Discussion What to Pair with Vileplume AOR?

festizzio

Desu
Member
Vileplume – Grass – HP130
Stage 2 – Evolves from Gloom

Ability: Frustrating Pollen
As long as this Pokemon is in play, both you and your opponent can’t play Item cards.

[G][G][C] Solar Beam: 70 damage.

Weakness: Fire (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 3

Giant Plant Forest – Trainer
Stadium

Each player’s [G] Pokemon can Evolve during the first turn and on the turn they were put into play.

This card stays in play when you play it. Discard this card if another Stadium card comes into play. If another card with the same name is in play, you can’t play this card.

Hex Maniac – Trainer
Supporter

Until the end of your opponent’s next turn, each Pokemon in play, in each player’s hand, and in each player’s discard pile has no Abilities.

You may play only 1 Supporter card during your turn (before your attack).

As you have probably seen, the new Vileplume can block all items from the bench, which is extremely powerful. When this card was in standard before, it dominated the format along with Gengar SF. With the combination of item locking, Poltergeist making all those items a liability, and a coin-flip ability that could get a free knockout, it had a good matchup against many decks. It helped that Spiritomb AR was available, but with Giant Plant Forest the set-up should be similar.

We have Chandelure PHF which has the same ability, but the attack is much weaker. For 3 energy (2 with DCE or Dimension Valley), it places 6 damage counters on your opponent's Pokemon as you choose. This is relatively weak, and I don't think it's fast enough.

Miltank FLF hits for 80 with a stage 2 on the bench, so not only can you set this up right away with Giant Plant Forest, but you can hit for one colorless energy on a non-EX basic.

Noivern FUF has another potentially powerful coin-flip ability that can prevent all damage done to it by attacks, so you have a 50/50 of slowing down your opponent even further alongside the T1/T2 item lock. Combined with spread and item denial, it can be a very frustrating, up-hill battle for your opponent.

Pyroar FLF prevents all damage from basic Pokemon, and can help in the event of going second against a speed deck. It is also not terrible as an attacker.

Support:

Crawdaunt PRC has the ability to slow them down even further, without having to attack or use items.

AZ is a necessary addition in my opinion. If your Vileplume becomes targeted by Lysandre and brought active, it can be difficult to retreat. AZ with Giant Plant Forest resolves this, and has the added benefit of being able to re-use your come into play abilities. It can also let you use items for a turn before playing Vileplume down again.

Golbat/Crobat PHF can pick off weak main attackers like those in Night March, and are all around good to have. These can be a source of extra damage in a deck where you may not want to run Muscle Band.

Weaknesses:

Wobbuffet PHF is probably the most played Pokemon that comes to mind, as he can stop all abilities in the deck just by being active. When combined with a strong bench, they can use all the items they want to set-up.

Hex Maniac (text at beginning of post) can blank all abilities for a turn, allowing them to get their set-up. It can also be VS Seeker'd right after, allowing for multiple uses. However, this takes up their supporter for the turn and shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Lysandre against Vileplume is pretty bad, but we already have a solution in the AZ/Giant Plant Forest combo. If you want to do something different, you can always run rainbow energy and Fairy Garden for free retreat.

I mostly wrote this up to organize my thoughts, but I think it's a good question to ask. What do you think? Will Vileplume be as polarizing as it was the last time it was in standard? What else could be paired with it, and can benefit from the item-lock?
 

bbninjas

Ready or Not!
Advanced Member
Member
I think Wobuffet/Vileplume in its self would be great. You can put Wobuffet up front whenever you want to use items, and then remove from the active to an attacker when you're ready to end your turn. There is the obvious problem of a benched Wobuffet being Lysandred to Active and stopping the lock during your opponent's turn, but there /are/ numerous ways to get around that - AZ and Silent Lab (also stops annoying Shaymins) come to mind.

