THE Durant thread: Durant NV.

1) Actually, it is a worse start. Even though it does have free retreat, that is still automatically 1 easy gotten Durant lost, as you probably wont get both Sneasel and Durant in your starting hand.
2) If Durant cannot attack, it cannot retreat into Sneasel or Weavile
3) The only pokemon non-Durant and with a retreat cost is Rotom, and that is a very unlikely start, and even more unlikely to also get a Sneasel in that hand.

Glaceon, Weavile just cannot and does not add consistency. Is it a good tech? Probably. Does it add consistency? No
 
I agree speed durant is best, but to add another card into the mix. What about spiritomb? Used when your opponent has less than 6 cards can increase the rate at which they go through their deck. just a thought.
 
That isn't neccessary and isn't consistant, but it would help in some situations for for forcing them to draw. That could be a good idea.
 
It might be a 1-of, but I doubt I would run it. Your opponent will rarely have so few cards that it would make or break a game, but I guess it could be a desperation play sometimes. I think overall I'd rather run another Defender or something, but it's certainly an option.
 
Someone said earlier 'Why N because it adds an extra turn of Milling?'.

Personally I'd rather use N in this over PONT just for the fact that you can mess with your opponent early on when it really matters by forcing them to return a possibly good hand to the deck and then milling it away. Sure, late game it may put a big hand back into the deck and draw little, but you just gotta be smart about when you play it.

As for the trainer lock matchup, I have been playtesting this primarily against Gothitelle and by the time the gothitelle got out to the front (after usually catchering up an energyless zekrom right before they evolve to gothitelle and forcing them to switch/power to retreat), Durant had milled a good 3-4 turns and the gothitelle wasn't even powered to start attacking. After that it was a downward slope of the gothitelle drawing crap and not even being able to twins for what they need since durant wasn't drawing any prizes.

The test games always ended the same, no prizes taken either side with gothitelle decking out. I'd say that if you manage to get the 4DurantT1 against a lock deck, then your matchup is more like 70/30.

The only decks I can see this having trouble against are ZPST and TyRam (because you are pretty much feeding them energy if they get a typhlosion). ZPST is just as fast as Durant, so you pretty much would have to pray they get a crappy start and you get the jump on them. Donphan and Yanmega could also pose a problem as Yanmega can 1HKO if you don't have a special metal, 2HKO even if you do, and donphan will 2HKO regardless.
 
Izan said:
Personally I'd rather use N in this over PONT just for the fact that you can mess with your opponent early on when it really matters by forcing them to return a possibly good hand to the deck and then milling it away. Sure, late game it may put a big hand back into the deck and draw little, but you just gotta be smart about when you play it.
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Late game when you have a bad hand and can't do anything you'll have to use N, meaning your opponent gets a two card hand. I cannot see why you like N in Durant. After testing, Gliscor and I concluded that N should npt be played. It lost me the game against Gothitelle, because I had nothing in my hand except N, and Gliscor had a big hand. undertsand the early game disruption, but cards like Lost Remover and Crushing Hammer can also keep your opponent from attacking, without giving them a smaller or new hand, plus without the use of a Supporter.



Izan said:
As for the trainer lock matchup, I have been playtesting this primarily against Gothitelle and by the time the gothitelle got out to the front (after usually catchering up an energy-less zekrom right before they evolve to gothitelle and forcing them to switch/power to retreat), Durant had milled a good 3-4 turns and the gothitelle wasn't even powered to start attacking. After that it was a downward slope of the gothitelle drawing crap and not even being able to twins for what they need since durant wasn't drawing any prizes.

The test games always ended the same, no prizes taken either side with gothitelle decking out. I'd say that if you manage to get the 4DurantT1 against a lock deck, then your matchup is more like 70/30.
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A good Gothitelle list should be able to get up a Gothitelle quickly despite no Twins, especially against a deck that doesn't take knockouts. Gothitelle also doesn't have to worry at all about Reuniclus because no damage will be dealt to Gothitelle, therefore no damage must be moved. Without Reuniclus to worry about, it isn't very hard to set-up a Gothitelle. As long as the Gothitelle player has energy to attach turn one or two, a turn 3 or 4 Gothitelle is easy to get.


Izan said:
The only decks I can see this having trouble against are ZPST and TyRam (because you are pretty much feeding them energy if they get a typhlosion). ZPST is just as fast as Durant, so you pretty much would have to pray they get a crappy start and you get the jump on them. Donphan and Yanmega could also pose a problem as Yanmega can 1HKO if you don't have a special metal, 2HKO even if you do, and donphan will 2HKO regardless.
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glaceon said:
And there is nothing wrong with that.

