Everyone involved in Pokemon TCG online communities and competitive aspect of the game, has heard of Steven Silvestro’s 1st place at the Pokemon TCG 2009 World Championships with a Beedrill / Luxray GL deck. Not as popular though, is Takuto Itagaki’s performance, as he also is a Pokemon TCG World Champion from the Senior Division. He and his father were kind enough to allow me to write up an article about his winning deck, which I personally find very intriguing as it was just the kind of deck I wanted to play at worlds, but due to lack of time, online resources, and cards, I was never able to build it to test it out. His deck list is the following:
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Pokemon: 21 2 Honchkrow G PL 1 Skuntank G PL 1 Toxicroak G PL 1 Toxicroak G Promo 2 Crobat G PL 2 Luxray GL RR 2 Luxray GL Lv.X RR 2 Uxie LA 1 Uxie Lv.X LA 1 Unown G GE 1 Lucario GL RR 1 Pachirisu GE 1 Azelf LA 1 Ditto LA 1 Mewtwo MD 1 Mewtwo Lv.X LA |
Supporters: 10 4 Cyrus’s Conspiracy 4 Roseanne’s Research 1 Bebe’s Search 1 Aaron’s Collection Trainers: 17 Stadiums: 3 |
Energy: 9 3 Psychic Energy 2 Lightning Energy 2 Darkness Energy (Basic) 1 SP Energy 1 Multi Energy |
I had the honour to watch most of his Final match, as it was shown in the big screens while it was going on live. I consider this deck to be the perfect anti-metagame deck one could possibly want for the Worlds metagame.
This deck targets the basic skeleton in which decks are based on. Both Luxray GL Lv.X
To back up this quick attack strategy, he has several responses to the popular cards that were present at Worlds, allowing him to respond accordingly in case his opponents were able to set up a threatening Pokemon.
Opposing Luxray GL Lv.X’s that would threaten Honchkrow G were dealt with by using Toxicroak G Promo. Machamp SF with a combination of Skuntank G + Toxicroak G PL + a Stadium card, or Uxie Lv.X + Lucario GL and his main attackers backed up by an Unown G. Flygon RR was dealt by the inclusion of Ditto LA.
The most troublesome matchups this deck could possibly have, is against other high HP SP Pokemon, such a Luxray GL / Infernape 4 and Palkia Lock decks. Against both of these, Takuto opted to include a 1-1 Mewtwo Lv.X
I think the only truly significant card that can stand out as missing from the decklist is Bronzong G. That card could make the deck a lot more effective at dealing with Flygon RR, rather than having to wait 3 full turns to power up Ditto LA. Although since every single attack he used during the game requires a single energy after factoring in TGI Energy Gain, it could justify Bronzong G’s exclusion from the deck.
One final thing to note in the list is the use of 3 TGI Power Spray as opposed to 4. I reckon the reason for this is that since he can so easily KO Batloys or even Claydols with his main attackers, using 4 isn’t as necessary as in other SP decks. 3 is the minimum I would play though, as sometimes you might only be able to 2HKO Claydol but want to prevent further set up of your opponent, and you will also want to stop Uxie’s “Set Up” and other Poke-Powers throughout the game.
I’d like to once again congratulate Takuto on such an amazing performance, and I really look forward to using this deck for a few games against our fellow readers in the online League here at SixPrizes.com.
So what do you all think about this deck? Is it effective at tearing down the main skeleton of decks early game? What changes would you make to it to help it deal with potential new Supreme Victors threats? Will this deck be popular during BR’s?
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The List is pretty…. Intresting. It seems there could be alot or consitency issues VS Sp W/Mewtwo Tech. Like you said, it was weird that it took so long to get Ditto up and running. So bronzong G is pretty Manditory.
Great deck Analysis.
Changes I’d make:
-change the luxray line to 3/1
-add 1 Bronzong G
-add 1/2 VS Seeker (if room)
-consider 1/1 Garchomp Lv. X instead of Ditto
In all I think Honchkrow is a very weak card right now as it can be one-shotted by Blaze, Lux, Dragonite, just about anything. This is a cool techy list, but I don’t think it would fare well in BR’s.
