Just My Type – Finicking with Fire

pokebeach.comWelcome to my second type-by-type analysis of the HGSS metagame. Following the chain of weaknesses, today we have arrived at the most hyped type of the format when Black and White entered the scene: Fire.

Considering how few viable Fire-type cards there are in the format compared to Grass, as well as the vast amount of analysis and testing there has already been done with the anticipated Fire archetypes, you’d think there’s very little for me to say.

But don’t worry: I’ve taken my time and tried to be as elaborate as I can be, without just repeating things everybody knows. While I will be covering the basics, I will also be commenting on details that are the result of playtesting, and doing a more thorough analysis than just giving you the card numbers and saying “this card is good”!

Set-Up Pokémon

Just like last time, I’m going to start with the Pokémon that are behind the scenes rather than on the stage. Fuel before the car, so to speak. This time, there will be less individual Pokémon to talk about, which means I have an excuse to be even more elaborate. What Fire lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality, so I can go pretty in-depth here.

The first one I’m going to talk about is Ninetales, one of the last draw engines we have left in our format. Forget about “Will-o’-the-wisp”, doing 60 damage for three Energy isn’t worth the pain it is to pronounce it (not for foreigners like me, anyway). It’s all about the “Roast Reveal” Poké-Power, which allows you to discard a R Energy from your hand in order to draw 3 cards.

I don’t think I need to tell you this is a great way to go through your deck and getting the pieces you need to get your attackers out. Unless you happen to find everything you need without it in the first turn, your number one priority should be setting up Ninetales when using a Fire deck.

pokebeach.comBarring a lopsided matchup, the winner of the match is generally the one with the most options, and options are opened up by having more cards accessible at a time. Therefore, Ninetales wins you games.

Of course, discarding Energy that you could have been using to pay your attacking cost is a risk, but there are several ways to make up for that.

We can run Energy Retrieval and Fisherman, we can run an above average amount of R Energy, or we can actually be friendly for our environment and recycle this Energy with Typhlosion Prime. With this bad guy in play, you can attach an Energy card from your discard pile to one of your Pokémon by using the “Afterburner” power.

Once again, there’s a “but”: you have to put 10 damage on the Pokémon you attach it to. A small price to pay for one of the most efficient Energy acceleration systems in the game.

The Ninetales/Typhlosion engine is what kept Charizard running last format, at least to an extent. It still ended up being too slow overall, but it was generally agreed upon that when it got going, it worked out well.

Right now, with the format slowed down and there being better Fire attackers than ever before thanks to Black and White, there should be absolutely nothing that stops Ninetales/Typhlosion from taking everything by storm, right?

Nothing, except for the release of the “Inferno Fandango” Emboar. For those of you who have been living under a rock, “Inferno Fandango” is a Fire-type Rain Dance, except on crack (kind of like whoever came up with the Ability name).

While Emboar is in play, you can attach as many R Energy cards to your Pokémon as you like. Unlike Rain Dance, it doesn’t matter what type of Pokémon you attach the Fire to. You might think this is an insignificant difference if you’re running a Fire deck, but as you will see later, it definitely matters.

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However, while Ninetales and Typhlosion have a clear synergy, Emboar simply speeds up attachments from your hand. It doesn’t allow you to draw cards on its own. For that, some have proposed the use of the Promo Shuckle, whose “Fermenting Liquid” Poké-Body lets you draw a card every time you attach a R Energy to it.

The idea is that after you have attached so much Energy to Shuckle that he’s about to explode, you use Seeker, Super Scoop Up, or Unown (GS 54) with its “RETURN” Poké-Power to put that Energy back to your hand, and then reassign it however you like.

And this is where we delve into which of these engines is the best: Ninetales/Typhlosion or Emboar/Shuckle. And if you ask me, the answer is: C) neither.

First off, it is my educated opinion that Shuckle isn’t very good. Clearly, if you’re drawing through half of your deck with Shuckle, you’ve already managed to set up Emboar. As you’re going to see later, setting up a good Fire attacker doesn’t exactly take a lot of resources to do so.

