First off I will present the deck list:

You may look at this and think “If it wasn’t played DP on, what makes it better MD on?” Well, the only card from stopping Beautifly’s wings from flying was Unown G. Unown G’s Poke-Power “Guard” made it so all effects of a Pokémon aside from damage were ignored. Obviously because this deck is brutal solely on behalf of special conditions, such as Dustox’s “Chemical Scale” attack, we took a look at this card and never looked back.

Well guess what! MD on cycles the Great Encounters set, making Unown G illegal for tournament play! That means “Bed Bugs” will be viable next season. Let’s take a look at the Pokémon in “Bed Bugs”

Dustox PL

I’ve always been a fan of this underrated bug; having your opponent miss an attack can often win you games. How does this bug do that? Well, for a Colorless energy and Grass energy, it does a base 20 or 40 with an Expert Belt. The highlight of this attack is that not only is the defending Pokémon poisoned, they must flip a coin next turn to attack. If the coin flip happens to be tails the attack fails! Pretty good eh? Well that’s not the highlight of the card.

The highlight of the card is Dustox’s “Chemical Scale” which for a Double Colorless Energy and Grass Energy does 60, or 80 with an Expert Belt. If the defending Pokémon has a Poke-Power or Poke-Body (ex: Meganium Prime) they are both burned and confused! Not too shabby for a bug. But the best part is Dustox’s Poke-Body “Camouflage Body” which prevents Pokémon with 2 or more special conditions from attacking him! That means Dustox will be completely immune to attacks after a Chemical Scale! Which makes it a very worthy competitor in today’s metagame.

Beautifly PL

This guy is another amazing card. While he also does special conditions, you usually won’t be using the attack “Colorful Powder”. If you can get the required energy, you will be rolling. Making the defending Pokémon Asleep, burned, and poisoned. For two energy cards or less, it makes the defending Pokémon Poisoned, and for 3 energy cards the defending Pokémon is both burned and poisoned.

Keep in mind; you can use Double Colorless Energy to reduce the energy requirements for the different effects. Usually you’ll be using Beautifly for his second attack, silver scale. If the defending Pokémon has resistance to anything, the attack does 60 base instead of the 30 base. This is a good attack because against a basic Pokémon, you can OHKO them with a belt, such as Luxray GL.

Nidoqueen RR

Nidoqueen is a great tech in this particular deck because you can tank your bed bugs, with her “Maternal Comfort” Poke-Body taking away one damage counter in between turns. Also, Ruthless tail can abuse Double Colorless Energy, becoming quite an attack with an expert belt. Ruthless tail does 50 damage +10 damage for each of your opponents benched Pokémon, for one Psychic energy and a double colorless energy!

Uxie Lv. X LA

Uxie Lv. X is here solely for draw power; with his Poke-Power “Trade Off” giving you the ability to thin through your deck. Although he can be used to attack with, “Zen Blade” can do sixty for a Double Colorless Energy.

Spiritomb AR

Spiritomb is critical in this deck because sometimes you are slow to set up and SP decks will take advantage of this. Spiritomb AR comes into play because SP decks can’t use SP radar, due to his “Keystone Seal” Poke-Body slowing them down just enough time for you to set up Dustox or Beautifly.

Matchups

Gengar SF: Favorable

This is a favorable matchup because you never have to dive into Gengar’s Poke-Power “Fainting-Spell. Special conditions such as Burned and Poisoned will kill Gengars while they are doing minimal damage because you are clearing your hand of trainers.

Egg-Meg: Favorable

I have tested this matchup a lot because my partner in crime is using Egg-Meg as his MD-on deck. Doeiqts, if you are reading this, I love your rouge decks and my brother does as well. You deserved of your states finishes. Egg-Meg usually doesn’t run Warp Point, so after you attack with Dustox, they generally won’t be attacking you. Blissey Prime’s Poke-Power “Blissful Nurse” doesn’t get rid of special conditions, so they generally won’t be attacking you. The only advice I give is don’t bench Nidoqueen, because Luxray GL. Lv. X will use “Bright Look” and stall.