I think Primal Groudon could be a threatening match with Vileplume. P-Groudon is considered the least threatened by things like item lock, considering it can just sit there and build, and 0nce built, destroy. Wailord/P-Groudon/Dusknoir FF so use in a tournament once, and I think Vileplume would be a nice addition if it could work.
 

thegrovylekid

Makes fake cards
Member
I think Wobuffet/Vileplume in its self would be great. You can put Wobuffet up front whenever you want to use items, and then remove from the active to an attacker when you're ready to end your turn. There is the obvious problem of a benched Wobuffet being Lysandred to Active and stopping the lock during your opponent's turn, but there /are/ numerous ways to get around that - AZ and Silent Lab (also stops annoying Shaymins) come to mind.

I think Primal Groudon could be a threatening match with Vileplume. P-Groudon is considered the least threatened by things like item lock, considering it can just sit there and build, and 0nce built, destroy. Wailord/P-Groudon/Dusknoir FF so use in a tournament once, and I think Vileplume would be a nice addition if it could work.
The best part of the Wobbufett combo? Your opponent can lysandre up your Wobbufett, play all their items, and then knock out wobbufett, leaving you unable to play your items and down a prize.
 

bbninjas

Ready or Not!
Advanced Member
Member
The best part of the Wobbufett combo? Your opponent can lysandre up your Wobbufett, play all their items, and then knock out wobbufett, leaving you unable to play your items and down a prize.
Did you read the part about using Silent Lab and/or AZ to prevent that?
 

thegrovylekid

Makes fake cards
Member
Did you read the part about using Silent Lab and/or AZ to prevent that?
I did, each of those options still have issues. You can't play Giant Plant Forest and Silent lab in the same turn, while using silent lab prevents you from playing your shaymins to draw cards. AZ has a similar flaw in that you can't use supporters to draw cards, seeing as item-based draw is out with Vileplume.
 

bbninjas

Ready or Not!
Advanced Member
Member
I did, each of those options still have issues. You can't play Giant Plant Forest and Silent lab in the same turn, while using silent lab prevents you from playing your shaymins to draw cards. AZ has a similar flaw in that you can't use supporters to draw cards, seeing as item-based draw is out with Vileplume.
Fair enough. However, I do think that Wobuffet/Vileplume is a viable combo that can work, but each to their own opinion (and it's, of course, to early to make proper judgements).
 

SaiScott95

TCG Fanboy
Member
I think Giratina-EX will be an amazing partner here.

Item lock was already annoying before, so Vileplume will be a pain in the neck for the opponent. But now you got Giratina-EX with DCE and DDE, and hammers won't exactly do too much considering item lock prevents hammers. Plus in addition to item lock, your opponent can't use their DCE's or stadiums. Do you know how many decks these days use DCE? Quite a few.

Yeah, you'll lock yourself from items too. But ya know, with AZ and GPF, you can disable item lock, use your items, then lay down Vileplume right then and there.

Just my $0.02
 

cardgjammer

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I think Giratina-EX will be an amazing partner here.

Item lock was already annoying before, so Vileplume will be a pain in the neck for the opponent. But now you got Giratina-EX with DCE and DDE, and hammers won't exactly do too much considering item lock prevents hammers. Plus in addition to item lock, your opponent can't use their DCE's or stadiums. Do you know how many decks these days use DCE? Quite a few.

Yeah, you'll lock yourself from items too. But ya know, with AZ and GPF, you can disable item lock, use your items, then lay down Vileplume right then and there.

Just my $0.02

You can also use Wobbuffet PHF to disable item lock so you can use your items when Wobbuffet is active, and when ready to attack, AZ to get him out of the active spot and re-establish item lock, then send out your attacker, boom! A way to temporarily disable Vileplume's ability effect so you can use your items despite Vileplume!

edit: Speaking of giratina-ex...

Gengar-EX and Dragalge can also be used as support. When it comes to Giratina-EX and Vileplume, they said: No Hammers? No way to switch outside of AZ? No Head Ringer chance? No way to replace Dimensional Valley w/ Giratina's attack? No problemo! You can't use them, so let us lock you w/ poison and no other way out of a KO! Ha ha ha!
 
