A Rogue Review: ZoneZelPlume

Written by | October 12, 2011 | 49 comments | 1,356 views | Rating: +15

Introduction

Hey there again, SixPrizes nation! This is Scizorliscious, and, for my third article, I have decided to (finally) write about a deck I went 5-1 with at the Fairfax Battle Road. I’ll start out by just doing an overview of the deck, then I’lldo a mini-BR report (it wasn’t extremely fascinating, so I’ll try to keep it short and sweet, which, considering the number of notes I wrote – zero – won’t be hard).

So what is this deck? Well, you probably already know if you’ve read the title of this article and are vaguely familiar with the cards in this format, but for those who haven’t, this is…

ZoneZelPlume

I’d like to start out by saying I did not think of this deck idea. I read about it in one of a hahn’s articles a while back while trying to find a use for my Magnezone, and to be honest, my list is pretty similar to his as well.

This deck is one I was actually reprimanded for using at league – I must have been told about seven times to take out the Vileplume, to use Pachirisu instead of Floatzel, or just to scrap the deck entirely for BRs. I really liked this deck, though, so I decided to keep using the original list I had created.

The idea of this deck is to use Magnezone Prime, Floatzel UL, and Vileplume UD to get solid damage in while also providing some disruption for the opponent and having a great source of internal drawpower.

The main attacker is Magnezone, which for two energy can do 50 damage for each energy attached to any of your Pokémon that you choose to put in the Lost Zone. In this way, it can do a huge amount of damage and OHKO anything in the format. OHKOs put a lot of pressure on the opponent to keep attackers coming out, and most decks can’t keep up.

Magnezone also has a really handy Poke-Power that, once during your turn, allows you to draw cards until you have six cards in your hand. This drawpower is fantastic as long as you keep your hand size low – and what better way than Judge, which also creates some disruption?

Floatzel is used in this deck for energy acceleration. Once during your turn, in addition to your energy attachment for the turn, you can attach an extra Water energy to Floatzel, which helps add a lot of damage to Magnezone’s Lost Burn. In addition, Floatzel provides a Pokémon with 0 retreat to promote once one of your Pokémon is knocked out. As an added bonus, Floatzel provides a soft counter to Donphan, doing 60 damage for 3 energy. While it’s by no means perfect, it’s preferable to Lost Zoning 4 energy to OHKO Donphan with Magnezone.

The last part of the equation here is Vileplume. This bench-sitter blocks all Trainer-Item cards, rendering much of most decks useless. Vileplume can clog up your opponent’s hand, and even works well with Judge, where an opponent could easily draw into two, three, or even four unplayable cards.

In this format, many decks rely too heavily on Trainers to be able to function without them. And since most decks can’t hit above 120 damage without Trainers, Vileplume keeps the OHKOs to your side exclusively.

This deck definitely has some strong points – heavy disruption, large damage amounts, and the ability to OHKO while not being OHKO’d back to name a few. However, this deck does have a few points that, well, make it less than ideal:

  • Any decks that take a lot of energy (3 or so) to continually OHKO will strain energy resources.
  • With the amount of energy this deck requires to function, there’s not much room for consistency or techs.
  • Donphan Prime is annoying.
  • Setting up Stage 2s is especially tough without Rare Candy.
  • Magnezone’s Poke-Power can sometimes be rendered useless with large hands: unplayable cards can clog up your hand and make it tough to keep getting resources out.
  • This deck is slow to get set up. Two Stage 2s and (ideally) two Stage 1s takes a while to get out. This deck will fall behind before it goes ahead.
  • Playing Magnezone without Switch feels like playing Yanmega without Judge.
I know that sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t all that bad. With the pressure Vileplume puts on your opponent, both decks will have trouble getting quick output. 

The List

Pokemon – 22

3 Magnemite TM

3 Magneton TM

3 Magnezone Prime

3 Buizel UL

3 Floatzel UL

2 Oddish UD

1 Gloom UD

2 Vileplume UD

2 Cleffa HS

 

Trainers – 19

3 Rare Candy

4 Professor Elm’s Training Method

3 Pokémon Collector

3 Judge

2 Professor Oak’s New Theory

2 Twins

2 Interviewer’s Questions

Energy – 19

10 Water

6 Lightning

3 Rescue

Now, there are some things you may notice about the list, and I’d like to elaborate on some of the choices I made when making this list.

