Psychic Gyarados
Author: Christopher Orr (steelorrs)
Deck Created: 11/24/2009
Format: DP and up
I have been playing Gyarados for some time now, teching in several things to make the deck the best it can be. No matter what I put in the deck, such as Luxray GL or Toxicroak G, the deck still consistently lost to Luxray/Blaziken and Shuppet. I then thought of a way to counter both of these enemies of Gyarados: Mewtwo LV.X and Mr. Mime MT.
Deck List
| Pokémon: 23 4 Magikarp SF 4 Gyarados SF 4 Sableye SF 2 Mewtwo MD 2 Mewtwo LV.X LA 1 Mr. Mime MT 2 Crobat G PL 1 Regice LA 1 Azelf LA 1 Uxie LA 1 Combee SF |
Trainers / Supporters / Stadiums: 31 4 Rosanne’s Research 3 Bebe’s Search 1 Luxury Ball 4 Felicity’s Drawing 4 Pokémon Rescue 3 Broken Time Space 4 Super Scoop Up 2 Poke Turn 2 Expert Belt 2 Warp Point 1 Night Maintenance |
Energy: 6 4 Psychic 3 Call |
The Deck
- The Way the Deck is Run
Your goal is to start out with Sableye and Impersonate to get Magikarps in your hand. Then you use either Felicity’s Drawing or Regice LA in order to discard the Magikarps in your hand. From there you use Gyarados’ attack “Tail Revenge”, which does 30 damage times the amount of Magikarp in your discard pile. Your goal is to be doing 90 damage a turn while your opponent struggles to take down big 130 HP Gyarados.
If Gyarados is about to get knocked out, play a Super Scoop Up and erase all that damage, then start hitting for 90 again with a fresh Gyarados via Broken Time Space and Crobat G’s free retreat cost. Crobat G is used to get the 10 or 20 extra damage on an opponent so that Gyarados can knock out 100 HP opponent in one turn. Expert Belt is also used for those opponents, like Beedrill, who have 110 HP. With Expert Belt, Gyarados is “Tail Revenging” for 110 every turn. If Gyarados happens to get knocked out it’s no worries, just play a Pokémon Rescue or search for Combee SF and grab a Magikarp out of the discard pile to start attacking again.
Gyarados has a very bad matchup against Luxray GL. When an opponent who is playing Luxray puts down a Lucario GL, it makes everyone’s weakness X2; therefore, Gyarados is X2 weak to Lightening. Due to this weakness, Luxray is one shotting Gyarados with a Crobat G drop. SP decks are almost always a guaranteed win against Gyarados.
So how do we fix this problem? Mewtwo LV.X. Mewtwo LV.X’s Poke-Body “Psybarrier” states that Mewtwo prevents all effects of an attack, including damage done to Mewtwo by your opponent’s Pokémon that isn’t an Evolved Pokémon. So Mewtwo LV.X cannot be attacked by SP Pokémon or Shuppet. I run a 2-2 line of Mewtwo for 2 reasons. 1. To have a better chance of drawing the Mewtwo I need. 2. Because of Infernape 4’s Poke-Power “Intimidating Roar”, which forces you to switch your active Pokémon with one of your benched Pokémon.
- Why Mr. Mime?
Mr. Mime is a great tech for many reasons. Mewtwo LV.X is great against Shuppet; however, Mr. Mime is even better, as it prevents your opponent from attacking Mr. Mime, unless they have 3 or more Energies attached. Mr. Mime can also be used to stall if you have a bad set up.
All in all, Gyarados is a great deck and I expect it to do great things at premier events this year. I hope Mewtwo helps with the deck’s weaknesses and makes it an even more powerful consistent deck.


















