Hey guys, Peter Bae once again to talk to you about the deck VileGar. I know probably half of you are tired of articles on VileGar, but lately it’s been losing popularity with the rise of Machamp Prime, Gyarados, DialgaChomp, and the ever popular LuxChomp. However, I’m here to talk to you about VileGar and how it can be teched outside of its mainstream decklist to bring you to a higher playing level.
So VileGar… What is it?
Flying coach is only temporary. Prepare for a first class deck!
VileGar is a newly-introduced deck with the release of the set Undaunted and basically the only new “top tier” deck that came out within the past few months. It was considered godly back then because of Vileplume’s everlasting Trainer-lock with the Poke-Body “Allergy Flower”, which would build up Trainer counts in your opponent’s hand so one can use Gengar SF‘s “Poltergeist” for a ridiculous amount of damage. Because of this amazing synergy, it received a huge amount of hype, but it slowly died down due to the results it gave.
Despite having topped in numerous Battle Roads, it did not win half the time. Instead, the deck that stood out among all was DialgaChomp. Due to this, the Blaziken FB LV.X tech became huge, lowering the popularity of VileGar further, especially with Blaziken FB LV.X also being a great counter to Vileplume. Not to mention the fact that the deck is incredibly slow and if you did not get the initial Spiritomb start, it usually leads to a lost match.
So how is VileGar going to prove itself to be a top tier deck and be on that dreadful list of Top 5 or Top 4 decklists? Well, first of all, the new set Triumphant came out with bunch of Supporters and Pokemon that could help VileGar to prove itself to be a top tier deck. So let’s get talking!
Potential Techs
Twins
This is possibly the best Rupporter for VileGar ever introduced. Twins allows you to grab any 2 cards from your deck when you are down in prizes. This has proven itself to be amazing in VileGar. Players tend to sacrifice their Spiritomb for a faster set up. 99% of the time you will be down in prizes because of your Spiritomb and the incredibly slow set up, thereby allowing you to use Twins to its maximum potential.
Rescue Energy
I think this is a must for all VileGar decks. This was also introduced in Triumphant and has proven itself to be a very good card in VileGar so far. It is a special energy that provides 1 Colorless energy. The best part about this card is that when your Pokemon with Rescue Energy attached is knocked out by damage from an attack, the whole Pokemon line will go to your hand rather than the discard pile. This results in instant recovery of your Gengar SF, allowing you to abuse “Fainting Spell” to its maximum potential. Also, with Twin, this is easily searchable.
Seeker
Seeker is one of those cards that can be sprinkled into every deck and find a very good use in any way possible. It works especially well with VileGar, in my opinion. First of all, when I play VileGar with all my techs, I feel that my bench space is always too full to put it to good use, so I use Seeker to pick up Pokemon such as Azelf or Uxie to reuse or to put down my tech Pokemon to turn the tide of the match. Also, I’ve been recently working on a very cool deck idea where I use Seeker to pick up my Vileplume to give me a free turn of Trainers than put it all back down with Broken Time-Space. Sure it hasn’t been very successful to the point where it is competitive, but it’s a fun idea you can use.
Seeker can also be used for donks. Another use is to swap out your Gengar for a different Gengar. You know your opponent has a Luxray GL LV.X, Dialga G LV.X, or Garchomp C LV.X in hand (or other vital Pokemon cards)? You can Seeker your other Gengar on the bench (as you will usually have 2), then drop down a Gengar Prime instead. Attach, retreat, then send the Pokemon in hand to the Lost Zone! Seeker brings much versatility to VileGar, which could bring it to top tier.
Darkrai & Cresselia LEGEND
This is personally my most favorite tech from Triumphant. I talked about it in one of the Card of the Day articles, but, if you missed it, I’ll briefly talk about it here. Basic stats are pretty average: 150 HP, 2 retreat cost, x2 weakness to Fighting and Psychic, no resistance, and your opponent taking two prizes when it is KO’d, which is horrible.
