Why all the Altaria hype?

Excaliblarg

Excaliblarg

Aspiring Trainer
Member
With the new format coming up, we all know that one of the most hyped decks for battle roads is Garchomp/Altaria. I really can't understand why people are so excited for this Altaria though. Sure, it adds a decent amount of damage to your Garchomp, but the thing has 70 HP. That is absolutely pitiful, and can be taken out by nearly anything. Once all your Altarias are knocked out your Garchomps have absolutely no steam left. Also, the basic form is extremely susceptible to donks.

Can anyone explain to me why this is supposedly a good card?

Altaria DRX
 
Excaliblarg said:
With the new format coming up, we all know that one of the most hyped decks for battle roads is Garchomp/Altaria. I really can't understand why people are so excited for this Altaria though. Sure, it adds a decent amount of damage to your Garchomp, but the thing has 70 HP. That is absolutely pitiful, and can be taken out by nearly anything. Once all your Altarias are knocked out your Garchomps have absolutely no steam left. Also, the basic form is extremely susceptible to donks.

Can anyone explain to me why this is supposedly a good card?

Altaria DRX
Click to expand...

The same reason why Charizard from Arceus was hyped [Zoroark from the theme deck too]

2 Altarias make a Garchomps attack do 100 flat and discards a special energy
3 Makes it 120

Altaria/Garchomp is also one of the top decks in Japan atm, which is why its getting a lot of attention, Mainly because Gabite grabs you altarias left and right.
 
If Rayquaza EX becomes popular in the meta Garchomp's Mach Cut can OHKO Rayquaza EX with two Altarias in the bench. In addition to that 2 Altarias enables Garchomp to 2 hit KO any other EX.
 
@Project_Fedora: I played Charizard back in its day, and the reason that worked is because you were using bench sitters with 90 and 140 HP that also provided energy acceleration and draw power.

@Robert Benjamin: It seems like a lot less trouble to attach an extra energy than to setup to stage 1s, even if you are able to search Altaria easily; you can't even search out Swablu so without an Emolga start you are relying on Level Balls that could be used to setup Garchomps faster.

Overall, I feel like Garchomp is a pretty solid card but is much better with backup attackers. Altaria seems to just not be worth the setup to me.
 
Another reason that Altaria is good is its catcher bait. Yes, thats a GOOD thing. Garchomp is already spitting out high damage, so if they kill your Altaria, its not a huge problem because its easy to search out and you will have multiple of them at a time. Taking the attention away from your Garchomp can score you easy kills.
 
People don't really seem to look at Top Cut performance at Japan's World Qualifiers. Yes, Garchomp won one, but it has Top Cutted fewer times than Darkrai/Hydreigon and Eel Variants, and Eel Variants have won two. Garchomp is a decent deck, but it's really overhyped.
 
The reason Altaria is so good is because it:

1. Is a very searchable bench sitter
2. It is 2 plus powers per Altaria
3. It's HP doesn't matter much because you are limited to 4 Catcher a game
4. It makes a 140HP garchomp OHKO things making it a really good card.
 
The reason its getting the most hype is because Yuta Komatsuda [2010 world Champion] is the one who created the deck.
 
Excaliblarg said:
With the new format coming up, we all know that one of the most hyped decks for battle roads is Garchomp/Altaria. I really can't understand why people are so excited for this Altaria though. Sure, it adds a decent amount of damage to your Garchomp, but the thing has 70 HP. That is absolutely pitiful, and can be taken out by nearly anything. Once all your Altarias are knocked out your Garchomps have absolutely no steam left. Also, the basic form is extremely susceptible to donks.

Can anyone explain to me why this is supposedly a good card?

Altaria DRX
Click to expand...
Congrats, you caught on to what most of the top players are already thinking. The deck is too frail to be any good. Your setup just crumbles every turn and it's a constant battle just to keep everything in play. Now let's see if I can sell the Garchomp and Altaria I pre-ordered before everybody else catches on.
 
Celebi23 said:
Congrats, you caught on to what most of the top players are already thinking. The deck is too frail to be any good. Your setup just crumbles every turn and it's a constant battle just to keep everything in play. Now let's see if I can sell the Garchomp and Altaria I pre-ordered before everybody else catches on.
Click to expand...

It sounds like you are sarcastic, but I totally agree with that statement.
 
The decision on playing Garchomp/Altaria really depends on the meta in your area.To be fair with the Garchomp/Altaria deck, it won one of Japan's world qualifiers and it also placed 2nd twice in Japan's world qualifiers. It certainly isnt the BDIF but it probably belongs to either tier 1.5-2. Many top players also thought KlinKlang EX was a bad deck to play at US Nats but it came on top.
 
RobertBenjamin said:
The decision on playing Garchomp/Altaria really depends on the meta in your area.To be fair with the Garchomp/Altaria deck, it won one of Japan's world qualifiers and it also placed 2nd twice in Japan's world qualifiers. It certainly isnt the BDIF but it probably belongs to either tier 1.5-2. Many top players also thought KlinKlang EX was a bad deck to play at US Nats but it came on top.
Click to expand...
According to Battle Roads results, Klinklang WAS a bad play for Nationals. Tournament results are competely irrelevant to whether a deck is good or not; I've said it before, and I'll say it again if I have to. We know very little about Japan's metagame anyway.

Klinklang may have won Nationals, but it still isn't a good deck.
 
I don't get why people are saying that having 4 Catcher in a game is important in this matchup and why Altaria is better because of it. What else are you going to be Catchering against this deck? Emolga? Might as well get the Pokemon with an Ability that is supporting their main attacker. Garchomp? They're just going to attach an energy and continue attacking if you can't one shot it. The only thing I can see is Catchering a Rayquaza if they even run it, and even then you're not going to be Catchering it more than twice a game, meaning you have at least 2 reserved for one shotting Altarias.
 
@Celebi23: The reason why Klinklang EX didnt do well in Battle Roads is because people didnt get the right line of attackers to beat the meta. Besides during the Battle Roads period the deck was still evolving. Another factor why it didnt win a lot of Battle Roads was because fewer people were playing it. The low number of people playing it can also be attributed to the popular opinion that it was a bad deck so people who were influenced by what the top cut people said and what the forums posters said got swayed into not playing it or even trying it out. Nationals however was a different story when John Roberts played a good combo of Groudon EX-Darkrai EX-Kyougre EX plus other pokemon to win it all. John Roberts' Klinklang EX deck during Nationals was a very good deck. No one wins US Nationals, the biggest pokemon tournament for the year, with a bad deck. You need to beat a lot of players to reach the top. Kudos to John Roberts for his perseverance in working on his Klinklang EX deck.

@Excaliburg: You run 4 Pokemon Catchers for consistency. Besides you have to keep in mind that when you build a deck it is actually intended to play all decks that pop out in the meta, whether it be top tier or rogue, and not solely against one specifc deck.
 
I wasn't saying that one should run less than 4 Catchers, my point was that people are saying that being limited to 4 Catcher due to a lack of Junk Arm is a valid excuse to run Altaria, which is flawed thinking in my eyes.
 
Why the Altaria hype? Because of one simple reason. Speed. Speed, speed, and more speed. What the deck lacks in HP and options, the deck makes up for in setting up consistently and hitting hard. That being said, the deck is definitely far from perfect as you already noted in the first post. Also, Altarias were given out at the Prerelease so a lot of people have those now, making the deck relatively inexpensive to make. That being said, I think the deck is decent, but has some issues against most of the field.

dmaster out.
 
The deck has everything a good deck needs, but it fizzles hard late game when all your Altarias are gone because even with Super Rods, Swablus can be tough to search out.
 
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