Meganium Madness from Pluto Mark IV: Doctor Destructo Readies His Death Beam of Incredible Destructive Power

Meganium Madness from Pluto Mark IV: Doctor Destructo Readies His Death Beam of Incredible Destructive Power

Meganium Madness from Pluto Mark IV: Doctor Destructo Readies His Death Beam of Incredible Destructive Power

By Peter (Name supplied by Nova)

12 Grass

4 recycle

4 Exeggcute (Aqua 40 HP)

3 Exeggutor (Aqua)

2 Chikorita (Aqua 50 HP)

2 Chikorita (Neo Genesis 50 HP)

2 Bayleef (Aqua)

3 Meganium (Neo Wild growth)

3 Cleffa

3 Reaserch

2 Bill's mainten

3 Copycat

1 Forest Guard (Useful in tight spot)

2 Town Volunteer

2 Double Gust

2 Switch

3 Breeder

3 Gold Berry

2 Focus Band

2 Healing field

Nova had this to say:

A meganium deck! I looooove meganium. A pretty reliable deck under all circumstances. But even better, a meganium deck with no name, which makes me free to name it whatever I want. Also a deck with no strategy, which means that I can assume anything I want, no matter how unreasonable. Sweet.

As for the actual fix, because no one wants to hear me rant more than is absolutely necessary (I have to rant sometimes. Decks are few and far between these days, ironically when I have the time to fix them), there’s no indication as to whether this deck is modified or unlimited. So I’m going to take the reasonable position (which would normally go against my morals – see above mention of being unreasonable) and assume that it’s modified. So once that decision is made…well, then I actually fix the deck. The good news is that this is not going to be a long fix. Well, that’s probably good news for you, anyway.

The pokemon look fairly well-balanced. With eleven basics and two solid evolution lines, neither of which gets in the way of the other, you’re looking more or less okay on the pokemon front. And you even included cleffa, definitely a step in the right direction. A backup fighter might be helpful in this deck, probably something like good old tyrogue, but we’ll see if there’s room for that later. Ooh, the one thing, before I move on, is that you should probably decide on a chikorita and go with four of that. I like the Genesis one myself, so I’m going to choose that one, but feel free to pick the Aquapolis chikorita if you like it more.

The trainers are heavy on drawing, using the modified-standard copycats, plus a few Oak’s research and a couple of Bill’s Maintenance. As much as I hate myself for being as uncreative and repetitive as a member of the MTV generation, which I am decidedly a member of anyway (note that the point itself was also accented by the fact that I didn’t bother to come up with my own simile. I used someone else’s. Meh.), I’m still going to have to say that Elm is definitely the way to go, drawing-engine wise, in modified. The other cards can be useful, but Elms provide better card-drawing and don’t take up as many slots. So sorry, guys! The old solution’s going to have to stick until they introduce better drawing cards into the environment (I know you’re reading this, Japan!). That means that the Oak’s researches have to go, and they’re replaced by three elms. I’m going to leave the Bill’s maintenances where they are, because quite frankly, I think it’s a card with redeeming qualities all its own, and besides, I’m a sucker for card-drawing. So the maintenances will do just fine where they are. And ridiculously, that’s about it for trainers. The double gusts are necessary in this deck despite its high retreat costs, the switches will save your butt more than once, the town volunteers are good for getting your energy back, and healing and preservation have always been the most important aspects in a meganium deck anyway. I’ve built unlimited meganium decks for the kids at League with very, very similar trainer sets. It’s just the way the deck works out. The one other suggestion I’ll make is that you could drop one of your breeders for another gold berry, which you’ll almost certainly never have enough of. So I’ll do that, too.

And other than that, there are very few changes that would make the deck more effective. One of them is to find a backup fighter for this deck. A solid, hard-hitting grass pokemon would do, or tyrogue would do as well. But there just aren’t the card slots to put them there. So I leave it in your hands.

<editorial>

I’m feeling pretty torn right now. On the one hand, it’s totally excellent to see that we’ve been getting so many well-constructed decks into the Atelier, and on the other hand, it leaves me feeling really stupid, because people are sending us their decks saying ‘Please make these better!’ and I have no real changes that will help them in any real way. It’s great that people have obviously been watching the deck fixes and learning from them, and it rocks that we’re getting less and less decks, because that means that people’s decks are getting better for it. Either that or it means that the decks we fix here suck, and eventually everyone just gives up. I’d like to think it’s the first. In either case, if we do screw up, and especially if I specifically screw up, please, please, please email me, nova@sugarshock.net, and tell me. The only way I’ll ever learn about anything is if someone tells me that I suck. If I hear from no one, I will continue to assume that I am an amazing deck mechanic, and that we of the Atelier have improved the ability of pokemon players overall.

</editorial>

Nova’s fix:

Energy (16):

12 Grass

4 recycle

Pokemon (19):

4 Exeggcute (Aqua 40 HP)

3 Exeggutor (Aqua)

4 Chikorita (Neo Genesis 50 HP)

2 Bayleef (Aqua)

3 Meganium (Neo Wild growth)

3 Cleffa

Trainers (25):

3 Professor Elm

2 Bill's maintenance