Haxorus (Anti-VirGen/Plasma)

[Auride]

I would like to preface this by saying, I'm not too experienced, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
Pokemon

• 4 x Axew (McDonalds Collection 12)
• 4 x Haxorus (Plasma Blast 69)
• 1 x Suicune (Plasma Blast 20)
• 1 x Cobalion EX (Plasma Storm 93)
• 1 x Terrakion EX (Dragons Exalted 71)
• 1 x Mr. Mime (Plasma Freeze 47)

Trainers

• 1 x Computer Search (Boundaries Crossed 137)
• 4 x Rare Candy (Any)
• 4 x Pokemon Catcher (Any)
• 4 x Professor Juniper (Any)
• 3 x Skyla (Boundaries Crossed 134)
• 4 x N (Any)
• 2 x Switch (Boundaries Crossed 135)
• 2 x Tool Scrapper (Dragons Exalted 116)
• 4 x Ultra Ball (Any)
• 1 x Colress (Plasma Storm 118)
• 1 x Float Stone (Plasma Freeze 99)

Energy

• 8 x Metal Energy
• 6 x Fighting Energy
• 4 x Blend Energy Water/Lightning/Fighting/Metal (Dragons Exalted 118)

Strategy
The main goal of this deck is to counter decks like Plasma and Virizion-Genesect which use Team Plasma pokemon as their main attacker.

Card Explanations

• Our main attacker is Haxorus, whose attack, "Strike of the Champion", is, literally, a guaranteed knock-out against any plasma pokemon. Haxorus other attack, Dragonaxe, also allows it to have a large damage output against non-plasma (40 x Attached Metal Energy). 120 Energy for just 3 energy and no drawback is (I believe, anyways) very powerful for a non-ex.
  
• McDonalds Axew is a difficult card to get, but does serve as the only legal axew with 60 hp (as opposed to 50 or 40). Having no weakness is a good bonus.
  
• Suicune is an interesting tech against decks like Blastoise which rely on EX attackers. Conveniently, our blend energy provides water in addition to metal and fighting, so the one water energy is not too difficult to get
  
• Coballion-EX is a secondary, Metal-type attacker. He's far bulkier than Haxorus, and quicker to set up, but can't deal as much damage. For 1 energy, he does just 30 damage (and discards a special energy card), and for 3 energy he does a sure-fire 100 damage (including through abilities and such).
  
• Terrakion-EX is a Fighting-type attacker. His damage output is fairly low, but his 3 energy attack serves as a means of minor-energy acceleration (while doing 90 damage). As a boon, this is just enough to knockout a fresh Darkrai-EX in that matchup
  
• Mr. Mime prevents bench damage from cards like Darkrai-EX and Genesect-EX. This can make a huge difference main situations.
  ---
• Computer Search is chosen as an Ace-Spec for the sake of shear versatility. Could be substituted, but I'm not sure.
  
• Rare Candy is necessary in order to get out Haxorus quickly. I don't see any compelling reason to run a Fraxure.
  
• Pokemon Catcher is run heavily to ensure that Plasma pokemon (and others) can't hide on the bench, as we have no way to damage the bench outside of Excadrill's 30 damage attack.
  
• Pokemon Center is a really weird choice, and I'm not wholly confident in it, but the main idea is that our goal is to go primarily for one-hit knock-outs in this deck, so passively healing damage to the bench is far more beneficial to us than our opponent. Having a means of discarding the opposing stadium seems to be rather important due the ubiquity of cards like Frozen City, Skyarrow Bridge, and Virbank City gym.
  
• Professor Juniper, Skyla, and N are staple cards to just about any deck, allowing you to fix dead situations and get back into the match.
  
• Switch is carried to get rid of special conditions and to avoid getting trapped. We don't really have any other way of removing special conditions, so we could use more of them, but I am sort of banking on a hunch that hypnotoxic laser is going to become less popular because of Virizion-EX.
  
• Tool Scrapper is for getting rid of G-Booster and perhaps slowing down decks that rely on Toolbox Sigilyph.
  
• Ultra Ball is primarily for getting out Haxorus more quickly. The two card discard might hurt a little less with Excadrill active.
  
• Colress is meant to sort of function as a Juniper which doesn't mill you in the late-game. Not really necessary and could be replaced.
  
