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Standard Houndoom-EX / Bunnelby Mill

Wookiee Scholar

Wookiee Scholar

Let the Wookiee win
Member
Pokemon (8):
  • 4 Bunnelby (PCL 121)
  • 4 Houndoom-EX (BKT 21)
Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums (44):
  • 4 VS Seeker (PHF 109)
  • 3 Trick Shovel (FLF 98)
  • 3 Crushing Hammer (KSS 34)
  • 3 Ultra Ball (FLF 99)
  • 3 Super Scoop Up (FUF 100)
  • 2 Enhanced Hammer (PHF 94)
  • 2 Weakness Policy (PCL 142)
  • 2 Assault Vest (BKT 133)
  • 1 Startling Megaphone (FLF 97)
  • 4 Professor Birch's Observations (PCL 134)
  • 3 Professor Sycamore (XY 122)
  • 2 AZ (PHF 91)
  • 2 Lysandre (FLF 90)
  • 2 Team Flare Grunt (XY 129)
  • 1 Xerosic (PHF 110)
  • 1 Brigette (BKT 134)
  • 1 Teammates (PCL 141)
  • 1 Pokémon Fan Club (FLF 94)
  • 1 Skyla (BKT 148)
  • 3 Silent Lab (PCL 140)
Energy (8):
  • 8 Fire Energy (XY 133)
Strategy:

The strategy is pretty straightforward for a mill deck. Use Houndoom's Melting Horn or Bunnelby's Burrow twice (Ancient trait Barrage) to rip through the opponent's deck and hopefully deck them out. Additionally the hammers, Xerosic, and Team Flare Grunts, are for energy disruption/denial. A couple of tech cards: Weakness policy to save Houndoom from Toad/Regice/Vaporeon decks, Assault Vests to help avoid being OHKO'd. Megaphone is to slow down Spirit Link opponents or to remove Float Stones from high retreat costs to stick them in the active while the "decking" continues.

Problem:
I ran this deck at Cities last week and either absolutely wrecked my opponent, or got benched. The decks I lost too were Lucario Bats and Night March (I already beat Night March Vespiquen). The problem in both losses were that I could not find pokemon to put on my bench. I was running through their deck just fine, but took a couple of big hits, and lost all my benched pokemon.

Solutions:
I am thinking about adding a couple of Jirachi (with Stardust) as it will help me keep pokemon on my bench, and it still does energy disruption while I continue to set up my bench.
I am also thinking about running Scorched Earth instead of Silent Lab, to help with my draw power.

I am open to any and all comments and suggestions.

Thanks!
 
I recommend Octillery or Shaymin EX to increase draw power. It can also buy a turn when you have no other Pokemonon bench and your active gets KO'd. It's an interesting deck for sure. Maybe add Wailord to tank while you get Houndoom and Bunnelby out.
 
Another thing to do is wait for the release of BREAKPoint. His set includes durant which, for one grass and one colorless, can discard the top four cards of you opponents deck, just a s long as Durant Has damage on him. This can be achieved with Rainbow Energy to put the damage. But that's for the future.

For now, try removing Weakness Policy and adding more Enhanced/Crushing Hammers or general energy disruption. If your opponent can't attack, you don't have to worry about weakness. Weakness Policy only comes in handy when playing against a Water type deck (which isn't very popular), whereas you can use Hammers for any matchup.

Some other possible cards you could look into are...
1. Sparkling Rope
This helps for the popular Ariados and prevents OHKO's from Machamp, and stops two hit KO's from Sceptile. Is also works for when your playing against someone with Doublade (Primal Clash) and Ariados.

2. Cassius
Shuffle a Pokemon and all cards attached to it into your deck.
This helps for when houndoom is damaged but you don't want the energy discarded.

3 Battle Compressors
With the current format's hatred towards special energy (GiratinaEX, Xerosic, Enhanced Hammer, Aegislash) you could find that some cards like the ones just mentioned to be useless. Basically what I'm trying to say is that you can get rid of unwanted cards, and get out needed supporters using Battle Compressor and VS Seeker.

