Noble Victories Set Analysis
By: [mod]Celebi23[/mod] and [mod]Serperior[/mod]
By: [mod]Celebi23[/mod] and [mod]Serperior[/mod]
The Pokémon TCG's November set holds the honor of most dramatically impacting the metagame, with its unusual abundance of powerful cards. This year, we got Kyurem, Cobalion, N, Chandelure, Eelektrik, Eviolite, and many more. However, with all of these cards rapidly transforming the playing field, it is important to be informed about any potential "dark horse" threats to avoid being caught off guard! This article is designed to make readers aware of all potential threats and metagame counters in the set. While chances are low these cards will see much tournament play, the competitive player should be aware of any threat, popular or not.
Accelgor
Accelgor is yet another Stage 1 attacker. It, like Donphan, does 60 damage. The attack also has an equally bad but not game-breaking drawback. Switching between two of these is easy, since they're so easy to get out. The first attack isn't un-usable in some crazy situations. The main difference between it and Donphan, aside from typing, is that you sacrifice the bulkiness for free retreat. The bulkiness is better almost any day.
Grass isn't the best type to be right now, either. Anything that's played a lot doesn't have a grass weakness. It's generally outdone by an OP basic, or one of the great Stage 1's printed in HS-CL. However, the card is incredibly consistent, all thanks to its basic Shelmet. It lets it get out in one of two ways; either by having two basics and an energy on the first turn, or by having a Stage 1 and an energy on the second turn. It's almost impossible not to have an Accelgor doing 60 T2. Furthermore, getting the basic's evolution off T1 is great in the Stage 1 mirror, since it prevents them from taking an uncontested prize lead with Sonicboom on your weak active basic as they usually would. However, Stage 1's aren't popular enough to make this a realistic reason to run it. He's incredibly consistent, fast, and fun, but he's still pretty bad.
Virizionhttp://pokebeach.com/scans/noble-victories/13-virizion.jpg
One of my favorites. I like the color, though its design is relatively similar to Arceus's. It's a shame that such a cool Pokemon is fairly weak and disappointing. Being a Grass Pokemon, we groan at a Fire-type Weakness that means You-Know-Who is up in our grill again, doing 240 in one hit. The 110 HP doesn't help too much either. Although we get to survive a Gothitelle with three Psychic Energy attached, we're still one-shotted by Zekrom. The Water Resistance kinda helps with Kyurem, but they normally run Cobalion and will find a way around that. Checking out Virizion's attacks, we see the first: Double Draw. An OK move to open with to better your hand, this isn't terrible. Leaf Wallop is somewhat interesting. The first time you use it, Leaf Wallop does a pathetic forty damage. The next turn, the output jumps up to eighty damage. If you use this consecutively, you get to 2HKO a Yanmega Prime. Alright. Virizion's efficiency is what makes this card lackluster. You need two turns to get the Energy on Virizion. That second turn does forty damage. You need a total of three turns to start doing eighty consistently, which is far too slow in today's format. Donphan Prime requires a single Energy to do sixty, while the most Virizion can do is draw two cards. Despite being a Legendary Pokemon, Virizion's presence is very similar to that of a Bidoof in Diamond and Pearl: unnecessary and useless.
Still, he's a staple card in Six Corners, and arguably what breaks the deck. Still, it's Six Corners, a gimmick deck. It's probably not finding its way into anything good.
Victini (15)
Much like the Psychic version of Victini (see below), this card has the potential to be a very niche counter. It's great against Durant, since it can OHKO a Durant no matter how many Special Metals, Eviolites, and Defenders they try to stack on it (okay, well that's an exaggeration, but they're never going to have 4 Defender, 4 Special Metal, and an Eviolite on the same Durant.) The catch, however, is you need a full bench and two energy on Victini. Furthermore, the deck you use it in has to use Rainbow Energy or Fire Energy. It's not particularly hard to get this thing running against Durant if you do run enough Rainbow/Fire. Durant hasn't proven itself to be popular, however, and even if it was, this card probably wouldn't be great.
