Bed Bugs – They don’t bite you, but they sure bite your Pokemon

Written by | August 18, 2010 | 32 comments | 1,862 views | Rating: +1

Hello everyone, I’m a fairly new user of sixprizes.com and have immediately fallen in love with the article system. I’m here to talk about a rouge deck that I have come up with entitled “Bed Bugs.” Bed bugs are a combination of Dustox PL and Beautiful PL. There are a number of ways this combination in particular appeal to myself.

First off I will present the deck list:

Pokémon: 22

4x Spiritomb AR
4x Wurmple PL
2x Silcoon PL
1x Beautifly PL
1x Cascoon PL
2x Dustox PL
1x Nidoran F RR
1x Nidoqueen RR
2x Unown Q MD
3x Uxie LA
1x Uxie LV.X LA

T/S/S: 24

4x Bebe’s Search
1x Luxury Ball
1x Palmer’s Contribution
4x Pokémon Collector
4x Rare Candy
4x Pokémon Reversal
3x Expert Belt
1x Warp Point
2x Professor Elm’s Training Method

Energy: 14
4x Call Energy
4x Double Colorless Energy
5x Grass Energy
1x Psychic Energy

You may look at this and think “If it wasn’t played DP on, what makes it better MD on?” Well, the only card from stopping Beautifly’s wings from flying was Unown G. Unown G’s Poke-Power “Guard” made it so all effects of a Pokémon aside from damage were ignored. Obviously because this deck is brutal solely on behalf of special conditions, such as Dustox’s “Chemical Scale” attack, we took a look at this card and never looked back.

Well guess what! MD on cycles the Great Encounters set, making Unown G illegal for tournament play! That means “Bed Bugs” will be viable next season. Let’s take a look at the Pokémon in “Bed Bugs”

Dustox PL

I’ve always been a fan of this underrated bug; having your opponent miss an attack can often win you games. How does this bug do that? Well, for a Colorless energy and Grass energy, it does a base 20 or 40 with an Expert Belt. The highlight of this attack is that not only is the defending Pokémon poisoned, they must flip a coin next turn to attack. If the coin flip happens to be tails the attack fails! Pretty good eh? Well that’s not the highlight of the card.

The highlight of the card is Dustox’s “Chemical Scale” which for a Double Colorless Energy and Grass Energy does 60, or 80 with an Expert Belt. If the defending Pokémon has a Poke-Power or Poke-Body (ex: Meganium Prime) they are both burned and confused! Not too shabby for a bug. But the best part is Dustox’s Poke-Body “Camouflage Body” which prevents Pokémon with 2 or more special conditions from attacking him! That means Dustox will be completely immune to attacks after a Chemical Scale! Which makes it a very worthy competitor in today’s metagame.

Beautifly PL

This guy is another amazing card. While he also does special conditions, you usually won’t be using the attack “Colorful Powder”. If you can get the required energy, you will be rolling. Making the defending Pokémon Asleep, burned, and poisoned. For two energy cards or less, it makes the defending Pokémon Poisoned, and for 3 energy cards the defending Pokémon is both burned and poisoned.

Keep in mind; you can use Double Colorless Energy to reduce the energy requirements for the different effects. Usually you’ll be using Beautifly for his second attack, silver scale. If the defending Pokémon has resistance to anything, the attack does 60 base instead of the 30 base. This is a good attack because against a basic Pokémon, you can OHKO them with a belt, such as Luxray GL.

Nidoqueen RR

Nidoqueen is a great tech in this particular deck because you can tank your bed bugs, with her “Maternal Comfort” Poke-Body taking away one damage counter in between turns. Also, Ruthless tail can abuse Double Colorless Energy, becoming quite an attack with an expert belt. Ruthless tail does 50 damage +10 damage for each of your opponents benched Pokémon, for one Psychic energy and a double colorless energy!

Uxie LV.X LA

Uxie LV.X is here solely for draw power; with his Poke-Power “Trade Off” giving you the ability to thin through your deck. Although he can be used to attack with, “Zen Blade” can do sixty for a Double Colorless Energy.

Spiritomb AR

Spiritomb is critical in this deck because sometimes you are slow to set up and SP decks will take advantage of this. Spiritomb AR comes into play because SP decks can’t use SP radar, due to his “Keystone Seal” Poke-Body slowing them down just enough time for you to set up Dustox or Beautifly.