First of all, I have a 3-3-3 Magnezone Prime line. This isn’t entirely odd, but I was toying around with the idea of playing either 4-3-4 or even 4-4-4. In the end, I decided to play 3-3-3 with 3 Rescue Energy, meaning it’s possible to get 6 Magnezone out in a single game. This should never be necessary, and to be honest, will usually never be possible unless the game goes a long while (at which point you’ve probably won anyways). I wouldn’t object toplaying more than 3-3-3 Magnezone, but I feel like any less wouldn’t be enough.

Another thing that may strike as odd is the choice to only play 2 Oddish. Yes, I have had problems with Catcher and an Oddish being prized. An extra Oddish would by no means be a bad choice here. I just had trouble with finding space in this deck, especially since Oddish is a dead draw late-game.

I play Cleffa in this deck. There’s truly no substitute except for perhaps Tropical Beach (yeah, right). An early Collector can help you get set up really well, really quickly with Cleffa. Once you get the Cleffa out, the Magnezone comes out, everything else comes pretty quickly. Setting up without Trainers makes Cleffa that much more necessary here.

There are only 3 Rare Candy in this deck. You’ll probably only use one, maybe two per game, so while four does boost consistency, I find that it also clogs up hands later in the game, when Magnetic Draw becomes really useful.

There are four Professor Elm’s Training Method in this deck simply because it cannot use Pokémon Communication. Elm’s is  a really nice card late-game, and while sometimes it’s nice to be able to get out another Magnemite, there’s really no way to replace Communication. Four are included here just because of he necessity of getting Magnezone and Vileplume out quickly. Three could work as well, though.

I’ve also decided to play cards that may seem like obvious 4-ofs in counts of three: Judge and Pokémon Collector. There was simply not enough space in this deck to include four, as much as I’d have liked to.  One of the PONTs could be substitutes for a Judge, but the extra two cards early-game could determine the game, so I’ve opted to go with a 3/2 split.

This deck is slow, so I play 2 Twins. This lessens the hurt of setting up two Oddish only to have one sniped when you can Twins for a Rare Candy and Vileplume. Playing two makes it less likely to be there, but I’ve found that even mid-game it can be very useful and give a huge boost for anything that might be needed.

Interviewer’s Questions is by far one of the best choices I have made as far as deckbuilding. The people who saw the IQs at league were incredulous, but late-game these can keep up a nice stream of energy so that you don’t fall short on KOs when there are only a couple prizes left.

The energy counts in this deck are pretty perfect, in my opinion. Nineteen is a great number with Interviewer’s Questions, and six Lightning for attacking as well as ten Water for Floatzel’s Water Acceleration is a good proportion (as well as three Rescue to get back Magnezone, Cleffa, whatever). However, depending on your meta, more or less energy might be necessary against certain decks.

Matchups

ZPST

This deck takes prizes early, but Trainer-lock and OHKOs really cripple Zekrom and Tornadus. Your opponent will usually run out of resources quickly, and since Tornadus and Zekrom after an attack both take 2 energy to OHKO, the same won’t be true for you. This is a fairly easy matchup, especially with an early Twins.

65/35

TyRam

This is a really tough matchup. While your opponent won’t get OHKOs, you’ll have trouble keeping up Magnezone and energy to match the constant flow of Reshiram coming your way. The Trainer-Item lock can hurt your opponent, but not to the extent that they can’t keep up with you.

35/65

Stage 1s

Yanmega and Zoroark? Not so bad. Donphan? Run for cover. Donphan easily 2HKOs Magnezone for one energy (OHKO for three energy), while Magnezone takes an astounding four Lost Zoned energy to OHKO a Donphan. Floatzel can help, but still isn’t the best option against Donphan, as once it’s KO’d you lose 3 energy. And unless one of them is Rescue, you’ll run out of Floatzel pretty quickly.

Overall, this matchup could be a lot easier. To play it, you have to hope to run them out of Donphan with Trainer-Item lock and get some cheap KOs with Magnezone.

30/70

MegaZone

This is actually a really interesting matchup, and depends a lot on how you start and how well your opponent plays the matchup. I’ll start out by saying Yanmega can be annoying, but not too much of a problem. You can OHKO it for two energy in the Lost Zone, which is far favorable to the 2HKOs your opponent will be able to get on you. They may try to go for the Floatzel, so just keep hammering away and be careful not to put too much energy on any one Floatzel.

If your opponent goes for the Vileplume to devolve it with Jirachi, that can be tough to play around, but you can try manually evolving Vileplume early-game once you see Magnezone/Yanmega or just by setting up another Vileplume as well on the bench. Magnezone can be problematic, but just keep up the OHKOs and it shouldn’t be a huge problem.

