Tyranitar Prime, Showing Hope in this Format!

Written by | June 13, 2010 | 49 comments | 7,792 views | Rating: 0

Ever since the HS Unleashed release there has been many new decks such as Feraligator/Blastoise, Magnezone/Steelix Prime, Feraligator/Lanturn Prime, Kingdra Prime Donk and such. However, I believe that Tyranitar Prime is the best out of all of the new decks coming out and will soon be in one of the top meta decks.

Since it is fairly new, there is no skeleton for this deck, however, I will give out my own Tyranitar Prime Deck List and talk about some strategies and why I believe Tyranitar is going to be good.

Pokemon 22

3 Larvitar UL
2 Pupitar UL
3 Tyranitar Prime UL
2 Trapinch SW or RR (doesn’t matter)
1 Vibrava RR
2 Flygon RR
1 Flygon LV.X RR
3 Spiritomb AR
2 Baltoy GE
2 Claydol GE
1 Uxie LA

 Supporters/Trainers 26

4 Bebe’s Search
3 Roseanne’s Research
4 Pokemon Reversal
3 Broken Time-Space
3 Rare Candy
3 Expert Belt
2 Pokemon Communication
2 Looker’s Investigation
1 Night Maintenance

 Energy 12

4 Double Colorless
4 Special Darkness Energy
4 Basic Dark Energy

Strategies

The strategy is quite simple. Get out Flygon and Tyranitar Prime fast as possible, and overpower your opponent while they spend a long time knocking down your 160 HP Tyranitar Prime or 180 HP if belted. Spiritomb to slow their set up down and to speed yours up.

Card Discussion

Tyranitar Prime (and the 2 stages below that) – As far as Larvitar goes, all of them are bad. Out of all the bad ones, Larvitar from the Unleashed is the best and I decided to use it. I will not go in detail with the Larvitar as it will never attack. However, Pupitar from Unleashed is great. His Poke-Body “Boot Gas” gives him free retreat if he has any Energies attached.

Now for the main card, Tyranitar Prime. This is an absolutely amazing card, other than the weakness. He has a whopping 160 HP, 180 HP if Belted, and has 3 good attacks (however, in this deck, he will never use the first one). His first attack, “Darkness Howl” will do 20 to all Pokemon in play if it is not a Dark Pokemon. Very useful if your deck is built around Dark Pokemons.

His main attacks in this deck are “Power Claw” and “Megaton Tail”. “Power Claw” does 60 to the active for 1 Darkness Energy and 2 Colorless Energies. This attack isn’t affected by Poke-Powers, Poke-Bodies, or any other effects on the defending Pokemon. This means if Jumpluff uses “Leaf Guard”, you will still hit 60 or 80 if belted, and if Flygon uses “Sand Wall”, that effect will not negate Tyranitar’s attack.

His final attack “Megaton Tail” does 120 damage for 2 Darkness Energies and 2 Colorless Energies. However, you will have to discard top 3 card from your deck, which might deck you out late game if you do not choose wisely. His weakness of x2 to Fighting Type is fatal due to Donphans and Machamps. His resistance to Psychic is good, and his beefy retreat cost of 3 Energies is bad, however with some help, it is no problem.

Flygon/Flygon LV.X – He is the secondary attacker of this deck. Flygon’s Poke-Body, “Rainbow Float” gives all Pokemon free retreat if Flygon has the same type energy attached. Which means if Flygon has a Darkness Energy attached, your Tyranitar Prime will retreat for free. He has 2 good attacks, “Sand Wall” and “Power Swing”. “Sand Wall” does 40 to the active and if you choose to discard your opponent’s stadium in play, Flygon is immune to all damage next turn.

His second attack “Power Swing” does 60 and 10 for each evolved Pokemon on your bench. Which means that he can do up to 110 or 130 with Expert Belt. His -20 Lightning Resistance is great, and his +30 Colorless weakness is fine since Garchomp C LV.X will not be able to one hit your Flygon. However, Flygon will be able to OHKO any Garchomp C LV.X as Flygon is a Colorless.

Flygon LV.X is also very good. His Poke-Body “Wind Erosion” makes your opponent discard top card of their deck every between turns. His attack “Extreme Attack” does 150 to any LV.X on the field, which means that If they have a retreated Luxray GL LV.X, you could snipe it out of the way for a free prize basically.

Spiritomb – He is what makes this deck great. He will rarely affect your deck as you run a low number of trainer that searches through your deck. This card will slow your opponent down by locking their trainer resources while you use “Darkness Grace” to evolve your benched Pokemons.

Claydol – Self Explanatory, draw power

Uxie – Draw Power if you do not have a way to Claydol.

