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Flygon Lock – Deck Analysis

Written by Pablo Meza | September 11, 2009 | 61 comments | 9,676 views | Rating: 0

There are three ways to win a game of Pokemon cards. The first and most common one is knocking out six of your opponent’s Pokemon in order to take all 6 prize cards you set out at the beginning of the match. The second way is one that was abused to no end during the 2008 – 2009 season: Benching. If your opponent doesn’t have a Benched Pokemon to replace his/her Active Pokemon when it is KO’d, then he/she automatically loses. Deck’s based on Kingdra or Machamp were usually guilty of producing ‘donk’ turn 1 wins.

The final way is a much less common way, where previous to Worlds 2009, it was an unheard of successful tactic: Decking. Once a player cannot draw 1 card from his deck during the start of his/her turn, that player loses.

Flygon Lv.X’s “Wind Erosion” Poke-Body had never been seen before on a Pokemon Card. Cards such as Rhyperior DP tried to promote decking as a viable game winning strategy, but aside from Battle Road level events, it did not shine in the big ones.

The deck “Flygon Lock” is based on “Wind Erosion”, by locking one of your opponent’s Pokemon with a high retreat cost or non-threatening attacks in the Active position. The following sample list, used by Sebastian Crema from Canada, is the one that placed highest amongst the Master Division at the Pokemon TCG Worlds 2009 event.

Pokemon: 23
3 Trapinch SW
1 Vibrava SW
1 Vibrava RR
3 Flygon RR
1 Flygon LV.X RR
2 Baltoy GE
2 Claydol GE
1 Nidoran (F) RR
1 Nidoqueen RR
1 Palkia MD
1 Palkia LV.X GE
1 Unown G GE
1 Uxie LA
1 Azelf LA
1 Chatot MD
1 Mewtwo MD
1 Mewtwo LV.X LA

Supporters: 10
4 Roseanne’s Research
4 Bebe’s Search
2 Cynthia’s Feelings

Trainers: 14
4 Rare Candy
2 Premier Ball
2 Night Maintenance
2 Switch
2 Memory Berry
1 Luxury Ball
1 Bubble Coat

Stadiums: 1
1 Broken Time-Space

Energy: 12
4 Call Energy
3 Fighting Energy
3 Psychic Energy
2 Water Energy

Memory Berry is what really makes the deck accomplish its main purpose thanks to Trapinch SW’s “Sand Tomb” attack. By using Palkia LV.X’s Poke-Power “Restructure”, and then utilizing “Sand Tomb” on an Azelf LA, or Claydol GE for example, you are effectively buying turns to let “Wind Erosion” erode away at your opponent’s deck, making it thinner by 3 cards for every turn Flygon LV.X is in the Active slot.

This combo works against pretty much any non-SP deck, as at the time of the Pokemon TCG World Championships, the decks being used included very few if any Switching cards. The most common way to try and get out of the “Wind Erosion” lock was using Super Scoop Up or attaching an Unown G to prevent “Sand Tomb” from trapping your Pokemon. The 2 Switch included in the decklist allow for less pressure on Flygon RR to always have the correct energy to free retreat your Benched Pokemon and also helps in promoting Palkia LV.X to be leveled up.

Nidoqueen RR’s Poke-Body “Maternal Comfort” is used to support Flygon LV.X and allow it to survive for as long as possible to discard as many cards as possible from your opponent’s deck. That way, even if your opponent has powered up a Claydol and tries to chip away slowly at Flygon LV.X’s HP, you can minimize the damage dealt to it. Setting up Nidoqueen RR is not an issue in this deck, as “Restructure” allows for alot of free turns while your opponent has something Active with a high retreat cost.

This deck’s hardest matchup is against Pokemon SP such as Palkia G. Pokemon SP decks are both fast and can disrupt your set up with TGI Power Spray. The answer to this is the 1-1 Mewtwo LV.X tech line. Some competitors at the Pokemon TCG World Championships using Pokemon SP based decks did not use a Mewtwo LV.X counter as they considered it would not be popular enough or even do well enough to merit one. That is exactly what happened to Sebastian in his Top 16 match, where he got Mewtwo LV.X out Turn 2 both games and his opponent conceded quickly as he had no response to it.

