Prof-It! Episode 43: Top 10 Best Pokemon TCG HGSS-On Decks

In this episode, I talk about my personal list for the 10 best decks to watch out for in HGSS-On. Check it out!

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  • Anonymous

    hi josh

    • Anonymous

      hi ryan : P

      • Anonymous

        Good episode. Looking forward to concocting a weird rogue list for Nats. Any cards you think are underdogs in this format?

      • Anonymous

        Glad you liked it! It’s actually really hard to get a solid rogue concept in HGSS-On because the card pool is only around 450 cards max. I think some strong underdogs are Samurott, Zoroark, and decks that can fit in Claw Snag Weavile for disruption. Anything with a winnable Emboar variant matchup and an at least playable matchup vs. the tier 2 stuff should have a pretty good shot. The only problem is there aren’t too many concepts that fit those categories : P

      • Anonymous

        wailord. since the majority of decks are fire(typhlosion prime, emboar, ninetales) based wailord tank can OHKO them if you have more HP. SSU is epic heal card(one time flipped heads while i had 170 on me!) and reversals(soon to be catcher) makes bringing up embaor(or ninetales) up easy. then to add to the pain you dish, donphan has water weakness. also another deck idea ive been testing is RDLboar(not reshiboar) where RDL is main focus attacker rather then teched. other decks try to take 6 prizes. RDl tries to take 3 kills. :) those are just some of the rogues ive been thinking of and testing.

      • Simon Narode

        This sounds like fun. Has anyone tried Wailord variants? Even though it’s a Stage 1, it’s super slow! I think Samurott is better, but I haven’t tested. I had a lot of fun this format using Tangrowth with a similar attack, but I also had the advantage of Celebi Prime for energy acceleration, Tangrowth Lv.X for added HP and healing, and Shaymin Lv.X for the +40 HP. There’s no way to increase base HP in HGSS-on. And I wish there were easy energy acceleration for Wailord. : /

      • Anonymous

        stage 1 that uses feraligatr and has incredibly high hp and almost autowins against emboar is pretty good.

        Try Serperior if you aren’t afraid of a clunky list

      • Anonymous

        Personally, I think that there will be several decks that are really good. If you have a big Tier 1, you might as well call everything else Rogue.

  • Anonymous

    Thank you so much, I’ve been out of the game for a while and this is exactly what I needed.

    • Anonymous

      I’m glad to hear it! That’s exactly what the show Prof-It! tries to gear towards. The analysis isn’t super advanced, but it’s not super basic either. I try to help beginners and experienced players alike, and I especially love helping people get into the competitive game : )

  • Anonymous

    whats up Jwittz..lol

    i think jumpluff can go far especially against donphan n machamp
    It could two-shot them with leaf guard and defenders that would be a minus 70 to donphans earthquake
    and to machamp it would survive by 10 and then use massive attack for the knockout

    • A Z

      then you forget that they fighting tag to prevent you from taking a prize and can still kill you with a plus power 

      • Anonymous

        Machamp takes a while to hit the field and even if you did, machamp needs 4 energies to attack and even if you did, you need a plus power? 
        In the end, this video is an idea of top decks around, so a jumpluff deck can beat a donchamp deck and vice versa.

      • Dave W

        This is exactly what I was going to say. With Sunflora it should be easy to recover quickly from a ko, much more so than Machamp.

      • Anonymous

        and then you forgot that i was talking to Jwittz..

        Plus even if they knock me out..which most likely they won’t because i know ppl won’t run pluspower in that deck..i would have 2more jumpluff benched with a yanmega prime that can withstand machamp with a 110HP…

      • A Z

        lol yanmega dies to machamp very easily by Champ Buster…

        by the way what happens when they drop the Ruins of Alph for fighting resistance match-ups? Yeah they one shot you while you have to two shot them plus they just fighting tag out which ups their damage and takes away the prizes you would have taken.  Yeah jumpluff has a bad donchamp matchup.

