Pumpkin Patch (Gourgeist / Joltik / Lampent / Virizion EX)

[Pipotchi]

Pokemon (20):

• 
  2 Virizion EX
  4 Pumpkaboo
  4 Gourgeist
  4 Lampent
  4 Joltik
  2 Celebi EX

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums (31):

• 
  4 Battle Compressor
  2 Muscle Band
  3 Ultra Ball
  3 Dimensional Valley
  2 Energy Retrieval
  1 Switch
  2 Startling Megaphone
  1 Computer Search
  1 Town Map
  
  3 Skyla
  4 Sycamore
  4 N
  2 Lysandre

Energy (9):

• 
  7 Grass
  2 Psychic

Spoiler: new pokemon prints

Pumpkaboo - Psychic - HP60
Basic Pokemon

[P] Clash: 10 damage.
[C][C][C] Night March: 20x damage. This attack does 20 damage for each Pokemon that has a Night March attack in your discard pile.

Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: 2
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Gourgeist - Psychic - HP100
Stage 1 - Evolves from Pumpkaboo

Ability: Big Pumkin
Whenever this Pokemon has a [G] Energy attached to it, this Pokemon's maximum HP is 200.

[P][C][C] Horror Note: 10x damage. Does 10 damage times the number of cards in your hand.

Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: 3

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Lampent - Psychic - HP80
Stage 1 - Evolves from Litwick

[P] Cursed Drops: Place 3 damage counters on your opponent’s Pokemon in any way you like.
[P][C][C] Night March: 20x damage. This attack does 20 damage for each Pokemon that has a Night March attack in your discard pile.

Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: 2

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Joltik - Lightning - HP30
Basic Pokemon

[L] Gnaw: 10 damage.
[C][C] Night March: 20x damage. This attack does 20 damage for each Pokemon that has a Night March attack in your discard pile.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: Metal (-20)
Retreat: 1
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Battle Compressor - Trainer
Item (Team Flare Gear)

Search your deck for up to 3 cards and discard them. Shuffle your deck afterward.
____________________________________

Dimensional Valley - Trainer
Stadium

Each player's Psychic Pokemon pays 1 [C] less to attack.
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Strategy:

This is a Night March deck. I figured that all the regular users of Night March are very underwhelming and weak so I'm using Celebi EX's ability to allow Gourgeist to attack with Night March. Gourgeist is good because, with Dimensional Valley in play it only needs 2 colorless energy to attack with Night March and these can be provided by Virizion EX's emerald slash, which also causes it to get 200hp due to the ability Big Pumpkin and also makes it immune to status conditions. So with 4 Lampent and 4 Joltik in the discard and a muscle band, I am dealing 180 damage with Night March with a 200hp non-EX pokemon which is immune to status conditions. This criteria can be met quite quickly with battle compressor which was just made for the deck. Also once Gourgeist start getting knocked out, Night March's damage just keeps increasing which negates the need for a muscle band.
Town Map is important in this deck, I need to know where my Night March pokemon are so I can get them in the discard, and similarly its quite important to keep a Celebi EX in play (although pumpkaboo can still attack just fine without it, it wont be able to do so with 200 hp). In a pinch, even Joltiks can attack in this deck and deal 180 damage, or can be used for their electric typing to hit things like Yveltal EX for a ko with 4 lampent in the discard + muscle band.
The only thing which really stands out to me as a problem is Lysandre's Last Resort (and to a lesser extent target whistle, but this card isnt going to see play) but this doesn't completely cripple your strategies- it just resets them. You get your battle compactors back which you can use to very quickly get stuff back into the discard in just a couple of turns.

This deck is very simple so there isn't much more to say. 3 dimensional valley because the -1 attack cost is huge, 2 megaphones because abilities are important, 2 Lysandre for offensive pressure, and 1 switch because there shouldnt be an overwhelming switching problem (both supporting EXs have 1 retreat cost) but it could come in handy. I'm also running a couple of psychic energy just in order to use Gourgeist's attack if I really have to. It can deal 70 damage (90 with a muscle band) if I use it right after a sycamore, which is pretty pitiful but better than not attacking at all. Anyway, all night march attacks only require colorless energy so it doesnt affect me much to run 2 psychic.

