Help How to Beat Malamar and Beast Box?

James Michael Cerdan

Aspiring Trainer
Member
You can beat Malamar with Garbotoxin or just keep bring out the Malamar from the bench and knock them out one by one. Beast box you could shut down with parallel city since Naganadel relies on the amount of ultra beast on the bench.
 

uncleyuri

~
Member
Malamar itself is pretty good against beast box. The attackers in beast box are mostly weak to Psychic so malamar has a pretty good advantage over it.
 

The Binder Guy

Aspiring Trainer
Member
If we're talking about Standard then I just run Offensive Hoopa to deal with both deck archetypes, Scoundrel Guard blocks the damage from both decks' GXs while Malamar's 90 HP is easily reached with a Reverse Valley or Fighting Fury Belt.

That said, there are some cards you need to be careful of. Beast Box has Buzzwole FLI while Malamar tends to run a trio that can be problematic if left alone (Lunala Prism, Mew FCO, and Oranguru SM) and Malamar itself can hurt if they're willing to risk it.
 

jpaulo.fh

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Depends on which deck you're using. Talking about Beast Box, it struggles the most against anything psychic based. All their main attackers have psychic weakness, which can be exploited. If not using anything psychic based, you might want to try surviving against the Buzzwoles, because Naganadel can't OHKO many things, and when possible, requires a lot of resources (Beast Energy included). Run a couple Acerolas and some Max Potions and you're good to go.
Against Malamar is a lot more complicated. Most of the time you'll want to target down their Inkays in the early game to disrupt their setup. If they manage to setup 2 or 3 Malamars, you'll definetely want to use a Parallel City, because they'll most likely keep 2 Malamars and 1 attacker (Ultra Necrozma, regular Necrozma or Dawn Wings, which will depend on which deck you're using). If also possible, Malamar doesn't do well against a late game N if you manage to respond their last attacker, or even Garbotoxin. That's the reason why Beast Box has a really hard time playing against Malamar.
 

Audiofreak19

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I’m not gonna lie, I made a Palkia-GX deck (water type) and went against a Malamar deck. They took prizes early and once I got my Palkia-GX powered up I used the gx attack that shuffled all their energies back into their deck. This absolutely killed their run as they had no energies in discard pile and I took the rest of my prizes. I might keep working on the list to see if I can make it consistent enough.
 

OppositeAttract

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Beast Box is only decent, and can be stopped by a lot of things. I'm not sure why people are saying most of Beast Box is weak to Psychic, sure Naganadel is weak to psychic, but the better version of the deck seems to be metal and Dusk-Mane has a resistance to psychic.
 

Otaku

The wise fool?
Member
how about sylveon mill w/ 2 hoopa?

There's a Sylveon Mill deck?

Anyway, Mill is likely a bad idea against Malamar decks; they want Energy in the discard pile (to accelerate via Malamar's Ability), so anytime you hit a basic [P] Energy you're just helping them out. What about the other cards? Yeah, that hurts, but do we have a strong enough mill deck that it can overwhelm the deck's "resistance" to Mill? Plus, if this is a local thing, players will just tweak their decks to better deal with the mill.

I'm thinking Garbodors are the answer. Exploit Weakness, shut down Abilities, and punish heavy Item use; that pretty much hurts both decks you cited on all counts.
 

Serperior

~
Advanced Member
Member
I've had a good bit of success against Malamar with EspGarb. Evolving Eevee straight into Espeon T1 and taking a KO on an Active Inkay is awesome, and automatically sets the opponent back a Malamar. They generally can't fire off an attack that could call for a retaliatory KO, so you save yourself a turn. At this point, you can start setting up Garbotoxin and pinning down other Malamar or Inkay via Guzma if you fear the Field Blower.

If you're playing against the Psychic variant, targeting the Malamar is more important than going for the Necrozma or Dawn Wings Necrozma because of the need to have three Energy to attack. OG Necrozma-GX isn't something you have to really worry about because Espeon and Trashalanche hit for Weakness, but Dawn Wings could be a little more problematic. I'd switch my approach to Just make sure they're not fueling up those big guys via Malamar and it'll be more helpful in the long run. (Whether you do this by Garbotoxin or Guzma-ing them up, you'll be fine.)

If you're playing against the Ultra variant, I think the matchup is even better. Lockdown with Garbotoxin, Ultra can't hit you for Weakness and still needs a considerable amount of Energy to attack, and that version is a little less consistent with the need for Metal Energy. Ultra has 190 HP, however, so I'd Guzma those out, Confuse them with Psybeam, and bring those down to 160 so Garbodor hits those numbers without the need for Choice Band. Between Max Elixir, Mysterious Treasure, and Ultra Ball, they should be playing enough Items for damage output to be a nonissue.

I have absolutely no experience with BeastBox so that's all I've got for you.
 

FrostBiter12

Upcoming Worlds Competitor!
Member
Hey @The Evil Sneasel!

While I'm not sure as to how viable Beast Box is in the first place, I definitely know how to counter Malamar variants (mainly since I don't play against Beast Box very often and I play against Malamar all of the time). If your looking for a way to counter Malamar in general (as in not playing a specific deck in order to do so), there is a surprisingly easy way to do so. Though it works best in Zoroark GX variants, playing three copies of Parallel City can really put the pressure on opposing Malamar variants since your forcing them to get rid of one of their most valuable assets: bench space. Without bench space, your opponent can't get down Tapu Lele GX to grab that specific supporter, use Oranguru late game, or sometimes lose room for attackers in general! So, why not disrupt then even more and play three copies of Parallel City since they only play a limited amount of Field Blower and most don't run stadiums (besides the odd Altar of the Moone, but I should stop mentioning counters to my own counters ;)). In Zoroark GX, this works even better as you can Puzzle of Time for them and consistently draw into them when needed. It also allows you to force your opponent to either discard the Dawn Wings Necrozma GX or let you K.O. it. Parallel City can also be used against any other deck besides Malamar (like opposing Zoroark GXs), so that is an added benefit not many techs can provide.

Anyways, if you have any thoughts, questions, or ideas, feel free to let me know!

Hope this helps!
~FrostBiter12
 

The Evil Sneasel

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I thank ALL of you for assisting me with Ultra Necrozma Especially
@FrostBiter12 and @Serperior for their in depth explanations on Ultra Necrozma.
But I have no one answer the question about beast box the closest explanation I had to it was...

Beast Box is only decent, and can be stopped by a lot of things. I'm not sure why people are saying most of Beast Box is weak to Psychic, sure Naganadel is weak to psychic, but the better version of the deck seems to be metal and Dusk-Mane has a resistance to psychic.

But It doesn't really make sense.

Oh By the way if the deck Im playing right now is useful. then Im playing Zoro/Garb
 
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