A lot of players are complaining about how to deal with this trash bag. So, I feel I wouldn't be doing my part in helping if I didn't give my thoughts on this. The biggest factor I have notice is that Black and White simplified the game, which has reduced greatly player skill. Players pre-BW know (or at least should know) how to deal with this because the game before was like what Garbodor is turning the game into. We played a draw three Supporter, maybe played a Trainer card or two and and attacked or ended our turn. Games were chess like since games required more planning throughout the entire game.
I noticed this is a problem for a lot of newer players, who started during the BW era of the game. For these players, all they know is Professor Juniper/Sycamore and N. They will never know what the game was like with cards like TV Reporter. Now players are trying to figure out how to play without cards like Battle Compressor, Hoopa-EX and Shaymin-EX. I'm even seeing complaints about how can Grass decks function without Forest of Giant Plants.
The Garbodor Trap
In this case, I'm going to show everyone how a older player sees Garbodor and how I adjust to it. What you need to do first is look at your deck as a whole and set things up into groups. Figure out what needs to be there and what can do the job better. For Example, you can cut cards that are considered Garbodor Traps. These cards are things like Max Elixir and Trainers' Mail. Removing these cards from your deck can free up six to eight deck spots. Your deck is slower with these gone, but depending on the deck, will improve the matchup.
The next thing to do is understand why these cards were in your deck to begin with. When you play Trainers Mail, what are you looking for? Ultra Ball or draw support? Why not makes these cards Supporters instead? Pokemon Fan Club and Brigette will find you two or three Basic Pokemon, which is what you want in the beginning of the game. After all that's why you played that Sycamore and N right? Running two copies of this card means you now have a non-Item option of getting Pokemon into play. You can even cut one Ultra Ball to run one of these cards so now you have a search engine of three Ultra Ball (this card is still important) and two Pokemon Fan Club/Brigette. Ultra Ball can find Tapu Lele-GX (which I now believe decks should be running at least two of) which can then find your Pokemon Fan Club or Brigette, which will get you two or three more Pokemon. Now, on your first turn, you have four to five Pokemon in play and all it maybe cost you was a single Item card, that being Ultra Ball for the Tapu Lele.
With this small tech, you reduced your item count but improved your starting game. So, what else can we do? Well, we can replace things like Professor Sycamore. This is completely up to the player. For me, cutting this out of my Pidgeot-EX deck has improved my game a lot and may work for you as well. This means you aren't discarding Item cards. This too can be a Garbodor Trap since hands are always completely unpredictable. In place of this, you can run things like Professor Birch's Observation and Hala. These cards shuffle your hand into your deck as opposed to just dumping it, making it harder for Garbodor to do its job.
Playing Better and Micro-Decisions
I mentioned Hala above, the Supporter that gives you a shuffle draw seven if you used your GX attack. This means you want to look at GX attack options that can be burned early or offer some kind of utility to justify its use. This means no nuke level GX moves but something that can better support Hala. Pokemon like this include Drampa-GX, Tapu Fini-GX and Solgaleo-GX as well as Pokemon with great utility like Umbreon-GX, Alolan Ninetales-GX and Decidueye-GX.
The next thing is to maybe increase your Supporter counts. We can remove a VS Seeker (again, like Ultra Ball, is a very important card) and run something like a third Lysandre. Increasing counts of things like N can make sure you see new cards more often. You can also run other cards like Pokemon Center Lady and Olympia to replace those Items you removed. Running more Supporters and Energy cards can help provide you more protection. How so you say? Well, when your opponent plays Delinquent on you, more non-Item options exist. Had these cards been things like Max Elixir and Trainers' Mail you were saving to avoid extra damage, you would have to discard these cards. Once again, you are a bit slower but this micro-decision means your opponent used a Supporter and netted zero damage, meaning they remain at a low number.