• Finally, float stone is just another means of getting out of a sticky situation if Excadrill or Terrakion-EX are catchered up with no energy or switch in hand.

TL;DR Get out Haxorus, kill Plasma for cheap.
---
Ultimately, this deck suffers from energy acceleration problems outside of Terrakion-EX, so cards like energy retrieval, superior energy retrieval, and Cilan could work, but space is tight and I'm unsure of what to drop. I'm not too experienced, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Other cards one might consider:

• Silver Mirror to even more solidly counter plasma cards (But isn't that a tiny bit over-kill?)
• Silver Bangle to ensure a select few key OHKO's against EXs
• HypnoToxic Laser to do extra damage against decks not running Virizion-EX (Though I don't see too many situations where it makes a difference outside of lucky sleep-flips)
• Virbank City Gym to partner with the above
• Ghetsis to get rid of your opponents lasers, catchers, switches, ace-specs, etc (but relies pretty heavily on prediction and doesn't always have a long-lasting effect)
• Garbador to soften up decks which relies on abilities, including Virizion-EX, Genesect-EX, Blastoise,, Keldeo-EX etc. (Which, considering none of our cards use abilities, doesn't seem like a bad idea other than taking up space and being largely dead offensively)
• Tropical Beach to aid in acceleration (Though I feel this helps other decks more than it helps this one, and is also very difficult to obtain for those of us with limited pockets)
• Enhanced Hammer, to get rid of plasma and prism energy (Though this doesn't really help against Genesect-EX, whose ability functions based on attaching energy, not having it attached)
• Any Suggestions?

 

[Auride]

Bump.
Any feedback is appreciated!

 

[OblivionDvdr]

You need some more supporters.

-2 Basic Metal

+1 N
+1 Professor Juniper

 

[Kecleon-X]

Okay, so here is what I would do:

- Excadrill Line (It really lowers consistency, and for two energy, it really isn't worth it.)
- Pokemon Center (Not really worth it, considering. I've run Pokemon Center in heal decks such as Crustle -- Speaking of which, Crustle is really clunky XD -- but unfortunately, this isn't a heal deck and I don't think that there is a point to running Pokemon Center.)
- 2 Metal Energy (You're running a bit much, and you can drop these for some other cards.)

Here is what I would add in their place:

+1 Mr. Mime (He really helps in Stage 2 decks such as this. For instance, Darkrai can do a boosted Dark Claw'd Night Spear on your active Haxorus and deal thirty on a benched one, then, Catcher the benched Hax and KO both of them at the same time. Mr. Mime really helps with this.)
+2 N (Consistency)
+2 Juniper (Consistency)
+2 Ultra Ball (Even though you discard cards, you really do need as may of these cards as possible just for the sake.of consistency.)

Hope I helped!

 

[Joltic]

Try coballion ex in the deck since coballion does make a nice partner with haxorous, and it also keeps in with the theme of anti plasma.

 

[Auride]

You need some more supporters.

-2 Basic Metal

+1 N
+1 Professor Juniper

Okay, so here is what I would do:

- Excadrill Line (It really lowers consistency, and for two energy, it really isn't worth it.)
- Pokemon Center (Not really worth it, considering. I've run Pokemon Center in heal decks such as Crustle -- Speaking of which, Crustle is really clunky XD -- but unfortunately, this isn't a heal deck and I don't think that there is a point to running Pokemon Center.)
- 2 Metal Energy (You're running a bit much, and you can drop these for some other cards.)

Here is what I would add in their place:

+1 Mr. Mime (He really helps in Stage 2 decks such as this. For instance, Darkrai can do a boosted Dark Claw'd Night Spear on your active Haxorus and deal thirty on a benched one, then, Catcher the benched Hax and KO both of them at the same time. Mr. Mime really helps with this.)
+2 N (Consistency)
+2 Juniper (Consistency)
+2 Ultra Ball (Even though you discard cards, you really do need as may of these cards as possible just for the sake.of consistency.)

Hope I helped!

I'll take your advice here. Thank you!

One question I have is, If I am dropping Pokemon Center, should I replace it with another stadium? If so, which?

Try coballion ex in the deck since coballion does make a nice partner with haxorous, and it also keeps in with the theme of anti plasma.

