I've been running a Houndoom ex/Raticate mill deck on PTCGO lately, and I've seen a lot of success with it, and I'm thinking of buying the cards to take to a tournament. However, I'm not sure how well mill decks do in big tournaments, and I'm a little concerned about the big meta decks (I've beaten Greninja only once and Volcanion is a very difficult matchup, and those are super common). What is the best advice here? I love playing mill, but I also don't want to lose every match. Do I ditch mill and look for something else, or could I see some decent success? Oh, and because of Raticate I have won games by taking prizes, but it's less common.
Help Mill vs. The Meta
- Thread starter Wockomtosh
- Start date
I've been running Bunnelby/Raticate/Houndoom-EX (BRaH for short); not sure if the Bunnelby (PRC) is implied or not.
Anywho I have been enjoying it, but at least what I am using seems like it might just barely be competitive. I am curious as to how much you have been using the deck, and also how often you encounter opponent's that seem to know how to properly play the deck. Coin flips will matter as well thanks to Crushing Hammer. To give you an idea, one of the first Volcanion-EX decks I faced did everything wrong so I thought it was a great matchup. The next one realized it could just attack with regular Volcanion until Volcanion-EX was set up. At that point, just OHKO's my Houndoom-EX and I am like "Oh right, its Fire/Water so it applies Weakness. >_<".
So... yeah, I guess I think you should only build and run it if you enjoy it so much you're okay with the odds being stacked against you.
Anywho I have been enjoying it, but at least what I am using seems like it might just barely be competitive. I am curious as to how much you have been using the deck, and also how often you encounter opponent's that seem to know how to properly play the deck. Coin flips will matter as well thanks to Crushing Hammer. To give you an idea, one of the first Volcanion-EX decks I faced did everything wrong so I thought it was a great matchup. The next one realized it could just attack with regular Volcanion until Volcanion-EX was set up. At that point, just OHKO's my Houndoom-EX and I am like "Oh right, its Fire/Water so it applies Weakness. >_<".
So... yeah, I guess I think you should only build and run it if you enjoy it so much you're okay with the odds being stacked against you.
Yeah that situation has happened to me. It's still possible to win against Volcanion if you Lysandre stall and get Raticate out for some energy denial, but it's hard. Oh, and yes, bunnelby was implied, but I only run one copy and don't use it much so I didn't include it. So far I'm 23 and 9 on TCGO, and my most recent variant is 11 and 2, so I'm thinking it's pretty good
But online isn't very good to show the meta, and about a third of my matches seem to just play like I'm not a mill deck, or they just keep attaching to the active so denial is easy. I love BRaH as a name for it though
But online isn't very good to show the meta, and about a third of my matches seem to just play like I'm not a mill deck, or they just keep attaching to the active so denial is easy. I love BRaH as a name for it though
I've been on the fence about dropping this deck in favor of Mega Ray after playing it the past few weeks...so I am gonna write out my thoughts in hopes that it helps you...
I've been running this deck for a while online and in live tournaments. At my local card shop, it gets easy wins against the casual players. I've easily beaten a Darkrai/Giratina deck, a Volcanion deck, a M Gardevoir deck, a Rainbow Road deck, and miraculously pulled off a Greninja win (though that is almost always an auto loss for me) in that setting.
I ran the deck in GA and went 4-3-2. I was 1-1 going into both tie rounds and was stalled out OR mega turbo's kept my opponent going. Also a few last minute N's or Brock's grit let them refresh their decks at the last second. PB ran an article on this deck shortly after the London International (where it placed tenth), so it has been getting a lot of attention.
I played at the league challenge in GA on Sunday and made top 8 with it out of 50+ players.
My point is that the experience really varies...and a lot of wins are going to be down-to-the-wire type wins. Raticate only comes in handy if you can knock out a lot of special energy early (say against a rainbow road), or if you use it with the crunch/team flare grunt combo, but you can't do that too long because your opponent can come back if you aren't milling often enough and opt for crunch instead.
You really have to love the mill strat to enjoy playing this deck. The fun part of this deck isn't that you have a strong deck that leads to good wins if you play it right...the fun of the deck is trolling your opponent and watching the look of disappointment when their VS Seekers and Lysandre cards are milled by melting horn.
I also think there are some good Sun and Moon cards that can help this deck out. But if you don't already have the cards...then I would recommend you hold off until after CA regionals to see what the meta looks like and if you like something else more.