SP builds: Unfavorable

TGI Poketurn is a nuisance to deal with, but this matchup can be won with early spiritomb lock and Nidoqueen RR with an Expert Belt, Psychic energy, and Double Colorless Energy. Nidoqueen usually won’t die because you will use Pokémon Reversal to bring Uxie’s to the active position and they will be OHKOd before they level up.

Machamp

They are weak to psychic, so Dustox will do lots of damage to Machamps. In combination with special conditions and missed attacks, Machamp has no chance outside of beating Bed Bugs outside of a turn one donk.

So overall, I hope other people will view Bed Bugs as a contender for the MD-on Pokémon format. Thanks to everyone and all for reading and I will be happy to respond to comments, questions, and critiques. Good luck to everyone!

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Anyway, our other friend finally gets up, and we head out. There was a decent amount of people, 13 Masters, just enough for a whopping Top Cut of… 2. Anyway, on to the report.

1: Cro-Queen vs. Snorlax

I had played this guy for fun when I arrived at the tournament, and it was a decent deck. Rogue, but decent. Sadly, he had terrible luck with 2 Uxies, a Rosie, and a Claydol all prized and couldn’t get set up.
1-0

2: Cro-Queen vs. Blazechomp

This guy I was worried about a little bit. My friend beat him, but I’ve never beat an SP deck so yeah, I was a little nervous. I got the prize lead, he caught up and got one ahead by taking out my belted pokemon. He spends most of the game luring flaming my Claydol while I return it to the bench anyway. I catch up and the prize count is me 1, him 2. He luring flames my Claydol, I Warp Energy, promote, and knock out his Blaziken.
2-0

3: Cro-Queen vs. King-Gar

This was the match-up I’d been worried about all day. My friend Michael had made a beastly deck and now I was up against it. Needless to say, he won. Won’t go into detail because I don’t think he’d want me to talk about his deck, ha.
2-1

4: Cro-Queen vs. Gli-champ

We both start decent. He gets a Gliscor set up, but as soon as I take it out with my Crobat Prime, he can’t get anything set up. This game, like the first, was a game I didn’t feel so happy about winning, but I took the win none-the-less.
3-1

Top-Cut:

This completely shocked me. There was a kid who went 3-1, lost his last match, which as far as I know takes priority, but somehow, via resistance or something, I get placed 2nd and get to play against Michael again.

I’d delve into detail, but there’s a video along with a report by my friend Michael, so I’ll leave you with that. And the information that I indeed lost, getting second at battle roads.

Props:
- Built my deck at 4am, never tested it, received 2nd place at battle roads.
- Nidoqueen wrecking faces.
- Crobat Prime poisoning faces.
- Warp energy.
- Playing Michael in finals.

Cons:
- Built my deck at 4am, woke up at 5am, drove to Bentonville.
- Playing Michael round 3.
- Playing Michael in Finals.
- About a million mistakes while playing Michael in Finals.

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Curse Gengar

The main attacker of the deck. For two psychic and a colorless Gengar can hit for 60 and 10 to one of your opponent’s benched Pokemon, then you may switch Gengar with one of your benched Pokemon. You can use this to hit then switch up a Spiritomb and maintain a constant trainer lock on your opponent. Gengar also allows you to use his Poke Power, Curse once per turn. Curse allows you to pick up a damage counter on 1 of your opponent’s Pokemon and switch it to another.

Gengar SF

Gengar SF is the backup attacker of the deck. Gengar for 1 energy can use Shadow Room to place 3 damage counters on any of your opponents Pokemon, or 6 if that Pokemon has a Power Power. With Curse Gengar’s Shadow Skip and Curse abilities you can set up easy knock outs with Shadow Room. Gengar’s second attack Poltergeist for a psychic and a colorless does 30 damage for each Trainer, Supporter, and Stadium to your opponents active Pokemon. Gengar’s Poke Power, Fainting Spell allows you to flip a coin when Gengar is knocked out if heads the defending Pokemon is also knocked out.