Sorry if you missed it, but I actually do already have a coballion

 

[Kecleon-X]

No, I don't think so. If you absolutely, hands-down wanted to run a stadium, you could try Frozen City to counter Blastoise (as it is kind of a bad matchup for this deck), but keep in mind it damages your own Pokemon as well since you don't run any Plasma. I would stay away from putting in cards that don't help you with consistency, at least before you can get it where you want it, and work on consistency first and foremost. After that is done, then put in the other cards such as stadiums when you get that consistency, and/or you notice you have a lot of extra, unused cards in your deck.

Here is a side idea: Have you thought about Altaria to add to the damage for Hax's first attack, just in case you're not facing Plasma?

 

[Auride]

No, I don't think so. If you absolutely, hands-down wanted to run a stadium, you could try Frozen City to counter Blastoise (as it is kind of a bad matchup for this deck), but keep in mind it damages your own Pokemon as well since you don't run any Plasma. I would stay away from putting in cards that don't help you with consistency, at least before you can get it where you want it, and work on consistency first and foremost. After that is done, then put in the other cards such as stadiums when you get that consistency, and/or you notice you have a lot of extra, unused cards in your deck.

Here is a side idea: Have you thought about Altaria to add to the damage for Hax's first attack, just in case you're not facing Plasma?

I feel Altaria is rather pointless for Haxorus. An Altaria takes, minimum, 2 turns to set up, and adds 20 damage, compared to just attaching one more metal energy to Haxorus taking 1 turn and adding 40 damage.

In regards to consistency, after trying out PlayTCG against a couple of decks, I have determined a few things. Firstly, there is a chance against some decks (unfortunately, Plasma in particular) that if you do not go first and your only basic to start is Axew active, you can lose on the first turn. This can happen, for example, if your opponent starts with Virizion, has the plasma badge and a colress mchn, and benches a deoxys, Virizion's emerald slash just OHKO's Axew.

I'm not sure if the above is actually a real concern or if I got really unlucky, but one solution is to add more basics with higher HP, or perhaps eviolite, or perhaps giant cape, or maybe even aspertia city gym. I'm not sure. I'll do more testing I guess.

Also, something else I found is that fighting energy sometimes doesn't come around when you need it, so i'm gonna -2 Metal and +2 Fighting.

 

[okcd]

No, I don't think so. If you absolutely, hands-down wanted to run a stadium, you could try Frozen City to counter Blastoise (as it is kind of a bad matchup for this deck), but keep in mind it damages your own Pokemon as well since you don't run any Plasma. I would stay away from putting in cards that don't help you with consistency, at least before you can get it where you want it, and work on consistency first and foremost. After that is done, then put in the other cards such as stadiums when you get that consistency, and/or you notice you have a lot of extra, unused cards in your deck.

Here is a side idea: Have you thought about Altaria to add to the damage for Hax's first attack, just in case you're not facing Plasma?

I feel Altaria is rather pointless for Haxorus. An Altaria takes, minimum, 2 turns to set up, and adds 20 damage, compared to just attaching one more metal energy to Haxorus taking 1 turn and adding 40 damage.

In regards to consistency, after trying out PlayTCG against a couple of decks, I have determined a few things. Firstly, there is a chance against some decks (unfortunately, Plasma in particular) that if you do not go first and your only basic to start is Axew active, you can lose on the first turn. This can happen, for example, if your opponent starts with Virizion, has the plasma badge and a colress mchn, and benches a deoxys, Virizion's emerald slash just OHKO's Axew.

I'm not sure if the above is actually a real concern or if I got really unlucky, but one solution is to add more basics with higher HP, or perhaps eviolite, or perhaps giant cape, or maybe even aspertia city gym. I'm not sure. I'll do more testing I guess.

Also, something else I found is that fighting energy sometimes doesn't come around when you need it, so i'm gonna -2 Metal and +2 Fighting.

eviolite/giant cape/asepertia city gym won't help you when you are not going first.

 

[Kecleon-X]

You know what I do? I don't worry about it! Everyone gets donked every now and again. Heck, even Darkrai decks have their Sableye donked by Kyurem with a Laserbank and a Deoxys on the field. Plus, you're running 8 basics and a bunch of search. You won't get donked that often.

Although, perhaps a starter Pokemon such as Emolga wouldn't be so bad? It would help you get set up turn 2, definitely.