Hasta La Vista, Baby — Post-Rotation Primer

PMJ

PMJ

Silhouette Gloom of the Sundown Lands
Forum Head
Articles Head
Elite Member
Advanced Member
Member
My tumultuous relationship with Comfey finally comes to an end, whether I want it to or not. The Lost Zone Box deck made a lot of memories for me, and it seems like they all happened in the blink of an eye. Comfey is gone too soon, and I will dearly miss some of the other casualties as well. In fact, every card with the text “Lost Zone” has now gone there for good.
This rotation hits harder than most, but if there’s one thing I think we can all agree on, it’s good riddance to Snorlax; a card that rewarded doing nothing skillfully and created the most boring game states in the game’s long and storied history. I’m sure the Stall decks of the future will still be annoying, but hopefully they’re at least a little more interesting than Snorlax. Today we’re going to be discussing the decks that make it out alive...
Click to expand...

Continue reading...


 
It will be some time until Miraidon gets another turn in the spotlight.

I've recently been tinkering with an Iono's Bellibolt & Jolteon ex deck and through playtesting I'm seeing it pull very consistent damage upon being extremely flexible, but unfortunately Miraidon doesn't fit in this picture. A lot of deck space goes into acceleration and reacceleration to guarantee 240 damage every turn via Jolteon, on top of using Secret Box to get Levincia down for earlier energy recovery. Might get even better over time but it will struggle to keep up against certain decks due to its limited damage range. It has Pikachu ex for defense, Zapdos ex for bench damage tech, Mew ex for added consistency, and Magneton with Overvolt Discharge for turbo reacceleration at the earliest opportunity.
 
Not gonna lie the future looks pretty bleak, there aren't many brand new decks coming out of the woodwork in Journey Together (NBox and Lycanroc are the only ones that seemed to get semi-consistent results in Japan. I know of Ethan's Typhlosion and Cynthia's Garchomp, but that's not until Heat Wave) and most of the old decks just don't change much functionally (Gardevoir is the only one, and I already sold all my copies). Honestly even fun and simple decks like PidgeZard have gotten overly complex to play especially with the addition of Budew into the fray. Beyond that, some of my favorite decks just lose an important key piece that really makes the deck cook if my opponent is going in blind. Great Tusk Mill losing Pidgeot V just makes the deck straight up suck and not because it isn't "good enough to play with the big dogs", it's just missing a major piece, and United Wings hurts even more. We went through all that effort to get Dartrix which fixed every problem I had with Wings, only for it to be good and fun for 3 months and lose all the fun pieces at rotation. Ditto, PokeStop, Pidgeot V, Heavy Ball (not as big but still a blow) all make it just not playable. At the very least Team Rocket has some decks that look fun (mainly Spidops Mewtwo) but until then we just gonna have to thug it out.
 
jdubs4lief said:
Not gonna lie the future looks pretty bleak, there aren't many brand new decks coming out of the woodwork in Journey Together (NBox and Lycanroc are the only ones that seemed to get semi-consistent results in Japan. I know of Ethan's Typhlosion and Cynthia's Garchomp, but that's not until Heat Wave) and most of the old decks just don't change much functionally (Gardevoir is the only one, and I already sold all my copies). Honestly even fun and simple decks like PidgeZard have gotten overly complex to play especially with the addition of Budew into the fray. Beyond that, some of my favorite decks just lose an important key piece that really makes the deck cook if my opponent is going in blind. Great Tusk Mill losing Pidgeot V just makes the deck straight up suck and not because it isn't "good enough to play with the big dogs", it's just missing a major piece, and United Wings hurts even more. We went through all that effort to get Dartrix which fixed every problem I had with Wings, only for it to be good and fun for 3 months and lose all the fun pieces at rotation. Ditto, PokeStop, Pidgeot V, Heavy Ball (not as big but still a blow) all make it just not playable. At the very least Team Rocket has some decks that look fun (mainly Spidops Mewtwo) but until then we just gonna have to thug it out.
Click to expand...

Lycanroc will be insane with Mega Lucario, trust.