Now, playing better is something is something that's hard to do. This starts at deck building and understanding what your deck's goal is. Speed is a factor for deck but speed is just getting you to your goal faster. Turbo Dark's goal isn't to be fast, it's to get Energy into play for a big Dark Pulse. The speed just gets it there faster. Turbo Dark can, for example, play Ultra Ball for Tapu Lele-GX, grab as Pokemon Fan Club and play it for a Hoopa-EX and something else and play the Hoopa-EX for more Pokemon-EX and now you have a full board. Just attach for the turn and your done. You can still play things like Max Elixir, since you have Resistance but you don't want to play them all unless needed. You can play a slower game while building your board. All you need is six Energy in play and you OHKO Garbodor.
What could work for you
This depends on your playstyle. If you want to beat Garbodor without issue, you may want to try a Trainer line like this;
3 Ultra Ball
3 VS Seeker
2 Switching cards
1-2 Field Blower
1-2 Recovery cards
2-3 Pokemon Tools
6-8 Non-Sycamore draw Support
2-3 Pokemon search Support
2-3 Lysandre
1-2 Hex Maniac
1 Olympia
2-4 Stadium cards
That is 36 possible card, 15 of which are Items. Of course you can make room for tech if you wish but we could see list starting to look like this, which start to balance their Item and Supporter counts but have supporters starting to take on the roll of Item cards for setup. Depending on your deck, you can even further cut Items you don't need.
What do you do?
Don't panic. You have plenty of options available to you that don't include playing a counter deck. Simply don't play as many Item cards in your deck and replace the unnecessary ones with a Supporter option, i.e. replace a Ultra Ball for a Pokemon Fan Club.
During the match (and I know this is hard to do), don't let cards burn a hole in your hand. Seriously, nothing worse than a Garbodor Trap is playing things you don't need to. Don't burn your Field Blower to discard a Stadium or a lone Pokemon Tool. Don't discard Item cards for Ultra Ball if you can avoid it and most of all, think your moves through. You'll find the matchup is easier to deal with than you once though.
What do I tech for Garb?
There are a few things you can run that will help this matchup as well as other matchups. Enhanced Hammer is very disruptive to Drampa-GX and Espeon-GX builds. This is a Item card so you'll have to manage their use but another option is Team Flare Grunt. This card can work wonders if you maintain your board setup early. Drampa-GX can never hit their damage since they can't get more than one Energy down in their turn. You suppress their Drampa-GX and keep Garbodor from being a threat.
I haven't found any other good tech to run out side of hammers and disruption but to me, the best tech of all is just playing better.
What decks can I run to just take a dump on Garbodor?
One Prize attackers. Naturally the best counter to Garbodor is Garbodor. There is absolutely nothing you can do about that BUT, it isn't a play Garb or lose/counter format. My Pidgeot deck smashes Garb but any deck is capable of this, however some decks can still do what they want and not care.
Vespiquen is one of these deck. Not only are you faster than Garbodor, because you can swarm them better than the Garb player trade very well against them. There will come a point where they just can't get down a Garb and that matters, though there is a equalizing factor here. You have to play Shaymin-EX and maybe Tapu Lele-GX and these are two Prize Pokemon, meaning they can just attack around the bees. Vespiquen players consider this to be a 50/50 matchup but it is a better option that also gives you a good chance against the rest of the meta. I hope this is true because I want to use Oricorio!
Another deck people are sleeping on is Mew/Passimian deck does very well against this deck. It also plays a lot like Vespiquen in that it can swarm Pokemon easily and hits both Drapma-GX and Espeon-GX for Weakness, meaning your trades are huge in your favor. You can maintain your speed and freedom to use your speed based Items but this deck is pretty much only good against Dark decks so it's a weaker meta option than Vespiquen but this does have a place right now if Garbodor remain popular.
Another deck type are just Dark decks in general. Umbreon-GX is very good here. having a 90/30 snipe attack is super nice. You can hit a Garbo and put 30 on a Benched Garb, which sets up a nice double knockout play with Lysandre. You also have Resistance, which favors Dark right now but Umbreon-GX too is a great option to use.
SMASH GARBODOR!
If you follow these steps, you will win this matchup. I know it's big and scary because you can't you can't play the game the way you're use to but that is kind of the point. You need to change the way you play the game and approach deck building. I do agree this is a very aggressive approach to this but it's all we got until they ban Garbodor.
