Discussion Metal: The Forgotten Type/Sylveon Hate

[Perfect_Shot]

Finally back here on the 'Beach after a long while, since the new sets have been kind of interesting. I noticed pretty quickly about Sylveon-GX (and so have most of you, it seems) and being a very powerful control deck, I felt good that one of my favorite types was it's weakness.

Then I searched through the recent cards and found absolutely nothing useful to take advantage of that weakness. Most of what is useful are Evolved Pokemon, which are very susceptible to Plea-GX. Guardians Rising brought with it Dhelmise and a great ability in Steelworker, but right now there is little to use it with, which is saddening.

In Phantom Forces, Metal had what could have been a 'Golden Age' of sorts with Bronzong, Heatran, Dialga-EX and Aegislash-EX being released. Although it had much to do with bad timing (Seismitoad-EX's release a set earlier, Night March in the same set, and faster decks like M-Manectric-EX) the deck never had much chance of standing out, and Bronzong, the type's key card, had far more success in decks beside it's own.

I've noticed a thread here on Excadrill from Primal Clash, and having played the deck in the past I highly doubt it will accomplish anything before the set rotates at the end of the season. Scizor-EX could potentially be rotated, although personally I doubt BKP will leave the format just yet.

I really like the Metal type, it has been a personal favorite of mine for quite a while, but it seems they drew the short straw when it comes to R&D.

 

[TheDude133]

Metal Pokemon in the current state are underpowered, and too combo-reliant. Here's my take on the metal pokemon decks we have now. All of which i peg at Tier 3, close to Tier 2.

Solgaleo GX - Love the card, think it has potential with Dhelmise as basically a hit and run deck. You can get two Sol attacks a game very easily, but once you do, its pretty dead and you need another attacker. Tapu-Lele GX "helps" this problem, but not enough in my opinion. You could run Scizor EX with it, and abuse its second attack, but overall, I'm not sure if you will be able to do it quick enough. You have insane OHKO potential already, and with Kukui (You can use Dhelmise as well, but I fear for consistancy) you can secure kills on FFB targets.

Metagross GX - This is the Metal deck that I believe has the most potential. With the fact that his ability can work with Psychic energy too, you can abuse Alter of the Moone to have Metagross only have 1 retreat. In other words, Choice Band for 180, pitch the Psychic energy next turn to retreat, attach to new active, repeat process as needed. The only problem I see to this, is that the magic OHKO number is going up to 200. You could take a more defensive route with something like Assault Vest, Bent Spoon (stops Plea GX), Weakness Policy for Volca, Exp. Share if you're feeling fancy, Heavy Boots for extra HP (270 is hard to OHKO and 2HKO), or even Lucky Helmet for extra draw power. It does have the same weakness as Sol in that, you can't really put a basic metal attacker in the deck.

M-Scizor EX - This one is interesting. But over all, I think the deck is very lackluster right now, solely due to its lack of OHKO potential. I could see this deck having a good match-ups to Sylveon GX, but its match-ups against everything else fall flat.

Excadrill - Here's a fun little deck that will have a good time in its short life. It does have the speed and power to be relevant, and with Choice Band along side Dhelmise/Kukui you can hit that magic 200HP in one turn, which gives it potential, but i think the biggest fault to this deck is the squishy part of Excadrill. 110HP is in OHKO range of a lot of things. I figure of you play the deck like Vespiqueen, maybe you have a chance?

Now, if we're talking about a Sylveon counter, then they all have one huge benefit. Magearna. Magearna stops Plea GX from spinning your backline, so long as you have a metal energy attached to your pokemon. The downside is that Magearna has little to no use against any other decks.