The reason it probably won't see a lot of play is that Durant usually runs Lost Remover, Crushing Hammer, and Pokemon Catcher. Because of this, you basically have to have a high count of Fire energy in your deck. However, if you have that, you probably have another attacker capable of OHKOing Durant anyway. The one niche use it might have is in googlebox, where you can get out Vileplume to prevent Hammer/Remover/Catcher. The deck does struggle against Durant, since it can't Twins against it. However, getting out a charged Victini, Vileplume, and full bench usually means game against the deck. Still, it's questionable whether or not this card is so much better against the deck than something like Cobalion. If it's not, it really doesn't have any deck it might see play in. This remains to be seen.
Seismitoadhttp://pokebeach.com/scans/noble-victories/24-seismitoad.jpg
Hate this Pokémon. So very very very ugly. On the other hand, Seismitoad is actually a pretty interesting card. It has 140 HP, pretty decent for a Stage-2 Pokemon, and can survive a Blue Flare/Bolt Strike even with a PlusPower. Not bad. That Retreat Cost is massive, unfortunately, but with so much bulk and Switch as a possibility, there really isn't a need to retreat much. The only Pokemon that hits Seismitoad's Weakness is Yanmega Prime, but that can't even one-shot us. (Sonicboom doesn't apply Weakness for its damage, and Linear Attack does a maximum of eighty damage.) Seismitoad's attacks are kinda funky though. Round is unique in the fact that you need Pokemon in play that have that attack. It's also DCE-compatible, so this is pretty quickly charged up. Other Seismitoad or Palpitoad on the Bench can bolster a thirty damage attack to 120. Wigglytuff, available in Japanese Hail Blizzard packs, also has the move Round and also costs a single DCE. This would fit in nicely with Seismitoad, or you could wait for Wigglytuff to come out to maximize its power: 180 damage for a DCE. With a PlusPower, we can say, "ADIOS!" to Zekrom and Kyurem. With three, we laugh in the faces of Cinccino, Reuniclus and Reshiram. With one, Solosis doesn't stand a chance. Hyper Voice isn't that great. Three for 70? If you have DCE already attached, you need two more turns to use it as well. Not so fantastic. Round, a good HP and a decent Weakness make Seismitoad pretty nice.
Cryogonal
Member [member]Vulpix Yolk[/member] has written a very good review of Cryogonal in our Card of the Day section. In this section, you can review a different card every day! If we get some more members posting in that section, we might make some of those reviews a regular part of our articles. This is great for getting your name out there, as featured articles on PB get a LOT of views. Be sure to check it out! Anyway, here's his review.
Vulpix Yolk said:
Victini (43)
This card is capable of doing 120 damage for a single energy. On a basic, that's crazy. Until you read the drawback. Still, when paired with reflip Victini, he can donk on occasion, and at the very least serve as a fast attacker. Just the threat of 120 damage early game can completely change how your opponent plays the game. However, without a reliable way to knock out small basics they can throw up to stall, the card's overall usefulness is ruined. A card like Tyrogue or even Tornadus will do his job better. He's also a little too unreliable for my tastes.
He does, however, have the potential role of a Gothitelle counter in decks already using reflip Victini. Sharpedo, for example, can use this card to eliminate what is ideally the only Gothitelle they get in play, before they get it charged up. This saves you from having to chip away at it, and gets rid of the dreaded item lock very quickly. He has other, more clutch-style uses than a direct Gothitelle counter like Mew would, since he can OHKO some attackers in a tight spot. However, seeing as reflip Victini hasn't been particularly popular, I would not be surprised if this card gets absolutely no play.
Reuniclus
Beedrill GE, anybody? I was a huge fan of that deck, taking it to a pretty good Nationals finish. Nobody had any faith in it, but it ended up winning worlds. Just as a straight-up comparison, we give up free retreat and 20HP to do more damage.
However, the Beedrill deck had so much more going for it. It had an un-nerfed Rare Candy, BTS, Azelf, un-snipable basics, Claydol, Uxie, and a built-in Beedrill RR engine. These things were really what made the deck playable, not the attack.
Still, this deck is a truckload of fun. It's almost impossible to get it fully setup, but it does have a pretty nice Gothitelle matchup and with a lot of luck it's not impossible to beat Reshiram with it. If you tech one of the Damage Swap Reuniclus, it can even beat most Stage 1 decks. Still, this isn't enough to make the deck anything more than one you can use for league. It's a pretty un-interesting card. Really, the only place it might see competitive play is as a 1-of in googlebox, but it doesn't have any real use as a tech like that.