Finally the single Bubble Coat, as explained by Sebastian, was included to help against mirror matches. I personally dislike this single card included, as without a way to guarantee it the turn you might need it, odds are you won’t have it then but it’s a minor difference in playstyle and this 1 card doesn’t affect the performance of consistency of the deck.

Along with Sebastian’s success, there were other players who used this deck effectively both at the main event and the Grinder, as several people grinded in to the main event using this particular strategy (though not this exact list). Michael Chin from the USA also performed well and got Top 32 with the deck, but unfortunately was paired with Sebastian. Nick Fotheringham from the UK got 3rd place with this strategy in Seniors as well.

Unfortunately for the deck, both Garchomp C LV.X and Blaziken FB from the new Platinum: Supreme Victors set are very potent threats to this deck, disrupting it’s set up by having easy KO’s on Claydol or nullifying Palkia LV.X’s “Restructure” with Blaziken FB’s “Luring Flame”. Despite this though, this could be a strong solid option for Battle Roads, as usually people are trying out new ideas, and they might not even include Mewtwo LV.X counters in their SP based decks. This could be compensated though, by making the Mewtwo LV.X line thicker perhaps, by maximizing it to a 2-2 line?

As for Stage 2 decks though, since all of them rely on Claydol, this deck should still have a huge advantage against all of them.

One final thing to note about the deck, is to make sure you play in a timely manner, as decking an opponent takes longer than KOing 6 Pokemon, and so your opponent might try to play slower if he/she is up in prizes, so make sure you have practiced enough with this deck to make your turns go quickly but without making mistakes, so you can guarantee you will be able to deck your opponent out before time runs out.

So with BR’s coming soon, can this deck still compete with the new threats from Supreme Victors? Do you think this should use a 2-2 Mewtwo LV.X line? If matchups had worked out differently, do you think this deck could have beat Steven Silvestro’s Beedrill / Luxray GL deck? Give us your opinions!

Image Credits: PokeBeach, Pokegym, and Pokemon Paradijs

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J-Wittz

Ah, the flygon deckout. I never really realized that Flygon’s deck milling was so effective until I decked 3 people over the course of battle roads with Flygon/Weaville- and not even having the intention of doing it. A Flygon X active basically makes your opponent draw through their deck three times as fast. I think what made this deck do so well at worlds was a lot of the “suprise” factor– while a lot of players knew they were going to see flydeckout right before worlds, a couple of days is never enough time to playtest with a deck to know its ins and outs. Mewtwo X was key vs. the SP matchup because most SP in worlds decided to abandon their mewtwo X counters. Flygon X also has the extreme attack factor VS. SP, where deck milling is less of a viable option. This new wave of Flygon/memoryberry/SP tech machamp or mewtwo/nidoqueen is becoming all the rage, and I can see why– it does a decent amount of damage, has a wide range of options, and has a solid matchup on a lot of things.

However, I do question how good this deck will do at BRs. It will be a nightmare vs. new players jumping into a tournament for the first time because they won’t see it coming at all, but the experienced players have already been fiddling with techs and matchups vs. it. As you stated, Garchomp CX is going to be huge– not only does it boast the wicked healing power, but with 2 energy + energy gain it can one hit KO a flygon X, or with a crobat/lucariogl it can one shot a regular active flygon. With a bronzong G in play this entire swing can happen over the course of a turn. Garchomp C being colorless also gives it a lot of versatility with energy types, meaning it can be paired with fire to work with ninetails MT or with psychic to run its own Mewtwo X, or any other kind of mewtwo tech. I think it will keep SP a contender.

And here’s the last thing I wonder– was this deck just not thought up yet for nationals? The cards we had available were all the same, so I wonder if Flygon milling hadn’t been “invented”, or was tested and found to be too inconsistent for a long long tournament like Nats? Many people argue Nationals as being the hardest tournament to play in because it has a jillion rounds. Flygon’s a deck that relies on a lot of different things, and you can only azelf LA once (or never if you’re facing a long power lock). Sometimes I doubt the consistency of the deck, and think it was something specialized for a hardcore tournament like worlds. Worlds is also much more of a “gentleman’s tournament” in that there is much less mischievous play, and people (I think it was Crema himself) would even allow their opponents to take an occasional misplay back in return for a future failsafe. During battle roads, the quality of player drops a little and so does the sportsmanship– this is further exploited in Cities when more points can be racked up. I can imagine a player up in prizes slow playing their way to victory vs. this deck. Who knows?