Pokemon Reversals – This is an amazing disruption card. You flip a coin, and if heads, you bring one of your opponent’s benched to active. It may only be 50%, but when it works, it will win you the game.

Looker’s Investigation – This could be swapped out for Team Galactic’s Wager, however, I like this better as it is much more risk free.

Expert Belt – Why 3 Expert Belt? Well most of my main attackers has a good HP amount. Flygon has 120 HP, Flygon LV.X has 140 HP, Tyranitar Prime has 160HP. If belted, it is even more huge. Sure if they die, they take 2 prizes, however, in the time they take to knock down your Tyranitar Prime with 180HP or Flygon LV.X with 160 HP, you would have already taken 3~4 Prizes.

Special Darkness Energies – It does 10 more damage to the active if it is attached to a Dark Pokemon. Enough said.

Now, some of you might be thinking, why no Call Energies. Well first, I couldn’t find the room for it, and has been working fine without it. Call energies also just dead draw late game, and I did not want to run it at all. However, after rotation is in effect, Call energy will be substituted in most likely.

Now for techs. I really do not have any suggestion on what kind of techs you should put in. Tyranitar Prime itself can OHKO any top meta card in the game such as Luxray GL LV.X and Garchomp C LV.X. There is also Flygon LV.X to KO that Garchomp C LV.X. And also with Spiritomb, it slows down all SP Decks.

Due to it’s high HP, Jumpluff and SableLock will have trouble Knocking out your Tyranitar Prime while you knock out their Pokemon every turn. Donphan is really the only trouble, and I have not yet to come up with a good tech against Donphan :(.

I’m sorry for the no Tech Section, however, if I make part 2 of this article, it will be all about teching. However, I’m sure that the readers will leave comments below about some techs we, Tyranitar Prime users, can use to help Donphan match up.

Conclusion

The reason for me saying Tyranitar Prime will be one of the best is because it is already a counter to many decks other than Donphan. Also with the new rotation, it is not hurt at all, (my version at least). Only thing this deck will be losing is the 2-2 Claydol, 3 Roseannes, and 1 Night Maintenance, which they can all be replaced with more Uxie and Uxie LV.X, and Call Energies. Thanks for reading my article and I hope this inspired you to use Tyranitar Prime.

Image Credits: PokeBeach, Pokegym, and Pokemon Paradijs

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  • Bolt997

    sorry but isn't legends awakend rotated?

  • awesomedude

    no they said the rotation is md and up. nice deck analysis, it was the better of the two tyrannitar analyses 2day.

  • nardd

    I said it in the other article, but even more so in this one. Memory Berry. Both TTar and Flygon have lower stage forms that use good attacks (pupitar and trapinch, respectively) that can really pull out some easy surprise KO's and/or disrupt the opponent.

  • El_jonaman

    My problem is after rotation. You mention using more uxies, but using more uxies means that flygon will have less attack potential

  • Fritzhans98

    yeah without claydol flygon isnt as good as before. did u test reversal yet? i cant believe its that good.
    here nobody plays it. if has sb tested reaversal tell me about.cause it takes lots of place in a deck for coinflipping…i dont know

  • Peter

    no.. memory berry isnt that good in this deck. this deck as you ca nsee is just all about power. its about dominating the opponent with pure damage and nothign else. Therefore, fast set up/slowing opponent down, and doing big damage fast as possible is better. BUT it's up to the players. I just tested the deck today at Battle Roads and ill write a report on it

  • Peter

    yes it is quite troublesome. I plan on maxing out spiritomb after rotation too. so we'll see how that goes in september. not worrying bout it right now.

  • Peter

    yes i did test the deck today and reversals did WONDERS. I was able to stall with it by pulling up claydols. slowing them down by Knocking out their Claydols, draw engines, main attacekr before its set up and etc. For a power deck like this that can consistently hit 120~160, reversal does wonders

  • deadface

    I've won simply because I had reversals in my deck. The guy I was playing had a 4 prize lead, him at 1, me at 5. I reversal'd a Claydol and sniped his bench while he could do nothing. As soon as he swapped with energy retreats or warp points, I reversal'd again. Reversals are literally what made me win that game.

  • espy87

    nopeee. MD-on

  • JPN-Gallade

    Wow, another T-tar article has come up on the same day!

    Interesting idea about running T-tar Prime with Flygon RR. It does seem to be a nice way to use T-tar next format since after all, Moonlight Stadium will be rotated, so Flygon will help make it up for T-tar.

    Once again, nice deck idea and list! I now have a feeling that T-tar Prime may see some nationals play for sure now that we have T-tar articles popping up.

