Excadrill Ancient Trait Counter Deck?
- Thread starter Solegide
- Start date
GadgetJax
Traveling Storyteller and Card Faker
RE: Excadrill Ancient Trait, Counter Deck?
When you say a counter deck, do you mean a deck that gets around 'Excadrill' or a deck that USES 'Excadrill'?
Well, I personally think that Excadrill is a pretty solid card, pun intended. Being able to set up and do 50 in 1 turn is strong, and then doing a continuous 160 with a Silver Bangle is very helpful. I run this Excadrill alongside Crobat, and it works well enough. The worst matchups I personally have are Flareon decks, because they can KO me with just a single Vengeance. Other bad matchups include pretty much any non-EX deck that doesn't use attackers under 100HP. Having to rely on 2 copies of Muscle Band in addition to the Silver Bangles makes it really tricky to get around those few attackers I might run into.
When you say a counter deck, do you mean a deck that gets around 'Excadrill' or a deck that USES 'Excadrill'?
Well, I personally think that Excadrill is a pretty solid card, pun intended. Being able to set up and do 50 in 1 turn is strong, and then doing a continuous 160 with a Silver Bangle is very helpful. I run this Excadrill alongside Crobat, and it works well enough. The worst matchups I personally have are Flareon decks, because they can KO me with just a single Vengeance. Other bad matchups include pretty much any non-EX deck that doesn't use attackers under 100HP. Having to rely on 2 copies of Muscle Band in addition to the Silver Bangles makes it really tricky to get around those few attackers I might run into.
RE: Excadrill Ancient Trait, Counter Deck?
Why run Silver Bangle at all? You'll never hit any magic numbers with it so might as well go straight Muscle Band (besides 80, pass turn, then 80+80 to knockout a Primal/Mega, but what are the chances of it surviving to even dole out the second and third hit?)
For some reason I thought this card didn't hit for Weakness as well as Resistance. Interesting. While I still think 3 energy is too large of an investment for a 110HP Pokemon, it may be useful if the M Gardevoir hype gets too out of control.
GadgetJax said:
Why run Silver Bangle at all? You'll never hit any magic numbers with it so might as well go straight Muscle Band (besides 80, pass turn, then 80+80 to knockout a Primal/Mega, but what are the chances of it surviving to even dole out the second and third hit?)
For some reason I thought this card didn't hit for Weakness as well as Resistance. Interesting. While I still think 3 energy is too large of an investment for a 110HP Pokemon, it may be useful if the M Gardevoir hype gets too out of control.
RE: Excadrill Ancient Trait, Counter Deck?
I would think this,but the fact that it accelerates its own energy or requires only two attachments to do 140 (hitting 170 on a laserbank) on turn 2 of the game makes it not THAT bad. That being said, you ARE attacking with a stage 1 with only 110 HP.
All in all, I could see a Speed Excadrill deck working pretty well as a rogue deck in a field of slow decks+fairies.
totodile_it_down said:
I would think this,but the fact that it accelerates its own energy or requires only two attachments to do 140 (hitting 170 on a laserbank) on turn 2 of the game makes it not THAT bad. That being said, you ARE attacking with a stage 1 with only 110 HP.
All in all, I could see a Speed Excadrill deck working pretty well as a rogue deck in a field of slow decks+fairies.
Excadrill is good, but it shouldn't be a real threat to any Top Tier decks. M-Manectric EX OHKO's, Yveltal EX can OHKO easily, Genesect gets the OHKO with a band. The only decks I can see this affecting or posing a threat to are Fairy Decks and Seismitoad. Other than that, this deck shouldn't be too challenging. Just remember that it wins prize trades against EXs so you do need to exercise some caution.
I think Excadrill has some potential, but I'm not sure just how to run it reliably. I think it's definitely more of an anti-meta card, and needless to say it does a wonderful job against M-Gardevoir-EX, which I expect to be popular. It can also power itself up if needed, and still attack, The problem I have is that it caps out at 160 without something like Laserbank, which you're not likely to find room for. I tried partnering it with Eeveelutions, for meh results. I think I Was on the right track, but wasn't do it right. Eeveelutions and Excadrill both have anti-meta potential, but I just haven't found a way to make a consistent build. I like some of the other ideas for partners too. Bats could be nice to supplement the damage and get needed KO power, but that also takes up a lot of space. Oddly enough, I don't think Bronzong is the right partner for Excadrill.
