Porygon-Z/Dodrio: Deck List and Analysis

After playing the Pokemon TCG for about a year and running 2 metagame decks in Kingdra and Dialga/Garchomp, I decided that I would like to try and make a rogue deck that could be viable in today’s meta. It didn’t take long for me to remember the Porygon-Z Promo, a card that would act not only as a wonderful main attacker, but could also function as a great engine. Without further ado, here is the list, mostly crafted for MD-on.

Porygon-Z Promo

Porygon-Z boasts some average stats for a stage 2; 120 HP, a +30 Fighting weakness, no resistance, and a hefty 2 retreat cost. The colorless typing is very useful, as it allows you to hit popular Dragon types for weakness, such as Garchomp C and Flygon.

Porygon-Z functions as the main attacker in this deck. Its “Overload” attack, for 2 colorless energy or a Double Colorless, will do 40 damage along with an additional 20 for each Technical Machine attached to it. With 4 TS-1s and 4 TS-2s, this attack can do 200 damage, or 220 with an Expert Belt. While this usually isn’t necessary, you can attach as many Technical Machines as you need to get the knockout.

Porygon-Z also has a free attack called “Learning”, which will allow you to pull a LV.X from your deck and put it onto a Pokemon. This can be useful for a couple different reasons. The first of these is to pull your Porygon-Z X from the deck, speeding up your setup process. In addition to this, you can pull out any LV.X cards that would normally be difficult to retreat and Level Up even if its basic form is on the bench.

Lastly, the Poke-Power “Install” allows you to move Technical Machines between your Pokemon as often as you like. This is useful in several ways. First off, you can attach your Technical Machines to other Pokemon and use the attacks listed while you are powering up your Porygon-Z, then when you are ready to begin attack with it, you can put them all on Porygon-Z so it doesn’t have to be sitting out in the active slot. Additionally, if your Porygon-Z is heavily damaged, you can move all your Technical Machines to another Porygon-Z to ensure that you will still be hitting hard the next turn.

Porygon-Z LV.X

Porygon-Z LV.X does not give a huge upgrade in terms of stats; you get an additional 10 HP at the cost of a x2 fighting weakness, which will make matchups against Machamp and Donphan much tougher. For this reason, I would advise against having the LV.X on your active Porygon-Z in these matchups.

Porygon-Z LV.X has no attacks, so while it is out, you’ll still be using Overload as your main attack. It does, however, have 2 Poke-Powers, both of which can be extremely useful. The first of the 2, “Mode Crash”, discards all of your opponents Special Energy when it comes into play. This can be incredibly useful against decks that abuse Double Colorless for their attacks, and can still take off any extra Special Energy the opponent was forced to play to use an attack.

Its second Poke-Power, “Decode”, will act as half of your drawing engine. Once per turn, you are allowed to take any 2 cards from your deck, shuffle your deck, and put those 2 cards on top. This will either allow you to get any card you want in your draw the next turn, or if you have any Dodrios or Uxies to draw with, give you instant access to them. This engine is one of the things to make the deck extremely consistent, as once you are set up, you’re essentially searching your deck for 2 cards each turn.

Dodrio SV

Dodrio will act as the other half of your drawing engine. It has some pretty weak stats for a stage 1, with a below-average 80 HP, a terrible +20 Lightning weakness. The -20 Fighting resistance and the free retreat, however, help to make up for the weaker stats. Its attack, “Drill Peck”, does 50 damage for 3 colorless energy. The damage is well below average, but can score some surprise kills on the ever-popular dragons if your opponent isn’t careful.

The main reason for the inclusion of Dodrio is its Poke-Power, “Echo Draw”. Drawing 1 card per turn, may not seem like much, but speeds the deck up quite a bit, especially along with Porygon-Z LV.X’s Decode. Again, the ability to essentially search your deck for 2 cards per turn is unheard of in comparison to most other engines.

Crobat Prime

This slot in the deck can be occupied by any backup attacker you wish to include, though my suggestion would be something to counter Machamp and Donphan as they are cards that give Porygon-Z trouble. Crobat Prime has some great stats in an HP of 130 and a -20 fighting resistance, but the x2 Lightning weakness really hurts with Luxray GL running around. The primary attack Crobat will use depends on the matchup it is in, whether it be Donphan or Machamp. Otherwise, the deck will want to focus much more on getting Porygon-Z out.