Gengar Lv.X

Gengar Lv.X is mainly used for his Poke Power Level-Down. Level-Down forces your opponent to shuffle one of their Pokemon Lv.X in play of your choice back into their deck every turn. Gengar Lv.X also has a viable attack Compound Pain which does 30 damage to each of your opponents Pokemon that has any damage counters on it already. When combined with Curse, Shadow Skip, and Shadow Room Compound Pain can pick up Multiple knock outs in 1 turn.

Spiritomb

Spiritomb’s Poke Body blocks off all trainers played by you and your opponent while he is your active Pokemon, which is great when combined with the Curse Gengar to keep Spiritomb active whenever it’s your opponents turn. Spiritomb can cripple your opponents speed and recovery. Spiritomb also has an attack named Darkness Grace which allows you to search your deck for a Pokemon that evolves from one of your Pokemon and put it on top of that Pokemon, then you place 1 damage counter on Spiritomb.

Mewtwo Lv.X

Mewtwo Lv.X is an SP counter, which is huge in almost every meta game. Mewtwo Lv.X’s Poke Body prevents him from all effects of attacks, including damage done to Mewtwo by basic Pokemon. This can score you an automatic win against SP if you don’t place too many Pokemon on your bench and your opponent does not play a Mewtwo Counter, which is common for SP decks to do.

Nidoqueen

Nidoqueen is used for its Poke Body as well as it is a decent last resort attacker. Nidoqueen’s Poke Body Maternal Comfort allows you to remove 1 damage counter from all of your Pokemon in between turns. Nidoqueen for 1 psychic energy can attack with Mega Punch for 40 damage and for 1 psychic energy and 2 colorless can use Ruthless Tail to do 50-100 damage depending on your opponent’s benched size.

Possible Techs:

Dusknoir DP

Dusknoir has the ability to control your opponents bench by once per turn if your opponent has 4 or more benched Pokemon you can use Dusknoir’s Poke Power, Dark Palm to shuffle one of them of your choice back into your opponents deck.

Metagross SV

Metagross SV’s Poke Body lowers the HP of all Pokemon in play by 20. This makes it easier for you to get one hit knock outs with Shadow Skip and Shadow Room.

Crobat G + Poke Turns

Crobat G and Poke Turns in combination can drop multiple damage counters on your opponents Pokemon to set up a one hit knock out with Shadow Skip and Shadow Room.

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By now every last one of you have no doubt went through the exact same process of making the long (3.5 hour) drive to wherever Pokémon greatness is being played, in order to participate in a tournament. For this reason I will spare you all the amazing details of our wondrous car ride and the amazing scenery of tree after tree in a continuous loop down a winding road for many hours! Just know it was early, the ride was long, and for the most part un-eventful.

The list I chose to run was the very same list I have found myself using for a long time now, I am very comfortable with it so choosing it for this tournament was a “no-brainer.” It consisted of Gengar SF with Nidoqueen RR, Spiritomb and a Dusknoir DP tech. The main objective with my deck isn’t always Gengar, actually I usually use Nidoqueen RR to “Ruthless Tail” for major damage. And since most people don’t expect DCE in a Gengar build it usually works pretty well. Plus them seeing a Gengar SF still gives you the satisfaction of seeing your opponent waste/get rid of their trainers as fast as possible expecting a “Poltergeist”. When you promote a Nidoqueen and belt that sucker, drop a DCE with the already present psychic energy and “Ruthless Tail” for 120 it usually merits a priceless look of surprise.  

