Does it Stand a Chance? – Ninetales and Typhlosion Prime

Written by | May 4, 2011 | 47 comments | 4,680 views | Rating: -4

Hello and welcome to the third installment of this series. Hopefully, I will have several more of these to come. Also, do not be afraid to disagree with me (I doubt that most of you will) in the comment section. Good, thoughtful, and deep discussion is key to developing a healthy format.

Second, I know that some of the people in this community do not understand why these articles need to be published. To them these articles might seem like common sense. However, I guarantee that these articles will be helpful for players that are just coming into the game.

Today’s article will again cover two Pokémon. However, these two will not be completely exclusive.

Ninetales HS/CL

Up first is Ninetales.

This card currently sees heavy play in Charizard decks. Actually, any Charizard deck without Ninetales is not worth considering. However, that is pretty limited usage. I know that some people have made Charizard run like a charm.

Yet, Charizard is the only deck that Ninetales sees heavy play in. However, next format could be a completely different story. Similar to Magnezone Prime, this card is going to be one of the very few draw engines that comes in Pokémon form. That immediately moves the card to “make sure to test this” status.

Well what is the verdict of that testing? This card is going to be very important next format. It will likely reach prominence due to the release of Reshiram. For those of you who have been under a rock lately, Reshiram is a massive basic Pokémon that is a fire type (I trust you can go look up more information if you need it). That means that Ninetales will see increased play for consistency and draw power in this fire deck.

Reshiram is being talked up as one of the early favorites for Tier One status and maybe even BDIF status. Personally, I think Reshiram will make Tier 1, and I have not decided on what I think will be BDIF.

So, this card will be around and make its way to the top tables often next year. I also think that the art work on this card is great. So, I’m glad it will see more play.

However, what will be Ninetales’s support partner in Reshiram?

Typhlosion Prime

The second support card in the Reshiram deck is, personally, a difficult decision. Most people in the community are just assuming that the ability Emboar will be in the Reshiram deck. This Emboar has the ability “Inferno Fandango” that allows the player to attach as many fire energy to his/her Pokémon as he/she would like per turn.

That is a great ability. Any people have purposed a partnership with the Shuckle Promo card to create a great draw engine. That seems like a perfect second supporter for Reshiram right? So, why would Typhlosion Prime even be an option?

Well Typhlosion Prime has a great Poke-Power called “Afterburner”. Afterburner allows the player to take one fire energy from the discard and attach it to a Pokémon.  However, that Pokémon takes 10 damage.

So, why could this be a better option than Emboar?

First, this card let’s you reuse energy that is already in the discard. This frees up deck space that would formerly be taken up with Energy Retrievals or Fisherman. All I know is that Emboar is only useful if you have extra energy in your hand.

So if you run Emboar, not only will you have to run more Energy Retrievals or Fisherman, but you are also going to need more energy, more Energy Search, more Interviewer’s Questions, or more of something that guarantees enough energy in hand. That could be a lot of deck space dedicated to having multiple energy in you hand every turn.

Second, Typhlosion Prime works better with Ninetales because of the discard thing for many of the same reasons as above.

Third, Most of the energy recovery and searching techniques are trainer based. I think that decks are going to use so many trainers that someone will make trainer lock viable again. Typhlosion Prime is not affected at all by trainer lock.
(A side note: I do not really think that trainer lock is going to be hard to establish by turn two or three max. Just run four Rare Candy, two Oddish, two Vileplume, four Pokemon Collector, and 3 Professor Elm’s Training Method. Boom, turn two or three trainer lock).

Fourth, Typhlosion Prime’s retreat cost is only CC compared to ability Emboar’s CCCC retreat. It will be much easier to manually get out of the active spot.

Fifth and finally, Typhlosion Prime’s attack is much better than the ability Emboar’s attack. Emboar’s attack does 80 damage for FFCC. Typhlosion Prime’s attack does 70 for FFC. However, it also allows you to discard one energy from the defending Pokémon. That effect can really change a game and be extremely disruptive.