This begs the question: why are you drawing cards to begin with? You will draw into some useful Trainers that can come in handy, such as PlusPower, but most of the Pokémon and searching cards will be useless to you, while all more Energy nets you into another card.

In addition, since Shuckle himself isn’t making use of the Energy (even if his attack cost was RC instead of GC, I still would not want to use it), you are forced to keep playing this little game of roulette until you draw into Seeker or Unown to get it back.

With a proper build, you can probably manage to do that fairly reliably…but I feel you don’t need to force yourself to be satisfied with “fairly reliably”, especially when we’re going to take into consideration that you might have some of these scooping cards in your prizes. And don’t even get me started on Super Scoop Up flips.

pokebeach.comThat isn’t to say Typhlosion/Ninetales isn’t without its flaws. The first of them is that Typhlosion places damage counters on whatever is using the Energy, since we no longer have access to Stark Mountain to have one of your other Pokémon take one for the team before moving the Energy over.

Anyone who has ever used PlusPower or Crobat G, or even this very card knows that small bits of damage like this can make the difference between life and death, especially when they come in multiples.

The second is that you are limited to one extra Energy attachment per turn per Typhlosion you get in play. Since pretty much every good Fire main attacker involves discarding Energy, you will have to think ahead and think what you are going to attach Energy to every turn, as opposed to being able to wait it out until the time comes to attach with Emboar (barring an unexpected forced hand refresh coming from your opponent’s Judge or Spiritomb “Spooky Whirlpool”).

I am not saying that thinking ahead and doing some planning is a bad thing in general, to the contrary. But I do believe that this is a legitimate advantage of using Emboar over Typhlosion for Energy attachments. Having to make less guesses of what will happen in the next few turns, even if they are very well educated guesses, is an undeniable boon.

Of course, even ignoring the “thinking ahead” issue, the mere fact you need to have Energy in your discard to attach it with Typhlosion, as well as the fact an attacker that requires more than 2 Energy to attack can’t go from zero to hero within one turn. Again, that is unless you have multiple Typhlosion in play.

So, how do we solve this dilemma? Well, we have established that Shuckle is probably not the way to go unless you believe the risk of whiffing that intended scoop is worth it for what you are trying to achieve, so that does leave us with Ninetales. The only choice you have left to make is whether you want to use Typhlosion or Emboar.

If you are going with the former, you will be forced to think a little more about what to attach to, and you will be weakening your Pokémon with the damage counters you will be placing. However, you will have better synergy with Ninetales, making direct use of the Energy discarded.

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In addition, Typhlosion has two Retreat Cost against Emboar’s four, making it much less vulnerable to Pokémon Reversal and the upcoming Pokémon Catcher. I also believe Typhlosion is better in the ring if it does end up having to fight: RRC for 70 and discarding an Energy card from both Active Pokémon beats RRCC for a vanilla 80 in my book, especially since Typhlosion can continually re-attach to itself with “Afterburner” (which also helps the retreating).

I have seen one person incorporating both of these in their deck, but personally I’ve always stuck with one. From theorymon, I don’t think the inconsistency is worth it. I started out with Typhlosion for a brief moment, then tested a lot with Emboar and found it much more comfortable.

A quick switch back and forth confirmed this for me. As long as you remember to run quite a lot of Energy recovery material (Energy Retrieval, Junk Arm, Fisherman), you can really go to places.

I hope this has given you a good insight on which combination of acceleration and draw power to run. I am sure I will be going back to Typhlosion, at least temporarily, when Pokémon Catcher is out and the Emboar hunting season is officially opened.

Emboar getting Knocked Out isn’t the main problem here: if they can KO the 150 HP Emboar in one turn, they could probably also KO Typhlosion or any of my main attackers. And if they take more turns to kill it, I should be able to attach Energy with Inferno Fandango long before it dies, enough to last until I have set up a new Emboar unless I discarded too many pieces with Junk Arm or Professor Juniper.

No, the problem is that it opens you up to your opponent taking away crucial momentum to set himself up, and in addition it allows them to snipe your Bench. For this reason, I recommend you already throw at least 1 Switch into your lists with Emboar. It’s a good and versatile card that has a lot of other uses besides this one, such as getting a heavy retreater out of the Active Spot early on in favor of Cleffa, and it can be re-used with Junk Arm.