But aside from the Budew nonsense I'm running ahead with my own deck ideas even if they're not super strong. Lillie's Clefairy is my only out against Dragapult while playing Hydreigon and the Bellibolt idea I have seems to be doing numbers in my testing.
 
jdubs4lief said:
Not gonna lie the future looks pretty bleak, there aren't many brand new decks coming out of the woodwork in Journey Together (NBox and Lycanroc are the only ones that seemed to get semi-consistent results in Japan. I know of Ethan's Typhlosion and Cynthia's Garchomp, but that's not until Heat Wave) and most of the old decks just don't change much functionally (Gardevoir is the only one, and I already sold all my copies). Honestly even fun and simple decks like PidgeZard have gotten overly complex to play especially with the addition of Budew into the fray. Beyond that, some of my favorite decks just lose an important key piece that really makes the deck cook if my opponent is going in blind. Great Tusk Mill losing Pidgeot V just makes the deck straight up suck and not because it isn't "good enough to play with the big dogs", it's just missing a major piece, and United Wings hurts even more. We went through all that effort to get Dartrix which fixed every problem I had with Wings, only for it to be good and fun for 3 months and lose all the fun pieces at rotation. Ditto, PokeStop, Pidgeot V, Heavy Ball (not as big but still a blow) all make it just not playable. At the very least Team Rocket has some decks that look fun (mainly Spidops Mewtwo) but until then we just gonna have to thug it out.
Click to expand...
This is the kind of time when the TCG could reverse the HP/DMG Power creep, but we got Mega's incoming so....

2030 - 400 HP Pokemon lets goooo!!!
 
jdubs4lief said:
Not gonna lie the future looks pretty bleak, there aren't many brand new decks coming out of the woodwork in Journey Together (NBox and Lycanroc are the only ones that seemed to get semi-consistent results in Japan. I know of Ethan's Typhlosion and Cynthia's Garchomp, but that's not until Heat Wave) and most of the old decks just don't change much functionally (Gardevoir is the only one, and I already sold all my copies). Honestly even fun and simple decks like PidgeZard have gotten overly complex to play especially with the addition of Budew into the fray. Beyond that, some of my favorite decks just lose an important key piece that really makes the deck cook if my opponent is going in blind. Great Tusk Mill losing Pidgeot V just makes the deck straight up suck and not because it isn't "good enough to play with the big dogs", it's just missing a major piece, and United Wings hurts even more. We went through all that effort to get Dartrix which fixed every problem I had with Wings, only for it to be good and fun for 3 months and lose all the fun pieces at rotation. Ditto, PokeStop, Pidgeot V, Heavy Ball (not as big but still a blow) all make it just not playable. At the very least Team Rocket has some decks that look fun (mainly Spidops Mewtwo) but until then we just gonna have to thug it out.
Click to expand...
Lycanrock? The one that does 40 plus 40 for each damage counter on the Defending Pokémon?
I looked up that card and found a video with a list that paired it with Dusclops. Which was cool, because then you could do a combined total of 290 (560 if you popped a Dusknoir instead) and gain access to Reversal Energy (assuming you aren't able to just accelerate Spike Energy instead).
Steen said:
Lycanroc will be insane with Mega Lucario, trust.

But aside from the Budew nonsense I'm running ahead with my own deck ideas even if they're not super strong. Lillie's Clefairy is my only out against Dragapult while playing Hydreigon and the Bellibolt idea I have seems to be doing numbers in my testing.
Click to expand...
Glad to see someone is still staying the course with Surging Sparks PTCGL favorite Hydreigon! What did you pair Bellibolt with? Raging Bolt ex?
 
Charmaster:) said:
Lycanrock? The one that does 40 plus 40 for each damage counter on the Defending Pokémon?
I looked up that card and found a video with a list that paired it with Dusclops. Which was cool, because then you could do a combined total of 290 (560 if you popped a Dusknoir instead) and gain access to Reversal Energy (assuming you aren't able to just accelerate Spike Energy instead).

Glad to see someone is still staying the course with Surging Sparks PTCGL favorite Hydreigon! What did you pair Bellibolt with? Raging Bolt ex?
Click to expand...
I paired Bellibolt with Jolteon ex for extremely consistent 240's and a copy of Zapdos ex to let the bench damage effect chase down retreating cards since the 90 after 240 equals to 330. Definitely need to test it physically when the time comes however.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top