  • 85cwarning

    forgive me. but i feel as though this deck does not require special dark energy. i mean T-Tar already hits for hi damage and it does benefit flygon or anyone. i would say, use 6 basic darks, 4 DCE, and then 2 fighting energy. It gives your claydol free retreat and also makes all of your energy recyclable if you discard it with megaton tail.

    i guess that is just my preference. i guess if your opponent thinks you play fighting it might be okay because they wont waste time pulling up claydol.

    the other reason for the fighting is that you can get a super fast return strike from flygon after using a RR trapinch to get a fighting energy and then attaching a DCE.

    these are all just suggestions. other than these great deck. i always wanted to believe in tyranitar prime.

  • Peter

    I did try a build where I did not use special darks but having speical darks REALLY helped me out against Donphan match ups to get that extra 10~20 damage added especially since thats the decks worst match up. I still do not have a clean and good counter for donphan :(. However, I did make some changes to the deck after I came second on my last battle roads and I might do an article on techs for Tyranitar Prime Deck for this list

  • chrataxe

    Nice article.

    Though, I must say, the part about Flygon sniping Luxray Gl LvX is a bit humorous. If Lux X is already on the field, the damage is already done. I once tried to do Flygon in a fire deck that was rather energy dependent and I realized the biggest problem: for my fire to have free retreat, I had to take a turn to attack an energy to Flygon. Chances are, that means there is 1 turn that I don't get to attack with with my main attacker. So, that means my opponent has 2 opportunities to attack my active, and it will probably be KO'd. Then I have a Flygon with 1 energy and no “main” attacker. I saw a build here on 6P that had a Flygon with a Donphan and I thought that was great since Donphan isn't a “high energy” deck, you can get away with “losing” an attachment once.

  • Paperfairy17

    Weavile SW tech for Donphan?

  • Peter

    thought about it, but didnt like it, it only hits 40~80 and i would try no tto was special darks on weavile. and the fact that it only has 80 HP meanas that it can OHKO it next turn.

  • http://www.adamcapriola.com/ Adam Capriola

    Gyarados MT could be a possible Donphan counter. Colin wrote an article a while back about a rouge deck he made and Gyarados was a counter he came up with. http://www.sixprizes.com/deck-analysis/deck-ana…

    It could work in here, especially since you have an easy way to damage it (Darkness Howl).

  • bogsnes

    I made a T-tar deck for MD-on too, and felt like I needed a donphan counter. G-dos MT is a pretty good idea oO

    But personally, I think that the best donphan counter in T-tar must be crobat prime, as it can 4x poison donphan all the time, has fighting resistance, and can take 2 earthquakes from a belted donphan and still (barely) survive

  • http://www.adamcapriola.com/ Adam Capriola

    The issue with Crobat is that you will need Psychic energy plus they could switch out of the active position.

    Gyarados is a stage 1 which is nice, but Magikarp is weak…both seem like they could be decent counters though. Definitely some things to try out.

  • JPN-Gallade

    Since you have brought up a point of a Donphan counter in a T-tar deck, I may want to mention something about this.

    Gyarados MT can be pretty good, but if you really want an easy to use Donphan counter in T-tar, try using either Frost Rotom RR or Quagsire GL. Quagsire can be helpful, especially with its hit and switch ability, but it will have to 2HKO, but if you want a Pokemon that can easily one-shot a Donphan easily, try Frost Rotom. Frost Rotom's Poke-power can make it a water type, which is Donphan's weakness. With a DCE and a Lightning, you can use Frost Rotom's second attack, which does 40 plus 10 for every colorless energy in the defending Pokemon's retreat cost. Since Donphan has 4 in its retreat cost, you can be hitting for 80 damage, times 2 for weakness, and then you can knock out a Donphan easily. The only problem with Frost Rotom is its heavy retreat cost, so you may need a Switch or a Warp Point afterwards.

    Still, pretty good point for bringing up a Donphan counter in T-tar. Gyarados MT can be something to consider that's for sure, but so does Quagsire GL and Frost Rotom.

  • Rhin

    If you are talking about counters, i have also tried to look for some since there are quite a few Donphans in my area, and i have found that empoleon FB is pretty useful against them. The first attack can do 20 damage for 1 water, and move the fight energy donphan needs to attack, and since donphan decks run few energies, this will buy you enough time to kill it with the second attack, which, if you have played a supporter, will deal 60×2 damage to donphan.

  • Gwaihir

    Water arceus can also OHKO donphan, however it doesn't look like a good idea in this type of deck.