I believe that this is all there is to say on the subject of Energy acceleration and draw power, at least until we know what cars they are actually going to provide fuel for. As I said, this type tries to make up for quantity with quality, and so my analysis of it does as well.

There are no Fire techs left to discuss. The only one that even remotely qualifies for attention is Torkoal, who has a 50% chance of inflicting Burn when you drop him on your Bench and does absolutely nothing else for you. That’s how short on options we are.

Main Attacker

pokebeach.comSo let’s talk about actually doing damage. Typhlosion’s “Afterburner” is decent and Emboar’s “Heat Crash” is mediocre at best, so we should really let the elephant in the room. Reshiram from Black and White is hands down the best Fire-type attacker in the format right now.

Words cannot capture how broken Reshiram is for a Basic Pokémon, but my favorite way of saying it is that Reshiram’s stats, attack power, cost, and everything else is superior to fanboy favorite number one: Base Set Charizard.

Of course, you can mitigate that by saying “power creep”, so let’s look at him in detail. 130 HP is enormous, and works well with its cheapest attack, “Outrage”. 20 damage and 10 more for every damage counter on it, for CC.

But it’s really all about “Blue Flare”, which does a whopping 120 damage for RRC, and you have to discard 2 R Energy to it. I won’t delve into the pro’s and cons of being a Fire-type with a Water weakness right here, since that’s what my concluding paragraphs are for.

It’s not hard to see how Reshiram works. You put Energy on it with Emboar or Typhlosion, and you just keep using Blue Flare until the cows come home, occasionally using Outrage when you can to conserve Energy. Giving the ability to 1HKO anything but some tough Stage 2 opponents, turn after turn, to a Basic Pokémon makes me question if these card designers really want to slow down the game at all.

Not only is Reshiram extremely fast due to not needing to evolve, but it also takes up much less deck space than some evolved main attacker. This space can be used for putting in Energy recovery cards (necessary with both Typhlosion and Emboar, but moreso with the latter), more search and draw, and of course some very useful PlusPower.

pokebeach.comAs you might have noticed, the magical mark to hit this season is 130 damage. With just one of these, Blue Flare allows you to 1HKO Blastoise, Crobat Prime, Gengar Prime, Kingdra (both), Metagross (both), and of course itself and its electric brother Zekrom. Not saying all of these are extremely common, but it shows just how much difference that 10 extra damage makes.

Of course, even if it weren’t for all these Stage 2s, the mirror match alone would make PlusPower a worthwhile inclusion.

As powerful as Reshiram is, things can go awfully wrong and you might run out of them, especially if you get unlucky with your prizes. This is actually a very viable scenario in the Reshiram mirror match. Because of that, Revive may be a good inclusion, giving you a fifth or even a sixth Reshiram to work with.

Before Reshiram was released, I might have a lot more Pokémon to talk about in the attacking role. Pokémon such as Magcargo, Arcanine, Typhlosion (the normal one), and Ho-Oh LEGEND might be worth giving more than just a quick mention. But the fact is that Reshiram is here, alive and kicking, so I’m simply to keep it at dropping their names and raising the bar. If you can’t match Reshiram’s speed and/or damage output, then you better have something really big to show for it, or you’re not worth it.

Big Guns

One problem with Reshiram is that his damage output has a soft cap. You can only use PlusPower so many times during a match, and sometimes even PlusPower isn’t going to be enough. A good example of a matchup where you need more than the 120-140 range you normally have is Machamp/Reuniclus, where you will often not be able to deal the 150 damage required for the KO. Your opponent moves all the damage to his bench, uses Seeker to remove some of it, and proceeds to 1HKO Reshiram with a Champ Buster.

You’d think a Pokémon that can deal 150 damage in one turn is too hard to fit into a deck without hurting consistency and speed. But you have to keep in mind that once you have your Ninetales, Emboar/Typhlosion, and Reshiram, you don’t actually have a whole lot to do.

