Discussion Why is garbodor not played anymore?

I like pokemon

I like pokemon

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hello everybody, I'm back!!
Ever since Philadelphia regionals, I have not seen anyone play GRI garbodor anymore. What I want to know: why. I feel as it could be good now with cards like Alolan Ninetales and stuff. I have also been thinking about a ZoroGarbVile deck that I saw at a league cup. Would It do good now in the meta?
Thanks.
 
I consider this to just be a trend. The card's still good, and you can still catch any good player playing a buttload of items. I'd like to surprise an opponent by playing a ditto prism star, and then evolving to garbodor after they've got 10 or so items in the discard.
 
I moved off it with rotation; not having Garbotoxin as a partner really hurts. But I see it every now and then and it's not like there's a lack of items around, so who knows.
 
Buzzwole/Garbodor (GRI) took second place at a small (153 Masters) division Expanded Format tournament in Niigata, Japan. I am not familiar with the specifics of their tournament structure, but it is called the "Champion League Niigata Extra" if I am not mistaken (there was a Standard Format tournament there as well). Even though it was indeed Black & White-On for the event, the deck did not bother with any Garbotoxin Garbodors.

At present, it seems like Garbodor (GRI) is a cyclical deck partner; when Item usage gets high enough, it'll start dominating again. When it drops back down, it'll leave again. Repeat the process until Garbodor rotates or we get a better way to punish Items.
 
When you play in a tournament currently, you can expect to play versus :
-> Zoroark variants : It has resistance to garbodor and the decks is playing less items than before because puzzle of time rotated
-> Gardevoir : It's GX attack counter you.
-> Stage 2 decks that consistently set up thanks to alolan ninetales GX with less than 6 items. Taking 2HKO is bad with garbodor, especially when your opponent is playing max potion.
-> Lillie engines are playing nest balls but most of the time they just lillie turn one and cynthia turn 2 and they are set up. After that, if they stop playing items, they win.
-> Garbodor used to feed the discard pile with choice band and float stone thanks to field blower but float stone rotated.

Garbodor is like an item lock and is comparable to weavile that is an ability lock.
Your opponent can control your damage output anyway so you can't rely on it as a first attacker. For example, weavile is played for that reason is ZoroRoc decks as a 1/1 line.

But if you look at all the top decks played currently, there are abilities everywhere so if you have to choose between garbodor and weavile, you will play weavile.

Weavile can also play unit energy when garbodor can't.
 
I guess the loss of Garbotoxin makes Garbodor a less appealing choice, but considering how many items and abilities are being ran at the moment, I don't really understand why Shrine/baby Buzz/Weavile/Garbodor is not being played right now. I also think that Zoro/Garb/Weavile is not a bad choice.
 
I don't think it's the loss of Garbotoxin exclusively; remember post-rotation BuzzGarb was the deck to beat (and won the first regional).

What it is, is the increase in consistency allotted by the combination of:
* People realizing how to get consistency without too many various ultra/net/etc. balls
* Professor Elm's Lecture
* Alolan Ninetales (Fairy)
* The comeback of Zoroark

All of those means that there's far less need to play items, which early in this format wasn't the case. It also means decks set up faster and can do a lot of damage faster.

Finally, Garbodor is weak to psychic, and only has 120 HP. This makes it very easy to OHKO with almost any deck out there - nobody does less than 120 these days, after all, and it's just too easy to gust in the trubbishes and KO them. It's also more common to see 200+ HP out there, which makes it harder for Garb to OHKO, and if it's not OHKOing it's basically useless.

I do think Garb could be a sidekick to a deck where you're just adding more threats - Zor/Garb/Weavile could work, for example - but I feel like there's just more options out there right now for sidekicks. You're replacing Lycanroc with Garb? My feeling is Lycanroc is more powerful as a sidekick to Zoroark than Garb, and Weavile definitely so.
 
I for one still find Garbodor (Trash) to still be an efficient and effective attacker; so, I still run it in one of my three main tournament decks. Unfortunately, its not most effective usually till mid-to-late game when an opponent has used 8+ Items. Even so, opponents must still recognize the potential high damage output and deal with it accordingly. I will continue to play it in both Standard and Expanded format tournaments.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top