.
• When they've got no energy you can use Starmie for big burst damage. A muscle band let's it hit for 90 damage to 2-hit most EX's, while Dimension Valley let's it attack for free. You may on occasion have to attach a single energy.
• Use Malamar's Trash Tentacle for VS Seeker, or any other Item, Supporter, Energy, Tool etc. to recycle them and keep your opponent on the back foot. Recycling Team Flare grunt or Enhanced hammer is often back-breaking against some decks. Trash tentacle allows you to always win the stadium war as well if you need to.
• Use Deoxys as free draw when needed. Deoxys can help smooth out poor starting hands for little to no energy.

A couple cards I've thought about adding are:
-Vileplume (Ancient Origins 3), the item lock can stop many decks cold
-Ludicolo (Primal Clash 12), his captivating rhythm can drag your opponents threats out so you can always target your team flare grunts.
-Zubat, Golbat, Crobat (Phantom Forces 31, 32, 33), their bites can increase damage output and they can attack and retreat for free with Dimension valley.

Spoiler: old deck list

Pokemon: 17

• 4x Inkay (Ancient Origins 45)
• 4x Malamar (Ancient Origins 46)
• 2x Oddish (Ancient Origins 1)
• 2x Gloom (Ancient Origins 2)
• 2x Vileplume (Ancient Origins 3)
• 3x Deoxys (Roaring Skies 33)

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums: 35

• 4 Forest of Giant Plants
• 4 Muscle Band
• 2 Escape Rope
• 4 Crushing Hammer
• 2 Enhanced Hammer
• 3 Head Ringer
• 3 Team Flare Grunt
• 1 Xerosic
• 2 Lysandre
• 1 Az
• 4 Professor Sycamore
• 4 Professor Birch's Observations
• 1 Pokemon Fan Club

Energy: 8

• 8 Dark Energy

Strategy:

The strategy is a simple, and extremely irritating one.
Disrupt your opponents energies heavily, then start beating him down by using Malamar's Trash Tentacle - recycling your energy disruption cards as needed, as well as your Lysandre's, AZ, escape Ropes etc.
The idea is to not let your opponent get an attack off, until eventually they rage quit or lose all their pokemon. Since Trash Tentacle can do decent damage while recylcing your cards you should be able to effectively control your opponent... that's the plan anyway.

The Problem I am having (bit of a rant on luck):
Unfortunately I have no idea wether the strategy works or not as, as of the time of writing this - I have not had a single decent game with this deck. I have had 7 games in a row where I have drawn "Dry".
By this I mean I will start with either an Oddish or an Inkay, with no draw supporters in hand - then proceed to draw nothing until I eventually lose.

Some hands I've had recently:

• 1x Oddish, 3x Malamar, 1x Lysandre, 2x Forest of Giant Plants - drew into a Gloom, another forest and another Lysandre before losing.
• Mulligan 6 times against a rayquaza deck. He sets up first turn and proceeds to sweep. I don't get to evolve even once.
• 2x Inkay, 3x Darkness Energies, 1x Pokemon Fan Club, 1x Forest of Giant Plants - used the fan club to get 1x Oddish and another Inkay. Drew into another darkness energy, and AZ and a Team flare grunt before I quit.

This pattern more or less happened 7 times in a row, I did draw Birch a few times but often hit tails and didn't get enough to set up. The one game I drew a Sycamore I was forced to discard a lot of my evolutions, including both Gloom's.

I don't know what the problem is and would appreciate your thoughts on this, I can't see anything wrong with the supporter lineup and there should be more than enough draw power - but the results sure don't add up. I can't be that unlucky can I?

If anyone has these cards lying around, feel free to try this deck out and share your experiences.
I would love to hear how it performs when the pilot hasn't been cursed by Absol.

 

[Duane Fouche]

I've updated the list to the following and it's running much better now.

Starmie makes a pretty aggressive attacker and can 2-hit most EX's with 0-1 energies.
Starmie is such a good attacker I feel as though I'm going to be making another deck with it as the main attacker soon, perhaps with bats and not a single energy in the deck. Free retreat, free attack, sounds good to me.

Vs Seeker also allows for a lot of flexibility when using trash tentacle, but I didn't feel it necessary to include more than one.