SpiritPlume – Trainers free zone.

oh goods, another trainer lock.

see what I did there?

Anyways, I’m not sure how well this deck comes up as a counter to Luxchomp when this deck requires two stage twos while luxchomp has two pokemon which can snipe (even more with honchkrow g, but that is rare in luxchomp today)

This deck actually kills luxchomp. I played luxchomp at my league saturday and someone was playing this and I couldnt do anything. It shuts down SP radar, poketurn, e-gain,ad powerspray so there’s no consitancy. Gengar is just to strong when it comes to poltergeist and dont forget that gengar can snipe too. And getting vileplume and gengar out isnt hard with the help of bts and darkness grace.

Im testing this deck for battle roads. Im playing Drifblim UD in it to counter Dialga G and I added 2 DCE for drifblim and because im running Uxie lv x

Ya i guess you could flash bite a pixie and then shadow room it. But the only way i can think of getting th crobat back is to let it get KOed, which isnt worth just doing 10 extra damage, and then using palmers or flower shop lady

maybe you didnt play the match up right, becouse i dont see how can you actually lose to this deck.
Its way too slow, and poltergeist is WAY too easy to play around using bebe search to hide trainers.
I admit that the trainer lock is annoying and hurts a lot, but this deck is slow as hell, there are too many ways to lock it, or play arround it.
Still, i will give him credit for being the first article here to realize that warp energy is MUST in this deck, since you cant waste energies and turns attaching to retreat.
even so, im not afraid to cross a viletomb this BRs, i prefer it to playing an SP match.

Ok, maybe i should rephrase what i said. I did test it, im not talking just because i want to troll.
I have to admit i had tech against it to keep my normal speed, but i havent lost a sigle time, and im not even using dialga G.
And i can assure you, im not an awesome top cut player, just a mediocre one, so it must mean the deck isnt good enough, of course you need to know how to play the match up, and i wont say its easy at all. I repeat, it is a good deck, but not a top tier. And its definitely not the end of SP.
Also, most viletomb decks that were discusses specifically said NO TRAINERS, that means, no rare candy, so forget about the oddish->candy->plume that many people here have commented.

I’ve been play testing this deck for over a month now, and it really plays well against SP. But Umbreon UD will kill this cold. You have no pokemon which can damage it due to Poke Bodies/Poke Powers, and it is Gengars weakness.

True. Here you should set up an Azelf Lv X and start putting damage counters with Shadow Room to the bench Pokemons and then spread with Gengar Lv X or finish them with more Shadow Rooms.

I am new at posting things here, but when writing an article about a deck and its strengths and weakness, shouldn’t there be a deck list?

Maybe you played someone who isn’t very good.

But while you’re doing that, Umbreon UD is doing 70 (30 + exp.belt + 2 sp drk en) before you even add weakness (+30 or x2). Which means Gengar is a sitting duck while you try to go around Umbreon. The only Fighting Pokemon I could see that is easy and viable for x2 damage is Lucario from Unleashed. 1 colorless for 30, plus 30 more next attack (BULK UP). Other than that, Gengar is toast. I love this deck, but I’ve play tested Umbreon vs. Gengar on redshark (Can’t get apprentice to work, sorry), and once Umbreon is set up, it’s lights out. So if SP is looking for another counter, perhaps here it is……..

Unown Q. add Q to vileplume, one energy retreat. Add Q to Tomb, free retreat. I keep two in my deck, works beautifully well.

True, this deck normally crushes SP. And with Tomb and the right supporters in the deck, it sets up quick, usually I can be set up T2 on Gengar and Plume.

Umbreon Shouldn’s set up.. That is the idea of the deck. If you saw your opponent searching an Umbreon, play Judge/Lookers etc. Also he is not going to get 2 Special Dark quickly if he cant play trainers. You really dont have to tech against this, just try to kill it with haunter or something :p

When I first built the deck i was using Mismagius UD because i dont have any gengar SF. Its advantages are mismagius is only astage 1 so faster set up. Disadvantages are it has too low of an HP. 1 dragon rush takes it out.

Thanks, I didn’t know that. There goes that idea. I guess it would be easier to tech in a Dodrio. I know unown q is used a lot but I dont like it since you still need another energy which you need to discard and you may need it for Gengar.

How can you power spray Level Down if you are trainer locked?
You can easily get both Vileplume and Gengar, also, if you are afraid of Dialga you can tech Drifblim UD or any other fire tech.

Newsflash: I wasn’t giving my opinion on how they can bring back Vileplume 1 turn later. I was telling you how I saw it played… I made that pretty clear. My brother runs Candy and BTS to ensure that he can get Vileplume out immediately after he’s killed.