A quick Vileplume will usually hinder your opponent from getting more than one or two Magnezone out in a game, meaning you’ll be good otherwise. In decks that play Kingdra, just be wary not to have Magnemite sniped, and try to use Rescue Energy well. This matchup is in ZoneZelPlume’s favor if it gets Vileplume set up, but otherwise, it can be a long and tough match.

55/45

Gothitelle/Reuniclus

As long as you don’t go to the wrong table for your game, you won’t lose this one. Just get OHKOs and lock their Trainers, rendering both Reuniclus’ and Gothitelle’s abilities useless. What your opponent is left with is a 130-HP main attacker that has an awful attack. Yeah.

98/2

Magneboar

Watch out for this one. You’ll get OHKO’d often, and unless you get an early Judge to throw your opponent off-balance, this could turn nasty. It’s Magnezone-on-Magnezone, so whoever gets his own cards out consistently wins here. This could go either way.

50/50

MewBox

Normally Magnezone hates Mew, but this matchup isn’t so bad. As a general rule, keep only one Magnezone out at a time so Sludge Drag isn’t so bad, and often it will be easier to not even bother to set up Vileplume (assuming your opponent runs it as well), as that will just be Dragged up as well (just be aware of Catcher+Sludge Drag on a Magnezone in that way). Just keep up with KOs, and it’ll be easy enough to get through on Lost Zoning two energy per KO.

60/40 if opponent runs Vileplume, 50/50 otherwise.

Now that I’ve gone over some of the different facets of the deck, I’d like to transition into a Battle Roads report. So without further adieu…

Fairfax,VA Battle Roads

If any details here are a bit fuzzy, well, that’s since I’m writing this weeks after the actual event and I took absolutely no notes.

Before this Battle Roads, I had tested very, very little and hadn’t changed my list for ZoneZelPlume at all since I thought it up (which is luckily odd, considering I’m still happy with the same list). Pair that with the fact that this was my first tournament as a Master, and I knew that I was going pretty much nowhere this tournament.

The tournament was being held at Hobby Works, which I must say is a fantastic place. They hold league every Saturday and the events held there have been very fun in the past. Hobby Works is only a half an hour or so from my house, so it’s a very convenient location.

Before Round 1, I decided to playtest some games against an interesting Reshiram-Zekrom-Klinklang deck. I got an awful start the first game and lost a sole Oddish on Outrages after two turns. The second game lasted a lot longer, and I was able to pull off a win just by knocking out his Pokémon over and over. It wasn’t a great deck by any means, but mine really isn’t great against 130-HP Basics being thrown at it repeatedly.

After these games, I borrowed a Floatzel from glaceon of PokéBeach and, after learning there were 50 Masters with a Top Cut of 4, was finally ready to start the tournament…

Round 1 – Reshiram/Zekrom/Klinklang

What are the odds? I’m playing the sole deck I played before the tournament, so at least I know sort of how it works. I got a fairly good setup, but nothing too special. I run out of energy pretty quickly due to having to KO Reshiram and Zekrom, but luckily never have to KO a Klinklang with enough Special Metal energy to bump it up to 4 energy to KO it.

I’m down to 3 prizes left when I discover that, lo and behold, they are all Water energy. I have 8 or 9 more energy left on the field or in my deck, meaning I can get 2 more KOs with 3 energy Zone’d after I get my Water energy out of the Prizes. But that’s before my opponent drops the PDL and some energy… and there’s no getting out of that hole.

0-1

Now it’s pretty much sure I won’t make the Cut, but I wasn’t planning on it anyways, so it’s not such a big deal. I’ll just be glad if I can go 3-3 at this point.

Round 2 – Sawk/Ursaring/Tangrowth

This wasn’t a competitive deck, just something legal. I just ran through everything with Magnezone and regretted not being able to play an interesting game this round.

1-1

Round 3 – ZPST

I’m playing a really nice guy this game. We chit-chat a bit before the game starts, turns out he has a son in Juniors. He’s 1-1 as well, so I don’t really know how good his deck is. I start with a lone Oddish, and he starts Zekrom. ZPST is hurt by Trainer-lock, so I assume this won’t be too tough of a matchup. He ends up getting 2 energy on his Zekrom for 20 on the Oddish (he has a PlusPower in-hand as well, but no way to reach 40).