      • Anonymous

        ok..you think what want..k? k

    • Anonymous

      don’t 4get to factor in resistance

  • apb58

    No Typhlosion Love?

    • A Z

      typhlosion is terribad basically gives your opponent a pluspower…

      • Anonymous

        Emboar is bad too cause you have to clog your hand with fire energies and have to rely on your hand for his effect, when judges can mess you up, weaviles, sharpedo, ampharos prime, pokemon catcher to make him stay there with 4 retreat cost.  
        So there EMboar and typlosion are both bad. 

      • A Z

        A deck should have enough consistency to survive a judge anytime in a game, weaviles mess anything up so that isnt a very good excuse to say a card is bad, sharpedo (really… you think poeple will actually use that thing?), ampharos prime is going to be rare at best because it will make decks clunky and inconsistat, catcher works both ways of typhlosion gets catchered to the active spot I have to attach for the turn and use my afterburner for the turn I cant attack now well crap….

      • Anonymous

        Typhlosion Prime is not a bad card. It might not be quite as powerful as Emboar, but it is certainly not bad. Also, a Typhlosion Prime w/ Reshiram deck (not saying a good ReshiPhlosion deck is better than a good ReshiBoar deck) does not solely rely on Blue Flame to attack. It is more diverse and utilizes Outrage, Blue Flame, and Flare Destroy to attack. Also, a good Typhlosion Prime player should definitely be placing a Fire or Rescue Energy on Typhlosion Prime early in the game for future use anyway. So, if you Reversal (or Catcher) the Typhlsion Prime active, they should not be focusing on retreating with it, but rather attacking with it. While the 10 damage can be a problem, there are ways around it, I assure you.

        I agree with you on the Judge point though. ReshiBoar (or any Emboar based deck) should have a support partner (Shuckle, Ninetales, or Magnezone Prime) to build the hand back up quickly. I just do not see Judge severely damaging an Emboar deck.

        I also agree that Ampharos Prime is getting a little too much love. PlusPower gets the job done just fine. Ampharos could also hurt you in some matchups, like DonChamp that relies on every Pokemon in play for your opponent to have damage on it.

         

      • Anonymous

        So then both cards are bad and good, cant put typlosion down just cause of the minus 10 damage, its worth the extra energy. Both cards have there good points and bad points.

      • Anonymous

        Personally,  really dislike typhlosion because i think mandibuzz will be popular and typhlosion just makes his job easier.

      • Anonymous

        Good to know.

      • Anonymous

        Whats the point of your comment?

      • Anonymous

        Good to know

      • Anonymous

        Can someone please ban this man?

      • Anonymous

        Why? I have not bad mouthed anyone or disrespected another player, my internet was acting up. Sorry for the double post
        Your the one trying to get someone banned, and thats pretty disrespectful. 

      • Anonymous

        I
        Dont
        Care

      • Anonymous

        If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have replied.

      • Anonymous

        I dunno what you got against typhlosion but its not a bad card, just has different perks from emboar.  Plus comparing an old card to a new card is a lame bro.

      • A Z

        How is comparing cards in the format lame? Maybe if I was comparing Gatr to say base set blastoise then it would be lame but really?

        BTW I dont have anything wrong with Typhlosion, what I do have a problem with is bad advise and using saying that its a good idea to use typhlosion is bad advise…

      • Anonymous

        Advice* Typhlosion came from the first packs of the hgss set, and B/W is a new set entirely so yea it pretty much is lame.
        Also telling someone that like a card, to say is bad, is bad advice. 

      • A Z

        so you dont compare cards that are in the same format? that explains everything…

      • Anonymous

        Please stop this. You can not use Emboar, but people will, and you’ll see how good it is. You go ahead and try everything you just said, you’ll see it has flaws too. There is no flawless card in the format. Name any card, I’ll give you a flaw with it.

