Standard Yanmega/Vespiquen

[Dave Summers]

Pokémon: 23

• 4-4 Vespiquen
• 3-3-2 Yanmega BREAK
• 4 Unown
• 1-1 Octillery
  
• 1 Oranguru

Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums: 33

• 4 Professor Sycamore
• 2 Judge
• 1 N
• 1 Teammates
• 1 Lysandre

• 4 Ultra Ball
  
• 4 Acro Bike
• 3 VS Seeker
• 3 Choice Band
• 2 Level Ball
• 2 Revitalizer
• 2 Field Blower
• 1 Special Charge

• 3 Forest of Giant Plants

Energy: 4

• 4 Double Colorless Energy

Total: 60 (no free spaces)

Strategy should be fairly obvious: attack on the opening turns with Yanmega's free Assault Booms and Barrier Break, while maintaining board and 4-in-hand with Oranguru/Octillery, and using Unown/Ultra Ball/Acro Bike to set up crazy Bee Revenges to clean whatever is there to be cleaned.

There are some problems with it:

• Metagross is pratically autoloss if they are faster than me. OHKOs are rare, and Max Potion is a pain.
• Garb is also kinda hard. Juggling 4 cards in hand and not getting ability-locked is also not easy, but the matchup is winnable at least.
• I'm not really looking into winning tournaments with it, just having a solid deck to play around, and I won't put money on Shays or Leles because I simply don't like EXs and GXs
• I'm not running the "magic number" Vespi, I think its 26 Pokémon? Maybe I could cut some items in favor of Klefki or +1-1 Octillery, I really hadn't time to test it out lately.
• Yeah I know Yanmega is not that good but I love me some gold dinossaur dragonfly Barrier-Breakin'

Thanks, Beach.

 

[Wechselbalg]

I am not an expert myself, but here are my 2 cents:

I've played against this sort of deck several times, and I personally like it as an opponent. It's effective, but not as annoying and one-sided as going up against a Garb/Trev deck for example.

If your main concern is Metagross GX, then the obvious choice would be to run Vespiquen with Flareon to hit for weakness, but then you would have to give up at least the Break in the Yanmega line I think.

Cutting items for Klefki seems like a good idea to me with the Garbodor heavy meta. You could get rid of the 2 Field Blowers for example, as you already have a Stadium to counter the opponent's, but I am not sure what other items you could get rid of, as most of what you have are already staple items in a Vespi deck. Alternatively, if you only run Oranguru instead of the Octillery line, then you'd have room for 2 more Klefkis. Just watch out for Oricoro and try to Lysandre it as soon as it hits the board, some Garb decks like to run it as a Vespi counter.

 

[Dave Summers]

I am not an expert myself, but here are my 2 cents:

I've played against this sort of deck several times, and I personally like it as an opponent. It's effective, but not as annoying and one-sided as going up against a Garb/Trev deck for example.

If your main concern is Metagross GX, then the obvious choice would be to run Vespiquen with Flareon to hit for weakness, but then you would have to give up at least the Break in the Yanmega line I think.

Cutting items for Klefki seems like a good idea to me with the Garbodor heavy meta. You could get rid of the 2 Field Blowers for example, as you already have a Stadium to counter the opponent's, but I am not sure what other items you could get rid of, as most of what you have are already staple items in a Vespi deck. Alternatively, if you only run Oranguru instead of the Octillery line, then you'd have room for 2 more Klefkis. Just watch out for Oricoro and try to Lysandre it as soon as it hits the board, some Garb decks like to run it as a Vespi counter.

Hmmm I've been playtesting this build and got some OHKO's on stuff with 200 HP, so I guess the deck isn't doing so back in terms of damage. Yanmega holds the early game and puts pressure while I build Vespi.

But does that fix the Metagross problem? I think the only way I can win this matchup is preserving my 2 Revitalizer and Special Charge to the endgame, when all I got on the field is Vespi after Vespi, and work on those OHKOs on Metagross.

In the end, I quite like this build. Got 3rd on a small tournament yesterday, winning against Alolan Ninetales-GX, Umbreon-GX/Zoroark/Tauros-GX, and losing to another Umbreon-GX/Zoroark.