I Collector, but discover that my second Oddish is prized, so I grab the Magnemite, Cleffa, and Buizel. I retreat to Cleffa and Eeeeeek, and get a decent hand. I stay asleep, but he Catchers my Oddish and KOs it. I get out a Magnezone with Rare Candy the next turn, though, so I get a Vileplume (after grabbing the prized Oddish) and some Floatzel set up as well.

He’s not really able to keep up with my OHKOs, so I end up just clawing my way through his Zekrom and Thundurus EPO (thank goodness for Weakness). It ends up with him at 2 or 3 prizes left, so it was fairly close but not too worrying.

2-1

Round 4 – MegaZone

We start and I mulligan a couple of times, but finally get a Magnemite-Oddish start. I don’t get out a whole lot to start out. He gets out a Yanmega pretty quickly as well as a Magnezone and Kingdra by T3 or 4. I get out Vileplume by T3, and a Magnezone the next turn. I manage to KO his Yanmega and Twins for a Buizel and a Lightning Energy (I was really low on this at the start, believe it or not).

I get out a Floatzel the next turn and chop through his Yanmega and the one Magnezone he gets out. I don’t manage to get out a backup Magnezone until thegame’s almost over anyways since he keeps sniping my Magnemite. He never quite KOs any of my Floatzel/Vileplume, which helped a lot. This was a close game, but it went in my favor after I got well set up.

3-1

Round 5 – Gothitelle/Reuniclus

I’m downpaired to a 2-2 player for this matchup, so this is when I know I’m not making cut. I start lone Magnemite, and as we flip, I see Gothita and Solosis and begin to relax. I get out a Magnezone T2 or 3 and a Vileplume soon after. I really can’t KO anything because I haven’t gotten a Lightning energy yet (and I probably wouldn’t anyways, seeing as I don’t want to set up Twins).

I keep attaching Water energy to my Magnezone until I eventually get the Lightning energy and KO my opponent’s active Gothitelle with 2 energy on it. My opponent has one Basic on his bench now. He Playgrounds for 4 Pokemon, which probably helps me more than anything. I get out my 2 other Magnezone soon after as well as 2 Floatzel, and he never gets out another Gothitelle or Reuniclus.

At one point, I have Lightning and Rescue Energy on all my Magnezone, as well as 2 Water on each of my Floatzel. It was the best possible bench my deck could ever have, which was actually surprising for me to achieve. I go 6-0 on prizes; no trouble here.

4-1

Round 6 – Lanturn/Electrode Prime

I’m playing against the lone 5-0 deck at this point. I playtested a game against him between rounds earlier in the day, but stopped because pairings were up. That game really could have gone either way. Luckily for me, in this game I go first and he has an awful hand. I’m able to get Vileplume T3, but can’t draw into Magnezone. I eventually get it T5 or so, when he’s still getting set up.

He’s KOd his own Electrode and one of my Pokemon with Lanturn. I get the Magnezone with 2 cards in my hand and everything else follows. The Trainer-lock hurts his deck a lot, and I’m able to keep up the OHKOs for the duration of the game – I get lucky on him not pulling many energy with Energymite, which helps. I win, but it was a close game.

5-1

I ended up missing Top Cut on Resistance, but did manage to place sixth, which was tremendous for it being my first Masters tournament, especially since I was playing a really fun rogue deck.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for today on ZoneZelPlume. If you read all 3,272 words on this one deck, well, have a cookie – that’s a lot to read on one random rogue (it would be for me, at least!). Be sure to try out ZoneZelPlume at some point this season, it’s a great deck if you’re looking for a fun contender. Good luck and happy rogueing!

Until next time…

Scizorliscious

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  • Anonymous

    hum… wish someone thought/wrote this up in May… :P

    Good job getting solid results with it.

    http://www.sixprizes.com/deck-analysis/takes-floatzel-ul/

  • Anonymous

    2 oddish is horrible. Your local meta game should be embarrassed if they weren’t able to prevent you from any type of trainer lock. Try that here in Dallas, and you’ll be 0-6 by the end of the day. I love the deck idea, but 3 Oddish is a must. 

    • Anonymous

      Well, he’s not in Dallas :P

  • Anonymous

    He gave you credit for the deck in the first paragraph Jackwagon. Why don’t you go write another article about how poke parents are ruining the game by taking points away from the “standard masters”.

    • Anonymous

      You really need to chill. I already profusely apologized for the wording in my last article.

      Also, in this case I was obviously just messing around. that’s what :p means…

      I congratulated him in the original comment. The only reasons why I added a link was because I (somehow and admittedly, idiotically) did not see the hyperlink in my first read of the article.