A couple of Dual Balls or perhaps one Pokémon Collector is all you have to do to get your back-up Reshiram out, and only occasionally will you have to Roast Reveal or hand refresh to get the constant Energy drops you need. So you actually have quite a bit of “spare time” when playing Reshiram, and sometimes a bit of bench space as well. For that reason, this “big gun” is not as hard to squeeze in as you might think.

pokebeach.comIt gets even easier when you take a look at “Badboar”, the other Emboar in the Black and White set. It has the same impressive 150 HP, the same terrible 4 Retreat Cost, and the not-so-worthwhile “Heat Crash” is there as well, this time only doing 50 for RCC.

However, instead of “Inferno Fandango”, this Emboar has exactly the big gun attack we are looking for. “Flare Blitz” costs RRCC, and requires the discard of all R Energy you attached to it. In return, you’re getting a whopping 150 damage, exactly enough to KO the aforementioned Machamp Prime.

The only things that can withstand this force are a couple of LEGENDs, Samurott (Shell Armor), Tyranitar Prime, and Wailord, and all but the last one require only one PlusPower to KO.

The fact that you are probably already running an Emboar line makes putting one of these in much easier. All you need to do is thicken the line a little, and add some Double Colorless Energy since you don’t need to discard those when using Flare Blitz.

If Badboar is not your cup of tea, don’t panic! There is a similar card you can use as a nuke that might just be right up your alley. Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND is the card I was hinting at back when I was discussing Inferno Fandango’s perk of allowing you to attach unlimited Energy to any type, not just Fire. While the card is technically Psychic and Colorless, the type the fuels his attack is (mostly) Fire.

At heart, RDL (as I will call him from now on) is not all that different from Emboar. He takes about the same effort to get into play taking everything into account, has 10 less HP, slightly better but still awful 3 Retreat Cost, and an expensive attack that does 150 damage. “Ozone Buster” has an EX-era cost of RRLC, which means you should try to attach RRLL to it so that you only have to discard 2 R Energy.

By the way, please don’t use Rainbow Energy on RDL. It counts as every single type of Energy at once, including Fire, which means it still ends up in the discard when you attack. In addition, the damage counter you have to place on it brings you ever closer to a counter KO.

The key difference is that the “Space Virus” Poké-Body RDL has gives you an extra prize for every kill you get with it. This is an absolutely gamebreaking Poké-Body that essentially rises the stakes of the battle the moment you send it Active (since killing RDL also nets your opponent 2 Prizes). If you can get two kills with this baby, you got bang for your buck and your opponent will often be unable to recover even if they do manage to finish off RDL.

RDL rose from being barely playable last format (due to its extremely common weaknesses making a bad mix with its low speed and double prize gambit) to being an extremely scary force in a deck that is already powerful.

So should you play one of these, and if so, which one? While I might have made it sound like it is necessary, don’t throw one of these into your deck just yet before imagining what kind of decks you think you will be facing. One large problem with Emboar and RDL is that they are both extremely susceptible to Zoroark’s “Foul Play”, which allows him to copy their 150 damage attack for the small cost of a Double Colorless Energy (and he doesn’t have to discard anything!).

Their high Retreat Costs also make them vulnerable to being dragged up from the bench. Now imagine both of these at once and you can see quite a bit of deck space and set-up time going to waste if you’re too careless.

Against decks where the main attacker is an easy kill with “Blue Flare”, such as Jumpluff, Cinccino, and Yanmega Prime, you will often be able to ride to victory on Reshiram alone and the only reason to send up something else would be to snag 2 Prizes at once with RDL. In slightly tougher but still doable face-offs (such as the gazillion 130 HP Pokémon named before), it’s a judgement call.

There is one particular big HP Pokémon that might make you think about using a “big gun”: Tyranitar Prime. However, the problem with that is that Tyranitar often has the company of at least 1-1 Zoroark (since it can make use of special Dark), and that is some very bad news. Because of that, it might be better to slug it out with constant Reshiram swarming, which Tyranitar has a hard time with anyway since it needs DDCC to 1HKO Reshiram.

