Standard Machamp EX + Tauros GX + Lugia EX

[Fayld]

Edited for the latest build and altered after I made a couple of the posts below.

I like to call this one Bash Bros. This is basically a modern play on the old Outrage decks from the BW era. These cards all give up two prizes, but also hit a boatload harder for less HP lost. Overall, I have been extremely pleased with this particular build going 7 for 7 against Dark Dragons, 2x Decidueye Vileplume, Xerneas Gardevoir 2/2, Vespiquen Zoroark Mew EX, Volcanion, Lurantis Solgaleo. So far, so good against a wide spread of decks in a VERY small sample size. More testing is needed, but I like how it plays.

Pokémon - 11
3 Tauros-GX SUM 100
3 Machamp-EX AOR 37
3 Oranguru PR-SM SM13
2 Lugia EX AOR 68

Trainer Cards - 36
4 Professor Sycamore
3 N
2 Lysandre
1 Hex Maniac
1 Ninja Boy
1 Olympia
4 Ultra Ball
4 VS Seeker
4 Max Elixir
3 Escape Rope
1 Switch
1 Super Rod

4 Fighting Fury Belt

3 Chaos Tower

Energy - 13
10 Fighting Energy
3 Double Colorless Energy

Explanation of cards.

As before, Tauros GX is the primary attacker in this deck most games. It acts as a strong deterrent and a lot of players make odd plays in an effort to avoid hitting it too hard. I won't get into a huge explanation of the card. It has been explained away by a ton of sources including a full review over at Pojo.

Machamp EX splits roles with Lugia EX as the secondary attacker depending on the match up. Machamp provides a great ninja boy target for Tauros once Mad Bull GX has been used because Steaming Mad requires far less HP taken to take KOs than Rage. I like swapping Machamp in after a Tauros if Tauros isn't immediately crushed post GX attack and have found it to be both unexpected and devastating when it happens. Overall, I think Machamp is a great second fiddle to Tauros.

Lugia has played HUGE in about half of these games. I honestly think the card is the piece I was digging for because it punishes energy pretty hard and discards stadiums. It also provides a perfect target for ninja boy because people are willing to hit into it. Finally, it is able to scale its own damage which is something the other attackers lack. Overall, this was a great addition.

0 Shaymin. What gives? I found that in most of the games I was losing playing different combinations of this deck, the Achilles heel has always been Shaymin. I lost more games due to Lysandre to Shaymin than anything else. I have also easily taken Shaymin off my opponent in several of these games. While this is an alright trade off in decks that require speed, the three main attackers in this deck can start unloading with only 2 energy attached. So, burning through the deck is both unnecessary and counter productive. People who know me, know that this is very much counter to how I typically play a deck. I want decks that burn cards fast and start taking OHKOs as fast as possible. This deck is a drastic departure from that approach.

3 Oranguru. This brings me to Oranguru. It is *not* a card that is required every game, but is helpful when available. That said, if abilities are shut down, the deck will do what it does without Oranguru. The thing that really helps about Oranguru is the fact that it is only worth 1 prize AND it has a viable attack that sets up a KO next turn for another pokemon. Also, as with Lugia, it is a pokemon people feel they can attack into setting up a ninja boy. Finally, if abilities aren't turned off, it is possible to get below 3 cards pretty easily to use instruct.

3 Chaos Tower. Best way to keep swinging with Steaming Mad and not have a coin flip.

I don't think the trainers are very controversial. While I don't like not having Trainer's Mail, I have found the ability to get benched pokemon loaded with energy to be a bigger priority. Hence the high basic energy count and the odd 3 count DCE. Also, because you aren't really trying to rush out attackers in bunches to fill up your bench, the deck is free to play much more conservatively. Attacking without using a supporter isn't necessarily a bad thing with this deck and that has also rarely been true for other decks I play.

Anyway, that's the deck that I am going with as the version I think is best for how I am playing it. I hope people try it out and give some feedback!

 

[Fayld]

Update. I will provide an updated deck list later. For now a report.

I did a lot of tinkering with the deck playing a few different varieties. Most changes weren't very effective. The latest list I have is closest to my first list and does well (won 7 of 9). There is a bit more energy to make sure the Elixirs hit as often as possible. I have found that the key to the deck is trying to keep the bench minimized (only Shaymin when you absolutely have to) along with making sure that bench sitters are set up or close to getting set up with energy. Fortunately, the primary attackers only require 2 energy, so that usually isn't an issue. The main reason for this is to force your opponent to either attack into your primary, or switch into just as bad of a primary and attack into that. Generally people aren't as familiar with Machamp so when one is down, they will usually switch into it which is actually better for you in a lot of ways because Machamp sustains OHKO attacks at a lower damage point.

