pokemonjoe said:
raw19 said:
I've been using this deck for ages and never once had a problem with Mewtwo. Why? Because Gothitelle turns around and kills Mewtwo. If Gothitelle has two Energy and Gardevior is in the house then Gothy is hitting Mewtwo for 220 damage; something even eviolite wouldn't save. If they answer that with another Mewtwo then they'd better be sure that you can't immediately get another Gothy up and swinging, else they've just handed you 4 prizes and quite possibly game.
Getting out the 2 stage 2's is always a problem, but with the right list it's manageable. Skyla and the 'Future-Sight' Gothita really help with set-up and i find a large amount of Level Balls and Exp. Share can really keep things moving once started. Tool Scrapper can't hurt you. Catcher can't hurt you. It's usually best to set up your 1st Gothitelle by turn 2, but focus your attacking power on the 2nd Gothy (i.e. assume your 1st one will be knocked out right away and focus on attaching energy to one on the bench). Mewtwo can also help in the deck as a good way to eliminate major threats and at a time where damage is more important then keeping the lock going. Another suggestion is using 1-2 DCE. If you can get a Gothitelle out turn 2 with a Psychic Energy and a DCE attached, then you can attack for 50 and spend the time manually evolving your Gardevoir (i,e Ralts to Kirlia, Kirlia to Gardevoir) rather then burning resources in order to pull off two Rare Candy evolutions. It helps take some of the pressure off and Mewtwo can also use DCE if your Gardevoir happens to get knocked out.
2 Supporters coming out in the future might really help this deck, assuming these cards aren't rotated before they appear:
Colress - Shuffle your hand into your deck. Then, draw an amount of cards up to the number of Pokémon on both your and your opponent's Bench.
Ghetsis - Look at your opponent's hand. Your opponent shuffles all Item cards there into his or her deck. Then, draw from your deck the amount of cards your opponent shuffled into his or her deck.
The deep draw power possible from Colress should make it a lot easier to get the cards you need in order to keep up a steady chain of fully energized Gothitelle. The Synergy between her and Ghetsis should be obvious. This is a slow deck, yes, but trainer-lock based decks often are and they've still worked in the past. With the current format pretty trainer heavy and the future ones looking to be even more so I wouldn't give up on the GG Sisters just yet.
The problem lies in Mewtwo that can ko everything in your deck starting T1. You also said once Gothitelle ko's Mewtwo, Mewtwo ko's gothitelle, and so forth until you have taken more prizes because they are an EX. However, it just doesn't work that way. They won't bench a Mewtwo unless they are killing Gothitelle with it. In order to respond at that point, you need to have another Gothitelle with an energy on it already, the original Gothitelle, and a Gardevoir... Good luck. Mewtwo is a basic, while Gothitelle is a stage two that needs the support of another stage 2. You just get overrun eventually.
I admit that Mewtwo is a problem, especially him KO'ing things turn one. There's probably no real way to ever overcome that. I'm just saying that this deck concept shouldn't be immediately discarded based on the sole fact that he exists. It may not always work the way i outlined it, but that isn't to say that it never works as such and the possibility is what helps this deck work.
Assuming they don't start off with Mewtwo then they have to draw into it, which is certainly not impossible but isn't necessarily easy either. Once Gothitelle is set up and active they can't search Mewtwo out; not with communication, ultra ball, computer search, or any other items. They'd have to rely on drawing into it. Which might be easy if they rely on Juniper. If they rely on N however it could be a lot harder, if they end up shuffling back in a lot of trainers that they were unable to use.
Mewtwo would also have to rely on getting their DCE's in order to attack right away. Though i suppose that also depends on the deck Mewtwo is being used in, which might have other ways to get energy on Mewtwo that don't rely on DCE or trainers. If they can't though...
But, the Gothitelle deck could also be using it's own Mewtwo's. If the Mewtwo deck (i,e opponents deck that's using Mewtwo) uses a Mewtwo to Ko a Gothitelle, the Gothy deck can then send up their own Mewtwo to ko it. What then does the Mewtwo deck do? Does it send up a new Mewtwo to revenge ko the Gothy's Mewtwo? Does it take this opportunity to Catcher up and kill the Gardevoir should one be set up? Or does it focus on any Gothitelle pieces lying around on the field in order to prevent a new Gothitelle from being set up, while leaving the active threat untouched? In such a scenario, i don't really see any right answers.
With proper use of Exp. Share it's quite possible to keep your Pokemon powered at all times, and i for one almost never need more then a 2 energy investment on any of my Gothitelles. This deck does rely on two stage 2's and that makes it a hard deck to use in this meta, but it's not impossible to pull off by any means and certainly shouldn't be viewed that way.
Dark Void said:
Also I can understand where you're coming from with Ghetsitis, but he actually hurts Gothitelle more than he helps it because he does Gothitelle's job for her (although technically not as well), just a supporter is a lot easier to play than a psychic weak stage 2 that has to be active. And you can't argue that good drawpower helps this deck more than others, pretty much every deck with benefit from colress (maybe some basic only ones that don't fill a bench too often won't get great use out of it, but because they're already so easy to set up that it doesn't matter).
I won't argue that good drawpower helps this deck more than others because i don't believe that. I do believe that good draw power helps this deck, though, just like such would help any other. I feel that Ghestis is like Skyla and should only be played as a 2-of in this deck. It would probably have the most effect after your opponent has just played N or Juniper but then didn't do more but drop an energy afterwards (all but signifying that their hand is full of unplayable stuff and that a good margin is most likely items.) I believe Ghetsis is actually a bit more useful here then in most other decks (i.e. non-trainer locking decks), because there's a chance with other decks that they can still play a draw supporter, get most of their items back, and then immediately play them whereas Gothy still prevents them from being played while then benefiting from them being in your opponent's hand.
Also, by forcing those unusable items back into their decks, it helps to make their future N and Juniper plays that more less effective, by increasing the odds of them drawing into items when they play those supporters. I'm hardly saying that if you play 4 Ghetsis in your Gothy deck then you'll win hands down, but I really do think 1-2 of him can prove really disruptive if used at the right times.