Intro
Just like some of the previous articles I’ve been reading on here, I have adopted a new title for my articles. I think it’s cool and catchy. Now since that’s out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. The prereleases are over, and everyone is still scrambling to get the new cards for their decks.
Emerging Powers only gave us a couple of really good cards to work with, and they are pretty hard to come by unless you spend a lot of money. Two of those cards are going to be explained and used in this deck. That brings me to my first point.
Gothitelle EPO #47
First, let’s go over what it does. Gothitelle is a Psychic-type Stage 2 Pokemon with 130 HP that has an Ability that says that if she’s your active Pokemon, your opponent can’t play any Item (Trainer) cards. It also has one attack for three Colorless Energy that does 30 + 20 more damage for each Psychic Energy attached to Gothitelle.
Let’s go over her Ability first. With her being in the active spot, you can stop your opponent cold in their tracks. No Catcher, no PlusPower, no Rare Candy, no Junk Arm, etc… It’s literally game breaking!!
Now her attack is not so game breaking. You can use a Double Colorless Energy and a Psychic Energy to power it up quickly, but you’ll be only doing 50 damage. That’s not really good in a format full of powerful basics and Stage 1′s.
That only leaves you with attaching three Psychic Energies to it for 90 damage, and that takes three turns, which is too long for some people. It also has a weakness to Psychic, and a retreat cost of two. There aren’t really any other Psychic types being used right now, unless you face a mirror match.
And why would you want to retreat something that stops your opponent from using Trainers? Being a Stage 2 means that it’s going to take some turns to get her out which could be a problem, if your opponent KOs you before you get it evolved and active. It’s pretty good that it has 130 HP, which prevents it from being KO’d easily. But it would still take a lot of damage, and put pressure on you to get out another one powered up on the bench, that brings me to my next point.
Reuniclus
Reuniclus is only used for one thing: Moving counters around with its Ability. It’s a 90 hp Psychic type that has a Mediocre attack. In this deck, it’ll sit on the bench and move the counters off of Gothitelle, and onto one of the dragons, Zekrom, or Reshiram. (I’ll talk about them later)
This is what makes Gothitelle more annoying when playing against it. It is a Stage 2, so takes some time to set up, but it can be done. The second place deck at Worlds used it to move damage off of its Pokemon onto the dragons as well. This is sorta like that, but with an EPO twist on it.
Outrage
Yup, you guessed it. Reshiram and Zekrom’s first attack that doesn’t get used that much is the only attack you would use on the dragons. For the simple fact that you’re moving damage to them with Reuniclus, they’ll have enough damage on them to KO just about anything.
The only down side to this is that if you do attack with it, then you’ll lose the Trainer lock for a turn, which is crucial to keep going to keep your opponent at bay.
Nevertheless, it’s a great attack that this deck can take advantage of. With only needing one Double Colorless Energy, you can easily power it up when you need to. Since you need to keep the Trainer lock going most of the game, the only time you would really attach it to a dragon is when all of your Pokemon has counters on them. This is usually near the end of the game when you go into time.
At the end of the game the Trainer-lock is not that important and your opponent might have discarded, or shuffled in their Trainers, because of the lock. You should have caught up with your opponent in prizes by this time, or maybe have one more than them. If not, then it won’t matter what you do, You’ll lose, because you’re behind.
Seeker/Max Potion
These are the two cards that will annoy your opponent even further when playing against them. Seeker lets you pick up a Pokemon on the bench and put it back in your hand. This takes off all the damage on it. Using it on either dragon when they have a lot of damage on them is a pretty epic play, considering that you can just put it right back down on the bench fully healed and ready to soak up more damage.
Now Max Potion is one of the new cards from Emerging Powers that let’s you heal all the damage counters from one of your Pokemon, at the cost of discarding all your energy attached to it. This is also great with the dragons, seeing that you won’t attach an energy unless you’re attacking with them.
So you can just heal the damage off of them without discarding anything, which is broken with this deck’s strategy. The only downside to this is running into other Trainer-locking decks. With most of them being Stage two Pokemon, I don’t think it’s a real problem.