  • Fritzhans98

    ok thanks then ill try reversals, too

  • Papa_Mash

    I agree with narrd about the MB I don't see how using a Memory Berry on TTar isn't about big damage, especially in the Donphan match…Assuming Donphan Earthquaked you for 120 (if belted KO, unless TTar belted), with the Memory Berry and 2 nrgs you would get an easy revenge KO because you would hit Donphan for 140 (180 if both belted) with Pupitar's Rage instead of no revenge kill with only 0/40/100 with TTar's Darkness Howl/Power Claw/Megaton Tail (plus 3 card discard). If you add MB then you might as well use the Trapinch SW just to have the option.

  • Peter

    well about the luxray Lv.X. your saying that toxicroak G, or any other luxray counter is a joke than. Since toxicroak G is a counter that can OHKO lxuray AFTER he kills something same with donphan. If lxuray Lv.X is already on the field, that means lxuray X has already used Bright Look to do the damage needed. But however, Flygon X can snipe any Lv.X for 150 which is great.

  • Peter

    Wow i really like the Frost Rotom lol :P however 2 attach is still a bit slow. however, best one out there as it is a basic and such. I'll Test it out. and as for Adam. Gyarados MT ilooked at, but this deck doesnt utilizae the attack Darkness Howl as much as it will hurt me more than itd hurt them

  • duanojo

    Frost Rotom is a great counter, but it takes a water energy and two colorless, not a lightning. It's also good against Gyarados because of its high retreat.

  • FPlesko

    I have played both T-tar (SW T-tar, SW Weavile, Sableye) and FlyPhan. Spiritomb definitely the only way to start a Stage 2 deck, especially multiple Stage 2 like this one. I would suggest the following changes to this build:
    -1 Bebes +1 Pokemon Collector
    -4 Reversals +4 Poke Blower + (guaranteed to work if you're unlucky flipping)
    -1 Lookers +1 Lucians (lucians off energy from a dying T-tar onto a fresh one — nothing like it)
    -1 NM +1 Palmers (if your only going to run one)

    Donpan is likely to be running rampant at Nationals, etc., and crushes T-tar. Only way to deal with that is use Flygon as your main attacker early on in the game. Also, good LuxChomp decks will use Ambipom with 1 DCE attached plus Lucario GL on bench to 1-shot the Flygon — they will Bright Look it active. Toxicroak will 1-shot the T-tar w/Lucario GL on bench also. Have had both done to my build at Orlando area Battle Roads.

  • FPlesko

    Correction, used to use the SF Tyranitar (5 energies to spread 30 on bench); those were the days before Garchomp C (X) ruined the fun!

  • Cpeterik

    Why isn't there any Moonlight Stadium in this deck? Also, I agree the best way to play this deck is TyraniTomb. 4 Spiritomb's rock this format right now. Flygon is a waste of space, but if you want to get clever, 2 Memory Berry can work with Flygon and T-Tar. (Sand Tomb/Inviting Trap, Rage). This list is hard to look at, to be honest. Most T-Tar variants run Manetric or Nidoqueen. This one? …Neither. I do prefer Nidoqueen though as you already run the DCE's. Add 2 Psychic's and a Jirachi UL for some late-game shenanigans. 2-1 Uxie Lv.X would be a good play because you run DCE, also you have an out to PromoCroak when he kills your T-Tar, (Zen Blade). Also I can't emphasize this enough for T-Tar: You need to run VS SEEKER and PALMERS! If you “Megaton Tail” away your Night Maintenance late game you are screwed. At least if you have to discard your Palmer's with Megaton you can VS it back later. 1 Lucian's Assignment as a tech would maximize VS Seeker's usage as well, so I feel it is a good play to save energy from a dying T-Tar. (Or do a massive “Time Hollow” FTW!!) I would tech in 1 of the other T-Tar from Unleashed. Late game, discarding LuxChomp's precious energy can be devastating. Just my thoughts.

  • Cpeterik

    I forgot to mention, another decent Donphan counter in this deck, (Assuming there are at least 4 Stadiums), is 1-1 Glalie AR. Glalie is a Stage 1 water Pokemon, Steel weak, Fire resistant, who has an attack that for a DCE does 20 damage plus 50 more damage if there is any Stadium card in play, then you discard it. Good enough to OHKO Donphan (unbelted), and fits this deck because of the maxed out DCE's.