Beheeyem
Beheeyem is another weird Pokemon from the new generation. I'm not sure what the heck it is, but...whatever. Beheeyem is another sub-par Pokemon from this set, and it's pretty obvious why. 80 HP isn't something anyone should be cheering about on a Stage-1, and its Weakness is to Psychic-types. That means You-Know-Who. No, not Voldemort! Gothitelle! Beheeyem gets wrecked every time! Psyshot, its second attack, does forty damage for two Energy, which means you won't be OHKO-ing anything for a while. It'll take three turns to KO a Yanmega Prime and four turns for a Zekrom or Reshiram. Its first attack, Synchronoise, is a little interesting. It does twenty damage to the Defending Pokemon, as well as twenty damage on any Benched Pokemon that share the same type with the Defending Pokemon. This is pretty decent when spreading damage, but unfortunately, Beeheeyem gets KO'd so quickly that the damage doesn't have much of a chance to stack up and do much. In addition, decks nowadays don't always run exactly one type. (If so, Beeheeyem would have a field day spreading like no other.) ZPST, which incorporates Grass and Colorless types in conjunction to the Lightning, and Donphans and Dragons, which incorporates Fighting, Fire and Lightning types in one deck, make spreading with Synchronoise rather ineffective. Reshiram, Zekrom and Kyurem can use this as Outrage boostage, and Reuniclus can move this around anyway. Beheeyem can't even KO a Mew Prime with this attack. Despite a unique first attack, Beeheeyem is too frail and weak to make any impact on today's metagame.
Chandelure
I thought I should post a quick list for Chandelure as well. I touched briefly on this in my last article, but not enough to do it justice. Gale also covered the card in his article, but his deck was not googlebox with Chandelure. If you own a lot of Tropical Beach, this is probably the hands-down best version of googlebox, and possibly the hands-down best deck in the format. This card sports the magic 130HP, and that non-exploitable weakness that every card wishes it had. This card can even deal with threats in a very similar way to Gigalith (see below) - by sniping them. The difference, however, is that Chandelure does this through an Ability. Not only does this mean you can do damage to your opponent without ending your turn, but it also means you can Tropical Beach for a new hand every turn, AND you don't even need energy in the deck! Furthermore, Lampent is a great attacker against other google-based decks and such. The two Double Colorless Energy are for early game retreats and to Twins for in case your Dodrio gets stuck active.
If I had a lot of Tropical Beach, I would almost definitely play this deck. You can invest in a higher Vileplume line to get it out faster (in place of energy), which is great against Yanmega/Magnezone although it certainly doesn't make it an auto-win. The one downside to this is that you ideally have two Chandelure out, and that takes forever to happen. Vileplume/Chandelure/Jirachi with energy in place of Reuniclus might be better than this version, but this one is still amazing.
Gigalith
While we're on the subject of googlebox, let's take a look at Gigalith. This card is most certainly interesting. He threatens a very reliable and very powerful snipe. However, it takes a long time to build it up, and Fighting lacks any decent energy acceleration. This basically forces him into a google-style deck. And he's certainly a good fit for this type of deck. He has a virtually non-exploitable weakness, and the attack is a great way to make up for the deck's lack of Catcher. He also has nice typing against Magnezone, although his attack takes too long to build up for it to be enough to beat Yanmega/Magnezone or most other Magnezone variants. Here's a sample list.
Because the deck can't get much use out of Double Colorless Energy, Dodrio becomes a necessity to retreat a Vileplume or Reuniclus your opponent drags active. He also has some other nice niche uses. This is arguably a better way to run the deck now, since the normal version needs Cobalion and a couple other new attackers, making the deck a real mess. The normal version is certainly still playable, too, and it might very well still be better than this version. The thing about google's deck is that once it's setup, any version of it will work. As I've said many times before, the best google variant should therefore be the one that gets setup the fastest (google's original deck.) However, an exception could possibly be made here, since Gigalith gives you the ability to deal with late-game threats as they come into play (basically a Catcher substitute.) However, this is slightly weaker than the normal version is against Magnezone, but it's slightly stronger against everything else, since it has the ability to deal with threats as they arise. Good luck setting up one of your techs for this on your bench after I have four energy on my Gigalith. The decision between the two variants will most likely come down to how well Magnezone ends up doing. So far it's been doing great, so this deck has not seen much play.
