Lostgar; what happened?

T

The Yoshi

Wumbo
Member
Okay, I'm a little rusty on what really happened to Lostgar. It seemed to be decent when people first started playing it, but then it kinda faded away after the rotation. So my question is this; what happened to Lostgar? Was it a card that was rotated, is it a specific card that shuts it down, or is Lostgar just a bad deck?

Thanks in advance to anyone who cares to enlighten me.
 
Zekrom happened to Lostgar.

And that's about it, honestly. The deck runs 13 Pokémon, so Lostgar can't win. Rare Candy getting nerfed and Uxie getting rotated didn't exactly help the deck either; it made it really hard to attack with Stage 2's for an entire game, especially when taking pretty consistent OHKOs from a Zekrom or Reshiram.
 
I really didn't see Lostgar being played before the rotation either. I think that obviously, one of Lostgar's main problems was that it has difficulties preforming well in a timed format. Since the format slowed down, Lostgar saw even more problems, it took it longer for it to set up, meaning it took more time for it to win. It loses to time too often. Also, the power creep didn't help it, last format it was difficult for things to one, or even two shot Gengar Prime; now, it is crippled by Magnezone, Reshiram, and Zekrom.
 
Zekrom happened to Lostgar.

And that's about it, honestly.
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Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyup.

Being a seasoned Lostgar player, I have seen the ups and downs of the format as they relate to the creeper ghost, and he really doesn't like Zekrom at all, because of the very low Pokemon count of the deck. (He draws frustration from Tornadus as well, but since Gengar resists Hurricane, it's not that big of a loss.)

It actually forced me to rethink my whole playing style - Hurl into Darkness became secondary, and Cursed Drop (and other means of taking prizes) became the way to keep the deck alive against difficult matchups like Zekrom.

To be perfectly honest, a good solid Lostgar list has at least favorable matchups against most anything, but at the same time, every game you play with it is a challenge. You need to make sure you can land some Pokemon in the Lost Zone, and if you resort to Cursed Drop, make sure you can land a knockout before it becomes impractical to do so - e.g. Magneton has 80 HP and Cursed Drop becomes a 2HKO, so it takes 2 turns to LZ 2 cards, but after evolving to Magnezone, it takes 4 hits to do the same thing for only 3 cards (2 if Rare Candy is used). And when you use Hurl into Darkness, ALWAYS GET THE BASICS FIRST. You can take care of the deadweight Evolutions later if need be.

I don't want to share the secrets of my list, but I will say this - Don't rely on Gengar exclusively for your win. Give him some backup. Slowking works tremendously for this purpose, among other things. (At Worlds, Slowking was actually the reason I was able to survive for so long against a Zekrom donk - I was able to lock him up almost the whole game.)

Face it - Lostgar is incredibly difficult to play. You need to be smart AND have a good list.
 
LostGar was an ok deck, but was mainly just popular because of hype.

First off, the MewGar version of this deck is no longer viable because all a deck has to do is set up a Donphan or Cobalion or Zekrom to knock out a Mew each and every turn giving MewGar nothing to seeker up and Lost Zone.

Lostgar isn't popular this format because of decks that don't use many Pokémon, and big attackers. Despite Gengar having the "magic" HP number, a numerous number of Pokémon can ko it, such as Magnezone, a very popular card. Even back at Regionals last year when I was playing Magnezone, it just kept consistently discarding my Pokémon with Regirock's power, which can be replaced by Junk Arm.

The other reason Lostgar isn't very popular is because of cards such as Junk Arm, Sage's Training, and Professor Juniper. All three discard cards, and there are different discarding related strategies behind all 3. With Junk Arm, you can use Junk Arm after using a Pokémon Collector to get rid of basics, or just Junk Arm away evolutions after they lost zone the basic. Sage is random what you draw, but against LostGar you can just discard all the basics, so your not as stressed to decide what to choose. Juniper can be used if you have a relatively low hand but one or 2 Pokémon. There is not very much you can do to support Juniper by giving it more Pokémon to discard, but every discarded Pokémon hurts LostGar.

A supporting factor for LostGar is no more fossils. Fossils were a big problem for LostGar, because that one card tech destroyed the deck. The new fossil mechanic is a supporting factor for why LostGar should be popular, but there are still too many problems with LostGar for it to work.

Basic oriented decks such as ZPST are now popular, so that means a lot less Pokémon that could be lost zoned. Zekrom also sets up way before speed LostGar does, giving more chances to take knockouts and discard Pokémon before LostGar sets up. Decks like Coke also discard Pokémon as part of setting up, and can do a lot of damage while locking attacking.

There are also new favorable matchups for LostGar now too however such as The Truth and ChandyPlume. These could cause LostGar to see a bump in play because of the large number of Pokémon played in it. Durant is another extremely favorable matchup for LostGar. LostGar easily beats Durant because once Durants are lost zoned, there are no way to get the Durants back. This means each turn when LostGar uses Seeker or attacks, the next turn Durant can only discard one less card. Though Durants only using 5 Pokémon on average may seem a problem, it is also easy to make Durant run out of Pokémon by using your Seeker's, and then use the attack to knock out the final Durant.

Lastly LostGar is hard to play as DNA has stated. I played it for a while, and I didn't have any problems with playing it but eventually some hard decisions may have to be made.
 