I personally don't think Scorched earth is a good idea due to the fact that you'd need either more energy, or energy recycler/retrieval. Those cards will take up much need space in your deck. On the other hand, Jirachi may be good, but you already have damage prevention with the denial of energy (not just special energy)

Finally, I have never played or built a mill deck so I'm not entirely sure of what it's supposed to look like, but it looks good. Just try out my recommendations and let me know how those go
 
I play a deck like this as my main deck (and I'm gonna run either this or Primal Groudon at my local-most cities next month), only with a few decent differences to you:

4x Crushing Hammer
I find it's essential to the deck to make sure they have no energy whatsoever in play. Don't rely on just discarding that energy from attacks/trick shovels, and the fact it's on a coin flip means an extra one really helps. You'd be surprised just how many times I've gone from hopeless to an instant win because all their energy and retrievals/recyclers were in the discard pile.

4x Team Flare Grunt
Same deal as the Crushing Hammers. Given the chance, I'll use TFGs over any other supporter as ensuring they can't do anything is the most important thing. If they're scrambling for energy for several turns like I do with my Bunneldoom playstyle, you've been bought several turns to be discarding even more things. This and the Crushing Hammers really help against Night March and Lucario-EX matchups, keeping Lucario doing minimum damage and trying to get all of Night March's DCEs in the discard pile.

2x Repeat Ball & 1x Ultra Ball
As pretty much everything you're running in the deck is essential (aside Enhanced Hammers and Xerosics in situations, and the odd time a basic energy) I don't like purely running Ultra Balls (especially as when all the deck is resources to hold them back, you can end up milling yourself in the process of milling them) and prefer running Repeat Balls as you only have 2 different Pokémon in the deck.

1x Shaymin-EX
It's really annoying to start on as I run even less Pokémon in the deck than you do, but if you run a few ultra balls still it's nice to be able to search one of these out. I understand why you wouldn't do this as you play Silent Lab; I run Scorched Earth instead for the extra draw power [alongside a lone Silent Lab as a tech] (I don't mind getting energy in the discard as much as I play more around Houndoom-EX so I can just use Grand Flame to put that energy back in play).

1x Winona
A really under-rated supporter. When your opponent doesn't have energy (or you lack Team Flare Grunts or Xerosics to rid of them) it's good to be able to fill your bench with Bunnelbys and be able to grab a Shaymin-EX at the same time.

4x Houndoom-EX, 2x Bunnelby (PCL 121)
I find Bunnelby really isn't as useful as Houndoom-EX, and (in my playstyle at least) serves more as something to deal with water-based matchups (particularly Regice)

1x Professor's Letter
I run one less fire energy than you are, and in that spot run one of these. You don't need a lot of fire energy in play, so I find just having one of the spots for one of these is great as if you're stuck with just your Skyla or a bunch of Trainers' Mail in your hand it can stop you from being prevented attacking. The only time I wouldn't be doing this is against Seismitoad-EX, which is probably the worst match-up I've come across with the deck.

2x Escape Rope
Annoyance is pretty big in the deck. In my playstyle I'm already trying to hold them back in energy, but suppose they do manage to set up their active Pokémon with energy and I'm struggling for Team Flare Grunts. In that scenario these are great for shoving their Active straight back into the bench and making them use even more energy to get it back in play (or make milling them easier by trying to draw into a Switch, Escape Rope, AZ, Cassius or Super Scoop Up).

2x Hard Charm
I run Hard Charms instead of Assault Vests, generally as this conflicts with the massive amount of energy removal cards I play to stop them attacking. This also helps against the Lucario-EX matchup as if you're holding them back right you keep them only using their 30 damage attack, which is reduced to 10 damage.
 
