How to beat the top dogs?

[Zid]

Howdy all,

So I'm new to the game and looking to play more competitively. Having a super limited card selection like I do, I've decided to play online to feel out things while getting started... but I'm finding certain decks super difficult. I build a blastoise deck, but with only 1 keldeo. The decks that have taken me to town are the following:

- Lugia EX with Deoxys EX's and that stadium that damages you when you play energy (hard counter to my poor toise )
- Accelgor/Trevenant
- Hydregon/Yveltal EX
- Trubbish tool deck

I was wondering what are good tactics for a newer player to learn when dealing with these decks? Poor draws aside, these decks are brutal for a new guy to face and not sure what to do when I see one across from me...

 

[Auride]

Matchups are matchups, and have to be thought about carefully, and individually.

You should begin by thinking about the advantage that the opposing archetype has over your deck, then think of the most convenient and generally useful ways to counter that strategy.

For example, you can generally get around accelgor's paralysis and poison by using Keldeo EX's Rush-In ability when it's on the bench. You should also keep in mind the effect of evolution to remove status ailments. Because of Keldeo's power in this matchup (and truly in general) I would reccomend running 1 or 2 more Keldeo-EX (Since the card was reprinted in Legendary Treasures, it is far cheaper and easier to acquire).

For Plasma decks running Frozen City (the stadium you are referring to) you might want to run some stadiums of your own to counter them. Unfortunately, the best stadium for Blastoise (tropical beach) is terrifically expensive, so you might want to run something either simple (like Pokemon Center from Next Destinies) or null/useless (like Twist Mountain from Dark Explorers). Try to prevent Lugia from taking knockouts on you're Keldeo, and try to KO it before it takes more than 1 KO.

Hydreigon and Aromatisse archetypes are slower decks which rely on max potion and keeping energy on the board. Their crucial weakness, then, are 1-hit knockouts, especially those that get lots of energy into the discard. You can make plays like baiting out an Yveltal with lots of energy, and then OHKO'ing it with a loaded Keldeo (though this is a dangerous play). This is a matchup where Black Kyurem EX from Plasma Storm would help out a lot (but it is a rather expensive card) due to it's ability to take OHKO's for much less energy than keldeo, and be much harder to revenge kill by another Yveltal-EX due to energy discard.

Trubbish (tool drop) is a difficult matchup (one of the hardest) because it runs no EX attackers to take knockouts on. You have to take 6 KOs to win. The good thing is that all of its attackers are low HP pokemon that can be knocked out by a minimum energy Keldeo. Keep in mind that it costs 2 energy to use the tool drop attack, which ties in with the deck's heavy reliance on exp share to keep getting trubbish powered up. You can run tool scrapper to remove exp share's off their trubbish before taking a knockout with keldeo, putting them in a position where they need 2 attachments to attack, thus giving you lots of time to pull ahead.


Sorry for the wall of information here. I'm simply trying to give a detailed walkthrough of the mental process that goes on when evaluating a matchup and thinking about what to do.