As expected, the deck struggles against Psychic decks due to Machamp's weakness. Zygarde can make up the difference against Passimian due to the small mons and has a large enough HP pool to at least put some pressure on Mega Gardevoir / Mega Mewtwo. Passimian isn't bad, but neither Mega match up is favorable (or even) and TBH I don't see a lot of options that would make either match up more favorable.

To be clear, no match up is "easy" with this deck. The deck requires a good amount of management due to the very basis of the deck. That said, it isn't much different than a take on the old outrage decks with modern pokemon, so anyone familiar with that style should pick this up pretty easily (it might actually be easier now that FFB exists).

One thing I am researching is the possibility of finding ways to injure my own pokemon similar to the Gyarados approach to the carps. I don't think that particular approach gets me very far though, so I am looking at other attack based approaches. Updated deck list to come later

 

[kgamer7]

Dugtrio (not the evolutions one) has the attack earthquake that does 60 for one energy and does 20 damage to your entire bench. Not sure how viable it is, but could be fun

 

[Fayld]

Dugtrio (not the evolutions one) has the attack earthquake that does 60 for one energy and does 20 damage to your entire bench. Not sure how viable it is, but could be fun

I took a look at that Dugtrio. Unfortunately, it only does 10 damage to my bench. If it did 20 damage, that might be something to look at because it only takes 2 shots to get the entire bench ready to rock. I think for that particular strategy to work, it would require bursting balloons to try to dissuade people from hitting into it for long enough to get two shots off. Unfortunately, it doesn't do the 20

I have also looked at Team Magma's Secret Base + Rainbow Energy to try to get 30 / 40 on benched mons, but I think that might end up taking away from the ability to get the benched mons set up.

Keep the ideas coming though. I am really digging this deck and honestly think it has a lot of potential as an off-meta competitive deck. I have been able to take down several of the "big decks" with it because it can be a truly devastating deck and eventually they either hit one of the bash bros, or get pinged to a loss. There are a couple that are ugly match ups, but that's true of the meta as a whole. I want to do additional testing on it though and I am pretty excited for where it may go.

 

[Fayld]

Hey all, I made a pretty big revision to this deck, so I changed the title and uploaded a new explanation + deck list. I really like this one and have found it competitive against good decks. I think it is worth taking a look!

 

[TuxedoBlack]

Personally, I no longer chose to run 4 Professor Sycamore in my Item-rich decks; I now like running only 3. My 4th Professor Sycamore has been replaced with a Professor Kukui or Lillie. In your case, you run 4 Professor Sycamore, 3 N and you have 3 Oranguru for supplemental car-draw support if needed too. I would consider your card-draw support "very strong" despite not having Shaymin EX.

Any thoughts regarding changing your current card-draw engine to incorporate a Judge, Professor Birch, Professor Kukui and/or Shauna? Excluding Professor Kukui, the other 3 can be quite helpful to just re-shuffle your hand and remix the unwanted "junk" back into your deck. (I've had way too many 3 Professor Sycamore in-hand hands... lol).

 

[Fayld]

Personally, I no longer chose to run 4 Professor Sycamore in my Item-rich decks; I now like running only 3. My 4th Professor Sycamore has been replaced with a Professor Kukui or Lillie. In your case, you run 4 Professor Sycamore, 3 N and you have 3 Oranguru for supplemental car-draw support if needed too. I would consider your card-draw support "very strong" despite not having Shaymin EX.

Any thoughts regarding changing your current card-draw engine to incorporate a Judge, Professor Birch, Professor Kukui and/or Shauna? Excluding Professor Kukui, the other 3 can be quite helpful to just re-shuffle your hand and remix the unwanted "junk" back into your deck. (I've had way too many 3 Professor Sycamore in-hand hands... lol).

That's an interesting idea that I haven't played with yet. I will have to test it because you are right. It is pretty common for me to end games with this deck with 15+ cards just sitting in my deck. And that is even with the Sycamores. They actually feel somewhat counterproductive in this deck since there aren't many games so far (and I have played roughly 50 with this general concept at this point) where I have found a real need to blow through my deck to retrieve stuff. All I really need are a couple pokemon down, FFB, and the energy. Everything else just kind of "comes to me" in the deck and gets played as needed.