My friend wanted to build a deck like this and i like the concept. I think a deck like this could also benefit from Head Ringers, so it might be worth running 2-3. That can really slow down some decks, like Toad for example. My other idea would be Parallel City. You can use it to limit your opponent's bench space and prevent them from setting up or playing a Shaymin-EX. The other benefit would be in rare cases where you can prevent a little extra damage in some match ups, which could be valuable in buying you another turn.
 
punkhazard36 said:
My friend wanted to build a deck like this and i like the concept. I think a deck like this could also benefit from Head Ringers, so it might be worth running 2-3. That can really slow down some decks, like Toad for example. My other idea would be Parallel City. You can use it to limit your opponent's bench space and prevent them from setting up or playing a Shaymin-EX. The other benefit would be in rare cases where you can prevent a little extra damage in some match ups, which could be valuable in buying you another turn.
Click to expand...

Except the problem with that is you don't want to be wasting space reducing damage, you want to be using space PREVENTING damage. Why lessen their damage output when you can just negate it entirely? The other side of Parralell City is useful but not worth the space.
Now your Head Ringer idea... That's good. Head ringers are great on Pokemon that normally run on DCE such as Giratina, Colorless M Ray, and like you said, Toad.
 
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Brown_Unibrow said:
Except the problem with that is you don't want to be wasting space reducing damage, you want to be using space PREVENTING damage. Why lessen their damage output when you can just negate it entirely? The other side of Parralell City is useful but not worth the space.
Now your Head Ringer idea... That's good. Head ringers are great on Pokemon that normally run on DCE such as, Vespiquen, Night March, and like you said, Toad.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately Head Ringer can only be attached to your opponent's EX Pokémon. Vespiquen and Night March cannot suffer from this tool. Also reducing damage is a viable strategy, but I agree negating is the way to go with this deck, and generally better.
 
Brown_Unibrow said:
Except the problem with that is you don't want to be wasting space reducing damage, you want to be using space PREVENTING damage. Why lessen their damage output when you can just negate it entirely? The other side of Parralell City is useful but not worth the space.
Now your Head Ringer idea... That's good. Head ringers are great on Pokemon that normally run on DCE such as, Vespiquen, Night March, and like you said, Toad.
Click to expand...
The purpose of Parallel City isn't the side that prevents the damage, I just meant if it comes down to it and you find yourself needing that side, you have that option. The real purpose is to limit their bench space. Your damage output from Houndoom is already not doing much and you aren't playing him for his Grand Flame so I don't see it as being much of a downside to have your attacks do 20 less. Some decks are crippled just having the 3 bench slots and you can clog your opponent's hand with dead cards.

As for the Head Ringers, as Robin Aisaga stated, they can only be attached to Pokemon-EX. It won't help against the Night March match up, but it will certainly help in plenty of others! Also, if you go the Battle Compressor route, you can pitch those as dead cards in against NM.
 
Robin Aisaga said:
Unfortunately Head Ringer can only be attached to your opponent's EX Pokémon. Vespiquen and Night March cannot suffer from this tool. Also reducing damage is a viable strategy, but I agree negating is the way to go with this deck, and generally better.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah. Sorry about that lol. I haven't used it at all nor was I playing at the time of the release of Phantom Forces.
 
punkhazard36 said:
The purpose of Parallel City isn't the side that prevents the damage, I just meant if it comes down to it and you find yourself needing that side, you have that option. The real purpose is to limit their bench space. Your damage output from Houndoom is already not doing much and you aren't playing him for his Grand Flame so I don't see it as being much of a downside to have your attacks do 20 less. Some decks are crippled just having the 3 bench slots and you can clog your opponent's hand with dead cards.

As for the Head Ringers, as Robin Aisaga stated, they can only be attached to Pokemon-EX. It won't help against the Night March match up, but it will certainly help in plenty of others! Also, if you go the Battle Compressor route, you can pitch those as dead cards in against NM.
Click to expand...
Well you said that you wanted to keep your opponent from benching Shaymins with Parralell City. Why do you want them to not draw more cards? Isn't the goal of this deck to draw all of your opponent's deck?

Thank you for making me feel less stupid lol!
 
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