Once again, I’ve written an essay. As much as I loved flygon last BR’s, I don’t think I’ll be playing a variant of him this BR’s because I hate cookie-cuttering my way to victory. Off internet forums I think virtually the top 16 masters decks are all posted card for card and can all be played right into battle roads by inexperienced players right off the bat with the new “no rotation” going on. I’m excited to find some new decks again– if they’re good, that is!
J-Wittz

Ah, the flygon deckout. I never really realized that Flygon’s deck milling was so effective until I decked 3 people over the course of battle roads with Flygon/Weaville- and not even having the intention of doing it. A Flygon X active basically makes your opponent draw through their deck three times as fast. I think what made this deck do so well at worlds was a lot of the “suprise” factor– while a lot of players knew they were going to see flydeckout right before worlds, a couple of days is never enough time to playtest with a deck to know its ins and outs. Mewtwo X was key vs. the SP matchup because most SP in worlds decided to abandon their mewtwo X counters. Flygon X also has the extreme attack factor VS. SP, where deck milling is less of a viable option. This new wave of Flygon/memoryberry/SP tech machamp or mewtwo/nidoqueen is becoming all the rage, and I can see why– it does a decent amount of damage, has a wide range of options, and has a solid matchup on a lot of things.

However, I do question how good this deck will do at BRs. It will be a nightmare vs. new players jumping into a tournament for the first time because they won’t see it coming at all, but the experienced players have already been fiddling with techs and matchups vs. it. As you stated, Garchomp CX is going to be huge– not only does it boast the wicked healing power, but with 2 energy + energy gain it can one hit KO a flygon X, or with a crobat/lucariogl it can one shot a regular active flygon. With a bronzong G in play this entire swing can happen over the course of a turn. Garchomp C being colorless also gives it a lot of versatility with energy types, meaning it can be paired with fire to work with ninetails MT or with psychic to run its own Mewtwo X, or any other kind of mewtwo tech. I think it will keep SP a contender.

And here’s the last thing I wonder– was this deck just not thought up yet for nationals? The cards we had available were all the same, so I wonder if Flygon milling hadn’t been “invented”, or was tested and found to be too inconsistent for a long long tournament like Nats? Many people argue Nationals as being the hardest tournament to play in because it has a jillion rounds. Flygon’s a deck that relies on a lot of different things, and you can only azelf LA once (or never if you’re facing a long power lock). Sometimes I doubt the consistency of the deck, and think it was something specialized for a hardcore tournament like worlds. Worlds is also much more of a “gentleman’s tournament” in that there is much less mischievous play, and people (I think it was Crema himself) would even allow their opponents to take an occasional misplay back in return for a future failsafe. During battle roads, the quality of player drops a little and so does the sportsmanship– this is further exploited in Cities when more points can be racked up. I can imagine a player up in prizes slow playing their way to victory vs. this deck. Who knows?

Once again, I’ve written an essay. As much as I loved flygon last BR’s, I don’t think I’ll be playing a variant of him this BR’s because I hate cookie-cuttering my way to victory. Off internet forums I think virtually the top 16 masters decks are all posted card for card and can all be played right into battle roads by inexperienced players right off the bat with the new “no rotation” going on. I’m excited to find some new decks again– if they’re good, that is!
quaziko

J-Wittz, it’s always good to have a long, thought-out comment to fuel discussion :D

Anyway, I was surprised this tactic worked as well as it did. If you look in the archives of SixPrizes, Adam thought of this idea himself, and it was one of the first ideas he had come up with returning to the game! This not only shows his knack for seeing good deck ideas, but the viability of rogueish decks in bigger tournaments, as the surprise factor can be crucial. (Then again, don’t just play any rogue idea that you think will do well. I’ve made that mistake a painful amount of times.) If all decks were running a few switching cards, the whole decking idea of Flygon is kaput. I think Flygon may do well in Battle Roads, but I don’t think many Flygon lists are going to go for the decking strategy, considering the secret’s out, and there are more cards to worry about.
quaziko

J-Wittz, it’s always good to have a long, thought-out comment to fuel discussion :D