  • Fritzhans98

    i dont check how u want to play gyarados mt the new season, its md on

  • Peter

    i understand your point but i really think you should try out the deck and than say criticism like that. Ive tried Manetric or Nidoqueen build and 2-1 uxie lv. x. but it didnt work out too good for me. So i tried to make a deck that focueson Power Claw and Megaton Tail, not on Darkness Howl. So the point was Flygon was tehre for early game hitting with Sandwall and Power Swing and to give Spiritomb and Tyranitar Prime free retreat. At first you will think its slow due to power swing needing 3 energies. However, Spiritomb slows other decks down so much that this deck is able to compete with other SP decks and meta decks equally. Out of all the luxchomps i played. I only lost once out of the 5 games. I beat all the gyarados, beaten 3 jumpluffs out of 4, and ive beaten 2 donphan out of 5 which kinda sucks. And also if you know hwo to control your deck. Night maintenance or vs seeker is not much needed. SUch as when you want to use Megaton Tail, I usually count the cards i have left in my deck to see if I'm at a safe range to use megaton tail. However, im grateful for your thoughtful criticism. but i really think you should try it out first

  • Peter

    did you not see the 3 spiritombs i run which is probably gonna bem axed out to 4. I wanted to keep the searching trainers at low count as it becomes useless early game and late game.

  • Peter

    and no, toxicroak G does not one shot Tyranitar Prime… Toxicraok G only does 60 and tha nx2 which equals 120 and than the poison so 130.

  • Peter

    yes but donphan will 80% of the time have the belt attached to it and if my t tar is belted than memory berry i useless, but ill try it out.

  • Rhin

    He´s right about the expert belt and the MB. Donphan will ALWAYS have an expert belt, thats the point of a donk deck, so if he does, tyranitar will be KO´d unless he also has an expert belt, in which case, the MB is useless.
    And if he doesnt have one attached (and soon he will, believe me) then the MB is not really necessary, y would prefer the belt, specially if you also run lucian´s, or ssu.

  • Peter

    i understand your point but i really think you should try out the deck and than say criticism like that. Ive tried Manetric or Nidoqueen build and 2-1 uxie lv. x. but it didnt work out too good for me. So i tried to make a deck that focueson Power Claw and Megaton Tail, not on Darkness Howl. So the point was Flygon was tehre for early game hitting with Sandwall and Power Swing and to give Spiritomb and Tyranitar Prime free retreat. At first you will think its slow due to power swing needing 3 energies. However, Spiritomb slows other decks down so much that this deck is able to compete with other SP decks and meta decks equally. Out of all the luxchomps i played. I only lost once out of the 5 games. I beat all the gyarados, beaten 3 jumpluffs out of 4, and ive beaten 2 donphan out of 5 which kinda sucks. And also if you know hwo to control your deck. Night maintenance or vs seeker is not much needed. SUch as when you want to use Megaton Tail, I usually count the cards i have left in my deck to see if I'm at a safe range to use megaton tail. However, im grateful for your thoughtful criticism. but i really think you should try it out first

  • Peter

    did you not see the 3 spiritombs i run which is probably gonna bem axed out to 4. I wanted to keep the searching trainers at low count as it becomes useless early game and late game.

  • Peter

    and no, toxicroak G does not one shot Tyranitar Prime… Toxicraok G only does 60 and tha nx2 which equals 120 and than the poison so 130.

  • Peter

    yes but donphan will 80% of the time have the belt attached to it and if my t tar is belted than memory berry i useless, but ill try it out.

  • Rhin

    He´s right about the expert belt and the MB. Donphan will ALWAYS have an expert belt, thats the point of a donk deck, so if he does, tyranitar will be KO´d unless he also has an expert belt, in which case, the MB is useless.
    And if he doesnt have one attached (and soon he will, believe me) then the MB is not really necessary, y would prefer the belt, specially if you also run lucian´s, or ssu.

  • Darknight0398

    ummmmmm claydolls are gonna get banned

  • mewuk85

    A Flygon line is a total waste of deck space. u have two main attackers. your doing 50 to active with ebelt special dark. and 20 to each thats more than enuff needed.

  • Athens2diefor

    what do you suggest as the card count then if you were to use a gyrados counter. What about any other water counters?

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OQI7DHPTUJHOUKS3RSFXJLL42U sydney

    Umbreon UD counters Donphan. Moonlight fang does 30 damage and prevents all effects and damage done to Umbreon by attacks from a pokemon the has a poke-power or poke-body. Well Donphan has a poke-body. If you stick a special darknesss energy on Umbreon and Belt him he can be doing 70 damage and Donphan can’t touch him. You don’t have to worry about him being knocked out and your opponent getting two prizes because Donphans attacks do nothing to him after moonligh fang. Anyone ever thought about that?

  • Anonymous

    Yeah that’s really cool (my friend in juniors has a T-tar Prime), but you might need to keep Flygon safe better because one Flash Bite + Dragon Rush and fly away, Flygon (pun intended).