I didn't know about that article. I just found it but I'm not a subscriber, but maybe I will be to check that and a couple others I have my eye on. Which Sun and Moon cards were you thinking? I know getting hammers will be easier, but other than that I'm not sure. Maybe Lycanroc gx?
So hard I'd have to classify it as "luck". Don't get me wrong, you have to play your cards right as well, but the typical Volcanion-EX decks that I run to have multiple outs to a stranded Volcanion-EX, and BRaH decks - at least in my experience - aren't the best at streaming cards. It might be me approaching the matchup incorrectly, however; I usually don't lead with Raticate since it is an easy OHKO for so many low Energy attackers in general, let alone regular Volcanion backed by two Volcanion-EX or a Fighting Fury Belt and one Volcanion-EX.
Did you leave off a zero?
If the emoticon isn't clue enough I'm using a bit of humor to make a very valid point; to have a significant sampling size means triple digits for testing. If you're a great player, have a few other great players to test against, and structure things so that you're putting in appropriate testing time against the major deck variants, then you can get by with less... but it should still be close to a dozen games per major archetype. I learned this lesson the hardway going into one of my first major tournaments; a deck I built had been kicking butt playing on Apprentice (yes, this was a long time ago) but not only was that mostly against friends, it was probably only around 2 dozen matches. After that tournament I went to test again and I finally reaized after another dozen or so matches I had been getting incredibly lucky with this now forgotten deck, explaining why it was my "secret deck"; it wasn't that no one recognized what it could do, they just recognized what it could not do. ^^'Yeah, with online matches you might want to add two zeros to your estimates. I've got multiple wins for my own deck which are "Opponent concedes". Real tournaments are usually best two of three (even if there is scarcely enough time for two full matches), and it makes a dramatic difference. The PTCGO is usually folks grinding on the ladder; I finally stopped caring about politeness as much as I used to; I loathed people playing control/stall decks because it just seems rude when people are desperately trying to grind out wins to earn in game rewards to keep up with the PTCGO card pool (like myself!). Even a win often wasn't worth it if it was faster to lose and then play another two or three games. Another shift in my position; I hate not playing games out, but I just cannot afford to lose five or even 10 minutes waiting for a Greninja BREAK player to almost inevitably overcome BRaH. I mean even if another match up takes the same amount of time, at least it is back and forth/not an autoloss. XP
I love BRaH as a name for it though
Yeah it has been a while since I tried to find a fun-yet-descriptive name for a deck. Glad you enjoyed it. @Standard208 (and still @Wockomtosh ) like I said, I am seeing more and more PTCGO players know how to face off against BRaH decks. If this translates to IRL, then I don't think the deck has much of a chance. There will be a few matchups in your favor because your opponent will struggle to power something up on the Bench, but once they learn, they learn. Like building up a copy of Yveltal (STS) using all basic Energy cards while an active Yveltal-EX sits up front as a decoy. Eventually they slap a Float Stone (normally intended for Garbodor in the deck), retreat back, and now if I have any Shaymin-EX left on my Bench I'm in big trouble. If I use my Max Potion to heal them, Houndoom-EX eventually falls. There are dozens of potential answers to this... but they stop working if your opponent has some commonly played cards (like Brock's Grit) and knows not to rush ahead on Prizes (so that I cannot N his or her hand into oblivion while keeping him or her Energy poor).
Those are some very good points, I still don't know a lot of the weaknesses of the deck (and that round where I beat Volcanion everything went absolutely perfect, which is obviously never guaranteed). I think I'll keep testing, but maybe I'll look for something else. Honestly half of the reason I play this is because it can run decently with Octillery, because I'm still working on getting those pricey shaymin (hopefully not for much longer!) Thanks for the feedback! I have a much better idea of what to look for now.
I've played this Houdoom mill deck some as well. Yes, it's an absolute autoloss to Greninja and a probable loss to Volcanion. That means you're probably not going to make the cut with this deck. Obviously, there are some exceptions, but 4-3-2 sounds like it would be about right. Plus, at a major tournament you're going to be going up against players who know exactly how to play against mill decks. But if you enjoy playing it, if that's what you feel most comfortable with, then go with it.
Oh and PTCGO is not necessarily a good comparison to the meta right now. Garbodor has almost completely disappeared, and I think there are a lot of people trying out different kinds of decks (I played 2 matches against Haxorus last night). I also have learned that you definitely want at least 50 if not 100 matches with 1 particular deck list to clearly identify the consistent problems. I take detailed notes during every match, and then after 50 matches or so, I go over all of them and catalog what my most frequent complaints are. That helps me truly identify the weaknesses of the deck that I need to address. This way I'm correcting the actual problems instead of just going with guesses and feelings.