Neither here nor there

pokebeach.comSince we’re still on the topic of LEGENDs, there are two LEGENDs out there that are actually Fire-typed. It’s only right that we take a quick look at them. The first one is the potentially game-ending Entei & Raikou LEGEND, or ERL.

Thunder Fall” costs LC and requires you to discard all Energy attached to ERL, and does 80 damage to every Pokémon in play (yours and your opponent’s) with a Poké-Power. My favorite way of describing this card’s impact during last format is this quote from a friend who calls himself paperfairy:

“hide yo Crobats, hide yo wife”

The moment this card has been sighted, the player on the other side of the table had to be insanely careful with their pixies and Crobat G’s, having to restrain them or using scooping cards to get them back to safety.

In HGSS on, however, the pixies and Crobat G are no longer available. In addition, the new Black and White Pokémon have replaced Poké-Powers with Abilities, so you won’t be KOing any of those either. That doesn’t mean there are no Bench-sitters left, but you are much likely to drop a game-winning Thunder Fall. You will still strike fear to the hearts of a couple of techs though. Celebi Prime, Floatzel, Jirachi, Mr. Mime, Pachirisu, Rotom, Shaymin, Slowking (Second Sight), Smeargle, Spiritomb, Sunflora, Weavile and various Unown are still vulnerable enough to consider.

As far as I’m concerned, though, Thunder Fall simply isn’t worth putting Lightning or Rainbow Energy into your deck for. If you want a LEGEND that takes multiple prizes while requiring you to put a little bit of Lightning into your deck, you should be using RDL.

The only reason left for us to use ERL would be to Detonation Spin, which is a fairly cheap 80 damage for RC, requiring just a R Energy discard from it. While it’s nothing compared to our other options, it’s worth mentioning that ERL is half Electric, which means it has some vague potential as an anti-Water tech.

Sadly, ERL is every bit as weak to Water as the other Pokémon in your deck, and will likely be Knocked Out on the rebound just as quickly as something like Badboar would be. RDL 1HKOs every Water-type in the format other than Wailord and Samurott and isn’t weak to Water, so it’s easier to use him instead.

The other Fire-type LEGEND is Suicune & Entei LEGEND, or SEL. “Torrent Blade” is a nice attack, but due to its WWC cost more suited for a deck based on Water acceleration rather than Fire. “Bursting Inferno” is barely better than normal Emboar’s “Heat Crash”, doing 80 for RCC with the added bonus of Burn. We can write this one off, as well.

pokebeach.comThe only remaining Fire Pokémon I want to give some time in the spotlight is Simisear. The Pokémon mentioned above are completely unmatched as main attackers, but none of them can actually deal spread damage like Simisear can. “Flame Burst” only costs R and deals 20 damage to your opponent’s Active, as well as 20 to two of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon.

Personally, I really liked Abomasnow (Stormfront)’s “Snow Play” as a way to spread damage all over the place with little cost, and I’m a little sad it’s left the format. I don’t think Simisear can really fill his shoes, only dealing 20 damage to 3 of their Pokémon (as opposed to generally all of them unless they were playing Water or Grass decks), but I still find him interesting enough to mention.

He has no expensive heavy damage attack to take advantage of Fire acceleration (“Fury Swipes” does not count, it’s rubbish), so he’s more likely a tech into another type of deck or perhaps one day a deck on his own. Right now, his only likely partners would be Solrock and Lunatone, which prevent the damage from being healed when in play together.

This whole spread plan has many flaws, one of which being that your opponent can still use scooping cards to heal, so right now I recommend you put this monkey back in the binder and go back to dealing 100+ damage per turn to your opponent’s Active.

Teaming up with other types

So let’s sum up our strategies so far: you use Ninetales for draw power, Typhlosion Prime or Emboar “Inferno Fandango” to accelerate Energy, and then attack with Reshiram, RDL or Badboar. Let’s talk about some other ways to use these Pokémon…

It’s worth noting that Typhlosion and RDL also do perfectly fine as their own deck, the former having some nice disruption going on with the Energy discard while the latter is nothing less than intimidating. Typhlosion’s ability in particular has some great synergy with several other Stage 2s: Serperior’s “Royal Heal” can get rid of the Afterburner damage, Reuniclus’s “Damage Swap” can spread it however you want, and if you’re insane you can use it to power up Machamp Prime’s “Champ Buster”.

