Discussion How can Metal decks deal with Volcanion? (PRC-on)

I

Ike And Robin

Aspiring Trainer
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I've been thinking about metal decks (Mega Scizor in particular) and I can't come-up with any way they don't consistently lose to Volcanion, or really any fire deck. The only thing I can think of to help the match up is to run Garbodor to cancel Volcanion EX's ability, but it isn't that helpful since the weakness is already so strong. If anyone has any idea's I would love to hear them.
 
Off the top of my head you can maybe run Weavile to remove the Spirit Link off of Scizor EX and then drop a Weakness Policy. Not an amazing strategy but you might be able to find space for a 1, 1 line of Weavile and 1 weakness policy. I would only do this if you're REALLY having big problems with the fire matchup. Or you can take it a step further and have a 2, 2 line of Weavile and add in some other cool Tool cards like EXP. Share or Assault Vest which could be cool for matchups like Mega Mewtwo and Mega Rayquaza.
 
Ehh they kinda can't really. You just have to accept an autoloss sometimes. Maybe teching in a Cobalion STS or two for stall might help but unfortunately it really is a horrible matchup.
 
Metal decks, especially mega scizor builds which revolve around removing energy, autoloss to volcanion. Baby volcanion retrieves two energy from the discard pile onto the bench as its form of energy acceleration. Even if you shut off volcanion-ex's ability really early and hit every crushing hammer, there's still ways to discard and retrieve fire energies while doing significant damage.

What you could try, if you are that desperate to win against fire, you could play weakness policies and weavile to swap away the spirit links.
 
I've been looking over some cards and I noticed that a few of the damage reduction cards apply before weakness and resistance, which means their effect is essentially double against Volcanion. For example, Parallel city's red side reduces fire, grass, and water poke's damage by 20, and shield energy reduces damage by 10 before weakness. If you have Garbodor out, Parrallel City, and 1 shield energy, that's 30 damage reduced, 60 after weakness and they can't use Volcanion EX's, or Flareon EX's abilities. So a Baby Volcanion can't OHKO M Scizor, Volcanion EX would need a Fighting Fury belt to OHKO M Scizor, and Flareon EX would need 5 fire energy to OHKO, but it can't use it's ability.

Maybe you run a high stadium count with maybe 3 Parallel City and 2 Reverse Valley with 4 shield energy the match-up isn't an auto loss but more of a 80-20/70-30. Running two Lysander would probably help since Volcanion tends to run a lot of non-ex basic attackers and of course for Shaymin OHKO's. Also, Parallel city is already really helpful in other match-up's to get rid of Hoopa's and Shaymin's, and against Mega Ray, so running 3 isn't that bad of choice anyway.

I'll test out a 1-1 line of Weavile with 2-3 weakness policy. I have a feeling that it's going to hurt consistency too much to be worth it.
 
Shield Energy is an effect on you, so it's applied after weakness. It received an errata fixing this.

Running Weavile means you can't use Garbodor anyway. There is no way for Metal to beat Volcanion. Accept the auto loss or play something else. It sucks, but that's how it is. Fortunately, you have decent matchups across the board, so it's not the end of the world.
 
Thanks for telling me about that errata. Yea, it does seem like pretty much an auto loss then. The idea with Weavile would be to get it early and use the abilty on your first 2 M Scizor's, then get rid of it with Parallel City and attach a tool to Garbodor then. Still, it seems like a 1-1 line would be too inconsistant and hurt consistency in other matchups too much to actually be worth it.

Thanks for the input guys.
 
Your only option is to run Weakness Policy. Run a 2-2 Weavile to move tools around for the fire matchup.
 
Weakness Policy is like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. Volcanion messes up Scizor's strategy on a base level. Running Weavile will ruin your consistency.
 
I know we all want consistent decks that tilt the advantage onto our side, but after dealing with item lock for last 2 years, I welcome the idea that a steel deck will auto loss to a fire deck. I think that is a good game balance. The most agitating thing I saw in the last two years was watching seismitoad consistently beat ver/Gen. I think you need to be more concern about what meta to play in your area then what deck will consistently have every advantage. I think the game designers are becoming wary of deck dominance and are looking for more of meta plays at tournaments. I've also noticed on ptcgo there are some sloppy plays going on because opponents aren't use to having the other side of the table play. I think it is going to take some adjustment for players to get up to speed with skilled plays in pokemon when the other side of the table is playing.
 
I'm not looking for a deck that has an advantage against everything, I'm just looking for a deck that I have fun playing where I have a chance in every predictable matchup. Even if it's a bad matchup, like 20-80, I'm okay with that. I just don't feel comfortable taking a deck into a tournament knowing that a I'll lose every time I face a certain deck. I don't think auto-losses or hard counters are good in any 1v1 game, it gets more complex in team games, but I do agree that a more diverse meta with more space for off meta decks would be great. I'm just getting back into the game after not playing for several years, and I would love to do what I used to do and build rouge anti-meta based off of my local meta, but I don't have the money to do that now. So I'm just trying to find a decent deck that has even-ish matchups across the board.

But that's all of topic. Thanks for the input guys. I'm not sure what else can be added to this thread though.
 
The good news for Scizor plays is that Volcanion doesn't seem to have the oomph to get to prevalence at this point; lots of abilities that everyone's favorite trash heap really mess with. In my experience this far, I'm more likely to encounter a Volcanion EX in Rainbow Road as a bench warmer than I am to see it and the baby actually used. While I have seen a couple instances here and there, including a surprisingly effective Volcanion/Delphox deck, I'm pretty firmly in he camp of Scizor being a great anti-meta play for Rainbow Road/Fairy Dragons. Also helps that the rest of its match ups are pretty good too.
 
Tech in two regice and two water energy, probably more consistent than a weavile line and can be used against other ex decks.

Means they have to dig very hard to find their ranger. You can lysandre and one shot their baby volcs (assuming they don't ffb them), then they have to find an answer in their next turn.
 
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