Pre Game Match: Roger Price – Giratina/Donphan/Mewtwo

I start the day off right, playing one of my favorite Arkansas players. Last time I played him at Cities he was running Giratina Lv.X, which I thought was pretty awesome simply because I have never seen anyone make it work so well. We both get pretty decent starts. His Giratina, to my Spiritomb. He sets up as do I and we trade prizes back and forth for a really close game. His late game Donphan set up my last two prizes via shadow rooming a belted benched Pokémon. This of course makes me feel great to start my day off with a win. I thank Roger for the great game and we make our way to postings just in time for our first round matches.

Round 1: ??? SP Toolbox

Can’t remember this guy’s name but he started with various SP’s to my Spiritomb and benched Baltoy. I got to go second and I had a Roseanne’s Research in my hand so I set up with the quickness and he couldn’t do anything. I get a Nidoqueen belted and active to “Ruthless Tail” my way to victory. Poor guy couldn’t draw a prize the whole game but was a really great sport about it.

1-0

Round 2: William Millard with Ampharos/Typhlosion Prime

I get a great start, he has Baltoy active and a benched Cyndaquil, I go first and immediately use Roseanne’s Research to pull a Gastly and a Nidoran, while using Spiritomb’s “Darkness Grace” to evolve my benched Baltoy into a Claydol. He eventually knocks out my Spiritomb and I proceed to revenge kill his Baltoy with Gengar. He gets a Typhlosion Prime set up with a benched Ampharos Prime but Nidoqueen keeps the damage off, so I pretty much sweep, he does manage to knock out my Gengar though, which totally throws off the awesome “Compound Pain” I was setting up.

Everything on his bench had ten health left so when he killed my Gengar, I had to use Nidoqueen to kill everything (I seriously need to start running Crobats). He played really well and did an excellent job, but Dusknoir really hurts when your bench is full and I shuffle your only backup attacker back in then KO your active. Overall it was a great game and a really awesome opponent.

2-0

Lunch Break:

I end up playing a few games with Micah P, the number one in the masters division in Arkansas. He was judging and wasn’t able to participate in the event so we decided to get a few games in while we had the chance seeing as how we have never been paired to play each other. He plays a pretty sweet Kingdra build but I am able to “Ruthless Tail” the life from his Kingdra for two straight games. We set up to play a third when pairings go up so we have to cancel it during turn one. Micah is a great guy and I’m glad we finally got to play. I’m looking forward to our next game.

Round 3: Roger Price – Giratina/Donphan/Mewtwo

Roger is an excellent guy and we always have great games, I got an excellent start and we traded hits for a minute until I established Dusknoir and shuffled away any chance he had of attacking. I then set up a multiple KO compound pain for the win. Excellent game and always a pleasure.

3-0

Round 4: ??? – Lugia Legend, Typhlosion/Ampharos Prime

Ok so this is the part where I sadly tell you I take my one and only loss of the day and end up getting 2^nd place to this guy because he was undefeated. It was a horrible match and I knew I was bound to get a really crummy opening hand eventually; sadly it came to this deck. Ultimately I started with a lone Nidoran and didn’t draw into any supporters or basics for a long while, I was able to hold him off with a Nidorina for a while then drew into a Gastly.

Gastly becomes a Gengar via Rare Candy and I’m starting to feel better but then he does the whole Lugia Legend thing and gets the energy on that thing in one turn plays a Warp Point to KO my Gengar. I roll a heads on Fainting Spell and his water bird lands itself into the discard. He eventually cleans me out with another Lugia which would have found itself shuffled back into the deck with Dusknoir if I would have drawn the Rare Candy. I had 2 left in my deck and only 14 cards remained of said deck.

I Cosmic Powered for 6, no luck so I proceeded to play a Looker’s Investigation, hoping to draw the precious Rare Candy, failed so I retreat Gengar to level up my Uxie, in order to Trade Off thinking surely I could draw into it, unfortunately I didn’t so he retreated his active for Lugia Legend and killed my Uxie Lv.X. I lost my first and only match of the day.