      I even gave this a big +1 because I really like the article.

      Get off your high horse and go give someone else all your grief.

  • Anonymous

    Great job with the deck!

    (does this one w/o the playful banter work for you pokemaster1970?)

  • Aron Figaro

    I’ll be honest, this does not feel tested at all, and is VERY bad. 3-3-3 Zone is correct, but two Oddish?

    Interviewer’s Questions with even 19 energy is inconsistent, and with 2 Oddish and 2 Twins you’re not trainer locking decks like Rush and ZPST outside of a vacuum.

    I have to ask how this article got past the editors, exactly?

    The deck idea has way too many bad matchups, even with the 3 Oddish and 4 Twins, you play too many supporters and evolutions to use Magnetic Draw very effectively, and a full bench and/or trainers in hand only further limit you.

    Those matchup statistics really don’t make any sense, even in a build that’s optimized for setting up the turn 2 lock. You’re claiming MEWBOX is in your favour? I hate to tell you this, but MewBox DESTROYS a deck that’s playing Magnezone and can’t move energies to it. Sludge Drag can really ruin your day, and Yanmega snipes aren’t your friend either, 2HKOing Floatzels and OHKOing your Oddishes should you choose to bench them.

    I do see MagneBoar being a bit in your favour. ZPST is definitely more like 30/70, MewBox is even worse. I don’t mean to go all Mr Angryface on you, but really…I’m not impressed with your testing.

    • http://rax.livejournal.com/ rax

      I’m not impressed with the testing either, but I feel like the author defended his deck choices and presented the deck as he ran it at BRs, which I appreciate.

      I ran something similar (different trainer lines, tornadus instead of cleffa, 3 oddish, dce instead of rescue) at a couple of Battle Roads and managed to top cut one, but I did find that I was really prone to getting stuck by Magnetic Drawing things I couldn’t play, and if I had a lot of energy prized against something with Reshiram or Emboar in it I was in trouble. If my local metagame had more mewbox, I would be tempted to add in Shaymins and a Fisherman or two to make retreats more plausible; Floatzel can take out Mew (as can Tornadus if that’s in the deck) and not having to bother getting a Vileplume out helps.
      That said, I ended up scrapping this deck and moving on to something else because of the problems you mentioned and others.

      Stephen, thanks for sharing; here’s the list that I ran for this, if you decide to keep playing with this combination hopefully it will give you some ideas. :)

      4-3-4 Magnezone

      2-2 Floatzel

      3-1-2 Vileplume

      2 Tornadus

      4 Rare Candy

      2 Pokemon Communication

      4 Collector

      4 PONT

      2 Elm’s

      4 Twins

      1 Flower Shop Lady

      2 DCE

      6 Lightning

      8 Water

    • Anonymous

      Please, calm down, sir.  We’re talking about a card game, for goodness sake.

      “I ended up missing Top Cut on Resistance, but did manage to place sixth, which was tremendous for it being my first Masters tournament.”

      This is, though not his first article, his first time in a tournament setting and maybe he knows how to pilot this deck much better than you do.  I do agree on increasing the Oddish count because, as he stated when one was prized, he had trouble competing, meaning that he will probably change it.

      Also, his Mewbox testing actually seems relevant because if it’s running Vileplume, you don’t have to focus your resources on Vileplume and you’re already prepared for the lock, meaning you have the upperhand.  Yes, a suldge drag can do some damage, but it’s not going to destroy you.  Besides, who’s tested agianst this deck to know exactly what to do in this situation, anyway?

      ZPST is actually a fairly decent matchup for Trainer Lock, provided the lock is set-up.  While testing with Lee (Oddjob), his Vileplume build took down a very well built ZPST that had started doing 120 by turn 2.

      I don’t know whether you’re talking from experience or theory, and maybe you play against people who are much better than he played during his tournament and testing, but I still believe you need to change your tone when talking about other peoples’ articles and matchups.  Don’t write a scathing comment about how you’re never supposed to run Full Heal (even though we all know you shouldn’t), instead offer a suggestion on how to improve what they already have.

    • Stephen Mills

      What would you play in place of 3-3-3 Zone? There aren’t too many possibilities, and I didn’t like running a fourth Magnemite in place of what could be a third Oddish (which as I did state I would have liked to include).

      As far as Interviewer’s Questions, I implore you to try it out in this deck. Once you reach middle-game, the drawpower/search has taken a lot of Pokemon out of the deck, leaving it with mostly energy- during the BR I went to, I very rarely pulled less than 3 energy off of an IQ.

