First you take Iron Thorns
then you add Dragapult.
Put them all together,
Now you got whatever this is.
Weird Talking Words Factory reference aside, this new method of playing Iron Thorns has seemed to pop up in Japan with Super Electric Breaker as an alternative to the basic IT Control deck. Will it be bonkers in the post LAIC meta or will only Pokémon's birth country understand how to run this deck?
Pokémon: 8
1 Farigiraf ex
4 Drakloak
1 Girafarig
4 Dreepy
4 Iron Thorns ex
1 Radiant Charizard
1 Manaphy
2 Dragapult ex
Trainer: 18
1 Buddy-Buddy Poffin
1 Lost Vacuum
1 Precious Trolley
1 Super Rod
1 Earthen Vessel
4 Pokégear 3.0
1 Rescue Board
4 Arven
1 Switch
2 Boss's Orders
1 Night Stretcher
2 Iono
2 Technical Machine: Evolution
1 Counter Catcher
4 Crispin
1 Nest Ball
1 Future Booster Energy Capsule
3 Ultra Ball
Energy: 3
3 Basic {L} Energy
3 Basic {P} Energy
4 Basic {R} Energy
The real crux of this deck lies within the Ace Spec, Precious Trolley. This allows you to fill your bench with as much Basic Pokémon as you can fit in it, meaning...
A good strategy going second is to use Arven to get a Precious Trolley and a TM: Evolution. From there you can chain the Precious Trolley into a TM: Evolution to speed up evolving into Drakloak, which serves as a solid draw engine, which then evolves into Dragapult, which needs no explanation on how to attack from there. When in in a pinch, Radiant Charizard is also there to lend a Combustion Blast.
If Volt Cyclone isn't enough to get energies onto your dragons, try using Crispin. Typically, I have at least a Fire or Psychic energy attached to Iron Thorns in order to power up my dragons while still be able to attack the next time around.
Farigiraf ex may sound like a weird inclusion, but with Terapagos on the loose, there's nothing quite like being able to attack while not getting hurt, even if Bouffalant's Curly Wall is going to drown out the 30 Benched Damage from Dirty Beam.
Banette/Gardevoir is a horrible new deck that's been giving headaches for a bit, but since most of the drawing comes from Drakloak, you can bypass Banette's horrible item-locking attack to fish for cards like Dragapult.
Another solid matchup is Regidrago as on top of Iron Thorns shutting down Ogerpon's Teal Dance keeping Grass energies and draws out of Regidrago's grasp, not even Lost Impact can kill Dragapult within one shot unless they've been Phantom Dived beforehand.
The first deck I tried this out on was Poison Conkeldurr, and believe me when I say that I was just able to win due to me killing my opponent's Brute Bonnet and them not having a spare Ancient Boost Energy Capsule for their other benched Brute Bonnet. When it's not OHKOing Iron Thorns without fail, it's also leaving Dragapult hanging by a thread, not helping is the fact that this is a single prize deck, which drags out the game even longer. The strategy with Iron Dragapult against Poison Conkeldurr is all about hoping you can kill Brute Bonnet before Timburr evolves and hope your opponent doesn't have an Arven at the ready.
Charizard can't really one-shot much outside of Iron Thorns once you've nabbed two prizes, but as long as you learn how to be smart with your damaged Dragapults, you should be fine.
Raging Bolt is another OK matchup as it blocks Ogerpon while Iron Thorns is active, meaning that it becomes a lot deadlier once it's benched, but at the same time requires Raging Bolt to exhaust 5 energies to kill a Dragapult at full HP. Besides, placing your Phantom Dive damage counters onto their benched Pokémon at the right amounts and then Bossing them up can quickly shave prizes off your side.
Terapagos is our last OK matchup of the night, as while Pidgeot can't Quick Search with Iron Thorns, other cards like Dusknoir and even Terapagos itself can pick up the slack and deal some fairly hard damage.
My Thoughts:
I know it's extremely early to think about rotation, but there's quite a lot we're losing come next spring. If we're not losing archetypes like Regidrago or Lost Box, then we're losing cards like Refinement Kirlia, Irida, and Double Turbo Energy, making decks like Gardevoir and Chien-Pao much harder to work with (at least Terapagos can Crown Opal cheese some decks like Raging Bolt or Iron Thorns). Iron Dragapult is mostly rotation proof (as in the only things we're losing are Radiant Charizard and Manaphy, but even then, those are easily subbed out), so this could be a fairly good deck for when rotation does roll around.
Either that, or I'm once again just typing into the void.
then you add Dragapult.
Put them all together,
Now you got whatever this is.