There are a ton of videos of this BRaH deck on youtube you can look at for ideas. You might want to consider Durant as well, I used to run Durant with Houndoom.
Once Sun and Moon is legal, I would guess that Herdier would be a good tech as well (get any item card from your discard - means you have a hammer every turn).
Oh and PTCGO is not necessarily a good comparison to the meta right now. Garbodor has almost completely disappeared, and I think there are a lot of people trying out different kinds of decks (I played 2 matches against Haxorus last night). I also have learned that you definitely want at least 50 if not 100 matches with 1 particular deck list to clearly identify the consistent problems. I take detailed notes during every match, and then after 50 matches or so, I go over all of them and catalog what my most frequent complaints are. That helps me truly identify the weaknesses of the deck that I need to address. This way I'm correcting the actual problems instead of just going with guesses and feelings.
There are a ton of videos of this BRaH deck on youtube you can look at for ideas. You might want to consider Durant as well, I used to run Durant with Houndoom.
Once Sun and Moon is legal, I would guess that Herdier would be a good tech as well (get any item card from your discard - means you have a hammer every turn).
I would suggest you judge your deck against the quality of your opponents. its very difficult to judge against a casual player.
keep in mind, as you move up larger tournaments like regionals.... all the top players typically sweep thru their league tournaments.
and the experience level tends to go up. they typically will know what to do... and what not to do against your deck.
so at least mentally, they have their strategy worked out... whether or not they pull the cards is a different story.
and don't forget, at expanded tournaments, you have eels and bronzong to deal with.
and of course, max elixir, super rod, brock, etc. I've had a lot of games where I needed just one or two more turns also....
keep in mind, as you move up larger tournaments like regionals.... all the top players typically sweep thru their league tournaments.
and the experience level tends to go up. they typically will know what to do... and what not to do against your deck.
so at least mentally, they have their strategy worked out... whether or not they pull the cards is a different story.
and don't forget, at expanded tournaments, you have eels and bronzong to deal with.
and of course, max elixir, super rod, brock, etc. I've had a lot of games where I needed just one or two more turns also....
Not when I've been playing. XD I ran into it multiple times today, multiple times yesterday, etc. Whether or not it is good to use against BRaH is a separate question; many players weren't going to bother with it, probably because I've only got four cards with Abilities and all are coming-into-play kinds of things. Float Stone tend to be more valuable elsewhere, anyway. Finally, every resource you put into play that doesn't significantly contribute to your win is basically "deck HP" you just tossed away.
Now... I could be the oddball here. Just wanted to share my own experience, even if it wasn't meticulously recorded.
i am running a slightly different version to most people. i play 4 bunnelby, a 3-2 octillery line and 2 beedrill ex. beedrill gives you a slight chance to get the win against greninga, while also discarding float stones littered throughout most major decks. (promo giratina would be a welcome addition too i think)
right now i feel that houndoom is unviable while greninga still around, but most other major decks are weak to energy denial and lysandre stall.
the issue with this version is gardevoir and mewtwo become harder matchups as you cant tank with houndoom, but they are both still winnable and i hate greninga decks too much to take an autoloss to it
edit: silent lab is great against volcanion, beedrill can also set up a win by getting rid of float stones at opportune times
right now i feel that houndoom is unviable while greninga still around, but most other major decks are weak to energy denial and lysandre stall.
the issue with this version is gardevoir and mewtwo become harder matchups as you cant tank with houndoom, but they are both still winnable and i hate greninga decks too much to take an autoloss to it
edit: silent lab is great against volcanion, beedrill can also set up a win by getting rid of float stones at opportune times
I'm curious what you guys think about promo Giratina for this deck. It's only useful against Greninja, but it's the only thing really that can help against it, unless you want a full garbodor line.
That's funny. I run that card in almost everything because I despise the Greninja match up that much. I wonder if a lot of the reason it isn't seen as much is because up until recently it was super hard to find.
I was in a league challenge last weekend (expanded format). Decided to tech Karen. Decided to leave out Giratina. Ended 4-2 with my Rayquaza / Eels variant. That included a win against last year's US national champion, so I wasn't going against slouches or anything with it either. Why do I mention this? Because I ended 1-1 against Trevenant Break and would have probably won the second game by simply teching in exactly one card...Giratina.