Anyway, I was surprised this tactic worked as well as it did. If you look in the archives of SixPrizes, Adam thought of this idea himself, and it was one of the first ideas he had come up with returning to the game! This not only shows his knack for seeing good deck ideas, but the viability of rogueish decks in bigger tournaments, as the surprise factor can be crucial. (Then again, don’t just play any rogue idea that you think will do well. I’ve made that mistake a painful amount of times.) If all decks were running a few switching cards, the whole decking idea of Flygon is kaput. I think Flygon may do well in Battle Roads, but I don’t think many Flygon lists are going to go for the decking strategy, considering the secret’s out, and there are more cards to worry about.
bendingspoons1

lol Adam did come up with this thing! Great article Pablo, i think that the bubble coat is kind of hard to use, and you need 3-4 cynthia to be safe. I would drop the b coat for it.
bendingspoons1

lol Adam did come up with this thing! Great article Pablo, i think that the bubble coat is kind of hard to use, and you need 3-4 cynthia to be safe. I would drop the b coat for it.
Dave Hueglin

Even Sebastian feels (as stated in his report on Pokegym) that this deck suffers without the surprise factor. I expect it will have a hard time at BRs then, as it is so well known now. Unless, just like with Mewtwo threat to SP, people know that the threat is out there but take a chance and don’t tech against it.

Of course, you can’t tech against everything.
Dave Hueglin

Even Sebastian feels (as stated in his report on Pokegym) that this deck suffers without the surprise factor. I expect it will have a hard time at BRs then, as it is so well known now. Unless, just like with Mewtwo threat to SP, people know that the threat is out there but take a chance and don’t tech against it.

Of course, you can’t tech against everything.
Xicious

What about a tech unown K in this? It’d heal your opponents pokemon creating an infinite lock on someone, of course you’d still attack a claydol twice to put it in OHKO range just in case time was called but after that you’d unown k every couple of turns. I can imagine once the dol gets ko’ed your opponent should be able to play around the deck by then.

J-Wittz

I actually kind of like the sound of this! Let me do some quick math here to mess with how useful it could be.

You start with 60 cards.
You draw 7, now you’ve got 53.
You put down 6 prizes, now you’ve got 47.
You have to draw a first card unless you get t1 sableye donked. 46.
Now there’s no way Flygon X could appear till T2 because I seriously doubt the use of level Max. We’ll say 44 now.
Have you played any search cards? Uxies? Claydols for more than 2? Roseanne’s? Cyrus? Let’s say after 2-3 turns of gameplay, you’ve searched/drawn 5-6 extra cards. Now we’re at 39.
Here comes flygon X! With him around, you’re drawing at 3 times the speed (draw, end turn discard, opponent ends turn discard, draw, etc). So how long would it take to get decked out in my hypothetical situation? 39 divided by 3 equals 13 turns.
Sounds like a lot of time, because it is hypothetical it probably is. you have to take into account you need to keep searching through your deck to compete, and if you have no draw you can’t remain consistent. that and, as you near the end, deck milling usually discards everything you have good anyways, and the last turns or so can usually be useless. Let’s guesstimate some more and say it’s a good 11 turns of milling for a deckout win.

So sure! Seeing as after 8 turns claydol will be dead, unknown K could be a fun idea! I’m gonna check it out :D

Xicious

What about a tech unown K in this? It’d heal your opponents pokemon creating an infinite lock on someone, of course you’d still attack a claydol twice to put it in OHKO range just in case time was called but after that you’d unown k every couple of turns. I can imagine once the dol gets ko’ed your opponent should be able to play around the deck by then.

J-Wittz

I actually kind of like the sound of this! Let me do some quick math here to mess with how useful it could be.

You start with 60 cards.
You draw 7, now you’ve got 53.
You put down 6 prizes, now you’ve got 47.
You have to draw a first card unless you get t1 sableye donked. 46.
Now there’s no way Flygon X could appear till T2 because I seriously doubt the use of level Max. We’ll say 44 now.
Have you played any search cards? Uxies? Claydols for more than 2? Roseanne’s? Cyrus? Let’s say after 2-3 turns of gameplay, you’ve searched/drawn 5-6 extra cards. Now we’re at 39.
Here comes flygon X! With him around, you’re drawing at 3 times the speed (draw, end turn discard, opponent ends turn discard, draw, etc). So how long would it take to get decked out in my hypothetical situation? 39 divided by 3 equals 13 turns.
Sounds like a lot of time, because it is hypothetical it probably is. you have to take into account you need to keep searching through your deck to compete, and if you have no draw you can’t remain consistent. that and, as you near the end, deck milling usually discards everything you have good anyways, and the last turns or so can usually be useless. Let’s guesstimate some more and say it’s a good 11 turns of milling for a deckout win.