      Even with 2 Oddish and 2 Twins, trainer-locking any deck is perfectly plausible. So long as you set the two Oddish up at the same time, getting the Candy+Vileplume before they can both be KO’d can pretty much be taken for granted. As I mentioned, I would like to include a third Oddish, and I will continue testing to find out what it could replace.

      MewBox is slightly in this decks favor if the MewBox runs Trainer-lock. Just keep only one Pokemon with more than one retreat in play at all times and you can retreat out of any Sludge Drag and then OHKO the opponent’s main attacker. Sure, Yanmega 2HKOs Floatzel, but you run 3 for a reason. In the time they KO one Floatzel, you KO two Yanmega and have a Magnezone still. And sniping Oddish? That’s why you play two at once.

      ZPST is hurt by Vileplume and uses way too much energy to be able to recover effectively from OHKOs against their 2HKOs. Now that most ZPST builds play Dual Ball over Collector, they’ll be having a tough time even getting out Pokemon after the lock comes up. Test the matchup out for yourself; this one goes in Magnezone’s favor. 

  • http://facebook.com/namwenekim Mike Newman

    Wow, Adam, you didn’t tell me today was national 6P menstruation day. What’s with all this hostility?

    Anyway, your deck clearly blows. Seeing as you went 5-1 at your first BR as a Master with it…

    I like the deck (but I can’t argue with 3 Oddish. I’d cut an Elm’s for 1), and the article was fun and well written. +1 from me.

    • Aron Figaro

      Apparently it’s national 6P FAIL day. Jeez…I can 5-1 a BR with anything against two scrubs, ZPST drawing dead (yay inconsistent format), Megazone SOMEHOW running out of gas (I wish you posted more details as to why that happened), Goth which is an autowin, and a pure Lanturn deck which really isn’t a good idea in general and probably got lucky.

      It’s not about hate, it’s about statistics, and I’d really like to see more information before I can believe this is more than an outlying data point.

      • http://facebook.com/namwenekim Mike Newman

        Hey, watch this:

        Stephen, this was a really well written article and I enjoyed it. I do have some tips/suggestions:

        1. Have you considered an Elm’s/Communication split? That’s what I use in my Zonezel build and the Communications are really handy in getting out Vileplume, but once she’s up and running you don’t have to worry about the dead draw because you should have 1 or 0 left.

        2. I’d have to say 3 Oddish is a must. As for cuts, you could probably do with 18 energy.

        3. If I disagreed with any of your testing points, I’d discuss those here, but your explanations make sense. As for Mewbox, I think you’re right that a good Zonezel player can play around it very easily. If you keep only keep one Magnezone on the field, the only Sludge drag targets are 1/0 retreaters.

        (These are my points, not me restating your points pleasantly. It’s an example.)

        Now, if you REALLY lack the compassion/intelligence/whatever to take an extra 30 seconds to make your comments a little more pleasant, I guess the rest of us have to deal, but there’s plenty of room to be critical without being a jerk.

        As far 5-1′ing a BR with anything against blah blah blah; that’s just rude. The kid worked hard and did well, and there is no reason for you to downplay his accomplishment.

        TL;DR Quit trolling. Play nice or play Magic.

      • Stephen Mills

        Hey, thanks a lot for your reply. 

        I’ll definitely test out some Communication (and lowering it down to 18 energy). I haven’t done too too much in the way of that yet, but it’ll be high on my priorities. 

      • http://facebook.com/namwenekim Mike Newman

        Hahahha awesome! If you play on TCGO or PlayTCG I’d love to test with you sometime.

      • http://adamcap.com/ Adam Capriola

        Thank you Mike – you put it perfectly!

      • Stephen Mills

        ZPST relies on Trainers to function and can’t survive being OHKO’d repeatedly; it doesn’t have enough energy to pull off an attack each turn that way.

        Megazone ran out of gas because, like most MegaZone, it probably ran a 4-1-4 or 4-2-4 or lower Magnezone line and just wasn’t able to get out the Magnezone manually without Trainers, which it also relies on. After I KO that Magnezone, it becomes Magnezone vs. Yanmega, and you can probably guess the rest. And Judging after that Zone is gone really hurts MegaZone’s ability to keep Yanmega coming out. 

        That Lanturn deck actually isn’t so bad; the person played the meta (lots of Goth and TyRam) well and deserved how well he did. Maybe not a great deck in a meta full of, say, Donphan, but that’s beside the point.

