Help I'm 0-3 so far with Darkrai and don't understand how to play it.

[StevenM]

It just doesn't hit numbers for knock outs, even with Choice Bands and it can draw very bad. I just bought Darkrais for the deck and now I feel awful. It's just not the fast powerful deck I thought it would be...I used the Robin Schulz deck that did well at a recent event.

Really need advice and tips on proper starts and how to go about setting things up correctly because I guess i'm not doing it right.

 

[mordacazir]

Can you post the decklist, because I can't find robins schulz decklist.

 

[uncleyuri]

The deck is designed to have baby yveltal active using oblivion wing the first few turns to accelerate energy. That's why there are 4 altar of the moon, 4 elixers, and 15 energy. ideally you start with baby yveltal active and just use o wing to get those energy out of the discard back onto your pokemon. Because the deck plays so many energy you shouldn't have to much of an issue attaching each turn as well as using o wing to get another energy on board. Combine this with max elixer, which has a pretty high success rate again due to playing 15 energy, and you should be doing a lot of damage in a few turns.

If you start with anything other than baby yveltal ideally you're attaching to your active, hitting elixer onto a benched yveltal and playing down an altar of the moon so your active can 'free retreat' into yveltal.

The other idea behind the 4 stadiums is to be able to swap between darkrai mid to late game. Let's say you're finally swinging away with darkrai and it has damage on it and will likely be KO'd next turn. With the stadium in play you can retreat without using an item or giving up energy off the active to a fresh darkrai, preventing your opponent from easily taking the 2 prizes.

That's the general concept behind the deck as I understand it. If I recall it also plays 4 exp share and 4 choice band to help combat the inevitable field blower. I personally really like it and think it has some very good match ups. Before GUR dropped and Garb became rampant, you'll remember speed dark was one of the top decks. This is just a twist on speed dark to help the garb match up and to take advantage of what GUR has to offer.

 

[Snibachi]

@uncleyuri hit the nail on the head. I've used the "slow" darkrai deck too, perhaps the same list. Very straight forward, start with Yveltal & power up your Darkrai. Try to keep the 1 prize pokemon going until you can at least 2HKO with Darkrai.

There are some poor match ups for sure, especially once your opponent sees you aren't running Garbodor. I think most of the lists made for this deck have focused on a heavy Garb meta. Almost like a hard counter to the deck. Recently, I've gone back to adding a few extra items for consistency, plus it'll help against the non-Garbodor matches. I find it easier to counter Garb by just watching what I place in the discard than to take it out of the deck completely.

 

[Fayld]

One thing I see people make mistakes on with this particular list is where to play the Exp Share. You do *NOT* want to place the Exp Share on your Darkrai unless you absolutely have to. You want it on Sudowoodo or Tapu Lele GX. Neither are typically targets in a Darkrai list and neither is frequently active either. That makes it harder to lose energy when you lose a Darkrai. It also makes it far less likely that the Exp Share is the target of the Field Blower. When there is a powered up Darkrai sitting active with a choice band and you are staring at a 190 damage shot with the possibility of more assuming they can get energy next turn (which is a valid assumption BTW), taking out that choice band starts to look appealing.

I have also found that the list could use a few tweaks. One that I use is to drop 1 energy for an Oranguru. You don't need Sudowoodo most games and unlike Sudowoodo, Oranguru is surprisingly effective as a 1 prize attacker making it a perfect spot to slap an Exp Share. I also happen to be on the fence about using Choice Band over Fighting Fury Belt in this particular deck. 180 HP isn't a lot to hit in the current meta and even with the proliferation of Field Blower, you are still more likely to survive hits with FFB rather than Choice Band. It is also only the difference of 1 energy's worth of damage. I haven't currently altered any of my lists to use FFB, but I use it very heavily in my Koko GX / Raikou deck. Granted, even adding the choice band to that deck, it requires a Kukui to hit magic numbers on a Koko, but the underlying statement remains true. Survivability is significantly higher with FFB and the damage output isn't so much lower. Once Acerola drops, I think the choice will become obvious for basic pokemon...FFB.

Hope that helps.