So sure! Seeing as after 8 turns claydol will be dead, unknown K could be a fun idea! I’m gonna check it out :D

http://www.adamcapriola.com/ Adam Capriola

J dub, you should write some articles man! That’s some great analysis there without any effort.

Yeah I sorta came up with this deck idea, my original idea was Flygon/Palkia/Ariados, but Memory Berry is def better than Ariados.

What exactly is needed to tech against this? A couple Switches or Warp Points? Is that all you really need?

Xicious that’s a great idea man, Unown K seems like it could be pretty gnarly.

Mach

I’ve got a Honchkrow SV deck that runs 4 Warp Points by default, and it near auto-wins Flygon-Deckout.
J-Wittz

Thanks man– I don’t even remember how I stumbled across this site, but I’ve found it to be a better format for generating some viable discussion. I’ll definitely throw up my Battle Roads reports once we kick off next weekend. I think both the format of the website itself and the smaller group of members both help to this. Whenever I write a giant post on our popular pokegym website, it usually gets ignored or replied to with a long line of spammers, jerks, or the usual group of people who just think you must be wrong because you’re “new here”. That’s just the long posts though, I still like pokegym from time to time.

Anyhows, techs versus our milling buddy flygon X:
– Switches and warp points are a given, and I think our good buddy silvestro understood that with his worlds-winning list.
– Another tech possible with sp is dialgia GX, who shuts off the body altogether, along with nidoqueen’s. while dialgia GX could still get one-shotted by machamp X, and has become less viable with the fire SP pokemon rise, he’d still get the job done. SP usually doesn’t have trouble with the mill though because they use several cards that level up out of conditions and poketurn too–it’s the extreme attack that kills them.
– Personally, I think the best option out of this is a buffed up unknown G line (at least 2, as seen in both 1st and 2nd place masters decks). The ruling, at least how it was declared in worlds, is that if unknown G is on your active pokemon, your opponent cannot inviting trap to any pokemon on your bench, even if your bench pokemon don’t have unknown G on them. I remember the farther I went along the season the less I found unknown G needed, and I usually cut him down to 1 or even 0 copies, but it seems that he’s in again when it comes to preventing this kind of deck. While many lists don’t run the palkia GX, that doesn’t mean they don’t have the deckout potential. Trapinch’s inviting trap is a common option before sand tombing you for the lock. Plus, unknown G prevents the sand tomb, too :P.
– If you want to prevent the palkia-pullup, it seems the only real option you have is power-locking (palkia GX,power spray, gigas, Gardevoir are your only real options.
–The other big move (wow I keep thinking em up) vs. this deck is a buffed up night maintenance line (2+). This gives you extra time to burn while they deck mill, and also extra energy if you need more to retreat your heavy pokemon they’ve promoted to active (I’m looking at you, Claydol).
–If you run kingdra lists with 30+ energy, I’m sure you could aqua stream for a good 150+ for a couple turns no problem out of the deck mill. But if you’re doing that, you’re in a lot of trouble ( :P).

It seems to me Silvestro really studied his worlds meta with this one. He ran 2 warp point, 2 unknown G, AND FOUR night maintenance. Even if you see the mill coming, you still gotta know how to deal with it!

kenshinsgardy

dialga g doesn’t help vs the amtchup AT ALL. it just becomes a snipe target for flygon. i can’t tell you how fun it was to see my opponent drop dialga g x then realize that flygon snipes for 150.

http://www.sixprizes.com Adam

J dub, you should write some articles man! That’s some great analysis there without any effort.

Yeah I sorta came up with this deck idea, my original idea was Flygon/Palkia/Ariados, but Memory Berry is def better than Ariados.

What exactly is needed to tech against this? A couple Switches or Warp Points? Is that all you really need?

Xicious that’s a great idea man, Unown K seems like it could be pretty gnarly.

