Hey everyone! It's me, Bolt, with tonight's analyst article for you all. City Championships are all the rage right now, and I personally know some people who have no idea what they should play for these tournaments. That's what inspired me to write this article, as well as the trouble I'm having coming up with a deck. Think of this article as a tool to help build a deck that counters what you may fear.
First of all, you'll need to know what's popular in your area. A lot of common decks include Gardevoir ex, Ampharos ex, Kingdra ex, Kecleon, Blaziken and Holo Flygon. Once you know what you're trying to counter, you'll need to first take a look of Pokemon that can exploit weakness or resistance...or both. (If you're playing a deck weak to fire, you'll want to throw in some water pokemon, also known as teching)
Tech - How much tech you should put in your deck depends on energy, and the strength of the pokemon. Let's say you decide to run Sandstorm Electabuzz as tech. If you put 2 Buzz in your deck, you'll want about 5 Lightning Energy. The best pokemon to tech with use as little energy of a specific type as possible. The less energy of a different type you'll need, the better. Remember the obvious, the more HP the better.
Backup Evolution - Of course you'll want your own individual deck strategy and pokemon. Being ready for any situation requires using the best variety of Pokemon possible, while still maintaining the original plan. If you really don't feel like teching, or feel that only a couple of basics will do the trick, try adding / changing a second evolution line. Since you'll be adding more pokemon than usual this way, keep energy in mind. Try to find something that can do decent damagefor as little energy as possible. Dragon Grumpig is great, since it has a nice (PC) for 20+ attack that can usually do 40-50 damage. Not bad. If you're having problems with something that combos well with your main line strategy, look for something that may help out with a weakness/resistance problem. If there's nothing that suits you in that category, remember to look out for all around pokemon.
Individual weaknesses -
Here's a list of some good cards to help take out some of the more popular decks (the ones listed above). What you use in your deck is completely up to you.
Gardevoir ex - Very hard to tech against seeing as how it can do nice damage second turn, and once it gets 4 energy on it, it's extremely hard to beat no matter what you have. Unless you're playing Gengar, most of your choices for facing Garde are weak to it. Sandstorm Arbok can probably get away with a Toxic before it's KO'ed. You can also try Illumise, Espeon and Wobbuffet.
Ampharos ex - Another hard pokemon to counter, since there aren't many good pokemon. In the current modified format, though, Mareep is not powerful at ALL until it becomes an Amphy, so you can try to beat it with speed. Otherwise try R/S Holo Hariyama, Solrock, Wobbuffet or Skyridge Sandslash.
Kingdra ex - Kingdra's nice, it has 2 strong attacks that can handle most pokemon. Sandstorm Electabuzz, Sandstorm Arbok, and Wobbuffet all work nicely.
Kecleon - There's no REAL way to tech Kecleon, since it's type is a variable. It doesn't have enough HP for it not to be able to be dealt with, so just take it out with your strongest Pokemon. Solrock works good since Kecleon can't change it's weakness.
Blaziken - The best way to go about dealing with Blaziken is with either Sandstorm Wailmer or even better, Skyridge Starmie...or any water pokemon that can do 50 damage. Pelipper, Cradaunt, Azumarill. All good choices, although the best basic is Wailmer. Perhaps an R/S Wailord for that nice HP and all colorless attack...
Holo Flygon - Flygon's good. It has high HP, does good damage, and ISN'T an ex. Zangoose obviously annihilates it, but those are hard to come by. The 2 non holo Delcattys have good attacks for taking out a Flygon. Remember that unlike the non holo Flygon, Holo Flygon is resistant to Grass and Lightning.
Victreebel - Victreebel's tough, since there aren't really any good fire pokemon to just throw into any ol' deck. You can try to take it out before it's powered up, or just hope that things will go your way. With Fragrance trap, your opponent tends to have control over your active pokemon anyway, so just don't leave anything weak on your bench.
Armaldo - To handle Armaldo, you need to use Supporters while you can. Get everything you need in your hand before Armaldo comes out. You can try to tech with Arbok or a Volbeat/Illumise combo (Illumise gets resistance), or you can take out the Anorith before it evolves, which is also hard to do, since it has an attack that gets Armaldos from the deck, and it has 80HP.
That's all for this article, everyone! Remember that Wobbuffet and Shedinja can't be hit by Pokemon ex, and that Zangoose does 60 damage to evolved Pokemon. Wobby and Zangoose are definately pokemon you should consider for any deck. Thanks for reading!
>Bolt
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