I used to play Lostgar, and it was actually pretty good until Kyurem came around. Before that the biggest problem I faced was Junk Arm. People just cleaned out their hand with Junk Arm so it was impossible to Hurl Into Darkness and hit a gold mine. So I tried out a list with Vileplume and Reuniclus googlebox thingy to prevent Junk Arm clear outs. When Gengar died it wasn't possible to get another one set up in time with Vileplume, so Reuniclus solved that. It actually worked (baby stall ftw) but it took too long to set up and then win.
 
A supporting factor for LostGar is no more fossils. Fossils were a big problem for LostGar, because that one card tech destroyed the deck.
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Which tech? I'm not sure what you mean.

But yeah, less Pokemon this format, and Junk Arm/Sage's Training, make things even more frustrating. That's actually been the main source of annoyance for me; they just discard all their Pokemon and troll me.

There are good matchups for Lostgar, and there always have been, but to determine odds for it is very difficult. This is because Lostgar's win condition is completely different from other decks, and as such, plays radically differently. It's basically in its own category, but there are many different ways to play it. The struggle is to find what way is best for your meta.

Unfortunately for me, the SoCal Masters meta is harsh and unforgiving, so it's been a quest to perfect my deck :p
 
Nice to see some intelligent replies here.

Did PGX leaving have to do with the decrease in popularity of Gengar?
 
No. PGX was never used in the deck. It was clunky and impractical. Back in MD-on it was usually run in conjunction with Vilegar, but that was its own deck anyway.
 
What a coincidence; a cousin who I was going to try to teach more about the competitive tcg soon seemed interested in LostGar, and that brought me wondering about it. I found I knew nothing about how it would fair against the big decks today. I was about to make a thread about wht happened to it and how well it can do and bam 5 minutes later somebody else has posted the thread. DNA's posts so far have been extremely helpful. I've tried theorymoning some matchups in my head, and I know in the Durant one you just focus on getting a Gengar with 2 Psychic Energy asap and just start using Cursed Drop for 2HKOs, steadily decreasing how much they can mill. I was thinking SpeedGar would also be good against The Truth and Chandeplume as they always seem to (in my experience anyway) find themselves with a full bench but still a bunch of Pokemon in hand. I was thinking about how useful it would be in those matchups to have Jirachi, so you can drop 4 damage counters of a Candied Plume, drop Jirachi and devolve it for a KO, then Hurl away the Vileplume to prevent the lock. Slowking+Mime Jr. seems like a good idea and Mr Mime for knowing when to Hurl is a good idea. Are there any other techs/interesting matchups for lostgar in this format?
 
I was thinking about how useful it would be in those matchups to have Jirachi, so you can drop 4 damage counters of a Candied Plume, drop Jirachi and devolve it for a KO, then Hurl away the Vileplume to prevent the lock.
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That is an interesting idea, but the only problem with that is that you do not get any Pokemon into the Lost Zone that way. It's definitely a nice tactic to use if your list has trouble with Vileplume, but just keep in mind that it might not guarantee you a KO. In addition, most decks with Vileplume run Pokemon Communication anyway; they can get rid of the Vileplume for something else they need - or failsearch - and your opportunity to Hurl is gone.

Slowking+Mime Jr. seems like a good idea and Mr Mime for knowing when to Hurl is a good idea. Are there any other techs/interesting matchups for lostgar in this format?
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Mime Jr. is severely underrated. Combo with Slowking for amazingness.
As for techs and such? Lost Remover is a possible. I actually use Rocky Helmet in my Gengar for some counter-attacking, turning potential 2HKOs with Cursed Drop into 1HKOs instead (one Rocky Helmet trigger is half a Cursed Drop). It's paid off pretty nicely, actually.
 
Lostgar isn't such a powerful deck compared to the other top metagame decks right now. One of the reasons why it hardly sees play is because of Zekrom. Zekrom is perhaps THE card that counters Gengar. It has grown progressively better as sets have been released, gaining Catcher, Tornadus, and Eviolite. These three cards, however, aren't the reason why Zekrom prevails over Gengar. Its because of Zekrom's raw speed and power that takes care of Gengar easily. Thanks to Pachirisu and Shaymin, it can attack very early before even a Lostgar comes to play, and with a Pluspower, it one shots Gengar. Not only that, but Mewgar is also an easy match because after a Bolt Strike, Zekrom easily one shots Mews. With Zekrom being as a big and powerful as ever, Lostgar doesn't really shine as it used too.

Despite Zekrom, Gengar does have a full pros right now. He gained N, which is another card that is useful when behind on prizes, along with Twins. Since Gengar often stays behind on prizes, N can be used for a nice advantage as both a hand refresher and hand disruption for the opponent. Lostgar also happens to have a very favorable matchup against Durant. Drop down Seeker, force them to take a Durant to their own, send it into the Lost Zone, and voila, no way to bring back a Durant. Repeat that with a few more Durants and your opponent will eventually scoop. Someone played Lostgar recently in the Chicago Marathon and came out with some relative success thanks to the large presence of Durant; even though he didn't make top cut, he still managed to get a good record.
 
The Rotation of "Vs. Seeker" also took away Lostgar's ability to LSeeker"/Hurl upto 8 times for the win vs low pokemon count decks.
 
I think it's main problem always was that it can't apply any pressure, not unlike Durant. Both of these decks are in trouble if the opponent setus up something that can OHKO them each turn.
 
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