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Standard Mantis Lock Lurantis GX/Vileplume.

Jadethepokemontrainer said:
why do you run 2 Oddish and 3 Gloom/Vileplume?
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"2-3-3 Vileplume – He’s gone insane! No, you read that right, a 2-3-3 Vileplume line. A 3-3-3 line would be acceptable as well, but I needed to find some corners to cut in the deck and that’s when I came up with the revolutionary new 2-3-3 Pokemon line for Forest of Giant Plants decks. Players first inclination might be to go to a 3-3-2 line in an effort to create space, but this is sub optimal compared to the 2-3-3 line.

When playing Vileplume decks of all sorts, have you ever heard anyone complain about getting the Oddish into play? No one complains about the difficulty of getting Oddish into play, because it’s not that difficult. When you draw into them you can instantly bench them, sometimes you even start them, and otherwise they’re only an Ultra Ball or Level Ball away. The Gloom and Vileplume however require some level of setup, needing both an Oddish and Forest of Giant Plants before you can start evolving through the line. Because of this it’s not uncommon for you to have to throw away some Gloom and Vileplume in the early game when using Ultra Ball or Professor Sycamore to draw through your deck (while the Oddish immediately can be benched when you draw/search it), so it makes sense to play it thicker at the top of the evolution line.

There is very little risk in terms of prizing your Oddish. You have approximately a 1% probability of prizing both Oddish in a game. The only downside is that you are a little bit more likely to start a Shaymin EX, but it’s not that big of a deal, it’s a 14.19% probability of starting Shaymin EX versus an 11.84% probability."

TL;DR Oddish is easier to play.
 
SnackeyG said:
"2-3-3 Vileplume – He’s gone insane! No, you read that right, a 2-3-3 Vileplume line. A 3-3-3 line would be acceptable as well, but I needed to find some corners to cut in the deck and that’s when I came up with the revolutionary new 2-3-3 Pokemon line for Forest of Giant Plants decks. Players first inclination might be to go to a 3-3-2 line in an effort to create space, but this is sub optimal compared to the 2-3-3 line.

When playing Vileplume decks of all sorts, have you ever heard anyone complain about getting the Oddish into play? No one complains about the difficulty of getting Oddish into play, because it’s not that difficult. When you draw into them you can instantly bench them, sometimes you even start them, and otherwise they’re only an Ultra Ball or Level Ball away. The Gloom and Vileplume however require some level of setup, needing both an Oddish and Forest of Giant Plants before you can start evolving through the line. Because of this it’s not uncommon for you to have to throw away some Gloom and Vileplume in the early game when using Ultra Ball or Professor Sycamore to draw through your deck (while the Oddish immediately can be benched when you draw/search it), so it makes sense to play it thicker at the top of the evolution line.

There is very little risk in terms of prizing your Oddish. You have approximately a 1% probability of prizing both Oddish in a game. The only downside is that you are a little bit more likely to start a Shaymin EX, but it’s not that big of a deal, it’s a 14.19% probability of starting Shaymin EX versus an 11.84% probability."

TL;DR Oddish is easier to play.
Click to expand...
To each his own, but I'll stick with 3 of the basic. They're also the easiest to Lysandre and KO before they evolve.
 
I would honestly probably drop something for it and go 3-3-3. I just wanted ask on about the exact list. What would you drop on the list for it?
 
Hey SnackeyG I'll back your numbers on the 2 Oddish. I run 2 Froakie in my Greninja deck and they were both prized only twice in over 100 matches. Completely agree with the 2-3-3 line. Your logic is sound.

Can I ask, is this deck as broken as the youtubers are making it appear to be? I'm thinking about investing in this deck but the price of Lurantis is about 10 sun and moon packs. It'd just be nice to get another source before I go all in on this.
 
I actually haven't played it yet. I'm working on getting the cards. You can find some longer play tests on YouTube though.
 