Weird Talking Words Factory reference aside, this new method of playing Iron Thorns has seemed to pop up in Japan with Super Electric Breaker as an alternative to the basic IT Control deck. Will it be bonkers in the post LAIC meta or will only Pokémon's birth country understand how to run this deck?
My Deck List:
Pokémon: 8
1 Farigiraf ex
4 Drakloak
1 Girafarig
4 Dreepy
4 Iron Thorns ex
1 Radiant Charizard
1 Manaphy
2 Dragapult ex
Trainer: 18
1 Buddy-Buddy Poffin
1 Lost Vacuum
1 Precious Trolley
1 Super Rod
1 Earthen Vessel
4 Pokégear 3.0
1 Rescue Board
4 Arven
1 Switch
2 Boss's Orders
1 Night Stretcher
2 Iono
2 Technical Machine: Evolution
1 Counter Catcher
4 Crispin
1 Nest Ball
1 Future Booster Energy Capsule
3 Ultra Ball
Energy: 3
3 Basic {L} Energy
3 Basic {P} Energy
4 Basic {R} Energy
Strategy:
I think the reason that Iron Thorns is the Support Pokémon of choice lies within its Initialization Ability. When this thing's in the Active Spot, anything with a Rule Box that's not a Future Pokémon loses their Abilities. In short, it makes sense to put this in front while all of your Dreepy rests behind, safe from most danger.The real crux of this deck lies within the Ace Spec, Precious Trolley. This allows you to fill your bench with as much Basic Pokémon as you can fit in it, meaning...
A good strategy going second is to use Arven to get a Precious Trolley and a TM: Evolution. From there you can chain the Precious Trolley into a TM: Evolution to speed up evolving into Drakloak, which serves as a solid draw engine, which then evolves into Dragapult, which needs no explanation on how to attack from there. When in in a pinch, Radiant Charizard is also there to lend a Combustion Blast.
Other Notes:
If Volt Cyclone isn't enough to get energies onto your dragons, try using Crispin. Typically, I have at least a Fire or Psychic energy attached to Iron Thorns in order to power up my dragons while still be able to attack the next time around.
Farigiraf ex may sound like a weird inclusion, but with Terapagos on the loose, there's nothing quite like being able to attack while not getting hurt, even if Bouffalant's Curly Wall is going to drown out the 30 Benched Damage from Dirty Beam.
Good Matchups:
Banette/Gardevoir is a horrible new deck that's been giving headaches for a bit, but since most of the drawing comes from Drakloak, you can bypass Banette's horrible item-locking attack to fish for cards like Dragapult.
Another solid matchup is Regidrago as on top of Iron Thorns shutting down Ogerpon's Teal Dance keeping Grass energies and draws out of Regidrago's grasp, not even Lost Impact can kill Dragapult within one shot unless they've been Phantom Dived beforehand.
Bad Matchups:
The first deck I tried this out on was Poison Conkeldurr, and believe me when I say that I was just able to win due to me killing my opponent's Brute Bonnet and them not having a spare Ancient Boost Energy Capsule for their other benched Brute Bonnet. When it's not OHKOing Iron Thorns without fail, it's also leaving Dragapult hanging by a thread, not helping is the fact that this is a single prize deck, which drags out the game even longer. The strategy with Iron Dragapult against Poison Conkeldurr is all about hoping you can kill Brute Bonnet before Timburr evolves and hope your opponent doesn't have an Arven at the ready.
Ehh Matchups:
Charizard can't really one-shot much outside of Iron Thorns once you've nabbed two prizes, but as long as you learn how to be smart with your damaged Dragapults, you should be fine.
Raging Bolt is another OK matchup as it blocks Ogerpon while Iron Thorns is active, meaning that it becomes a lot deadlier once it's benched, but at the same time requires Raging Bolt to exhaust 5 energies to kill a Dragapult at full HP. Besides, placing your Phantom Dive damage counters onto their benched Pokémon at the right amounts and then Bossing them up can quickly shave prizes off your side.
Terapagos is our last OK matchup of the night, as while Pidgeot can't Quick Search with Iron Thorns, other cards like Dusknoir and even Terapagos itself can pick up the slack and deal some fairly hard damage.
My Thoughts:
I know it's extremely early to think about rotation, but there's quite a lot we're losing come next spring. If we're not losing archetypes like Regidrago or Lost Box, then we're losing cards like Refinement Kirlia, Irida, and Double Turbo Energy, making decks like Gardevoir and Chien-Pao much harder to work with (at least Terapagos can Crown Opal cheese some decks like Raging Bolt or Iron Thorns). Iron Dragapult is mostly rotation proof (as in the only things we're losing are Radiant Charizard and Manaphy, but even then, those are easily subbed out), so this could be a fairly good deck for when rotation does roll around.
Either that, or I'm once again just typing into the void.