The obvious idea when Reuniclus was first printed in the Black & White set was to pair it with a high HP Pokemon to create an unstoppable tank. Reuniclus’s Ability “Damage Swap” allows you to rearrange damage counters on your side of the field whenever and however you want.
Although many people dismissed the card as gimmicky, the idea seemed exciting to me. I ended up finding a partner for Reuniclus, taking the deck to Nationals, and finishing at a subpar 4-5.
It seems strange that I’d be writing about a deck that didn’t even finish with a positive record, but I think it’s at very least a clever idea worth sharing. I’m going to cover the deck idea, how it works, and what I learned from Nationals.
The Idea
I’ve always wanted Tyranitar Prime to work, so that was one of the first combos that crossed my mind. There were two main problems with this idea: 1. Tyranitar is a stage two, so that meant two stage twos and no draw engine. 2. There was nowhere to put the swapped damage. Larvitar and Solosis can only soak up so much.
I really wanted to give this a shot, so I looked for ways around these issues. My first solution to problem one was Noctowl. Problem two was the tougher fix, but the perfect solution came in the form of a couple other freshly printed Black & White cards: Reshiram and Zekrom. Both of these fellas have massive HP and are painless to set up.
What’s more, they benefit from having damage on them and are a perfect fit in a deck that already runs Double Colorless Energy. They provide great back-up attacker options that don’t distract from the main idea of the deck at all, but even complement it.
At this point I was pretty excited about the idea. I built a rough list and started testing. I won a few of my first games with it, but it was a little difficult to set up and I often found myself nearing deck-out. I knew the idea had potential, but there was a little fixing to be done. I didn’t like Noctowl very much at all, so I took out the 2-2 Noctowl for an aggressive and consistent Trainer/Supporter engine.
How It Works
The deck works by getting a Tyranitar, Reuniclus, and Reshiram or Zekrom set up. Tyranitar is a 160 HP beast who can be one-hit KOed by few Pokemon. When your opponent (hopefully) fails to knock out Tyranitar in one shot, you use Reuniclus’s “Damage Swap” and move all the damage from Tyranitar to your benched Reshiram and/or Zekrom.
Now you have a fully healed Tyranitar in the active position and a legendary beast on the bench able to Outrage for high damage. Reshiram helps as an attacking Pokemon without a Fighting weakness, and Zekrom is nice for hitting Pokemon with a Lightning weakness for easy high damage. If the bench damage becomes too much to spread, Super Scoop Up can quickly remove 120 damage from the field by scooping up a heavily damaged legendary.
The List
|
Pokemon – 173 Larvitar UL #50 |
Trainers – 31 4 Pokemon Collector 4 Pokemon Communication |
Energy – 12 |
This is the list I brought to Nationals. The 3-2-3 Tyranitar and 2-1-2 Reuniclus always worked well for me. The Larvitar and Pupitar used are obviously the ones with attacks for Colorless Energy. Larvitar’s attack “Mountain Eater” discards the top card from your opponent’s deck and can occasionally cause significant disruption early on by discarding key cards. Pupitar’s “Boost Gas” Poke-Body came in handy a few times, giving it free retreat, and its “Rage” attack even got me a Magnezone knock out!
Two Reshiram and two Zekrom seemed the perfect amount (or at least a total of four was a perfect amount; I might have liked three Reshiram and one Zekrom to help my chances against the metaphorical and literal elephant in the room, Donphan, who gives Tyranitar a lot of trouble).
As I said previously, I maxed out consistency cards and played an aggressive Supporter engine. I played four Pokemon Collector, as it’s a terrific set up card and becomes painless Junk Arm material late game.
The choice of four Sage’s Training and two Professor Juniper made the deck brutal, especially with Tyranitar’s “Megaton Tail” discarding the top three cards of my deck, but to be able to get out fast enough and compete with naturally faster decks, I felt I had to take my chances.
Professor Oak’s New Theory was a great maxed out. Professor Elm’s Training Method was nice sometimes, but I’m honestly not sold on it, even as a one-of. Flower Shop Lady has received mixed reviews, but I think it’s a great fit for this deck. A deck with so much discard needs some recovery, and it was always nice to have the option.
I think four Communication is a must in this format, as is four Rare Candy in any Stage 2 deck. I could see playing another Junk Arm, but I got by with two. Three Super Scoop Up were great for removing damage from the field. The two Switch were handy in a deck full of high retreat costs.
The energy count might seem a little low, but I didn’t seem to find myself in desperate need very often.
In Retrospect
I felt pretty set on my list and was fairly confident with the deck, but I ended up going 4-5. What happened!?
One thing that might seem interesting is the play of no babies. Well… I regret every second of it. The biggest lesson I learned from Nationals is this: PLAY CLEFFA. At least two of my losses were me having “draw, pass” turns over and over while my opponent just set up and destroyed me. Eeeeeeeking (yep, counted the Es) would have pulled me so beautifully out of some miserable hands.
I chose to play no babies with the thought that I needed to get set up very quickly and that Cleffa would distract from the goal and slow me down. I thought my Supporter counts were high and aggressive enough that they could pull me out of anything. Not even close. I dismissed Cleffa, but it’s definitely the play.
The second lesson I learned is not to get stuck on an idea. This deck has a great time against Reshiram decks, which was why I initially thought it was such a good choice. Reshiram decks will almost never one-hit a Tyranitar, so it’s the ideal match-up. Cinccino was no problem, Zoroark was no problem, Kingdra/Mandibuzz was no problem, Zekrom was no problem…
As Nationals grew nearer, however, decks that Tyranitar has a much tougher time against got a lot of hype. Yanmega can Linear Attack a benched Solosis early on, ruining the whole strategy of the deck. Donphan also saw an increase in attention, and being able to hit Tyranitar for weakness kills the whole “no one-hit KO” thing. I saw a few Reshiram decks at the tournament, but I saw none of the others I mentioned that were hyped early on.
If Nationals had happened a month earlier, I think Tyranitar/Reuniclus would have had a great time. But, I chose to ignore the changing metagame, and sticking with my list caused me a losing record.
The Future of the Deck
Sadly, this article is more of a sharing of a cool idea that almost worked than me trying to sell this as a top tier deck. I don’t see Tyranitar/Reuniclus having another shot at relevancy any time soon, so I wish I would’ve had a better list (and luck!) and had performed better at Nationals.
Pokemon Catcher is being printed in the next set, Emerging Powers, and it will be the death of this deck. Pokemon Catcher is a renaming of the Base Set card Gust of Wind, and a Pokemon Reversal without the coin flip. It allows you to choose any Pokemon on your opponent’s bench and bring it to the active slot.
Playing Catcher, pulling up Reuniclus, and doing 90 damage will be terribly easy. Knocking out Reuniclus will leave the deck with no synergy and little left to run on.
The deck has a few months left to live though, so I encourage you to have fun with it and try to perfect the idea! But don’t you dare make a list without Cleffa.