        As to that first-round “scrub,” yeah, it wasn’t a good deck. I didn’t include enough energy to LZ three turn after turn and then an extra two for PDL, and then have my last three prizes be energy. Wasn’t really considering that when I made the deck.

  • Anonymous

    I may have missed something but am i correct in thinking you play 3 Attackers with no recovery cards? What happens when they get KOed?

    Surely if one Magnezone / Magnemite is prized and one gets KOed early that essentially leaves you with one attacker to take prizes with and if he falls you lose….

    • http://twitter.com/aholdway Alex Holdway

      *see Rescue Energy (not ideal but there are some recovery cards)

      • Anonymous

        Thank you! I assumed i was missing something! I couldn’t be believe he did that well with only 3 viable attackers. With 3 Magnezone and 3 Rescue Energy that gives (effectively) 6 Magnezone, which should do ;)

  • barryfken

    *takes my cookie* :P

    For Round 3, don’t you mean Tornadus? :P I read it over a few times and thought, “A Thundurus in ZPST? Since when?” XD

    “Floatzel provides a soft counter to Donphan, doing 60 damage for 3 energy.”

    100 damage, thanks to weakness and Exo-Skeleton ;)

    “While it’s by no means perfect, it’s preferable to Lost Zoning 4 energy to OHKO Donphan with Magnezone.”

    That is brutal – Donphan’s resistance and Exoskeleton combined, making you do 160 damage (or, in this case, 200) to knock it out. I just realized that.

    • http://facebook.com/namwenekim Mike Newman

      Hahahahah yep. I play Magnezone/Floatzel too and the first time I went up against Donphan I about shat.

      • barryfken

        Oh, damn, that must’ve been troll. It must’ve been how I felt when I was at BR’s playing against Gothitelle and only pulling Trainers. -_-

    • Alex Flamm

      …And thats how you know when your facing a bad ZPST.

      • Stephen Mills

        Nope, it was Tornadus- just a mistake on my part. The list did seem like a very competent one, to be honest, it’s just a generally good matchup regardless.

      • barryfken

        Haha, exactly.

    • Stephen Mills

      I do mean Tornadus, sorry about that- just a mistake on my part.

      And you’re right, Floatzel does do 100 after all effects, but I wasn’t including those when I mentioned that part (I probably should have, to be honest).

      • barryfken

        No problem, just making sure I knew what I was reading, lol.

        Don’t sweat it, I was just making sure (yet again) that I wasn’t missing something in my thought process, lol.

  • barryfken

    I realize there’s Trainer Lock, but, if you don’t get your Vileplume out fast enough, you’ll be glad you picked Dual Ball/Communications over Prof. Elm, personally. It all depends though.

  • Anonymous

    you stole my deck idea but I didn’t include vileplume

  • Sam Marshall-Smith

    Was that you I played on playTCG today?
    I lost due a unworkable hand with a Cinnccino deck.

    Edit: Nvm, the deck I played had Blastoise aswell.

    • Anonymous

      Dude, I played against a Zonezel deck recently as well, but I don’t know if it had Vileplume (it didn’t have Blastoise, tho)

  • Anonymous

    Hey, great stuff here!  Always enjoy reading about a rogue that caught my eye, with some results.  No doubt this is a solid deck.  Who knows if you’re even the only person playing it?  

    The real kicker is that Electode/Lanturn deck.  I’ve seen that thing kick some butt.

    Glad to see PDL and Klingklang were represented too!  Great series of games (minus the bear).

    • Anonymous

      I have heard of several Floatzel/Magnezone decks but not many with Vileplume in there too.

      I know, personally, I am a big fan of this deck. Ever since back in May, I have really liked it. When the rotation was announced, this and tyRam tested the best for me.

      I’m glad someone took the list from May, added a couple tweaks (not many), and had success.

  • Carl Scheu

    i definitely like the article and i do agree on upping oddish counts, but has anyone considered using Shaymin in this? It lets you move around the water energies and get off a quicker zone, just a thought, prolly wouldn’t work great, but as a tech it might be okay. i do like the tornadus idea though.

    • Anonymous

      I’ve tested this a lot. Shaymin can be useful every once in a while, but more often than not it is not worth it. The bench space can be VERY tight and having just the one Shaymin can really mess things up.

      • http://facebook.com/namwenekim Mike Newman

        I run it without Vileplume and with Shaymins and Pachirisus. That way, I double (preferably triple) water acceleration and maybe even self generate, then spread out my energy so anything being Catchered doesn’t completely screw me.