So what is the verdict? Too close to call right now. I really do think that Emboar’s ability is great but so is Typhlosion Prime’s. I know I’m certainly going to test both out extensively. Personally, I think that I would have to give a slight edge to Typhlosion Prime right now.

I know many, many people are going to disagree with me on that last statement. I strongly encourage cordial discussion in the comment section.

Airhawk06

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  • Anonymous

    Just for clarification

    I meant that I do not doubt that most of you will not hesitate to disagree with me.

    In the article it sounds like I said that you will not disagree because I’m right. I did not mean that at all.

  • Travis

    Interesting article. I’ve already got an emboar reshiram deck built and tested, and the main problem I’d see with the Typhlosion, is it would take two of them to set up a reshiram in one turn, and even with that, Reshiram is now at a pathetic 110Hp. The ammount of energy recovery trainers now avaliable make getting basic energies back no problem. I personally run 4 energy retrieval in the deck with 3 junk arms, and the deck runs like clockwork. Typhlosion is great without a doubt, but Emboar breaks the most basic and core rule of the game, where typhlosion only bends the rule a bit.

    I’m not saying I’d always use Emboar over Typhlosion either. Typhlosion will find his way into a multitude of decks in my opinion, including Ursaring Prime, maybe even share a combo with Machamp Prime. But any deck with fire energy, or a plain colorless energy requirement should be thinking about Ninetales.

    • Anonymous

      Yeah, I completely understand the idea that it take two Typhlosions to power up one Reshiram. However, the Reshiram/Typhlosion deck needs to focus a little more on utilizing outrage at very specific times of the game.

      Also, I completely understand that Energy Retrieval and Junk Arm can make recovery a breeze. On the other hand, Potions and Defenders more than make up for the 10 damage.

      To be completely honest, I think if you play ReshiBoar a 1-0-1 Typhlosion Prime tech might be the best play. Also, if you play TyRam a 1-0-1 Emboar tech might be the best play.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C7OQD6BLJCXQBNSHNZWVWLRXHE George

    Everyone keeps forgetting about the “other” Ninetales. For one Fire Energy you can take 3 Fire Energy out of the Discard Pile and place them onto 1 of your Pokemon. I ran 2 Roast Reveal and 2 of the “Other” in the Charizard Deck my nephew ran. This gives more options and manipulation of the Energy. Plus, for 1 Fire and 1 Colorless Energy Ninetales does damage and burns the defending Pokemon. It also has a single Energy Retreat Cost.

    I’m suprised it isn’t getting mentioned much.

    • Anonymous

      5he problem is that you give up taking a prize that turn.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DESYVDOOUHZXH4YD4E6BNOPTM4 Martin

      I thought of running the UL Ninetales with its Heat accleleration attack like you mentioned. But I considered that Ninetales has to use an ATTACK to attach the discarded energy. Its an awesome attack, dont get me wrong, but in competitive TCG games, using a turn that way doesnt seem wise. Id rather just retrieve the energy using Energy retrievals or Fishermans. (Id prefer E. retrievals, but keep Fisherman for any trainerlock decks) then Inferno Fandango it down. Besides, if youre runnin HGSS Ninetales (2 for me) Youre gonna get alot of options fast, as well as energy, so yea. Good idea though

    • Travis

      Because you have to waste a turn attacking with ninetales, where as with emboar, a fisherman or energy retrieval will do the exact same thing and not cost you your turn. Maybe in the new meta ninetales will be useable, but there are just so many other options for energy retrieval than ending your turn.

  • Anonymous

    The problem is, outrage requires you to survive. Remember that one little damage counter that you put on Reshiram? Well that one little damage puts him in OHKO range of other reshirams, and of zekrom. I know it may not seem like a big deal, but that along with the fact you need two typhlosions out in order to keep up with the prizie exchange just seems to hurt more than help. Don’t get me wrong, I see the advantages of typhlosion, but I think that any space you use on recovering energy with emboar is made up for by the amount of speed you gain over typhlosion.

    • Anonymous

      Read my comment bellow.

      Defender, Potion, Junk Arm would like to say hello.

      Typhlosion is more flexible against other decks beside Reshiram and Zekrom.