My biggest fear with this card is that it won't survive to attack a second time. You push it up, use Dredge, power up and Barrage with Mach Claw. Great, you've done 50 damage (70/80 if you have Band/Bangle) and now have 3 energy on a 110 HP Pokemon. Your opponent follows up with an Evil Ball for KO and you're left with what on the bench?
That's the down side. The upside is that Dredge allows us to run very few Metal energies because the attack dictates that we can search out the 1 Metal energy you need, which means we don't need to run many at all. All of this makes Exadrill an easily splashable card should the meta be overrun with M Gardevoir.
That's the down side. The upside is that Dredge allows us to run very few Metal energies because the attack dictates that we can search out the 1 Metal energy you need, which means we don't need to run many at all. All of this makes Exadrill an easily splashable card should the meta be overrun with M Gardevoir.
...It's kind of funny, but I feel like Excadrill could be a pretty good tech for Fairies against fairies. I know Mega Gardevoir EX exists, and that it's not that hard to set up, but Fairy VS Fairy you may need to trade Gardevoirs - not a very favorable match-up in my opinion. A tech of this card - with Rainbow - not only accelerates Fairy Energy, but it also provides Free Retreat to Exca (with Garden), hits for Weakness on a lot of popular Fairy cards and only gives up one prize on death.
As for counters to this card... Plasma Flareon as mentioned above is the only thing I can really think of.
As for counters to this card... Plasma Flareon as mentioned above is the only thing I can really think of.
Oh hey, cool, people actually noticed this card. I personally run a deck around it, wally, and shaymin-ex from roaring skies and it works pretty well, although someone suggested bats, which I've never thought of. I might try that out, but the deck has little to no room for extra things after adding necessary techs. The way the deck is right now, I have about 6-7 open deckslots, which isn't anywhere near enough to benefit from bats. I would love to see something like that tested and played, but at the same time I don't because I like playing super-rogue things like this.
PMJ
Silhouette Gloom of the Sundown Lands
Forum Head
Articles Head
Elite Member
Advanced Member
Member
By itself, it's kind of lackluster. It doesn't hit hard enough quickly enough, and if you get KOed after a Dredge + Mach Claw, there goes three of your energy.
I think that, in this EX-heavy format, Excadrill's best partner is Klinklang PLS. If you can manage to get it out, your opponent will be hard pressed to counter it effectively. Excadrill + Muscle Band swings for 140 a turn which is enough to OHKO every relevant non-EX in the format.
Seismitoad still gives this deck trouble because it blocks Ultra Ball and Rare Candy. Seismitoad also happens to run the one card that can stop Klinklang (Garbodor), but fortunately that's just one variant (you pretty much auto-win against all the others).
One thing to remember is that Drilbur is still vulnerable since he isn't Metal.
Also, unsurprisingly, this deck has poor matchups against decks with non-EX main attackers, such as Night March, Flareon, and Exeggutor. Pretty much all three of these decks are auto losses.
I think that, in this EX-heavy format, Excadrill's best partner is Klinklang PLS. If you can manage to get it out, your opponent will be hard pressed to counter it effectively. Excadrill + Muscle Band swings for 140 a turn which is enough to OHKO every relevant non-EX in the format.
Seismitoad still gives this deck trouble because it blocks Ultra Ball and Rare Candy. Seismitoad also happens to run the one card that can stop Klinklang (Garbodor), but fortunately that's just one variant (you pretty much auto-win against all the others).
One thing to remember is that Drilbur is still vulnerable since he isn't Metal.
Also, unsurprisingly, this deck has poor matchups against decks with non-EX main attackers, such as Night March, Flareon, and Exeggutor. Pretty much all three of these decks are auto losses.
My Little Keldeo said:
Bats seems perfect:: double barrage with a silver bangle plus one golbat = 180HP.
Still, even a 3-3-2 line takes up as much space as full laserbank.
I guess it is asking us to use Forretress too. That's a bit more compact spacewise. You could get away with a 3-3 line.
Talkingcat said:
I personally tried out with bats and for the most part it's not consistent enough, not being able to draw enough sift early game to apply enough pressure to fast decks and get its evolutions out. Even with a 4-4-4 line of bats and a 4-4 line of excadrill I just can't draw the cards when I need them (I run 4 sycamore, 2 colress, 3 skyla, 4 ultra balls, and 2 repeat balls before anyone asks), although thatmay just be my horrible luck showing up again. Forretress sounds like a nice idea though, but he has 2 retreat unlike bats who have 0, which can be a big help when you're trying to set up and not get your excadrill killed.