I have thought pretty hard about adding more techs to the deck since the general style lends itself to disruption and I think disruption starts to make opponents do desperate things like hit Tauros / Machamp for 110 which is pretty much a death sentence for almost any pokemon in the game even with a FFB attached. Things like Kukui and Judge make a ton of sense with this particular deck. Kukui can add a little bit more pressure throughout the game while Judge can wreack havoc on an opponent's early start in a way N *can* but frequently doesn't. I might throw in a red card as well which might actually be a better option than Judge. Thinking pretty hard about Team Flare Grunt / Delinquent as well just to try to force my opponent to Sycamore rather than Lysandre more frequently which tend to translate into more attacks on Tauros / Machamp. I also think a second Hex might be warranted.

I am less certain about Shauna / Birch though. Pokemon really needs to create a shuffle / draw card that replaces these. I know there is one that is coming out that returns more cards if you have already used your GX attack, but that just seems so situation as to not really be very good in decks outside of Solgaleo. Dunno. Something to play with at the very least.

Thanks for the ideas. I think these have a lot of potential in this deck!

 

[Fayld]

Another update. I have tried a few variations on this deck so far and I keep coming back to the list I have above. Something about the way it draws into my option cards (Hex / Ninja Boy / Olympia) while generally saving the VS Seekers has been very effective. I did like Kukui when I added him, but I haven't committed to it as a permanent addition. One thing I haven't liked was a version where I had Trainer's Mail. Interestingly, it just always seems like it adds unnecessary clutter. I may play with it more, but that was an unexpected result.

Deck analysis. I will start out saying that almost every game I have played has been close. I *did* get blown out by Dark Dragons once and Darkrai Dragonair twice. I have also had a fair number of games where I blew out my opponent. One early mistake by your opponent overextending the damage on either Machamp or Tauros can snowball extremely fast.

This deck owns Decidueye / anything. I have now played around 85 games with this deck and haven't lost to any Decidueye variant I have faced. A lot of this is due to the nature of this deck not being very item dependent. Add in that Decidueye wants to slowly ping away and bad things happen.

Turbo Darkrai. Usually a win. While it is fast, it isn't taking OHKOs early enough to stop Machamp from loading up damage due to weakness (Machamp can be fully set up as early as T1 if benched and moved to the front pretty easily).

Dark Dragaons. By contrast, this one is a 50/50 or 45/55 and depends entirely on how quickly those dragon energies get down. They get down fast and start taking OHKOs and there really isn't any making it up. Lugia *can* help here, but generally this is just a close game.

BRaH. This is the creme de la creme of awful match ups for this deck. Straight up, the amount of control exerted by BRaH plus the general difficulty getting enough damage on the Houndooms to overcome all the healing makes for an insta-loss. I have played it twice. Both games ended with me decking out while having taken 2 / 0 prize cards. It was not pretty.

Mega Rayquaza. Downright awful. I have split games against variations on Mega Ray, but the *right* version of Mega Ray is bad news because I am not running Parallel City to make setting up a little bit harder. Honestly, I have thought about teching Parallel City just to help with this match up.

Other decks have been close affairs. The change to Lugia has made the Mewtwo match more manageable. The general lack of energy attachments required makes it difficult for Yveltal to hit "safe" two shot numbers without providing enough damage to OHKO the Yveltal + FFB. The players I have seen that do a good job with this have typically made great use of Y Cyclone. This deck tends to force the Volcanion player to be a little slower than they would like due to "3 steam up turn 1 = really bad news for Volcanion turn 2". Lugia has helped against Gardevoir, though I have only seen M Gard STS once. I have seen the mixed decks with more frequency and have won those matches.

Overall, I would say that the deck is effective at what it wants to do. It wants to force your opponent to make decisions about when to attack and punishes poor decisions which can snowball pretty fast. The games are typically *not* fast though because people are all too aware of how bad an idea it is to hit into Tauros for anything over 60 with FFB attached. It leads to interesting scenarios where the other player has to approach their deck differently. I like the outrage concept, but this is definitely NOT an easy deck to play.

