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Garchomp Altaria For BW On

cf11

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hello everyone this is a list I'm working on for next rotation!

Pokemon: 20

3 Emolga DRX (Call For Family)
4 Gible (60 HP)
3 Gabite (Dragon Call)
3 Garchomp (Good One)
4 Swablu (Sing)
3 Altaria


Trainers/Supporters: 30

4 Juniper
4 N
2 Bianca
2 Cheren
3 Max Potion
3 Pokemon Catcher
2 Switch
2 Super Rod
3 Level Ball
2 Pokemon Communication
3 Rare Candy

Energy

4 Blend {W}{L}{F}{M}
6 {F}

Strategy: To use Gabite to set up your board then use Garchomp to deal massive damage for cheap enrgy costs and Altaria increases your damage output.
 
Sinnoh_Champion_Ernesto said:
No good a 4-3-3 line of garchomp.

-1 Swuablu (3 should be enough)
+1 Garchomp (explained above)

Swablus are easily knocked out so I want to be able to set up Altaria's consistently. Also 4 Garchomp is kind of over kill as you really are usually going to be able to only set up 2 in one game.
 
It is in the sense the energy costs are low (1 Fighting 60 damage) with the Alts extra 20 its 80-100-120 on average
or (1 FIghting 1 Water) for 100, Alts making it 120-140-160 on average

This damage is normal to find on EXs and other highly used pokemon such as Zekrom or Raikou, Mewtwo or Darkrai.
but ofcourse it comes with out the EX burden of 2 prizes.

biggest down sides being its type and HP

140HP is respectable and withstands Zekrom or Darkrai(+ Claw if used) without the need of Eviolite (not that he could use it anyway)
Typing is one of those 50-50 things with his weakness being himself (Dragon).
We will see ALOT of dragon play as they are new and exciting cards so its going to be a little short there at 1st.

The deck itself is whats powerful tho, the ability to search out the Dragons with such ease is amazing (once Gabite is 100% confirmed).

Does Garchomp deserve the Hype? no, but you didnt ask that
Does the Deck deserve Hype? Yes! 100%

It has what any good deck needs right now, power and speed, the ability to withstand a Darkrai hit and to not be dropped by Terrakion.

Ofcourse saying all this is in its simplest form, Darkrai hitting for 30 before hitting for 110 (Dark Claw) is the exact amount needed to kill one.
but Darkrai can play Eviolite just as well as it plays Dark Claw (if not better) so 30+90 isnt enough.

The deck itself has flaws in the form of Altaria having only 70HP making it weak to
Raikou-EX (100 damage Snipe)
Pokemon Catcher (almost everything in the game is weak to this tho)
Ray (40 Damage for 1 energy attack with type advantage = 80)

but unless played badly or having very very very very VERY VERY bad draws, you will not see an active Altaria during your opponents turn very often.
so that just goes back to Pokemon Catcher (alot more weaknesses with having a 70HP Dragon Type, but i assume the point was made)

All in all tho, the decks strengths out play it weaknesses (have tested this for the last 1-2 months against everything i could think of)

Biggest flaws im seeing in builds are

3-3 Altaria, someone mentioned it above i think 4-3 Line is better
4-2-4 and 4-3-4 Garchomp, 4-2-4 is just plain wrong, but i have seen it in a builds, 4-3-4 works, but with my testing im finding 4-4-4 works best.
when people work out how to play (or they may know already) against it, killing off Gabite quick! is a must. so you find atfter turn 2-3 you should have lost 1-2 Gabites and only have 2 left in deck (not counting Super Rod play).

flaws i have seen in play of this deck

People playing Super Rod early or on cards like Garchomp, Use the Super Rods more on the Altarias and when needed then move onto Garchomp (need Garbite is the exception to this)
Feeling like they need to play a Supporter EVERY turn (this is something you see wrong with other decks), just because the ruling is 1 supporter a turn does NOT mean you MUST play 1 a turn (not saying people think this, just how they play it). Seen so many supporters played while i was on the defensive and they have decent hands. Its not needed especially in this deck, the deck draws itself out and gives you everything you need.