Matchups

Gengar SF: Favorable

This is a favorable matchup because you never have to dive into Gengar’s Poke-Power “Fainting-Spell. Special conditions such as Burned and Poisoned will kill Gengars while they are doing minimal damage because you are clearing your hand of trainers.

Egg-Meg: Favorable

I have tested this matchup a lot because my partner in crime is using Egg-Meg as his MD-on deck. Doeiqts, if you are reading this, I love your rouge decks and my brother does as well. You deserved of your states finishes. Egg-Meg usually doesn’t run Warp Point, so after you attack with Dustox, they generally won’t be attacking you. Blissey Prime’s Poke-Power “Blissful Nurse” doesn’t get rid of special conditions, so they generally won’t be attacking you. The only advice I give is don’t bench Nidoqueen, because Luxray GL. LV.X will use “Bright Look” and stall.

SP builds: Unfavorable

TGI Poketurn is a nuisance to deal with, but this matchup can be won with early spiritomb lock and Nidoqueen RR with an Expert Belt, Psychic energy, and Double Colorless Energy. Nidoqueen usually won’t die because you will use Pokémon Reversal to bring Uxie’s to the active position and they will be OHKOd before they level up.

Machamp

They are weak to psychic, so Dustox will do lots of damage to Machamps. In combination with special conditions and missed attacks, Machamp has no chance outside of beating Bed Bugs outside of a turn one donk.

So overall, I hope other people will view Bed Bugs as a contender for the MD-on Pokémon format. Thanks to everyone and all for reading and I will be happy to respond to comments, questions, and critiques. Good luck to everyone!

Image Credits: PokeBeach, Pokegym, and Pokemon Paradijs

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  • Anonymous

    Gengar decks… I’m not sure how this is favorable, because all of your status conditions mean nothing when they can retreat every turn for free. Same with SP builds.

    I’m not sure why you bothered mentioning blissey/meganium, a deck which never gets ran :(

    Also, you only have 4 matchups.

    Also, you have no way to search for energy, and you only run 5 grass.

    Don’t take this as ‘your deck is bad and you should feel bad’, take it as ‘the first things that could cause a large detriment to this deck are…, and you should make sure you prevent them from happening or being an issue’

  • Yokai

    Ill be very honest and say, I too love Beautifly… but its a stage 2 that cant really kill anything. Same with dustox. Stage 2′s only have advantages over SP decks if they can tank/OHKO/disrupt IMO. getting 3 stage 2′s into play is extremely difficult with the speedy meta. Also of note is beautiflies crappy lightening weakness with luxray Gl running around.

    Also, what evidence do you have for your matchups?

    All in all, it needs some tweaking, like maybe going for a more speedy build with beautifly only to try to get the early KO’s with silver powder if you wanted to make the bug work.

    Or maybe even going for straight dustox with magmortar SV to provide the 2 special conditions to activate its pokebody? Hell if you really want, why not try Dustox and roserade from unleashed, for psychic/grass it activates special conditions, then running something like shaymin UL to move those energies around could be cool.

    Food for thought.

  • SkyAoiSora

    It’s very easy to get out of having burn and/or poison. If you get rid of that, you get rid of the trouble caused by Dustox’ camouflage pattern. You can switch, warp point, evolve, devolve, SSU, poke turn, full heal, or use other stuff to heal.

    Quite Frankly, Beautifly’s ability to do 60 damage for 1 energy is ok, but it’s a stage 2… If that’s the best it can do, it doesn’t rate as amazing in my book.

    Adding Nidoqueen RR’s maternal comfort does not turn your pokemon into tanks. Sorry, but no. I hate when people do this. If you can bring your Torterra to Torterra Lv. X, have a ShayminX in play to bring its HP up another 40, and then belt it, and have 3 Defense Cherrim and another Healing Cherrim, then you’ve got a 220HP Pokemon with +300 Defense and 50 healing per turn. THEN you can call it a tank. But having a moth and and a butterfly healing 10 damage per turn…. This is not a tank. To all people who do this, stop calling them tanks, they’re just regular things healing off of Nidoqueen.

    I don’t think Uxie X should be incorporated into every single deck. it needs to be levelled up after all. Sure, it’s a good Machamp Counter, but you have nothing (besides Spiritomb and Uxie) that needs to worry about Machamp. If you were running SP, then sure, have an Uxie X. But in a S2 deck, it’s really not necessary. Focus more on what your deck is supposed to do, and try thinning out your decklist itself by incorporating 4 SSU for 2 Uxie (3 just clogs the bench), 4 Pokedex Handy, and 4 Poke Drawer. To have your deck flow better, have some Professor Oak’s New Theory, or Judge if you want to sacrifice a bit of flow for disruption.