So why tech this card? Well, because of the attack “Moon’s Invite”. Surprisingly, for a LEGEND, it carries a 1 energy attack. For 1 Psychic Energy, you can redistribute any number of damage counters on your opponent’s board in any way you like. This means that you can easily get 2~3 knockouts by moving damage counters from your opponent’s damage Pokemon, or move a lot of damage counters to 1 tank Pokemon to knock it out. I’ve pulled this off many times, especially where I was able to knock out 2 Uxie and 1 Azelf for the game. It is quite fun and worth a try. The drawback, however, is the 2 prize giveaway, but with Seeker and Warp Energy, it should be no problem.
Gengar Prime
Haha. Seems like a no-brainer, but still most people are sticking to just Gengar from Stormfront. I see no reason why you shouldn’t play Gengar Prime as a tech even with the Lost World missing. This one card can bring you so many different options to the deck that I believe it is vital to run it. First of all, the stats are equal to or better than all the other Gengar right now. It has an additional 20 HP, so a total of 130 HP, the same -20 Colorless resistance, and a horrible x2 Dark weakness. His Poke-Body is pretty good because, when Gengar is active and you KO your opponent’s Pokemon, the Pokemon is sent to the Lost Zone. This is a great disruption as you could bring a Pokemon close to death with your Stormfront Gengar, than use Gengar Prime to knock it out, thus removing it from the game.
The main reason I believe Gengar Prime should be teched in every VileGar is because of his first attack, “Hurl into Darkness”. As I stated above, it can be used primarily with Seeker for that element of surprise to catch them off guard and Lost Zone their Pokemon from the hand, or just plop it on to the bench, load it up, and send it up at the same time. His second attack also combos very nicely with Gengar LV.X. “Cursed Drop” lets you distribute 4 damage counters to your opponent’s board in any way you like. This can be used to KO your opponent’s Gengar SF to avoid “Fainting Spell” or to set up for the “Compound Pain” spread strategy.
Which will you use?
This is a crazy idea that I once came up with and had some success with, and it is worth looking into. What I mean by 1/1/1/1 is 1 Stormfront Gengar, 1 Arceus Gengar, 1 Gengar Prime, and 1 Gengar LV.X. Yes, it does sound ridiculous, but it works quite well. It gives amazing versatility to the deck at the cost of consistency. Stormfront Gengar is primarily used for “Poltergeist” and “Shadow Room” snipes (basically the your power house).
You can bench your Arceus Gengar to use “Curse” to one-shot knockout your opponent’s Azelf and Uxie with “Shadow Room” as “Curse” lets you move 1 damage counter to any of your opponent’s Pokemon (not from your Pokemon though). Also, it is used as your secondary attacker, dealing 60 and an additional 10 damage to a benched Pokemon, then switching out with “Shadow Skip”. Gengar Prime is used for disruption with “Hurl into Darkness” and to combo with the Arceus Gengar. After using “Shadow Skip” with the Arceus Gengar, you can switch in your Gengar Prime, and, if your “Shadow Skip” knocks out a Pokemon, that Pokemon will be sent to the Lost Zone instead because your Gengar Prime is now active.
Gengar LV.X is used for “Level-Down” to counter Dialga G LV.X and to just have a lower HP target to deal with if they are a LV.X Pokemon. However, it is very much possible and viable to drop the Gengar LV.X for another Gengar SF for more consistency.
Conclusion
I know that there are many more techs that can be used for VileGar; however, I wanted to go over the newer techs that have just been introduced, which can bring VileGar to top tier. I really do believe that, with the perfect amount of techs, VileGar is a force that shouldn’t be overlooked. Despite the recent drop in popularity because of the lack of Battle Road wins, I believe that VileGar will be a strong contender with the amount of versatility and the consistency boost it has received, and can compete on an equal level with all other top tier decks.
