Discussion What’s the best budget deck that survives the rotation?

NaganadelIsBeast

NaganadelIsBeast

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So as the title says, what do you think is the best budget deck that survives the rotation? I don’t mean stuff like Caturday, but somewhat meta decks like Weezing, Quagsire/Naganadel, Baby Blowns (to an extent), etc. Yeah, I’d like to know what you guys think. I’m leaning towards Baby Blowns (even with losing batons).
 
Well weezing, definitely not. Possibly nagaquag. But unified minds isn’t fully out yet in any countries so we can’t say much yet.
 
There are a lot of considerations for any deck, budget or not. Does it get worse or better with no guzma in format? No acerola/potion? No marshadow? Does it work with treasure/net ball/pokemaniac/elm/ultra space/cherish ball, since we lose a bunch of search? What deck specific key cards does it lose to rotation/gain from unified minds?

Weezing loses DCE which is pretty huge, but has ok search, doesn't care too much about guzma, adores the loss of acerola/potion, keeps it's tags, etc. Maybe a malamar variant springs up.

Nags are on the up with treasure and space but woopers and quags are going to be hard to find in your deck. It's generally an ohko deck in the current meta (against fire and lightning anyway) so neither guzma or acerola leaving help/hurt it too much. Loses baton which sucks a bit, patch which sucks more, doesn't really gain anything too amazing that I can think of. I'd say it is not looking good, but others may find ways to make it work.

Baby blowns I've never understood how that is even a real deck (jk) but if you can find a way to get and keep energy in play with no baton, more power to you. It doesn't really lose anything else major as far as I know, since you rely on welder, and green's (which will be stronger post marshadow). Relying on green's means you can't really experiment with nag/e-switch or other energy tricks. I'd almost rather use arcanine, but it has few search options.

I could see celesaur make a comeback of sorts with weakguard energy and a better potion. And at this point it's pretty budget. No DCE but you do have tag switch for all but the first celesaur. Status conditions will be stronger as well without guzma/acerola, and I wouldn't be surprised to see omastar mixed in with tag team quad style decks (as already seen with G&M), to stop switch and reset stamp as well. Doesn't work with green's builds, but you can't have it all.

Speaking of G&M plus omastar, it gets better. Surprise box helped it a little, but guzma/marshadow going help it, reset stamp helps it, zoro leaving extremely helps it, tag switch helps it, loses acerola, but I think it can cope with that. It already shuts off the main guzma replacement (custom catcher).

Granbull is losing all the balls and therefore apricorn, along with guru, and no amount of red's and zebstrikas will fix it in my opinion. May someone please prove me wrong, I wouldn't mind that.

Gardeon hasn't been as big as I first expected, so dragon eggs is a good bet post rotation, except no guzma sucks for a 2 shot deck. This could be a fit for lance prism/baby salamence, I suppose, if you include several switches in the deck. Or maybe custom catcher is enough. No Acerola is great unless you wanted to use it yourself, but you are still at least a 1 prizer that's kinda hard to KO. Reshizard has lots of HP, so maybe you need dragon talon here.
 
rewster1 said:
I could see celesaur make a comeback of sorts with weakguard energy and a better potion. And at this point it's pretty budget. No DCE but you do have tag switch for all but the first celesaur. Status conditions will be stronger as well without guzma/acerola, and I wouldn't be surprised to see omastar mixed in with tag team quad style decks (as already seen with G&M), to stop switch and reset stamp as well. Doesn't work with green's builds, but you can't have it all.
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I could see Rowlet and Alolan Exeggutor GX as a better version of Venusaur and Celebi GX. The deck will have access to a turn one Leavanny to reduce 40 damage in addition to Choice Helmet. The main attack has built in heal effects and works well with the new Great Potion that removes five damage counters from a Pokémon GX. In between the total damage reduction from Leavanny and Choice Helmet and the healing from Great Potion and it's main attack the deck could in fact be viable with Weakguard Energy in format. Also keep in mind that Life Forest Prism and Shaymin Land forme with the healing ability also remain in format in addition to Gardenia. Rowlet and Alolan Exeggutor seem less complicated that Venusaur and Celebi and they also have access to Net Ball and Cherrish Ball to reliably search out Pokémon. It also helps that Reshiram and Charizard GX become worse post-rotation due to Choice Band rotating out. The deck is no longer able to reliably one-shot almost all Pokémon in format. However one may need to find an assistance attacker for this deck to deal with Latios GX since the effect of it's main attack resides on itself and therefore cannot be shut down with Channeler.
 
Yeah, that's a good point about Omelet GX.

I'm trying to look at the new cards coming out, because there could be some cool combos there as well. I'm really liking the idea of a jessie and james hand mill deck, with arbok to passively mill, weezing to make J&J stronger, and lickilicky as the main attacker.
 
rewster1 said:
Yeah, that's a good point about Omelet GX.

I'm trying to look at the new cards coming out, because there could be some cool combos there as well. I'm really liking the idea of a jessie and james hand mill deck, with arbok to passively mill, weezing to make J&J stronger, and lickilicky as the main attacker.
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Focus on either Arbok or Lickilicky. Otherwise the deck may become too instable. I tend to favor Lickilicky because he is more active and can be searched with Pokémon Maniac.
 