My final note is

Plus Power (i normally do not like this card)
Garchomps attacks work in 20's (60 and 100) with boosts of 20 (Alt)
Terrakion 130HP, Zekrom 130HP, Mewtwo-EX 170HP, Raikou-EX 170HP

If you have the room it can make life alot easyer (but again, im not a Plus Power fan normally)
 
Psy said:
It is in the sense the energy costs are low (1 Fighting 60 damage) with the Alts extra 20 its 80-100-120 on average
or (1 FIghting 1 Water) for 100, Alts making it 120-140-160 on average

This damage is normal to find on EXs and other highly used pokemon such as Zekrom or Raikou, Mewtwo or Darkrai.
but ofcourse it comes with out the EX burden of 2 prizes.

biggest down sides being its type and HP

140HP is respectable and withstands Zekrom or Darkrai(+ Claw if used) without the need of Eviolite (not that he could use it anyway)
Typing is one of those 50-50 things with his weakness being himself (Dragon).
We will see ALOT of dragon play as they are new and exciting cards so its going to be a little short there at 1st.

The deck itself is whats powerful tho, the ability to search out the Dragons with such ease is amazing (once Gabite is 100% confirmed).

Does Garchomp deserve the Hype? no, but you didnt ask that
Does the Deck deserve Hype? Yes! 100%

It has what any good deck needs right now, power and speed, the ability to withstand a Darkrai hit and to not be dropped by Terrakion.

Ofcourse saying all this is in its simplest form, Darkrai hitting for 30 before hitting for 110 (Dark Claw) is the exact amount needed to kill one.
but Darkrai can play Eviolite just as well as it plays Dark Claw (if not better) so 30+90 isnt enough.

The deck itself has flaws in the form of Altaria having only 70HP making it weak to
Raikou-EX (100 damage Snipe)
Pokemon Catcher (almost everything in the game is weak to this tho)
Ray (40 Damage for 1 energy attack with type advantage = 80)

but unless played badly or having very very very very VERY VERY bad draws, you will not see an active Altaria during your opponents turn very often.
so that just goes back to Pokemon Catcher (alot more weaknesses with having a 70HP Dragon Type, but i assume the point was made)

All in all tho, the decks strengths out play it weaknesses (have tested this for the last 1-2 months against everything i could think of)

Biggest flaws im seeing in builds are

3-3 Altaria, someone mentioned it above i think 4-3 Line is better
4-2-4 and 4-3-4 Garchomp, 4-2-4 is just plain wrong, but i have seen it in a builds, 4-3-4 works, but with my testing im finding 4-4-4 works best.
when people work out how to play (or they may know already) against it, killing off Gabite quick! is a must. so you find atfter turn 2-3 you should have lost 1-2 Gabites and only have 2 left in deck (not counting Super Rod play).

flaws i have seen in play of this deck

People playing Super Rod early or on cards like Garchomp, Use the Super Rods more on the Altarias and when needed then move onto Garchomp (need Garbite is the exception to this)
Feeling like they need to play a Supporter EVERY turn (this is something you see wrong with other decks), just because the ruling is 1 supporter a turn does NOT mean you MUST play 1 a turn (not saying people think this, just how they play it). Seen so many supporters played while i was on the defensive and they have decent hands. Its not needed especially in this deck, the deck draws itself out and gives you everything you need.

My final note is

Plus Power (i normally do not like this card)
Garchomps attacks work in 20's (60 and 100) with boosts of 20 (Alt)
Terrakion 130HP, Zekrom 130HP, Mewtwo-EX 170HP, Raikou-EX 170HP

If you have the room it can make life alot easyer (but again, im not a Plus Power fan normally)
ya I agree with the 4-3 line that I mentioned and thanks for the great mini analysis! Plus Power was one of those things where I was trying to find room but didnt want to take away too much consistency.
 
I have to be honest, I'm yet to be convinced. While a single {F} for 60 isn't bad, I'm just questioning whether this deck can set up quick enough. What made a card like Donphan Prime so usable, is the fact that it was a Stage 1, with a really useful Ability to prolong it's HP.

