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Ho-oh Plasma Storm

Materious17

Pokemon Geologist
Member
Alright guys, I'm back after some intense Cities stuff in eastern Washington, with my previous Ho-oh machine ending up placing 9th in a top 8 cut unfortunately, but Ho-oh isn't giving up that easily.

I have here a mess of a list though, the new set Plasma Storm is kinda freaking me out a bit, especially that new Klinklang. With a lot of play testing, I have deduced that my old list I used for cities, is entirely no match against a very skeleton list that focuses on that Klinklang and the new Cobalion. I lose almost the moment a T2 Klinklang hits the field, my old non-EX basics were just unable to grant me a speedy KO on it like Hydreigon can, and I would just sit there and wait till I lost.

Over the last few days I'm made some radical changes to my list even the desperate addition of Giritina EX and my own inclusions of Plasma Storm. Alas, I have only bested the deck once, and I've done nothing but battle it for the last 3 days.

The problem is, Plasma Storm has so much to offer, and if Ho-oh can't even compete with an Ether engine powered Klinklang, then where does that leave Ho-oh in the upcoming meta? I don't care about that answer, I love Ho-oh so I need ideas, frankly I'm fresh out of them.

Pokemon
3 Ho-oh EX DGX
2 Tornadus EX DEX
2 Bouffalant DGX
2 Mewtwo EX NXD
1 Landorus EX BDC
1 Cobalion EX PLS
1 Victini NVI #15

I/S/St
4 Professor Juniper
4 N
2 Skyla
2 Bianca
4 Pokemon Catcher
4 Energy Switch
3 Switch
3 Ultra Ball
2 Eviolite
2 Super Scoop Up
2 Aspertia City Gym
2 Tool Scrapper
1 Dowsing Machine

Energy
1 Grass Energy
2 Fire Energy
1 Psychic Energy
2 Fighting Energy
3 Metal Energy
4 Double Colorless Energy

My reasons for adding Giratina and Cobalion, both of their attacks shred defensive effects. They are the only EX pokemon that can hurt a Klinklang. My old list ran a Terrakion and Sigilyph, Cobalion is just as easy to power up as Terrakion, with the addition of for 1 Metal I get to discard their specials, and Sigilyph was never that much of a help against Darkrai/Hydreigon and its just dead weight against Cobalion/Klinklang. My Bouffalant gets destroyed by a powered up Cobalion without Aspertia City Gym, so I'm probably going to put those back in, but I need to make room again.

***Edit 1***
So after regaining my ability to think logically, I have made some obvious changes to my list which will be cataloged here.

-1 Giratina EX (what in the world was I thinking)
-1 Grass Energy
-1 Psychic Energy
-1 Tool Scrapper
-2 Bianca

+1 Reshiram B&W (Only strong basic fire pokemon that isn't an EX, not a perfect counter, but it helps)
+1 Fire Energy (I like colors)
+2 Skyla (increases consistency immensely and I found myself decking out quickly running 4 Bianca)
+2 Aspertia City Gym (Obvious choice so my Bouffalants don't get OHKO)

***Edit 2***
-1 Scramble Switch
-1 Eviolite
-1 Bianca
-1 N
-1 Lightning Energy

+2 Fire energy
+1 Victini (NVI #15)
+1 Dowsing Machine
+1 Tool Scrapper

***Edit 3***
-1 Reshiram
-1 Fire Energy
+1 N
+1 Bianca
 
Reshiram with only one fire energy really doesn't handle Klinklang well. Honestly, GiratinaEX seems like it would work better. CobalionEX comes in with klinklang up, Righteous edge for 30, Reshiram Outrages for 100 (most likely 80 with eviolite), Cobalion uses Steel Bullet for ko. I know I dislike benchtini, but it really seems like the only non-EX basic that can consistently one shot steel things. Either that or add some more fire energy, or maybe a few prisms.
 