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NintendoAlian

Frontier Brain
Member
I like using Vileplume with Simisage XY and Shiftry FLF because Simisage can prevent you opponent from attacking and without items, Shiftry is a great draw Pokemon and backup attacker. Also they're both grass types so you can take advantage of Giant Plant Forest.
 

Draaka

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I think a miltank/vileplume/bats deck could be fun. No EX's apart from maybe shaymin, so you will just focus on winning on prize trade. A few wally, hex maniac, four AZ a couple of super scoop up. Just watch out for those lysandre.
 

TheStrictNein

Has tried turning it off and on again
Member
Vileplume's key downfall is locking your own items. Now I've seen the idea of GPF and AZ being used to get back items for a turn before playing Vileplume down, but your goal with Vileplume will be fast, efficient attackers that can take down threats to Vileplume. Decks that had favourable matchups to Toad relied on Toad's low damage output to set up as slow as they like to a point where Toad can no longer take them (see Groudon). Vileplume is much much squishier than Toad, and also vulnerable to Hex Maniac. As such, you need to be KO'ing right out of the gate.

Attackers that could work well are Miltank, as discussed, due to the 1 Energy attack cost for 80/100 with Muscle Band. This turns most EXs into a 2HKO, but I do worry about the Muscle Band requirement. 160 for two attacks is just too low in my opinion.

Bats are questionable. If you're running say 4-3-2 bats (as discussed in this forum and on some of Pokebeach's articles, 4-3-2 is arguably superior as your ideal bench is Zubat - Golbat -Crobat so you can lay down the whole line straight away after a SSU/AZ) and a 3-3-3 Vileplume line for consistency of that first turn item lock, that's 21 Pokemon. You could run thinner lines of Vileplume or bats but then it's a question of either why bother with Vileplume and just go pure Bats + Friends (something like Raichu or Toad) or why bother running Bats if you're not gonna get that much out of them.

I could potentially see Raichu/Plume being possible. Raichu is fairly low maintenance. If you run very low Item counts and favour Supporters, you can use Shaymin to get a lot of cards into play. The only issue is consistency, as with few items you're gonna be quickly stuck if your opponent knocks out Vileplume late game, and you need to run decent counts of Skyfield and GPF to make the deck function, which will become fairly dead draws fairly quickly.

I honestly don't know about Vileplume. People will try to make it work, much like Pyroar and Safeguarders, and not having an answer to it will almost certainly be fatal. But cards like Hex Maniac and Lysandre make it almost a non-threat, bizzarely. The format is just too fast compared to 2011 to make something like "The Truth" function today.

If you're looking for item lock, I think Wally's Trevenant/Gengar and Toad are still the answers.
 

Ghazernado

Aspiring Trainer
Advanced Member
Member
The most hard-hitting card you could pair Vileplume with is Mega Ampharos. Think about it, MA has Rough Seas to stop damaging itself, and puts your opponent in a paralysis lock. What does your opponent have to stop that? Pokemon Center Lady, but you wouldn't want to waste your supporter to attack. Keldeo-EX? Rotating out. Super Scoop Up and Switch are left to cure the paralysis, both items. If you have Vileplume, you shut off all options your opponent has to retreat and attack.
 

exxtrooper

Spooky spooky tree
Member
You can also use Wobbuffet PHF to disable item lock so you can use your items when Wobbuffet is active, and when ready to attack, AZ to get him out of the active spot and re-establish item lock, then send out your attacker, boom! A way to temporarily disable Vileplume's ability effect so you can use your items despite Vileplume!

edit: Speaking of giratina-ex...

Gengar-EX and Dragalge can also be used as support. When it comes to Giratina-EX and Vileplume, they said: No Hammers? No way to switch outside of AZ? No Head Ringer chance? No way to replace Dimensional Valley w/ Giratina's attack? No problemo! You can't use them, so let us lock you w/ poison and no other way out of a KO! Ha ha ha!