        That being said, the deck runs better sans Shaymin/Pachirisu and with Vileplume, but it’s my “fun” deck and there’s nothing fun about trainer lock.

  • Anonymous

    98/2?
    Awesome.

    I thought you were going to keep the deck secret.

    • Stephen Mills

      Psh, it’s not like it’s going to be a huge force in the metagame or anything.

      Besides, it’s been included in articles before, so… :P

  • Anonymous

    during all of your match-ups you assume you get set-up. your trying to get 2 stage 2′s and a stage 1 up quickly. magneboar had trouble with that and it didnt need the stage 1. not saying its a bad deck but i beleive your assuming too much. and you act as like stage 1 or zpst wont know to go for the oddish.

    • Stephen Mills

      This deck really doesn’t have too many problems setting up. Consider TyRam- that has the task of setting up 2 Stage 2s (that’s the goal, at least), a Stage 1, and a Basic. It may have Trainers, but it doesn’t have Magnetic Draw. And with Cleffa to Eeeeeek and playing at least 2 Twins, with the ability to go behind on prizes and still win, this deck doesn’t have too many issues with setting up.

      • Anonymous

        if that came out wrong sorry. but i also meant not only sometimes if you dont get set-up but also how many prizes can you go behind before setting up. if you lose 3 prizes then it can be hard. also ty-ram can work really well with only 1 typhlosion for about the first couple turns. 2 is more for recovery. and ninetales is the magnetic draw of the deck(and being stage 1 thus easier to set-up). and basic. come on its a basic. not saying the deck is bad by all means. but just saying a lot of match-ups to me seemed to assume that you would get set-up losing only a prize(maybe 2). i one time faced a zpst and couldnt get set up at all. and i only needed a typhlosion. and he blocked off my cynidiquils for 6 prizes.

      • Stephen Mills

        Alright, so let’s assume we lose 3 prizes before getting set up going into ZoneZelPlume’s turn.
        Magnezone should be able to get set up once every two turns at a minimum if that’s the only thing that’s needed to set up. The decks that can OHKO you aren’t the same decks as the ones that will get up 3 prizes on this deck, so we can pretty much limit the possibility of the opponent being able to OHKO any of your Pokes. Now, ZoneZelPlume should get OHKOs every turn once it’s fully set up, so even if it’s 6 prizes to 3 going into Zone’s turn, Magnezone should be able to win. And down three prizes is pretty generous; once the Vileplume comes up, it’s very tough for the opponent to keep the damage up.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_6K5VBRLCY2WPSQW6OHPYC3KXYQ Matt

    Good article…BTW to all who are bashing Stephen – both Luke Reed and Pramawat were at this tourney.  I personally played him (MegaZone).  He played well,  his list was solid, and he drew well.  Which is what everyone needs to do well.  We had very good players at FFX battle roads.  And to whoever keeps giving Airhawk grief – LET IT GO! 

  • Anthony Smith

    Cool article.

    I’m going to try a MewBox version of this combo.

  • Anonymous

    best part of this article is the profile of Floatzel giving the: U MAD? face.

  • Anonymous

    “pokemaster1970 wrote:He gave you credit for the deck in the first paragraph Jackwagon. Why don’t you go write another article about how poke parents are ruining the game by taking points away from the “standard masters”.”

    Alright, I can see you coming  to his defense, though you were a little harsh.

    “pokemaster1970 wrote:
    2 oddish is horrible. Your local meta game should be embarrassed if they weren’t able to prevent you from any type of trainer lock. Try that here in Dallas, and you’ll be 0-6 by the end of the day. I love the deck idea, but 3 Oddish is a must.”

    But wait…why are you criticizing now?  I’m confused…unless…no way.  You wouldn’t do this, would you?  I think you would.  You’re just arguing for arguments’ sake!  Oh man…

  • Anonymous

    This isnt the first time iv seen this deck lol I beat it in round 6 of swiss at the first BRs I went to (With ZTTPS I might add lol) both of us being X-1 and it we both made top cut. I really like magnezone/floatzel and I almost played it for the grinders. It has decent matchups across the bored. Just gotta think about the. I was just scare when I saw the plume.

  • Anonymous

    http://www.livestream.com/cabdstcgocorner/video?clipId=pla_34de61da-573f-48ed-ab89-0ecb85429afc

    Just had a bit of fun playing against this deck on my TCGO stream.