Mach

I’ve got a Honchkrow SV deck that runs 4 Warp Points by default, and it near auto-wins Flygon-Deckout.
J-Wittz

Thanks man– I don’t even remember how I stumbled across this site, but I’ve found it to be a better format for generating some viable discussion. I’ll definitely throw up my Battle Roads reports once we kick off next weekend. I think both the format of the website itself and the smaller group of members both help to this. Whenever I write a giant post on our popular pokegym website, it usually gets ignored or replied to with a long line of spammers, jerks, or the usual group of people who just think you must be wrong because you’re “new here”. That’s just the long posts though, I still like pokegym from time to time.

Anyhows, techs versus our milling buddy flygon X:
– Switches and warp points are a given, and I think our good buddy silvestro understood that with his worlds-winning list.
– Another tech possible with sp is dialgia GX, who shuts off the body altogether, along with nidoqueen’s. while dialgia GX could still get one-shotted by machamp X, and has become less viable with the fire SP pokemon rise, he’d still get the job done. SP usually doesn’t have trouble with the mill though because they use several cards that level up out of conditions and poketurn too–it’s the extreme attack that kills them.
– Personally, I think the best option out of this is a buffed up unknown G line (at least 2, as seen in both 1st and 2nd place masters decks). The ruling, at least how it was declared in worlds, is that if unknown G is on your active pokemon, your opponent cannot inviting trap to any pokemon on your bench, even if your bench pokemon don’t have unknown G on them. I remember the farther I went along the season the less I found unknown G needed, and I usually cut him down to 1 or even 0 copies, but it seems that he’s in again when it comes to preventing this kind of deck. While many lists don’t run the palkia GX, that doesn’t mean they don’t have the deckout potential. Trapinch’s inviting trap is a common option before sand tombing you for the lock. Plus, unknown G prevents the sand tomb, too :P.
– If you want to prevent the palkia-pullup, it seems the only real option you have is power-locking (palkia GX,power spray, gigas, Gardevoir are your only real options.
–The other big move (wow I keep thinking em up) vs. this deck is a buffed up night maintenance line (2+). This gives you extra time to burn while they deck mill, and also extra energy if you need more to retreat your heavy pokemon they’ve promoted to active (I’m looking at you, Claydol).
–If you run kingdra lists with 30+ energy, I’m sure you could aqua stream for a good 150+ for a couple turns no problem out of the deck mill. But if you’re doing that, you’re in a lot of trouble ( :P).

It seems to me Silvestro really studied his worlds meta with this one. He ran 2 warp point, 2 unknown G, AND FOUR night maintenance. Even if you see the mill coming, you still gotta know how to deal with it!

kenshinsgardy

dialga g doesn’t help vs the amtchup AT ALL. it just becomes a snipe target for flygon. i can’t tell you how fun it was to see my opponent drop dialga g x then realize that flygon snipes for 150.

Dave Hueglin

Pablo, this is not a criticism – I really like the article. But your initial statement – there are three ways to win a game of Pokemon cards – got me thinking; you can also win in a tournament if time is called and you have taken the most prizes.

Here’s my question then – would it be possible to design a deck to win on time legitimately? By that I mean that your deck would be designed to take 1-2 prizes early and then slow down the game enough for it to go to time, without letting your Opponent can catch up in prizes. By legitimately, I also mean that you would not be “stalling” in the sense of playing slow – just have cards that delayed the ability to take prizes e.g your opponent knocking out your confused Weezing and thus not being able to take a prize for it.

WDIF

As well as winning by getting your opponent to scoop or make a gameplay error. A deck designed around this would be more difficult to pull off than what you stated. A deck that starts out fast then slows down with healing (or as you said “delaying”) sounds interesting and I think it must have been done before for a tournament.

Like Unown K, their own Nidoqueen could work against them or even better but harder to pull off is Cresselia Lv.X which can take some prizes for a back-up plan, in case they get a switch card.
J-Wittz

I’ve seen some funner ideas tossed around with Wailord MT with this concept. Sometimes they win :P. Mr. Mime usually wins with a similar concept vs. Beedrill and Kingdra. I’m not saying this is a legendary concept, but it is and has been legit :)

Dave Hueglin

Pablo, this is not a criticism – I really like the article. But your initial statement – there are three ways to win a game of Pokemon cards – got me thinking; you can also win in a tournament if time is called and you have taken the most prizes.