3-1

I wasn’t too upset with this because it was my understanding there was going to be a top 2 cut, but TOM messed up and there wasn’t one so I had no chance to try and reclaim 1^st place. I felt robbed, but it couldn’t be helped. That’s right Six Prizes, I lost to the kid in the fanny pack that was playing a LUGIA LEGEND deck :[ I can’t even believe it myself…

Props:

Pulling five Lv X’s from my winning packs

Team Moon Shadow

Robert Long and his brother for driving so I didn’t have to

An awesome time and almost flawless record

Mike Schell and his wife for donating the prizes even though he and the Mississippi players couldn’t make it

Slops:

Almost hitting a pack of wild dogs feeding off the rotting corpse of half a cow in the middle of the road.

Losing to LUGIA LEGEND, who would have thought?

The horrifically long drive

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You see I work at a place called Marble City Public School and around 5-6 months back I was asked to teach the Pokémon trading card game in the after school program. Upon doing some research I agreed and ever since that day I have been doing everything I can to do good in OP and to get my 7^th and 8^th grade students started in Organized Play as well.

Unfortunately by the time I had felt they were ready to play in a real event the only one taking place was Oklahoma State Championships. Regardless of all of us being relatively new to Pokémon we had high hopes of having fun and we all were secretly hoping to do well even though we all knew the odds.

After registering I told the boys to work out any nervousness they might have in their systems by finding someone in which they had never played before and asking them for a warm up game.  A little apprehensive at first they made their way through the crowded building and eventually found opponents. I decided it would probably be best if I took my own advice and found myself a warm up game as well, so that’s exactly what I did.

The person I ended up playing was a guy by the name of Len Deuel. I have actually played Len before online several times, he is a very strong player and I knew he was playing Gyarados, a deck in which I was most apprehensive about. I ended up doing really well against it and probably would have won the match but the masters list was going up so we decided to sack the game and make our ways to our first match’s. Low and behold who my first match was… None other than Billy Kettler. This was already looking bad for me.

Match #1 – Billy Kettler with Gyarados:

                As soon as I saw who I was playing I already knew it wasn’t going to be easy and boy was I right. He started with a Sableye and I started with Spiritomb and a Gastly. My Spiritomb ended up locking him for like five rounds and I was really surprised he hadn’t killed me off by that time. Eventually I retreated it and we started trading off prizes. In the end it came down to a coin flip on a feinting spell and I lost the flip, had I gotten the flip he informed me there was no way he could have recovered and things would have ended much better for me, but regardless of the fact I lost, Billy was a pretty cool guy and I very much enjoyed our match.

0 – 1

Match #2 – Charizard AR with Typhlosion Prime and Ninetales:

                I started this match with Spiritomb and he started with a Cyndiquill. I had my things set up really early with the exception of my Nidoqueen, I ended up having to lose two Spiritomb in order to establish a fully charged Nidoqueen but I deemed it was worth it, until I realized my opponent was trying to stall me out on time. He had a two prize lead on me because of my Spiritomb and he decided to make his turns last 20 minutes a peace, after I caught on I asked him several times to please hurry his turns up and he informed me he wasn’t slow playing just trying to make sure he didn’t make a mistake. I could have understood this if he had actually done something with his turns but he didn’t do anything except stall. Near the end of the match I had two minutes to try and play catch up with prizes and I just couldn’t do it, instead I misplayed, I lost the match due to time and him having one prize left and my only having two. I was severally irritated with this but it was my own fault for not calling a judge.

0 -2

Match #3 – Nikki with AMU:

                I started this match with a crummy hand and she set up her pixies really quickly and was hitting my with 200 damage before I could set anything up, but I realized I needed to just sacrifice prizes in order to establish a Dusknoir and a Gengar so I could level her down and Dark Palm her to eliminate her ability to hit me for 200. I did this and took the win because of her in-ability to recover after I leveled her Azelf down, Dark Palmed her Uxie and KO’ed her Active Mesprit Lv X. All in all she played really well and I really was quite sure she had me in the beginning. Excellent game Nikki!