Hmm, this is how I would run it as

Pokemon
3 Ho-oh EX DGX
1 Mewtwo EX NXD
2 Landorus EX BDC
2 Cobalion EX PLS
2-0-2 klink line (energy switch thingy, idk I'm tired)

I/S/St
4 N
4 Professor Juniper
2 Bianca
3 Skyla
4 Pokemon Catcher
4 Energy Switch
3 Switch
2 rarecandy
3 Ultra Ball
1 computer search
2 Super Scoop Up
1 Tool Scrapper
1 Scramble Switch
1 dowsing machine

Energy
3 prism or blend energy
3 Fighting Energy
3 metal energy
3 Double Colorless Energy

Okay so I made it so it was more emphasized on the use of landorus and cobalion while still running ho-oh EX (I only assumed that you were after the use of lando and cobalion due to the amount of energy used for them) add in dowsing machine so you could use scramble switch twice (that might come in handy with fighting energy and DCE) klink for the energy trans portion of it. You can still use ho-oh, but it would just be in a more refined use of energy draw back to the type of pokemon you would end up using but would take away from ho-oh dealing 140 max to only being able to deal 60. If you plan on running ho-oh more seriously I would suggest the use of 1 energy for a pokemon type you don't plan on using but 2 for a pokemon type you do plan on using as well as scrapping klink and rare candy.
 
I think 2 tool scrappers is needed. You never know when you might run into garb and without it your done. I also think Dowsing Machine just works better with ho-oh then scramble switch.

-1 Eviloite
-1 Scramble Switch

+1 Tool Scrapper
+1 Dowsing Machine

To above poster you can't have 2 ace spec cards in the same deck. So it's either dowsing machine or Scramble Switch. Also imo stage 2's just slows down ho-oh decks.
 
Oh, I never had that issue in the past at tournaments, oh well.

Edit: if there is a problem with klink (Ive never had one) then I gave suggestions on what to take out.
 
Alright I'll try out some things today. Reshiram was helping but he was easily ignored overall so I'll give him some more color. Also, the idea of using benchtini scares me, the second I put him down, I need to be doing damage with him or its just such an easy catcher-KO for them. But keeping my bench full isn't an issue with my deck so I will try him out.

-1 Scramble Switch
-1 Eviolite
-1 Bianca
-1 N
-1 Lightning Energy

+2 Fire energy
+1 Victini (NVI #15)
+1 Dowsing Machine
+1 Tool Scrapper
 
Also, the idea of using benchtini scares me, the second I put him down, I need to be doing damage with him or its just such an easy catcher-KO for them.

That is true, but the point of using that victini is to not use it unless you have to, personally I'm the same and unless I have, in this deck's case, a victini, e.switch, fire and switch or some way to retreat in my hand or on the field I won't play victini as is. But in the case of opponents playing cards like klink and cobalion even if I reduce my ko rate by one all I have to do is take down 3 prizes to make up for it (cobalion with ho-oh and victini with klink in reverse order).
 
That's the whole point of Energy Switch, so that things like Benchtini CAN come out of nowhere.

But I think your list with the current changes is pretty decent. I thinknit needs more Supporters; I might do on top of that:

-1 Reshiram
-2 Eviolite
+1 N
+2 Random Receiver; This really helps fish for Juniper when you have a hand of Ho-Oh and energies.
 
I'm not dropping the eviolites, even though I'm focusing on working tech's into help me turn the tide against Cobalion/Klinklang, I don't want my deck to lose its effectiveness against Darkrai/Hydreigon or even Blastoise/Keldeo (which granted, I could probably do more to tech against that as well)

But I will just switch out Reshiram for Victini, despite Victini's overall riskiness.

-1 Reshiram
-1 Fire Energy
+1 N
+1 Bianca

I'll put my strong supporter line back in there since I shouldn't really ruin the consistency of my deck for tech's against pretty much just one deck that may end up being everywhere or fairly seldom.
 
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