      • Anonymous

        like A Z said. sharpedo isnt going to be used much and if you do play agaisnt it then they get double heads, well thats what i call a lucksac. catcher and weavile hurt both players so thats kinda piontless. then amphy prime isnt a problem. they put 2 damage counters on my reshiram. OOOOOHHHHH whatcha gonna do now. are you gonna thunder me for 80, or 40 and make me discard an energy so i take a another 10 next turn. amphy isnt a tech. it has to be a focus and it just doesnt have the power to be a focus.

      • Anonymous

        Whats the point of your comment? 

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UMR5AXWIW5YFA5I4C3ZO3HMLC4 AndrewV

        I’m just curious, but have you ran any deck with emboar? In my magneboar deck, i just power up my magnezone with the 2 energy he needs then put the rest on emboar. his attack might be costly, but in a deck where you can lost zone its energy anyway, there’s no point in keeping them in your hand. Pull out emboar? That’s fine, I’ll just heat crash you to death. 

      • Anonymous

        I am going to do what I always do:

        This is your comment:

        Emboar is bad too cause you have to clog your hand with fire energies
        and have to rely on your hand for his effect, when judges can mess you
        up, weaviles, sharpedo, ampharos prime, pokemon catcher to make him stay
        there with 4 retreat cost.  
        So there EMboar and typlosion are both bad.

        Now this is the sane version of your comment:

        Emboar has its downsides too cause you have to clog your hand with fire energies
        and have to rely on your hand for his effect, when judges can mess you
        up, ampharos prime can sorta mess you up, but keep in mind thats a stage 2, pokemon catcher to make him stay
        there with 4 retreat cost that you can solve simply by playing switch or having 4 fire energies in your hand, attach with his ability, retreat, and use fisherman. Or you can use his attack. Sure, say heavy cost. I say Inferno Fandango. Also keep in mind that Pokemon USA tries to keep broken cards out of sets until the last minute, which catcher will most likely be no exception to.
        So there Emboar and typhlosion are both good cards with downsides.

        Please think before you post nonsense. You’re acting like a child or a noob. Every card has downsides. All you’re doing is making a fool of yourself. Sure, you can ignore this comment, but then everyone will think you’re a VIP: Very Insignificant Person

      • Anonymous

        So obviously the comment above saying Typhlosion is terribad is perfect to you? 

    • Anonymous

      Emboar is just popular right now cause its new. Typlosion is still a great card, cause he doesnt need your hand, which most deck run judge just for emboar and blastigater/floatzel. The one damage suck but if its to a reshiram, he still has 120 hp, so only a mirror match or zekrom can take him down, but those decks already run pluspower so who cares.

  • Anonymous

    You cudve included Scizor or Steelix.

    • Anonymous

      but reshiboar eats them for breakfast, lunch, snack, diner, then snack.

    • Anonymous

      Maybe scizor since its still a fast card/deck, steelix…i dont think he’ll make it this format thanks to *sigh reshiram* Legendary pokemon ruin the fun lol.

  • ricky

    dude how can you make so many mistakes in 1 episodes

    • http://adamcap.com/ Adam Capriola

      He doesn’t read from a script anymore, and he makes annotations whenever someone notices an slip up. What’s the big deal?

    • A Z

      how could you make an episode to help people????

      Oh wait you didnt…

  • Jason Shook

    Only one little nitpick. You said that Tyranitar couldent easily add a Donphan counter. Dark decks can add the BEST Donphan/Machamp counter in the format, Umbreon UD. For one energy it simply cant be hit by either attacker, yes they can load up a machop/machock but this leaves them open for easy return knockouts so its a win for the dark deck. Wile not great against all decks its a great tech easily added.

    • Anonymous

      Or what about Houndoom that hits 80 for 1, or 90 with a darkness so long as they have a Fighting Pokemon in play?

      • Jason Shook

        well no offence but houndoom’s attack is only good against fighting decks and with x2 weakness to them he is auto OHKO’ed back. Umbreon can be useful against Magnezone, Yanmega, Lantern and some other support/backup attackers like Typhlosian and Ferligator.