1 – 2

Match #4 – Feraligatr Prime with Gyarados G and Floatzel GL

                This match was a real surprise for me, I had never encountered a deck like it and I thought it was really quite clever. It hit really hard and set up rather quickly. I misplayed about halfway through it and forgot to level down the Floatzel GL Lv X and so when I KO’ed the active Gyarados G he simply scooped it up promoted his Floatzel GL Lv X set Gyarados G back down and Rained Danced all of the energy back onto it, retreated, promoted and hit me hard again KO’ing my active Gengar. I then night maintenanced my Gengar Lv X back into the deck, then Bebe’s searched, leveled up my other Gengar, leveled him down and started to turn things around after that. It was a really cool match and I very much enjoyed playing against a deck I have never played against.

2 – 2

Match #5 – Dunsparce Donk with Donpahn:

                This deck was uber strange and I didn’t really know what was going on, the guy playing it was running cards that belonged in a Shuppet deck and I was wondering what the fighting energy was for until he pulled out a Donphan late game and started using it. It was close near the end I had a belted Nidoqueen on the bench that only needed 30 more damage to be knocked out and he couldn’t manage to do it so I Compound Pained and took my last three prizes. Despite my rough start I took the win.

 3 – 2

Match #6 – Gardy Gallade:

                This was such a crummy win, we both started with Spiritomb’s and he had a benched Mewtwo as I had a benched Nidoran. I simply set up a Gengar, Nidoqueen and a Claydol and all he drew into was energy. I retreated my Spiritomb and KO’ed his, then afterwards I took out his only benched Pokémon, Mewtwo, for the win. I hated winning that way but he was really understanding, and we ended up playing another match afterwards. He wanted to test a Tyranitar deck against me and I ended up winning against it as well. Very nice guy and an excellent player as well, glad to have shared the experience.

4 – 2

So I fell shy of making top cut but I had allot of fun, I got to meet a lot of people I play against in Redshark and Apprentice (Austin Baggs, John Kettler, Len Deuel, ect) and it was an excellent experience. My 7^th and 8^th grade students did really well also, a few of them just barely missed top cut and so they are all readily awaiting the next chance to compete in OP.

I also would like to take the time to thank Austin Baggs for sending me the Claydols and Uxies necessary for my 7^th and 8^th graders to have consistent decks and a better chance at playing. Without them I’m afraid some of my students wouldn’t have had as good of a chance at drawing what they needed. Your contribution was much appreciated.

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In addition to that attack, you have a Poke-Body, “Exoskeleton”, that reduces damage. With Expert Belt equipped, you have yourself a tank. You could also play a few healing techs, but we’ll get into that a little later. Donphan’s other attack, three Fighting for ninety damage, may not seems all too good, but when your up against a Mr Mime MT walling you, you’re going to need your three Energy fast. That way with an Expert Belt you’re pulling off one-hundred-ten damage. Just like that.

Anyway, here’s a list of Pokemon techs that may be used in one of your own builds:

Nidoqueen RR

Used for its “Maternal Comfort” Poke-Body to heal off ten damage in between turns. That way you can pretty much nullify all of your “Earthquake” damage. It’s also a decent attacker, doing 40 for one Psychic Energy or 60 with an Expert Belt. Or if your playing a few Double Colorless Energy (for whatever reason) you could potentially “Ruthless Tail” for quite a bit of damage. But really? The only thing I see this card doing is a bench sitter just healing off your Earthquake damage. Plus you also have to waste a Rare Candy or two, when you probably don’t want to play Rare Candy! There are plenty of other options, like the next card…

Manectric PL

This card is a lot better than Nidoqueen, for a few reasons…

• It’s a Stage One
• Lightning type (which backs up Donphan’s weakness to Water)
• Snipe Powers
• Free Retreat
• Resistance to Dialga G is good
• Protects bench besides Manectric from EarthQuake
• With Bench Shield you completely protect your bench

I think that about sums up Manectric. Next up is Machamp Stormfront:

Machamp SF

Also known as the SP Killer, it one shots your opponent’s non-Unown G’d SP Pokemon. With one-hundred-thirty (150 with Expert Belt) health, it can withstand quite a few hits. Combined with Donphan you could skip the awkward turn you have to Hurricane Punch. It’s a Stage Two so you kind of have to play Rare Candy with this tech, but it also means that you could potentially get the donk. Using Machamp is a variation of Donphan by the way, which I have posted a list of later in the article. There isn’t really much more to say about this card.