For matchups, I'm finding this so far


Good matchups

Gothitelle
The Truth
Any deck with Magnezone
Any deck that needs Twins to set up

Medium matchups

Stage 1s
BlastZel
Any deck that can consistently hit for 90+ damage, but may take a while to set up.


Bad matchups

ZPST
TyRam
Fire decks that can consistently do 50 damage (without weakness)
Quick, hard hitting decks
LostGar
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A Defender, Eviolite, or Special Metal can keep Yanmega from ohkoing it, and trying to have a small or huge hand can also keep Yanmega from attacking.
 
To add to that, 2HKOs are not a problem. If they're 2HKOing you, you will win. So long as you have 4 Durant out, that's a whopping 48 cards you can mill assuming they start attacking you T2 and go first. That gives them 12 cards left, so even if they have only 2 Pokémon out (Yanmega and Yanma), they'd need to play something to get cards into their deck to have any hope of winning at all, and that uses yet another card. I'm just not seeing anything that 2HKOs as being a loss.
 
WolverineChamp said:
I agree speed durant is best, but to add another card into the mix. What about spiritomb? Used when your opponent has less than 6 cards can increase the rate at which they go through their deck. just a thought.
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I really like the idea of Spiritomb as a 1-of for a late game tech where you make them draw their deck and simply end your turn for the win. (though I have not tested this so I don't know if it will work)
 
Spiritomb? Its a nice idea but it seems like it wouldn't work. With 4 other basics in your deck, 5 if you run Rotom, the chances of starting with Spiritomb are rather large and even if you do get all 4 Durant you wouldn't be able to get the t1 mill, which will really hurt. A 1 in 4/5 chance of starting with Spiritomb is way more than the chance that the cards you give them will help you imo. I guess against Yanmega you can play your hand down and force them to do the same, them Spooky Whirlpool to give them 5-6 cards, making it impossible for them to attack and milling them. However, I think Yanmega is already advantageous for Durant so maybe helping that matchup doesn't justify hurting you in every other one.
 
Has any one thought of teching Archeos? It would't deacrease chances of getting Durants out because of the fossil mechanic, and would help prevent your oppnet from setting up. It would though take up alot of space, 6-8 cards.
 
Dark Void said:
The fossil mechanic is awful and there is no way you could set up Archeops before Typhlosion or Emboar. It would also take a lot of space and not help at all against many decks. It's awful in Durant (actually, its awful period).
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Mentioned a couple times in the thread, I believe. It just wouldn't get set up fast enough to stop the opponent from setting up, so it will be a dead draw, no matter the matchup.
 
NeoCandy said:
Has any one thought of teching Archeos? It would't deacrease chances of getting Durants out because of the fossil mechanic, and would help prevent your oppnet from setting up. It would though take up alot of space, 6-8 cards.
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It is bad because the opponent will have already set up by the time Archeops is out.
 
Not to mention Durant's worst matchups tend to be basics such as Zekrom and Reshiram.
 
^Reshiram isn't the problem. Typhlosion and Emboar are. Remember, without Afterburner damage or energy, Reshiram can only OHKO through Blue Flare, which would be once every two turns (and in ReshiBoar, Abiliboar is the only attacker that can OHKO every turn without discarding energy). That said, that does not justify Archeops– a mediocre TyRam or ReshiBoar build will set up one attacker consistently faster than Durant would Archeops. Zekrom's just an autoloss either way.

N is good early-middle game to help cripple your opponent. Late-game, you could play a couple PONT or even Judge instead, maybe as a 2/2 split of N/PONT so you have that option.
 
EDIT: Should probably include the quote to whom this post was for.
alexmf2 said:
I just realized, Kyurem would utterly wreck this deck.
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It probably wont with evolite, special metal, and durant's deck revolving around recovering discarded durants. The other dragons hurt this deck much more than kyurem would.
 
But when the opponent is spread the main focus should be to protect the benched Durants from all being ko'd at the dame time, not recovering when there are no Durants to be recovered.
 
duh :p
I never said to recover Durants that were not in the discard XD.

To clarify what i said for you, Durant deck's will not have to worry about the spread damage so much BECAUSE of how the deck is run. 30 damage per Durant per turn sounds hurtful, but with Evolite and Special Metal energy, the damage will be minimal if even exsistant. Kyurem, unlike the other two dragon decks, can not OHKO Durant. Yes it can spread and possibly ko all benched durants at once, but that is unlikely. A Kyurem deck would probably switch to feraligater to do the damage anyways, and even then it will not be able to OHKO Durant each turn.

EDIT: when I said "It probably wont..." that was not to your post, glaceon, but to the poster who said Kyurem will wreck Durant"
 
Oh yeah, I completely forgot about eviolite and sp metal. The picture I had in my mind was kyurem wiping out all Durant in 3 turns ;P
 
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