Discussion Forbidden Light Rogues

Yog

Yog

Rogue
Member
There are some obvious big boys in the upcoming set. Everyone and their mothers will be building Malamar decks. My potential go-to meta deck might be Greninja/Glaceon. But this is not a thread to talk about those obvious cards. I would like to hear what smaller synergies and niche cards people have their eyes on.

Link to all card translations: Link

Here's a few to get people started.


– Grass – HP30
Basic Pokemon

Ability: Plague
If you go second, during your first turn you can use this Ability. Search your deck for a Spewpa and Vivillion, reveal them, and put them into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck.

[C][C] Tackle: 10 damage.

Weakness: Fire (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 1

The new Vivillon is not up to much, (poison, sleep & 50 damage for [G]), but the BKT version allows you attach a basic energy from deck to any pokémon subject to a coin flip. An easier way to getting two to three of these out early could be a hell of an acceleration engine for anything with an awkward energy cost.


– Fire – HP120
Stage 1 – Evolves from Cubone

[.] Limbo Limbo: Search your deck for up to 2 basic Energy cards and attach them to your Pokemon in any way you like. Then, shuffle your deck.

[C][C] Alola Circle: 20x damage. This attack does 20 damage times the number of Pokemon you have in play with Alolan in its name.

Weakness: Water (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

I am quite interested here in both the free attack and the colourless costs of the second. Is there enough Alolan cards with synergy to make this work? Alolan Ninetales tends to utilise DCE anyway. Alolan Sandshrew could be your draw engine.. maybe the free retreat/free attacks Raticate line might come in. Or to go a completely different direction, this card could offset the awkward costs associated with either Alolan Golem or Exeggcutor GX decks.


– Fire – HP150
Stage 2 – Evolves from Braixen

Ability: Magical Torch
Once during your turn (before you attack), you may leave your opponent’s Active Pokemon Burned.

[R][R][C][C] Fire Spin: 150 damage. Discard 2 Energy from this Pokemon.

Weakness: Water (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

I don't think this really comes into it's own until we get the Wela Park Fire stadium, but there's some avenues worth considering all the same. Firing off a special condition at will rather than needing to attack or even play to bench has been solid before. The Break has a great ability for a sneaky extra card if you wanted some kind of 4-2-4-2 line along with a suitable big basic partner. Pairing with Infernape would be hilarious albeit too clunky to work. Alolan Muk? Raticate Break?

Probably in no way viable, but there may be some shenanigans to be had.


– Fighting – HP160
Stage 2 – Evolves from Tyrunt

Ability: Tyrano Heart
If you have the same amount or fewer Pokemon in play than your opponent, this Pokemon’s attacks do 60 more damage to your opponent’s Active Pokemon and it takes 30 less damage from attacks.

[F][F][C] Crunch: 100 damage. Discard 1 Energy from your opponent’s Active Pokemon.

Weakness: Grass (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 3

Any fossil deck will be awkward to set up, but I like the attack & ability here very much. Also that it and Rampardos can share the same base to build from will save a little space. The cost is very awkward of course.


– Colorless – HP50
Basic Pokemon

[C] Ram: 10 damage.

[C][C] Destructive Sound: Look at your opponent’s hand. Discard all Item cards you find there.

Weakness: Lightning (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: 1

A must-add for the rare Noivern-GX decks. May as well stick a Shining Celebi in while you're at it, although, I am not so sure it is a move you will want to use when you could just stop them from playing items anyway.. And then you have to think about adding DCE for the sake of using it early. Poor Noivern, they made it so awkward to use because they didn't want another Seismitoad situation.
 
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Naganadel-GX/Kartana-GX/Dusk Mane Necrozma(baby). My own, personal monstrous creation. Baby Dusk Mane does thick damage for a single Energy, Kartana is a free-search Enhanced Hammer that powers up Naganadel, which is Zoroark for 1 Energy and a better type.
 
I just wanna try Naga with everything possible :V
Naga/Xurkitree-GX/Kartana-GX/Nihilego-GX (maybe?)
Naga/Sky Field
Naga/Dimension Valley
Naga/Steela/Kartana
Naga/Swole
 
I had somehow forgotten that is only half the English set. Of course there is also Ultra Force too.

I think in that I'd most like to try make the alt type Empoleon & Torterra work (not together). Torterra with all the modifiers available to [F] types could heal away a whole lot of damage so long as it's not OHKOd.
 
Oh yeah, Nihilego is a card. Might have to work that in, but I don't think Naganadel would miss only 1 Kartana.
 
I like the idea of a delphox, infernape, zoroark deck. 2 different stage 2s is really clunky, however riotous beating w/ full bench an choice band is 150. Burn with delphox and increase burn damage with infernape to hit 210. Its really clunky to get going but I'll absolutely give it a try it online
 
I think any Delphox deck is going to need too many pokemon to not be hard jank, either you run it with Break (which will be leaving standard not long after we get Wela park anyways) or Infernape making a double stage 2 deck. The game slows down a bit after rotation with the departure of N and Sycamore, but I don't see it being slow enough to let Delphox/Infernape work.

Tyrantrum is kind of a rough card too with the costs being what they are but the fact that it shares fossils with the other fossilmons gives it some future potential as that pool of cards increases, assuming they stick with the return to base era fossil mechanics. We need some good reason to build a fossil deck though, Buzzwole just feels like it crowds all of the other fighting types out of a role in the meta. There's an Unova set coming, Archeops tends to get a lot of above average cards, if we got an Archeops with an anti-evolution ability less oppressive than the old BW era one that could be a thing.

Alolan Marowak is in a similar position but I think it will have more immediate viability given its very easy attack cost and 0 cost acceleration attack. For me the biggest rogue winner of Forbidden Light is standard Alolan Dugtrio. It was immediately viable as an expanded rogue due to the large variety of resources we have in expanded to bank with discard but it was in a more awkward place in standard when it came to piecing together big OHKO gold rushes, and keeping those flowing. Lady makes that simpler and will allow you to move to a deck search oriented version running a heavy ribombee line and Lady, plus energy recyclers to move discarded energy back into the deck to be searched out by Lady/Bees.

Also, a meme to watch out for is poipole/toxicroak. It won't be good, but people will definitely try it.
 
I was very impressed while playing against an Alolan Exeggcutor + baby Lurantis deck yesterday. They misplayed into giving me a 2 prize turn, but without that they would have beaten my Buzzwole deck that's performing in the 75-80% win rate against the rest of the meta.
 
The Flabébé with Evolutionary Advantage has become my surprise fave from the set. Combined with Calming Aroma Florges, Xerneas-GX is a whole lot better as a one-energy attacker. Add the spread damage Floette from Generations plus pink Lele, and it's a heal-fest of a spread deck :)
 
I thought about Noibat for my Noivern/Garb deck. I'm thinking it would be great because you can keep item locking them til they have a pretty decent hand, then come out of nowhere with the Noibat and discard all their items in their hand, and then finish them off with a good trashanche.
 
James Michael Cerdan said:
I thought about Noibat for my Noivern/Garb deck. I'm thinking it would be great because you can keep item locking them til they have a pretty decent hand, then come out of nowhere with the Noibat and discard all their items in their hand, and then finish them off with a good trashanche.
Click to expand...

We need a lock-item-from-bench effect back~ :rolleyes:
 
Betting hard on Alolan Marowak. Some neat tricks in there, simple and intuitive gameplan.
Metal Empoleon could also be interesting, with Magearna EX and Registeel support, maybe Kartana GX thrown into the mix for disruption/GX attack access.
 
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