Standard Malamar Deck (Malamar EX / Malamar AOS)

[Darkness3827]

Note: If anyone has thoughts, advice, or potential changes, I would love to hear them.

Pokemon: 12

• 4 Malamar EX
• 2 Inkay (ROS 41)
• 2 Inkay (AOS 45)
• 4 Malamar (AOS 46)

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums: 32

• 4 Professor Sycamore
• 1 Battle Reporter
• 2 Skyla
• 1 Teammates
• 2 Pokemon Fan Club
• 2 Lysandre
• 2 Team Flare Grunt

• 4 VS Seeker
• 2 Ultra Ball
• 2 Switch
• 2 Battle Compressor
• 2 Enhanced Hammer
• 4 Muscle Band

• 2 Parallel City

Energy: 16

• 8 Dark Energy
• 4 Dangerous Energy
• 4 Double Colorless Energy

Strategy:

The goal of this deck is to torture people by constantly sleeping their active and discarding their energy. How you want it to work is have Malamar AOS active with Malamar EX on the bench. You continuously attach Energy onto Malamar EX to put the active pokemon to sleep (mainly to prevent retreat), use Enhanced Hammer and/or Team Flare Grunt to get the energy off of your opponent, then use Trash Tentacle to deal 30 (50 with Muscle Band) and get the EH or TFG back to use next turn. You then repeat this until Malamar AOS gets knocked out.

By the time Malamar AOS gets knocked out, you should be have 1 or 2 Malamar EXs with 4 or 5 energy on them. Then you can either choose to use Malamar EX and deal tons of damage with Maxamar or put in another Malamar AOS in and continue with the energy lock.

Potential Changes:
Additions:

• Head Ringer: Just to make it even harder for the opponent to get attacks off.
• Yveltal EX: I originally had him in, but decided to focus on Malamar. Yveltal would be another good damage dealer, especially if my opponent manages to break through the energy lock.
• Trick Coin: This would be useful in making sure Malamar EX deals as much damage as possible. It could also be used on Inkay if I was in a really sticky situation and needed to confuse my opponent.
• Professor's Letter: One worry about this deck is getting energy out. I don't really need Energy Retrievals because Malamar can do that for me, but getting them out of my deck could be hard. I do have Battle Compressors, however, which can be used to take out energy.
• Giovanni's Scheme: This would be useful as another way to draw cards (and potentially replace Battle Reporter). It can also be used for extra damage on Malamar AOS to speed up my damage.

Removals:

• Dark Energy: I've been toying with the idea of going down to 2 Dark Energy (or removing the Dangerous Energy). That would give me extra room for things like Head Ringer or whatever. However I am worried that 10 energy won't be enough to properly feed Malamar EX (who needs a ton)
  
• 1 Malamar EX and/or 1 Inkay + 1 Malamar: This would only be done if I decided to Yveltal back it, I feel 6 basics isn't enough.
• Switch: Both Malamars have low retreat, and I can get the energy back (even the special energies) thanks to Trash Tentacle, so switch might be unnecessary, however I would be screwed if I became Asleep or Paralyzed.

Change Log:
V1.0.1:
Added: 2 Parallel City
Removed: 2 Shadow Circle

 

[Peter]

I do like the idea of Malamar Ex, but having 4 of them might be a tad bit of a downfall. I played in a recent tournament and I had faced a M Ray/Malamar deck, while i had run a M Manectric deck. I noticed that once I was able to get silent lab off, or a single hex turn one, malamar ex became a dead card as the ability no longer worked because it was a basic. As i know it is an ability to stall your opponent, I'm not sure if it is necessary to have more than 2 at a time. Yveltal Ex is a great pokemon to load up with energies for easy sweeps, but Im not sure if it would help in your deck. Have you considered crawdaunt in your deck? it is a bit annoying form of a disrupter pokemon, with its ability taking off ANY energy off your opponents pokemon. Take that into consideration

 

[Darkness3827]

I do agree that 4 Malamar EX seems to be a bit much. I might reduce it to 2, or reduce it to 3 and reduce the Malamar AOS line to 3-3 as well. As for what to put in, I am still deciding between Head Ringer, Trick Coin, Yveltal EX, and more Parallel City. However doing that and not adding Yveltal would reduce my number of basics from 8 to 6, which is very few.

With your point about Malamar EX becoming dead when you remove it's ability, that might be true in a Mega Ray deck, since Rayquaza is the main damage dealer, but in this deck Malamar EX is the main damage dealer.

Crawdaunt is an interesting idea, however I think it is just a worse alternative to Flare Grunt. The effect is the exact same (take off any energy from the opponent's active), and Crawdaunt will take up more cards in my deck than Flare Grunt (Will prolly need a 2-2 line plus 2 AZ or Super Scoop-Up). Plus if I end up with Corphish as my only starting basic I could end up being completely screwed. As for the fact that I don't have to use my supporter, I still would have to use AZ. If I elect to use Scoop Up instead I am basically gambling on heads, and if I get unlucky I won't be able to use the ability. It also will take a while to set up since it is Stage 1. If De-Evolution Spray was still around it would be viable, since it isn't a supporter, there is no coin flip, and I could just de-evolve, re-evolve, then get back the de-evolution spray with Trash Tentacle all in one turn, but unfortunately De-Evolution Spray is no longer legal.

As for using both, it would be awesome for getting tons of energy off, however I would have to take some very helpful cards out. If I did put Craudaunt in I would prolly take out 2 Malamar EX, 1 Malamar, 1 Inkay, 1 Battle Reporter, and 1 Sycamore. That is a lot to get rid of.

One idea I had before was to put 2 Feraligatrs (PHF 17) along with 2 Archie's and a couple water energy. That way I could use his Hyper Whirlpool to deal 60 plus the awesome effect of flip until you get tails, discard an energy off your opponent's active for each heads. It only costs 1 Water 2 Colorless. I decided against it because it would be too hard to set up, but if you managed to, it could be devastating.