Here’s my question then – would it be possible to design a deck to win on time legitimately? By that I mean that your deck would be designed to take 1-2 prizes early and then slow down the game enough for it to go to time, without letting your Opponent can catch up in prizes. By legitimately, I also mean that you would not be “stalling” in the sense of playing slow – just have cards that delayed the ability to take prizes e.g your opponent knocking out your confused Weezing and thus not being able to take a prize for it.

WDIF

As well as winning by getting your opponent to scoop or make a gameplay error. A deck designed around this would be more difficult to pull off than what you stated. A deck that starts out fast then slows down with healing (or as you said “delaying”) sounds interesting and I think it must have been done before for a tournament.

Like Unown K, their own Nidoqueen could work against them or even better but harder to pull off is Cresselia Lv.X which can take some prizes for a back-up plan, in case they get a switch card.
J-Wittz

I’ve seen some funner ideas tossed around with Wailord MT with this concept. Sometimes they win :P. Mr. Mime usually wins with a similar concept vs. Beedrill and Kingdra. I’m not saying this is a legendary concept, but it is and has been legit :)

Mach

Actually, as for the Unown K discussion, why don’t you run something that you can use to ensure that their Active dies in between turns, before yours so you can start up the lock again on something different.
Mach

Actually, as for the Unown K discussion, why don’t you run something that you can use to ensure that their Active dies in between turns, before yours so you can start up the lock again on something different.
Xicious

Well because once the lock has been broken your opponent should learn not to play their claydol anymore and to be careful of drawing cards, it’s gives them the opportunity to develop a strat against your deck. With Unown K this deck would come close to auto winning a lot of stage 2 deck matches. The biggest issue is the set up and how slow this deck can be, after all a lot of conditions have to be met in order for the lock to be set up.
Xicious

Well because once the lock has been broken your opponent should learn not to play their claydol anymore and to be careful of drawing cards, it’s gives them the opportunity to develop a strat against your deck. With Unown K this deck would come close to auto winning a lot of stage 2 deck matches. The biggest issue is the set up and how slow this deck can be, after all a lot of conditions have to be met in order for the lock to be set up.
Mike Fouchet

We used Unown K originally and realized it was not worth the spot in the deck. Many other things were generally more useful than the extremely situation Unown K was.

kenshinsgardy

unown K was in our original lists, but mikey and sebastian found it didn’t help.

yeah, it’s really not worth the bench spot. it’s surprising how tight the bench gets vs certain decks (i.e. you generally use both palkia X and nidoqueen vs palkia lock).

unown K is definitely not worth it

Mike Fouchet

We used Unown K originally and realized it was not worth the spot in the deck. Many other things were generally more useful than the extremely situation Unown K was.

kenshinsgardy

unown K was in our original lists, but mikey and sebastian found it didn’t help.

yeah, it’s really not worth the bench spot. it’s surprising how tight the bench gets vs certain decks (i.e. you generally use both palkia X and nidoqueen vs palkia lock).

unown K is definitely not worth it

Xicious

Really, I can’t see how it’d be too situational. It would just be a one of and it essentially ends the game in a non sp match up. I just imagine if I was trying to deck my opponent I wouldn’t want to KO their pokemon so they can come up and hit my Flygon. Maybe you’re right though, maybe that bubble coat was way too good not to run.
Xicious

Really, I can’t see how it’d be too situational. It would just be a one of and it essentially ends the game in a non sp match up. I just imagine if I was trying to deck my opponent I wouldn’t want to KO their pokemon so they can come up and hit my Flygon. Maybe you’re right though, maybe that bubble coat was way too good not to run.
mariocurintianu

Hi, friends

I’m from Brazil and would like to mount 1 deck list that builds the C rayquaza LV.X, someone help me?

Mario
mariocurintianu

Hi, friends

I’m from Brazil and would like to mount 1 deck list that builds the C rayquaza LV.X, someone help me?