Thats why you use hydreigons with giratina for free retreat, easy to get with Hoopa ex. Giratina vileplume will be king. Edit: dralge nvm
 

cardgjammer

Aspiring Trainer
Member
The most hard-hitting card you could pair Vileplume with is Mega Ampharos. Think about it, MA has Rough Seas to stop damaging itself, and puts your opponent in a paralysis lock. What does your opponent have to stop that? Pokemon Center Lady, but you wouldn't want to waste your supporter to attack. Keldeo-EX? Rotating out. Super Scoop Up and Switch are left to cure the paralysis, both items. If you have Vileplume, you shut off all options your opponent has to retreat and attack.

Keldeo-EX is rotating out in a couple months, and Metagross will take his place, if only in a weaker fashion, as the opponent switches too, making him the "Keldeo that's more like an escape rope than a switch"...

^ So, in a sense, Keldeo-EX may be rotating, but there will still be a "psuedo-rush in" to counter paralysis in standard, but the kind of rush-in that stays in standard post-rotation will be more like a free escape rope than a switch... And stage 2 of all things... :(
 

bbninjas

Ready or Not!
Advanced Member
Member
Keldeo-EX is rotating out in a couple months, and Metagross will take his place, if only in a weaker fashion, as the opponent switches too, making him the "Keldeo that's more like an escape rope than a switch"...

^ So, in a sense, Keldeo-EX may be rotating, but there will still be a "psuedo-rush in" to counter paralysis in standard, but the kind of rush-in that stays in standard post-rotation will be more like a free escape rope than a switch... And stage 2 of all things... :(

Metagross will not be taking his place. You need at least 3 spots for a line, or 6 or so just to be consist, meaning Metagross completely clunks your deck. Those 6 cards can be made into 3 Switch and 3 Escape Rope if you want, which, I think, is better than a Metagross that I doubt would survive or be out for 6 times when you want to switch. If you're really worried about Paralysis, run Sparkling Robe.
 

exxtrooper

Spooky spooky tree
Member
Metagross will not be taking his place. You need at least 3 spots for a line, or 6 or so just to be consist, meaning Metagross completely clunks your deck. Those 6 cards can be made into 3 Switch and 3 Escape Rope if you want, which, I think, is better than a Metagross that I doubt would survive or be out for 6 times when you want to switch. If you're really worried about Paralysis, run Sparkling Robe.
With those items you migh as well use metagross, pluss his damage and hp more than makes up for him being stage 2.
 

bbninjas

Ready or Not!
Advanced Member
Member
With those items you migh as well use metagross, pluss his damage and hp more than makes up for him being stage 2.
The problem is the clunkiness. You will find that the Metagross will get in the way of the deck functioning properly (starting with a Beldum? Yuck.) and is less consistent.
 

exxtrooper

Spooky spooky tree
Member
The problem is the clunkiness. You will find that the Metagross will get in the way of the deck functioning properly (starting with a Beldum? Yuck.) and is less consistent.
Then what is there to use then? Is metal decks dying? What will they be doing now with all key cards rotating?
 

blargh257

IT'S BEEN THREE THOUSAND YEARS
Member
Beautifly
Miltank
Giratina-EX
Big basics?
I think if any deck with Vileplume proves to be any good it will be either Giratina or big basics. Big basics has always based itself on how sustainable it is and Plume is good. It's a bit like running straight Toad, but straight Toad used the lock with their own items. You don't have that luxury so you have to play solid attackers.
LIKE THESE ONES
Toxicroak-EX. Locking people into poison is funny.
Yveltal-EX
Yveltal XY. Running Dark.
M Kangaskhan EX. I could see this being interesting while you sit on Croak poison.
Lucario-EX
Hawlucha
Aegislash-EX. Wow, that's evil.
Manectric-EX
Regigigas PFO
Trevenant-EX (hee hee this with Croak)
Dragon engine
Lugia-EX AOR
Wow, that went longer than expected. Enjoy Hay Fever.
 
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