 

[Laurier_Ex]

I am thinking that since you are having issues against mill decks, you could try to add Regirock XY promo in order to deal with those (or the cheaper Electrike). This is the one I am using to destroy those type of decks. You just bench one of those and fill it up with enough energy before sending it in the active position. The ancient trait prevents any energy removal and Lysandre. You could then use Ninja Boy to get a harder hitting pokemon out like Lugia. In expanded, Focus Sash could be used on Regirock so that they loose that 100Hp needed for you to just Ninja Boy into Machomp-Ex and ensure the OHKO.

 

[kgamer7]

I think mew ex would be fun in this deck, you can copy any of yours or your opponents attacks plus it hits for psychic weakness. Also with mill decks you just have to put all your energy on one attacker and try not to play too many sycamore. Also heavy boot could be a thing in this deck, it gives you 20 hp and prevents confusion so then maybe you could play a couple of parallel city

 

[TuxedoBlack]

... One thing I am researching is the possibility of finding ways to injure my own pokemon similar to the Gyarados approach to the carps.

Team Magma's Secret Base would cause you to place 2 damage counters onto your Pokémon when you bench them if this Stadium is in play. Attaching a Rainbow energy would also damage that target Pokémon.

By the way, why no Professor Kukui for supplemental card-draw support, as well as damage output boost?

 

[Fayld]

Team Magma's Secret Base would cause you to place 2 damage counters onto your Pokémon when you bench them if this Stadium is in play. Attaching a Rainbow energy would also damage that target Pokémon.

By the way, why no Professor Kukui for supplemental card-draw support, as well as damage output boost?

I have played around with this a bunch since my last post.

I have toyed around with things like TMSB and Rainbow and in reality both just don't do a ton for you because the 30 damage gets you right to the edge of where you need to be to start taking actual prizes, but it also gets you to the point where the OHKO happens too easily as well. Unfortunately, there are a lot of decks that can hit that magical 150 / 190 range fairly easily which is where this deck struggles because there isn't a pokemon in the list that specializes in laying the wood within the first couple of turns. Lugia EX is a solid early attacker that can put 2 shot pressure on pretty early. The issue is the amount of energy you have to stack on it to make that pressure stick along with the fact that you really have to be ready to ninja boy at a moment's notice with Lugia up top and the fact that your opponent doesn't feel much inclination to not hit into Lugia.

Kukui *can* help with this a little, but by and large moving the damage output from Horn attack from 70 (HA + FFB) to 90 isn't really getting you very far. By the time they get enough damage on you to rage, you are usually better off going Mad Bull and hoping to survive a counter attack long enough to Ninja Boy into a Machamp EX for a follow up KO.

Honestly, what the deck needs is another outrage type of pokemon with a better alternate attack that it can use earlier to force your opponent to attack it. Machamp's second attack can work this way if you hit the elixirs and set it up by confusing yourself (which has the added benefit of confusing your opponent lol), but there are a lot of variables in play to make that work.

All in all, it is a fun deck that is still one viable pokemon away from actually being competitive rather than just wrecking the less powerful competitive decks while not doing enough to take down the faster decks. It does well against the decks you would expect it to do well against: Deciplume and Darkrai variants. Surprisingly, it does pretty well against M Mewtwo as well and actually plays pretty even to very slightly unfavorable to Yveltal and Volcanion. It is almost an auto win against the Eeveelutions decks (pick one, the deck usually beats it). It does absolutely nothing to Quad Lapras, gets overrun by M Ray, Rainbow Road, M Gardevoir, Greninja likes to keep things so slow to begin that all this deck does it let Greninja do its thing (as long as the Greninja player is smart enough to not place bursting balloons lol). It actually does pretty poorly against Lurantis / Plume. Lurantis / Solgaleo absolutely obliterates it.

Long story short, I have played the meta using a variety of approaches with a variety of trainers + stadiums. The concept with the two cards is pretty amazing and I never expected this deck to be nearly as good as it is. The issue is that it takes close losses to too many decks because those decks are generally in control of their own destiny as to "when" they decide to take you out and can survive the minimal early damage output your mons dish out.

That's why I have toyed with the idea of something like Kukui + Choice Band + Acerola for the future of this deck. While it loses the hit points of FFB, it also might be enough to put Horn Attack into somewhat dangerous 2 shot turf with a 110 initial attack on an EX / GX rather than just 70.

But yeah, as it currently stands, the deck needs cards that don't currently exist in order to really succeed and until those cards show up, it is a fun concept that makes competitive decks work harder than they want for wins, but ultimately they get too many wins