Something else I simply have to mention is the use of “Inferno Fandango” in other decks. The main one is of course Magnezone Prime/Emboar, the best deck in format according to some. Having tested this myself, I can definitely agree this is a contender. Magnezone has a solid 140 HP, and quite possibly the best Poké-Power left in the format.

“Magnetic Draw” allows you to draw cards until you have 6 in your hand. This is nothing less than godly and combines perfectly with Inferno Fandango’s infinite Energy attachment. “Magnetic Draw” also turns every Judge into a Professor Oak’s New Theory for you, which not only allows you to be disruptive but also makes you practically immune to the card when your opponent uses it.

The fun doesn’t end there though. “Lost Burn” costs LC (what’s with Fire and Lightning having so much synergy all of a sudden?), and does 50 damage times the amount of Energy in play that you send to the Lost Zone. Customizable and infinite damage is amazing of itself, and downright overwhelming when paired with Inferno Fandango.

Magnezone/Emboar is a snowball deck that never stops when it starts rolling. Magnetic Draw has an exponential effect on your field position and draw power, as every time you refill your hand you draw into more Energy and more Magnezone, which allow you to dig further and further. I’ve had to slam the brakes more than once just to stop myself from decking out.

There is so much to say about Magnezone/Emboar that it could be its own article…and that’s probably why it is (UG only, but I’ve heard good stories about it!). If you’re one of these people who has trouble saying goodbye to Uxie (or even Claydol), or if you just want to find out all you can about this devastating deck, give it a look.

Emboar has potential to work with anything that requires a boatload of Energy, including the Tangrowth discussed in my last article. He’s not one-dimensional in the least and I expect more combos with him to become available when future sets start rolling in.

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Ninetales isn’t handcuffed (pawcuffed?) to Typhlosion and Emboar either: it can make a fine draw engine for Pokémon who don’t require a specific kind of Energy, such as Cincinno. Like Magnezone, it can refill your hand after a Judge (as long as you can grab an Energy post-shuffle), and therefore usually hurt your opponent while helping yourself.

I’ve heard of people adding Ninetales to Magnezone/Emboar, and while I haven’t tested it myself, I’ve found that Magnezone alone does a fine job at going through your deck like crazy. RDL obviously slides right into Magnezone/Emboar due to his Energy requirements.

Last but not at least, I’ve been testing Reshiram in some really odd places. I have one teched into my Donphan list just to mess with Kingdra Prime players and I’m two for two with starting with it so far (granted, my only other Basics are 4 Phanpy).

I also use one Reshiram and one Zekrom in my Machamp/Reuniclus list. Odd as it seems, they make for great damage hogs. Unlike Machamp Prime, you can place them straight back down after Seekering them up without having to spend time as lower evolutions, nor do I need to use a Rare Candy to get their HP back over the 100s.

I don’t even run any Energy other than Fighting and Double Colourless, since the only times I’ve wanted to use them for attacking, I could shift damage onto them with Reuniclus and then use Outrage. Their 2 Retreat Cost isn’t much of a problem thanks to Fighting Tag. Other than as damage sponges, their added type coverage can be helpful sometimes in a pinch against Scizor Prime or Yanmega Prime.

I think that is all there is to say on individual Pokémon. That just leaves some talk about the Fire-type as a whole, and then we’ll head to the oh so unpredictable final verdict.

Fire versus other types

I believe Fire has an extra big advantage in the whole typing spectrum. They slide in like normal in this type cycle that both the TCG and the video games are (roughly) following:

Grass -> Fire -> Water -> Lightning -> Fighting -> Psychic -> Dark (-> means “is weak to”)

However, they also seem to be giving every Steel-type a Fire weakness these days, which means Fire can pretty much ignore any attempt by Steelix or Scizor decks to tank. In addition, you have to take into account how good the other types are.

