This deck came about as I searched high and low for the best partner for Creep Show Gengar. That move is too good to pass up. But the trouble is always healing decks. Most of these will run out of healing eventually, except for Rough Seas, which can heal 30 over and over and over and..
Enter Galvantula and it's unique snipe condition - "[C] Double Thread: This attack does 30 damage to 2 of your opponent’s Pokémon. Also apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon." And what are two thirds of Water types weak to? Why it just so happens to be Grass or Lightning, i.e. Galvantula's dual typings. This should leave 30 on an opponent, even with Rough Seas healing 30 away.
Here's the deck so far:
Or for those who prefer text:
4-3 Galvantula
3-2-3 Gengar
1 Shaymin
2 Rare Candy
3 Bridgette
3 Sycamore
2 N
2 Lysandre
2 Skyla
1 Delinquent
4 Vs Seeker
3 Ultra Ball
2 Level Ball
1 Evosoda
2 Trainers' Mail
1 Professor's Letter
2 Super Rod
1 Escape Rope
3 Bursting Balloon
1 Exp. Share
1 Eco Arm
1 Team Magma's Secret Base
1 Faded Town AOR 73
5 Psychic Energy
1 Lightning Energy
3-2-3 Gengar
1 Shaymin
2 Rare Candy
3 Bridgette
3 Sycamore
2 N
2 Lysandre
2 Skyla
1 Delinquent
4 Vs Seeker
3 Ultra Ball
2 Level Ball
1 Evosoda
2 Trainers' Mail
1 Professor's Letter
2 Super Rod
1 Escape Rope
3 Bursting Balloon
1 Exp. Share
1 Eco Arm
1 Team Magma's Secret Base
1 Faded Town AOR 73
5 Psychic Energy
1 Lightning Energy
A few notes on the cards
Pokemon
Obviously getting to a point where you can use Gengar's Creep Show is the point of the deck, but Galvantula as an attacker is not to be sniffed at, even with such low figures. A four-prize double Shaymin kill happens quite often in testing, should your opponent be fool enough to attempt to outpace your slow evolution deck that way. You can also snipe Remoraid before it evolves as a secondary way to cut off your opponent's draw.
Your ideal starter is a Joltik, into a Bridgette setting up your bench with a stream of Gastly & more Joltiks. If your opponent is likely to attack early, you'd like a Balloon on the Joltik too. Haunter's ability to confuse the opponent, combined with Joltik/Gengar's free retreat, means you can confuse both yourself & them, and then simply retreat out of it to attack with something else. If your opponent can't shake it off, they will put 30 on themselves setting up a Creep Show. If they attack you with a Balloon on, it's 60, setting up a creep show. If you can snipe their bench for two 30s (or 60s), it's setting up a creep show.. you get the idea here.
The 3-2-3 line is specifically to use that ability whenever you can, yet the Rare Candy allow you to evolve up faster given the cards to hand.
Additionally, both Haunter and Galvantula each have an attack which denies manual retreating. Your opponent will have to switch via rope/switch/Olympia, or evolve or Ranger out of it. If they are poisoned or confused, all the better.
Gengar's other attack which places 10s across the bench works best in combination with one or the other stadia to give you that figure of 30, but also can be used in a pinch to give the extra ten required to kill off the likes of Frogadier for instance. Poisoning the active is a nice bonus leaving your opponent needing to remove their mon, or face a later Creep Show attack.
Supporters
I've found this deck functions better with Bridgette than without. If I had room for a fourth I certainly would add it. Extremely useful on your first turn, and pretty damn good even on a second or third turn. A sidenote about Bridgette: Cards played straight to bench avoid the damage accrued via Team Magma's Base.
The draw cards speak for themselves. 3 Sycamore/2 N is a little low compared to your usual 4/2 split, but Skyla is often needed to find something more specific so you have some additional specific draw there. Things Skyla finds you in the according situations include the recyling card for tools or pokemon, the right ball or stadium, the letter to access the lightning energy when needed, the rare candy, and so on.
Lysandre is a 2 count (and could be even higher) to use the lock-in-place tactic. Unfortunately with so many decks of late upping their reliance on Olympia/ropes over the Float Stone, it's become less reliable.
Delinquent is just a great disruption card <3 Probably not too essential, but one of the deck's strengths is cutting off your opponents ability to draw via Octillery or fear of Shaymin KOs, so why not push that envelope even further if the opportunity arises and reduce them to top-decking? Plus it helps to have some way to recycle a Rough Seas killer.
Items
Evosoda is probably the only one here needing comment on. The deck is prone to playing through cards in hand quite often. Evosoda is just a decent way to get Gengar out without needing to toss essential cards with Ultra Ball. It's not perfect by any means. Of course it doubles for Galv & Haunter (though you won't get to use the ability if you go that route).
What this Deck needs most
-ways to be faster
-one more of each energy
-one more balloon/eco arm
-ways to ensure you don't start with just one Joltik out front and no bench
but hell if I know what to cut.
Versus the Meta
This is not a deck to bring to tournaments lol. But it can actually hold it's own versus a whole lot of decks. Your goal is mostly to win the Prize race, giving up single prizes early, but quickly and easily It just eats up Greninja assuming you don't dead draw. It uses abilities without relying on them, so it has no real fear of Garbodor. Anything that plays Shaymin or Octillery needs to play very carefully. Yveltal goes from stomping all over Gengar alone, to running scared if you play carefully.
Where it does fall down badly is against decks that use Rough Seas without being Grass or Lightning weak - any lightning decks using it, or Steel-weak water types. It also has some trouble with EX decks that use more mixed non-EX attackers. e.g. Volcanion with baby Volcanion out front kind of thing - you do need that Prize trade to work out in your favour.
Anyways, try it out, let me know if you can see anywhere it can be improved obviously, or even any little tweaks you might make to it. I am quite proud of this one, all my own work.