SnackeyG said:
Pokemon – 19

4 Fomantis SM
4 Lurantis GX
2 Oddish AOR
3 Gloom AOR
3 Vileplume AOR
1 Celebi XY93
2 Shaymin EX

Trainers – 31

4 Professor Sycamore
4 N
4 Lysandre

4 Ultra Ball
1 Level Ball
1 Revitalizer
3 Trainers’ Mail
3 Acro Bike
3 Float Stone

4 Forest of Giant Plants

Energy – 10

10 Grass

Just curious what advice you have.

Credit for the list goes to

http://thecharizardlounge.com/2017/02/05/mantis-lock-a-look-at-lurantis-gxvileplume/
Click to expand...

Overall, seems a pretty solid list, I would make just some small changes:
-1 Celebi
-2 Lysandre
+3 Level Ball
 
SnackeyG said:
"2-3-3 Vileplume – He’s gone insane! No, you read that right, a 2-3-3 Vileplume line. A 3-3-3 line would be acceptable as well, but I needed to find some corners to cut in the deck and that’s when I came up with the revolutionary new 2-3-3 Pokemon line for Forest of Giant Plants decks. Players first inclination might be to go to a 3-3-2 line in an effort to create space, but this is sub optimal compared to the 2-3-3 line.

When playing Vileplume decks of all sorts, have you ever heard anyone complain about getting the Oddish into play? No one complains about the difficulty of getting Oddish into play, because it’s not that difficult. When you draw into them you can instantly bench them, sometimes you even start them, and otherwise they’re only an Ultra Ball or Level Ball away. The Gloom and Vileplume however require some level of setup, needing both an Oddish and Forest of Giant Plants before you can start evolving through the line. Because of this it’s not uncommon for you to have to throw away some Gloom and Vileplume in the early game when using Ultra Ball or Professor Sycamore to draw through your deck (while the Oddish immediately can be benched when you draw/search it), so it makes sense to play it thicker at the top of the evolution line.

There is very little risk in terms of prizing your Oddish. You have approximately a 1% probability of prizing both Oddish in a game. The only downside is that you are a little bit more likely to start a Shaymin EX, but it’s not that big of a deal, it’s a 14.19% probability of starting Shaymin EX versus an 11.84% probability."

TL;DR Oddish is easier to play.
Click to expand...

I suppose there's a point in noting that it does take more set-up to utilize Gloom and Vileplume, but the issue here is that if you draw in to a bunch of Gloom and Vileplume, but no Oddish, you're still stuck. Is Oddish easier to get out of your hand than the other two? Yes. Does it make the deck any more consistent when it comes to number crunching and consistency of playing the full line? No. Not at all. You still need Oddish, Gloom, and Vileplume in order to get to Vileplume via Forest of Giant Plants. You still need all three pieces to Item Lock someone. The whole reason people do condense Gloom and Vileplume instead of Oddish is, ironically, because Oddish is a Basic Pokemon. It means that your Mulligan chances drop in percentage, which is always a good thing in this game. So, while I understand where your coming from when it comes to being able to play Oddish more consistently, you miss the big picture of the fact that you still need a full consistent line in order to Item Lock. In other words, when it comes to statistical data, adding that 3rd Oddish for a 3-3-3 will always be better for variance when it comes to producing the Item Lock when in comparison to your 2-3-3 line.

Finally, may I point out that the other main reason that your line seemingly works better than a 3-3-2 is because the main purpose of the Item Lock (Vileplume) is being ran as a 2-of in typical lines than a 3-of? Just something to note.

Finally, if you're really worried about consistency... add in Shiinotic. I wrote a full on article about the card and quite frankly, it makes Vileplume Lock extremely easy to accelerate, meaning you can condense on the numbers without much worry.

Either way, I hope this all makes sense.

-Asmer
 
21times said:
Hey SnackeyG I'll back your numbers on the 2 Oddish. I run 2 Froakie in my Greninja deck and they were both prized only twice in over 100 matches. Completely agree with the 2-3-3 line. Your logic is sound.