Luxray GL LV.X RR

It won Worlds in an SP toolbox deck. It’s been proven by Stephen Silvestro that you could literally tech a 1-1 line of it in almost any deck. This deck is no different. You could “Bright Look” up any Pokemon, free retreat or Poke Turn Luxray, then bring up a Donphan and wreck the new Pokemon. For example, Bright Look a Claydol, retreat or Turn Luxray, promote an Expert Belted Donphan Prime, do 80 for the one hit knock out. You could also use Pokemon Reversal, which is the next card on the list.

Pokemon Reversal

Pokemon Reversal is a flippy Luxray. It can bring up anything for you to kill; look above for explanation on how. In decks where you don’t exactly have the space where you can fit in 2-2 Luxray, 2 Crobat G, and 4 TGI Poke Turn, this card is very good. Being able to drag up anything is almost too good. Run this in fours.

Now onto the deck lists:

PhanRay

Champ Donphan

Donphan Manectric

Straight ‘Phan

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The deck that I will explaining to you is yes, another Flygon variant. The deck am I talking about, well, I like to call this variant Dumbo. This deck is a lot like the infamous FlyChamp except it utilizes the somewhat quicker Donphan Prime instead of Machamp. The reason that Donphan is so much quicker than Machamp is the fact that is a Stage 1, so you don’t have to search out that Rare Candy or Broken Time Space and you just evolve on turn 2. Well I think that’s enough chatter…let’s meet our key Pokemon.

Wow, Flygon an amazing card and a big part of the meta. This beast of Pokemon has found it’s way into a huge amount of decks that have been winning BattleRoad’s and CityChampionship’s and you can be sure it isn’t going anywhere soon. Let’s take a look at the stats. First of all Flygon has average amount of HP for a stage 2, 120. It’s + 30 weakness to Colorless isn’t the best with Garchomp C running around all over the place but we can deal. Next it’s resistance of -20 to Lightning is amazing with Luxray GL a big part of a lot of meta decks, and it’s 0 retreat cost is great.

Its Poke-Body “Rainbow Float” gives each of your Pokemon free retreat if there is a basic energy of the same type on Flygon; this can be extremely helpful in this particular variant since Donphan has such a high retreat cost. “Sand Wall” is a great attack against SP decks that utilize the Toxi-Tank engine since they need to have a Stadium in play. “Power Swing” is the main attack used doing 60+10 for each evolved Pokemon on your bench for Colorless Colorless Colorless maxing out at 110.

Flygon Lv.X is a great card and 1 should be run at least. The changes Flygon goes through when it Levels Up are that it’s Hp goes up by 20 which helps tremendously. The Weakness becomes x2 to Colorless now and the Resistance and Retreat Cost stay the same. It also gains 1 more sweet attack and an awesome Poke-Body. Let’s talk about the Body “Wind Erosion” lets you discard the top card of your opponents deck in between turns this means you discard 2 cards per turn. That attack is just amazing it lets you do 150 Damage to any 1 Lv.X your opponent has in play for Colorless Colorless Colorless.

You have two options for the Vibrava and Trapinch that you play,for Vibrava the RR one is far superior to the SW one. It has an amazing late game attack to use after you knock out a few of your opponents Pokemon, it lets you do 20x the number of energy cards in their discard and you put them back their deck. The Trapinch that like to use is from SW It’s first attack let’s YOU switch the defending Pokemon with 1 of your oppenent’s bench Pokemon. It’s second attack does 10 damage and keeps the defending Pokemon from retreating.