This is a top tier deck. Maybe you’re not playing against a top tier list. Why are so many people in denial over this deck? I will never, ever play this deck (not my style), but I’m totally sold on it being Tier 1. If you’re not, come to our tourney next Monday with your SP deck and watch Energy Gains and Poketurns pile up in your hand ’til you’re getting Poltergeisted for 240 every turn.

Don’t forget that Umbreon only needs 1 dark energy and Gengar is +30 weak to dark, Gengar lv. x is 2x weak. So an Umbreon with 1 special dark is hitting for 70 or 80 each turn.

That was exactly my point. God forbid an expert belt snuck through and was attached to Umbreon also….LIGHTS OUT

attaching an expert belt wil be difficult due to trainer lock. Not only that but playing expert belts against Gengar is just stupid. All they have to do is flip a coin and take two prizes.

the deck that gives this one the most trouble is probably a sablelock. sableye can cause a lot of damage when you use spiritomb to evolve he gets OHKO you bring up a gastly OHKO, oddish OHKO, you know they are going to drop bats even under trainer lock so even if you manage to bring out a gloom or haunter they are going to drop bats and attach expert belts when they are not under lock from the easy prize spiritomb. The hand disruption is key for sablelock making it almost imposable to set up a gengar or vileplume if played right.

the tech i like the most for this that some one else has recommended here in the comment section a while back is Mightyena LA, you got a single darkness attack that does 30 and locks a basic poke down so he can’t retreat/attack/pokepower. His second attack for 2 colorless does 60 with a full bench really not a bad back up attacker. when you see a sableye you know who to turn too. Mewtwo works great to but his weakness makes him a weaker tech in my eyes because so many decks run psychic types (and their evolved or lv.x).

not only that but in a mirror match up having a dark type really helps with its psychic resistance and gengar’s dark weakness.

Dialga G lv.x helps but you are going to see a lot of SP decks underestimate just how easy it is to shuffle one back into your deck. They honestly need to run 2 but you will see a majority of them only run one, because if they run two they lose to all the other meta game match ups.

SP decks are too slow under trainer lock, people keep saying they out speed this deck but i have yet to see it happen more than 2 out of 10 games, but other than that you are getting trainer locked and copycat/poltergeist for huge draw power and OHKO with only 4 T/S in your hand it really is an SP counter that will cause a lot of people to quit playing those decks.

when ever we get all those lost zone cards is when you will see people stop hyping viletomb. till then have fun trying to out speed a trainer lock that a majority of the time starts from turn one till its GG.

Fantastic article! I thought you had a very thorough analysis of the core deck build and also gave a few good tech ideas. I like the idea of Azelf X as I do expect to see some techs against Gengar.

Just wanted to toss in a few ideas. I’ve been playing a 3-1 spiritomb/sableye instead of 4 spiritomb, and it’s been working really well. It just seems like there are a few matchups,i.e., sablelock, or those for those really bad starts that getting sableye in play can really help with. The only problem is that it slightly lowers your probability of trainer locking sooner, but I like the balance it gives to the deck as a whole.

Also, I kind of like the idea of a few other techs- zangoose, chatot MD, or ditto LA. Zangoose can manipulate the bench which is incredibly powerful with the trainer lock on, and chatot can also use its chatter attack to lock a spiritomb if needed. Ditto LA is fantastic for a mirror match and can also be a good starter to copy attacks like darkness grace or impersonate.

I like your advice in the article though to keep the # of techs down. That is crucial for this deck.

Again, well done article!

i run this deck and people at my league stopped running luxchomp and started running dialgachomp cus it was so amzing, i run raRE CANDIES IN MY VERSION AND ONE LUXURY BALL FOR LATE GAME WHEN VILEPLUMES ARE knocked out

Would love to see that, it would concede the match if you managed to actually hit with gengar. Unfortunately im not a north american player, so i dont think that will be possible.
In any case, no matter how much we discuss this, it wont get settled until BRs.

Hi I’m new to this pokemon game. I’m researching decks to play but I’m not sure wat. This deck sounds pretty concrete tho, but does anyone else recommend it? Or does anyone recommend another deck i could play while getting used to the game and meta