    • Anonymous

      umbreon doesnt wall dnphan very good as it takes 12 turns to kill a donphan. since it only does 10 with fang.

      • Anonymous

        If it’s Dark vs. DonChamp your best bet is to tech in Mandibuzz against Machamp… there isn’t much that hits cheap to KO Donphan… but a good idea is a 1-0-1 or a 1-1-1 or play it fully… I’m referring to Kingdra Prime.. my reason for using a small amount is obviously because of Reshiram and Emboar becoming popular. Plus you could just bench it and use it’s Poke-Power every turn. Or another idea is to play T-Tar,Umbreon, Kingdra… keep Kingdra on bench and use Poke-Power.. then use Moonlight Fang + Darkness Energy for 30 Damage a turn making 12 turns only 4 turns. My last idea is using Tyranitar’s Power Claw but use that with 1 Darkness and 1 DCE and Kingdra’s Poke-Power for 80 a turn… I believe the attack slashes Exoskeleton making it so it “isn’t affected by powers, bodies, or any other effects”

    • A Z

      umbreon is not a good counter to donchamp because a good donchamp will play one non-prime version for that case

      • Anonymous

        Non-prime of what? Machamp SF is gone and Donphan HS/CL is pretty bad.

    • Anonymous

      I actually talk about umbreon in my Underground article, and I guess I should have brought him up in my UG article, too. A smart player with experience can just 2-shot him with machoke, but it’s a nice surprise card that many players don’t expect. 

  • Anonymous

    I can’t wait until the next Pokemon set comes out. 6 sets just doesn’t seem to give enough variety.

    • Anonymous

      Considering that Call of Legends is largely a reprint set and it’s only like 4 1/3 too. I’m excited that we have a new format to work with, but it’ll be best when we have a bigger pool of total cards

      • Anonymous

        I would just like to see well-rounded weakness variety; For example, the format is lacking a good stage 1 water Pokemon to counter Emboar. I’m not saying it would have been the answer but I don’t think Beartric should have been removed from BW.

        Also, I feel the format is going to go through a transformation when Pokemon Catcher is released. Shuckle/Ninetails/Sunflora/etc won’t be safe anymore. 4 Retreat Emboar will be easy bait to quadruple poison and snipe the bench later. Vileplume/Gothitelle will have enhance value.

      • Anonymous

        i’m guessing that catcher is going to be like lost world. the japaneese card comes out early and it stalls for english print.

  • Anonymous

    inb4 Emboar price skyrocketting

  • Mikolaj Dusinski

    Why didn’t you say a word about Blastoise UL (paired with either Feraligatr Prime or a bunch of Floatzels UL)? In my opinion in a meta flooded with fire and donhpan decks (and NO Power Sprays) it could get really good results :)

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UMR5AXWIW5YFA5I4C3ZO3HMLC4 AndrewV

    I’m just curious, but have they announced the release of pokemon catcher? everyone keeps talking about it like it’s already in the format and really, by nationals, it’s not going to be. **rants quietly to self then calms down** but this was a great video. I think I’m feeling a stage 2 toolbox list coming on……….

  • Anonymous

    thnk you jwittz for posting yet another great video. You are better at this than PokemanDan for sure.

  • Anonymous

    I’m seeing people talk about “Umbreon isn’t good enough… DonChamp could use one non-prime…” stuff like that.. here’s what I’m saying..
    DonChamp players… – Play 1-1 or 2-2 of Cinccino cuz you probably already use DCE for Machamp Prime.
    T-Tar players… – Play Kingdra or Mandibuzz… Kingdra doesn’t need many energy and has a good Poke-Power, Mandibuzz has resistance not weakness to Fighting and can hit Machamp Prime easily.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_S5ERDRKVRWIRXMHTXGNLAAGNII DTF

    Put some decor on the walls. Otherwise, good post, well-presented