I’ve never liked straight SP because I guess I hate the popular trend, but in my opinion this is the BEST way to run it. My brother runs a modified version of this with a slightly bumped up toxitank as well as a 2-1 Garchomp X line. He dropped the honchcrow out of the deck, which I think is funny because honchcrow was his favorite SP pokemon which he built a whole deck around for states :P. He also uses one lake boundary instead of the galactic’s HQ, for a better chance at the one shot on machamp with Uxie X or toxicroak, kingdra with luxray (or gyrados, who is bound to see a spike in popularity), flygon with garchomp, etc. The deck often plays at its multiple type advantages for OHKO’s on high-hp pokemon. It’s also really really good against a plethora of things, its worst matchups being things it can’t one-shot like beedrill and more high-powered SP focused decks like Luxape/ Luxiken. I’m not an expert on the build here, but I’ll talk about my bro’s deck because I’m an expert on that ^_^.
The bronzong is NEEDED– you can swing 3 energy with a drop+gain+bronzong G onto a garchomp X to OHKO an active flygon (with lucario) or flygon X (nothing else needed). The move of poketurning your luxray after performing the switch is vile– you’re set up next turn for a new “bright look”, and garchomp X has free retreat back to the bench.
Whenever I saw an SP list, I was convinced that 4 Call energy were needed to maximize on a fantastic start. Itagaki, like my brother, just drops the extra energies for a more consistent trainer line (more sp radars, and great balls if you’re like my bro). The deck has so many good starts (almost everything except bronzong, lucario, skuntank, and unknown G)that call energy seems to, as my brother says “fat up the deck”. 2 Night maintenance AND aaron’s seems high, but that’s the way to maintain the multiple types and low amounts of energy run. Also, if you’re running the Garchomp X, which I HIGHLY recommend, it helps you recover those energy you’ll keep dumping for his snipe 80 attack.
The SP matchup can be tougher, but it can’t be any worse than a 60-40. The most frustrating matchup is the fire-type SP’s of blaziken and infernape– you have no weakness to abuse and no means of one-shotting either of them. The Palkia matchup is neutralized by luxray’s X2 attacks, and the Mewtwo X counters many of the sp decks that choose not to tech vs. Mewtwo X. Luxray meets his match with the usual tech of toxicroak G promo.
What do you do vs. someone else’s mewtwo X? The fun thing I’ve seen done is you poison them with toxicroak G, then retreat to your own mewtwo X. You can still snipe with garchomp/honchcrow if they left things on the bench, and eventually mewtwo will die out from poison or crobat drops :P. It’s not completely practical, but with mewtwo taking 2 full turns before getting to attack the damage builds up and Mewtwo is NOT an auto-loss.
As you can tell, I’m a big fan of this deck, and I usually hate giving SP its props :P. I was never ever fond of the name “SP toolbox”, but that’s really what this deck is at its core. It’s a BIG toolbox–the super deluxe kind with all of the electric power tools. It’s fast, it snipes the bench, it has most of the metagame’s weaknesses, it heals (with the garchomp version, it has all the insane bonuses of SP- including blocking key pokepowers, and it rocks. I’d take this deck to battle roads if I owned Mewtwo X, the Toxicroak G promo, and the garchomp X– ALL of which are offered in tins and such, but I hate spending money :P. The deck has no auto-loss, and today that’s an extremely great, if not the best, asset to have. Could this be the best deck?
I guess in a more techy list you need more unique energies to attack, but I’d be very wary of taking Call Energies out of any deck, let alone SP. Any Luxray or Blaze start with a Call and Cyrus in your hand…you’re going to be hard to beat.
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anyways, i agree with pabs. this deck seems like it counters most every deck in the format. even flygon lock would’ve had a difficult time; you have 0 lock targets, and a smart player wouldn’t be playing their Xs until they really needed to. Not to mention that you have a bunch of cards that can potentially win you the game t1-t2 (i.e. honchkrow, MAYBE mewtwo vs absol or something, toxitank, uxie X, and luxray x)
“What do you do vs. someone else’s mewtwo X? The fun thing I’ve seen done is you poison them with toxicroak G, then retreat to your own mewtwo X.”