    Spiritomb is basically something you would NEED to have.

    Gengar SF will often use their sniping abilities on your dustox instead of their poltergeist. they also have free retreat, and their sniping attack uses only 1 energy, so it’s way too easy to get out of your burn and poison.

    Very often, SP’s will indeed be too fast for your type of deck.

    Machamp can use Rage to easily destroy your deck. However, I do agree that you’d have a better matchup against Machamp than, say, SP.

    Now, your decklist.
    I personally don’t think running 4 Spiritomb is very necessary, but I personally haven’t tried it. So I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m confused as to why you have 2 Silcoon and one Beautifly, while you have 1 Cascoon and 2 Dustox…. Did you maybe accidentally reverse these?
    In my opinion, 3 Uxie causes Bench clogging, and dead draws. I’d personally stick with 2.

    My only other thing I can say… You do NOT need 4 Pokemon Collectors. I don’t know why people spam this so much, 1 or 2 and you’re fine. Pokemon Collector is meant to be a get up and go card for early game, or to go fetch you some Uxie and Unown tools or something like that. I’d reduce your PC’s to 1 or 2.

    Overall, I don’t think this deck is all that great, in my opinion… It’s too easy to get out of your Burn Poison, and you’re not exactly tanking enough. Also, your hits aren’t all that hard. I would say it’s a nice base, but I don’t think this could evolve much into something… I rate this deck a 4/10.

  • SkyAoiSora

    I like the idea of Roserade and Dustox. Seems it could work a lot better than the current build.

  • djerf

    you could try adding leafeon from undaunted as a heavy hitter, for 1 grass, it does 50 for ech special condition the defending pokemon is effected by…

  • SkyAoiSora

    Hmm…. I think this could work, but it loosens up the synergy for the deck. Leafeon would pair MUCH better than Roserade, but that’d end up being a completely different deck. Beautifly and Dustox are paired because they have the same basic pokemon.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jordandbaker Jordan Baker

    warp point and poketurn destroy status condition decks. they just wont work in the current meta

  • Rhin

    Its ok if you wanna give advice on how to improve the deck, but i think those changes would make an entirely different deck from what he wants.
    Anyways, if your are going to change the attackers, make it roserade-leafeon, i think thats even better.
    Its faster and needs less energies.

  • SkyAoiSora

    I know that (to the first part of your comment)… I even stated:

    “but that’d end up being a completely different deck.”

    :P

  • Pikey

    *agrees with sky*

    I’ve been looking at Dustox in my folder for a while thinking “This is an amazing card” but unfortunately, almost everything seems to have free retreat now. They’ve cycled out Unown G, and given almost every pokemon in existence free retreat. What a stupid idea.

    Unfortunately; although i absolutely love this deck idea I won’t be trying it because of that :(

    (Come on, a giant fat blobby Gengar has 0 retreat, while a Charizard that FLIES, has a retreat cost of 3?!? Originally “back in the day” only flying Pokemon got a free retreat…)

  • SkyAoiSora

    Now that you mention it………………………..

    XD

  • pho

    You could use Vilepume UD as a trainer lock and Vespiquen UD to prevent bench damage to your grass pokemon. So, no Warp Pointing, and Garchomp can’t snipe your benched Beautifly. Having Dugtrio PL would add 20 damage each time Garchomp/Luxray retreat to get rid of statuses. I would bump up Beautifly to 2 instead because not many people will have more than one Luxray Lv.X to Bright Look Beautifly.

  • TheTahnae

    I love this deck, played it a wee bit myself!

  • hgssprime

    What i think is a nice combo involving spec. conditions? Leafeon from UD and Magmortar SV. Leafeon active, attach 1 energy, evolve benched magmar to Magmortar, defending pokemon becomes burned and confused and then Leafeon’s miasma wind hits for 100. Not to bad right? With BTS in play and using SSU’s or just simply evolving into another magmortar, leafeon hits for 100 just about every turn for only 1 energy.

  • Cschmidt

    I think that you might consider Energy Exchange. Trading calls for DCEs or Grass sounds pretty effective

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XUUNX7VMZ4VU2VXABXPFNYONJQ Edgar F

    Honestly, I don’t know if Beautifly means a thing in this deck anymore. Dustox on the other hand is a wrecking ball in this metagame, forcing poke turns, retreats, etc. LuxTox anyone?