Water has nothing as fast and powerful as Reshiram, and is also being scared off by the hype that Zekrom and Magnezone are getting. Grass and Steel both have pretty large potential when left to do their thing, and being favorable against both of them without having to tech is already a great boon.

This type cycle is one of the reasons I started doing these type-by-type analysis. It seems that unlike last format, HGSS-on has something for sale in pretty much every type, meaning your matchup across the board are very varying and teching becomes easier but also more convoluted.

Final Verdict

The shift from Majestic Dawn-on to HGSS-on has been kind to Fire in every way. Gyarados (Stormfront) and Kingdra (Legends Awakened) leave the Waters without a quick attacker that can do significant damage (since Kingdra Prime’s “Dragon Steam” does so little when there’s Fire Pokémon opposing it).

The format slowing down makes the Ninetales engine that was once considered snail-pace the first horse to bet on. But what really makes Fire as a whole a threat again is the release of Reshiram and Emboar.

You can expect to face a Fire deck multiple times at every HGSS on event you go to. Only the most extreme non-conformists will be able to stay away from this deck completely, and bad times befall on those who do not at least consider them a force during their deck building and play testing stage.

It is slightly unfortunate for the Steel decks out there (Grass at least has Metapod), but we’ll just have to live with one type being more dominant than the others. And I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have one type being better than the others than to have the format determined and dominated by SP or Sableye.

The release of Pokémon Catcher will both help and hurt Fire decks. On one hand, Reshiram will be able to drag up your Stage 2 in training before it’s ready to duke it out. On the other hand, Emboar will be a risky play to say the least, with its 4 Retreat Cost, which forces these heavy hitters to slow down by putting in more Switches, or using Ninetales instead.

Whether you plan to use any of these cards or just wanted to read about them in case you end up facing them, I hope you found this article informative and interesting. I’ll see you next time!

Reader Interactions

8 replies

  1. Anonymous

    Good article. I like the process you are going through to analyze the types.

    However, I feel that it might not be worth a whole lot when Pokemon Catcher comes out. I am having a hard time seeing how things are going to compete with Speed Zekrom w/ Cather. The ability to hit 120 first turn and being able to chose which Pokemon you want to take out is extremely broken. The only salvation may be Donphan w/ Catcher.

  2. Dave Wilson

    Great article! I tried the Emboar/Shuckle/Unown combo a while back and although it does have the most draw power of any combination this format, it requires way too much to operate: two bench spaces, Super Scoop Ups, Seekers, etc. make it hardly worth while. Oh and god forbid you’re caught with your pants down and a Shuckle gets switched out for an OHKO with a ton of energy on him because you couldn’t find a SSU/Seeker/Unown or they were prized. I also found myself able to draw out my deck in only a few turns which is cool, but who needs all those cards at once anyways?

    Oh and for those who are worried about RDL, he’s the easiest to tech against ever, just throw in a Bouffalant and return OHKO to get two prizes.

  3. Curtis

    RDL is a force to be feared. I run a Rehiboarphlosion deck, and last time I faced a Magneboar deck with RDL, the whole match seemed to center around the RDL. I Blue Flared the first one, leaving him with 20 HP remaining, he Ozone Bustered me for a KO, I send out another Reshiram for an Outrage KO. He Rescues Energy’d him back into his hand, replayed him, but failed to energy him enough for the Ozone  Buster. I Blue Flared with 2 PlusPower for the win.

    I describe the final plays of a single matchup for a reason. The article explains that if you can manage 2 KOs with RDL, you can make up for the 2 prizes your opponent gains by gaining 4 yourself. This works just as well from the other end of the field.

    • Anonymous  → Curtis

      That is what you have Typhlosion Prime for. You need to make sure that you use it to discard the Lightning and Rescue Energy. It is also why a Bouffalant is useful.

  4. Jak Stewart-Armstead

    Really good and thorough article.

    Those front page writers who get bored and run out of steam half way through (they know who they are), should read and learn from this.

  5. jw

    These are the types of articles that deserve to be on the front page of Sixprizes. Thumbs up.

  6. J Humphrey

    Wait RDL in finicking with fire? RDL should be in  Playing with Psychic!

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