Why not just use Mewtwo’s Recover?
You use your own recover or are you thinking your opponent will just use theirs to break the damage you’ve pilled up? I suppose either one could be an option and will just keep your own or your opponent’s mewtwo out on the field.
But I’ve got a better idea! :D. Why not just snipe out their mewtwo MD off the bench/active spot with a Garchomp X attack combined with a crobat G? Sometimes they’ll get an amazing T2 Mewtwo X you can’t do anything about, but more times than not, they’ll place mewtwo on the bench first. Garchomp’s an answer for everything! lol
I was thinking more like as soon as damage piles up from Poison, then they’d just use Recover.
Nice article, btw.
I liked this deck when I first saw it. I had no idea it was so techy though, it looks like a pretty solid list. The NRG count scares me a little and I’d make some changes here and there but this deck is really solid. 2-2 Luxray is straight baller, you’ve gotta feel good writing that down on your deck list. Chomp is better than Ditto right now but the biggest change I would make would be the addition of 1 more Honchkrow. Pablo do you know if any masters tried to run this and is this also the deck that took Juniors?
I thought this deck was pretty cool. It was essentially a turbo toolbox since it was SP’s/Basics to tech against most popular things in the format.
It won Worlds, so I couldn’t of been that bad.
I really think this would be better in the new format if you kicked something for a 1-1/2-1 Garchomp C line
This deck is awesome! Honchkrow donks are always fun :]
He only ran one Unown G? In Seniors?? Seniors is Machamp heaven!
I guess he was confident that machamp wouldn’t be solid enough to last at worlds, or he put a lot of faith into the lone psychic croak!
Ehh at worlds you don’t want a flippy attacker.
This deck looks awesome. It is kinda like the speed Luxray deck I was trying to make that was focused on Luxray with some techs.
Uxie LV.X is a great play in this, it’s needed to KO your opponent’s Toxicroak G promos.
I don’t like the lack of Call in this, but it did win Worlds, so it obviously worked fine w/o it.
Nice article and nice analysis by J-witts once again. :)
nice article pablo, j wittz any sp deck that is running garchomp c will lose to flygon, also idk about the no call energies in this.
now why would you say that? Have you tested it? Now I might not be a flygon expert, but I ran the deck from the start of battle roads to the end of the year for 5 tournaments and I know how to run different versions of it. Trying out Jays/Sammies list still proves to be tough vs. garchomp C for me. On turn 2 they could already have enough energy to OHKO you with an energy gain, 2 energies, and a lucario/lake boundary. They don’t even need the second part if you have the level X active. My brother won’t ever level up before I do unless he has these pieces so I rarely, if ever, get to extreme attack. It’s hard to manage vs. that kind of speed. Also, if you suffer from a slow start, they can snipe your claydol as well. It’s not an auto-win, but it definitely makes the flygon matchup harder, not easier.
I used a Flychamp list similiar to Sami’s at BR’s and made top 4
only lost once and that was to a deck similiar to this except it ran garchomp c and it’s to fast for flygon to keep up with
Bronzong g is a must for this deck i wouldn’t leave the honchkrow in there due to the fact that it can be ohko by two many cards in this format.
Ok I think this deck has several downsides and upsides. I completely hate SP pokemon. I think there HP suck and their attacks aint that great. But I do like that they’re all basics so they can get up and running fast and start attacking before the opponent can get set up. I also say that in addition to the cards he has he should add in at least one stage 2 or any strong pokemon with attacks over 100. I think he tried this with his mewtwo lv.X, but the hp still aint that great. But what would I know I didn’t win a world championship.
how much hp are you expecting on a basic? more than a fully evolved stage 2???
love the deck!! im trying to geta similar!!
ii loveit
11/10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
maybe some call energys could have helped but who cares
do you have rayquayza lvx and charizard lv x
do you have rayquayza lvx and charizard lv x
THE DECK IS AWESOME! i like it a lot. takuto is an awesome player as well. i've decided to run luxchomp at worlds. i'll make my deck better though. lol.
oh, so thats the guy i lost to at worlds
it would
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