      • Anonymous

        but running all those would take up a HUGE amount of deck space. and against what deck is typhlosion more flexible then emboar. there flexibility if anything is more emboar.

      • Anonymous

        1) Trainer-Goods Locking decks will own ReshiBoar. They will be around next format if Gothitelle is printed here.
        2) Potion and Defender can allow your Reshiram to shrug off 50 damage (30 healed from Potion and 20 prevented from Defender). Then that same 50 can be reused with Junk Arm. That makes Reshiram a certifiable tank.
        3) Good ReshiBoar decks are going to be running four Junk Arm (so that is no different). The ReshiBoar deck will also need to run at least 3 Energy Retrieval and most likely at least 2 Fisherman. Just trade those out for Potion/Defender. As I mentioned in 2), the Defender/Potion set up gives the deck more flexibility than simply retrieving energy from the discard. Emboar lives and dies on the ability to retrieve energy from the discard. If it falters once, that could be doom. Typhlosion allows is build in energy recycling and those trainer spots can be used for other things. That my friend is flexibility.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TMFJ3QPTKBAVVA7YVK2XMY7YT4 Mike Kozerski

        “Potion” this, “defender” that…
        “Trainer-Goods Locking decks will own ReshiBoar”
        It will own your deck too if you rely on using defender and potions.
        What happens if you hit a trainer lock deck that can hit for 120? You cant potion or use defender to save yourself from getting OHKOed. That’s only considering you use Afterburner once. Which i doubt you will only use once if you’re discarding two fire per turn.

      • Anonymous

        With ReshiBoar. The deck shuts down under Trainer Lock. The only card that can recycle for you is Fisherman and most lists run 1-2. So that card is hit or miss and cannot be reused.

        With Typhlosion Prime, the deck can still recycle discarded energy which is HUGE. I know that Defenders and Potions are also locked out, but the core of the deck is not. Energy Retrieval is PART OF THE CORE of Reshiboar. Decks tend to fall apart when their core is crippled. Potion and Defender is not part of the core of Reshiram/Typhlosion.

        Anyway, what decks is going to see play that can trainer lock and hit for 120 every turn? Not very many. Heck which ones are going to hit consistently for 110 every turn? Again, not many.

      • Anonymous

        My most refined ReshiBoar list uses 5 Trainers. 2 Energy Retrieval and 3 Rare Candy. The only Trainer-Lock I currently need to worry about is Beartic/Vileplume because Beartic will slaughter anything in the deck.

      • Anonymous

        also adding to what mike kozerski said, my reshiboar doesnt run junk arm. i run 4 fhierman and 4 energy retreival. i am certainly not screwed form train lock. the only big trainer in deck is p-comm.

      • Anonymous

        That’s nice, but IMO, and many people who have tried ReshiBoar, you are not running enough trainers. All of those supporters (which I assume are core to your build) are going to slow you down against a lot of other decks.

        I could be wrong, but if you are running that many supporters, you are going to get out-sped by other ReshiBoar decks, Zekrom, Swarm Cinccino, and heck you even allow Stage 1/2 decks to keep up in the speed game if you are running a lot of supporters.

      • Anonymous

        here’s my list
        4 reshiram
        4 smeargle CoL
        2-2-2 emboar
        3-3 ninetales

        4 energy retreival
        4 fisherman
        4 pluspower
        4 pokemon communication
        4 pokemon collector
        1 flower shop lady
        3 rare candy

        2 rescue energy
        14 fire energy

        certainly a normal turn 2-3 set-up. total supporters are 9. smeargle helps dramaticallly, yet i see no deck run it? zekrom has yet to make a debeu(think i spelled it wrong) and i dont think it can get set-up as good as my time experimenting with it, it needed draw power. but only time will tell. this reshiboar deck has yet to lose a match against hgss-on decks.

      • Anonymous

        Looks like a decent enough list. I’m still not sure that it can recover from early disruption. How can this list recover from a turn one or two Judge before Ninetale’s is set up? I mean luck can always save you, but there is not a good hand refresh/draw card.