ZekEel will still be a popular contender next format, and the basic Raquaza could prove to be a big problem for this deck. I think the issue with Darkrai is it sniping around the bench prior to the Garchomp's being promoted to put them in knockout range. I guess you could argue Max Potion but like I said, I'm still border line on this deck.
 
It's such a fragile deck. T2 60 and swarming three of them T3 is strong, but it's only great against any heavy-dragon deck like RayEels, especially those that run EX dragons. When you consider the two best decks in the next format can evenly prize trade against it and have ways of getting rid of support Altaria, turning the two shot into a three shot it isn't so great. It also has difficulty replacing them, it has to rely on Super Rod and then their search is destroyed, Gabite is now slower to set up once the opponent is up and running while they disadvantaged themselves by not running more ball engine and less rare candy. If you want a good Garchomp Altaria deck, run max rare candy and 4 Level Ball 3 Communication.

Hydreigon/Darkrai and ZekEels will be the BDIFs. Garchomp Altaria will be around Tier 1.5 - Tier 2.
 
eels with rayquaza ex will be the opponent to beat imo.... especially with raikou ex as snipe and free retreats with skyarrow bridge, eels will be faster i think.... time wil tell.
i like the deck though, i agree with all above. and spy nice analysis!!
 
Nicor123 said:
eels with rayquaza ex will be the opponent to beat imo.... especially with raikou ex as snipe and free retreats with skyarrow bridge, eels will be faster i think.... time wil tell.
i like the deck though, i agree with all above. and spy nice analysis!!

Eels with Rayquaza!?!?!? Do not ever use 3 or even 2 Rayquaza EX unless you wanna give up 2 prizes against Hydreigon/Darkrai and Garchomp/Altaria. I don't like Rayquaza EX. Maybe as a tech, but still, IDK.
 
Roronoa Zoro said:
Eels with Rayquaza!?!?!? Do not ever use 3 or even 2 Rayquaza EX unless you wanna give up 2 prizes against Hydreigon/Darkrai and Garchomp/Altaria. I don't like Rayquaza EX. Maybe as a tech, but still, IDK.

Ya raquaza ex is horrible. I would love to catcher up raquaza ex if I were playing a dragon deck.
 
Some noob Senior who's turning Master this season is running it. I'm going to run this deck just for him. Lol.

Just some questions, is the Weakness really that bad? I haven't heard of any other decent {DRG} decks. The only other instance of {DRG} would be Hydregon, and it's just a Bench sitter in Darkrai, although with the ability I suppose it could
still attack. But even so, you revenge KO the Hydregon, and they loose the energies.

And in your experience testing, how helpful are the Emolgas? Just currious.
 
Mora said:
Some noob Senior who's turning Master this season is running it. I'm going to run this deck just for him. Lol.

Just some questions, is the Weakness really that bad? I haven't heard of any other decent {DRG} decks. The only other instance of {DRG} would be Hydregon, and it's just a Bench sitter in Darkrai, although with the ability I suppose it could
still attack. But even so, you revenge KO the Hydregon, and they loose the energies.

And in your experience testing, how helpful are the Emolgas? Just currious.

Hydreigon is actually a VERY good attacker and it isn't just a bench sitter. There is just so many situations where it will attack instead of Darkrai, since it OHKOs a lot of stuff that Darkrai doesn't. It does 140 for {P}{D}{D}{C} and discards {D}{D}, so if you revenge him there isn't really a problem for the Darkrai player. He can just use Dark Patch to retrieve them.
Also, are you forgetting the main attacker of the deck we're discussing? It's type is {DRG} and it OHKOs Rayquaza EX.
 
The thing im finding play testing this deck is that i can almost walk over anything besides Darkrai/Terrakion.

My little match ups go like this (please note i have play tested this a fair amount vs many slight variants of each deck type i list + others i prob will forget to list, this is not a "i tested and bet eels 4 times kinda bs testing").

But do remember this is me playing vs people who are VERY good but im generally better.