Dark Espeon said:
Focus on either Arbok or Lickilicky. Otherwise the deck may become too instable. I tend to favor Lickilicky because he is more active and can be searched with Pokémon Maniac.
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Pokemaniac, plus buff padding (and not vulnerable to it being turned off by absol... I like). Yeah I was already betting on lickilicky, and you make a good point that arbok is probably just extra clunk. Arbok might work better with rip and run honchcrow (and a one of GX honchcrow for unfair).

Speaking of pokemaniac, it finds arcanine, so that's a little better, but growlithe is left with only fan club and comm.

I feel like I forgot a bunch of budget decks.

Stall loses (vile) plume (eria), acerola, skull grunt and counter catcher. And with so many supporters I don't know if it fits everyone's definition of budget, but that's up for debate. Either way, it gains jessie and james I guess, and of course misty's request, but replacing the plumes will be tough, but you know someone will do it.

Shedinja control is a budget deck if I ever saw one, and while it loses balls, more elm and comm is fine for this deck. So much fun to play too.:rolleyes:

Maybe Zygarde GX has a comeback with it's new baby zygarde helpers from unified minds.

The new chandelure is also possibly an interesting and maybe budgety archetype. Easily gets a team up incineroar on your bench, along with any other fire pokemon you want (delphox, infernape, charizard, whatever), and you can get it turn 2 with dusk stone rather than rare candy. Should be a fun way to play charizard if nothing else. Litwick is your guaranteed starter, and lampent is searchable with treasure, and chandelure's attack lays down a bunch of stage 2 fire mons while hitting decent numbers.
 
Gengar & Mimikyu-GX / Omastar is a deck I have my eye on. That new Stadium that helps Fossil Pokemon CAN help it out, but I'm on the fence about it.

It's a deck that can do well, but it's probably a meta-call, at best
 
Malamar Shrine still survives. While Malamar+Giratina is a tad bit pricey, but if you forgo the Ultra Necrozma and just focus on Malamar+Giratina it's not too bad. But you should grab them now while the price is low. Everyone might say it's not good right now, but it's losing it's BIGGEST counter, Zoroark, in the next format.
 
jamashawalker said:
Malamar Shrine still survives. While Malamar+Giratina is a tad bit pricey, but if you forgo the Ultra Necrozma and just focus on Malamar+Giratina it's not too bad. But you should grab them now while the price is low. Everyone might say it's not good right now, but it's losing it's BIGGEST counter, Zoroark, in the next format.
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What's interesting is that Malamar gets a knock right now for not being consistent; but it loses very little in consistency (thanks to Mysterious Treasure being still available) and since most other decks have inferior replacements to the nest ball or ultra ball, it might actually become one of the more consistent decks.

Still, I think it has a hard time with the instant-setup decks (Reshizard, Pikazek)...
 
One budget deck that I think consistently gets no love but I think is one of the best has to be Distilled Blast Gyarados. Its biggest knock is its lack of consistency but with the proper techs/supporters/items and Keldeo GX it's pretty potent.
 
Merovingian said:
Gengar & Mimikyu-GX / Omastar is a deck I have my eye on. That new Stadium that helps Fossil Pokemon CAN help it out, but I'm on the fence about it.

It's a deck that can do well, but it's probably a meta-call, at best
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I agree; I've been building this to take to local tournaments as it's fun to play and gets people really salty if they can't work around it. I haven't been using the stadium, favouring Rare Candy and Green's Exploration (and PokeComm) to get the Omastars out, plus the Green's lets you recover immediately from a lost Omastar and it lets you use things like Lysandre's Labs and Power Plant in the Stadium slots.

The biggest weakness of the deck is recovering from losing a Gengar & Mimikyu-GX as you usually can't get away with having another one on your bench unless you wanna negate the Fossil Lock.
 
I'd say definitely weeping is the best bet, that or ultra necrozma if you already have it set up. Weezing is just fun to play around with and goes kinda crazy in mid to late game!
 
Bobohippo said:
I'd say definitely weeping is the best bet, that or ultra necrozma if you already have it set up. Weezing is just fun to play around with and goes kinda crazy in mid to late game!
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Weezing was suuuper fun to play, but it becomes much weaker in a format without DCE, Counter Energy and Rescue Stretcher, unfortunately.
 
IMO, strong, post-rotation budget decks fall into 2 main categories:
  • Malamar-based, or
  • Fire-based.
Malamar-based decks which are basically comprised mostly of Psychic Pokémon have 1 HUGE advantage since one can take advantage of Mysterious Treasure, an Item that can be used to search and find Psychic or Dragon Pokémon (any stage) and put it in one's hand. Coupling Mysterious Treasure with Acro Bike, Cynthia, Lillie, Pokémon Communication, and/or Pokémon Fan Club will ensure, most likely, good consistent bench setup which is very important early game. Further, one can combo Malamar with a variety of attackers that can either use P and/or C energy. This gives the deck pilot a variety of attacking options. Lastly, Malamar can recover discarded P energy and attach it to a benched Pokémon. So, Malamar provides energy attachment-acceleration too.

Fire decks have great support founded in Fire Crystal, Fiery Flint and Welder. I've also found that Volcanion (UNB) and Arcanine (UNB) to be a solid combination. In addition, TEU Ninetales has great synergy with these Pokémon too and be can be well utilized as one's Custom Catcher replacement. The advantage of Ninetales' Ability though is that it can be more easily accessed and used than running 4 Custom Catcher.

Another interesting aspect of post-rotation decks, especially if it can use R energy, is the potential incorporation of Salazzle (UNB) whose Ability, Roast Reveal, provides supplemental card-draw support. So, one could utilize this Poké line in budget decks too.
 
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