I’m not ignoring Poltergeist. Lets look at facts. You have a 50/50 chance of going first. There is a 40% chance of starting with power spray in my hand if I run 4. That means there is only a 40% chance of a Spiritomb start. So, 60% of the time, Gengar doesn’t start Spiritomb, which means 30% of the time (given a 50/50 chance of going first), you are guaranteed no Spiritomb T1….which means there is no way to stop power spray. The overwhelming ability of Spiritomb NOT stopping power spray T1 is against the deck. The conditions for which SP can power spray are that the spray has to be in hand and there has to be 3 SP in play. Now, calculating that probability gets really tricky as the math is much more difficult that the SPiritomb scenario. But, lets look at quick facts. If I go first, I have to play 24 Pokemon to consistently get 3 Pokemon starts. Combined with Call energy, this probability falls off a bit. Combined with that, I have to actually start with a Power spray. So, the odds of a 3 Pokemon start are pretty easy for SP running 20 Pokemon and 4 call. So, the overwhelming factor that determines whether or not I get to Power Spray T1 is the probability of starting with one…so, lets say about 40% (actually a bit lower, but thats a pain to calculate and not too different). If SP goes 2nd, the probability of getting a Power Spray goes way up. It gets difficult to calculate, but when you factor the probability that I draw 1, the probability I draw Cyrus to search for 1, and the probability of drawing into one with Uxie…the probability plays out fairly favorable for SP. So, the probability of SP to power spray T1 vs the probability of a Spiritomb start favors SP. So, SP power sprays an Uxie set up…what does the Gengar deck do? Lets assume SP goes first and gets to attach energy. I am going to assume, for the sake of consistency and randomness (and to continue the arguement I already laid out) and using the Pokemon listed in the article, you start Uxie X, Oddish, and Ghastly….the odds of a ghastly start is the same as a Spiritomb start, but to prove my point (that it doesn’t get a CONSISTENT lock early, I’ll go with an alternate to a spiritomb start). You bebe for Uxie, set up, srayed. Now what? That 60% chance that you don’t start spiritomb means you can’t Darkness Grace…you Pitch Dark and end. Lets say I started Crobat, called for Luxray and Garchomp and attached to Garchomp. T2, I attach DCE and have free picking at either Uxie, Ghastly, or oddish…chances are, Uxie X is your main draw power and Uxie is the easy, obvious choice, I snipe Uxie. Now what?

Now, it sounds like I just gave SP the overwhelming advantage, but in all reality, I that is a more common scenario (due to draw probabilities) than a Spiritomb start. Now, if there is a Spiritomb start, it IS different, I don’t disagree. But, to sit there and say this owns SP is overkill. Gives problems? Yes. Hard match up? Yes. But, I didn’t even assume Dialga was being played in my scenario, which looks like it is about to start running rampant due to it being in the worlds winning deck and the Viletomb threat.

About running 2 Dialga: this, of course, assumes I’m playing Dialgachomp. If I have DGX in play, I can power spray Level down. I don’t have to spray it forever, just long enough to KO Gengar. If Dialga is in playe, Poltergeist on Dialgachomp is a bit of a joke. Sure, you can take cheap prizes off my bench, but you won’t take down Dialga. Once gengar X is gone, even if I lose a fainting spell, I still get free reign of no level down threat. Plus, the point of having 2 Dialga X’s is that if one goes down, the other is already read to go. In order for this to happen, all I have to do is call for 2 Dialga’s (or just get one somehow), SP radar with Dialga X in play to get the second one in hand. I don’t even have to level up yet. If I lose a fainting spell and both Dialga and Gengar go down, I promote Dialga basic and level up next turn….much easier than getting that second stage 2 Gengar out that still doesn’t have that X to level down because its in the discard. But, this all assumes I have Dialga active. I’ll talk about some basic techs…not some more advanced ones (can’t give away all of my secrets!). Ambipom is a great Pokemon to wreck havoc on this deck with Dialga on the bench. Garchomp takes easy prizes and can stack damage on before being scooped. I’ve already mentioned Blaziken and Toxitank. Houndoom 4 hits Gengar for weakness and burns and sets up in 1 turn. Weavile G is an awesome starter and a great Gengar counter as well…OHKO’s Gengar pretty easy. Darkrai G hits Gengar for weakness and puts it to sleep, which means it takes 1 extra damage counter if he stays asleep. So, Flashbite, attack with Darkrai for 110 total, potentially 130 with no return attack, easily KO’ed by a flashbite next turn. There are tons of Gengar counters that SP isn’t play right now because they haven’t been needed. I’m sure Gengar will do great at BR, everyone will tech against it from then on, and it will still be Tier 2 behind SP again.

I’m not angry. And, you’re right, I need to test it, but I’m not going on about hypothetical situations. Probability of starts are not hypothetical. Granted, some of the stuff afterwards was.

Shadow Room around the Umbreon until you get the KO on Umbreon from Fainting Spell.

Although the deck does have a decent luxchomp matchup, it has hard ones with dialgachomp and sablock. That is reason enough to not consider this deck tier 1.

If you have a Nidoqueen RR in play Donphans Earthquake won’t do damage to the bench. Nice Article!