I know this is a BRaH (we are calling it that now right? ha!) deck conversation, so I don't want to derail it. But I figure someone who is actively running Giratina should weigh in on that one. Giratina is enough to give you one extra turn with Houndoom against Greninja. Not sure it will matter due to how slow Greninja seems to go through it's own cards, but it might be enough to discard some important cards.
I don't know why people aren't running that card online, but having experienced Greninja without it vs. Greninja with it, it is night and day different. It absolutely guts that deck with the decks I am running and is extremely difficult for Greninja to overcome. It also leaves me free to use abilities on my side which is something you can't say if you decide to tech in a Garb. It also isn't item reliant like spamming Hex Maniac is. The major con to the card is that it is very situational and will end up dead more often than not.
Hope that gives a bit of insight into Giratina.
Yeah, I don't have a Giratina yet... maybe I ought to get one before it gets a CotD and becomes famous.
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That was a joke! I know most people don't read those. What I did want to bring up was Team Skull Grunt. I am starting to think it was made for BRaH. Of course, the rest of Sun & Moon might kill off the deck; not a prediction, just making an allowance for that outcome, as I haven't analyzed the new cards yet (barely read them). BRaH is where I can see Team Skull Grunt really paying off; not only do you shrink their hand, possibly forcing them to draw or possibly increasing their net draw with a follow-up N the next turn, but as we all know, BRaH works when the opponent can't keep enough Energy in play to use big (sometimes any) attacks.
Anyone else care to weigh in?
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That was a joke! I know most people don't read those.
What I did want to bring up was Team Skull Grunt. I am starting to think it was made for BRaH. Of course, the rest of Sun & Moon might kill off the deck; not a prediction, just making an allowance for that outcome, as I haven't analyzed the new cards yet (barely read them). BRaH is where I can see Team Skull Grunt really paying off; not only do you shrink their hand, possibly forcing them to draw or possibly increasing their net draw with a follow-up N the next turn, but as we all know, BRaH works when the opponent can't keep enough Energy in play to use big (sometimes any) attacks.Anyone else care to weigh in?
I was thinking Team Skull Grunt + Umbreon GX were tailor made to go in that BRaH deck personally. It may end up being more effort than it is worth to use Umbreon GX though since it does have the darkness energy requirement in a deck using fire energy. But it is one of the few GX cards I have seen so far that had an attack that would play with the deck. Granted, it is a one shot deal, but TSG to get 2 energy out of hand + Dark Call GX to get two off the active and then Strafe or some other retreat mechanism to get back to milling. I could see the potential. It also seems very clunky to pull. Good thing it is a one shot thing I guess.
TSG and Gumshoos is another idea I saw on YouTube. I think TSG will be a must for this deck, and Gumshoos could do very well with his ability helping there. I don't know how well it's GX attack will work with more turbo Darkrai appearing, but it could still be useful against M Mewtwo and Yveltal, making them play differently.
Okay @Fayld (and everyone else), I tried Giratina (XY: Black Star Promos XY184) last night, swapping out one Bunnelby for it. I missed that Bunnelby but the Giratina is surpisingly useful. Obviously it could help in the Greninja BREAK match-up, assuming they fail to keep Silent Lab in play. That is a matter of luck, whether they fail to draw it, you discard it with your mill effects, or have Delinquent in hand (or a VS Seeker in hand and Delinquent in the discard pile) when Silent Lab does hit the field... but yeah for me the match-up goes from a more or less automatic loss to something I can win. There were times when I just needed a body up front, taking a hit, and Giratina came through there as well.
I would be curious to see if that continues to play out over the course of more match ups in that deck. I thought the write up on Pojo was fair and accurate for the card and my experience with the card mirrors your own. If your deck doesn't already deal with Greninja / Trevenant and to a lesser extent Carbink (much lesser), this card can take an auto loss (or close to it) and turn it into a 40/60 or 50/50. That is about as good a single card tech as you can get for the value. But just like you said, it truly only works as a meat shield for anything without a break containing abilities and that is pretty underwhelming.
Honestly, I am pretty happy it worked out as well as it did for your early testing though. I think (as with Karen) that people looked at the card and dismissed it as "I don't have room" or "this only counters X" without having played it enough to understand just how much impact it can have on the decks where its inclusion is warranted. Is it a death card? No. But I haven't seen Pokemon do cards that mean absolute "death" to a deck too frequently. This one does exactly what it is supposed to do. Even it up and give the Greninja / Trevenant player something else to deal with. That's really all I am asking for. Give me a card that gives me a shot.