Discussion What Would Bee the Best Anti-Vespiquen Techs?

Draaka

Draaka

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hey guys, was wondering if you could help me brainstorm some anti vespiquen techs? What are you using in what decks?

Some things I have come up with, a pair of xerosic fit in most decks quite nicely now a days and are quite good against Mega Ray and Toad decks too, so have other uses. Another pro is VS seeker, so discard or use one early in the game and leave the other in your deck to draw into later, and with VS seekers you can have as much anti DCE as you need. And of course also good for sniping spirit links and focus sash and muscle band and the like.

Enhanced hammer, also good as it doesn't use up your supporter, but in a world of toad and vileplume will be a dead card in your deck for a lot of matches, and of course you can only use however many you put in your deck, meaning they are only as useful as you are willing to dedicate the space for. As you can't recycle them like you can with xerosic.

Weakness policy. Actually as a one off could be useful if you are playing with bulky pokemon. Because of the way vespiquen works without hitting for weakness it has to get a good start and really use a lot of resources to be hitting the really big numbers. And a lot of deck lists I've seen don't play as many pokemon as they really should. Meaning if one or two get prized, then they will struggle to even hit 170 without weakness. This means with a weakness policy and a xerosic or hammer you could really mess up a vespiquen player's day. But again to be really reliable you would want to run at least two. Which for a lot of modern decks is a lot of space. But if lightning, fire or grass absolutely cripples you then these might be worth it if you are expecting a load of vespiquen at your next tourney.

I'm playing toad/regice/bats and it's doing well, but struggles against vespiquen just because toad is weak to grass and regice has low(ish) hp.

What techs are you playing Pokébeach?
 
Aigeslash EX is a decent counter against Vesiqueen since they will probably only run DCE and even if they do run basic energy, Crushing Hammer is still a thing.
 
Crushing hammer is fairly unreliable unless you are playing a deck focused on disruption and running a lot of them (like a whole playset) and have a way to recycle them, as a playset is statistically enough to kill only two DCE. But Aegislash is a good call. Only thing is most vespiquen decks that I have seen will compressor a hex maniac asap as insurance against Aegislash.
 
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Xerosic is good, a fire type attacker is better (though there aren't very many splashable fire-types). Ideally you need a way to even up the prize trade, so something like Druddigon with Revenge, could be used, if you already have DCE in your deck.
 
Druddigon, now that is a cunning tech. I can see that working pretty well. I hadn't even considered that. As a one of in a toad deck it could work quite well.
 
Bouffalant PRC is a bit pricey at CCC but with it's Sap Sipper ability can OHKO Vespiquen as a non-EX basic.

Which decks does Vespiquen have the hardest time with?
 
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mega manctric variants hurt vespiquen as hitting 210 with no weakness is tough and can get one shotted with 110 attack
also giratina one shots it and they cant attach dce next turn thats kind of a rough match up to
 
Vileplume is another counter too - the Vespiquen deck player can't use Battle Compressors to discard Poke. This is a "general" comment regarding a possible tech.

Specifically, since you mentioned your Toad-Regice-Bats, @Yo-yos recommendation regarding running E Hammers and Hex Maniac are quite effective against Vespiquen. I run E Hammers in my Toad deck. Between my Quaking Punch (to stop opponents playing Battle Compressor) and discarding 2+ of their DCEs, that seems to swing the matches to my favor.
 
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As a Vespiquen player, Silent Lab kills their momentum. In addition to removing Forest of Giant Plants, it shuts off Unown and Shaymin-EX, which are the cards that give the deck the speed it needs to be successful.
 
The key to beating decks like Vespiquen is outpacing them. This is obviously difficult due to Vespiquen being a non-EX that has been very heavily pushed. There is no amazing answer to Vespiquen that can be splashed freely into decks. This is because Vespiquen operates similarly to a toolbox, with the queen bee being the glue that holds it all together. A card like Aegislash-EX on the surface seems to be a good answer to Vespiquen but it is important to remember that most, if not all of the top table Vespiquen will be running Hex Maniac, a card that pushes Vespiquen over the Aegislash as well as shutting down whatever support Aegislash has (Bronzong), rendering it a check rather than a counter. Even other non-EX attackers are unreliable to deal with Vespiquen due to its explosive nature and versitility. So what is a good answer to Vespiquen?

In my testing my friends and I found Bats to be the most reliable way to deal with Vespiquen decks. It's not a perfect answer, nothing in Pokemon is due to how tempo based the game is but the free, non-attack damage is huge and when you get the opportunity to take out a Combee you can take it with confidence. Hex Maniac becomes annoying again, but if they are using Hex Maniac in the early turns of the game just to keep their Combee on the board you are usually winning the tempo race because you have access to your more powerful draw Supporters. Smart usage of Bats can not only lead to a very favorable swing for you, but completely cripple their set up in a way that they cannot interact with, something answers like Silent Lab cannot boast.

TL;DR, run Bats if you're really worried about Vespiquen.
 
I was just looking through a ton of scans for a card like this, and did find one semi-spashable card that's usable in Expanded. Larvesta NVI 20/101 has an attack that does 30 damage for a DCE, and it's Fire type, so you could OHKO Vespiquen with a Muscle Band. Other than that and for Standard, I reccomend adding 2 Enhanced Hammers to your list, as they can really slow Vespiquen towards the end of a game, and also annoy tons of other decks.
 
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