Donphan the 2nd half of the deck and an important one. This Tank has 120 HP which is amazing for a stage 1. It’s x2Water weakness isn’t that great with Gyardos and the soon to be released Feraligatr Prime. It has the same Resistance as Flygon, and it’s Colorless Colorless Colorless Colorless Retreat Cost is utterly horrid but Flygon’s Body takes care of that. Donphan has a Poke-Body and 2 attacks the Body is great, it makes so that all damage done to it is reduced by 20 this makes it a great wall Pokemon. The first attack is “Earthquake” this will be used the most during a game, for Fighting it does 60 and 10 your bench. It’s 2nd attack does 90 for Fighting Fighting Fighting it can be used occasionally but I wouldn’t waste the energy attachments.

The best Phanphy to use is the HGSS one and is pretty good because if your Donphan is heavily damaged you can just attach a Memory Berry and use flail for massive damage.

Techs

There are a number of techs that could be used to help this deck but I can only list a few
Staple Techs
Claydol
Uxie
Unown G

The above are some techs that should be used no matter what in most decks.

Nidoqueen is possibly the best tech in this deck because it heals the recoil damage from earthquake and it just heals in general.

Exploud SV
Exploud is another tech to consider it gets rid of all the weaknesses on your Pokemon. This helps because both your attackers have bad weaknesses. The bad thing about this guy is that there is no such thing a basic colorless energy so he can never have free retreat.

Spiritomb AR
This annoying ghost can be a tricky guy, he stops you and your opponent from playing any trainers while he is active and he also helps you set-up using his attack you can search your deck for a Pokemon that evolves from 1 of your Pokemon and evolve it, that can really help you out.

Palkia Lv.X
Palkia can really help you because it gives you control of what your opponent has active, but it also lets your opponent switch your Pokemon too. The reason it gives you complete control is Because Flygon gives you free retreat.

Dialga G Lv.X
Dialga can be really fun because locks all Poke-Body’s, but he can be a hard tech to pull off since he locks your Body’s too. This means you have to use TGI Poke Turn to bring him back to your hand during your turn, and he is a Lv.X making him that much harder to get out.

Mewtwo Lv.X
Mewtwo will act as your counter to all basic Pokemon especially SP’s and Shuppet. He can also act as a great staller if you also have Palkia LV.X out, as you can restructure a basic out and stall while you recover from a knock out.

Dusknoir DP
Dusknoir is really good against decks that need lots of Pokemon in play (ie. Beedrill, Jumpluff, Charizard). This ghoulish ghost lets you shuffle one of your opponent’s benched Pokemon back into their deck if they have at least 4 Poke’s on their bench.

The List
This the list I use for fun and is by no means competitive.

I cannot post many match ups as I haven’t tested against many Meta-game decks with this deck but I will post some that have tested against.

DialgaChomp – Very Unfavorable
This a match that Spiritomb would really help since SP’s use so many trainers. Dialga stopping your body’s is really bad and they have Garchomp which OHKO’s you with Lucario GL in play. The best strategy would be to lock something like Claydol up front or go heavy attacking with Donphan.

Gengar (with LV.X) – Unfavorable
Gengar LV.X is a huge threat to the deck out strategy that Flygon uses and he has resistance making power swing max at 90 DMG. The best thing to do is get out Donphan quickly and get some damage out, then use Flygon to lock their Claydol. If they break out of the lock then just risk the KO from fainting spell and attack as much as possible.

Gengar (without LV.X) – Highly Favorable
This is one of the easiest match ups for you, as long as you can get out your Nidoqueen, Unown G your Claydol, and keep your hand low on trainers you should be good to just lock their Claydol or Azelf for a few turns until they deck out.

Well that was my article I hope you liked it, and hope you try out this Dumbo deck.

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