Some possible changes to the list include running 2 Professor Juniper and 2 N instead of the 3/1 split. Unown Cure is certainly a viable tech now that Vanilluxe has been getting a little play. One thing I feel is very important is running 3 Tropical Beach, dropping the Juniper and 1 N for them. I'm fully aware this is impossible for most people (heck, it's even impossible for me), but I truly think it's the best way to play the deck. There's no rush to attack with it, and being able to draw without shuffling your hand away is great with a Twins/Cheren engine. If you do need to shuffle, there's always Cleffa. I truly think a high Tropical Beach count makes the deck more broken than it already is.
N is also a great addition to this deck, since it has built-in draw in the form of Tropical Beach and doesn't take early prizes. Much like TyRam, once it's setup, it has everything it needs on the field, so being N'd into a 1-2 card hand does nothing to it. However, unlike TyRam, it does not take prizes until it's fully setup, so N is literally a perfect card in this deck.
The dragon spot goes to Kyurem since it's so good against standard builds of google. However, with moss google decks using Cobalion now, Zekrom is still a very viable inclusion to help a little Yanmega/Magnezone and big attackers in general. Without DCE, however, the dragons aren't attacking nearly as much. Not like they were attacking before, though - I never attacked with Zekrom once in any game I played at Regionals. Because of Gigalith's Grass weakness, Reshiram might not even be a bad inclusion in that spot. However, that comes down to metagame countering vs being prepared for anything, which is player preference. For this deck in particular, I tend to lean more toward the latter, to be honest.
Conkeldurrhttp://pokebeach.com/scans/noble-victories/64-conkeldurr.jpg
Why the heck does Conkeldurr have a clown nose? That's just beyond me, beside the fact that this may be one of the ugliest Pokemon in the new generation. Conkeldurr's typing isn't bad. Being a Fighting-type means that Magnezone Prime and Zekrom may have a few issues with this card, but also that Yanmega Prime will be slightly relieved. A bulky 140 HP is nothing to scoff at, especially with its Ability, Craftsmanship, which boosts it by twenty for each Fighting Energy attached to Conkeldurr. Pretty nice. Then we look at its attack and begin bawling uncontrollably. Then we look at its Weakness and quit Pokemon in general. Four Energy for eighty damage!? AND COIN FLIPS!? Let's do some quick math. Top Down requires a single Fighting Energy and three of any Energy. In order to be as quick and as efficient with the Ability as possible, we'd use two Fighting and a DCE, which takes three turns and puts us at 180 HP. We're 2HKO'd by Reshiram and Zekrom, and OHKO'd by Gothitelle, even with the Ability boost. The four-Energy Retreat Cost doesn't help either, meaning we're stuck with this punk in the Active slot. Worse yet, Cobalion and Beartic have some popularity, and make a sitting duck out of Conkeldurr. Free Prize for our opponent. Weeeeee. Even though this Pokemon may be fantastic in the VGC, we can certainly skip out on Conkeldurr in the TCG.
Even so, Cokkeldurr does have a really fun rogue deck centered around him - Conkeldurr/Kinklang/Max Potion/Rainbow Energy/Twins. Obviously, the deck requires a lot of setup, but if they get enough Rainbow on Conkeldurr and have the Max Potions to keep him alive, some decks will run into trouble. It doesn't happen enough to make the deck a legitimate threat, or even close to it. But if it gets setup, it doesn't go down. He also fits in googlebox quite nicely, unless Gothitelle and Mew start to make comebacks. Still, other cards like Chandelure are much better in googlebox, so this card probably won't get any play anywhere.
Archeops
Archeops is one of those cards that had so much potential to be so good, but one simple thing made it horrible. Well actually, it was a lot of pretty big things that made it bad. For starters, and most importantly, the new fossil mechanic. Playing Archeops means you have to base your entire game on getting lucky with Plume Fossil. Players have become accustomed to benching two of the same basic at the same time, to guarantee one of them gets to evolve even if the other is Catchered. It's almost impossible to get two Archen out at the same time, although it kind of makes up for this by having an abnormally high 80HP. The issue is that even Archeops can be Catchered after he evolves, but before you remove the cards they did get to evolve.