Can I ask, is this deck as broken as the youtubers are making it appear to be? I'm thinking about investing in this deck but the price of Lurantis is about 10 sun and moon packs. It'd just be nice to get another source before I go all in on this.
Click to expand...

Currently I would agree with the masses. This deck seems like it's no joke. Unlike other plume decks this can actually deal some decent damage. It has energy acceleration to set up another attacker and has a means of healing itself all without using items. From what I've seen online at least it's already becoming incredibly popular. I've seen people say their opponents are just flat out scooping T1 like half the time...
 
Despite the T1 potential Item-lock, what success have you had, if any, against Volcanion decks? Just curious because I would be inclined to perhaps incorporate a counter for that particular match-up.
 
Wow looks really nice on paper. Hopefully I get lucky with my Sun and Moon pulls. I'd really like to try this out if I get the cards.
 
TuxedoBlack said:
Despite the T1 potential Item-lock, what success have you had, if any, against Volcanion decks? Just curious.
Click to expand...
That match is very difficult if you don't set up a Lurantis off the bat and even then, they can still Wombo you in a lot of ways. The main issue with Lurantis GX itself is that it only hits for 120 damage, meaning Weakness is going to be a major issue as a general. Volcanion, unfortunately, is also very good at pulling big numbers out of thin air, which only makes this problem worse. The best solution would normally be Hex Maniac, but that messes with Vileplume. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see Lurantis GX/Garbodor Variants as a High Tier/Top Tier contender just to stop Volcanion decks from being a major threat.

-Asmer
 
You could run a Silent Lab or two after getting set up to help counter the Volcanions. Not a perfect solution as it would get clunky with so many stadiums plus you're already taking weakness, but might be worth testing out.
 
TheGuardian118 said:
You could run a Silent Lab or two after getting set up to help counter the Volcanions. Not a perfect solution as it would get clunky with so many stadiums plus you're already taking weakness, but might be worth testing out.
Click to expand...
I couldn't see a World without 4 Forest of Giant Plants personally, but it may be possible. That said, Garbodor stops so much still and I think it would be better to simply run that. After all, even if you can accelerate both Lurantis and Vileplume, you're still playing with 2 Stage 2 lines. You're going to have more consistency issues than you would with Garbodor, even if Item Locking is really good.

That said, I still believe Lurantis/Vileplume is going to be extremely strong. Expect both to show up at some point, imo.
 
@SnackeyG - why no Professor Kukui to help boost damage output? I'd suggest incorporating 2 Professor Kukui replacing an 2 N.

Asmer said:
...The main issue with Lurantis GX itself is that it only hits for 120 damage, meaning Weakness is going to be a major issue as a general. Volcanion, unfortunately, is also very good at pulling big numbers out of thin air, which only makes this problem worse... That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see Lurantis GX/Garbodor Variants as a High Tier/Top Tier contender just to stop Volcanion decks from being a major threat.

-Asmer
Click to expand...
I tend to agree that Lurantis-Garbodor makes a lot more sense to me, at least.

The next big tournament in which SM cards are legal will be in the Midwest, and the tournament will be for Expanded format. So, it will be very interesting to see how players will utilize the new SM cards. It should be a real "shoot-out."
 
TuxedoBlack said:
@SnackeyG - why no Professor Kukui to help boost damage output? I'd suggest incorporating 2 Professor Kukui replacing an 2 N.


I tend to agree that Lurantis-Garbodor makes a lot more sense to me, at least.

The next big tournament in which SM cards are legal will be in the Midwest, and the tournament will be for Expanded format. So, it will be very interesting to see how players will utilize the new SM cards. It should be a real "shoot-out."
Click to expand...

Anaheim comes first, non? Unless it was cancelled, in which case, I'm going to cry. ;~;

But yeah, I prefer Ability Lock as well. It just seems safer coming out of the gate.

-Asmer
 
Just watched tablemon dominate a Volcanion deck with turn 1 item lock. Without turn 1 item lock, yeah it's a tough matchup, maybe only 20 or 25% win pct. but with turn 1 lock it's completely winnable - certainly not an autoloss.
 
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