Yea thats about it. I think this deck can be strong- it doesnt rely TOO heavily on abilities, at least not to actually deal damage, but with abilities Gourgeist can become a real nightmare to take down with 200hp and status immunity. Luckily virizion can wipe the floor with Seismitoad EX, and the main threat to Gourgeist (dark types) really took a punch in the face recently with the sudden influx of fighting types. Being evolved, non EX and hitting mewtwo EX for weakness are all useful traits too. Psychic with a dark weakness is probably one of the best defensive typings at the moment, and fighting resistance will help too. I can imagine item lock decks like donphan trevenant will destroy this deck if I can't get my night marchers in the discard before trevenant gets up.


My last thoughts is that in this deck I could also swap a muscle band out for another grass energy too. Since when I lose a muscle band from a knockout, thats another 20 damage increase to night march anyway if its gourgeist that gets knocked out. Muscle band really isn't that necessary unless I have to knock out a 170 or 180 hp EX on the first couple of turns. (which can still be done)

 

[bwpple]

Since you have skyla to search for megaphone, why not remove the megaphone and replace it with something else?

 

[Ivy_Profen]

How will this deck deal with Lysandre's Last Resort or w/e its called? When you have to shuffle everything back into your deck. Thus your night march attack will go back to nothing. Seems like this deck was doomed before it was even got a chance to be good.

 

[Pipotchi]

How will this deck deal with Lysandre's Last Resort or w/e its called? When you have to shuffle everything back into your deck. Thus your night march attack will go back to nothing. Seems like this deck was doomed before it was even got a chance to be good.

I dont think Lysandre's Last Resort is actually that bad to deal with. It shuffles all the battle compactors and ace specs back into my deck too and its just a case of resetting my progress as opposed to completely destroying it. Like I said in the original post you can get 120 damage on night march from a single turn if you can get a computer search and muscle band. Similarly a Sycamore with the right cards can boost your damage up into the 100s again. Just a single battle compactor and a muscle band, which would be a relatively unlucky draw is still 80 damage. Alternatively you can attack with virizion EX, or use gourgeist's regular attack. I guess playtesting will show me how easy or hard it is to actually deal with Lysandre's Last Resort, but I doubt most decks will play more than 1 and even in VS Seeker decks they arent going to play it every turn its not something that can be used every turn (it takes their supporter for the turn and doesnt give them much momentum either), I have breathing room with 200hp non-EXs to get back into the game.

edit: made a couple of changes, got rid of a muscle band and added another battle compactor to more reliably be able to discard all the night marchers soon as possible, and also got rid of a megaphone to get another ultra ball for the same reason. I think LLR will be worse for the deck than I originally made out, because it can be used at bad times when I dont have momentum. So these changes are to try and help against that

 

[DeepSleepDarkrai]

First off I just want to say, thank you for coming up with this deck list. Secondly I have a couple of changes that I think could help.

-2 Gourgeist

+ 1-1 Flareon Plasma Freeze

-4 Grass Energy

+4 Double Colorless Energy

ok, now to explain the changes I made. I would drop the Gourgeist count to 2 and add a 1-1 line of Flareon, because you are going to want to have as many Pokemon with Night March in the Discard Pile.
Flareon also has good synergy in the deck because the goal is to have Pokemon in the Discard to do massive damage. Metal decks will see an increase with the release of this set, and other popular Grass Decks (Virsect) would be easy to deal with. I removed the 4 Grass Energies in favor for 4 DCE for quicker attacks and all the Pokemon attacking via Night March or Vengeance can use it.

 

[Pipotchi]

I think a small flareon tech could be beneficial to the deck. 1-1 flareon should be enough, but Im reluctant to be adding DCE for now. It just seems to cut too much into the whole point of the deck. Night March isnt particularly strong alone, since all of its users get knocked out in one hit, I'm only considering using it because gourgeist can have 200hp with grass energy. With a Virizion powered up I would not even have enough grass energy to put 2 on gourgeist after an emerland slash.. I want to add flareon still because it can ohko 180hp grass and metal pokemon with just 5 pokemon in the discard + muscle band, which is pretty good vs new Dialga EX as well as VirGen. But I think the deck will be stronger focusing not so much on DCEs.
Dropping to 2 gourgeist to put pumpkaboo in the discard isnt really a good idea either because 4 lampent and 4 joltik is enough to get a 180 night march with band.