This can be somewhat overlooked due to a few factors. Firstly, a lot of decks have gotten slower. Vileplume-based decks don't run Catcher anyway (just hope they don't get Vileplume out before you get Archen out), and Magnezone and Reshiram variants generally only run two. This makes benching only one Archen a somewhat safe play. And Plume Fossil isn't completely unplayable; you'll usually hit an Archen after using 1-2 of them.
It still has another issue, though, which is the reality that almost every deck in the format has at least one or two big basic attackers. Six corners and ZPST only run basic attackers, and Archeops does nothing to these decks. It takes an auto-loss to ZPST. Reshiram still has issues if they can't set their support up, and it's losing popularity anyway. To deal with tech Zekrom and Thunderus, Terakkion is the best attacker. However, the attackers can vary based on the metagame.
The deck probably won't ever see play on the top tables. It hasn't during Cities, and the next set will only introduce even more big basics. Still, seeing the look on an evolution-playing opponent's face when you go first and hit a Plume Fossil is so much fun that a few people will end up playing the deck. It's definitely one to know how to play against, and yet another reason to consider running some kind of big basic in your deck.
Terrakion
This is a card I actually love. It's a great revenge killer, and its high HP and good second attack make it much better than Bouffalant if you're already running fighting energy or even Rainbow Energy.
Lightning has become the dominant type in the game, with Zekrom and Magnezone being two of the strongest attackers, if not the two strongest attacker in the format. Terakkion one-hits both of these guys after something is Knocked Out. His Retreat Cost would seemingly make him run in to trouble, but his second attack, much like Donphan's second attack, usually saves him from this issue.
He has great potential in almost any deck that has issues with Zekrom and/or Magnezone. This includes Mewbox, CaKE, Six Corners (obviously), and a good number of other decks. He's also a pretty good card in Donphan and Machamp decks. Any OP basic is likely to find some niche role in the metagame, and Terrakion probably won't be an exception to that. It's already had some success in my local metagame, and I've heard about its success in other areas as well.
He can also be run in a very interesting deck that utilizes a lot of Baby Pokémon. You use Tyrogue and Elekid as suicide attackers to set up KOs for Terrakion the next turn. Smoochum and other babies are also great techs. Terrakion walls the babies in a way, since knocking him out almost always takes priority over taking a cheap prize on a baby Pokémon. I haven't tested the deck a lot, but it's definitely one to be aware of.
Landorus
Landorus is somewhat similar to Donphan in that he has high HP and can damage the bench. He's also the last genie to be released. Both Tornadus and Thunderus have found their way into the metagame, but Landorus has not been so fortunate. This is mostly because he lacks the support aspect the other two genies have, despite his great typing. Tornadus can manage the resources on your board very well, and Thuderus thins the deck, energy accelerates, and sets up Eelektrik all at the same time. Landorus, while he accelerates energy, does it from the discard, which is not the ideal place to get your energy early-game. The hand or deck is much better.
Ultimately, Donphan is just faster and bulkier than this card, also making him better than this card. Still, Landorus is a card to hold on to, since he would be one of the best fighting types in a BW-on format. His influence in a format like that remains to be seen. It's also important to note that almost every other big, OP legendary basic that has been printed up to this point has found its way into the metagame, and Landorus isn't so bad he doesn't at least have the potential to do so as well. He's also one of the only ways fighting types can accelerate energy in this format, and that alone is enough to make him a potential choice in a few decks.
Bisharp
One of the cooler Pokémon in the new Black and White generation. Sure, it looks like a Power Ranger, but Power Rangers are cool. Anyways, at first glance we're thinking it's pretty average: 90 HP, Darkness-type, two attacks. Look deeper, and it's not terrible. Sure, the 90 HP is exploitable and makes Bisharp fall to a two-Energy Lost Burn and a single Bolt Strike/Blue Flare, but we find Bisharp is at its best in its first attack: Finishing Blow. If Bisharp attacks the Defending Pokemon and the Defending Pokemon has damage counters on it, we use a one-Energy attack for a pretty big seventy damage. If the Darkness Energy we attached to Bisharp is Special, it's eighty damage. Cool huh? Add in the nice Resistance to Gothitelle and Mew Prime and all of a sudden, Bisharp has some swag. Problem: getting the damage on. And being efficient.