        I also am not sure that this is fast enough to punish a Stage 2 deck. I could easily see a Magnezone Prime deck only go down by 1-2 prizes early. Then make a big comeback.

        The reason why Smeargle is plummeting in popularity is because most people (both in the forums here and on the Gym) are going to a trainer based set up. Some people are even advocating not maxing out Pokemon Collector. So, the supporters, most people are predicting, that are going to see a lot of play are Professor Juniper, PONT, Copycat, and Judge; to as lesser extent Professor Elm’s Training Method. Those first four are extremely risky to try to Portrait. You could easily have to shuffle away you opening hand (in some cases discard it) with Portrait. The other supporters that will be played are recovery: Fisherman, Flower Shop Lady, etc. It is just too risky of a play for most people.

  • Anonymous

    I thought your article was okay. When I was reading it I was enjoying it, but I feel like it just kind of ended and you could have said more. I was at least expecting to see a decklist, but I guess that I almost always assume that there’s going to be a decklist….

    • Anonymous

      4 Reshiram
      2-1-2 Typhlosion
      2-2 Ninetales
      4 Stantler
      1-0-1 Emboar with Ability

      2 Pokemon Collector
      4 Junk Arm
      3 PETM
      4 Juniper
      3 Potion
      2 PlusPower
      3 Defender
      3 Twins
      2 Energy Retrieval

      3 DCE
      12 Fire Energy

      • Bilbo Bagins of the Shire

        1-0-1 Emboar line
        no Rare Candies listed

        How has this been working? (know it was pry a mishap..)

      • Anonymous

        yeah my bad

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Shining-Yue/1018279749 Shining Yue

    I tried and failed. Stage2 decks are not my strong point though, I prefer stage1 ones.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Shining-Yue/1018279749 Shining Yue

      I must add, I think Typhlo is better than Emboar for Reshiram, BUT you couldnt use seeker/ssu to heal Reshiram, which is a great combo.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DESYVDOOUHZXH4YD4E6BNOPTM4 Martin

        YES we think alike. Bravo Yue, bravo

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MDFBEX2BW2W7GAEWAVU5B2DVFY Lee

    Something also worth noting: By placing just one damage counter on Reshiram with Typhlosion, you also open up OHKO by Zoroark with a DCE. It seems people are forgetting that Reshiram and Zekrom can easily be OHKO’d by a Zoroark with one special darkness energy on it (and of course one more energy for Foul Play).

    • Anonymous

      Yes, the 10 demage counter brings it down to Zoroark range.

      Again, Potion and Defender

    • Anonymous

      Wouldn’t Zoroark need two fire energy attached to copy Blue Flame?

      • Anonymous

        I’m pretty sure the ruling on that is “no.” If it DOES have fire, it has to discard it, but if it doesn’t, no discard.

      • Anonymous

        Correct. If you attach a DCE, then it can get away with not discarding a SPECIFIC energy, but if the attack copied is something like dragon rush, which just says “energy”, then the dce goes byebye.

      • Bilbo Bagins of the Shire

        If the card read “You must discard energy to attack,” then you must have the 2 fire energies. Since it doesn’t read this on Reshiram, it gets to attack without having to discard.

  • Anonymous

    you neevr brought up the piont of how typholosion can only attach 1 energy per turn and puts a damage counter on it. where has emboar puts as monay energy as you want per turn for free.

  • Anonymous

    IMO, you should really do these as CoTD’s, not articles. It’s just my opinion, but I think they’d work out much better for you if you do CoTDs.

    • Anonymous

      Possibly, but…

      1) Theses cards have been done before.
      2) People would still have voted this one down because they don’t agree with the pick of Typhlosion over Emboar. Which is fine, but use the comments.

      It’s an easy fix, just stop doing them. Problem solved.

  • Anonymous

    this looks like a HOT debate! (cause it’s about a fire deck…) I personally believe that typhlosion’s biggest selling point is as a backup attacker alongside lost remover if special energies are being heavily used. He’s more for a energy lock deck.

  • Anonymous

    Typhlosion’s more flexible, But Emboar should have a better late-game. I personally prefer Typh. Good article, regardless.