When matched up against Donphan, Crobat will want to use its first attack, “Severe Poison”. This attack, giving 40 damage of poison in between turns for an incredible 1 Psychic Energy, will get around Donphan’s Poke-Body “Exoskeleton” which would otherwise require Porygon-Z to have an extra TM attached than it needs to.

Additionally, Donphan has a huge 4 retreat cost, so without the use of trainers and wasting of resources, it will have a very difficult time getting out of the active spot. Unless the Donphan has an Expert Belt attached, it will essentially have one turn to live before it fades away due to poison, and even with an Expert Belt it can’t kill Crobat in that time frame.

However, when you are up against a Machamp deck, you will want to use Skill Dive. This attack will do 30 damage to any Pokemon in play, again for one Psychic Energy. When attacking an active Machamp, you will do a base of 60 damage, which turns into 80 using an Expert Belt. This is capable of taking down a Machamp in 2 turns, which can be very useful. However, you need to be careful of its “Rage” attack, which can potentially knock you out in one turn if Machamp is damaged enough.

In the case that Machamp could potentially get a Rage off on your opponent’s next turn that would kill you, it would be much wiser to use Crobat to tank some hits that will be drastically weakened due to the resistance while you are building up a Porygon-Z for the one hit kill.

Technical Machine TS-1 and TS-2

These 2 cards are going to be used primarily to power up Porygon-Z’s Overload attack. However, they definitely have some usage beyond that, with some very unique and potentially helpful attacks.

Technical Machine TS-1 will give the Pokemon attached to it a free attack, “Evoluter”, which allows you to search your deck for a Pokemon that can evolve from any of your Pokemon in play and put it on that Pokemon. This is very useful in your set-up phase when you are trying to build up your Porygon-Z and Dodrios, and will speed up the deck significantly.

Technical Machine TS-2 also gives a free attack, “Devoluter”, which allows you to choose an opponent’s evolved Pokemon, and send the highest Stage Evolution back to your opponent’s hand. This can be extremely useful against any deck using low HP basic Pokemon, such as Jumpluff and Gyarados, since you would only need to deal 30 damage for a knockout rather than 90 and 130 respectively. Also, if your opponent is running a Stage 2 deck and has evolved using Rare Candy, you can Devolute their Stage 2 and potentially prevent them from re-playing it the next turn. Overall, these 2 cards have much more use than to be pseudo-Expert Belts for Porygon-Z.

Additionally, there are several tech options you can choose over Crobat Prime, here are some ideas.

Dodrio UD
This card, premiering in the next expansion, is a neat option. At the cost of one of your Dodrios used for draw power, you give all of your Pokemon 2 less retreat. This gives every Pokemon in the deck listed free retreat, which is particularly useful in getting injured Porygon-Zs back to the bench.

LEGEND cards
With the release of LEGEND Box, Porygon-Z LV.X’s Poke-Power Decode will allow you to gurantee a successful playing of a LEGEND along with whatever Energy are in the 10 cards. In this case, I would take out the Dodrio line and focus specifically on that LEGEND, allowing Porygon-Z to become more of an engine than an attacker.

Uxie LV.X
If I had the money to run this card, I most definitely would. It’s perfect for this deck, allowing you to get cards from Porygon-Z LV.X’s Decode if you have no Dodrios in play. It will also help tremendously as a counter to Machamp, as it can knock it out in one hit assuming it has an Expert Belt attatched or you have a Crobat G you can drop. Additionally, with Porygon-Z’s Learning attack, you don’t have to worry about getting an Uxie to the active position and retreating it, as you can Level Up even if your Uxie is on the bench.

This deck will run into a couple problems both in game and out. The biggest issue is going to be that unless there is a Porygon and Porygon2 in Undaunted, the deck won’t be playable. Without a Basic and Stage 1 of your main attacker, there’s no way you can play the deck. The other two issues are trainer lock which will prevent you from playing TMs, and Power lock since this deck utilizes so many Poke-Powers as part of its strategy. Overall, I feel it can be a strong play for next season once the new Porygon and Porygon2 are released, as well as a great draw and search engine for several decks.