Let's talk Kingdra Prime, who can place a damage counter on any of your opponent's Pokémon on the field. Kingdra Prime can Bench-sit and mini-snipe or place that damage counter on the Defending Pokémon that doesn't have one. And from there, Bisharp can score huge damage with a single Energy. Now let's say we have two or three Kingdra. The damage just adds up. If we spread this damage, charged-up Bisharp on the Bench will have no problem taking advantage of its synergy with Kingdra Prime. Throw in Mandibuzz from BW, and we can snipe for fifty to clean up the mess Bisharp makes on your opponent's side of the field.
We find the problem with Donphan Prime and Reuniclus. Donphan chomps up Bisharp's Weakness (although Mandibuzz has Fighting Resistance), and Reuniclus ensures certain Pokemon don't have damage counters. (We can solve this by putting enough on the field, however.) Bisharp is an interesting choice, and I hope its fragility doesn't keep players from checking out this card.
Bisharp might be great in a BW-on format, but in an HS-on format, it's generally outdone by Yanmega, who is not as reliant on setting other cards up before doing reasonable damage. Yanmega also attacks for free, has free retreat, more HP, and various other benefits. However, the card can be used alongside Yanmega or another sniper/spreader like Simisear who can set up multiple targets for big damage from Bisharp at once.
Hydregion
This card has a pretty nice attack, doing a total of 140 damage for two Double Colorless Energy. The issue the card has, barring the bad Weakness, is that it lacks the ability to take OHKOs on big attackers capable of OHKOing it back. It can be paired with a card like Zoroark to fix this, but he's a very situational card.
Hydregion/Emboar with a couple Reshiram is another way to play the deck, and possibly the best way. Reshiram takes care of big attackers, while Hydregion cleans up late-game. An early Hydregion is also devastating to decks that use Oddish and Solosis. The deck lacks focus and synergy, though. It's really hard to set two Stage 2's up without extra draw or trainer lock. Another great way to play the deck is with Yanmega. You put early pressure on them with Yanmega, while manually building up Hydregion. It can also be run with Zoroark as an extra cheap attacker.
He can also be used as an attacker in googlebox, but he's so slow and has such a bad weakness other attackers are almost always better.
The over-reliance on DCE is what makes the card bad. You can only run four, and you can't recycle them. If one Hydregion does down too fast, you're usually left without another. That's why he's usually paired with Emboar or Yanmega. Both of these variants have ways to try to deal with that issue, yet neither is particularly successful. It's still a very fun deck to play, though.
Druddigon
| Pokemon (17): | Trainers (33): | Energy (10): |
| 3 Druddigon 4 Yanmega Prime 4 Yanma 2 Weavile 3 Sneasel 1 Bellsprout | 4 Pokemon Collector 4 Professor Juniper 4 Judge 3 Professor Oak's New Theory 4 Pokemon Communication 3 Rocky Helmet 4 Pokemon Catcher 4 Junk Arm 3 Pokegear | 4 Double Colorless Energy 4 Rescue Energy 2 Grass Energy |
This is the list I created for the card about a week ago. I have a lot of experience with the Stage 1-based decks, so it didn't take me long to get a close to perfect list. I'm still getting the energy count right. I might end up adding a 3rd Grass. It seems pretty pointless since Yanmega doesn't use it, but it's too hard to draw into less than 10-11 energy for Druddigon. With Rescue, I don't think the 4th Druddigon is needed, especially since it's not a great card to see as the lone basic in your opening hand. Still, the fourth is definitely something to consider. Lastly, I'm still trying to decide if PlusPower and/or a 4th Rocky Helmet is needed. Even a Switch or two wouldn't be a bad inclusion. Other than that, I've been loving this list.