Mario
kenshinsgardy

this deck is so BOSS (like me, mikey, and sebastian). :P

anyways, this deck would definitely work for Battle Roads. Considering most of the people probably don’t even realize deck-gon is a legit deck, you basically autowin vs. half the room. factor in that many players won’t exactly know what to unown g, especially if they’re messing with new ideas that use high retreat pokemon or cards that can’t retreat once locked (i.e. metagross, darkrai g).

even vs good players, it’s not like mikey, sebastian or I had trouble taking down some of the best players in the game at Worlds/Grinder this year (mikey might have fun into a little bit of bad luck tho…) It really isn’t that hard to lock something that can’t do significant damage, go for the claydol KO strategy early game to sweep, or go for the flygon vs. attacker and come out with at least 5 cards milled (flygon x is fairly beefy; it should last 2+ turns at the LEAST). even when i played against Sami, definitely my hardest mirror match that day, I felt that I could have locked him or just outright DESTROYED him if he didn’t get t1 machamp AND rolled 4 heads for the KO on my flygon t2. =/

All in all, this deck is definitely a contender for this year. As long as people rely on claydol or use pokemon that can be locked, this deck is dangerous and is something to look out for.
kenshinsgardy

this deck is so BOSS (like me, mikey, and sebastian). :P

anyways, this deck would definitely work for Battle Roads. Considering most of the people probably don’t even realize deck-gon is a legit deck, you basically autowin vs. half the room. factor in that many players won’t exactly know what to unown g, especially if they’re messing with new ideas that use high retreat pokemon or cards that can’t retreat once locked (i.e. metagross, darkrai g).

even vs good players, it’s not like mikey, sebastian or I had trouble taking down some of the best players in the game at Worlds/Grinder this year (mikey might have fun into a little bit of bad luck tho…) It really isn’t that hard to lock something that can’t do significant damage, go for the claydol KO strategy early game to sweep, or go for the flygon vs. attacker and come out with at least 5 cards milled (flygon x is fairly beefy; it should last 2+ turns at the LEAST). even when i played against Sami, definitely my hardest mirror match that day, I felt that I could have locked him or just outright DESTROYED him if he didn’t get t1 machamp AND rolled 4 heads for the KO on my flygon t2. =/

All in all, this deck is definitely a contender for this year. As long as people rely on claydol or use pokemon that can be locked, this deck is dangerous and is something to look out for.
http://www.adamcapriola.com/ Adam Capriola

That’s a great point…if you were able to take down some of the best players in the game with this, then surely it can do well at Battle Roads against players who are less prepared.
http://www.sixprizes.com Adam

That’s a great point…if you were able to take down some of the best players in the game with this, then surely it can do well at Battle Roads against players who are less prepared.
Tony

The most annoying deck ever!!!
Tony

The most annoying deck ever!!!
Absolution

Decking out made me able to grind in, since i played 2-2 flygon lines i was able to pull (claydol/azelf) w/memory berry (inviting trap) and wind erosion since 3rd turn, so it’s a very disruptive strategy IMO, while on play flygon X is must a need on every in between turns, by discarting a single cyrus, NM, or E gain, flygon gets an automatically advantage to SP pokemon based decks, i faced 3 palkia locks at grinder none of those can quickly get rid of flygon X, letting me take 6-9 of their cards.

Great article, it’s nice to know about a pokèmon high performance players website
Props Pablo!
Absolution

Decking out made me able to grind in, since i played 2-2 flygon lines i was able to pull (claydol/azelf) w/memory berry (inviting trap) and wind erosion since 3rd turn, so it’s a very disruptive strategy IMO, while on play flygon X is must a need on every in between turns, by discarting a single cyrus, NM, or E gain, flygon gets an automatically advantage to SP pokemon based decks, i faced 3 palkia locks at grinder none of those can quickly get rid of flygon X, letting me take 6-9 of their cards.

Great article, it’s nice to know about a pokèmon high performance players website
Props Pablo!
poke fart

Nice deck my deck is almost the same but it hashippodon rr and garchomp x and garchomp C and gyardos sf.
poke fart

Nice deck my deck is almost the same but it hashippodon rr and garchomp x and garchomp C and gyardos sf.
Torry Chen

Why not use AbsolG Lv.X? It can gobble up around 3 cards in two turns so why not use that?
Torry Chen

Why not use AbsolG Lv.X? It can gobble up around 3 cards in two turns so why not use that?
HunterJ

awesome deck 10/10
HunterJ

awesome deck 10/10
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