  • Anonymous

    What’s going on? I saw this article had a -13 rating and thought it must be utter crap, so I dropped by the see the car crash.

    It’s a decent analysis of a couple of cards . . . completely legit for an article.

    Not everything on the 6P front page has to come with yet another bloody Magnezone decklist y’know.

    • Anonymous

      yeah you go me…

      I just offered one opinion as to why Typhlosion might be a better play than Emboar. I did not even make a hard-core, definitive call. I said it “was too close to call.”

      People just hate. If you do not go with the popular opinion than there goes the article rating…

      I had several more articles similar to this one where I was going to look at card that are in our current format and give an opinion as to why they will or will not work in the next format. I don’t think that I’m going to write any of them now. This is the second article that has gone negative because some people did not like the suggestion.

    • Anonymous

      Someone’s probably trolling.

  • Anonymous

    I’d say most people’s negative votes were as a result of them just having a different opinion.

    Which is not a good way to rate an article and doesn’t really help towards the writer of the month rating system Adam is trying to implement.

    I actually quite like typhlosion, don’t know which I prefer yet but there are certain factors not pertaining to consistency or anything like that tbh as to why I prefer Emboar atm.

    • Anonymous

      yeah, the rating system is a little flawed for articles. this article has obviously sparked a good discussion, which imo indicates that it was successful as an article.

      the assumption should be that if the article gets past the editors it is good enough.

      leave ratings for comments and forum postings.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UPOAQCRHPDLD5HWH4EYKOC23Q4 Nigel Bontorostro

    im currently building it with a tech of 2-2 Ursaring Prime.. Ursaring’s Berserk deals either 90(and discard top deck of opponent) or base120 per turn.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UPOAQCRHPDLD5HWH4EYKOC23Q4 Nigel Bontorostro

    im currently building it with a tech of 2-2 Ursaring Prime.. Ursaring’s Berserk deals either 90(and discard top deck of opponent) or base120 per turn.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_O544BH5L4NI7PHNLX4BNDJMF5A Eddie

    No, my buddie’s running an Emboar/Lanturn Prime deck, and he cooks my Typlosion/Nintetails every time – That damn Powerful Spark in combination with Emboar’s ability just racks up damage like a beehotch. I’m still considering if I wanna go his route or go Serperior instead – I’m thinking Serperior…

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_O544BH5L4NI7PHNLX4BNDJMF5A Eddie

    It’s just a bit slower due to the extra energy required

  • the sidewalk

    Typhlosion as a deck is so good, even in this format. I played against it with Donphan, who clearly can run on very little energy, and the fact that I was discarding every turn made Typhlosion incredibly difficult to deal with. It’s going to be sad to watch this deck lose Spiritomb and especially Expert Belt with the rotation, as they certainly give a substantial boost to its viability.

    I’m a bit confused as to why this article was voted down so much; perhaps there’s something I’m missing. Emboar seems like a cool deck, but it’s going to require two stage-two’s unless you really intend on attacking with it for some reason, whereas Typhlosion is pretty much self-sufficient. If you throw down a couple well timed Lost Removers in combination with Flare Destroy, your opponent could potentially scrub right then and there. However, as an engine for Zekrom or whatever, I suppose Emboar is the better choice as you can explode on T2.

  • Anonymous

    Why isn’t the OTHER anywhere in this discussion?  Did I miss something?  I really thought that the whole point of Emboar Ability is to charge plain Emboar … Reshiram gets you out of the starting gate, hopefully trading prizes, than Emboar starts hitting for 150/round and wins the game. 

    Here’s the core:

    4-3-3-1 Emboar
    2 or 3 Reshiram

    12 Fire
    4 DCE
    2 Recover

    3 Rare Candy
    4 Energy Recover
    4 SSU
    4 Switch

    That’s it, baby.  Leaves you about 18 slots to work with.  You can get very techy.  

    ON the heal tip, how about….
    1-0-1 Togekiss
    … every try this?  When you have Emboar with 100+ damage on the bench, potions probably aren’t going to get you there, but Togekiss will, and that could be a good deal.  Works for whales anyhow.