Catcher
With this card it makes it that much easier to KO your opponent. With three Psychic Energies on Gothitelle, and only doing 90 damage, you’re not going to OHKO anything over that. So you’ll just bring up someone weaker or with the same HP as that with Catcher, and knock them out.
With 90 damage, you get over basics (except the dragons) and Stage ones with 90 or less, which makes Catcher broken in this deck. Especially since you can use yours, and your opponent can’t use his, because they are locked.
GRD – List – 60 Cards
| Pokemon – 19
3 Gothita EPO 2 Gothorita EPO
|
Trainers – 30
2 Bianca 2 Professor Elm’s Training Method 3 Twins 4 Catcher 2 Max Potion/Seeker |
Energy – 11
9 Psychic |
Techs
Manaphy UL or Cleffa? It’s totally up to you what you want to play with. With Cleffa’s low HP, it will get KOed quickly by just about anything if it wakes up at the wrong time, or it gets sniped off by Yamega Prime. Manaphy has more HP, but requires you to attach an energy for it to use its attack.
Energy attachments are crucial to this deck, as you will need to manually attach them to Gothitelle. She needs at least three to be successful, and it takes three turns to do so. That’s where Energy Retrieval comes in. It can get back two energies that were either discarded, or sent to the Discard Pile with a Pokemon.
If you fear Trainer lock, then play with more Seeker. It totally depends on the meta in your area. As for playing DCE for Outrage with the dragons is your choice also. If you can do it without giving up too much advantage on the Trainer lock, then congrats to you.
Pichu is a very situational card, but it’s useful in this deck. You can set up your bench perfectly so that if your opponent Catcher’s one of your Pokemon, you’ll still have one copy of that Basic on the bench. The down side is that you also help your opponent set up his bench also, which isn’t good at all. Still, it’s something to consider.
This deck sets up slow, so you will need to play fast in order to beat the clock. Your opponent will try to take prizes fast, so you won’t be successful. That’s where Twins comes in. They’ll help you get the card you need to make it a challenging battle for your opponent. Once you get out Gothitelle, you should try to get it active as fast as possible. It doesn’t matter if it has energy on it. As long as you’ve locked down your opponent’s Trainers, you’re in the clear.
If your opponent Catchers you in the beginning, and they damage you, or knock you out before you get set up, then there’s really nothing you can do at that point, but shake your opponent’s hand. Be careful when you’re attacking opposing Reshirams and Zekroms, for they can easily Outrage you if you’re not careful. So wait until you get enough energy on Gothitelle to OHKO it.
Be careful of Yamega Prime. It can come out on turn two and either snipe your weak Pokemon, or bring up a Basic with Catcher and KO it. Make sure you spread the damage with Reuniclus, so your Pokemon won’t get KO’ed byYamega.
The only Pokemon that can OHKO Gothitelle are Emboar #19, Rayquaza/Deoxys Legend, Magnezone Prime, Xatu, Mew, and other Gothitelle decks. Most of these cards are in Stage two decks, and they will be iffy to play in this format with the fast Stage ones and Catcher. Mew is really weak and will get KOed easily. Xatu is really good against it, but it will only be played if Gothitelle decks really do well at Battle Roads.
As far as mirror matches go, it will be a battle to see who gets set up fast, who can keep up the lock, and who can keep powering up Gothitelles to come out. Since both decks will lock each other, you’ll have to rely on your Supporters to get you though the game. Due to the fact that most players are on the fence about playing Gothitelle, you might not have to worry about this (unless this article could change their minds slightly).
Conclusion
With Emerging Powers now out, this is one of the many new strategies you’ll see, with two of the most talked-about cards out of the set, Catcher and Gothitelle #47. You might just see it at the top tables at Battle Roads.
Comment, and rate this however you want. We can only grow stronger by that which we don’t know yet, and what we don’t know, won’t kill us. That’s what we are here to learn. Until next time, Amphy out!!
Props
I like to give thanks to Innocent Shine and Adam for their help in editing this. Also to Mekkah and Baby Mario for their advice. I also like to give thanks to the rest of the players posting in the feedback thread on my post. My article wouldn’t be as good without you guys. Thanks.
