I will state right now that this deck should probably only be played at a league. If you play it at a tournament and do horrible, don’t blame me, please.
Well, I am back to write a deck analysis on one of my favorite decks to play, Speed Torterra. You may already know this, but Torterra won German Nationals last year. Earlier this season I was trying to figure how to speed up Torterra as the set up was just so slow, but I think I’ve found a nice balance of cards to increase its quickness.
Let’s begin by looking at the attacker of the deck: Torterra from Unleashed. Torterra has a nice, hefty 140 HP, weakness to Fire types (such as Blaziken FB LV.X and Charizard AR), no resistance, and a heavy retreat cost of four.
Torterra has two attacks: “Giga Drain,” which does 40 for 1 Grass and 2 Colorless, and “Land Crush,” which does 80 for 2 Grass and 2 Colorless. The whole point of the deck is to get Torterra set up fast enough to use Giga Drain because of its effect to heal the same amount of damage you do to your opponent’s Pokemon.
The National’s winner played Flygon to give Torterra free retreat and Nidoqueen to heal; however, the problem with this is that it slows the deck down. Instead, I wanted to focus on speeding the deck up and getting a turn two Torterra. I do not run any Shaymin LV.X because I don’t think Torterra needs a higher amount of HP and I decided to run defense Cherrim instead, so here is what the list looks like:
| Pokemon – 24
4 Turtwig MD #77 |
T/S/S – 26
3 Pokemon Collector |
Energy – 10 |
Pokemon
Now if you know me, you would know that I love playing defensively, so of course I would want to play Cherrim AR. In my opinion, it’s like the story “The Lady, or the Tiger?“; you choose a door, defensive Cherrim or offensive Cherrim. Anyway, I play two Sunflora as once you get set up, you can search for any Grass Pokemon you need, which helps get everything moving. The one Uxie is used as a hand refresher, and that’s it.
I chose three Cherrim AR so I can reduce damage done because if you play the offense one, sure it lets you heal more damage, but if Torterra would be knocked out by an attack you can’t heal the damage. With Cherrim defense form it can prevent the KO and still let you heal. Just for the little extra damage that you sometimes need, I threw in one Cherrim SF.
The choice of the Turtwig should be between the Platinum or the two Majestic Dawn ones, and I personally like the Majestic Dawn #77 Turtwig. I also like the Grotle from Majestic Dawn because it at least has an attack to attach an extra Grass energy.
With all that explained, it is obvious this is totally different from the German National winner’s Torterra deck. My version has a fast set up through Uxie and Sunfloras, and instead plays on a defensive strategy rather than a high amount of HP. I believe it is now time to go over the Trainers, Supporters, and Stadiums…
Trainers, Supporters, and Stadiums
Now if you looked at the list above and are thinking, “Why in the world would he put Flint’s Willpower in this deck?!”, I would normally think that too, but the point of this deck is to get an attacking Torterra set up by turn 2. So with Flint’s Willpower at my disposal, I would be able to attach a Double Colorless Energy for my regular energy attachment, and then play Flint’s Willpower to attach a Grass Energy and there we go: a turn 2 Giga Drain. Not the best idea, but hey, it works.
I run more Pokemon Communication over Bebe’s Search as I will probably be playing a Flint’s Willpower as my Supporter for the turn, but you should know the reasons why I run Bebe’s Search, Pokemon Communication, Pokemon Collector, and Luxury Ball. I run 4 Super Scoop Up to pick up a damaged Torterra or a benched Sunflora and use that extra bench space for a Cherrim.
I run Expert Belt to give Giga Drain a boost, and four PlusPower to once again boost Giga Drain when I need to. Three Broken Time-Space is used to well you know, quickly evolve all my Pokemon. The most interesting card in this list other than Flint’s Willpower is Twins. I believe you would already be down in prizes anyways so at least you can play Twins to grab some useful cards.
Now to the final part which is the easiest part of the deck building process, the Energy.
Energy
Especially don't play it at Nationals...
Grass Energy are required Energy for Torterra’s attacks, and Double Colorless speed let you Giga Drain quicker. Simple, right?
So that’s my Speed Torterra deck. In the end I don’t expect it to be really great; it’s more of a fun deck to play around at a league or against a Poke-friend. If you insist on playing the deck at a tournament, then I recommend using it at a Battle Road and not at a higher level tournament like States or Regionals. Hope you enjoyed the article.
- Chemical