Zekrom/Eel: 70/30
Found this one of the easyer match ups, Zekrom doesnt do enough damage it needs the EX and it gets 1-2 prizes for 2 each time. I was alot faster then it in 9/10 games and had my set up in every game almost with ease. this was an easy match up that without luck i would win 99% of the time

EelBox: (Eels with things from Mewtwo to 3x Terrakion, Tornadus-EX etc) 60/40
The 60/40 here is generous, I only gave it that because it was slightly more difficult then Zekrom/Eel but in no way hard to beat. Raikou in here was an issue dropping Altarias but it would allow me to still hit for 60-80 or 100-120. After a couple of games i worked out the right times to use Super Rods and Max Potions making this easyer to win.

Eel+Ray: 50-50
Great Deck here, this is what i will be running after rotation really should be 40/60 to the Eel+Ray but due to the Garchomps speed i could take an early lead and pull something special out late game to win. One of the hardest to face up against for me. Garchomp was useless and you need a tech in there to beat this deck every time. Got a 50/50 since thats simply how the games went but that could very well have come from me being better then my opponent, plan to test this out with me using the Rays and them using Garchomp for a better result, didnt do that yet due to it being an obvious outcome.

Mewtwo Heavy: (Mewtwo/Terrakion, MewtwoBox etc) 70/30
One of the easyer decks to take out, really wasnt much it could do against me, the low energy count on Garchomp made Mewtwo appear weak and some times couldnt even 2 hit me. I dont see this deck being played alot the only thing it did that was annoying was use Eviolites and they piss me off sometimes. not a deck i would use in the future

Darkrai/Hydrei: 50/50
Came down to alot of who Potions at the right time. Gar is faster by all means but Darkrai took 1st prize alot of the time, just 2nd 3rd and sometimes 4th prize would go to Gar giving him a 2-1 lead by turn 3-4. Techs in both these decks are going to be the breaking points in this war, not alot more to say other then that.

Darkrai/Terrakion 30/70
I have no idea why honestly, i have played this deck more then anything just because of the results, for some reason the Terrakions and Dakrais with Eviolites seem walk all over Gar/Alt with ease. It wasnt even a fair fight half the time. I would test and test and test vs this, i believe i have my timing of each card down to near perfect play and yet it just doesnt do enough damage, hitting for 60-80 then having to minus 20 doing 40-60 damage is laughable, then hitting next for 100-140 and minus 20 again to 80-120 wouldnt even kill a Darkrai most of the time. 3 hits to kill an EX is just not worth it. You can keep up for 1-2 prizes but then as everything on your bench begins to drop forcing you to not be able to play down much (which you CANT do in this deck) just kills you.
This is a nightmare deck and when they want to heal a Darkrai, give you a Sableye to kill, drop the Potion, get back the dark patches its just well a pain in the ass.

Speed Darkrai: (Didnt test)

Other decks have been tested but my d/l just finished so i come back and finish this later. Woah i see alot of spelling mistakes and just blocks of text, sorry about that.
Read what you can for now.
I will fix it up and make it easyer to read later guys. Sorry about that tho.
 
The thing with the Garchomp/Altaria vs Hydreigon/Darkrai is that Darkrai puts so much pressure on the Garchomp player. If you go for the Hydreigon, you're just ignoring the bigger threat which is Darkrai. It can and will OHKO your Altarias while leaving your Garchomps in range for a Dark Claw'd Darkrai. When Skyla and Computer Search come out the matchup will be 60/40 for Darkrai/Hydreigon, IMO. I just can't see Garchomp winning against Darkrai if both get similar starts. Even now I would put the matchup as 45/55 for Darkrai/Hydreigon. I think it has a slight advantage over Garchomp.
 
Roronoa Zoro said:
Also, are you forgetting the main attacker of the deck we're discussing?

Mora said:
Some noob I haven't heard of any otherdecent {DRG} decks.

Other, of course, is excluding Garchomp. And Hydregon OHKO's Garchomp without the Weakness anyway. So is Weakness still a big deal?
 
Mora said:
Other, of course, is excluding Garchomp. And Hydregon OHKO's Garchomp without the Weakness anyway. So is Weakness still a big deal?

My bad xD. But those two are already important since they are 2 of the three main decks of the format.
 
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