Basically, the strategy is to go up on prizes early with Yanmega, disrupt their setup with Weavile and Judge, then use Druddigon to setup late-game KOs and trap stuff that can't active to eventually KO it. It seems like a pretty weak strategy, but it's been surprisingly effective, especially against TyRam, Vileplume, and other decks that don't run Switch. Weavile is great for keeping their Switch/Junk Arm count thin, or ideally preventing them from drawing these cards in the first place. His main purpose in the deck is to help the player decide if it's safe to try to trap something with Clutch or not. The thin line is often enough for this, even without recovery. The Bellsprout is there to beat googlebox, other Vileplume decks, and to a lesser extent Gothitelle. Normally, I'd consider it a gimmick, but if there's ever a turn where the opponent can't retreat Vileplume (with four Rescue Energy, this is likely), that thing is staying active until they let Clutch KO it.
The deck has proven itself fairly easy to use, but horribly hard to use effectively. You really have to plan your entire game in advance if you want to take full advantage of Druddigon's Ability, and even the attack has proven itself to be complicated at times. Usually you can do just enough damage to the opponent to take six prizes before they do, but only if Rough Skin is used properly. The ultimate goal of the deck is to leave your opponent in a position where they will either knock themselves out by attacking you, lack any kind of support, or be unable to attack you without setting up easy return KOs. This is obviously done through strategic Rocky Helmet drops, strategic stalling with Druddigon, good use of Clutch+Catcher, and obviously good use of the rest of your resources, support, and attackers. Easier said than done.
I've managed to completely destroy TyRam without Switch time and time again, and googlebox has proven itself to be about 60-40. It struggles a little against Durant, Yanmega/Magnezone and Zekrom, but past that it doesn't particularly mind playing most decks. A Druddigon with Rocky Helmet is particularly devastating against Donphan and Yanmega, since it sets up some cheap OHKOs.
Another way to consider playing this is with Terrakion and Zoroark over Weavile, and then only using two Druddigon. Zoroark is great against Chandelure, and Terakkion is a godsend against Zekrom and Magnezone decks, both of which are hugely popular. Basically, it would be like an updated version of Megazord. Druddigon would only be used as a way to deal with Gothitelle and Vileplume decks, and to a lesser extent Reshiphlosion.
I honestly have enough faith in this deck that I'll probably run it for at least one Cities, provided the cards arrive in time. Look for my first place report.
I strongly recommend this to anybody looking for a simple yet very hard to use deck with a fair amount of comeback potential, despite its speed and light attacks. It's really a challenge to play well, and should help a lot with your planning and thinking outside the box skills. Since the decisions you make mostly involve how you do damage, the results of those decisions are often very obvious. Definitely a fun and surprisingly viable deck.Super Rod
Super Rod is just a reprint of Night Maintenance. In its time, Night Maintenance was a borderline staple in most decks. Super Rod, however, has landed in a format with very little need for recovery, and it probably won't live up to the great expectations Night Maintenance has set. Basically, the standard deck structure nowadays is pairing two or more attackers together, in the hope of having them cover each others' weaknesses. Yanmega/Magnezone, Stage 1's, and ZPST all run too many attackers and energy to make any use of this card. Yanmega/Magnezone might prove itself to be a slight exception to this rule, but that's usually a pretty tight decklist and it benefits more from a tech such as Kingdra. The decks that might make some use out of it are Reshiram, Gothitelle and Magneboar, since they only run one attacking line. Magneboar can probably fit it, but I've found that Reshiram's lists are too tight to make room for recovery. Even if there was room, Revive or Rescue Energy would probably take priority in a Reshiphlosion deck.
The card also serves as an interesting soft counter to Durant. It can take away a turn of their milling. This can save you on rare occasion, but it rarely made a difference in my testing. Definitely not enough to justify including it for that reason, although it's certainly a nice side benefit to running it in a deck like Yanmega/Magnezone, which often loses to Durant by 1 or 2 turns. Even if they mill it off, you can always Junk Arm it back.
As the format develops more and we see what role decks revolving Eelektrik and Chandelure without Vileplume play, it will be interesting to see what role Super Rod plays respectively. It's proven itself to have a place in some versions of Chandelure, and Eelektrik/Magnezone definitely has room for it. In an HS-EP format, it probably wouldn't have had much use, but in an HS-NV format it very well might. That remains to be seen.
That's it! This is a pretty good number of cards, but hey, Noble Victories is a great set. All of these cards are ones to keep in the back of your mind when building a deck and preparing for a tournament. A lot of them either make great techs, or are great counters to popular decks. Make sure you're prepared, and good luck for the rest of Cities!
