Help Baby Blowns post rotation

Catastrophia

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So does anyone have an opinion on if Baby Blowns can survive post-rotation?

I've been playing the Jirachi variant (pokemon count of 7) as the 5 pokemon count just feels too low in the Green's variant and I don't wanna give away too many mulligans.

The big thing the deck loses is its momentum with the loss of Wishful Baton, and other than that it's just ball search which can be countered with an extra ultra-space.

Anyone got ideas on ways to keep that energy in play, or just suggestions in general of how the deck will fair come August?
 

CrownAxe

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The deck already has some consistency issues that make it only tier 2. Losing Wishful Baton and Rescue Stretcher just makes matters worse
 

snoopy369

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Losing wishful baton and rescue stretcher is certainly a negative. You also lose Energy Retrieval.

Some of that can be countered. Brock's Grit is a possibility as a one-of to pick up 2 or 3 Blacephalons from the discard pile, in particular. I never felt wishful baton was an absolute must-have in this deck, also; an every other turn Welder is feasible most games, and enough to keep you going, though certainly the baton is a nice to have for consistency.

I would say that I think Baby Blacephalon doesn't lose as much as some other decks, and that's going to be the big question. Everybody loses something; does losing Wishful Baton hurt as much as losing ball search for decks that can't use ultra space or some other option, like Zapdos? I tend to think Blacephalon will be slightly better positioned post-rotation than pre, myself, but we'll see what decks come post-Unified Minds.
 

Catastrophia

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Losing wishful baton and rescue stretcher is certainly a negative. You also lose Energy Retrieval.

Some of that can be countered. Brock's Grit is a possibility as a one-of to pick up 2 or 3 Blacephalons from the discard pile, in particular. I never felt wishful baton was an absolute must-have in this deck, also; an every other turn Welder is feasible most games, and enough to keep you going, though certainly the baton is a nice to have for consistency.

I would say that I think Baby Blacephalon doesn't lose as much as some other decks, and that's going to be the big question. Everybody loses something; does losing Wishful Baton hurt as much as losing ball search for decks that can't use ultra space or some other option, like Zapdos? I tend to think Blacephalon will be slightly better positioned post-rotation than pre, myself, but we'll see what decks come post-Unified Minds.

That's a very good point, I guess it's important not to just compare the deck to itself pre/post rotation, but others. Obviously, if another deck comes out that I enjoy playing more I may drop it entirely, or just got back to PikaRom which should fair well after rotation.

I know it's not tier one, but it certainly can compete with some tier one decks, I find that it can wreck decks like Pikarom, Blowns, and even Reshizard given the chance - it's the decks like Zapdos and Wheezing where the trade isn't positive where it struggles more.
 

Audiofreak19

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Brock’s grit isn’t gonna help much because you want to play welder every turn unless you actually get a turn you don’t get ohko’d
 

Catastrophia

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I've been thinking that maybe the Dragon Majesty Blaziken could work, allows that energy to be brought back onto the field, but it is a stage two...

Thoughts?
 

snoopy369

Aspiring Trainer
Advanced Member
Member
If you are just wanting to shuffle energy back in, Victini <> might be a good solution - basic, and does (a lot of) damage, then puts it back. Then you can fiery flint it back to your hand again...

But for the most part, energy in the discard pile is perfectly fine for Blacephalon. It's the easiest place to get it back from. The only concern for me is that once Energy Retrieval is gone it'll be harder to do that with just four fire crystals.

The reason to consider Brock's Grit is for the rescue stretcher functionality. It's definitely something that would be a bad idea most turns, as you do need Welder (or Green's) every turn; I think every other turn Welder should be manageable in most cases (one prize decks hopefully you're not losing one _every_ turn, and two- or three-prize decks maybe you just lose a prize or two that you're not attacking on if you have to). But I don't see a better way to get around the fact that you only have four Blacephalon; adding other Pokémon isn't ideal, I tend to find the four Blacephalon and one Blacephalon GX and nothing else deck to be the best one.
 
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